Transcripts For CSPAN3 Barbara 20240703

Philadelphia. My name is Jason Freeman and unfortunately i dont have a last name that somehow an incredible pun that relates to my profession luckily one of tonights guests does so its my great pleasure to introduce barbara and kate White Barbara butcher is the former chief of staff, director of the Forensic Sciences Training Program at the new York City Office of chief medical examiner. Only the second woman hired as death investigator in manhattan and the first to last more than three months during her three years there, she investigated more. Than 5500 death scenes. She also created and directed the federally funded Forensic Sciences training at o. C. M. E. Taught at the New York University of medicine and new york medical college, consulted for governmental agencies around the world, and spoken at planning conferences across the united states. She joins us tonight with what the dead now learning about life as a new york city investigator and it she into the journey that led to her unlikely career revealing some surprising surprisingly life lessons and stories about some of new yorks most notorious crime scenes referred to by and this is for tonights second guest referred to by Entertainment Weekly as impos to outwit kate white is the New York Times bestselling author of the psychological thrillers the second husband, the fiance and the secrets you keep. Her other works include the bailey mystery series and numerous career advice books for. Women she formerly served as editor in chief of five major magazines, including a 14 year stint at cosmopolitan. Tonight she joins us with. Between two strangers. Its novel of a woman who receives a large inherited sense from a man shed only met once before. And what ties these authors together . I was told that anytime kate is a book and has to have a blood gore guts factor, that she is a reference that barbara is a reference for her. So im sure they have some Great Stories in that regard. So in that spirit philadelphia, please join me in. Welcoming tonights guests to the free library. Good evening. Wow, what a lovely introduction. Well, well, its such an honor for me to be here interviewing barbara. First of all, her book is just amazing, as said in the blurb. Its great. True crime. Its like a forensics manual, but its also this wonderful all powerful memoir that is just so inspiring. But as you just heard barbaras been so helpful to me, my career. When i wrote my first mystery 18 books ago, i asked, is cop wow, i need somebody to talk to about forensics. Have got any ideas . And he goes, oh, yeah theres a woman named barbara butcher. We love. And i thought, butcher god, hes poem leg. And when i met barbara and shes been so helpful to me. Barbara i thought, what we would do tonight is start with you. Just a bit. What a death investigator is. Because if of you are like me and you watch law and order or some of those crimes shows on television that the dramas, what they tend to do is mushed together someone for the medical office with someone from the Police Crime Scene unit. So youre not well represented. Law and order. So what we do. Well, nows your chance to tell it like it is. What did a death scene investigator . What did you do as a death scene investigator . You know its true, kate is. I dont think theres single medicolegal death investigator on television today. Of course, i dont watch all shows because i dont like to get aggravated. You know, i yell at the screen. What the hell do you mean, dna . Theres no dna theres mitochondrial damage. But heres what we do when most think about the medical Examiners Office or a coroner. They think in terms of autopsy, those are done by forensic pathologists. And those doctors in the middle of autopsy. And it takes long time. And theyve got paperwork, microscopy, work to do. Can you imagine if they had to be called out in the middle of an autopsy, run to a murder scene, what would they do. Just leave the knife like, oh, ill be back in a few minutes, you know, just keep this guy cool. It doesnt work that way. But when you do an autopsy, what youre getting is the cause of death homicide. I mean the sorry. Gunshot wound, knife wound, heart attack poisoning. Blunt trauma. But it doesnt tell you the manner of death. Is it a homicide . Suicide or a natural or an accident . A gunshot can be an accident or homicide. So what they is the context of the death. What happened at the scene. And so we have seen investigators. Most of us are either a physician or a physician assistants. I was. And some forensic anthropologists and folks like that. We go out to the scene, we examine in the body, we take photographs, we examine the scene, we do measurements, we we interview witnesses. We work with the police. And in way we form the context for how that wound occurred. Is there a suicide note there in the gun still in the guys hand or is there just a gunshot wound in, no weapon left . Or is it an accident. We write reports take our photographs and we give them to the medical examiner so that when they do with the they have the contact to the death. They know how it occurred. And now they can make an informed decision as to cause and manner. Thats the long. This is a long. The short version is i get to go around and poke into peoples lives to see how they died and. Theres nothing more fascinating to me about how did you decide to do this . I mean, you didnt wake up one day and go, you know, i think id like to be a death scene investor