8: Cult Expert Mike King Joins! Uncovering the Truth Behind Cults + Crime Headlines
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Buckle up and crank up that volume. This is Serialist League with Annie Elise.

Welcome back. My name is Annie Elise and happy Monday. We are doing another episode of Serialistly today and I have a very special treat for you. I have an amazing guest co-host with me, Mike King from Profiling Evil. I am so excited to have him here guys because we have been collaborating now for a few years and it's the first time we're in person together. That was really fun to see you in the parking lot, Annie, and I'm just so happy to be here. Thank you. Oh, thank you. So I am

I refer to Mike as like the expert of all things, like profiling, obviously profiling evil, cults, everything. He's like the go-to person. So I have a lot I want to talk to you about today, first of all. But can you also just give the listeners a little bit of a brief rundown of your history and your background?

Okay. Well, I did a law enforcement career. I was fortunate to work about 28 years before retiring. I retired as a chief in an attorney general's office. But along the way, I worked through the ranks in law enforcement. So I was a young testosterone-filled street cop for many years, and then I worked into investigations and stuff.

eventually into administration. Along the way, I was fortunate to be trained in criminal profiling by FBI profilers. And so oftentimes I focus on behavior more often, I think, probably than some others do. But I think it's really indicative of what's going on in the mindset of these predators that we talk about on our channels. Since then, I've spent the last 17 plus years working

working with law enforcement around the world, providing consultative support in investigations, 911, and now in artificial intelligence. Awesome. Thank you. I'm so excited to have you here, Mike. I have so much I want to talk to you about. And thank you for giving a brief rundown. So what I want to do today is...

is go over some of the recent headline cases, some that all of us know about. I'll do a quick little recap of some just in case maybe listeners haven't heard of it. And I want your expert weigh-in on these because I have some pointed questions for you because I want to pick your brain about the profile of these people. And then we're going to get into cold cults.

This will be interesting. Okay, we'll see. I'm going to put you on the spot here. I have no idea what you're going to ask. I know. So, folks, this is going to prove to stump the dummy probably. We'll see. And then at the very end, I actually have a few pointed questions that I'm going to put you on the spot for. Oh, okay. But we're going to have some fun. It's going to be good. I'm excited. Okay, so first...

Let's for sure talk about Lori Vallow. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell case, first of all, you've been living under a rock. But let me just tell you, it's like the cliche of all cliches. A woman falls in love with a cult leader. She gets into some really bad stuff. Unfortunately, her children ended up being murdered, found on Chad's property. I know you've been covering it over on your channel, and I want to get your way in now that their trials have been severed.

Lori and Chad's. Do you think that's going to help Chad's case, Lori's case? Do you think they're going to flip on each other? What do you think we can expect?

Yeah, I'm like you. I'm really kind of interested in what on earth that was all about in Severing. I mean, Lori forcing the court to give her her constitutional right to a speedy trial. How we can call it speedy after two years, I have no idea. I know, right? But I hope if I'm ever tried, it actually happens speedily. But I think it kind of shows a little bit of her personality about let's just get this over with. Let's solve the problem and move on.

I thought it was interesting when they were, before the cases were severed, they were really smart in getting married because nobody can force them to testify against each other. So if they do, it's going to be really surprising. And frankly...

I don't see it happening unless somehow Lori throws Chad under the bus during her trial. And then I think it's going to be really interesting to see what they have to say about her. But at that point, it doesn't matter. We got a backdrop drop down. Mechanical problem here.

Guys, that's just how it goes. Sometimes things fall off the wall while we're recording. I'm not going to touch it. So the interesting thing is I think we've got kind of an interesting dilemma coming because if Lori does something that puts the blame on Chad and she gets a minimized sentence or no sentence at all. Oh my gosh, imagine. Yeah.

her trial's over. He can say whatever he wants, but it is over. And so that's going to be really interesting. I personally don't think it's going to happen. So I've thought from the beginning, like when we first heard about this case, that they both were going to just throw Alex, Lori's brother under the bus. I was like, I kind of think he's the henchman anyway, who's did a lot of her dirty work. And I would imagine now that he's deceased as well, which guys, if you're not familiar with this case, you got to brush up on it. It's

Every single person who has come into close contact with these people has now died for the most part. It's a crazy case, like Lifetime movie on steroids. But I always thought they would go against Alex. But now I'm like, they've been separated for so long. I don't know if they would try to save themselves because they're so ego driven or what it is. So I think it's going to be interesting to see. Do you think Lori will take the stand? Yeah.

I don't think she will personally, but, but here's what I do think is interesting. I still think Alex isn't out of the woods because why not pick the dead guy? Why not put all the blame on him? Why not come out and say, yeah, we had these kinds of wacky beliefs and we were talking about it. We had no idea he was going to go for it and do it.

And so we're surprised. The hard part is that the behavior behind that. I mean, isn't it so interesting that the children are migrated up to Idaho, that they're mysteriously taken on this family vacation to Yellowstone where we can get pictures of what a loving, kind group they are together.

and how happy everyone is, and then have these pieces start to fall into play. You talk about Tammy. Isn't it interesting that she dies mysteriously in her sleep, and then those two men

head off to Hawaii and decide to get married. And that wedding photo will forever make me cringe when I see it, when they're playing like the ukulele on the beach and she's like dancing. I'm like, I just can't right now. It's so bad. And she bought the wedding ring on Amazon before Tammy was even dead. Yeah.

Exactly. And the kind of wedding ring and what it's made up of is just so interesting. But, you know, you think about this and you made the comment, she falls in love with the cult leader. And I wonder if, yeah, she probably was infatuated with him from an ideological standpoint, right?

But then all of a sudden, he's got kind of this mundane day-to-day life going on. And all of a sudden, he's got this, what he would describe and many have described as this attractive younger woman who's now saying, oh, you're the cat's meow. And all of a sudden, he starts thinking, oh, this is really cool. But there's something really weird about these characters.

kinds of psychological predators because i think that what happens is they start to take the ideology that they've been dabbling with and they start to twist it to justify what they would have probably done anyway they start to make up these scenarios that justify and say oh yeah i'm

God would want this to happen. Well, it's interesting you say that because that I feel like is a huge precursor to when we get into the cult conversation, because I've got a lot to talk to you about with FLDS, Warren Jeffs, like Samuel Bateman. We're going there, which I feel like, to your point, they twist it to make it okay to marry these young girls like 11 years old, which I don't want to jump ahead, but

We'll get there. But yeah, it's, again, a version of a cult, in my opinion, with Lori and Chad. So it's going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Do you think that Lori Daybill would try to testify? I don't know. I feel like... And I obviously don't know her, but I just feel like from her behavior in court, when she's always smiling, she tries to look cute in mugshots. Part of me feels like she's very ego-centered and she...

I don't want to say narcissist because I can't diagnose anybody, so I don't want to throw that around. But like, I could see where she wants to come off as this loving mother who does no wrong so that she would take the stand. Yeah.

