When a Killer Calls /// Part 3 /// 555 | Forensic Files

thank you [Music] [Music] thank you this is true crime garage and this is part three of When a Killer calls
[Music] always very excited to have Mr John Douglas here with us in the garage this
is the third time that you've come and graced us with your presence and we are excited as we always are to chat with
you and today we're talking about your new book When a Killer cause this is a fascinating story from the mid 80s that
took place in South Carolina with a very a very horrific case and tragic case but
one that's really not only will appeal to our listeners and appeals to me as kind of a case
study but the the criminal Larry Gene Bell just fascinating and absolutely bizarre his crimes that he
committed and the way that he not just committed these crimes but also emotionally tortured his victims and
their families right Mr Douglas one thing that I found incredibly fascinating about the details of your
new book it really hones in on a lot of the communications that Larry Gene Bell felt were necessary to him when
committing the crimes that he did and some Killers communicate with the media some with law enforcement from
your experience why do you think some choose to communicate with the media and others choose to communicate with law
enforcement uh yeah I've had cases uh I interviewed Dennis Schrader the BTK Strangler and it was just a they're all
looking for power all these crimes are sense of power and control and someone like Dennis Schrader or the Zodiac it's
uh they want more than just local attention they want to National National you know attention
um in the case of that that I just wrote about I want to killer calls I never really had a case you know like this
before uh because this the signature uh the that's an aspect of the case that is
not necessary to perpetrate the case but it's a need that the subject has and his
need was to sadistically torture the families of Sherry Faye Smith there were two victims involved
but Sherry face Smith giving him initially false hope that that their daughter was still alive and then uh
having the victim write a last will and testament that he would mail to the family and Sherry Faye Smith is is now
saying goodbye to her family it was just an unbelievable family the religious and
Faith you know that they had I mean it was emotionally draining for me and everyone else
involved you know in the in the case but this guy this guy then uh after the last
one and testament he sets up these communications initially he's disguising his voice and we send the uh the tapes
of the FBI lab and they say he has some type of a monitoring device on the phone
which began to tell us something about his background his profile uh his his intelligence so he was changing his
voice as the case went on after a period of time he stopped using that uh that device because he was gaining confidence
he just felt that he was not you know not catchable no one would ever identify him but when this case kept evolving and
kept going on and on uh and then I'm working with the families and working with a sister her sister named Dawn
to use as a bait really to get this guy to keep communicating with us because the more he communicates the more we
begin to learn about him but it was very difficult in the 80s because we had to keep him on the phone for such a long
period of time up to 15 15 minutes before we can put a traps and Trace and he was well aware of that so I had to
work with the with the uh the sister of Sherry Faith Smith and basically kind of
give it like kind of like hostage negotiating skills and and that is like uh paraphrase and restate the content
that he's trying to whatever he's telling you just keep like confirming that you understand what he's
saying but he was too sharp at that time he would he would uh bail on us but one
of the worst things about this I mean it was it was horrific was that the mother
received some of the calls as well as the sister Don and then the mother asked him the mother
says that my daughter knows she was going to die and Bell says yes you know she did and I gave her a choice and she
could pick uh drug overdose gunshot or Suffocation and your daughter selected Suffocation and so what he did he
proceeded to use duct tape while she was alive and duct taped her her head and then he waits he waits days for the
body to decompose before he tells us that tells the family through now Dawn the other the other sister where we can
find find Sherry Faye Smith and the reason that began that tells you something about him too because he
doesn't want to leave anything forensically for us to determine like the cause of death to locate any kind of
hair and fiber evidence but what you could see is that then we and we knew about the duct tape just by the evidence
as she uh her hair after he duct taped her head he removed the duct tape because he didn't want to leave any
fingerprints on the duct tape and he would end up cutting some of the hair on her head to totally remove the duct tape
but from us so it was just it was just an unbelievable bookcase and and uh to set up he stopped communicating with us
that's that was a problem when I finally went down there you could stop communicating with with the police
uh with the the family and I had to get him to talk I had to get him to get back
on the phone so I I sat down with the investigative reporter and I told the investigative reporter uh that I I
wanted her to come up with a story where Sherry Faye is uh is buried you want to
have a memorial service and uh I'm not going to write it for you I can't do that as an agent but I want you to make
it poetic and we're going to set up at the the grave site we're going to put a kind of a lectern a white lectern with
shy face picture on it and uh when I was at the house I asked to see shark face bedroom and Dawn her sister showed me
the bedroom and and in the bedroom where dozens upon dozens of of koala bears and
I started thinking in my brain what can I what can I do here what can I do and I
saw a small koala bear that was hanging from a string and it took that you pinched the shoulders and it opens up
and I'm thinking without telling anyone I'm going to use this at the gravesite I'm going to have Dawn who now he was
targeting Dawn uh the other sister placed that at the uh at the graveside on a flower and the hope is uh Nick is
that he will will Peak his curiosity because we do know from the research that I conducted and my colleagues they
like to collect souvenirs mementos relative to the to the crime so we did all done all those things uh
unfortunately from an investigative perspective I had no control over this uh but she was buried very very close to
the road if and he would not take that kind of risk but we were monitoring the vehicles and we would catch him another
way but had we not caught him another way that we talk about in the book we would we would have come across some
eventually because we had we had his license plate number he stopped along with other cars and we were recording
all of those uh vehicles and from him once we would do it say a criminal check you know on these people who were
stopping we would find with him that he had history he had a criminal history of
attempted abduction early on in his life he was involved in obscene telephone calls you try to abduct a nine-year-old
girl besides a uh another teenager so we would have got him sooner sooner than later but we got bottom other ways
forensically one thing that I found incredibly fascinating and I love when a great book comes out on a case in
particularly one that fits into this realm for me where this is a case that I thought that I knew very well and then I
read your new book When a Killer calls and figure out that I only knew kind of the tip of the iceberg here there's a
