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CRABBY COFFEE : TERROR AND TRUE CRIME : Counterterrorism Experts Eric O'Neill And Mike King Talk Breaking News
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- [00:00]
Eric O'Neill
Hey, Garage Logic fans. I do a podcast on the Garage Logic Network that comes out every Wednesday and Friday, now twice a week. But here's an important caveat. There is zero logic available in my show. In the formal definition of logic, of course, life is a yin and yang kind of thing. There's the logic side and then there's the what the hell side, which needs to get its exercise. So come for the what the hell and stay for the you've got to be kidding me. Mishki. Now, Wednesdays and Fridays, twice a week.
- [00:42]
Kenny
J. Coles, we there's, there's evildoers among us. And I it I just get the feeling more and more every day that we as a society are under attack from all angles. And that's the theme of today's show. You've rounded up a couple of really good guests.
- [01:03]
Jay
It's interesting. If you remember, this year started with a terrorist attack in New Orleans on the 1st of January, if I'm not mistaken. And here we are coming to the end of the year, and we have this. And we had, you know, the thwarted attempt in Los Angeles of four terrorists, five terrorists. Now we have the Brown University shooter that's still on the loose. And joining us now kind enough to join us, former FBI agent, counterterrorism expert, now a security cybersecurity expert, Eric o'. Neill. Eric, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us a little bit about the Brown situation. But also I'd like to just explore a little bit toward the end of this where we're at with terrorism in the last couple of years and where we might be headed in 2026 based on your experience. So, Eric, thanks a lot. First question would have to be longtime reporter. I know when you get into day five of not being able to find a mass shooter like this, they're scratching their heads a little bit. What is your take on this? Do you think they know who it is and just haven't found him yet, or is it still a mystery to know who he is just yet?
- [02:13]
Eric O'Neill
Yeah, that's a good point. And first of all, Jay Kenney, it's great to be on the show. Thanks for having me here. Glad to discuss all, all of this. And day five does make it a little difficult, which is why you see law enforcement, and right now there's an interagency task force, which means you have local law enforcement, you have the FBI, you have other federal resources are doing a manhunt. And one of the reasons they're talking to so many people rattling Doors, getting cell phone records that someone might have shot something, ring cameras, any kind of traffic camera, is because they're trying. I think they are trying to identify the person who back in the FBI would have called an unsub, an unknown subject, but right now, a person of interest that they think could be the shooter.
- [02:57]
Jay
Because there's been plenty of stuff, as always, on social media and in mainstream media. One student, for example, his whole social media presence, or not his whole social media presence, his presence on the Brown University website has been scrubbed. I don't know if you've seen that. It led me to believe, well, maybe this is the guy. Maybe they don't want to name him as a suspect. They don't want to alert him that they do know who he is. I mean, what challenges does it present to them right now in trying to figure out who he is and apprehending him or. And the other thing that's interesting, Eric, is so many cameras on that campus that they've admitted to over 800 cameras or something to that effect. And we've only got a couple of images of this guy. This seems to be just a little bit strange how it's unfolding. Would you agree with that, that there's something here that's a little different than others?
- [03:51]
Eric O'Neill
Yeah, well, if you. I mean, our best comparable, and it's sad to say that, because there have been so many of these things, but the most recent shooting was the assassination of Charlie Kirk, where the alleged shooter, who's in custody now, it kind of unfolded the same way. There are images that were presented and then a video that was presented, and then finally a family member convinced the alleged shooter right now who's going to face trial, to turn himself in. This might be the playbook that they're looking at right now. They haven't caught him. They have a person of interest, but it's a guy who's heavyset, about five, eight, who walks with a limp and is wearing a mask and a ski cap. So it's very hard to identify that person. It was a little better in the Charlie Kirk shooting that you could at least see the person's face. So I suspect what they're hoping is that someone recognizes this guy from the video. I mean, even when people are wearing masks and those sort of things, if you know the person, you can kind of recognize them by. I've seen him walk around a million times. I've had a beer with him. That's probably him. And they're hoping that someone will call in a tip and that will lead to identifying the person of interest. And then they can make the arrest, hold them, determine whether this is indeed the person that they're after, and then build their case from there.
- [05:05]
Jay
It appears now they do believe it is a targeted attack. And it's interesting to note the professor teaching that class is a Jewish woman who taught here and in Israel, wasn't teaching class that day. One of the two that was shot and killed was the vice president of the College Republicans on campus. What do you make of this guy's profile? What would this guy's profile be if you had to profile him?
- [05:32]
Eric O'Neill
Well, we don't know a lot about a profile. We can only conjecture that potentially because the teacher was Jewish or there was someone who's a Young Republican, that there might be an ideology basis for it. But you can't really say that until you know more about the actual person. And unfortunately, you don't know anything about the person until you identify them. And right now we just have a heavyset masked guy. So usually that motive, you back into the motive after you make the arrest and identify the person of interest. And it's really hard to speculate until that happens.
- [06:09]
Jay
Witnesses have said, and it's been reported by the media through witnesses, but I don't think any authorities have confirmed it, that he was shouting Allah Akbar when he fired his rounds. Why would that be significant and could it help them identify this guy?
- [06:26]
Eric O'Neill
Well, that would be incredibly significant. I hadn't heard that. I had heard from witness reports that they didn't know what he said. Now, maybe in the initial interviews, they would said that because they didn't want to cross into political lines. And then later with law enforcement, they said, yes, this is actually what he said. That would be very significant if he did say that. We've seen a spate of shootings and killings surrounding antisemitism. That might suggest that while that phrase itself does doesn't, it doesn't mean anything other than God is good or great. It has been used as somewhat of a rallying cry for extremists who pursue an ideology that doesn't really comport with our thought here in the United States.
- [07:12]
Jay
If you were heading up this investigation, how would you do it? How would you find this guy?