But at the same time, when they were trying to have her deliver the children to show that they were safe, she just evaded forever and was until she got caught ultimately. So I really don't know. Yeah, this is going to be a really interesting one. You know, I was asked kind of the same question by Vinnie Pauliton on Court TV the other night about whether I thought Lori would enjoy what's going to happen in the next three to four weeks plus, you know.

It was originally scheduled for like 10 weeks. Now that it's severed, it could still go, I guess, 10 weeks. But I'm suspecting it's probably going to be a five, six week trial. But I thought, absolutely, she's going to really enjoy all the attention that she's getting. Where most people would be thinking, how do I plead guilty to avoid having to speak?

spend more time in front of the camera. And you know, with Alec Murdoch, I thought, this is a guy that's going to testify. And boy, he didn't let me down. But I just don't know. I just don't know about Lori. I don't know. Well, so I guess that I have two more questions with Lori, and then we'll move on to the next case. With that...

if she is found guilty and they believe that she was involved in the children's death, when it comes time for Chad's trial, do you think that he would throw it all on her and his defense say, it was all Lori, Chad had no idea. And then because she's already been found guilty, they have that to kind of bolster that argument or how will that shake out, do you think? Yeah, that's kind of interesting, isn't it? Is to put the blame on her now that she's

got all the blame anyway and facing it. The interesting thing is, regardless of what he does, he's going to have to say, I didn't know any of this was happening. I didn't know that these children were going to be buried in my backyard. I didn't know that I was going to say I'm out shooting raccoons. Oh my gosh, the text message. You're right. You're right. And this is where the value of behavior, when you look at this from a profiling perspective...

You know, we have these traditional forms of evidence in these kinds of cases. We have the physical and forensic evidence that we're all kind of used to looking at. You see the bloody footprint and all of that stuff.

And then we have circumstantial evidence, this idea that all these pieces kind of tell us that A plus B is going to always equal C. And so you have these eyewitness accounts and you have confessions and those are called traditional forms of evidence. But then we have behavioral evidence that's not talked about a lot.

But it's really the thing that I think impacts jurors more than anything when you say, but would you do that? You know, would you feel this way? Would you as a mother, Annie, allow someone to kill your children? You know, so you start thinking about that. And this is where I think sometimes...

Law enforcement misses or prosecution missed the boat. I'm not saying let's really bring out the behaviors here as part of all of this because that helps a juror go, holy cow, no, I wouldn't do that. Yeah. I mean, well, she's calling her own children zombies, so there's really not like much that I would put past her for doing anyway. Yeah. Could you imagine that little Tylee? Yeah.

pleading with her mother, mom, I'm not a zombie. And just trying to rationalize with this crazy person. There you go. You know, I mean, for lack of a better term, I mean, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, we'll definitely watch that. It sounds to me like when you say not Laurie and Chad, that you've already decided they're guilty. Oh, they're guilty. Science, you'll deliver. Like if I was on that jury, they'd be guilty for sure. I'm definitely not in part

You'd say there was no need for a 10 week trial. Yeah. Guilty, guilty done. Like the writing, I mean, in my opinion, the writing is on the wall. There's a reason she didn't produce the kids for months on end when they were all searching for them. There's a reason why he lied to his wife about shooting raccoons in the text message and they were found in the fire pit. And then in the book bag, like, yeah,

There's not much you could explain away for that to me, at least, but I'm also very judgmental. And I know you always tell me we have to look at like... It's your channel. You always say, well, we have to look at their patterns. We have to do this. I'm like, no, no, no, Mike. We have to jump to conclusions and say they're guilty.

Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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Okay, so shifting gears now to the West Boys. That's one of the first cases you and I really ever collaborated on, I think, too. Yes, I think it was. Because that happened back in 2020. And that's the two little boys, Oren and Orson, who went missing from Cal City, California, originally from Bakersfield, and it's suspected that they never even made it to Cal City. And now that trial's coming up. Now, I want to know if you remember...

That I told you those boys probably never even made it to that house back in 2020. Which, I mean...

I know neighbors had reported that they never even saw the boys in Cal City. We know that they all, like, went in that van the day before Christmas Eve or whenever it was right before the boys went missing, but they only had some of the kids with them, not the boys, which you wouldn't leave young children, toddlers behind like that. But what's interesting is because now that that's all starting, I just read that after in their opening statements, and I want to quote this exactly, it says...

A week after Oren and Orson West were reported as missing, a child who had been living with them gave a statement saying that he witnessed one of the boys die and said that the other later disappeared after a loud thud was heard one night. And that's what the prosecution said, which I know we all believed that somebody, one of the children had witnessed it based on the affidavit and what was said in there. Because I think one of the charges, and you may know off the top of your head better than I do, it was something about

What was it like enlisting a child to help in a crime? And we were like, did they make the children help with the cleanup? Was the one of the children present for that? So I thought that was really interesting. And then the prosecution also said,

that the interview that one of the children had given on December 28th, 2020, which was just a few days after the boys were reported as missing, he said that boy said he woke one night to noises coming from Oren while the family still lived in an apartment on Lotus Lane in Bakersfield, which is, of course, before they ever moved to Cal City. And he said his parents got to Oren first and they watched as his color faded, he vomited blood.

and died. Now this would of course go in line with them either going to Cal City as a cover-up to move to get away from Bakersfield to get away from and detach themselves because like so many like you suspected he never made it to Cal City neither one of them did in my opinion. It's unbelievable I mean they're just evil. What do you think as far as now that we're going into the trial and what's going to happen there?

You know, I remember the discussions that we were having around this, and we both talked about how important this child's testimony or the children in the home was going to end up being, and that we would never hear about that probably because the Division of Family Services was involved. And of course, you got to protect these children. But now to hear that this child has the courage to really say, I

I don't remember them being here when we moved to Colorado City. I remember specifically this murder. That's huge. And imagine that little kid having to pack that around for so long. It really is frustrating. But if you remember early on in the case...

When we were watching all of the people kind of doing the ad hoc searches all around Colorado City. Cal City. Colorado City. We're going to cold soon. We're going to cold soon. Yeah. And you remember we were talking about how frustrated we were that law enforcement didn't seem really invested in California City, but they kept doing things differently.

over in Baker. Yeah. And it all makes sense when you saw those really detailed searches they were doing in, in, uh, Baker, um, that, that was telling me at that time that that's where the case is taking them. And if nothing, sometimes you say, can anything good come from it from an investigative perspective, if it kept all the noise in Colorado, I mean, California city, uh,

And then that allowed those investigators to continue to work things there. But yeah, I think of those poor children having to witness this and then be told to keep it quiet. Yeah. How terrifying that was for them as well. Well, and that's the next part.

bullet I had here that I wanted to read was that they said, the prosecution said that the West parents, Trezell and Jackie, asked the child if they should tell somebody or keep it a secret as if the child should instruct you on what to do. And then they also go on to say, and what you'll hear through testimony is the child knew that if they told somebody, they would be taken away from their parents.

