Latest / Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel / Investigative Journalist Chris Hansen | True Crime Expert in Catching Predators

Transcript

Investigative Journalist Chris Hansen | True Crime Expert in Catching Predators · Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel

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  Speaker 1: That's B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash P-O-D. Start your journey to
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  Speaker 1: real conversations in a new language today. Welcome back to Misunderstood.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Rachel Uchitel. Today's guest is an Emmy
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  Speaker 1: Award-winning investigative journalist with a career spanning decades. He was
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  Speaker 1: the mastermind behind the hit TV show To Catch a
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  Speaker 1: Predator on Dateline, where he successfully exposed and stopped online
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  Speaker 1: sex predators. His work is truly commendable, and he's always
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  Speaker 1: on the move with a new crime streaming network, a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: a news magazine, a dozen new documentaries in the works.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know where he finds the time. I'm so
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  Speaker 1: excited for you guys to listen to my interview with
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  Speaker 1: Chris Hansen up next. Chris, thank you so much for
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  Speaker 1: joining me.
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  Speaker 2: Well, my pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: I've been saying to you, like, how much I'm in
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  Speaker 1: awe of you and how I've known you for watching
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  Speaker 1: you on TV for years and years. And I was
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  Speaker 1: saying to you that, like, if I could have a
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  Speaker 1: friend group, it would have been you, Nancy Grace, and
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  Speaker 1: maybe John Oliver. Like, you guys are my posse of
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  Speaker 1: who I want to be best friends with because I
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  Speaker 1: just think you're fantastic.
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  Speaker 2: Sitting in good company there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So what do you think of the fact
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  Speaker 1: that true crime has become such a big deal to everybody?
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  Speaker 1: It's like people are obsessed.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think some of these stories are as old
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  Speaker 2: as the Bible and it's good versus evil. And I
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  Speaker 2: think people are fascinated by the stories just as people
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  Speaker 2: continue to be fascinated with Shakespeare or with the theater.
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  Speaker 2: And what we do in our particular enterprise style with
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  Speaker 2: the Predator franchise or any of the other documentaries we're
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  Speaker 2: doing is that we take people inside the commission of
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  Speaker 2: a felony. They see things they wouldn't normally see. They
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  Speaker 2: hear things they wouldn't normally hear. And I've got an
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  Speaker 2: all-access pass to that because I've been doing this for
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  Speaker 2: so many years. Right. I think people like that inside view.
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  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, if you can
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  Speaker 2: get into the mind of a criminal or a predator
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  Speaker 2: and understand a little bit more about how that works,
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  Speaker 2: you can prevent people from becoming victims. Right. Right. Absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: That's so important. So before we get into that, talk
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  Speaker 1: to me a little bit about how you got into
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  Speaker 1: journalism and then how that transpired into investigative and crime.
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  Speaker 2: I was lucky because I figured out what I wanted
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  Speaker 2: to do pretty early in life. We grew up. I
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  Speaker 2: grew up. In suburban Detroit, about a mile and a
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  Speaker 2: half from the restaurant where Jimmy Hoffa was last seen
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  Speaker 2: and presumed kidnapped. Wow. The enduring mystery of Jimmy Hoffa,
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  Speaker 2: the former president of the Teamsters Union. And it was
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  Speaker 2: a big crime scene. And the FBI was there and
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  Speaker 2: the local police were there and the reporters and network correspondents.
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  Speaker 2: I used to ride my bike up there to just
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  Speaker 2: check it out.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: It ran on Telegraph Road. And I sort of got
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  Speaker 2: bit by the bug then. I was fascinated with this
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  Speaker 2: case and I continued to follow it. And so when
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  Speaker 2: I went off to school at Michigan State University, I
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  Speaker 2: signed up for the campus radio network and started as
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  Speaker 2: a news reporter at 18 years old.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. And so how did you get specifically into following
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  Speaker 1: crime as opposed to a different beat?
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  Speaker 2: I sort of migrated towards it. I always thought that
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  Speaker 2: investigative reporters were cool. Those were the guys hanging out
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  Speaker 2: with the cops and had sources and you balance this
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  Speaker 2: information flow between criminals who know a lot about it,
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  Speaker 2: defense attorneys, prosecutors, and federal agents and cops. And so
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  Speaker 2: when I started in television, I was still at Michigan State,
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  Speaker 2: and I was covering politics a little bit and any
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  Speaker 2: kind of breaking news there was. And as time went by,
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  Speaker 2: it's just the part of the business that fascinated me.
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  Speaker 2: And I've been lucky to do a number of features.
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  Speaker 2: I joke with my partner, Sean Reck at True Blue,
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  Speaker 2: that maybe if Nobody shows up in these, you know,
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  Speaker 2: crimes and these stings. We can go do a cooking
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  Speaker 2: show in Italy one day. That would be fun. Like
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  Speaker 2: Stanley Tucci. But, you know, that's not. Yeah. My role.
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  Speaker 1: But it takes a certain, you know, a couple different skills.
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  Speaker 1: Like you have to be curious.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: You have to be someone who wants to follow the story.
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  Speaker 1: You know, some people just want to be talking heads.
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  Speaker 1: Some people want to read the news. Some people want
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  Speaker 1: to be in politics. So, I mean, I think so
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  Speaker 1: many people are into crime right now too and want
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  Speaker 1: to be sleuths on their own.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: Which could be dangerous for them and probably it ruins
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  Speaker 1: the story.
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  Speaker 2: In some ways it does. You know, we talk about
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  Speaker 2: vigilante predator catchers online. And I think there's definitely a
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  Speaker 2: role for citizen journalists. And I think social media has
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  Speaker 2: created a platform for people with podcasts and for people
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  Speaker 2: with YouTube channels to help crowdsource solutions to crimes. And
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  Speaker 2: I think that's healthy. And I think everybody should have
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  Speaker 2: a voice. But sometimes the vigilantes take it a little
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  Speaker 2: bit too far. And that creates a volatile environment. and
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  Speaker 2: potentially dangerous situation in an effort to get clicks and
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  Speaker 2: make money from YouTube and platforms like it. Right, right.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about what most people know you for.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up kind of watching To Catch
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  Speaker 1: a Predator. I was obsessed with it. I mentioned I
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  Speaker 1: was having you on the show. And everybody, you know,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes when I have a guest, people will say, oh, wait,
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  Speaker 1: who's that? How do I know their name? Everybody hands
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  Speaker 1: down was like, oh, To Catch a Predator. I love
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  Speaker 1: that guy.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And even today when you were just walking into the studio,
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  Speaker 1: people here were like, oh, my God, when I see
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  Speaker 1: Chris Hansen.
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  Speaker 2: They thought they were in trouble.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, that's what he said. I thought I was in trouble. God,
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  Speaker 1: I can't go around him.
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  Speaker 2: Have a seat right over there.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
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  Speaker 1: So it's very funny. You have an effect on people.
