00:00:00
This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.
00:00:33
Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. When a charming neurosurgeon rode into Frontier Town
00:00:39
selling a persona of confidence and care, patients trusted him. He wore cowboy boots in the operating room
00:00:45
and became sought after by patients. He promised to heal them. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies.
00:00:51
This is a story of greed, betrayal, and a fight for justice. Listen to Dr. Death the Cowboy wherever you get your podcasts
00:00:58
or binge the entire series right now only with Audible. Goodbye. Pandora Jewelry brings the sparkle to summer, now with even better prices.
00:01:07
Shop now for up to 50% off select jewelry featuring personalized pieces to must-have
00:01:12
summer favorites. Timeless jewelry made to move with you through every moment. Shop in-store or online now through July 5th.
00:01:18
Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. My favorite murder
00:01:32
Hello. Hello. And welcome to My Favorite Murder. I'm Karen Kilgareff. I'm Georgia Hardstark.
00:01:46
And I'm Keith Morrison with The Seduction. Oh my gosh. He nailed it. He nailed it.
00:01:53
It was perfect. I did. I have chills. That was epic. I can't believe we're looking at you.
00:01:59
If I can admit something right off the bat, I fell asleep to your story on the Calm app the other night.
00:02:06
You know, that's very, I think I'm glad to hear that, but it was so crazy. The person, the producer of this thing,
00:02:14
who's done a lot of, so she knows what she's doing. She just kept talking, asked me to go slower and slower.
00:02:21
Oh, man. Well, I was like debating, should I tell you that I fell asleep to your point?
00:02:30
Like that's kind of creepy too, saying that to someone. But I mean, you are, you know, and I wonder if it's weird for you to know this now,
00:02:39
that you are a household name. You're a person who's been on our televisions on NBC for 30 years.
00:02:47
I mean, is that, what's that like for you, for people who they just know you? Well, I'm not entirely sure, except that it's, I mean, I just feel like a very lucky old guy, frankly.
00:03:02
And it kind of happens without you being aware that it's happening. And then you don't know what to make of it.
00:03:12
I don't know what to make of it. When you go out with your family and people recognize you and want photos with you and everything,
00:03:18
do they tease you, your family? tease you about it or are they remorseless yes they do that's exactly the right attitude
00:03:28
right but people are so nice you know they oh yeah i never almost never ever get anybody
00:03:36
is even hinting at being mean so right yeah i'm a lucky person i said yeah it is funny like you're
00:03:45
in the true crime genre and you wouldn't think that that equates to the nicest, you know,
00:03:52
listenership ever. Like that's what we experienced too, just the kindest people.
00:03:56
Yeah. Well, it's true. Yeah. And I think, I think what I love is that you're so on board with the fun of it. And I
00:04:04
think when I saw the Instagram, Keith leans on things, which I know you, you posed, you went and
00:04:12
met them and posed for a photo. It's one of the greatest. True. When you played along, that is a thing that you just lean on things. It's part of your body
00:04:22
language when you report. I love that. Yeah. Why? I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense at all.
00:04:29
Well, you got to do something while you're doing those throws. Sure. There was this whole thing where people would walk all the time when they were talking
00:04:37
to a camera. They sit in the studio, they sit behind the desk or they stand in the studio,
00:04:41
don't move. But if they're out somewhere in the field or on the road, there's always kind of
00:04:47
walking from one place to another. I didn't think that made very much sense. So.
00:04:51
You're like, can I just hang out here and just take it easy for a second? You invented the journalistic lean, I think. That should go in the dictionary, right?
00:05:03
Well, and the same thing happened. I mean, talk about playing along. when Bill Hader started doing an impression of you on SNL,
00:05:10
which must have been... Do you want to talk about what that was like to experience?
00:05:15
That was probably the beginning of thinking, oh, I wasn't just kind of going along doing stories.
00:05:21
People were actually listening to them and they thought they were kind of strange.
00:05:24
So when somebody makes fun of you, it is, I mean, in the incredibly skillful and funny way that he did,
00:05:33
it's, I mean, you don't know what to say. It's both exhilarating and humiliating or a wonderful honor and kind of embarrassing at the same time.
00:05:44
Well, and that characterization is so over the top. It's like, it's ridiculous. I mean, that's the, you know, kind of the funny part about it.
00:05:53
But then you went on to and played along with it which is such a you know that a good sport Very sweet man So it didn hurt me I didn Did they warn you beforehand that that was going to be a character
00:06:07
No. No? You know, I live on the West Coast and I got a call that first night from a daughter of mine who lived on the East Coast.
00:06:15
And she was kind of screaming into the phone. I feel like that deserves a heads up.
00:06:21
But, you know. You know, or not. Or not. Had there been a heads up, I would have worried about it.
00:06:26
Right, right. So can we talk about your early career? Because we heard a story that we were told to ask you about your first summer job when you were a stand-in.
00:06:37
Oh, well, my father was what they used to call in those days a minister. This was in Canada where I grew up.
00:06:45
And he was a minister in the United Church of Canada, which was still the largest Protestant denomination, I think.
00:06:52
But one of the, what they call these days, mainline Protestant churches, tended to be on the more progressive side.
00:07:01
So anyway, in the summertime, ministers needed to get time off, and they would corral these theology students from the university and have them go out and fill in for a little while, for the summer in many cases.
