Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Inside The Mind Of The Worst Criminals | Human Monsters

Episode Date: July 22, 2023

Inside The Mind Of The Worst Criminals | Human Monsters ...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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. 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. 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. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm going to be interviewing someone who's got his own YouTube channel.
Starting point is 00:00:50 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
Starting point is 00:01:07 because not everything I published 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 raised? And, you know, what got you into, you know, this you know field of it should i'm going to say field of an endeavor well um i didn't have a
Starting point is 00:01:31 background in crime or law enforcement um i grew up i'm i live in canada born and raised here um but you know i guess you could say crime touched my life because i had a stepfather who was a sex offender um and that affected my life in terms of us having to move a few times because you keep re-offending. But aside from that, yeah, there was also abuse in my life. So it's, you know, 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,
Starting point is 00:02:16 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
Starting point is 00:02:37 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.
Starting point is 00:03:06 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 of 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 cover. root 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
Starting point is 00:04:18 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 three to four million views on youtube so it's grown exponentially um yeah that 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 yeah what was the first what was the first
Starting point is 00:05:13 um what was the first case you kind of covered the case was about a family, a Canadian family called 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, all of those classic stereotypes of people who live in areas like that, but it actually happened.
Starting point is 00:05:45 And so it was about that. And 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, he, guys named Mark Leda, and he typically interviews, let's say, you know, homeless
Starting point is 00:06:10 people and people with drug problems. But he also did an inbred family called the Whitakers. Yeah, yes. I did see that, I remember now, yeah. Man. That one guy who, like, communicates and barks. Barks, yeah, it's disturbing. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:26 Yeah, I've seen a lot of those videos, and there was a woman who basically trafficked her own son, who was a little boy at the time. And, 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 KKK. k k i would interview anybody i wouldn't yeah i 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 um you know it's
Starting point is 00:06:58 it's it's freedom of speech like you know you're you're censoring something it's like look if you don't want to watch it like don't watch it yeah right 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 protest against this is i'm going to turn the channel boycott it yeah that's a simple yeah 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 haroldo episode where they got into a big fight and people
Starting point is 00:07:42 throwing chairs and everything. Right. But that didn't, that didn't result in like a huge uptake, up dick in the, you know, neo-Nazi membership. Right. 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.
Starting point is 00:08:04 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's not. 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
Starting point is 00:08:27 because he would actually sit them down and very non-junt 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've never met a black person. They never knew one. And so he's made all this positive change kind of on the micro level.
Starting point is 00:08:51 But, you know, it's important to have these dialogues, I think. Right. 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.
Starting point is 00:09:12 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, that stand out to you that you really enjoyed? Well, one was about a Canadian serial killer and rapist named Paul Bernardo. He's one of our most notorious criminals. And it's one of the most graphic episodes because he videotaped some of his, some 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 stop it she was his
Starting point is 00:10:12 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
Starting point is 00:11:08 you never know what kind of secrets people are hiding 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.
Starting point is 00:11:47 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.
Starting point is 00:12:23 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 patron she's not a popular lady uh 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
Starting point is 00:13:16 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 she had a feeling like she might be traffic there like that would be the end for her or maybe she'd be murdered so she
Starting point is 00:14:12 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 um so yeah she was lucky that way otherwise who knows she might have ended up dead because they have a really really serious issue at 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.
Starting point is 00:14:59 yeah okay how how long are the episodes um they vary um some of them are a little less than an hour but i've probably well the bernardo one was over four hours um 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 uh i mean the thing about podcast 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.
Starting point is 00:15:47 They just want to let go and listen. So, yeah, the people I would say definitely expect longer episodes. so you played the BTK um you played the BTK uh trial or the recording from the trial yeah there there was uh so yeah they videotape the trial as i think they do every trial now and um 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
Starting point is 00:16:38 plea deal, there's not usually much in the way of confessions or cross-examinations. They just do, 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 damage. So what's the, what is the, 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. 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's pretty much universally despised i would say uh there was this pedophile peter whitmore
Starting point is 00:17:30 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 he would do it as much as you know he wouldn't let the system stop him to the you know if he could get any leeway you do it so in in florida not well not florida sorry in the united states they now have if they lock up a pedophile
Starting point is 00:18:21 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, there's like 400 videos. So what is the, what do you think, um, the, is there a common
Starting point is 00:19:17 denominator? Is it like what's drive? 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.