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  Speaker 1: But how did you start that show? Tell us the details.
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  Speaker 2: Tetra Predator came about from a conversation I had with
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  Speaker 2: a friend of mine who was a reporter in Detroit.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, he took my place when I went to
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  Speaker 2: NBC News. And he told me about this. online watchdog
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  Speaker 2: group called perverted justice and at that point perverted justice
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  Speaker 2: had decoys who would go into chat rooms posing as
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  Speaker 2: children they had profiles and if an adult approached them
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  Speaker 2: made the first approach and initiated a sexually charged conversation
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  Speaker 2: and set a date to meet they would post that
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  Speaker 2: person's identity and picture on their website pervertedjustice.com and sometimes
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  Speaker 2: law enforcement would take a look and investigate and there
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  Speaker 2: might be a prosecution but That's kind of where it ended.
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  Speaker 2: There was some public shaming, perhaps, and people went to
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  Speaker 2: the site and saw their neighbor was trying to pick
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  Speaker 2: up a kid online. And I started to think if
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  Speaker 2: we could combine our ability to wire a house with
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  Speaker 2: hidden cameras and microphones and use perverted justice as the decoys,
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  Speaker 2: this could be compelling. And at the time, in 2004,
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  Speaker 2: there were a lot of shocking stories about kids meeting
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  Speaker 2: adults online, getting killed, getting sexually assaulted, getting ripped off.
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  Speaker 2: people of all ages getting ripped off. And so I
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  Speaker 2: pitched it because you couldn't do the story without taking
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  Speaker 2: people inside the crime. You could, but it wouldn't sustain
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  Speaker 2: a 20 or 30 minute news magazine story. And so
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  Speaker 2: I pitched it at Dateline and they bought it. It
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  Speaker 2: was conceived as a single segment or a couple of segments.
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  Speaker 2: And we went to Bethpage, Long Island with Perverted Justice.
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  Speaker 2: The police were not involved in these First investigations. And
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  Speaker 2: I'm driving out there and I'm thinking to myself, what
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  Speaker 2: if I've just wasted tens of thousands of dollars of
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  Speaker 2: the network's money and nobody shows up? And with that,
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  Speaker 2: my producer calls and says, where the hell are you?
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  Speaker 2: We've got two guys scheduled to be here in 45 minutes.
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  Speaker 2: And at the end of that two and a half days,
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  Speaker 2: 17 men surfaced, including a New York City firefighter. Oh, wow.
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  Speaker 2: And I thought, holy hell. This is shocking. And I'm
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  Speaker 2: talking to these guys. And the first one comes in
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  Speaker 2: and I'm just trying to keep my heart in my
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  Speaker 2: chest and not in my throat. Goes fine. The second
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  Speaker 2: guy comes in. Fine. The third guy comes in. At
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  Speaker 2: this point, the transcripts of the online illicit conversations are
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  Speaker 2: all mixed up on the dining room table in the house.
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  Speaker 2: So I walk out there with the wrong set of transcripts. Right.
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  Speaker 2: And I said, it says here you wanted to do this, that,
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  Speaker 2: and the other thing. No, that's not me. Excuse me.
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  Speaker 2: The second one, still the wrong transcripts. Finally, on the
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  Speaker 2: third try... Yeah, that's me. Okay, go ahead.
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  Speaker 1: So I have a bunch of questions about all this.
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  Speaker 1: At this point, were the cops involved yet?
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  Speaker 2: Not in the first two investigations because we really didn't
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  Speaker 2: know what we were going to find. After the fact,
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  Speaker 2: law enforcement in New York and law enforcement in Virginia,
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  Speaker 2: outside of Washington, D.C., where we did the second sting,
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  Speaker 2: did get involved and they did make prosecutions. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: So did you ever feel....
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  Speaker 2: You know, look, it's edgy. We had security. Ron Knight,
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  Speaker 2: who is a former NYPD lieutenant who worked at NBC
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: in security, did My Security, Saturday Night Live, several other
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: talk shows. And, you know, he always had me covered.
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  Speaker 2: I was never really worried about something happening to me,
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  Speaker 2: but it's a volatile situation with, you know, everybody there. Yeah, sure.
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  Speaker 2: And you're in a contained environment. Right. But that's part
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  Speaker 2: of what made and what makes to this day. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: This series is so compelling to people. You're on the
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: edge there. Yeah. Now, I think having said that, you know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: we've never had an incident. We make it absolutely as
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: safe as possible.
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  Speaker 1: But you don't really know who's walking in. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you know.
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  Speaker 2: We do our best to know. Right.
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  Speaker 1: But you don't know.
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  Speaker 2: In the beginning, we didn't know. Right.
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  Speaker 1: But you don't know if they have a gun. You
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  Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, if they feel trapped. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I would assume these guys are nervous to a certain
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  Speaker 1: extent walking into someone's house that they don't know.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And they want to have some sort of protection or
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: something to get away. I mean, I remember watching the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: show and being nervous for you in some episodes thinking,
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  Speaker 1: this guy doesn't seem right in the head.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it could go a couple different ways. Yeah. Right?
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  Speaker 2: And we still get guys who are obviously not right
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  Speaker 2: in the head. And there's some tense moments where guys
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  Speaker 2: try to flee. And I can't physically stop them, obviously. Right.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: But as soon as they go outside, the law enforcement can.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going
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  Speaker 3: for it?
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  Speaker 5: This exclusive place that Dad has connections with. They have
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  Speaker 5: more cars for more dealerships than, like, anywhere else.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: You have to put me in touch. What's it called?
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  Speaker 4: It's Dune-A-D-L.
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  Speaker 2: Where?
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  Speaker 3: Dune-A-D-L.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: There's an accent on the E.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Do you mean.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Yes, I got it on Done Deal Cars.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Lift? Please.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Are you going past Kimmage?
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: Oh, Kimmage!
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: No.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: Done Deal Cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, it's right on the perimeter.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Right. And let's remind people what the scenario was. So
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: these guys would show up at a house. They'd get
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: out of the car. We'd see them walk in the house.
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  Speaker 1: And they're there to meet an underage girl.
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  Speaker 2: Child for sex.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Girl or boy.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, girl or boy. Okay. But you guys only showed
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  Speaker 1: men coming in to see women or what?
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  Speaker 2: No, there were guys who came for boys too.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, there were.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't see those. And so they would come into
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  Speaker 1: the house and they would see an undercover cop, right?
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah. Or a decoy who we retained. Okay. Somebody
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  Speaker 2: who was 18, 19, 20, 21 who looked much younger,
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  Speaker 2: who had a skill set either as someone who's studying
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: theater or somebody who was a A police, you know, volunteer. Right.
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  Speaker 2: You know, like a scout. Okay. Explorer.