again. Well as a kid, that would have been my dream. I really understood it as a child i was quite curious, even nosey, really. And parents bought me a dissecting kit and a frog, a dead frog in formaldehyde and i dissected it. I saw, oh, wow, this is how this and this is where the muscles go. And then little kids in the neighborhood bringing me roadkill. So i could look at a possum and say, oh, you see those wavy lines across his back . Those are tire marks. You run over and his little chest cavity was crushed and they were look at that. So i always had i it was always somewhere. So but how did i get the job . Years later, i had been as a physician assistant in surgery, as a hospital administrator, and then things didnt go so good. I started as kind of a party, but then i became a drunk. Okay. I wasnt just having fun anymore. And i was a downhill slide, a bad one. So on the last night of, my drinking career, i was in a total blackout, a terrible one. And when i woke up this morning about no, it was this one to thank you, jesus that never happened again. You know, i woke up in sweaty sheets on the floor with a cut my head, no money in my pockets and no idea what had happened to me. My friends told me later they recreated as much as they could how i had fallen up the stairs, which is kind of hard to do unless. Youre really drunk. Anyway, life was not going well and. I joined aa. I walked into a meeting. I in so that no one would see me. I mean, god forbid someone would know i was an alcoholic. Oh, honey. Barbara, everyone. It was no secret. But anyway, i got to. I got sober, and one of the. The benefits you get in new york city for having a disability like alcoholism is its called epira, the Employment Program for recovering alcoholics. And they gave me all these minnesota multiphase myers briggs preferential occupation tests and those to my surprise said that i should either be a poultry veterinarian cook or a coroner. And i said, poultry. Why poultry . And the council . Well, you know, youre good with diagnosis youd be a good veterinarian, but not for puppies and kittens youd get to attached ratio or a chickens. They had beady little. Nobody cares about them. Do the chickens. I said no, i think ill take the dead people. So he said, all right, that sounds good. Corners a good you know, you can use all your little nosey ways, get in there and figure things out. And he, oh, call the one person in new york city who you think has the best job in the world. So i called dr. Charles, the chief medical examiner of city, and he said, certainly, id love to tell you about my work. But i went in and he told everything and we had a great time. And to my surprise, they offered me a job. They said, howd like to work for us as a death investigator . Who, me . Barbara. Drunk. Hmm im not barbara the drunk anymore. Im sober a year now and then i thought maybe i could do this. And by that strange, i mean you take a misfortune in, like being an alcoholic. Sometimes it leads you into something fantastic. Like the best in the world. And thats happened. Well, but it seems like in some amazing way, you found your way back to your desk. And if you think of you as that little doing the dissection. Hmm okay. This was the 70, right . I started in 92. Okay. For the with the medical exams. Right. Right still, things were i mean, women were in the workforce, but you were in a male dominated dealing with mostly guys and they were new york city cops. So you had to be on the at the scene with. How did you navigate . How did you work out so that they respected you and showed you that at the scene of the crime. It was not easy. I mean, the first couple of times like, the first time i went to a scene, i had my badge, you know, tucked into bill, very cool looking and so excited, nervous. And the officer at the door says, yeah, honey, can i help you . I said, oh, im from the medical Examiners Office. And i, you know, im here to see the body. And he goes, come on, crime scenes are already here. Theyve done. I was like, no, no, no, i need to come. And i was very hesitant and i thought, no im not going to put up with this. The next time i went out to a scene cop city. Hi, honey. How can i help you . I said, ill tell you what. Im from the medical examiners. You cant help me. But guess what . I can do. I can examine that guy for you. Can tell you what he died of, what time he died, how he died, long it took. And maybe even who it. And then you can take it to court and say barbara butcher, you told me. Hows that. Yeah. A probably dear here you tell the story that you share with me at barberie told me once that she found humor was great way to deal with cops and you know certainly in the some of those ugly like a crime scene maybe its a little bit of black humor but you use humor. There was one story you told me that made me so hard. And i think audience is. I think so. Sure. Sure. Well, you know, cops, they gave me such a hard time. At first i thought, you know, im going pay them back at some point here. And so i started doing little tricks, a little amusing things. I mean, the job was hard enough, so we needed to laugh, right . And i dont know. In philadelphia, do you have an apartment shortage like, you know, rent controlled apartments . No. Youre lucky here in new york, its very hard to get a good apartment at a reasonable price. And i go into one building and my drivers with me and theres a young cop, a rookie cop standing by the door of this apartment. And i said to my i said, hold my case in