Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Inside a Homicide Investigation: The First 48’s Chris Anderson on Catching Killers

Episode Date: February 9, 2025

Matt talks with Retire Homicide Detective Chris Anderson regarding the various homicide cases that shaped his life. Detective Anderson's Book https: //www.amazon.com/Case-Investigation-Det-Christopher-Anderson/dp/B0BW2GDPWD/Book a Call With Dan Wise https://calendly.com/federalprisontime/matt-coxFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrimeDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [e-mail] you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69

But during that time, 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, it's 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 it's 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 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? 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. and 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. And that was for five seasons? Yeah, man, yeah. So, yeah. Discovery, yeah, going on to Reasonable Doubt was a, you know, it was a huge change in my career. you know, I'm used to, you know, investigating homicide cases and working cold cases and things of that nature.

But getting the opportunity to go from, you know, as a homicide investigator and the NBA 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, see some of the cases that others have worked and being able to sit down and, and, 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 in 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, look at him on my shoulder or double-checking my work or they open to it like, man, we want the help. So, yeah, some of the cases I've looked into,

they run the gamut of everything that you 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 your investigation. was responsible of convicting, the worst thing to say was that guy was wrongfully convicted. So I can understand some of these guys and I won't mean to commit 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, 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 not convicting but

solving that crime like because you know there's no there's no worse crime than murder obviously and it's 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. Right. So, which I like about that. What I don't like is what you're saying. Like 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 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 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 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 where I wanted to make, you know, the most 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 that may 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 that of my mother's children that went into law enforcement. How long were you on the force before you became a homicide detective? And what did you want to become one in general? Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. So going into law enforcement and having a mother like mine, who was very well known, very well respected within the department, I wanted to carve my own way 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, a 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 control. And my time of 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, that was four years. I hired on in 1995. In 1999, I was promoted to, which I did a little stint in narcotics. Narcotics really wasn't for me. But I ended up getting promoted into our burglary guilty. And from there in 1990, 1999, I want to say it was. And from 1999, all the way up to, wow, 2000 and 2011 or 12, I was in the investigations. 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. Did you, were you gunning for homicide?

Like, was that was like, or gyms? Oh. Absolutely. The way that we run out to our, we run out to department different than a lot of police, some to 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 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, you know, the guys that I came up under, they were the guys that you wanted to be in polluted.

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. I 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 and, you know, I got babies now, you know, and 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 I wanted, this is something that I wanted to do. So from the time that I was in 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. 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 the world.

That experience was amazing for me. Do you have, are there any cases that stand out that, I got plenty of them, man. I got plenty of cases that stand out to me. I've worked almost nothing that you could show me 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 about how I, you know, moved through our police department.

I talked about how the impact 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, 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 happened? Okay. I'll tell you about it. Yeah. So, yeah, during that time, my wife and I were on a, you know, we were on a rough patch. I was kind of new at 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, 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. 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 guy, let's put it like that. Right. So, you know, it happens like that. So we get out and my wife, I come into the house and 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. And, 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 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 that a young lady has been, a young girl that's 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, 2004, 2005, or 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 died instantly. So 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 the 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 and said what's her name and he says Kayla and I stopped for a second you know her name is what? 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, and from that point on, everything that I saw, everything that 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, they let that daughter go out of the house just for a few minutes and, you know, a couple of hours. And now she'll never be saying 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, we're friends today. And they know my kids. her family and we just kind of connected 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 of it 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 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 uh yeah uh it's i take you 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, that's a lot of, of, of, There's a lot of PTSD that happens 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. Yes. 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 you know I've investigated murder cases that I've investigated well over 300 and may not sound like a lot but that's a lot yeah that's that it sounds like 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 ones that 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,

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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 are caused by someone that has a relationship with the victim. You know, 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, quarters of every case that you're working in this country are committed by someone that's connected to you a victim. So, 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 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 what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so the ones that, that are usually the most complex are, you know, your serial cases. And I've only had one of those because those are not, usually your serial cases are not, you know,

they're not, how can I think they are those random acts of violence. Right. This person sees someone that they think would make, would become a, they could be an easy target. 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 a, 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 was a little bit of this. So on this particular day, this girl had been on punishment for, on this punishment that her mom had, you know, enforced on her. She was, had 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 earlier because she was going to, a 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, her, she had been. had 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 admit to anything. But I get the witnesses in who says that, okay, they can identify him as the person that was lurking 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 I didn't feel right

about putting him in jail so I didn't and I didn't have enough probable cause charging with anything but I 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.

