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Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Psychopedia podcast. I am your co-host, Hank Sinatra, here with my co-host, Edward Scissorhands. What are you talking about? Why? Because we're on video. I want to make a joke. Why? Why?
Why that one? Edward Scissorhands? Yeah. Well, I don't know. It's just something that popped into my head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck you, man. We'll get pictures. It's called fashion, sweaty. Yeah, right. Big day for us today. Yeah. Real big day. I don't even know who to introduce first. We have two very, very special guests in the studio with us today. First of all, we're in a studio. Big deal for us. Yes. Right? To begin with, we have none other than Mr. Chris Hansen, who is the foremost...
leading expert, face of child predators, but not like that. Catching them. Catching child predators. Oh, my God. Educating parents to protect their children from them. Yes, exactly. But like the Michael Jordan of it, really. Well, we've been doing it a long time. How long exactly? Next month will be the 20th anniversary of the very first predator investigation we did, not far from here, in Bethpage, Long Island. Oh, man.
Oh, man. We're from Long Island. Yeah, I know. I've been watching you. Bethpage is a gross place, by the way. Well... No, it's not. I'm joking. I'm kidding, obviously. I'm just trying to distance myself from it. They got a great federal credit union. The first investigation we did, we did not embed or collaborate with law enforcement. We set up a house. We worked with Perverted Justice, the online watchdog group at the time. And I had gotten wind of what Perverted Justice was doing.
And essentially, they would put their decoys in chat rooms on AOL and Yahoo. And if a guy made the first approach to somebody posing as a young teen, agreed to meet for sex, they would post his information on their website.
And I started to think if we could combine their ability as decoys with our ability to wire a house with hidden cameras and microphones, so I said Dateline at the time, it could be quite compelling. And in two and a half days in Bethpage, Long Island, we saw 17 guys surface, including a New York City firefighter. Wow.
Yeah, all kinds, all kinds, I'm sure, which we're going to hear about. I mean, I have a million questions for you, but before we get into that, I want to introduce our other guest.
very special guest, Jill from New Gerbil. Jill, why don't you come over here and say hello to the camera? This is our Patreon member, Jill from New Gerbil, who we have a thing on our Patreon, which is patreon.com slash psychopediapod. She's so nervous. She's doing great. We're so happy to have you, Jill. Every 500 Patreons we get, we have somebody...
come out and sit in. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I mean, I wish we could have every person truly, really. Well, that's why we need to tour. Yeah. So we can go to them. We need to get the, the live audience. Right. Yeah. I would love that. We just want to meet everyone. Yeah. We're like a family. It is important. You know, in my podcast, Predators I've Caught, we take questions from listeners and,
And I thoroughly enjoy it. Oh, yeah. And these people are asking really good questions. And I wish I could answer all of them. I read them all. Yeah. But I have them do an audio file and send it in. And it's very cool because it creates that connection between the listener and the host. Yeah. I love it. I like that. Yeah, it's very cool. We just did that on our Patreon, actually. We didn't ask us anything. Yeah. Yeah. But she's here. She's excited. She's nervous. You're doing great, by the way. Thanks. I don't want you to think you're...
bombing here. You haven't said a word. No, I haven't. Can you say hello so they can hear you? Just say hello into the microphone. Hey, freaks. Nice. Pretty good. She's a natural. You can go sit down. Thank you for coming over and saying hello. So I was toying with the idea of putting it out there to our Patreons like questions for you, but I also didn't want her to know who she was coming to see today. I wanted to keep it a surprise. I didn't want anybody to know.
Perfect. You know, I wanted to keep it a secret. Sorry, but it's not going to be a secret for long. No, it's not. No, no, no, it's not. But, you know, you talk about the questions. When I start going through them, it's like going down a rabbit hole. Two hours later, I realize there's a hundred other things I need to be doing, but I'm genuinely curious. Well, people take a real interest in your work. They do, but it ranges from the questions you would expect to,
guys saying I've had a proclivity to this activity but I've been able to keep it in check with therapy and I will never do it but I do have this desire thank you for doing this podcast I listen thank you for doing this investigations because they've helped me to understand my issue
And it's rather chilling and it's very brave on their part to actually come forward and admit that. But, you know, that's the range of questions that I get. Yeah. Because one of the questions that we, I have and something we talk about often is the fact that these people are for the most part, and not just child predators, but murderers, rapists, anybody who does something that is either illegal or immoral. A lot of times I feel like they're acting against their own will, definitely against their own better judgment. So, yeah.
When you are in these stings and these people walk in, what is it like in the room? Because obviously we can all imagine what it, we can see what it looks like, but what does it feel like in there? It feels very tense. So we just finished an investigation in Alabama, Blount County, Alabama, about 45 miles outside of Birmingham.
And I had appeared on a show there, a podcast called X5. And in the course of being there, I had met the sheriff. And we had never done an investigation in Alabama before. And so we were able to put this together and we had a house. I've always wanted to know how you find those houses. It's a combination. So in this particular case, one of the guys who does the podcast...
had a house that he had just refurbished, and it was pretty much set up in a way that made it very easy for us to do this investigation. So we need room for crews. We need the ability to... Somewhere to sneak out of. ...control the temperature. We need to... Somewhere to hide. Somewhere for me to come out from. Yeah.
And a nice kitchen setting. And the kitchen began because we needed a barrier between me and the alleged predator. The first time we did this, as I mentioned, we didn't involve law enforcement. Yeah. We didn't do it the second time. Well, it was a little edgy. We had security there. Ron Knight, my security man with NBC at the time, was there.
And so I felt as in control as I could be, but it's a very volatile, potentially a volatile situation. Over and over again. And you're doing it. So the first time I did it, your heart's in your throat. You're just trying to keep it down the chest. And you get through the first one, the second one, third guy came in and the transcripts were all over the place.
Right? So I had come out with the wrong transcript. When you say transcripts, it's... The transcript of the chat. Right. Right. Between the... Dirty transcript. Yeah, the predator and the decoy posing as a child.
And so I said, it says here you want to do this, that, and the other thing with a 12-year-old. No, that's not me. Excuse me. Went out and got the second transcript. The second transcript was the wrong one. By the time I got to the third transcript. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's me. Okay. Because they all say it's not that. Right. Yeah. Yum. I'm sorry I called you Edward Scissorhands, by the way. Oh, is it eating you up a little bit? I'm thinking about it, yeah. So it was a little mean. I'm fine. I wish I didn't. Chris Hansen's here. I'm good. I know. I got nervous. By the way, just for the Patreons.
I went over to my jacket to grab something, and Jill goes, nipple cream? It's like, they don't need to know. You guys don't need to know me that well. Really. It's a little off-putting. Just kidding. Well, Chris doesn't know what you're talking about. I just sound like a freak. I'm fine with that, by the way. I'm fine with that. I'm okay with that. Can I ask you a quick question before you go on? Yes, of course.