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  Speaker 1: And she was always standing there with a thing of laundry.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes with laundry, yeah. Oh, let me go finish folding
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the laundry or.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I made you cookies. I come on in or let
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: me go do something or I'm going to change or
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: I just stub my toe. And in the beginning, it
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  Speaker 2: was Del of Perverted Justice. Oh. And she would pose
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: as a boy or girl. You know, she'd pop a
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: ball cap on. And sometimes, you know, the decoy in
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  Speaker 2: the picture– that we'd obtain would look different from Del.
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  Speaker 2: So she'd be around the corner and say, come on in,
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  Speaker 2: insert excuse here. I'll be right down. And the guy
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  Speaker 2: would come in and we'd watch him. And I do
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  Speaker 2: this balancing act, you know, around the corner or in
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: the next room where I don't want the guy to
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: get nervous and bold because I want to talk to him.
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  Speaker 2: But I do want to see what he does. Does
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: he look around? Does he turn on the TV? Does
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: he take his coat off? Does he take his shoes off?
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  Speaker 2: You know, all those things. That are compelling for people
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: to see. So it's like, do I go now? Do
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I wait? Right. And then you go.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: And then he sees you. Now, as we progress with
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: the investigation, we have, and to this day in the
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: new investigations, somebody posing as an underage boy or girl.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: And so there's at least an initial conversation. And those
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: conversations are very telling because you see in real time
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  Speaker 2: this guy interact with this woman. Right. With whom he
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: wants to have sex. And it's very telling. In a
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: recent investigation, we had a 61-year-old doctor who had been
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: texting with somebody he thought was a teenage girl all
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: day as he saw 18 patients, takes a photograph of
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: his genitals during the time he's seeing patients. He takes
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: time out to do this, sends it to her, walks
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: into the house, and he's all excited because she's got braces, right?
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: This is part of his kink. Right. So he's brought
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Oreo cookies.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: To get stuck in the braces. He's brought wine and
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: soda pop for her. And as he walks in, and
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: we have this long shot down the hallway, and he
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: just reaches over and grabs her behind, which caught him
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: another felony charge.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: But, you know, there's no wiggle room in the intent there.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, he was there for this girl, and the
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: decoy worked for the sheriff's department in that county, in
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Genesee County, Michigan. And so at this point, I walk out, and,
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  Speaker 2: you know, he basically gives it all up. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: he's caught.
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  Speaker 1: Now, if they don't know you, do they think that
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: originally you're the father?
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes. In fact, in this particular case, the doctor didn't
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: know me. I hadn't seen the show, didn't know what
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: was going on. I knew he was in trouble. And
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: he essentially gave it all up. Told me what he did.
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  Speaker 2: Told me how many patients he had seen. He knew
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  Speaker 2: it was wrong. He had put other young women online.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh.
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  Speaker 2: And now he's facing serious felony charges. When the detectives
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: from the sheriff's office came in to question him, suddenly
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: he feigns this heart attack, like that's going to get
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: him out. And if you look on True Blue, the
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: streaming platform where the show is, you'll see that. It's
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: just so compelling to watch this play out.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Well, because he thought it was just you guys. He
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  Speaker 1: didn't think he was going to actually.
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah. And then, you know, when the detectives came
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  Speaker 2: in and talked to him, then he's going to have
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  Speaker 2: the heart attack. I'm a good guy. I don't do
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  Speaker 2: this sort of thing. Well, you're here now.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 1: So, oh my goodness. So what is it like? Is
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the crime beforehand so he's already going to be caught
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: or you need him to come in and have those
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  Speaker 1: conversations with you or are you just trying to get
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: inside his mind while you're talking to him?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: All of that. So generally the crime of solicitation of
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: a minor, attempted lewd and lascivious behavior of the minor
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: is committed online, almost universally across all states. And in
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: some cases, even if they don't show up at the house,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: a couple weeks later, the sheriff's department, like in Polk County, Florida,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: will go out and do a dragnet and arrest all
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: these guys.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: So they don't have to make it on the show.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: They don't have to make it on the show to
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: get arrested. But obviously, that's where we get inside their
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: heads and figure out what they were doing. And that's
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: the payoff is them showing up and talking.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: And what do you think you've learned about how to
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: spot one of these guys?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: You know, that's a great question. And I've often thought
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: about it. But the only thing these guys have in
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: common is that they don't stand out of a crowd.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: You'll see a rangy guy walk in and say, I
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: could have picked him out. I saw him on the subway.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: But generally speaking, they look like regular guys. Somebody who
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: drives a truck, somebody who's a doctor. We had a
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: guy who was a retired engineer. We had a guy
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: in one of the recent investigations in Ohio who– had
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: a great job and had driven five hours from Chicago
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: to Ohio, Dayton, Ohio for a teenage girl. And then
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: admitted to me that he had done this two other times.
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: And it was actually wearing a necklace, a friendship necklace
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: that one of those girls had given him because it,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: he was able to groom her to the point where
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: she didn't even see anything inappropriate about it. These guys
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: know how to groom and you know, That's what parents
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: need to understand. When I was growing up, we were
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: told don't talk to strangers. Good advice then, good advice today.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: But the problem is... With these predators online, they're so
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: adept at grooming that the stranger on Wednesday is no
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: longer a stranger by Friday when he's chipping away and
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: working on tearing down these barriers that traditionally exist in
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: our society between adults and children. Right.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: And it's so different than when we were younger. I mean,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: even just the online access now, especially since after COVID.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: My daughter, as I was telling you, she just turned 11. Right.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: She knows more about things from going online and is
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: more online than anyone in our generation. All those kids
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: live online.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Even from my kids to your daughter. I mean, my
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: guys are 31, 29, 23, and 21. I mean, it's
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: a whole different world from the 31-year-old to your 11-year-old. Right.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: way different.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So it is really scary. But I do think
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: it's really interesting that, you know, as I was taking
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: my daughter to school this morning, she said, who are
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: you interviewing? I said, you. And she said, oh, I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: know him. You must be on TikTok or something.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: And she said she had seen clips of different episodes.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: And I explained, oh, well, there's someone that comes in
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and he sits down with them. And it's somebody who's
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: you know, there to hurt a young girl. I didn't
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: know how to actually preface it with her, but she
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: knew the whole thing. She was like, mom, I know
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that show.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: The TikTok thing has been amazing. And I was reticent
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: to get involved in it. And I didn't understand how
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: it would help what we do, but it does. I mean, it's,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: it's leading people from the TikToks to subscribe and follow
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: True Blue, the There are some videos on there and
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I don't pretend to understand the algorithm of TikTok. In fact,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: my wife runs the TikTok part of this whole operation.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: But we have videos on there that have hit 7.2
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: million views. Wow. And so what has happened, which has
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: been a gift for me and for my producers and
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: the work we do, is that we're now in our
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: third generation of followers. Yeah. And people say, well, did
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: it bother you when South Park did an episode on
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Chris Hansen in To Catch You Better? No, it didn't.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: I'm okay with being made fun of as long as
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: it continues this dialogue and the awareness about very important topics,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: which we cover in these investigations. Right.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: And it shows how relevant what you're doing is. You are,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: you know, your catchphrase Have a seat. Have a seat, yeah.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And how did you come up with that, by the way?
