330 - The Thing About Keith Morrison

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] To my favorite murder.

[2] I'm Karen Kilgarev.

[3] I'm Georgia Hard Stark.

[4] And I'm Keith Morrison with the seduction.

[5] Oh my gosh.

[6] He nailed it.

[7] He nailed it.

[8] It was perfect.

[9] I have chills.

[10] That was epic.

[11] I can't believe we're looking at you.

[12] If I can admit something right off the bat, I fell asleep to your story on the comm app the other night.

[13] You know, that's very, I think I'm glad to hear that.

[14] But it was so crazy, the person, the producer of this thing, who's done a lot of them, so she knows what she's doing.

[15] She just asked me to go slower and slower.

[16] Man. Well, I was like debating, should I tell you that I fell asleep to your boy?

[17] Like, that's kind of creepy, too, saying that to someone.

[18] But I mean, you are, you know, and I wonder if it's weird for you to know this now.

[19] that you are a household name.

[20] You're a person who's been on our televisions on NBC for 30 years.

[21] I mean, what's that like for you, for people who they just know you?

[22] Well, I'm not entirely sure, except for it's, I mean, I just feel like a very lucky old guy, frankly.

[23] And it kind of happens without you being aware that it's happening.

[24] And then you don't know what to make of it.

[25] I don't know what to make.

[26] When you go out with your family and people recognize you and want photos with you and everything, did they tease you, your family tease you about it?

[27] Or are they?

[28] Remorselessly, yes, they do.

[29] That's exactly the right attitude.

[30] Right?

[31] But people are so nice, you know.

[32] Oh, yeah.

[33] I never, almost never, ever get anybody is even hinting at being mean.

[34] Right, yeah.

[35] I'm a lucky person, I'd say.

[36] Yeah.

[37] It is funny, like, you're in the true crime genre, and you wouldn't think that that equates to the nicest, you know, listenership ever.

[38] Like, that's what we experienced, too, just the kindest people.

[39] Yeah, well, it's true.

[40] Yeah.

[41] And I think what I love is that you're so on board with the fun of it.

[42] And I think when I saw the Instagram, Keith leans on things, which I know you, you posed, you went and met them and posed for a photo.

[43] It's one of the greatest, when you played along, that that is a thing that you lean on, you just lean on things.

[44] It's part of your body language when you report.

[45] I love that.

[46] Yeah.

[47] Why?

[48] I don't know.

[49] I don't know.

[50] It doesn't make any sense at all.

[51] Well, you've got to do something.

[52] Right.

[53] While you're doing those throws.

[54] Sure, sure.

[55] There was this whole thing where people would walk all the time when they were talking to a camera.

[56] You know, they're in the studio.

[57] They should be on the desk where they're standing in the studio.

[58] They don't move.

[59] But if they're out somewhere in the field or on the road, there's always kind of walking from one place to another.

[60] I didn't think that made very much sense.

[61] You're like, can I just hang out here and just take it easy for a second?

[62] You invented the journalistic lien, I think.

[63] That should go in the dictionary, right?

[64] Well, and the same thing happened, I mean, talk about playing along when Bill Hader started doing an impression of you on SNL, which must have been, do you want to talk about what that was like to experience?

[65] That was probably the beginning of thinking, oh, yeah, I wasn't just kind of going along doing stories that people were actually listening to them and they thought they were kind of strange.

[66] So when somebody makes fun of you, it is, I mean, in the incredibly skillful and funny way that he did, it's.

[67] I mean, you don't know what to say.

[68] It's both exhilarating and humiliating or a wonderful honor and kind of embarrassing at the same time.

[69] Well, and that characterization is so over the top.

[70] It's like, it's ridiculous.

[71] I mean, that's the, you know, kind of the funny part about it.

[72] But then you went on too and played along with it, which is such a, you know, that's a good sport.

[73] You're a sweet man. So it didn't hurt me. I didn't.

[74] Did they warn you beforehand that that was going to be a character?

[75] No. You know, I live on the West Coast and I got a call that first night from a daughter of mine who lived on the East Coast.

[76] And she was kind of screaming into the phone.

[77] I feel like that deserves a heads up.

[78] But, you know.

[79] You know, or not.

[80] Or not.

[81] Had there been a heads off, I would have worried about it.

[82] Right, right.

[83] So can we talk about your early career?

[84] Because we heard a story that we were told.

[85] ask you about your first summer job when you're a stand -in...

[86] Oh.

[87] Well, my father was what they used to call in those days a minister.

