0:01

You're tired of ads interfering

0:03

with your favorite podcasts. Good

0:06

news. With Amazon Music, you

0:08

have access to the largest

0:11

catalog of ad-free top podcasts,

0:13

included with your prime membership.

0:15

To start listening, download the

0:18

Amazon Music app for free.

0:20

Or go to amazon.com/ad-free podcasts.

0:22

To catch up on the

0:25

latest episodes, without the ads.

0:29

The verdict is murder on these days.

0:40

day in many people's lives. While

0:42

I strive for accuracy, some

0:44

details may vary depending

0:46

on the sources used. Due to the

0:48

nature of the content, listener discretion

0:51

is advised. You are now

0:53

listening to British Murders. A

0:55

true crime podcast hosted by

0:57

Stuart Blues. Okay

1:11

everyone, welcome to a very special

1:13

interview episode of British murders. I'm

1:16

here with a couple of brothers

1:18

from America. Brian and Cameron Santana.

1:20

Am I saying your surname? Right,

1:23

first of all. Santana? Yes. Santana.

1:25

I'm so bad with James. Welcome gentlemen.

1:28

Let's give him a shout out because

1:30

right now in America, you're in the

1:32

Eastern Time Zone and it's six in

1:35

the morning. Yes, that's really start. I

1:37

have to drag myself out about at

1:39

six in the morning and I could

1:41

not do a podcast. I do appreciate both

1:44

of your time. Plenty of coffee. Well,

1:46

yeah, I've just made a good old

1:48

cup of Yorkshire tea. I don't know if

1:50

you drink tea over there as much as you

1:52

do coffee. Oh, yeah, both. It's got

1:54

to be Yorkshire tea. I'm from

1:56

Yorkshire and that is the best

1:59

tea in England in my opinion.

2:01

So the reason we're here, we'll

2:03

come onto this shortly, but it's

2:05

to discuss your new book, which

2:07

is called A Murder on Campus,

2:09

and this is about the murder

2:11

of Virginia Marie Olson back in

2:13

1973. But before we get there,

2:15

gentlemen, let's talk about you two.

2:17

Who wants to go first with

2:19

a biography? Go ahead, Brian. So

2:21

my name is Brian Santana. I'm

2:23

a university English professor, actually. So

2:25

I'm a university English professor. This

2:27

is my first work of true

2:29

crime, and... It's just been, I

2:31

guess, I kind of, by background,

2:33

I'm actually like a 19th century

2:36

specialist, but this is a case

2:38

that I kind of heard about

2:40

for the very first time when

2:42

I was actually a college student.

2:44

So I was at the university

2:46

and my first day, I was

2:48

actually a drama major at the

2:50

university and I was standing in

2:52

the lobby waiting for the class

2:54

that was in front of me

2:56

to kind of get out. And

2:58

I found myself standing in front

3:00

of this very large portrait of

3:02

a young woman and the portrait

3:04

is actually on our book. And

3:06

someone came up to me and

3:08

said, hey, that's Virginia Olson. She

3:10

was a student here a long

3:13

time ago and she died. She

3:15

died very tragically and says, okay,

3:17

that was, I didn't really think

3:19

too much about it. Someone else

3:21

came up to me later that

3:23

same semester and they said, you

3:25

know, that's when I was staying

3:27

in front of the picture again,

3:29

waiting for class. And they said,

3:31

that's Virginia Olson. She was actually

3:33

raped and murdered and murdered in

3:35

our theater. So that was a

3:37

little spooky to hear. And then

3:39

someone else told me that this

3:41

was someone who was murdered. in

3:43

the botanical gardens adjacent to the

3:45

theater. So pretty much like I've,

3:47

like I went through college and

3:50

I was a drama major and

3:52

I eventually became an English professor,

3:54

but this was one of those

3:56

cases that when I was moving

3:58

away from home for the first

4:00

time and really kind of starting

4:02

my life, my very first day

4:04

kind of away, kind of living

4:06

in a new place and trying

4:08

to find my way was discovering

4:10

about this, this murder of this

4:12

other person who like me, at

4:14

that point, it was like 38

4:16

years ago or so, it's been

4:18

almost 50. too now, who also

4:20

kind of went off to college

4:22

and just kind of lost her

4:24

life and didn't have an opportunity

4:27

to get started. So it was

4:29

one that made a really deep

4:31

impression on me and I had

4:33

spent the last really 24 years

4:35

just kind of thinking about it

4:37

on and off and kind of

4:39

lightly kind of keeping up with

4:41

any developments on it. And I

4:43

found myself teaching a creative writing

4:45

class that was a true crime

4:47

focus at the university. And my

4:49

students asked me, I'd written other

4:51

articles, but my students were always

4:53

asking me when I was going

4:55

to write a true crime book,

4:57

when there would there be a

4:59

case that like, what was a

5:01

case I really cared about? And

5:04

this was one that I was,

5:06

I've been thinking about for a

5:08

really long time and it just

5:10

so happened that. That question occurred

5:12

at a moment when Cameron was

5:14

also experiencing some life shifts and

5:16

it just felt like it was

5:18

the time to actually kind of

5:20

get started with this. I'd had

5:22

a kind of proposal and had

5:24

been thinking about this for a

5:26

while, but I just didn't really

5:28

have that like impetus to really

5:30

kind of get started with some

5:32

of the other research that we

5:34

needed for this and what would

5:36

involve writing a book. So this

5:38

this college you're talking about, college

5:41

universe, a interchangeable terms over here

5:43

and over there. So this is

5:45

the University of North Carolina, Asheville?

5:47

Yes. So this is a very

5:49

small college. This is actually, this

5:51

is in North Carolina. So on

5:53

the east coast of the US

5:55

and North Carolina, basically our university

5:57

system is organized in a way

5:59

where like all the public universities

6:01

have, like each state has their

6:03

own system and has a number

6:05

of universities that are within it.

6:07

So UNC Asheville is basically a

6:09

small liberal arts college. This is

6:11

the kind of flagship liberal arts

6:13

college for the state. It's a

6:15

very small college. When I was

6:18

there, it was 2,500 students. At

6:20

the time that this murder took

6:22

place, there were only 800 students

6:24

that were there. And it's nestled

6:26

in Asheville, North Carolina, where your

6:28

listeners might be if they watched

6:30

the kind of news, just with

6:32

all the big hurricane damage that

6:34

was happened in the US, Asheville

6:36

was particularly hit really hard. And

6:38

it's the only. murder that's occurred

6:40

in the college's 97-year history and

6:42

so it was very significant then

6:44

and still remains this kind of

6:46

presence that kind of hovers over

6:48

the college just a just before

6:50

we move on to Cameron's story

6:52

then geographically where does North Carolina

6:55

lie what states are adjacent to

6:57

that I'm trying to get a

6:59

picture of where it actually is

7:01

on the East Coast. Sure so

7:03

North Carolina sits between South Carolina

7:05

in Virginia. Virginia is above North

7:07

Carolina, South Carolina is just below,

7:09

North Carolina, and then Tennessee is

7:11

kind of adjacent in the western

7:13

part of the state. Okay. It's

7:15

kind of like in the middle

7:17

of the East Coast. Right. Yeah,

7:19

because you think East Coast, right,

7:21

you think Massachusetts, New York, Florida.