- [07:17]
Eric O'Neill
I think that they're doing everything they can do right now at five days out that would suggest that they don't have anything concrete. For example, you would hope that you could track through neighborhood cameras or any of the technology that is available to them, the individual leaving the shooting and getting in a car and then seeing a license plate, that would be ideal. The fact that they haven't rounded them up suggested they haven't found that. So what they're doing is they're relying on someone to help someone to call in a tip and say, I recognize him. I'm pretty sure that's the guy. And then run down those tips and keep running them down until they finally catch him. It seems very likely that he may have gone to ground near the campus. The other comparison might be the shooter who drove across the country to shoot two National Guards people in Washington, D.C. a man and a woman in another sort of assassination attack. And that person, had he had an opportunity to escape, probably would have tried to get all the way home. But this person looks like there was some planning involved, like he was maybe even aware that that building didn't have substantial security. And so he might be a local, which can help them. Because if he is a local, then the more they get that video out, the more it's likely that someone says, I know that guy, or I think I do.
- [08:39]
Kenny
So when you say that, then I think you might have just answered my question. Do you sense that this guy was a professional or an amateur? I think you just answered that, though.
- [08:50]
Eric O'Neill
Well, I think that he might have been an amateur. But that doesn't mean you can't plan right. That doesn't mean you can't take a little time to go decide where you want to attack. And of course, that question is easier to answer once you make the arrest and you go through the person's life and you start establishing motive. You brought up earlier that there might have been some ideology behind it. That's something we find out normally after you make the arrest and you go through the person's email and hard drive, it's. And you learn some of the things that they've written that might have led to this decision to take lives.
- [09:24]
Jay
Is it possible they have an idea who it is and they aren't saying much because they don't want him to know that they know who he is?
- [09:31]
Eric O'Neill
It's possible. So the reason that they wouldn't that if they did know his identity and they didn't want to spook him and have him run. But on the other hand, he is an armed and dangerous assailant. So that means that they want to move in and wrap them up as fast as possible. You know, you're not going to see days between learning the identity and an arrest. It will be moments. And those moments would only be to firm up the facts that this is the person that they're really after.
- [10:06]
Jay
Go ahead, Ken.
- [10:07]
Kenny
Yesterday, a MIT professor was shot at at home in Brookline. And I saw some reckless speculation, maybe thinking that it might be the same shooter. Does that seem plausible to you?
- [10:23]
Eric O'Neill
You never want to go into speculation. You never want to. You know, especially in law enforcement and investigations, you just. You pursue the facts. You don't use the speculation. And unless there is a fact that says that. That there's something that is cooperated between the two, you don't want to dump into speculation because that leads to conspiracy theories and. And more trouble than it's worth.
- [10:44]
Kenny
Yeah.
- [10:45]
Jay
You know, as I mentioned, we started the year off New Year's Day, if my memory serves me right, in New Orleans when the guy drove his car into a bunch of partiers. And here we are. That's right, yeah. Right. Now, here we are at the end of this year, Eric, and you've got Australia, you've got what happened in la where they thwarted a New Year's Eve. That thing would have been, based on what I saw, and the firepower they had with the bombs they were making, there was going to be significant deaths, probably.
- [11:11]
Eric O'Neill
Pipe bombs can be terrifying because of how they explode and the damage that they can do to people and how.
- [11:17]
Jay
Long they were planning. They've been planning this for a while. I mean, they must have had. They must have been able to infiltrate that group. Correct. How were they able to get those aerial shots of them in the desert testing these bombs, without knowing precisely where they were going to be in the desert, doing what they. I kind of sense as a reporter, they must have had either somebody on the inside or somebody on the inside was cooperating with them. Correct.
- [11:46]
Eric O'Neill
So very often with these groups, what happens is somebody has a moment of conscience and rats them out, provides a tip to authorities or becomes an informant the other way that the law enforcement. And look, this is a huge win for law enforcement. This is the kind of stuff we used to do in counter terror when I was operating. And usually you don't tell anybody that it happened. Right. But here, law enforcement was able to discover this terrorist cell, because that's what they are. And it could have been through technological methods. I mean, law enforcement does look for this sort of chatter through social media. And if they were careless, then it's quite possible they came across it in whatever medium that they were using to communicate. And it looks like they were doing a lot of communication and writing because they're learning a lot about the cell by pulling their Records. And once you learn about it, right, if it's something that is a potential to happen, you begin surveillance and you watch the potential terrorists or you watch the cell until they get to a point where that act is moving from planning into an actual kinetic act. And here, what they were doing in the desert was they were about to build the bombs. And at that point, it's not only a threat to potential other people. If they don't move in, those bombs could have gone off and killed the terrorists. So they're always trying to prevent all loss of life. And that was the point to make the arrest.
- [13:20]
Jay
It just feels to me, and maybe this is anecdotal, that the last couple of years it's gotten worse. By worse, I mean more terror attacks, not just in the United States, but across the globe, including the United States. It just feels different to me. It almost feels like it did back in 2001, if you will. And I don't know why I feel that way, but I feel that way. What's your assessment? Are we, the last couple years, seeing more and more of this? Is it kind of like that same feeling of 01? What does that mean for 2026 and moving forward, Worse? What's your take on it, Eric?
- [13:56]
Eric O'Neill
My theory here has been that what's happened is we took a very big world and made it very small. You used to grow up and you knew the people in your neighborhood, and now you might actually know more people all around the world than actually live right down the street from you. So what's happened is people who may never have become extremists because they just never knew anyone else who felt that way are now able to link up with people, no matter where they are in the world, who think like them or are able to. To reach them and exploit them and use them to create what now we call homegrown terrorists or people that are radicalized. And because of the Internet and because of social media, those who want to harm us are able to reach out and affect these people and turn them into terrorists. What's happened is we're online too much. We don't touch grass enough. That leads to the ability to. To create these extremists.
- [14:54]
Kenny
How do they hook up? I'm not seeing these sites on the Internet, exactly. I mean, dark Web, really a thing?
- [15:02]
Jay
Is it the Dark Web?
