Exploring Murderland: A Conversation About Ted Bundy, Serial Killers, and Other Crimes in the Pacific Northwest with Author Caroline Fraser

Summary

Murder Sheet Podcast Summary

Episode Title: Exploring Murderland: A Conversation About Ted Bundy, Serial Killers, and Other Crimes in the Pacific Northwest with Author Caroline Fraser
Release Date: August 14, 2025
Hosts: Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee
Guest: Caroline Fraser, Author of Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers

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1. Introduction and Guest Welcome (01:35 - 04:20)

The episode kicks off with hosts Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee introducing their guest, Caroline Fraser, a seasoned author with a background in environmental history and nonfiction writing. Fraser shares her journey from working at The New Yorker to authoring books like Prairie Fires, a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, before delving into her latest work, Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers.

Notable Quote:

Caroline Fraser [04:36]: “And one of the things is kind of environmental history, and that's something that occurs in Murderland, but was also a factor in Prairie Fires.”

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2. The Pacific Northwest: A Hotbed for Serial Killers (04:21 - 08:39)

Fraser discusses the Pacific Northwest (PNW), a region comprising northern California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and even extending into British Columbia and Alaska. She highlights the area's notoriety for producing several high-profile serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway, and Israel Keyes, alongside lesser-known offenders like Warren Leslie Forrest and Robert Lee Yates.

Notable Quote:

Áine Cain [02:22]: “Is it true that the Pacific Northwest produces more serial killers? Or that it used to? If so, why?”

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3. Linking Environmental Degradation to Violent Crime (08:40 - 14:30)

Fraser introduces her central thesis: the correlation between environmental degradation, specifically lead and arsenic pollution, and the rise in violent crimes in the PNW during the 70s and 80s. By examining the proximity of serial killers like Bundy and Ridgeway to heavily polluting smelters in Tacoma, she posits that toxic exposure may have influenced their violent tendencies.

Notable Quote:

Caroline Fraser [09:00]: “I wanted to delve into why there were so many serial killers in the Northwest and how environmental factors like the smelter in Tacoma might have contributed to their violent behavior.”

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4. The Modus Operandi of PNW Serial Killers (14:31 - 31:58)

Fraser explores common patterns among PNW serial killers, noting their preference for isolating victims in remote wilderness areas—a trait shared by Bundy, the Green River Killer, and Dennis Rader (BTK). She discusses how this method reflects a primitive desire to exert control and inflict prolonged suffering, contrasting with other killers like Gerald Friend, who used different methods to abduct and kill victims.

Notable Quote:

Caroline Fraser [29:57]: “There's a rapist I talk about named Gerald Friend, who would take young girls into the wilderness to torture and kill them. It's a strange phenomenon.”

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5. The Impact of Lead Exposure on Aggression and Crime Rates (31:59 - 38:39)

Delving deeper, Fraser presents scientific evidence linking childhood lead exposure to impaired brain development, increased aggression, and higher propensity for violent behavior. She cites studies indicating that between 20% to 50% of the rise in violent crime during the 70s and 80s could be attributed to lead poisoning.

Notable Quote:

Caroline Fraser [36:07]: “Scientists now suggest that between 20 to 50% of the rise in the rate of violent crime in the 70s and 80s may be attributable to lead.”

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6. Corporate Responsibility and Environmental Hazards as "Serial Killers" (38:40 - 53:49)

Fraser metaphorically labels polluting corporations and faulty infrastructure as "serial killers," emphasizing their stealthy yet devastating impact on public health. She discusses the Tacoma smelter's extensive lead and arsenic emissions and the floating bridge's design flaws in Mercer Island, drawing parallels between these environmental hazards and the literal serial killings in the area.

Notable Quote:

Caroline Fraser [46:46]: “The smelter and the floating bridge were like serial killers in our midst, silently harming the community while authorities felt powerless to act.”

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7. Ongoing Environmental Challenges and Future Implications (53:50 - 61:18)

Fraser warns that despite the phasing out of leaded gasoline and the closure of primary smelters, secondary pollution sources like recycling plants continue to pose health risks. She highlights contemporary issues such as microplastics and particulate pollution, which may have long-term effects on mental health and societal well-being.

Notable Quote:

Caroline Fraser [56:08]: “We're still struggling to find ways to get lead out of our environment, and now we're facing new pollutants that could be making us all a lot crazier.”

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8. The Decline of Serial Killers and Shifting Crime Patterns (61:19 - 67:35)

Fraser observes a significant decline in the number of active serial killers post the removal of lead from the environment. She contrasts the past surge with the present, where mass shootings have become more prominent due to easier access to firearms, yet overall violent crime rates have decreased.

Notable Quote:

Caroline Fraser [65:42]: “We changed something pretty important beginning in the mid-90s, which is we removed a huge amount of lead from the environment. And I think we're seeing the results of that.”

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9. Conclusion and Call to Action (67:36 - End)

In her closing remarks, Fraser urges listeners to consider the profound impact of environmental policies and corporate accountability on public safety and health. She emphasizes the need for systemic changes to prevent future environmental and societal harm, advocating for proactive measures rather than reactive litigation.

Notable Quote:

Caroline Fraser [66:03]: “We need to think about a system that is not just based on people getting sick after they're exposed to things and then suing the company. We need to put the onus on the company from the beginning.”

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Final Thoughts

Caroline Fraser's insights provide a comprehensive exploration of how environmental factors intertwine with the emergence of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest. Her book, Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, offers a multifaceted analysis that transcends traditional crime narratives, linking ecological degradation to human violence. For listeners interested in the intersection of true crime and environmental history, Fraser's work is a compelling read.

Recommendation:
Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers is available for purchase wherever books are sold. For more information and resources discussed in the episode, refer to the show notes.

