100th Celebration with author Jesse Pollack

[00:00:00] . Shopify grows your business no matter how far or big you grow.

[00:00:06] Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business.

[00:00:12] Whether you're selling your fan's next favorite shirt or an exclusive piece of podcast

[00:00:17] merch, Shopify helps you sell everywhere.

[00:00:21] Shopify powers 10 percent of all e-commerce in the U.S.

[00:00:25] Allbirds, Rothy's, Brooklyn and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175

[00:00:33] countries. Plus, Shopify's award winning help is there to support your success every step

[00:00:40] of the way because businesses that grow grow with Shopify.

[00:00:46] Sign up for a one dollar per month trial period at Shopify dot com slash income.

[00:00:52] All lowercase. Go to Shopify dot com slash income now to grow your business

[00:00:59] no matter what stage you're in.

[00:01:14] Welcome back to Crime Capsule. I'm your host, Benjamin Morris,

[00:01:18] and today I am going to cut right to it. As we continue our 100th episode celebration,

[00:01:26] we are thrilled to have one of our favorite guests, Jesse Pawlak join us once again six

[00:01:33] months ago. We sat down with Jesse, the co-author with Mark Moran of Death on the Devil's Teeth,

[00:01:40] to hear about a truly bizarre unsolved murder up in New Jersey. Well today,

[00:01:46] Jesse is going to update us on the case and shed a little light on the other strange,

[00:01:53] wonderful and bizarre things that he is up to now. Hope you enjoy.

[00:02:01] Jesse Pawlak, welcome back to Crime Capsule. How are you doing?

[00:02:04] I'm doing all right. How are you?

[00:02:07] Man, we're doing great. We are so grateful to have you back on. It's one of these surreal

[00:02:11] things where we still can't really believe it's been 100 episodes and so we're living

[00:02:18] in this kind of quasi dream state that we made it this far.

[00:02:21] That's wild.

[00:02:22] And it is a little wild, you know, like sort of pinch me or slap me around with a

[00:02:28] frozen fish. I don't really know what to do here. But I mean, whatever you got on hand,

[00:02:34] we'll do. But when we were talking about who we wanted to catch up with and, you know,

[00:02:40] like what's been going on, one of the first questions that came to mind was,

[00:02:44] what on earth is new and weird in New Jersey these days? And we knew who would know the

[00:02:51] answer. Oh boy. Yeah, you came straight to the source.

[00:02:56] Straight to it. Straight to it. How have you been?

[00:02:59] Been all right. Been finishing up my third book, which should be coming out this fall,

[00:03:06] shooting a feature film with some friends, a little independent horror project that I'm

[00:03:12] really excited about. And then if all goes well, I should be inking the deal for

[00:03:18] a fourth book sometime in the near future.

[00:03:21] Man, you do not slow down, do you? That's very exciting.

[00:03:25] Nope, you get one life to do weird shit in. So got to get it done.

[00:03:30] Got it. Got to put on those pumps and start kicking. So tell me this. What is this

[00:03:34] third book that's coming out in the fall all about?

[00:03:37] Well, that book is called Room 100. Sid, Nancy and the Nightpunk Rock died.

[00:03:44] And for those who aren't familiar with those names, it is about the 1978 stabbing

[00:03:52] death slash murder. What's really weird about the Nancy Spungen case is if you don't believe

[00:04:01] that Sid did it, which a lot of people don't, and Sid being Sid Vicious, her boyfriend,

[00:04:07] the bass player of the Sex Pistols, there are a lot of theories out there ranging

[00:04:13] from a drug dealer stabbed her during a robbery gone wrong to there are some people

[00:04:20] including several of Nancy's friends who think she may have committed suicide

[00:04:25] during a botched death pact. So it's a very eerie, murky, mysterious case

[00:04:33] that I've chosen to write about for this book.

[00:04:37] Had no one ever really delved into that before? Or in terms of book length treatment?

[00:04:43] Or is there new information that's come out? What's the story?

[00:04:46] There's a lot of new information that I've uncovered. But yeah, going back to the first

[00:04:51] part of your question, that was the real reason why I wanted to do the book. No one had ever

[00:04:58] done a book length examination of this story before. It was always sort of relegated to

[00:05:06] half of a chapter in some punk rock book or a footnote in a Sex Pistols overview.

