Special Guest: Dr. Anna Salter And Dr Gary Brucato : Confronting Evil

Ajouté : 2026-05-12

[00:00:34]Heat. Heat. N.

[00:01:11]Heat. Heat.

[00:01:31]Good morning and welcome to the lab. I'm your host Joshua Diaz and we have a great show for you this morning. very very excited about uh our guests and we're just going to jump right into it because there's not an introduction that I could do for either one of these folks that'll be good enough but we have uh Dr. Gary Bcato a regular on the show and thank you so much Dr. Brcado uh for being here he's the author of the new evil and uh he is a good friend of mine as well also we have a very special guest Dr. Anna Palter. And uh Dr. Anna is um uh somebody who I'm I've been learning about for the last three weeks and and really getting to know your your work. And I got to say that I'm I'm a huge fan. uh you know I I just got your book Confronting Malice and we will uh put that link in the chat for people to um to to get but some of your stories you know just your it's a it's a memoir basically of of what you have uh you know seen and and heard and I got to tell you you know you're you're a um you're a true you're a true champion for victims and I really do appreciate you and and appreciate you being here. So, thank you. I appreciate uh your time.

[00:02:58]>> Thank you for having me.

[00:03:00]>> Great. Awesome. And so, Dr. Gary, you know, uh you you were telling me all about Dr. uh Anna. And so, I'm going to uh I'm going to let you talk about her a little bit and then if you would like to talk about the work uh or basically how you got into your uh line of work. And I know you've been doing this for a long time. I believe you said it was started in the 70s and and uh uh you know it's it's just fascinating to to hear. But Dr. Gary, go ahead.

[00:03:34]>> Well, first of all, it's an honor to have you. Uh Anna, would you like us to call you Anna or Dr. Salter?

[00:03:39]>> Anna's fine.

[00:03:40]>> Okay. I'm the same way, but you know, I like to. Um and um so just to give a little a quick background, first of all, uh Anna and I are are both in the Cold Case Foundation together along with Chris Mcdana who is a a frequent guest on this show. And um we thought it would be nice to have Anna on as part of this series we've been doing, Josh, on um discussing books that are that that that are prominent or should be prominent in the forensic and true crime world where we interview the authors and talk about their backgrounds and perhaps cases that they've been involved in. And it's been a great experience so far. Our last one um was Diane Fanning, the uh the biographer of Tommy Lyn Cells, the the the sadistic serial killer. um and many other books. Uh and um I first discovered Anna um through videos that she had done interviewing psychopaths and and sexual sadists and people like that. Um Dr. and Burgess and I both do research at Boston College and we have used her videos to train people to teach uh people both in different settings um because they're they're so important in terms of just confronting in a in a in a candid way um what these people are feeling and why they do what they do to understand the phenomenology of why they do what they do in a in a kind of non-judgmental um clinical way. um because without that knowledge I think we won't be able to prevent future offenders or properly evaluate people and I think um Anna first and foremost when I discovered your work I realized what a master you are of that and then as time went on and I discovered predators the book predators um which is very important book I think for anybody now feel to own in the forensic world especially to own um and then ultimately this one confronting malice the latest the memoir I'm pleased to say, um, I was able to help you get published, uh, by sending you to to, um, McFarland Exposite. Um, and they, of course, appreciated it. Um, I I really came to see that, um, Anna has an amazing ability to talk about the experience internally of dealing with individuals like this and candidly describes feelings that a lot of us have had that we normally don't have the nerve to talk about out loud. and also a lot of the philosophy surrounding the way we think about offenders and the way society can tidy up uh stories of offenders and and and so forth. Um so I really think it's going to be interesting to talk about this uh and I want to let Anna sort of take the floor and talk a little bit about her illustrious background. Uh, so, so go ahead.

[00:06:29]>> Just sort of tell us how you how you got into this work because I know that it wasn't something that you just it wasn't something that you just sort of chose, but you kind of it just sort of happened. Uh, from what I understand, >> I that's very true. Uh, when I was 14, uh, all I wanted to do was play for the Celtics. Uh, and I'm not sure why that never came to be. Being uh, 56 at the time might have had something to do with it. Uh, in any case, I never would have dreamt I would have gotten into this field. When I got out of graduate school, I started working at a community mental health center. And then the court started sending uh, well, we saw a a lot of victims. And this was a great surprise to me because and I was I took my PhD from Harvard. So it it wasn't that Harvard was behind the times but there was there were no courses on sexual abuse. There I didn't even have a lecture on sexual abuse but or any kind of child abuse. But once I went out in the field, I discovered that every second child who came into this community mental health center had been the victim of physical abuse, sexual abuse or neglect that that it was very very prevalent, which was very puzzling to me given the lack of training on it.

[00:07:59]And uh I could adapt techniques that I'd learned to deal with children uh other children to children who'd been abused.

[00:08:08]But then the courts started sending offenders and I had no idea what to do with them. One of the first offenders that the court sent was an adolescent who dressed up who was mute and who dressed up in his mother's bathing suit and stabbed her. And I like I have nothing in my training that tells me what what to do about this prompt, this kid. So anyway, I got a small grant. I ran around the country looking at places that did have a history of treating child and adult sexual abuse and began writing up one of these places, Northwest Treatment Associates in Seattle for the grant uh report. And it kept growing and it kept growing and it ended up uh with their permission it ended up as my first book. And that kind of set me on the path. Uh at there weren't any books at that time. This was 19 gosh 1988.

[00:09:18]Uh there just weren't a lot of books around about how to treat child sex offenders and victims.

[00:09:26]So the book kind of went a lot of places and I ended up lecturing in Australia and New Zealand and so on bas on the basis of this book. So that was it. I kind of got in the field by accident.

[00:09:43]>> Right. Well, it's interesting because um when I did when I did the New Evil, Michael Stone, one of the the central ideas of it was that something changed in the culture in the Western world, particularly the United States somewhere between the late60s and early 1970s. You start seeing an explosion of this kind of sexual violence. But other people say, well, maybe the sexual violence has been going on a long time, but we just didn't talk about it. I think some of the crimes um that with some of the crimes that people like you and myself study that is true. Others seem to have required changes in the culture and technology to happen like the internet things like that. Um but it but that's the same thing that happened with the FBI. They they had to start the behavioral science unit to study this explosion of sexual violence that was happening because they didn't understand it. That's how Anne Burgess for example came to the attention of the unit. So there was something that that started around that time and I think you know you're an example of somebody who sort of adapted to the title wave that was coming in and turned it into a life's work and helped us to understand it. And what what I find so useful about your writing was that when I when I first read Predators, what I found useful about it was first of all, having worked with a lot of offenders like that myself, I didn't realize that there was a commonality in some of the internal experiences that I was having talking to them and I found that very normalizing uh in as a clinician myself. Uh and um I'll give you an example. Um, one of the things that I have experienced that you also described experiencing that I found fascinating was the envy of people who have the capacity to have no attachments.

