Investigate Earth Conspiracy Podcast - True Crime Podcasts | John Leake Interview | The Meaning of Malice

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

In this episode, we engage in a captivating conversation with renowned true crime author John Leake, delving into the intriguing world of his latest work, "The Meaning of Malice." The book delves into the captivating narrative of Sandra Bridewell, as seen through the eyes of John, who had a personal connection with her. Sandra is the enigmatic figure at the heart of the story, with many speculating about her potential role as a female serial killer. As we explore various other riveting topics, we are confident that you'll find this discussion thoroughly engaging. Additionally, we'll explore John Leake's co-authorship of "The Courage To Face Covid-19" with Dr. Peter McCullough. Building on our prior interview with John and Dr. McCullough, we dissect the challenges and missteps of the Covid-19 pandemic era. This is an episode you definitely won't want to miss! All of this and more on this episode of True Crime Podcasts | John Leake Interview | The Meaning of MaliceThe Meaning Of Malice WebsiteAuthor John Leake WebsiteOur FacebookOur XOur InstagramInvestigate Earth Rumble

Jenck, Annah Himmesi loist. Show me love. Make it change. Time is up. We can wait for better days, but the days won't come. Show me love. Show me love.

Show me life. Show me love. Make you change. Time is up. we can wave up Hello and welcome to Investigator's podcast I am your host Chad Alongside my beautiful wife Sherry Sherry, what's up?

What's up, Chad? What's up people? Welcome to the podcast. You have something really great in store I'm telling you when you listen to John Link today You're going to be amazed Not only is he an amazing person But he is an amazing author And he has so much intellect

About everything around the world It's just like, oh my gosh, this guy knows his stuff Yeah, John is very well spoken, very well well versed a very intelligent guy. For those that don't remember, John Leake, we actually did an interview in Atlanta with John Leake and the Dr. Pina McCola. And we were actually talking about his book at that time, which was the courage to face COVID-19, which has done very, very well. I encourage each and every one of you to go check that book out.

And in this episode, we talk with John not just about his new book, which is the meaning of malice. It is a true crime story. obviously John is a true crime writer he's one of the best true crime writers out there i encourage absolutely everyone to read this book it's a great read um very interesting captivating story and um in in the beginning of this interview we don't just talk about his book we kind of get into a lot of what's going on around the world um some of his thoughts looking back on covid and uh i think it's a very interesting interview john's always uh he always has something really intriguing and

interesting to say this guy and for those that don't know John is he studied history and philosophy with Roger Scruton at Boston University he then went to Vienna, Austria

on a graduate school scholarship and ended up living in the city for over a decade working as a freelance writer and translator he is a true crime writer with a lifelong interest in medical history and forensic medicine so John does it all

man he um the book the courage to face COVID-19. Obviously, we have talked about the COVID-19 thing since it happened on this podcast. We were calling out the BS. We were calling out the things that didn't make sense. And really, we were the top podcast on Spotify and a lot of platforms for the COVID, you know, pandemic. Not just the COVID pandemic, but then obviously the vaccine rollout, all of that. And so being able to link up with John and Dr. Peter McCullough in Atlanta was great.

And I definitely want to bring Dr. McCullough back. back on and kind of get some of his thoughts with John about looking back. But we do that in this interview. So guys, we're not going to bore you with a lot of stuff. But what I will say, you can follow us on our Facebook. It is Investigator's podcast. You can find us on X. We're going to include those links in the show description below. And we also include the links to John and his website also below. So without further ado, let's get into the John Leak interview. Here you go. All right, everybody, welcome back. We are here with John Leak. the author of, number one, a lot of books.

He is a true crime author. We actually first met him on another book where he wrote it with Dr. Peter McCola. We're going to get into all of that. John, thanks for coming on. How are you doing today? I'm well. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to talk to you again.

For sure. So the first time we met, we met in Atlanta. We actually came down to meet you and Dr. McCola down there. And you guys had a very successful book. book, which a lot of people can go back and listen to that book if they want to hear it. But it was the courage to face COVID-19. Where did that book go? How successful has it been?

