Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - True Stories Turned Into Horror Films

Episode Date: October 12, 2024

Christopher P. Garetano shares his stories from different movies and life experiences like Texas chainsaw massacre. Chris IG https://www.instagram.com/garetano7/?hl=en Chris’s Podcast https://ope...n.spotify.com/show/4C6dO07KWBPX6dB5BqhgWr?si=92iYRJCuTIW-TTQdjMYSbg Follow me on all socials! Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/matthewcoxitc Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxcrime Follow my 2nd channel - Inside The Darkness! https://www.youtube.com/c/InsidetheDarknessAutobiographies Want to be a guest? Send me an email here! insidetruecrime@gmail.com Want a custom Con man painting shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/insidetruecrime Get a custom painting done by me! Check out my link! https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to True Crime Podcasts anywhere! https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my prison story books here! https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Cox/e/B08372LKZG Support me here! Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 You've heard about the gentleman who cut the other gentleman's head off on a bus in Canada. You heard that story? And both my girlfriend and I at the time had this really dark feeling. And I said to her, this guy, this guy scamming people, maybe even killing people. And the little kid, again, looked like he was. He was like a ghost. She started crying. That's how intense.
Starting point is 00:00:25 And the guy didn't do anything wrong. He was just saying, can I please get a ride out east? And I said, I saw you last summer. You said the same thing to me. Would you car break down again? And he just kind of scurried away with his kid. Hey, this is Matt Cox. And I'm here speaking with Christopher Garantano.
Starting point is 00:00:50 And he is a filmmaker, producer, director, and writer. And basically, he's done stuff. on really a bunch of conspiracy theory type shows. And, well, anyway, we'll let him tell you what's going on. So check this out. What's going on? I just got back from Texas shooting a movie. And I grew up watching a lot of horror films
Starting point is 00:01:20 because my parents owned a video store when I was a kid. And one of the main leads in that movie was Lou Temple. he was in The Walking Dead and a lot of Tony Scott movies like Unstoppable and deja vu and stuff like that but the other person was Edwin neal and he played a murderer probably the most terrifying one in the texas chainsaw massacre and he scared the hell out of me when i was a kid and i got to direct him in some scenes and it was you know for a kid growing up loving horror films or at least having this kind of um you know you it repels and attracts you at the same time when you're a kid, you're into special effects makeup, and you're into the whole air of the horror film.
Starting point is 00:02:03 But something about Edwin Neal gave me nightmares when I was a kid. To direct that guy in a movie was definitely a personal dream. Most people probably don't even know who the hell he is, but, you know, it was something else. Directing him in Texas. I've known him for a while, but I finally had a chance to work with him. So that's one of the things that's happening. And I'm in the editing stages for that movie right now. What's the name of the movie?
Starting point is 00:02:29 Name of the movie is called Love Bugs. I'm not the writer. The writer is Heidi James. She won a bunch of awards for the story. I connected with it on a visual level. I like the idea of it's kind of like on the precipice of the apocalypse, or kind of how we've been in the last few years. It's a Texas family living on a ranch.
Starting point is 00:02:50 And some of them are in deep depression, The marriage is in great conflict between the husband and wife. The kids are kind of running off into their own imaginations. It's a bit of a challenge as a movie maker to now take someone else's story and turn it into something. You know, it goes through this many stages. It starts off as a script. The script isn't a movie.
Starting point is 00:03:17 It's a blueprint. And so now your job as a director is to take this thing and, you know, make it interesting for the audience. It's a whole new form. And you're taking, as you do with any novel or anything else, you're taking something into your own imagination, into your own filter. Because essentially when you're reading a novel, especially fiction, you're making your own movie.
Starting point is 00:03:39 That's the script. But the way you're interpreting it in your imagination is yours. And so essentially your job as a movie maker is to take how you're interpreting this literature and get it out on the screen. or I was going to say that's why typically when people read a book and they get to the movies, they're always like, that's not the person that I, you know, perceived them to be. I had a different, you know, that's not what, you know, in my mind, it was different, even though obviously, you know, the book is always better, but most of the time, yeah, maybe in the case of
Starting point is 00:04:14 Jaws and Gone Girl, the book wasn't better. You know, it's funny, I was just going to say that there's a few books where the movie was at least as good as the you know the the book for like um fight club but then the the book was so short you know same thing would like catch me if you can the book was so short so it was easy to kind of you know bring that over and uh show that you know be able to visual visualize that or i guess recreate it because you didn't have to do a whole bunch of stuff maybe they combine a few scenes here and there. But overall, it was very much, Fight Club was very much what I had perceived when I read the book. What a movie. I liked that it got all these bad reviews from stuffy critics at
Starting point is 00:05:02 the time and David Fincher put them on the ads the following week, like all of the nasty quotes. I didn't know that. Yeah, it was great. I was just thinking one of my favorite movies did horrible. It's a Gattaca. I love that movie. That's a fantastic movie. Horrible reviews. Did horrible in the theater. I've watched that movie 40 or 50 times. I love that movie. Yeah. No, that's a great movie. That's the thing, though, but you change that Zite guys. There's a lot of people that love
Starting point is 00:05:30 that movie. And I like movies. I like, you know, I know movies well, and that's a good movie. And it has an incredible core to its message and it's strong. It resonates with certain people. Maybe other people who gave it a bad review. It didn't touch. And perhaps
Starting point is 00:05:46 they're not, they never had to fight for anything, you know. They never had to go above and beyond because really that's what the story's about. Yeah, I was just, I was thinking, too. Well, I mean, there's so many movies like that. But then some movies get horrible reviews, you know, The Wolf of Wall Street. And then it does amazing at the box office. You know, the first week of reviews were horrible.
Starting point is 00:06:07 And then, of course, it exploded and did great. Yeah, another great movie. I met somebody who couldn't watch that movie and couldn't resonate with Scarface, both great films. And obviously, it's something personal. And that's my issue with critics is that they'll take this personal quirk or something that they have against someone in their life that might be reminded or triggered by someone in a picture. And then write this thing, this scathing review. So I don't know, what was it that Stephen King said about critics in the 80s? You know, it's like they were kind of worthless, in other words, you know, he was because he was always bashed.
Starting point is 00:06:49 Now he's kind of beloved and it's a different time. Stephen King was a wild man in the 80s. You know, he was an alcoholic, then just post-alcoholic into drugs, you know, a different guy growing up with that character. And he had no truck for critics whatsoever back then. And now he's held in regard for his literary contributions much more than he was because I think those critics died off. and now his fans have grown into critics, a lot of them.
Starting point is 00:07:21 Right. They support him. Yeah, I was just going to say probably the movies I like best of Stephen King's or I guess the books that became movies are like the more serious ones, like misery, you know, Green Mile, like those types of, I think he wrote Green Mile. He did, yeah. Yeah, like those were the more serious ones are the ones that I was like, you know, this is amazing.
Starting point is 00:07:45 Yeah. Stand by me, he wrote too, a lot of people. I don't realize. Right. Exactly. Same thing. But still, did he, no, didn't he write Shawshank, did he? He did, yeah. I love show. That's my, that is my second favorite movie.
Starting point is 00:07:59 It's like Gattaca and then Shawshank. Such a great movie, Shawshank. Blown away by that movie. Yeah, both that and Stand By Me, which was The Body, was written in a book called Different Seasons. It was a short story, right? Yeah, I mean, longer form short story because it was like four, novellas, I guess, inside of different seasons. And that's, he was, that was written when he was the
Starting point is 00:08:23 Stephen King of our youth, you know, like he was a different guy back then. He was, uh, uh, he was kind of a maniac, which I liked. You know, he's a genius, but didn't really, you know, now he's on Twitter and getting involved in political discussions. And I mean, that used to, that was in the subtext of his work. I just feel like he's such an amazing guy. It's like beneath him to sit there and get involved in this step you know uh you mentioned the um uh texas uh chainsaw masker and i had watched so i i'd seen that movie and and never never thought that it was i don't know why i guess i'd seen it you know 20 or 30 years ago the original and then i'd seen the original a couple of times and then i saw the remake um but i'd never really put put it together that
Starting point is 00:09:11 it was, you know, kind of semi-based on like a true story. And then I watched a documentary about the guy that they said inspired the movie. Right. Ed Gein. Yeah. A lot of those, I think the Ed Gein story is creepier than Chainsome Asker. I mean, it's, there are so many similarities. And obviously, the Gein story inspired Robert Block to write the novel Psycho, which Alfred Hitchcock ended up turning into that famous movie. But Gein did live alone in an isolated farmhouse. He did prey on people, watch them, calculate them, and then bring them to the farmhouse, dismember them,
Starting point is 00:09:59 murder them, dismember them. He turned their bones into furniture. He turned their faces into skin masks. I mean, this is, you know, all of the stuff. that's in chainsaw massacre happened you know yeah he had some issues yeah yeah oh man uh yeah that's a it's a disturbing it was one of the it's a documentary it's it's on uh on youtube like i i do stuff where you know i paint and um and so i'll paint and put on documentaries you know and i think i've worked through but just about every world war two documentary they have uh and so you know
Starting point is 00:10:39 you know, every once in a while I'll put something else on. And, yeah, that was a, that was extremely disturbing. And then eventually I think he got, he got older and he was in a mental asylum, right? And then at some point, they were allowing him to get day passes and people in town would see him walking around town. Sure. Yeah, as an, as an old man, I think he died in his 80s. And it was such a gruesome, brutal murderer. I mean, these days, perhaps it would be handled.
Starting point is 00:11:09 differently oh yeah they have no no sympathy for like you have mental illness or something you're the prisons are filled with uh like i was in a in coleman in the medium security prison and there are guys that they just they're absolutely um schizophrenic walking around talking to themselves uh wow having arguments with themselves and um you know they were maybe addicted to crack or something and they had multiple charges they didn't up getting tied into a federal crime they end up in a in a federal prison and then they have a special unit where you there would be uh someone with mental problems uh maybe it's maybe it's just extreme you know bipolar or you know they've got um you know schizophrenia bipolar uh there's there were
Starting point is 00:11:59 guys there that had um oh gosh what do you call it that like i mean the most extreme version of narcolepsy you've ever seen where the guy's walking and all of a sudden he just stopped for a minute or two. And then he'd start walking again. Wow. He couldn't get across the compound, which is essentially like a city block long, right? Or let's say a football field maybe. He couldn't get across a compound without stopping for two or three minutes.