[00:05:14] It is arguably one of the darkest moments in popular culture, certainly in rock and roll.

[00:05:23] There's been two documentaries. Alex Cox did a feature film about it with Gary Oldman and

[00:05:28] Chloe Webb in 1986. But there was no definitive book on the subject despite an embarrassment of

[00:05:37] riches out there when it comes to Sex Pistols and punk rock books. And I just felt, well,

[00:05:43] there really should be a definitive tome on the end of Sid and Nancy's lives because they're

[00:05:49] shrouded in mystery. And as I found out while digging deeper into the research, it's encased

[00:05:57] in myth. A lot of what people think they know about this case simply isn't true. And that's

[00:06:04] not coming from like author hype, like, oh yeah, check out these alternative facts so I

[00:06:09] can sell some books. Like, I was shocked by things that I thought I knew about this case,

[00:06:15] but once I got a hold of the NYPD case file and I was the first journalist to get a hold of the

[00:06:22] complete uncensored case file only censored portions. Yeah. And it took a lot. It took

[00:06:27] a lot of battling that lasted about a year to get it because only censored portions had been

[00:06:33] released previously. I got the whole thing and flipping through it, I was like, oh my God,

[00:06:38] everything I thought I knew about this story is completely false. And so the book really,

[00:06:44] really dives into not just let's go back to the original documents, let's re-interview

[00:06:51] the original witnesses. It goes into also this is how the case was misreported to the public

[00:06:59] through the media and through the police, which has become kind of like a running theme

[00:07:05] with my books. It's not something I really set out to do. It just kind of happened naturally

[00:07:11] as a researcher. It's funny. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's really funny you should say that,

[00:07:16] Jesse, because as I was thinking about death on the devil's teeth,

[00:07:20] you know, it occurs to me that you have either a penchant, a flair, a talent,

[00:07:26] or quite possibly even a fetish for unreleased case files of unsolved murders, right? And it's

[00:07:32] totally we've got two now in a row that you have successfully managed to procure.

[00:07:39] And I'd say you're I mean, you're batting a thousand, you know, right now as far as

[00:07:43] as far as getting them. So what's your secret? Just determination, I guess. I have this really

[00:07:52] weird thing about me where if I become fascinated with a subject, and it's not limited to true

[00:07:57] crime, it's just anything that I find fascinating. I'm always chasing that high

[00:08:03] of that first moment where it grabbed me. So my brain is just constantly like, feed me

[00:08:09] more information. I need to know everything about this. So whether it's a true crime case

[00:08:15] or a film that I really like, like I love doing deep dives into the productions of certain

[00:08:21] films. I like bands that I like, like I probably have about 100 books on the Beatles alone,

[00:08:27] just because I'm a huge Beatles history nerd. And when I find a true crime case

[00:08:33] that really fascinates me, it's usually because there are a lot of unanswered questions.

[00:08:39] And I'm not one of these people that's like, well, leave the mystery there,

[00:08:44] because the mystery is appealing. It's like, no, I want to know what happened here.

[00:08:48] And I really don't like having the door shut in my face by investigators, whether they be

[00:08:56] police or otherwise that are like, well, yeah, we have the information, but we don't want you

[00:09:01] to have it. So that kicked off, like you had mentioned earlier, the 10 year battle to get

[00:09:07] the Jeanette de Palma case file from the police in New Jersey, a case file, by the way,

[00:09:12] that they spent nearly three decades lying and saying it had been destroyed in a flood.

[00:09:18] And the flood, yeah. Oh no, a flood came through. It doesn't exist anymore. Nothing to see here,

[00:09:23] folks. And then after 10 years of bombarding them with information act requests, oh,

[00:09:27] we suddenly found it. Sorry. Here you go. Like I found if you embarrass the police enough

[00:09:33] in a book or in an interview, whether it's a magazine newspaper or a podcast,

[00:09:37] like we're on right now, the police will eventually try to save face by saying,

[00:09:42] oh, we found it. Here you go. And I'm not saying that facetiously. Like I got evidence

[00:09:49] through the De Palma case file that at the time that they first started telling me,

[00:09:54] no, all of the evidence in the case file has vanished. They were recategorizing or

[00:10:01] recataloging Jeanette's clothing, the contents of her purse that were found near her corpse.