And 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. back then it took months and it took years sometimes. I mean, you could 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 at Alabama, which they've done now nationwide, they started taking samples, DNA samples from everyone that was in prison. Yeah. 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 random guy to mom. Nobody knew that the victim and this guy had been seeing each other and talking on the phone or 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 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 for the other young girl's murder because he did hurt the actuality 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 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 yeah, you know, he had,

he was responsible for that murder. Those are some of the cases that, you know, it was, it was completely random. There was nothing that 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, the, serial killers you know that that is the whole thing that 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 get in the car nobody sees them get in the car they find the body like how are you gonna how are you going to how are you going to track this back to one of the 10,000 truck stop

that boy drove drove through through that date 10,000 trucks that drove through right Yes, that's exactly right. Without something like DNA, that's why they get away with so many. I always love the books. Do you ever read James Patterson where he's got Detective Cross? Uh-huh. Yeah. The homicide, I forget the name of his nemesis, but they always make him seem so, you know,

of course 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, you know, 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, right. Yeah. I mean, you know, look, 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 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 still 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 it's just like extreme

bored and boredom with these spikes of adrenaline 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 yes 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, yeah, right.

You're running right. I would feel like I had solved the case. I'm running around and going, oh, my gosh, she was driven and black versus many days, you know, whatever it would. It always works out like that, man. You know, we would have, there would be days like we would be going for for two or three days.

I remember I had a case on first 48, a couple 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 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 a murderer inside her house. And then the store and got gas and poured gas all around the house, set the house on fire, tried to burn the body up. Done the same 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 a homicide cases which you normally can't use. I thought this was 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 imperfect child. So we just, we go, we run for hours and hours and hours. And then we ended up locating a child, you know, at a friend of hers house. So, you know, and then we go back into the routine of investigating the case. And maybe two or three hours after that, we get a big, we either where the victim's property may have been or whatever. You know, we run and go start investigating that portion.

So that's like that's, you're, you're very right that that's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, 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 mind. mindset to do it like that. Uh, um, man, I was gonna, I, I, I, I, you had said something and shoot. Now I can't remember. Um, yeah, uh, so, oh, no, it was. We've, um, I was, we just, um, about, you know, your, your, your co-defendant getting arrested.

And it was always like, well, you know, you know, you're always going to say something. No, he's not going to say another. He'll say something. No, he won't. And I say, 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've not remember this joke, but he teed me out so bad. He was just the hard, and he wanted to be so hard.

That's like, look, man, you charged with Cal, the murder. You know, he'll believe that yourself. I'm too pretty 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, posted on the on this show and I'm like I was ticked off about that case myself because you know they 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 them go he doesn't have a bog 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, hey, hey, Detective Anderson, 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, Van Boe, 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 had happened. But yeah, 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 and so violent. But when you get them in that room, in that box, that's what we called at 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. They'll tell you about crimes that they've committed that. You didn't even know that they were responsible for 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, you can't possibly think you're going to talk your way out of it. I mean, they do.

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 in Alabama, it 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 it's how we did it. 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 your, 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-defendant is 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, 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 could help me get 400,000. You got me get 800. He's like, I'll split it with you. He's, all you 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. 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. 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. 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 record. 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, it doesn't, they're going to read my record. They're going to read the transcripts. They're going to see that you, you've come down here. They're going to see that both our phones were at our Starbucks for 45 minutes. I said, 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 defense.

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 we're, the. electronic surveillance alone connects everyone.

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 on multiple cases to you. I mean, the case that, the cases 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 is 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 we, that I arrested for Kayla's murder, they were responsible for. 12 other carjackers because that's how she got murdered. They were trying to carjack her vehicle.