lot to digest and a lot to take in from your new book now one thing I picked up while reading is that
it almost appears to me in some bizarre way and this is something I didn't know before
that Larry was in love or in his in his own bizarre way thought he was in love with Sherry Fay Smith yeah he would say
later on that he was stalking her he he came across her in a parking lot and so he was kind of surveilling her and uh on
that particular day of the abduction she was with a boyfriend they just left a pool party and we would find out later
on that he was in that parking lot he was watching and they were kissing and then then after that they said goodbye
to each other her and her boyfriend um uh Richard and he tailed her home follows the home very very closely had
she pulled into a driveway and pulled her vehicle up to the house he never would have pulled into the driveway our
house set back about 200 yards from the mailbox she stopped her vehicle at the mailbox to check the mail and at that
point in time is when he pulls up behind her his modus operandi we knew he had a
gun we later would find out he had a gun we assumed he would have something like
that to gain that kind of control he also had a a camera and he would take it was taking pictures of her and he just
comes across as a nice guy and the guy you know people they look good criminals they think they could they look a
certain way this guy looks like you're you're next door neighbor it could be any he could be anyone but once he got
her uh close to the uh to his vehicle and that's when you know when he grabbed her but he had this this fantasy and but
the fantasy you see can only last a short period of time because from the point of abduction to the point of
killing uh her was only a several hours several hours and and so he he had to perpetuate this and that's why then he
shifted over to the sister and then uh first he was very very nice very very polite her but then he goes out and he
abducts and kills a nine-year-old child who's playing in front of her her uh residence uh the family just moved into
this trailer park and she's out in the yard very boldly pulls up in front and grabs this nine-year-old child takes off
with her to get a description of the vehicle but not enough a good enough description
um to where we could identify him and he weighs in wastes and waits and then he calls up the first family the Smith
family and Dawn and he tells Dawn he says do you know you remember that Abduction the other day the girl Deborah
helmick and she says yes she says well he gives her these directions the directions where we can find the body
and like her sister he waited for the body to be an advanced stage edges of decomposition before he gave us the
location you know you know of her but all this began and we did a profile um the police department the Lexington
Police Department it was tremendous to tremendous Department both the sheriff and the underseriff attended the FBI
National Academy which is an 11-week program and the FBI trains about a thousand police officers a year
worldwide and so they they took classes one of the classes they took was in in my area in criminal profiling criminal
psychology like so many cops once they go back to their Department they'll think they'll never have a case like
this and sure enough here they get hit by this case and then they they contact us and we don't for your listeners we
don't always go out on cases in fact most of the cases are kind of over cases when we get them old dog cases but if
we're involved in the case where the app the offender is killing and now he's killing again and you probably want to
kill one more time if we don't identify them we're going out it's just like the Atlanta child killing case I mean
I I was receiving calls early on developing an analysis but there were so many killings so now I have to go on
site I got I got to see for myself and work with the investigators you know on uh you know on site so this department
they were they were very very open uh to suggestions and to proactive techniques
uh this is like 19 you know 85 nick uh in June uh 19 you know of my background uh in 1983 the end of 83 November
December I knew I died on the Green River murder case or just burned out had Viral Encephalitis and
came home in a a wheelchair so I really lost my confidence and and I didn't know
if I I would miss a beat and so by now in 1984 I'm get I nearly had to die before I could get help so now now they
give me they give me Agents from the field who I'm selecting or good investigators to train them but it takes
a while to to train them so so here this case comes up now in the mid mid 85. now
I got to go out I got to go on site and provide on-site consultation I'm going to bring a relatively new agent good
Agent but a relatively new agent in my program you know uh you know with the you know with me uh the profile that we
did turned out to be very very accurate I think we just missed the age we thought he'd be between the late 20s to
early 30s he was about 34 35 which isn't which isn't bad everything else about him uh his we felt he would have some
kind of electrical background he was an electrician body type he felt he would be a slovenly uh type we felt he was
obsessive compulsive reasoning for that is because you can tell when he was calling the family uh he would follow a
script if he was asked a question in the middle of his his uh lecture to say to Dawn or the mother it would throw him
off so then he had to repeat had to repeat himself and so he was would be this obsessive-compulsive types kind of
a guy who you're going you're going to his garage you see you see uh he'd have outline where the screwdriver hangs or
where the the hammer hangs he would outline that and his clothes it would be very orderly in uh in his closet in his
personal appearance would look the same or his vehicle and we went we were uh we
felt a guy like this could not have any kind of a uh a normal relationship with women that he probably was married
previously married uh in the past when she started out he was uh he was previously married had had
a son the criminal history he had that as I mentioned earlier he had you know all of that so you can do the profile
but then you have to really you know in fact when I just when I retired from the
bureau in the last couple of years I was kind of getting away from the demographic profile Nick I wanted more
to get into proactive techniques I wanted the public to know I wanted to public to know more about uh
characteristics or the behavioral patterns because if you develop a profile then you release it publicly
you're trying to develop leads but say you miss the age you're saying the guy's a high school drop down a guy may have a
college degree but everything else may fit well the person may say gee everything fits this guy who I know but
the education is on but the so I was getting away from from that but focusing more on pre-defense behavior and post
offense post-defense Behavior what was the behavior leading up to the crime what would have happened to him after
the crime like this case we told the police he will be changing his personal appearance We Believe which he did do
and so things like that and then what can I do uh to maybe cause the subject to inject himself into the police
investigation to go to the gravesite how to keep him contacting the family which
was very stressful Mr Smith I was kind of Heming and Horn about what I was going to be what was on my mind
how I wanted to use the the daughter as kind of a lure and a giant tell me what what what's on your mind what do you
think what are you thinking you're telling me I saw Mr Smith and I said we're dealing with somebody here who
knows he's not the type who's going to pull into this driveway and and hurt anyone he's not that type but I can see