[00:10:07] They were taking new photos of it, preserving it in a new separate location. There are dates

[00:10:13] on these photos and these files. And they correspond with the same timeframe where I was

[00:10:18] emailing the detectives that were taking these photos. And they were lying to me saying,

[00:10:22] no, it's vanished. No one knows where it is. So this, again, this isn't me trying to like

[00:10:28] pull some Fox News crap and like over exaggerate and say, you know, the cops lied to me and

[00:10:35] hid things. I have paper proof and that was the bulk of what I got into in the second

[00:10:43] edition of Death on the Devil's Teeth that came out in, I want to say it was September 2022,

[00:10:50] was when the revised edition came out. So that's the bulk of the new information in there.

[00:10:55] Yep. No, there's one thing for an investigator to say, you know, we are actively working on

[00:11:02] this and we cannot release anything as yet, you know, and for it. And it's another thing

[00:11:08] entirely for them to lie directly just straight through their teeth to you. You know, you would

[00:11:14] have accepted the first answer and you would have come back to them in due course and you

[00:11:17] would have just maintained, you know, like what, you know, your own work schedule and

[00:11:23] integrity and so forth. But to be, you know, for them to talk out of one side of their mouth

[00:11:28] and, you know, the life of the other is just incredibly frustrating. I admire your perseverance

[00:11:33] and it certainly is a lesson, you know, for everybody else out there to never give up,

[00:11:39] never give up, never ever give up. Now when we last spoke, it was about a year or so after

[00:11:46] the second edition had come out. It's about six months ago now. Six months in crime temporal

[00:11:57] scales can be both an eternity in some cases and it can also be, you know, the blink of an eye.

[00:12:03] And so since we last sat down right before Christmas, has there been any news on this

[00:12:10] unsolved murder? Unfortunately not really. The thing that really frustrates me the most

[00:12:16] about this case is as I talk about in the book and I believe we spoke about the last time

[00:12:23] we talked, Richard Cottingham, an incarcerated serial killer in New Jersey, all but confessed

[00:12:31] to killing Jeanette DePalma and possibly also Joan Kramer in South Orange, a young woman who

[00:12:36] was murdered the same week as Jeanette and only six miles away and her body was dumped

[00:12:41] in a very similar fashion. He all but confessed to those two crimes and he has been available.

[00:12:51] He's rotting away in a prison hospital as we speak and to my knowledge, the powers that be

[00:12:58] in Union County, New Jersey have not bothered speaking with him at all despite the fact that

[00:13:05] I met with them along with a representative of Jeanette's family. That would be Jeanette's

[00:13:10] nephew Ray. I handed over all of my correspondence with Cottingham where he all but admitted to

[00:13:16] doing this. He straight up said, and I think this was a very reasonable request,

[00:13:21] I will meet with the Union County detectives on this case to talk about this as long as they

[00:13:27] pull me out of prison to speak about this in their office because I am elderly. I'm in a

[00:13:33] wheelchair and in the prison that I am in, if you're seen talking to cops, you get the

[00:13:37] reputation of being a rat. He didn't want to be beat up and he also asked that they buy

[00:13:42] him dinner. I told the police, I said, listen, I'll pay for it myself if it means he talks

[00:13:47] and he talks honestly. They literally told me, and I have this recorded, the detective,

[00:13:55] Detective Johnny Ho with the Union County Prosecutor's Office, told me, well, we're

[00:13:59] really busy with current cases right now and it's kind of a pain in the ass to talk to

[00:14:04] him because we have to go through his lawyer. We'll get around to it whenever we get around

[00:14:09] to it. Apparently that day hasn't come yet. While this guy confessed to me on the record

[00:14:15] for killing Jeanette and possibly Joan, the families are still being denied justice on paper

[00:14:22] officially through the Union County New Jersey Police Force because they refuse to

[00:14:30] meet with this guy for whatever reason. I honestly don't understand it.

