Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - How to Catch a Killer | First 48’s Detective Chris Anderson

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

How to Catch a Killer | First 48’s Detective Chris Anderson

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Conditions apply. But during that time, I, you know, I kind of left my wife and all my kids and they, you know, I wasn't around like I should have been to get out to the crime scene. And I'm looking at this vehicle, this vehicle, this is, say, like a 2004, 2005, a BMWs lodged up on the side of a wall and the tires are still engaged because the victim, she's been shot inside of her vehicle and she tried to drive away from her attacker. and he shot one time through the car, strikes her in the back of her head,

and she dives instantly. So the car ended up wrecking and is lodged on the side of a wall. And I'm not spending enough time with my kids and those were the most important things in my life. Get out to the crime scene and I'm taking down my notes. And I'm looking in the car at the victim. Now, they've got everything set up to where I can be close enough to

and take down my nose before they remove the body from the car. And I'm writing at my notes and the guy, I asked the guy, I said, what's her name? And he says, Kayla. And I stopped for a second, you know, her name is what? Hey, my daughter's name is Kayla. I am going to be interviewing former homicide detective Chris Anderson. And we're going to talk about some cases and his book and some what he's been doing. So check out the podcast.

I appreciate you coming on. Hey, no problem, man. I appreciate you for having me. So you were on Discovery channels. What was the name of the show? The name of the show was Reasonable Doubt. Reasonable Doubt. That was for five seasons?

Yeah, man, yeah. So, yeah. Discovery, yeah, going on to Reasonable Doubt was a huge change in my career. I'm used to, you know, investigating homicide cases and working cold cases and things of that nature. But getting the opportunity that you go from, you know, as a homicide investigator and the NBM featured on First 48. And then going into my old show, Reasonable Doubt, and running it for five years, man, that was, you know, that was a huge change. It was life changing for me, actually, to see some of the cases that I've worked and see some of the cases that others have worked and being able to sit down and, and really get some people some help.

That was one of the best things I've done in my career. So I'm wondering when you go in and speak with, so you go to reinvestigate a case and you go and do the homicide detectives that had worked the case? Like are they okay with that? Are they irritated? Like they feel like, hey, this guy's, you know, looking over my shoulder or double-checking my work or,

Or they open to it like, man, we want to help. So, yeah, some of the cases I've looked into, they run the gamut of everything they just said. I've run into some cases where some guys have, you know, been very open to having somebody look at another case. I've had some guys that felt like I was looking over their shoulders and they had to critique their work and things in that nature. And I've had some that just flat-out said, no, you know,

You're not going to tell me, you know, my work is wrong. And, you know, that's kind of like the mindset of a homicide investigator. You don't want people, you know, critiquing your work, you know, and you always want to maintain one of the worst things that could happen to a police officer and even a homicide investigator especially is to have someone come in and say that someone you were responsible for convicting. And your investigation was responsible of convicted. The worst thing to say was that guy was wrongfully convicted.

So I can understand some of these guys and I won't meet a comment any question. But on the other hand, I look at it like this. There have been lots of cases where people have been wrongfully convicted. And as a matter of fact, there are innocent people that are sitting in prison now. Whenever an investigation has been done and a trial has been conducted and you have more questions that still remain that answers, then you should be willing to open up the books and let's re-investigate, let's re-look into what happened in this case

and see if maybe we got this one wrong. Yeah, I, so I've, you know, I've spoken with a lot of law enforcement and I always, it's funny, like with my opinion of homicide detectives are that, like, they're very, they tend to be very focused on on not convicting

but solving that crime like because you know there's no there's no worse crime than murder obviously and it's funny you tend to get you know those are the guys that raise up through the ranks you know what I mean like they have a goal that's what they want to do they want to they want to get to become a homicide detective usually like the best

the best guys and a lot of times that I've just noticed that they're super driven and they don't care about anything else. It's like, look, like all these other crimes are, you know, almost a joke in comparison to murder. It's like, oh, you're, the guy had a gun. Okay, great. The guy was smoking pot. Okay, great. The guy had, look, I don't care about any of that. I'll take any help. You know, I want, you know, I want to solve this crime and I'm could care less about anything that I have to do to get to that point or who I have to deal with and talk to because those other crimes don't mean anything. Which I like about that. What I don't like is what you're saying. That would upset me. It's like, okay, I get you feel like the guy committed the crime. But do you really know it? Right.

And yeah, so you're absolutely right. I mean, homicide investigators are extremely driven individuals. You have to be driven. You have to be extremely focused. Because when you're not focused and when you're not driven, when you get tired, you're going to go home. You know, if you're not driven. If you're not focused, when you're looking at those cases and walking through the crime scenes and having to process the millions of bits of information that are coming to you without warning, if you're not focused, you'll miss something that's extremely important.

So, yeah, most homicide investigators that I've known that I've met in my career, they were extremely focused, they were extremely driven. And these were the guys that were the cream of the crop in their police departments. And they, they, they, they, they ascended to the hikes of the, of a homicide investigation. And it takes a lot. I mean, in my department, it took a lot for a guy to, to get into that unit. They didn't just, just, just end up in that unit by a happenstance. There were supervisors that were looking for a particular skill set, for the individuals that they brought into that unit.

So, when did you, where were you, where were you raised? So I was raised in my city that I worked in Birmingham, Alabama. I grew up in Birmingham. I grew up in one of the roughest parts of Birmingham. I don't know if you're a fan of the show First 48, which I was, I was one of the investigators that was featured on First 48 also. And a lot of the, a lot of the cases that we found on First 48 were cases that happened in my neighborhood where I grew up.

So, yeah, I came up through Birmingham. I'm a second generation police officer. My mom was a cop here in Birmingham. And she was brought into the department during a time where, you know, there weren't a lot of females in police work and not a lot of black females in police work. So she's always been a trailblazing a hero to me. So when she went into police work, I was probably about four or five years old. And, you know, when I got of age, I think I was 21 when I started with the department.