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Notable Quotes Summary:

1. Caroline Fraser [04:36]: “And one of the things is kind of environmental history, and that's something that occurs in Murderland...”
2. Áine Cain [02:22]: “Is it true that the Pacific Northwest produces more serial killers? Or that it used to? If so, why?”
3. Caroline Fraser [09:00]: “I wanted to delve into why there were so many serial killers in the Northwest...”
4. Caroline Fraser [29:57]: “There's a rapist I talk about named Gerald Friend...”
5. Caroline Fraser [36:07]: “Scientists now suggest that between 20 to 50% of the rise in the rate of violent crime in the 70s and 80s may be attributable to lead.”
6. Caroline Fraser [46:46]: “The smelter and the floating bridge were like serial killers in our midst...”
7. Caroline Fraser [56:08]: “We're still struggling to find ways to get lead out of our environment...”
8. Caroline Fraser [65:42]: “We changed something pretty important beginning in the mid-90s...”
9. Caroline Fraser [66:03]: “We need to think about a system that is not just based on people getting sick after they're exposed to things...”

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This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of the "Murder Sheet" episode, providing listeners with a comprehensive overview of the discussions surrounding serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and the environmental factors that may have contributed to their rise.

Transcript

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[Anya Cain]

Quick what part of the United States comes to mind when I say the following phrase Serial killers? For a lot of you, the answer may be the Pacific Northwest.

[Kevin Greenlee]

The Pacific Northwest is a vaguely defined region that can include the north of California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington in the United States, and even British Columbia in Canada. Some people even throw in Alaska.

[Anya Cain]

It's an area that's become associated with serial killers. There's the ones you probably have heard about. Randall Woodfield, Gary Ridgeway, Ted Bundy, Israel Keyes. And then there's the ones you may not know about the lesser known serial murderers and serial rapists of the region. Warren Leslie Forrest, Robert Lee Yates, Gerald.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Friend So is it true that the Pacific Northwest produces more serial killers? Or that it used to? If so, why?

[Anya Cain]

Author Caroline Fraser sought to answer those questions in her new book, Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers. We read it with Interest and were thrilled to get the chance to interview Caroline on the show. In this episode, we talk a lot about Bundy and the horde of serial killers running amok in the Pacific Northwest in the relatively recent past, as well as the environmental degradation of that area that may have contributed to the rise in violent crime. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[Anya Cain]

And this is the Murder Sheet.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.

[Anya Cain]

And this is Exploring Murderland, a conversation about Ted Bundy, serial killers and other crimes in the Pacific Northwest, with author Caroline Frazier. Sam. So, first of all, Caroline, we just wanna say thank you so much for joining us on the Murder Sheet today. Thank you for taking the time.

[Caroline Fraser]

Oh, well, thanks for having me. Glad to be here, I guess.

[Anya Cain]

So we're gonna be talking about your book, Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, which was a great read. We both really enjoyed reading it. And before we get into that, I was just wondering if you could tell our listeners a bit about yourself, a bit about your professional background. Sort of just introduce yourself.

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, I'm from the Pacific Northwest. I grew up there and then left to go to school. I worked at the New Yorker magazine for a while after graduate school. And then inspired by a lot of the writers at the New Yorker, I started getting into nonfiction and wrote my first book about the Christian Science Church, which I was raised in. And that's something that comes up a few times in Murderland. And then I've gone on to write several books. The one that's probably best known is my previous book, Prairie Fires, which is a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. So it may seem like I've taken kind of a big leap into the unknown with Murderland, but there actually are some similarities between some of the books that I've written, although they're all kind of different genres. And one of the things is kind of environmental history, and that's something that occur, you know, comes up in Murderland, but was also kind of a factor in Prairie Fires.

[Anya Cain]

Absolutely. And I do wanna ask you, just for listeners who may not be familiar with the Pacific Northwest, I mean, that's a region, I confess, I've always wanted to visit. But I think I basically had a layover in Seattle once, and that's probably the extent of it. So, you know, culturally, what is it like there? I mean, it's obviously a big region, different you know, Tacoma versus Seattle is going to be different. Oregon versus Washington. But how would you describe it, having grown up there and being familiar with that culture?

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, the. The Northwest has changed really radically over the last. You know, over my lifetime, because when I was growing up there in the 60s and 70s, it was really kind of a backwater. You know, I. It wasn't as important a city, culturally, Seattle, as San Francisco or Los Angeles. And so it always had the feeling of something that was a city that was kind of striving to be more than it was. And economically, it was really tied to a couple of industries, one of which was Boeing, because, of course, Boeing was headquartered there, and they were building planes there. And the other industry was lumber, you know, warehouser. Both of those companies had very volatile fortunes because they tended to just go up and down with the rest of the economy. And so people would often, you know, whole tranches of people would get laid off all at the same time. And that was certainly true in the 70s. There were periods of recession. So culturally, it was kind of struggling to make its mark at that time. And of course, since then, there's been a huge. Bill Gates, of course, grew up in Seattle and eventually returned to the Seattle area and headquartered Microsoft. And with that came all kinds of changes. I mean, the population shot up, the traffic became a big factor, just as it is in San Francisco. And so it's always been a place that, to me, felt like it was either kind of struggling to survive as it was earlier in the 60s and 70s, or struggling to cope with its newfound fortunes with Microsoft. And of course, Starbucks is from there. And so all these new industries popped up, which made the economy quite a bit more vibrant, but brought all kinds of other problems with them.

[Anya Cain]

Absolutely. So I'm curious, you know, what inspired you to write Murderland? How did this idea sort of. I mean, when I was reading it, I was like, did she start from the starting point of why are there so many serial killers associated with the Pacific Northwest? Or were you coming at it from a different angle? So I'm just curious of when did that seed start to germinate?