- [15:03]
Eric O'Neill
Yeah, the Dark Web is a thing. Actually, I wrote a book called Spies Licensed Cybercrime that just came out. My new book goes into the dark web and reveals all of the different criminal, especially the Cyber criminal elements that are using it. But remember, you know, you don't. You can use, for example, a private discord server and criminals do cells like Antifa, right. Who, who need to coordinate before they launch a protest. They use these sort of communication models that allow you to delete the server when you're done and then law enforcement can't see it. So there are any number of ways that now, because of the Internet and the ease of social media, people who never would have talked to each other can communicate and collaborate and push each other into these acts.
- [15:52]
Jay
So it is getting worse.
- [15:55]
Eric O'Neill
I think it is getting worse because these people are able to find each other and push each other. Now we're learning that a lot of the communications from the assassin who allegedly has been captured and Pillsburg trial shot Charlie Kirk, he had a lot of communications with different people. And it's possible that people knew that he was going to do this and didn't report him. So there might be more investigations going on there, but he might have been radicalized online. And that, that is something that happens that didn't happen years ago.
- [16:29]
Kenny
Is the. This is going to sound like I. I've been watching too many spy movies and reading too many books because I have. Is the NSA monitoring everyday communication for certain keywords or is that just something I'm seeing in Jason Bourne movies?
- [16:47]
Eric O'Neill
Well, it depends. If you remember, there was the PRISM program that Edward Snowden revealed and that was scrapped and had to be repurposed. There was a program, and there are programs to monitor for certain keywords, primarily using AI because we want to know if someone starts sending emails or talking about blowing something up. Right. That's a perfect early warning. Not as much as you think, because remember that that requires a lot of manpower and there are many, many people in the United States and you can't monitor at all. Most of these things are foiled. The majority of these terrorist events are foiled because someone has a conscience. Someone, you know, listens to the better angels talking on their shoulder and says, wow, this is going too far. I don't feel comfortable and I'm just gonna anonymously provide a tip and then, and then get out. And that is one of the number one ways that these things fall apart.
- [17:39]
Kenny
Do you think we're in danger of a major terrorist attack? Allah 2001. Is that danger still there?
- [17:48]
Eric O'Neill
I think the biggest danger, and actually I write about this in my book on a chapter that's titled what Keeps Me up at Night. It isn't a kinetic attack as much as A large scale cyber attack and critical infrastructure. And we're just as vulnerable to that from a foreign threat actor like a China and Russia, for example. If I was China and I wanted to invade Taiwan, I'd turn the lights out in the US first, right? Put us into the dark and chaos and then by the time we get the lights back on, they're, they're sitting in there. But, but there are terrorist groups that could use the same exploits. For example, Iran's pretty mad at us. It's possible that they could launch a cyber attack. And those cyber attacks can do just as much damage as those kinetic attacks. And because if you don't have lights and power or water and you can't remove wastewater, people get sick, people die, you got nothing. People can't go to the hospital, people can't get food. Refrigeration is a problem. You can imagine the catastrophic effects.
- [18:44]
Kenny
Yeah, we were going back, I've had this discussion so many times with so many people. We're literally going back to 1900s or earlier, the 1800s, no electricity, no sewer. And water, no fresh water, no sewer, no heat, no ac, no food. Are any of us ready for that?
- [19:06]
Eric O'Neill
And remember, if we, you know, people say, well, that can happen here, but it's already been tested on a global scale. You might recall or you might know that when the Russians first rolled into Ukraine, the first shot that they fired was an email they sent, a spear phishing email, I call it the most damaging email on Earth, that was used to penetrate systems on the easternmost oblasts, the regions in Ukraine. They were able to embed themselves in Ukraine's power grid. And operators literally watched as toggles, the mouse moved by itself and toggled power stations from on to off. And they can do nothing about it. And under cover of night, the Russians rolled in and never had to fire a shot and grabbed Crimea. And then they did it again right ahead of this latest conflict.
- [19:57]
Jay
I didn't recall that. That's pretty frightful.
- [20:03]
Eric O'Neill
When I'm talking about the dangers of these cyber attacks and how big they can be. In my book, I tell the story of how that Ukrainian war started with an email, not a bullet.
- [20:14]
Jay
So. And that's Kenny following up on Kenny's question. One of my last questions to you that I thought of was, hey, what is your biggest fear for the next terrorist attack? Large scale? It sounds like what you're predicting in your book is, and from your experience, we're probably going to see some kind of a major cyber attack on our grid long before Maybe another recreation of a 9 11.
- [20:42]
Eric O'Neill
I think we're more likely to see a large scale cyber attack than another 911 type scenario. That was a pretty unique attack that is very difficult to affect again. And once you have people trying to buy things to blow things up or grab resources for some sort of biological attacks, there's a lot more opportunity for law enforcement to learn about it and foil it. Whereas a cyber attack could be launched from anywhere. These extremists are, and a lot of them are sitting in countries like Iran that has a lot of funding.
- [21:18]
Kenny
I don't like it when the experts agree with my outrageous and sometimes insane conspiracy theories and speculation. I was really hoping that you would shut me down, but now I need to buy a wall. Go ahead.
- [21:33]
Eric O'Neill
Yeah, I don't think we're going to see buildings explode. I don't think it's going to be a large scale thing like that. And look, this has happened a number of times in history. Remember there was attack in the Olympics where a bomb was detonated, the first World Trade center attack. What a lot of people don't realize is that was a bomb detonated in the parking garage. And you know what a lot of people don't realize is that was a lot of luck because the plan there was to put the bomb on a very particular support pylon. They put it in the wrong place. Had they put it in the right place, potentially the one building would have crashed into the other and brought them down. And then of course we have 9 11. So it's not unprecedented. I think just the future right now in everything we're seeing in innovation but also in crime and espionage is cyber. And that's what keeps me up at night.
- [22:24]
Kenny
I think, Jay, I'm going to build a one room cabin, get a wood stove and start chopping wood. It's the only way to survive.
- [22:32]
Jay
It sounds.