what's happening here is that he's transferring you know his you know you know his fondness his
fantasy towards Dawn here and and I I need Dawn and we need Dawn to uh to lure him in and to get him to communicate uh
to communicate with us and uh and then he agreed he agreed with me and and Dawn another one just very religious family
uh she's a uh uh she's part of a church in in South Carolina and uh preaches has a beautiful voice she sings
uh the Sherry Faye beautiful girl here it is on a Friday May 31st she's graduating Sunday from high school she's
going to sing the national anthem at her graduation I I communicate with the family to this day I mean all these
years and they set up a fund for Sherry face Smith that I I participate in raising money for a scholarship for
because she wanted to go into uh into music so it's just emotionally emotionally
you know I just had my physical the other day and and the doctor said how do you do sleeping how do you sleep and I
said I can't I can't sleep I have I I have it's a very difficult time sleeping here I said if it was me I'd get up at
three or four o'clock in the morning but my my wife wouldn't appreciate it because I just think of something I'm
just always thinking of things or cases that are that are on my desk or my work uh uh that uh that I'm currently
involved in I mean the job your career almost took your life I remember reading in one of your earlier books where you
said you were working so much that you almost prayed that you would you know you would try to think about the cases
up to the point of falling asleep to you would dream about the cases so you could
continue working while you're sleeping yeah I I would uh I would go to bed it was quiet everything's quiet and have a
trying to come up with ideas help me help me come up with ideas and if I kept a pad of paper and if I wake up I
thought of something I would write it down because I'm afraid I was going to forget about it you know what's
interesting Nick is that people who watch television they see the shows and everything but the degree today well new
degree is kind of forensic psychology but there's so many people so many young people too and the majority of the art
my audiences too when I go out and do public speaking uh 89 are women they're interested in this field but I have to
tell them this job it can be hazardous to your health and such as me it's the other other people that were in in my
unit because you really you have really have to throw yourself into it understanding and walking the shoes of
the subject as well as the victim and you're not you're not working one case at a time at any given time uh the
agency that in my unit we were doing a thousand cases a year after 12 12 agent profiles and myself and we had also with
training Secret Service was training training them they you would think that they had a program they didn't even have
a program like this you would think they would have trained Secret Service the bureau Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms the
volume of work and the nature of the work and that's why leading up to the time where I nearly died I'm up in New
York training a couple hundred cops and and I know my material very well so my mouth is
talking but my brain is thinking of these cases I got to go up to Alaska where a guy named Rock I know a little
bit later on his name was Robert Hansen uh the onsub is up there the uh abducting women and then hunting them
down like wild animals he would fly up into the Wilderness stripping down naked and hunting hunt them down I got to go
over to Seattle King County to work on the Green River murder case and have all these
other cases so I have an anxiety attack Nick I think I'm gonna I'm having a heart attack and the the
audience goes because because I know my materials my mouth is moving but I'm sweating my horse pounding and and I'm
saying to myself regroup can I regroup so I regrouped and no one really detected anything as far as I know but
when I came back to Quantico I knew uh something's gonna happen to me I may die something bad so I took out income
protection insurance I took out extra life insurance I didn't tell anyone didn't tell my family or anything but
the day I had to go out on the Green River murder case uh I said goodbye to my wife at home and then she's a school
teacher and I drove over to say goodbye to her again and why are you going out there why are you doing this I I said I
have to uh they're asking for on-site consultation I have to train this new these two new agents they assigned me to
my unit I I you don't look well your eyes I said well yeah I have a tremendous headache
what was happening Nick was my brain was swelling up and my apparently later on the doctors say my immune system was
just so so low and when I when I came back in a wheelchair from this uh from the Green River America in fact I was
gonna be buried I'm a veteran as well and I was going to be buried at the Veteran Cemetery they were making plants
because my uh I collapsed back at the hotel room and as you know if I read mind Hunter and I know you did and and
uh I I thought I was getting a flu and my brain was swelling and I told the agents it's Tuesday night I'll see you
Friday when we head back to Quantico and uh back to DC and uh that and they said
okay we'll see you Friday and this is what I don't know what to do when I go back to the task force well that night I
collapsed and I remained on that floor until Friday until they kicked down the door but when they found me my body was
in a frog-like position and every they said every 30 seconds to admit my body start shaking like you know just
trembling like crazy my face would become distorted uh emergency people came First Responders my body
temperature was between 104 107 and what happened was it my brain split in my right uh temporal lobe which would cause
temporary I was amazing how I got over this the temporary paralysis but they thought for sure
that I was going to I was going to you know die from that and it made me though Nick it made me a better leader a good
leader because uh the people that do this work they throw themselves into it and when I would see
people in my unit who who are uh giving every drop of of sweat and blood to help
others I would tell them to go home and then they they start to go home but with
the cases they said no you leave the case this year but you see in the bureau it's so it is so bureaucratic you're not
supposed to allow agents to do that you got to sign in and sign out and so I would break all the you know all the uh
the rules but it just made me a better a better person here but I get I keep getting caught in the abyss I keep I I
would go out to the cemetery where I was going to be buried and I look for my date when I feel like oh here it goes I
I can't I gotta I can't I have no control over what's going on I have just so much so much so many cases and so
many calls coming in from whether it's profile I was also a hostage negotiator so these young kids that's when I go wow
I tell them I said you know this is not like the you know like a 60-minute show or something that you're watching on
television and when you see if this this death and dying and it's not just even murders it's victims of rape uh and
these child abductions child child killings and then the impact how it has on the families and I have families Nick
that this this is uh unbelievable if who want me to tell them in a case of say a
homicide how their their daughter how their child died uh what did the killer specifically do did my child suffer uh
or did she die quickly did my child put up a fight uh uh and and at first I wouldn't I couldn't do it but then they
get mad at you and it's just like when family members they want to go in the morgue and I I didn't realize this since