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, it really did begin, in a sense, with that question of why were there so many serial killers in the Northwest, you know, which. Which has become almost kind of a joke there, you know, and. And I'd always kind of wondered if it was. Was there some kind of truth to it, you know, or was it like an urban myth or something? But it always was kind of a factor because to me, I had these. These real Memories of living in a place, you know, suburb of Seattle, Mercer island, around the time that Ted Bundy's crimes began happening. So that was kind of always in my mind. And there were also some other things that I really, really kind of wondered about in terms of the city at that time, Seattle and Mercer island, because there were so many sort of bizarre crimes, there was a lot of violent crime in that era. But there particularly was some things that I remembered from Mercer island, which was a well to do suburb. And so you would have thought that it would be a fairly, fairly sheltered from some of those kinds of crimes. And yet I remember the guy who lived down the street who blew up his house and almost blew up his family. There was a kid who went to the school that I went to who, you know, drove his car a hundred miles an hour into the gymnasium and destroyed the building. I mean, there were just all these kinds of weird crimes at that time in the background of the 70s, you know, all the assassinations and the bombings and the, you know, that whole period of the Vietnam War and the years following the Vietnam War were extremely volatile in this country and especially in the Northwest. So I really wanted to sort of delve into that.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, definitely, this book does. I mean, I will say this isn't spoiling anything. I really would encourage our listeners to go get it and read it. But this sort of story weaves together. You know, it's not just. It's definitely crime nonfiction, but there's also sort of the ecological, environmental history, business history, engineering disasters, memoir all woven together. So that would be my question. How did you pitch this to the publishers? How were you able to convey? Because when I'm reading it, it all flows together so well. It's like you're careening down a polluted river in the best way possible. We're all like, it all follows, right? You're like, yeah, you know, like you're seeing it come together. It's all this tapestry woven together. But I mean, I imagine that couldn't. I mean, was that an easy pitch where they were like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Do it. Or did you have to kind of do some convincing? How did you, how did you frame this for them?

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, it presented some real problems for. And I think if I had not, you know, had some background, they would have been just like, what, what, what is she talking about? I mean, as it was, what I did was write about 100, 125 pages of it to give them so that they could see what I was doing. And also so that I could see what I was doing, because I think I didn't know how this would work out. I mean, I had all these different anecdotes and history, pieces of history and the environmental stuff, and. And I did want to weave them together, but I didn't really have a sense of whether that was going to work or not. And so I really had to kind of just test it out. And that was, you know, ultimately what. What made a difference, I think, in terms of selling it, that makes sense.

[Anya Cain]

And then how did you organize it? Once. Once you did, you know, once. It is a book that you're going to be writing because, again, I felt it flowed so well. It's very much weaving the degradation of the environment with man, degrading, mostly women, but also other men.

[Caroline Fraser]

You know, the thing that I think I relied on pretty heavily was the timeline, you know, and putting together these very detailed timelines of both the crimes, the, you know, Ted Bundy's crimes, and how those fitted together with the crimes of all these other serial killers in the region and crimes that were perhaps associated with the pollution that I'm talking about in the book, but also, you know, timelines of, you know, what was happening nationally in the country, what was happening in my life. And I felt like, you know, creating these timelines helped me to see what I needed to do, and also just sort of unlocked certain, you know, kind of moments of strange resonance, you know, between the different threads of the book.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah. There's those moments where things kind of line up or intersect in a way that you're just like, wow, geez. Like, yeah, especially with some of the environmental disasters and then the sort of human disasters going around killing people. You know, one thing I did want to ask you about, so the Ted Bundy certainly looms very large over this book, and it makes sense. He's sort of the quintessential, not only Pacific Northwest serial killer, but I always say serial killer. When you think of serial killer, he's probably one of the first names that pop into your mind, you know, as your research. And he has also inspired so many books, so many fictionalized stories, so many movies, documentaries, whatnot. When you were researching him, was there anything about him that you found surprising that perhaps you didn't really know about or sort of something that you've kind of, like, were a little bit startled by?

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, I was. One of the things that I found, you know, that I was both surprised by and dismayed by is how much we still don't know about what he did. And there are still periods of his life which remain very vague in terms of his movements, where he was, what he was doing there, other crimes he may or may not have committed. There's just so much stuff that we don't know about him. And that's immensely frustrating, I think, because we certainly can. At least I felt that I was able to kind of put together enough information about his childhood, for example, and where he lived, look at where he lived in relationship to the smelter that I talk about in Tacoma in order to see how much he might have been, you know, exposed to things like lead, which do have a correlation to violent crime. So that was, that was very gratifying to be able to do that. But, but it was also just very frustrating to realize there's just so much we don't know and may never know.

[Anya Cain]

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[Caroline Fraser]

So there was that. I also, you know, one of the things I wanted to do in writing about him was kind of show a clearer sense of his, you know, very predatory personality. And I think a lot of, especially in television and film, he's been glamorized quite a bit in part because he's been played by these men who are very good looking and he was good looking and Obviously had a certain amount of charm and yet he also was somebody who is really a lot of times not in control of himself. He was preying on young girls, he was trolling junior high school students. You know, in fact, his last victim was, was a young 12 year old girl. And so I wanted to, to give a real, a fuller portrait of him as somebody who, who really was quite grotesque in many ways. He was able to hide that because he was like a lot of these serial murderers. He was very good at compartmental, you know, hiding his true self and his predatory self. But I wanted to give a, provide a better portrait of him so that people could see how really disturbing and aberrant I think his behavior was.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, this book definitely does not glamorize him. And I think what I remember there was one portion that really stuck out to me where you described this New York Times Magazine article about him that I thought this was so brutal but so well stated. It, you know, described him as Kennedy esque and then misspells two victims names. And that's like. Unfortunately that encapsulates a lot of things about how Ted Bundy has been covered. So this definitely is a corrective for that. I'm curious, you know, I think I might know the answer, but is there, is there one case that maybe he's never been definitively linked to or you know, a portion of his life that you would have, you know, you would maybe most love to learn more about or know the answers to?

[Caroline Fraser]

Oh yeah, I mean there, there's, there are times when he was in California, he did in his final confessions, admit, I think to one murder in California, but never said who it was or where it was. So there's been a lot of speculation about that. And I think it would be really good to know more about the time that he spent in California, what he was doing there, what crimes he may have committed while he was there. There's a murder that I became aware of in Spokane, Washington that may or may not be associated with him. But the woman was, her body was found near Coeur d', Alene, Idaho and he was traveling in that area around that time. So that's an interesting question. So I don't know, you know, I mean, I don't think we're ever going to know exactly how many victims he had and where they were, which again is quite frustrating. But those are a couple of things that I would like to know more about.