[00:11:32]Uh, I thought that was really really interesting. Can you talk about that a little bit when you talk about psychopaths and their ability to feel nothing?

[00:11:40]Well, what's really interesting to me is psychopaths don't appear to have a depth of attachment to anybody, >> but they can fake it. They can fake most things. And I find, first of all, I find that fascinating because if I went to the planet lube, which had a whole series of emotions I didn't feel, I don't think I'd have a chance of uh mimicking those emotions to the point that I could fool people who actually fed felt them >> with one exception. And the one exception seems to be grief. And I >> I don't I don't think they feel grief or loss like other people feel grief or loss. And it's uh one of the questions that I always ask is, you know, have you lost anyone? Well, I lost my grandmother and my family's still mad. Well, why why is your family mad? Well, I didn't go into the funeral that. And I said, okay.

[00:12:43]Uh why why didn't you go to the funeral?

[00:12:45]I had things to do that day. I was busy, you know, they just uh no real concept.

[00:12:53]And for anyone who's had major loss, and certainly >> some of us in this group, for all I know, maybe all of us, >> all of us >> have had major loss. It's a crushing.

[00:13:06]It's just a soul destroying, crushing experience.

[00:13:11]>> Exactly.

[00:13:12]>> And yes, there there's a kind of freedom in being psychopathic. I mean the I'm not recommending it, but I am saying the rest of us worry about having a late thank you note or sending you the book late, Gary. The rest of us feel really bad about that. And as uh uh Garrison Keeler once said, there's a whole group of people that can cut someone up, stuff them into mailboxes, and not be one bit sorry about it.

[00:13:42]>> Which Yeah. And of course we we we don't regret having empathy for the victims in the way that that these guys lack compassion for the people they harm or and use. But I simply mean that the capacity to not experience crushing grief uh is something enviable uh because it's not >> it's awful. And um now this of course leads directly into another point that you talk about which is really interesting which is that um in our culture there is this tendency to want to believe that deep inside every psychopathic person and every person with a paraphilia and so forth is a kind of lovely human being that can be reformed and you know everything is kumbaya and and you know at one big bake sale. And the reality of course is you and I and Josh, we all know, you know, that that sometimes this just isn't so.

[00:14:34]And um and so maybe you could talk a little bit about the concern you have about this whitewashing that seems to be going on with some of these offenders.

[00:14:43]>> Well, it does concern me a great deal that the culture seems to be more and more accepting pedophilia. Uh we now have minor attracted persons and minor attracted persons is is a dangerous euphemism because it lumps together people who are attracted to postpubescent 15y olds which is perfectly normal uh and people who are attracted to infants or threey olds.

[00:15:16]>> Right. Right. In other words, it's biologically normal for people to you're saying >> that doesn't mean it's uh sane to act on it or uh reasonable or moral or anything else. But being attracted to postprovescent individuals who are physically indistinguishable from adult individuals is biologically uh normal. It's just that we have, you know, something in our frontal loes that say things like, "I don't think so. I don't think so. Not a good idea."

[00:15:52]>> You know, we have breaks. We have breaks.

[00:15:57]And these, but it's not fundamentally normal to be attracted to an infant. Now I know there are people out there now saying well pedophilia is just is uh inborn or genetic. It may be it may be that doesn't mean it's normal. We also have you can have a tendency to schizophrenia or you can be born brain damaged or you can be born a psychopath. There's a definite genetic link there without a conscience. And that doesn't mean it's normal. Nature is not always fair, >> right?

[00:16:37]>> Well, that that's a great that's a great point because uh you know I've heard you talk about uh where you know you can't you can't control your your thoughts or your feelings because everybody has dark feelings or you know um uh just kind of you know odd feelings. It's but it's the point of acting out upon those that is your responsibility uh as a person uh you know and and uh can you talk a little bit about that?

[00:17:10]>> Yeah, it it there are a lot of things that are normal to feel that are inappropriate to act on. You may uh be envious of your natures of your neighbor's wealth. Your neighbor may be wealthy. uh it doesn't mean you're going to break in their house and steal anything from them.

[00:17:30]When I train, I say to people, how many of you have never had an aberrant uh sexual thought?

[00:17:40]And then I say, raise your hands. You're in denial. There are psychologists outside with heavy medication because and I say you may be attracted to your uh sister-in-law.

[00:17:54]You may be attracted to the 16-year-old babysitter. It it doesn't mean that you're going to rape them. Uh either one of them come on to your sister-in-law or rape the babysitter because uh we choose what we do. We don't choose what we what we feel. We certainly don't choose who we're attracted to, but we do choose whether we act on it uh or not. And uh that's that's the big difference. Uh my my model of sexual abuse is a very simple one, which is it's like a car.

[00:18:30]There's motors and there's brakes. And the the motor for sexual abuse can be abnormal. It can be an attraction to three-year-olds or it can be normal. It can be an attraction to postpubescent in individuals.

[00:18:48]Either one can lead to sexual abuse. But what what's the other part of it is cars have motors. Cars also have brakes. And we have breaks. We have things that say, "Uh, I don't think so. It'd be immoral.

[00:19:03]I don't think so. It would hurt my family. I I don't think so. uh I would hurt this child. I don't think so. Uh you know, I don't want to go to prison.

[00:19:13]I don't think so. I don't want to see my kids on the weekend. Uh be a weekend dad and end up with a divorce. I don't want to hurt my children. We have all kinds of breaks. So it in treatment my focus was always on what's the motor here and what's the brakes because sexual abuse may be a disordered motor but it is always a failure of brakes.

[00:19:42]>> It's it's interesting because to carry the metaphor further there's also fuel for that motor.

[00:19:49]>> Yeah.

[00:19:49]>> And the question then is what's that what is that fuel? And I cannot imagine that part of the fuel in the contemporary culture is not the easy access to all kinds of every manner of pornography or other kinds of things that that that will stimulate and encourage um anything or even perhaps normalize by creating a a world of other people interested in the same sort of subgenre of sexual interest. Um what's your sense about the danger of um the easy access of pornography in the and even AI pornography in the current culture as a >> I think it's I think it's changed everything and and we all know if you have any tendency to be attracted to prepubescent kids that seeing uh highly sexualized images of them or images that would disgust someone who doesn't have that attraction ction can be fire can be gas for the fire if you do have that attraction. I think what's talked about less often is how it has made sex offenders less isolated, >> how they have found a community, but they now have forums where people go on and say, I think I quote one in the book, so this this is not exact, but he said something about, "I'm so happy to find this site. I thought being attracted to my daughter was bad. Now that I now I know it's it's uh normal and uh it's really wonderful to be on this site. They also get advice. That's another thing people don't think about.