Starting point is 00:20:08 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 had that 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 but in terms of murder one thing i found a lot of them are just born that way like geoffrey dammer 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
Starting point is 00:21:05 teenager he he was already troubled by these disconcerting fantasies of killing men and you know mutilating them and so yeah it's uh you know there was 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 there's a whole place in jam that's
Starting point is 00:21:59 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 to family tragedy. And 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
Starting point is 00:22:51 yeah i you know i've i've because i was locked up in colman uh i was locked up or colman federal prison which is about an hour north of tampa uh 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 um 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 c 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.
Starting point is 00:23:49 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 embassy and to the German authorities 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
Starting point is 00:24:33 about it, you know, and they, they would argue, oh, well, you know, in Rome, in, you know, Roman senators and Roman, the aristocrat would take young boys. And, and they was very common. I mean, he, they just, 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 then 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 child like themselves um low self-esteem is common um 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
Starting point is 00:25:28 and you were abused then it kind of stunts you sexually as a as a 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, the thing, one of the worst things about abuse, especially if it was recurring,
Starting point is 00:26:01 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 if they got accustomed to to experiencing it then they could just assume well you know i'm a victim now but then somebody else will be a victim um 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 uh 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
Starting point is 00:26:48 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 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, 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
Starting point is 00:27:51 different matter whatsoever. You still have humanity in you. They still have humanity in then so we don't cross that bridge. But if you don't, if you, if you, if you, 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,
Starting point is 00:28:45 I think it's like the third or fourth time and watch the whole series. And 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 finger off because he didn't pay him the money he owed him and uh it's like i couldn't i couldn't imagine living my life knowing i did that to somebody right sociopath who doesn't feel remorse about it if you love money more than uh you 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.
Starting point is 00:29:34 Oh, man, you got to watch that. What was the other, what about you? Do 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. You are you, only this guy much so, his name is, his character's name is Joe.
Starting point is 00:29:54 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
Starting point is 00:30:42 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.
Starting point is 00:31:15 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.
Starting point is 00:31:47 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,
Starting point is 00:32:17 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 um you've got 27
Starting point is 00:32:38 over 27000 subscribers um yeah this is oh yeah in sets kids who kill yeah it's been a few of those cases yeah you seen that and that's that's another um that's more support for the nature
Starting point is 00:32:55 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 um i don't know sometimes i worry like am i going am i always going to be able to find good cases but ultimately there's no there's no end to uh no crime uh there's never going to be a lack of serial killers or uh pedophiles or any of these people who do terrible things
Starting point is 00:33:48 man it's like the fbi says at any given moment i think there's over a hundred active serial killers because I think they've gotten smarter about it since you know you can read true crime books and find out how some of these guys have gotten careless like murdering people 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 I'm actually supposed to interview someone who's got a database who works on a database. It's that, you know, there's a story called, um, is it man, uh, is it manhunter? Mind hunter. That's
Starting point is 00:34:37 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, 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
Starting point is 00:35:23 district and it went 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 to notify authorities when they move somewhere so so that's that's a big problem too but yeah this is just I don't know I 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.
Starting point is 00:36:14 But, yeah, it's always been around, I think. well uh 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 uh in Canada I was at first thought you were talking about there was a there was a guy 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 um leonard lake and charles ing one of them was yes yes yeah absolutely yes um yeah and then they kept like uh the the the one of the guys was guy he had that he built like a like a cell or something
Starting point is 00:37:09 remember then they killed they one of the women had they kept kidnapped her and her child and they killed 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 uh you bump what is what's the likelihood you bump into another guy that's a serial killer oh you too or or even worse um in england the murder of a 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,
Starting point is 00:37:50 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,
Starting point is 00:38:11 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.
Starting point is 00:38:23 It's, yeah, it's pretty fucked up. Hmm. Hmm. Trying to think of any others that you could. Oh, man.
Starting point is 00:38:32 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
Starting point is 00:38:47 during the gold rush and so he this guy he didn't have the kind of survival skills you need to to you know
Starting point is 00:38:57 to venture to travel throughout the wilderness because I mean that's hard now the back then they didn't have all the equipment we have nowadays
Starting point is 00:39:04 and so he resorted to killing people he traveled with and eating them and 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 displeased him after that.
Starting point is 00:39:26 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.
Starting point is 00:40:13 they love all that stuff they keep tuning in for it because and i go i go much further than most podcasts do i uh reveal a lot details that some people that are too much for some people but the ones who like the show they can't get enough so so you know the you know um 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 gine he 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, I think.