[Anya Cain]

You know, one question I would have is as you were researching then and threading his story through with some of these other serial murderers who were active in the same general area. You know, were there some of those maybe lesser known serial killers that stuck out to you or you were almost like, wow, I wish people knew more about this story because this one's also very interesting.

[Caroline Fraser]

Oh, yeah. I mean, there are, there are so, so many of them. And, you know, one of them that I talk about is a guy named Warren Leslie Forrest, who was in the city of Vancouver, Washington, which is just across the Columbia river from Portland. And he is not as well known nationally, I think, as, certainly not as well known as Bundy. But he was killing around the same time. He was arrested in 1974, but had been killing for several years. He just went on trial. He was only found guilty of one murder previously in the 70s, and recently went on trial for another murder that they linked to him through DNA much later because I think they wanted to have at least one more conviction in case anything happened. And he's just a, you know, again, he's somebody unlike Bundy, who did talk about what he did, often in a kind of third person sort of way. But there are a number of these guys who don't talk about what they did, and Forrest is one of them because I think he, for many years still had hopes that he might get paroled. He was actually applying for parole. And the Spokane killer, Robert Lee Yates, is another one of these guys who killed a number of women, something like 30 victims, and has never talked about what he did. So I think these are people who are worth knowing more about and asking why there were so many of these guys operating at the same time and roughly in the same places. Ann Rule wrote a book about the i5 killer, Randy Woodfield, another, you know, guy who, who had an astonishing number of victims. And so he's, he's better known than some of the other more obscure people. But again, it's, it's sort of a question of what, what were, what was happening at the time that led to this sort of explosion of killers in this region.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, yeah, I, I, I want to ask you about that in particular. Like, did you find, you know, you set out with this question, what's going on in the Pacific North Northwest? Why do we have so many serial killers? You know, did you find an answer to that? I was really struck by one of the quotes before one of the chapters in the book. I think it was from Ted Bundy from the, the Riverman book by one of the detectives who worked both cases. And it was like, you know, basically what is going on in the Pacific Northwest? Why are there so many of us? Is, is it, are we just focused on the Pacific Northwest? Because maybe it's like almost a self fulfilling prophecy. Are these serial killers that are targeting victims that the media is notice versus perhaps, you know, like the media tends to focus on the missing and murdered white women. Right. Versus, you know, everyone else and that maybe, maybe that's what's going on. Or is it a situation where you find that there just are a staggering number in this area?

[Caroline Fraser]

I think there, there was a staggering number in that area. And one of the things that, that I started looking at was the exposure that a lot of these murders had to lead, which I mentioned earlier, which was universally in the atmosphere at the time because of the sale of leaded gas. You know, everybody who was driving a car in the 50s and 60s and 70s was driving with leaded gas. And lead has been shown through many, many studies to be associated with violent crime. What happens is that if you're a kid and you're exposed to a sufficient amount of lead as a child, it can affect the development of your brain. It essentially kind of rewires your frontal cortex and makes you more likely to be impulsive and irritable, aggressive and more likely as a young person, you know, a teenager and a young adult to commit violent crimes. And so with, you know, Bundy and the Green River Killer, who both grew up in the Tacoma area, you can see their exposure not just to leaded gas, but to the smelter that was this notorious smelter which was on the Commencement Bay in Tacoma, which was putting into the air for decades tons of lead and arsenic particulates. And they would have been exposed to this. And the thing that you brought up, the white victims versus the. That's certainly a factor in the coverage of these guys. And yet, you see, I think, you know, there was a tremendous amount of coverage of Ted Bundy. Everybody always points this out because his victims were, you know, coeds, so to speak, white women. Well, to do often. But the Green River Killer is an interesting example of the contrary argument, which is that he, who had far more victims than Ted Bundy, also got an enormous amount of coverage over the time period when he was killing. His victims were not. Some of them were white, but many of them were not. He killed all kinds of women. Many of them were prostitutes or had ties to prostitution, but some of them did not. I think that an enormous amount of resources and money were poured into the investigation of the Green River Killer. So he's an example of somebody who was at least as famous and at least as. In fact, I think that the task force that was trying to identify him was even more sophisticated in a way, than the one that was organized around Ted Bundy in the Northwest. So I think that. Not that whole white woman versus other victims who were. Who are not garnering as much attention. I don't think that's always true. Certainly is true, especially I think, in terms of television coverage. But, yeah, it's an interesting thing to look at those two cases side by side.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, no, definitely. And I mean, as I think you pointed out, Ted Bundy had a type, Gary Ridgeway had a type, and it was women and oftentimes sex workers. But. But certainly he was not really discriminating in terms of other kind. You know, it was kind of who was available. No, but that's very well said. And that was. That was very high profile. So missing white women syndrome's not always the predominant factor in every situation, but it can be in others. I mean, this. This kind of segues nicely into my next question. So many of these serial killers had very, remarkably different modus operandi or, you know, even victim profiles to a certain extent. But they are very much bound by the geographical closeness and the fact that they're, you know, killing a lot of people. Were there. Were there, you know, things that stood out to you as being sort of similarities, you know, even either, you know, in their upbringing or that might explain why they're doing this, that you were able to find as you sort of piece this story together?

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that really leapt out to me, especially in the Northwest killers that I'm talking about is this tendency of these guys. Bundy, the Green river killer, and another killer in Kansas, BTK Dennis Rader. I talk a little bit about him and his potential lead exposure. But the tendency of these guys to want to take their victims out in the wilderness, to take them into the mountains or the forest or, you know, someplace where they're unobserved and their desire to, you know, torture and kill their victims in this remote, isolated area. There's a rapist I talk about named Gerald, I think his name is Gerald Friend, who did this as well. He would find some unfortunate young girl, you know, pick them up, give the. To give them a ride or in a sort of prostitution scenario or something like that, and then he'd want to take them, you know, drive them over to Mount Rainier or something, and a couple of them were able to escape from his Clutches in that scenario. But it's a weird phenomenon. You know, Yeats did this as well. The horrific rapist and killer of children, Joseph Edward Duncan, who I talk about near the end, Israel Keys did this. And you sort of wonder, you know, what kind of primitive, atavistic thing is it with these guys who just sort of want to recreate this kind of. Kind of caveman type thing where they're dragging women off into the wilderness where they can do whatever they want? I have no answer to that. I just think it's a very strange phenomena.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, and it's really remarkable. I mean, even with Raider, who was doing a lot of home invasion type things, his dream was to build like a castle, you know, I guess, you know, where he would basically be able to do this uninterrupted. It really is remarkable, the similarities. Gerard Schaefer in Florida, you know, bringing these girls into the woods and killing them in front of each other, Just horrible. And, you know, we were mentioning some serial killers who were outside of the Pacific Northwest here. And the book goes in depth into Raider in particular, particular btk. But it also, you were able to find something really interesting about sort of his upbringing and sort of the ecological kind of ramifications of that. Can you speak a bit about Pittsburgh, Kansas?