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't by design, quite honestly, Rachel. It
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: was just I needed to get control of the situation.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: So it was have a seat, have a seat right
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: over there. You know, I need you to have a
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: seat because I can't have the guy wandering around the house.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: And if I, you know, raise the red flag too
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: soon and police come in to get him, then... I
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: lost control of the situation, not only from a security standpoint,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: but from an editorial television production standpoint. And that was
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: really one of the things after that second investigation in Herndon, Virginia,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: outside of D.C. You know, we had the rabbi. We
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: had a guy walking naked. We had a military intelligence officer.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: We had all the teachers. We had all these people.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: And they left. And it was very unsatisfying.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, you mean they just walked out when they saw you?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: They walked out because we didn't have law enforcement collaborating. Yeah.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Again, those guys were prosecuted after the fact. But by
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: the third investigation, it became pretty clear that we needed to,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: out of social responsibility and out of satisfying our viewers
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: from a television production standpoint, we needed to see a resolution,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: some closure and arrest. And we've adapted how we do it.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: over the course of 19 years to where we are today.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: How many arrests do you.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Think you guys have made? I think we're 570, 580,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: close to 600. Virtually everybody, since the police were involved,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: virtually everybody gets arrested. And the vast majority are prosecuted,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: either a conviction at trial, a guilty or a no
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: contest plea. But very few have walked away.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: And what do you say to these critics who say
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: this is entrapment?
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: It's not entrapment because.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: for it?
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: This exclusive place that Dad has connections with. They have
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: more cars for more dealerships than like anywhere else.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: You have to put me in touch. What's it called?
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: It's Dunaidial.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Where?
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: Dunaidial. There's an accent on the E.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Do you mean.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: Yes, I got it on Dundale Cars.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Lift?
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Please. You going past Kimmage? Oh, Kimmage.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: No.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Done deal cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: We don't create the crime. I mean, this guy was
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: out there looking. The decoys never make the first contact.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: So it's always– and that's a threshold. If the guy
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: doesn't make the first contact, doesn't raise the specter of
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: sex first– then it doesn't reach our threshold of even
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: inviting them over or giving them the address.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: So that's the protection, the constitutional protection that's right there.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: And the guilty pleas speak for themselves. You know, a
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: lot of these guys, you know, take it on the
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: nose and go do four years, two years. Some get probation,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: registration as a sex offender. Some plead to commission of
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: a crime with a computer. You know, it's never enough
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: for the law men and women who do it, but–
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Justice is served. And what you hope is that for
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the percentage of guys who do this, for whom therapy
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: would help, some sort of monitored program, and it does
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: for a certain subset of these guys. Yeah. Some guys
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: are hardcore, need to be locked up for life. Some
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: guys are in the middle, and some guys made a mistake.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: And they can be fixed.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: What kind of sentence do they get? How long?
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: It's gone from probation... And registration as a sex offender to,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I think, the highest sentence is 24 years in prison.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: And that's somebody who had a previous history of committing
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: these kinds of crimes.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it depends who they are, right?
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Do you guys do any follow-up to find out how
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: they are?
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: That's kind of what the podcast is all about. Okay.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: So the podcast, Predators I've Caught with Chris Hansen, is
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: essentially me going back and taking a look at all
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: these cases. And because so many of these interviews are
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: done on the fly– You know, where I get the
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: transcripts minutes or seconds before the guy walks in. Yeah.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: And I'm trying to sort through it in my mind.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: I now have the luxury of going through, luxury if
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: you call it a luxury, the creepy luxury of going
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: through and immersing myself in this and going back and
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: looking at the interviews and the videos and then figuring
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: out where this guy is today. And I get a
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: lot of feedback from listeners of the podcast. We had
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: a woman on who was watching the Predator investigations in college,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: you know, reruns. Yeah. recognizes a guy, said, oh my God,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: it's a guy who I caught in Riverside County, California
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: in 2006, who she met online in 2009, who said
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: he was 18 when he was really well into his
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: 20s and she was 16. They had, she was in
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: a very vulnerable state. They had a sexual relationship, not
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: knowing that he was a registered sex offender and much
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: older than And, you know, she finds this out all
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: these years later, and it's like, you know, oh, my God. Yeah.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: And so you get people who call, and I'll do
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: interviews with them.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: And it's very telling, you know, to go back and
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: look at these cases.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Were there ever any guys who walked in? First of all,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: you never had women walk in on this case.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Not in any of these investigations. Yeah. And the folks
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: who study this say that it's because in the case
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: of a female predator, you're more likely to have a
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: teacher-student scenario. Okay. In other words, you'll have somebody who
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: knows their victim. Female predators don't like the anonymity, where
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: in some cases the male predator gets off on it. Right, right. Okay.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: So I want to go back to that in one second. Well, actually,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: let's talk about that. For females, what do you think
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of like Ghislaine Maxwell? Do you think, you know, and
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: she was just sentenced, right?
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Do you consider her a female predator?
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: I think so. She was an aiding and abetting predator
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: for sure. I mean, whatever her motivation was, whether she
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: was taking part in the sexual liaison or not, and
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: some of the evidence suggests that she was, or at
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: least voyeuristically viewing, she was procuring. And I'm still working
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: on interviews and stories related to that entire Epstein situation.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: In fact, I'll tell you an interesting story. And one
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: of my all-time career regrets is that in about 2015, 16,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I was working on the Epstein story. And I had
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of insider help. And we tried to fashion
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: a sting of some sort. Now, he'd already been in
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: trouble in Florida, in Palm Beach. And obviously, he had
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: a residence here in New York. And we couldn't do it.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: the way we wanted to do it. And quite honestly,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: I got busy with other projects, but it was the
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Miami Herald who kept chipping away at this story and
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: working on it, reporting it. And reporters there got these
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: victims to come forward. But the grooming that took place
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: there and the targeted efforts to commit human trafficking on
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: vulnerable young women are astounding. And there are still some
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: of those victims who haven't spoken out publicly. And I'm hoping...
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: But at some point, some of them will.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Well, and that brings me to another point, which is
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: it's so important for even local reporters or.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Whatever to keep following. Without the Miami Herald and Julie K. Brown,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: who wrote a book on this. The prosecution likely doesn't happen.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: And the U.S. attorney at the time said as much.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Because he had been let off before.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: He got that sweetheart plea deal.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: But also what's important about that is it creates a
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: safe environment for victims to feel like I can come out.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm not going to get trashed or beat up.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, imagine being a victim in that case. Yeah.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: And watching him get a year of going to the
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: county jail five days a week and then having– or
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: being able to go to his office during the day.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's unheard of.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: And I think they tried to create the impression, the
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: defense did in that case, that this was a gray
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: area case. That, okay, he hired some underprivileged girls, but
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: they were all of legal age. There were some back
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: rubs and some things. It's icky. It's predator-like, but it's
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: not that illegal. Well, sure as hell was. Right. And
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: this was a campaign of human trafficking that went on
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: for years. Yeah, yeah.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: And to go back to the question I was starting
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: before we got into Ghislaine, were there any men that
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: came in that you felt like it was a story
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: that really stuck out to you? It was either upsetting
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: to you or you felt bad for the guy or,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: you know, what would that be?
