Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Inside The Dark Minds of Criminals | Human Monsters

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Inside The Dark Minds of Criminals | Human Monsters

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you know their work record is checkered by like constantly quitting and being fired and they don't live in one town for long even though even if they weren't committing the crimes at the time they would constantly move around and there's something of their brains that makes it hard for them to stay focused on one thing for a long time. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm going to be interviewing someone who's got his own YouTube channel. It's called Human Monsters, and his name is Morgan Richter, and the name of his podcast is human monsters, but I'll let him explain exactly where to find it on YouTube. It's under a different name in YouTube.

The channel that it's listed under is called Leader One Studios, because not everything I publish there is a human monsters episode. So, Morgan, can I ask you first, like, what got you into that? What's your background? Like, where were you, where were you raised? And, you know, what got you into, you know, this, this, you know, field of, I'm going to say field of endeavor. Well, I didn't have a background in crime or. law enforcement. I grew up, I live in Canada, I was born and raised here.

But, you know, I guess you could say crime touched my life because I had a stepfather who was a sex offender, and that affected my life in terms of us having to move a few times because you keep reoffending. But aside from that, yeah, there was also abuse in my life. So it's, you know, that it's a strange juxtaposition as a child to know about how things are supposed to work in the world as it pertains to the treatment of children, how families are supposed to work. But yet you know that what's going on in your life is so contrasts so sharply and that what you're experiencing is so deeply fundamentally wrong. So it's, I guess, keeping that in mind, it has been hard for me to turn away from what's considered taboo, what's illegal. Like, I've always been aware of the dark side of humanity.

And as in terms of how it surrounds us and affects our lives, you know, criminals, I once had this insight. Criminals kind of, they kind of run our lives in the sense that you wouldn't, have locks on your doors. If it weren't for criminals, we go to extraordinary lengths to protect ourselves from crime. So it's not something we can completely turn our backs on. People move to the suburbs to protect their children from those elements, even though sometimes they find their way out there anyway. But in terms of becoming a true crime enthusiast, there have been times in my life when I took an interest in various areas of crime, like street gangs or biker gangs, the Italian mafia, serial killers. So I've always been fascinated by the

taboo and certainly you encounter a lot of taboo behavior in studies of true crime and coverage to true crime so that's that's where it comes from and and then you know my desire to start a podcast just came from being a listener of podcasts and wanting to get involved and so that's how it came together i was aware true crime had become a very popular topic in fact i think it's the most popular topic in true crime uh in terms of podcast now so yeah okay i didn't know that yeah it's one of the top ones like it's like movies television and then true crime i think so um okay so i mean i knew it was popular i didn't realize it was one of the most uh popular but um so when did you start the podcast i i started that in i think it was march 2019 so i've been doing it for about three years now

and um yeah it's been growing quite a bit it's like it's gotten like two to three million downloads and then something like another 3 to 4 million views on YouTube. So it's grown exponentially. Yeah, like that was the first thing I ever did that really attracted an audience was true crime. Like within days, you know, hundreds of downloads, thousands. It just keeps growing. What was the first, what was the first, what was the first case you kind of covered? The case was about a family, a Canadian family,

the Golar clan. They lived, they're actually from my home province in Nova Scotia. And they lived out in the backwoods. So you could say there were hillbillies. And there was just generations of the sexual abuse of children, inbreeding, those classic stereotypes of people who live in areas like that, but it actually happened. And so it was, it was about that case. And that's, that's actually kind of a classic of the show, too. So a lot of people are pretty shocked by the material in that episode. Right. Do you

ever watch Soft White Underbelly? I haven't seen that one, but I know about it. I've seen the title. Yeah, he guys named Mark Leda, and he typically interviews, let's say, you know, homeless people and people with drug problems.

But he also did an inbred family called the Whitakers. Yes, I did see that. I remember now. yeah man that one guy one guy like communicates and barks yeah it's disturbing oh yeah yeah i've seen a lot of those videos and there was a woman who um basically trafficked her own son who was a little boy at the time and uh yeah he well i mean i admire that he's fearless he'll interview anybody he'll interview like a lot of people would say you know don't interview someone from the k kkkk i would interview anybody. I wouldn't. Yeah. I agree. I mean, I think, you know, to me, the problem with, oh, don't, don't give that person a platform. Like, to me, that's, that's, that is, you know, it's, it means freedom of speech. Like, you know, you're censoring something. It's like, look, if you don't want to watch it, like, don't watch it. Yeah. Right. But be upset because you're putting it on your channel. Like, I'm upset that you would even show. Okay, well, you know, get over it. Like, you don't have to, you don't have to watch. Like, that's your.

protests against this is I'm going to turn the channel boycott it yeah that's a simple yeah I don't understand that anymore and I don't think people are such mindless sheep that they're just going to believe everything that someone says um like I remember back in the day in the 80s and 90s on daytime talk shows the KKK would appear quite regularly like the famous heraldo episode where they got into a big fight and people were throwing chairs and everything and right But that didn't, that didn't result in, like, a huge uptake updick in the, you know, neo-Nazi membership. People would be outraged, but ultimately, you know, it doesn't make any long-lasting impact. And it's good to see that.

It's good to see that stuff and know it exists and know what it's out. And now you have an, you can make an educated decision based on it. But, yeah, there was an excellent documentary called Accidental Courtesy. I don't remember if you heard about that. I don't know, but it's about a man. He decided to do as befriend members of the KKK, and they weren't all amenable to it. But many of the ones that did meet with him ended up leaving the clan because he would actually sit them down and very non-junct mentally just let them have their say, just ask them where they're coming from, explain how they got into it. And a lot of these people had never actually got together with a black person.

