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[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so a buddy of the show Jesse P poock his book comes out
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this week called the acid King mhm about Ricky cazo yeah this the say you love Satan killer is also a name that they
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tie to that that case yeah and so I talked to him on the phone for a little bit but what we thought was pretty
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interesting was he was arrested wearing a it's pretty famous arrest picture MH and and Ricky is wearing a ACDC shirt so
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we figured hey what's your top five ACD songs well and keep in mind here the reason why this is kind of part of the
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news story you're like well you know who cares what kind of shirt he was wear no
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in 1984 that's part of the news story because at that time going on in this country was the satanic panic and also
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the thought that there was uh you know a lot of Satanist type stuff Satanism type
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things in heavy metal music and in their videos yeah ACDC after Christ devil Christ
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yes and ACDC caught a bad name for that during this time and not only did we have Ricky casso who's arrested wearing
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ACDC t-shirt we had Richard Ramirez who claimed that favorite the song no not my
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favorite but um your favorite he's the reason why I have a security system at my house um the he thought that the song
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Night Prowler was like I don't remember if he thought it was about him which is off of acdc's album Highway to Hell um
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but he said he would drive around listening to ACDC to get ramped up for what would eventually be a Breakin and a
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murder later that night um and I think I don't know if he thought the song Night
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Prowler was about him or kind of his Anthem but that was the one that he cited publicly that I'm sure you know
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acdc's like do keep keep our name out your mouth son we're not associated with Richard Ramirez which is for some rock
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and roll but yeah so let's get to the list uh let's start with your number five my
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number five I picked in this song um I I knew we were doing this this morning so
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when I drove over here this song was in my head the whole way and it's cuz it's very catchy just put it on Apple music
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and rock it Out Who Made Who off of the 1986 album Who Made Who which was the soundtrack for The Stephen King film
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Maximum Overdrive uh the first line of the song which which kind of really represents
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what the movie is about is the video game says play me and it's you know if anybody's seen that movie or read the
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book that that's based off of the idea of that that horror flick is that at some point the machines become in
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control and try to kill off the humans you know the machines are telling the humans what to do and you could tell
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they wrote this song specifically for the movie Just with that open line the video game says play me another good
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song of theirs that was written for a movie was Big Guns was that oh yeah yeah yeah wasn't that written for like Last
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Action Hero or something yeah maybe Terminator I'm not really for sure I think it was Terminator number five on
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my list I I I there's a tie and and I I don't know if you'll remember this but so so I have If You Want Blood you got
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it you got it yeah great song tied with big balls and the reason why is I don't think big balls is that great of a song
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but she's got big balls and I've got big balls and and we've got the biggest balls of them but I just remember being
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at uh Church camp she get those balls looked at and I and I cuz at the time ACDC was played a lot on the radio
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wasn't a huge fan I was a kid I didn't understand rock and roll in our town they picked like three or four ACDC
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songs and those were the ones that they played all the time on the radio so you weren't getting the good stuff you were
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getting the very radio stuff yeah and and I just remember being at this church camp and one of the mentors or or
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chaperon or whatever they're like teenage kids and we were on this trip to go ride horses and I just
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remember you know the chaperon or whatever is like here take my headphones and it was like cool and I was listening
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and it was the big balls song and it was hilarious and of course this teenager knew like I'm going to give him this
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song and this kid's going to find this hilarious right and so that song always has a little special place in my
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balls okay so number number four safe in New York City uh almost one almost I'm sorry 11 million views on YouTube off of
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the incredibly underrated stiff upper lip album acdc's 14th studio album released in 2000 but this became one of