And did you get kind of, I guess, the exposure you wanted with the book and kind of, you know, what was kind of everybody's, I guess, take on it? Well, the response to the book has been overwhelmingly positive. It's done very well. It was a top 100 seller on Amazon for the better part of July of 2020. And it earned 1,200 plus five-star reviews. And it's interesting what's just recently happened. It's been for sale on Amazon for the better part of 18 months. And Amazon was actually promoting the sale of the book with these price promotions.

And one of the reasons why I've long had a good relationship with Amazon is because it's the, well, we have two editions of the book. One is just the Kendall direct publishing. I've got my own little publishing imprint in Dallas. So the initial edition of the book was a direct published book, and Amazon was very supportive and provides really the best royalties in the business. They were doing price promotions on the book while still giving us the same royalty. Everything was great. And then quite suddenly, I think it was the morning of September the 29th, I woke up with a note from Amazon saying,

we have concluded upon review that your book, The Courage to Face COVID-19, contains offensive content. and we are therefore suspending your direct publishing account and taking down the book. Wow. So this was quite something because they actually specified offensive content, and they provided me a link to their publishing guidelines in which offensive content is actually a section. And I knew there was no offensive content, which is inciting terror. glorifying rape, glorifying violence, pedophilia.

It's crime, violence and sexual crime. Obviously, our book about the official response to the COVID pandemic didn't even touch on any of these subjects. So I knew on the face of it that this was not true. And I politely beseeched the review department to point out to me, to explain to me what in the book was offensive, and their review department could not do it. And, you know, I quickly perceived this was a very impulsive decision.

It appeared that a directive was issued to Amazon, perhaps even from the executive branch of the U.S. government. We've learned in Missouri v. Biden, a landmark First Amendment legal case that just got the green light to be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States. We learned in discovery of Missouri v. Biden that the Biden White House has a censorship shop in which they have personnel that calls social media, calls Amazon, calls the major players on the internet, and direct censorship. And that's what it looked like.

in this case. So we've appealed three times and Amazon without explanation just said, look, we can't restore the book, sorry. And then that prompted us to launch a pretty major campaign, both the PR campaign and we spoke with people who are interested in First Amendment rights, freedom of speech advocates. Quite suddenly, just out of the blue, really, I get a note from Amazon saying, well, sorry, we made this decision an error, and we've restored your book. Well, there you go. I wonder why. I think the offensive content probably was the truth, right?

I mean, that is offensive nowadays. I mean, I think that's something you guys have kind of run into, especially with this book, The Courage of Face COVID-19. Obviously, the reception is the word I was trying to get to in the beginning of this. the reception for this book has been overwhelming for you guys. And, you know, so many of the listeners, when we did the interview with you and Dr. McCola, and they went out and read the book, they just said it was one of the most eye-opening books. Although everyone knows, you know, how screwed up COVID-19 was and all that. But hearing it from your perspective, you're a great writer.

Obviously, Dr. McCullough is a great doctor. He's been on the front lines of this alongside you as well. But I think really anything that, you know, if you're overreferral, the target and you're big enough to be fired at, I think that's kind of what happened to you guys. And they were just grasping at anything to try to get the book, you know, out of play. Yeah. Yeah. And I'd like to say that I suspect that the decision was not internally generated at Amazon.

I do suspect that it was an external directive from someone with power. with real firepower. You know, the, the intelligence agencies, the FBI, the executive branch, they remind me of the Death Star in the Star Wars series. You know, it's this new apparatus instead of being turned on other planets in the star system, It's been turned on the U.S. citizenry. And so there is a kind of a death star. And if you, a federal power, and if you get on the wrong side of it,

the death star will be activated against you. And, you know, why exactly, what exactly we did or with whom we spoke or who saw our messaging on substack and and so forth. I don't know. But whoever it was and whatever it was that, you know, they decided, it was a very sudden about phase. I mean, it was 13 days later. And again, without explanation, other than, hey, sorry, we made a mistake.