[88] This was in Canada where I grew up, and he was a minister in the United Church of Canada, which is still the largest Protestant denomination, I think.

[89] But one of the, what they call these days the mainline Protestant churches, a very, you know, tended to be on the more progressive side.

[90] So anyway, in the summertime, ministers needed to get time off, and they would, you know, corral these theology students from the university and have them go out and fill in for a little while for the summer in many cases.

[91] And I had just flunked out of college.

[92] Hey, yes, too.

[93] Uh -huh.

[94] Yeah.

[95] We're also college dropouts.

[96] That's right.

[97] Well, it's kind of a, yeah, it's a special club based on that.

[98] It is now.

[99] So I think he took pity on me, and he pulled a string or two, and he got me this gig.

[100] And the thing was, I'd been doing public speaking and other stuff before.

[101] So the thing was, though, I didn't, I wasn't exactly, you know, devout.

[102] So that's a little conflict of interest, probably.

[103] I didn't quite live the way a minister was supposed to live.

[104] It's big of you to admit, because I feel like that's probably true for a lot.

[105] of practicing ministers.

[106] There were a bunch of people in pews just sitting there with their arms cross like, mm -mm, no, we're not taking this from you, sir.

[107] We know you, Keith.

[108] They might have been used to it.

[109] I remember one Sunday, because I'd borrowed sermons from a minister, and he was pretty good at this sort of thing.

[110] And so he would give me these, they'd use that and just stick to the script and see if that's any better.

[111] So I borrowed one of these ones someday and I was right in the middle of it.

[112] He was a kind radical guy.

[113] He was saying radical things in this, in this sermon.

[114] And I was getting into it because this is cool.

[115] It makes sense to me. I like this idea, you know, young and reckless.

[116] And I figured this will get a rise out of the folks in the back pews who were just these solid kind of salt of the earth prairie types and didn't blink and kind of smiled and frowned and then they just so I was kind of when I realized this is probably not the right date for me you wanted to do some like rabble rousing and some kind of shaking things up a little yeah so journalism instead I guess is that well yes and the minister thing was obviously not going to be ever going to be a permanent something and the option was to go back and have another go at college in the fall or not and take a year off and think about things that when I was encouraged to leave the dean of the school that I was attending said that I should probably grow up for a year or so before coming back.

[117] Good advice.

[118] So yeah, there you are.

[119] And I was watching TV one day and saw this guy reading the news on TV and thought, I can do that.

[120] And my neighbor was the editor of a local newspaper and needed a ride to go back and forth to work.

[121] And he was at the paper first and then went to this radio station in town.

[122] He needed a drive to both places.

[123] So I drove him.

[124] And then he let me go and cover a few stories and read the news on the radio.

[125] And that's when you knew you were just like, this is it?

[126] And yeah, it was just a lot of fun.

[127] And I thought this will never pay the rent.

[128] It's a boring story.

[129] But they continue it.

[130] So that was in September of the year I'd rather not mention.

[131] By December, I was the kind of regular doing the morning run of newscasts on this radio station in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

[132] Cold, cold in those mornings.

[133] And I wasn't really very good at waking up on time.

[134] And I slept in several times in a row and they fired.

[135] Oh.

[136] Blunk out of school, fired from my first job in radio.

[137] You're on the right podcast right now.

[138] That's really.

[139] This is very relatable for us and everyone that listens.

[140] Feeling a bit down when somebody heard that I desperately needed a job in another radio section, heard this and called up and said, I can take you on, but I really can't pay you.

[141] So if you want to come just work for basically for free and you can, you know, or find you a Garrett to live in or something, you can do that.

[142] So I did.

[143] And that's when it got to be really quite a lot of fun.

[144] So did you never, you know, some people have to go to like school to learn that the newscasting voice and everything.

[145] Did you never do that?

[146] No, no, no. In fact, when I, the first job in radio, the station manager guy asked me what journalism school I've gone to.

[147] And I said, well, I'm going to do a journalism school.

[148] I didn't even know there were journalism school.

[149] And he said, that's good, because if you had been, I wouldn't hire you.

[150] We'd have to unteach you a bunch of things.

[151] Raw talent.

[152] Yeah.

[153] I would imagine ministering is actually like a weirdly good practice for that, where the cadence, the delivery, everything.

[154] It kind of is.

[155] Yeah.

[156] It's all storytelling.

[157] I mean, everything being involved with communication amounts to storyteller.

[158] And how did you make the jump to TV?

[159] Because then you became a newscaster, right?