They never met a black person. and they never knew one. And so he's made all this positive change kind of on the micro level. But, you know, it's important to have these dialogues, I think. I was just saying just by having a discussion. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

People are so tribal these days that they often don't want to even allow that to happen. Yeah. I was going to say, I would always say polarize, but yeah, tribal is good. um so what are so what are you like what what are the episodes that have been on your podcast that you you know that you you you that stand out to you that you really enjoyed well one was uh about a canadian serial killer and rapist named paul bernardo he's one of our most notorious criminals um

it then it's one of the most graphic episodes because he videotaped some of some um um of his um well he tortured these girls he killed them he raped them and uh so videotapes were made and i described what was recorded in the transcripts so people can really get like a 3d model of what this guy was like how did he have a partner yeah he was married and uh to a woman named carlo homoka and actually people hate her more because she had an opportunity to to stop it. She was his accomplice. She had three opportunities to save a life and she didn't take any of them. She served her own sister up to him. So, I mean, and it really is true. He wouldn't have been able to commit murder or the sex slavery crimes without her. So she really

enabled it all. Yeah, I think I saw this. I think I saw a documentary on this. Yeah. So before he met her, he was, he was just a common rapist. But it was through her, that he was able to cross the line into murder, into kidnapping. Yeah. They were like a really good looking couple. Yeah, it's like they called them the Ken and Barbie killers because they were both these blonde people. And, you know, they were, I guess by late 80s standards,

they were considered beautiful and, you know, had their lives in front of them. And yet, you know, you never know what kind of secrets people are high. right so whatever what happened to them well he's in he's in prison he's not he was actually eligible for parole a couple of years ago but it was denied because he was declared a dangerous offender which in the canadian legal system means you're highly unlikely to ever be released that's an official legal designation and uh on top of that i mean there's no way to knowing if he can be trusted on the streets again so he's never getting out she

took a plea deal. So she got out after 12 years, which a lot of people were angry about. So, yeah, she moved to Quebec where the case was not followed as much. So, yeah, she volunteers at her children's school, which also pissed a lot of people off, because the three girls who were murdered were all minors, 14 and 15 years old. So, yeah. He's been known to cure insecurity just with his laugh. His organ donation card lists his charisma. His smile is so contagious.

Vaccines have been created for it. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. She's not a popular lady. are there any other ones that you could think of uh so what else uh there was also uh yeah

a lot of the child abuse cases tend to really rattle people um the one one case that still haunts me that gives me flashbacks quite a bit i mean it started out as child abuse but this girl was kept prisoner in a house in London, England, by this Pakistani Muslim fundamentalist. And he beat her and raped her and just tortured her in every possible way for like 12 or 13 years. And just the things he did to her were so horrific that even to this day, like, you know, I get flashbacks and it's, I wondered if I might have given myself some amount of PTSD, PTSD just by, doing the case, you know, and that's something that cops go through a lot because they, a lot of them are kind of hard-boiled, but still they're exposed to a lot of really

disturbing things. And if you've got a moral compass at all, it's hard not to be affected by the long term. Right. What happened to the girl? She managed to escape. She just occasionally they would bring her out because they wanted to take her. to Pakistan and she had a feeling like she might be trafficked there like that would be the end for her or maybe she'd be murdered so she managed when she went they took her to get a passport she managed to like slip a note to somebody and a social worker helped her to escape so yeah she was lucky that way otherwise who knows she might have ended up dead because they have a really really serious issue in pakistan with violence against women thousands of

women are murdered by their own husbands there. They don't, domestic violence is not part of the criminal code in Pakistan. They consider it like a private domestic issue. The police will not respond to those calls. And of course, the honor killings, the acid attacks. So she was a victim of a man who came from that culture and sort of carried on that paradigm of violence with her. Okay.

How long are the episodes? They vary. Some of them are a little less than an hour, but I've probably, well, the Bernardo one was over four hours. What I think maybe the longest one was over five hours. That's the BTK killer, Dennis Raider.

Right. It was like a lot of, there was like a long recording of his trial. Yeah, so they vary, you know. But I mean, the thing about podcasts is that ultimately people don't want to listen to

short episodes I've learned. If it's a half hour or less, I find people are less likely to tune in. They want to just press play and, you know, do whatever it is they're doing, driving, working out, I don't know, walking somewhere. They just want to let go and listen. So, yeah, the people I would say definitely expect longer episodes. So you played the BTK, you played the BTK, you played the BTK, trial or the recording from the trial? Yeah, there was a so yeah, they videotape the trial. I think

they do every trial now. And so there was a part of it where the judge was just asking him to confirm things that that had been found through evidence and confessions. And so yeah, I included that. Whenever that kind of stuff is available, I do it. But it's not always available because so many criminals will take a plea deal to avoid serving more time or avoid the death penalty. So in that case, if they do take a plea deal, there's not usually much in the way of confessions or cross-examinations. They just, you know, prosecuting the attorneys usually just, they want to get that plea deal and get it out of the way because if it goes to trial, that ends up being more damaging. so what's the what is the um what's the most who is the most like notorious criminal in canadian history that you've gone over yeah bernardo i would probably say is number one um

there's also a gentleman named clifford olson he he murdered and sexually abused a bunch of children and teenagers back in the 80s so he he he he's pretty much universally despised i would say uh there was this pedophile peter whitmore he didn't kill any kids but he was it was an interesting study because he was such he was an unrepentant pedophile he in prison he would offer inmates money if he could buy their photos of their children uh he even remarked to somebody like uh yeah they'll they'll put me in jail for a couple of years and then when I get out all he need is two weeks and what he meant was all I need is two weeks to get out there and find a child like he just he didn't care he was