So I'd like to think that it was successful little kind of David and Goli. style triumph. I'd like maybe I'm flattering myself, but, um, no, it sounds like that totally. Yeah. I think something you guys did scared them to put your book back, which it should be back, you know, because there is no offense of anything in the book. We've read it. We know. Well, I mean, it's offensive, like I said, it's offensive because it's the truth. And, and you not only have a great author that kind of is able to tell the story, um, and the research and all that, along with Dr. McCullough, it was great. It was, it was a great book. Uh, you know, thinking about this too, and we had talked about this on the first episode, but you've always,

I guess, kind of been known as a true crime writer. And so you get into the COVID-19 thing. What, first of all, led you to COVID-19 from the true crime? How many, I guess, what is the similarities as far as storylines and what really, you know, wakes you up in a morning and your passion to go write something? What are the similarities there? Well, I perceived quite quickly that the pandemic response had distinct elements of organized crime. The most notable being fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation of a threat or a purported threat to the citizenry. And so something like emergency power was invoked. It's pursuant to the PEP Act of 2005.

And excuse me, sorry about the text. I thought I'd shut off my darn phone. Pursuant to the PEP Act, the Secretary of Health and Human Services can declare a public health emergency. And then that declaration, provides a liability shield to any hospital vaccine manufacturer, anyone in the medical business,

who is defined by the PEP Act as providing what the PEP Act defines as countermeasures, infectious disease, countermeasures. Now, that word countermeasures is you can probably sort of detect. it actually comes from the military lexicon or counterinsurgency lexicon a countermeasure is like in a military context how do you if you hear the enemy is making a move what are your countermeasures to counter it and so it's this all done within under the the guise of an emergency and i just began to perceive the declared emergency is based on fraudulent misrepresentations. It was represented to us that SARS-CoV-2, first of all, that it could be contained, which is patently false. There's no way

you can contain the spread of a respiratory virus. They just move around no matter what you do. everyone would have to just be in a negative vacuum, you know, negative pressure sealed room in order to prevent this thing from spreading. So it became evident to me quickly. Everyone is eventually going to be exposed to this. Yeah. So the idea of just locking everybody up was not at all plausible to me. Secondly, it was represented that it posed an equally lethal threat to the, entire population ranging from young and healthy athletes all the way up to senior citizens

who had actually exceeded life expectancy and were in nursing homes. I knew that was false. That became evident quite quickly. And then, you know, the other thing I noticed that just immediately irritated me to no end was, for example, in New York State, almost immediately the New York State Health Department, issued a directive stating that nursing home residents could not not be denied readmission as a result or due to having a positive PCR test or being presumed positive from their symptoms. In other words, you can't prevent COVID-infected residents from re-engineering.

the nursing home. So that was the most ass-backwards thing I've ever seen in my 40 years of writing history, of studying history. Anyone who studied respiratory viruses know that the most vulnerable population are nursing home residents. There's multiple published studies

showing how common colds can cause high mortality in a nursing home. So if there was anything, any institution and all of society to try and impose some kind of isolation measures, it was nursing homes. And New York State and other states did the exact opposite. They forced the Fox into the hen house. And so I just began to realize everything our state and federal authorities are telling us is a lie. Yeah. Fraud.

And so that was my, that was my opening, um, cause for suspicion. Yeah. And the more I investigated this, the more I realized that there is a organized structure, Peter McCullough and I call it the bio-pharmaceutical complex that, that term derives from President Eisenhower's farewell address in which he warned the American people the danger of what he called the military industrial complex. And we believe that the biopharmaceutical complex, which is actively involved in not only the purported business of creating countermeasures, that is mostly vaccines,

the relentless focuses on vaccines. The complex is also in the business of creating chimeric viruses and labs like the Wuhan Institute of Virology. So the same complex that's purportedly creating countermeasures is also creating the pathogen. So it's a massive criminal enterprise. And it's all out in the open. You know, your audience listens to me and they think,

wow, this guy's pretty far out. He's really talking a big talk. He sounds crazy. But I mean, it's all in published documents, video simulation, pandemic response simulations, prospectuses for various vaccine enterprises. It's academic papers. It's all out in the open. It's just that our people are not aware of this literature.