The initial investigations that you did without the help of law enforcement, ethically speaking, was that okay? I mean, that's like vigilantism then. Well, we had to find out what was going on, right? So it was investigative reporting, and the relevant information was shared with law enforcement after the fact. For instance, in the first investigation, the firefighter who showed up was prosecuted. In the second investigation...
a number of the men who showed up were also prosecuted. But it was after the fact, and that complicates things for law enforcement. So it became...
clear to me. Gotta get them involved. That we need to do this with law enforcement. That it's the only socially responsible way to proceed and selfishly, from a television production standpoint, it is more fulfilling to see this guy get arrested afterwards than to see him twirling an umbrella walking off into the sunset. Yeah. You know, that's frustrating for viewers. Are you going to ask him about your husband's connection to the show? Of course, but I'm letting the man
man speak first. I know, I'm just too excited. I want to know because we have a connection to you. Sure. Not really. I mean, we don't, I don't, but she does. A little bit. In 2006 in Potomac, Maryland. Yes. Do you recall setting up a sting operation and taking down
a rabbi. Yes. Rabbi David Kaye. Rabbi David Kaye. My husband's rabbi. Really? Yes. So he bar mitzvahed my husband. Really? When my husband went to synagogue, he was the man running the services. It's a fascinating story. Very. I looked into it. So this was in Herndon, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C., our second investigation. The last one we did without law enforcement present. On a Wednesday at around noon, a man walks in who's Rabbi David Kaye.
And he walks in with a bounce in his step. He's excited. I saw that. And he's talking to someone who he thinks is a 13-year-old boy. Very graphic conversation. Graphic pictures are shared. Now, he at the time was not a pulpit rabbi. He was working for an organization that encouraged Jewish kids to come to Washington and learn about American-Israeli politics and Jewish politics.
And there was no indication that he had harmed any children in the course of his official duties. But here he is at noon on a Wednesday. Doesn't look great. No. And when I slid the picture that he had sent across the table, people think he was coming after me. He was coming after the picture in the moment that—
he didn't realize that, of course, we could get as many copies of this as we wanted. Oh, he thought he was stealing the one picture. When the camera came out, he went right to the camera, put his hand on the camera, like that was going to stop this from happening. And Ronnie Knight, who I mentioned earlier, my security guy, reaches in and stops it, and he leaves. So we're getting ready to put the story on the air at the network. We're back and forth with him, and every time my producer, Lynn Keller, would call him...
to try to get a follow-up interview. He berated her and he was mean and vicious. And finally he says, okay, I'll sit down and do the interview. Wait, trying to get a follow-up interview with the rabbi? With the rabbi. My understanding is he would agree to do the interview if you didn't publicize his face and the video that you captured at the actual sting. Like that was his stipulation. He would agree to talk about it. To which you said, nope. We said, no, that's never going to happen. And this was clear. So...
We made it clear over and over again. And I think I'm walking into an actual interview at a hotel in Georgetown in Washington. He shows up. I'm in the lobby. Crew's all set up. And I told the crew, I said, look, the minute you see us, I want the cameras rolling. Yeah. Because I don't know whether he's going to storm out, what he's going to do, what's going to happen. Roll from the minute you hear the knock on the door, you roll. Yeah. So I'm in the lobby of the hotel with Ron Knight.
And here comes Rabbi David K. and he's clutching a soft briefcase. It's off-putting because I don't know what's in there, what he's doing, what he's up to. And he walks in and he tries to take charge of the situation. He said, you'll sit right there. And I sit down. I said, he told you to have a seat? He told me to have a seat. I don't think so. That's not how this works. And he says to me, he says, this is the way the interview is going to be conducted. And I said, Rabbi, we've been through this. This is not going to happen. We are using the video from the Sting House.
We are identifying you as the person who walked in, and you knew this when you walked in here. Yeah. And he stood up, turned on his heels, and stormed out, and that was the end of it. Obviously, you guys don't have to get, like, releases signed by these people. No, we don't, because it's journalism. Yeah. It's television news. There's no reasonable expectation for privacy.
We're catching somebody in the commission of a felony. It goes on and on, but we don't have to do that. You also let them know that they're free to leave. Right, exactly. The police are waiting for them and will apprehend them, but they don't have to sit in that seat. But again, David Kaye left because we didn't collaborate with law enforcement in that. But ultimately, the FBI arrested him.
And charged him, the FBI. It was a federal case because he came over the border, state, interstate. Oh, yeah. He was charged. He went to trial. Federal trial was found guilty. Yeah. And the judge actually found that he had lied on the stand and departed upward from the sentencing guidelines. He did almost six years in federal prison. Yeah, he did six and a half years for coercion and enticement was his actual charge. But, yeah. My first question is... We're going back in time? Yeah.
So I've watched, you don't know this, but I had like a major run with clips on YouTube. I used to watch it when I was on TV, but like pretty recently I just got sucked in and watched probably 80, 90 clips, the best of, the most, you know, most compelling or whatever. And how do you find the most unluckiest people of all time? Because it's always their first time and they've never done it before. Do you know how many times I've heard that? I imagine every single time. It's my first time I've ever done it before. Well, I...
You know, what are the odds that the one time you try this— Every time. It ends up being— Every person. Chris Hansen and his team. It's their first time. Yeah. They also say that they're there to protect the child. Oh, yeah. To help the child. Right. To make sure the child's okay until the parents get home. Yeah, I told her. They were worried. I was coming to tell her she shouldn't be doing this. Look, I think these guys, you know, we're close to 600—
Wow. You've done 600 interpersonal? Pretty close, I think. Between the original, you know, Have a Seat with Chris Hansen, Hansen vs. Predators, and Takedown, which is what we call the investigations now on True Blue, we're pretty close to 600, I think. How are people still falling for this? I ask that question all the time. I mean, I honestly thought in the beginning...
We do this two, maybe three times, and who's going to show up? I thought I'd be taking a nap on the kitchen counter, like the Maytag repairman or something. But they continue to show up, and I think this is why. This proclivity, this drive to have sex with a minor is an addiction. Some people can control it. Some people cannot. It's like a heroin addict. They know there's a 20% chance there's fentanyl in the heroin, right? That fentanyl could kill them.
But they need the hero, and so they go ahead and roll the dice. The Predator knows that there's a 20% chance that it's law enforcement or Chris Hansen. But they want to fulfill this fantasy. They've crossed this line between fantasy and reality, and they need to fulfill it, so they take that chance anyway. We see...
in the chats routinely references to me, references to various sheriffs around the country with whom we work. They know we're out there. Because one of the questions— It's not a secret. There's been so many shows where they don't know who you are. And I'm like, how do you not know who this guy is? Well, it still happens. For instance, in Alabama, where we were most recently, one of the guys knew and a couple did not.
Now, I think in the back of their mind, they're thinking, wait a minute, there's a show, it's this guy. But, you know, one of them was just taken out completely. What about the one guy who knew who you were but didn't believe it was you? Oh, yeah. That was in Fairfield, Connecticut. He's like, you're not Chris Hansen. I know Chris Hansen. Yes, I am. I may be a little grayer than when I started this, but I'm still Chris Hansen. The level of delusion that these people exhibit is really staggering. And the fact that they think they can convince me.
They're desperate.
He had gone on a public website to see who owned the home and he had the right name. It was just the previous owner and convinced himself that this girl who he identified, I don't know, on Facebook or something was 26 and so he was okay. But he had spent hours upon hours laying the foundation for his excuse, his alibi in case he got caught. And, you know, of course we rip right through it because we know it's BS. Yeah. And I'm ready for that.