my jacket. Im going to have a little fun here. And i went up to the cop. I said, excuse me, officer, i heard that someone just died in a rent control department and its available. Could i just take a little peek . He said, what the lady. What are you talking. Come on. Thats horrible. I said, oh, no, no. You know how difficult it is. Ive been looking for a two bedroom, two bath for ever. And i would just love if i could just get first dibs on this place. And he was horrified. And i said, please, please, just let just stick my head. And i promise, i promise it only be a minute. And he goes, oh, all right, go ahead. So then i pulled out my badge and said, butcher. And he put another cop, who, again, a young guy, a rookie, giving me a hard time a couple at times, like, yeah, yeah, come on, hurry up. And i decided, well, let me be real nice to him. Im going to share with him some forensic knowledge. And the next time i saw it was on a case of a man who was dead, naked, laying on back in the middle of the apartment. I came in, i said, oh, good. Now we can tell what time he died. Cops said, huh . I said, well, heres what you do picture. A clock and this way is midnight 12. This is six three and nine. Now, which way is his point point . And he said, i guess 4 00. I said, thats right. The is pointing to 4 00. Now, how do you tell versus pm. He said, i dont know. I said, well, if the right side of the scrotal room is hanging down, thats a left side is pm. He was like, jesus son, a girl. I like that. So he goes back to the precinct later and, says, youre not going to believe what i learned the day the next time i saw him. He was so upset. I went back and told all the guys. Now they they call me clark clark. So i managed to get them back after that. You know, i think, i gained the respect of the guys by working hard, by working well and really about my work. So it all worked out in the end. And now i count those, those detectives and those Police Officers as my friends, my colleagues. Yeah, there were some wonderful that your book party they looked like they were right out of central but they clearly just think the world of you. Look, you had this you did this these tests that pointed you in you would be good at particular career you were then you talk to this legendary medical and he wanted you cut up come on board but what about actually dealing with a death scene and i mean i, i a lot of us would just pass out or gag or wed ask for the vicap fix up our nose. How did you with actually you know cope being at a death scene and there was a point when things were really crazy in the nineties where you might be doing several homicides a day how did you deal with just that exp and the grisly of it . And maybe we could talk a little later about how it took a toll, but just at a given moment, how did you deal with it . You know when i first started my training i was all full of vinegar. Im ready to go out there and solve everything. And then i was watching an autopsy. An eight Year Old Girl who had been raped and smothered and then thrown on a junkie and i horror stricken. Im right to the core of my heart. I was to see such evil, such horror. And i to the pathologist it was a dr. Jackie lee said how do you deal with this . How do you see this all day long every day then go home and live your life . She said, barbara, heres what youve got to do when you leave this place. I want you to surround yourself with things beauty, art and food and culture and dance and music and love and do something to make something in the face of death and destruction. I thought, thats a great lesson. Im going to learn that. And then others told me, detach when you walk a scene, you might see. A child murdered by own parent, what are you going to do . Because the horror, the emotion, the sadness washes through. And to do your job, you have to detach you, have to disengage compassionately. So i did that and i learned it and i really became good at it. I was detached but courteous, loving to the families. And then i as time went on, i realized something, bad you cant just turn off emotion. They all turn off and then started getting a little crazy, you know, id love to talk about that in a minute there was something you said. Let me ask you first did you ever get used to the smell. Mm. No you cannot get used to the smell of a decomposing body and forget that stuff you see on about putting vicks on your nose. No, no. That just makes you hate the. The smell of the decompose body is like nothing on earth. Its a warning. It says go away bad things here, bad things back off. And i never got used to that. And, you know, i used to wear natural fabrics and wool, but those absorb smell. So i learned to wear polyester the time, you know, what the hell . Wrinkle free smell. Free. But even i still cant hardly describe smell except that it might be like a strawberry milkshake made with garlic. Thats kind of to it. Like weird, you know, clashes, horror. But anyway, can i just say, you look fabulous. Natural fibers again. Thank you. One thing that i loved you said in book and you had said you touched on this with me ago and it really made a dent with me. You said that one of the secrets to your success and, i think you might say women are better at this than men and when you are examining a death and really determining what really happened here, because its not always straightforward. You said you learn to. Take your hands off ears and put them over your mouth. Thats right. Can you just explain what that