You know, I didn't want to work anywhere else but the Murray Air Police Department because it's where I grew up. That's why I wanted to make, you know, the most of impact. Was your father around? Yeah, yeah. So my father was around. My father was the victim of an assault, a serious assault, when I was, wow, there's probably a year at you after my mom,

a police officer, and he was seriously injured and handicapped for the rest of his life. He's still alive today, but he was handicapped during that time, and he never could really hold out a job or anything like that. So my mom, while she raised three boys, she also had to take care of her husband. You know, she was the breadwin of all the family after my father was almost murdered. So, I mean, what are your, you have, what, two brothers? I have two brothers.

I have an older brother. I'm the middle child of us three. I was probably anyone that knows me and my family. I was the one that was least likely to, anyone could ever, you know, see me being a law enforcement officer.

I was that one that didn't make the great grades. I was the one that always stayed in trouble. You know, if there was any one of my mother's children that probably should have ended up in prison. So, you know, but, you know, God had a different calling for me at a different path. I ended up going into police work at a young age. My brothers are all both very successful. And, you know, now we look after our parents.

They're not in law enforcement? No, no. I was the only one of my mother's children that went into law enforcement. Um, how long were you on the force before you became a homicide detective? What, what made you, and what did you want to become one in general? Oh, oh, absolutely, absolutely. Uh, so going into law enforcement and having a mother like mine, uh, who was very well known, very well respected, uh, within the department.

I wanted to carve my own way, uh, and, and, and not walk, I'm going to have to walk in her footsteps, but I wanted to carve my own way. And one thing that she never wanted to be was an investigator. You know, she always loves school resources. She always loved being, you know, supervisor, things of that nature. So she was great at everything she did. So me, I wanted a different path. So, you know, I went into law enforcement at 21 and I did about five years in patrol. And my time in patrol was probably some of the greatest times that I've had in police work. But after about five years in patrol, I think the year, I hired on in 1995, there was four years. I hired on in 1995. In 1999, I was promoted to, which I did a little

stiff in narcotics. Narcotics really wasn't for me. But I ended up getting promoted into our burglary unit. And from there in 1990, 1999, I want to say it was. And from 1999, all the way up to about 2000 and 2011 or 12, I was in the investigations. I, you know, I moved around to several different units, but I went to homicide in 2005 and stayed there until I was promoted to sergeant in 2011. I spent the most time at homicide. Was you, were you gunning for homicide? Like, was that

was like, or just? Absolutely. Oh. Absolutely. The way that we run out to our, we run out department different than a lot of police, some of the police departments, I won't say a lot, but some to be police departments.

You know, we have investigators that we have burglary investigators, then we have robbery investigators, and then we have homicide. And, you know, we have investigators that, you know, we have investigators that, you know, we have investigators that specialize in certain types of crimes. So, whereas most, you know, police departments don't work like that.

If you work burglaries, if you're a detective, you work all of them, burglaries, robberies, and homicide. We didn't work like that. So I knew pretty early in my career that homicide was where I wanted to beat. It was the tip of the sphere. As far as investigators, they were always the sharpest. They were always the most cutting. They were always the, they were the, they were the,

And, you know, the guys that I came up under, they were the guys that you wanted to be in police work. So I always knew I wanted to go to homicide when I was young. And I went into investigations that, I mean, I was probably in my early 20s. And I think I got promoted to homicide right at about 20, you know, 28, 29 years old, I want to say. Can't remember exactly. But yes, I was pretty young in police work. And, you know, seeing all of that in a young husband, a young father, you know, I got kids. You know, I got babies now, you know, and as a homicide investigation, you spend a lot of time and work, a lot of time at work, missing out on football games and having to leave out of your daughters, ballet practice, or there were sidels, you know, because you're getting that call.

But I was driven, man, and now I wanted to, this is something that I wanted to do. So from the time that I was at homicide, and it happened a lot when I was in robbery and burglary too, but when I was in homicide, my wife was almost a single wife, you know, she had to raise our kids. She had to go and do all of it, handle the house and everything. So, yeah, but it was a great time in my career. I wouldn't, there are certain parts of it I wish I could do over again, but I wouldn't trade it for. for the world that experience is it was amazing for me do you have are there any cases that stand out that jerry that i got plenty of them i got plenty of cases that that uh stand out to me i've worked i've worked i've worked almost nothing nothing that you could show me uh in a crime

scene would surprise me so i've worked everything from child murders, children being, you know, slain and then all the way up to, you know, elderly people being, you know, murdered and thrown out on the side of the road. So I've got plenty of cases that really touched that affected me in different ways. And that's one thing that I love about homicide. No two days are the same. Never. It's never the same. And that's what some of the things that were a lot of investigators get burned out because, you know, it's just the monotony of everything that's happening, but you can never say that when you're a homicide investigator, you know, no two days are the same. So I had a case that I actually wrote about

in my book called The Case. And I talk a little bit about how I, you know, moved through our police department. I talked about how the impact that my mother had on me as an investigator, as a young, you know, police officer. And I talk about this one particular case that I investigated here in Birmingham. And it's a true story. I mean, you know, I changed a lot of the names and things of that nature in the case. But, you know, it was a real case that actually happened here in Birmingham. It was the investigation what happened during the investigation, the drive,

You know, it almost, work in that case almost cost me, you know, while I got it solved, got the people arrested, got justice for my victim, I almost lost everything that was important to me. That's my wife, like she is, my family. You know, but it was just, it was one of those things that just happened, man. And it helped me after working that, that particular case, it helped me become a better father, a better husband, and a better detective also. What was the case? What help? Okay. I'll tell you about it. Yeah. So, yeah, I, during that time, my wife and I were on it, you know, we were on a rough patch. I was kind of new at homicine.