[00:21:30]Like I'm a single dad and I want to uh No, I'm a single man and I want to take in foster kids to abuse them. How do I convince an agency, >> oh Lord, >> that I would make a good foster parent?

[00:21:48]And the advice is scary. They It says things like, "Well, first of all, date women and keep these relationships around for at least a couple of months.

[00:21:59]And then you need a a good story for why you aren't married, like your fiance was killed in a car wreck, something like that." And then you need to say, um, I always want to be a parent. I'm not a parent at this point. My fiance died in a car wreck. And, uh, I really want children in my life. I think I have something to contribute. Now, the question is, is he going to be more likely as a newbie to get into an agency with that advice? Yes, he is. But in the old days, he would not have had access to that kind of advice. So it's the pornography itself that can be dangerous depending on the proclivities of the person but it is also the advice and the sense of community.

[00:22:48]In the old days how it's difficult to find other pedophiles. You were taking a chance if you talked to your friend um Don about it or tried to talk to a neighbor about it. Now you're not taking a chance. you can go to websites specifically for that.

[00:23:06]>> Well, you know, uh when we just talked about this last night where uh you know, there's this sort of new phenomenon of young female teachers sexually abusing uh their their students, their young male students. And it's being reported on, you know, at a high rate because, you know, uh, for some reason the media loves to to talk about those, uh, situations because that they do seem so odd. And somebody was asking, a caller asked last night, they said, "Well, why do you think that that's happening more?" And I think that social media is a huge reason because they can just circumvent the the parents altogether and go to Snapchat or Instagram or you know Twitter and have these communications with their students that you would never have had in the past before. Um I mean do you see a correlation there?

[00:24:05]>> Well certainly that's true. I mean in the past you needed a certain set of skills in addition to your skills in grooming kids. You needed to make friends with the parents. You needed to get access either through your profession whether it was coach or priest or pediatrician or teacher or whatever or but even so even with the profession that gave you access to kids to have access to kids outside of that specific activity you had to be able to persuade parents to trust you. biggest difference now is that you don't the kid can be sitting in the living room typing on their computer and what you don't know is that they're they are talking to a 25 or a 45 uh year old person. So that's a huge difference. You don't even need as many skills as you used to need.

[00:25:05]>> Right.

[00:25:06]>> Well, it's interesting. One time I did an appearance on a on um oh I think it was the interview room, Josh, and an offender who had um had brutally uh targeted a child living in another state somehow was able to watch the show on his iPad or something in the prison setting and sent me a letter where he said, "If you're interested in using my story on a show or writing about in a book, here are the details." And he told me about that he had had years of vivid fantasies that were fueled by by pornography um about achieving uh sexual stimulation um from the cutting of a child, the mutilation of a child, not just touching but actually the cutting of a child. And what happened was he took a very very long time to convince the child that his parents were pretending that they were happy but they were really going to separate. And he told the child, "I'll keep my light on in in the front, you know, day and night. You'll know that I'm awake and available if you ever see them fighting, whatever. Just come and knock on the door and I'll take care of you." And one night that there really was a fight and the child came and he took the child in a truck that he drove and isolated with him and talked to him and tried to make him feel better and then produced a box cutter and cut the child's throat and watched the reaction. and the child ran around on the road until somebody flagged somebody and took him off and I think his life was saved. But the offender achieved this incredible orgasmic kind of thrill. And the thing that was amazing about the letter, which I'm, you know, I'm considering using without his name in writing. He's given me permission to, but I don't want to draw any attention to him.

[00:26:50]>> Um he um he talks about how there was a real skill in doing that. He was almost proud of of how much skill it took to earn the trust and the time investment and how that added to the pleasure that it was like the payoff.

[00:27:08]And um you know, one of the things I find when I'm trying to talk about offenders that people understand the least, and I'm sure this is true for you, too, is in a weird way, they can understand perverse sexual desires because they're vaguely human. They're just they have the wrong object.

[00:27:22]>> That's right.

[00:27:23]But achieving sexual arousal from butchering a human being or torturing a human being is something that the average person just can't. Which is why in my own writing I've talked about how they go groping for words that are supernatural because you say, "Well, then it must be evil because what human experience and yet you and I know from our work there are human beings that that actually can achieve paraphilic arousal from this." this and I thought maybe you'd want to talk about a little bit about um thank god the rarity but the the cases that you know perhaps for example the six case that I know you were involved in is a good example of this um but um any any thoughts about this kind of offender who achieves this kind of arousal >> yes but let me let me add something first I I think you're exactly right which is there are uh motivations we can understand Maybe we're not attracted to three-year-olds, but we know what sexual attraction feels like. So, we can say, "Well, what if instead of being attracted to a man or a woman, what if I was if I had that same feeling, but it was for a child?" So, we we know what the feeling is. We don't know what the feeling is uh of of torturing a child, what what the positive feeling would be.

[00:28:43]We can't we can't imagine it. Most of us if we saw a child being tortured would throw up.

[00:28:52]We wouldn't have an orgasm that was better than any orgasm in our entire life. But the risk in this is what happens when when clinicians sometimes are confronted with this is they shift the person's motivations so that they can understand it. So, I've had torture cases where where kids were sleeping under the sink and and one kid had a permanent scar on her back where the something was poking into it. And she was starved. She always wore a red coat to school, long coat, so she never had to take it off. And the teachers never asked her to. And later the teachers said things like, "I wonder why she had those lines on her face." Well, those were gag those were gaglines. Nobody did anything about it at the time, but after her brother broke all the bones in her hands, it did come to the attention of uh authorities. And the report that some, to be honest, idiot wrote said basically, "Let the healing begin. Let let's reuni reunify these uh these people, you know, and they'll because most of us can at least envision losing control, getting mad and hitting a child or something. People will change the motivations they don't understand into something that they could understand.

[00:30:27]So, they'll white will whitewash the whole thing. They'll they'll treat it like it was a loss of control. Cigarette burns are never ever a loss of control.