means and how it you develop the gut that you had in determining what really happened . You know, i love to talk. I mean, i could go on forever. But when you talk, youre not right. So if i went into a scene and id like, hey, captain, whats going on here . Oh, looks like this guy was shot and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thats the thing arising. Its not observing. So take your hands off your ears. Put them over your mouth. Listen, dont talk. And i became very, very good at at just walking into a scene, not saying anything, just absorb or being the moment, the feel of it. How did this person live . And that tells you a lot about how they died. If this little or the white powder that says one thing, if this birkenstocks and a pbs tote with books on the shelves thats a whole life. Right. It kind of contribute to things. So i learned observe to take everything in and my boss time he said that he thought women made better death investigators than men and i asked why and he said well women are less invested in being right the time and so theyre more inclined to keep an open mind, he said. In other words, they dont get into waving contests with the police. So he felt that women were better investigate. And i dont know, maybe he was right. We had a lot of guys who were great and eventually more women were hired. And i recall one of my male colleagues the next time a woman was hired, i the first to last more than three months. We another woman, he goes, oh, great now theres more of them. We have to watch ourselves. And i said, more of what, you schmuck intelligent people and i know women now we got to talk about, you know, we cant talk around them. So it just it brought out the worst in me, you know, i just i wanted prove to them. So maybe it was the best to me. I wanted to prove to them that were going to do a much better job than of you. So i worked extra hard in that, boys club to make sure that, you know, we would shine that. We would really be the best. So it made us stronger, tougher and braver. Do you think its because women to us, studies show that more collaborative. So theyre they want to go in there, not just show how they are, but to collab beret and hear back and forth at the scene and get that input. Well. Yeah, i think so. I mean, i really enjoyed working with the cops. I come from a police family. My dad, a cop, and uncles and cousins. But what i really was the back and forth, the exchange of knowledge could walk on to a scene and and see a crime scene analyst. And hed be looking and hed say, gee, this is these blood drops on the ground. They have directionality. I think the guy was moving at a very fast walk. I can see how the blood drops smear forward. You see that . It gives us where hes going and how fast hes going. Wow, thats great, hal. Its so. And then id say. And look at the knife cause you see how the edges are very sharp on one side and blunt on other. I think weve got a guy with, a hunting knife, single edged blade with a hilt on it. See the abrasion. So together form this this one mindset of observing and interpreting evidence i love that was so much fun fascinating you said Something Else in the book that i guess id never really thought about it before talked about how what you were doing as you documented a crime scene is providing the material for criminal because they dont actually go to the of the crime and can you talk about that a little bit just how what you did was really help them see patterns and patterns of certain repeat offenders. Well you know like medical examiners, criminal profilers thinks from tv shows that they go out to death scenes and they scrutiny eyes everything and then form a theory about the serial killer. And youll see a lot of that now since the go beach serial killer has been or ostensibly or reportedly or apparently cut arrested. You know, he is allegedly killer. Anyway, all the profiler tips are coming out of the woodwork now saying, oh, i knew he was going to be a white man in his forties and he was going to be six foot four and heavy, said, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they get that raw material not from to crime scenes, they work in offices, they look at my reports at the investigators reports and, our photographs and from there they build their concepts, their profile files. And i think a lot of that is what i that thats when i got really detailed old i started taking pictures everything and really the position the hands if a person was flung backwards, you know, a slight abrasions you learn a lot from that about what happened in those final moments. You know, you kind of took the words out of my mouth about the guilt is a guilt go that go are familiar with the guilt go beach party. Yeah its National News but in the new york area weve been who the heck did that for for a long time and when the story broke the other night i was sitting in front of my television catching up on it and i thought, gosh, i wish barbara was here right. Now, its like i talked about it. But what was whats interesting for me, one of the things i heard that was fast nating is that there was some reluctance early on to bring in outside enforcement agencies and it was finally bringing the fbi in with some of their technology for cell phones, which is really partly how they called the idaho support killer. And id to hear you just talk a little bit about how criminals, particularly murderers, get caught. There was a period of time years ago when we were talking lot, you and