I had been in homicide for maybe a year or so. And, you know, I'm still trying to make my way. I'm trying to, you know, learn, gather all this information and learn how to do this job as well as I could. And I had gotten a pretty good go at it. And, uh, but during that time, I, you know, I kind of left my wife and all my kids and they, you know, I wasn't, wasn't around like I should have been. And she had gotten fed up. And plus, you know, I was doing all kinds of other stuff. You know, I wasn't the most, you know, faithful guys, put it like that. Right. Uh, so, you know, it happens like that. So, uh, we get out and, um, my wife, I come into the house and I, she's, she's already tired because I told I was coming home. and ended up not getting home for hours. My kids were waiting up for me. She had made dinner for me.

You know, I'm like, okay, I'm sick of it right now. So I go upstairs, you know, I talk to my kids for a little while. I'll eat my food and me and her about to get into an argument and I get a call. Now, I'll tell you what really helped me to become, really why this case was so touching to me. So I get a call out of the. that a young girl has been murdered and they asked me to come out to the crime scene, which I'm going to go anyway because I'm the lead investigator that night. Get out to the crime scene and I'm looking at this vehicle, this vehicle.

It's say like a 2004, 2005, a BMW is lodged up on the side of a wall and the tires are still engaged because the victim, she's been shot inside of her vehicle and she tried to drive away from her attacker and he shot one time through the car strikes her in the back of her head and she dives instantly so she's the car ended up wrecking and it's launched on the side of a wall

and we couldn't get it out of out of gear before I got out there until we could take some precautions to not screw up the crime scene excuse me excuse me at any rate

I get out to the crime scene and the whole while there I'm thinking to myself you know I need to try to straighten this stuff out with my wife because I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do

as a father I know that I'm not being a husband I should be so I get out to the crime scene and I'm not spending enough time with my kids and those were the most important things

of my life get out to the crime scene and I'm taking down my notes and I'm looking in the car at the victim now they've got everything set up to where I can be close enough to it and take down my notes before they remove the body from the car. And I'm writing out my notes and the guy, I asked the guy, I said, what's her name?

And he says, Kayla. And I stopped for a second, you know, her name is what? Kayla. My daughter's name is Kayla. This young lady is not too much older than my daughter. So from that point, you know, I'm already struck him because I had spent time with my kids. You know, I'm already going through this this mental thing that we go through it as homicide investigators you know uh and from that point on everything that i saw everything than i did every picture that i looked at i didn't see my victim's face i saw my own child's face and i thought about everything that was going that was happening about you know how i wasn't spending any time with her and i thought about my victim's family you know how they let that daughter go out of

house just for a few minutes, you know, a couple of hours. And now she'll never be seen again. I didn't want to be like that. So, yeah, yeah, I started working this case. And it was like investigating my own child's murder. You know, I picked up a really good relationship with my victim's mom, which I talked to her and her brother. And I don't talk to her father as much, but I talked to, you know, my victim's mom and brother.

with friends today and they know my kids her family and we're just kind of connected you know and I think that connection was brought about by one of the most traumatic events that any person could

experience and that's murder. So, you know, I'm just giving you a preface of the case. I don't want to hear everything that happened. But yeah, man, it was one work in that case helped me to realize that every day is special. Every day, you need to do something to make tomorrow better. So I started after I finished the case up,

and you know, if you're interested in seeing the book or reading the book, it's on Amazon now. It's been doing book sales. I've been doing pretty well, but I, you know, I always can use another person buying one more book. So, yeah, I take you through. through all the emotions that I went through and I take you through everything that was happening with me and my wife and my kids during that time, you know, the nights that I left and slept in my office and, you know, the nights of being out on the streets or trying to, you know, be at home and spend time with my kids, but mentally I'm not there, you know, I'm physically there. Mentally, I'm still at work trying to find these fuckers that kill my child.

You know, so, yeah, it's, there's a, there's a lot of, of, there's a lot of PTSD that happens with, with law enforcement that a lot of people don't know about. A lot of people don't talk about. And it goes, some of it comes about by some of the things that you see here and do on a daily basis. And I think that's what happened with me during that time. Do you know how many cases you work? Yes. Yeah. So I, um, so I've investigated I think last count where I led I've led in over a hundred cases the last count of cases that I've investigated murder cases that I'm

investigated well over 300 and may not sound like a lot but that's a lot yeah that's got to translate a lot I was going to say like what are our try to think what are the more complicated cases the more complicated

so because aren't most murders like it's kind of random it just happened it gets out of control or to me like if someone really methodically thought out the crime like that's a difficult case right so

the ones they're all difficult in some way shape or form even some of the wars that would most people would think are easier cases, the domestic violence type cases. What's going on YouTube? Ardap Dan here, Federal Prison Time Consulting. Hope you guys are all having a great day. If you're seeing and hearing this right now, that means you're watching Matt Cox on Inside

True Crime. At the end of Matt's video, there will be a link in the description where you can book a free consultation with yours truly, Ardap Dan, where we can discuss things that can potentially mitigate your circumstances to receive the best possible outcome at sentencing or even after you started your prison sentence. Prior to sentencing, we can focus on things like your personal narrative, your character reference letters, pre-sentence interview, which is going to determine a lot of what type of sentence you receive.

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booking your free consultation today. All right, guys, see you soon at the end of the video. Peace. I'm out of here. Back to you, Matt. So here's the thing when you think about homicide investigations. The one thing that's helped me out the most is almost three quarters of the murders that happen in the U.S.