- [22:33]
Eric O'Neill
I start the chapter about what keeps me up at night by talking about how I invested in 25 solar panels on my roof just so if power goes out I still have it.
- [22:43]
Kenny
I'm hoarding toilet paper myself.
- [22:46]
Jay
Maybe some extra beer. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Leads me to, you know, Eric, you know, it seems, it can seem so, you know, overwhelming and like how could we even possibly be prepared for what we're not? That's what I mean, are we prepared if we're not? I mean, I do believe what you're saying. Based on your experience, I don't think you're fear mongering that this is gonna probably most Likely happen maybe within the next decade. Are we ready?
- [23:16]
Eric O'Neill
Yeah. The preparation is in building redundancy into our grid. Our grid, the one thing that we do have going for us is sort of the patchwork way that our grid is constructed. I mean, it's publicly owned, privately owned, public private partnerships, corporate interests. Right. It's all over the place. And that makes it a little harder because you have to get a critical mass of different and disparate system. Unlike Ukraine, which is one national power grid. Right. So that makes it a little difficult. But there was a study that showed that if you can take down nine critical substations, you can create a catastrophic collapse across the grid. This is known. So there is work being done to shore it up, to create resilience and redundancy in it. And I think the other thing that we have to do in it as a nation is, and this is something I've been talking about a lot and proposing, is create the same system of deterrence we had for the nuclear conflict in a cyber conflict. So be able to say that if you attack us with a large scale cyber attack on critical infrastructure, that is an act of war and we will retaliate. So you turn our lights off, we're turning your lights off forever. You mess with our water, then we're going to mess with 10 times as bad. And I think that what we might have to do is a demonstration at some point to show that we have that capability. And we do.
- [24:42]
Jay
Last question I have for you, Eric, would be, out of these three countries, Iran, Russia, China, who do we have to worry about the most?
- [24:55]
Eric O'Neill
Well, in terms of sophistication capability, it's definitely China. They are at the top of the espionage and cyber food chain as far as the ability to launch a large scale cyber attack in terms of just complete erratic irrationality, I think Iran.
- [25:14]
Jay
Oh, more so than Russia.
- [25:16]
Eric O'Neill
Can't predict from day to day what they're going to do. And they're a state sponsor of terrorism.
- [25:19]
Jay
Fascinating.
- [25:20]
Kenny
I'd love to sit in a bar with you for about four hours some night, just talking. I've got 5 million questions for you.
- [25:27]
Jay
We just got going and we got.
- [25:28]
Kenny
To end it, but we. We're out of time.
- [25:30]
Eric O'Neill
You can read my book.
- [25:31]
Kenny
Yeah, well, let's.
- [25:32]
Jay
Yeah, plug the book.
- [25:33]
Kenny
Yeah, plug the book, please. And anything else you need to plug, go ahead.
- [25:36]
Eric O'Neill
Yeah, certainly. My book is Spies, Lies and Cybercrime. Just came out in October. So it's brand new. It looks at the current state of cyber espionage and cyber crime and what I did is I went back to my foundation of learning at the FBI Academy at Quantico and how I learned counterintelligence, which is the science of stopping spies. And I show you how to use all that learning to stop cybercriminals from coming after you, all through really fun and thrilling storytelling. It's not a boring cybersecurity book. It reads like a spy novel.
- [26:09]
Kenny
Yeah, I'll be buying that one.
- [26:10]
Jay
I was going to say we're going to take a little break from the podcast over the holidays. Guess what I'm going to read.
- [26:13]
Kenny
Yeah, I know. I know what I'm reading. Eric, thank you so much.
- [26:17]
Eric O'Neill
Let me know when you get it. Let me know what you think. And I'd love to sign it for both of you.
- [26:21]
Jay
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for your time on short notice. Really appreciate it.
- [26:24]
Kenny
Thank you very much.
- [26:25]
Eric O'Neill
Thanks for having me on.
- [26:26]
Kenny
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with Mike King of the podcast Profiling Evil Football.
- [26:33]
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- [29:03]
Jay
All right, we're back. We're doing continuing our deep dive into the world of terrorism, counterterrorism, all the stuff that's been going Evil and now Evil with Mike King, a podcast. He has a podcast, Mike, the name of the podcast. Why don't you give a little plug to your podcast before we start?
- [29:22]
Mike King
Well, the podcast is Profiling Evil. We we've been going for about five and a half years. We look at criminal cases a little different perspective. I try not to get into the sensationalism and talk more about the criminal behavior, the motivation for victim selection, the the way in which these predators seem to get away with what they're doing and a little deeper dive into to why they're motivated to commit crime.
- [29:50]
Jay
And Kenny and I were talking earlier. You looked at the University of Idaho murders, for example, right?
- [29:56]
Mike King
Yeah.
- [29:56]
Jay
Brian Kohberger, what did we learn from when we profile evil out of that particular case?
- [30:04]
Mike King
You know, I think the most important thing that I've learned over the course of my career is that criminals generally are in pursuit of legitimate kinds of needs. The need to have power and control or the need to have in their life or other things. The difference between them and folks like you and me is that we go about it legitimately and they pursue those same kinds of desires illegitimately. So we might be willing to work on our own personality to figure out why someone that we're trying to date doesn't like us and change our behavior and evolve and become better at what we do. Where the predator is only concerned about one thing. They're concerned about themselves. They're concerned about satisfying whatever that drive is, whether it's carnal in nature, power, whatever the case may be. And they're going to get it one way or another, come heck or high water, and nothing's going to stop it. So that's really the difference between a Brian Kohberger and you and me, who might be frustrated, but we figure out how to deal with life.
- [31:14]
Jay
So Kohlberg is very similar then to the Charlie Kirk, the alleged Charlie Kirk murderer. The same, Same kind of profile or are they unique? You know what I mean? How do you distinguish between those?