no remorse uh he would do it as much as you know he wouldn't let the system stop them to the you know if if he could get any leeway you do it so in in florida not well not florida sorry in uh the united states uh they now have if they lock up a pedophile they can or a sex offender they can put a community by community what they call it community violation or community violation something on on them like a um to where they they want they don't have to let them out oh is that right yeah you end up with five years and then they just decide you know what no we're not going to let a shout um it's a community protection order or something I forget and they basically, because now they make them go through with like there's a program they

have to go through. It's a whole thing. What do you think? So what do you think drives criminals? I mean, you've done a bunch of cases. You've looked them over. What is there's like 400 videos on your and there's like 400 videos. So what is the, what do you think, um, the, is there a common denominator? Is it, What do you think drives these guys? Well, you know, neurologists have analyzed the brains of criminals, violent criminals, particularly. And they have found there's abnormalities. Sometimes it's a matter of having poor impulse control. It's interesting because one thing they found was kind of with many of these people, there's a history of irresolution, like in terms of, you know, their work.

record is checkered by like constantly quitting and being fired and they don't live in one town for long even though even if they weren't committing the crimes at the time they would constantly move around and there's something about their brains that makes it hard for them to stay focused on one thing for a long time while there are a couple of exceptions it seems kind of rare when they've gotten married and had kids and had that kind of stable life there's some kind of restlessness involved where um yeah so it's just i guess and i guess it affects their sense of morality they can't just choose a moral position and stay with it their brains are so malleable and uh open to really terrible ideas um you know but i mean sometimes it's it's affected by upbringing like a lot of

pedophiles were abused as children um but in terms of murder One thing I found, a lot of them are just born that way. Like Jeffrey Dahmer was a ticking time bomb. If you know anything about his childhood, he became obsessed with, you know, animal bones and bones and gore in general. And as a young teenager, he was already troubled by these disconcerting fantasies of killing men and, you know, mutilating them. And so, yeah, it's, you know, it's never anything. they never found anything specific in his background that might attribute they could have attributed that and well i don't know his parents fought a little bit but you know lots of parents

lots of people's parents fought right uh and his brother didn't become a serial killer um so i don't think his parents were to blame you know i i really think he was just an abnormal person um it's it's interesting uh but yeah with as far as the sex offenders go actually mentioning going back to florida for a moment there's a whole trailer park where it's just convicted sex offenders i know the whole thing that's right yeah uh and actually well you see a lot of them a lot of pedophiles are in florida actually it's a weird thing uh there's a great documentary on youtube called incest of family tragedy and uh it's produced by people produced that are in florida and it's really jarring actually because there's a sequence

where they brought together this group of pedophiles. They have offended, but they're committed to staying, you know, keeping clean, never reoffending. And so he got these guys to open up and talk about their crimes in very frank ways. And it's really surreal and disturbing to just hear them, describe them in disaffected ways. You know, I abused him, I did this and that. So I'd recommend that documentary, if that's something people find. interesting? Yeah, I, you know, I've, because I was locked up in Coleman, I was locked up, or Coleman Federal Prison, which is about an hour north of Tampa. I was locked up in the

medium and there weren't really any sex offenders in the medium. There were very, there were very few. And those that were there primarily stayed in the unit, in this one unit they had for them. They didn't mix with the other inmates. But in the low security prison, there were multiple I mean there was there was hundreds of them and they would you know pretty freely talk about so I remember they used to they used to call it uh cheese pizza or CP child pornography they would yeah and they would openly talk about it I remember this you know and I remember there was this one guy who was a German and he had been talking on the internet to what he thought was like a 12 year old you know 14 year old boy

and this guy actually from Germany he got on an airplane flew all the way of the United States to meet with this kid who he'd been corresponding with for you know a month or so and they arrested him in the airport and he ended up getting 25 years and of course his whole argument was this isn't illegal in my country and the United States was they didn't care and then when they he reached out of course he reached out to the German you know embassy and to the German authority. and they were unwilling to help them. Even though what he had done wasn't illegal in their country, he was like, yeah, but you were talking to you a minor in the United States, and you flew to the United States. But these guys would openly, you know, a lot of these guys would openly talk about it, you know, and they would argue, oh, well, you know, in Rome, in, you know, Roman senators

and Roman, the aristocrat would take young boys. And they was very common. I mean, they would try and justify it in their mind. It's like, yeah, well, you're not in Rome. So, you know, so it would, but yeah, it was definitely, and you could tell, like, they all had a certain look. They all had, they were, they were an odd bunch. Yeah. Well, I remember reading one thing is that they're kind of childlike themselves.

Low self-esteem is common. I think Because since a lot of them were abused as children They say it's it's like they're frozen in time sexually Right it's stunted them at that Like if you were a nine year old And you were abused Then it kind of stunts you sexually as a mentally

And your sexual interest now Is more attached to children around that age nine, ten years old. So because you were abused as a nine or ten year old. And I always feel bad for them, but you know, you can feel bad for them, but it doesn't mean you get to let them roam the countryside. Yeah, right. Well, you know, one of the worst things about abuse, especially if it was recurring, is that the abuser will find a way to normalize it in the child's mind. And that's that distorts the child's sense of morality, which is why some, because if they think it's normal, got accustomed to experiencing it, then they could just assume, well, you know, I'm a victim now,

but then somebody else will be a victim. And it's the same thing with physical abuse of children. A lot of people who were beaten as children end up beating their kids. It's hard to unlearn. It can be hard to unlearn these things if that's the way you were raised. Right. so what about how do you i mean that's we were talking about you know um you know pedophiles but how what do you think so what do you think uh criminals like you know as far as like crime you know violent crime and well you know see the thing about killing people is that it's not the homicidal urge alone that makes people do that it's an inability to feel empathy remorse and, you know, and also a fearlessness when it comes to legal prosecution.