[00:30:37]That is the deliberate slow infliction of pain. You usually with fear and intimidation uh preceding it. So the that's the first thing I would say is the real danger is not that these people exist, but that there it's too awful and even clinicians will whitewash it into a motivation that seems more human.

[00:31:03]uh to them. I I don't think people want to recognize malevolence.

[00:31:08]>> Well, >> I think they'll they'll go to great lengths to turn something malevolent in into something that's much more under understandable and and treatable. the the Zik case was and I can talk about this because my entire report was given to the press by the DA >> and of course the hearing was was open and I'm not saying anything here that I didn't say there but >> but just for the audience because they won't know what we mean this is the kid the 17-year-old that killed 10-year-old Jessica Rididgeway right >> yes this is a 17-year-old kid and I got contacted And the the DA said, "Uh, Dr. Salter, are you we we want you to uh be involved in this case in the sentencing aspect of the case." He had ended up confessing.

[00:32:01]Uh and uh we don't know if you're willing because he's a minor. And I said, "Well, what you know, what's the case?" And they said, "Well, he's like three months short of 18. He abducted uh tortured probably tortured. He didn't admit that. Sexually assaulted um murdered and dismembered a 10 a 10year-old girl. And I said you had me abducted. I mean, I'm sorry. He's There is a difference in adolescent sex crimes that are the result of brain immaturity like uh things that make other guys jealous.

[00:32:51]Uh sensation seeking, impulsive crimes.

[00:32:56]There there's a whole list of things that go along with devel adolescent brain immaturity.

[00:33:02]that are the reason that we have juvenile court. We have juvenile court because uh some of the responsibility for certain kinds of crimes can be laid to immature brain functioning since the brain doesn't really develop until the late uh 20s. This wasn't one of them.

[00:33:23]There was nothing about this that was a result of adolescent brain immaturity.

[00:33:29]This was a kid who dropped out of I think high school to work at a funeral parlor who had taken forensic cases a forensic courses to know how to get away with it.

[00:33:44]Uh adolescent brain immaturity is related to not being able to consider the consequences. Well, this this kid very much considered the consequences and took steps. Uh uh and that's basically what I testified about is that this this is not uh an adolescent crime.

[00:34:09]Thi this is a crime of of someone who is uh very much uh in uh thinking about consequences and planning and he has an abnormal drive. You can't go to your friends and say you can go to your friends and say oh I had sex with so and so. You can't go to your friends and say I abducted a 10year-old and tortured her and then I I uh took her body apart. You can't do that. that's not going to give you any any strokes in the adolescent world. They're going to be as horrified as the rest of us are going to be. So that is a motivation that I don't think any of us uh are ever going to be able to empathically >> right >> uh feel for. We're not going to say, "Oh, I have that in me." No, we don't have that in us. There are motivations outside the normal range just like there is hearing sounds outside the normal range that human beings can't hear but they ex they exist. There's also motivations outside the normal range. Well, this is right at the heart of in in my own work the idea that there's this sort of scale that one ascends in terms of, you know, motivation, right? And when you get up to, you know, when Michael Stone and I talk about when you get up to torture murderers, the people with those kinds of motivations are pretty much guaranteed to keep offending because they have to perfect a fantasy uh more and more. In many ways, one could even make the argument that some of these guys are doing it to the same victim over and over and over and projecting that fantasy victim onto anyone they find who meets their needs or sometimes it's just who's available. But the but the the thing is um this the guy you're describing the six case, what I remember being struck by when I heard about that case was that it seemed like a serial killer in the making. that the motivations were suggestive of somebody that if not incarcerated would perhaps be at risk of finding another victim to experiment on and enjoy that kind of paraphilic perversion. Uh and I wonder if that's your sense also that this was more of an isolated thing or or somebody showed a lot of tendencies. Right.

[00:36:30]>> Well, there there were several oddities about the case. One is that there were two adult women joggers who had been attacked with uh chloroform and they >> oh >> they had both fought him off and I I honestly don't remember the details but I think that there was DNA that linked him to one of them. I I think that the other one had the same motus operandi but the DNA wasn't uh there wasn't any DNA.

[00:37:03]So there's certainly the supposition that he had tried before and what he learned from that is he needed someone smaller and weaker that that he could control. And there was also an incident where uh someone came in to talk to the DA about the fact that his family had been camping and they had this eerie feeling they were being observed.

[00:37:31]And uh oh, the father went over to the woods where he he thought something was happening and someone stood up from the grass and nonchalantly sedered off and he claimed I'm not saying it's true because I don't know but he claimed it was Austin Sig that.

[00:37:55]So there was also a very strange phenomena that there were a couple of believe it was two nights a week that his mother thought he was with a girlfriend and the girlfriend thought he was with the mother and nobody knows where he was.

[00:38:14]>> There was there was at least one night a week when that happened. It might have been might have been two. So um yeah, you have uh you look at a case like that and you say totally abnormal motivation which is not just harmful but catastrophic uh for the victim. Apparent a lack of remorse, very cheerful in school the next day.

[00:38:41]Didn't get upset until after the police took his DNA. So, no conscience, uh, ability to think about consequences and try to head them off in an advance, motivation to be around dead bodies strong enough to make a teenager quit school >> and go start working at a mortuary. H would you let him out? Fortunately, the judge said no.

[00:39:14]>> Wow. Yeah, >> you know, it's very interesting because in in in the work I've done with offenders like this and you know, I'm sure we have a lot of war stories we could share. Um, I've found that these people tend to fall into two general buckets. So the the more sophisticated, socially adept, you know, Ted Bundy type of person, the groomer, the chameleon, the person who can lure you someplace to play out a fantasy. And these more skezoid um experimenttor uh socially peculiar types that are more the type to open the car door and talk the kid in because they can't talk them into the car.

[00:39:54]And um th those types in my experience, part of the motivation in that latter group seems to be just experimenting with bodies and human beings and doing things just to sort of be curious about them like like you're dealing with a frog in a petri dish, which just seems to be very different than the first type. Uh, and um, you know, I don't know if in the Sigs case your sense was that some of what he was doing was just exploring or experimenting with a body or or if it was more the first type uh, where where it was about asserting power and domination and control, you know, over the person and all of that. Was it more of the odd kind of thing of of just wanting to see what happened when he did this and that to a body? That kind of thing? I don't know that I'd say he was experimenting. He had watched a lot of dismemberment on >> I see >> on YouTube, but I certainly wouldn't say that he was the Ted Bundy charming sort.

[00:40:55]I I would say he was very odd >> odd.

[00:40:58]>> Um and in fact his uh I believe his brother had joked when it first happened that it was uh that it was him.