- [31:27]
Mike King
Yeah, I don't know that I'd put them in the same bucket, Kenny, because you look at a co burger and you have to start taking into account kind of the process of becoming co burger, the infatuation and the desire to know more about criminal justice, to look at serial predators. And there's a weird thing that happens amongst serial predators. It's more about legacy, and it's more about being the best serial killer out there or the best mass murderer out there.
- [32:01]
Kenny
Wow.
- [32:02]
Mike King
So imagine having a life that's so mundane that for you, the idea of getting a legacy by murdering people is something that somehow makes sense to you.
- [32:14]
Kenny
The one that I have, I've kind of lumped these two people into the same group. And I know you've done a bunch of podcasts on the Charlie Kirk shooter and some of the things about him and his personal background reminds me of we had a shooting here in the Twin Cities last fall at Annunciation, a Catholic school. And they seemed to me like they had the same sort of background in respect to transitioning, sexual transitioning. Did you find anything like that? Is that valid?
- [32:52]
Mike King
Well, you know, I don't know your case that's happened there in the Minneapolis area. But the thing that's interesting about that question is that sometimes we do see this. It's. It's someone acting in response to maybe a position that was taken by the victim in the case on something like same sex attraction or transitioning or even, you know, if we, if we run over to LA right now and we talk about Meathead getting killed, the tragedy around what was going on there initially, people are saying, well, he's been a little controversial. Is it possible that he was a target because of some of the things that he said on his political platform? Right. Versus now? We're, we're learning that. No, it was much more intimate.
- [33:43]
Kenny
The one thing about the annunciation thing that really surprised me the most is he had a big, long written what we call a manifesto. And in the manifesto, he kind of revealed to us why he did it and actually kind of offered advice to others. He said the transitioning part and the using of drugs, in his case, it was just marijuana. I shouldn't say just. It was marijuana. And he advised people to not get involved with those two things. And he really showed remorse in his manifesto before he went and did the killing. But he did it anyway. I mean, he apologized to his family and his mom, and then he knew what he was doing. He knew it was wrong, but then he went out and did it anyway, and then he took his own life. I don't know if that was a question or not, you know.
- [34:39]
Mike King
Yeah, I don't know, maybe Jake and could translate that for me. But the idea here is that these predators, we look at it and we say, this doesn't make sense to me. And yet I remember when I was. When I was looking at the Unabomber case, and I was talking to a guy named Dr. Fred Cowie up in Montana, who is probably one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. And at one point he looked at me and he said, it doesn't make sense to us, but it makes perfect sense to them. And that's the. That's the real challenge in the chess match that we face when we're looking at these cases is figuring out what the motivation is. Because usually when something happens, like right now with Brown, the first question is the who done it? And in reality, what we ought to be asking is, who's the victim? And why did they end up being a victim? Because once we know that, we can look at these possible pools of suspects and start to pick out the people that we think, oh, no, this is a little too intimate. This. This really makes me think that Rob Reiner might have been murdered by somebody closer to him than somebody who was just angry and happened to get into his house.
- [35:50]
Jay
Why is it important to profile all this and understand it better? Because you can't. I mean, I hate to say it, it's pretty obvious we can't stop it. It's going to continue. Right.
- [36:03]
Kenny
Or can we?
- [36:03]
Jay
Or can you? I mean, I wonder about that. Can we?
- [36:07]
Mike King
Yeah. You know, Tom Cruise may have had it made when he figured out that movie where he was predicting where people were going to commit crime and then he was going out and. And I don't know that we'll ever hit that point. But the tragedy of all of this is that we do see the red flags popping up, and yet we ignore those red flags. We hear it a lot when we hear things like in dating, violence or something, where somebody said, I started seeing the red flag, or my gut was telling me I should break up with this guy. But then it escalated to this point, and so there's a piece of us that actually knows. And whether for people that are spiritual, they say, no, it's something inside the spirit whispering to me. For others, it's just good old common sense that says, hey, if I walk out of a building at 2 o' clock in the morning and I'm drunk and staggering and the place is full of guys that. That potentially could rob me, my risk is going up.
- [37:03]
Kenny
Yeah, yeah. You've done a lot of podcasts about Charlie Kirk, the shooter that killed Charlie Kirk. Is there anything that authorities or family or friends could have done to prevent that, to stop it before it got to that point?
- [37:19]
Mike King
You know, we are so good in hindsight at figuring out where the problems are, and we're so bad at being loving caretakers of the people around us. So I guess the way I would answer this question is absolutely, if somebody would have stepped up along the way, if they were, maybe the friend that we're hearing about that we. I really don't know the. The extent that that friend was involved. That said, man, I could see he was starting to escalate. Or maybe it's. It's somebody in the transgender community who says, I could see him starting to point fingers and say, we got to right this wrong that's going on. But at what point do you step up? And I guess I go to a lot of cases where we see an individual later arrested, and people say, oh, man, I knew it. Or think about domestic violence. Kinds of cases where the kids said after the fact, hey, I knew all along that guy was a bum. And they're thinking, well, why didn't you tell me earlier? You know?
- [38:20]
Jay
You know, as a reporter, I had several stories I was working on at once, and then I would move on to the next set. And there's always something that sticks with you. There's always that one story that you're onto that you can't just get out of your head. You wake up thinking about it, you know, go to bed thinking about it. You don't have those all the time, but when you get them, you know what they are. Right. So I'm curious after all of Your experience. What's the one case that is still sticking with you or that right now you can't get out of your head? What stands out as the most significant one that consumed you and why?