00:07:15
And I had just flunked out of college. Hey, us too. we're also college dropouts that's right
00:07:24
it's kind of a special club isn't it it is now so I think he took pretty on me and he pulled a string or two
00:07:35
and he got me this gig thing was I'd been doing public speaking and other stuff before
00:07:41
so the thing was though I wasn't exactly devout so that's been a problem A little conflict of interest, probably.
00:07:52
I didn't quite live the way a minister was supposed to live. It's a big of you to admit, because I feel like that's probably true for a lot of practicing ministers.
00:08:03
Yes, could be. Were there a bunch of people in pews just sitting there with their arms crossed, like,
00:08:07
no, we're not taking this from you, sir. We know you, Keith. They might have been used to it.
00:08:12
I remember one Sunday, because I'd borrowed sermons from one of mine who was a minister,
00:08:21
and he was pretty good at this sort of thing. And so he would give me these, maybe use that and just see the script and see if that's any better.
00:08:31
So I borrowed one of these one Sunday, and I was right in the middle of it. And he was a kind of radical guy.
00:08:37
He was saying radical things in this sermon. And I was getting into it because this is cool.
00:08:45
It makes sense to me. I like this idea, you know, young and reckless. And I figured this will get a rise out of the folks in the back pews
00:08:54
who were just these solid kind of salt of the earth prairie types and didn't blink, didn't cut a smile, didn't frown.
00:09:02
And then they just... So that's kind of when I realized that this is probably not the right date for me.
00:09:10
You wanted to do some like rabble rousing and some kind of shaking things up a little.
00:09:15
Yeah. So journalism instead, I guess. Well, yes. And the minister thing was obviously not going to be ever going to be a permanent something.
00:09:26
And the option was to go back and have another go at college in the fall or not.
00:09:31
Take a year off and think about things that when I was encouraged to leave, the dean of the school that I was attending,
00:09:37
said that I should probably grow up for a year or so before coming back. Good advice.
00:09:42
So, yeah, there you are. And I was watching TV one day and saw this guy reading the news on TV
00:09:50
and thought, I can do that. And my neighbor was the editor of a local newspaper and needed a ride to go back and forth to work.
00:09:59
And he was at the paper first and then went to this radio station in town. He needed to drive to both places.
00:10:06
So I drove him and then he let me go and cover a few stories and read the news on the radio.
00:10:13
And that's when you knew? You were just like, this is it? And I, yeah, it was just a lot of fun.
00:10:18
And I thought this will never pay the rent. It's a boring story, but to continue it.
00:10:24
So that was in September of the year I'd rather not mention. And by December, I was the kind of regular doing the morning run of newscasts on this radio station in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
00:10:38
Cold, cold in those mornings. And I wasn't really very good at waking up on time.
00:10:43
And I slept in several times in a row and they fired. Oh. Plunked out of school, fired from my first job in radio.
00:10:51
You're on the right podcast right now. Yes, really. This is very relatable for us and everyone that listens.
00:10:56
I was feeling a bit down when somebody heard that I desperately needed a job at another radio station.
00:11:03
Heard this and called up and said, I can take you on, but I really can't pay you.
00:11:07
So if you want to come just work for basically for free and you, you know, we'll find you a Garrett to live in or something.
00:11:14
You can do that. So I did. And that's when it got really quite a lot of fun. So did you never, you know, some people have to go to like school to learn the newscasting voice and everything.
00:11:23
Did you never do that? No, no, no. In fact, when I, the first job in radio, the station manager guy asked me what journalism school I'd gone to.
00:11:31
And I said, I'm going to do a journalism school. I didn't even know there were journalism schools.
00:11:36
And he said, that's good because if you had been, I wouldn't hire you. We'd have to un-teach you a bunch of things.
00:11:43
Raw talent. I would imagine ministering is actually like a weirdly good practice for that, where the cadence, the delivery, everything.
00:11:52
Yeah, it kind of is. Yeah. It's all storytelling. I mean everything being involved with communication amounts to storytelling And how you make the jump to TV Because then you became a newscaster right Well yeah And I wanted to do that when I saw that guy
00:12:06
And so I kept applying to a local television station in Saskatchewan. And they eventually hired me after a while.
00:12:12
Worked there and then went off to another one on the West Coast. And then one in Toronto.
00:12:17
And then on to one of the Canadian networks. Nice. You worked your way right up.
00:12:21
Worked my way to the talk, yeah. because if you can make it in Saskatoon, they say you can make it anywhere.
00:12:28
That's that famous saying. Yeah. The old saying. If you spend all day waiting to take your bra off, it might be time for Third Love.