[00:41:09]Everybody thought it was a joke. I think subconsciously he was picking up on something that made him very nervous >> uh about his brother. Uh I I once just from luck interviewed like seven knife wielding stranger rapists in a row.

[00:41:28]>> Mhm.

[00:41:28]>> And uh just the way the cards show.

[00:41:32]>> Pardon?

[00:41:32]>> Is it how very lucky?

[00:41:34]>> Yes. How lucky for me. uh a and what I was struck by was how that the neglect in their backgrounds. Austin Zigg did not have a background uh of neglect but I'm saying there is a type of offender that doesn't feel they have any other access to women or men whatever except to rape them because they have no social skills. They don't know how to interact with people and that was true of all of them. They had almost never had sex.

[00:42:06]They'd never had a girlfriend. They didn't even have friends. They were very isolated people who had who had been neglected and therefore had never learned really to make a human bond. But what they what they didn't have is is the desire to uh cut people up and remove their hearts.

[00:42:28]You know, they they were curious about women's bodies. They were violent. Uh I'm I'm not defending them in in any in any sense. Uh they were violent, but they didn't have that sadistic motivation and I at the end of the day their motivation was sex. They they wanted sex and didn't exactly know how to develop a relationship to uh to get it. What is odd for all of us about the sadist is is the excitement from deliberately harming hurting another human being and where the rest of us feel compassion for suffering it makes them high they get a high and I it's very striking to me that when people like you and I talk to them and say tell me about the high they they'll often sit back and say, "Well, nobody's ever asked me about that before." Like, "Why did they ask you about that?"

[00:43:31]>> You know, because it's very common that that uh they get a high uh from that's as as one guy said, you know, it's better than crack, better than drugs. Uh he had uh walked in a convenience store and put a a a gun in a woman's back and he got such a thrill from it. And he done it very quietly. just said, "Walk out of here with me." took her arm. No one could see the gun. And he said, "I almost passed out." He said, "I got a rush like I never had in my life." He said, "And that was a problem because I'd already pulled the gun and I almost passed out from the from the high."

[00:44:11]>> Yeah.

[00:44:13]Tomlin Cells uh said that exact thing uh where he said that it was better than any dope high that he ever had. Uh when he would quote unquote extinguish a life, you know, he that was his um he would just he would just rave about u how it just felt like the the greatest high uh ever. And >> he would orgasm at the sight of of a >> who is this here?

[00:44:44]>> Tommy Lindell. He was a trans Tommy Linels. He was a a transient um psychopathic sexual satist that went across the country randomly killing sometimes even the whole family.

[00:44:58]>> Um but would be sexually sadistic sometimes toward toward victims. Uh and in a with a very strange choice of victim, very random because he hated the whole human race essentially. Um but um but you know um one of the things I find interesting to talk to offenders about um that a lot of people don't discuss with them is how they escalate from fantasy the first time play it out.

[00:45:22]>> Um I just um edited a a chapter that Hazelwood and Warren had done for Amber Burgess's uh you know well-known uh book on rape investigation and in doing that I had to do a deep dive into escalation.

[00:45:35]That's what the chapter's about. And um I was fascinated that their research, Warren and Hazelwood, which I'm sure you know about, really showed that escalation to homicide was really for most of these guys more to get rid of a witness. So because they had asserted too much force during a sexual act and then they sort of accidentally discover some of them that killing is also a thrill that some of them start to like that. And then there are other ones that from the get-go, from the jump, the fantasy is >> killing the individual. And um I wonder if you have any thoughts about um what is necessary for the escalation into the enactment of fantasy because it it seems with a lot of guys I talked to that there's some life event that finally makes them feel empty or knocked off a pedestal or insecure degree that it feels like time to enact the fantasy or blame all women blame you know and I'm curious what your sense is about have you have you had that experience also that it takes some life event sometimes to push them into it or is it just feels like time for them?

[00:46:44]>> I I haven't had that experience with the ones who go on to kill or although that may be because I haven't asked closely enough about life events during that time. I have had it with intermittent pedophiles, with pedophiles who uh operate for a period of time and then stop for a period of time and then uh something goes wrong. Uh and they start up again and there's a life event that uh makes them long for the cheap thrill.

[00:47:24]they're depressed >> and they want the cheap thrill to to pull them out of it. But it's a very you know you know it's a it's a very interesting idea that sometimes life events push them to actually start uh killing. In the case of the guy I was just talking about, he got such a high when he put the gun in her mouth that he said to himself, "Well, after this, the rape will be nothing. I mean, this I can't top this with a rape." And he said, "But now if I kill her, if I kill her, that would be the next high."

[00:48:03]>> So the high chasing like a drug like a drug addicted person might do. Yeah, I do think that that is definitely a dynamic where they start with lower level fantasies and then like a drug the novelty wears off. Well, in a drug it isn't the novelty, but they habituate to the fantasies at that level and they're not getting the same thrill. Really, it's an internal in in my mind, it's an internal drug addiction anyway. they're producing some kind of endorphins or something >> by this behavior and then it gets habituated and they need something more to produce the same level of high or they want a bigger high. So it >> Yeah. And it just keeps building. But it it's the chemicals they're triggering in their own brains >> are what is reinforcing this. Right.

[00:48:58]>> So, you you've sat across from countless offenders and and talked to just, you know, countless offenders. Um, can you talk a little bit about your personal experience?

[00:49:11]Um, you know, I I I did hear you talk on an interview uh one time about uh a man who killed a three-year-old child, and you had you felt great. um you you you wanted to almost harm him is is what you had had said. Uh could you talk about you know your experiences with with that a little bit like h how you sort of deal and cope with hearing some of these stories and and listening to some of these people talk.

[00:49:48]Um, I had pretty good control for most stories because I habituated to them so that I could stand back from it. I I wasn't trying to empathize. I did believe in I do believe in treating everybody respectfully from 12 Ted Bundy on because how you treat people has nothing to do with who they are. It has everything to do with who you are. So um I didn't want to lose my humanity by treating people badly. So I uh in the last 15 years or so I did over 500 uh interviews with sex offenders and most of them didn't didn't get to me because by that point I'd been doing it for 45 years and I as I say I had habituated but there were a couple there were a couple and this particular guy had I'm not going to go into a lot of graphic stuff here but It was a pretty horrible uh story of having beaten a three-year-old to death over three days.

[00:51:06]>> Unbelievable.

[00:51:07]>> And uh so that kid suffered for three days and the he he kicked him a lot. So the the pathologist said that the liver was bicted and he had only seen a liver cut in half before by a horse kick. Um, you know, I was frankly homicidal. I mean, I wasn't I wasn't going to come over the table at him, but in terms of my it was challenging to to be polite and objective about the data I was gathering in the fa in the face of that. And he didn't help it because I would say things like, "Well, what did you feel?