They happen. They are caused by someone that has a relationship with the victim, you know, that there's some sort of relationship, some sort of connection with the victim. Most murders are not random acts of violence, the majority of them. So when you deal with homicides,

if you go into it with that mindset, you can usually maneuver through you, and you know how to take your investigation. It all starts with the background of the victim. It's called victimology. And I don't think enough schools teach enough about victimology and learning victimology, because especially when it comes to homicide investigations, because like I just said, three quarters of every case that you'll work in this country are committed by someone

that's connected to you a bit. So, yeah, they're all complex in that sense because you have to unravel each piece. It's like a like an onion. You know, you have to peel back so many layers until you get to where what actually the root cause of what happened. And usually nine times out of ten, it's usually something, someone that's connected to a victim. So, yeah,

they are all, but they all have a level of complexity that, you know, only, you can only understand it if you 've been through it or conducted an homicide investigation. Do you, I mean, so do you, but do you have any one in particular

that's interesting that, that was complicated that you eventually put it together for, some you know i mean like yeah yeah so so the ones that that are usually the most complex are your serial cases uh and i've only had one of those because those are not usually your serial cases are not you know they're not i can up they are those random acts of violence right person this person sees someone that they think would make would become a they could be an easy They do whatever, you know, and they commit the murder.

So those are those are the ones that you have to, that are extremely hard to put together because it usually takes a lot of working, moving parts. And I had one like that. And this one wasn't, yeah, this one was, it was kind of random, but there was a connection between a victim and a suspect. So I had this young girl, she was 17 years old. at the time that she was murdered. So here's this scenario.

Her that mom had been on some really bad terms. And when she gets out of school, she was responsible for going to her mom's job, sitting down with her for about two or three hours, and then riding home with her mom for work because her mom just didn't trust her in the house by herself. She's a little bit of this. So on this particular day,

this girl had been on punishment for, on this punishment that her mom had and, you know, enforced on her. She was having to get off the bus and come to sit up there with her at work until her mom got off and then her mom would take her home. But on this day, the mom said allows her to go on home, you know, go to the house a little bit early because she was going to, her mom had to work some overtime. And this young lady had to do some homework. So she allowed her to go home.

Mom comes home about four hours later, finds her daughter. she's been murdered. And her, she had been strangled to death. And then the suspect cut her throat. And he cut her throat after she was murdered. Her body was positioned and posed in a way that, you know,

it wouldn't have happened if, you know, it wasn't just random. You could tell that the body had imposed. So the way that she was posed, it led me to believe that, you know, it was somebody that was kind of close to her. She had a boyfriend who, I had some witnesses who said that, you know, they had seen the guy lurking around the house earlier that day. And so I'm thinking, okay, this is my guy.

I need to go pick him up. You know, he's where I need to start. Pick the guy up, bringing him in for questioning. He doesn't confess like that meant to anything. but I get the witnesses in who says that okay they can identify him as the person that was working around the house that day

but nothing that was it he was very convincing in the interview room and I didn't feel right about putting him in jail at the moment the mom's pissed off she was totally pissed off with it I didn't feel right about putting him in jail so I didn't

and I didn't have enough problem because charging with anything but you know you know I said let's give me time I'm going to work this case and I'll find out who's responsible if it's him and he's going to jail if it's not him let me find out who's responsible I worked that case for three years three years I mean and doing something on it at least on a daily basis or going back out to the crime scene you know talking to people that knew the girl uh and uh this is during a time where DNA evidence wasn't as prevalent as it is today. Like you can do DNA test and get it back within a couple of hours now.

You know, back then it took months and to years sometimes. I mean, you couldn't even get it unless you had, you know, a suspect. So at any rate, during those three years, a lot of things happened and, you know, that's when DNA and the collection of it and processing of it went into overdrive. So what here in Alabama, which they've done now nationwide, they started taking samples, DNA samples from everyone that was in prison. So when I first started this case, you know, we never, we didn't, they didn't do that. But I had DNA that was connected to this victim. So at any rate, three years later, I get a DNA hit from this guy.

They completely ran the guy The mom, nobody knew that the victim And this guy had been seeing each other Had been talking on the phone Anything like that. She had, and actually They had just met earlier that day And she ended up

Bringing him back to the house And he ended up Was the one that was responsible for the murder. He was in prison For murderings, another young woman That happened in another municipality just, you know, a few miles away from where my department was. And, you know, I went over and talked to him.

He wouldn't talk to me, but I had the DNA evidence, you know, against him. He had gotten life in prison for the other young girl's murder because he did her. The actual reality, he got convicted before I even knew he was responsible for my murder. He had been convicted of two murders. so that's why it became a serial case he had killed three young ladies over the span of about i want to say it was over about the span of a year and uh the only thing that connected him in my case was the dna evidence and he had no reason to be at the house it was in a vagina and uh yeah you know he he was responsible for that murder uh those are some of the cases that you know it was

It was completely random. There was nothing that suggested this girl and this guy had a connection. And that makes it extremely hard when you're investigating homicide cases. It's just those random acts of violence. Yeah, I was going to say the serial killers, you know, that is the whole thing. There's some long-distance truck driver. They swing into it and they'll go after somebody who's vulnerable anyway, a prostitute or somebody getting a car. nobody sees them get in the car they find the body like how are you going to how are you going to

track this back to one of the 10,000 truck stop that boy drove through through that day 10,000 trucks that drove through right without something like DNA that's why they get away with so many I always love the books if you ever read James Patterson where he's got a detective cross is the Honol's by the second So I forget the name of his Like nemesis but they always make him seem so You know

Of course he's he's a sadist But you know They always make him seem so brilliant And so and he thought everything through And the truth is most of these guys They're just They're you know Not that they're stupid

But they're so Over Or so driven by just instinct and they make huge mistakes but they get away with it because there's like you said there's typically no connection between them and the victim so even though they made all these major mistakes the truth is is it's just difficult to pin them down and eventually it's got to take something like like DNA and they're already got five convictions and they go ahead and a bit to another 10 because they know they're about to be put into the electric chair or something right right

yeah I mean you know look it's it's complex within itself but I think The technology and investigations has helped us out a lot as detectives, but you cannot be a good detective that's just going to get out there and beat the pavement and talk to people and be able to communicate with people. Well, I was going to say, even with cameras being everywhere, you still have to go to the bank, you still have to go to the convenience store, you still have to go and, you know, you still have to, it's still all that running around to say, well, if he went this way, he probably would have crossed this liquor store and they've got a camera, so let's go there.