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my favorite ACDC songs after the 911 attacks in 2001 um the the the chorus is I feel
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safe in New York City um and this song always made me kind of rally behind that feeling of this is our country man this
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is this is our this is our uh land and you ain't going to come in here and mess with us all right my number four was
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your number five Who Made Who Who Made Who who made you ain't nobody told you like oh man
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this rock and roll okay number three number three Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution off of the back and Black
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Album one of the most iconic heavy metal albums of all time that that is a great
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song that didn't make my list and maybe it should have my number three is It's a
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Long Way to the Top if you want a rock and roll yeah you know what that's interesting that our number threes are
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similar in the sense that it's like rock and roll is a business you know rock and
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roll I'm on the road I'm out here doing this in front of you people yeah yeah but I think it's I I like the
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It's a Long Way to the Top If you want to rock and roll cuz it's it can be applied to anything in life like I mean
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we're rocking and rolling right now with the podcast but in the early days it it was just grind grind grind
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It's a Long Way to the Top If you want to rock it and you want to talk about how long of a way it is we're not even
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to the top yet and we've been doing this for years we don't even know I can't see
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the top man we don't even know if they're going to allow us to the top I can see the bottom I I can still see the
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bottom all right number uh two oh man this one is this goes way back for me this has been one of my favorite Hard
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Rock heavy metal songs for a long long long time shoot the thrill off of the back and black 1980 album this SC this
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song from my understanding was written about Angus Young the the lead guitar player and it was written because the
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the singer um says Hey when when Angus is playing a live show it's like watching an outlaw like watching a
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gunslinger or some guy with a machine gun that's his performance and so so the whole the whole idea is this is a guy
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man he's not just a rock and roller but he he's he shoots to Thrill he plays to kill and it's off of um Back in Black
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but it it also got a big uh Resurgence when Iron Man 2 when the Iron Man 2 movie came out and this was practically
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like their main song I think of that movie yeah uh mine Number Two For Those About to Rock We Salute You and what I
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love about it is when you just think of the term For Those About to Rock mhm it's not for those who are rocking We
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Salute You it's like for those just even thinking about rocking We Salute You and
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and coming from teaching guitar for I don't know how 11 to 13 years somewhere around there um you know it's almost
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like they were nodding even to the kids hey if you're even going to attempt to grab a guitar and think about being in a
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rock band which I think we need more of we can't have Jack White and David Gro be in every rock and
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roll band that's popular we need more kids picking up the guitars and making some good music hard rocks really kind
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of died off like there's just not as many people doing it anymore and it's a shame cuz I I love hard rock I
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especially love ACDC I probably you know I never like to do a top five or top 10
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bands because that changes almost daily for me that's a well that's why you could do one every day yeah that's
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basically you know it's off of what kind of mood I'm in but ACDC For Me has always been one of those bands that was
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great to drive your car to on the freeway you know maybe do a little weightlifting or do a little working out
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and I'll tell you what they're very good they're a very good drinking band mhm you know well like we said I mean we
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were doing this list and you said um got locked in your office headphones blazing chair dancing beers flowing till
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2:00 in the morning I lined up like four beers so I wouldn't have to get up from
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my desk to go to the refrigerator you just need a refrigerator in your office and a coloss
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me bag so I don't have to or just wear a diaper and just sit in it just pee just
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let let it flow my friend all with with with all that how about with all that pee happening number one ain't no fun
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waiting round To Be A Millionaire off of the 1976 album Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap uh the with the original singer
