True Crime: A Sit Down With Patricia Cornwell

It sure is I really love saying the Morbito Morbito the way we just were gonna rebrand. Yeah, more BD-do I like that. Yeah, just uh, I don't know It's just what I'm calling it now

You're like, you know what I had so good at left. It's the weekend. We never speak in the weekend and it feels strange

You know what that's from the weekend. We know I do. Yeah, you know urban legend. Yeah, and because I know I said I say that sometimes

“And I I have to wonder if like 85% of the audience is like why do you say it's doing that?”

Watch urban legend if you haven't because that's a key movie to the best and the dean when he gets got before he gets got. He says spoiler alert. He says he says the dean guys He says something like, well, it's the weekend and the way he says it has always made me laugh So I just it's it's a vocal stim that I've had for literal decades. We have a lot of random vocal stems because yeah

From never been guessed. Oh shit. I don't even know my ticket. I love saying now Oh, randomly we'll just go home

People I probably like what it's like it's about moving. No, it's a gross. Yeah, that's never been kissed

Yeah, I'm exciting news. Let's move on to our business We want you to go get yourself something spooky honey something spooky something cute something more Baudito something more Baudito. It's our merch had to serious XM store calm and you can use code morbid for 25% off of your merch order And that is only for a limited time. It's the fourth through the 11th so don't wait

Do it don't wait. It's really comfy guys. The merch is cozy It's really fucking good. Yeah, I'm really excited about it. We Got to do a fun little thing the other day where we were our merch for it We don't do some more news coming out soon, but let's get to the news of today because today's a cool for you We have Patricia Cornwell on the show again today

I feel like Patricia's like a family friend at this point. She is this it

“We're recording this intro after we already talked to Patricia and I think she actually said that too”

I think she's something along those lines. She knows she felt it. It was it was life changing Yeah, I feel like every time we talk to her. I just end up very inspired It's true and I think you guys will too because this is an episode where we talk about a lot of different things We're gonna talk about uh, we're gonna talk about Scarpetta the TV show Which is fucking awesome. I'm telling you guys go watch it. We're gonna talk about

Her new memoir true crime. It's literally called true crime on memoir It's really really. It's how tomorrow actually which is May 5th so you can go get it go pre-order it if you're day early Go get it if you're on the day if you're in the car I don't care where you're going now go get going to a book store Yeah, I'm telling you it's really great. We got the the honor of reading it early and I I'm telling you

It's an amazing book so good, but yeah, this so this episode we talk about the memoir We talk about Scarpetta. We talked about how to keep yourself safe. Yeah, like like life tips and what true crime has done to all of our Psychies and our paranoias She shared some really crazy stories and also she's just crazy Inspiring at the end of it. You're gonna be like, well fuck. I'm gonna do stuff. Yeah, she's she's incredible and she's funny

It's hell like I love Patricia Patricia forever

“These episodes are always so much fun. I always end getting up getting off them being like can we talk to Patricia?”

Yeah, oh you missed the most important part actually

We also talk about Jack the Ripper and we think yeah, we do Patricia this this will not be Patricia's last no hard honey. No, because I think she's coming back to talk about Jack the Ripper Yeah, we're gonna try to get her back for some Jack the Ripper realness because I had to real a couple of Headheads and I said guys We gotta do this another time we gotta go full blown into this. We do so stay tuned for that

Because I'm very interested in Patricia's take I'm gonna reread her book because honestly, I haven't read that Jack the Ripper portrait of a killer book Oh my god, it decade like a long time. I haven't read that since like early high school Yeah, so now that I have like more information under my belt about Jack the Ripper I want to give it another go and see if I

agree with her Something all for sicker so without further ado here's the episode with Patricia here she is So Patricia first of all Huge congratulations on the most hugely anticipated Scarpeda series. I have personally been waiting for this

I'm so excited for it. Well, thank you I'm excited and I was just saying a minute ago, but I want everybody to hear this and that when I was at the premiere

“In early March and of course, I'm looking at at at all the influencers and the these shows and things that are really important to the”

The studios and stuff out there and and your show is listed there That is the mind blown gravy orbit is listed as one of the the important podcast that for and of course It makes sense. I mean Scarpeda and morbid fit hand and glove Okay, they do. Oh, I think I feel that Well, I suspect she listens to you when she's not busy if you know

Our bitches Scarpeda is tuning in to morbid on a regular base. So she doesn't tell me where she listens to you know I love that that's that's in my head cannon Yeah, I was gonna say him and forever. You know, we got to find a way to have morbid have a can't meal on that show We would die I'm gonna say something to them next time my girl. I see them. I say you we got to do something because you know

I'm gonna get so much trouble. Let's go, but but you know, I suspect that there's some of those characters I mean we know that they secretly listen to your show so but but anyway, but I am glad I've been I can't I'm kind of numb like I almost can't believe it's happened and you have a new memoir coming out It's actually coming out tomorrow May 5th. Uh, it's called true crime a memoir go get it everyone I'm telling you we were lucky enough to get an early copy of it and I ate it up

It is an amazing memoir like truly truly truly

“Congratulations. Thank you so much. It's so well written. It's very you that's that's what I loved about it is like you get”

The Patricia Cornwell voice throughout when it feels so conversational too. It's not your typical memoir No, definitely not well, thank you for that. I mean, you know, I just tried to Try to write it as a as a story like you're just telling people the story. I look at true crime And I know that's seems like a strange title It was it was so funny when I googled you know you have to google for titles. You can have that. You know you too hard to find a title

Had been used and it was surprising to me that really hadn't been used because it's more of a genre Yeah, it's a title, but it's perfect for this because it has many meanings. Oh, yeah, but you know I don't know where voice comes when you write when I started it. I didn't know what the voice was going to sound like but I know most of all I think part of it was helped by the fact that you know I had written the book and college that was a thinly bail autobiography Because everybody should write a book about the first 19 years of their life because it would be so massively interesting to all right

But I at least I got an honors grade for it in college, but yeah, but that book was told very much from the point of view of a child a young person and so by that using that a source material because I had so many anecdotes and stories And if that I wouldn't remember today for example when I started that I just come out of that Psychiatric hospital with it from the eating disorder I mean which was like a crazy movie

Yeah, you can't make up stuff like that me being in a place like that for two months when I was the only one who well I'm not gonna say was the only one. I'm not gonna say anything. I'm just gonna say

It was scary. I can't imagine. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You never supposed to say that somebody's crazy or the new one or they're not