[160] Well, yeah.

[161] And I wanted to do that when I saw that guy.

[162] And so I kept applying to a local television station in Saskatoon.

[163] And they eventually hired me after a while, worked there.

[164] And then went off to another one on the West Coast and then one in Toronto and then on to one of the Canadian networks.

[165] Nice.

[166] You've worked your way right up.

[167] We're going to wait on the top.

[168] Because if you can make it in Saskatoon, they say, you can make it anyway.

[169] That's that famous saying.

[170] Yep, yeah.

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[193] Goodbye.

[194] So I love the idea that then, because there was like a shakeup at the top at CTV, so you lost your job as the newscaster and the next day the Dateline people called you.

[195] Dare I tell that story?

[196] Would you?

[197] Always stare.

[198] Gossip.

[199] Gossip.

[200] Gossip.

[201] Yeah.

[202] So maybe it doesn't count, right?

[203] I don't know.

[204] I've been at NBC and I joined NBC in the middle of the 1980s at the local station in Los Angeles and within short period of time I was working also for the network, reporting for nightly news and today's show and occasionally filling on those programs.

[205] And it was a great job, great place to be.

[206] be at goodness.

[207] I always thought, well, maybe I'll go back home one day, and I got a call asking if I would go and host the morning show in Canada.

[208] I should go into two -by -s -tail, but that would lead to this numero uno job, the Tom Broca type job.

[209] So I thought, well, okay.

[210] And I went and had quite a lot of fun.

[211] Hosting a morning show is hell on the body, but it's quite a hoot.

[212] you get to interview all kinds of people from the serious to the silly and just kind of be a showperson which I'd never really tried to do before.

[213] So I liked it.

[214] But then the route up, which had been suggested, kind of was shut off when the person doing that job, re -signed a contract.

[215] I don't know.

[216] And at the same time, Dayblank was starting.

[217] This is Dayline at the very beginning 30 years ago.

[218] So they offered me a job to go back.

[219] And I said, okay.

[220] But the CTV people talked me out of it and said, no, you can do that top job after all because a guy in top job wants to, you know, share the job with you in order for you not to go away, which is a big deal, right?

[221] Very nice.

[222] So the press conference in the old nine yards and a date was set and all the rest of it.

[223] And then I, you know, something happened.

[224] Maybe he changed his mind.

[225] I don't know what happened.

[226] But one day, I walked into the boss's office and he said, you know, collect your things, you're out the door.

[227] No explanation was ever given.

[228] Really?

[229] Yeah, who was behind it.

[230] Wow.

[231] What the story was.

[232] Someone had an ego trip, maybe.

[233] Yeah.

[234] So anyway, it was either that day or the very next day that the deadline went through a little couple of pickups there at the very beginning.

[235] But I got a call from the person who had taken over after they got them and he said, can you be in Pittsburgh tomorrow?

[236] Did the story about a lady who's running a transmission repair shop?

[237] So I said to the story.

[238] And that's how it got started.

[239] That was your first story as a lady running a transmission?

[240] The first story.

[241] I love it.

[242] Yeah.

[243] When did the true crime aspect come into it?

[244] Because I know it's, you know, you weren't that interested in true crime in the beginning or maybe hadn't thought about it.

[245] I really was not.

[246] You know, a long time ago, the very, when I started in radio, the first job that traditionally, this died in a little newspaper guy would give the starting reporter was to go on and covered magistrate.

[247] court every day.

[248] And that is, it's a depressing place to be.

[249] You know, all the things people made are on full display.

[250] The, you know, the young and foolish things people do, the old and dried up things people do.

[251] And nasty things that they do to each other.

[252] They all get displayed.

[253] And I had to do these stories about them.

[254] And, you know, I was a minister's son.

[255] I preached the sermons.

[256] And I, And here I was having to spill the dirt on all these poor people who would run afoul of the law.

[257] And I just felt bad about it all the time.

[258] So when Dave, I decided that they wanted to do more true crime, this gradually worked it in.

[259] I didn't want to go there because there are victims who really suffer in these stories.

[260] And families are victims.

[261] And, you know, a murderer sends ripples in all kinds of directions.

[262] It changes history for people.

[263] you know, you mess around with that at your peril, I thought.

[264] But, you know, they gradually came to realize that there is probably no kind of reporting that gets you closer to the nature of what makes a human being, human being.

[265] It makes this all tick and what people will do in extreme circumstances.

[266] Yeah.

[267] Do you think I just came to my mind that you were saying how when you were ministering, you know, you were doing some nefarious things of your own.