You just don't have to put all those things together. Then you have to sit there and look through 12 hours of tape or 120 hours of tape or whatever the case may be. And then, you know, everything, it's just, I was going to say it's like, you know, like I said, I've talked to a bunch of law enforcement. They're like, it's just like extreme boredom with these spikes of adrenaline. And it's like being a soldier. It's like you're nothing happens for, you know, three months straight. And then you're in a battle for four days straight. And it's just exhausting.

That's exactly right. As you say, I was in, you know, I, when I was locked up, but I would do all this research on guys and I'd order the Freedom of Information Act. Like it would be hours and hours of printing documents, paperwork, ordering docket sheets, reordering documents. And then the spike in adrenaline would be you get mail and you open up the transcript and on page 7. You're like, oh, oh, you're running right. Like, I would feel like I had solved the case.

I'm running around and going, oh, my gosh, she was driven in black, worse than me, bees. You know, whatever it would. No. It always works out like that, man. You know, we would have, there would be days like we would be going for two or three days. I remember I had a case on first 48, a couple of years. Well, it was probably, oh, man, this was in 2010, I want to say it was. This case was on first 48, man, we had, I mean, during the initial phases of the investigation.

So what happened was we had this victim that was inside of her home, some guys break in on her, and put her down on the ground in, shoot, killing her murderer inside her house. and then the store and got gas and poured gas all around the house and set the house on fire. I tried to burn the body up. Done the thing ever. And so during the initial phases of the investigation,

you know, I thought it was just going to be a random, I mean, a completely, you know, kind of normal if that's the word that you can use in homicide cases which you normally can't use. I thought it was just going to be like a routine investigation. So while we're out on the scene, some of the family members come to the house and they start asking about the woman's child. She said her child should have been inside of the house and we haven't seen a child.

There's not a child inside of the house. So now the case switches from just a routine investigation to now we are looking for an and the child. So we just, we go, we run for hours and hours and hours. And then we ended up locating the child, you know, at a, at a, at a friend of her's house. So, you know, and, and then we go back into the routine of investigating the case. And maybe two or three hours after, after that, we get a big leader where the victim's

property may have been or whatever. You know, we run and go start investigating that for you. So that's like that's you're you're very right that that's the the the the the ups and downs of the homicide investigation. You know, you're sometimes you move a little bit slow. Sometimes you're running your tail off for hours and hours. Sometimes you're running the tail off for days, you know, and it's that's the way it works. You got to be able to adjust your body and your mindset to doing it like that. Oh, um, man, I was.

going to, I, you had said something and shoot, now I can't remember. Um, yeah, uh, so, oh, no, it was we've, we just, we just always joke, um, about, you know, your, your co-defendant getting arrested. And it was always like, well, you know, you, you know, you're always going to say something. No, he's not going to say another. No, he'll say something. No, he won't. And, and, and I tell, You've seen the first 48. They're all talking. They're all going to, like, every one of the gangsters that walks in there ends up crying his eyes out within two hours and saying, you know,

oh, you don't understand. And so. I'm glad you brought that up because that reminds me that actually it was the same case I just told you about. You know, when I got the guys that were responsible for the murder, got him into the room. There was one guy. I can't remember what his name.

That's cheese. I remember this joke, but he ticked me out so bad. He was just the hard, and he wanted to be so hard. That's like, look, man, he charged with capital murder. You know, he'll believe that yourself. I'm too pregnant to go to jail. Oh, okay. This is what he's saying.

And the camera crew, they get all that. They eat that shit up. You know, so they get all of it on camera, and they post it on the show. And I'm like, I was ticked off about that case myself because, you know, what they didn't show was, two days after he's charged now and now he's over at the county jail he's had his preliminary hearing and you know they're not letting him go he doesn't have a bond he got to sit there until a trial because he's charged with capital murder it's starting to sink in uh yeah yeah in a in a big way i got call after call after call from jail people saying that hey hey uh detective

mannison he wants to talk to you and the same guy that walked out of my office saying that i'm too pretty to go to jail you don't believe that yourself you know he's all big band bow sat right there and told me the entire thing of how this robbery went down you know and it was too late then because his partner had already snitched on everybody and told everybody you know what that happened but yeah uh he he told everybody he told he sat there and tried to confess to everything and then he tried to withdraw his confession later on but you know that's a whole other story but the point that i want to make is on first 48 and all these other shows they try to seem so hard so violent but when you get them in that room in that box that's what

we called it the box when you get them in the box 90% of them break down and will tell every single thing that happened they will tell you things that you weren't even investigated You know, they'll tell you about crimes that they've committed that. You didn't even know that they were responsible for, you know, just to get out of that, especially when it comes to murder. If they've committed robberies, oh, my God. They will tell you about 30 robberies that they committed that they can get out of this homicide that they look at it. But I mean, at what, so if you just killed a lot, you can't possibly think you're going to, you're going to talk your way out of it. I mean, they do.

that I mean, as you're saying, right now, that face tells me, well, they do. They try. I mean, you know, you think about it. So the way our criminal justice system is set up in most states, I know what Alabama is. Alabama wants the most culpable person. They want the person that, who was the one that actually pulled the trigger, who was the mastermind behind it? So if you come in and you're the first person to say, well, he was the mastermind behind it and this is how we did. you know, sometimes they are more lenient

towards you in your sentencing phase. Right. So, you know, look, a lot of people will say, don't, you know, don't go in and talk to the police, okay, you have a right to not make any statements to law enforcement. That's your constitutional right

set out by the government of the United States of America. But, If you are involved in the case, and sometimes, you know, you might want to, if you're not as culpable as the next person, first off, you don't want to do the crack. Just don't do the crime. Right. You know, that's the first thing. But if you're involved and, you know, look, there's a lot of deals being slung around, especially if you're with someone that, that if you are a co-defendant, it's nine times out of ten. Co-defendants are going to talk.