So these monsters are not only saying, hey, should we tell anybody? What should we do? Don't tell anyone or you're going to be taken away from us as well. And like instilling this fear in these children. It's horrible. It's horrible. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I'd be really interested if they ever really did ask that question or if they made it more of a statement of if anyone ever finds out, you guys are all going to be going someplace else. And put that fear because that seems to be the way that people control children is with fears of what might happen. You know, another thing that I thought was interesting in this particular case, in the timing of the move,

Was that by moving, the new neighbors wouldn't know about those children. No. The old neighbors would soon forget, you know, that couple that had foster kids that were in and out and they wouldn't remember. But the thing that bugs me is the family members that would have undoubtedly known those kids were missing in action. Oh, yeah. And they kept their lips.

sealed as well. I think what was her name? Wanda was the mother, the grandmother, and she put out that whole statement saying God's already forgiven you for like you need to just tell the truth as though she were pleading with an abductor of some sort. And I remember that statement always rubbed me the wrong way because there was certain wording in it to where it almost was as though she was talking directly to somebody who she knew.

And it really rubbed me the wrong way to where I'm like, she's already saying they've forgiven this person, which I get. Maybe you use that as a tactic, but something never sat right. And remember the scent dogs that went to the Cal City house never picked up a scent outside of the house. It was only on the belongings in the house, but there was no proof that the boys had ever been there. No Christmas gifts under the tree, nothing, even though she was inside wrapping gifts. Yeah.

Yeah, that was a crazy story from day one. And boy, what a powerful statement that things like ring doorbells and other kinds of things play in this. I would suspect you have cameras around your house. We have cameras around our house. Yep.

Our neighbor had his car broken into the other day and we were able to pull up something and send over. And so we're really fortunate. I wish we'd have things like that when I was looking at cases. I bet. I mean, that always blows my mind too, though. And I say even about Google all the time, like criminals, I don't know if they really are just...

really stupid or if they think they're not going to get caught because they're searching Google on their phone for these crazy things. How long till a body goes cold? How to dispose of a body? They know ring cameras are almost everywhere nowadays, yet they're traipsing around in front of neighbors' houses doing things. And I'm like,

you're asking to get caught yet you think you're getting away with it. It blows my mind that there isn't like a level of acknowledging where technology is today and people continue to do it, which is good for law enforcement, but. - Yeah, it is really good for law enforcement. I think it speaks to though, the fact of you think about these personalities that commit these kinds of crimes in most cases. Now there are some really skilled serial killers out there and predators that are really good at what they do.

And I hope people don't take that offensively. But they know how to avoid detection. But if you think about most predators, they're satisfying this. When you think of Freud and he talks about ego, superego, and id, they're satisfying this piece of them called id that's just saying, you know, I want this. I deserve it, by golly. I'm going to chase it down until I get it. And then I'm going to figure out how to fix things after. They're so consumed with,

with satisfying their desires that they sometimes forget and get tunnel vision. And I often apply this kind of thought process to if you think about in the animal kingdom when mating... Maybe the lights are burning my glue. Yeah.

Animal kingdom. So when you think about the animal kingdom and its mating season, and you'll see people walking up on animals that otherwise they'd never get near to, but they're so focused on this mating process that...

that they, you could be driving, uh, diesel trucks next to them and they wouldn't be batting an eye. They're so focused. And I think these predators are exactly the same. They fantasize so much about what they're going to do. And when they finally acted out, even, even when it's trying to get away with something that maybe was, uh,

a crime of passion, but then they start fantasizing about how they're going to get away with it. They spend so much time fantasizing that they think I'm fixing all these things along the way and making simple mistakes that thankfully make the difference. And often we see these organized criminal thoughts, uh,

start to unravel and become disorganized the longer they can continue doing it. So in serial cases, you sadly hope that there are more victims because that's what's going to tell you more about the personality of that predator. Oh, God. That's a really interesting take. I never thought about it that way with that comparison with the animal kingdom. That makes total sense, though. It really does. Yeah. Okay. So you think about it. You know, you and I, we have this mindset that says, okay,

You know, we're the same. We have an id inside of us that says, I want this, you know. And then we have this ego and superego that says, hold on. You're doing some crazy talk right now. Let's get this level set. You know, you don't just go and do that. No, you go out and you create a relationship. And sometimes you accept no. And sometimes you, you know, whatever.

Predators don't think that way. It's I want it and I'm going to take it. And so what we have to do is we watch them and see these personality traits unfolding in other parts of their lives. It helps us understand in areas that they're keeping a little more secret. All right. All right. Well, that kind of leads me actually into this next case. And then we're going to get into cults after this. But I want to just quickly talk about Aiden Fucci. Okay.

Aiden Fucci was, of course, pled guilty to killing Tristan Bailey. Aiden was 14 at the time. Tristan was just 13. He stabbed her, I believe it was, what, 114 times. A brutal case. And all these cases, guys, we've gone over on this channel, and I know Mike has as well. So if you want to do a deep dive on any of them, please feel free to go and do that. I actually will link them in the description also. But I've been talking, unfortunately, a lot lately about these child killers. And whether it's Philip Chisholm, whether it's...

Aiden Fucci, all of these younger criminals who, depending on the state, depending on the charge, either can or can't be charged as an adult and then possibly get evaluated for early release or, you know, after 20 years, maybe they've had reform or they're rehabilitated. But

I guess I want to know, based on your opinion, are a lot of these younger criminals just kind of born bad? If there's something wired or it's a predator characteristic or something like that to where they were going to commit this at any point in their life, they just got caught young and they should be locked up. Or do you believe that there is the possibility that people like that could change? Yeah, boy, I'll tell you what, if we could solve this one

you and I would have changed the world. In fact, as you were talking, I had these flashbacks of my mentor, a fellow named Greg Cooper, who, as we were going through the profiling process, we hit this, we call it nature versus nurture. And he said, you know, some people want to blame the fact that they didn't get warm chocolate chip cookies and milk after school for the reason why they choose to be a predator.

And other people say, no, no, I'm Irish. Therefore, I punch people because that's what the Irish do, you know? And so it will be, I think, a question that we can never put into two simple boxes and say it's one or the other. But it's probably going to always boil down to the evolution throughout life of what happened. I mean, you look at some kids and you think,

how on earth could two kids from the same family that was dysfunctional

One turn into this rock star human being that, that is successful and compassionate and loving. And the other ends up being a psychopath that would cause you to lean toward nature. Yeah. You know, in the same light, um, some people, I think we all know what society standards are and the difference between you and I, and these predators that we talk about on our shows is that, um,

We know what's right and wrong, but they choose to violate those standards anyway. And we say, no, here's the line. That id, I'm shoving it back in the back. Yeah. And I'm going to say, oh, okay, then maybe another time. Okay. So we'll never have the answer is what you're telling me.

I think it will always be a different answer based on the individual. Okay. And in some cases, you know, Aiden Fucci, he comes from a family that had a broken home. Mm-hmm.