[268] And Karen and I both have some, well, he's like, I absolutely did not say that.

[269] You weren't the perfect person to be ministering, is what you said.

[270] And my mind just went to nefarious things because that's what my mind does.

[271] But, you know, that Karen and I have put ourselves in some situations that are precarious, have been and, you know, have lived lives that aren't, you know, no one would take me as a minister, I promise you.

[272] Not just because I'm Jewish, but so my point is, do you think that you have like an understanding of how easily you can make one split second decision and your life will be changed forever?

[273] And so you have an empathy towards the people you were, you know, seeing in court?

[274] Yeah, absolutely.

[275] You know, I did an interview not long ago with a not quite so young man anymore who had committed the most horrible crime you could possibly imagine had planned it with the pal of his.

[276] You know, they were the two of those people who got together troubled boys who got together and, you know, one individually wouldn't have committed the crime, but when the two of them got, what do they call it, a folie adieu or something, it was and they, you know, they killed one of their best friends and were sentenced to life without parole, of course.

[277] It was an awful crime.

[278] They, you know, we're making a little horror movie about it.

[279] So 15 years later, I'm interviewing him in prison, and he is a not really changed person now.

[280] He is now a human being, you know, not only feels terrible, but everything he did and would like to make, you know, do anything he could possibly do to somehow make up for what he did.

[281] And of course, there really isn't.

[282] And he could possibly do.

[283] And so he lives with that torment every day of his life.

[284] But he was open about it.

[285] And he was like somebody you would like.

[286] though he planned this crime, they've gone on for, and they misbehaved for probably months or years, you know, people change.

[287] And you think, well, there is some kind of, I don't know whether that's redemption or not, but it's, it becomes very hard to judge the totality of a person's life and what they're working because they can be worth different things at different time.

[288] Yeah.

[289] Well, and it's, it's very simple as also people who lifelong consumed true crime, media, George and I talk about that a lot where it's, you get the story, the first version of the story, and you think, okay, this is the good person, this is the bad person.

[290] You think you know.

[291] And then as we, so when we started this podcast, it was very much like, oh, we're going to talk about Ted Bundy and we're going to talk about John Wayne Gacy and the bad guys and all of that.

[292] And slowly but surely it was the real stories here and the things that actually that we liked talking about and started talking about.

[293] were, and I'm sure you've met lots of these people, the family members who go through these horrible things and then start their own foundation, that start becoming victims advocates, that although like you're saying, their lives are changed forever, there are those people that then become almost super heroic in terms of taking that grief and changing, trying to change other people's lives for the better.

[294] There's like the story telling it's like, we think we're in it for this part of the story.

[295] And then there's, there's all these other things that kind of unfold where people really show who they are who they can be.

[296] It can be really mind -blowing.

[297] Oh, truly.

[298] Yeah.

[299] Grief can be a powerful motivator one way or the other.

[300] People go down or they find a purpose and sometimes the purpose can be amazing.

[301] Yeah.

[302] It's also interesting and I think we're evolving to be more understanding of, you know, those ripples and how it also affects the family and friends of the perpetrator.

[303] You interview those people all the time where it's hard for everyone, not just the obvious victims, but, you know, expand.

[304] It's very hard.

[305] Again, you know, it's difficult to look at somebody in the face and sort of go jacques, you know, you're a bad done a terrible thing, and I And I want to show how, on this television show, how bad you are.

[306] Yeah.

[307] But one of my favorite fictional detectives is Inspector May Gray of Paris Chirte, I guess, the novels that were written by Giori Seminole back in the early mid -20th century.

[308] And he was a chief inspector who operated in Paris.

[309] The stories were all the kind of stories that we do on Dateline.

[310] You're just, it's the same kind of stuff, and it happens over and over again.

[311] But his motto was, understand, but do not judge.

[312] And he would find out being in relationships with the criminals he was apprehended.

[313] And that some, he would see the humanity at the same time.

[314] He had to deal with the fact that they had done this, and they needed to pay for their crimes.

[315] Yeah, yeah.

[316] There wasn't a hard line between good and bad.

[317] It's just kind of, we're all a little mixed up.

[318] Definitely.

[319] It's very true.

[320] Well, that also makes me think of those few times on Dateline that I've seen when the hosts are interviewing, and I'm sorry to say, it's often the husbands.

[321] And sometimes there's the husbands who you eventually find out they did it, and they're there to be interviewed saying they didn't.

[322] Those are the ones I've seen a couple of them where it's just a kind of just a very flat -eyed, nope.