They're going to talk. I mean, so if you're not about that life, don't do the crime. But, you know, if you're not about that life, don't do the crowd with somebody else. You know, that's probably some of the best advice. It's funny. I always, so listen, I'll tell you something you might find funny. And anybody like watching this, these guys have heard me talk about this before. So, you know, I have all these, I've done all these podcasts, right?

So you've got all the scammers out there think that I'm. I'm, you know, like a scam guru or I'm going to, I'm going to make them rich or, you know, they need to hook up with me or talk to me or something. And, you know, I would get these emails offering me money if I just talk to them. And I'm like, you know, no, no. And I actually had a guy one time who, you know, was texting me. Just kind of like on a, hey, I watch your stuff. I like your stuff. You know, so we're going back and forth. So you, even though I've never met the guy. You know, you kind of, I don't want to say necessarily a friendship, but, you know, you respond. Well, at some point, this is, we're talking about months later, six months later of talking

on and off. He, he flies to Tampa. He tells me, hey, I'm actually, my girlfriend lives in Tampa, we're going down there. Okay. Hey, I'd love to buy here to some Starbucks. Okay, I'll meet you for Starbucks. So I meet him. And he tells me, he tells me, listen, I wanted to fly down. And he'd been locked up before, too, in New York. And he said, look, I was locked up in New York, you know, like I did like, I forget three or four years. I never told on nobody. I'm like, okay.

And he's like, so I wanted to come down. I wanted to let you know that, you know, I'm a solid guy. And I was like, okay. And he said, but I need some help, man. Like, if I could, you know, if you could help me out, like, if I could get like half a million, I forget what the amount was. he actually had like a specific amount like 400,000 or something. He said, you can help me get 400,000. You got to get 800.

He's like, I'll split it with you. He's all you've got to do is tell me how to do it. I'll go in the bank. I'll go and sign the papers. I'll do this. I'll do this. And he's going on and on and on. I'm like, right, right, right.

And I said, okay. And I said, well, you understood. I said, I'm basically already. Well, I said, once you get caught, I'm already on the indictment. And he goes, what do you mean? I said, he was, no, man, I would never say nothing. I would, I'll just take it. I'll, if I advise, I said, no, no, no, no, let me explain something.

I said, let's say you never bring my name up. Once they grab you, I said, and they will grab you. I said, so they're going to get you. I said, you're going to tell someone. No, I would never tell somebody. I said, stop something. You're going to tell somebody. You're going to brag.

It's going to get, it's going to end up connecting to you somehow. I said, you know what they're going to do? They're going to pull your phone records. They're going to see that we've spoken on the phone. they're going to see that there's text messages. They're going to look me up. They're going to go into a grand jury. They're going to add my name to the conspiracy or to the list of conspirators.

I said, because this is something I'm known for. I said, so they're not going. I said, they're going to read my record. They're going to read the transcripts. They're going to see that you've come down here. They're going to see that both our phones were at our Starbucks for 45 minutes. I said that you flew back the same day. And then three months later, there was, you stole a million dollars.

I said, I'm already done. I said, and you know what? I said, I can't even go to trial because I can't take the stand in my own defend. I said, because I've got a history. So I have to sit there while they read off all these things and they allege that I've done something, even though right now I'm telling you, get on the plane and fly back to New York. I said, that's just the way it is. I said, I'm already done.

I said, so I don't need to give them any additional information. And I said, and that is even, that's if you keep your mouth shut. And the truth is, I said, once you're locked up and they say, look, you can get two years. You're looking at eight now. You'll get two. We know Cox, all you have to do is say that he helped you. Yeah. And I literally got up and we left.

And he was going, no, no. I was like, stop. So you don't understand how the electronic surveillance alone connects every. But if I was on the jury, I wouldn't think I wasn't a part of it. Right. Yeah. So, so it's, it's, you know, it's tough. It's very real.

It's very, it's happened to own multiple cases to you. I mean, the case that, the cases that I wrote about in my book, you know, that were, even though I only, you know, where I was able to indict the people that were responsible for her murders, there were a lot of other names that came up in connection to these guys. that, you know, we found information that helped close other cases on. I mean, people don't understand. I guess, you know, some people see television and they think that, you know, when an investigator's working a case, that's the only case that they work.

And that's just not true. I mean, I found that the guys that I arrested for Kayla's murder, they were responsible for 12 other. carjackings because that's how she got murdered they were trying to carjack her vehicle and uh they were responsible for 12 other carjackins but there were other people you know sometimes it would be those three sometimes it would be two of those guys and another guy you know or sometimes it'd be just one of one guy and two other people but a lot of those folks got charged because you know when we work cases like this, we don't just work that one particular cases.

There are multiple other cases that we usually get closed with every homicide investigation. I was going to say that's, it's funny, that's like committing a crime. And let's say I commit the purpose, me and three guys, we go and we commit this perfect little conspiracy. We get a couple million dollars. We're thrilled. We walk away. That's great.

You walk away or I walk away. But then two years later, one of those guys, commits a crime and it's serious and he says you know and the detective says look you can help yourself out like you could do five years or you could do you could do one year you know you know anything well you know what yeah they're going to take on deal right right got to be in prison for a long period of time so the best thing to do is don't do the crime don't do yeah um yeah it's it's insanity now nowadays there's the technology DNA cameras everything it's it's rough you know i you know i need to make sure i say this i you know i love the way the technology

has helped out investigations it's not a but it's not a end-all be-all especially DNA you know with the way that they're collecting it now it's actually become kind of dangerous in my opinion uh in certain aspects that is, you know, because like there's no way you can go in any place and not leave something of you in that place. I'm not talking about like to restaurants.