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the late great Bon Scott this is probably my favorite ACDC album of all time feat featuring songs like the title
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track Problem Child love it first feel ride on Squealer I mean that that album is just incredible for me and my
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favorite song off of it 100% ain't no fun waiting around to be a millionaire it's it's funny so my buddy Morgan we
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decided to have fake names in college and and there it was for no reason just kind of we thought it was hilarious so I
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was Brandon Cameron you have to the idea was that you'd have two first names so Brandon Cameron and then his was Connor
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Galloway which Galloway is not so much a first name but so I was Brandon Cameron
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he was Connor Galloway and we had our our buddy with us Dave and we went to this party and I was like Hey fake names
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and Matt was like yeah yeah cuz it was fun because it was always nice to introduce yourself Brandon Cameron MH
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Conor Galloway and and we'd be cracking up while we did it so he's like I need a
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fake name and so we called him Bon Scott and every time we went to a party we'd be like and this is Bon Scott and he
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just like not know what to do he's like hey nice to meet you I'm Bon Scott and maybe one time somebody said is that the
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singer from ACD the first singer of ACDC mhm we're like yeah he was named after him duh so uh my number
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one thunder struck oh yeah yeah good choice good list and this is this is okay so one we only had one lapping
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overlapping song Who Made Who so who made who might be their best song because it overlapped on our list well
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for I'll tell you what for the people that are younger than us and actually we're a little young to kind of know
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this too but having gone back and listened to some of their old stuff like I said that their favorite album of of
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of mine is a 1976 album I wasn't even alive then yeah I'm I'm 13 and a half today it's my half birthday so for the
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younger people out there that might want to check out some ACDC or they're like you know I don't really like ACDC it's
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just typical heavy metal um guitar gun linging Hard Rock their older stuff is has a lot of like Punk feel to it at
00:13:05
times and it has a has some blues rock feel to it at times so they're no no no look we we got to stop doing this okay
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because when I was a kid I I remember somebody said to me oh you you play music yeah yeah yeah I play a little
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music you like The Beetles I didn't like the Beetles at the time no I don't like
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the Beetles and it used to it wasn't like hey well that's before your time these
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guys would say well you better learn kid right and so if you don't like ACDC ah you better learn kid that's what we need
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to start doing we need to start judging a little bit more hey you don't like ACDC you better learn well and I referen
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that they did like 14 or so Studio albums but the great thing about ACDC is if you just want to like check them out
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and kind of get a whole bunch of good stuff at once on the cheap they they did a bunch of live albums and they sound
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incredibly good live on the cheap go to Apple music and you can listen to all their songs for whatever the I'm still
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an album guy I still like I still like albums are cool but C sound real good that's what I love about Jack White by
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for example though he's a big vinyl guy mhm and he said of course I love vinyl and when you listen to vinyl and you put
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it on at your house it's a different experience he's like but when I get in my car
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Apple music Spotify you know go with technology was you know it's I got a million songs in my phone here we go I
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uh but here's here's one thing that I I I challenge you to do sometime okay with
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thunder struck so I was uh you know doing some CrossFit type workouts and they do this thunder struck workout okay
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and does it involve the Chant by the rest of the band Thunder well well it involves the word Thunder anytime he
00:15:01
says the word Thunder you have to do a burpee which is you know you fall down and you get back up and you clap above
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your head right so there's multiple things you can do you could do jump rope and between you could there's a bunch of
00:15:17
different things you can do squat thrust whatever your whatever your constant is
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no you want your constant to be not that hard oh you oh you want something in between the bir right the Burpee is
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going to be the hard part so I go to this CrossFit class great uh coach uh bass player he'd always play rage
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against machine like anytime he was coaching all workout long was raging his machine so you know this guy was awesome