00:12:37
If you're looking for breathable, lightweight comfort this summer, you're going to love Third
00:12:41
Love. Third Love is built around getting the fit right instead of expecting you to put up with
00:12:45
something that doesn't work. And Third Love offers a full range of sizes from AA to H,
00:12:49
including their exclusive half cup sizes so you can find a fit that feels just right instead of
00:12:55
close enough. Stop settling for bad bras. Whether you're looking for more lift, back smoothing,
00:13:00
or straps that stay put, Third Love can find your fit fast. Their virtual fitting room gets you in
00:13:05
the right size and matches you with the best styles for your shape. If you've ever been fitted
00:13:08
for the right size bra, you are in for a treat. It actually changes the whole game with bras. I
00:13:14
thought I was like a something something A cup. I'm a something something B cup and it's just
00:13:19
changed my bra game. I thought I just hated bras, but I was wearing the wrong size. And with Third
00:13:24
Love, like they're so comfortable that it doesn't even feel like I'm wearing a bra. Use code MFM15
00:13:29
for $15 off your first purchase at thirdlove.com. Goodbye. While the world watches the stars at the
00:13:37
FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent. The future soccer
00:13:41
stars who are already turning heads at age 14. Making plays that end up on everyone's feed,
00:13:46
scoring from angles that don't make sense, rewriting record books that barely had time
00:13:50
to gather dust. Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation and Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai
00:13:55
has always moved the future within reach. Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every
00:14:00
vehicle. Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra fast charging capability. And Hyundai
00:14:05
continues doing it every day. From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing
00:14:10
the game, the future isn't some far off concept. It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai,
00:14:15
an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. Peace of mind can be hard to come by. Especially at 2 a.m.
00:14:22
when your house suddenly makes a weird noise. That's why so many people trust SimpliSafe
00:14:26
to help keep their home secure. Traditional home security only alerts you after a break and has already happened
00:14:31
and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that. The system is customizable so you can build the one that fits your home
00:14:37
and your specific needs. The 24-7 professional monitoring is effective and affordable
00:14:41
and won't lock you into a long-term contract. Listen, Cookie is a really good watchdog,
00:14:47
but she's not going to tell me what is actually going on. If it's a raccoon or if it's a person looking through my windows,
00:14:52
like you have to get this level of safety if you want to feel as safe as possible.
00:14:57
So you know what's going on. So I just feel safer with actually having something like SimpliSafe around.
00:15:02
There's a whole staff at SimpliSafe that's waiting to talk to you and help you out and tell you, no, you're fine.
00:15:07
It's a raccoon. Right now you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com slash MFM.
00:15:13
That's half off at simplisafe.com slash MFM. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Goodbye.
00:15:21
So I love the idea that then, because there was like a shakeup at the top at CTV.
00:15:27
So you lost your job as a newscaster and the next day the Dateline people called you.
00:15:32
Dare I tell that story? Would you? Always. Please. Gossip. Gossip. Canadian. Gossip.
00:15:40
Yeah. So maybe it doesn't count, right? I don't know. Great. I'd been at NBC and I joined NBC in the middle of the 1980s at the local station in Los Angeles.
00:15:51
And within a short period of time, I was working also for the network, reporting for Nightly
00:15:56
News and Today Show and occasionally filling in on those programs. And it was a great job, great place to be.
00:16:03
I always thought, well, maybe I'll go back home one day. And I got a call asking if I would go and host the morning show in Canada.
00:16:10
I shouldn't go into too much detail, but that would probably lead to this numero uno job, the Tom Brokaw type job.
00:16:21
So I thought, oh, okay. And I went and had quite a lot of fun. Hosting a morning show is hell on the body, but it's quite a hoot.
00:16:30
You know, you get to interview all kinds of people from, you know, the serious to the silly.
00:16:35
and just kind of be a show person, which I'd never really tried to do before. So I liked it.
00:16:41
But then the route up, which had been suggested, kind of was shut off when the person doing that job re-signed a contract.
00:16:50
I went, oh, okay, well, I don't know. And at the same time, Dayblind was starting.
00:16:53
This is Dayblind at the very beginning, 30 years ago. So they offered me a job to go back.
00:16:59
And I said, okay. But the CTV people talked me out of it and said, no, you can do that top job after all, because guy in top job wants to share the job with you
00:17:08
in order for you not to go away, which was a big deal, right? Very nice. So the press conference
00:17:15
and the whole nine yards and a date was set and all the rest of it. And then I, you know,
00:17:20
something happened. Maybe he changed his mind. I don't know what happened. But one day I walked
00:17:25
into the boss's office and he said, you know, collect your things. You're out the door.
00:17:30
no explanation was ever given really yeah who was behind it wow what the story was someone had
00:17:38
an ego trip maybe yeah so anyway it was either that day or the very next day that the the
00:17:45
date line went through a little couple of pickups there at the very beginning but i got a call from
00:17:49
the person who had taken over after they got them he said can you be in pittsburgh tomorrow to do a story about a lady who running a transmission repair shop So I said and that how it got started That was your first story as a lady running a transmission
00:18:06
The first story. I love it. Yeah. When did the true crime aspect come into it? Because I know you weren't that interested in true crime in the beginning
00:18:14
or maybe hadn't thought about it. I really was not. You know, a long time ago, when I started in radio,
00:18:20
The first job that traditionally this Diagonal newspaper guy would give the starting reporter was to go down to the covered magistrate's court every day.
00:18:31
And that is a depressing place to be. All the takes people made are on full display.
00:18:38
The young and foolish things people do, the old and dried up things people do, and nasty things that they do to each other.
00:18:46
They all get displayed. And I had to do these stories about them. And, you know, I was a minister's son.
00:18:52
I preached the sermons and I and here I was having to spill the dirt on all these poor people who would run afoul of the law.
00:18:59
And I just felt bad about it all the time. So when Daitland decided that they wanted to do more true crime, this gradually worked it in.