Yeah, there's one thing our audience will definitely not think because you're out there. So I promise you. Oh, okay. That's good. No, yeah, for sure. We've talked about this, especially since the beginning of COVID for so long. And so you was a true crime writer. It's like, you know, you obviously, when you saw COVID and you saw what was happening,

I think your mind kind of gets to work in is why and how and who does it affect, right? I mean, isn't kind of crime that way. And I want to ask you one question before we move on from that. in particular, going back to the courage to face COVID-19 in Amazon, do you feel like the people of the United States in particular, I think around the world right now, but I think in particular to the United States, I think what we're fighting right now,

seems like an information war. If you can stop the information, especially the true information, then you can control the people. Is that something you're worried about as a writer going forward? I mean, especially considering that is your life, that is your livelihood. Does what you write about or what you choose,

to write about that do you think about that well it's my central concern it's my chief concern not only as a writer but is a patriotic citizen of the united states of america it's it's my principal concern yeah and um you know a friend of mine dr aaron kariotti is one of the main plaintiffs and missouri versus biden and they just i mean it was a moment of triumph they they just got, you know, a hearing with the Supreme Court. I mean, I'm really hoping that Missouri versus Biden can push all of this back into the sewer from once it came. Yeah. And what is the Missouri versus Biden?

Just tell the audience what exactly that is. Well, so Aaron Carriotti, Jay Bauditaria, some concerned physicians realized that, The U.S. federal government was not only punishing doctors for just conducting investigative scholarship and talking about it, that is to say any doctor or a researcher who diverged from the official orthodoxy issued from Washington washington was punished, fired from their academic professorship or from their position at university and censored, censured, some even had their medical license threatened. But what they realized was that's bad enough, but the more insidious problem was the discovery that the executive branch of the United States government was actually outsourcing censorship

to social media company. So the First Amendment protects speech unless it's very specifically defined, such as inciting violence or crime or things like that. That speech is not protected. But speech in which people are doing a good faith searching effort to discover the truth about a novel problem

that's afflicting mankind, the U.S. government cannot, by the limitations of the U.S. Constitution, cannot censor that speech. Now, the argument is that, well, social media companies are private companies. It's their platforms. They can govern these platforms however they want. Fair enough. But the discovery was that the directives were being issued from the White House. So it's not going to fly to say, well, the White House wasn't doing the censoring.

It was the social media companies. It's the White House that's inciting it or directing it. Exactly. So, you know, upon pain of possible penalties, it was issuing these directives. So these guys, these plaintiffs brought their case to the, attention of the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri. And these guys in Missouri and Louisiana were brave enough and discerning enough to sue the Biden administration. Yeah. And it's been working its way up and now it's going to get a hearing in the Supreme Court.

Wow. Yeah, that's good. I mean, that's, you know. That's what everyone needs. I mean, they're doing everyone a service by suing them for this because it does involve all citizens. Yeah, it does. I mean, and I think that's really, as of now, you know, it's one of the only real true thing. The bastion of hope, I guess you can say, is our justice system. And, you know, the justice system is, there's a lot of people that are very worried about that as well, especially nowadays. It's getting very political. There's so much going on with that. So you have a new book out. And this new book is called The Meaning of Malice on the Trail of the Black Widow of Highland Park. Now, you had a personal connection to this story, did you not, John? I did. So I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, in an independent township of Dallas called Highland Park. And it is, it's just north of downtown Dallas. I mean, I live in Highland Park now, and I'm looking out the window of my apartment building and can see downtown. So it's in the middle of Dallas, but it's an independent township with an independent school. district, independent police force. It's a rather affluent part of Dallas. And I grew up down the

street from a mysterious and beautiful woman. In those days when I was about 12, 13, 14 years old, when I encountered her, I didn't really know how old she was. I now know she was in her late 30s. But what I did recognize as a boy, and I was as an adolescent, and I was friends with her second child, a girl, was that there was something kind of mysterious and alluring about her. She's a very beautiful woman. She was always dressed to the nines, beautiful kind of snow white skin, these huge brown eyes that would just fix you with this kind of mesmerizing gaze. So there was something mesmerizing about her. Her name is Sandra Bridewell. And what And when I was a boy playing with Catherine, Sandra would come sauntering through the house every now and then.

And I occasionally exchanged pleasantries with her and thought she was kind of fascinating. Fast forward a couple of years. The year is 1987. So that's to say I was having my encounters with Sandra in 83, 84. a kind of lost touch with my friend, Catherine, for reasons that I go into in the book. And then one day I look up, and it seemed to me rather abruptly, Catherine and her family with her mom, had just abruptly left Dallas and moved to California. And not long after they left, this huge cover story report appears.

and our local, excuse me, monthly magazine in Dallas. It's called D. So Dallas is sometimes affectionately called Big D. And so D magazine is our monthly, glossy magazine about events in Dallas, gossip, social stuff, you know, cultural stuff.