And we know a little bit about them. I mean, sometimes we have a complete background check on these guys and sometimes it's less than that. So, you know, it depends whether they have a criminal history. You know, one of the guys who walked in had a pistol with him, you know, which creates a whole separate set of issues. Yeah. You know. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.
My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be.
With respect to sort of, you know, mentioning that it's an addiction, right? And society just tends to have more empathy towards people who are struggling with a drug addiction or alcoholism. I've heard you a bunch of times sort of show some, I don't want to say empathy because I don't want to give anybody the wrong idea that you're empathizing with these predators. Well, I think empathy is probably right. We talk about that. I think it's that and understanding. Yeah. I mean, look, anybody can jump out of the back room. Right.
or from behind a row of bushes and create 10 seconds of dramatic video and scare the heck out of somebody. That's not what I do here. I mean, it happens. You know, the guy was getting ice out of the refrigerator and the decoy leaves and I walk in and, you know, ice is flying all over the place and we just surprise the hell out of him. But,
My job is to get inside this guy's head. Right. Yeah. Right. But that's part of it. And this is what we talk about a lot on this podcast is that the perpetrators that we highlight as awful as they are and their behavior is inexcusable and they have to be held accountable. And I'll lay into them. Right. I know. I don't take BS. Right. You know, I'll let it go for enough time and they jump ugly with me. I'm going to jump right back. Right. Yeah. But in order to protect kids from this happening...
You need to understand how the mind of a predator works. And if you can understand that, you can get that out there and parents can see it. And it raises a dialogue.
perhaps needs to be louder than it is right now, even with all the shows we've done. Yeah, we talk a lot about addiction slash mental illness and how even though, I mean, I think empathy is the right word. Sympathy may be a little bit too close for comfort. We say a lot, because I have a history of drug addiction and alcoholism. I'm in recovery now, but
I remember feeling like early on, I got to be held accountable for my actions. You did. And you have to make the decision to change. If I'm driving drunk and I kill somebody, yeah, it's going to suck for me that I'm going to be in jail, but I'm too sick to be in society. I'm going to hurt somebody again and again and again until I'm either dead, I stop...
or I'm behind bars. And stopping, it seems so unlikely when you're in the throes of some kind of compulsive behavior. Until you get caught. Exactly. But even when you get caught, sometimes people will just go, that was a fluke. Like, I had plenty of times where I was drunk or high and something bad happened and I'd be like, that's so weird that that happened. It's a one-off. Couldn't be related to the drugs and the drinking. I fell down and scraped my face off. It must have been, I tripped over a rock or something. Yeah, yeah. You can make any excuse. When you're an addict, the consequence...
seems kind of like too far away to even consider in the... Or you're under the influence to the point where you can't see what's happening. Yeah, it's a wild... The human mind, which we focus on a lot, is very fascinating. And it's gradual, at least what I see with these guys. Oh, yeah. They get on a slippery slope. And I think there is a real connection between
between pornography, and not everybody who views pornography becomes addicted to it, and not every image of pornography is harmful, but there is a link between pornography and offending. And there is very definitely a link between child pornography and offenders. Once they get to that point, it's all over. Right, because they have to escalate to get that. If you go into a federal prison...
if you're one of the U.S. Marshall psychiatrists, whose job that is, and you talk to these guys, without exception, the offenders have viewed child pornography. Yeah. Have you ever heard, because we've talked about it, I forget who it was, whether it was Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy, who interviewed a bunch of serial killers in prison, totally unofficially, but he found that all of them had roots going back to porn, like hardcore pornography. And I remember hearing something about,
years ago that if you view porn at a very young age, let's say like before 12 or so, something happens in the brain where the rear of the brain, the reptilian part is wired a little bit stronger than the front and that affects your decision-making process. This could be all made up. I have no idea. But if you can confirm. Well, I don't know the science exactly of all that you have just said, but I do know that there is a link and I do know that porn is easy to get. Oh,
And again, there is porn that people view and don't become addicted. And it's, you know, relaxing or whatever. But we just did a big interview for the first time ever. And you can see this on True Blue. We interviewed in depth a predator I caught. He was a doctor, 61 years old. And he spent his...
His entire day on this particular day, seeing 18 patients and texting a decoy with the Genesee County Sheriff's Office who was posing as a teenage girl. Yeah. Sending pictures of his private parts, all while seeing 18 patients, then gets in his car. Busy guy. Yeah. Well-to-do guy. Yeah. Very successful practice. Drives over there, walks in with Oreos, red wine, Coke.
And, you know, a slap on the rear for the decoy. And he then tries to defend himself. He comes clean on some of it with me. The sheriff's come out. He fakes a heart attack. All this goes on. Oh, my gosh. Fake a heart attack. Check out the episode. True Blue. I know it's a network that you've started or is it something that you've partnered up with? I partnered up with Transition Studios and Sean Reck. And it's a streaming crime network. So we have...
all the new predator investigations, which we call Takedown. We have other documentaries. We have aggregate material. We're working on a crime news magazine called True Crime Nation that I'm going to host. We'd love to be on the cover of that. Yes, we would. Absolutely. Swing big. Yeah, exactly. Swing big. And it's a TV news crime magazine. Yeah. And we produce documentaries.
Everything from sextortion, which is a huge issue, to other investigative stories that we do on various criminal aspects and elements and humans. And where is True Blue? Is it an app? True Blue is a streaming crime network. So if you go to watchtrueblue.com, T-R-U-B-L-U.
Yeah. You can get all the information there. In fact, if any of your listeners, viewers, want to get a discount code, the codes are Psycho Monthly and Psycho Yearly. Great. Wow. Thank you. There you go, you little psychos. Psycho Month, Psycho Year. Okay. We'll figure it out. We'll put it in our show notes. Yeah. So they have the discount there for Jiggly. It's the perfect audience for this. I think that all of us true crime people have cut our teeth on watching your work.
for the last 20 years, 100%. Thank you. And that's very flattering. And I'm very blessed to have worked with a lot of great people and producers and can't wait to see
camera crews over the years. And I was also very blessed to be at a network for 21 years, which gave me the platform to go do other national and international shows, which all came together to allow me to do what I'm doing now, which is a dream come true for anybody in this business to actually be part owner of a streaming crime network and not only have ownership of the content, but to have ownership of the distribution. It's the best of both worlds because we have a network and
We do the stories. We do the takedown series, the Predator series that everybody wants and is important and is interesting, compelling. And we do these other documentaries in which I have a great deal of interest too. So to me, 42 years into the business, this is the greatest thing in the world. I mean, it's fantastic. So, you know, I get up every morning and think, okay, what do we do next? Yeah.
Yeah. You know, it's very exciting. Do you know what she does for a living? Her real job, which we're trying to get her to quit? Did you talk about that at all? We did not. Every opportunity you get. I'm just throwing it out there. The more universal pressure I create, the more likely to happen. Why don't you tell them what you do? So my family's law firm, Slater Slater Schulman,
We are one of the leading law firms in combating sex abuse and representing survivors of sex abuse. Typically, we go after the institutions that enable the sex abuse to occur. So, for example, right now, one of the cases that I oversee is the Boy Scouts of America case at our firm. Very familiar. We have about 14,000 clients that are in that case. More recently, we just signed up about 40 clients who were sexually abused by a teacher in Los Angeles. Wow.
