How This Journalist Tried to Understand A Serial Killer

What this episode is about

The content explores a journalist's journey to understand a serial killer, detailing their experiences from a liberal arts school to a courtroom in Seattle. The narrative emphasizes the importance of empathy and complexity in understanding individuals often labeled as 'monsters,' advocating for a nuanced perspective that recognizes the shared humanity between them and society.

Key takeaways

• From liberal arts to courtroom drama: journalism's journey often begins in the most unexpected places.
• Monsters are made, not born; understanding them may be the key to demystification, not fear.
• Missing women, ignored: societal bias against marginalized victims highlights critical flaws in our justice system.
• Fear drives us to label deviants as 'others'; truth may lie closer to home than we care to admit.
• The interplay of privilege and neglect in Poughkeepsie: beauty masks the gritty realities of the underserved.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dax Shepard (Host) · 4 min speaking
• Claudia (Guest) · 6 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 3:00 – 6:00: New York Times, Pikipsy Journal
2. 6:00 – 9:00: New York Times, Vasser College
3. 9:00 – 10:05: The Spider and the Fly

Notable quotes from "How This Journalist Tried to Understand A Serial Killer"

• Mh. But I was at this point freelancing for the New York Times because there are a lot of people in the Hudson Valley who are New York Times readers and New York Times recognize, hey, we got.

  about New York Times · at 3:18

• I go across, get in my car, drive. It's 5 minutes, it's just a little Hudson Valley town. So there were these eight women's bodies in this little house about a block from Vasser College.

  about Vasser College · at 6:46

• It's this true crime, what's him and memoir, what's me? And that's the book.

  about The Spider and the Fly · at 9:51

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Books & papers

• The Spider and the Fly — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 9:54
  The book is discussed as a memoir and true crime exploration by the author, Claudia Rowe, detailing her correspondence with a serial killer.

Companies & orgs

• New York Times — Company · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at 3:18
  The New York Times is mentioned as the platform where Claudia Rowe freelanced, highlighting its role in local journalism and crime reporting.
• Pikipsy Journal — Company · Case study · 2 mentions · first at 3:02
  The Pikipsy Journal is referenced as a local paper where Claudia Rowe worked, illustrating the challenges and limitations of local journalism.
  My boyfriend at the time was still working at the Pikipsy Journal and we live together. He would come home and say, Hey, Claudia, like there are these women missing and…

Places & events

• Vasser College — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 6:48
  Vasser College is mentioned as a location near where a crime occurred, providing geographical context to the story.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 So, how do we get from this bonkers liberal arts school in Vermont to Washington to sitting down and spending a lot of time with a murderer? And then ultimately, what lands you in a courtroom in Seattle witnessing the murder trial of a 16-year-old now 18?

0:17 This is a long answer. Is that okay? We love long answers. Okay. This is going to be six hours. I don't know if you were born.

0:23 The reason I ask is I love your writing. Thank you. And I love your writing, not just because the words smmithery. Your essential viewpoint is present to me or at least what I think it is. And it's incredibly non-judgmental and not saccharine. It's like I'm rooting for this person on some level. And this person's [ __ ] up. And here's the whole thing. And I appreciate that so much because I feel like so many things land in a just um like whether they're tearing someone down or they're building them up, there seems to be little nuance and in and in and evensidedness. And the way you write I I appreciate as being like as close as you get to the truth, which is like it's all things. So you have a perspective. That's why I asked because I think it's rare.

1:11 Thank you. Look, I think all of the journalism that I do is powered um by confusion edging into fear. You know, people who are scary. My way of

1:26 confronting that is not to run from it but to drive toward it. Try to understand how do they understand themselves? How do they understand what they're doing? How do they think this helps me?

1:36 Yes. they become then demystified right down brought down a little bit to you know sort of human

1:44 humans right we're all humans we all have a logic for what we do even if it's not obvious to others

1:51 and I'll argue we're more comfortable thinking these people that scare us are like seven deviations away from us but they're one that's what's more interesting

2:00 right so I think that the world sees it like you do most people like these are these others right right

2:07 in doing the first book with this serial killer who killed at least eight women. He was referred to constantly as monster. He was a monster.

2:18 And to me at the time I was much younger then. Um at the time that was really frustrating like monster. Yes.

2:27 That gives me nothing. Yes. How does one become a monster? What do we do with a monster?

2:30 So it's a made up. It's a fake thing, right? It's a madeup thing. He's not magic, you know? He's not some mythic figure. He's like a dude. So

2:41 monster really bothered me this idea and I found it incredibly opaque. Like not illuminating in any way. In fact, almost determinedly not illuminating.

2:52 Yeah. So that exasperated me. So it's the late 1990s and I am in New York, upstate New York or midstate I Hudson Valley. I had worked at the local small town paper, the Pikipsy Journal. I had left that paper and was kind of unsure what I was going to do with myself. Um, had very mixed feelings about journalism as a result of working at that paper.

3:18 Mh. But I was at this point freelancing for the New York Times because there are a lot of people in the Hudson Valley who are New York Times readers and New York Times recognize, hey, we got we got somebody there and she can sort of babysit stories for us. Yeah. And so um my boyfriend at the time was still working at the Pikipsy Journal and uh we live together. He would come home and say, "Hey, Claudia, like there are these women missing and nobody's writing about it. The paper won't write about it. The paper isn't covering it. Everyone's saying, "Oh, these are like street walkers and if they're missing, they want to be missing. They don't want to be found."