Because otherwise, I remember reading the results of a poll that said, you know, when asking people, you know, under anonymous circumstances, if they've ever had a homicidal fantasy, over 90% of them said yes. But why don't, why haven't all those people followed through on it? Well, you know, it's one thing to hate someone and want to kill them, but to actually do it, well, you know, it's like they, you, you probably wouldn't be able to, it may, well, me, one thing, you don't want to go to jail, but also it's easy to feel that way, but to actually do it, that's a whole different matter whatsoever. You still have humanity in you. They still have humanity in them. So we don't cross that bridge. But if you don't feel, if you feel people as, if you view them as objects and feel nothing for them and can sleep at night having killed someone, that's what makes someone a killer.

That's the difference. Law enforcement often questions him, not because he's suspected of a crime, but because they find him fascinating. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. Right.

Like I've been watching the Sopranos again. I think it's like the third or fourth time and watch the whole series. I mean, it deals with people who, you know, there's one scene where Tony Soprano's father shown in flashback cuts a guy's pinky thing. finger off because he didn't pay him the money he owed him. And it's like I couldn't, I couldn't imagine living my life knowing I did that to somebody. But if you're a sociopath who doesn't feel remorse about it, if you love money more than you have, you know, if your greed is stronger than your ability to feel compassion, then you can do that. So do you ever watch, um,

Is it Ozarks? I haven't seen that one, but I've heard a lot of good things about it. Oh, man, you got to watch that. What was the other, what about you? Did you ever hurt you? I haven't seen that one, no. My, me, you've got to watch you. You have to watch you.

Like, it's this guy that you genuinely feel, it's kind of like Dexter. Only this guy much so, his character's name is Joe. I forget the last name, but you just like him. yet he's stalking he stalks women eventually he sometimes he has relationships with them he ends up killing him but you and you genuinely feel for him you want him to get away with it even though you're like what do you know what he did was wrong and and the women like you genuinely like the women like both characters and he ends up killing her and disposing of the body and you're kind of like rooting for him to get away with it even though it's like you just murder somebody

yeah i've always liked the anti-hero like in breaking bed uh is walter white's wife skiler she's we don't like her because of the way the show's written but yet she's not wrong to feel the way she does she's been lying to uh other criminals that've come around their house putting them in danger um so she's not wrong to feel the way she does but because we like him we kind of start to feel like she's kind of a meddlesome shrew yeah You don't want her giving him a hard time because he's your favorite. Yeah, exactly, right. Yeah, so, but I mean, in real life, I wouldn't take his side.

I mean, you know, you play with fire, you get involved in drugs. You're going to attract really terrible people into your life. So that's part of the deal. You know, it was a lot of not a lot of nice people in crime, that's for sure. Right. How often do you put out a video? I put one out, I put them out once a week. That's my schedule because I write,

because unlike a lot of podcasts where it's two people who have notes in front of them and they talk about it, I just, I write a script and read the script aloud. And that takes a few days to write. Right. Where are you getting your information for the videos? Well, the best research sources are books.

So, you know, I get the information from there. I'm not plagiarizing them. I just, you know, sum it up and write a script in my own words. Because otherwise, you know, a lot of articles online are not always accurate or news article may have been updated. And then there are cases that took place, like the one I'm working on right now, took place in the 1800s. So there's not a lot of information sources for that. Some of these videos have, like, there are hundreds of thousands.

of yeah got like half a million views you know something like these are I mean I definitely need to check this out you've got 27 over 27000 subscribers um yeah this is

oh yeah inset kids who kill yeah it's been a few of those cases yeah you've seen that and that's that's another um that's more support for the nature versus nurture debate for the for the nature debate because there are kids that have those tendencies to and i mean

it's you know when we were growing up we knew kids who were violent who bullied other kids and and so yeah i think that that part of human nature is inborn with some people okay so what's what's your goal for the channel well you know just keep growing keep attracting more listeners. I don't know. Sometimes I worry, like, am I always going to be able to find good cases? But ultimately, there's no end to crime. There's never going to be a lack of serial killers or pedophiles or any of these people who do terrible things. I mean, it's like the FBI says at any given moment, I think there's over 100 active serial killers. Because I think they've gotten smarter about it since

you can read true crime books and find out how some of these guys have gotten careless, like murdering people and leaving them out, you know, in the middle of the football field or something. You know, so now I guess they're just being more careful in terms of getting rid of bodies

and taking into consideration DNA evidence. So they may be harder to arrest now. I'm actually supposed to interview someone who's got a database through works on a database it's that you know it you know the the there's a story called um man uh is is it man hunter mind hunter mind hunter that's right mind hunter uh and i'm actually supposed to interview a guy that actually works on a database that's based on that where he works in conjunctures

with one of the people that the characters the the female psychologist in that whole thing that that uh that series is based on and they've got a, like, a massive database on serial killers. I forget the name of the university that runs it. But it's, it's, you know, I'm supposed to talk to him. And it's, that seems really interesting. Yeah. Speaking of databases, uh, we're talking about Florida sex offenders earlier. Well, I mean, I look, I once looked at a PDF of a sex offender registry. And it was just, it was just one district, not the whole country, one district. And when, it went, it, it, went on so long that I realized

if I keep reading this, I could be here for hours. It was just, there must have been hundreds of pages. And a lot of these guys end up like just disappearing, which they're not supposed to do. They're supposed to notify authorities when they move somewhere.

So, so that's a big problem too. But yeah, this is just, I don't know, I mean, I have a feeling that sexual abuse of children has probably been around. since before recorded history. I don't know why it exists.

