Off The Record /// Jesse P. Pollack | Forensic Files

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

Off The Record /// Jesse P. Pollack Recorded: 10-8-2018 Nic and the Captain discuss: AC/DC and speak with Author, Filmmaker and an awesome guy Jesse P. Pollack. Subscribe on Apple Podcast App or Patreon for New OTR Episodes. www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Brief Summary

Jesse P. Pollock discusses his book <i>The Acid King</i> about Ricky Casso, while the hosts share their favorite ACDC songs connected to the satanic panic.

Key points

ACDC's Influence on Crime. Exploring how ACDC's music was tied to notorious criminals during the satanic panic.
The Acid King Book Release. Jesse P. Pollock discusses his upcoming book, 'The Acid King', releasing on October 16.
Ricky Casso: The Acid King. Ricky Casso became infamous for his role in a ritualistic murder in 1984.
The Pressure to Succeed. Ricky faced immense pressure from his family to excel, leading to his rebellion.
Misleading True Crime Narratives. The sensationalism in true crime stories often distorts the real events.
The Drug Culture of Northport. By age 16, Ricky was a major drug dealer, risking dangerous trips to the Bronx.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You ain't nobody told you like oh man this rock and roll.

Comment on ACDC's influence.

6:08WatchFeb 25, 2024

Tension

45/ 100Some tension

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