My mother had four marriages in my lifetime, you know? I can't think of a person that I have stabbed 114 times. Exactly. People always find an excuse for everything, it seems like. And he had been planning this, and he gave himself a timeline and had told his friends, I'm going to kill somebody in the woods in 30 days. And so it's like, it's not a crime of passion that happened in the heat of the moment. You've been stewing on this and wanting this to happen, and then he just chose his target. Yeah.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And this is where, again, behavior becomes so important as we have these kinds of discussions to think about. One of the other principles that you learn early when you're going through profiling is that fantasy is always cooler than reality. And so for a predator...

They may fantasize about having some kind of an experience, but whenever they try to act out that experience, it always falls short. It never is as cool as the fantasy was. And I would suspect in our normal lives, in our legitimate lives, that we've had experiences where we thought, oh man, isn't this going to be great? And all of a sudden we're going, oh.

Well, that wasn't that great. Yeah. Happens all the time. Yeah. But what we do is we say, okay, you know, I'm going to change my thought process. Well, the predator doesn't. The predator says, I got to fix what went wrong. Yeah.

And so they sit and fantasize and fantasize and fantasize. Pretty soon, the fantasy's not enough and they have to act out. And then it breaks again and they have to go back to the drawing board. So that's why you see these predators that are especially fantasy driven. And I believe that Aiden Fucci, for instance, would have probably murdered again had he gotten away with this.

That you see them continue to do this because it's the fantasy process. And his fantasy in that particular case didn't work out like he hoped it would, I don't think. The resistance that he had, whatever it was, it didn't work out.

And most predators will tell you that when you interview them and sit with them. And I'll tell you, I've eaten a lot of prison lasagna with serial predators. And that is a recurring theme, the fantasy of driving those. It's interesting you say that because the first time you and I talked about that, about the fantasy and the reality and the differentiation, it was when we were talking about Brian Koberger.

the accused murder in the Idaho case. Do you think had he not been arrested that he would have killed again, assuming he killed?

those four students yeah i i think uh it probably didn't work out the way he wanted um and frankly i those are the kinds of cases where i think yeah we've got something really serious to worry about further down the trail okay okay well you know what we are going to jump into colts right now but first we are going to take a quick break i am going to chug some diet coke because i don't drink coffee and that's what i live for and we are going to come back and talk about colts

Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

Hey guys, it's me, your true crime bestie Annie, and I am so excited to share with you that Serialistly is officially hitting the road and coming to you live in a city near you. That's right, we are going on tour. We've got shows planned in Orange County, California, San Diego, California, Salt Lake City, Denver, Colorado, Phoenix, Arizona, and

and more. We're going to be discussing all new exclusive cases. I have some surprise guests planned, but I can't tell you who. It's a surprise. At the end, we'll do a meet and greet so I finally get to meet so many of you. We've got exclusive merch and just so much more. It is going to be a show that you definitely do not want to miss. But space and tickets are very, very limited. So grab your friends, grab your co-workers, or come on your own and hang with me while we talk all things true crime together.

All of the information, including dates, cities, and links to purchase tickets can be found at AnnieElyse.com and then just toggle over to the events page. So grab them now before they're gone. I can't wait to meet all of you and I will see you on the stage. Okay, so I know that we have talked about this before, but can you just give the listeners a

quick rundown of your expertise regarding colts themselves because you of course have the book which is amazing guys i literally read it in one sitting so tell everybody about your book tell them about what you do with colts how you've extracted and helped just tell them what you do tell them everything you know uh i go back early into my law enforcement career i was working for the county attorney so that's a district attorney in some areas or a county attorney in others and

And that's the prosecuting office in criminal cases. I was running an undercover sting operation. So I was buying stolen cars and we were selling them. And it was the best job on the planet. Yeah, we had a great team. It was made up of officers from a bunch of different agencies. And we'd just go out and we were having a great time. I walked into the county attorney's office one day. And as I was walking past, the secretary said, hey,

can you talk to this woman over here? She's been waiting for someone for some time and nobody's around. So I was the bottom rung on the ladder, the last person they wanted to talk to somebody, but he got tired of making this poor woman wait. And so I walked over and she very confidently stood up and she was a beautiful young woman, probably 21, 22 years old at the time. And she said,

Do you have a minute to talk to me? I've been involved in a cult that's sexually abusing children. And of course, you know, I was just like...

didn't know what to say. Yeah. You know, I, you're not an auto theft and I, or an auto thief. Yeah, ma'am, where's the car? Yeah. I don't do sex crimes, but nonetheless, I took her back into the office and I started interviewing her. And after a couple of hours, I had enough to send her home with an invitation to come back the next day. And I went and met with the prosecuting attorney, the county attorney and

And I laid out the case and said, you got to get somebody on this. This is a big deal. And he says, yeah, we got somebody on it. And that was my introduction into child sex abuse. And it was absolutely unfair to those kids. But investigations are investigations. And what we needed was to go in and try to understand this cult and how this cult works.

was using coercive mind control to not only control the members, but to control the messaging that was out there.

And so after just literally hundreds and hundreds of hours of investigation, we were able to finally serve search warrants on the Colt. We took 70 police officers in that morning and hit all of the Colt homes at once because this was a Colt that was stockpiling semi-automatic rifles and food and medical supplies and

And we took the children into custody and then started making arrests. We eventually arrested and charged and convicted 12 people. And the prophet, the self-proclaimed prophet of that group, who very...

professed that God wanted him to have sex with children, ended up spending his life in prison. He eventually died in prison. But the 32 children in that group endured...

On Dr. Phil, I said 4,000 counts of rape. And I was corrected quickly by the victims who were now survivors who were on Dr. Phil with me. And they said, no, double it. And that might be close. So literally thousands and thousands of cases of assault. That ended up taking probably two or three years of my life to get through the criminal process on that case.

And then over the years, because of that, immediately after that case, in the early 90s, if you remember, it was kind of this, they called it the satanic panic era. Oh, yeah. But in the satanic panic era, everybody was just...

convinced that Lucifer was out killing babies and burying them and all kinds of things. And so the state legislature put a huge chunk of money aside and I was hired by the attorney general to go down and work this unit and

And we investigated cases of ritual crime. And we investigated about 300 bonafide allegations where people said, I participated in a cult that sacrificed babies and buried them. And we spent about two to three years investigating those 300 cases and

We had out of that only one that actually could go to the point of saying we know that the people involved did in fact commit these kinds of crimes and the rest kind of fell to the wayside of that regressed memory syndrome and other kinds of allegations that were going on at the time. So as I continued to do that, Utah has the largest number of polygamists in

the United States. And so part of my duty was to meet and try to understand and infiltrate all of the polygamous communities in the state. So I spent a

much of my time having lunch with these self-proclaimed prophets and trying to get to understand how their individual, and I called them closed societies. I felt that was a nicer way of, you know, not saying cult or something like that, but... How about compound? Is that offensive? Well, we live in compounds in many cases. I know, right? Yeah.

But yeah, so we and the attorney general, I worked for this amazing attorney general. Her name was Jan Graham, and she came up with this concept called safe at home. And we use that as a way to get into the polygamous communities and teach that everyone should know how to report sexual abuse if, in fact, they are physically or sexually abused.