Cover story was death and gossip in Highland Park. And there on the cover is this photo of Sandra, who I still had this vivid memory of when I was, you know, at the beginning of adolescence. And it says, you know, this lady was kind of a premier socialite in Highland Park, but something seems to have gone wrong and she has fallen under suspicion for multiple murders, multiple murders. And so I only understood then when I saw this cover story that that's why she had just picked up abruptly

with her kids, including my friend Catherine, and moves to the Bay Area. So I read this D Magazine piece. I was 17 years old at the time. And I read it with avid interest, and I knew everyone in it. My parents are friends with everyone in it. One of the key figures in it is a cancer doctor.

And a cancer doctor was my grandmother's cancer doctor. So it was just, oh my goodness. Like what is going on? Can this be true? So I started following the story back then. And Sandra, really fell strongly under suspicion for multiple violent deaths.

They were gunshot deaths. But for reasons that I explore in the book, the police suspected her, but they could never really make their case. And so what I have done is obtained the original death scene photos and had them analyzed by contemporary forensic experts. Yeah.

And what we have determined is that in two of these cases, the Dallas County Medical Examiner ruled these violent gunshot deaths, suicides. These cases were examined. they occurred and were examined in the years 75 in 1982, when forensic science wasn't nearly as advanced as it is today. And what I, with the consultation of forensic experts, observed in these photos is there are multiple indications. These deaths were not suicides.

They were staged suicides. In fact, their homicides staged to look like suicides. And the indications of this displayed in the photo are very clear. Yeah. And so, and by the way, on the back of the book, is this one of the photos you obtained? Correct. That back of the book, I wanted to find an image that doesn't show any gory stuff. It's just the hand of Sandra's first husband lying on top of a semi-automatic pistol in his family bed, in his marital bed.

And was he laying on his back in this photo or his stomach? He is lying on his side in a comfortable sleeping position. Okay. And his outstretched left hand is lying on top of this pistol that was found in bed with him. Yeah. So, and obviously this story, you know, like you said, takes place both, I guess, in 70s and 80s where forensics were not as good. But, you know, there's so many reports, even today. We actually have friends that have lost their son or lost someone else.

and there's been a couple of these cases where if you look at the ruling of suicide, a lot of people believe, well, some departments, some investigators, whoever, maybe some departments are not as well trained as others, whatever the case is. Or they're overwhelmed with many cases? Yeah, it's just, it seems like sometimes, you know, if you don't have evidence, you rule it as suicide. We see this all the time. But even back then, obviously, you know, forensic data would have obviously came into play.

but if she's living in the house and she's a part of this family and in all these things, I guess maybe it would be harder to pin someone down if, you know, say DNA or whatever was possibly supposed to be there or, you know, it didn't look weird that her DNA was there. What do you say about that? Well, there's quite a bit of literature on this relatively common occurrence and with responding police. There's a call of what appears to be a suicide. Someone has found hanging in his garage or in his bed with a revolver near him or his hand

lying on top of it in bed. And the responding officers come and it looks like a suicide. And so because suicide is statistically more. common than homicide. Oftentimes, it's that first glance at the crime scene that kind of governs the, that initial perception or impression will govern the subsequent investigation or lack thereof, I should say. Yeah. And so this, this is, there's actually a pretty good literature on this problem. And so what, what this means is, is it, is it, responding officers have to look very closely.

Yeah. And a well-staged suicide by a sophisticated actor can be quite deceptive. Yeah. Got to look close. Now, I don't want, and keeping in mind, I always try not to, I don't want to give away, you know, a lot of stuff from the book or anything. I think people should read it, you know, just looking at the early reviews of the book or ready. A lot of people love it. They think you write it so smoothly. And you do, actually. Your writing is very easy to read. I am one of those people I don't love reading. I will read if I need to read or if I

have a passion for it. But reading your books are always very easy to read. So I think people that, maybe even people that don't read typically, I think should try you as an author because you are a very easy read. Or even people that are interested in true crime, because there are a lot of true crime junkies out there, me being one of them. I just live for that. Yeah. But without giving away too much, so when you were kind of around this household, were you, you said, you know, how beautiful she was and all that.