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or Primus and sometimes people would like start going you got to turn this off I'm like this is the best class ever
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rage against machine and Primus so he comes in and says okay start doing jumping jacks and every time they say
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the word Thunder do a burpee and by the end of it I thought I was going to die and that was our
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warm-up for the day so if you want to challenge yourself do jumping jacks and every time they say
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thunder cuz they say it a lot mhm so let's check out this interview well it's more of a conversation with our good
00:16:22
friend Jesse P Pollock about his book The acid King all right it's great to be with you and talking with you Jessie P
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poock cuz like you said there is another Jesse poock out there and we're going to
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have to hunt this guy down we're gonna have to kill him Hollow him out and live in him like the animal he
00:16:44
is and then well you go ahead and do that and then me and Nick will do a podcast about it oh man you know we
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talked to this guy twice we didn't think he was going to do anything that drastic
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that's some First Blood [ __ ] yeah well well I don't know because the first time
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I talked to you uh it almost ended up in fistic cuffs you know that's how we became
00:17:09
friends yeah yeah no that that's that's the great um Legacy that social media is
00:17:14
going to leave the uh the total lack of nuance that leads to Total misunderstandings but uh no no to your
00:17:21
credit you didn't kick my ass which uh which I probably deserved and uh we worked it all out I I still think would
00:17:28
have been funny though if we started that uh that part four of that series with just like the sound effect of like
00:17:34
a door being kicked down and just like I heard you were talking some [ __ ] but alas yeah people would been like what
00:17:42
the heck is going on ashpod beef is what's going on yo it was just so funny too cuz we we we put it out with the
00:17:49
intent of one trying to get a hold of you and also with the intent of of really kind of hitting home which which
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we've done with every author like hey a lot of the information we got from this case is from this book by the book
00:18:05
support the author U we just didn't get to that bar yet so yeah no I had no idea
00:18:10
it was going to be a multi-part series it is just I had heard he you know True Crime garage just did a did an episode
00:18:17
about your book and then like I listened to her I was like they didn't mention the book and then so like I got you know
00:18:22
my ego got bruised there and then when I finally got a hold of you cuz it took a
00:18:27
while cuz I think you were were out doing something for most of that day and then like finally like no dude like
00:18:33
we're saving that as the reveal for episode 2 this is a multi parter and I'm like oh well [ __ ] now I feel
00:18:40
bad still do feel bad but I'm I'm I'm glad that uh we feel bad it was funny it was it funny the funny thing to the
00:18:49
funny thing was like when I called you the first time I was like okay here let's see how this is going to go and
00:18:55
and the book we're talking about is the devil's teeth yeah death on the devil's teeth the the first book that uh that I
00:19:01
co-authored with Mark Moran from weird New Jersey came out about three years ago now yeah you you've done a lot of
00:19:07
work with weird New Jersey going back about 20 years now yeah I think my uh my first short form piece which I think was
00:19:15
either a letter or a tiny article was I think the uh either the May issue or the
00:19:22
October issue of 2001 so they've been dealing with me for too long yeah and if anybody's not
00:19:30
familiar with weird New Jersey they should just check out anything that they put out I don't think I've I don't think
00:19:36
there's been a bad thing that I've seen that they've put out no and and it's not
00:19:40
just New Jersey too like um and you don't have to be from New Jersey to appreciate like the the bizarre and
00:19:47
creepy and real morbid stuff that comes out in that magazine but um if you are State Centric um there are a whole bunch
00:19:56
of coffee table books out there that the weird brand has produced over the years
00:20:00
there's weird Ohio weird Indiana weird California weird Texas which was written by my uh friend Heather shade um James
00:20:09
Willis did weird Ohio a lot of uh paranormal researchers out there will know that name and um in addition to
00:20:16
that there's also the weird us I think there's actually two volumes of weird us uh coffee table books and then there was
00:20:23
even a TV series for the History Channel so there's a lot of weird to go around thankfully yes I don't know why that
00:20:32
cracked me up but it's it's it's all very Cary it's Carnival barking it's it's there's a ton of weird stuff out
00:20:38
there but that book was amazing and you have a new book that's coming out well of course we thought it was amazing we
00:20:46
did a four-part uh episode on it um but then there's this new book that you've been working on that we talked
00:20:53
about let's see when when the heck did we first that was back February when we we we did the interview wasn't it yeah
00:21:01
that was a while ago yeah and you were working on the book The acid King mhm which from what I this is just what the
00:21:09
internet is telling me the acid King is supposed to be out October 16th yes the paperback and the Kindle are being
00:21:16
released by Simon and Schuster on uh Tuesday the 16th and then because of some wonderful Canadian paper tariffs
00:21:25
that uh were implemented last summer the hard cover has been delayed until November 6th so if you pre-ordered the
00:21:33
hard cover um it's going to be late but uh find me on Twitter uh at jpic author uh send me a screenshot of your receipt
00:21:42
and I'll hook you up okay so the acid King who is the acid King well that's the $6 million question now isn't it um
00:21:52