Starting point is 00:12:27 And he'd do it multiple times. Guys that were in the unit with him said he would be watching television and all of a sudden just fall out of his chair and hit the ground and be asleep. So how, and this is an interesting, it raises an interesting question, and you were there, it's like, could someone like Gein get away with similar crimes within the walls of a prison? And has that happened? I'm sure something in that realm has occurred. Oh, in state prisons, there's murders all the time. And there's lots of murders. And in Coleman, there was actually a murder where a guard was upset with another inmate. There was an inmate that was giving a female guard a hard time. And so she stuck another in that cell with him and told him to break his arm. Well, the guy, they got into a fight and the guy ended up killing him.
Starting point is 00:13:23 So, and there's also cases where the guards would, and this is typically state prison, but it also happens in federal prison where the guards know there's two rival gangs. And they control the prison and the maximum security prisons. they can control your movement by opening doors. So you, a bunch of guys go here, then they close the door and they open the other door. Then they open another door and go that way. So you go that way. And they would get, they would call them, you know, gladiator games.
Starting point is 00:13:51 And the guards would get two rival gang members and put them in the same hallway or the same room. And they'd be like, oh, it was a mistake. I didn't realize. And then, of course, they have shanks on them. They pull them out and they get into a fight and one guy kills the other guy. What do you think it is that changes the guards perspective? Because I'm sure once they graduate from their training, they don't have the intention to get involved in what you're talking about. What is it that eventually gets them to this place where they try to, their perspective on the inmates are that they're basically rats in a maze and they can toy with their lives like that.
Starting point is 00:14:31 How does that change? I think one, you've got, you know, about, you have two different types of guards. And so one of the guards, the guards that really don't bother anybody, the guys that are like, look, I'm here to get a paycheck and go home, you know, you guys don't get into any trouble, don't get me into any trouble. And they're not looking for, you know, to bother anybody. Then you have other guards that really have attitudes. Like they clearly are there because they don't have the, they don't have the ability to control
Starting point is 00:15:01 their emotions enough to be a police officer, but they like to be in a position of power. And so those guys will taunt inmates and pick on them and, you know, and what could keep in mind to the other problem is that we're not, the inmates, you know, are a lot of times they bring it on themselves. So you've got a bunch of guys that don't follow the rules. And then you've got a bunch of guards that have, you know, they have authority, you know, they have a very authoritarian, you know, mentality where they want to just really, really want to boss someone around and be in charge and push them around and they have control issues. And so that's a problem. And I also think that just in general, there was a study that was done by, I forget the university,
Starting point is 00:15:46 I'm sure you've heard about this, where they had two different sets of students. Some of the students were different, were inmates. And some of the students were, guards and there were certain things that the guards could do and the inmates couldn't do and this happened over the course of about 10 days and literally the the guards became more and more abusive to the inmates as time went on and I want to say there was even a death at some point it was I really wish I knew the study and it was a it was a big deal it was a university study and it was I want to say like 20 years ago I want to say there was even maybe a movie or a TV show made about it and what happens is you just you know you get into that position like let's face it
Starting point is 00:16:35 if murder wasn't you know a felony if it was a misdemeanor or something there would be murders all the time i mean people would i think people given if they were just giving carte blanche to do whatever they want they would do horrific things to one another i agree we're a horrible species yeah at first i didn't believe that and you know those movies like the purge coming out and I'm like this is so far-fetched it would never happen but I believe a hundred percent it's it's a strong possibility that have you watched have you watched any of the handmade's tale I haven't it's listen you you think it's it's far-fetched but but it's really not like these are things that are happening in other countries and have been happening for
Starting point is 00:17:25 a hundred years you know we're talking you know the women are subjugated to certain roles, the men are held to a certain standard. Like, it's not far-fetched. Is it far-fetched here? Yeah. But does it happen? Do all of these things happen in some other part of the world right now? Absolutely. And if there were
Starting point is 00:17:43 to be some type of a military coup, I very much believe that that scenario could occur. And what's funny is that after a couple of generations, it just doesn't seem that big of a deal to you anymore. Sure. I think,
Starting point is 00:17:59 is it that some of us are genetically different because I think some of us genuinely don't want problems and could get along with each other just fine. And then some of us have this propensity to want violence, want to dominate other people, want to be a control of the situation. Definitely, definitely. Yeah, some people I think are just very agreeable people. They're not aggressive or assertive and then of course other people are super prone to violence and and that's their go-to move and when you when I was in prison obviously that whole time I you very quickly get that feeling from someone you can just walk up I can start walk up and talk to somebody and realize that this guy could snap he seems fine but I'm looking at him thinking you know this is a guy
Starting point is 00:18:49 who's willing to resort to violence very quickly what are the factors like what are the telling factors is it instinct or is it something else you know they they have a i i you know unfortunately my answer is probably not a good one the like i i'm a big believer in intuition and i think and you just be you very quickly get that feeling like something's off this guy's a little bit too assertive a little bit too a little bit too you know just more so than the other people and even the the move their movements you can tell this this guy's super aggressive he hasn't said anything aggressive but the answers are too quick they're too clipped there he doesn't want to explain himself he doesn't he's you know it's yes no it's you know it's you could just
Starting point is 00:19:43 you get that feeling where you're like this guy he's he's this is a bad guy and how do you deal with somebody like that because i'm sure there's a way to manipulate that person into either calming down or just going in another direction. I think most people there's a way to manipulate them. Not everybody, but right, like most people, you know, you do, gosh, what was his name? He was a con man. He came up with the con man.
Starting point is 00:20:10 They're like rules of the con. Oh, shoot. I even did a painting of him. He sold the Eiffel Tower twice. Oh, what's his name? He wants Khan Bank of America out of 250,000. dollars using nothing but a fake ID and his charm he is the most interesting man in the world I don't typically commit crime but when I do it's bank frog
Starting point is 00:20:39 stay greedy my friends support the channel join Matthew Cox's Patreon anyway he had a list he had a list of like how to basically how to to endear yourself to someone in order to con them and gain their trust. And it was that you ask them a lot of questions about themselves. People love to talk about themselves. And then you find out what their religious points of view are and you agree with them. You take on those. You find out what their stance on politics are and you agree with you. You just become very agreeable with everything that they say. You do not argue. And then he had certain things that you didn't you don't ever bring up or talk about and if they did then you just smile and kind of
Starting point is 00:21:27 agree but you don't ever feed into it like i think he talks about like if they if they talk about their sexual conquest or sex you smile and nod but don't play into it too much like he had a whole list of them it was like 10 10 rules of the con or something what was his name i can't believe it he sold the eyeful tower twice he was i mean that's that that's amazing con man that sold the Eiffel Tower. What is his name? Oh, I know. Okay.
Starting point is 00:21:57 Yeah, Victor Lusting. Victor Lusting. Yes. So it seems like if you play to the ego and not blatantly, you know, because then sometimes people are sharp and they're like, what are you trying to do? Oh, yeah. You have to be good at it, right? Yeah. You know.
Starting point is 00:22:15 And then obviously, I mean, you know, you know, you know. the problem is is that not everybody can even do that. I mean, how many people do you know that just cannot be agreeable? Like, they have to argue about everything. Even if it's in their best interest, they cannot not argue about things. Sure. I know people that, you know, you're in a room with them and they need to be the loudest one, even if their voice isn't particularly loud, they need to be noticed constantly. And usually you know that that's out of insecurity. Like, they need that they need it it's the same thing with narcissism or arrogance it's all out of insecurity right like sure now would you say in prison it's it's a large collection of
Starting point is 00:23:04 people like that um all trying to get that attention it depends on the i would say in the low security where there's more con men in a low security prison i was in a medium for three years and then i went to i went to a low security and the low security you tend to get a lot of these non-violent not a lot but you do get a lot of you know white-collar criminals like kind of like jordan belford you know like jordan belford's not going to get into a fight with you he's not going to get an argument with you um i mean a physical you know physical altercation but he's extremely um extremely agreeable he's you know he very it's very easy for him to lure you in and coerce or or convince you or manipulate you in
Starting point is 00:23:50 into his way of thinking. And I've met a ton of guys like that. And they, you know, they obviously, it's, it's almost like sales, like they have different. Some of them are more educational, like they explain to you why what they're saying is correct. And other guys, it's high pressure where they almost humiliate or embarrass you into the sale, like, you know,
Starting point is 00:24:12 it's the whole, what, you know, oh, well, I gotta talk to my wife. You gotta talk to your wife. Does your wife make all your decisions? Bro, are you not running your house? Like, what's go? And it's like, you know, You know, so you're sitting there going like, wow, this guy, you know, he's humiliating. Well, you can't afford it.
Starting point is 00:24:24 Is that it? Is it the money? You can't afford this? I mean, it's $400. I mean. Sure. And where some of us would walk away at that minute, right. Other people want to prove themselves.
Starting point is 00:24:35 Exactly. Then they get a certain type of person and they will play into that. No, of course. Of course, no. If I tell them, if I want to do it, I can, I can afford that. Of course. Next thing, you know, they're signing papers for a car they don't even want. Sure.
Starting point is 00:24:49 And you think about serial killers like Ted Bundy who would simply walk up to someone on a beach. I mean, this woman was sitting on her towel and he has a fake sling on his arm. And he goes up to her and says, hey, can you help me move this boat? Wow. I mean, right? Like, what about, oh, gosh. I always, it's funny. I, did you read the book, Girl with the Dragon Tass?
Starting point is 00:25:19 tattoo. I saw the David Fincher movie. I didn't see the original and I didn't read the book. Okay, same thing. The scene is in the movie where he goes, where the Blum Quest or whatever his name is, the reporter, where they, he catches him like outside of his house and he says, come on in. He knows something's wrong. He believes this guy's a serial killer. Sure. He knows he's dangerous. He and yet he's more offended he doesn't want to hurt his feelings or be embarrassed or so he goes into the house with the serial killer and the guy pulls a gun on him and obviously you know tries to kill him it's like it that's the kind of thing like that kills me like i forget what the serial killer's name was but he actually had pulled over got a flat tire had pulled over changed the tire with his
Starting point is 00:26:12 victim in the car got out and went to go open the door and he had locked his key in the car and he told the victim open the door and she leans over and opens the door for him you're locked in the car with the keys he's changed the what are you doing and he he said oh i killed her within an hour was that the zodiac or no no i don't think it was the zodiac okay because they obviously they didn't catch him so he could this guy actually told the story oh boy where he was like yeah he's like you know i would just ask somebody to get in the car or i would tell him hey you know i i I'm here to pick you up for whatever the reason is, you know, your mother told me and they'd get in. He's like, I don't know their mother name.