- [38:57]
Mike King
You know, one that I chew on a lot is the disappearance of Summer Wells in Tennessee. And if you followed that case at all, it's a little five year old girl living in a family in rural Tennessee and she's living a pretty risky childhood anyway. I mean they're playing in the woods and swimming in the creek but all of a sudden one afternoon she disappears off the face of the planet. And everybody says number one, the who done it was there. The guy in the tren coat driving by that picked her up on the side of a road and, and hauled her off and she's being trafficked or she's, she's deceased or something like that. Then, then you have this other bucket that says nah, child. You're going to look at more intimate kinds of relationships. Did the parents have something to do with this? And you see the parents came under intense focus. I don't know that they've ever been officially cleared of anything. But they say did the parents do something and then hide this child away? And then I have to go to the thing of the personality of the child. Very adventurous, tough going little kid. Is it possible she wandered into the woods and those woods are thick and did she have an accident? And you know, if she fell into a crick and was now covered by silt over as the years have passed by, you may never find them. And so you have to really be careful when you're investigating as a true crime enthusiast or as an investigator. These kinds of cases that you don't reference the previous case that you did and think this is going to be the same. I always think of that old saying of he who is good with a hammer thinks everything is a nail. Well, just because the last crime you solved happened this way doesn't mean the next one is going to. So you got to go into each one of them completely wide open and you got to let the facts unfold and help you develop some theories.
- [41:00]
Kenny
We had two very fair. We have two very famous cases in our area. One was the case of a young boy disappearing of boy. When did Jacob Wetterling disappear, jay?
- [41:10]
Jay
That was 88, 89, somewhere in there.
- [41:13]
Kenny
Long time ago.
- [41:14]
Mike King
I know Patty. Yeah, I know that case very well. In fact, back before retiring I did a lot of work with the national center for Missing and Exploited Children. And Patty was very active in Those days. Terrible case.
- [41:29]
Kenny
Yeah. And that was finally solved, unfortunately. It was a horrible ending to Jacob's life. And then the other one is a gal named Jody or. Yeah, Jody, who's in true.
- [41:40]
Mike King
Yeah.
- [41:41]
Kenny
A Minnesota gal that was a news anchor in Iowa and she disappeared from the parking lot.
- [41:47]
Mike King
Jay.
- [41:47]
Eric O'Neill
Of the.
- [41:48]
Kenny
Of the news station.
- [41:49]
Jay
Her apartment.
- [41:50]
Kenny
Of her apartment before. And they missed. I think she was doing a morning show there and never showed up and no sign of her since. And that has to be 20 years old by now, doesn't it, Jay?
- [42:00]
Jay
Yeah, that's at least 30 years old for the 90s.
- [42:03]
Kenny
Yeah.
- [42:03]
Jay
92, 93, 94. Somewhere right in there. It's like 30 years old. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, it's 25 or 30 years old. It's right up there.
- [42:11]
Eric O'Neill
95.
- [42:11]
Mike King
Yeah.
- [42:11]
Kenny
So 30 years ago in the case of her. I mean, she's probably gone, right? She's been dead forever, hasn't she? Is that something?
- [42:21]
Mike King
There's a reward for info on her.
- [42:23]
Eric O'Neill
That came out two days ago, went up to $100,000.
- [42:26]
Mike King
So the reward was raised to.
- [42:29]
Eric O'Neill
So the case is still ongoing.
- [42:30]
Jay
It's still ongoing in acting, but I think most now assume. Assume it's in Winstead.
- [42:37]
Eric O'Neill
That's where the investigation apparently is continuing.
- [42:40]
Jay
Yep, yep.
- [42:43]
Mike King
We have to hold out hope, don't we? I mean, just in the news the last couple of days, we've seen this girl who's now 40 years later being reunited with her father and she was long since considered deceased and gone. I think of in my own city, Elizabeth Smart, who nine months later is recovered and brought back home. So you kind of hold out hope, but the realities of it are that time's going to pass. And you know, I remember when I was first married 48 years ago, we had a little dog named Reggie. And one day in a lightning storm, that dog ran away. And do you know, to this day I'm still looking for Reggie when I see a dog that kind of looks like him on a street corner. Could you imagine being a parent? I know, trying to find that eight year old kid you missed.
- [43:35]
Kenny
Oh, yeah, no, that's eight years.
- [43:38]
Jay
When I was eight years old, my great grandfather, at the time, we called him Bestafar, he was an immigrant from Denmark, 96 years old, sharp as a tag, living on his own, you know, and he disappeared when I was 8 and they never found him. They believe he was murdered. But you know, you. I can remember the family for years as I got into my teens and twenties, you know, my Grandparents, my aunts, uncles, my mom, nobody got over that. And that not knowing, even though it wasn't a child, is still family member, that was as a young boy, I can remember that gripping the entire family. Really troublesome, you know when you never know and he never surfaced again, so.
- [44:19]
Mike King
And how many decades later now and you're still thinking, I wonder where he's ended up.
- [44:24]
Jay
You know what, Mike? How many times I've thought about going down to Racine, Wisconsin where I grew up and going down to the police department. As now a retired reporter saying, you got a case File Possibly that's 60 years old. Is it possible was a missing person? I don't know if they would still have those records, but I would like to almost start tracking. I even thought that might make a good segment for our podcast. You know what happened to Bestafar, my great grandfather?
- [44:47]
Mike King
Hey Jay, please do it, do it.
- [44:50]
Jay
But what if they don't have a file on him, Mike?
- [44:53]
Mike King
Then have you lost out at all? You then know and maybe they'll dig something up. And I'm going to tell you quickly, I have a book called she Knew no Fear that's out there. It's the murder of my great great grandmother in 1891. I heard about it my whole life. My grandfather told me about it. I remember when I was retiring, I thought, holy cow. I spent my entire career looking at serial predators and homicide cases. I ought to look into her death. And 120 years later I found the arrest warrant for the person committed that they believed committed that crime. And after 120 years in that book solved her murder. So go for it, Jay. What's the worst that happens?
- [45:42]
Jay
You know, you just gave me the encouragement I needed. I think I'm gonna go to the Racine police department and hopefully they've got a file because he disappeared. I can tell you when he disappeared. October 25, 1968. I can remember the date. I was eight years old. I had a relationship with him. I can remember him like yesterday. I just thought 1968, Mike, 96 year old guy. They didn't care, right? They probably didn't care and maybe got rid of the file. But you think I should go down and see if there's a shred of anything and go from there?