[00:51:56]what do you feel about other people's suffering? And he said, "Well, it's a lot of different things." He said, "I mean, sometimes it's funny. Uh, you know, sometimes sometimes I don't feel anything." And I said, "Well, what what did you feel about this child suffering?" And he said, "I didn't feel anything."

[00:52:16]Now, it it's hard not to have a human reaction to that.

[00:52:21]>> Absolutely.

[00:52:22]>> You know, it really is. And I interviewed another uh offender who raped a child when she was dying.

[00:52:32]>> And I always had a very very hard time with him cuz I was doing the kind of work where I would uh where these guys were being evaluated every year and I was doing the evaluations every other year. I saw him more than once, but I was never able to develop any internal peace when talking to him.

[00:52:59]>> Also, it you know, I'm mostly out of it now. I take some legal cases and I do some training, but I'm older and I'm semi-retired, but I can't get some of the stories out of my brain.

[00:53:12]>> Yes.

[00:53:13]>> And they they scar me. I finally left and I felt like I still had something left that I could enjoy life with and not brood constantly on these kinds of uh situations. I do think you need to be careful.

[00:53:29]>> Yeah.

[00:53:30]the the harm is dose dependent and the longer you do it and the more intensely you do it and the higher risk offenders that you interview the more the the risk is that you will have stories that you cannot get out of your brain >> but I have stories I've never told anyone >> is is that why you feel like you know this this memoir that and and by the way if you have not please uh consider going out and getting Confronting Malice. It's a memoir of working with sex and violent offenders. Um is was it sort of therapeutic for you to to write this or was it more uh train that you wanted to just pass on more of your knowledge uh to people or was there a bit of both there?

[00:54:24]>> Well, there's a problem with books.

[00:54:27]People People think they choose when to write books. I don't think so. I think books that are ready or want to be written will beat in your chest like birds trying to get out.

[00:54:42]>> That's right.

[00:54:42]>> And Right. Right, Gary. And you you find yourself thinking about them in the shower. You wake up in the middle of the night and write a single sentence.

[00:54:51]Uh I I don't take any credit for the books I write because I think it's a different part of the brain that that does the writing and totally and I'm often surprised to see what I've written. It's like really did I think that or do I think that I I do I do think there is the unconscious the books come from the unconscious and my metaphor is that there's the sea which is all this unformed stuff in your head and then there's the shore which is definitive and fixed sort of fixed and that that's the words on the page and you don't always know what the sea is going to throw up until you're in the middle of it. So, I've never I've never written my books according to what you know what needs to be said or what's the public interested in because I can't. I just have to get these books out when they start bothering me.

[00:55:54]>> It's so funny to hear you say, Hannah, because that's exactly what Oh, no.

[00:55:58]Please continue. Continue.

[00:56:00]>> Continue your thought.

[00:56:02]>> I can't even remember Terry. to go.

[00:56:05]>> No, I was just going to say that that I'm having exactly the same. What' you say, Josh?

[00:56:11]>> I was going to say so it does seem like it is a little bit of therapy like you said. You you want to get it out, you know, because uh you internalize these things and and so you getting it out is a is a is a form of u you know, >> deep coping, I guess you could say. But but what what Anna is talking about is exactly exactly at the heart of what I'm saying and what I'm currently writing which is the book I'm doing and I'm calling it a traveler in the darkness.

[00:56:41]>> And the first chapter is about why professionals would even want to understand these things, what it what effects it has on us and why we even before I get into cases that require talking to other experts to understand them. I want to talk about why we even want to do this. And I had the same conclusion that it's sort of a Yungian process where it feels like, you know, the shadow and it and it sort of wants to become conscious and it and it's it breaks into your consciousness. And I think if it weren't for people who eat into their own lives the way that we're doing this, other people wouldn't have the knowledge that is necessary to prevent crime, to to get away from people that are dangerous, even to save lives. So that and what I have found talking to other professionals about why they do it is a lot of them say, "I feel like it's a calling. I, you know, I've lost a lot of myself, but there are people that are better off because of it." And um and I think that's a that's a process that allows people to sort of see meaning in it and to make it terrible.

[00:57:45]>> Do say that. Yeah, >> it kind of falls into that, you know, it kind of falls into that category of where people could say, well, I could never do that kind of work, but thank God that there are people out there that do and can. And uh you know I I feel that way about you guys as well because uh I I just you know as fascinated as I am with uh you know the human behavior uh you know it can all become just too much day in and day out when you know this is what your your life consists of and and uh >> yeah you don't get invited to too many parties >> I bet >> when you can't tell say anything when you do about stuff like this But yeah, it is true that it also meets the need to have a life of purpose.

[00:58:35]A life of purpose is a good life. And this work gives you a sense that that you have an there's an important purpose to life. And I think everybody in the field shares that sense that is doing something that's helpful.

[00:58:54]>> Oh yes, definitely. I mean, and just cuz I know we'll we'll wrap up in just a but but um I definitely um appreciated in your writing um that that the what's the word I would use the permission structure that you seem to give for a clinician or or an expert going and talking to these people to to be human and to hate them or to feel manipulated by them or to be angry or to or even to be charmed >> or find them amusing or funny or whatever. And I and I found that very very normalizing. And I'll just as a final thing I'll say I remember um I had a similar experience of being enraged um in my mind very angry talking to a a defrocked member of the clergy that had assaulted children. And um I remember I said well you know I really want to understand why you know what the psychology was. And the person said, "Well, before I got into the ministry, I had tried to date women and they found me terribly inadequate. I didn't really know what I was doing." Whatever. And this very articulate guy is describing he's talking about, you know, theological point or something. And then he said, "But kids didn't know the difference. They didn't know I was inadequate. They didn't know that it was supposed to, you know, take me this long, >> you know, to to enjoy this or that I was supposed to be this size in terms of my body and >> and um and I found the matterofactness of it as he was sitting there discussing it so repulsive >> and yet >> and yet I gained insight >> into the psychology of what could make a person, you know, feel that this was something they wanted to. I also was was fascinated that um in my own work I have found that the more heophilic offenders seem to be more likely to be on the homosexual side and the the ones that went for younger kids seem to be more heterosexual.

[01:00:49]>> And I was curious as a final point if you've observed that too or if that doesn't really jive with your sense of things.