Because they probably thought I was very strange too, but anyway I had just come out of there and I started writing all this so I remembered it like it was yesterday You know right down to the tennis shots that I had to hit when they made me play that exhibition match now You tell me that's not crazy That your patient in a psychiatric hospital you weigh 89 pounds

It because you used to be a well-known tennis player in the area that they make you do an exhibition match in front of all of the patients

“That's my flow. That's honestly nightmare. The tennis court was all cracked”

There were weeds growing up in it because it wasn't used anymore because it used to be a A resort and then it became a private hospital. But anyway, you know when you get all these wild stories in life But don't seem fun at the time, but boy, they gifts later. Yeah, truly it's one of those things that it's like I should write a book about this That's right So you've been you've spent decades telling stories about crime just as human behavior human psychology

Forensics all manner of things that have to do with this what felt like now Being the moment to tell your story instead of fictionalizing it

Well, I didn't want to do it. I've never wanted to do it. I can imagine

And I wouldn't have done it. They're not that many mystery writers crime writers They're they're not that many out of biographies and I mean even Dickens didn't write an out of biography because I think these people

But then when when they were someone was talking about making a television show having a character based on me When I read a draft of a of a script I didn't recognize the character and it wasn't the writers fault. It really was because There's no record out there to check if you want to know the definitive things about my life You have to piece it together for many many interviews over the years and

Present company excluded not not all people who interview you to tell tell things Accurately right about them. So I was just gonna write down a bunch of notes and then next thing I knew I thought you know, I should just try to What happens if I start telling the story? I'm I just finished my last book three or four months early

Got a little time if I want to think about it and I never know

When I start a book whether that story wants to be told and tell it tells me that it does yeah

“Start when I said you start the page I think of a scene and I thought well how when I start the story about my life?”

What scene and it's the same way I start a script head and novel. What is scene? Where is she right now? What is she doing? And I know you all you were like to this. I thought well I have to start when I woke up that morning and I heard my mother burning all our clothes in the living room. That's the one in her rapid footsteps going up and down The hall and I'm looking out the window at the snow and there's and my brothers are making weird noises in their bedroom and a upset and telling her Stop that event

changed everything that would ever happen to me ever again because she had not done that and then March does try to take us up the mountain and Give us to Billy Graham's family, which she she successfully we got up there because their caretaker sauce and new something was really wrong We're watching walk in these kids walking these kids up there in the snow, and but and there I mean I still see Ruth sitting in the living room way back then when I was nine years old and That was the beginning of my transferring really truly

My affection and my trust to that woman and instead of my own mother

“That's why I mean I continue to live with my mother, but but Ruth was like she was this hero to me”

And I always you always was kind to me when I'd see her in the town, but we weren't like friends when I was a kid

But I'd see her around because she was home And and Billy wasn't there too much But then when I had that hospital thing that's when she took me under her wing When I was 19 and she gave me my first journal and said I want you to write because I feel like I know you're talented

She read some poetry and stuff I've done, I mean she would be a nice So I did I started writing that book That weirdly enough half a century later has spun off into true crime It's it's uh who I mean life is so mysterious it's really far more mysterious and anything we would write that these things can happen like this It's true absolutely well

“I think there's power to and being able to tell your own story for the first time when you've experienced this so many people have told it for you for so long”

That must be a really empowering place to be in now

I'm not sure you even know what your real story isn't tell you start telling it. Yeah, I've never seen enough

You know and that's been the beauty and the horror of doing this memoir because It gives you a bird's eye view of your entire life you put it in perspective It's almost like you're you're in a spaceship looking down and It's both the two things that I've been struck with is and I marvel over what people might call Serendipity you know or synchronicity and or we might call it miracles

You might call it divine intervention, but whatever you want to call it. I see evidence of that through my whole life I mean the idea that my mother would go to a Billy Graham crusade in Miami when we still live there And because she was so taken with him and became a Christian Then she wanted to live where he did and moved us all the way across All the way up to North Carolina at the little town where she'd never been before we had no place to stay

Imagine that and then I end up on their doorstep. Yeah, that's quite observable. You know that that is really truly like that That is to sort of stuff that is like an adult fairy tale. Yeah, it's such an upheaval like I have I have Ten-year-old twins and I just think of nine-year-old you I'm like being like that kind of upheaval Must have just been out of this world because I feel like they need such consistency and such safety At all times so I just I that was like killing me reading that. I was like oh my god

I want to go back there and just like give you stability You know what it and when you and it gives you more empathy for how my mother must have felt some Yeah, I mean a lot of that she didn't remember because when you have The Electrical convulsive shock therapy and she and she had hundreds of these treatments after two hospitalizations Why it had wiped out a lot of her memory was gone and so I honestly don't know that she remembered burning our clothes or tape

Like to plague She didn't go up and speak tour and church the few times that I mean when you would see billing in church Which was like a huge deal. It's like the president because she'll win up and I say this in the book My mother put him on such pedestal Hey, you know, and she watched every show every crusade everything

He was on TV. She listened to him on the radio. She read all his books. She read his column in the newspaper

And here he lived right up the road and whenever he was around she would never ever go up to him

I don't think she ever met him wild. I was just around their older son Franklin just a couple weeks ago We were talking about this and I said, you know the weird thing is I said the whole time I was growing up I don't think my mother ever met your father once because she was so Embarrassed

Embarrassed by what she'd done and so so you'll like the story So when I tried to do to make her feel better and this was probably And around 2004 or so and when I was flying helicopters all over the place and occasionally I would land my helicopters And roots yard She had on the top of this ridge with this backyard and it's just a big drop off after that with the road that goes down the mountain

But this yard I mean there's no room to spare and we would land I mean blow her roses everywhere It looked like the width of the awes coming down, you know the house. Oh, yeah She should be on the porch going like this Really would come wander now like what

Who's landing in our yard talk? On this one occasion

“Ruth said you should bring your mother up here”

Because my mother had never been up to that house since the time she took us up there when I was nine to give us a while

So I said you know what? I'm gonna do that but you know this time we're gonna go up in a land in a helicopter Yeah We're not trucking up My mother there and we landed in the helicopter and I said if you're gonna return after all that

Maybe this will help give you your dignity back a little bit. Oh, I have a picture I have a picture of a sitting on Ruth's porch with mom and Ruth and I'm on either side of my mother My mother's got this big smile on her face. Oh, there's something about replacing like an awful memory with something 10 times better And it's so cool that you were able to do that for her. Yeah, well, you know in quantum mechanics

They now say that what you do in the present can change the past absolutely makes sense