His name is Mark Berndt. You may have read about him. Yeah, I sure did. So what he was doing was he was blindfolding his students and he was conducting what he referred to as taste tests.
And he was ejaculating onto spoons and feeding it to the children while having Madagascar cockroaches crawling on their faces. And he would also serve them semen-laced cookies. So his moniker is Cookie Monster, which is hilarious. There's a shockingly similar case in Louisiana in a parish where we're doing a big documentary now.
I mean, who thinks this stuff up? It's one thing to think it. It's another thing to execute on it. The level of depravity is... The thought is depraved. I have a story that I think I've never told that I would like to. Please do. The floor is yours. Okay. So I lived in a house with somebody. I rented a room from them. I was in a... Not a bad spot, but I wasn't in a great spot. I needed somewhere to live. So I rented a room from this person. I called him.
I called her before I got back from where I was living. I said, do you have a room in your house? I know you have a room that you rent out to people. So she said, yes. The guy just moved out. He like ran out of here in the middle of the night. So weird. I'm like, that is so weird. What a jerk. You didn't give me any notice, whatever.
So I get back from where I'm living, move in there. Within two or three days of living there, I woke up one morning, went to go brush my teeth, and her fiancé had jerked off on my toothbrush. Stop it. I never told you this? Did I ever tell it? It's a little bit familiar. It's really one of the most unsettling things that's ever happened to me. So I make sure I lick it. No, I'm just kidding. I...
I just like, I'm like, I can't, maybe he cleaned my toothbrush with bleach or something. I don't know. I'm trying to figure out how this is possible that this guy jerked off on my toothbrush. And when I got to work, we had a guy who worked with us who was, he had done some time in federal prison. I mentioned it. He was like, oh yeah, oh yeah, they'll do that. People do that for sure in prison.
So I was like, oh my God, I think he actually did this. So I called the girl, told her that I had gotten all my stuff out of there overnight, literally did the same thing that the guy before me did. Yeah, to this day, like I can't, I still can't believe that he was like marking his territory. I don't know if he thought I was going after his fiance or something. I was there for three days. It really was not about you, Tank. No, no, no, no. That type of behavior, it's not about you. No, people are just, their minds are so warped. And like you said, to go from fantasy to reality, it's a huge step.
It's a huge step. I think a lot of them also come from troubled backgrounds. Again, it's not an excuse, but, you know, there is a... I think it's a 30% to 40% correlation between people who are sexually abused as children who then go on to perpetrate when they are adults. Have you ever had any of your people say that, like, in your interview process with them? Very few. Yeah. It's also something that they may not acknowledge. Yeah. And again...
The doctor was one of the few people, the only person who sat down with me after the fact and did an in-depth interview. And he's counting that as part of his public service under his probation. It was one of the unusual cases where, you know, they tossed his phone, they went through his digital media, and there was no indication that he had ever met somebody underage before. His problem was a sex addiction. And he had had other relationships that he developed online before.
I mean, he was going to have sex with this girl. There's no question. And that was wrong on every level. But he had not gone after a teenager before. And it didn't really matter to him in this case whether it was a 15-year-old or a 25-year-old. He was looking for it. That doesn't excuse it. It still is a crime. But that's why he got probation and not a prison sentence in this case. Now, he spent four days in jail waiting to get it sorted out, waiting to get bond. But he was very honest with this. Some of the other people...
who may have had that happen in their lives, only have that window of opportunity to talk to me in the moment of the arrest or being caught. So nobody has ever...
said, okay, I did this because I was assaulted as a child. I'm sure that's the case because of what we know about some of these offenders. Well, the downstream effects of child sexual abuse is just catastrophic. And it's not to say that... It's generational. It's exactly. And we talk about that a lot on this podcast too, generational trauma and abuse.
And it's not to suggest that every single person who's sexually abused as a child is going to go on to perpetrate or to have a difficult life, but there is an absolute correlation. And I hear from victims, survivors, all the time on my podcast, Predators Have Caught, thanking me. It's incredible to me
How often my wife and I will be out, you know, to dinner someplace and someone will say, hey, can I talk to you for a minute? I say, sure, absolutely. And, you know, they'll share an experience from their childhood and say every time, you know, you catch one of these guys, I cheer. It's given me a sense of control, a sense of, you know, feeling that I'm not alone here. But it's stunning to me how many people have come up to me to share their own story over the years. Do you ever feel like the perpetrators you bust are relieved? Yeah.
Yes, I do. There have been cases where they have said during the interview, we had a teacher, as a matter of fact, in Ohio who said, you know, he finally broke. I mean, he was going to deny, deny, deny, deny. And then I could see it in his face. He just came to. Yeah. Yeah. And he said, you know, I've been communicating online since I was a teenager.
And I got older, but the people with whom I was communicating stayed teenagers, in fact, got younger. Yeah. And, you know, when I was growing up, the rule was don't talk to strangers. Good advice then, good advice now. But the problem today is the guy who's a stranger on Wednesday is so adept at grooming. Yeah. He's not going to be a stranger by Friday. And we have seen shocking examples. And we did a documentary on this case of Peter Pedgick.
who was able to, on Instagram, groom a 12-year-old girl in Michigan to leave her home, crawl out the bedroom window, meet him in a church parking lot. He offered her all the things that, you know, he could come up with to satisfy a 12-year-old girl. Takes her to a hotel, sexually assaults her, harms her in a horrible way. She goes to the emergency room the next day and the Genesee County Sheriff's Office says,
the ghost team, was able to track him all the way to Florida. And in an interview, he admitted doing this in two other states. This is Instagram. Oh, my God. A 12-year-old child. Yeah. This isn't a sting operation. This happened in real life. Right. How do the decoys handle doing what they do? Because whenever I watch, I always think, I know there's one girl who's in a lot. I don't remember her name. Yeah.
Right. Or what her name is in the thing. Well, Del Harvey was one of the original... Brown hair? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And perverted justice isn't around anymore, and those people have gone on to do a lot of other very cool things. Yeah. Del was with Twitter for many years, as a matter of fact. It takes its toll, to answer your question. And even with veteran law enforcement officers...
who do this routinely, they have to cycle in and out. Absolutely. Because it's, I mean, you're sitting there and you know you're chatting with the worst of the worst of society, anybody who'd harm a child in any way. Yeah. There's nothing worse. There's no worse criminal, right? And so they have to get in the mind and talk as if they were a 12, 13, 14, 15-year-old kid raising these issues. Yeah. It's incredible what they do.
And, you know, every time I think, well, maybe this is this guy's first time. But then you start digging a little deeper or when you do feel empathy for somebody who maybe has served our country in the military or maybe is suffering from PTSD. All that's valid. But when you stop and think of what would have happened to a teenage kid, boy or girl, if they were really there. Yeah.
and we were not, you start to feel a little less sorry for these guys. Well, I can tell you being on the opposite end of the work you do. So working with the adult survivors who were victims of sexual abuse as children, I can say the work you're doing is tremendous. And I work with lawyers just like your family in a lot of these cases that we do that end up being major documentaries. And the trauma is real. It's real. And it doesn't go away. And if you don't deal with it, it's going to haunt you for the rest of your life. Right. Yeah.