[00:14:35] When was the last time you were directly in contact with Cottingham?

[00:14:39] Once I handed the information over to the police, I did not go out of my way to contact him again.

[00:14:46] He had pretty much made it known to me that this is as far as I'm willing to take it.

[00:14:52] This is my offer to the police. Bring it to them and we'll see what happens.

[00:14:58] It took several months just to get him to even talk about these cases in detail because

[00:15:05] he voiced his concern several times. Well, I'm talking to you through email that is monitored

[00:15:11] by the prison system here so this could be very detrimental to me.

[00:15:17] I knew he wasn't going to say anything more. I didn't want to keep bugging him and risk

[00:15:23] complicating the investigation on the police's side by continuing to be this fly buzzing around

[00:15:30] this journalist that's continuing to ask this guy questions. I did what I thought was the

[00:15:35] responsible thing and I took that information, gave it to the detectives and said the ball is

[00:15:40] in your court now. I'm going to step back because I'm not a cop. I'm a journalist. There's

[00:15:44] only so much that I can do but from what I understand no one has done anything about it.

[00:15:53] It's very frustrating especially when I see other detectives that worked for the state

[00:15:57] of New Jersey that are currently trying to parlay their conversations with Cottingham

[00:16:03] into deals that will turn them into television stars in their retirement.

[00:16:08] It's all very frustrating and I may come off sounding as hypocritical for that but

[00:16:15] I mean I don't seek the spotlight for the work that I do. I do this as a journalist

[00:16:21] because I feel that these families deserve answers. I believe that these incidents are

[00:16:27] history and history should be recorded accurately. I have turned down probably three

[00:16:33] dozen TV deals just for the De Palma case alone. I've turned down several others for Sid

[00:16:38] and Nancy for the Ricky Casso case just because I'm not interested in that stuff

[00:16:44] which shouldn't be too surprising for anyone that's read my books or listened to my

[00:16:48] podcasts because I'm constantly talking about how badly true crime TV fucks up the facts

[00:16:54] in these cases and sometimes they severely fuck up actual investigations that are going on

[00:17:02] because all they care about is profit and ratings. That's a world that I really don't

[00:17:06] want to be in and to see other people that had gotten confessions out of Cottingham,

[00:17:13] to see those people going out there and chasing television stardom instead of getting more

[00:17:19] information out of this guy before he croaks because he's no spring chicken.

[00:17:23] It's just very frustrating and disappointing to me.

[00:17:26] It is especially when you consider that there's an established mechanism for

[00:17:32] just continuing an investigation that was never closed. I mean it's still considered open

[00:17:37] and what does it cost the department to go and just speak to him and check whether his

[00:17:45] recollection or details match what we know forensically at the scene and so forth.

[00:17:50] It doesn't cost them very much at all except their pride and I think you have done enough

[00:17:55] over the years to show that the pride there has proven their own greatest enemy which

[00:18:02] is very distressing for an institution which you would think would try to embody the notions of

[00:18:08] public service. If I were an arrogant person,

[00:18:12] which I run the risk of coming off as a very arrogant person talking about these things and

[00:18:17] I promise it's not coming from a place of ego, it's a sincere place of disappointment,

[00:18:22] but if I were an arrogant person I would almost chalk this up to the police being willing to

[00:18:29] let a killer quote unquote get away because I mean he's locked up for the rest of his life anyway,

[00:18:34] but get away with it in the sense that we would rather not talk to this guy than let Jesse

[00:18:41] Pollock have the chance of saying I helped crack this case because this guy has spent

[00:18:47] 11 years now embarrassing us through his articles and his books.

[00:18:51] Like I mean the temptation to believe that is there, but I would hope that our institutions

[00:18:59] in this country are able to look past their own egos to get the job done whether it means

[00:19:07] like hey we've got to give some partial credit to you know not just Jesse Pollock but my

[00:19:11] co-author Mark Moran who really blew down the doors for this case to be talked about.