And I think we all have women, especially as an adolescent kid, when you're starting to get into that stage where you're actually looking at women, are like, oh, she's pretty, she's beautiful, whatever. and I know I had probably some older women, you know, back in the day that there were things off with some of these people, but did you think that there was something off with her? Was there anything that kind of struck you as weird even back then? Well, she was different from other moms. That's the salient point in this is that something about the way she carried herself in this extremely seductive way. was not the way, you know, when you're a kid, you're very naive.

You, you, it's just, it's just recognition of patterns. So most moms are sort of hairy, you know, they've got kids that are hauling around. They've got dinner to cook, you know, they're kind of running around. Their hair sort of pulled back and, you know, they're, raising kids is a lot of work. And so, but she would kind of come sauntering in. She drove a Mercedes 380 SL convertible. which I thought was a really cool car. It didn't occur to me at the time that other moms didn't drive a two-seater

Mercedes because it's not suitable for calling kids. Yeah. And I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, she said it was always weird. Sandra would, she would like occasionally got drawn into doing carpool for our dance class. And there were like six kids crammed into the back seat of this or the back. little compartment area of this two-seater Mercedes convertible. And we're like, oh, my gosh, like this is really uncomfortable. I mean, why doesn't she have a proper car?

Well, she wasn't interested in driving a proper car. She wanted to look like, do you guys remember that 80s television show, heart to heart? Yes. She wanted to look like Mrs. Hart. And she had the same last name. So her, her maiden name was. was Powers.

And the actress who played Mrs. Hart, suddenly her first name, slipping me. But that actress's last name was also Powers. Stephanie Powers was that actress. So she wanted to look like Mrs. Hart. She wasn't interested in driving a station wagon and hauling kids. And she always just looked like a million bucks. And also the way she'd make eye contact.

So other kids' moms, you know, don't really make that. kind of lingering, smoldering eye contact with a boy. I'm not saying she was trying to come on to me. I don't think she was. It's just that was her habit with everyone. Right. And if you could imagine you feel that way as a child, could you imagine being a man seeing this woman in her gazing at you in the same fashion, you know? Yeah, it's like that. And that's a big part of the story. I mean, Sandra is a or was a classic femme fatal. And I have pretty good evidence that she actually watched those film noir films of, you know, the 40s and 50s and early 60s, like Billy Wilder's double indemnity.

And, you know, there was a remake of double indemnity called Body Heat with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner in the year 1982. So this idea of a femme fatal, an extremely seductive woman, I think Sandra really understood

that, both conceptually and her sort of natural demeanor. And so she was a first rate I think of her as a sort of suburban noir character.

And I have a chapter in the book titled Suburban Noir about this kind of archetypal fem fatal. Yeah. Is it, I mean, I think somewhere you had mentioned, and I don't want to misquote this, but was she a victim of circumstance or I can't remember exactly how you put it. But, you know, do you think that it was potentially, I mean, I don't, like I said, I want to give away too much of the book or any of that stuff. stuff of your beliefs on this, but do you think she was a victim of circumstance, whether it be the men she found, who she found, you know, how they were, or do you think this woman was evil? Or truly a black widow? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I lead the reader, I show the reader how I approached this and how I investigated it and why, I think when the reader gets to the end of the book, he or she will understand why I've drawn or come to the beliefs about this story that I have. So the question is, the question is simple. So Sandra is living and marrying men and socializing with people and one of the safest neighborhoods on the planet Earth. It's a very affluent society, a very politically conservative society in which behaving oneself, showing restraint, showing good manners, particularly back then, you know, we're the highest discretion restraint. These are the highest values. we had no homicide in our community.

I mean, maybe one every 30 years, something like that. So Sandra, her first husband is found shot in the head, ruled a suicide. Seven years later, her second husband dies of cancer. Now, I don't think there's any suspicion of malpractice or malfeasance there. he died of lymphoma. But two months after her husband died of lymphoma, the wife of his treating physician, whom Sandra directed her attention,

his wife, the doctor's wife, turns up shot in the head. And Sandra was her last known contact, okay? medical examiner rules that is suicide. No one in the community, I should say, believes that. But for reasons that I present in the book, law enforcement, the Dallas Police Department, was not receiving a very clear channel of communication from the victims next of kin.