7:23

Yeah, it would be about like...

7:25

four hours, I guess we're Cameron's

7:27

at, we're in North Carolina, depending

7:29

on where you're at, but like,

7:32

is roughly about four hours from

7:34

Washington, D.C., is like a point

7:36

of reference, I guess. Washington, D.C.B.

7:38

north of that. And yeah, and

7:40

U.S. Asheville sits like in the

7:42

mountains, and it's near the Smoky

7:44

mountains, and sits at the intersection

7:46

of two major rivers. The Swannoa

7:48

River in the French Broad River

7:50

and the French Broad Broad Broad

7:52

River. So Cameron then you've got

7:54

a bit of a different background

7:56

to your brother more from the

7:58

law enforcement side and it seems

8:00

like you too as a team

8:02

one of you is an English

8:04

professor teaching writing and one is

8:07

a cop so it seems like

8:09

the perfect balance but what's your

8:11

story? Yeah so in 2005 I

8:13

joined the Raleigh Police Department and

8:15

the department is about an 800

8:17

man department. And so for us,

8:19

that's a good medium size. You

8:21

know, it's not as big as

8:23

a New York City, but they

8:25

definitely have a lot of resources

8:27

and specialty units. And after graduating

8:29

the police academy, I was assigned

8:31

to the Southeast District, which is

8:33

where primarily a lot of the

8:35

gangs, open air drug dealing, prostitution,

8:37

the really fun stuff for law

8:39

enforcement if you want to be

8:41

a cop. So I was having

8:44

a lot of fun and I

8:46

did that for about 13 years.

8:48

And then like most cops, I

8:50

had gotten divorced by that time

8:52

and remarried and had a second

8:54

child and my daughter had some

8:56

medical issues where we ended up

8:58

staying 98 days in the NICU

9:00

which is in America the term

9:02

we used for the highest level

9:04

of care for children. Her issue

9:06

was they couldn't figure out why

9:08

she couldn't breathe on her own.

9:10

And so they had to actually

9:12

give her a trache and a

9:14

G tube. And we had to,

9:16

we went home with that. And

9:18

so I really had to reevaluate

9:21

what I was going to do

9:23

with my life. So the first

9:25

thing that I did was I

9:27

was luckily able to get a

9:29

position as a, we call them

9:31

school resource officers. So at our

9:33

high schools, which is night through

9:35

12th in North Carolina, we have

9:37

police officers in the high school

9:39

and their job is to respond

9:41

to incidents, provide security, and do

9:43

any investigations of juveniles for that

9:45

school. So those positions are more

9:47

about a nine to five. We

9:49

actually work seven in the morning

9:51

to three in the afternoon. So

9:53

that was a lot better for

9:55

life for me because before I

9:58

was working 12-hour rotating shifts and

10:00

when you're working in a department

10:02

that is very fast-paced like that.

10:04

those 12-hour shifts would turn into

10:06

sometimes 18-hour shifts and then you

10:08

had trainings as well. So it

10:10

was a better life but then

10:12

around 2020 we had COVID and

10:14

then we had a bunch of

10:16

riots and protests and so my

10:18

schedule was just all over the

10:20

place and it was very clear

10:22

that continuing that path was going

10:24

to put a lot of strain

10:26

on my family. And so I

10:28

decided to step away from going

10:30

into law enforcement full time. And

10:32

I found a small department near

10:35

my home that pretty much had

10:37

zero crime. And I would spend

10:39

my days just, the chief there

10:41

was really friendly. He would just

10:43

let me come in on the

10:45

days I went to work. So

10:47

that was really nice. But it

10:49

really didn't fulfill that itch of

10:51

chasing bad guys and doing something

10:53

exciting. before when I was working

10:55

with Raleigh, I would wake up

10:57

and you would be really excited

10:59

about the day to come and

11:01

you know you're working on projects

11:03

and cases and I just I

11:05

didn't have that when I was

11:07

working part-time with the smaller department

11:09

and so I was really looking

11:12

at what else am I going

11:14

to do with my life and

11:16

being a cop for at that

11:18

point. 16 and a half years,

11:20

I didn't really know what are

11:22

skill sets I had besides being

11:24

a cop somewhere else. And about

11:26

that time, my brother was teaching

11:28

a true crimes class at the

11:30

university he was at. And he

11:32

would tell me about these cases

11:34

that they were working on. And

11:36

then naturally, I would start to

11:38

research them myself and pull up

11:40

what I could find. And we

11:42

ended up... having these late night

11:44

conversations over cases. And then one

11:46

day he called me and he

11:49

said, you know, I was really

11:51

to do a case of my

11:53

own and maybe write an article

11:55

and if we get enough, maybe

11:57

we can even turn this into

11:59

a book. And I really didn't

12:01

think that much of it. So

12:03

he told me about Virginia's case

12:05

and I started bumming through articles

12:07

and I believe it was about

12:09

two days after that he called

12:11

me after I agreed to work

12:13

on the project with it and

12:15

said, hey, by the way, we've

12:17

got this book deal. I'm gonna

12:19

fax you or you know I'm

12:21

gonna send you over the contract

12:23

and we really need to get

12:26

some deadlines down and you know

12:28

really aggressively looking to this so

12:30

at that point it was a

12:32

good spark in my life that

12:34

this is something new that I

12:36

can do and I can apply

12:38

the skills that I've learned from

12:40

you know almost two decades of

12:42

law enforcement to something. Let's talk

12:44

about that. book deal then Brian

12:46

because that's a bit of a

12:48

shot out a left field I

12:50

imagined for camera and how's that

12:52

how did that come about so

12:54

I had taken a go over

12:56

different periods of time it just

12:58

kind of writing out like what

13:00

I thought made this a really

13:03

compelling story and I was a

13:05

I had many kind of fault

13:07

starts writing the actual kind of

13:09

book but I had like notes

13:11

and ideas about like just different

13:13

questions and what this could be

13:15

and everyone I would show it

13:17

to would always say that they

13:19

thought it was a it was

13:21

a really compelling and fascinating story

13:23

and so I thought well I'll

13:25

just I'll send it off because

13:27

it might take a few months

13:29

anyway and there might be more

13:31

questions and I'll follow up with

13:33

something more detailed. And Steve Jackson

13:35

from Wild Blue, who's a New

13:37

York Times best-selling author, who runs

13:40

that, he got back to us

13:42

pretty quickly and he said that,

13:44

you know, he liked the idea

13:46

of the whole brothers thing, that

13:48

that was something that had not

13:50

been done before, but also he

13:52

thought it was a really fascinating,

13:54

it sounded like a really fascinating

13:56

story. So he followed up with

13:58

other questions. and pretty shortly after

14:00

that we had a kind of

14:02

we had a kind of deal

14:04

and what we thought was initially

14:06

a really interesting story that got

14:08

a lot of other people who

14:10

heard about it, kind of invested

14:12

in the case as we started

14:14

digging became much, much stranger than

14:17

anything we had anticipated as well.