“I believe that that is an example of you can change the past by doing things that change the way people feel about it”

Oh, yeah, and You can you do have the power to do that and it's a mess and science will tell you that. Isn't that wonderful? Yeah, absolutely is yeah I love that. But how cool of you to just be willing to do that after everything that you've gone through and I can imagine those were hard times to write about I did not enjoy it. Yeah, I'm sure

I'm opening a wound but your show I walked around feeling rather morbid for them I'm not sure. Yeah, you know, so many people are gone You know, I've died and and I'm not that person anymore. I mean, I'm turning 70 not too long and a few Month or so and I go where where did it go? What happens? And you start looking back on your early life and it's really like it's almost like it's somebody else It doesn't really feel anymore. Yeah, that's gotta be it. So but

I've you know, I'm glad I did it. I wouldn't say it's fun I'll tell you one of the hard parts about it for me is Even if someone's been awful. I really don't like to say bad things about them publicly. Yeah, I have to I have to like that. Yeah, I'm sorry. I had to say it I'm sorry. I had to say what Larry King did because there's a difference between sloppy flirty and I've been that too

Try to take power over people. Yeah. Absolutely a big difference. You're abusing your power because you can Yeah, but most of all I thought for my readers who've been following me for decades almost 40 years now I want them to know the true story of who I am right what they like it or they don't and also for other artists because it's not easy And one thing you learn is even if you get where you want to go you've got to keep recreating yourself all the time

You don't ever arrive. You're always going

And it's and even when the station is glitzzy and maybe you're number one and you're making a lot of money the next train stations Not gonna be the same No, no, so you better be ready and never give up if you have something That you a value that you want to add even if we're telling these grizzly graphic stories and I often think to myself

“What edification am I offering to the world? What am I doing to make things better by telling these stories?”

Is it or is this just me who who can do it therefore wants to? But no, I do think there's a place for it because

You do it. I do it and your show does it your books do it all of it If it wasn't real Then I would say why bother yeah, yeah putting all this in somebody's head But it is real absolutely are serial killers. There are people get struck by lightning There are there are some of them most hideous and bizarre things that happen to people that can ever be imagined and

And unfortunately if you've been exposed to it, you're never the same

But at the same time I'd like to ask you question would you undo and not know all this if you could no way now? Yeah, I wouldn't either because it's like telling me then show up at a gunfight with a piece shooter Exactly, yes Yes, you're speaking my language. I like being prepared these stories. That's something these stories prepare us

“And I think that's why they're necessary like you say yeah, like I always and I think it's important to”

Obviously like with my own kids. I do it. I I make it palatable for them and like age appropriate But I think it's important that they know not every every adult has your best interest in mind

And not every adult is safe to go to and a adult will never need your help

So if an adult comes up to you and says I need help you scream and run like you need to Prepare people early on the special world is changing especially girls. I think that's important. Oh, and listen I love I saw I saw somebody some women scientists. I think it was it come up with a nail polish that Yes You're doing your finger and it will change colors or someone spikes your drink while you went to the lady's room

I think that's incredible genius, but in how sad that we have to do this, but I love that people are evolving like the science and technology is evolving With the bad people. Yes. Oh listen if I had a kid she have on nail polish toe polish. Oh, yeah PPS tracker. You haven't in visibility club for when it's a bad club and yeah, I mean I can't I don't know how you tell your kids how to watch out this world or or someone wants to give you candy and it's fentanyl. Oh, yeah I mean it's so we live in a dangerous world and so the people like us we're here to be

Trailblazers we hold a torch and we go down a long dark scary path and we say you follow us you hang on to the

“hem of our coat if you want to be your scared we'll eat the way we're going to show you what's here”

So that you don't ever do certain things where this could be a problem. Exactly. But if you know what's out here Then you're going to go driving in that neighborhood or you're not going to lock your door. You're going to leave your window Open well you're only going to we've talked about this before you're not going to have a ground a landline So that when they a signal jam returns off your Wi-Fi that someone's going to break in and you don't hear them exactly Just don't work. Yeah, so when I say I say you show me what kind of crap happens out there

And then you make my day because we're going to we're going to make it so hard for you to do that. Yes Patricia you just let me perfectly enter our next question for you. There's a line in your memoir that hit Elena and I both like slap across the path immediately. You write I don't even want to leave the newsroom because my Imagination escorts me to the car that is we were like it's beyond real because we find like we were just saying covering these true Crime stories it changes how you move through the world and we want to know what something you do out of either habit and

Sting to maybe paranoia that most people might find unusual like your number one

Safety tip or trick well first of all I you know I always make sure

That you well first of all always know where an exit door is yes All right, whether you're in room or you're in a hotel no How you're going to get out and and so what I mean Okay, so I'll admit it. I go to a restaurant. I go anywhere. I'm looking all around me I'm looking at the entrance and I'm thinking of somebody comes in here to start robbing everybody

“What are you gonna do? Yeah, so it's just it's just automatic that that I think about worst case scenario and and how”

You would react what should you do and I and there's not a easy answer depends on where you are and what the circumstances are But I always tell people you know this is the way I think okay. I'll taste up my do I walked through parking lots had in somewhere and I look at every car. I walked between and I think if I were a bad person What information are they leaving in their car that tells me that they could be a potential victim Baby shoes hanging from review mirror. That's my gym bag in the back seat with the that name an address on a

You can see through the window. Yep It could be anything a bumper sticker. Yeah, or something that that makes people think you're a single woman who lives Long, I don't know what it is, but do not

Oh, so okay, so I'm a bad person and I'm gonna abduct you

I'm gonna come up to you and I'm gonna say Helen

“What are you doing in Charleston you just say what?”