I was working with victims of violent crime they want to see for themselves what what took place to their to the
loved one and so you think you're protecting them by no you can't go in there but they get angry now they want
to see for themselves they want to they want to to just to see what uh their loved one uh you know went through and
and suffered so it's emotionally uh draining it's just uh you know and when you work so many cases it has a
cumulative effect you know on you so I had to go see his shrink when I when I came back kind of like Tony Soprano
going to do a shrink because so I uh and and the test they gave me they said you
burn the candle both ends you're this didn't get you together you could have a heart attack and I was exercising but I
was exercising to the point of exhausting myself just trying to kind of numb my feelings uh which uh I I
couldn't do I really I really couldn't do so when they finally gave me help just because they give you help doesn't
mean uh they you could train somebody overnight it takes about two years to train somebody and like in any
profession it takes off five years before they really start getting good you know at
what they do and I'm talking a lot Nick it's actually gonna get a chance and you're right I'm still trying to get
good at what I do but it's you know you didn't have to pinch yourself to know that you were human it's it's your heart
and it's your soul that really infected your brain and and the stress is what almost took you down because I can only
imagine you're sitting there you know you're being moved all over the country to to take on these different Adventures
but here you are in New York and trying to teach in in what you know better you know inside you're better equipping
these Law Enforcement Officers to to increase their toolbox and do a better job become more efficient at what they
do so you are helping but the whole time in the back of your mind you're going what am I doing here if I'm not in
Alaska then we're losing lives that I'm I'm not saving lives and then while in Alaska dealing with uh bad Bob Hanson
you're in the back of your mind you're going why am I not in Washington there are people getting at a crazy and
alarming rate uh in in in the state of Washington at the same time so I I mean I cannot imagine the the stress and and
the anxiety that that can cost [Music] foreign [Music] it's kind of like that it was in the
mind Hunter uh Netflix uh series is is that uh I got involved in this I just wanted to be a good instructor I was the
youngest agent when I came back to Quantico I had about seven years in the field had four years in the military
seven years in the field hash negotiator uh also uh bank robbery coordinator I remember on the SWAT team a couple
Advanced degrees at that point in time but I was the youngest one and auditing the classes these instructors they
didn't have their facts right and they were being challenged by those National Academy students in the class who worked
the Charles Manson case with David Berkowitz the Son of Sam so I just wanted to be a good instructor and so
that's I came up the idea of go into the prison and let's talk to the to the experts and then then you have uh Dr Ann
Burgess joins us from Boston College and she was also at the University of Penn she was at both universities came and to
uh her job was it's this it's not like uh Netflix how they uh the show how she's telling us how to do interviews
now she's basically is academic telling us how to develop the academic instruments for uh the interviews as far
as the interviews itself now we're doing that or developing the proactive you know techniques you know we're doing you
know all that kind of stuff uh but so the other thing and we didn't have the blessing I didn't have the blessing of
necessarily the FBI either in the early days I mean if Hoover was alive he this could never even have been accomplished
at all he never would have done this and and then even then after he died in 1972 uh there was still you know what is
this uh Behavioral Science is BS uh kind of stuff you know you know that you know
why are you doing that why why are you going to these prisons why are you doing these you know these incentives so you
didn't have to support necessarily from the bureau and then you when you go out to the cops initially too it's like they
didn't trust us because we were FBI and they thought the days of whoever you know we had we had uh the agency would
dominate the police or take the police would work a case and then comes the bureau to swoop maybe swoop up the uh
the case from the from the local police and and and so I wanted to change that and by the time I left the bureau it was
interesting it was a situation where we got so tight with the local police and really then our agents in charge of
our offices out in the field office so saying a case would go down they were calling us directly and and you tell
them you have to go through headquarters the criminal investigative division no we got we want to talk directly to you
and your unit you have to go and So eventually we was okay here's what you do or here special agent in charge of
the Cleveland FBI you got a kidnapping here you're going to go before the press this is what you say this is what you
don't say and then headquarters would would get on us like what the hell are you doing telling the agent in charge
what to do well he's asking us he's asking us so that that uh it caused a lot of stress just see you know how
you're being you know being you know treated within the agency then outside the agency but then we it's just time
went on uh we're pretty uh welcome and and always give credit to the local they're the ones and the police the
police or if it's an FBI case the agents or whatever agency you're going to solve
it just a tool in your toolbox that it may be able to help you I may not be able to to help you and uh people don't
realize too it's not just these kind of cases I work public I'm a unit public corruption cases foreign
counterintelligence we did uh you know Assessments in those kind of cases in arsons and bombings product tampering
you know the Tylenol case out of Chicago so all kinds of cases product tampering
all the you know all types of cases that we did so we had a great it was a great
great bunch of people that we had they're doing a lot of a lot of work back then we were lucky enough to have
Dr Ann Burgess on just a few weeks ago oh is that right yeah it was fascinating to talk with her
um but she is yeah her hair is a victim uh with the victim she did uh you know did a lot she's amazing I mean for her
age and she's still will go on going out you know at it but like I said when she
came down uh it's really funny because the Wendy character uh you know is she's as you notice it and there's forensic
forensic nursing yeah but they have this like like a psychologist in the the Mind
Hunter the Mind Hunter uh series and uh and and then her character is a lesbian and it's not a lesbian she's married
with several you know several children but I did a presentation with her at Boston College up there and and uh
they're really thrilled with her that she got you know the you know this uh you know this attention although they
Hollywood they Hollywood eyes her role they call it but as Mike holding forward the actors yeah playing like my role or
and uh everyone's hoping that there'll be a season three the actors want a season three uh it's up to David Fincher
the director uh and uh whether or not they'll be it was supposed to be a five-part series
five parts and and uh here they ended with two but they took a year they took a year and uh for each each uh of those
10 episodes and a year for the nine and they were filmed in the Pittsburgh up in
the Pittsburgh area and uh so they had it all relocate Jonathan Groth who played my role uh