So you just said, one of the questions I had was, did any of these guys almost ever, first of all, side question, why is it almost exclusively men? I think when it comes to male predators, you're more likely to see somebody who gets off on the anonymity.
When you talk about female predators, the therapist and the analyst will say that they don't like the anonymity. They like to know their victim. And that's why we see all these cases of the teacher, female teacher, underage male student. And speaking of that, I have seen more of those cases in the last year and a half than any other time in my career. I don't know what's going on, whether it's being more
Yeah.
because this kid has had all these crazy experiences. And again, it goes back to what you were saying earlier about, you know, it's too early for a kid to process that information. Yeah. It just is. And I also think that if you were going to go to a porn site, Pornhub or something like that, you will see entire sections dedicated to
teacher-student fantasies. And I think those things have an influence on what happens in real life. Right. Yeah, because having these online rooms where these people can meet, it's like the biggest virtual Chuck E. Cheese you could possibly imagine. Exactly. And how long till that doesn't work anymore and these guys have to go out and seek it out in reality? And we see some of that. Some guys will never leave the chat room, never leave the fantasy room.
And we get that excuse all the time, like, well, we didn't really think, I didn't really think it was going to be a teenage girl. I thought, you know, you had to be 19 to get in there. Well, you got to be 19 to get into a lot of rooms. And there are a lot of 13 and 14 year olds doing stuff they're not supposed to be doing. They're curious. Yeah. And I hear from people all the time.
shudder and can't believe that at a young age they were actually in and around these guys, whether they were victimized or not. Yeah, the onus, I guess, at the end of the day is on the adult because kids are going to be curious and experiment and try and see what they can get away with. But as an adult, it's your job to say,
First of all, to not be there, if at all possible. But if it's, you know, let's say you're in there trying to help. I don't know. I don't know why you'd be in a child chat room if you weren't there for nefarious reasons. A lot of times that happens and we see it. But also you see children sneaking into adult chat rooms. But again, we've seen it in Instagram. We've seen it in Snapchat. We've seen it all over the place.
When we started doing this, we merely had decoys and chat rooms on AOL and Yahoo. Now, there has been an explosion of social media platforms upon which adults can approach children during the pandemic. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported that these incidents, and there's mandatory reporting, these incidents shot up like 900%. Wow. Right.
That's wild. That's terrible. We were talking on the way here about Roblox, this kids game that a lot of kids play. And it's becoming, I guess, a bit of a problem because the ratio of adults to kids is way higher than it was originally thought. And could they be there playing games? Sure. I mean, I'm an adult. I've played Roblox with my kids. I can't stand it. I don't get it. I'm five minutes in. I'm like, guys, I love you, but this is too boring for me.
Well, and the kids get drawn into it. I remember years ago, World of Warcraft, I told my oldest son, I said, Scott, time for bed. You got to go. He said, well, the team's depending on me because it's interactive. I said, the team's going to be minus one because your ass is going to bed. It's time. But they do...
you know, get tricked into thinking that they have this duty, this allegiance. And, you know, they can't let these people down. And you don't know who the other people are. You have no idea. Or what their motives are. In World of Warcraft, I believe there's voice now associated with it. But when you're just typing. I'm going back 15 years. Oh, yeah. Okay. When you're typing, you have no idea who's who. No. You know?
And for a little kid, like, you know, to make a friend online, they're like, oh, you know, I made a friend today. It's like, well, no, you didn't. And if they're in an environment where they're a little bit lonely or needy, you know, these predators, these adults know how to fill that void. And that's part of the grooming process. And so as a parent, you need to have this age-appropriate discussion with your kids. And it starts with...
the very moment they have access to the internet and you need to start with something along the lines of look.
Look, there are grownups out there who like to trick kids. Kids don't like to be tricked. It resonates with them. And then as a parent, you have to up that conversation. And monitor. And monitor as they get older and potentially exposed to things you don't want them to be exposed to. Are all of your sting operations discovered in chat rooms like the Predators? Is there any other forum that you use aside from the internet? It's all on the internet. It's
It's all, you know, in different social media platforms. Now we see a lot of people looking for moms or dads selling their children, which indicates to me that if they're looking for that in the fantasy world, it's happening in real life. We've seen it in Florida.
We've seen it in Michigan. We saw it in Alabama. We see, you know, any place we do these things. Yeah, it's human trafficking. Right. Exactly right. And football games and big, like, public places like that are breeding grounds for
for human trafficking. Any major event, whether it's a political convention or a sporting event. I mean, it's everywhere. There were rumors. Obviously, I haven't verified this one way or the other, but there were rumors that various websites were disguising things on their pages, like, for example, Wayfair. Yeah, I don't know about that. I know, but I'm just saying. That ended up not being true. Right, but there are... The fact that there's a rumor out there indicates that somebody's at least thought of it. Right. But what people to think to create these things, like it's already...
A problem. Child trafficking, human trafficking is a problem. I don't get why people take it to that degree where they almost delegitimize the concern. Well, that's the thing. You turn it into a conspiracy theory and then people say it's all BS. Why is this cabinet $9,000? Because there's an eight-year-old in it. What the fuck are you talking about? That was just telling you. But these things do catch fire and they get traction.
Yeah, of course, because it's worst-case scenario, and people, like, you know... Yeah, but if it's winding up on people's radar, I don't have a problem with it. Well, it creates awareness and a dialogue, yeah. But you also have to be able to separate what's real and what's not. And the wafer thing was just, you know, goofy. So in terms of the process, I'm sorry to go back on the sting, but this was my childhood watching this, and so this is a big deal to be able to talk to you about it. You were a child. Don't make him feel old. You were, like, 20 years old. That's, I mean...
Okay. That's young. I was a young adult. Excuse me. Yeah. I was seven watching to catch a predator. You're so mean today. I would love to know what the process is. So you identify a perpetrator online and then you and your team, do you contact the local, you know, police in that area? It's like a sting operation. So we embed with law enforcement. Right.
Now, law enforcement provides the decoys because it creates a stronger prosecution. There's no questions about chain of evidence of the chat logs or anything like that. So the law enforcement people poses the children online and they go into these various social media platforms and just exist. The predator always has to make the first move.
So in other words, we don't have decoys posing as teenagers saying, hey, I want to have sex today. You're a good guy to have sex. That would be entrapment, is that correct? Yes, it would borderline on entrapment, if not full-on entrapment. So the predator always has to make the first move and generally raises the specter of sex first. And then once the chat begins, it's something that continues until they make the date to meet and they show up at the house. Now, in most states...
The online solicitation constitutes the felony. That's the crime right there. Showing up ends up being the icing on the cake, so to speak. Or the entertainment aspect of it. Well, the television part of it, yeah. But in many jurisdictions, they will run a sting operation, and even if the guys don't show up, they will at the end have a roundup. They'll go arrest them and prosecute them for having that conversation online.