[00:19:18] Like I discussed this in the first edition of the book, but you have to remember the

[00:19:26] Janetta Palmer case was such an obscure story when Weird New Jersey Magazine first started

[00:19:32] covering it in 2002 that most people thought it was an urban legend. Like the magazine had

[00:19:38] been getting mail from readers about it going all the way back to 1997 and even in those

[00:19:45] early letters it was oh I remember hearing about a girl, I think she was a hitchhiker,

[00:19:51] I think she was killed by Satanists and a dog brought a body part home, but I'm not sure if

[00:19:56] that was true. And that was 97 that we got that letter. It took all the way until 2002,

[00:20:02] you know five whole years until the magazine got Janette's name. This is pre-social media,

[00:20:09] pre-Google I think InfoSeek and like Ask Jeeves were the only ones around back then, but those

[00:20:16] would have been useless too because there were no online newspaper archives, there was no

[00:20:20] Wikipedia, there were no websites devoted to Janette. So it really was a dead end for a

[00:20:26] long time trying to figure out if this story even happened. The only reason that all of

[00:20:31] these other like true crime TikTokers and YouTubers that are out there you know getting

[00:20:37] the facts of the case wrong so they can get their their view and like content

[00:20:42] numbers up for the week. The only reason they all know about that is because Mark was digging

[00:20:47] into this case 25 almost 30 years ago and laying the groundwork for he and I to start work on

[00:20:53] this book. The powers that be in Union County were more than happy for this murder to be

[00:21:00] forgotten about because it was never solved which was a source of embarrassment to the

[00:21:04] department. This was a police department that was used to handing out parking tickets and you know

[00:21:10] jaywalking citations and this was a murder of a child in this little bedroom suburban community

[00:21:17] a half hour outside of New York and they couldn't solve it and it's gotten to the

[00:21:22] point where if you even try talking to the people at the prosecutor's office now they'll

[00:21:27] try and say oh no we don't even know it was a murder it was just a suspicious death

[00:21:33] I mean come on bullshit. Yeah yeah no I hear you loud and clear and for those listeners who maybe

[00:21:39] did not catch our our first interview I mean I just want to say by all means go back and listen

[00:21:46] to Jesse's account not just of the murder itself and what we know about it but of the

[00:21:52] fuller recounting of how we first came to learn about it which is its own really kind

[00:21:58] of wild story full of fragments and pieces and you know something being threaded together over

[00:22:06] time it was not a straightforward account by any means in those early days and by all means

[00:22:14] you know go back go back to December of this past year and check out those shows because

[00:22:19] it's very illuminating and I think that that especially the generational difference there yeah

[00:22:25] you've taken a straight back to the days before even Lycos and Webcrawler which is what

[00:22:33] what I cut my teeth on looking up song lyrics for the Smashing Pumpkins back in about 1996

[00:22:39] something like that maybe yeah man 1995 because you know like they weren't necessarily in the

[00:22:45] liner notes so you had to listen really really hard or you know you had to like

[00:22:50] triangulate what you thought Billy Corgan was singing against what some other dude in Minnesota

[00:22:57] put up on his fan page you know like that sort of thing anyway now we're showing our age and

[00:23:02] and I've and if anybody asks me how old I am I'm gonna insist that they buy me a drink

[00:23:07] first but uh last question last question for you on uh Jeanette DePalma I mean if if anybody

[00:23:15] sometimes we need a fresh set of eyes right and Kate Zelisnack said that last week when

[00:23:19] in her discussion of the uh the Doodler murders it's like you know sometimes you just need um you

[00:23:24] know a fresh perspective even on the force itself to take a look and to say okay we can

[00:23:30] maybe do this a slightly different way but if there is anybody out there we have listenership

[00:23:34] all over the country and especially in the northeast you know who who has information has

[00:23:40] insights we always try to ask this for unsolved murders what would be the best avenue for them

[00:23:47] to chase this case up and and um you know do anything with that

[00:23:53] you see that's a really tricky question because in most cases the proper answer would be please

[00:24:00] contact either the Springfield police department or the Union County prosecutor's office

[00:24:06] but this is a case where both of those entities have not only covered up and

[00:24:14] lied about the circumstances of Jeanette's death there are elements of the public that sincerely

[00:24:22] believe they were involved in her death now I'm not entirely convinced of that but the story is

[00:24:29] still at least on on the books an unsolved case we don't know with 100 certainty what