holding forward he lives up in that area so there's no problem with him but Venture is just so obsessive compulsive
that in season two the first episode uh the actors were telling me this that there's a barbecue scene
where uh Bill tench like my partner he's barbecuing flipping hamburgers and hot dogs in his backyard and the neighbors
are over and they start asking questions so what do you do I'm at the Behavioral
Science unit and like do interviews and get really engrossed in that they repeated that uh 74 75 times that one
scene of flipping hot dogs and hamburgers 75 and uh some actors can't take it but uh they can't they can't do
that that's why the uh I had a girlfriend in uh season one season season one uh the actress who uh they
she just lasted one year holdingford thought he was going to have this relationship you know and and they would
live happily ever after and I was it was a great actress but it's just can you can you be that it's really strict you
know and uh over and over to get it and that's why these he makes these unbelievable uh movies or House of Cards
you know it was amazing a series on uh you know on Netflix well in season two there's that the big case obviously is
the Atlanta child killings and right if we do make it to season three I mean you
live the life what would be the big case would there be one big case or would it
be do you think it'd be more like season one I know you're not fully in charge here but yeah no what would it be more
like season one where it's a lot of uh smaller cases and a smaller involvement I had very little input surprisingly the
actors were surprised at themselves and very little input from the writer at all
uh the whole calendar came down here stayed with me at my house and everything he really dives into it
Jonathan Groff who plays me I didn't meet him until after you know after the fact and uh and they're if you're using
mind Hunter as a guide well my doctor I I thought I was gonna be a one book Wonder I can't so that so I Only Could
Touch on the cases like Atlanta child killing there were so many other and just like the Larry Jean Bell case you
know you'll touch on it but you won't go deep you don't have time to go deep you
know deep into it like you can in a a a single book but there are so many cases I mean they could do the Alaskan case uh
they could do the the trail side killer uh they could do John John Wayne Gacy they could do uh
Ted you know Ted Bundy they could do I mean there's just so you know you know so many uh they could do zodiac doesn't
have to solve a zodiac because it's really not solved but it you could do a case like that you could take it go in
to do a tile a Tylenol okay doors or a unibomber case there's just and there's so many other smaller cases that they
you you could do I mean those who've read or know my involved in Atlanta case it didn't happen like like
that where I'm checking into a motel and the woman checking me in is uh ends up uh you know inviting me out I think in
the in the show it's like I'm gonna go out on a date or something with her but she's ends up bringing me to where the
uh where many of the victims uh family are waiting to try to get my involvement you know in get involved in that case it
didn't go down like that and if and if anything when I went down on the case I mean I I
they raised hell with me and uh it was a case where I I the only case I think I only made the only Asian who was
censured censured and and then got a letter of accommodation and an incentive award for the same case you know they
hate you then they love you have a love-hate relationship you're with you they they hated me when
I came back from England I was trained in the military about it in Virginia and talking to
people in Corrections and here a hand goes up what about this guy they just arrested in Atlanta and I said well I
said I said if it's if he turns out to be um the landshocular he's he's gonna be
good for Maddie he's good for men well the crap hit the fan man the bureau looks at that as I'm a spokesperson now
for the agent in charge of the investigation I I thought I was going to be fired and then so then as the case
started going and um moving along did the assessment the profile and then got involved in the uh you know with
with the prosecutors and Coach the prosecutors and and then criticized the way the case was going uh like like one
day they a hair and fiber uh expert for the defense took the stand and looked like John F Kennedy uh the junior good
looking guy didn't know [ __ ] from Shinola about her and forensics but the the jurors love them
they love good how good he was he was speaking to them and so the next that afternoon had this big conference you
know and they go around the room did you hear that guy you know talk about here in fiber red but he didn't know what the
hell he was talking about and going around like the horn around this big table what do you think John I said you
guys are losing the case you're losing the case he may not know you know what he's talking about but you
guys from from the bureau and from uh gbi George your Bureau Investigation you're so damn technical I have no idea
what you're even saying it doesn't even make sense to me and I don't have this as much as at least as a jurors you'll
and so they so they would throw me out of that and they would you know send me back to Quantico then I tell them what
time I tell them hey I said it's just so you know Wayne Williams gonna get sick in the courtroom one week from today
I'll get out of here I go back to Quantico Williams gets sick in the courtroom and I told him before
why he will get sick in the courtroom and then the next you know get your ass back here so I had to go back to I spent
five months down there and then got involved in coaching the prosecutor great great guy Jack Mallard on how to
how to cross-examine Williams because I knew he would take the stand and Al binder who was the defense attorney
great he's a great guy I got to meet him really you know when he wasn't cross-examining
me or anybody else uh I I knew uh he would put Williams on the stand because because they were losing but I knew
Williams couldn't take it you know take any cross-examination so I worked with Jack Jack Mallard and he did a
tremendous tremendous job and broke him down on the stand and I know you've got that FBI profiler over there he's
pointing in my my direction you're not going to get me to fit it and your listeners may know that right
now they they're doing an investigation down there because they're trying to determine you know he was convicted of
two when we were down there we thought maybe eight to ten were related the other ones we couldn't see a
relationship here but but all those cases 28 26 cases were closed or closed and uh by the police so they are looking
the parents are demanding that the police look at these other cases which I was told they were you know they were
doing yeah and that has always fascinated me as well because I kind of feel like and this is just very basic
psychology and very my limited understanding of course I'm no expert here but I look at a case like that and
I see I don't know if if Wayne Williams it doesn't seem likely to me that the female victims are his you're exactly
right and it doesn't seem likely to me either that maybe the white victims are his either
um right he seemed to play within a certain sandbox if you will and those ones were out of that box and and I
don't know that unless it was some kind of learning curve or you know that he was working on maybe there there is some
kind of mix up there but but it does it looks highly likely to me that there may
have been another serial offender operating roughly about the same time right every year I was down I was
looking every year in Atlanta they have between 10 to 12 uh child killings down there a lot of those are even domestic