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: There have been so many. You know, it's about a
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: hundred-way tie for first, but the one that really sticks
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: out happened in Fort Myers. And it was a Sunday
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: and it was the last guy of the investigation. Mm-hmm. And,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: you know, we're on our toes. We're paying attention. But
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: there's sort of a sense like, okay, we've achieved this
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: once again. And we're going to do this last case.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: And then we're going to wrap up. The guy pulls up.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: And there's no mention of this in the chat online.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: The guy pulls up in his SUV, gets out, and
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: goes to the driver's side rear door. And we think
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: he's going to get pizza or beer or, you know,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: wine coolers. He opens the door and he leads his
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: four or five-year-old son out by the hand and walks
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: up the driveway of this beautiful big home we had
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: rented in Fort Myers. He brought his kid with him.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Now, I don't think he was going to involve the
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: kid in the sexual liaison he had set up with
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: a teenage boy. But the fact that he would bring
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: a kid because his wife was working that day and
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: he was going to set him up with a video
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: in the other room while he did what he did
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: was just so disturbing and so just mind-bogglingly sad to
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: everybody involved. And the guy walks in. He's got his
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: kid with him, and I'm face-to-face with him about as
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: close as you and I are. And I said the
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: only thing I could think of, which was, I know
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: why you're here. You know why you're here. But because
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: your son is with you, I'm not going to take
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: you through it all. There's some people out there that
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: are going to resolve this. Yeah. He's saying, yeah, I
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: wasn't going to do anything. Talk to them. And the
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: female officer scooped up the child, and they took him away.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Where does a child end up in a circumstance like that?
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Well, the story continues because– The child couldn't live in
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: the home with the mother and father. Right. And the
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: mother of the child didn't kick the dad out.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: So the child had to go live with relatives. And
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: the mother and father of the predator and his wife
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: went on to have another child. Oh, come on. And
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: the DFS, Department of Family and Child Services, DFCS, was
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: so upset that I had people calling me about this
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: for years afterwards. Yeah. Saying you wouldn't believe what happened
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: to this guy. Yeah.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: It must be hard for you to. see all these
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: things happen and then just go home at night.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Well, it is, you know, look, you learn to compartmentalize.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: You can't let it take over your life and, you know,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: this is what I do. And so, yeah, we have
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: sort of a dark sense of humor about it all.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: And there is a dark humor as part of these things.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Some of these guys say things and do things that
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: are weirdly funny. Right. Right? Right. The guy tells the
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: detectives to pound sand, but, you know, Matt Bonjean and
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: You know, Polk County, Florida, in Orlando on business, who
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: came to do a mother-daughter hookup, loves Chris Hansen shows,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: going to talk to me and give me the whole detail. Yeah.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Talk about that, how some of these guys fanboy over
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: you when they see you.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: And it's surprising to me, by the way, that they
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: haven't seen the show.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: They have seen the show. Oh, God. So we get
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: in the transcripts, guys will say, it sounds like a
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Chris Hansen thing.
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Is this a Chris Hansen thing? And the DJ says, well,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: who's that? Or they'll even name the sheriff. Is this
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: a Grady Judd thing? Is this a Chris Swanson thing?
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: You know, two of the sheriffs with whom we work.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: And that's funny. I don't want to get in trouble either.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: And it speaks not to the stupidity of these guys.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: It speaks to the drive and the compulsion. They get
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: this fantasy in their mind. And I think a lot
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: of it is fed by porn, child porn specifically.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: And if you talk to the experts who go into
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: the prisons and do the dark work of talking.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: for it?
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: This exclusive place that Dad has connections with. They have
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: more cars for more dealerships than like anywhere else.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: You have to put me in touch. What's it called?
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: It's Dune ADL.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Where?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Dune ADL.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: There's an accent on the E.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: Do you mean.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: Yes, I got it on Dune Deal cars.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Lift? Please.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: You're going past Kimmage. Oh, Kimmage.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: No.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: Don't deal cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: When they have no interest in being dishonest because they're
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: there for however many years, they will tell you routinely
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: that they had offended many times before they got caught
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: and that the viewing of child pornography was involved.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: What would you say to parents about what's the best
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: way to protect their kids online right now?
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: The best way is to have a running dialogue, an
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: open conversation about what the dangers are. And it starts
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: with the very second a child gets online. There are
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: adults online who want to trick kids. And then it
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: has to graduate in sophistication as the child gets older.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: We see horrifying things. One of the documentaries I'm working
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: on right now is on sextortion. And how these criminals
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: in West Africa and East Europe are posing as teenage girls. Yeah.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Targeting teenage boys, 15, 16, with suggestive pictures, sexually suggestive pictures.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: They say, I'll show you mine. You show me yours.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: The boy sends something, you know, a sexual picture. And
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: then they start the extortion. Give me $ 100. We're going
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: to put this on the internet. And at that moment-
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: And kids think their life is over. They think their
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: world is their online image. Yeah. And what's going to
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: happen when grandma sees my junk online? Well, grandma's not
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: going to care. Nobody else is going to care. But
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: in that moment, they can't find their way out of it.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: And these kids are committing suicide at an alarming rate.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I've sat with four sets of parents in the last
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: couple months. Good kids. Good grades. athletes headed off to
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: college whose parents wouldn't have said anything negative except we
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: love you and don't be an idiot again. And these
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: kids are dead. Right.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And these predators are attacking them with shame too.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: With shame. With shame. And they know. So they give
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: them money. Yeah. They run out of money. How much
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: money could a 16-year-old have? They're using their gift cards.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: And I interviewed last– a week ago today, I was
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: in South Carolina interviewing a state representative whose son– Got
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: caught up in this. Wow. And was checking all three
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: kids at night. Passed his son. Little did he know,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: the son had a gun in his underwear. Walked in
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: the bathroom and shot himself to death. Oh, wow. In
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: the same house where we did this interview. And he
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: passed laws cracking down on this sort of crime and
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: to educate kids. But it's really important. And you got
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: to reach out and say, look, this stuff is out there. Right.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: It can happen. If it does, just come to me
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: and we'll resolve it. Right. And again, these weren't bad parents.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: And anyone could be duped, not just kids.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Anyone could be duped. It's happened to the elderly people
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: with financial scams. We've seen this, but you've got to
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: keep that conversation going. And there isn't one set of
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: parents I've interviewed on this who will say, I would
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: have punished him. I would have banished him. I would
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: have made fun of him. No, they'll say, look, you're okay.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: This is not the end of the world. And they
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: wish they had that chance, but the kid's undeveloped. mind,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: especially a boy at 15 or 16, does not allow
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: them to think their way through it.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: And they're dead. Right.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: And it's so sad. I've seen so many of these
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: documentaries or news shows about that, and it just breaks
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: my heart. But, you know, even my daughter, who's just
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: turned 11, you know, there are things that she probably
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say to me if she got herself into predicament.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: So what would you say to children about either how
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: to spot somebody who's not true or what to do
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: to kind of save themselves?