What do you think about the people who have sprung up doing this on their own, way less gracefully than you have? I'm not a big fan of it. It's very messy. I think there's very definitely a place for citizen journalists in our society. YouTube and these other social media platforms have created an opportunity for podcasters to crowdsource the solution to crimes online.
unsolved mysteries. It's a very important part of our social media fabric. But for somebody to go out there and bait somebody and to spring out of the bushes and create a volatile environment where somebody could get hurt and on top of it, the case can't be prosecuted. I don't know of anybody in law enforcement in America today. I don't know of anyone who would say this is a good idea. They don't like it.
The cases are difficult, if not impossible, to actually prosecute. Yeah. And they create an unsafe environment. So you got a guy who goes out and they find somebody online who agrees to meet in a hotel room with a kid for sex. And then the guy says, well, I'm with the predator patrol team.
Yeah, whatever. Whatever. It might as well be the Paw Patrol. It doesn't mean anything, right? And then they claim to be affiliated with law enforcement. All they're doing is calling 911, which draws an unsuspecting member of law enforcement into a potentially volatile situation. It's a recipe for disaster. Now, having said that...
There are some of these groups who have identified prominent people doing really bad things, right? Some of them have been prosecuted successfully. But overall, it's not a great idea. And every time I talk about this, I get criticism and hate mail from guys who do this on their own. But I'm not going to change my opinion on it.
I'm just not. It is what it is. Well, they probably think because you're doing it, you see them as competition, but that's not it at all. They're doing it in an unsanctioned way, creating real problems. We have structure. Even before we collaborated with law enforcement, you know, we had a structure to it. You know, we worked with perverted justice, which had thresholds. They
They didn't just go out and lure people. You had to cross that threshold, which became also the threshold of prosecution. And the vast majority, the vast majority of cases where the perverted justice decoys were used were successfully prosecuted. Overwhelmingly so. Only a couple of issues in one or two jurisdictions where somebody was not successfully prosecuted.
When these guys get caught, it seems like they regress into a very childlike state mentality, right? Sometimes. So is there, I mean, is there anything to the fact that maybe these people, again, we've spoken about it, but got molested at a young age and are stuck there because two things happen at a childlike. One...
they freak out and they become very emotional. Two, they lie like a child lies, meaning they tell the most unbelievable thing you could possibly imagine and think you're going to believe it. And then when you go, oh, really? And then they think they're getting some headway and you're like, I don't think so. Well, I'd lay it out there. I'd let them tell their story as long as they want to tell it. And then I'll go back and say, so you're saying that you were what? Just driving down the road in this
Drove six hours. Message magically popped onto your phone and said, hi, I want to have sex with you. And I'm, you know, this, that, or the other thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what happened. I said, that doesn't make sense. And then you slowly peel it back.
And then they're caught with it. But you're right. These guys come from all walks of life. So you've got a doctor who's been to medical school, who's well off financially, successful family on one end, and then you've got loser city. Dropped out of high school. Yeah. Yeah, it's a...
Covers a lot of different... And everything in between. Yeah. I was going to ask, just doing this so long, if there's been any psychological impact on you. Because you mentioned that you, you know, the decoys that you use, you kind of cycle in and out, obviously. What about Chris Hansen? What about you, Chris? I am pretty good about compartmentalizing it. And I've been doing this for a long time.
and a lot of it in the crime space. Even before we did the predator investigations, you know, we went to Cambodia to expose animals
underage sex tourism and adults going over there to be with kids five, six years old. Oh, my God. Underage kids, you know, child slave labor in India. You know, Al-Qaeda using blood diamonds to launder terrorist money in West Africa. So, you know, I've seen a lot. I love the adventure of it. It's dark material, but it's interesting because people ask, have you ever gone to therapy, for instance? I find that my podcast is like therapy, quite honestly, and we're 200 episodes or so into it.
And it's predators I've caught, which as the name suggests, is a deep dive into these past cases. And I find it, and this may sound odd to you, but I find it therapeutic to go back into these cases and I delve deeply into the transcripts and go back into the videos and relive the moments of it. And it is therapeutic to me because I can kind of wrap it up and put it away and say, okay, I've examined that. And this is the good that came out of it. This was the challenge that it provided for me. But, but
but I'm okay with it. And I think in the big picture, I think it's done a lot of good. And every time somebody comes up to me in a restaurant or pulls me aside on a street corner in New York City or in Michigan or wherever I'm at,
that's a reward to me. That tells me that, you know, we're doing something right here. And this is more than just the entertainment and the collision of good versus evil. Although, you know, look, that's why crime stories are so compelling. That's why every Friday night we see them on television. That's why I have an entire streaming network dedicated to crime reporting.
These stories are as old as the Bible. It's good versus evil. Yeah. And they're compelling tales. And my goal with all of this is to take people on a journey of discovery where they hear things they wouldn't normally hear and they see things they wouldn't normally see. And I think I'm one of the few guys providing that.
And so people want to be a part of it. There's definitely a, not finesse, but like an approach that you have that makes it kind of just like a little bit more, this is a real thing that's happening. I don't think you get...
enjoyment out of catching these people. I'm sure that part of you is like, I wish I didn't have to do this. Obviously, I wish this wasn't a problem at all. I would love to do a cooking show in my Scandinavian homeland or in Italy or France or something. But, you know, that's not my job. No, you do this work until you no longer have to. I accepted a long time ago that this is the sort of thing that I'll be doing for the rest of my career. And I'm okay with that. I really am. You know, to say you enjoy it, I enjoy...
The investigative chase of it. I enjoy the challenge of it. I understand that it's something that not everybody can do. And I understand the importance of it. And I'm very fortunate to have had a career that has and continues to be high profile to the point where it provides access to
to things that other journalists don't get access to. - Yeah. - That's been a very big part of this. I get to go places and I get people in law enforcement to help me with things.
that they wouldn't necessarily do for other folks. In your podcast, what's the name of your podcast again? Predators I've Caught. Predators I've Caught, Chris Hansen. Okay, go check that out. In your deep dives, follow-ups, whatever you want to call it, have you ever heard from somebody that you busted or caught that made a change and is now rehabilitated and credits you or part of that, you know, as a turning point for them? That's an excellent question. I can't think of anybody...
Shit. Who has reached out. I'm sure it's happened. Great question. No. Great question. I've heard a lot from a lot of people or reached out to a lot of people to get them to talk about it, all of whom have refused. And that's why this interview with Dr. Joswell was such a big deal. People can check that out on True Blue. But...
More often than not, they don't want to sit down and talk. I mean, there was a famous case out of Fairfield, Connecticut, Jeff Sokol. This is the guy who ate the pizza throughout the entire interview. And offered you some. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's probably, I mean, when you think of the most irritating human to ever surface in a predator investigation, he's in the top 10. Yeah. So years later, he goes to court.
to try to change his name from Jeff Sokol. To Sonny? To something else. Sonny something. Something, yeah. And not only did the judge refuse his request, he refused his request to seal the court hearing so nobody would know that he tried to change his name. So he's still Jeff Sokol. What is that?
What his friends call him, Sonny Slices. Yeah, something like that. Sonny Slices. And I was, you know, trying really hard to get him to sit down with me for an interview and just he wouldn't. I mean, I circle back around with these guys. Yeah, his life went pretty down. I mean, with good reason. Well, yeah. And he had it coming. I mean, this guy had a marriage contract in his car.