[323] They think they know better than everybody and they're going to tell you exactly how it is.

[324] And then as the episode unfolds, it's clear that it's that person.

[325] Sure, sure.

[326] They always think that the smartest one in the room and they're going to, you know, they're still doing it even afterwards.

[327] There's a particular personality or it's, and it starts out again, see it all the time, but the personality of the abuser.

[328] And sadly, you know, the abusive women by their male.

[329] male partners is, continues to be an epidemic.

[330] I don't think everybody says that way.

[331] Very few have that kind of personality, sociopathic sort of personality, but the ability to manipulate somebody and to be so in control of their lives and then they cannot stand it when that person finally tries to escape and that's what murder occurs.

[332] But it's a pattern that happens over and over again.

[333] So then these guys are sitting in prison trying to persuade you that no, no, no, it didn't really happened, all these obvious things with just your imagination.

[334] Yeah.

[335] Those are not the people that I like very much.

[336] No. They can't imagine.

[337] No. How chill.

[338] Have you ever been in that chick?

[339] Because you go in and interview these people face to face and some are admitted murderers.

[340] Some aren't admitting it.

[341] Have you ever had that feeling, a chill, I just would find it so chilling to look into the eyes and speak to someone that you know.

[342] has done something so probably awful.

[343] Yeah, but everybody's different.

[344] I mean, some are pathetic.

[345] A man who, another, two of them operating together, two guys who were doing what they could as deep into the bottom of the barrel as they could and had all kinds of substance abuse issues and so on, but they would pick up young women on the street, sex workers in Orange County in California.

[346] They would take them away to, their little hideout, which was behind a paint shop in an industrial part of town, and they would use them horribly, horribly, I mean, in unspeakable ways, and then dump their bodies into a dumpster, which was right behind the paint shop.

[347] And every day, big truck would come along, pick up the dumpster, dump it into the back, take it off to the dump, and these women would wind up, you know, 50 feet down before next Thursday.

[348] So one of those guys agreed to be interviewed.

[349] And he had been in trouble before, off and on, many times.

[350] He was actually wearing one of the ankle bracelets that's supposed to keep track of him.

[351] Well, he was committing these crimes.

[352] Wow.

[353] And he tried to tell me that it was really the state's fault that he committed these crimes because they weren't keeping proper track of him.

[354] And if they had better track of him, better care of him, he wouldn't have been doing these terrible things.

[355] So he wanted somebody at the level of, you know, an important person in a police organization to take some heat for it.

[356] Just the strangest things.

[357] Then there was a, do you mind if I go on?

[358] Please.

[359] There was a preacher who came to believe he was in one of those churches where they had unusual beliefs and he came to believe that one had to have plural wives.

[360] Not a Mormon, not part of that faith, but his own reading, his own personal reading of the Bible was that you wouldn't be able to get to heaven.

[361] and unless you had two and preferably three wives.

[362] Lucky for him.

[363] Yeah, that's very convenient.

[364] Right.

[365] He had one at the time and a couple of kids.

[366] So he went out and managed to find wife number two.

[367] And she was young and pretty and, you know, 18, 19 years old.

[368] And she lived with them ostensibly as a housekeeper, but she was wife number two.

[369] And then after a while, she told him she wanted to better herself.

[370] She wanted to go to college.

[371] She wanted to have a career.

[372] You want to make something of her soul.

[373] Didn't say she wanted to leave them.

[374] She just wanted to do these things.

[375] And his response to that was to send his senior wife off with the children for the weekend, take this junior wife to a restaurant, give her a stake, take her home to the house, and kill her and put her in the bathtub and cut her into a bunch of pieces and put her into a cup of container and take her out to the desert and bury her under a cairn of rocks.

[376] Her remains were not discovered for two.

[377] years.

[378] Well, he kept on preaching.

[379] But when I interviewed him in prison, and I asked him about, you know, some theological type questions about his behavior and what he had done, what he thought that would mean for his kind of eternal existence.

[380] And he said, oh, I'm not worried about that at all.

[381] And I know she's waiting for me there in heaven.

[382] And when I get there, we'll be together again.

[383] Yes.

[384] So sometimes they do give you a pause.

[385] Most of the time, they're just kind of I love that you use the word pathetic because I do think that that is such a great word you know everyone reveres Ted Bundy or you know these these murderers but they really are these pathetic people who can't who just have these urges and it's I don't know I just love the word pathetic around it it makes it's exactly what it is it's not it's not fascinating in that way it's pathetic.