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Well, if you don't know them in real life, you
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: don't know them online. And again, this is now in
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: a world where people meet the loves of their life online.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: People go to dating sites and end up getting married.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of legitimate sites, but You're not
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: safe just because it's Instagram or a mainstream site. You
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: don't have to be on Skip the Games or Kick
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: or Badoo or Whisper or any of these sites. We
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: have a case where a 12-year-old girl was groomed on Instagram,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: left her family's home through a bedroom window, met a
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: guy who took her to a hotel, videotaped the sexual act,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: and nobody found out until she went to the emergency room.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: 12 years old.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: They found him. They tracked him down. Wow. But it's
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: shocking the depths that these guys will sink to to
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: fulfill this fantasy with a child. We had a guy
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: who was arrested in Ohio. Two weeks later, they popped
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: him in a hotel room with a 14-year-old girl videotaping
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: the sexual encounter. He just got arrested in a sting operation.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Had to talk to me. Yeah. Had to be interrogated
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: by detectives. Yeah. You know, get out on bail. Right.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Two weeks later in a neighboring county.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: So the drive just sometimes does not.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: For some of these guys.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: It's bigger than the consequences.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Speaking of which, let's go into some cases that you're
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: familiar with or just to get your take. So what
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: about like Jared, the subway guy? Is that his name?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Jared, the subway guy. Yeah.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Did you follow that story?
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I followed it. Watching it. I didn't cover it as
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: a journalist. So I don't necessarily have the ins and
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: outs of it. But again, here's a guy who follows
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: a pattern. A predator doesn't have to be some lowlife someplace.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Here's a guy who had a.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Who used his platform to get to kids.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Used his platform to get to kids. And he was
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: a guy who was somewhat of a star, who had
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: lost the weight, had a big campaign.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Which, by the way, makes it easier for kids to
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: just fall for him.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Because they think he's a star.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: And he was able to, you know... do all this
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: and get the pornography and lure these kids. And again,
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: he's picking vulnerable targets and using his celebrity to do it. Right.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Are there some cases that you're following right now that
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: you're like obsessed with, that you're curious about, that you're
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: working on?
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: We have one called the Facebook fiend. Okay. And here's
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: a guy who nobody would really know about. He's not famous,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: but he had created this online image of a, guitar
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: player loving soul loved animals and he would find women
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: who were a little bit vulnerable not not and you
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: know everybody worked everybody had a career a job some
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: had some were single moms but he would create this
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: relationship online and then say I'm waiting for the band
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: checks to come. Will you fly me to see you?
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: He's living in Tucson. So they would fly him. That's
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: my boyfriend from online. Fly him to Baltimore, to Olympia, Washington, wherever.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: And he'd get there. And he was a horrible, drug-addicted
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: alcoholic who beat these women up. sexually assaulted him, took
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: money from him. And they're just like, wait a minute,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: what happened to me? Right. But it's so stunning because
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: they have months and months of conversations. And he does this.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: He's probably good for about 40 cases. Wow. And so
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: now we've gotten involved. And now there's a criminal prosecution.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Now he's facing charges. And I was just down in
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Arizona chasing him around a week or so ago. And
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: so that's going to be a big documentary. And we've
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: got several others. Jumanah Kidd. who was the target of
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: a crazy con artist named Tracy Hutzana, who just pleaded
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: guilty and went away for four years. I mean, Jumana
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: and other victims of Tracy Hutzana. It's this wild, compelling
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: story about how this woman was able to create this
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: identity that allowed her to scam so many people out
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: of money. I mean, she took Jumana for like $ 3 million.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Wow. So I have a question about something like that because,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: you know, I recently interviewed Sarma Malangalas. I don't know
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: if you remember her from Bad Vegan on Netflix.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, sure. Yeah.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: And people wondered after that, watching that series, whether or
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: not she was a criminal or whether or not she
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: had been abused by a psychological, you know, a guy who... Yeah, exactly.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: And somebody who psychologically abused her. And it's an interesting
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: question because... Listen, I really like her. I think, you know,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: she was a fantastic interview. She's a girl I like. But,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: you know, people will look at her and say, you're
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: so smart. How could you have fallen for something like this?
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: You gave over, you know, almost $ 2 million to a
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: guy who you met online and, you know, you kept
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: giving him this money and you just couldn't get out
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: of it. So, like, what's your experience with people that
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: fall into these traps?
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Well, we see it with the Nigerian scams. We spent
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: a year once going after these guys. And they're so
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: adept at targeting vulnerable people.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Women and men.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: And smart people.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, smart people. And they use a romantic hitch. And
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: in this world of Internet relationships and dating and romance,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: people just want, you know, at the end of the day,
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: everybody wants to be loved.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: And so if you've got four kids and you're working
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: two jobs, And your only love is this good looking
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: strapping lumberjack of a guy who sent you nice messages
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: and treats from here and there. It's not really him. Yeah.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: We've got this other case. There's a guy who's a
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: model in his 60s, handsome guy out in the Hamptons.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: They were taking his picture and scamming women out of.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Right.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Same thing with Dirty John.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Dirty John.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I had Tara Newell on here.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: And we talked about that whole scenario. But, you know,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: people couldn't believe that her mom would get so wrapped
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: up in this relationship with this guy who was financially.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: And then you're invested.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Right. You're invested in it. And to call it off
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: means that you were stupid and you didn't see the
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: red flags in the beginning. And so, well, he's made
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: this promise.
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: He'll do this. He'll do that.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: And if I leave, it's over. So I don't get
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: my money back or I don't get, you know, these
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: promises he made me.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: It's the Ponzi scheme.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: It's Madoff. It's everybody else. Don't get your money out
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: because the big thing is coming. Right.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: So now talk to me about your network now that
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: you have the streaming network.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: True Blue, which people can find at WatchTrueBlue.com, T-R-U-B-L-U, is
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: a streaming network which has all my new documentaries, all
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: the new Predator.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: for it?
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: This exclusive place that Dad has connections with. They have
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: more cars for more dealerships than, like, anywhere else.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: You have to put me in touch. What's it called?
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: It's Dune-A-D-L.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Where?
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: Dune-A-D-L.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: There's an accent on the E.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: Do you mean.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: Yes, I got it on Dundale Cars.