the acid King was the nickname they paid you $6 million to write the book holy [ __ ] man if if if they paid me $6
00:22:00
million to write that book I'd buy my own damn for so I wouldn't have to worry about these tariffs screwing over the
00:22:06
hard cover but uh no no far from it um but no the acid King was the uh the nickname of a fell named Ricky casso and
00:22:16
Ricky casso became uh known worldwide in the summer of 1984 when he was arrested
00:22:23
for murdering a friend of his uh named Gary lowers in what the uh the press and the police referred to as a a
00:22:31
ritualistic satanic sacrifice so it's not deviating too far from what we talked about um with the
00:22:39
devil's teeth stuff and Ricky was kind of the typical teenager where he's he's wearing you know ACDC shirts he's into
00:22:47
Heavy Metal He's into Aussie Osborne he's into Black Sabbath well yeah he was uh he was sort of prototypical uh you
00:22:55
know American Suburban middle class kid um grew up in uh Northport Long Island which is um a little village less than
00:23:05
8,000 people on the North Shore in suffa County uh his mother um kind of split her time between working in the office
00:23:15
at um the local high school um and being a homemaker he was one of four children
00:23:20
so I mean that obviously takes up a lot of time and uh his father was um a uh social studies and history teacher at a
00:23:30
Cold Spring Harbor High School he was also a uh a widely recognized High School football coach a wrestling coach
00:23:39
um he had won many awards for doing it so uh to say that this kid kind of had the the
00:23:46
prototypical uh Mayberry sort of existence um would not be uh an understatement and but unfortunately as
00:23:54
such the the kid had a lot of pressure on him to to S to succeed he was the the oldest of the four children he was the
00:24:01
only boy so um you know his father did expect this kid you know to you know excel in sports and Excel in school it
00:24:12
kind of ended in disaster so this kid's into rock and roll his dad's an authority figure so
00:24:18
that might be oh yeah some of the problem there but now you said Northport Now isn't Northport connected with
00:24:28
is that connected to Amityville somehow it's only a half hour away and um Amityville is also in uh suffa County
00:24:36
it's on the Southshore and uh we may have time to get into it uh a little bit later but I definitely get into it in
00:24:43
the book but there is an Amityville Connection in this case and it's uh pretty spooky well suffa county is also
00:24:50
Long Island serial killer right yeah yeah oh definitely suff County's got no shortage of the maob
00:24:58
no it doesn't seem so at all so no so we have this this kid that's you know Mr rock and roll let's call his dad is
00:25:10
authority figure he's a wrestler I can just imagine you know his uh it's like The Breakfast Club when when the
00:25:17
wrestler sits there and says you know you gotta win you can't be a loser yeah um oh yeah no his sister who I
00:25:26
interviewed for the book told me all about that she said you know I remember one wrestling meet that I went to um and
00:25:33
I watched him you know get pinned by someone else and she was like my dad flipped out and I think they even asked
00:25:39
him to leave and she was like can you imagine how embarrassing that must have been for my brother who was only 12 or
00:25:45
13 at the time it was uh yeah you know that the father wanted the kid to be the next Johnny unitis and uh you know if
00:25:52
that's the kind of person your dad is you know when you get into that normal teenage rebellion phase yeah you're
00:25:59
going to become Mr rock and roll to rebel against him which is I I think it's kind of funny it's kind of like how
00:26:04
uh you know when your father's aie Osborne how do you rebel against that you become a nerd like Jack Osborne
00:26:11
right right right hey but hey Jack did put together some amazing concert series for people so he is a really really
00:26:19
talented dude and as much as I goof on him for being you know the nerdy son of Azie I mean the projects that he's been
00:26:25
doing like that film that he did the do with him and his old man like that was great and he's got some TV stuff going
00:26:32
on so I mean you know more power to him the kid did well well and Jack uh Jack's
00:26:37
been actually talking a lot because he was diagnosed with MS and he's been doing a lot of great work of speaking on
00:26:44
uh being diagnosed and what that has meant to him and now being a father and so um but so we had so back to the acid
00:26:53
King I'm going to say it about a million times because I think it's really I mean
00:26:58
you hit a home run with the devil's teeth you can't get better of a title than that to me yeah the devil's te it
00:27:05
was and it was just it just kind of got handed to me essentially because uh if you go back and you flip through the
00:27:12
archival news coverage and the newspaper photos and all this stuff uh you know the the the park downtown where this kid
00:27:20
used to hang out and you know deal drugs and ingest drugs uh it was spray painted
00:27:25
everywhere you know Ricky the ID King and and the kids called him that um pretty much because by the time he was
00:27:34
16 years old he was the chief distributor of hallucinogenics in Northport um it got to the point where
00:27:41
he was taking very very dangerous trips into the South Bronx and mind you this is the South Bronx in the early 80s when
00:27:49
you know Ronald Reagan very famously said it looked like a bombed out war zone yeah and he was going in there as
00:27:56
this you know gangly 16-year-old white kid uh asking you know for you know like all right I need uh purple micro dots to
00:28:05
sell I need PCP I need LSD and then cting all that stuff back to Suburban white bread you know Northport and
00:28:13
selling it essentially to support himself by the time he was 16 years old his father had thrown him out pretty
00:28:21
much uh you know wiped his hands of him and the kid was sleeping in the woods yeah now is it wrong for me to say that
00:28:28
Ricky quote unquote the acid King I mean he kind of looks like a like a younger Kid
00:28:36
Rock you know I never thought of that but now yeah in in that famous booking photo I can kind of see it yeah so I
00:28:45
mean like definitely not a partying Patriot though right right so okay so so Ricky is then Distributing drugs for
00:28:53
people that's how he's getting the name the acid King and probably also using these drugs as well oh yeah