[386] Yeah that's good that's true Quite true.

[387] Are those your most memorable date lines, the ones that stand out the most?

[388] My bitch just happened to pop into my head.

[389] You've got a lot.

[390] There are so many of them.

[391] I don't even know.

[392] I mean, 30 years worth, right?

[393] Right, right.

[394] Yeah.

[395] Do you have a most memorable date line?

[396] I'm sure it's hard to pick just one.

[397] It truly is.

[398] I mean, there are scads and skies of them that I just got very, very wrapped up in You know, one of my, as long as we're talking about, I'll tell you this particular favorite story, one of many.

[399] And it's a pathetic story.

[400] So, you know, you may not find it at all interesting.

[401] There was a couple, a kind of a sweet, sad couple who lived in a small town in South Carolina.

[402] And they had three children, three girls.

[403] And they, you know, they barely scraped along.

[404] They lived in the poorest part of town.

[405] Their house was just a disaster zone, a mess.

[406] They couldn't keep a clean house.

[407] But they were lovely people.

[408] They went to church every Sunday, and they were good parents.

[409] And the wife worked at night to clean offices and so on.

[410] And the husband worked during the day delivering pizzas and other things like that, just to try to make ends meet.

[411] He was also going to school to try to become a computer technician.

[412] And so he wanted to make sense.

[413] something it was like.

[414] So one night, well, the wife was at work, cleaning some office somewhere, and the husband was asleep.

[415] A man came into their house and brutally raped and killed the eldest of the three daughters.

[416] But nobody knew this.

[417] He didn't even know it.

[418] He didn't wake up.

[419] And the reason he didn't wake up is he was wearing one of the early CPAT machines, but because he couldn't afford a decent one.

[420] He just went very loud.

[421] The other little girls in the house didn't wake up either, so it wasn't any great surprise, but this man managed to get in.

[422] But in the morning, he went in and he discovered his daughter's body.

[423] He saw there was a scarf wrapped around her neck tightly, and he mistakenly thought she had somehow wound herself up in the blanket and asphyxiated herself, well, he slept.

[424] He called 911, and he wasn't as, you know, when you're, you know, when you're, 11 -year -old daughter has been brutally raped and killed, and you call 911, people expect you to be pretty upset to say, really.

[425] He didn't sound that way.

[426] Listening to the 911 call, the police are thinking, okay, this guy probably killed his daughter.

[427] That's what usually happens here.

[428] So when they came over, then they saw the messy house.

[429] Then they read that CPS had complained about the quality of the care of the children, not because they weren't good parents, but because their house was so messy.

[430] things began to weigh up to each other.

[431] So they took this guy, they took him into the police station.

[432] He willingly went to talk to them.

[433] You didn't ask for an attorney or anything.

[434] You just wanted to explain what he saw and see if they could help him, find out what happened to his daughter.

[435] And they had him in there.

[436] I can't remember how many hours it was, but it was over the course of four days.

[437] He was interviewed hours and hours and hours and hours.

[438] And they kept telling me he did it, you know, just confess you did it, you did it, you did it, you did it.

[439] He was accused and denied the accusation because somebody went and kept track.

[440] And they may have adjusted the number a little bit.

[441] I suspect they may have.

[442] He denied it 666 times.

[443] Oh, my God.

[444] But eventually they wore him down to the point where he said, yes, I did it.

[445] And so, bang, he was charged with first degree murder.

[446] The whole town heard that he was charged with first degree murder.

[447] his wife was told that he was the most horrible planet on the planet his other daughters were too and she her heart was broken she died very soon afterward under circumstances which were frankly a little I don't know they never were worked out properly but so he's lost his eldest daughter and his wife and he's been charged with first degree murder and then about a month later the DNA results come back and they show that the DNA on his daughter was not his.

[448] It was somebody else's, some other man. And it just so happened that there had been a person burglarizing the neighborhood and assaulting women during that period of time.

[449] He was arrested.

[450] They checked his DNA.

[451] Lo and behold, his DNA was on this man's daughter.

[452] At that point, even though he'd been very publicly charged, the right thing to do would have been to say, that guy did it, Not that guy.

[453] We're going to let the original slub out of jail and let him go back to his life.

[454] But they didn't.

[455] They decided that it was a conspiracy that the father had inspired with this guy to come into the house and break the daughter well, the father watched.

[456] Oh, my God.

[457] Yes.

[458] And they took that to trial.

[459] And some of the best attorneys in the country eventually tried to overturn this result.