domestic related types of types of cases see at the time though at the time when
this that case was going on all the parents wanted to be on that list to be on the list uh even though some of the
way they were the kids were killed was totally different than the way I believe the ones that we selected have Williams
was responsible but they they wanted to be on the list uh because there was compensation
involved with uh Sammy Davis Jr was down there Frank Sinatra putting on a big uh
presentation singing uh singing and raising money you know they raised millions millions of dollars uh in which
they would then give to the families so everyone one their child even though no one's going to stop them they
compensated but I knew darn well you mentioned Nick those two females like I didn't want Angela Lanier no how she was
killed panties was stuffed in her mouth uh she's it's leadership strangulation totally you know totally uh you know
different and uh and yeah and some of the other ones too had like multiple stab wounds uh the big thing with me was
in that case was to say that the offender would be black statistically it's white but but generally when you
look at crimes you crimes are intra intra-racial now you do you will have an offender cross over and say he was
targeting uh uh black it will go with white but is they have we call a preferential victim preferential age a
preferential uh you know sex or even a look a certain look we had one in the midwest one time was women with red hair
so so this is you know this preference so with with him yeah he was he thought of himself with yeah he was a ham
operator he had a little radio station he can only broadcast a few blocks in his in his neighborhood uh he thought he
was going to develop the next Jackson 5 uh but there was mishandling on that case by the uh even by us it was Miss it
was mishandled uh when he when he was stopped on that bridge uh they could have taken him in they could have taken
taken him in for a question they look in the car they see ligatures in the back of the the back seat of the car here you
know it's like one or two o'clock you know in the morning you have on a car stop you're Splash in the you know in
the water but they didn't do it and then they the interview that took place I was
down there if I didn't get to do the interview uh they were way too hard they were way too aggressive uh you know with
uh you know with them on an interview and just by looking at me like it looked like he wanted to talk and he kind of
hung even hung around the office uh you know afterwards it's just it's just yeah you know the interview and some
people are good at it and some people are are not and when you look at a case say like Georgia is this case or you
look at uh you look at Larry Gene Bell from a book I'm going to kill her calls uh why will he talk I mean well he faces
the death penalty he's a child killer and child killers are low in the totem pole in prison oftentimes you have to
segregate them because until they're out to get them you know so what can I do you know what you know I'm not going to
do an interrogation I'm not going to do an interview not an interview I want to have a conversation a conversation with
him but I have to you have to provide some type of a face saving uh scenario you could give them a way out give them
an excuse an excuse uh whether there's like another side of the personality they have like multiple personality
they're insane or sometimes you have to totally investigators may not like this but you have to almost reject the blame
onto the victim that the victim was a Seducer and you panic you know to get the confession you know you know out of
the person to put put in there doing it that's what you're trying to you're trying to uh you know do so
um so mistakes we may but it's a clear all of those cases uh was wrought in my opinion and a lot of people's opinion
which is so bizarre the psychology of it because you were almost sitting across from the killer at the table you almost
have to empathize with the stress that the the criminal put on themselves by committing these acts and the and the
choices and reactions that they had to make In the Heat of the Moment you almost have to empathize with that where
we have a criminal Like Larry Jean Bell and Wayne Williams who are incapable of empathizing with the people that they
are killing it's it's just a it's a it's a weird bizarre situation yes it's really it's it's you're you're
portraying even uh false and you know empathy uh with us you know whether it's Belle you know
I got involved in the interview I wasn't supposed to if you coach others but they want to
bring them into the room where I might and the agent uh Ron Walker who came with me and it was funny
Donnie Myers they call them solicitors down here not prosecutors and he said you know these boys here you know these
boys are in the FBI and they profiled you Larry to a t a profiled you everything everything about you came
true and Bell's just looking at us you know and then they just leave they leave Belle with us in this room and uh it was
this was not planned they had them for hours and hours that police did trying to interview him they he really never
Fest up to anything and so sat him down on the couch and just coincidentally happened to be wearing it I I could call
like two in the morning we were down there you know they got this guy now and Lara Jean Bell and I was put on his kind
of whitish pants and a white shirt it looked clinical and it turned out to be it was pretty good it was it wasn't done
purposely and so I'm sitting and right in front of him on like a table coffee table and uh I just kind of give him a
historical view of what we do and and what I found in uh in those prison interviews is like uh
people Clarity I spoke to yeah I never use the word murder killed or any that kind of stuff you know to do that but
they I said they tell them it's almost like you know two different sizes of them there's a side that good sign the
bad side and when they perpetrate the crime they know there's they did it but it's not it's like a dream like they're
almost like in a dream-like state and I go like there's long uh siliquity I go on and on on and he's and he's just
looking at me nodding with me and then and I I say when it just started feeling bad about
this case uh Larry I mean and and he said and he's just staring at me he says when I saw him uh the funeral and I saw
that newspaper articles and pictures of the family at the cemetery and uh that's
why I felt bad you see so I mean why then I shift from that is and I get into this you know this side it
could be two size and then it closely would come to confession was the he says all I know is that the the good Larry
Jean Bell couldn't have done something like this but the bad Larry Gene Bell you know could could have done that so
that was as close as we came and then I presented him uh in front of of Mrs Smith and Dawn
I know I coached them a little bit to tell them I mean hear them say I know it's you I know it's you no I recognize
your voice and and um I did did that and he did the same we've seen the good versus the bad good
good large email couldn't have done this but the bad Larry Gene Bell could have and he would go trial the evidence was
just overwhelming um I'm not going to tell the audience of how they got how it got a really good
lead I'll leave that part right part out because it's really interesting how he you know got on to him did you have to
testify against Bell yes yeah I did and uh uh good prosecutors he uh got me on a
stand I talked about the interview you know there wasn't really much she you know he could get me out you know on
there and uh afterwards we uh you know we talked say you're pretty good you're good to understand all this other
you know uh BS stuff but you know he's trying to he was trying to save him from the death penalty and and I knew and I