i, about dna. But in the years since, theres been two things that youve just reinforced with may have made a big difference in how people get caught. One of them is tv and now weve got those ring cameras on peoples doorknobs and also cell phone. Yeah. To talk a little bit about that because i think its fasces made me decide i am going to kill anybody because chances are youre going to get caught doing well. You know, its true i think it used to be that you could pretty much away with murder in a lot of a lot of parts of this country. But now especially in urban areas with with video cameras everywhere, you know you can track a guy at the home depot buying the battery acid and then walking down the street and throwing on someone and then escaping in a car. You see the license plate and everything else. You the whole crime, all videotape you. So how come this guy this gil go beach killer was able to get with it for 1112 at least 1112 years and longer because he killed over a long time 11 different people at least and now probably more so cell phone tracking the was able to triangulate different calls from these burner phones that he used and also the the phones of the girls that he killed. Now i got to Say Something here a little bit controversial maybe, but it bothers me when this all first happened, that was suffolk, long island, new york. My friend glenn is here from. Massapequa park, my high school. And thats where this killer is from. He lived just a few blocks from us and we all went school with him. Now. Bothered me a lot. Was that when theres started, they didnt take it all that serious lee why . Because the victims were sex workers. They worked for escort services. Its like, okay, whatever. Yeah lets go out there and trudge around and see if we can find this victim and then you find 11 victims. So that bothered me a lot and when the fbi offered help and my office offered help, they took it reluctantly for a while. So the anthropology department, forensic anthropologist at the new york city medical examiner, his office went out there and showed the best ways to gather remains without losing any evidence, including little bits of hair that were on the victims. Now, thats pretty hard to find a single hair on a victim and then preserve it. But thats what ultimately him back then dna was nuclear here and the dna tests at the time didnt get much from a hair. Now we something called mitochondrial dna and with that they were able to find out that this hair from the killers wife it was on his jacket i guess and as he picked up the victim or threw her down three hairs on three victims. So imagine that a single hair could help you find a killer and then triangulating the phones and and then eventually getting dna from him because he threw away a slice of pizza that he had bitten into. You can dna off a pizza crust. So its getting harder and harder to away with murder. Thank god but yet yet we watch these shows 48 hours 2020 the first 48 all these shows and what happens its the husband when the wife because you he reaches a point where he realizes he needs a deep romantic love and he finds a 22 year old who understands and rather than just give his wife a divorce and her have some of the money. No, i cannot do that. I must have all the money from my mistress and they kill my wife and come my son throughout and kill her. I mean, just look at the statistics. Going to get caught. Yeah. All right. So dont anyone get any ideas . Yeah, i want to give the audience a to ask questions, but ill give an opportunity to think of something you want to ask, and ill ask barbara another question right now thats kind of on the topic were talking about. There is this Incredible Technology to today and there are just so many crime dramas, not just like 48 hours and shows that do true crime, but shows like law and order and everything. Acorn and britbox and what do you find watching those shows you kind of touched on this . What makes you mad . What are they most likely get wrong and book authors, too. What what what do thriller writers and just screenplay writers get wrong . You know, i understand that they have to compress the number of job because you dont want to pay too many actors. So you need that and in the interest of time you have to that you got dna collected the results and processed them and matched to someone in approximately 14 minutes. Instead the usual 14 weeks. Okay i get it. I get it. But there are things that just dont make sense and they bother a lot. Now, some of the shows like law and order they do a pretty good job and thats been a favorite of mine, but others, they have young like itll open on a young woman with a buzz cut and a nose ring and a promoter cycle jacket and shell be sitting there and youll automatically that shes a scientist because shes entering data very commanding way know and behind her is a huge screen with satellite pictures show pinpoints of where is going and around her theyll be a bunch of cops standing there and shell say aha got here. Its billy jones. And the cops will say, thank god, weve been waiting minutes. So you i get it. But heres the problem. When people go on juries for trials theres this thing called csi syndrome jurors tend to think that you dna for every single case. So if john shoots malcolm in the middle of square in the full view of three nuns to priests and a judge with good eyesight and hes holding the gun when the Police Arrive and hes got a receipt in his pocket from walmart. He bought it. And now they go