[460] But he was convicted of first degree murder.

[461] He was sent away for life.

[462] And, you know, the Innocence Project got involved.

[463] And everybody pushed so very hard to try to get this overturned because it was so obviously wrong.

[464] But, you know, it's kind of life in prison.

[465] You know, he studied up on his theology.

[466] He became a prison minister.

[467] And even though the whole town continued to believe he was guilty, the DA and the local prosecutors still preach that he was guilty.

[468] And when I did a story about him, suggesting strongly that he was an innocent man in prison for the thing he didn't do, the DA actually set up a special website to attack baseline for our report.

[469] What?

[470] Yeah.

[471] So that was one that sticks with me. Eventually, this man died in prison.

[472] And so before he could be exonerated, and that broke my heart.

[473] Yeah.

[474] It's a dark story, but there are, you know, there are a lot of those, that's for sure.

[475] Definitely.

[476] Well, and that kind of story that points out where, and I understand, where they can't just reverse cases easily and that I understand that piece of it.

[477] But to that point where they're bending the facts to suit what they've already tried to prove, that need to not be wrong with the authorities at times to the sacrifice of someone's actual life.

[478] And actually those two sisters that lived the other daughters that now don't have a mother or a father or an older sister.

[479] Yeah.

[480] And continue as far that I know, continue to have beliefs, which is just, again, as I say, break your heart.

[481] Yeah.

[482] Yeah.

[483] Yes.

[484] And there are lots of cases like that where they get them to confess to something and then undoing that is impossible, virtually.

[485] Yeah.

[486] It's wild.

[487] Those, that false confessions and then also the expectation of what one should sound like and how one should grieve when they find, like in a situation like finding your daughter dead and if you don't fit those expectations people assume things of you those two factors i'm really i like the fact that in this true crime area and in you know we're realizing that you can't have expectations you know you can't say here's what you're supposed to sound like when you're grieving and no one would ever who would ever confess to something they didn't do it would never happen period but i like the kind of sea change that's happening around most.

[488] And you must have witnessed a lot of those things that used to be the norm.

[489] Oh, yes.

[490] And we've done quite a few stories about people who confess that's something they didn't do.

[491] And then the road back because it's very, very difficult.

[492] But watching that happen can be fascinating.

[493] Again, there's always a huge pushback in an effort to try to keep them inside and not admit that a mistake was made is very strong.

[494] Whether it's simply because they don't want to be sued and lose money, or whether it's based, I don't.

[495] I don't really know.

[496] We did a one story where we explored the system which is used in most other, almost all other industrialized countries.

[497] We happen to look at the one that was used in Britain, but systems which are put in place to try to ensure that false confessions do not happen, who has to be in the room, how long you're able to somebody, and they have cut their false confessions by a almost to nothing.

[498] the officers who were working in the homicide departments rebelled against this they thought it was a terrible idea that never get a conviction but in fact their occurrence were a great one out so one of the people behind this this new way of doing things in Britain came to the United States and has been educating police departments around the country which gradually have been adopting some of those methods so that they avoid false confessions at least as much as possible.

[499] Is that one of those things, there was a made -for -TV movie about the Fred and Rose West murders in England, and it was called, it's basically that there has to be an adult in the room.

[500] Yes.

[501] If they think a person might not be understanding the full scale of what's happening to them when they're being questioned by the police.

[502] And it's just like basically a witness, an adult witness that's there to say, don't do that, don't admit to them.

[503] I think it was used for many years.

[504] You know, they started sweating one of these potential, convictees.

[505] So you get a 16 or 17 year old kid in the corner of a room.

[506] You chill the room, so it's cold, cold, cold.

[507] You keep in there all night long, no matter whether they're sick or not, you get two large detectives kind of leaning in over the table at this person working away.

[508] I'm sure they were well -meaning people, these detectives, but they were using a system where they were trying to achieve what they believe to be true, a confess.

[509] A confess.

[510] of something that they were pretty sure happened.

[511] But the kid in the corner is terrified.

[512] One of the techniques is to say to the kid, you know, if you just tell us what happened, just tell us you did it, then we can, you know, we can take care of things.

[513] And they leave the impression that the kid can go home and mother will deal with it or something like that.

[514] It'll be okay in the end.

[515] And of course it isn't at all.

[516] It's a trap.

[517] And it's a terrible thing, frankly.

[518] I also think about the fact that for some of the false confessions like the gentleman you just spoke of.

[519] They're also sitting in these rooms with all of those circumstances and all of those tricks.