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: Lift? Please.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: Are you going past Kimmage?
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: Oh, Kimmage! No.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: Dundale Cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Investigations, which we have under the takedown franchise available. It's
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: just like Netflix for crime. So we have that, and
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: we have at least a dozen new investigations coming out, documentaries.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: But we also have a lot of content already there.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: So the White Boy Rick investigation, which is how I
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: met the co-founder of True Blue, Sean Reck. I had
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: broken the White Boy Rick story as a young reporter
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: in Detroit in the 80s. He decided to do a
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: documentary on it, so he interviewed me for that. It
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: became very successful, and so we started thinking, wow, we
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: could do a streaming network for crime. And he had
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: already done it successfully in the religious world. He and
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: a partner had founded American Gospel TV, which is the
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: most successful streamer you've never heard of unless you're in
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: that world. And they had the template already in place.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: It had become a huge success. And so when it
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: came time to do a streamer for crime, Sean– And
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: the rest of the folks at True Blue knew how
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: to do it. And I provided the brand and the
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: franchise and the contacts and the access that I've developed over,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: you know, 40 years of doing this. And so to me,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: it's enormously liberating. The last couple of projects I did
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: for the networks, you know, took 12, 18 months to
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: put together. We expedite this. We control the content, the
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: distribution of the content, and we own the content. So again,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: I have no bone to pick with the networks. I
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: couldn't do this today without 25 years at the network. Yeah.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: You know, that gave me the platform to do this.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: So I'm very grateful for that. But it is time
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: for me to take it to the next level. And
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: that's what we're doing with True Blue.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Is there one show that if somebody is going to
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: download it and get on there that they should start
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: off with?
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: They should start with the takedown investigations.
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: And so we have the takedown investigations, which are the
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: predator cases. More compelling than ever. More shocking than ever. Yeah.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: And so you're still doing this.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: More in-depth interviews.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Same exact stuff.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, again.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Just with a new name.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: A doctor and these guys who have traveled so many
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: miles to be a child. And they sit and talk.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: We had a 71-year-old guy show up. In Ohio. And
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: the scenario was to meet a 13-year-old girl who was
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: being offered by her father. And so the detective is
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: playing the father and the deputy is playing the decoy.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: This guy walks in with a milkshake for the girl.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: And this plays out in real time. And so he
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: sits down on the couch and he's telling the dad,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: you know, it's good you're doing this because boys her
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: age don't know how to teach them about sex and
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: And he had that sort of whistler voice like if
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: you watch Family Guy. Right. Herbert the Pervert. Sure. He's
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: like this guy in real life. Yeah. It's like the
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: cartoon character came to life in this thing. And he's
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: eyeing the girl. And this goes on for minutes and
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: minutes and minutes. But it shows you who's out there. Yeah.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: And what they're capable of doing. Right.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: That is so scary.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: And then he sits and talks to me. He goes, yeah,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: you look familiar. What are you doing here? 71 years old.
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: Wow. Wow.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: And then he just told you everything?
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Gave it all up. Gave it all up. And
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: defended it. And on top of that, I asked him
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: what he did for a living. He said, I'm retired.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: I said, but I work as a counselor for people
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: with sex addiction.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: In prisons.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: So here he is. Wow.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: So this network does not just do predator stuff, though.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: No, no. It's all crime. So it's all crime. And
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: we have some features on there, too. There's like a
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Firehouse Eats where the crews go to different firehouses around
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: the country and they show recipes at firehouses. So there's
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: a little bit of lighter fare there. And there's some
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: documentaries that we didn't produce that we have aggregated the
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: rights to. So people can see those there. But it
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: also– is a place for our new news magazine, True
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Crime Nation, where we'll do some of these other long-form stories,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: some of the interviews that I'll get. If there's breaking news,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: for instance, we now have a live capability, and we've
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: been working on live shows. So we can talk about
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: things as they happen, whether it's the woman who fought
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: off the attacker in the gym in Florida. We had
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: video of this, security video. I mean, that's a great
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: interview to have, the hero from the– nightclub shooting in Colorado,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: you know, all those people, you know, from Ben Crump
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: to whoever law enforcement agent there is who's involved in
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: the middle of a crime, all these people will come
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: talk to me and we hook it up live like
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: that and we have those conversations. episodes on True Crime Nation.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: And then I assume you're doing long form stories on
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: like the Idaho murders or Lori Vallow, for example.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: We're looking at all of that.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: What's your thought on Lori Vallow? I thought that story
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: was incredibly disturbing. So disturbing.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I didn't do a lot of reporting there.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: I watched it like you did and have some insight
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: and have friends obviously covering it in depth.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I binge that. I even listened to like
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: the 911 call when the brother you know, passed out
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: in the bathroom and the stepson found them. I mean,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: I got so into that. And I thought for a while, well,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: of course, before they found the kids, of course these
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: kids are dead. Of course she did. But like, look
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: at all the people around them.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: They're not on vacation in Hawaii with the parents.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but look at all the people around them that
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: are dead that no one's really talking about. The wife,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: the husband, the brother.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: It's just shocking how that could have been. And I'm
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: sure there were, you know, investigations and there was law
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: enforcement looking at it. But it just, the fact that
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: they got away with it for as long as they did.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: it's about time that they got justice.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: And thank God they found those kids and could like
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: put that to rest a little bit. But she's, she's
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: still saying she's not guilty, correct?
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, and she's, you know, this whole cult thing
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: and the doomsday thing. It's like, God, how do people
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: get talked into that?
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: To be able to kill your own children for something
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: I don't understand how somebody's mind could get that twisted.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: And I guess nobody can. No regular human being can.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: And that's why these stories continue to be so fascinating.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, the Idaho college campus. Yeah. I mean, imagine
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: being one of those parents.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: No, I know.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: You send your kid off to a college in the
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Midwest and it's safe and some– horrible monster decides he's
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: going to commit a mass murder for what?
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's awful.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: And is there any unsolved crime that you are looking
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: to cover? Do you guys cover unsolved?
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: We will do some of that too.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Is there one that you are into that you want
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: to cover, that you want to get to the bottom of?
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: God, there's so many. And what interests me about this
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: is now that we have The DNA science and the 23andMe.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, look at all these murders getting solved now.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: And it's not great television necessarily to dig into the
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: science part of it, but it's awfully rewarding if you
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: have the right people telling the story.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Do you think anyone will ever really find out what
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: happened to JonBenet Ramsey or Madeleine McCann?