00:19:10
I didn't want to go there because there are victims who really suffer in these stories and families are victims.
00:19:17
And, you know, a murder sends ripples in all kinds of directions. It changes history for people.
00:19:24
And, you know, you mess around with that at your peril, I thought. But, you know, they gradually came to realize that there is probably no kind of reporting that gets you closer to the nature of what makes a human being a human being.
00:19:40
Makes this all tick. And what people will do in extreme circumstances. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think, it just came to my mind that you were saying how when you were ministering,
00:19:51
you know, you were doing some nefarious things of your own and Karen and I both have some,
00:19:57
well, you weren't the perfect person to be ministering is what you said. And in my mind just went to nefarious things because that's what my mind does.
00:20:09
But you know, that Karen and I have been in some precarious, have put ourselves in some
00:20:12
situations that are precarious have been in, you know, have lived lives that aren't, you know,
00:20:17
no one would take me as a minister, I promise you, not just because I'm Jewish. But so my point is,
00:20:24
do you think that you have like an understanding of how easily you can make one split second
00:20:31
decision and your life will be changed forever? And so you have an empathy towards the people you
00:20:38
were, you know, seeing in court. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I did an interview not long ago with a
00:20:46
not quite so young man anymore who had committed the most horrible crime you could possibly imagine,
00:20:52
had planned it with the Pallabuse. You know, they were the two of those people who got together,
00:20:57
troubled boys who got together and, you know, one individually wouldn't have committed the crime,
00:21:03
but when the two of them got, what do they call it, a folie adieu or something, it was
00:21:07
and they you know they killed one of their best friends and were sentenced to life without parole
00:21:13
of course it was an awful crime they you know we're making a little horror movie about it
00:21:19
so 15 years later i'm interviewing him in prison and he is a moderately changed person now he is
00:21:27
you know he is now a human being you know not only feels terrible about everything he did and
00:21:33
would like to make, you know, do anything he could possibly do to somehow make up for what he did.
00:21:39
And of course, there really isn't anything he could possibly do. And so he lives with that
00:21:43
torment every day of his life. But he was open about it. And he was like somebody you would like.
00:21:48
So even though he planned this crime, they'd gone on for, and they misbehaved for probably
00:21:54
months or even years. You know, people change. And you think, well, there is some kind of,
00:22:01
I don't know whether that's a redemption or not, but it becomes very hard to judge the totality of a person's life and what they're worth, because they can be worth different things at different times.
00:22:11
Yeah. Well, and it's very simple as also people who lifelong consume true crime media.
00:22:20
George and I talk about that a lot where it's you get the story, the first version of the story, and you think, okay, this is the good person.
00:22:27
This is the bad person. You think you know. And then as we, so when we started this podcast, it was very much like, oh, we're going to talk about Ted Bundy.
00:22:36
And we're going to talk about John Wayne Gacy and the bad guys and all of that. And slowly but surely, it was the real stories here and the things that actually that we liked talking about and started talking about were, and I'm sure you've met lots of these people, the family members who go through these horrible things and then start their own foundation.
00:22:57
that start becoming victims advocates. That although, like you're saying, their lives are changed forever,
00:23:04
there are those people that then become almost super heroic in terms of taking that grief
00:23:09
and trying to change other people's lives for the better. There's like the storytelling,
00:23:15
it's like, we think we're in it for this part of the story. And then there's all these other things
00:23:20
that kind of unfold where people really show who they are, who they can be. It can be really mind blowing.
00:23:26
Oh, truly. Yeah. Grief can be a powerful motivator one way or the other. People go down or they find a purpose and sometimes the purpose can be amazing.
00:23:40
Yeah. It's also interesting. And I think we're evolving to be more understanding of, you know, those ripples and how it also affects the family and friends of the perpetrator.
00:23:53
You interview those people all the time where it's hard for everyone, not just the obvious people.
00:24:00
victims, but, you know, it's very hard. Again, you know, it's difficult to look at somebody in
00:24:09
the face and sort of go, you know, you're a bad, you've done a terrible thing. And I want to show
00:24:17
how, on this television show, how bad you are. But one of my favorite fictional detectives is
00:24:25
Inspector Maigret of Paris Chouette, I guess. The novels that were written by Georges Simenon back in the early, mid-20th century.
00:24:36
And he was a chief inspector who operated in Paris. The stories were all the kind of stories that we do on Dateline.
00:24:44
It's the same kind of stuff, and it happens over and over again. But his motto was, understand, but do not judge.
00:24:52
and he would find himself being in relationships with the criminals he was apprehending
00:24:58
and that he would see the humanity in them. At the same time, he had to deal with the fact
00:25:05
that they had done this and they needed to pay for their crimes. Yeah. There wasn't a hard line between good and bad.
00:25:11
It's just kind of, we're all a little mixed up. Definitely. Very true. Well, that also makes me think of those few times
00:25:19
on Dateline that I've seen when the hosts are interviewing, and I'm sorry to say it's often the husbands,
00:25:28
and sometimes there's the husbands who you eventually find out they did it, and they're there to be interviewed saying they didn't.
00:25:36
Those are the ones, I've seen a couple of them, where it's just a very flat-eyed,
00:25:43
nope, they think they know better than everybody, and they're going to tell you exactly how it is.