There's nothing practical about it, but it seems to me like it's probably always been around. It just wasn't always talked about because there was a time when people just didn't talk about sexual matters at all. But, yeah, it's always been around, I think. Well, what was the case? Well, there was a case where there was two guys,

Initially, when you were talking about the husband-wife team in Canada, I was at first thought you were talking about, there was a guy, there was, there were two guys that were working in conjunction with each other and they were kidnapping women and they were keeping them alive for weeks or months. And, you know, and they were videoing it. Oh, I wonder if you're thinking of Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, one of them was. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Um, yeah. And then they kept like, uh, the, the, the one of the guys was, guy, he had, he built like a, like a, like a cell or something. Remember then they killed a man? They, one of the women had they kept kidnapped her and her child and they killed the, the child. And have you done that one? I did do that case. Yeah. Really? Yeah, those guys were pretty fucked up. It's amazing how sometimes people find,

they're that person that they click with and they bring out the worst in each other. Like, you bump, what's the likelihood you bump into another guy that's a serial killer? Oh, you too? Or even worse, in England,

the murder of a little boy named James Bulger. He was, I think, three years old. And he was murdered by two 10-year-old boys. These boys just, when they got together, they brought out their worst tendencies and together killed this child.

and it's a really odd case. I think I've heard that one too. I want to say, didn't they leave his body somewhere? They left it on train tracks. A train rolled over him and cut the body and half. It's chilling too because there's security camera footage from when they led the child away in a shopping mall and you're just watching it and knowing what happens.

Yeah, it's horrible. Yeah. These are this child's last moments. Yeah, it's pretty fucked up. I'm trying to think of any others that you could So what are you working on now The one I'm working on right now is about a man named Boone Helm

He was a murderer and cannibal During In the 1800s during the gold rush And so he This guy he didn't have the kind of survival skills you need to, you know, to venture, to travel throughout the wilderness. Because, I mean, that's hard now. Back then, they didn't have all the equipment we have nowadays.

And so he resorted to killing people he traveled with and eating them. And actually, that was a pivotal moment in his life because he just thought, well, he didn't feel any remorse about it. So he didn't hesitate to kill anyone who displayed. pleased him after that. So, yeah, my listeners, they like the really extreme stuff, the necrophilia, the cannibalism, yeah, serial murder, child abuse, because I've done things that were a little, I shouldn't say lighter, but didn't involve crimes that gruesome. Like the John Gotti episode, I mean, it seems to have gotten a good response.

But, you know, guys in the mob, they just shoot people. But yeah, they definitely prefer the cases where the criminals just do really vile things. Like this British serial killer, Dennis Nelson, he killed, he was gay, he killed guys. He would have sex with the corpses and dismember them. They love all that stuff. They keep tuning in for it. And I go much further than most podcasts do. I reveal a lot of details that some people that are too much for some people, but the ones who like the show, they can't get enough.

So you know, you know, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yeah, I've seen that yet. Yeah, that's based on a guy. Ed. What's his name? His name is Ed Gein. He, yeah, he would, he was a grave robber and he would take people's body parts and make things out of them like a belt. made of nipples.

There was like, I think it was a lampshade, clothing. And I think he might have made a mask, too. Yeah, he inspired a few people from fiction, actually. Yeah, Bates. Norman Bates, yeah. Norman Bates. And Buffalo Bill and Silence of the Lambs because of the skins, him wearing women's skins.

Yeah, I did an episode about him. Yeah, I've done a few of the big serial killers. Ted Bundy, I did an episode about him. Gary Ridgeway, the Green River killer. Yeah. There's lots of stuff on those guys. Like the, like I, I, the, the guy from Texas chainsaw massacre, like when I saw it, like, there's not a whole bunch of stuff on him.

Not a ton, no, but he is on the Mount Rush. Well, the thing is, he only murdered like one or two people, but it was mostly the grave robbing that freaked everybody out. Right. Um, he, um, but yeah, there's, there's people who are on that, yeah, they're on the Mount Rushmore and I've covered most of them, but, uh, at the same time, I know the listeners that pretty much learned everything there is to know about them. So I tend to gravitate on lesser known cases. Right. Yeah, that's what, when I, I, when I write, I've written a bunch of stories and I, I tend to focus on more unique, you know, like if it's a drug story then it needs to be something needs to be extremely unique about that drug story because there's lots of drug stories yeah i did one about uh griselda blanco who was uh yeah she was like it called her the queen of cocaine because she became a billionaire in

miami from importing it from columbia during well during the scarface days right 70s and 80s yeah cocaine cowboys yep she was yep she was part of that group and And, yeah, maybe one day I'll do, like, an episode about the cartels because, I mean, that's... Oh, they've done horrendous things. Oh, yeah, they're cold. They'll kill people's children. I saw that series Narcos on Netflix. That's really good.

Yeah. Did you meet any mass murderers in prison? people killed more than one person? I mean, I did. And what's, it's funny because at the time, you know, like I now I wish I'd gone back and actually had written names down and taken notes and figured out who these people were. But these were just, you know, at that time, this was when I was in the medium security prison. I genuinely was just kind of trying.

It was everything I could do to just get myself through the day without, you know, trying to figure out how to kill myself. Like, I was so just depressed at the time. Yeah. But I do remember this one guy, what, they called him something like Old Man, Oh, Old Man Ron, Old Man Ron. And Old Man Ron was just the nicest guy, right? He painted all the time, walked, you know, had a horrible wall, his knees were shot, and he was probably in his late 60, or probably 70, early 70s maybe. And but just super nice, always willing to help, always just, just a nice guy.