14:19

So it kind of, and that's

14:21

still continuing to the present day.

14:23

We still have kind of leads

14:25

still come in on a kind

14:27

of weekly basis that there are

14:29

new things since the book has

14:31

been out as well. So is

14:33

we didn't realize how many layers

14:35

there were to this until we

14:37

actually got started. But yeah, that

14:39

was a kind of the genesis

14:41

of the project. So as soon

14:43

as we had that, we started,

14:45

I didn't want to start formally

14:47

work unless we actually had, we

14:49

knew that a book would be

14:51

kind of at the very end

14:54

of this. And then also I

14:56

just didn't want to do it

14:58

by myself. One of the things,

15:00

so my wife, if any of

15:02

your listeners can empathize with this,

15:04

like so my wife is like

15:06

not a fan of true crime

15:08

whatsoever. And so we also have

15:10

like kids and it's basically like

15:12

off limits in our household, like

15:14

as far as a subject of

15:16

discussion, she finds it all deeply

15:18

disturbing. So so I easily, like

15:20

I can talk about it with

15:22

my students when I'm like. actually

15:24

talk about it because as a

15:26

writer I'm someone who likes actually

15:28

likes to talk through the entire

15:31

process and my thoughts and and

15:33

I've done other books and works

15:35

that were for academic presses and

15:37

and and that wasn't something I

15:39

needed as much but for a

15:41

project like this I did so

15:43

so as we were kind of

15:45

talking about it and getting started

15:47

with this after the contract it

15:49

turned into a situation where we

15:51

would have daily phone conversations multiple

15:53

times we would start off our

15:55

morning very early usually around this

15:57

time actually because I had morning

15:59

classes. We'd start off with a

16:01

really early phone call of just

16:03

like, where are you going to

16:05

research today? What are these questions

16:08

we're trying to understand? And then

16:10

we would kind of go about

16:12

our days and at the end

16:14

of the night we would start

16:16

writing and then we would check

16:18

in and send each other pages.

16:20

what we completed by the end

16:22

of the day. And we did

16:24

that kind of on and off

16:26

for as far as the actual

16:28

kind of writing and drafting part

16:30

for about a year, year and

16:32

a half. And so it was

16:34

a really fulfilling and rewarding process

16:36

for me to be able to

16:38

not only do that with Cameron,

16:40

but then also just to be

16:43

able to have someone kind of

16:45

bouncing ideas off of as we

16:47

were kind of discovering things with

16:49

this case. I think that's quite

16:51

common in the people who love

16:53

true crime, their partners often. Not

16:55

necessarily loath true crime but aren't

16:57

as into it as you so

16:59

when you find a community or

17:01

someone to bounce those ideas off

17:03

it is definitely beneficial. The dynamic

17:05

there is interesting the work dynamic

17:07

because especially being brothers as well

17:09

I don't if you two have

17:11

a clashed heads what's the age

17:13

difference between I'm three years older

17:15

so I'm 45 okay so working

17:17

together with your brother and you're

17:20

both working on, because I wondered

17:22

if one of you did the

17:24

research, one of you did the

17:26

writing, but it sounds like you

17:28

both chipped in with everything. How

17:30

does the discussion go when it

17:32

comes to the final say of

17:34

what goes in the book, rearranging

17:36

the writing of a book, I'm

17:38

curious as to how that process

17:40

was? So that's the kind of

17:42

laughable thing, so I am, I

17:44

do not identify as a writer.

17:46

And I had to really think

17:48

about that. Like, yeah, I guess

17:50

I am. You know, I mean,

17:52

I've, I write like a cop.

17:54

So a lot of times when

17:57

I would write something, I'd send

17:59

it to Brian, who has his

18:01

PhD. And the title of the

18:03

email would be, I know this

18:05

really sucks. Or is any of

18:07

this useful, especially when it came

18:09

to there's a few cop stories

18:11

in there from when I was

18:13

working. And I would really ask

18:15

him, like, do I just find

18:17

these interesting? Or does everyone else?

18:19

Because, you know, when you're out

18:21

with your friends, people are always

18:23

asking you for cop stories. And

18:25

I would tell him about. murders

18:27

on or whatnot. So we divided

18:29

the research part up. Like in

18:31

this case, some of the two

18:34

big pieces that were missing were

18:36

the search warrant, which is the

18:38

court order that allows people to

18:40

search a home without consent, and

18:42

the medical examiner's report. And so

18:44

I tackled the search warrant aspect.

18:46

He went after the medical examiner's

18:48

report and we can talk more

18:50

about that because that was very

18:52

complex. But as far as like

18:54

the final say of how the

18:56

writing is, I definitely defer to

18:58

Brian on that. One of the

19:00

things that was really interesting about

19:02

this case was I really didn't

19:04

think it was going to be

19:06

that hard to research. When I

19:08

was first looking at it, it

19:11

was very obvious that the police

19:13

were looking at one suspect for

19:15

decades. And you could tell that

19:17

they had done a search warrant,

19:19

but it had never been made

19:21

public. So I really thought like,

19:23

okay, I'm going to get a

19:25

copy of the search warrant, which

19:27

in the United States. search warrants

19:29

or public record. So you should

19:31

be able to go to the

19:33

courthouse. I guess the process is

19:35

that when a police officer believes

19:37

that there's evidence of a crime

19:39

in a location, then they have

19:41

to file for a search warrant.

19:43

So it's a court document that

19:45

you explain to a judge or

19:48

magistrate of. Why you believe the

19:50

evidence of the crime is in

19:52

the location and if they sign

19:54

off on that Then you can

19:56

go kick the door in if

19:58

you need to detain anyone in

20:00

that residence do whatever you have

20:02

to do to get that piece

20:04

of evidence and so after that

20:06

search warrant is done a copy

20:08

of given to the defendant. And

20:10

then a copy has to be

20:12

taken to the courthouse and has

20:14

to be filed. And then once

20:16

it's filed, it's public record. And

20:18

under limited circumstances they can make

20:20

redactions to the search warrant, but

20:22

for the most part, they have

20:25

to be completely unredacted. So those

20:27

are very important pieces when you're

20:29

looking at cases like this, especially

20:31

something in 1973. So again, when

20:33

I saw that, I thought, okay,

20:35

all this is is making a

20:37

phone call to a courthouse telling

20:39

them that I want this record.