Starting point is 00:26:54 I don't know anything. I get in the car and take them somewhere and, you know, rape them and kill them, leave their body somewhere. I encounter, okay, you know, you've heard about the Long Island serial killer. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Still have it. Still at large.
Starting point is 00:27:10 No, he hasn't been caught. He's been suspected to be law enforcement for a while, but they haven't been able to prove that. And I feel like I ran into him two different summers. So I'm walking around the town of Smithtown. This is years ago. And this guy comes up and he has a kid with him. The kid has hollow eyes. Like the kid looks like he's not even there.
Starting point is 00:27:34 And I remember seeing this child and I'm like, there's something wrong here. And the guy's walking up to people saying, listen, my car broke down. Can you give me a ride out east? to my home so I can get my second key so I can talk to my wife and he has this little boy with him and I just had like you said I had a really bad feeling and I was walking around with my girlfriend at the time in town town was crowded people were moving in and out of restaurants and bars and you know having a good time and he's walking up to people with this kid and I looked at him I said sorry man he's like I'll pay you $50 can you just drive me out east and I'm like good yeah I
Starting point is 00:28:16 said, no, man, not a good idea. So throughout the following year, these murders keep happening. Some bodies were found in the place that he wanted to drive through, which was a pine baron type area. Okay. There were torsos found there. So then the following summer, same guy, same kid, same story, comes up to me again. And both my girlfriend and I at the time had this really dark feeling and I said to her that this guy they're this guy scamming people maybe even killing people and the little kid
Starting point is 00:28:52 again looked like he was he was like a ghost she started crying that's how intense and the guy didn't do anything wrong he was just saying can I please get a ride out east and I said I saw you last summer you said the same thing to me would you car break down again and he just kind of scurried away with this kid
Starting point is 00:29:09 oh something's wrong is it possible that he was using this kid to disarm people Didn't the BTK killer or one of those guys use a child to disarm people and say? I know his daughter wrote a book. Yeah, something like that, but there's that thing that you would never expect that the serial killer could be using a child to, well, if this kid is here, what could possibly go wrong, you know? Yeah. And I reported it to the police. I don't know what they did, but.
Starting point is 00:29:40 People are horrible. Yeah. the Bundy thing with the cast um and of course they they use that whole thing and uh for buffalo bill in silence of the lambs where he also has like a cast trying to get a get a there was a piece of furniture in the back of a car sure yeah he was an amalgam of a few serial killers ed gine included you know the skin suit he was cutting off their skin horrible yeah um oh man uh it's it's it's you know I was thinking about the saw series. I remember when I saw the saw series,
Starting point is 00:30:19 you know, or I think I'd only seen one or two of them. And I thought this is like, this is so over the top, ridiculous. Like somebody would build these machines and do this and do that. And shortly after that, I was in prison. And I,
Starting point is 00:30:37 and the, the pizza bomber came out. Remember the pizza bomber where he had a thing? So, I was in prison with the guy that made the device. There was like three people involved, including the guy that got his head blown off. So the guy that made the device, he was a fat, older, dumpy, kind of a dumpy guy. And yeah, he was in prison.
Starting point is 00:31:02 He died in prison with me. Wow. I spoke with him a couple of times. And I remember he told me, well, it wasn't our fault. And I was like, what do you mean? he said well i mean he said first of all he's like the pizza got the guy that got his head blown off was in on it he's like so he's like he knew what i and i said why did you even set the device he said well because if he got caught he needed we needed him to be able to say like i
Starting point is 00:31:28 wouldn't put a bomb on my neck he said it would have worked even if he got caught he said the bomb squad just got there too late he said that's not that's not my fault and i thought you're delusional no not willing not taking any responsibility see this raises an amazing question because these guys are creative you you have to safely assume you know because it's always been the word on the street that horror films crime films don't inspire crime and they should be fine and well i think for some people they do i mean there have been cases where way back you know there was a kid that put on the jason hockey mask and went and killed his first family. So for most of us, we can watch these horror films and not imitate them. But I think in some
Starting point is 00:32:17 cases, murderers would be inspired by music movies. Why not? Just like we all are. We've just, like, I'm inspired to make other movies. Some of us are inspired to change your behavior. Some of us are inspired to change your style, right? Why wouldn't a murderer get excited about watching murder movies you know and get listen when I I was making I think I when we spoke earlier and you were kind of you know we were kind of feeling each other out telling each other like hey what you know what did you do and I was explaining what my crime was so when I made these synthetic identities what I did was I convinced social security to issue me social security numbers to people that didn't exist. So, you know, that took some, some paperwork. And I actually had to go in and explain,
Starting point is 00:33:13 hey, I would tell them I have a, I have a 10-month-old daughter or 10-month-old son that was born with a midwife at home. And the pediatrician told me I needed to come in here and get a social security card issued. And I would give him a birth certificate for a 10-month-old child and a shot record showing that he'd gotten all of his shots. Because if the child was over the age of over 12 months old, then you have to bring you the child in. Well, I didn't have a kid to bring in. So I would, but if he's under 12, you don't have to bring the kid. You just come in with the shot record and the birth certificate.
Starting point is 00:33:46 So I did. And they would issue a social security number to any, with, to any name on that birth certificate. So the bulk of the names I came up with were from the movie Reservoir Dogs. So it was, it was, like Michael White, Lee Black, Brandon Green. James Red, William Blue, David Silver. And obviously, that was inspired because I liked the movie Reservoir All. That's a great movie. Yeah, I couldn't do a Mr. Pink.
Starting point is 00:34:15 You know, there was two, it was just too much. But I went with the color-coded, you know, named, and that was definitely inspired by a movie. Sure. And again, you know, I'll never condemn the content of motion pictures. But of course, movies, music has an enormous influence that changed the world. You know, certain genres of music have changed people. They change, you're changed by what you read, what you ingest, what you listen to.
Starting point is 00:34:43 Most of us won't go out and murder because of it. But even when we were kids, I grew up with GI Joe's playing eight hours a day, having, you know, these epic wars. And what are you inspired to do by the time you're 18? You do consider joining the Marine Corps, you know? So it's like there is conditioning and programming and a lot of stuff somewhat unintentional. We don't want a fleet of serial murderers, but there are plush renditions of Freddie Kruger, who's a child murderer, and you go to these horror conventions and their kids running around with little dolls of Freddie. It's a weird thing, no? We're weird creatures. Yeah, definitely. We were talking about mental illness. I had been in prison with a guy. So originally I got 26 years.
Starting point is 00:35:34 in prison. I had my sentence reduced twice while I was incarcerated. The person that helped me do the paperwork was a disbarred attorney who was in prison with me. He did my paperwork. His name was Frank Amadeo. And I ended up writing a book about Frank Amadeo called It's Insanity. He is a rapid cycling bipolar with features of schizophrenia and there's actually a documentary called Nine Days in the Congo
Starting point is 00:36:09 about how he tried to take over the Congo I think he stole it ended up being over 200 million but I think I think the estimate that I went with was 180 million but in the end it was over 200 million that he'd stolen from the U.S. government and
Starting point is 00:36:26 so I sent you that the trailer. Yeah I watched it I was pretty blown away at how far he got with this. It's it's it is so over the top insane you know ultimately what happened was he he was when they were in the Congo and he was he had backed this political candidate and they had gone from like number 30 down to number three before the the candidate in second position who was a general he ends up arresting a bunch of Amadeo's security for him. sources, including the guy running the campaign for the candidate and the whole thing.
Starting point is 00:37:06 There's 32 of them. They arrest them and help hold them for nine days. There's articles about it and everything. And as a result of that, they end up basically backing, you know, backing off. You just had, he had 32 guys arrested. Amadeo says that they weren't armed, but the, the Congolese, you know, they said they were armed. And there was another, I think, 20 or 30 guys that were in like a Marriott or a Hilton or something that they didn't arrest. They arrested these other guys who had a second location.
Starting point is 00:37:40 And then some of these guys, you know, he had guys that were like ex-CIC or X Secret Service, ex-FBI, ex-FBI, ex-Mussaud. He had security forces. He had, he was trying to buy a bunch of airplanes, you know, it's an insane. story. That's one of the stories that I mentioned to you when we were talking. I was like, that's one of those stories where he's so difficult to deal with that I can't get a documentary made about him. He's never going to really probably cooperate. And why do you think that is? Why won't he? And I have a few like definitely raised questions. I'm so curious about this because we as a species, like I mentioned the Freddie Krueger thing, it's like we,
Starting point is 00:38:27 admire these things from afar for some reason that story everybody would go see that movie and they would get a leading man to play him and oh i missed i missed the the most important part matter of fact when we're done i want to get your address and i'm going to send you the book yeah sure man i'd love to read it um and it's short i think it's like 200 is it like 190 180 190 pages it's not a long no i'm excited to read this um uh what i was going to say it was okay since he was in his early teens, he has been hearing the voice of God telling him he's preordained to be emperor of the world. And he became a lawyer. He was a huge bankruptcy attorney. Then he ended up becoming a venture capitalist, sort of buying companies that were failing, combine them
Starting point is 00:39:20 together. And he essentially was committing his crime. So he's a James Bond. Let me put this way. He's a James bond villain. He was creating a company in order to take over the world, as if that's even possible. But he believes it. And it was kind of a running joke. It wasn't something he was hiding. Like everybody that was around him, he used to say, well, when I take over the world, and he would talk about it like it was a joke. And I interviewed some of his former employees and partners. And they were like, yeah, I mean, he would say it. And he goes, you know, we'd laugh a joke about it. And I go, so you thought he was joking? They were like, no, no, no, he wasn't joking.
Starting point is 00:39:59 We knew that. And I was like, so why would you keep following him? They said, one guy told me, this guy, Woody told me this. He was, he said it the best. He said, it seems insane that you would follow this person. He was, but he was winning. He said, do you understand he was buying these companies, turning them around, and they were making massive profits?
Starting point is 00:40:22 He was everything he was touching was working. So is he corky? He was, yes. He said lots of people are corky. Lots of CEOs have corks. They're strange people. You have to be. He was, he said he just inspired a willingness to believe in him.