I must know you. Yeah, you don't remember me What what do you what what's what's going on on beloved bubble and I said well you we met a couple years ago I don't expect and next you know this person has let their guard down This is total scam. Yep, and so so easily. Don't give people don't stand in an airport line with a tote bag that has your home address on And so I can see and take a picture up. So smart such good advice. It's so true on it on this. Oh, yeah

We could all go on for hours. Yeah, tell me something you do well my whole thing is if they come to your house during the day They want your stuff if they come to your house during the night they want you so I I am making locking my doors at night like an Olympics for it It's like medieval Europe around here. She's like barricading the driver. I put heavy things in front of every

Exit or entrance like things that we could move but things that if a door was pushed open

It would fall down and make a huge noise because I like to have that extra second

But we could hear something and react appropriately. Well, I have a I have a very unfortunate news flash for the Lord. Oh Okay, home invasions during the day or the night It might not make any difference for time a day. It is the biggest problem with people being home during a burglary is Sometimes a burglary breaks in and is not intending anyone to be there, but then you become called a crime of opportunity Yeah, and so and now a days these home invasions happen and the we didn't use to have home invasions like we've got now

Honestly now during the day. It feels like it's the end. It's terrible. Yeah, it's a lot scarier now

“And it could happen at any hour of the night and what and here's what you have to do first of all”

I'm a big advocate of alarm systems

Oh, and alarm system and and make sure that your alarm system is on a

Ground you know a real line to help wireless so that I mean wireless goes out mean their precautions you can take to Outsmart the things that people are going to try to do stuff. Yeah, and frankly I think everybody should be thinking that way you don't ever open your door when you don't know who's there and if it's a cop If it's a cop and it's only one cop in particular you say I'm sorry I'm not expecting you I'm calling 911. I want to see why you're here because that you can get these uniforms now. Oh

Yeah, it's a shame, but you can't the the inherent trust that we felt as children in a world That was relatively safe by comparison and I I sound so depressing to people. I'm sure, but I'm sorry You cannot live that way anymore. Well you have to be informed. Yeah You haven't left my kids if I had little kids like like you I wouldn't let them walk about to the tennis courts in the pool Oh, yeah, but I used to do no, no, they don't go nowhere by themselves

and we have little like they're we know where they are at all times. You know we can follow them. There's a little Watches. Yeah, I'm crazy. I'm probably like a helicopter parent, but I feel like now we have to be a helicopter parent Like I'm perfectly fine with that. How could you not be no one older said you know and then just yeah Orally did it, but you have special knowledge of them Forced and a more do you know yeah, oh yeah, you know, you're all been exposed and you've talked to so many people

“This is a reality. It's not just some fancy fool who done it. Yeah, but I do think it gives you a leg up being informed the way I think so too”

Some people I think like especially in our lives people think we're paranoid, but I'd rather be paranoid than uninformed Right Knowledge is power and trust your instincts. I mean your instincts There's a part of your brain that knows things that you consciously don't really know and know that Yeah, we know so true. If somebody if you're if some if you're confronted with somebody like I had somebody chase me down

Escalator once oh I was what's a young this was way early on up not the way before I was you know the scar peda person I was in Washington going down that escalator on DuPont circle, which is like Dante's in Furno Which is ghost and ghost and we and we were at the top we were going down and this guy in camouflage started coming after us and saying You could run, but you can't hide oh and he chased us all the way down to the bottom when we got to the turn style my friend is like freaking out He comes right up to us and

I don't know what something just came over me and I looked him right in the eye and and he say he say he was mumbling all the stuff Or you're this or you're that and I said let me tell you when I am I said I'm a cop and you better get your ass out of your head now Do not make me say it again. He said you're not a cop. I said I'm a cop you better get out of here now and he either decided that I was one

And he was amazing

“And I don't even know why I did that because sometimes that's the worst thing you can do”

But something told you that that was told me yeah, I got back up to the top on the sidewalk My knees turned to water. Oh sure But we Trust your instincts if you're gut tells you don't get on that elevator don't cross so that side of the street Don't get in that Uber and by the way, make sure when you are doing ride sharing

You always have something and your pocket book or your pocket or your coat that you could use to to help yourself at this person

Decides to abduct you yes, and I don't mean to be gross, but phone charger Yep, yeah, you know You can an ain't pen you are we really talking about? Yeah, I mean you're I was freaking as I am because we have this is this is the morbid discussion from hell But I don't mean I don't mean to be gross, but you need to think about what you do So because you're big what will happen is you're better off that guy wrecks the car

Then get you where he's gonna take you and he's gonna get you absolutely yeah So think about these things and then hopefully it never happens Yeah, but but I think about that kind of stuff and and I hope it never happens and I hope something does I thought about it

“But it's it be easier never to have to think about these things, but once you know it's out there you have to think about these things”

Unless you want to die yeah, and with a ride shared too never give them your name up front don't go up and say hey, is this fur Elena? Like makes them say who's this ride for that's a good point. Yeah, or I told my husband not recently He thought I was crazy. I'm like, well, I can see me getting abducted because if you give them their name all they have to say is yes Yeah, no, you're in the car right. Yeah, always make them say it All right, well switching gears here a little bit

We talked about all this all these safety precautions which I'm sure we're gonna get back to oh, yeah We just remember anybody can read my memoir, but they can't hear our crime tips Yeah, exactly that's true, but I do want to go back to your memoir for a second We did talk about the harder times to write, but was there a particular chapter of your life? That was actually really fun for you to revisit like exciting to revisit

I always enjoy revisiting when I went to London and got the the first big crime award from Princess Margaret

Because I mean you talk to incredible Beverly Hillbillies and or or You know mom pocketle me going to London and the whole bit about getting the call in the morgue and then Literally I don't know why the chief medical examiner did this because this is so so crazy I think I said it in my book too, but this might be my favorite thing I got to call my office, you know, I'm looking at my cinder block wall in my steel desk

Cross from the elevator will all the stink comes in up a shaft with my candle lights on on the desk Ring ring and I answered as my literary agent and he says well I've got news for you You've just won the best first crime novel in Great Britain. I said what?

“And and it's being presented I think it was something like the Royal Law Society out in what it was and by Princess Margaret and I said what?”

I'm gonna lose this again and and you have to go there and it's like next month or whatever So I and I said so I'm being presented to royalty Yes, I said okay, well, okay, well, I have to think about this for a minute So thank you Thank you

I go down stairs Marcel is gone so I can't tell her she left and and the chief is down there and he's finished in a A stab wound homicide case and he's He's in he's holding his four steps with the wound. He's excised his arm This is what I favorite in my breath and I'm in and I say

You won't guess you never guess it I just post more them just one best first crime

novel in the UK and Princess Margaret's presenting me the award and his reaction is he threw the thing Why I loved so much I picked it up and I put it in the little carton work along that I want to rinse my fingers And I'll see you tomorrow and I'll thank you so much Thanks for the congrats

And I'm away home my stop at the most expensive clothing boutique in Richmond Yeah, and that's where I got my little out fit they put me on a wooden box and dress Yeah, I cut see and I'm I wrote down in my journal at the time how much I spent on everything You know, I think I was a Paul that I spent a dollar ninety-eight cents on really fancy panty house or something That was you know, I was used to the legs or whatever the cheap stuff. Yes, and so but

All right with the if from from soup to nuts it was one disaster after the next of me going and getting that award And then getting dragged away by the men in the red coats because you're not supposed to last questions of royalty