And so it was really difficult for these self-proclaimed leaders in these communities, some that had 15, 20,000 members, you know. Oh, my gosh. We would say, well, you certainly would want, I know you're telling me that none of this happens, but you'd certainly want people to understand how they could help.

you know, get away from all of this. And so we were fairly successful in starting to infiltrate and come to know these individuals, but it was a chess match from day one. And, and so with that, I spent the last 40 years just studying cult behavior and getting to know the

the real smart cult experts around the world. And that's kind of led me down a bunch of different goofy paths. Well, one that I want to talk about is the FLDS, because that's one I feel like so many people know. It's one of the probably more common groups that people would associate as a cult because of their beliefs. But I will say it never fails to surprise me that

in every single cult or grouping where there's a self-proclaimed prophet, why is it that they always believe God is telling them to have sex with young kids? Like, why is that the one staple in all of them? It blows my mind. Like, they're not telling you that you should, I don't know, be a hot air balloon pilot. They're not telling you that, like, why does it always come down to that? Oh, he wants me to have a bunch of wives and have sex with a lot of girls. Like, okay, okay, sure. Yeah.

You know, I remember I got in a little bit of trouble because I made a public statement during the Zion Society investigation because Arvin Shreve, the prophet of that group, the self-proclaimed prophet, originally started with this concept that he was going to have multiple wives. And so women were being told, you need to leave your husband and marry me. And he was building this little compound around him.

But then I think he started to realize he couldn't take care of that many...

So he then had this revelation that said, not only are you to have sex with all these women, Arvin, but the women now should start having relationships with each other. I remember reading that in your book. Yeah. And that was really troubling to a lot of people. And yet absolutely and unequivocally accepted by the members of the group. And that's part of one of these cult characteristics that are so unique in these coercive cults.

is that they have this unique ability to take seemingly intelligent people

And slowly, and we use the analogy of boiling the frog, slowly getting them to change that mindset that, okay, if God wants me to do this, it's not that bad since I got a roof over my head and food in my belly and a nice home to live in. I guess I can put up with that. And you think about it, there are a lot of people who put up with much worse in a traditional family just to have security issues.

physical security. Cause I can't be emotional security. Yeah. But, uh, but then, uh, Shreve said, not only are these women supposed to have sex with each other, but now we're going to start having children become my wives. And then he started to bring that in. So what he did is he took perversions that we were, I was actually in a, I, that I was actually able to,

to uncover earlier in his life that showed that he was a pedophile. And he then turned it into a religion and said, no, God wants this to happen. So what he did is took something that he knew was absolutely vile and disgusting. And over time convinced people that, no, this is the will of God and I would never offend God. So I don't want to do it, but I'm going to do it. Well, okay. That's let's, so let's get into FLDS because for,

Okay, so for those of you who aren't familiar, and I did talk about this recently on my channel a little bit for 10 to Life, not on the podcast, but it's the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the FLDS, not to be confused with regular LDS and practicing Mormons, but it's the religious group that split from the mainstream Mormon church in, what was it, the early 20th century. They're known for their very strong beliefs, religious,

Some don't believe in drinking caffeine. Some believe very strong beliefs like limited use of technology, I believe, too, on their compounds or wherever they're living at the time. And then, of course, men being the ruler of the household, so to speak. And the main, I guess, ruler that you could say would be the prophet.

whether he's been appointed, which I don't know if they actually ever appoint somebody or if it is all self-proclaimed, which you could probably answer that. I feel like a lot of the time it's self-proclaimed from what I hear, but is there ever... It's interesting, actually, prior to Warren Jeffs, it was an acclamation of the presiding men in the group who would then say, this is God's will of who's in charge. Warren Jeffs came up with some revelation on his own that

Took him as one of the sons because he wasn't the oldest son, which was interesting, and propelled him into a position of power. So there were some interesting things that went on there. But yeah, it traditionally is a patriarchal kind of society. And yet we see in other groups where females are the leader and leaders.

In the case of the Zion Society, second in command and as much or more predatory, even sexually, than the men were. And so I guess the thing I learned over time, too, is that being whacked out is not a gender thing. Right.

No, it's not. We've seen both genders go absolutely crazy at 100%. Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.

Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

Hey guys, it's me, your true crime bestie Annie, and I am so excited to share with you that Serialistly is officially hitting the road and coming to you live in a city near you. That's right, we are going on tour. We've got shows planned in Orange County, California, San Diego, California, Salt Lake City, Denver, Colorado, Phoenix, Arizona, and

and more. We're going to be discussing all new exclusive cases. I have some surprise guests planned, but I can't tell you who. It's a surprise. At the end, we'll do a meet and greet so I finally get to meet so many of you. We've got exclusive merch and just so much more. It is going to be a show that you definitely do not want to miss. But space and tickets are very, very limited. So grab your friends, grab your co-workers, or come on your own and hang with me while we talk all things true crime together.

All of the information, including dates, cities, and links to purchase tickets can be found at AnnieElyse.com and then just toggle over to the events page. So grab them now before they're gone. I can't wait to meet all of you and I will see you on the stage. Well, to your point, so the FLDS...

believe in polygamy and that they can have multiple wives. And a lot of the times they groom these underage girls to become their wives. A lot of the times, too, it's family members and extended family members that come in, whether it's a cousin marrying off to another cousin, some interesting, weird family dynamics like that.

And it's interesting because you said how Warren Jeffs had this, you know, revelation, which I hate, I hate saying that word, but where he said, you know, I'm the new prophet, which isn't that what happened? Because then once Warren was caught and his reign of terror came to an end, then Samuel Bateman stepped up to the plate. And isn't that, isn't that true? There were people who tried to backfill the vacancy. Oh, there were.

But Warren Jeffs has remained in charge even from prison, which is interesting. So we see in like the FLDS, we saw the Centennial Group split off from the FLDS. Did I send you a video from the Centennial Group? Is it when you were in Colorado City? Yeah, in the really nice neighborhoods. Did I send you...

in the multi-million dollar homes. - There was one really big home where you showed me, it was the Profits Home. And I'm gonna put that video at the end of this, guys. So if you're listening to the audio version, you're definitely gonna wanna hop over on YouTube 'cause I'm gonna put that at the end of this because we got a whole tour of where these guys are living and the Profits House and all this stuff. So yes, but continue. - So natural progression, in fact, many of the polygamist groups in Utah

are break-offs from Colorado City, Hilldale, which originally broke off from the Latter-day Saint faith when in the early 1900 era, the church presiding leadership said, no more polygamy. We're going to obey the laws of the land and we're going to get rid of it. And, you know, polygamy wasn't that strange when it comes to religious circles. You see people because they try to go back and practice the biblical terms of polygamy and other kinds of things.

But these groups said, no, no, the church, the Latter-day Saint faith is now completely off because they're saying get rid of polygamy and believe the laws of the land. And they moved down. But then as they had people fighting for leadership –

Then they started breaking off and creating their own groups, the Allred group, the Kingston group. And so you see these, the Ervil, the Barons, and all these other whacked out individuals. I didn't realize there were so many. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And they all had their own little self-proclaimed prophet, or they all are still looking to Warren Jeffs? No, no, no. So you think about Christianity as a whole. If we went back to...