Starting point is 00:40:42 And the problem was by the time I interviewed Woody. I interviewed Woody. I also interviewed another guy, Navi, Knight, Naviv. I also interviewed him for the book. The problem with when these guys said these things is that because I had been in prison and Frank represented me from inside prison, he's an inmate in prison. He got 13 years. No, wait, 12 years. He got 12 years knocked off my prison sentence. So when these guys say, you have to understand he inspired you to follow him and believe in him. Like, I believe that. He got 12 years knocked off my sentence. I understand he sounds insane. insane, but you do believe him. You follow him. I mean, I don't think God's talking to him, but I'll tell you what, who does believe it. Amadeo believes it. Wow. There's no doubt in my mind that he when he says it, you know he believes it 100%. Well, read this book. Perhaps God is
Starting point is 00:41:45 talking to him. Exactly. You know, it's so funny. And this is like at one point I was when I was finishing up because first I wrote a synopsis while I was incarcerated. Then I got out and I went and interviewed several guys that had worked with him and I interviewed a former CIA agent and I ended up expanding the book. You could only expand it so much. So one time when I was finishing up the synopsis in prison, I said to Frank, I said, well, you know, Frank, I said, because he got 22 years in prison. I said, Frank, I said, you know, I said, if you have to serve out your entire sentence. I said, you'll be like 70 years old. I go, there may not be enough time to take over the world. And he looked without missing a beat, as soon as I said that, I said, there may not be
Starting point is 00:42:32 enough time, you know, to take over the world. He looked at me and he goes, Moses started at 90. So do you think when he gets out, he's going to get right back to it? He is out. Oh, he's out now. Okay. He got himself out on what's called the first, is it second chance act or first chance Second Chance Act. Anyway, where if you're, you've served more than 50% of your time and you're over a certain age, they'll let you out on house arrest. And also because of COVID, you know, there's also he's older. So because he's older, you're more susceptible to COVID. So he is on house arrest right now.
Starting point is 00:43:13 They've arrested, they've already violated his probation once and threw him back in jail for six months because they said basically he was doing the same thing. he was doing prior to going to prison, which is he was getting these large companies that were having problems, and he's going in and he's acting as a consultant to combine the companies. So they threw him in jail and they made up some reason that they said,
Starting point is 00:43:38 oh, we're violating him because he left the jurisdiction without permission. And then they proved, he went, of course, six months later when he got in front of the judge, he proved that that wasn't true, so they had to let him back out. Yeah, I mean, for someone so, staunch someone so convicted someone so adhered to his path i don't believe this is something that he'll
Starting point is 00:44:00 ever stop doing he might lie to you and tell you oh i'm fine yeah i'm done that's the past yeah i'm all better now yeah he's not all better now he's gonna he's going to i honestly if you read the book you will be you will my problem is as i'm sure you know it's much easier to get the budget for a documentary and if you can make a documentary and you've got that intellectual property created unlike a book you know i've obviously i've created this intellectual property in the form of a book but it's still difficult it's hard to go to someone and say hey will you read a 250 page book or 200 page book or even hey will you guys i don't know listen listen to it like i even have it on audible would you listen to it it's hard to get someone to do that as opposed to
Starting point is 00:44:52 going and getting the money to get to do some kind of either a sizzle reel or even a full-length documentary now that i've got the documentary and you know it's a real thing and it's serious and it's amazing now i can maybe get a series like i to me i see a house of cards type of series with this guy oh yeah that story's fantastic i i mean you would think the people in the industry would have a voracious appetite for the literature that they're about to make a motion picture or a series about. I've run into a lot of, you know, I've made television shows. So I, you know, as a producer, as a host, as a director, and co-execatives are people you meet in the boardroom, they'll gloss over things.
Starting point is 00:45:38 And I'm like, you're not in the right business. You should be doing something else. Because we, it behooves the entire company for someone to be really truly interested in reading that book. Like all the heads of the company should be like, we're finishing it this week or tonight. You know, I'm going to go read this in one sitting because that's my work. And if everyone had that passion for it, the quality of the pictures would be better, therefore affecting the audience. This is how I see it. So to be in control of your own work is so much better than to be part of a bigger company, which I've done. I've made shows for discovery and history
Starting point is 00:46:12 and stuff like that. And I just produced two on my own for a fraction of the cost, but the quality is better. And I can tell you exactly how that happened. In this case, though, I think you would need a little more because it's such a large, it's a larger story, yet a creative person can figure out how to tell that story for less and still have, retain its quality, you know. I, you know, I genuinely thought like a documentary would be a great way to get the ball rolling. Sure. But Amadeo is not going to, he's just not going. The reason is, so, you know, and I've said this to people before when I've spoken with people that I've spoken with him and tried to get him, talk to him about, you know, being involved. And he'll talk to you forever.
Starting point is 00:46:59 And he'll spin you and spin you and spin you. But in the end, he wants complete control. I want to, you know, it's not going to work. You know, he's difficult to deal with. Is there a way to, is he, is there any chance he's going to see what I'm about to say? I don't, I don't, honestly, I don't think I am. even, I don't think I'm even on his radar, although, like, he's never reached out to me. He knows I'm in Tampa.
Starting point is 00:47:24 We speak to the same people, but I do not know, I do not think that he thinks, you know, everybody's always saying, why haven't you reached out to him? Well, I haven't reached out to him because something happened. I wrote his synopsis, which he absolutely loved. And it was very, you know, he's very open about his, his, his, mental, you know, um, issues. Well, while he was in prison, he loved the story. I got out of prison and we communicated with each other through the, the prison email system. And he actually was contacting people outside, you know, former business partners and employees telling them
Starting point is 00:48:11 to speak with me. And I was scheduling times to speak with these people because he knew I was expanding his synopsis into a full-length book. Right. Well, suddenly, he found out he was going to be released. Now, he thought he had another 10 years or so to go. But now suddenly he thinks he's going to be released. And he immediately contacted everyone and told them not to be interviewed with me or by me. Now, here's the reason why, I think.
Starting point is 00:48:42 his thing was I want he wanted to be there and be in charge of all media and all you know he you know all this stuff and it was like okay well this is a book and you've already seen what I'm going to write like there's no reason to be you he trusts me so I tried to go back and forth with him about it and he he basically stopped answering the emails and here's what the way I see it I think that deep down he kind of thought to himself he was going to be incarcerated for the next 10 years even though he was fighting he was fighting his case But he was still, there's a very good likelihood that they were just going to keep him in prison. So when he found out he's going to be out, he thought, hey, this is a second chance for me. Now, what is cool to talk about and joke about and discuss in prison isn't cool in the real world. Sure. Him being okay with everybody knowing his mental defects and, you know, all of the things that he was involved in, in prison makes him a super celebrity and an amazing individual like i've never met anybody that's actually committing their crime in the hope of taking over the world that's insanity
Starting point is 00:49:51 so so but people loved frank and frank was helping tons of inmates he's doing legal work for nothing listen like honestly i will never if i've been really think about it i'll tear up and cry i will never be able to repay this guy for what he did for me because every single lawyer I spoke with on the street told me you cannot force the government to reduce your sentence. He did it twice. That's amazing. He's a genius. He is. And I literally, and I, and I, I, I didn't let him look at my stuff or want to approach him for probably a couple years because I had heard, you know, because guys are snickering. Like, this guy thinks he's going to take over the world. He's in here. like there were articles going around about him in the Orlando Sentinel talking about how he was plotting to take over like small former Soviet bloc countries and he had tried to take over the Congo and like they're going you know it's it's like it's a joke but then perhaps there's a way to I don't want to say manipulate him in a nefarious way but manipulate him in a way where he thinks he's in control of the situation yet you are and then you can incorporate that into the dock that that's what you had to do.
Starting point is 00:51:09 Right. That would be interesting. So let's say, I mean, this is just hypothetically speaking, you have dummy cameras. And he even has control of where you want to place them, but they're not recording. You actually have one A cam that's doing all the work. And, you know, he just doesn't know where you're placing what. I don't know if that's too much of a ruse to him. And that might offend what you just said because you have respect for what he did for you. Oh, listen, I'm not above manipulating a situation.
Starting point is 00:51:34 um what what i'm what i had thought about was uh did you ever see um anna and the wolves i haven't okay so the documentary is based on this woman anna whatever her name is she was she says she was uh jewish and she was um she had escaped the Nazis and she'd survive the Nazis and she'd survived in the woods in the in the woods for several months with wolves and eventually escape from whatever germany or austria to some other country and she was found and saved and eventually brought to the united states and so she does this whole story now it turns out the whole story and it's not it's not she's not jewish she wasn't saved there weren't no wolves there but there's a whole documentary on her she had a bestselling book about this it was a huge book it was huge in like
Starting point is 00:52:32 Germany or Austria. And then they were going to make a documentary about her. It's a whole thing. She was supposed to be on Oprah. She canceled at the last minute. It was huge. Well, they did a whole documentary, but she refused to be to be interviewed. So what they did was there were several podcasts where she had spoken on the podcast. And there were several interviews in articles, plus they had the book. So they hired an actress to play her in the documentary. Right. That was another suggestion on the tip of my tongue,
Starting point is 00:53:08 and I did not know about this. Just as a creative guy, I'm coming up with ways you could do this. Well, there's also, did you ever see Bad Vegan? I've heard of it. I've not seen it. Bad Vegan, there's one of the participants in Bad Vegan, one of the people that are interviewed, that is a fictitious character
Starting point is 00:53:29 but he's throughout like it's like a four part series like three of the series he's being interviewed and then in the end you realize oh he's he's fake
Starting point is 00:53:39 like he's not even real like he he disappears when you realize that he's actually one of the other participants pretending to be him and they're just reading the emails
Starting point is 00:53:49 that went back and forth back and forth right so what's happened is like I was saying I have enough transcripts and interviews and articles and everything else that are it's exactly what amadeo said where if you just did an interview where someone played him and then you could interview other people you can put together even if it's a hundred percent a hundred percent and you and that's the
Starting point is 00:54:18 great thing about documentary movie making is that you have such artistic license you know i made that montau chronicles picture however i'm what that's what's exciting about documentaries or docudramas is that it seems to be this blank slate that you could do anything with whereas there are certain rules to other types of filmmaking in this case you can you can just play so much with it as long as you i think you're being honest about what you're documenting if you're if you're staging things and faking the whole story i don't like those yeah no no i'm i mean this is all like these are interviews from him and and i have i have tons of transcripts where he said everything that i everything that is in the book is i can show you oh where to i got that
Starting point is 00:54:59 from here other than just interviewing him over the course of a couple months you know i then i talk to this partner i talked to this former employee i pulled this from these transcripts i listen when i when i was reading the transcripts that you know i don't you've you've done research on books or oh yeah yeah so he told me a lot of things about his behavior but i was reading the transcripts on his in his sentencing and i had heard him say that he would he would put on like a darth vader mask sometimes and walk down the hallway or sit in his office and people would come in and he'd be in the darth vader mask and they'd sit down he said he said he was so erratic and people were so you know because of his bipolar condition he
Starting point is 00:55:52 people a lot of times would he would act crazy and they wouldn't even say anything this woman in a transcript said they were questioning her and they said did did you not realize that he had a mental that there were mental issues and she said well I had heard things and they said did you ever witness anything that would tell you that he had some mental issues and she said well he did come into a board meeting one time wearing a Darth Vader helmet and he he he conducted the entire meeting in the Darth Vader helmet and and then left. She goes, and nobody ever said anything. No, they didn't.