Yeah, but you might as horses in the world. Maybe you've numb not

“I would have been the same way. What are you supposed to do? Can I put your horse look? I'm just happy to be here”

What's the topic about it? It was and I mean, it was crazy and then then then the wake up the next morning and it's snowed I was snowed into at London that's and so and that and so I wandered the whole day through and you know Looking in all these beautiful stores and I couldn't afford I had no I hadn't moved there yet But I went I did do something rather cheeky years later Oh god, I shouldn't tell this story either because oh my neighbors are gonna know this now

But I had gone back when a couple years later for something and I I had moved to this wealthy neighborhood And it's I call is you know, Windsor Farms and Richmond is the place to live and I had found a starter home there Because it was handicapped equipped and it was not old. It was foe-tutor I mean, let's be honest every tutor there is foe-tutor, but okay, but mine was really foe-tutor Real too long ago and I had gotten a fire sale for so I was able to afford to move there well everybody else

You know, they there was some attitudes in that neighborhood shall we say I am about to and they Very curious about why I was living there and they would ask you who your family was They wanted to know who you're descended from and I didn't and it was that kind of thing So I went to London and I happened to be in a flagship and I bought one of these hospitality flags You hang over your door. Mm-hmm, and it was a rampant line on it very British looking. Oh, yeah, good tutor house

And I wanted them to initial to embroidered in initials F.R. on the corner of the flag They said why to be just because I want it. Okay, so it's now custom made So he ran down my custom made flag for my foe British house And he's saying and I hang it over the entrance and there's a beautiful lot rampant line flag over my foe tutor house Flapping it and the neighbors would go what does F.R. stand for I said. Oh, it's flags of regent street

I'm sure you've heard of it because to make this for me. This is lovely. I'm sure yes I'm sure that place what it really means and I won't say it out loud. It means F and rich Because that's the only reason I could afford to live. There's not because I was anybody special And that F and rich flag But my door the whole time I lived there

But I just I already had so much to have for you. I got a single person Oh, I love that so I already had so much respect for you, but it's leveled up even more

“That's incredible. I don't need the family names. That's why I'm here. I love that a lot”

It's always good to have a private joke as long as I heard somebody else's feelings. Yeah, and nobody knew

No, and then the honest truth whizzless be honest. Why are we so special here? Yeah, we could afford to live here That's your only reason. Yeah, you were just being honest Like let's go you're straight up about it. Oh, I love about a lot and Speaking of like favorite parts of the memoir one of my favorite things in the memoir was when he threw the stab wound at you And you were just like why did you do that?

I don't know I just picked it up and put it away. You've seen people do some strange stuff down there Haven't you tell me I was you know, that's what I was gonna say to was Personally when I saw that I read it in there and I said yep, that's that is more humor like that is

You have to have gallows humor. I feel like to survive down there. Didn't you have one guy that would always play casha to get through all

Top scene always had a playlist like everyone got their own playlist what you were comfortable with some people had like very chill music That they like to work with and there was one guy I worked with and he just always played casha and So he'd be like dancing in the middle of doing thing and he was so put meticulous like He was doing his job to a tea. He never messed up. He was never disrespectful But he was just dancing singing do the whole thing. I loved working with him because he made it such a different experience

“So funny. Yeah, I feel like you need to have that. You know, it's funny. I mean there are a lot of things that that I've seen in an autopsy”

Sweet that are probably not that abnormal really like what you just were talking about unusual It's not it's weird. I don't translate that into my book. Some of it can be a little mean spirited I mean I remember for example there was a young a forensic pathology fellow a young woman and they weren't you know This is back in the day when there weren't too many women. Oh, yeah, it's getting started So case this is like so what they would do is a body comes in that's decomposed

That's really bad, you know, and you know when you and zip it there's all kinds of things moving around Oh, yeah, oh, and I'm talking about when you know that's kind of stuff that the new person would get yeah And it's totally deliberate. Yeah, or a bat got killed in the morgue and someone fixes it and formal in and hangs it from a string over

By the way, it's not funny when you're sitting down and you look up and there's yeah. Yeah, that's pretty awful

But you know, but the one thing up and the medical examers office I was in Yes, people have to vent and there is some real gallows humor But the one thing that didn't happen is people weren't disrespectful towards the other tables, no, but but you you laugh at other things

“You know you you laugh at the I think I may have told you this story”

This is one of my favorites where one of the week the medical examers had gone to a house where lady had died on the couch And was probably natural causes, but she wasn't under the care of a physician So the someone had to check her out So she does her thing she comes back to the morgue the next morning. She's wandering around and she's looking like she's not my Mrs. McGoo when she says

I can't find my glasses anywhere is anybody seen my glasses

Oh, no, I'll cut to the funeral of the lady on the sofa She's lying open in her open casket with these red glasses and people are walking around her casket I didn't know she would as glass Oh, I didn't know she won glasses at all and so I can't really story so I think I don't I maybe they got returned to that medical examiner Wow, oh my god, do you want them after that or at that time a station wagon full of

bodies that have been involved and are on their way to medical college of Virginia and there's a car accident and all the bodies are on the highway In the state trooper stops and and obviously they aren't dressed after they're involved and he stopped and he gets on his radio He says oh my god, there's been this terrible accident. It was so violent it blowed all their clothes Poor guy He's like what happened. He still just he's brought back to this day

Probably well, that's the time someone gets card jacked and you get to and you get look what's in the back and you go Oh, I shouldn't have done that That would be instant karma. Yeah, yeah, I'm absolutely it would but you know Another one of my favorite parts of the story is that like speaking of autopsies is that you committed and Went to become a volunteer police officer partially at least. It seemed like to be permitted to be part of an autopsy

I thought that was such commitment to the cause the dedication and then I loved that you ended up loving it

Oh gosh, I've always had uniform in the sense. I was born

And I tell I tell everybody I run around with the secret service to FBI and I'm going in the NBA badge in the When Stacey and I met the carbon air in Italy, we both decided we would sign on just for their uniform Yeah, like I look like our money dressed them. Oh, yeah The red silk line capes and all this and so when I had a chance to

“When more cell is suggest to say look I you have to have legitimacy mean you did as a autopsie technician”

You can be down there. Yeah, I had no legitimacy to be in the board and I said well What can I do to have legitimacy? She said well you could make a volunteer police officer that I that would probably do it But got it I didn't even go to was that and I thought wow Hmm, I kind of like that thought anyway Really sure kill two birds with one stone. Yeah, he's so funny when my when Charlie would would take