[00:24:36] happened I mean again Richard Cottingham all but confessed to it but you have to take a serial

[00:24:43] killer's like word on that and even though he seems to be willing to confess to it I don't

[00:24:50] know if I believe him either you know for all I know this could be a Henry Lee Lucas secret

[00:24:56] you know so I'm not secret situation so I don't know I mean it you know I don't want

[00:25:03] to again come off as arrogant but if you have information about Jeanette DePalma's final days

[00:25:10] or any information that you think would be crucial to this investigation you can reach out

[00:25:16] to Weird New Jersey Weird NJ.com the magazine has been covering this story again since 1997

[00:25:26] you can reach out to me I can be found on social media at jpolik author it's j-p-o-l-l-a-c-k-a-u-t-h-o-r

[00:25:35] or you can reach out to the police department who knows maybe you know for you know Jeanette's

[00:25:42] family's benefit you'll luck out and actually get a hold of someone that cares about this

[00:25:47] case but unfortunately just in my last you know 12 years alone looking into this story I've become

[00:25:56] very jaded I don't think that the police care anymore but who knows who knows what will happen

[00:26:02] maybe fresh eyes and young blood will get in there and finally something will be done but

[00:26:07] you can reach out to any of those places and hopefully something good will come of it because

[00:26:13] I want to go to my grave knowing that Jeanette's family finally got some answers in this story

[00:26:19] yeah and it also goes without saying I'm saying anyway even if you're not necessarily following

[00:26:25] this particular case going to Weird NJ.com is a good idea anyway it's just one of those

[00:26:34] objectively good ideas Weird New Jersey is a great magazine and it is just so much fun to

[00:26:40] go and see what's what's cropping up on there. Jesse the last question I have for you actually

[00:26:45] is about this turn back towards the unusual and the paranormal which you mentioned we here on

[00:26:54] Crime Capsule as you know we love a good spooky story and we are always in search of the

[00:27:01] latest and the greatest unexplained or bizarre phenomenon so what is bringing you back there?

[00:27:09] Honestly I'm burnt out on true crime. I never really set out to be a true crime writer.

[00:27:16] I started out at Weird New Jersey all the way back in 2001 writing about the paranormal and

[00:27:23] bizarre personalized property in the Garden State ghost stories cryptid sightings UFO encounters

[00:27:31] all that great stuff and like death on the devil's teeth happened because I was going

[00:27:37] through my back issues and saw Mark's I believe the seven page write-up he did was in 2004 and

[00:27:46] that was 2012 when I found that and I was like oh wow eight years have passed someone must have

[00:27:51] written a really good book about this case by now because it is a fascinating and very eerie

[00:27:56] case and it turned out no one had and I couldn't shake thinking about this story so

[00:28:02] I said well if no one else has written a book about this case I guess I'm going to have

[00:28:06] to but I just thought that that would be just like a quick diversion into the world of true

[00:28:11] crime and now I've been doing it for a decade and while I really appreciate your kind words

[00:28:17] about my work and similar feedback I've gotten from people about the compassionate

[00:28:23] and responsible reporting that I've always tried to engage in the world of true crime

[00:28:29] has just become very gross to me it's very voyeuristic now um a lot of podcasts out there

[00:28:35] obviously not this one but there are a lot of podcasts out there that literally just treat these

[00:28:41] murdered individuals as a content farm like got to get my apple podcast numbers up uh you know

[00:28:47] what dead child am I going to talk about this week and pretend that I'm a victim advocate

[00:28:52] you get a lot of stalkers I've gotten death threats for every single book that I've ever

[00:28:57] done and you know there was a period of time when I was younger and I thought that that was

[00:29:01] amusing and it was like a cavalier thing but now I'm getting older and I have a family and

[00:29:07] being in that realm aside from it just being absolutely depressing you know it could be

[00:29:12] dangerous you know I've gotten to the point where I'm now like corresponding with serial

[00:29:16] killers again I've gotten death threats from unhinged people before I've had a few stalkers

[00:29:21] so I think it's just time to hang up my hat you know like Batman until I'm needed again if

[00:29:27] I can actually be of use you know reporting on a true crime case I want to get back to my roots