Starting point is 00:56:32 They only get their paychecks at the end of the day. Right. And then what's so funny is this guy, Yaniv, said the same thing. He was, oh, you know, he would put on a Darth Vader helmet and he'd walk down the hallway with this security detail. He looked like a little, like a little Darth Vader with a bunch of stormtroopers behind him. I mean, this is an interview. You can't make that up.
Starting point is 00:56:53 This is good stuff. Not to mention, you know, if I told you all the things that happened in the book, you would say this is the most insane thing I've ever heard. But he's also making, well, stealing and making millions. We're not talking about 10 million, 20, 30, 40. We're not 100. We're talking about a couple hundred million dollars. Sure. I have photographs of him with George Bush in the white.
Starting point is 00:57:22 house in the Roosevelt room with Pete with heads of NATO yeah I mean you know this is what happens when you have a an innate super intelligence mixed with obviously some disorders probably a very creative guy and he probably you know there's so much so many secrets that a person holds that they won't reveal in conversation so whatever he told you is what he decided to tell you I'm sure there's a lot more going on, his decision-making process, what influenced him. You know, obviously he's wearing pop culture masks, so he's into movies, he's into pop culture. I'm sure there's so much more to him in that sense. You could really deeply psycho-analyze this man.
Starting point is 00:58:08 Great story. By the way, the empire, once he took over the world, it was going to be known as the terror, the terror empire, which terror is from Star Trek. right he loves star track i mean it goes on and on if you i've got to send you the book you're going to go this is insane but i really do think that the only way to do it is by getting an actor and then i think what happens is at the end of the film or the end of the documentary as he's the actor standing up and you're unmiking him he ends up saying something along the lines of you know so where's the real amaday or they oh you know we could he wouldn't he wouldn't do the interview and
Starting point is 00:58:48 you know you kind of just explain it that way that's an interesting reveal or it's either that you just tell the audience immediately that what you had to do that he is so enigmatic that he just won't do it however you have enough and this is how you're going to portray it but i like that idea too i mean it's it's all in the execution it really is you know at the end of anna and the wolves they just they just throw it up on the screen you know they just do the the narrate you know where they explain that we took all this from transcripts and from different podcasts and different interviews of her and it's a composite of those podcasts of those interviews and this person was an actor see but that's another creative thing it's
Starting point is 00:59:32 not just a way to fill in a hole it's i think it makes it more interesting to do it that way like for instance i just did this thing where i hired an actor and i wanted to see what he would feel there was a a gentleman who had died. He had fell really people thought it was a murder scene when the emergency crew got there and the police got there, but it was really just a gentleman who slipped in the bathroom, hit his head, bled all over the place. So what we did is we had this actor kind of go through the motions and then I would almost like a decompression chamber in between these recreations would have him sit in the makeup chair and then interview him. And this is for something about hauntings because the people in the house have experienced some
Starting point is 01:00:16 things that I believe them. These people normally wouldn't say they had any kind of encounter with something from some kind of world beyond, but they came out and told me their story. So I had this actor go through the motions as the gentleman who died in the places where he was injured, laying down in the place where he died. And even if it was just psychological suggestion, it made it much more interesting than these jackassy ghost shows that you see on TV where people are just running around faking it. Like I thought this was a more of an interesting scenario for the audience to see perhaps how this gentleman was feeling in an alleged haunted location where he was going through the motions of the man who died
Starting point is 01:00:57 in the places where he died. The very place where this man expired is where I had the actor laid down with blood all over him and everything, and it was just an interesting thing. And that's how you can play with the dynamics of a documentary that way. So there are solutions to not having this gentleman actually in the chair for his interview might make it even more interesting in the long run yeah and more mysterious yeah and on you know you know i hate to put it like this way you have full control because you know you just don't you don't know like i've spoken with uh another production company and you know they've been like you know we've been kind of going back and forth about it and one of the things that you know they were pushing like well really
Starting point is 01:01:42 need him. We need this. We need that. And I was like, listen. Like, you know, and he said he'll be interviewed. And I'm like, yeah, but then he didn't call back or then he wouldn't answer your call. And then he put it off and then this. Like it's just keep spinning and spinning. And I'm like, I'm like, listen, you have to understand. I spent years in prison with them. He built some of the nation's largest banks out of an estimated $55 million because $50 million wasn't enough. And $60 million seemed excessive. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crimes, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. And I've seen him do this over and over again. He says, be here on Monday. And then you
Starting point is 01:02:33 get there Monday and he says, oh, no, no, no, I had this and this. It's got to be Tuesday, or it's got to be next Tuesday and then that comes and then he says he says he'll have the motion ready and he doesn't have it ready it's okay we're going to get an extension and and and you know and he gets the extension and you send it in and it just goes on and on and it's like you know frank you said this like you know what's going on oh no no no see what happened is and he just kind of spins you and spins you and spin you and what was supposed to be done in a month is now four months later with two different extensions and and I'm like look he'll spin you and he wants to do it his way. I talk about this in the book. He has a conversation with every person that he
Starting point is 01:03:12 represents to begin with, which is, I'm the pilot, you're a passenger on your case. If you, if you, how's he called, he said, if you tell me how to fly the plane, I will throw you out of the aircraft. And I will give you all your stuff back and you can, you can fly yourself. So, We ended up calling this. Eventually, guys would come to him, and they would be like, Frank, look at this, or have you thought about this? And he would say, no, I know what I'm doing. We're not going to do that.
Starting point is 01:03:47 We're not going to go with that motion. We're not going to go with that case. That case doesn't, that's not the same as your case. That won't work. And so he would get into arguments and everyone, he'd listen to you. And then he'd get frustrated and he'd yell at you. And we called this being turbine, where we'd say, oh, Frank, turbine somebody. They'd go, what do you mean?
Starting point is 01:04:04 He threw the guy out of the aircraft into the turbine. and he turbine the guy and gave him his papers back and told him to get out and leave and he wasn't going to help him and so he's difficult he's not this is basically what i told this other production company that we've never ended up getting anywhere with it and my what i told him was let me explain something don't think for one second that this guy will not have you fly your entire crew down rent all the equipment set up everything sit him down in the chair and him pull out a contract and say you're going to sign this i want 100% control of this and this and i need to see all editing and i need to be in control and ask you to sign it knowing you've just spent five or 10 000 to get your whole crew and set the whole thing up knowing that i said don't put that past him right so that's why i keep saying even if he said i'll do it i'd be like yeah you know what let's get an actor we're better off with an actor for sure but there's also probably a way to fool him into something and then you just have to you know you have to be sharp because his logic is it's
Starting point is 01:05:14 not going to be good unless I'm in control and it won't be what it needs to be and and a lot of the time that's not true but in some cases it is I feel that way as a as a movie maker when someone when I take the wheel on something that someone else is paying for I know it's going to be best if you just let me finish the job right yeah and that's the thing I hired a I hired a an architect one time I had drawn out the plans I had it the way I wanted it I said here I just need you to kind of
Starting point is 01:05:43 just be a draft man and he goes well let me tweak it a little bit if you don't mind like I mean this is not quite right and you don't have enough clearance here and let me let me just do a couple things and I was like I said okay well you know you can do a couple of things that's fine but this is what I really want
Starting point is 01:05:59 listen when this guy gave me his blueprints they were amazing he had done things with the space that I had to work with and the budget I had to work with that I never thought of and in the end it was an amazing it was amazing build that I never could have conceptualized of he took my idea and he made it 10 times better because he's a professional and he knows what he's doing I had a vision His vision was my vision on steroids. Right.
Starting point is 01:06:38 That's what I think. That's what happens when you give these things over to somebody. Like, I can't, you know, I can't go to you and tell you how to create this film. I can say this is the basic what needs to be covered, but I'm never going to have the experience and knowledge that a real artist is going to have because I'm just the subject. And it's better that I don't. I mean, definitely in my case, if you collaborate with me, like I just went through something very similar. There's a screenwriter who wrote this movie I shot in Texas, and her heart is very adhered to every word. But a lot of the reasons why they don't allow screenwriters on the set in bigger movies is for that thing.
Starting point is 01:07:23 You're so attached to every word, but you have to understand it's going through a process now and an evolution. And much like a, you know, a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. It has to go through its evolution, and now it's in the hands of another artist, and you've got to let that be. That was the decision. The minute you said, I'm writing a screenplay, that is now becoming something else. If you wrote a novel, different story, you know, but a screenplay is now in the hands of another artist, and you have to allow that artist to create their work. And I think much too often that when movies are being made, the screenwriters are losing their minds.
Starting point is 01:08:02 think about the case of natural born killers. Quentin Tarantino flipped over what Oliver Stone did with the film. Now, I loved it. I thought it was a masterpiece, and I loved Tarantino's movies. But Stone made it his own thing completely, as a filmmaker should in a lot of cases. And Tarantino didn't like that. And he publicly, you know, was against it for many, many years until he sat down with Oliver Stone, I think, and they made peace. But, yeah, I think, you know, it's kind of like the, or I saw, I saw an interview with John Grisham. They were talking about like the rainmaker or the firm or something. And they were saying, you know, man, you, I saw the movie. It was amazing. It was this. And he said like three times in the interview. He goes, well, I didn't have anything to do with that. He said, I wrote the book. Sure. I didn't have any multiple times. And at one point, he actually clarified. He said, he said, listen, here's the thing. They were like, don't you like it. He's like, no, I mean, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, got an issue because what I wrote, if you turned my book into a movie, it would be 20 hours long. Sure.
Starting point is 01:09:13 So for what I gave them and what they had to do to consolidate it, I think it's a great film, you know? But what I did was I wrote a book that would have taken 20 hours. He's like, so for me, I still see my book and I can't get past my book. But I understand they have a difficult position and that was the best they could do. He's like, so, you know, was it good? Yeah, for what I gave them, for what the constraints were, of course. Sure. And that happens a lot.