Christ on the earth, and then you have Peter, who's the rock, and the Catholic church is created. And then you have the Episcopal spinoff and the Protestant spinoff. And now there are literally thousands of Christian churches in the world, all that spun off from this one source. And so it's kind of a natural thing. And whether it's people that are trying to say,

I want to be in charge or whether it's people that are saying, I think you're misunderstanding the scriptures and this is the interpretation and they follow that interpretation or whatever. You see these groups break off. Same thing happens in polygamy and any of these groups that start to get bigger. People will try to spin off and create their own. Something about power and control. And it's usually men that think, I'll just go create my own because I got a bunch of knuckleheads that will follow me.

Which, it's so interesting because Warren Jeffs, I don't know how many years it's been now that he's been locked away and kind of in there, but people still who believe in him and look to him have his photo up in their homes, and he still has phone calls where it's almost as though he still has some sense of control and power over these people, but then...

The guy I was talking about, and I believe his name was Samuel Bateman, wasn't where he like enters the chat and he's kind of like this new guy and he got caught recently too. It's just like, what's with all of these guys thinking they're the prophet and that they're going to just have 11 year old wives. It's unbelievable. It is really tragic. Yeah.

And, you know, it's interesting because you go there and I go to Colorado City and Hilldale periodically and drive around. Sometimes I see people that now start to smile and wave. Really? They used to hate me, you know. And so you're seeing a small evolution occur, but you still see the foothold that the FLDS culture has.

has on many of those families out there. The mayor of Hildale was a former member of the FLDS church and she broke away. And when she became mayor, she started turning things upside down. They actually have a few places where they've got curb and gutter in the city now, which, you know, that would have never happened years ago. And so it's been kind of interesting to see. And I think

um, one of the interesting comments I got from Willie Jessup one day, and he was the, the lead henchman for Warren Jeffs. Um, Willie and I spent a day together just a few months ago and, and we were absolute, um,

combatants. When I was in the Attorney General's office, he was trying to keep Warren Jeffs out of prison. I was trying to put him in prison. And he and I didn't like each other. I don't know that we still probably don't. We probably still don't like each other. But we had some interesting discussion. And during that

As we were talking, he said, well, you know, you might be surprised because he said, if you went over to the high school, you now see a few girls wearing shorts playing volleyball rather than the pioneer dresses. So, you know, slowly things are starting to change. And hopefully that community will heal and become a little more diverse. In all of your time going kind of like deep into the cults and talking with people, did you ever worry for a second? Like,

What if they're brainwashing me? What if I'm going to be a part of this cult? What if I'm going to become a believer? I never worried about them brainwashing me, but I did worry about my own safety on many occasions going into the communities. And especially when I would set up meetings and go in and talk to the leadership and

And, you know, me and maybe a sergeant from the state police would be in this room all alone with them. And there were times when I thought, you know, this isn't probably the smartest thing. And yet we knew that they knew that our people knew that we were there, if all that makes sense. Oh, my gosh. But, yeah, it was a strange thing. And, you know, I can't ever explain it.

adequately what the feeling was like, Annie, but when you would drive into Colorado city or Hilldale, um, the, uh, men would start following you in their trucks and they would turn off and somebody else would come in behind and pick you up and they would follow every movement. Um,

I'd always stop at the store and go in and buy something. And Gentiles, the guys like me are not allowed in the store, you know, but I'd go in with my badge on my belt and a gun on and I'd go and buy a Coke and I'd stop and talk to the lady at the counter. How you doing? And they just didn't stare at you. Oh my gosh. So that always has fascinated me too, because I feel like

If you come in as an outsider, of course, they're going to try to intimidate you. They don't want you around. Is it because they're so protective over their lifestyle and the way they live? Or is it because they're in fear that they will get in trouble and some there will be arrests made? Why is it that there is like such that just bad vibes if you were to drive through or enter in? And why do they want to keep the outsiders away so much?

So the primary reason is they're taught that everyone on the outside is evil and part of Babylon and that only those on the inside are the chosen and those that have the true connection with God and that any other influence is going to be a negative influence that will hurt him in some way or another. So that would be like, um,

You and I living in Transylvania and opening the door to a werewolf and inviting him in to get a Coke and visit. It is a physical and emotional reaction to,

then it's much different now, but then that, that it would absolutely make their skin crawl to have someone try to talk to them. That wasn't part of the cult. That is so fascinating. I've always been fascinated with cold just because to me too, I wonder like, how is it that,

that these cult leaders, and I know you said it's like a slow burn and it happens over time, but it always has fascinated me. How do they brainwash these people, get them to believe a certain thing, get them to believe they're doing God's work, that this is all at the direction of God? Are there certain traits that you would say you've seen in these people of like the power that they have and the control they have over people? Or like, how does that mind play and mind game work? How do they do it?

Yeah, you know, I've often wondered, in fact, my wife and I had this discussion the other night as we were watching actually another case that's in the news. And there's almost a unique psychopathy about these people that are somehow propelled into these positions of leadership, whether it's a Warren Jeffs or a Manson or whatever.

Or what became a Richard Ramirez. They have this ability to project this power and authority and people, especially people that just want somebody to tell them what to do, flock to those kinds of people.

Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy, and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.

Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

Hey guys, it's me, your true crime bestie Annie, and I am so excited to share with you that Serialistly is officially hitting the road and coming to you live in a city near you. That's right, we are going on tour. We've got shows planned in Orange County, California, San Diego, California, Salt Lake City, Denver, Colorado, Phoenix, Arizona, and...

and more. We're going to be discussing all new exclusive cases. I have some surprise guests planned, but I can't tell you who. It's a surprise. At the end, we'll do a meet and greet so I finally get to meet so many of you. We've got exclusive merch and just so much more. It is going to be a show that you definitely do not want to miss. But space and tickets are very, very limited. So grab your friends, grab your co-workers, or come on your own and hang with me while we talk all things true crime together.

All of the information, including dates, cities, and links to purchase tickets can be found at AnnieElyse.com and then just toggle over to the events page. So grab them now before they're gone. I can't wait to meet all of you and I will see you on the stage. You know, you and I and the people that are listening for the most part, they try to develop their own relationship with the God that they believe in. They try to work through how do I somehow,

get inspiration from God in my own life and be a good example in others. Then there are these groups of people, and these are the people that I generally found in these cults that just want somebody to tell them everything to do and guarantee they'll go to heaven. You just do what I tell you and you're going to make it. And, you know, religion does that in kind of a soft way.

The difference is a cult doesn't leave free agency into play. Religion tells you and me, pray, read scriptures, be kind to people. That's how you get closer to God and you live a better life. The cult doesn't do that. The cult is much more restrictive and directive and controlling. Another big cult is, of course, the children of God, also known as the family. Is that one that you had any working with or that you're familiar with?