And they were responsible for 12 other carjackings, 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 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.

Yeah, 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 the, 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 you 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 it's 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, 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 talking about like the 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 are reasonable doubt. It was going to say, what was the term transference where you... Yeah, transference. Yeah. That theory.

is the, it's called the Lecar principle. But, yeah, that's what he speaks of. It's, especially like skin sales from your hand and things of that nature that can be pulled. You know, you need a minimal amount of skin sales 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 a 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 wrongfully convicted. 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, oh man umpson it was i think it was a murder or a serial killer and uh i think it was like california or something like that uh that they were able to connect his uh his DNA or a 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 bet that was still that was still a lot of phone calls a lot of phil i don't paid a lot of ways a lot of you know somebody and he absolutely 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 then 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 deep.

Maybe a relative. Okay, run it again. Yeah. Yeah. It is, yeah, the technology and investigations is completely going to way in a direction that me when I was working cases, I never would have imagined it doing 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 I would love to see Saw finished, you know, a lot, quite a few.

So what are you doing now? So right now I serve as the chief of police at Talladega College. It's my alma mater. And, you know, of course, all campus police departments have. They're all in particular police departments. And I was, you know, I was blessed enough to get the opportunity did it go back and work at my, my institution 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 could

help out with the security measures there. And I love policing at a 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 uh so uh yeah and i'm i'm an instructor i also teach uh criminal investigations there at college okay perfect yeah man yeah man it's it's been a great it's been a great rise since retiring um okay so any no in any any any so there was though you were on the first 48 and then you did reasonable doubt was that yeah okay my memory's horrible so reasonable doubt so I mean are there are there any other projects along those lines like are 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, it was great. It wasn't just television. It's really, we would try 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, you know, 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 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 dude, man. Katie and I, we actually met on the media circuit doing podcasts and our publicists put us together, man, to talk about 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 to 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 me 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 listen, what a horrible podcast. Like, I mean, they're in tears. I'm in tears. Like, I'm borderline, I borderline cried most of the day anyway, just in general. You know, and these two guys, you know, they're, they're tearing up and I'm tearing

up. 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. go take a nap like i mean i wanted to go crawled in bed and just sleep for like two hours just emotionally draining yeah yeah yeah kady is my guy man he's a good he's a really good guy real police i flew up to uh his city a couple months ago to do his podcast man and it was 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 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, you know, 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 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, I've been two days driving. Right, right, right, yeah, man. It's huge. You know, I specifically went up there to do his podcast, shoot some video and stuff like that, and promos for the book. But, you know, once I was done, I was like, dude, I'm ready to go. I got to get out of here. Yeah.

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, I only went like a year ago. I've never been. Yeah, so we actually filmed, 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 Uncle Jody. 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, like, Birmingham. Like it's, you know, there's like, there's like, there's like, there's like 12 buildings, you know, that are maybe 30, 40 stories size.

Like, they're 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, it's just it goes and goes and goes. And it's like, this is insane. It is. It's hard for us as southerners to, to, to, to, 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

is one of those cities. Los Angeles is ridiculously just huge places that you just, you know, like we front of 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 At any point on the spectrum, you can look and 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 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. She said, you know, this was great. I'm done. I'm ready to go home. That's right. It's overwhelming. You know. It's got a beat from there.

to understand that as well um do you have anything else you want to talk about like i'll 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 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, do you have an audible version of your book? There is not an audible. There is a Kindle version, but not an audible yet. You got to do an audible. Yeah. I'm going to work on it, man. I'm going to go to you. It's funny. I can't read my own book. 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 on Audible. And I was like, you know, I just can't do it. I've tried it. I'm, I'm stuttering. I don't read well. I just can't do it. And so, So he said, well, I'll do 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. I'm like, 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 for, 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. Like, if it's 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, 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 all talking about my publicity. Yeah. if you'll send me as information, 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 thought I 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 not going to, and they listen to it 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 on audible. 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 a video. 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.