Photographs made in my uniform. I could tell he was just trying to be nice, but it's like not a good look Not a good look I think it's a great look. You wore it well It was there anything about that time being a volunteer police officer that surprised you or a time that you Something that really made you excited to be a volunteer police officer. Well, I loved all of it

I mean, I really did I I loved riding with detectives. I loved being in uniform and but one of the things that I didn't realize Is the hardship a lot of police feel or suffered through from just a discomfort of the job like I'd be out directing traffic And in the carbon monoxide's getting to me. Oh, I didn't even look at that a little rosy and the heat coming up through my these off for shoes You know I got one of them right here. You know, this is one of my shoes. I wore back. Oh my god

They don't look like they have good They're horrible. Yeah, horrible and when you were like showing up at a baseball game and just kind of patrolling around and stuff and my feet would hurt Oh, yeah, I would get me the hat would give me a terrible hat. Oh, yeah You know, just the discomforts of things that you you're not used to yeah, and I don't know I just love being exposed to something that I mean

I really thought seriously when I couldn't get published I thought about whether I should just become a police officer I even talked to a lieutenant about it and said

“Do you think that that I could would be okay as a police officer?”

Now mind you already had one book published the Ruth Graham biography and all the rest of it, and so this this lieutenant very diplomatically

Most people who become officers do better if they're kind of like everybody else

“And I'm not sure what she was saying. I thought it was a big I think that was like a big fat. No”

It's a nice way But but I I'm I'm cherished that I ever did that. I'm so glad I did it. It You know, be hard to do that today. Yeah, yeah, absolutely different world, but it only the other thing is I if you were volunteer The rest of the rank and file for the most part had no use for you

Yeah, we rolled up on a scene. They would look at us like we were like, why are you here? Yeah, we're not the real deal. They they want it. They you know kind of go on We don't need your help with anything or somebody would make a smart out Alec remark about hey You don't you're not wearing a gun And I went to my watch. I say you don't know what this can do. It's got a special feature to it don't bother me

iconic The unknown okay me I just love the commitment because You wanted to be part of an autopsy and you were like what do I have to do to get there? I'm gonna get there. I did the exact same thing

“That's why I could relate to it so much. I didn't do the volunteer police office”

But I really wanted to be involved in autopsy's and was like Singularly focused on it and I started just kind of like harassing the head of pathology where I wanted to do it Until he did a research project with me and he was like you can't be in an autopsy yet, but we can do this research project

We went through that and then finally I just like bugged him and did whatever I could during this research project to get into that room

And when I was finally given access to the room it was like okay like I was like it felt so good because I was like This is something I really wanted and I made sure I got it and I feel like that's exactly what you did. You were like I'm getting there You know the interesting thing is you call your show morbid But the very you're very curiosity about an autopsy and anybody's real curiosity is anything but morbid It's not morbid. You know what it really is it's a privilege

Yes, when you've got a body on the table of someone who has been murdered Which is horrible and I'm not saying it's a privilege because it's a good thing It's a privilege that you are given an opportunity to try to reconstruct what happened there and do something that might change the lives of a lot of people If you can figure it out It's really what you've got is an in a sort of a metaphorical

Archaeology site. Yeah waiting to be excavated and you're the first person who's going to put the trial on that and see what's under that

“Surface and you might find something you never imagined and that's was entered. That's what I'm about”

Autopsy so especially writing about them is there can be so all these surprises something that completely changes The course that you were on and you decide this didn't happen now. I'm thinking this might have happened

Yeah exactly and you're making the dead speak and that's the thing because when and that's the privilege death always feels like

That's it. There's no helping after death like death is the final The end of the curtain that's it but I feel like in an autopsy death is just like the beginning of helping when you're in the autopsy Now you can really help and now you can really make a difference And make this death mean something because now you can figure out one what happened so you can give closure And two make sure it doesn't happen again right and help to make that big part again

That's the big part if you can help figure that out maybe that same serial killer won't bring another one of these people to your door Exactly that is exactly what motivates Scarpeda it's not just Justices for the living it's not for the dead the dead it doesn't matter anymore But for those left behind not only do they need to have some peace of mind that there was a price to pay for this Unbelievable unforgivable things someone did but also that

You're not gonna give that person a chance to do it again. Exactly. So it's a very big responsibility when that you walk in that room with that body on the table And you want it to tell you the truth about what what's going on absolutely make it mean something Yeah, and speaking of autopsy's this is a little more lighthearted of a moment from it But another thing that I found so relatable in the memoir was when Dr. Fiero said that there should be a place on a death certificate That says was this death stupid yes, or no

It was like yep, I felt that exactly before and I had to ask was there any Moment in any kind of death investigation that you were a part of even peripherally that you were like What was the decision making here look like what led to this?

Yeah, and and with every case

There's always something that no one was ever able to interpret you know like that

Some outside in the grass or it found a symbol written on a body and did the bad person do it or did the victim do it What does that mean there's so many things like that, but you

“So much of it even when it's stupid like I and you never forget some of these cases, but I remember there was this young boy”

Yeah, these probably I don't know maybe 15 or 16 and is you know is overalls out in the country and he's riding in the back The pickup truck and he's got a crush on a girl So he's got a little can of right-guard deodorant in his pocket in his coat pocket I guess he wants to make sure he smells nice around or I don't know but but he had you know It was all and it was dented because of what happened to him, but he's worrying around and he decides

It's a good idea to stand up in the back of the pickup truck right at the same time that go under a bridge See into that yeah, and and so but now that that is like that you would check to stupid Yeah, but at the same time I could smell it was actually it wasn't and it was old-spice Yeah, and I could smell it and Harry is on this table and here's his little dented can of deodorant

And his stupid is it was how sad yeah sad sad that and I think this poor family and so you know and these things they never

Your first time of seeing some of this stuff

“You just never forget it. I know the nature some of these people from me go. Yeah, because it was just be so strange to be so close to”

Like the last act that somebody did like that boy putting on his deodorant Yeah, you know that's the one of the very last things he did super intimate and this person is obviously Dead on a table, but that makes them so alive in your head. That's got to be strange to reconcile Yes, it gives you a people into their To their inner being for one moment and and I may have I may have told you this story before

But a similar thing was a woman who had gotten hit by a car three o'clock in the morning Walking home from the bar and when I was in the morning the next morning the state trooper was going through her stuff And inner wallet was fortunate from a fortune cookie and it said you will soon have an encounter that will change the course of your life Wow