00:29:01
definitely um he had been using uh hallucinogenic drugs since at the very least seventh grade um I've taught to
00:29:08
friends and classmates of his while writing the book that uh one of them uh told me you know a famous story that
00:29:15
some of you listening might already be familiar with but um when he was in art class in seventh grade he was sitting
00:29:21
next to a friend and he was drawing a picture of a dragon while he was hallucinating on uh purple micro dot
00:29:28
which everyone back then called mescalin you know mesk for short because that's what they thought it was but in reality
00:29:36
what these little tablets were it was a mixture of PCP uh dirty acid and strick nine so uh the stuff that these kids
00:29:46
were ingesting at a young age was you know pretty risky stuff and you know like I said his friend was tell telling
00:29:54
me like oh yeah uh you know I'm just sitting there and I'm asking him what are you drawing he's like oh Dragon you
00:30:00
know it's moving he's like what no no yeah it's moving off of my page it's like what are you want oh you know
00:30:06
purple micro Dot and this is this is seventh grade you know most uh you know according to the uh statistics that I
00:30:13
read um you know who knows how reliable they are but um most American uh youth don't first start experimenting with
00:30:22
drugs until about 8th or nth grade and they usually start with pot but in North Port you know you had a lot of kids with
00:30:29
older brothers and in the early 80s late 70s their older brothers had lived through the C the the counterculture of
00:30:36
the late 60s so you know they had this wonderful grab bag of oh you know let me get my my older brother's copies of Craw
00:30:43
Daddy and cream and uh I'll take those Pink Floyd records please and then you know sooner or later they're sharing
00:30:49
joints with each other and when you're starting with pot that early you know eventually you know and I'm not saying
00:30:55
pot is a gateway drug but what I am saying is um in the boredom of Long Island Suburbia of the late 70s and
00:31:03
early 80s eventually these kids got curious about okay well what's the next step you know let me try some acid you
00:31:09
know let me try mesculin and then eventually you know PCP made its way in and all hell kind of broke loose I I'm
00:31:16
not a pot smoker myself um I actually but but I think everybody should smoke pot because I think everybody would
00:31:24
chill out it'd be nice um but there is a there's a lot of studies that are done that say Hey if these young kids you
00:31:32
know let's say 10 12 year olds 14 year olds or smoking pot that before the age of 20 it can really uh do some shifts in
00:31:41
your brain mentally and so it's really like if you're going to experiment with drugs in general hey let's kind of wait
00:31:48
till the brain's a little more developed to do so and if I might quote South Park
00:31:54
there's a time and a place for everything and it's called right yeah yeah you know that's kind of true
00:32:02
uh but yeah so he so he's taking acid he's dropping acid what did you call it it was a
00:32:11
purple what purple micro dot it's something you really don't see anymore but it was popular like I said in the
00:32:18
late 70s and early 80s there were these little um tablets they were very small and um like I said most people thought
00:32:26
that they were made of escalin but uh which is I believe from the peyote plant um if I'm not I'm I'm showing my true
00:32:34
drug colors here I'm a real nerd with it and don't know too much about that stuff
00:32:38
but um they could have had a cooler name like call it like purple purple or something you know purple masculine I'd
00:32:46
be like no no no no I want to take some of that purple purple yeah but uh yeah they basically thought it was this this
00:32:54
uh Other Drug masculine when really it was this bizarre Cheapo concoction of rat poison and you know lowgrade LSD and
00:33:05
PCP so these kids were getting some um pretty intense highs from the stuff that they were injecting uh I mean ingesting
00:33:13
not injecting um as early as you know 12 13 years old you know with the acid trips you know I've been reading a lot
00:33:22
of stuff about DMT and acid trips stuff like that and then and them meeting Jesters dark jesters and and a
00:33:33
lot of these people have these trips they it's almost like they see the same individuals and it's almost like a
00:33:40
gateway to unlocking some spirituality inside your own body and seeing these dark spoiler alert that Jester is Joe
00:33:49
Rogan okay Joe Rogan loves talking about DMT yes and and and this is where I've heard
00:33:56
some of the stuff from and so then you get then you kind of Wonder with with Ricky being so young what the heck was
00:34:05
he experiencing in his brain and did that have you know the cause and effect of then him becoming a killer well I I'm
00:34:13
a firm believer in uh multicausality um which is something that uh a previous journalist who worked
00:34:21
on this case guy named David breeskin really turned me on to through his research um he went to Northport within
00:34:28
days of Ricky being arrested for killing lawers and spent several weeks there um
00:34:34
integrating himself with uh cassos Piers working on the story for Rolling Stone called kids in the dark and it's a great
00:34:41
long form piece I encourage anyone who wants to learn more about this case before picking up my book to go um over
00:34:47
to David brin's website and he's got PDFs of that original Rolling Stone article on there but um basically uh the
00:34:57
the three big causes I think here you know we already talked about the you know the pressures in the home and the
00:35:02
breakdown of the relationship between him and his father being thrown out to live in the woods we've talked about the
00:35:08
uh the very very significant amount of drugs that this kid was using by the time he was 17 years old and the third
00:35:16
factor in this is the kid had an undeniable obsession with the maab um as time went on with this story uh the and
00:35:27
the police sort of distorted elements of his confession and his reputation around
00:35:33
town and somehow got out that oh you know he was the leader of this satanic cult and the murder happened in front of
00:35:41
a bonfire and there were a dozen you know chanting robed members of this cult doing incantations when in reality I
00:35:48