00:25:47
And then as the episode unfolds, it's clear that it's that person. Sure, sure. They always think they're the smartest one in the room, and they're still doing it, even afterwards.
00:26:00
There's a particular personality, and it starts out, again, you see it all the time, but the personality of the abuser.
00:26:09
and sadly yes you know the abuse of women by their male partners is continues to be an epidemic
00:26:17
i don't think everybody's is that way very few have that kind of personality sociopathic sort
00:26:25
of personality but the ability to manipulate somebody and to be so in control of their lives
00:26:31
and then they cannot stand it when that person finally tries to escape and that's what murder
00:26:37
occurs, but it's the pattern that happens over and over again. So then these guys are sitting in
00:26:41
prison trying to persuade you that no, no, no, it didn't really happen. All these obvious things
00:26:45
were just your imagination. Yeah. Those are not the people that I like very much.
00:26:52
No. They can't imagine. No. Have you ever been in that, because you go in and interview these people face to face and
00:27:01
some are admitted murderers, some aren't admitting it. Have you ever had that feeling, that chill,
00:27:09
I just would find it so chilling to look into the eyes and speak to someone that you know has done something so
00:27:15
probably awful. But everybody's different. I mean, some are pathetic. A man who,
00:27:24
another, two of them operating together, two guys who were doing what they could to get
00:27:29
as deep into the bottom of the barrel as they could and had all kinds of substance abuse issues
00:27:35
and so on. But they would pick up young women on the street, sex workers in Orange County in
00:27:40
California. They would take them away to their little hideout, which was behind a paint shop in
00:27:47
an industrial part of town. And they would use them horribly, horribly, I mean, in unspeakable
00:27:54
ways and then dump their bodies into a dumpster, which was right behind the paint shop. And every
00:28:01
day, big truck would come along, pick up the dumpster, dump it into the back, take it off to
00:28:05
the dump. And these women would wind up 50 feet down before next Thursday. So one of those guys
00:28:12
agreed to be interviewed. And he had been in trouble before off and on many times. He was
00:28:18
actually wearing one of the ankle bracelets that's supposed to keep track of him while he was
00:28:21
committing these crimes. And he tried to tell me that it was really the state's fault that he
00:28:30
committed these crimes because they weren't keeping proper track of him. And if they had
00:28:35
better track of him, better care of him, he wouldn't have been doing these terrible things.
00:28:40
So he wanted somebody at the level of, you know, an important person in a police organization to
00:28:48
take some heat for it. Wow. Just the strangest things. Then there was a, do you mind if I go on?
00:28:56
Please, please. There was a preacher who came to believe, he was in one of those churches
00:29:01
where they had unusual beliefs, and he came to believe that one had to have plural wives.
00:29:06
Not a Mormon, not part of that faith, but his own reading, his own personal reading
00:29:11
of the Bible was that you wouldn't be able to get to heaven unless you had two and preferably three wives.
00:29:17
Lucky for him. Yeah, it's very convenient. Right. One at a time and a couple of kids.
00:29:23
So he went out and managed to find wife number two. And she was young and pretty and 18, 19 years old.
00:29:32
And she lived with them ostensibly as a housekeeper, but she was wife number two.
00:29:37
And then after a while, she told him she wanted to better herself. She wanted to go to college.
00:29:43
She wanted to have a career. She wanted to make something of herself. Didn't say she wanted to leave him.
00:29:48
She just wanted to do these things. And his response to that was to send his senior wife off with the children for the weekend take this junior wife to a restaurant give her a steak take her home to the house and kill her and put her in the bathtub and cut her into a bunch of pieces and put her
00:30:06
in her container and take her out to the desert and bury her under a cairn of rocks.
00:30:11
Her remains were not discovered for two years while he kept on preaching. But when I interviewed him in prison, and I asked him about, you know, some theological
00:30:22
able to have questions about his behavior and what he had done and what he thought that would
00:30:26
mean for his kind of eternal existence. And he said, oh, I'm not worried about that at all. And
00:30:32
I know she's waiting for me there in heaven. And when I get there, we'll be together again.
00:30:38
Yes. So sometimes they do give you a pause. Most of the time they're just kind of...
00:30:46
I love that you use the word pathetic, because I do think that that is such a great word,
00:30:51
you know, everyone reveres Ted Bundy or, you know, these, these murderers, but they really are these pathetic people who can't, who just have these urges.
00:31:02
And it's, I don't know. I just love the word pathetic around it. It makes it, it makes, it's exactly what it is.
00:31:08
It's not, it's not fascinating in that way. It's pathetic. Yeah, that's good. That's true.
00:31:13
Quite true. Are those your most memorable datelines? The ones that stand out the most?
00:31:18
They just happened to pop into my head. you've got a lot there are so many of them i don't even know i mean they're 30 years worth right
00:31:28
right right yeah while the world watches the stars at the fifa world cup this summer
00:31:36
hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent the future soccer stars who are already
00:31:40
turning heads at age 14 making plays that end up on everyone's feed scoring from angles that don't
00:31:45
makes sense, rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust. Because Next doesn't
00:31:50
wait for an invitation and Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach.
00:31:55
Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle. Hyundai did it by engineering
00:32:00
EVs with ultra fast charging capability. And Hyundai continues doing it every day. From robotics
00:32:05
that change how people live to young athletes changing the game, the future isn't some far
00:32:10
off concept. It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye.