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah. Dennis Raider was from an area which I was already familiar with in southeastern Kansas, because, of course, that's where the Little House on the Prairie. And so I'd been to that area and was familiar with it and was familiar with the fact that it has a real history of oil and gas development, for one thing, but it also had a history of a smelter which was in Pittsburgh, Kansas for a number of years, and polluted that area pretty extensively, which was not ever cleaned up. And he. He grew up there. He spent quite a lot of time growing up in Wichita, Kansas, but his grandparents had farm. Had a farm near Pittsburgh. And so he would spend summers out there, you know, swimming in these coal pits, essentially. There had been a lot of open, you know, where they strip off whole kind of sheets of the earth, in a sense, to get the coal out and it would create these pits. He would go swimming in these. These areas. I think the water may have had some contamination, so he definitely had some exposure from that. And another figure who I look at a little bit in El Paso, Texas, was Richard Ramirez, who, of course, we associate mainly with Los Angeles, because that's where he committed most of the crimes that he was famous for. But he grew up in El Paso, which also had a Major smelter owned by the same company as the one up at Tacoma. And he lived within five miles of that. There's no doubt that he had some lead exposure from that smelter. And his childhood, like Bundy's, like the Green River Killers, shows a lot of really strange behavior as a child, violent behavior. And so you can look back and see perhaps that these guys had real problems in their development. Some of that may have come from their family life, from, you know, from abuse or, you know, other reasons, which, you know, I talk about a little bit in the book, all the things that may go in to creating a serial killer, but I think lead exposure is. Is possibly one of them.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, I think you mentioned at one point, you know, your. Your recipes for a serial killer may vary. And I do want to talk about that. I love that line, by the way. But I. I do want to talk about that, because I feel like some people, I can feel them getting mad at us. They're not even listening to this right now because it's just you and me talking. But they're like, are you saying that pollution is making these awful men kill people and they're innocent baby angels otherwise? And I was wondering if we can talk a little bit about that. I mean, what. What I'm getting from the book is that, you know, lead exposure, arsenic exposure, pollutant exposure may be a piece of what's happening, not the whole story, because obviously not everyone in the Pacific Northwest is a serial killer. You're not saying that, I guess. Can you talk about how maybe these things can make a difference without necessarily being, you know, we can't necessarily ascribe complete blame to them.

[Caroline Fraser]

Oh, sure, yeah. And. And lead is responsible for a lot of other horrible ailments. And. And as well, it's not just a C associated with crime. It causes heart disease. It can cause all kinds of really, you know, lead is a poison. Arsenic is a poison, and these things can be devastating to the body and to the mind in many, many ways. So there's that to consider. But as you say, there's a whole suite of things that people have looked at in terms of what goes into creating a serial killer. There's physical abuse as a child, sexual abuse, chaos and violence in the home. Although, again, you know, Ted Bundy's interesting in this regard because he doesn't seem to have that peace. Those examples of abuse, those have been explored pretty heavily by the FBI. They focus quite a bit on trying to find out what happened to these guys as kids in terms of profiling. But there's also other kinds of physical damage. Head trauma has long been looked at as another major factor. We now know that, you know, from football and from any kind of. Or boxing, that head trauma can cause violence or suicide in guys who've been really exposed over and over again to repeated blows to the head. So that's another thing that people look for and, you know, experiences that these kids may have had. Richard Ramirez, for example, was in the room when his cousin shot his wife in the head and killed her. And so it's clear that these guys get messed up as children from a whole host of different things. But I think if you add a little lead poisoning on top of that, it may supercharge the behavior in some way. There are scientists now who suggest that between 20 to 50% of the rise in the rate of violent crime in the 70s, when violent crime was at its highest in the 70s and 80s, may be attributable to lead.

[Anya Cain]

Wow, that's really significant. And yeah, no one's taking away personal responsibility from anybody. But it is, it's important to note because I think this is the kind of invisible thing that can make life a lot worse for a lot of people. You know, interesting that it mostly seems to be at least as far as the kind of high profile, wild cases in the news of serial killers mostly affecting males, from what we can tell. Is that. Was that your finding too? Like, I mean, women serial killers tend to be much more quiet. You know, a killer nurse or a someone poisoning their family versus, like, going out and raping and killing strangers for the most part.

[Caroline Fraser]

Well, yes. I mean, it's just an undeniable fact that. That men commit the majority of violent crimes. I was looking at this, some of this data just the other day. Men are 99% of rapists, 88% of child molesters, 97% of mass shooters are men, 85% of serial killers are men. And they have now done studies that look at MRI scans of male brains versus female brains in terms of lead exposure, and they have found that the scans are showing that there's more severe damage to the male brain than to the female brain. I don't think they know yet quite why that is, but there's something about the development of the male brain that seems really vulnerable to lead exposure in childhood. And you do see, there are studies that I've seen that show that women, for example, who have lead exposure were more likely in the 70s and 80s to be prone to unplanned pregnancies or Teenage pregnancies. So you can see the kind of impulsivity playing out in a slightly different way for women than for men. But, you know, of course, you know, there's not everybody in Tacoma was a serial killer. But what you see was that the violent crime rate did go up sharply in tacoma in the 70s and 80s, as it did around the country, but it was sharper in Tacoma than it was, for example, in Seattle.