20:41

You know, if I have to,

20:43

I'll say I'm a law enforcement

20:45

officer and whatnot, and they're going

20:47

to give me the search warrant.

20:49

I'm going to know who they've

20:51

been investigating for decades. I'll be

20:53

a hero. I'll go call Asheville

20:55

PD. And, you know, I'm sure

20:57

I can find a friend that

20:59

works there. We'll get a copy

21:02

of the case file. He'll tell

21:04

us some stuff that was never

21:06

reported. And boom, you know, we've

21:08

got a book. And it didn't

21:10

work out that way. I called

21:12

the clerk of court. It's what's

21:14

called. Explain some that I wanted

21:16

a copy of the search warrant.

21:18

I gave him the date. I

21:20

gave him the victim's name. All

21:22

the stuff that they would need

21:24

to be able to pull this

21:26

up. And the guy is like,

21:28

yeah, that's gonna, that's gonna take

21:30

some time. It's like, okay, no

21:32

problem. I'll call you tomorrow. And

21:34

I hung up the phone, called,

21:36

and then it was, yeah, this

21:39

is like, looking for a needle

21:41

in a haystack. So that said,

21:43

you know what, that's fine. I'll,

21:45

I'll call you back next week.

21:47

And then I called back next

21:49

week, and then it was, you

21:51

know what, we don't have it

21:53

here. It's at this place called

21:55

the State Archives, which is this

21:57

building and down. that's kind of

21:59

like the dungeon for files that

22:01

no one looks at. And they

22:03

went through those files and after

22:05

four months of going back and

22:07

forth between places, it was clearly

22:09

realized that they lost it. And

22:11

the guy finally from the courthouse

22:13

told me that he's pretty sure

22:16

that the search warrant had been

22:18

destroyed. And so at that point.

22:20

I knew that this was going

22:22

to be extremely complex to get,

22:24

but we didn't give up and

22:26

I kept on appealing to Asheville.

22:28

We had had a conversation with

22:30

the cold case detective that's assigned

22:32

to the case and so I

22:34

knew that he had a copy

22:36

and eventually they were able to

22:38

give us this copy of the

22:40

search warrant. But the other kind

22:42

of interesting aspect about this is...

22:44

For me, I was calling around

22:46

trying to make these contacts with

22:48

Asheville PD and these smaller departments

22:50

are telling me about these other

22:53

cold cases that they have and

22:55

encouraging us to like, they're like,

22:57

why don't you write a book

22:59

on this instead? We'll give you

23:01

access to our files. We want

23:03

attention from this case, but Nashville

23:05

had the exact opposite approach, which

23:07

I thought was really interesting when

23:09

you're looking at a case that's

23:11

50 years old. In getting to

23:13

the writing question that you were

23:15

going to get to, just to

23:17

backtrack just for a second, that

23:19

question you asked about the actual

23:21

writing, the question you asked was

23:23

exactly when the publisher asked, like,

23:25

how is this going to work?

23:27

We usually don't see two authors

23:30

with a true crime book, like

23:32

how is this going to work

23:34

with balancing the voices? And that

23:36

was something we talked about a

23:38

lot. And I think what we

23:40

ultimately decided was, the book was

23:42

really about three different things. The

23:44

book was on one hand about

23:46

finding kind of Virginia Olson. She

23:48

was a kind of victim that

23:50

in the western part of the

23:52

state at least at one time,

23:54

her name was very well known,

23:56

but no one really kind of

23:58

knew anything about her for lots

24:00

of different reasons. We could kind

24:02

of talk about it. So it

24:04

was like, who is this person

24:06

to sit at the heart of

24:09

this kind of ghost story that's

24:11

kind of floated around campus for

24:13

50 years that no one really

24:15

seemed to know too much about

24:17

her? So finding who she was,

24:19

finding out what happened in the

24:21

original investigation, because unlike many victims,

24:23

Virginia Olson was someone who there's

24:25

no such thing as an ideal

24:27

victim, but if you want to

24:29

think about cases that are more likely

24:31

to get soft it would be ones that

24:33

people from the government and other officials are

24:35

offering rewards and investing a lot of resources

24:38

in. And her case was that. And so

24:40

especially early on. So one of the

24:42

questions was, why is this case, why

24:44

is this case unsolved? It wasn't for

24:47

lack of trying or resources. And so

24:49

what, so understanding what happened in investigation.

24:51

And then the last part of it

24:53

was just that Cameron and I, as

24:56

we've kind of discussed a little bit

24:58

already, had very different perspectives. We relate

25:00

to kind of. crime in different ways. He

25:02

has this kind of like firsthand experience and

25:04

I'm just a professional researcher and writer and

25:07

so we had different kinds of strengths and

25:09

backgrounds that we wanted to bring to this

25:11

and we didn't want to lose those when

25:13

we were when we were writing a book.

25:16

So we eventually decided that The aspects

25:18

of the book that were about the

25:20

investigation, we were really just trying to

25:22

excavate for those parts, like what actually

25:24

happened, who was involved, how were they

25:27

investigating, what questions were coming up, what

25:29

obstacles and complications came up, and literally

25:31

just what happened in the investigation and

25:33

preserved that make that public for people.

25:36

And then after that, when we got

25:38

to the point where we've run down

25:40

every single thing that can be known

25:42

to date about this case, the original

25:45

investigation from roughly night. 1973 to 1986

25:47

is when it really just goes completely cold

25:49

and they stop actively investigating it. When we

25:51

get to that point, there's still a lot

25:53

of different theories floating out there. So rather

25:56

than kind of writing, so we have a

25:58

unified voice for the first part. of this

26:00

book, but then the second part, we

26:02

kind of talk about different theories and

26:04

rumors that have developed in the community

26:06

over the years, and we offer our

26:08

own perspectives and kind of takes on

26:11

that. And so sometimes we have differences

26:13

of opinion on these things that have

26:15

been shaped by our different backgrounds and

26:17

experiences, and we explore those different theories.

26:19

And after we explore those theories then,

26:21

we also kind of offer up like

26:23

what we think, what we think is

26:25

the most likely scenario of what happened,

26:27

who are the individuals that if not

26:29

responsible, we have some major questions about,

26:31

and we talk about some new evidence

26:34

in revelations that we uncovered in the

26:36

actual case as well. with all of

26:38

this with an idea towards just trying

26:40

to spark more public conversation because this

26:42

was a case that there had not

26:44

been a major newspaper article written about

26:46

in over 25 years and so it's

26:48

one that in many of the people

26:50

who were involved who were friends of

26:52

Virginia also that we spoke to are

26:54

all in their 70s now and so

26:56

we felt like we were essentially running

26:59

out of time if this case was

27:01

ever going to have the possibility of

27:03

maybe not getting officially closed but at

27:05

least publicly agreed that it was it

27:07

was soft that we had a sense

27:09

of who was responsible. We're just going

27:11

to take a little ad break here

27:13

and we'll be back with the interview

27:15

after these quick messages. Picture

27:21

this, you're halfway through a DIY

27:23

car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and

27:26

boom! You realise you're missing a

27:28

part. It's okay, because you know

27:30

whatever it is, it's on eBay.