- [46:17]
Mike King
Absolutely. And you should dig into every record you can find and at least go to sleep at night knowing you gave it a shot. Because what's the worst that happens? You end up right where you are now. And the best might be that you actually go back and you solve an old mystery, or. I mean, how cool would that be?
- [46:36]
Kenny
He uncovers evidence that didn't want to be uncovered, and he finds himself in the same spot as your uncle.
- [46:45]
Jay
As my great grandfather.
- [46:46]
Kenny
Yeah.
- [46:47]
Jay
Yeah.
- [46:47]
Mike King
I mean, you'd be buried with family, right?
- [46:50]
Kenny
Yeah, right there in Lake Michigan.
- [46:51]
Jay
You know, I have one. That's the other thing. My aunts, my uncles, so many have passed now, Mike. But I did track down my great aunt in Florida who had some recollections of the day that he disappeared. And there were some recollections I had forgotten about, about his last movements. You know, they knew he would walk to the candy store to get his anise candy. And there was a couple of bars along the way because he was Danish and he'd like to have his boilermaker. That was simply a beer and a shot of brandy. And he had done that. And he was on his way home, and he was about a block from his apartment, and he never made it. And they remember the candy store vendor, the woman who owned the candy store, said he was in here, and then he was going to continue another block or two to his apartment. And that's. I do know that timeframe is when he disappeared. I have some nuggets, is what I'm trying to tell you. But, boy, if I could get. If there's a police file that still exists 60 years later, almost 60 years later, maybe we could find best of our.
- [47:47]
Kenny
I don't know. I don't know. I think we have the making of a buddy movie here. You two, Mike and Jay. I could see you driving around in an old retired police cruiser digging up stuff that doesn't want to be dug up.
- [48:01]
Jay
I think Mike could do a better job at it than me. And Mike just gave away his location. Mike, did you just. Did you live in Salt Lake City by chance?
- [48:08]
Mike King
I. I live just north of Salt Lake, yeah.
- [48:10]
Eric O'Neill
Where?
- [48:10]
Mike King
Where? Just a few minutes north. In Ogden.
- [48:13]
Jay
Ogden. Okay.
- [48:14]
Kenny
I know Ogden well.
- [48:15]
Jay
Ogden. I used to go Snowbird. I used to go skiing all the time at Snowbird. Guess where I used to work in television?
- [48:19]
Mike King
Snow Basin.
- [48:21]
Jay
Did they change the name?
- [48:23]
Mike King
No. Snowbirds in Salt Lake.
- [48:25]
Jay
In Salt Lake?
- [48:26]
Mike King
No.
- [48:26]
Jay
What's the one that's up in Ogden? That's. No. Is it snow? There's another one, isn't there?
- [48:29]
Mike King
Snow Basin. The Powder Mountain.
- [48:30]
Jay
Powder Mountain.
- [48:31]
Mike King
Nordic Valley.
- [48:32]
Jay
Powder Mountain is where I used to go. Powder Mountain. But anyhow, guess where I used to work as a television news reporter. Now that we're off track. So I worked at channel two and channel five back in the.
- [48:41]
Mike King
No.
- [48:42]
Jay
Yeah, back in the 80s, back from 84 to 92, I was in Salt Lake City as a reporter.
- [48:47]
Kenny
Mike, is there any chance you arrested Jay a long, long time ago.
- [48:52]
Mike King
It's all coming back now. It's all coming back.
- [48:57]
Jay
There is a good chance you did.
- [48:59]
Kenny
I know enough about Utah that when I go through there, I am well behaved.
- [49:03]
Jay
Yes, well behaved. But I thought it was interest when he gave his location away as Utah. And I'm like, yeah, for eight and a half, nine years I. I worked at Channel 5 for eight of those and then one year at KUTV before I came out here. Y.
- [49:18]
Mike King
Okay, well, so th. Those were all years I was still kicking around on the street as a cop. So I.
- [49:25]
Jay
We probably crossed paths and didn't even know. I mean, I was there for the. Hoffman. Remember when Mark Hoffman blew up the.
- [49:32]
Mike King
I do. In fact, Mark Hoffman is just a little side note. Mark Hoffman is now rooming with Dan Lafferty, if you remember the laughter. Yeah, yeah. And. And his brother, Ron Lafferty. Kenny is. Has since died in prison. But, but Dan, they. They were religious zealots who ended up murdering a 14 month old baby and her mother. And I spent literally hundreds and hundreds of hours in interviews with Lafferty. He sent me a note at Christmas last year.
- [50:03]
Jay
Really?
- [50:04]
Mike King
Said he's rooming with Hoffman. So you're kidding. This is the crazy world we live.
- [50:10]
Jay
You communicate on a regular basis with one of the Lafferty bros. This is crazy. Oh, okay, let's take a look. I love. I like this, Mike. Okay, for those who don't know, there's been documentaries made. I think a movie made on the. Lafferty is a book that was written by the.
- [50:23]
Mike King
He was a forger. Right? Hoffman.
- [50:25]
Jay
No, Hoffman was the forger.
- [50:27]
Mike King
Right.
- [50:27]
Jay
That was starting to blow up all.
- [50:30]
Mike King
Yeah.
- [50:30]
Jay
What do you.
- [50:31]
Mike King
And this is crazy. This, this was a Christmas gift from. From Dan Lafferty. You're kidding. With a letter. And then this. That he drew in prison.
- [50:44]
Jay
This is crazy.
- [50:47]
Mike King
If you notice down there in the bottom, it says.
- [50:49]
Jay
What does it say? I can see it. I can't read it.
- [50:55]
Mike King
The moon will shine from noon till nine. And wow. That is wow. Reference to. I had Dan Lafferty in a state owned airplane fly in him to. To speak to 500 police investigators in Phoenix, Arizona. And as we were flying along, I was asking him how he finally made sense of needing to kill. And he shared a revelation that included the phrase. The phrase the moon will shine from noon till 9. And we had this big, massive investigator in the back guarding him. His nickname was Grizzly. And Kenny, I think he's kind of built like you. He's just this massive human being.