And I remember one of the other guys, I was walking back to like the unit or something after being in the paint in the paint studio with and with them. And he said, you like old man Ron, don't you? I go, yeah, I said, he's a good guy. He goes, yeah, he's a nice guy. He said, but, you know, I want to let you keep, want you to keep something in mind. I was like, okay, because I knew he was in prison for drugs. He said, you know why he's here, right? And I was like, yeah, it's like a drug case, right?

He goes, yeah, yeah. He said, so he was like a member of some biker club in his 20s. And this was back in like the 1970s. I was like, okay. And he said, so there had been, like there was a murder. and so the like i forget some county in in florida had locked him up for the murder and there was let's say seven people that were that had been witness to the murder and back in the 70s it wasn't that hard to escape so he uh old man ron he escaped and over the course of the next year

he hunted down and found so there was when so he was going to go to trial let's go back he was going to go to trial and like a week or two weeks before the trial they give you the witness list he got the witness list and then he escapes from the county jail and over the next year he hunts down all of these people and kills them he then like literally like a couple days after the last person disappeared he then walks back in the front of the county jail and says, hey, I escaped from here about a year ago. I need to turn myself in. They were like, okay. So they turn them in. And then they restart the process of him going to trial. And it gets pushed back, you know, a few months. And so in a few months, they realize they're

having a hard time locating the witnesses. And then they find out, you know, back in the 70s. So now you track down this one witness, he doesn't live there anymore. We don't know where he lives. and this other guy well you know his wife says i don't know what happened to him he just one day disappeared and then another person they find uh they found out that he his body was found uh you know he got shot twice and then somebody else's uh they were you know their head was cut off and then and so he's this guy uh di geronimo remember the guy who told me this his name was mike de geronimo mike told me all this and i go are you serious and he was like yeah he so he seems like a nice guy. He said, but he had been already been to trial in the state of Florida several times on

murders and always gotten off. He said, so they dropped the charge because the state of state of Florida is like, we can't find the witnesses. So they have to drop the charges and old man Ron walks out of jail. Well, what happened was eventually like the DEA ends up setting him up on a drug buy. And he ends up getting like 15 year. 20 years or something and so he ends up you know he's in was in federal prison but i just was like they were like you understand he he'd already been to state trial multiple times like he was like that guy has probably killed 20 or 30 people you know he just happens to be that the state couldn't get him and the feds the federal government did and like and he was listen honestly

super nice guy of course i wasn't a witness against him um so he seemed okay to me me but yeah there were there were there were people in there that had killed two or three people this guy had killed probably 20 maybe 30 who knows there was a guy that didn't you say day will never describe what it's like what the experience of killing someone is like or no i mean i never because you know i stayed away from those guys listen i i went to catholic church there right the like the guy that helps the priest I forget what they

call him the he was from Mexico or Columbia didn't speak English refused to speak English he as a teenager like 17, 18, 19 years old

killed something like 10 or 15 people he was a hit man for the for the cartel they They grabbed him, arrested him, and then transferred him to the United States to do his time in the United States. There have been multiple swaps of inmates from, like, Colombia and Mexico to the United States because they're like, look, we want to lock this guy up forever. But in our prisons, he'll eventually be able to escape. You know, he's going to, like, so they'll transfer them and say, you can do your time in the United States.

and yeah so he was had a life sentence he killed i i don't know how many whatever probably 10 20 people who knows as a teenager like as a young kid but there was multiple people like that like i never you know i i i have a hard time just with violence in general i'm just not like a violent person so i don't associate with those guys and i don't really talk to those guys i don't really I can't imagine yeah that's the thing about the drug trade too it does attract violent people as well it's how they protect their interests

and you know that that's one aspect of breaking bed that was accurate because a lot of them are going to sometimes the drug deal goes wrong and people get shot and whatever and yeah yeah well you know that's the thing about like that lifestyle it's the same thing with prison like you know guys get stabbed because that's you know they get stabbed or beat up or

whatever because you know you can't you can't sue the guy like there's no recourse like your recourse is you grab a go get a knife and stab this guy you don't have to kill him like people get stabbed a lot in prison and they're not actually trying to kill the person they're just trying to stab him a few times to let everybody know hey he ripped me off and I stabbed him and now he's got they're moving him moving me, but I didn't get taken advantage of I stabbed people that wrong me. Out here, you might file a lawsuit or call the police or you can't do that in prison. So it was the same thing in the drug world. They can't call the police. They can't sue another drug dealer for ripping them off. What do you do? You blow them up or you shoot him or something. Yeah, the, and I understand

the rate of sexual abuse is not as high in prison as the media would have us believe. like it happens but not as often as in the show Oves yeah well no because I think there's you know just like out here in the real world like there are gay people gay guys in prison

and so they're in prison they they either get like a they call them you know war daddies somebody that will protect them or they can be with or they get a boyfriend or they become almost like a prostitute in there

you know where they basically prostitute themselves. So like these like oh well guys rape other well I mean they do I'm not saying that doesn't happen but I'm saying it's not the norm a lot of these guys just they'll just they'll give them a book of stamps or some some you know mackerel or whatever they're trading for whatever they want buy them a pair of tennis shoes or whatever it is and you know this guy's now this guy's going to hook up with you for so many times or whatever it is. Yeah there's this footage on YouTube of this serial killer Richard Spitz He murdered eight nurses.