27:33

They've got everything. Breaks, headlights, cold

27:35

air intakes, whatever you need. And

27:37

it's guaranteed to fit, which means

27:40

no more crossing your fingers and

27:42

hoping you've ordered the right thing.

27:44

All the parts you need at

27:46

prices you'll love. Guarantee to fit

27:49

every time. Things people love. To

28:04

start listening, download the Amazon

28:06

music app for free.

28:08

Or go to amazon.com/ad-free

28:11

podcasts. That's amazon.com/ad-free podcasts

28:13

to catch up on

28:15

the latest episodes without

28:17

the ads. is

28:19

sponsored by Banana Republic. This spring,

28:22

Shop Banana Republic's latest collection, featuring

28:24

relaxed and refined pieces that take

28:26

you from work to weekend and

28:28

everywhere in between. Founded in 1978,

28:31

Banana Republic creates classics with character,

28:33

working with renowned mills around the

28:35

world on quality fabrics, effortless

28:37

silhouettes, and thoughtfully crafts. And

28:49

what was the time frame from conception

28:51

getting this book deal to completion then?

28:54

It was about a year and a

28:56

half, two years, I guess, is first,

28:58

we were published on January 21st, so

29:00

it was about a year and a

29:02

half, two years. I mean, it was

29:05

one I've been informally researching for quite

29:07

some time, and a lot of when

29:09

Cameron came on, we really started with

29:11

both tracking down people for interviews, and

29:13

we were also started to recover a

29:16

lot of the actual records, what records

29:18

we were able to recover from the

29:20

case as well. because as Cameron said

29:22

that there were a lot of different

29:24

circumstances like that he talked about the

29:27

issues getting the search warrant that were

29:29

difficult with the medical examiner's report the

29:31

original there was a fire in 1975

29:33

that destroyed pretty much all of the

29:35

medical examiner's records for any cases that

29:37

occurred earlier than 1975. So it took

29:40

a big effort that we had to

29:42

get different government entities involved to be

29:44

able to get a copy of the

29:46

original medical examiner's report because the office

29:48

itself didn't have it. And so once

29:51

we were able to get these documents,

29:53

we also published. them in the book

29:55

unredacted because we also want to preserve

29:57

them so that future people looking at

29:59

this case would have access to what

30:02

records were available. Let's rewind the clock

30:04

then. Let's go back to April 15th

30:06

1973. Potentially even earlier. Tell me about

30:08

Virginia. Obviously you'll have to go to

30:10

great detail. We want people to buy

30:12

the book after all. You don't have

30:15

to go through the whole story here.

30:17

But give me a high level overview

30:19

of Virginia's life leading up to April

30:21

15th 1973. So Virginia Olson grew up

30:23

outside of Washington DC in an area

30:26

called McLean Virginia and her father was

30:28

a government employee. He worked for what

30:30

we call the Department of Agriculture and

30:32

she spent most of her life in

30:34

Northern Virginia which is that area just

30:37

outside of Washington DC and I guess

30:39

where a lot of the people we

30:41

interviewed some people from earlier in her

30:43

life but the majority of the people

30:45

that we spoke to were people from

30:48

her high school years or roughly from

30:50

the time she was around 15 to

30:52

18, and then her time in college,

30:54

which was very short, which was only

30:56

about a year and a half before

30:58

she was murdered. She had gotten into

31:01

the arts when she was in high

31:03

school. She was someone who came for

31:05

a very religious family. And one of

31:07

the things I think is difficult about

31:09

kind of describing her is that we

31:12

talked to about 32 people who knew

31:14

her. And one of the things that

31:16

we kind of consistently heard was that,

31:18

you know, one hand, she was very

31:20

shy and introverted. Some people even said

31:23

to almost the point of coming across

31:25

slightly awkward. But on the other hand,

31:27

she was had this very kind of

31:29

warm and kind of gregariousness that might.

31:31

seem to be contradictory to someone who

31:33

is shy, but people said those two

31:36

things existed simultaneously with her and there

31:38

was something very intoxicating about her. And

31:40

so that people will describe this moment

31:42

of hearing about her death as this

31:44

very transformative moment in their life that

31:47

still affects them to this day. But

31:49

she was someone who really around the

31:51

time before she graduated high school, before

31:53

she would go off to university. She

31:55

had just developed an interest in the

31:58

arts. She had started writing poetry. She

32:00

had gotten into drama, acting in plays.

32:02

And when she graduated high school, her

32:04

family had relocated to North Carolina, but

32:06

for her father's job. And she was

32:09

still in a kind of point of

32:11

transition in her life. She was trying

32:13

to figure out what she wanted to

32:15

do. She was very close to her

32:17

family, and she didn't want to be

32:19

too far away from them. She was

32:22

kind of sad about. departing from many

32:24

of her friends who were going to

32:26

other places and other colleges in different

32:28

parts of the country. But she was

32:30

also really optimistic and excited about what

32:32

Asheville North Carolina would offer as a

32:34

kind of a new start. Asheville North

32:37

Carolina was at the time a kind

32:39

of a And it is today too, like

32:41

a hub for like artists and free

32:43

thinker types. The American author Scott Fitzgerald

32:45

lived there for a period of time.

32:47

It was like, it's long been an

32:49

area that attracted writers and people who

32:51

imagined themselves as kind of artistic. And

32:53

so she arrived at college kind of

32:56

interested in drama and got very involved

32:58

in that scene and those plays. and

33:00

did quite well. She wants some competitions

33:02

for speech and drama right before her

33:04

death. And I think one of the

33:06

things that the way I like to

33:08

think about her, she was at the time

33:10

of her death, she was really at

33:13

a point of transition in her life.