[00:29:34] and talk about something that's fun and doesn't hurt people I want to get back into the the

[00:29:38] paranormal and the supernatural just because that was what inspired me to become a writer

[00:29:44] and a journalist and you know hopefully I've done some good with my my true crime endeavors

[00:29:50] and I've brought some answers to some grieving families but I never want to become that writer

[00:29:56] that's like surfing Wikipedia or newspapers just be like well let me find like the next murdered

[00:30:03] person that's gonna get me another book deal and make some money I never want to become that

[00:30:08] person because it's you know anyone that says I'm going to become a writer for money is

[00:30:14] that's a fool's errand anyway but you know I don't want to be that guy it's blood money

[00:30:19] to me I've never made a lot of money writing true crime anyway I have a day job like most

[00:30:25] other authors and I just see where pop culture is going with true crime right now and it makes

[00:30:31] me uncomfortable so I'm ready to tap out there is definitely there's definitely you know a

[00:30:38] saturation which leads to you know just a lot of regrettable kinds of behavior and attitudes

[00:30:45] at the extremes because people are always trying to sell and move content and you know that

[00:30:49] sort of thing I think we have to be very careful about that that's one of the reasons

[00:30:52] that you know here on a crime capsule we always prioritize speaking to historians you know I mean

[00:30:59] that is that's our bread and butter and we take it very seriously because we are not trying to

[00:31:04] sensationalize or trying to the exact opposite we're trying to understand something that has

[00:31:08] happened and we take that responsibility very seriously I will say this Jesse I would much

[00:31:14] rather have you be stalked by either the West Virginia Mothman or possibly the Jersey

[00:31:21] Devil or Bigfoot or you know any of those other marvelous cryptids that you get up in kind of the

[00:31:26] Appalachian and Northeastern area you know then anybody that you know wears overalls carries a

[00:31:33] crowbar and likes to whistle you know as they as they sneak up on their next target so like

[00:31:38] yes please stick with the cryptids from now on if it would be a very funny fate too like

[00:31:43] could you imagine if something actually did happen to me while working on a paranormal book

[00:31:50] like what a great like thing to land on the desk of some other hapless journalist true

[00:31:56] crime writer murdered by Bigfoot by a ghost that's a weekly world news shit I love that

[00:32:03] to be my my ultimate fate put that on my tombstone I'd much rather have that than be like

[00:32:09] oh my god you know that true crime writer he got too deep into it and uh yeah some uh some

[00:32:14] fanatical like you know Manson fanboy uh Chapman'd his ass like I don't want that fate

[00:32:21] I've probably sealed it now that I've said that but still we won't wish that it will happen but

[00:32:28] we also won't wish that it won't happen you know and no just let Mothman kill me not these

[00:32:35] true crime dweebs that think the Columbine shooters were cool I'm tired of getting

[00:32:39] messages from those people well if I find a Jesse shaped smoking hole in the tarmac you know

[00:32:48] somewhere off the pine barons and you know like a light scent of sulfur and and um you know

[00:32:57] in the air uh can I please do your eulogy is that cool oh hell yeah no like I don't want to

[00:33:03] be I'd rather be John Keele than uh Danny Casolaro you know what I mean but if that does

[00:33:09] happen to me listeners if anything does take me out it wasn't an accident there you go I have

[00:33:17] nothing to base that on but I just want that on the record just so someone could go well he was

[00:33:21] on crime capsule saying if he died it's not an accident the CIA got him the whole time we've

[00:33:27] been talking I've had that poster in Fox Mulder's office that says the truth is out there

[00:33:34] I enjoyed helping grieving families in the true crime world for a decade now I think it's

[00:33:41] uh for lack of a better term uh it's time to open up a new chapter in my writing career and

[00:33:47] I want to be the Fox Mulder you know I want to be the guy that's traveling America you

[00:33:52] know uh traveling to the United States and I want to be the Fox Mulder you know I want to

[00:33:57] and I want to be the Fox Mulder you know I want to be the guy that's traveling America

[00:34:03] you know uh you know collecting these legends like bubble gum cards like every community has

[00:34:09] a good ghost story every community seems to have a cryptid story every community has a