Starting point is 00:41:03 Yeah, Bates. Norman Bates, yeah. Norman Bates. And Buffalo Bill and Silence of the Lambs, because of the skins, him wearing. women skins um yeah i did an episode about him yeah i've done a few of the big serial killers uh ted bundy i did an episode about him gary ridgeway the green river killer yeah there's lots of lots of stuff on those guys like the like i i the the the guy from texas chainsaw massacre like when i saw it like there's not a whole bunch of
Starting point is 00:41:37 stuff on him not not a ton no but uh he is on the mount rush well 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 were on that yeah they're on the mount rush more and i've covered most of them but uh but 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 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 a yeah she was
Starting point is 00:42:32 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 in the 80s, yep. Cocaine Cowboys. Yep, she was part of that group. And, yeah, I've, 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.
Starting point is 00:42:59 They'll kill people's children. I saw that, that series Narcos on Netflix. That's really good. Yeah. Hmm. Did you meet any mass murderers in prison? People killed more than one person? I, you know, it's, I mean, I did.
Starting point is 00:43:21 And what's, it's funny because at the time, you know, like, 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, you know, 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, um, they called him something like old man.
Starting point is 00:43:56 Oh, old man Ron. Old man Ron. And old man Ron was just the nicest guy. All right. He painted all the time, uh, walked, you know, had a horrible wall. His knees were shot and he was probably in his late six, uh, probably six, uh, probably 70 and it's probably 70 early 70s maybe and but just super nice always willing to help um always just just a nice guy and i remember one of the other guys i was walking back to like the unit or something
Starting point is 00:44:26 after being in the paint in the paint studio with and with them and uh he said uh you like old old man ron don't should i go yeah i said he's a he's a good guy he's yeah he's a nice guy he said but you know 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 uh you know why he's here right and i was like drug i go 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 uh So there had been a, like there was a murder. And so the, like, I forget, some county in Florida had locked him up for the murder.
Starting point is 00:45:22 And there was, let's say, The new BMO, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card. And then some. Get your ticket to more with the.
Starting point is 00:45:40 new bemo v i porter master card and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months terms and conditions apply visit bemo.com slash the i porter to learn more seven people that were that had been witnessed 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 him he then like literally like a couple
Starting point is 00:46:36 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
Starting point is 00:47:24 and then somebody else's uh they were you know their head was cut off and then and so he's this guy DeGeronimo. I remember the guy who told me this. His name was Mike DeGeronimo. Mike told me all this. And I go, are you serious? And he was like, yeah. 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 or 20 years or something. And so he ends up, you know, he was in federal prison. But I just was like, they were like, you understand, 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
Starting point is 00:48:32 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 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 Did you say Daniel never describe what it's like, what the experience of killing someone is like? No, I mean, I never, because, you know, I stayed away from those guys. Listen, I went to Catholic Church there, right? The, like the guy that helps the priest, I forget what they call him. He was from Mexico or Columbia, didn't speak English, refused to speak English, refused to
Starting point is 00:49:22 speak English, he as a teenager, like 17, 18, 19 years old, killed something like 10 or 15 people. He was a hitman for the, for the cartel. 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 we're in our prisons he'll eventually be able to escape you know he's going to like so they'll transfer them to say you can do your time in the united states um and uh yeah so he was had a life sentence uh he killed i i don't know how many whatever probably 10 20 people who knows as as a teenager like as a young kid but there was multiple
Starting point is 00:50:16 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's one aspect of breaking bed that was accurate because a lot of them are going to sometimes the drug deal goes wrong
Starting point is 00:50:49 and people get shot and whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, that's the thing about like that lifestyle. 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. know, hey, he ripped me off and I stabbed him. And now they're moving him or they're moving me, but I didn't get taken advantage of I stabbed people that wronged 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.
Starting point is 00:51:41 They can't sue another drug dealer for ripping them off. What do you do? You blow him 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 to believe like it happens but not as often as in the show of ours 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
Starting point is 00:52:20 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 is now this guy is 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 Speck. He murdered eight nurses.
Starting point is 00:52:58 And while he was incarcerated, he became, he made himself a prostitute. He took female hormones so he could help breasts. And, yeah, he would pimp himself out. Guys would pay him, they have 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 uh it was that was a pretty bizarre episode in uh history of american crime you should be able to still check it out if you wanted to look at it but yeah he's just talking about you know oh yeah we we order pizzas in here we we have lots of fun if they knew
Starting point is 00:53:37 how much fun i was having they'd be outraged you know wow wow i didn't have a whole bunch of fun but but yeah um yeah it's it's listen the whole thing is bizarre just prison in general is such a departure from just reality like uh 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 now. But the truth is, that's not a big deal at all. Yeah, I joined a group on Facebook, which is about
Starting point is 00:54:28 people who have been in prison or who are currently in prison, because apparently they're able to get access to the internet now. And some guy wrote about how in the kitchen, like they regularly find maggots on the meeting there. That's how bad the conditions. are in 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
Starting point is 00:55:15 on the state the level of of custody you know you know where is this place like 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 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
Starting point is 00:55:55 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 when you
Starting point is 00:56:21 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 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 six million dollars in restitution so So, you know, if they added on, hey, it also cost us, you know, 400,000 to house you for the past 13 years, they'd be like, okay, we'll add that on to the 6 million I.O. And I'll make up, 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 6 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 they're like oh so they take all your money well how would i live if they took all my money yeah you get people that are just insane with this like
Starting point is 00:57:25 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 to work and back well it's your problem it's like okay well you're 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,
Starting point is 00:57:56 you have to make payments towards your restitution. Now it's $6 million. You can't, obviously you can't pay off $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.