And when you see him walk in for the hug, I mean, he was going to have sex with a 13-year-old girl. He was going to rape a 13-year-old girl. Yes. Right. He's absolutely right. He's going to rape a child. All under the guise of figuring out that it'd be okay if he did this or did that. And it just, ugh. This is a question I'm curious about. I didn't know if I was going to ask it, but I will. I have a question, too, that I'm curious about that I know I'm going to ask when you're done. Go for it. Can I be a decoy? Sure. Yes.
Can I be a decoy? No. No. Can I replace Ron Knight and be your security? That might work. Yeah, yeah. That we can talk about. Is it fair to say these guys have no riz?
And that's why you don't know what Riz is? I don't know what Riz is, if I'm being honest. As in they can't find a girl their own age? Yes. A company their own age? Because a lot of them, and not to whatever, but they're not like smooth-talking, cool, attractive guys, and like they go maybe towards the other way because they think it's going to be easier, which I can't imagine finding an underage person is easier. Like if they put that energy towards meeting someone their own age,
they'd be fine. It has to be harder to find someone underage than... You would think so, but your larger point is well taken in that I think, especially when we see predators who are in their early 20s, a lot of them are emotionally not well-developed. I think they believe if they can take advantage of a 14 or 15-year-old and it works out...
it won't look so bad in a couple years, right? The age difference, it won't provide for criminal charge. They're socially inept. They can't compete in real life with other guys who can meet girls. And so they do all this stuff online and they say things they wouldn't say face-to-face. And it becomes normalized. So suddenly they find themselves talking to somebody who says they're a 14-year-old girl and he thinks he's going to
you know, replace this moment that he lost when he was 15 or 16 and other guys were dating and active with girls. And I think there's an element to that. I think that's a generous...
and probably accurate in a lot of cases. I also just think that people are disturbed. So predators have L-Riz is what you're saying. I still don't know what Riz is. This is from my sons, by the way. Yeah, it's nine, ten-year-old. Riz is short for charisma, which means obviously. And L is loser. So if a guy has L-Riz, that means he's not able to attract people.
attract women. Right. Okay. Yeah. It's got no mojo. Exactly. Yeah. That's what you would have said back then. No mojo. Listen, I think like every single person has to be assessed individually. I don't think that there's like one blanket approach. And I think we in society want there to be... An answer. One answer. Yeah. One solution. Either lock them up forever or find the psychiatric treatment that works or do whatever. And the reality is...
They're not all one guy. No, some are bad, some are mad. There's going to be, you know... Some made a bad decision on this particular day. And as people grow up, there's more and more men, boys, you know, young girls now who will grow up to become predators. It's a never-ending thing. It's a never-ending cycle. It's not going to stop. But if you can deter, I think your show does, I would hope, I don't know if you have any statistics on this, but...
It serves as a major deterrent. I think it has. I mean, when you look at the early investigations. Your name has to ring fear in these people's hearts. I think it does. And sometimes they, I've had a guy in a recent investigation, guy walks in and says, oh, you're Chris Hansen. Before I can say a word, I said, I am. It's my life. But you haven't seen it. He goes, oh, this is so cool. I go, it's not going to be that cool. In a stank? In a stank. He's like, am I on TV? It's in the episodes on True Blue. Yeah.
But when you think about, you know, one of the early stings, the first one where we collaborated with law enforcement was in Riverside County, California. Riverside County Sheriff's Office. 51 guys showed up in three days.
You know, now we'll see, you know, eight to ten in a week maybe, sometimes less, sometimes more. But I think there's been a deterrent. You guys do a lot in Flagler, Florida, huh? We've done Flagler in the past. I hear that name in a lot of clips. Yeah? Yeah. I read that when you started, you didn't really think that this was going to take off. No, it was not designed to be a series onto its own. It was pitched when I pitched the story.
and put the paragraph description into the pitch packet dateline, it was conceived as a couple of segments in the news magazine. You know, we did it once, and obviously it had a big impact. I mean, people had never seen anything like it before. So we did it again. We refined it. We did it a third time. And, you know, there were people within the network at the time who were nervous about it.
you know, what's going to happen? What if we have a violent situation? And, you know, we continued to evolve. Sure, yeah. Have you ever had a violent situation? Nothing you haven't seen on TV. I mean, we've had some in the most recent investigation in Alabama, the guy was, you know, really jacked and he came around the corner with his...
And, you know, there's a moment when... Blue shirt on. There's a moment, yeah. There's a moment when I thought, you know, I'm going to have to duck. And, you know, look, I'm surrounded by law enforcement. And I'm pretty darn well protected there. So that's, you know, my dodgy situation lasts for seconds. A few seconds, right. That's it. But nobody's ever...
pack and heat the guy in the last investigation had a gun yeah yeah but we do background checks as best as we can so but in alabama it's a carry state so anybody can carry if you don't have a criminal record you can essentially carry a gun so he walks in and he wasn't threatening with it but he was the first guy in the investigation big tall guy and walks in and he sets this leather pouch down on the kitchen counter i don't give it a second thought so he and i are back and forth and he's trying to explain that this wasn't really what he was doing and i'm
questioning him and back and forth and it becomes time for the law enforcement to come in. So
One kind of sheriffs come in and they start to put cuffs on him and he's, oh, man, you can't do this. And we're doing it. He says, oh, by the way, that leather pouch there has a loaded pistol in it. Yeah. And all of a sudden, you know. Now, again, he wasn't brandishing it. He wasn't threatening me with it. He didn't even pull out of the pouch. The deputy came over, grabbed it, took it over and, you know, took the bullets out of it. But then you start to think, OK, what if we weren't there?
And this guy knew that he was visiting a teenage girl. Yeah. And what if this doesn't go his way? You know, why did he bring the pistol into the house? He could have left it in his truck. He had it in the counter. Now, he may carry it everywhere. Maybe he was thinking, if I walk into a situation where I could get rolled, I'm going to have it for protection. But, you know, we don't know that. Right. Yeah. Is it possible that the child predator mentality isn't
to violence? Like that's not their crime of choice? I think some of that is true. That's an interesting question. Thank you. I'm very smart. I'm super brilliant. I think some of these guys wouldn't, don't have the courage to commit a
Aggression is not part of their... A crime against an adult, right? Yeah. They've chosen children... That cocktail of issues. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've chosen children because they're the easiest to violate. Easy targets, yeah, exactly. When they're faced with someone like you... I think there's something... Yeah, when they're faced with me... Well, you're official. You sound, you know, assertive. You're tall.
and you're not there to take any shit. So you're in control immediately. And I still think that there is confusion initially as to whether I'm me, I'm the mad parent who's just walked in, or I'm law enforcement. And I use that to my—I don't clear that up right away. I don't get—if somebody says you're Chris Hansen, I'll say, yeah, that you're right. But generally, I delay, delay, delay.
My identity. You say it at the end and then the cameras come rushing. Well, that's the signal for the cameras. And that's another layer because I have to imagine when these people walk in and they see the decoy, it always looks to me, maybe I'm projecting my mentality onto this. It always looks wildly uncomfortable in there between the two.