mean this was a kid who felt wronged by everything by everyone around him and sort of took s in these spooky books
00:35:58
that he would pick up from the library and I'm sure a lot of people listening to True Crime you know podcasts out
00:36:04
there could totally commiserate with that I mean you know me personally I was the nerd in the library checking out all
00:36:10
the ghost and Bigfoot books when I was a kid and that's probably why I'm a you know a paranormal podcaster when I'm not
00:36:16
writing murder books um and he was one of those kids um and that kind of evolved by the time he was 17 into
00:36:25
picking up a copy of the Satanic Bible uh his friends say he got really really into that and that became kind of his
00:36:33
way of uh I would say striking back against Society it's like okay I've been Cast Away by my family I've been Cast
00:36:41
Away by my peers you know I uh I I abandon school I I don't have a conventional job but I'm a Satanist I'm
00:36:50
someone in the realm of that you know belief system and he used it as a way to stand out and as a way to scare people
00:36:58
to be honest so when you combine these three things you know the breakdown of his family relationship the um the
00:37:08
occult Obsession and the enormous drug intake it was a total recipe for disaster yeah and this is just the tip
00:37:17
of the iceberg because there's like you said possibly three causations maybe more and then the diving of the details
00:37:26
of each one of those and then the diving of the details of the actual crime and then there's kind of two stories the
00:37:34
story that the cops and the media want you to believe and then then the story that really happened so even if you have
00:37:40
researched a lot of stuff um about the acid King you don't know the true story and that's kind of why you did the book
00:37:49
yeah definitely um what it happened was um after death on the devil's teeth was released my agent got a phone call from
00:37:57
an editor at Simon in Schuster and they were saying hey you know we're getting ready to start up this new True Crime
00:38:04
line called Simon true and we really want to appeal to the uh the teenage Market the the quote unquote yaa brand
00:38:13
because uh True Crime is is huge right now it's dominating every part of media culture whether it's you know
00:38:20
Netflix's or hbos um great True Crime programming that's coming out now podcasts like the one that we on and
00:38:29
books like the ones I wrote um it's it's just it's big right now it's you know not to sound callous But True Crime is
00:38:35
hot you know as from a marketing standpoint so they said we would like to put together a line of books that are
00:38:42
written with a teen audience in mind do you know anyone that would be able to write something like that and you know
00:38:48
since Devil's teeth you know discussed uh Janetta Palma who was 16 my agent said yeah you know my client Jesse paa
00:38:56
could write something for you so once we had some meetings they said listen you know uh we think you can do this based
00:39:03
on your first book we want a case where the uh the victim and the killer are both teenagers do you know a story that
00:39:11
would fit that criteria and I said yeah right off the bat the Ricky casso Cas out on Long Island Ricky was 17 and so
00:39:18
was his victim Gary lowers and they said okay you know go ahead and uh you know write this book and they're already was
00:39:26
a prior book that came out in 1987 called uh s of Satan by David stclair and um I had bought a copy of
00:39:36
that uh while working on Devil's teeth I was like oh another satanic Panic case you know let me read this for some you
00:39:42
know background and I I enjoyed the book it's a little cheesy in Parts but I but
00:39:47
I enjoy some 80s cheese occasionally but I I was under the impression it was the true story you
00:39:53
know it was a you know a national book came out through Dell a reputable publisher and I just thought okay uh
00:40:01
what I will do for my book is I will use the a for the AET King I will use say you love Satan as the springboard I will
00:40:09
reinter all these people get some new information uh I will get the original case files through the Freedom of
00:40:15
Information Act and tell an updated version of the story and almost immediately when I started um
00:40:24
interviewing the people from Northport back then uh I found out that say you love Satan is 90% fiction and the 10%
00:40:32
that isn't was plagiarized from David brin's Rolling Stone article so then it became um a two-fold sort of thing it's
00:40:41
like okay well not only do I have to tell an updated version of the story with the benefit of of modern
00:40:48
factchecking but I've got to give these people their story back because there was an injustice done here you know this
00:40:55
this writer came in into town was largely rebuffed by the community because it had only been 3 years they
00:41:01
weren't ready to talk about this again and so instead of going back to his publisher and saying sorry I couldn't
00:41:06
get anyone to talk to me you know I don't think there's a book here he just figured [ __ ] it I'll make the rest of it
00:41:11
up and boy did he so for the last three years I've just been trying to you know as Petty as this sounds undo what he did
00:41:21
with that book because you know it ruined a lot of lives you know for years a lot of these people I interviewed uh
00:41:28
couldn't tell anyone they were from Northport because people people outside of Northport this is preg Google this is
00:41:36
pre- social media so like me the the same reaction I had to it they figured oh well this is a book it's a real book
00:41:42
it's 400 pages long it's by Dell this must be the true story and it wasn't so um anyone out there who's looking for
00:41:52
properly researched True Crime and not sensationalism you're going to find in the acid King well and you're finding
00:41:58
that a lot now with these quote unquote documentaries where people watch these true crime documentaries and they walk
00:42:05
away thinking the person's innocent or guilty and you go you know they they didn't even tell the whole story so yeah
00:42:14
yeah we saw that a lot with making a murderer yeah definitely and and I think um that's that's why I it's almost like
00:42:23
you don't have a problem giving your opinion but you're more interested in telling what is than to just give your
00:42:30
opinion well definitely and and and even though I'm giving my opinion it's it's still objective in the sense that my