33:15

She was doing well in college and

33:17

started to think about what she was

33:19

going to do for summer work, whether

33:21

it was summer stock or a kind

33:23

of acting job, or whether she was

33:26

just going to go back home to

33:28

stay with her family. She was contemplating

33:30

a... transfer to a university that was

33:32

actually closer to her family. And she

33:34

was also juggling some different romantic relationships

33:36

that she was involved with. And there

33:39

were still there were a lot of things

33:41

that were up in the air for her

33:43

that she was trying to figure out in

33:45

April 1973. And she had just come back

33:47

from a spring break that they had at

33:49

the university and she has spent that spring

33:51

break with her boyfriend and was really kind

33:54

of at the point of trying to figure

33:56

out lots of different things at the moment

33:58

she lost her life. So April

34:00

15th is where this all starts and

34:03

you said there was initially

34:05

this 13 year to a

34:07

986 investigation Tell me about

34:09

the discovery of her body. You

34:11

don't have to be overly

34:13

graphic. You don't need to be

34:15

but the discovery of her body

34:18

and what that initial investigation

34:20

looked like Yeah, so we one

34:22

of the things that we did

34:24

again, we're trying to give readers

34:26

as much information on this case

34:29

as we can is we actually

34:31

put a timeline in the back

34:33

of the book and the timeline

34:35

is based off of talking with

34:38

the cold case detective Kevin Taylor

34:40

as well as all the court

34:42

documents that we could find and

34:44

newspaper articles that we can find

34:47

on the case. So this is

34:49

the best that we can do.

34:51

And so I think that it's

34:53

important to kind of look at

34:55

that day in particular.

34:57

so then everyone can

34:59

kind of understand what

35:01

basically happened. And we know

35:04

that around 12 o'clock in

35:06

the afternoon, so around lunch,

35:08

Virginia's in her dorm,

35:10

and she's chatting with some

35:13

friends, and she tells one

35:15

of her friends that she's

35:17

got a Spanish final that

35:19

she wants to study for.

35:22

And again, Asheville is

35:24

this really nice small

35:26

campus. with zero crime

35:28

or at least major

35:30

crimes in the mountains

35:32

and right beside campus

35:34

there is where you've

35:37

got a garden on

35:39

campus and then you've

35:42

got a 50 acre

35:44

national forest that is

35:46

attached to the campus

35:48

and April is a really

35:50

beautiful time to be in

35:52

Asheville. The weather is nice.

35:54

And so you've got a

35:56

lot of people walking around.

35:58

You've got kids kids are going

36:01

there to hang out. So we know

36:03

that Virginia, she talks to some

36:05

people along the way, but she

36:07

tells them that she's going to

36:10

go to the botanical

36:12

gardens to study. She

36:14

wants to try to find a

36:16

nice, quiet place to study

36:18

outside. She makes her her way to

36:20

the garden, and when she

36:22

gets there, she realizes, again,

36:24

since it's such a nice

36:27

day. that's very crowded. So

36:29

she decides to walk down

36:32

a path in this 50-acre

36:34

forest and she finds

36:36

a rock to study on.

36:39

We put in the timeline,

36:41

the witnesses that see her

36:43

on the rock, and one

36:45

person sees her sitting with

36:48

a man on that rock, and

36:50

then around 145, another

36:52

witness passes an area.

36:55

He's doing some hikes around the

36:57

trail and he sees what he

37:00

believes is a book on that

37:02

rock and the pages are

37:04

flapping in the wind. Around

37:06

3.30, two high school boys

37:08

are, they call it a

37:10

weenie roast. So they've got

37:13

some hot dogs, so some

37:15

cheap American sausages that they're

37:18

sitting around a fire with

37:20

some friends and they're doing

37:22

this weenie roast. and they

37:24

leave the weenie roast and they're

37:27

walking up a trail and they're

37:29

the ones that discover her

37:32

body and we know that based

37:34

on their testimony as well as

37:36

the evidence that she had like

37:38

some overalls is that a term that's

37:41

dungarese overalls yeah dungarees

37:43

okay they use the

37:45

dungarees but I didn't know

37:47

of how common these words are right

37:49

And so we know that

37:51

they're pulled down and that

37:53

she is, her shirt had

37:56

been used to the suspect

37:58

cut him into. strips.

38:00

Those were used to bind

38:02

her legs and her arms

38:05

into a gagger. And we

38:07

also know that she had

38:09

been stabbed in the heart,

38:11

which any time that happens,

38:13

of course, a lot of

38:15

blood is admitted. And we

38:17

know that her throat had

38:19

been slashed after her heart

38:21

had stopped. And we know

38:23

that because after your heart

38:25

stops, decision on someone, they

38:27

don't bleed from that spot.

38:29

And so that's how we

38:31

knew the events of that.

38:33

But the police are called,

38:35

and again, this is in

38:37

1973. We know that they

38:40

try to set up a

38:42

crime scene, but they really

38:44

just don't do a very

38:46

thorough job, especially when we're

38:48

comparing that to what would

38:50

happen in 2025. For example,

38:52

One of the things that

38:54

you're taught when you're investigating

38:56

major crimes is that the

38:58

integrity of the crime scene

39:00

is extremely important. And so

39:02

you take crime scene tape

39:04

and I'm sure that your

39:06

listeners have all seen this

39:08

where you make that big

39:10

circle around what you believe

39:13

is a crime scene. And

39:15

we know that that didn't

39:17

occur because... One of the

39:19

things that we mentioned in

39:21

the timeline is that Virginia's

39:23

roommate actually hears about all

39:25

the commotion that's happening and

39:27

is able to walk into

39:29

the crime scene and show

39:31

one of the police officers

39:33

a picture of her. And

39:35

that's how they actually confirmed

39:37

that Virginia is the victim.

39:39

And we can also tell

39:41

that through pictures that we've

39:43

gathered that you can see

39:46

people just kind of milling

39:48

around the crime scene. and

39:50

even when her body is

39:52

removed you're seeing police officers

39:54

not wearing gloves and we

39:56

also know that which is

39:58

something that I think is

40:00

really important that they didn't

40:02

keep her body there very

40:04

long from the time that

40:06

the high school kids found

40:08

her body which was around

40:10

3.30 she was on the

40:12

medical examiner's table and the

40:14

autopsy was being performed around

40:16

8 o'clock so that's not

40:19

a very... long time when

40:21

you think about all the

40:23

logistical aspects that would come

40:25

and investigate in a case

40:27

like this. I would say

40:29

not even just to mention

40:31

just also just outdoor crime

40:33

scenes which I'm sure camera

40:35

could also be very complicated

40:37

because in addition to the

40:39

things he mentioned this is

40:41

an area that secluded and

40:43

off the beaten trail. but

40:45

it was also one that

40:47

was known by law enforcement

40:49

to be associated as a

40:52

kind of lover's lane where

40:54

kids would go for a

40:56

little privacy, but also a

40:58

spot that like Winos would

41:00

go to to kind of

41:02

like drink and stuff. So

41:04

you can imagine the kind

41:06

of like, you know, the

41:08

kind of litter and other,

41:10

you know, the kind of

41:12

litter and other things that

41:14

are kind of around there.