“And you went on maybe she went to that bar looking for that encounter but yeah, she got was two headlights”

That's awful that but and nobody knew whether to laugh or cry. Yeah, right what I mean But for a moment you got a people into her longing for something that's so sad. Yeah But they put people those they need us to be there to tell those stories. Yeah, absolutely Knowledge it and to say you care enough to try to know what they felt Yeah, well speaking of that kind of personal connection

You touch heavily on the south side straingler in the memoir Timothy Wilson Spencer now you admit Dr. Susan Helms Who was one of his victims and I wonder did having a personal encounter with a victim like that change anything about writing for you about writing these mysteries Post-mortem was hard to write because it wasn't inspired by the the killings there in a lot of people Don't want you to write about something that is inspired by something real because it's so painful now the cases The victims in post-mortem none of the details have anything to do with what happened with the real people

I don't yes, I don't exploit their their privacy and or or even know much about it because Marcella did not let anyone look at the records

And I was never I never saw the opt-opsies and I didn't go to the scenes

I only went to the scenes after the fact when I'd park outside with the homicide detective and what we would be looking around at the house with all the lights out in the window and Just sort of like in the TV show like scar peda marino, you know, they're talking about What the killer did and what happened and there's they're they're trying to reconstruct it while they're parked outside that house But but you know and Susan Helen's I'm almost positive that's who I saw who smiled at me at a brain cutting at the medical college and it's

Hard very hard because a part of you says maybe I shouldn't talk about this at all But then again You're not doing justice to that victim if you don't tell anybody what happened exactly right and I don't know I don't regret telling that story and it but it was I try to be very careful in my work That I don't want to exploit real things that have happened to people

I couldn't write literally ironically my book my memoir called true crime and that's the one thing I wouldn't want to write I don't want to do that. I don't want to open up all that with people who have been through It takes a very special person to be able to do that. It was hard enough doing it with Jack to Ripper And dead for over 100 years. Yeah, that's typically the kind of case that we cover like Elena loves to cover be 18

You know to be further removed is is better sometimes and I think it's honestly super interesting older cases like Jack the Ripper and things because

How they solve any cases back then I'm always it's a shock to buy so I think it's a very interesting thing to tell is to talk about

Before DNA before fingerprints before light like before electricity and they just had like You know a little single lantern lit in the corner on a dark street like how did they Solve anything I love it every bit of it. It's so much fun and with the Ripper case

“All that that you're saying you have to keep in mind so for example if I bought and I have one sitting in a box over here”

An antique bullseye lantern that goes back to the period that the cops were carrying and I put a candle in it to see what a fire What it look like and I'm not working with I and all what would really do is you get this kind of Yellowish reddish glow yeah, and that real thick lens and I thought all you're doing is putting a laser dot on you. Yeah, that was late. You're just showing everybody that

You're there yeah, except the laser dots pointed at you so that all the criminals could see

But it makes you realize how the heck they could see anything out on the streets that and I think the Ripper was killing these people there were no street lights No, I'd miss gas lanterns here and there I mean there were these bullseye lanterns and that was about it But you know, there's also the theory and I suspect this is true I would imagine that back in the Victorian era the 1800s and even the early

20th century that people's eyes were better adapted to look at dark darkness Like that we are because I had to it's just you know adaptation yeah absolutely yeah Everywhere we go their lights now. Yeah, we're almost overlighted Yeah, because when you get in the dark it's like light pollution. You can't see the stars anymore And it makes me sad it was sad I'm really staring at our phones to see the blue lights

“That were ruining our ice screens everywhere. Yeah, well, and I think it's really fascinating with the jack the Ripper case two”

On the other side of it that he was able to be so precise with some of his in the darkness in the darkness with some of the You know, we should do we should do a show we should want to show some time on the Ripper Huge story, but let me just tell you this There was nothing precise about what he did It's it's people think it was but he was slash and grab what I

I'll tell you what I think you did based on everything I've seen and what snippets of autopsy reports are left And the few scene photographs of what Abby is that I'm quite certain that even if he Approach the person the the sex worker which is what most of the victims were When he didn't he didn't attack them then he did it from the rear. Oh, yeah Mind them and did this at their throat. They went down on the ground and then he would go around and he would cut through

They're clothing and start and cut through That the abdomen and grab out the intestines and fling them out of the way and and take that they'd escalated

escalated and what the police never figured out which is really obvious if you do this research is that the Ripper got more and more violent first

It was cutting the for then it was Putting an decision down the middle and then it was pulling things out and throwing them then Mary Kelly who was oh I don't know five or six or seven. I don't remember which number but she was flagged at the bone. Oh, yeah, and he took her heart with it Mm-hmm and I mean he even took her face off. Oh, yeah, and That so and then what happens? What a coincidence. They start finding people who are dismembered

Well, if you expect it to escalate to that that's the thing It's like you don't end with that kind of escalation But the but he that the dismemberment stuff was more calculated because he took those bodies somewhere He had these little rat holes bolt holes where hubbles where in white chapel and all of it twice and and then He would spend time with the body before he wrapped it up in something and he could put pieces of of a newspaper in it

Yeah, he was always He was the master of red herrings and for and oh, yeah, yeah, but but he was just violent Is what he was. Oh, yeah, and he was a coward. He picked on people who were absolutely defenseless. They were drunk It was late at night. They were wearing everything they own and nobody cared nobody gave a rat sass about him I mean, that's the thing he knew they wouldn't be as

Investigative or if this had been women coming out of the theater and the West and to be a different story You know it might be solved. It would be Wow, you might have been solved if some of the people around secret might have been honest about him I do believe that his wife Ellen

“At the time hit the wife the at the time. I believe she knew what he was doing. Oh damn truth”

She said she was leaving him. She filed for divorce because of those women Yeah, oddly

Interest thing that he ever had sex with anybody. Oh So bond. I'm not sure he was capable of it because of his early surgeries Even genitals or something to I mean his Southern Hemisphere is all we know we have to say but the point is that is really It's just no different than the kind of cases we have today except that that killer was not like anybody No else and no and there's been nobody like Walter sicker and I can see why he got away with it

And I don't care what anybody says. I totally believe he did it. There's I've been on the wall staring at you right now above the down police notice a police notice That's original. There's only like really

When these murders were going on in London. So that's incredible

But yeah, I mean all of this is important to know because

“It might be it might prevent something and I wish that I think back in the Victorian era in particular”