[520] And they just went through something so incredibly traumatic.

[521] So they're not even in their right mind because of that if it's something that personally happened to them.

[522] You're in shock.

[523] You just want to get home and take care of your people and try to find out what's going on.

[524] And so you're just in a really bad circumstance no matter what.

[525] and then you're being manipulated by professionals.

[526] Well, at some point, the person in the hot seat in the corner thinks, well, maybe I did do this.

[527] God, no, that I must have done something.

[528] Right.

[529] Especially after the 600th time they ask you.

[530] I mean, that's so above and beyond.

[531] It's so crazy.

[532] Well, I think we should talk about, should we talk about your new podcast?

[533] Do you want to tell us a little bit about what we can expect?

[534] Yes.

[535] podcast is called The Seduction, and it is a story.

[536] What can I tell you?

[537] I'm not sure how much I can tell you about this.

[538] Just use general nouns.

[539] No, but this is a story of a young man's fascination for love for a certain older woman.

[540] So we talked earlier about manipulation.

[541] Well, sometimes, sometimes, not as often, but sometimes it works in reverse.

[542] And the thing that made this worth doing a podcast and we wanted you for a long time.

[543] As soon as we started doing podcasts, we thought we've got to do this story.

[544] It's a phenomenal interview with the man, was a young man, not quite so young anymore, who was at the part of this crazy, crazy, strange tale.

[545] So the interview was, I barely had to say anything.

[546] He wanted to tell the story.

[547] And he had the kind of personality, the kind of memory that had every single detail nailed down, locked into his memory, and he could just recite it one thing after another.

[548] I've never talked to anybody like that before who has his whole life sort of in a catalog that he can just talk about and talk about and talk about and talk about.

[549] I did this then, and then I did that, and then it was eight o 'clock and I did that.

[550] That's a storyteller's dream.

[551] Yeah.

[552] Because the protagonist of your story, you know, if you were writing a novel, that protagonist would know all the details too, right?

[553] in real life they never do I mean people don't remember or they don't tell you but this is a kid who knew everything and told me everything and we checked things out he was not worrying about it either so it was pretty interesting if you think about the movie double indemnity or a couple of other noir movies of that type you have a fairly good idea of what this story is about base twists and turns which are more like the movie Weekend at Bernie's.

[554] Oh, no. Oh, that's a reference right there.

[555] Is he the victim or is he the suspect?

[556] Well, you know, the question of what he was is a complicated one.

[557] Was he the perpetrator?

[558] Was he a little both?

[559] Perfect tease.

[560] Yeah, is that in such a Keith Morris and voice?

[561] So the seduction's coming out, June 14th.

[562] That's right.

[563] Among stories that we have done on podcast.

[564] And I don't get me wrong.

[565] I love them all.

[566] But just this one is a corker.

[567] All right.

[568] Oh, my God.

[569] I can't wait.

[570] A little bit dark, Corker.

[571] And also your new Peacock series, The Last Day, is also coming out on June 14th.

[572] Yeah.

[573] It's a big day for you.

[574] It is.

[575] Now that nothing you told me, I know.

[576] It looks at your calendar.

[577] Yeah, circle that day.

[578] Keith, thank you so much.

[579] this has been, we're so honored that you would do this with us.

[580] We're truly huge fans of yours been listening to you and watching you for a long time.

[581] And you really are, someone called you recently the granddaddy of true crying, which maybe, sorry, that might be lightly insulting.

[582] But I mean, you're just, you've been in our lives for a long time.

[583] So we're really, we just appreciate the job that you've been doing.

[584] And we really appreciate that you're here.

[585] Well, that I've been in your lives.

[586] Thank you.

[587] Honored.

[588] Thank you so much.

[589] And you guys, you can also find Keith on Twitter at Dateline underscore Keith as well.

[590] And, of course, watch Dateline too.

[591] Yes, NBC.

[592] Yeah.

[593] Thank you, Keith.

[594] Thank you.

[595] Thank you.

[596] Thank you, guys.

[597] You too.

[598] Bye.

[599] Elvis, do you want a cookie?

[600] This has been an exactly right production.

[601] Our senior producers are Hannah Kyle Pryton and Natalie Rinn.

[602] Our producer is Alejandra Keck.

[603] This episode was engineered and mixed.

[604] by Andrew Eapen.

[605] Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to my favorite murder at gmail .com.

[606] Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and on Twitter at MyFave Murder.

[607] Goodbye.

[608] Follow My Favorite Murder on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen so you don't miss an episode.

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