Never did any work with them as far as, it's a little older than my investigative time. Now, since there have been like the family in Australia, I did some work on. And they're children of God here in the States. Those kinds crop up. And the thing that I've always found kind of interesting is as different as they'd like to be,

They're very much the same. They're very much the same in the control mechanisms, this single authority figure, the inability to question authority, the secrecy, the control of members that you don't go out without others to make sure you don't get hoodwinked and pulled off into normalcy. Those kinds of control mechanisms are,

Are all these kind of like commonalities in cult characteristics? Okay. So let me ask you this. With that being said, do you think Scientology is a cult? Ooh, that's an interesting question and I'll ask you.

And in fact, what I'd say to you is... Sorry, you're a Scientologist watching or listening? It's interesting because Scientology is often thrown into the question mark box. It's interesting that it continues to somehow have a religious connotation when it's not based on religion at all. And every cult expert that I know, and I know the biggies...

have been punished by Scientology when they've looked at it. Really? And they've had, they have indicated that there have been concerns there. So my recommendation would be, frankly, that until you really know more about it, that that's a place where all we can do is say, the media reported this or this individual reported that. Yeah.

I can talk about the Zion Society or the FLDS or these groups because I personally created experiences with them. I look at some of those and I think, man, all I can do is look at the allegations that are in the media and all of them cause me to think, wow, those are really...

motivating kinds of comments. It's interesting because I agree with you that unless you're in it, you obviously are only hearing or seeing one side of it. So how are you going to make it that determination? But, and this is of course only from what I've seen in the media and heard about Scientology, but any group that is so restrictive on its members that it's

is so private that makes you pay a lot of money, that makes you go through this step program, gives me pause. It makes me wonder like, okay, who's really in charge here? Why do you need so much control? Why am I, I don't want to say the wrong word, but like banished for lack of a better term, if I do the wrong thing and I'm a traitor, like there's no free will, it feels like. So anytime you're in a situation like that, to me, it puts off the red flags. I'm like,

that's a cult. That's a cult. That's a cult. And Scientology, to me, is no different. Again, I could be ignorant to a lot of the teachings and a lot of the

you know, reasoning as to why they do certain things. And if you're a Scientologist, please feel free to school me in the comments. But there's something about it that has always scared me a little bit. And to your point with these, you said that a lot of the experts in the field have had, where do you say retaliation or there's been something where Scientology has tried to shut them down? Yeah, well, they've had concerns based on the fact that they spoke out and then things happened, which is kind of interesting. And I guess the thing that I always go back to is,

is to me the marker of a cult versus a traditional religion or others is the levels of secrecy. And transparency is so incredibly important, whether it's in religion or

Or in our personal lives or our businesses. And certainly there are trade secrets and things that we do to, you know. But yeah, that idea that we don't share, that the outside world wouldn't understand our little secret or special...

You know, those always create question. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, we're going to definitely have to do another, like, circle back on cults because I feel like we barely scratched the surface of what I want to talk about. But I know we're pressed for time. But before we go do that, I have some rapid fire crime questions for you. Rapid fire. Yes. And this is going to be a new little tradition over here on Seriously with the guests and even just a Q&A from comments. But first,

I want to get candid over here. I want to like kind of just put you on the spot and get you to answer some things. So it's just for fun. There's a couple of silly ones. Don't take it too seriously. I've had really good defense attorneys try this before. Let's see what happens. I'm going to try to soften you up at first and I'm going to throw the curve balls at you. So let's start with this. What recent case has bothered you the most, whether it is the actions and what took place in the case or maybe...

a ruling, a verdict? What's bothered you the most in a recent case? You know, I've been working a lot on the Zachary Latham case, which is the TikToker who ended up stabbing his neighbor. And the thing that I found interesting is how the media, because it benefited them,

remark that Latham was setting all of this up to benefit his TikTok subscriber pool. And there's no question when you look at it, that he was making videos of him racing his car and other things and putting it on TikTok that he was challenging, challenging people, calling them Karens and other things, because those were popular trending kinds of things that,

But it kind of troubled me that now he's in a case where he's being charged with murder. And every video I've seen, everything shows him backing up. He may have caused every bit of anger that's been bugging people. But when this murder occurred, this father and his sons showed up and they were planning on tuning this kid up. It just seems that way. And so...

it's like the weirdest case to me because it's not what I normally get down a rabbit hole on, but it's really intrigued me a lot. So have you been covering this one a lot on your channel? Um, I haven't talked about it. I'm going to talk about it in the next day or two. I've been, I've been doing some, uh, court TV stuff on it. And, uh, today on this morning on court TV, I got a little exercised about some things and, and, uh, that normally doesn't happen, but, but, um, I, I, uh,

I don't have a problem at all when I think somebody shouldn't be in a courtroom. I don't have a problem at all when I think someone should by saying, in my opinion, this is what happened. So that one's kind of bugged me a little bit. Okay. I'm going to have to watch your coverage on it because I want to know more about it. Okay. If you were a juror on the Casey Anthony trial, what would your verdict have been? Oh, that's interesting. If I had been on that jury, I would have without question said,

convicted her. Yeah. I knew we got along. Um, who do you think killed John Bonnet? Ah, very interesting. You know, um, so I am going to incredibly competently avoid answering this by saying that I was sitting in, uh, secret service headquarters the day that the documents arrived for analysis and

and promised at a certain point that I would never talk about anything I know about that case. Was it Burke?

Did you hear what I said? You could tell me. I'll shut the cameras off. Okay. Okay. Okay. If you had to move a body, who would you call to come help you? Ooh. Well, number one, I would call the local mortuary because I would never do something that was criminal in nature. At least I hope I never do something criminal in nature. I'd help you, Mike. And you know, um,

I'm afraid to even ask this question, so I won't make it a question other than a statement is who would fantasize about what would my next step be in that regard? Over here, I guess we do.

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Hey guys, it's me, your true crime bestie Annie, and I am so excited to share with you that Serialistly is officially hitting the road and coming to you live in a city near you. That's right, we are going on tour. We've got shows planned in Orange County, California, San Diego, California, Salt Lake City, Denver, Colorado, Phoenix, Arizona, and

and more. We're going to be discussing all new exclusive cases. I have some surprise guests planned, but I can't tell you who. It's a surprise. At the end, we'll do a meet and greet so I finally get to meet so many of you. We've got exclusive merch and just so much more. It is going to be a show that you definitely do not want to miss. But space and tickets are very, very limited. So grab your friends, grab your co-workers, or come on your own and hang with me while we talk all things true crime together.

All of the information, including dates, cities, and links to purchase tickets can be found at Annie and lease.com. And then just toggle over to the events page. So grab them now before they're gone. I can't wait to meet all of you and I will see you on the stage. Do you think that Brian Laundrie's parents knew that he killed Gabby Petito? Yes, I do too. Okay. Yeah. All right. Personal feeling. Yeah. Uh,

just based on a lot of different things, but yeah. Yeah. I think he called them and confessed. Yeah. And then they called, what is it? Bertolini, Bernatone, whatever his name is. Okay. Are there any true crime conspiracies that you believe in? For example, Chris Watts having his mistress, Nicole help him.