00:42:36
opinion is okay you know it's it's screwed up to mislead people because I've been duped you know I I bought a
00:42:45
lot of these you know poorly fact checked books if they were even fact checked at all you know when I was a kid
00:42:52
and a teenager growing up and then as you know Google allowed this era of instant fact
00:42:59
checking and social media allowed people to connect you know whether it's you know reaching out to someone who was
00:43:06
affected by a case or a law enforcement officer who worked it you know you find out it's like man I I I gave all this
00:43:13
money to these authors that sold me a bunch of [ __ ] no one likes being ripped off so you know when it came time
00:43:21
to write about these cases I didn't want to be that guy and and even if it meant
00:43:25
burn some bridges by telling people listen that author is full of [ __ ] about this or hey you know Tom broka screw
00:43:33
screwed up the story or hey this Police Department sent out a you know a [ __ ] press release that was
00:43:39
self-serving in the middle of an election year you know so be it the the the true facts of these stories have to
00:43:46
come out because it's real people you're dealing with and and people are are still affected by it I I've I've sat in
00:43:55
the living room of the families of a lot of these murder victims and I tell you what time does not heal all wounds these
00:44:03
people are still very much affected by what happened and it's a double slap in the face to them to not only lose a
00:44:11
family member or have your family destroyed by one of these incidents but then to you know turn on the television
00:44:18
or log on to the internet and see nothing but lies being propagated and for profit you know it's how do you not
00:44:26
look at that and go what can I do to help as a journalist so that's you know if I have any Mission or any bias as a
00:44:32
writer it's it's that like get the true story back out there and hopefully let it be the final word so where can
00:44:41
everybody find this book when does it come out where is it going to be at how can people find this the the acid King
00:44:48
is going to be released on Tuesday October 16th in paperback in Kindle um if if you like to shop on online it's
00:44:56
available on Amazon it's on Barnes noble.com books a million indiebound and uh this is a national book through Simon
00:45:05
and Schuster so it'll be available in brick and mortar stores everywhere um if if I would ask any uh potential readers
00:45:14
anything I would say give that store a call and just make sure that you know they have copies on hand because it's a
00:45:20
brand new book some stores get them some stores don't and it helps out uh True Crime authors it actually helps out any
00:45:27
author but um you know if you're looking for true crime books G give Amazon a call ask them if if if they're going to
00:45:34
be shipping them on time give Barnes & Noble a call ask them if it's going to be in the brickham mortar store or books
00:45:39
a million any of that and just say hey I want this book and and it helps us out it helps out our numbers it helps us get
00:45:46
the books in the hands of people who want them and hopefully it gets the true story out there for all the listeners
00:45:53
get the acid King it's going to blow your mind for one but also you know Jesse wrote a great book called Death on
00:46:00
the devil's teeth and that's available and what what I'll do is I'll put a link on our website at True Crime
00:46:07
garage.com very cool awesome man it's always great to talk to you uh always a pleasure to come on here oh God uh you
00:46:15
know fingers crossed I I I would love to be the one to give you an exclusive on this but I am very very superstitious
00:46:23
about jinxes but I will say this book three my agent loves the proposal and this
00:46:29
week we are getting ready to uh send it out to Publishers to see who's interested in it but uh it will be
00:46:36
another True Crime case and it will be uh an even more famous One than Ricky casso So cross your fingers well you can
00:46:45
you can you can send me a message on Twitter about that so you can you can oh yeah you can give me a
00:46:52
hint oh yeah no I I'll definitely give you a hint and I tell tell you what if if luck is in my favor and the book gets
00:46:58
picked up I'll give you the exclusive for the announcement on it because you guys have been great to me on this show
00:47:03
well that's cuz we we originally wanted to fight you um yeah I keep making up for that so
00:47:11
and and then and then and but then I saw a picture of you and I said well Jesse might actually take us down and then I
00:47:18
found no way but then I well at first I was like this son of a [ __ ] lives in Jersey so like it doesn't matter I can
00:47:24
talk [ __ ] to him and then I found out that you don't live in Jersey anymore and you live really we're like two hours
00:47:30
away from each other I know you need to come down to Columbus and for us to get a bite to eat so again yeah no dude I
00:47:37
definitely got to because they got a Great White Castle over in Maryville so that's always a good excuse for me to
00:47:42
get up by you I'm not going that's oh man because that's what I grew up with in uh in New Jersey you know we go hang
00:47:50
out at the White Castle and then I moved out to where I am now and I'm like man I
00:47:53
got to drive all the way to Marysville to get White Castle but uh no all [ __ ] about fast food aside uh we're
00:47:59
working on a documentary adaptation of uh of the acid King and uh you know definitely um sometime within the next
00:48:07
year I got to get up there and maybe we can get you and Nick on film for it talking about the the True Crime Legacy
00:48:13
of the satanic Panic that that would be awesome so everybody go out get the acid
00:48:17
King today make this a big hit and success for our friend Jesse and uh I'll talk to you soon my friend definitely
00:48:26
and and big shout out to all of you listeners out there I got a lot of followers on social media and a lot of
00:48:33
emails from people that heard my uh my interview back in February and you all are some of the nicest people I have
00:48:40
ever ever spoken to you all left me a bunch of very touching reviews on uh Amazon and uh whenever you reach out on
00:48:49
social media it just makes my day so you know all you guys out there listening to
00:48:53
True Prime garage you all kick ass [Music] [Applause]