- [51:44]
Jay
And Kenny flexes a lot. Yeah.
- [51:47]
Mike King
Dan pointed up at the. The sky, and the moon was out in the middle of the day. And he quoted that. That. And the investigator leaned forward and he said, if you do anything, I'll kill you on the spot. Wow.
- [52:02]
Kenny
Oh, wow.
- [52:03]
Jay
Well, the Lafferty bros, if I'm not mistaken. Didn't Jon Krakauer write a book about the Lafferty brothers? Yeah.
- [52:09]
Mike King
Under the Banner of Heaven.
- [52:10]
Jay
Yeah. These guys. These guys are notorious. And here it turns out you're a Pentagon.
- [52:16]
Mike King
I've eaten a lot of prison lasagna with Dan Lafferty over the years.
- [52:20]
Jay
That is remarkable to me. That is fascinating. I could do a whole show with you on that.
- [52:25]
Kenny
You know, I've never heard the term prison lasagna before. That sounds like a song on a Tom Waits album.
- [52:33]
Jay
But next. Now, next. Now. Can you get in to talk to Mark Hoffman? Are you going to get in with Hoffman now that you're in with Lafferty?
- [52:41]
Mike King
You know, I have no desire. The investigators that handled that case were people that I worked with in the Attorney General's office after they retired from the Salt Lake Police Department. And. And, you know, Lafferty is always saying, do you want to talk to them? Or whatever. But I focus pretty much on. On people that I can get real ideas about what motivated their crime, why they selected victims in the way that they did. And some. Some are better at it than others. So.
- [53:16]
Jay
Man, that's fascinating.
- [53:17]
Kenny
Well, this has been fun, Mike.
- [53:18]
Jay
Yeah, Fun, Mike. Thanks.
- [53:20]
Kenny
Promote your podcast. Mention your podcast again, where and where that.
- [53:26]
Mike King
So the podcast weekly on YouTube is profiling evil. So just at sign Profiling Evil, we'll get you Facebook, Instagram, all that. All that malarkey. And then Gamut also is hosting Profiling Evil. So you can get all of our stuff in audio form as well as is additional interviews that we've done. And I'm really excited to announce that while you were working, Jay, in Utah, there was a large cult that was broken up. It was an investigation I did called the Zion Society. Yep.
- [54:01]
Jay
Remember?
- [54:01]
Mike King
Yeah. And this. This was a cult that was abusing children and adults. We, over the course of the investigation, cataloged in excess of 4,000 sexual assaults against children. Twelve people went to prison. And after 30 years, the victims in the case reached out to me. We ended up doing a Dr. Phil show. Dr. Phil said I was writing a book, which led to me writing a book. I had no intention of it at that point. I don't know where he came up with that, but it did force my hand. And we are launching February 3rd the podcast about that show. It will include the victims voices now I like to refer to as survivors. Police officers who were involved in the investigation, prosecutors. And it will be a. It will be season five of American Nightmare called Gardens of Evil Inside the Zion society cult. Drops February 3rd. Would love everybody to sign up for it.
- [55:05]
Jay
Cool.
- [55:06]
Kenny
Fantastic.
- [55:07]
Jay
This has been so good, Mike. You know, the one crime in Utah that still freaks me out to this day is the. I think. I think it was called the hi Fi murderers. Is that what we called them?
- [55:15]
Mike King
You know, if you. If. If Jay. If you go to my website or to profiling evil on YouTube, you got that. Just put in the hi Fi murders. I will. I did just last year. I took the officer that was in charge of that investigation, Don Moore. And Don and I went into the basement and really filmed down inside the basement last year. Kind of a revisit of that entire case. And for Don, you know, It's. It's been 50 years. It was a great way for him to kind of wrap it up. And he was my SWAT commander when I was a young officer.
- [55:51]
Jay
That is crazy. That. That disturbed me. You know, as reporters, we're like you. We see a lot over the years. Right. Cover a lot.
- [55:59]
Mike King
Yeah.
- [55:59]
Jay
That murder. I've never forgotten the hi Fi murders. That was so unbelievably awful. Can't believe you're in that house. Yeah. The worst I've ever. Yeah, it's. Ah, man. Well, anyhow, nice to have met you.
- [56:12]
Mike King
Yeah. Thank you, guys. Thank you so much.
- [56:15]
Kenny
All right, we'll take a quick break and be right back to wrap it up. I think you have a new boyfriend, Mike.
- [56:25]
Jay
Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah. You could get the bromance from.
- [56:29]
Kenny
Yeah. You guys are going to be burning up the phone lines.
- [56:31]
Jay
Feel the heat.
- [56:32]
Kenny
Okay. Yeah, we're going to take a couple of weeks off.
- [56:35]
Jay
Yes.
- [56:36]
Kenny
And we're hoping to do a show on the road. We'll see if that turns out good or.
- [56:41]
Jay
And we'll just keep it as the mystery trip right now.
- [56:42]
Kenny
Yeah, yeah. Mystery trip. All right. And we'll see everybody else in the new year. Thank you for listening to the crabby coffee shop.
- [56:49]
Jay
See y' all later.
- [56:54]
Kenny
All right, we gotta duck out. Chris has got some stuff to do.
- [56:57]
Mike King
Yep.
- [56:57]
Jay
Thanks, Kenny.
- [56:58]
Eric O'Neill
Have a merry Christmas.
- [56:59]
Jay
And we'll see you in studio in a few weeks.
- [57:01]
Kenny
All right?
- [57:01]
Mike King
All right.
- [57:01]
Eric O'Neill
Bye.
- [57:02]
Jay
See you, boys. Posts, tweets. Hasta briste grupos de las redes iten forecast. En lograr tu menta querezada yoi despestianos de pedirlo.
- [57:24]
Kenny
Volvio el snack wrap, ordinalo and ranch or spicy.
- [57:28]
Jay
See in Quintra two snack wrap and two McDonald's favorito.