00:32:17
Peace of mind can be hard to come by. Especially at 2 a.m. when your house suddenly makes a weird
00:32:21
noise. That's why so many people trust SimpliSafe to help keep their home secure. Traditional home
00:32:26
security only alerts you after a break and has already happened, and that's too late. SimpliSafe
00:32:30
is changing that. The system is customizable so you can build the one that fits your home
00:32:35
and your specific needs. The 24-7 professional monitoring is effective and affordable
00:32:39
and won't lock you into a long-term contract. Listen, Cookie is a really good watchdog,
00:32:44
but she's not going to tell me what is actually going on, if it's a raccoon or if it's a person looking through my windows.
00:32:50
Like, you have to get this level of safety if you want to feel as safe as possible.
00:32:55
So you know what's going on. So I just feel safer with actually having something like SimpliSafe around.
00:33:00
There's a whole staff at SimpliSafe that's waiting to talk to you and help you out and tell you, no, you're fine. It's a raccoon. Right now, you can get 50% off
00:33:07
your new system by visiting simplisafe.com slash MFM. That's half off at simplisafe.com slash MFM.
00:33:14
There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Goodbye. If you're always on the lookout for a great audiobook or just want help figuring out what
00:33:21
to listen to next, there's a podcast you should know about. It's called Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club hosted by Cal Penn. Each episode takes a closer look at some
00:33:30
of the most talked about new audiobooks on Audible, spanning a wide range of genres from
00:33:35
sci-fi and literary fiction to rom-coms, thrillers, and comedy. Cal is joined by guests who dig into what these stories are about, what makes them stand out as
00:33:43
audiobooks, and why they're connecting with listeners right now. If you're looking for your next listen, this is a great place to start.
00:33:48
Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:33:55
Goodbye. Do you have a most memorable dateline? And I'm sure it's hard to pick just one.
00:34:02
It truly is. I mean, there are scads and scads of them that I just got very, very wrapped up in.
00:34:09
You know, one of my, as long as we're talking about favorites, I'll tell you this particular favorite story, one of many.
00:34:16
And it's a pathetic story. So, you know, you may not find it at all interesting.
00:34:21
There was a couple, a kind of a sweet, sad couple who lived in a small town in South Carolina.
00:34:27
And they had three children. three girls and they you know they barely scraped along they lived in the poorest part of town
00:34:39
their house was just a disaster zone a mess they couldn't keep a clean house but they were
00:34:44
lovely people they they went to church every Sunday and they they were good parents and
00:34:51
the wife worked at night to clean offices and so on and the husband worked during the day
00:34:58
delivering pizzas and other things like that just to try to make ends meet. He was also going to
00:35:03
school to try to become a computer technician. And so he wanted to make something it was like.
00:35:08
So one night, well, the wife was at work cleaning some office somewhere and the husband was asleep.
00:35:16
A man came into their house and brutally raped and killed the eldest of the three daughters.
00:35:23
but nobody knew this he didn't even know it he didn't wake up and the reason he didn't wake up
00:35:29
is he was wearing one of the early c-pad machines but because he couldn't afford a decent one his
00:35:34
went very loud the other little girls in the house didn't wake up either so it wasn't a great
00:35:39
surprise but this man managed to get in but in the morning he went in and he discovered his
00:35:45
daughter's body he saw there was a scarf wrapped around her neck tightly and he mistakenly thought
00:35:53
She had somehow wound herself up in the blanket and asphyxiated herself while she slept He called 911 and he wasn as you know when your 11 daughter has been brutally
00:36:06
raped and killed and you call 911, people expect you to be pretty upset at disablerly.
00:36:12
Right. It didn't sound that way. Listening to the 911 call, the police are thinking, okay, this guy probably killed his
00:36:19
daughter. That's what usually happens here. So when they came over, then they saw the messy house.
00:36:25
Then they read that CPS had complained about the quality of the care of the children,
00:36:29
not because they weren't good parents, but because their house was so messy. Things began to add to each other.
00:36:35
So they took this guy, they took him into the police station. He willingly went to talk to them.
00:36:41
He didn't ask for an attorney or anything. He just wanted to explain what he saw and see if they could help him find out what happened to his daughter.
00:36:48
and they had him in there. I can't remember how many hours it was, but it was over the course of four days.
00:36:54
He was interviewed for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. And they kept telling him, he did it.
00:37:00
You know, just confess, you did it, you did it, you did it, you did it. He was accused and denied the accusation
00:37:06
because somebody went and kept track and they may have adjusted the number a little bit.
00:37:12
I suspect they may have. He denied it 666 times. oh my god wow but eventually they wore him down to the point where he said yes i did it and so
00:37:25
bang he was charged with first degree murder the whole town heard that he was charged with first
00:37:29
degree murder his uh wife was told that he was the most horrible man on the planet his other
00:37:34
daughters were too and she her heart was broken she died very soon afterward um under circumstances
00:37:43
which were frankly a little, I don't know, they never were worked out properly. So he's lost his eldest daughter and his wife, and he's been charged with first-degree murder.
00:37:55
And then about a month later, the DNA results come back, and they show the DNA on his daughter
00:38:01
was not his. It was somebody else's, some other man. And it just so happened that there had been
00:38:07
a person burglarizing the neighborhood and assaulting women during that period of time.