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the one. Madeleine McCann and JonBenet Ramsey are
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: the two.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: And we talked about True Crime Nation. Jon Ramsey did
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: an interview with me a couple months ago for True Blue.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: And there's so much to unpack there. Yeah. And so
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: many people in the circle. And they spent so much
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: time focused on him. And then– and on his wife,
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: his late wife. And they wasted a lot of time.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: So you don't think he has anything.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: To do with it? I don't think he has anything
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: to do with it. And why would he spend time
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: with me if he– Right. I mean, I don't think
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: there's any way he had anything to do with it.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: But he was under suspicion. And I was out there
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: as a reporter in 1996, I guess it was, in 96, 97,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: when that happened, for Dateline, and interviewed John Douglas, who
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: was the FBI profiler retained by the family. Yeah. And,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: you know, so I was in the thick of it.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: And everybody, well, it must be the parents. It happened
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: in their home. What else could have happened? Or maybe
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: it was the brother. It wasn't the brother. Right. It
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: wasn't the parents. This is devastated.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: Not just the loss of a daughter, but it was
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: the second child he had lost, by the way. It
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: was a car accident.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: He lost another child.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: And... People wanted to point to the, you know, the
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: beauty contests and the performances and all that. Maybe that
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: brought her to the attention of a bad predator who
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: did kill her. And there's a primary suspect there. And
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: the question is, can they resolve this case? I mean,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: John Douglas is, I mean, John Ramsey is doing everything
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: in his power to do it. He's cooperating. He's funding this.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: He's fighting. You know, in The Sun, who got a
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: bad rap on all this. Right, right. You know, he's
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: trying to carve out some sort of light for himself.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: It's really– that's among the most tragic. And Madeleine McCain, too. Now,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: I read where they were doing a search for her body,
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: her remains, someplace overseas in the area where she went missing.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: And I think there again, you know, you can go
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: back and question, you know, is it okay to leave
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: a child alone with a baby monitor? I think many
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: of us of a certain age have been close by
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: and listened to a baby monitor. Right. I don't know
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: the exact distance, but certainly you don't think your child's
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: going to be kidnapped.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: No, of course not, especially in a resort like that.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: There are so many interesting cases for me that I
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: followed those ones especially, but I guess his name is Fritzl.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Do you remember Joseph? Is that his name? From Austria
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: where he put his daughter in the basement and then
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: she proceeded to have five, seven kids by him.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: Two died. And then finally one of the kids died.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: pretended to be sick or was sick, and he brought
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: her to the emergency room, and she had a note
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: in her pocket, and finally all the kids got saved.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Well, that's like the Cleveland case. Yes. Ariel Castro. True
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Blue Studios are actually in downtown Cleveland because we can
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: have this huge 16,000 square feet of studio there, and
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Sean is from Cleveland, my partner. And so we do
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: a lot with Cleveland Missing, which is kind of a
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: group that came out of that horrible tragedy. Yeah. And
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: Gina DeJesus and her aunt. And they coordinate with the
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: families of missing people to make sure they get to
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: the police on time and all the information gets changed.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: But that Ariel Castro case.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Was just horrifying. And what ended up happening to him?
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: He was killed in prison.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: He was?
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: Died in prison, yeah.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: But he had a daughter with one of the girls, right?
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, he did.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: And does anyone follow up with these three women?
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Just the one, Gina DeJesus. And she's having her life.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: She's doing the best she can. Yeah. Yeah. that's a
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: crushing thing to have happen to you.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, of course.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: Um, okay.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: So what is your current binge in the true crime
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: networks that you could watch?
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Current binge in true crime.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Or a podcast. Like what's something that you really follow?
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: My binges, because I'm so involved in crime, my binges
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: tend to be more entertainment. I like to get out
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: of it a little bit. So Ted Lasso. Okay.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Mine too. I love that.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Um, The other one that I'm insanely devoted to is
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Winning Time.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that is.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: About the Los Angeles Lakers.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: From the time Jerry Buss bought them.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: They've only had one season, but I keep tapping my
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: toe waiting for the next season, which is going to
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: be anytime soon. I just thought that they had done
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: a wonderful job with that. I mean, literally, I will–
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: make dinner and make it, make sure it's done before
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: that show comes out. So I can watch it. And I,
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: and I usually watch it alone. I don't watch it
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: with anybody else. Right.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's funny. Um, who is the most intimidating person
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: you've ever interviewed? Do you think?
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Probably the happy face killer.
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: So this was a crime that took place in Oregon.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: God was arrested for being a serial killer. And I
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: interviewed him in prison and they walk him in. It
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: is a giant. He's got, you know handcuffs on he's
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: got leg irons on and they walk him into the
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: interview room the prison it's just i mean any time
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: he wasn't going to get away with it yeah i
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: mean he was just a giant of a man and
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: he was you know accused of all these murders and
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: we sat as close as we are albeit with his
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: leg chains and several guards around but i'm thinking if
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: he grabbed one of those light stands he's not going
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: to get out of here and i'm not going to
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: get hurt but it's going to be a Be a
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: Donnybrook of sorts. Right. That's probably– I think that he
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: would have to be at the top of the list. Right.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Okay. If you could switch careers and be any other profession,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: what would you choose?
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: Probably a lawyer. Okay.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Similar skills.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: I would think so.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: So you wouldn't go far.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: I always had– I applied to law school twice when
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: I was much younger and got in. And just every
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: time I got in– In those days, in the 80s,
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: it was very fashionable to have a law degree and
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: be a journalist. That was it. That was the be-all, end-all.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: And then every time I would get accepted and weigh
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: the effort it would take, I got a better job
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: at television, so it quickly went by the wayside.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Okay. Well, obviously, everything that you're doing, putting
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: these people in jail, with this new network, inviting us
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: into all these different crimes and documentaries I think is
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: really fantastic. Tell us really quickly where we can find
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: you on Instagram and also how we can watch the program.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Instagram is official Chris Hansen. Twitter is at Chris Hansen,
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: all over Facebook. TikTok is have a seat with Chris
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Hansen for our TikTok friends. There are a lot of them.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: It's a magnificent way to share your contacts. And watch TrueBlue.com
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: for all the details, T-R-U-B-L-U. Mm-hmm. And the podcast is
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: Predators I've Caught with Chris Hansen.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: And you can get that wherever you.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: Find your podcast. You can get it wherever you find
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: the podcast.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Right next to yours.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, right. I appreciate you being here.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Rachel.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: It was such a pleasure.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to Misunderstood. I'm your host,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Rachel Yucatel. Please be sure to subscribe to the show
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: and give us a five-star rating and review. You can
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: support the show by joining our Patreon at patreon.com slash
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: misunderstood with Rachel Yucatel. Do you have ideas for the
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: show or want to reach out? Email us at infomisunderstoodpodcast
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: at gmail.com. That's spelled M-I-S-S understood. Thank you so much,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: and I'll see you next time.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: for it?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: This exclusive place that Dad has connections with. They have
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: more cars for more dealerships than like anywhere else.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: You have to put me in touch. What's it called?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: It's Dunaidial.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: Where?
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: Dunaidial.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: There's an accent on the E.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: Do you mean.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: Yes, I got it on Dundale Cars.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: Lift? Please.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: Are you going past Kimmage? Oh, Kimmage.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: Dundale Cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.