And while he was incarcerated, he became, he made himself a prostitute. He took female hormones so he developed breasts. And, yeah, he would pimp himself out. Guys would pay him, that sex with him. And there's footage of him talking about his crimes and sitting beside a guy who was about to have sex with him. And yeah, it's, it was, that was a pretty bizarre episode in the history of American crime you should be able to still check it out if you wanted to look at it but yeah you're just talking about you know oh yeah we we order pizzas in here we we have lots of fun if

they knew how much fun i was having they'd be outraged you know oh wow wow i didn't have a whole bunch of fun but but yeah um yeah it's it's it's listen the whole thing is bizarre just prison in general is such a departure from just reality like it's it's funny you know I have people out here who talk about things that they think are problems and it's like I'm thinking that's not a problem you know like you the problem is is you've been out here that you've been you know you have had a privileged life and you've had never had anything happened to you you never truly had to struggle so you think that this issue is a huge deal right right now but the truth is that's not a big deal at all yeah yeah i joined a group on facebook which is about um people who are

who have been in prison or who are currently in prison because apparently they're able to get access to the internet now and uh some guy wrote about how in the kitchen like they regularly find maggots on the meat in there like that that's how bad the conditions are and so that's obviously well it depends on the prison you know what's funny is a lot of people watch stuff on these TV shows and they think, oh, well, oh, this is how prison is. Okay, well, wait a minute. That's a prison in Kentucky. Like a prison in Kentucky, you can't compare to a prison in, you know, Nebraska or in, you know, in Florida or Georgia. Like, everyone's different. And then there's federal prison. Federal prison's vastly different than, so it really depends on the state, the level of custody, you know, you know, where is this place? Are there places like that, absolutely.

But then there are also places that guys are, you know, guys are mowing yards on the golf course and they're playing tennis. And they're, you know, those prisoners exist also. And it's, and they get the rent movies and the food isn't bad. You know, and it's not great. It's not great. It's, but it's not as bad as you could be. So it's definitely, you know, it's just, it's very, every place is different.

Every place is different. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, it's just. if they're publicly funded, the problem they run into is that politicians don't want to increase funding to prisons. That's not something that's going to make you popular because a lot of people feel

like to give them as little as possible. Right. But then, you know, it's like that's true. That's true too. And like, you know, don't we want people to be reformed when they leave prison? We don't want recidivism, you know. But a lot of these

guys, they get out and like when you were released, Did you get a bill for all the expenses that were incurred to incarcerate you? I know a lot of people end up getting that when they're released. No, that's more of a state thing or really a county. A lot of county jails do that. Oh, yeah. No, I was in the federal system.

They don't do that. But what they do is, you know, I have a massive. I owe $6 million in restitution. So, you know, if they added on, hey, it also cost us, you know, 400,000 to have. you for the past 13 years, they'd be like, okay, we'll add that on to the six million I. I'll, I'll, I'll start making payments. Like, I mean, it's not going to change anything. Like, are you allowed to pay it off in installments or? Well, yeah, I don't have six million. Like, I don't have it on me right now. So, yeah, I have to be, I'm good for it. Like, no, what happens is, and people don't realize that that they're like, oh, so they take all your money.

Well, how would I live if they took all my money? You get people that are just insane with this. Like, oh, you shouldn't be able to have all money you should have to turn up. Okay, wait a minute, bro. Like, how do you think I'm going to eat? And how do you think I'm going to pay for my bills? And how do you think I'm going to get a vehicle and get the work? And back, well, it's your problem.

It's like, okay, well, you're delusional. So the way it really works is when the judge lays down or when the judge spells out what your, your sentence is, he's like, okay, you have to do this much time. in prison. You have to do this much time on probation. And while you're on probation, you have to make payments towards your restitution. Now it's $6 million. You can't, obviously you can't pay all $6 million. So a portion of my, every month, a portion of my income goes to pay, goes towards restitution. And that is, it's some people, they say, okay, well, 15% of your income has to go to pay restitution. You know, you're gross. And then sometimes in mine, mine's more structured.

Mine is like $150 a month plus 25% of anything I make over $4,000. So sometimes that payments for $300 or $400. Sometimes it's $900. So it's, you know, and then when you're off probation, which I have five years of probation, when I'm off probation, that whatever's remaining turns into a civil judgment. Now they give that to a collection agency that contacts you and says, look, can you make payments on this? And then you work out an agreement to make payments on that. Or you could just say, I'm not going to pay it. You know, there's nothing they can do at that point. Like,

if you've got a $6 million judgment, I'm never paying it off. So why would you continue to make payments on it when there will never be a time when that is not on me? Does it matter if it's six million or it's five hundred nine or five million nine hundred and ninety thousand because i've been making payments like so who knows there are guys who um you have had to pay restitution and because they couldn't get a legitimate job they ended up falling back into crime so if they sold crack before they're going to sell crack now right caught and they go back to jail and then they get released and more restitution, and it's just this never-ending cycle of recidivism.

So I don't know, as restitution really paid off, I mean, supposedly it costs like $40,000 a year to house an inmate in prison or jail. And actually a lot of people in the outside don't make that much money, but in part of it's health care as well. Right.

not that anyone is living it up there but no i was going to say you know that's for like the security the buildings the the cameras the you know uh electric you know everything else you know and the officers cost a significant amount of money to pay these officers so you know where you end up living in prison is just a tiny little box yeah like your bathroom's probably bigger than my entire cell yeah i've seen some of those cells on tv yeah it's like a bump bed a sink in a toilet and this and i remember somebody mentioning you really have to negotiate your relationship with your cellmate because the two of you can't be doing stuff at the same time because you'll just be bumping into each other that can result in

tension right well and in the low you don't even have the toilet and sink oh that's right yeah so that's even worse there so you've got 180 guys trying to share six toilets. Jesus. You know? Or eight showers, six toilets. Well, and they'll have like four or five urinals. I mean, there's typically a line at any given time of the day.