told the prosecutor the solicitor I I say the only thing they're going to try here is an insanity defense so so what
you're going to see starting day one you're gonna see this guy uh you know flipping out in the courtroom in front
of the jurors and everyone to show that he's that's his only chance I mean we got it his goose is is cooked
uh and that's exactly what he did and then he would take the stand and he stood and he did the same ranty and
Raven you know I'm God and all that well it took the it took jurors I think was like 45 minutes 48 minutes to to convict
him on this case and as well it was another trial and Deborah helmick and the same thing you know over there and
then and uh who sent us got the death penalty the thing that surprised me is he he could have taken uh lethal
injection or the electric chair and he took the electric chair which is such a coward and I think I think in his mind
uh he would not have a 1996 is when he was executed is that he just on the show I think even I keep how tough he is a
tough guy yeah because everyone would have been on him from the prison guards to the inmates being this child killer
that you coward and everything so he could have taken the lethal injection but he he picks the uh he picks the uh
the electric chair which is pretty could be pretty brutal yeah I I had always wondered about that that was kind of a
last-ditch effort to you know prove that he's insane almost right like right the normal person would
pick lethal injection sure obviously the electric chair not to uh to Circle back
too far but why did you think that Wayne Williams would get sick in court or or pretend to be sick okay
what happened was is that Al binder was the prosecutor and excuse me defense attorney and uh Jim kitchens was the
other defense attorney I got to meet meet with him and uh they were shocked to find out that I was in the courtroom
the whole time because they were going to bring a psychologist from Arizona to testify that Williams didn't do it uh it
wasn't responsible they were shocked uh but but anyway so they put Williams on the stand and what they wanted to show
and uh to take to stand on the cross-examination how Al binders nickname is Jaws is that uh look at this
guy look at him he looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy look look at his hands are these are the hands of a
killer of a serial killer look at these These Hands here and so uh I no one was going to buy this at the jurors and I
said his only Ploy here is that is that uh once we cross-examine him uh he's going
to have to claim that you know that he's if there's sick there's some sickness he's going to be a sympathy Ploy and so
I the coaching Jack Mallard the the prosecutor and uh another prosecutor Gordon Miller was there and because they
were shocked when I said one week from today he's going to get sick in the in the courtroom and he did and uh I told
you jack I said Jack because when you get when he takes when he gets the stance your choice here I said the
defense attorney grabbed the Sands you touch his hands and then when you touch his hands say in a real low voice what
was the light Queen what was it like Wayne when you rocked yeah you wrapped your fingers around
Terry Pugh's throat did you panicly did you panic and he says in a weak voice no
and then he realized what he just confessed so then he gets up and he starts screaming and yelling that's one
that's when he does the the pointing uh because the next day in a paper is an artist's conception drawing a artist in
the courtroom had him pointing and saying I know you got this FBI profiler over here and you got to try to get me
to fit it and uh well you're fit perfectly you never should have they never should have let him take the uh
you know take the stand you know at all I got to meet the prosecutors and Mary welcome was one of the excuse me the
defense attorneys was there was three of them there and I was hearing fiber evidence that but it was such unique
unique uh fiber evidence and the big expert for the bureau is a guy agent by Hal Deadman uh he testified plus the gbi
but they all he found it was interesting they only found the evidence on the cases that myself and Roy
Hazelwood from the unit we thought were related these uh these cases and that was what's interesting is that's
what the lab only founded on those particular uh cases you know not these other ones early in your career you
spent a lot of time interviewing serial killers behind you know Prison Walls and one thing that
I found this is just a a personal question here um and I've I've studied your career
throughout through your books um over the years and you know Kemper was always somebody that you had said
was one of the more interesting interviews because he was able to articulate what he did why he did and he
was willing to speak about it now in kemper's case he is one of these rare specimens that
he you know he kills once he gets out uh when he gets into his early 20s but he was already locked up at age 15 for
killing his grandparents I wondered had you and uh Bob Ressler ever been in a situation where you were interviewing a
juvenile serial murderer not after only after uh yeah after they were convicted a Monty
Russell out of uh Alex Alexandra who killed uh sex workers and he was only he was he was seeing a psychologist he was
only like in his teens and uh the psychologist was giving him a true bill of health this is a great guy I kind of
like Kemper and meanwhile the psychiatrists didn't realize this guy was killing doing all these killings
around the Alexandria Virginia uh Virginia you know area I have gone before parole boards and in fact I met
just yesterday with a parole board head uh who did the book The Killer across the table a couple of books back and and
Joseph McGowan was one of the ones who killed a he was began was a school teacher who kills a a brownie seven
years of age going house to house selling cookies and on this particular day she was collecting money and knocks
on this guy McGowan's door and I they picked me because he's he got to do the interview they heard me doing like a
talk show on a radio but kind of like today we have podcasts and and uh and he said we got to get this guy down here to
yeah this guy uh McGowan's getting ready to get out of uh you know out of prison
he served 30 years that's the maximum sentence so they they uh bring me to uh uh to the prison up in New Jersey which
is which very intimidating intimidating uh prison to begin with and and they put me in a room I tell them
what I want how I want the room the furniture and everything they introduced me to him and so I I had to go now on a
fishing and a hunt here to try to let's see what this guy is difficult if he's changed has he been you know
rehabilitated or what's his thinking process like so I was in with him say six hours
or so and then and never using always positive when you get out where are you going when you get out and he says New
York and I said New York I said man I said I was raised in New York as a kid I said it's expensive it's expensive it's
hell on it and he tells me about uh he's got a x-con up there and get a job you know working working there and then I
kind of segue into the crimes I said what happened the day when you heard the knock on the screen door uh and uh and
it was Joan D'Alessandro the seven-year-old girl and uh they said my mother was away at work and this guy's
like 27 at the time and my grandmother's upstairs sleeping and he lives in a bi-level house down in the basement part
so is better he says when I looked up I knew I was going to kill her John I knew
I was going to kill her and and so he goes through all the the details of of what he does you know to this child what
was so interesting in fact I was talking to this parole board head who brought me