41:16

So when officers are on

41:18

the scene, they're not, they

41:20

have no idea if it's

41:22

actually related or not. So

41:24

that's another kind of thing

41:27

that, I mean, outdoor crime

41:29

scenes are always difficult just

41:31

by themselves, but especially in

41:33

1973, you can imagine this

41:35

would be, with the lack

41:37

of forensics like we have

41:39

today, it would be even

41:41

more complicated. What would the

41:43

standard protocol be then? If

41:45

it was a scene like

41:47

that, maybe related to your

41:49

experience camera, because if the

41:51

bodies move that quickly, you're

41:53

not having the chance to

41:55

take photos and nowadays we

41:57

do more forensic stuff. Was

42:00

this down to an inexperienced

42:02

police force or was it

42:04

just because of the times?

42:06

That's a really interesting question.

42:08

So in North Carolina we've

42:10

got a government agency called

42:12

North Carolina Train. and standards.

42:14

And that's the agency that

42:16

makes the mandated training for

42:18

law enforcement. So as a

42:20

law enforcement officer every year,

42:22

now they do a lot

42:24

of the trainings online, but

42:26

it'll be a group of

42:28

courses that you're mandated to

42:30

take in order to maintain

42:33

your law enforcement certification. And

42:35

then you also have to

42:37

do things like qualify with

42:39

your service weapon. So you're

42:41

pistol. That agency began in

42:43

1973. So you've got a

42:45

small department that really does

42:47

not have the formal training

42:49

in police work. And so

42:51

they really just, they didn't

42:53

have the resources and they

42:55

didn't have the education. The

42:57

other thing that you've got

42:59

to look at is that

43:01

when we think about crime

43:03

scenes today, for example, if

43:06

a murder happened today in

43:08

Raleigh North Carolina, You would

43:10

have about 20 officers on

43:12

scene that would immediately lock

43:14

down the crime scene. So

43:16

we'd clear everything out of

43:18

it, separate the victim. You'd

43:20

have multiple detectives canvassing the

43:22

area for witnesses and suspects.

43:24

We would be pulling surveillance

43:26

footage from people around. you

43:28

would have guys that's sole

43:30

purpose is to do things

43:32

like social media because a

43:34

lot of kids put their

43:36

crimes on social media as

43:38

well as doing the search

43:41

warrants for any air digital

43:43

evidence. So now, you know,

43:45

we can get cell phone

43:47

data to find out who

43:49

was in the area. And

43:51

then you would have people

43:53

whose sole job it is

43:55

to process crime scenes who

43:57

do this as a profession.

43:59

And so they would show

44:01

up. and they would be

44:03

the ones that gather the

44:05

evidence. For murders nowadays, we

44:07

take video footage. of the

44:09

entire crime scene as well.

44:11

And then we've got digital

44:14

cameras where we're taking hundreds

44:16

of pictures. In 1973, not

44:18

only did they not have

44:20

the educational experience to do

44:22

that, but you also think

44:24

of logistic things like, okay,

44:26

if you wanna take a

44:28

picture back then, you're using

44:30

expensive light flashes or. flashes

44:32

for the camera. And so

44:34

from talking with other investigators

44:36

and an author friend of

44:38

ours, Mark Pinsky, you know,

44:40

those were expensive. And so

44:42

departments would only take like

44:44

three or four photos sometimes

44:47

just because of the cost

44:49

alone. And so that really

44:51

affects not only that investigation

44:53

then, but then when you're

44:55

going back to looking at

44:57

something 50 years later, And

44:59

we're trying to read case

45:01

reports that are written by

45:03

pen and pencil and you're

45:05

trying to transcribe them. You

45:07

know, one of the questions

45:09

that we asked the cold

45:11

case detective was there's two

45:13

agencies that worked on this

45:15

case, the Asheville Police Department,

45:17

and what's called the State

45:20

Bureau of Investigations. So they

45:22

had more formal training than

45:24

a city police department. But

45:26

we asked him like... Okay,

45:28

what's the case number for

45:30

the State Bureau of Investigations?

45:32

And he paused. He's like,

45:34

um, let me see. It's

45:36

a, I think I can

45:38

make out this number. And

45:40

I'm thinking myself, okay, if

45:42

you're having a hard time

45:44

looking at this, like, what

45:46

else can we not see?

45:48

That's really a big problem.

45:50

And then, you know, of

45:53

course, like we said before,

45:55

you've got all these files

45:57

that are destroyed, I would

45:59

really question. What else

46:01

was lost in this case?

46:03

It makes you wonder how

46:05

many cold cases are just

46:07

cases that get left on

46:09

file the definition of it

46:11

from around those decades compared

46:13

to now. It'd be interesting

46:15

to see the percentage difference.

46:17

Is that something that ever

46:19

snuck into the back of

46:21

your mind while researching this

46:24

that this can't be the

46:26

only one? Well, that's it.

46:28

One of the things that

46:30

we discussed in the book

46:32

is that there's a similar

46:34

case. Her name was Sewell

46:36

and Evans and she was

46:38

murdered in 1965 on the

46:40

campus of UNC Chapel Hill,

46:42

so UNC. And Chapel Hill

46:44

is about three hours east

46:46

of Asheville and Chapel Hill

46:48

is, that's the college where

46:50

Michael Jordan went. So probably

46:52

one of the most, probably

46:54

that and two. One of

46:56

the, or two of the

46:58

most popular schools in the

47:00

state. But in 1965, a

47:02

similar murder happened where she

47:05

was again walking from class.

47:07

This is during the daytime,

47:09

and we go into detail

47:11

in the book about this,

47:13

but the same thing. She

47:15

was walking through there, they

47:17

call it the arboretum, a

47:19

garden, and a guy snatches

47:21

her into the bushes and

47:23

attempts to rape her. and

47:25

she fights back and then

47:27

he stabs her in the

47:29

heart and then splits her

47:31

throat. And to the police

47:33

department's credit, they actually do,

47:35

in my opinion, a really

47:37

good job for the time.

47:39

And they, there's articles where

47:41

they talk about trying to

47:43

block the exits of where

47:45

the suspect would potentially go,

47:48

but this is a very

47:50

large area. They bring a

47:52

train canine out to try

47:54

to run a canine track

47:56

or unsuccessful. They get public

47:58

support in trying. to locate

48:00

the weapon, but again, this

48:02

is one of those cold

48:04

cases that still is out

48:06

today. And so when I

48:08

was looking at that, I

48:10

thought, okay, what is the

48:12

connection here? In theory, yes,

48:14

this could be the same

48:16

person. I thought that when

48:18

you're just looking at the

48:20

basic facts of each case,

48:22

they seem to align. And

48:24

so one of the things

48:26

that really went through my

48:29

mind is, okay, is this

48:31

the work of a serial

48:33

killer? And so I started

48:35

to look at who are

48:37

some serial killers that may

48:39

have been passing through North

48:41

Carolina at the time, and

48:43

that's when one of the

48:45

people that I found was

48:47

a guy named Terry Hyatt.