Sometimes it's longer, sometimes it's shorter. But yeah, it's basically like a public restroom. It is a public restroom for 180 guys trying to do it. So, yeah, it's not a great life. I don't recommend it. Yeah, it's funny because, like, you look at the Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufrein, practically had a penthouse suite compared to real prison cells. It was his own room with the bed and everything, and it's not like that at all. Yeah, I remember when, remember when the, when the warden yells at him and says, I'll yank you out of that penthouse suite, that your one man penthouse sweep and put you in with the Sodomites.

And he must have been thinking, oh, I better do something. I better not make too much of a fuss. I got a hole halfway burrowed through the wall. Yeah. I get removed from my, I can't have this guy remove me from the. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I found out about the science behind, you know, the sewage pipe. Apparently, you wouldn't survive because the methane would, it would blind you.

And there's other gases as well. But yeah, you wouldn't survive. You'd have to wear like a gas mask to get all the way through that. It was a great scene, though. It was a great scene, it's true. There's actually, I remember there's one funny story out of Mexico. This guy, he dug a hole in his cell wall. Got away with it, but then when he finally reached the other side, it turned out it was just another part of the prison.

And there were guards standing right there and he got busted, wasted all that time. so what are you going to what is the next one you're going to did i already ask you this what was the next what are you working on now you tell told me what you're working on now yeah the cannibal boon helm the next one i'm not sure yet but there's a lot of possibilities one thing i was looking at today was honor killings um yeah that's uh but then again you know a lot of these these cases where i look at sociological uh issues relating to violent crime they don't often get as good a response as the regular, you know, serial killer child abuse stuff.

Like they have a big crisis in Africa. And when it comes to rape, that's a huge problem there. And I did an episode about it. And that wasn't as popular as many of the other episodes. Same thing with the one about elder abuse. It's just, I don't know,

they don't seem to, whether if it's historical or sociological, they don't seem to be as drawn to that. what about i saw a america's most wanted where a father he was from like iran or iraq or something he had killed both of his daughters in the united states he moved in the united states married an american woman had two daughters with her he wanted to he wanted to trade or or arrange a marriage to the girl was young she was 15 or 16 years old he wanted to arrange a marriage to her to like an Iranian or a rich Iranian who was like 45 years old in Iran and she was saying,

I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to marry the guy. And he ends up killing her and her sister, her and her sister. He was a cab driver. They were looking for him and I'd seen this America's most wanted you. He was gone. It was like 10 years ago. Yeah, that probably was an honor killing.

It was definitely an honor killing. They said it was an honor killing. Well, my understanding of the whole honor concept, as it, as it, pertains to life in those countries is that so say your daughter does do something like that uh basically you lose friends if you own a business people won't shop at the business it's like a it really pulls a shroud over your entire life uh not that it not that it justifies the honor killings by any stretch of the imagination but they bring that belief here with them thinking oh she wouldn't marry that guy or she's wearing like uh you know revealing clothing or whatever she's

she has boyfriends she's shaming my family they they can't snap out of that so yeah it's i mean that's happened in canada too there's been a couple of honor killings here it's happened in england um that's you know a lot of those people have a hard time adjusting to life in the west for sure it it's insane it's insane Yeah, one thing it was kind of harrowing was the acid attack victims. So in Pakistan, a guy might ask a girl to marry him, but she might say no. Well, then he might come around later with a little canister like muriatic acid, hydrochloric acid, throw it in her face. And then usually they're just totally disfigured because the skin will melt like something out of a horror movie.

And their lives are just ruined. Not only will they never get married, but a, you know, a single one, woman in a place like that doesn't do well. And of course, and then there's being judged by people because of the way they look. So, yeah, those are interesting stories to me, but most of my audience doesn't seem to want to hear about it. And actually, you mentioned fraud before. That interests me as well. Like, that's a kind of crime that really pisses me off, but my audience wouldn't want to hear about fraud. Like, I think, I think Jordan, Fort is a douchebag that I like the movie, the Wolf of Wall Street, but I think it, I think it

kind of sugarcoated his legacy. I think it portrayed him as a as a cool guy and a better person than he really was because, you know, people, senior citizens lost their life savings because of that guy. It was all, it was all scam. So, you know, I don't, and people just generally tried to rip people off, but that's not a hugely popular topic and true crime, unfortunately. Right. Where'd you get your shirt?

My shirt. Oh, I just ordered that from on, it was online. It was like a Hawaiian shirt company. With skulls on it? Yeah, yeah. I, uh, I even have like a black, like tropical tree shirt as well. They make, they don't just make

Hawaiian shirts like the one weird owl wears anymore. They've gotten more. they've gotten more creative okay anything else you know anything you want to talk about or pitch or see in terms of pitching well you know

I released episodes every Monday or Tuesday on the download platforms they come out a little earlier on YouTube so quite often on the weekend well yeah it's you know there will certainly be more to come a lot more

that came from. Do you have a Patreon? I do. Though I'm encouraging people now to donate money to what's called Human Monsters Premium where they can get things like bonus episodes and other rewards for joining. Whereas with Patreon, they make donations and that's nice. But with Human Monsters Premium, they actually get some things in return right yeah well with patreon you can you can like well i have a patreon i upload all my videos um like a week or two early so your patreon you get it you get advanced access and i also do things like i i have different tiers like depending on what tier you're on you might get you know every i have one tier where every uh once a month you know i give them a painting

like a painting of a con man and I did Jordan Belford and that's next month Oh really? You interviewed him? No, no. I just have a painting. I have a painting of him. Oh, painting. Oh, okay. Right, so I issue a painting.

So once a month you get a painting A little tiny. It's a small painting about the, of different con men. So that's for Patreon. So, but you're doing yours through, is yours through YouTube or is it?

The Patreon is just a standard thing at the Patreon site for later one studios but they donate it because of Human Monsters. Human Monsters premium, the link is usually included in the episodes of the show. Hey, I appreciate you guys checking me out.

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