in on a case back then just yesterday was that I wish it was a video could could watch this uh this this play
between us because he all of a sudden what you're trying to do is you're trying to turn on that CD in their brain
and bring them back to the crime no matter who it is or Charles Manson whatever whoever you're talking David
Berk was to get him back there and it takes a while and and so he starts staring off and it was freezing in this
cell it was cold he is sweating he's sweating profusely and it and his chest muscles and his pecs are trembling as
he's telling me everything that he's done all the specifics of of this crime uh and and he would turn around with
soil to make sure the guards weren't weren't uh watching uh we're listening in on this he trusted me that that well
as a matter of fact they would intercept the letter uh before it was sent out to
a woman that he was communicating with and he mentions me in the letter of saying you know I was going to be about
this guy John Douglas the FBI and his Naval science profiling stuff and he said it wasn't until I was well into
this interview I realized he wasn't taking notes and he didn't have any notes in front of him he had no papers
but he knew my case backwards and forwards you know everything about him and see that so and so that's one of the
other things I learned about doing the interviews you must maintain contact the eye contact you deal with paranoid
people they don't trust anybody particularly now that they're in prison what are you doing what do you have the
audience you know they surely like in mind Hunter the audio tape in the beginning the tape recording we used it
once we use it for uh uh for uh what do you call it what's again I think I just mentioned uh a little while ago yeah
Camp I'm sorry you mentioned we use it for camper uh but but they're all you know who's gonna listen to this the
warden going to hear this so just discard same thing you think I know who's who's going to see these see these
uh notes here and so this guy I mean when I go back to McGowan tells me everything including I said how are you
going to live when you get out go in New York but I got money John you got money
what am I making a license placement I have six hundred thousand dollars and he's always looking back to see if the
guards are listening and how'd you get that so when my mother died I got insurance money my grandmother sale of
the house insurance money and so I said where is the money I put the money out of state why don't you put the money out
of state so the family can't get any any of the money all right so oh man you'll
do great then 600 Grand yeah you'll you'll be fine when you get to New York well the next day I go before the parole
board and uh and I started telling telling them what happened and how this interview went down they're shocked I'm
talking about psychologists psychiatrists court appointed uh people who sit on the parole board and a lot of
them aren't it's done in every state have no uh criminal background and investigative backgrounds at all and and
they're shocked I'm able to get this and he says and he referred him as a pedophile and I said wait no he's not a
pedophile when I killed a seven-year-old that on that particular day a parole board a 70 year old lady could have
knocked on that door and she would have died he was going to kill somebody and I
gave him different reasons what was going on in his life you know at that time he's no pedophile he's a killer and
you let him out of prison and what's going to happen is that you have not rehabilitated him he was never
habilitated to begin with uh yeah and so you didn't do anything he didn't change
it anything and all you did was put the physical body on ice for a period of 30 years but you didn't change what's up in
his brain I didn't you didn't change any of that the fantasies because when he was telling me about the crime he was
right down to the nitty-gritty specifics you know of the crime and no remorse at
all not not a shred of remorse came from this guy so he'll go down go up to New York and things don't go well
um don't believe it you think that's another theory that this burnout with these guys there's no burnout because
this is the crimes of anger and crimes of power and so you know that's what you have to look forward to if you you
release this guy so they end up giving him a hit they gave him on top of that he gave a 30-year hit and of course he
appeals appeals appeals but he just died he died I think just last year you know
he died thank goodness they got rid of rid of him when a killer calls a haunting story of murder criminal
profiling and Justice in a small town Mr Douglas I love the new book I know the listeners are going to love it as well
anything else any final words about this book this project before we wrap up no I
think it's it's good for the um people are interested in profiling and how the specifics of how you prepare and things
she you can do and can't do you know I try to do with all of the books in the next book whatever we select we'll do it
with that one but so far it's got some very very good reviews I think your listeners will enjoy it I really
appreciate Nick you having me on here too really growing over the years as well as you have a tremendous uh
following well thank you so much for stopping by and seeing us again and I hope that you will come by and see us
again on the next project oh I will thank you please invite me wonderful thank you Mr Douglas
[Music] did you miss me of course you did because I missed you I missed your musk
for everything True Crime Check out true crime garage.com and it doesn't get much
better than the OG goat talking with the colonel until next week be good be kind and
don't matter [Music]

When a Killer Calls /// Part 3 /// 555

Part 3 of 3 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week we have a real treat for all of our Garage friends. A three part series featuring an in depth case review by the True Crime Garage guys that includes rare audio from the killer. In Part 3 Nic is joined in the Garage by best selling author and Legendary F.B.I. Profiler John Douglas. Join us for a fascinating conversation about the case of Shari Faye Smith and Debra May Helmick, F.B.I strategies, Serial Killers and the sadistic criminal mind. Gather 'round, grab a chair, grab a beer and join us for this special three part series.

Recommended Reading: When a Killer Calls; A Hunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town

This is the latest book from Legendary F.B.I. Profiler John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, the best selling authors of Mindhunter.

Our show - True Crime Garage “Off the Record” is available only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

John Douglas discusses Larry Gene Bell's crimes and profiling techniques in his book <i>When a Killer Calls</i>.

Key points

The Killer's Communication. Exploring why some killers choose to communicate with the media while others do not.
The Emotional Toll. The emotional strain on families as they navigate the horrors inflicted by Bell.
Anxiety Attack on the Case. While working on the Green River murder case, the speaker experiences a severe anxiety attack.
The Collapse. After pushing through stress and exhaustion, the speaker collapses and is found in a critical state.
The Emotional Toll of Crime. The speaker discusses the emotional burden of dealing with violent crime victims and their families.
The Role of Local Police. The speaker emphasizes the importance of collaboration with local police in solving cases.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She could pick drug overdose, gunshot, or suffocation.

6:05WatchOct 29, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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