[Anya Cain]

Wow. And of course, Tacoma is where a lot of this real environmental degradation is in people's backyards.

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah. The air pollution there was much worse.

[Anya Cain]

The whole thing, I kept thinking when reading this book was just Porticoma cheese. Like, I mean, there just seemed like one thing after another there in terms of some of this.

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

Widespread damage. One thing I did want to ask you about, this was a serial or maybe a serial killer of a kind that I was not familiar with. And that was this wild floating bridge that you talk a lot about in this book. And people are probably thinking, wait, what? But, you know, maybe I'll let you explain that. Can you. Can you talk about the floating bridge, the deaths, and how that sort of thematically resonated with you to sort of include and intertwine in a story about some of this environmental degradation, the violence, and sort of the interplay between those things?

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, the. The. The floating bridge. The Mercer island floating bridge connected Mercer island with both the east side of Seattle, which is where Microsoft was, and Seattle itself. And it was a huge factor in my life because if you lived on the island, in order to get off the island, you had to drive to go to downtown Seattle, you had to drive on this bridge. And it had a couple of. Of really serious flaws in its design, one of which was it had this strange bulge that meant that you had to kind of drive around an open pool of water that was in the center of this bridge at highway speeds. That mechanism was part of what allowed them to open the bridge to boat traffic, which was felt to be necessary because there was some naval activity at the south end of Lake Washington that caused all kinds of accidents and was a real design flaw, which they recognized, I think, pretty early on, but they just didn't want to do anything about it. And then there were also a lot of accidents caused by this thing called the reversible lane, which was basically, the bridge was too small for the amount of traffic that had grown up to use it by the 70s. And so they reversed one of the lanes during, you know, the morning and evening commute so that there were three lanes going you know, out of Seattle or into Seattle and one lane going the other direction. This caused all kinds of head on collisions. And there were a lot of political issues to address these problems because the bridge was the last piece of i90. So it was a federal, it was federal property, it was a federal highway. And so the local authorities really were limited in what they could do about it. There were fights on and off about, you know, how they were going to address these problems. Mercer island didn't want a giant, you know, highway. But in the meantime, there were a number of things that happened on the island. Two things in particular, which I talk about. There was a serial killer who grew up down the street from me. He was very close to the tunnel of the floating. Coming off the floating bridge, there was a tunnel that crossed the island. That tunnel, I believe, had a lot of fumes that were being fanned out into the neighborhood by filters, by fans and filters and so forth. There was another guy who became one of the most notorious arsonists, also grew up right near the bridge. And so I use the bridge as a kind of both a kind of metaphor of what was wrong with infrastructure at this time. You know, that we had in Tacoma a smelter that was built essentially in the middle of a city that was producing all kinds of particulate pollution and exposing everybody in the region. 1,000 square miles of Puget Sound was polluted by that smelter. 1,000 square miles. And that to me seemed very similar in kind to the floating bridge. The kinds of problems that were introduced by this infrastructure that then everybody kind of threw up their hands and said, this is too expensive to fix. We can't do anything about it. We're just going to let it continue to kill people. And so both of these things became, you know, as somebody says, near the end of the smelter. You know, I think that Asarco, that's the American smelting and refining company, I think Asarco was a serial killer, that somebody who lived in Tacoma said that. And that I think is true of both of those pieces of infrastructure. They really were serial killers and they were in our midst and we were unable to grapple with what they were doing.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, it's like we know and the leadership knows that these are killing people. Like, no question about it, they're killing people or, you know, and in some cases with the smelter too, also really making people sick and harming their quality of life. But, you know, powerful interests and money and whatnot, I mean, they're not. It's almost like Everyone throws up their hands and say, you know, says, I guess we're just going to deal with it, or this is not a human centric society we're living in. It's like about keeping this company going or, you know, and. Yeah, no, I mean, the whole, the whole concept, I mean, you don't just go into those. I mean, there are other companies that were sort of responsible for some of these pollutants that you go into that could also arguably be more of these serial killers. And I guess, like, did you feel like there was a lot more of that going up around, up in the Pacific Northwest than perhaps other places in the country you mentioned in the book? Like Pennsylvania certainly had, you know, with some of the kind of issues there. But was this something that was maybe in some ways very much centered around the Pacific Northwest?

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, I think the Northwest was particularly vulnerable to this because of the fragility, the economy. And so the smelter, for example, in Tacoma was such a huge economic power. They employed so many people at various times. And so the power that they were granted was really extraordinary. And I think that people were unable to stand up to them, were unable to exert their rights because there was such a fear that they would just pack up and go home or would just close the plant. And I think that there are a lot of ways that that plays out. Philadelphia, I think, had a lot of the same issues. Poor communities that were located in areas that were far too close to smelters and other polluting industries, and they just didn't have the political power to do anything about this phenomenon. And they were so reliant on the jobs. So I think that plays out in different kinds of ways in different cities and different communities. But the richer, generally speaking, the richer and wealthier a community is, the less likely they are to be located next to a smelter.

[Anya Cain]

Yes, but. But it's interesting that you do note that, like in the Pacific Northwest in particular too, like sometimes there was still a level of proximity or things like this bridge where it could affect communities that were more well off. Certainly if there's any, you know, if there's, if there's the lead poisoning angle with someone like Ted Bundy, you know, that's affecting everyone at some point.

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, and that's what I thought was interesting about Mercer island, because it was a well to do community, it was wealthy, and yet it too was being exposed to all this pollution from the smelter and leaded gas, you know, concentrated, because it was right next to i90. So that was an example of, like, everybody was getting some of this. And that's. I think one of the really notable things about both the crime and the criminals that were associated with the island is that there was way too much of that going on. Weird crimes, and at a specific time when there would have been a very high level of lead exposure.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, absolutely. That kind of tunnel almost acting as a funnel, pumping in this leaded exhaust fumes and whatnot. And, you know, and as you mentioned, obviously everywhere was dealing with the leaded gas situation in the country at that time. But. But the Pacific Northwest did have this very high concentrate of smelter and all these different things that were seeming to make it worse and maybe throwing in some arsenic into the mix too, as well as the lead.