48:49

And the really interesting thing

48:51

about Terry is that he

48:53

actually grew up in Asheville.

48:55

and he would have been

48:57

16 at the time of

48:59

Virginia's murder. So obviously he

49:01

wouldn't be responsible for Swellyn's

49:03

murder, but when I started

49:05

to dig into him, I

49:07

noticed that he had dropped

49:09

out of school by that

49:12

point. He had been committing

49:14

petty offenses and he prayed

49:16

on women. He was doing

49:18

things like purse natches and

49:20

things of that nature. But

49:22

what really blew my mind

49:24

about Terry is that number

49:26

one, he does the same

49:28

thing as in Virginia's murders.

49:30

His MO is that he

49:32

ambushes women, essentially grabbing them

49:34

really fast and threaten them

49:36

with a knife. And then

49:38

he rapes him and then

49:40

he stabs them in the

49:42

chest and he slices her

49:44

neck. And then he dumps

49:46

her body near where Virginia

49:48

was. What's really mind-blowing about

49:50

Terry is that Terry got

49:52

away with three murders for

49:55

a really long time, the

49:57

first murder that we know

49:59

about him committing, and I

50:01

say know about him committing,

50:03

was April 15th, 1979. So

50:05

the same day that, find

50:07

that very interesting coincidence, if

50:09

you want to call it

50:11

that, but Terry was not

50:13

discovered until the 1990s. The

50:15

only reason why he was

50:17

discovered is that one of

50:19

his friends went into the

50:21

sheriff's department in Ashville and

50:23

allegedly was drunk. He was

50:25

kind of like a town

50:27

drunk and starts telling a

50:29

captain in investigations that he

50:31

wants to get something off

50:33

his chest. I've seen the

50:36

interview online, but you can

50:38

tell that the captain really

50:40

is just like, okay, I'm

50:42

I'm just going to write

50:44

down the statement and don't

50:46

really think he's a credible

50:48

person. But he starts going

50:50

into the story about how

50:52

he was riding with Terry

50:54

and that they find this

50:56

girl that, again, Terry, kidnaps,

50:58

takes her into the woods,

51:00

rapes her, and then gets

51:02

her back in the car,

51:04

drives down a little bit

51:06

further into the woods, kind

51:08

of near where Virginia was

51:10

found. He rapes her again,

51:12

but this time Terry's friend

51:14

says that he could hear

51:16

screams, and then Terry comes

51:19

back and he's got blood

51:21

on him and his knife

51:23

is bloody. Terry's friend says,

51:25

well, you know, I know

51:27

that sounds like a really

51:29

wild story. If you don't

51:31

believe me, then you can

51:33

talk to this other guy.

51:35

We go into detail in

51:37

this in the book, and

51:39

so the investigator goes and

51:41

talks with friend number two.

51:43

Friend number two starts telling

51:45

him about this completely different

51:47

murder. In fact, It was

51:49

a murder that they thought

51:51

was a missing person because

51:53

they had not found a

51:55

body. And so when they

51:57

find body number two, it's

51:59

a skeleton that's been so

52:02

long. But they can see

52:04

on the bones where she

52:06

had been stabbed, like there's

52:08

neckmarks. They end up picking

52:10

Terry up after their investigation.

52:12

And while Terry is sitting

52:14

in prison and in North

52:16

Carolina. They take a buccal

52:18

swab, so they take a

52:20

big Q-tip swab in his

52:22

mouth to get his DNA,

52:24

and they put it in

52:26

a system called CODUS, which

52:28

is the, in the states,

52:30

it's a national database for

52:32

DNA. And when you put

52:34

someone's DNA in there, the

52:36

system runs a check for

52:38

victims and also missing persons

52:40

that have been put into

52:43

the system. in a victim

52:45

from Charlotte, North Carolina, which

52:47

is a couple hours from

52:49

Asheville, pops up, and they

52:51

interview Terry about that. And

52:53

at this point, Terry has

52:55

two life sentences for the

52:57

other two women that he's

52:59

found, and North Carolina does

53:01

have the death penalty. And

53:03

so he wants to avoid

53:05

that at all costs, so

53:07

he ends up confessing to

53:09

the third one as well,

53:11

and he walks. the investigators

53:13

through what happened that day.

53:15

The interview again it's on

53:17

public sources but it's really

53:19

amazing just how he has

53:21

no emotion when he's telling

53:23

these stories and he just

53:26

says you know I saw

53:28

her outside of a supermarket

53:30

it was late at night

53:32

and I wanted to have

53:34

sex with her and so

53:36

I grabbed her before she

53:38

even knew it. I had

53:40

her in my truck and

53:42

I drove her to a

53:44

secluded place. I raped her

53:46

in the back of the

53:48

truck. I knew that she

53:50

would go and tell the

53:52

police, so that's my stab.

53:54

during the heart and slittered

53:56

neck. And so when I

53:58

look at a person like

54:00

that and now look at

54:02

what happened to Virginia, I

54:04

just don't think you can

54:07

really discount that he's got

54:09

to be one of the

54:11

suspects. We're just going to

54:13

take a little ad break

54:15

here and we'll be back

54:17

with the interview after these

54:19

quick messages. To

54:35

start listening, download the Amazon

54:37

music app for free.

54:40

Or go to amazon.com/ad-free

54:42

podcasts. That's amazon.com/ad-free podcasts

54:44

to catch up on

54:46

the latest episodes without

54:49

the ads. Plus,

55:42

get advice and more comprehensive

55:44

wealth solutions to help meet

55:46

your unique needs. With award-winning

55:48

service, low costs, and transparent

55:50

advice, you can manage your

55:52

wealth your way at Schwab.

55:54

Visit schwab.com to learn more. This

1:20:30

podcast is sponsored by Banana Republic.

1:20:32

This spring, Shop Banana Republic's latest

1:20:34

collection, featuring relaxed and refined pieces

1:20:36

that take you from work to

1:20:39

weekend and everywhere in between. Founded

1:20:41

in 1978, Banana Republic creates classics

1:20:43

with character, working with renowned mills

1:20:46

around the world on quality fabrics,

1:20:48

effortless silhouettes, and thoughtfully crafted details.

1:20:50

Discover more at Banana republic.com. At

1:20:52

Schwab, how you invest is your

1:20:55

choice, not theirs. That's why when

1:20:57

it comes to managing your wealth,

1:20:59

Schwab gives you more choices. You

1:21:02

can invest and trade on your

1:21:04

own. Plus, get advice and more

1:21:06

comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet

1:21:08

your unique needs. With award-winning service,

1:21:11

low costs, and transparent advice, you

1:21:13

can manage your wealth, your way

1:21:15

at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn

1:21:18

more.