People just didn't think that someone educated handsome in seven languages and was an actor and an artist could possibly be a violent psychopath Oh, yeah, that was just unheard of right like unthinkable now we know could know we know. Yeah. Yeah, definitely know now And that's the thing when the when the DNA came out recently and everybody's like, oh, they figured out who was I was like No, they didn't Everybody was about to go so I was like no, they didn't completely but not true that DNA that is not correct that DNA is

Ridiculous, but a con real DNA. We need to have you back. We need to have you back for a full blown jack group episode because We need to do a follow-up on our own series actually. Yeah, we do So we'd love to have you for that. We would love to You're a friend of the family here love to love that part of the woman's family. Oh, yeah, we are And it's got like switching gears for a second just back to the Scarpella TV show because I am just like over the moon for it

It's incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. I tell them they will love to hear that you love I love and I was

Let them know today. Oh, I love that because I've been waiting for this like I as soon as I started reading the Scarpella series

“Which was I mean, I think I was like you were probably I think it's like maybe 12 or 13”

Yeah, I said like 12 I think because my grandmother used to read them my mom used to read them They're all around has been talking to me about these books for my entire life. Yeah, and I'm 30 so yeah I was almost 30. I was hooked immediately and so it became like a present that everyone would get me for like birthdays It was like the next book and the series came so my husband took that up every year He'll get me the next book. I just read post-mortem post-mortem for the first time. And I am absolutely in in it now

Like I can't wait to read the next one So this I really appreciate that and the series has really like hit like it hit the notes that I was like

Oh, and Nicole Kidman's amazing Jamie Lee Curtis like bobby as marino like any perfect

Chef's kiss and his son playing the younger marino is perfect. I love it. I can't believe you were able to do that

“I mean Jamie and and the and Blum House the producers and and of course the more huge people”

We've got three Oscar winners. Oh, yeah, it's insane Jamie's Paul and Arianna Dubo's. I mean, who plays Lucy It's incredible. It's just an embarrassment of riches and like I say to them I'm now I'm surrounded by some of the most talented people in the world right now That I have the privilege to work with and I'm hoping it teaches me a few new tricks I actually think it's making me a better writer because when you watch how when you read scripts and more scripts

And you watch how they do all this and when I'm writing now I'll go is there a way you can show this more dramatically and not tell it so much through narrative I mean, it's and for when I when I first started getting into all this to be honest We had from you for a loop a little bit. Oh, yeah, I was seeing all that and reading all this and then I'm down trying to do my old thing and for a while I'd have to go. Okay, this feels different right now

I'm yeah, it's like listening to someone else's music right in the fact I'm posing your own but ultimately I'm I'm really excited about it because I feel like I'm learning some new tricks by watching what they're doing Oh, that's cool. I love that it's it's hard work, but it's fun and it's a big responsibility But I'm thrilled that you all that you both that you like it and I will let I'm gonna send a note to Everybody and tell them that morbid likes because I only love it. They will appreciate that. Oh, yeah

It is hit for an adaptation like 100% true. I love it and thank you and just to just a wrap up Because I know we've kept you on But well, that's our we could talk for weeks. I know I could just sit here and talk to you forever But I have to ask you just as somebody who also is like just starting out writing books and like

Like when you gave me that incredible blurb for the butcher legacy Like knock me over with a feather. I've been talking about it for months

“I think at this point. I didn't do it scar pedicid and by the way”

I know where she is half the time she's probably hanging out in your world now Honestly, you've been better and giving me permission to kind of she rather be with Nicole Kidman Let's be honest. Oh, I was gonna send her home send her home when you're finished shooting Please who wouldn't love to be with Nicole Kidman? No, no kidding But I have to ask was there any point during the beginning of this they you felt like this would be your career

Like you were gonna have this legendary career was there any moment where you were like, you know what I think I'm gonna be huge When things got really big in the early 90s, you know back in the Stone Age The best time scar pedic was probably the biggest thing out there in the in most of the 90s Yeah, and then JK Rowling had the nerve to come along whenever that was and I mean, who the hell does she think she is kind of along? That's a great sell more than me

But anyway, who the hell does she think she is only I had called from Potter's field from Harry Potter's field. Oh Yeah, there's a lot more books Anyway, I never knew I never imagined that it would all become so big But then I learned another lesson Which is not a fun one I at the time it got so big and I'd always thought it would stay that way

“I never knew that you have to keep reinventing yourself”

That that things come and go and you go through generations of people who have read something and maybe Now the newer generations not familiar and it's it's not that my work hasn't done well

It's that I thought it would always be exactly the way it was when it started when and then it's finally now

You have Stenieu at CSI came along. Oh, yeah shows and other people lots and lots of people writing books And it caused me to have to pay more attention to what I'm doing and realize that never why don't rest on my laurels anyway But but don't ever oh never never never never never think that you've arrived that you don't have to try as hard That's a great lesson I definitely learned that because I could see that you have to keep this keep up the same things

You've always been doing or won't work absolutely working after a while. Yeah, it's true

“And I think the last thing we just wanted to ask you was what do you hope most people take away from true crime”

And then more that there's redemption in life

Well, things can start out badly and they can end up beautifully and that there that you can be given chances that you never thought you would get and

And that there's so many gifts if you just will look and never stop being grateful. Yeah Love and gratitude love and gratitude. Don't forget those and don't give up and failure is not a measure of your worth because if it were I wouldn't be talking to you right now. I've had more failures and I've always learned more from them than my successes Oh, so true. I love that. That's perfect. And honestly I think everyone who reads that book is going to walk away with all of that because I know I did absolutely

Big hugs to you guys. I love you both always happy to talk to you I will just do it again soon. Yes, we love you. Thank you so much for your time and also just before you leave Thank you so much for letting me mention Scarpetta in the butcher legacy. That was huge I didn't let you do it or thanks Scarpetta for a few send along a word in my large I pretty much do what she tells me to. I love that. I really have to recall she picked you. What can I say? Oh, I'll take it

Wow, I will take it Thank you again. Thank you so much for your attention. You're the best. Did you see you right to see you both? Was it not just the best?

Honestly every time every every time I will time I will and I'll never get over talking to Patricia Cornwall at all

I know it's just been my entire life that I've been reading her books. No, we got finished with that And I'm like, yeah, no, like stopping someone spiraling truly Queen Patricia A true lover Queen Patricia. I realized that we didn't have her say the keep it weird for us I know so let's all in unison say it together. Okay, guys. We love you. We hope you keep listening And we hope you keep it weird

That was fun wasn't it? Yeah, you didn't join us in unison. Yeah, and keep it as weird as Patricia I mean, he better because that's a good weird period it is You

You