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, and the arsenic definitely. You know, when you look at the health of the workers at those plants, but also people in nearby communities, there definitely was, I think they paid a price in terms of health.

[Anya Cain]

Was the Pacific Northwest ultimately able to sort of vanquish some of the serial killing corporations?

[Caroline Fraser]

Well, what happened in the 80s was that both leaded gas was began to be removed from the market. That was a process that began in the 80s and was completed by the mid-1990s. So leaded gas was being phased out and at the same time, all the smelters began failing economically because the price of operating those businesses after the creation of the EPA and the rise of the clean air legislation in the 1970s made it much too expensive and in fact, illegal to operate some of these plants. And so there was a whole period of time when the smelter and Tacoma, for example, was, you know, under the eye of the epa and they were trying to figure out a way, can we still operate? And it was pretty clear that they could not because of the amount of arsenic that was being produced, the amount of lead. It was actually illegal. It was becoming illegal and impossible to operate. And so all of these, what they call primary smelters that were smelting metals gradually closed throughout the 1980s. The one in Tacoma closed in 86, the one in El Paso a bit later. And now I believe there are only three primary smelters that still operating in the United States. Most of that has been moved offshore to places like South America. China has had a lot of issues with smelters there and lead pollution there. Russia, a lot of other places have continued to have smelting or smelters. But again, they're paying a price, I think, in the health of both the workers and the people who live nearby.

[Anya Cain]

In your view, is there a safe way to do any of this? It really just seems like it's inherently so dangerous potentially to people. If anyone lives anywhere nearby, I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

[Caroline Fraser]

It's a real problem. And what we still do have in this country is what they call secondary smelters, which are recycling plants. I mean when you take your old car battery or other recyclable forms of metal that can, you know, where they have to kind of separate out the lead and the copper and so forth, they do these at these facilities, which we still have in many places. And that too is pretty hazardous. It's not as blatantly polluting in some respects as the smelters were. They don't have the giant smokestacks that are spewing out lead particulates. But they do have the potential to damage the health of their workers. They have the potential to, to pollute groundwater and air in communities where they're located. And so we need to have I think much better systems in place to monitor those secondary smelters. But we're also seeing, if you pay attention to the news, like almost every day, every week there's another story about lead that's been discovered in groundwater. There was Flint, Michigan. There's lead being discovered in toothpaste and baby food and rice and all kinds of consumer commodities. There's still areas, pockets of lead pollution in cities where there were smelters, where we haven't people kind of lost track of the fact that, that these facilities existed. And so a lot of times people will discover like a park or a playground that has lead exposure as a hazard and those places still need to be cleaned up. So it remains kind of a real problem. We've put all this lead into our environment and we now I think are struggling to find ways to get it out.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, definitely. And obviously we're still dealing with the ramifications of lead. Even though there's been, you know, the reduction and whatnot. It's still out there as you said. But when you read about some of this, when it's like ah yes, the young boys would play on the slag heap, you're like, oh no, you know, like geez. And it's easy as a modern day person to kind of have that presentist view of the past of like, how could you not know that was bad for you? But you know, I mean, this is what's been happening throughout history. We always look back on our horrified, but at the same time you got to wonder what's Our lead, you know, what's our arsenic being pumped into the air? Do you have any thoughts on that? I mean the things I see being discussed as far as having an impact on our health and possibly even mental health are things like, you know, microplastics or, you know, air pollution still is a problem. You know, do you have any thoughts on that? On like, you know, what might the Murderland written, you know, hundred years in the future be when we're like, wow, this was making us all kind of crazy?

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, I mean the material that's starting to come out now, the studies around particulate pollution, these very fine. It is air pollution, but it's a kind of, you breathe it in if you live near industry. The forever chemicals so called that are now being found all over the place as a result of certain industries. Both of those things I think have the capacity to affect us in ways that I think we're just now kind of figuring out. I mean, I think that there are now links that are being seen between particulate pollution and Alzheimer's, for example. So that's not, not crime, but oh my God, it's a very, very, it's a terrifying effect and possibly one of the reasons why we've seen a rise in Alzheimer's. And I mean part of that is just demographic, as people get older, they're more prone to develop those forms of dementia. But I think that some kinds of pollution are clearly contributing to that in certain areas. And so just trying to get a handle on all the different ways that pollution can affect our health. You know, whether it's asthma or respiratory disease or Alzheimer's or you know, heart disease. I think that, you know, we're looking at a situation that's really going to require us to completely change corporate culture and the powers that we grant to corporations. Because we really need to think about a system that is not just based on people getting sick after they're exposed to things and then suing the company. We really need a system that puts the onus on the company, the corporation at the beginning, to identify the hazards, the health hazards of what they're selling. And they need to start putting those costs up front. If they want to expose people to these pollutants, they should have to acknowledge and pay for that upfront, not as a result of people getting, you know, cancer years later.

[Anya Cain]

Well said. And it's like, you know, whenever it's put the, putting the onus on the, the residents, the people who are dealing with this or the consumers, inevitably the lies begin. I mean that was something that struck me throughout this, you know, it's all these different companies, all these different industries and it's like, wow, a lot of people have cancer around here. A lot of people are, you know, have really high levels of lead or, you know, and then, you know, they got their spokespeople out there huffing leaded gasoline in front of everyone and acting like, no, this is fine and dandy. And then, you know, they know it's not, you know, so it's like when it would be nice if some of these corporations, you know, I think you have something there about corporations being people. Some of them are serial killers. But if they were people, it'd be nice if some of them felt like an obligation to be pro social and take care of the places that they're in. And that just hasn't been the case in a lot of these situations that are in.

[Caroline Fraser]

And clearly they won't, you know, clearly they won't feel that responsibility. And so it's going to have to be imposed on them.

[Anya Cain]

Yes, yeah. And it's an invisible thing, you know, I mean, when a serial killer is trying to break in your house, you're aware of some threat to yourself, but these are threats that are largely invisible, or at least quieter.