[01:00:57]>> Well, I can't say that I've necessarily found them more uh more homosexual, but I was thinking heelia when you said that. Because it it seems to me that hemophilia and that is sexual attraction to barely pubescent individuals. The DSM says 11 to 14, but you can forget that because menstruation is much younger these days. So it's really more like 10 to 11, maybe 12, right? that the these kids who have some secondary sex characteristics but are not finished with puberty are not physiologically adults has two components. One is they do like the skinny, barely breasts, no real waist body type, but they also routinely say what Gary was reporting that um they had nobody to compare me with that that I would be the first one. So they wouldn't know that I was, you know, that I I was inadequate in any way. And that h that happens so regularly that I finally decided it was a characteristic of hemophilia.

[01:02:15]>> That's very interesting. And and let me emphasize for the audience that that it's not meant to cast dispersions on individuals with normal sexual drives that identify as gay. Uh >> no, I didn't think you were.

[01:02:28]>> Right. No, no, no. very important because I because you know I you know we don't want to hurt individuals that that are not trying to hurt anybody in this world right but but but I think but but but but I think it is interesting when you think about people like Jeffrey Dmer John Wayne Gayy and so forth that the ones that seem to target 15 year olds and 16 year olds and so forth it's interesting to think about um the victim selection the victim choice and how you know these are people that live double lives and so forth and then And they also talk about that about the the feeling that they have to hide both elements sometimes the the sexual identity and the interest in in in in a paraphilic interest.

[01:03:11]>> Yeah. Especially in the past, >> right? I was shocked in the um in Confessions of Conversations with a Killer where Mashad talks to Ted Bundy.

[01:03:19]>> I was very interested to notice that Ted Bundy described the double life he was living as being like the life of a gay man.

[01:03:28]where he had >> Oh, I don't remember. Didn't remember that.

[01:03:30]>> He talked about that. He said that that that going out and doing what he was doing required the same concealment that that you would see in an individual who at the time was living a gay lifestyle.

[01:03:41]>> And um I found that very interesting. Uh you know, talking about that, you know, the closeting the feeling that you're sexual desire. And um you know, so there's so much that we could talk about. But I I want to be sensitive to your time, but but I hope you um this conversation was rich and honest uh in a way that made people want to run out and read more of your work. And I think a lot of people saw today why I've always been such a fan of your work and why I think you're a you're a very unique and important voice in this field. You have a cander that just is very rare. Uh and and um and I think in doing that, in being willing to be a traveler in the darkness, right, it really has saved lives. There is no doubt in my mind there are people you have helped to incarcerate >> other people understanding offenders because of your work or you directly doing it. There is no doubt in my mind that there are people in this world that were not assaulted or did not kill people because um they were understood and locked away or given whatever they you know needed to get them off the street. So I can only say thank you and that I have an admiration for that uh an enormous admiration for that.

[01:04:53]>> Thank you and thank you for having me.

[01:04:55]And Gary, I could say the same thing about your work. Uh I'm afraid we're in the same >> Yeah. you know, we're we're in the same field. Uh well, thank you. Thank you for having me. I much appreciate it.

[01:05:09]>> You're so welcome. And I and I hope um everybody in the audience will continue to watch this series as Josh and I identify special authors. I think next we're going to try to reach out to an Burgess to see if we can >> Oh, wonderful.

[01:05:20]>> She's one of the best and a dear friend and my colleague uh and we'll go from there. But um but thank you so much and buy this book, >> Confronting Malice and Predators. I think those two are absolutely essential reading for any and I just lay people I mean even those in our field who who want to learn go out and buy them.

[01:05:41]>> Dr. And it it's it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Uh I want to thank you also for being uh somebody who you know sticks up for um victim shaming and and you have you know your your whole uh career and and um one of the very first people to uh do so as a as a clinician and um I think that that's a very important thing that that you've done and sort of set a standard for that as well. Uh, and so I I'm I'm honored that uh you you you were here and and gave us the time to to talk to us. So, thank you very much.

[01:06:20]>> Gosh, fellas, you'll swell my head.

[01:06:24]U you guys uh do a wonderful job. This is an important series and I'm very happy to be part of it.

[01:06:32]>> Have a good day.

[01:06:33]>> Okay. Bye bye everyone.

[01:06:35]>> Bye.

[01:06:36]>> Bye.

[01:06:36]>> Well, Josh, wasn't that terrific?

[01:06:38]>> Yeah, I told you she's the best.

[01:06:41]>> Absolutely. Fantastic. Um uh let me ask you this, Dr. Gary. Can any professional build rapport with these offenders? I don't uh they would trust me based on my experience. I mean I mean I'm sure that you I'm sure people do um build rapport with you know >> you have to otherwise they're not going to tell you anything. But the but but that the whole point is that what Dr. Salter was so so beautifully talks about in her writing and this is what I mean when I say she touches on things that other people will not admit is that in order to do that you have to find a connection point with the most horrible people that ever lived >> right >> because you have to get them to trust you and talk to you and reveal things to you. And to do that, you must go to areas of the human capacity that like 99.9% of the population wouldn't even be willing to do. And that's the sacrifice.

[01:07:39]That's what I mean about, you know, I have to do it in my own work, but it will haunt you. In other words, that's what I mean about being a traveler in the darkness. That's exactly the idea that I'm going to put out there in that writing is that um there's this like tiny cluster of people that are willing to do this, but but they have to. We have to do it.

[01:07:58]>> Yeah.

[01:07:59]>> And and I So build rapport. Yeah. But then afterwards you want to take a shower and throw up.

[01:08:04]>> You know what I mean? That's the whole thing. I you know you you you walk away and you just go like I had a conversation with that person like as if that was normal, you know? Or that person was using tricks on me that they use on their own victims and I knew it and I had to just there and let them do it.

[01:08:23]Well, it reminded me of the time that I spoke with the purge killer uh uh from I believe from Indiana, I think he I forget his name, but uh when we were talking uh we were, you know, talking about doing an interview and and it hasn't happened and hopefully it does eventually happen. But the thing was that uh you know it was like sort of talking to a normal person and then you go and research and find out everything that they've done and you're like h I can't believe I chuckled at a joke that that person said or you know exchanged pleasantries with them but how else are you going to be able to talk to them? Uh >> and we have to in the same way like if you want you have to do unpleasant things sometimes emotionally to get to truth >> and truth makes it you know the truth shall set you free. You cannot beat the darkness without understanding it. And that's what what Anna is saying is that in a weird way it it um it's yungian because it's all about the shadow part of of the self needing to be sort of processed and revealed and neutralized in order to achieve balance.

[01:09:47]And that is true in the entire society.