So are there any true crime mysteries? Conspiracies. Conspiracies. There are a lot of conspiracies that I think are incredibly interesting. In most cases, I would say, no, I don't. I believe that it really boils down to quick, rash, disorganized decision. Okay. All right.

Last question, and this is a big one, and everybody pay attention here. If you were to go missing, who should we all look for? Or look at? Who should you look at? Who should we look at? Yeah, probably famous Daves. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, good. That was fun. Thank you for being such a good sport. So we're going to do that now with all of the guest hosts. But also, if you guys have a question for me or any of the other future guests, just leave it in the comment section below on YouTube. And maybe you will hear in the next episode your name shouted out and your question asked and answered. So leave that below. Oh, what a fun idea. I know.

we good? Well, hopefully there's nothing that puts anybody on the spot too much or puts me on the spot too much. Okay. So can you just, before we wrap up, give everybody a rundown of all things, profiling evil, what you're going to be covering in the near future, how to follow, how to watch. You have a lot of exciting things going on. So tell the people. Wow. Well, thank you. And every time I have the chance to be with you, I always get

a bunch of people who subscribe. So thank you so much. I'm so glad they love you. Oh, well, you know, this has been the strangest thing because, uh,

you're like really likable on there. I'm like this old guy that just gets on and I'm always kind of the same personality and the same kind of drab. Let's not get too much in the woods here. I think it's a good balance. You reel me in a lot of the time when we do our live streams together. You're like, all right, Annie, you're trailing off a little bit. Come back in. It's a good balance. Well, so we're pretty excited. We just started.

We're like days from signing a contract to have our podcast on the Zion Society cult case, which is built on, and you said to mention my book, Deceived, an investigative memoir of the Zion Society cult case.

That has been purchased and we're going to roll out a big podcast. Congratulations. So we're really excited about it. It's already cut. We've already done all the recording. It's done. That's the one you sent me the preview of, right? Yes. Oh, I'm so excited. So we're really hopeful because we're pointing the proceeds toward building a new Children's Advocacy Center. So all of the proceeds thus far on the book have all gone toward this Justice Center. It's going to break ground.

In probably August of this year, we thought it would happen by now, but it's getting everything done is a little slow. But it'll be a place where children can be physically and forensically examined if they are victims of child physical or sexual assault. Wow.

And prepared for the court case. We did that because the Zion Society book, actually the children in that book were the first children in the second Children's Justice Center in the United States back 33 years ago. And so now that building is ready to be built and we hope to have the kids come out. So we're really excited about that and looking forward to it. I continue to do...

Court TV, just about weekly and News Nation on a fairly regular basis. And we'll just continue to try to knock out something that makes sense and

And because Profiling Evil, we kind of hope, is a little more educational. It is. Than we sometimes really bore people. But hopefully they're going in the right direction. It's good. It's not entertainment. People consume too much entertainment. They need to go to you, see the entertainment, and get the core values and get checked. I know for me, whenever I watch one of your videos, when it's the back to the classroom, I'm like, oh shit, I got carried away again. Oh no, yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to

Hello?

And I'll tell you, I just absolutely love watching your stuff because you say the things that many of us want to say. Thank you. And I really appreciate that. Plus, you know, I can't respond as a woman because I've never been one, you know? And so I look at that and I think this is so incredibly valuable because I remember one day somebody was asking me, my wife asked me, she said,

When you walk out of the mall at night, do you look over your shoulder and scan the parking lot? And, you know, I'm like, I wonder if there's a Burger King close by that I can grab a burger on the way home or something, you know? And she says, you know, a woman is looking at the cars in the parking lot and the people and the lighting and determining whether it's safe to go out or not.

And so I think it's absolutely incredible that you continue to do the work you do because you add an angle that cannot be added by people like me. Wow. Thank you so much. That's so nice. Well, I'm always scanning parking lots and I have my AirPods in, but I never am listening to anything. I'm listening to my surroundings.

Yeah. And if I'm in Target with my kids, game over. I'm looking at every single person dead in the eye, making sure nobody's watching me. Like, yeah. But unfortunately, that's what happens when you're a woman. You have to be on high alert. Yeah, it is. It's really something. You know, I was in Philadelphia two weeks ago and I stopped at my favorite sandwich shop. It's it's it's.

Pat's King of Steak down on Paschunk. And if you're familiar with, anyway, it used to be kind of a rough area. It's getting a little nicer now. But I was sitting there and I sat down next to this guy that looked like he'd probably been to prison about most of his life. Oh my gosh. We had the coolest conversation. And we approached things completely different in life.

But I learned so much listening to him and, you know, he probably thought, who was that goober that was talking to me? But I just think we got to quit being so stinking judgmental and relax a little bit and realize that people can change. People can make mistakes. But when you talk predatory behavior, no.

I have a hard time believing those can change. Yeah. That's where I get a little judgmental, too. And I come down hard on people. But I need to ease up because a lot of the time they're not guilty. Well, so... I'm learning. Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. Did you think Buster Murdoch was responsible for Stephen Smith? Honestly...

I don't know. Here's my thing, and this probably is not the popular opinion. My gut tells me no. What do you think? I don't think he was. You don't? Yeah. I never thought he was. I had questioned it a little bit because... But more so just because of the coincidences. It was Stephen, then it was the housekeeper. Like, all these things. I'm like, how do these people keep dying? But, like, then the more I looked into it and heard about the actual accident and what had happened, I was like, yeah, there is some weird stuff that doesn't make sense, but I...

I don't know. I think everybody's kind of looking for a scapegoat, especially with that family particularly, which I understand why. It's like a crazy family, but I don't know that he's involved. I think people are trying to make him involved, if that makes sense. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But...

Those are hard. I know. Well, thank you so much for joining today. I really appreciate it. I can't wait to do this again. Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of Serialistly. Don't forget to leave your questions in the comment section below. And if you want to watch the video version of this, always hop over to YouTube. Otherwise, you can listen on all podcast platforms. And if you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to rate and review. And we will talk again on the next episode next Monday on Serialistly. All right.

Hey guys, it's me, your true crime bestie Annie, and I am so excited to share with you that Serialistly is officially hitting the road and coming to you live in a city near you. That's right, we are going on tour. We've got shows planned in Orange County, California, San Diego, California, Salt Lake City, Denver, Colorado, Phoenix, Arizona, and

and more. We're going to be discussing all new exclusive cases. I have some surprise guests planned, but I can't tell you who. It's a surprise. At the end, we'll do a meet and greet so I finally get to meet so many of you. We've got exclusive merch and just so much more. It is going to be a show that you definitely do not want to miss. But space and tickets are very, very limited. So grab your friends, grab your co-workers, or come on your own and hang with me while we talk all things true crime together.

All of the information, including dates, cities, and links to purchase tickets, can be found at AnnieElise.com and then just toggle over to the events page. So grab them now before they're gone. I can't wait to meet all of you, and I will see you on the stage.