There's a kind of lack of, open candid information being shared with the police by the family and friends. And that's the key intrigue in the book is why aren't these people who know the truth? If you ask them in a private conversation, what happened to your wife or to your best friend? They would tell you, I know that Sandra murdered her. but then that raises the question, well, if you know that Sandra murdered her, why are the police in the medical examiner's office

insistent in ruling this suicide? So that contradiction lies at the heart of the story. Why? So that's what I examined. But the medical examiner's ruling prevails Sandra is not arrested. Two years later, a young man who's judge, just moved to Dallas the day before from Oklahoma City to take a job as a commercial real estate mortgage banker. He's driving down our street and he sees a beautiful woman watering her rose

bushes, pulls over, goes to talk to her. She's very friendly. They quickly hit it off. A couple of months later, she tells him she's pregnant. He marries her. about a month after that she tells him she's miscarried and then approximately eight months after that he's found shot in the head

now this time the cops see okay this this ain't no suicide this is a homicide she falls under suspicion but the Oklahoma for reasons that there's not sufficient time

in this podcast to go into his body is found in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma City police get the case. They believe that Sandra, that she becomes the prime suspect immediately. But again, for mysterious reasons that I examine in the book, they can't quite make the case.

Yeah. Okay. So the question is this. Is she responsible for these gunshot deaths that are all the, very, very similar. Or does she just have exceedingly bad luck that she just happens to be the last known contact of three people who wind up shot in the head in the same way?

And within the context of a society in which this never happens. So should she be rightfully suspected of murdering? these people, or is she a victim of circumstance? Just someone who's extremely unlucky and what happens to the people who are last known to be in contact with her. Yeah, it is a great book, and I encourage absolutely everyone to read it. And John, unfortunately, in our day and age today, I think that, I say unfortunately, but maybe fortunately for you, you're going to have a lot of material what you can write about. Yeah, it's getting bigger and better all the time.

Yeah, it's just this world is absolutely going crazy. And I think you realize that. And we're glad that we have authors like you that can tell stories like you did. So eloquently in this book and with the courage to face COVID-19, you've done, you don't know. How many true crime books have you done in total? Well, this is my fourth. Okay. my um my first book um i was living in vienna austria i lived in vienna for many years and um there was

an adjudicated case the the man was tried in the year in 1994 and found guilty of murdering he's found guilty of murdering nine women in three different countries and um his name was jack untaveger He was an Austrian. He was born during the military occupation of Austria after the Second World War. His father was apparently a U.S. Army officer that was stationed in Austria during the occupation, hence his rather Anglo-Saxon named Jack.

And so Jack was a serial killer, but he was also himself an author and a freelance reporter. And what I found intriguing about the story was that he had actually reported on his own crimes before he got caught. Oh, wow. He was the lead reporter on his own crimes.

So it's quite a story. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, yeah. And then Jack, the other thing is that he murdered several women in Austria, and then he, after doing some, reporting on Ask Austrian National Radio about these murders and this undetected mysterious serial killer. He then got on a plane and flew to L.A. and did the same thing in Los Angeles in the summer of 1991.

He actually drove around with LAPD as under the guise of being a reporter. And he murdered three women in Los Angeles as well. That's pretty insane. I don't like to bring this up, but I do every once in a while. My cousin is actually on death row, and we had spoken with him a while back. And I'm always interested. The main reason, which, I mean, he is family, but it was just one of those things. I wanted to kind of just see, like, his.

And he's a serial killer. Yeah, he's a serial killer. Yeah, he's a serial killer in Northcona on death row. And, you know, we had talked to him for quite a while. But it's always very fascinating to see. and try to understand, like, where are people's minds? And I don't think, I don't know that we can necessarily know that or figure that out with a lot of people. There's so many, there's more questions and answers than any of this, especially when it comes to murder, you know, just kind of the evil side of things.