And then when you come in, another layer of tension. And then the cameras come out, another layer. And then the police. I mean, it's like... It's actually uncomfortable to watch. Oh, yeah. No, I know what you're saying. I watch it because I'm fascinated by it and I want to see the bad guy go down. But every single time you come out, I'm like, oh. And then the cameras come out and I'm like, oh. Every time. For instance, the guy who had the gun. He went on and on with the decoy about her accent being from...
a northern state because we were in Alabama. And so this goes on and on. He's talking about this like, you know, he's trying to make time with this teenage girl. So she leaves. I walk in. I said, where do you think my accent's from? You know, and it goes from there. Yeah. Oh, man. Well, I mean, the work you're doing is obviously, I had a question and there's no way to really estimate it, but I want to know because we've talked about this book, Out of the Shadows by Dr. Patrick Karnn.
where he talks about a camp that was being run, and in the camp they were molesting children, but it goes back like three generations, and the amount of one-degree victims here is a tragedy and horrible, but what's really a tragedy is how many of these people will then go on to do the same. Like, your reach is unlimited. I also think that for every predator you catch... Yeah. ...and expose...
and put into the criminal justice system. Whether they get a prison sentence, whether they get probation, no matter what happens, you've gotten their attention. There's a number that you can assign to...
preventing other children from actually being assaulted or preyed upon. And I think you make an example. I wonder if some of these guys would rather go to jail than be on your show. Oh, I guarantee it. There have been cases. I know guys who work in federal law enforcement investigators. They busted a guy who traveled all the way up from Florida to, I think, Michigan. We weren't involved in the sting. It was an FBI deal. And the guy's biggest concern was, is Chris Hansen here with his television crews? Mm-hmm.
And, you know, no. Okay. And he's going to be marched off and face serious consequences, but he wasn't going to be on television, at least not the way I put him on television. Yeah. Yeah. Can we talk a second about...
Minor attracted people or person maps. So have you ever heard of that term? The term or the people? It's an attempt to normalize. Yeah, no thanks. Predatory behavior and pedophilia. I don't buy it. It's like saying it's okay to have virtual child pornography because they're not actually offended with children. How long until that doesn't work anymore and they want to go out and offend? Yeah, yeah. Wait, so minor attracted persons is a rebranding of pedophile essentially, right? Basically, that's my understanding. It's not a...
It's a rebraining. That's not true because a pedophile, my understanding, is a paraphilia. And MAPS, it's not a psychological condition. No, they want to make it one. They would like it to be one. And they want to normalize it. These guys are out there. There are all kinds of groups who are out there. NAMBLA was out of business until the internet. The FBI had produced... Till South Park. Yeah. Well, they were... It was a thing.
And the FBI had investigated and prosecuted and put them out of business. And then suddenly the internet came around and they had all kinds of access to things and contact and communication that can't be monitored easily. Somebody else I know made it onto South Park. Who? Chris Hansen. Oh, yeah. That's right. Yeah. It's good. It's a whole episode. Yeah. NAMBLA is the North American Association Man-Boy Lover Association. No, that's not right. It's the North American Man-Boy Love Association. Okay.
Yeah, I mean, to even incorporate that. How do you go through the process? How do you even come up with an idea to do that? I mean, they're founders. I mean, you know, yeah, they were just about out of business until the dawn of the internet age. Yeah, I wonder what it is about humans that makes us collectively go so far sexually. Like, you know, I mean, I don't know if you see stepmom sex
bulls having sex with stepson bull. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, or some kind of weird sexual thing. I know chimps or some monkeys are a little bit weird, whatever. But like, what is wrong with us?
Why do we take it so far? Well, I would like to think too that the ones that wind up on Chris's radar, my radar, like in the work that I do, are the outliers. I mean, I don't think most people are going around doing this. No, no, no. It's a small minority, but that small minority can cause a great deal of damage. Absolutely. It has to be stopped. And that's why you hear about it because it's devastating. We
We also hear about so much now because of the internet and streaming and so much information is available in real time. I wonder if things have always been like this. We're just hearing about it more now. I think there's more awareness and that's the goal. That's a good thing. That's why we do these stories, why we conduct these investigations is to create awareness and a dialogue that didn't exist before. And again, I thought we would create it in a year.
But here we are 20 years after the first investigation and we're still at it. And now you got WatchTrueBlue.com where our listeners can go and get a discount for Psycho Month or Psycho Year as the code. And you have 60 investigations on there now, right? Yeah, right around 60 brand new predator investigations. We call them takedown. They're up now and we're off shooting more.
you know, every month. Yeah. Well, you are doing great work and I truly believe you've had an impact on the world in a positive sense. Well, I hope so. Cannot be measured. That's the goal. Really, truly. Which I appreciate. Aside from the individual stings, the awareness you've brought to it, the platform that you're doing it on, the message you're sending out there is...
Not like, oh, don't do this because I might be there. Just like there are real consequences. Yeah, this could happen. Yeah. And it does happen. And even if it doesn't happen. And here it is. I mean, look, again, it goes back to taking people along in this journey of discovery. And I think one of the reasons why this franchise has become so compelling is because we're in it as it happens. We're showing the commission of a felony. That's wild, yeah. I remember showing it to some kids as part of one of the early investigations at a group of middle schoolers.
and showed him a clip. I thought, "Are those actors?" I said, "No, this is real life here."
Yeah. This is not make-believe. Yeah. This happened. Right. I know. It's crazy. It's terrible. Well, I don't know if I, you know, I want to let you go at some point. I don't want to keep you here all day. Well, I appreciate you having me. But I could go more. I have about 30 more questions, but I don't want to belabor the point. I'll tell you this. I'll come back. How's that? Oh. Part two? Yeah. Part two. Wow. Amazing. That would be fantastic. It's a hard yes.
Do you have anything you want to add before we cut off? No, I just, I mean, I personally want to thank you for your work. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. That means a lot to me, given especially the work you do with your famous law firm. I mean, what you do is tremendous. And as I said, I see the ripple effect and the downstream effect of what happens when
aren't rescued or it's, you know, the perpetrator gets to them before somebody like you does. And it's devastating. And it's not to say that people can't recover because survivors are strong. They are. And I see this, you know, you ask, you know, does it get to you? Is it dark? And one of the reasons why it's not is because I see the success stories of the survivors. I feel the same. People ask me a lot as well of how I manage day to day, how I can go home and be with my kids after I've spent the day, you know, quite literally talking somebody off
off of a bridge after he told me his story. And for me, it's because I focus on the survivor and the work that we do. You have to. You keep your eye on the ball and you can keep swinging. This is our first interview podcast we've ever done. Oh, wonderful. Yeah, we're coming up on a year. Because usually you review cases, right? Right. We've had guests on before. Usually we walk them through a case, but there was just too much here for us. Well, I'll come back and walk through a case with you. That'd be fun. Oh, fantastic. That would be good. I'm going to start planning now. All right. Very good. I'm in. I'm in.
Great. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming. Thanks for making time for us. Thank you. Investigator Slater, thank you for your contributions as always. Thank you for thanking me. Thank you, Tank. Yeah, thank me. We're full of gratitude around here. And thanks to our Patreon member, Jill from New Gerbil, for coming and sitting in on this episode. And my wife for being there. She looks cold. So I think we should address that. She's here smiling and we love it. She's chilling. So we will see you guys next episode. And that's it.
Bye.