[01:09:50]And I think, you know, the more you deny its existence, the more it is going to eek out in a way that is dangerous. And and so it simply has to be done. And um and I think Anna is as brave as it gets because you think it's brave to go out and talk to horrible people and people that could hurt you. What about what she does, which is to confront the darkness and the self, the darkness that one experiences in reaction. And that is why I think I mean a true traveler in the darkness is going inward looking at the darkness inward and the darkness outward and realizing you know that every one of us kind of has to confront reality of our beastial nature or even from a spiritual perspective the idea of sin and so you know that's very very fascinating stuff and I can't wait a matter of fact the more I think about it I almost wish I was doing the whole book on that but it's just going to be a chapter right And um but >> I have fallen in love with the topic because the more I'm talking to people I'm hearing stories like like Anna is giving. I mean, the general public is going to be riveted to hear this stuff and um so so I'm personally fascinated by it. And um I just want to say um also that there are there that in doing this research I'm speaking to people in the population that are totally unseen and invisible and learning about offenders in the most strange indirect ways. For example, I've been doing a whole bunch of interviews with people that have a history of sex work and their stories about how they are really on the front lines in terms of encountering people that are going to go on to commit offenses. Uh people that that ask that push boundaries or live double lives or things like that, you know, is fascinating and deeply disturbing. And you know, so so what I'm trying to do is get to the truth by using unusual routes.

[01:11:48]>> Sure.

[01:11:48]>> Talking to victims, talking to reporters who were first on the scene, talking to lawyers that were involved in cases, talking to other professionals, talking to to cops and and detectives and what and the idea is to understand certain cases that are just too obscure and horrifying so that we can understand them. And and so that's what it is, I think, to be a travel in the darkness.

[01:12:09]And um so um thank you for this. I think I'm going to share this episode with Dr. Burgess and and invite her on and maybe we could talk about her latest book which is >> I would love I I would love to she's she's a favorite uh of mine >> and and a dear friend a dear dear friend and and there are a lot of other people I could think of that would make wonderful um contributors to this series. I almost hope you'll take the author series and isolate them somewhere. Well, I've done it with the I've done it with the and I've done it with the serial killers, right?

[01:12:43]>> So, also, yeah, I'll also do that. I'll make playlists uh of these as well because um frankly, they're they're great books and they're very important.

[01:12:54]I I ended up getting both of her books and I I started uh Confronting Malice and then I got Predators and then I started reading Predators.

[01:13:02]>> They'll become favorites of yours, I'm telling you.

[01:13:04]>> Yeah. I started going back and forth between the two of them.

[01:13:08]And uh because it's almost like, you know, each chapter is sort of its own story and uh it kind of it can stand alone. I mean that she she's phenomenal.

[01:13:20]Her writing is phenomenal, but I mean I wouldn't expect anything less from uh Dr. Salter because she's she's just a >> she's something else. She's something else.

[01:13:30]>> She's absolutely brilliant. And um you know I I I just I'm fascinated by by people that um I mean she has spent her entire life doing this work and you know even though she's semi-retired she's still doing it and um you know I know what that semi-retired means. I've heard that phrase before and it's it's not as um >> semi-retire also. Uh, so are you going are you on the interview room tomorrow?

[01:14:03]>> Um, I don't think I'm going to make it because of Mother's Day.

[01:14:06]>> I was going to say that it is, you know, Mother's Day this weekend. Uh, so happy Mother's Day.

[01:14:13]>> I forgot to wish happy Mother's Day to Dr. Salter.

[01:14:16]Uh, and I will write her I will write her and say that. But, um, >> pray for me as well.

[01:14:22]>> Yeah, I will. And, um, I definitely will. Maybe we will do it together. But uh it happy Mother's Day to everyone in the audience. Remember that um life is a crapshoot. Some people are born to terrible abusers and monsters and some people are born to the most wonderful parents on earth. Uh and um to those of you who have had the blessing of having a child or one or more children born to you and have loved them into fruition and been there for them and said things like button your coat, you know, and and um text me when you get home and um you know, you need any money, uh that kind of thing. remember that um what you're doing is sending a child out like a little sailboat, you know, on the water um in a way that that child will go out and do good. Um and those who harm children and harm people are setting them up sometimes for terrible pain across their entire existence, attachment problems, loneliness, confusion about their identity, maybe even harm of other people. Uh as poet right as the poet famously said, right?

[01:15:30]Um I know what all school children learn those to whom evil is done will do evil in return. And um and so I I just want to thank all mothers uh out there.

[01:15:42]>> Yes.

[01:15:43]>> Also to the people who >> don't have their moms, right?

[01:15:48]>> Don't have their mothers. Uh may they find comfort and peace tomorrow and good memories. Uh you know, hopefully because I know that there's a lot of people out there that won't be celebrating. Um, you know, I'm somebody that that lost my mother at a young age. However, I will be celebrating it with my grandmother who has sort, you know, uh, stepped in and, uh, uh, taken on that role for me, my sister, even even my children. Uh, you know, as well as sort of sort of the I guess you would call her the godmother of everybody. Uh, so we we look forward to that uh as well.

[01:16:29]>> Well, listen, I'm thinking of you, Josh.

[01:16:31]I know it's a hard day for you. You do have your grandmother who's been in many ways a wonderful surrogate mom. um and your sister and and and you know, but I'll tell you, Jung used to say that um a bad mother um in many ways is is the worst thing that that could happen to a person because it it um the the because the way he would think about it is like the idea of mother earth and etc. is that your entire sense that the world is a basically safe place that will take care of you is very shaped by your dynamic with your mother.

[01:17:05]>> Yes. and um and and you know it's very different than the dynamic with one's father. Uh and um and so those who are mothers and have loved their children and all that the world thanks you.

[01:17:17]>> Absolutely.

[01:17:18]>> You know what I mean? It's um you can understand why there are some people that feel that God has more of a maternal nature >> uh than a paternal nature. It's an interesting thing, right? Um okay. Well, Dr. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon. Ciao.

[01:17:32]>> All right. Bye bye.

[01:17:38]Uh what a wonderful treat. Uh thank you for waking up with us this morning and uh please uh leave a comment, like, subscribe, share this out, and you know, what a what a great way to to start the day. Uh I'm it was worth getting up for uh early and I I appreciate you guys so much. Thank you for supporting the channel. Thank you for supporting me.

[01:18:03]Happy Mother's Day to uh all the mothers out there and uh you know, we'll see you uh we'll see you real soon, right?

[01:18:26]Heat. Heat.

[01:18:58]Heat. Heat.