Starting point is 01:09:44 I mean, it's rare that I think a movie maker has invested so much in a piece of literature that it is the best interpretation possible in the format of motion pictures. You know, think about the shining. Stanley Kubrick was a genius. And that movie's amazing. But King and Kubrick were like, you know, oil and water. They weren't working out too well, you know. They didn't mesh.
Starting point is 01:10:09 Did you see there was a movie, I want to say it was, I'm no, I'm going to get this wrong, 124 hours or something. It was about the guy that was rock climbing and he slipped and a rock crushed his arm and he put his own arm off. Yes. And I think that Danny Boyle movie is a masterpiece. I didn't read the book, though. Well, I read an article.
Starting point is 01:10:30 about the the kid that the real kid that or the guy that cut his own arm off he was on set the whole time right like they pay you as a consultant you know they want you to say oh i was there and and they had a scene where he drives his car into the drive parking lot and he pulls in and he parks and the sun is just coming up and you know the whole crew is there the guy gets out and looks around and walks off and they cut and so the guy's there and he says is that it they're like yeah that's the scene and he went oh you've got to redo it he's well what do you mean he said well i didn't enter from that side i came in here and pulled in and so he looked at him and he goes i mean that scene just look at how many people around here like that scene just cost us that that's that
Starting point is 01:11:19 that's 20 grand right now we just been 20 grand on that scene right now and we we can't wait another day the sun won't go back down right like and he looked at him he's like yeah but that's not what happened. And he looked at him and he said, listen, it may not be 100% accurate. He goes, but it's honest. Right. You're getting the essence of the situation and that's important. Right. Once it goes into cinema is a different thing. It's not reality. Reality is, you know, Andy Warhol's empire. It's five hours of the Empire State Building or sleep. You know, it's what's six hours of a guy sleeping. That's reality. Yeah. Nobody wants to see reality. Yeah. No, make it interesting right um yeah definitely i i think it's uh that that little clip that i sent you
Starting point is 01:12:06 of uh it's insanity was i put that together just you know i'm trying i'm racking my brains to figure out how to get this thing moving like i it's funny because out of all the stories i've got right that i've written um like it's it's definitely it's the most to me it's one of the most interesting stories. And I don't seem to get, be able to get it off the ground. I have other things that are, are in the works. It's, in my case, like I've made independent documentaries.
Starting point is 01:12:44 And the reason why I ended up getting a career in TV is because they were like, how much did you make this for? And I said, well, I made this one for 12 to 15 on my own with enough equipment that was in the corner of, that could fit in the corner of this room. And that was the first doc, two-hour documentary. And that's what got me the gig in television. And they were just like, I just don't know how you did this by yourself.
Starting point is 01:13:07 And the thing is, if you cut out all of the different things that they're using, and it goes into the millions, of course, you start to figure out how to make these things for less. But you'll maximize your profits in the end because you own it. Because now the playing field is even in terms of distribution. you can get your, I mean, the movie I just mentioned is finally I allowed it to go into distribution because I found a good channel for it, meaning I get 80% of the profits. It's on a multitude, I think about 15 different streaming networks right now. And I'm shocked with no advertising whatsoever.
Starting point is 01:13:45 A movie I had already made my money back, you know, tenfold, is making money every month, just sitting there, just sitting on tubi, weird. Right. So in other words, I just produced two new documentaries and independently for, once again, a fraction of the cost of what my network shows required. And you can do it and of quality, better quality in a lot of times because they're running and gunning regardless of the salaries, regardless of how much you have in the budget, doesn't make the show better. It's about how it's executed. So you can have this meticulous nature, make an adaptation of your book, into a documentary independently, fraction of the cost at the end of the day, it's going to be high quality, match whatever Netflix does. I will bet my house on it. And you end up owning it at the end of the day. And I think that's the way to go. The industry doesn't want you to know this, of course, because then you're putting people out of business. But it's the truth. Not everyone can pull it off. You're going to get somebody that's sharp that has done it and has had the guts to pull it off. But it can be done. And it's being done. done. And of course, the technology has changed exponentially over the years. So, you know, whereas aerial shots used to have to hire a group that would get in a helicopter, now you have these incredible 4K, 6K drones that are getting gorgeous aerial footage. And you can use those drones creatively, like cranes. You know, you don't need a techno crane exactly anymore. You can kind of use these things. Steady cams are much cheaper. So all of it's available to you. You just have to have the, you know, the courage to just take that step forward and have the right people on. your side that are willing to do it so i'm doing that right now with some of these independent docs and then you can still license it to to networks if you want to but personally i i'm not exactly interested in doing that in the united states you want to own the the territory here so but yeah man
Starting point is 01:15:40 if you want to i'm happy to give you any advice on getting this thing off the ground there are ways you can do it and with patients at the end of the day you're going to be much happier that you did it this way as opposed to allowing the network to take the reins because, again, now they're in control. So it's like the gentleman that you're making the documentary about wanted a certain amount of control. Well, guess what? You know, you have eight editors. They're in control. They're going to start making cuts and make excuses as to why they couldn't do this or why they didn't keep this moment in that you really liked. And I think something that you have a lot of passion about, which is this subject, should require that attention to detail. And you could do that
Starting point is 01:16:21 outside of the system and don't listen to anyone that tells you you can't license it to the system because you can right yeah i i think you know i'm so i i am passionate about it because you know because i was locked up for so long and i've heard so many stories and i've written so many stories and it was such an overwhelmingly unique story like you know how many drug stories do you hear about it's like yeah there there's just you know like I've written a few of them but it was I only wrote the ones that had something different about them like there needed to be something unique like you know you're a poor kid that grew up in the projects and you sold crack and your mom was a prostitute and your father was in prison and it was your only way out to make any money and you started selling
Starting point is 01:17:11 crack and then you got busted and there was a you know it's like okay that's a tragedy and it's a decent story, but I can throw a rock in prison and hit 300 guys that have that story. And this was a story that the whole time I was locked up, I'd never heard anything like it. And then when I got out and I was interviewing these guys, I kept waiting for them to say that this is absolutely not true. And they didn't. Like, they're not. Like, I'm waiting for this guy to tell me when I started this, when I interviewed Woody,
Starting point is 01:17:43 I was waiting for Woody. I remember I said, Woody. I said, you know, Frank told me about trying to buy these, like, these older F-15 and F-16s that had been, you know, he wanted to buy these planes and then, and he immediately go, he said, I had nothing to do with that. He said, like, when he was looking into that, like, I was not a part of that. And I thought, like, I'm waiting for him to say that didn't happen. or he wasn't going trying to do that or he wasn't he's no he's like no no he he definitely
Starting point is 01:18:19 wanted to do that he was definitely talking to the guys at one point they even fly in they even fly in a i forget it was like an f-16 or an f-18 i have photographs of him with them and they drop off literature wow and he had a whole plan he's going to buy like a like 20 of these things and keep them in cyprus and then the russians will come in and the russians will actually because they're they're called they're declawed they take all the all the firing equipment off of them so they're just regular jets and then you can buy them and you see them flying in air shows and stuff you can buy them bring them to cypress and they'll put the they'll put all the armament back on them wow so now you're operating out of cyprus which will allow you to do that it's just it's like he he the plan is in insane. Obviously, you know, he had this in his mind. There's a grand vision and a grand design to every, yeah, everything that he wanted to do was
Starting point is 01:19:27 well thought out and probably, he saw a finality before he started to put all the pieces together. So you want to know one of my favorite things about it is? He's doing all this from Orlando, you know, I was like to say in the shadow of, of, uh, of Disney World, you know, like, he's like, like I, I, I, I picture the Disney World Globe in the background, you know, I sure. It's, it's, it's, it's so comical, um, but he's serious. It, it's, he had a, uh, a security security detail that were, I'm sorry, he had a security, he had three security companies. Um,
Starting point is 01:20:04 in the book, I consolidate them. I just, I think I just call them, uh, I give them one name, which is, uh, tactical. I just call it tactical because there was like, tactical, personal tactical private military tactical private like he has different names for them and i just call it tactical um but yeah he had these this company these uh this private security that had they had contracts in afghanistan they would you know they hire private security to do like a convoy you know protect a convoy of food or whatever because the military can't do it all so he had one of those small companies I personally think that you should incorporate the fact that he's a total control freak and that that's part of the threat of your narrative is that you keep trying to get him to do
Starting point is 01:20:56 this honest interview for the documentary, yet he keeps trying to retain that control. And then I emphasize that obviously throughout the story of all of these things you're saying as we go through the narrative, but also incorporate you're reaching out to him, trying to get him to just be part of this thing. And then as you go along, you can have different actors or an actor start being him for those moments. I think that would be great to incorporate into the narrative. Right.
Starting point is 01:21:24 And the viewer would never know that that person was an actor until the very end. If you want to do that reveal at the end, or you could just simply tell them that, you know, it's astonishing, even show the actor's reaction to some of the things this guy says and did, you know, like you're incorporating that reaction. You know, I think that's what it's all about is this. You have this outrageous character who, and again, it's open-ended. He might, by the time you're finished making the movie, he might finally say, okay. And he sits down at the end, as opposed to anything else.
Starting point is 01:21:57 You might finally get him to say some words significantly in the last act. Right. You know, I'm sure there's a way to do it. Yeah, I need to start, I need to really start, you know, trying. I need to get some traction on it. Sure. What was the series that you did with, was it Discovery Channel? Yeah, one of them, yeah.
Starting point is 01:22:19 It was called Strange World. Right now it's my Off to the Witch podcast, which is mostly, you know, arcane subjects. It ranges everything from two paranormal stories to violent motion pictures, to I have an episode coming up about a gentleman who invented a technique on how to kill in self-defense with a knife. And it's starting to gain a lot of traction in the martial arts world,
Starting point is 01:22:47 but it's not exactly martial arts. And he's literally teaching people how to murder to defend yourself. And that's interesting, because a lot of self-defense courses are more about deflecting, getting away. This is literally how to kill to get away. And I found that to be quite interesting.
Starting point is 01:23:05 And he's somebody that I'll have on soon. I interviewed a gentleman who was James Dean's biography, biographer who covered the tragedy that, you know, Dean died very young in a crash with the Porsche 550 spider. But after that, that spider, which was called Little Bastard, went on to be part of several other accidents that killed people because people were cannibalizing parts of the car. So there's this word that it was cursed. And in about, I think about 60 years ago, the car disappeared and little pieces here and there were showing up and some are at museums and so it's it's about that curse that follows the little bastard and the mystery as to why it disappeared who stole it
Starting point is 01:23:50 where did it go where is it now how many pieces have been shared and is there really a curse because the weirdest thing in that story and you'll hear in the episode sir alec Guinness who played obiwan Kenobi. James Dean, this is just a few days before he died, went into a restaurant, saw Alec Guinness there, and he's like, come and sit at my table. And he's like, hey man, I want to show you my new car. And Alec Guinness just went outside, looked at it, and Guinness told this later, looking back in hindsight, that he had this strong premonition that he was going to die, that Dean was going to be dead in this car. There was something wrong with this car. And he told that to James Dean. Do not get back in this car. And if you do, you'll be dead in two days.