[00:34:15] you know swell of UFO sightings at one point I find that stuff endlessly fascinating and eerie

[00:34:23] and captivating and fun in a way that I don't feel guilty about because um you know even though

[00:34:30] again I got into true crime journalism to try and I'm not going to be one of these people

[00:34:37] out there and say I'm a victim advocate because I'm not I'm a journalist I am chronicling history

[00:34:43] and I'm hoping it'll help people but I got into that because I was chasing a high of oh my

[00:34:50] god some of these stories are so spooky like I first became interested in true crime because

[00:34:54] my grandfather had this book laying out in his house it was called great unsolved mysteries of

[00:35:01] North America I think it was called and there was a chapter in it about the zodiac killer

[00:35:06] and at 10 years old flipping through that and seeing the threatening letters that he wrote

[00:35:11] to the cops and the cipher and Gray Smith's drawing of the executioner's outfit that scared

[00:35:17] the hell out of me as a kid and I was chasing that high again by reading about these cases

[00:35:24] and now that I'm older and I've spoken with the people that are that are affected by murderers I

[00:35:29] feel guilty for chasing that high for a while even though I did my reporting as responsibly

[00:35:37] and compassionately as possible but again I want to go I want some guilt-free spookiness

[00:35:44] and I think going back to my roots as a guy that talks about the paranormal I think that's

[00:35:49] my logical next step. Jesse when you get on the road we are going to buy your first

[00:35:57] tank of gas and we will do so with joy and with pleasure thank you so much for making

[00:36:03] some time for us to come back on the show and congratulations on all these really exciting

[00:36:09] projects you have lined up for this coming year. Well thank you and anytime you'll have

[00:36:13] me I'm more than happy to come back as I said before you're one of the few true crime podcasts

[00:36:18] out there that aren't just mining for bodies so you can get your listenership up you guys

[00:36:25] report on things responsibly, compassionately as I said before and I really do think that

[00:36:33] if this stuff is going to be talked about you guys are talking about it the way that it should

[00:36:38] be these are real people these are real families whose lives have been affected and if it's going

[00:36:45] to be consumed as pop culture snacks at the very least you guys are out there presenting it

[00:36:52] the way that it should be so for me to come on a show like this it's the honor is all mine

[00:36:57] so thank you so much for having me back. You are too kind we really appreciate it and we will

[00:37:02] absolutely visit with you again down the road for Sid and Nancy, for Paranormal, for anything you

[00:37:08] got coming out super excited for you Jesse thank you so much we will see you soon.

[00:37:13] Thank you take care. Thanks for listening our guest has been Jesse Pollock the co-author

[00:37:21] with Mark Moran of Death on the Devil's Teeth the strange murder that shocked suburban New

[00:37:26] Jersey published by the History Press. To order a copy of the book visit your local independent

[00:37:32] bookstore or visit ArcadiaPublishing.com join us next week as we continue our 100th episode

[00:37:38] anniversary celebration see you then. Thanks as always to our producer Bill Huffman,

[00:37:45] our production director Bridget Coyne, audio engineer Ian Douglas and our executive producers

[00:37:51] Michael DeLoya and Gerardo Orlando. I'm your host Benjamin Morris. Crime Capsule is a production

[00:37:59] of Evergreen Podcasts and a signature title of the Killer Podcasts Network. You can find

[00:38:05] Crime Capsule wherever you listen to podcasts. Discover more great true crime and paranormal

[00:38:12] programming at KillerPodcasts.com. 3am the comedy horror podcast that holds weekly gatherings

[00:38:21] around the campfire. Let me tell you what you're gonna get you're gonna hear stories about demonic

[00:38:25] possessions, prison stabbings, skinwalkers, glitches in the matrix, cult leaders missing 411,

[00:38:32] night marchers, operation paperclip, Mesopotamian devil worship and so many monsters it'll give

[00:38:37] Kanye West a runaway for his money. Pop and meme culture also aren't off topic a camp where

[00:38:43] laughs and scares are constantly competing for first place. We're just a group of friends

[00:38:48] trying to bust each other's balls, find the best stories and expand the circle in the process.

[00:38:53] 3am the comedy horror podcast not for the faint or fragile of heart. Let's go!