You know, your friends' house. There are certain investigative theories and not theory. They're actually facts that say that, you know, each time you enter in a room you take something away

and you leave something there. So with that premise, and the way that DNA is being collected, you know, it can become dangerous. And we've seen that in some of the cases that I've investigated, especially some of the cases we looked into unreasonable down. It was going to say, what was the term transference? Yeah, transference.

Yeah. That theory is called the La Cod principle. but yeah that's what he speaks of especially like skin cells from your hand and things of that nature that can be pulled you know you need a minimal amount of skin cells

can be pulled and you can get a DNA profile for her and that becomes kind of dangerous because if you know if you find someone's DNA inside of a certain area where it shouldn't have been or inside of a crime scene and it comes back to the certain person, that doesn't mean that that person is responsible for that murder. That means

that you need to look at that person that either eliminate them or find enough evidence that convicts them. And we've had cases where some of that evidence has been wrongfully convicted them. I was going to say there was the, this was recently, I want to say like maybe a week ago, a buddy of mine mentioned it to me that some guy had committed a murder and one of his family members had gone on ancestry DNA and uploaded their DNA and they were like, look,

a relative of this guys come into that murder. And so they sure enough, the detectives connected it all and said, okay, boom, that's our guy. That's the next door neighbor. And a week after the killing, he moved across the country. You know?

Yeah. There have been a couple of cases I've researched. One of them was, uh, man, it was, I think it was a murder or a serial killer and I think it was like California or something like that

that they were able to connect his his DNA or a close relative of his they were able to connect his DNA to those murders you know I never got lucky enough to do nothing like that because Jesus Christ that that would

that would have been easy but you know yeah it's uh oh yeah yeah but I'll I bet that was still, that was still a lot of phone calls, a lot of fil-out paid a lot of ways, a lot of, you know, somebody had to be, and somebody has to put that together. Somebody has to be, a couple of guys got to be sitting in a room with their banging their head against the wall, and somebody says, you know what? This was a long shot. Yeah.

What if we did this? So I'll bet, you know, first they run the DNA through it, and then they go, ah, well, let's see if we can get a relative. Maybe he didn't do it. He's not going to upload his deed. Maybe a relative. get run it again. Yeah. Yeah, it is, uh, yeah, the technology and investigations is

completely going to way, and in a direction that me when I was working cases, I never would have imagined it or something like that, but I wish I had it because there are a lot of cases that I, well, I left quite a few cases that were, uh, that I would love to see solve, um, uh, um, uh, um, uh, uh, I would love to see solve, um, uh, finished, you know, a lot, uh, quite a few. So what are you doing now? So right now I serve as the, uh, chief of police at Talladega College is my alma mater. Uh, and, uh, you know, of course, all campus police departments have.

They're all in particular police departments. Uh, and I was, you know, I was blessed enough to get the opportunity to go back and work at my, my institution, uh, after I retired from, you know, law enforcement and there was a change in the leadership so they asked me to come on and see if I can help out with the security measures there and I love police Indiana college. It's much

different than, you know, what I'm used to. So you know, now it's more mentorship than enforcement. You know, so yeah, and I'm an instructor. I also teach criminal investigations there at college.

Okay, that's perfect. Yeah, man. It's been a great. It's been a great. It's been a great. Rice has retired. Any, no, any, any, any, so there was, you were on the first 48. And then you did reasonable doubt.

Was that anything? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My memory's horrible. So, reasonable doubt. So, I mean, are there, are, are, are, are, Are there any other projects along those lines that you're looking at or pitching or thinking about? So I don't think that we're done with reasonable doubt. I think that that show was so beyond its time.

There have been certain television shows that have tried to do something like a reasonable doubt. But I just think that the way that we did it was great. It wasn't just television. It's really we were trying to write. some of the wrongs that happened within our criminal justice system. It was just way more than just television for me. So I would love to see if we could to try to get, you know, another show kind of like reasonable doubt back all.

But, you know, other than that, that's all I'm doing. I make appearances. I've made several appearances on all kinds of news media stations. as an expert in criminal investigations and homicide investigations and I've made several appearances on different crime shows, you know, to talk that as an expert also. But as far as a television show that, you know, I have a few things that are in the works. Nothing major, but I would love to get back on television. Okay.

Any new books you're working on? yeah i'm actually i actually am uh this fall i am working on a book called man you are crazy i am uh co-author in that book with the guy that i think you're familiar with evan dawson katie yeah that's my book that's my dude man katie and i um we actually met on the uh media circuit doing podcasts and uh and uh our publicists put us together man to talk about some of our some of the PTSD that's involved in law enforcement, which is never, it's never really looking to it. Actually, it's actually shunned upon them to even mention

that you may have received some PTSD from working at law enforcement. But our goal is to destigmatize that, destigmatize that mindset because I believe that you respond to PTSD. People respond to PTSD in different ways. And, you know, if you don't get help for it, don't understand how to navigate through it, you usually respond in a negative way. So that's our goal to write the book, help to destigmatize and talk about, you know, how can we go about destigmatizing the mindset that PTSD does exist in law enforcement. And we need to do more in order to solve the problem. I did, I interviewed both of them.

okay uh we all went to dinner uh he met my wife uh who else was there oh gosh john a light was there so was um mike dowd do you know who that in yeah mike dow yeah so he was there um and there was a bunch of people there was so we all had dinner and then i i we did the podcast i think the next day and uh listen what a horrible podcast like i mean they're in tears i'm in tears like i got some borderline i borderline and cry most of the day anyway just in general you know and and these two guys you know they're they're tearing up and i'm tearing out it was it was it was after an hour it was like i i typically in the middle of the day like don't want to take it like i'm not the kind of guy that's like oh i'm going to go take a nap like i mean i wanted to go crawled in bed and just

sleep for like a hour just emotionally draining yeah yeah yeah katie is my guy man he's a good he's a really good guy, real police. I flew up to his city a couple months ago to do his podcast, man. And it was a great experience. I love, I love doing this studio stuff. I just, you know, unfortunately, I just, you know, it takes a lot of time out of my schedule to fly up and do things. Yeah, he, a couple months ago, he asked me,

hey, when are you going to be in, in New York? I think it's in New York, right? Or New Jersey, New York. Jersey, well, yeah. So he asked me, well, wait, you're going to be up here anytime soon? I was like, no. Man. No?