Starting point is 00:58:53 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 I, 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
Starting point is 00:59:32 there are guys who um you have had to pay restitution and because they couldn't get a legitimate job they uh ended up falling back into crime so if they slowly 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.
Starting point is 01:00:09 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. But, uh, 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, um, 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.
Starting point is 01:00:41 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 bunk bed, a sink, in a toilet. 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
Starting point is 01:01:04 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 um or or eight showers six toilets um well they and they have they'll have like four or five urinal so i mean there's typically a line at any given time of the day sometimes it's longer sometimes it's shorter uh but yeah it's it's basically like a
Starting point is 01:01:40 public restroom it is a public restroom for 180 guys trying to do it you know so uh yeah it's not not a great life i don't i don't recommend it yeah it's funny because like you look at the shawshank redemption and your duphraine practically had a penthouse suite compared to real prison cells it was his own room and with the bed and everything and it's not like that at all yeah i remember when the um when the warden yells at at him and says, I'll, I'll yank you out of that penthouse suite that your one-man pin house sweep and put you in with the sodomites. And he must have been thinking, oh, I better do something.
Starting point is 01:02:20 I better not make too much of a fuss. I got a, 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 blind you
Starting point is 01:02:41 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
Starting point is 01:02:57 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 you got busted wasted all that time so so what are you gonna what is the next one you're gonna did i already ask you this what was the next what are you working on now you
Starting point is 01:03:22 tell me what you're working on now yeah the cannibal boon helm um 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 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 um 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 the other episodes same thing with the one about elder abuse it's just uh 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
Starting point is 01:04:14 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 a uh an american woman had two daughters with her he wanted to he wanted to trade 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 a 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 over there 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 he was gone it was like 10 years ago yeah that probably
Starting point is 01:05:04 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 pertains to life in those countries is that so say your daughter does do something like that. 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. Not that it not that it justifies the honor killings by any stretch. the imagination. But they bring that belief here with them, thinking, oh, she wouldn't marry that guy or she's wearing, like, 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,
Starting point is 01:05:54 that's happened in Canada, too. There's been a couple of hundred killings here. It's happened in England. That's, you know, a lot of those people have a hard time adjusting to life in the west for sure it's insane it's insane yeah one thing it was kind of harrowing was um the acid attack victims so in pakistan a guy might ask 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 disfigure because the skin will melt like something out of a horror movie and their lives are just ruined they're not only will they never get married but a you know a single woman in a place like that doesn't do well um and of course and then
Starting point is 01:06:45 there's being judged by people because of the way they look so yeah it's um that those are interesting stories to me but uh most of my audience doesn't seem to want to hear about it and on actually you mentioned fraud before that interests me as well like that's a kind of of crime that really pisses me off but my audience wouldn't want to hear about fraud like i think i think jordan belfort is a douchebag that i like the movie um the wolf of wall street but i think it i think it kind of uh 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 it was all
Starting point is 01:07:32 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 in 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, uh, tree shirt as well. They make, they don't just, make Hawaiian shirts like the one weird Al wears anymore they've gotten more creative
Starting point is 01:08:08 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
Starting point is 01:08:23 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 more a lot more where that came from do you have a a patreon i do um though i'm encouraging people now to donate money to um what's called human monsters premium where they can get things like uh bonus episodes and uh 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
Starting point is 01:09:09 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 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 i have a painting of him painting oh okay right so i issue a painting so once a month you get a painting a little tiny so it's a small painting about the for of different con men so it's that's for patreon um so but you're you're doing yours through is is yours through a youtube or is it
Starting point is 01:09:59 the Patreon is just a standard thing at the Patreon site for later I think it's for later one studios but they donate it because of human monsters human monsters premium
Starting point is 01:10:13 the link is usually included in the episodes of the show Hey I appreciate you guys checking me out and if you like the video do me a favor and hit the subscribe button hit the bell
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