And I think. But it was very interesting speaking with them for the few months that we did because we were just trying to get inside of his mind because we were investigating other murders that were going on at the time. Yeah. But it's just very interesting to have that one-on-one with somebody that's done that bit. there and now they've been in prison and how prison has reformed them or not reformed them or if they're, you know, honest, truthful or, you know, is it still in there? Yeah. Yeah.

And I think, and I think John, too, it's like your kind of in-depth analysis on people and the process and kind of who they are from the outside perspective, but also you've done a ton of research, especially with the meaning of malice and it was also part of your life. I think that's, I think there's a reason. I think that's why so many people are fascinated with true crime because it's something that most people would never do, but they're fascinated to understand or try to understand, you know, why do people do this? And I think if we knew the answer to that, then you'd be a trillionaire, right? Well, the mystery of psychopathy. And, you know, we can't really know this in a scientific way.

I mean, the human mind is very complex, and no two human minds are the same. I mean, you can't really measure these things. The best that psychiatry can do is make these observations and observe patterns of behavior and patterns of speech. And so there's a pretty big literature out there about psychopathy. And you get these different descriptions, malignant. narcissism, zero empathy disorder. There are these different descriptive terms for describing someone who lacks empathy,

tends to be very seductive. There is a psychiatrist in British Columbia named Robert Hare. And Robert Hare wrote, it's called the psychopathy, the hair psychopathy checklist. And it's like a series of descriptive categories.

And the hair checklist is I think often used by the prison system for evaluating violent offenders in prison. Yeah. And it's like a scored

analytical test. And And, you know, so you look at the categories, lack of empathy, exploitative, parasitic, you know, that is not getting a job, but sponging or exploiting other people in order to pay one's way. Sexually promiscuous, oftentimes prone to narcotics addiction. I mean, all of these things. And so you just run down the checklist. Well, that doesn't really explain the syndrome. It just offers a sort of an interpretive, descriptive framework for interpreting someone who appears to be a psychopath.

Yeah. It's like a theory, basically. But I, you know, I doubt we'll ever really understand why. I mean, what motivates all of us, why exactly we feel the way we do. why we have certain impulses and addictions and so forth. It's part of the mystery of the human condition. Yeah, you could go into mass formation psychosis. You can go into the things we input in our bodies.

You could go into environment, and especially today. I think there's so much that we maybe don't understand the influences, maybe even our brain, obviously, and that you could kind of go back to courage-face COVID-19, which, you know, we won't go into that again, but there are just so many things out there that we don't understand. But what I will say is everyone should go pick up

the meaning of malice. Great book, along with Courage Face COVID-19, I think people should definitely check that book out as well, especially our audience, because we have covered that so much. But we've also covered many true crime cases, and I know that our audience will love this book. And, John, like I said, I think you're a great writer. and I look forward to seeing what you have next out there.

And thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. I would like to direct your listeners to my websites. I have a website for my latest book, meaning of malice.com, and I have an author's website, authorjonleak.com. If you go to authorjohnleek,

j-o-h-n-l-e-a-k-e-com, you'll see all of my. books. Okay. And I'm sorry. I was going to put that in the intro. But then, yeah, thank you for doing that. And I want to also mention you guys do have a substack.

You and Dr. McCola and you guys post there very regularly about all sorts of topics. So I read a lot of your stuff there. So people can go find that. And what is how do people find you on substack again? Well, it's, um, it's courageous discourse with Peter McCullough and John Leak. But what I propose is if you, if your listeners will go. to my website, authorjohnleek.com. There's a whole section with the links to our substack there as well.

Awesome. Yeah, that'll work great. Well, John, again, thank you so very much for coming on. Can't wait to see what else you have coming down to pipeline. And hopefully we'll bring you back on because there's so many topics we can talk to you about, especially with everything that's going crazy in this world today. But thank you again. Thank you.

I love talking with the two of you. Hope to see you again soon. Yes, very soon. Absolutely. Thanks, John. All right. Guys, that was John Leak, great author. I encourage everyone to go out and check his book out.

I encourage everyone to go out and definitely read The Courage to Face COVID-19. And as good of a writer as John is, I would tell you to pick up all of his books because I'm guaranteeing you they're good. Guys, until next time, that has been another Investigator with Podcast. We love you. Peace out. Peace out, guys.