I was like, I just go to Jersey all the time. Yeah, like, how is that? It's funny because I actually have another podcast I need to do. I got to see, the problem isn't, I don't know, there's actually like three podcasts in that general area. The problem with that general area, in my mind, you know, New York City and that general area is not,

that big, but the truth, but it is big. There's like three, you know, like from one podcast, like New Jersey to, you know, there's like this, this guy. So I tracked it. I went on Google Maps. It's okay, this guy's address is this, this, well, that's four hours. Like this guy's an hour and 45 minutes, like a, been two days driving. Right, right, right. Yeah, man. It's, it's huge. I specifically went up there to do his podcast, shoot some video and stuff like that and promos for the book. But once I was done, I was like, dude, I'm ready to go.

I got to get out of here. But it was good to see him, get good to spend some time with him. That's my dog, man. Did you go to, have you ever been in New York City? You probably get, look, and I only went like a year ago. I've never been. Yeah, so we actually, filmed, we've, we've done two or three episodes of reasonable down in New York City.

Okay. Yeah, it's, listen, I went, so I don't know if you know anything about Florida. There's an area of Florida called Okeechobee, Lake Okeechobee, and the big lake in Florida. And it's a little kind of a podunk kind of area. Familiar, very familiar with Okiejordi. Okay. Well, my wife, my wife grew up there. Oh, really?

Okay. So my wife's almost only been out of Florida once or twice, like Pennsylvania, you know, in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. And so she and I went to New York. I'd been to New York, but it was like upstate New York. So that's not, you know, that's not New York City. We went to New York City. I mean, we went to, you know, Times Square, the whole thing.

Listen, driving through that city. I'm from Tampa. Tampa is about like Birmingham. Like it's, you know, there's like, there's like, there's like 12 buildings. you know, that are maybe 30, 40 story size, like they're pretty, but it's pretty much in comparison to New York, like it's, you're driving through those such, it's just, it's building after building, after building, after building, after building. It just goes and goes and it's like, this is insane. It is. It is. It's hard for us as southerners to really get the full scale

of how large these cities are. Let's just sit right down in the middle and you can look at it. Like, you know, New York, New York is one of those cities. Los Angeles is ridiculously just huge places that you just, you know, like we front of the south. We got 15 buildings, that's it. You know, they got 15 buildings like in this corner over here and there. It's 15 buildings over in that corner over there. You know, you can look at any point on the spectrum. You can look at find our entire city.

You can fit our entire cities into, you know, a few blocks of these areas. And it's hard to understand that unless you go. So, yeah. Yeah, we're there. We were there for three days. And the third day when we were, she, we woke up and looked out the window and she looked at me and she said, you know, this was great. I'm done. I'm ready to go home.

That's right. It's overwhelming. You know? Yeah. You got a beat from there to understand that. That's wild. well um do you have anything else you want to talk about like i'll what what i can do is we can put the description for your book in the in the um where am i look in the description

we'll put a we'll put the link for your book in the description i'm assuming it's on amazon it is so we'll put the amazon link uh in the description and do you have if you have any social media or anything else that you, you know, send it to me and my editor will also put it in there. And I'll put this, we'll put this in, you know, he won't edit this out. So if anybody wants to get in touch with you or buy the book, check it out, you know, about, hey, do you have an audible version of your book? There's not an audible. There is a Kindle version, but not an audible. You got to do an audible. Yeah. I'm going to work on it, man. I'm going to go So, you know, it's funny.

I can't read my own book. Like, I mean, I'm just not good at it. It's horrible. I actually had a guy that contacted me, and he's like, look, you really ought to put your books on Audible. And I was like, you know, I just can't do it. I've tried it. I'm stuttering. I don't read well.

I just can't do it. And so he said, well, I'll do it. it and I'll, you know, I'll do a 50-50 royalty split. And then after like, I forget it. I think it's like six years or seven years. Like after six years, then it's 100% years. And I was like, so what do I have to do? You don't have to do anything. Like, you just have to tell me to do it. So he did it and put up and put it up. And listen, I suddenly over the course of a few months, started getting a nice little chunk of money and did nothing. Yeah. I mean, actually that's not true. The only thing I did do was my jacket cover.

I had to make a square version of the jacket level. Like, it was just like a joke. There's nothing. So, so literally he did everything. He put it on Audible. He let me, I listened to the whole thing.

I, any corrections he made that did everything. So, you know, if you're interested, I can give you his name or, you know, if you don't want to do it yourself.

Yeah. I mean, well, you know, I'm a lot. It's another thing. Yeah. If you will send me his information,

I'll have, so that I'll have it, but I, you know, I'm seriously going to do an audible version. I don't know how much time I have to do it myself, but I think I would want to do it myself. I would too if I ought to could. But you may be an excellent reader. You may be perfect. I mean, you're probably great. You probably just need a sure might and you're good.

Yeah, well, we'll see. We'll see it. Because there are some people that they're just not going to read. They'll listen to a book. They'll download it for $9, but they're just not going to, and they listen to a long-distance, truck driving, doing whatever. They're just not going to read the book. So I don't feel like you're losing anything. I don't feel like it's, oh, they would have bought a book or they'll buy this.

No, no, they weren't going to buy anything unless it's unaudible. So anyway, something to think about, I, listen, I appreciate you coming on. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching. Do me a favor and hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. and leave a comment in the comment section. Also, we're going to leave Detective Anderson's Amazon link in the description, so you can click on it and buy a copy of his book, and we'll also leave all of his social media links to if you want to follow him.

And I appreciate you guys watching. Thanks a lot. See ya.