00:38:12
He was arrested. They checked his DNA. Lo and behold, his DNA was on this man's daughter.
00:38:20
At that point, even though he'd been very publicly charged, the right thing to do would have been to say,
00:38:26
that guy did it, not that guy. We're going to let the original schweb out of jail and let him go back to his life.
00:38:32
But they didn't. They decided that it was a conspiracy, that the father had conspired with this guy to come into the house
00:38:40
and raped the daughter while the father watched. Oh, my God. Yes. And they took that to trial.
00:38:47
And some of the best attorneys in the country eventually tried to overturn this result.
00:38:54
But he was convicted of first-degree murder. He was sent away for life. And the Innocence Project got involved.
00:38:59
And everybody pushed so very hard to try to get this overturned because it was so obviously wrong.
00:39:04
But, you know, it's kind of life in prison. You know, he studied up on his theology.
00:39:08
he became a prison minister. And even though the whole town continued to believe he was guilty,
00:39:15
the DA and the local prosecutors still preach that he was guilty. And when I did a story about him,
00:39:21
suggesting strongly that he was an innocent man in prison for a thing he didn't do,
00:39:25
the DA actually set up a special website to attack Bayline for our report. What?
00:39:31
Yeah. So that was one that sticks with me. Eventually, this man died in prison. And so before he could be exonerated and that broke my heart.
00:39:43
Yeah. It's a dark story, but there are, you know, there are a lot of those. That's for sure.
00:39:49
Definitely. Well, and that kind of story that points out where, and I understand where they can't just
00:39:56
reverse cases easily and that, you know, I understand that piece of it, but to that point
00:40:03
where they're bending the facts to suit what they've already tried to prove, that need to not be wrong with the authorities at times
00:40:12
to the sacrifice of someone's actual life. And actually those two sisters that lived, the other daughters,
00:40:20
that now don't have a mother or a father or an older sister. And continue, as far as I know, continue to have beliefs,
00:40:26
which is just, again, as I say, break your heart. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, and there are lots of cases like that where they get them to confess to something and then undoing that is impossible, virtually.
00:40:38
Yeah, it's wild. That false confessions and then also the expectation of what one should sound like and how one should grieve when they find, like in a situation like finding your daughter dead.
00:40:54
And if you don't fit those expectations, people assume things of you. Those two factors, I'm really,
00:41:01
I like the fact that in this true crime area and in, you know, we're realizing that you can't have expectations.
00:41:08
You know, you can't say, here's what you're supposed to sound like when you're grieving and no one would ever,
00:41:13
who would ever confess to something they didn't do. It would never happen, period.
00:41:17
But I like the kind of sea change that's happening around those. And you must've witnessed a lot of those things
00:41:23
that used to be the norm. Oh, yes. And we've done quite a few stories about people who confessed to something they didn't do.
00:41:32
And then they rode back because it's very, very difficult. But watching that happen can be fascinating.
00:41:38
Again, there's always a huge pushback and effort to try to keep them inside and not admit that a mistake was made.
00:41:44
It's very strong. Whether it's simply because they don't want to be sued and lose money or whether it's based, I don't really know.
00:41:52
We did one story where we explored the system which is used in most other almost all other industrialized countries We happened to look at the one that was used in Britain but the systems which are put in place to try to ensure that false confessions do not happen
00:42:09
Who has to be in the room? How long are you? And they have cut their false confessions by almost to nothing.
00:42:18
The officers who were working in the homicide departments rebelled against this.
00:42:23
they thought it was a terrible idea. They'd never get a conviction. But in fact, their parents were a great one out.
00:42:29
So one of the people behind this, this new way of doing things in Britain, came to the United States
00:42:36
and has been educating police departments around the country, which gradually have been adopting
00:42:41
some of those methods so that they avoid false confessions, at least as much as possible.
00:42:48
Yeah, right. Is that one of those things, there was a made-for-TV movie about the Fred and Rose West murders in England.
00:42:55
And it was called, it's basically that there has to be an adult in the room if they think a person might not be understanding
00:43:03
the full scale of what's happening to them when they're being questioned by the police.
00:43:07
And it's just like basically a witness, an adult witness that's there to say, don't do that, don't admit to them.
00:43:13
I think that was used for many years. They're sort of sweating one of these potential convictees.
00:43:18
So you get a 16 or 17 year old kid in the corner of a room. You chill the room so it's cold, cold, cold.
00:43:26
You keep them there all night long, no matter whether they're sick or not. You get two large detectives
00:43:33
kind of leaning in over the table at this person, working away. Now, you know, I'm sure they were well-meaning people,
00:43:40
these detectives, but they were using a system where they were trying to achieve
00:43:45
what they believed to be true, a confession of something that they were pretty sure happened.
00:43:50
But the kid in the corner is terrified. One of the techniques is to say to the kid,
00:43:55
you know, if you just tell us what happened, just tell us you did it, then we can, you know, we can take care of things.
00:44:00
You can, and they leave the impression that the kid can go home and mother will deal with it or something like that.
00:44:08
It'd be okay in the end. And of course it isn't at all. It's a trap and it's a terrible thing, frankly.
00:44:15
I also think about the fact that for some of the false confessions, like the gentleman you just spoke of,
00:44:21
they're also sitting in these rooms with all of those circumstances and all of those tricks.