to trial. And of course, he pleads not guilty because thats what you do. And the jury will be concerned. Hmm. Why are there no foreign . What do you mean . Everybody. Everybody saw it. He did. Even yelled, im going to kill you. And theyll say, well, what about who want dna from the bullet . I mean, is theres no contact between them other than the bullet. So no dna. And theyll say, well, what about satellite pictures . Well, weve got video from from the store across the street. That good enough for you . So this is a true thing. Juries get very concerned. They feel that they should have. Big time, High Technology forensics for every single even when common sense look, the guy killed them end of story. So its been suggested that when prosser open there with do their opening remarks for the jury that they should tell them that television is not real life. Wow. What a lesson, huh . Dont have a name for it too. Like the law and order or csi synthesize it. Yeah, yeah. And dna how long does it take to get results back in absolute emergency . It be done in about 30 hours. And we did that once that i can recall because a guy was running through the city. He was he stabbed people with a steak knife and then he killed someone and then he dropped a steak knife. So we got that steak knife and, you know, we ran that thing like crazy people, like three shifts of dna science who stayed up all night and that until we got an answer and then we were able to make an arrest. But normally, if you do it in texas, it can take six months to do it in york. Itll take maybe three weeks to a month. Every jurist action varies, but theres not a big budget for these kind of things. So you know. Can it be done quickly . Absolutely. Is it there . I also heard something that was shocking. I remember just researching something for a book that talks. You always hear them say, yeah, waiting for the ax. Toxicol scream that there only screening for a small of things in the beginning, like alcohol, narcos ex tobacco, nicotine but if youve killed your husband using the leaves of a fox glove plant, im not dropping a hint there that youre not going to be screaming that right, that theres just a certain number things. Sure you can use fox. It contains digitalis. I mean, one should never use whatsoever because poisonous and will cause a heart stoppage. So dont ever try that. But they arent necessarily to test. Theyre not going to test for it. No i mean, theyre going to look for the its called the drugs of common abuse or the common drugs of abuse. And thats what theyre mainly looking. But then, you know theres things like cyanide or rat poison now cyanide. You can smell if you have a good sense of smell. Ive walked a scene. I smell like almond cherry, like joe cherry and cyanide poisoning. And i was right both times just smelled this strange smell. So some of you would be murders or murder cases. This is your moment. Ask a question and you could say, friend of yours is wondering how the question the audience you alluded to earlier about separating from the cases and what long term effect that had. But you didnt go into what the long term effect was. Yeah. You know, like i said, you cant turn off one emotion. They all go off. And for a while that was okay but then it started my relationships badly i was becoming cold silent and i you know you cant go home until your husband. Wife. Oh, i just saw a child slaughtered by their parent. You cant do that. Its not fair. They didnt sign up for that job. And so you keep it all inside. And the more you keep it inside, the worse gets. And there were times when i wanted to not be in this body anymore because this body had just experienced, seen something horrifying. And then 911 happened and that just shattered my world. That was, you know, that was overwhelming. The work was so and ive heard it said that one death is a tragedy and a Million Deaths is a statistic. Yeah, sure. Until you happen to be digging through rubble for, the remains of 3000 people and you find the little desk calendar that says lunch with jim or a graduation photo from a kids high school. Then a single life. And that life is a universe unto itself. So i started to fall apart. After that i got compassion fatigue. I couldnt feel anymore. Just explain what you were doing. 911 too, because know specifically because it was incredible i was doing remains recovery that means that of the 12 700 or something People Killed at 911 in new york they were shattered into more than 25,000 pieces and. You know even still its been, what, 20 to 30 years now, only 60 of them have been identified because everything was so tiny. And so youre crawling through rubble and its burning. And this smoke coming out of you is and sliding and trying to find people and was very, very hard work and then identify them. So that went on for years. And you know what, its still going on. You dr. Charles hirsch made the commitment that he we would do what ever it takes for as long as it takes until Single Person is identified that might be another 100 years but thats the commitment we made another question the person right back with the kind of up with a little things. And i have a point to note the question and i will speak slowly accent im a toxicologist and were actually getting way better at detecting things so please do not try to poison anybody and and however ive just moved to the us and ive been here two years and have noticed a distinct difference in the forensic same system in the uk and france, where i used