[Caroline Fraser]

Yeah, they are invisible. And we, you know, as a species, we just have an incredibly difficult time dealing with those kinds of hazards. It's just all too easy to ignore until you have cancer. Until you have something that you have to deal with as a result of it.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and then one question I had though, because it's interesting, today there's still serial killers, certainly people who qualify as serial killers feels like in some ways, and this is kind of a cliche to say this, but what you hear more about nowadays is think people like mass shooters, perhaps more so than the serial killer of old, the sort of Ted Bundy model. And I'm wondering, you know, in your view, is the era of the serial killer over? To a large extent.

[Caroline Fraser]

Serial killers have always been with us. I think that, that they're a phenomenon that you can look back in history and find some examples such as Jack the Ripper, for example, or the original Dracula, the historical antecedents of Dracula. I mean, I think that these murders kind of crop up rarely but occasionally. But I think that the thing that has meant a lot to me and I think has really been a focus of the people who look at the lead crime hypothesis is this very sharp rise in violent crime and in serial killers that occurred in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, and then with the withdrawal of leaded gas and the closure of smelters, all of a sudden that violent crime rate drops off a cliff. It declines very sharply. And so the number of serial killers also declined sharply. At the same time, you had a rise in the number of serial killers in this country with several hundred in the 1940s and 50s. It goes up to 6, 700, 800 in the 70s and 80s. That's its peak. And now it has sharply declined to around 100, 150. And so I think it's really interesting to look at the, the potential causes of that. Are we, you know, it's not that there are no serial killers, but there's a much reduced number now. And that's an interesting question. What caused that reduction? You mentioned mass shooters. Of course, that became an, you know, there was an explosive rise in the number of mass shooters when gun laws were changed. So I think there's no doubt that both the ease with which you can acquire guns and the gun laws that changed had a real effect on the number of mass shooters. But even with those mass shooting events, which are so distressing and so horrifying, the number of the violent crime rates has still gone down a great deal since the 70s and 80s. That remains the high point. So even with those mass shooting events, which again, I think are undoubtedly attributable to the, you know, the gun manufacturers, the fact that guns have become readily available and are in extraordinary out there in communities and families in extraordinary numbers, and that the laws preventing people, for example, who have mental illness or some record that should really prevent their accessing guns, those laws were diminished or changed. So I think, I think the numbers kind of tell a story. We changed something pretty important beginning in the mid-90s, which is we removed a huge amount of lead from the environment. And I think we're seeing the results of that. Right.

[Anya Cain]

And being passively accepting of really horrifying things is usually not the answer. If there's something causing it, identify and change. I think that's a lesson for a lot of different things, not just serial killers. I did want to ask you, what do you hope people take from this book?

[Caroline Fraser]

I hope people think about these issues, especially the piece about corporate responsibility. That's something we can do something about. You know, we have, I mean, obviously there are a lot of roadblocks to, to this happening in our current political climate, but we do have the power to elect politicians and representatives who can see the responsibility that corporations have for polluting the environment. There have been some cases where we've been able to stop pipelines being built, for example, or to discourage corporations from pursuing the worst kinds of pollution. And so we do have that power. And I think people need to. To really think about how these things could be affecting their lives and the lives of their children. And so I hope this presents these issues in a way that is compelling and dramatic and helps people to think about how incredibly important these environmental questions are.

[Anya Cain]

Absolutely. And yeah, I think it's something that should appeal, you know, should be something significant for anybody, regardless of their political views on anything else. It's a situation where not only do you not want to be killed by some guy who's going to decapitate you because, you know, he had a bad childhood, but also got, you know, hit in the face with a bunch of lead growing up, but you also don't want to have a sick child because you're near a certain factory that's polluting the environment like nobody. These are things that should be pretty universal, that we should all be paying attention to. And, yeah, I mean, I would really encourage people to read Murderland. We thought it was great, and it really gets at some of this. And we barely scratched the surface. I mean, we got into a lot of it. Definitely focus on the serial killers, but there's a lot in here that I didn't even touch. And I would really. I think people will find it. I think our audience will find it very interesting.

[Caroline Fraser]

Well, I hope so, and I've been happy to talk to you about it. It's been a really interesting conversation.

[Anya Cain]

I think so, too, and I really appreciate that. Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you wanted to mention?

[Caroline Fraser]

No, I think that we've covered the ground pretty well. So, yeah, I can't think of anything offhand.

[Anya Cain]

We've climbed all over. What is it? The slag heap of.

[Caroline Fraser]

The slag heap of history.

[Anya Cain]

Yes. Awesome. Well, Caroline, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure speaking to you and thanks for taking the time.

[Caroline Fraser]

I was delighted to talk to you and thank you for having me.

[Anya Cain]

Thanks so much to Caroline for speaking with us about the book. We really appreciate it. Buy Murderland wherever you get your books. It's a great read. We'll include a link in our show notes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email [e-mail] if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[Anya Cain]

If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the [e-mail] if you're looking to talk with.

[Anya Cain]

Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.

[Kevin Greenlee]

You know, Anya, we are in this true crime space. It's such a difficult place to be in sometimes. And one of the reasons is because you're talking about cases that people have a real emotional involvement in. And so if you reach a conclusion that some people don't like online, they're going to, like, start attacking you and even threatening you.

[Anya Cain]

Yes.

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[Anya Cain]

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[Kevin Greenlee]

So it's really reduced your cravings.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, for me, it's. I mean, I get cranin nuts about my cravings sometimes. I will, you know, suddenly really want Macintosh apples, which aren't even in season, and various other things. We all know I've been stealing a lot of cereal recently, or allegedly, I should say. And so to kind of help beat that, I've been using their hormone Harmony supplement. It's just a supplement. You take it a couple of times, you know, couple doses, and I feel like it's boosted my gut health, to be honest. It's also something that women who are in perimenopause or menopause, they can use it, and it's gonna reduce your hot flashes. You're gonna have more energy, get to sleep better. So it's really good for women of all ages. But for me, the gut health element of it has been really special. So if you're interested for a limited time, you can get 15% off your entire first order. @happymammoth.com just use the code msheet at checkout. That's happymammoth.com and use the code msheet for 15% off today.