Starting point is 01:24:37 Two days later, Dean was dead. And Sir Alec Guinness continued to tell this story on talk shows in the 70s and, you know, throughout his life. What was that? That premonition. And then later on, two doctors got their hands on the chassis and the engine of the Porsche 550 spider, little bastard. They were both in a race together, both cars crashed, and the gentleman who took, I believe, part of the axle and part of the engine in his, it was a 550 spider, crashed and died. And so these things continued to happen until the car disappeared. Great story, but it's a two-part episode.
Starting point is 01:25:20 I mean, I've seen pictures of that car after the crash. Like, it was mangled. It was. Anybody was able to pull anything off of it. Yeah, but they got the engine, was pulled out of it. Certain things survived and, you know, re-engineered. And those are true. Those stories are true. People really did die. And I think some things were embellished. You know, the great car designer, George Barris, who made the Batmobile and the Dracula from the monsters,
Starting point is 01:25:48 he was like the one that took it around and showed it as like a side show attraction. James Dean's car, death car. You know, people got to look at it. And so a lot of stories came from that, a warehouse burnt down. I mean, like, this is the basis of Christine, you know, Stephen King's Christine. There were even Dean references in the John Carpenter movie. But I have, you know, he, so Lee Raskin's a guest for two episodes. I interviewed Anton LeVay, the writer of the Satanic Bible. I interviewed Stanton LeVay, his grandson for two episodes. And he tells a great story. Imagine growing up as a five-year-old in that house. the Black House in San Francisco where, you know, there's constant sex parties and there's, you know, all of this debauchery going on and your grandfather is the writer of the Satanic Bible and all this weird stuff is happening in the house.
Starting point is 01:26:44 However, you know, this guy's pretty pleasant guy and he just, you're seeing Anton LeVay now as someone's grandpa, you know, and so that story was quite interesting to see it in a new perspective. So that's pretty much my podcast. I'm just trying to find people who aren't interviewed so much. And I want to hear stories from people that, you know, have these arcane subjects surrounding it or deeper stories about cinema. There's a guy named Jim Van Beber who made a lot of true crime movies, a movie about the Manson family, a movie about, well, I grew up in a town where there was a horrible crime and a sensational crime novel written called Say You Love Satan.
Starting point is 01:27:23 And it was about a killer named Ricky Casso who murdered a kid named Gary Lowers in the woods. They were on acid. He ended up stabbing him 60 times, carved his eyes out, became a national story, an international story, and a book called Say You Love Satan by David St. Clair was written in the early 80s. It was a bestseller at the time. I think it's since been put out of print maybe by the town of Northport, where it happened, where I grew up, because it, you know, it put a stain on the town. It was a horrible murder, and Jim made a movie about that. So we talked about that, and he was fascinated at the fact that I grew up in that town.
Starting point is 01:28:05 I was a kid playing outside when that happened. And I remember my grandmother coming outside saying, get in the house right now, because the whole town is a sleepy little harbor town was scared. They found a kid with his eyes carved out in the woods. And, you know, when I was a kid running around, we were allowed to play all day, all night. You know, even if it's the sun going down, you hear people calling you inside. In this case, everyone was terrified. When the streetlights come on, come in.
Starting point is 01:28:29 Sure, sure. But at that point, the whole town was terrified because they had yet to catch Ricky. They didn't know it was another kid that killed him. I noticed you don't put this on YouTube. Where's the podcast? Sure. You can just search off to The Witch. It's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts.
Starting point is 01:28:52 I don't put, I should start putting more samples on YouTube, but the trailers are on my YouTube channel. You're right. Yeah, I saw the trailer. But I was wondering like, you know, even if you don't, because you probably don't record them, right? Like, is it just audio? Audio only.
Starting point is 01:29:11 I was only interested in the audio for this case because I'm doing a docu-series called Off to The Witch Presents. And I feel like that's the visual version of my podcast. And so far I've shot two of those. I'm doing a third, actually, on a true crime case that I've always been interested in. And it's what we were talking a little bit about today. It's like that juxtaposition, that fine line between fiction and reality, whereas the Phantom Killer is a murderer, Lovers Lane murderer, in the late 40s.
Starting point is 01:29:39 And I think it was the seminal story that inspired killer, masked killer movies, like Friday the 13th, or there was a movie actually based on this case in the 70s called The Town that dreaded sundown. And Texarkana, Texas Arkansas border in the late 40s, there was a guy in a hood, potato sack over his head with two eye holes cut out that was waiting for people to park and make out. Yeah, he was pretty much the zodiac killer. He was brutal, mean guy, got away. They never caught him. There was some speculation as to they knew who he was, but terrorized this town. And it's weird because it happened, I think at that time, maybe Fritz Lang's M or movies like that were the only, you know, killer type slasher films because in the 40s there was nothing really to lend to that idea. Those movies came later. So where, you know, where does this man who hadn't really no influence all of a sudden decides to be this, this creep in the middle of the night just praying on people? And it makes you wonder, I guess it's something that's deep inside the human. Gene, you know, to become a predator.
Starting point is 01:30:50 You know, I'm fascinated at that. Like, what is that that is inspiring the person to be that way? It's not just simply anger. We've all been angry. You don't go out and murder people. That's really something super just extremely disturbing that had to have happened, I guess, in your childhood or something. I mean, something's got to be wrong.
Starting point is 01:31:08 Could be. Yeah. Yeah, I'm actually supposed to interview a guy that was a college professor that they were putting together this massive database of serial killers. I don't know, whatever happened with that guy. I was supposed to interview him. And yeah, he was interesting. I had like a 20-minute conversation with him.
Starting point is 01:31:32 And I think he was going to put me, I just so happened in that conversation, mentioned the series Criminal Mind. And he said that he knew the woman that was based on the psychotic. psychologist in that in that series and said he was going to reach out to her and put her in contact with me also and then I don't know whatever happened but yeah it they're just super interesting like he he was talking about the database how it connects all these different the different murders and different different aspects of the crime that were similar to try and kind of build like a psychological profile of what types of murder of killers do
Starting point is 01:32:17 certain types of things and why yeah i mean there's only you have to think outside of the box i think to understand uh what is going on in the mind of one of these killers you might even have to start thinking like them to understand and that's a hard thing to do you know like get into the mind space of a predator like how first of all how would you even become interested in that you'd have to really be disassociated, angry, what type of person are you going to kill? I wonder if when someone's psychoanalyzing a serial murder, are they getting into that headspace? Is that part of the technique? I mean, just taking an educated, creative guess, I guess this is what I would do. I would start thinking like a predator to understand them. And I guess that's why they consulted
Starting point is 01:33:10 with Ted Bundy for the Green River Killer, right? Like, he was, offering information and then he helped them find the green river killer and he said why do you want to kill me i can help you i think that's maybe the one flaw of the of the system is that maybe they should have kept bundy alive to use him for what he was offering because if he was helping find other serial killers like for instance he said um that the green river killer would return to the body right he would hide a body and he'd keep going back and doing more with it because that's what he did. I felt maybe Bundy's information would have been valuable. You know, we could say out of anger, he deserves to die. Of course, you know, like he should not be
Starting point is 01:33:56 on this planet. But if he's in a place where he can't escape anymore and he's offering his services to help other people survive, to help find these other killers, I think he would have been valuable. And I think it was a misopportunity to just, you know, electrocute him. yeah i i watched that um documentary on him like i didn't realize he had escaped twice like he was you know i i i mean i i had when i watched that whole the the multi-part series documentary on netflix i was like shocked at all the things like i thought i kind of knew what happened but it was it was he he has it was a crazy that was a crazy story that was yeah the thing like i i didn't know he escaped like stayed gone and they caught him for
Starting point is 01:34:41 like a they pulled him over or something and i forget what how he got caught the one of the times it was just like no idea i just assumed he i had always thought he had killed like that the um sorority girls right and he got caught and then he was put in the electric chair and that was it was over like i didn't realize what a massive run he had oh he's a monster a monster yeah don't don't uh please don't misinterpret what I said earlier I you know he shouldn't be on this earth but if he was offering his services to help find other killers he would have been valuable you know to keep around and and trust me I totally like most cases just don't get solved without cooperation and for cooperation you have to you there's no reason to cooperate for an inmate to cooperate with law
Starting point is 01:35:34 enforcement unless there's a benefit so you have to give them a benefit in his case, it would have been, as long as you're cooperating, then we're going to, we're not going to execute you. You know, I mean, you know, there has to be a final benefit, a benefit in order, yeah, in order for, for, to get cooperation from inmates, you know. Sure. So you can't, well, they should just do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Well, they're criminals. They're not going to do anything out of their, because of their heart. Did you ever hear that story about, and this is a lesser known story about, um, the guy who was taking. college course on psychiatry, and I believe he was writing to John Wayne Gacy in prison
Starting point is 01:36:14 before he was executed. Gacy started responding, and so this guy was getting deeper and deeper into the paper he was writing because he was trying to manipulate Gacy into giving him information, and he looked too deep into the abyss this kid, and he started having phone calls with this guy at night, and Gacy was calling him from prison at his parents' house, and they had all-night conversations. And then Gacy was like, you've got to go out and do this. He was trying to live vicariously through this kid. Go out to this club. Do this. And the kid was listening because he wanted a great paper out of it. So he ends up visiting Gacy in prison before, you know, Gacy was executed. And Gacy attacked him in the cell where they allowed, trying to rape him. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:37:00 And he didn't, I don't know how far he got with it. But then this gentleman, this kid, you know, this college kid was ended up committing suicide not too much later i think he was too deep in this stuff and obviously we can't get his psychological profile throughout but you know he was looking too deep he was spending too much time in the darkness i think with this situation you know yeah i think you have to if you're going to do something like that you have to even like being an undercover cop or something like you kind of have a really strong will extremely strong Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I, I don't know, I guess I would be fascinated to have a conversation with them. I'm always fascinated, but, you know, it's, I think it's, I don't ever try and get too, too deep. I, or I would never try and get too deep. Listen, I used to, I used to paint in the painting room at Coleman at the medium. And there was just like this, this guy they called, um, they called them, uh, gosh, what was name? Jim. They called him Old Man Jim. And he was like this, I think he was like a biker or something at one point. But he, and there was a guy named Big Jim Nolan that was there. There was like head of the outlaws. But this was a different. This guy's name was just, they just called him Old Man Jim. And he was probably in his late 60s, early 70s. He'd been locked up for like 20 something years. The state of Florida apparently had put him on trial.