3:58 And that's what the police were saying. And this boyfriend of mine said, "You're writing for the New York Times. You got to tell them this is a thing and it's and no one's really taking it seriously here." Yeah.

4:08 So, my editor at the times, um, you know, what's going on up there this week? What boring thing is happening?

4:15 Well, we were actually, it was actually Pikipsy was kind of known for like weird news, freaky news. Really? Yeah. There was a lot of weird

4:24 like the Toana Broly story. I don't You are too young. You Okay. You're You're still younger than

4:30 50? I don't know. I'm 50. You're younger than I Oh, wow. You look incredible. Congratulations.

4:34 Um, okay. So, the Tuana Broly story was, you can look it up. Back check it. Exactly. We will.

4:41 Um, anyway, a lot of weird crime in the area. And so, when the editor said, "What's going on up there?" I said, "Well, I don't really know if this is a story but

4:52 there are these women, there were like, I don't know, at that point, maybe six or seven who were missing." And nobody had really done serious a serious look at this. And I said, "Hey, I don't know if this is a thing, but it's something." He said, "Get on that. Get on that right now. Start making phone calls." So, I did um started sort of running down their families and their boyfriends and talking to them and the moms who were looking for these women.

5:22 Was there a pattern? Yes, they were all women who were sort of mostly sort of slight white women, not unlike myself. Uh, and they all were supporting drug habits, mostly crack, by walking Main Street in Pikipsy. Got it.

5:43 So, they were street walkers supporting drug habits. And this is why maybe nobody was much looking at them. Duchess County, as you may or may not know, is beautiful, wealthy, horse country. A lot of movie stars live there, except in the city of Pikipsy, which is kind of

6:01 Oh, wow. a little grittier. A lot. That's a lot. That's a lovely euphemism. So, I'm I'm talking to these women's families. Um, a guy turns himself in a week later in no way because of what I'm doing. It's just this confluence of timing. In fact, that that morning I had um an appointment to interview the chief of detectives. What are you doing about these women? And I show up at his office and he hands me a piece of paper with an address on it. go.

6:32 And it's dude's house where they have now found the bodies of eight women who have been in the home.

6:39 I hate to say you're lucky, but you've already done all the interviews with the family. You're like, this timing of this is insane.

6:45 Yeah. I go across, you know, get in my car, drive. It's 5 minutes, you know, it's just a little Hudson Valley town. So there were these eight women's bodies in this little house about a block from Vasser College.

6:58 And they had been decaying in there, some of them 2 years. Oh my god. Was he living in there?

7:06 Yeah. With his mom and dad and teenage sister. Get the [ __ ] out. No. Okay. So they're hoarders. So all this stuff comes out. So they're hoarders. like the whole um

7:18 ecosystem. The whole ecosystem of the house kind they the like dead bodies kind of just blend into the general

7:27 are they exposed or are they like No, there are five in the attic, three in the basement.

7:34 Anyway, so there I am standing out there. I am still at this point kind of a young reporter. I've been a reporter like I don't know 5 years or something. TV is amassing 48 hours. Everybody's showing up and I'm just like this little local reporter on the scene. I'm writing all this for the New York Times because I'm ahead of the story. Anyway, I got of course obsessed, right? Who is this guy? How does this happen?

7:59 You became kind of infatuated with finding out. Not infatuated. Okay, that's the wrong word.

8:04 That is the wrong word. Okay, cuz that implies some kind of attraction right? I don't mean that. I did get fixated on how does this happen? What makes this person? I just could not stop. Yeah.

8:17 So, so it's 1998 when he confesses and I'm thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it.

8:24 And I finally wrote to him a year later. So, I didn't do anything. I just sort of ruminated on it.

8:31 Wrote to him. And then that sort of touches off this five-year correspondence. By this point, of course, he's arrested. He's imprisoned. Plead guilty. He's at ADC. He was initially at Duchess County Jail still when I first wrote to him. I think he eventually ended up at Attica. And so I, you know, some phone calls, some visits. I tried a lot of letters. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what makes this person, right? Like who is this this monster right?

8:59 How do you get to be that person? What are the forces that contribute to this person? Um, and of course his family who would never talk to me. Um, his mom through a lawyer said she would if I paid her. Like I don't have any money and you don't I don't do that. That's not

9:19 that's not what I'm doing here. That's not how it's done. It's not what I do. It's not how I do it and I don't have any money anyway. Um, so they never talked to me. So, it was kind of back on me to understand the women, how they got to be in the position of knowing him.

9:37 Yeah. Um, and then as I went on and on, it got to be, well, why are you doing this, Claudia? Why are you so fixated on this? What is it about you?

9:48 So, then it becomes kind of a memoir. It's this true crime, what's him and memoir, what's me? And that's the book. What's the name of it?

9:58 The spider and the fly. The spider and the fly. Who's the spider? Who's the fly?

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "How This Journalist Tried to Understand A Serial Killer"?

Dax Shepard (Host), Claudia (Guest).

What is "How This Journalist Tried to Understand A Serial Killer" about?

The content explores a journalist's journey to understand a serial killer, detailing their experiences from a liberal arts school to a courtroom in Seattle. The narrative emphasizes the importance of empathy and complexity in understanding individuals often labeled as 'monsters,' advocating for a nuanced perspective that recognizes the shared humanity between them and society.

What is mentioned in this Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episode?

4 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including The Spider and the Fly, New York Times, Pikipsy Journal, Vasser College. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "How This Journalist Tried to Understand A Serial Killer"?

The episode runs 10 min; the transcript is about 1,823 words in 45 timestamped sections.

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