00:44:25
And they just went through something so incredibly traumatic. So they're not even in their right mind because of that.
00:44:32
If it's something that personally happened to them, you're in shock. You just want to get home and take care of your people
00:44:39
and try to find out what's going on. And so you're just in a really bad circumstance,
00:44:43
no matter what. And then you're being manipulated by professionals. Well, at some point, the person in the hot seat in the corner thinks, well, maybe I did do this.
00:44:54
God knows that. I must have done something. Right. Especially after the 600th time they ask you.
00:45:00
I mean, that's so above and beyond. It's so crazy. Well, I think we should talk about, should we talk about your new podcast?
00:45:08
Do you want to tell us a little bit about what we can expect? Yes. The podcast is called The Seduction.
00:45:17
And it is a story. What can I tell you? I'm not sure how much I can tell you about this.
00:45:22
Just use general nouns. No, but this is a story of a young man's fascination for love for a certain older woman.
00:45:35
So we talked earlier about manipulation. Well, sometimes, sometimes, not as often, but sometimes it works in reverse.
00:45:41
And the thing that made this worth doing a podcast, and we've wanted to for a long time, as soon as we started doing podcasts, we've got to do this story.
00:45:51
It's a phenomenal interview with the man, was a young man, not quite so young anymore, who was at the heart of this crazy, crazy, strange tale.
00:46:02
So the interview was, I barely had to say anything. he wanted to tell the story and he had the kind of personality kind of memory that had every single
00:46:14
detail nailed down locked into his memory and he could just recite it one thing after another
00:46:20
i've never talked to anybody like that before who has his whole life sort of in a catalog that he
00:46:25
can just talk about and talk about and talk about and talk about i did this then and then i did that
00:46:30
and then it was eight o'clock and then it was that. That's a storyteller's dream.
00:46:35
Yeah. Because the protagonist of your story, you know, if you're writing a novel,
00:46:39
that protagonist would know all the details too, right? In real life, they never do.
00:46:44
I mean, people don't remember or they don't tell you. But this is a kid who knew everything
00:46:49
and told me everything. And we checked things out. He was not lying about it either.
00:46:55
So it was pretty interesting. If you think about the movie Double Indemnity, or a couple of other noir movies of that type, you have a fairly good idea of what this story is about.
00:47:08
It takes twists and turns, which are more like the movie Weekend at Bernie's. Oh, no.
00:47:15
Oh, that's a reference right there. Is he the victim or is he the suspect? Well, you know, the question of what he was is a complicated one.
00:47:26
Was he the perpetrator? Was he a little both? Perfect tease. Yeah. Is that in such a Keith Morrison voice?
00:47:35
So the seduction's coming out June 14th. That's right. Among stories that we have done on podcasts,
00:47:43
and don't get me wrong, I love them all, but just this one is a corker. All right.
00:47:49
Oh my God, I can't wait. A little bit dark, corker. And also your new Peacock series, The Last Day,
00:47:56
is also coming out on June 14th. Yeah. It's a big day for you. It is. Now that you've told me, I know.
00:48:05
It's like that calendar. Circle that day. Keith, thank you so much. This has been, we're so honored that you would do this with us.
00:48:13
We're truly huge fans of yours. Been listening to you and watching you for a long time.
00:48:19
And you really are, someone called you recently the granddaddy of true crime, which may be, sorry, that might be lightly insulting.
00:48:26
but I mean, you're just, you've been in our lives for a long time. So we're really,
00:48:30
we just appreciate the job that you've been doing and we really appreciate that you're here.
00:48:35
Glad I've been in your lives. Thank you. Honored. Thank you so much. And you guys, you can also find Keith on Twitter
00:48:41
at Dateline underscore Keith as well. And of course, watch Dateline too. Yes. NBC.
00:48:48
Yeah. Thank you, Keith. Thank you. Take care, guys. You too. Bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
00:48:58
This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producers are Hannah Kyle-Crichton and Natalie Wren.
00:49:09
Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Andrew Eben.
00:49:14
Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and on Twitter at My Fave Murder.
00:49:23
Goodbye. Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites
00:49:36
searching for the best deal. With Cheap Caribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every
00:49:40
destination and every date all in one search. You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach
00:49:45
Finder. Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to Budget Beach Bliss at your
00:49:50
fingertips. Go to cheapcaribbean.com to try out the budget beach finder and see just how stress-free
00:49:55
vacation planning should be. Goodbye. This episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms. Have
00:50:01
you noticed that the egg section at the grocery store has gotten very complicated lately? But
00:50:05
Vital Farms makes it simple. Pasture-raised eggs traceable to the farm. Their hens have outdoor
00:50:10
access year-round with fresh air and sunshine and forage on rotated pastures with local grasses.
00:50:15
Every carton can be traced back to the farm it came from so you can see the pasture where the
00:50:20
hens live by visiting vitalfarms.com slash farm. Look for the black carton in the egg aisle and
00:50:25
visit vitalfarms.com to learn more. Vital Farms, good eggs, no shortcuts. Goodbye.
00:50:32
Hey everyone, it's Kel Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard
00:50:37
with my podcast, Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode, I nerd out with
00:50:43
amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your
00:50:49
ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your
00:50:57
podcasts.