Starting point is 01:38:32 multiple times and he kept either he beat them during the trial uh he beat the charges or he um you know or they dropped the charges for certain reasons and i i used to like the guy and i would always joke with him and be nice you know talk to him and stuff and i was walking one time with his other inmate and i remember the inmates name his name was uh was his last name was de geronimo uh because even though it was italian but everybody thought geronimo was uh sure it was Indian but native yeah yeah and you know in prison they have a little thing they call the sweat lodge and you can you can be an indian you're like an indian and they actually have a special area you can go to and get to smoke tobacco and stuff and oh wow but yeah he was de geronimo
Starting point is 01:39:19 so i remember walking one time and he goes you like old man jim don't you and i said yeah he's all right and he goes yeah he is already he's a nice guy and i said yeah he said but you know Cox like I'd just been there maybe a year or so and I'm very naive right like I'm I'm very green to the environment and I kind of knew I know these are dangerous guys but he is I just want you to know he said you know what he did right and I went yeah I said he's here for like a drug conspiracy he said no no he is he's here for a drug conspiracy he said but Jim went to trial like once or twice in the state for murder and beat it. Then he got arrested one time and he was going to trial again for murder.
Starting point is 01:40:09 And there were, I'm going to make up a number. I think it was like six witnesses against him. And I said, okay, he said, this is in like the late 70s, early 80s. He said, you know, in the county jails back then, there's not a lot of security. they locked you up and you know he goes and he escapes he said a year later he walks up to the to the jail knocks on the jail they walk in he said hey i'm my name is you know jim whatever i'm pretty sure there's a warrant out for me i escaped from this facility a year ago so they go okay and they arrest they go oh they look them up oh wow okay and they arrest him and bring them in now this was by the way
Starting point is 01:40:52 this was he had escaped like a week before his trial. So he said, I'm ready to go to trial. I turn myself in. I'm ready to go to trial. So they try and put the trial back together. The attorney, the state attorneys, district attorneys, they go and start trying to contact all the witnesses because they're going to go to trial now. They can't contact any of the witnesses. One witness or two or two, a couple of witnesses disappeared.
Starting point is 01:41:18 One was drowned. one had been shot multiple times you know and it turns out that all six witnesses had ended up dead wow and the last witness had been found a few days before Jim turned himself in so they held them for another month or two and they came back and they dropped the charges and he said it took Jim a year to hunt them all down and kill them and this was back in the late 70s early 80s so it wasn't like he escaped and they immediately contacted all these people the reason he escaped a week before his sent is his trial was because a week before his trial they gave him the witness list so now he knows who the witnesses are right and he turned himself in obviously
Starting point is 01:42:10 because he knows they're not going to show up so he said so just you know he's a nice guy he said but you just need to know, like, who he is, what you're dealing with. We can talk to this guy. So it's funny because probably a couple weeks later, this, we were in the paint, paint room, and this CEO, a correctional officer, walked in and said, Jim, and he was like, yeah, yeah, what's up? What's going on? And the correctional officer says, you know, she's a woman.
Starting point is 01:42:39 She starts yelling at him. I told you not to put your canvases up there. I told you they have to be behind the. locker and you're not supposed to you've been stacking them up there i told you and he said i'm sorry you're right i i i didn't i thought it would be okay i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'll and he's just and as she's yelling at him he just starts laughing and she says what's so funny he's i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry he's i'm sorry go ahead and she keeps yelling out of me he goes okay i'll take care of it'll be done before i leave she goes okay and she walks off and i looked at him
Starting point is 01:43:08 and i go i said bro i said what was so funny why did you start laughing and he goes it just as she was yelling at me, it struck me that on the street, I'd have cut her head off and stuck it in the trunk of my car and driven around with it for two weeks until I couldn't take the smell anymore. He's, but now I'm in prison and I have to take shit from this fucking woman. I don't know why. That should struck me as funny. And he was telling you the truth. Yeah, and he sat there and he just kind of chuckled to himself and went and got the canvases. And I thought, like, that's who you're dealing with. Like, that's, yeah, be careful. These are the guys I'm surrounded by. I was surrounded by. I was surrounded by.
Starting point is 01:43:44 by those guys for like three years. How do you not get too close to someone like that in prison? You know, I, it's funny because the guy that is, the guy that I probably consider like my best friend, like, like to this day, I talk to him. He's, I want him to get out of prison. I love him to death. You know, he's in prison for the murder of two federal informants. So, you know, did he do it?
Starting point is 01:44:14 it i don't think he did it um the government certainly does um and you know but to me he's he's he's he's always he's a good person he's always been good to me we have a lot in common we're very you know it's it's common and i mean literally you have to understand the kind of conversations you have in prison are vastly different than the conversations you have here like i remember one time had borrowed um like some sodas from him right like he'd give me some sodas and so you go to commissary once a week so i go to commissary to get the sodas one week and he doesn't i there's i don't have soda they don't have Pepsi so no he goes oh it's not a big deal so the next week i go to get him his sodas again when i go to commissary they don't have them they're out and i'm walking and i see him and i'm like
Starting point is 01:45:07 hey what's going on p and he says hey he says i said hey man i said um they didn't have your sodas again he He goes, he looked at me, he goes, man, I'm starting to feel like one of your victims like that. And I said, and I go, bro, my victims are alive. And he says, he goes, you know, I didn't do that. What do you know? And we're laughing and laughing. We're just in tears laugh.
Starting point is 01:45:28 But maybe that's the kind of conversations you have that people on the street wouldn't understand joking about that. You know, like that's sure. So, yeah, like, you know, to me, it's like, I don't care what happened or how you guys. got in here. You're a friend of mine and I want the best from you and I want you out of prison. And I don't care about what happened. I don't care about that. That's got nothing to do with me. I want the best for you. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, we've met a lot of people who have
Starting point is 01:45:57 murdered, whether it be in military or law enforcement or, you know, self-defense. It's happened. I think the type I would have a very difficult time trusting as someone who murders for pleasure, you know, or has this propensity to murder, um, this inherent predator that lives inside of them because that's what they're always thinking, you know, right? Well, we're fascinated by those people, but, you know, for, so you know, which crime has the lowest recidivism, right? Is murder. Like, those guys get out and almost never commit murder again. I mean, you're always going to find some exception with some guy who kills his wife and then gets out, gets remarried and kills another wife, you know, like that guy's a psycho.
Starting point is 01:46:43 But, you know, most murders get out and they never reoffend. They get a regular job and they're, everything's, you know, they live a normal life. Like the recidivism rate from murder is very high. One of the highest recidivism rates is fraud. Right. My particular crime. Like, you know, I have people contact me all the time. They want advice for this and advice for that.
Starting point is 01:47:07 I'm always like, look, my first advice is don't ask a guy that was convicted of fraud for advice. at least you're being honest right like not not that i'm going to give you bad advice but like that's a bad like that's a bad idea you know um you know but yeah but but people do you've heard about the gentleman who cut the other gentleman's head off on a bus in canada you heard that story sad story man so this guy's on the bus and this young guy is there he's working for the carnival He's going home to see his family. So they're on a like a greyhound. And they went to one stop and the killer had bummed a cigarette off the kid.
Starting point is 01:47:51 So the kid falls asleep and this guy pulls out a big knife while the kid's sleeping on the bus with a whole bunch of people, stabs him, cuts his head off. The bus stops. Everyone's running, screaming. And he's slicing this kid's head off and he holds it up. to everybody outside he's just sitting there he's covered in blood this all had you could look this one up so this guy only for for insanity only did maybe two or three years he's out living his life i yeah he never seen a lot of day in the united states but yeah yeah oh what about um in norway there's that guy that killed like 86 kids and count and counselor
Starting point is 01:48:37 your children and everything he got like 23 years there was a maximum prison sentence they could give you for murder he got the maximum 23 years he killed like 80 some odd kids yeah talking about yeah no it's crazy and it was racially motivated like he did it because he didn't like the the fact that uh that their culture was becoming impure by all of the all of the um foreigners coming in to norway and it was like so you know so it's also
Starting point is 01:49:07 like a hate crime even though the kids won't it's still based on a hate crime like what are you doing and he's out living his life yeah and if you saw of course you saw the norwegian you know prisons like they have a different stance their stance on on um their criminal justice system is basically a lot of your europe is like this where it's like if you've committed a crime it's because we as a society have failed you and so we're going to put you in an environment where we can try and retrain you to be a normal a good citizen and in some ways i very much agree with that but i you know in some ways i agree with the concept of you know we just we just can't have monsters roaming the countryside sure it's tough i think it's obviously you know this it's it's more in abundance than
Starting point is 01:49:58 anyone would like to believe there are there are a lot of people out there that are probably serial killers. There's horrible. There's, like I said, humans are horrible species. Sure. So, listen, I'm going to send you my book. I can't wait to read it. All right. Do you want to go ahead?
Starting point is 01:50:19 Is there anything else? You want people to watch your podcast? I know you have to get going. Yeah. Just check out off to The Witch for now. And if you want, come find me on social networks. It's my last name and the number seven, Garatano 7. My YouTube channel's white phosphorus pictures, Garatano 7, just, you know, come say hello, come check out what I'm doing. And the podcast is becoming a docu-series in different pieces.
Starting point is 01:50:46 So they'll be released next year. And there's a trailer for one of them. I put out a teaser for Halloween, but I'll be putting out an official press release probably in February. Hey, I appreciate you guys checking out the video. And do me a favor. If you like the video, do me a favor and subscribe. hit the bell so you get notified of videos like this leave me a comment in the comment section
Starting point is 01:51:06 and share the video also I'm going to leave all of Chris's just all of his links in the description keep in mind I have a Patreon if you're interested in supporting the channel also if you if you're interested in
Starting point is 01:51:22 thanking me for making the video there is you can hit the thank you button there's a the same the same ban or the scroll under the video where you can do the thumbs up and share the video that sort of thing you can scroll over and there's a thank you button well i think it's got a little dollar sign and you can you can donate you know like a dollar 99 three dollars and 99 whatever um i really appreciate you guys watching
Starting point is 01:51:49 and thanks very much and i will see you

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