to work versus here. And most of the work was like, you know, the long term stuff like 5 hours talks, all of those kind of died away and they just focused everything. Dna so weve a bit of the generation of others and all kind of went and got other jobs and ive shipped out. But have you noticed the same over your career because the last 20 years of mine weve noticed everything is dandy and there are fewer and fewer jobs in all of the other fields. Yeah, thats an important point. You know, there was a theres a trace evidence every contact between two surfaces leaves a trace of that contact and there was hair and fiber and tire impressions and all these specialties in Crime Scene Investigation and then got a little crazy they started things like, well, all this single carpet fiber came from a ford fairly in 57 or where it was manufactured in doylestown, pennsylvania yeah, but the company shut down after 40 years and this fiber proof tvs, i mean, it got a little out of hand and started people started questioning trace evidence, whether or not it was really valuable things like bite mark analysis. And so it started to fall away. But i think, you know as criminals get smarter, they go in and learn the ways of not leaving dna behind and then maybe have to fall back a little bit more on other trace evidence on things like fibers or you know there are neuroscientists who can analyze dirt particles and tell you where they came from accurately accurately. Yeah. Or entomologist to analyze the bugs or the fleas that are on a person and tell you they came from. So we might get back to that at some point. How do criminals not leave their dna then . Well, now im giving away the trade secrets here, but you know, honestly, if you wear a hairnet and and a mask, its just like you dont sneeze or cough or and youre very, very careful not to touch anything. I mean, anything and your clothing has been brushed clean so that there are no hairs on it. Its possible to not toot. You can avoid leaving dna behind, but got to be so careful and ultimately were human beings always make mistakes. There will be some to slip up. Other questions . Yes. In the black top there. You first of all, could i just your first Bradley Wiggins book today and i was fascinated with the poison mushrooms oh the story you can i like poison could thank you for that book im going to ask you i want a lot of the the true crime shows i do im addicted to them and less the fictional less of the fbi as law and order. But you have thinking do they use people like you as the consultants on the fiction excuse in fiction shows that at least try to make it as realistic possible . Or do the writers just do anything they want . Well you know, they used to. Theyll invariably theyll have someone on on on payroll to questions of. But unfortunately the answers they get dont suit television. So if and i used to consult with with some Television Writers for a while and theyd say, okay we need we need to know the guys name. And through dna within, you know, during the show and i said, well, theres some possible well lets make it possible. Lets just say, you know, so its not it doesnt Good Television to sit around waiting for results its just its its its like its hard like like its a process and processes make a good make a good tv show and not fast enough. Yeah. I mean its like like the way i write. It took me two and a half years to write the book, and that was because i wrote when i felt inspired, moved and that doesnt work so good. Then you take people like kate white who are professional authors, real writers and like kate. How do you how do you write a book i mean, how do you keep going . Well, when they give you a contract where they want a book every year, that puts a little fire on your. But yeah youll find that barbara for your next book i guess for me because i started writing fiction when i still running cosmo and it sort of burning the candle at both ends but id been a you know, nancy drew fan when i was younger. And i my dream had always been to write suspense fiction. And i won a contest when i was in college. And it was the glamor magazine top, ten College Women contests. And i knew, i wanted to write, but i, i thought of newspaper and books and magazine things and that kind of picked the lane for me. So i went into magazines, but i always had this desire to write a nancy drew kind book. And so while i was at, i started doing that and i just had to really discipline myself. You know, id get up every morning, take my kids to school. I had a car service that made it really easy to do that. They thought i was a very mommy. I thought i had this wonderful perk. And then i would get in and staff was millennials and gen x and they never in before 930, which was great. So i would write. I tried to write a page every day during the week and then on weekends i would to write. I think, pages on saturday and sunday for my kids got up from, you know, the 4 to 2 meet the day on the weekends. And its amazing how add up that way and i, i wrote eight books and just as much as i love my job running cosmo magazine still really existed was incredibly fun and it was just like a Television Show and so i as much i loved it i decided id love to my own boss and be one i still had the chance. I left and i continue to write since then and i have tried to use that discipline when i had to do it to, you know, incorporate in my life now its a little bit trickier because have the whole day spreading out and. Sometimes i can be a bad girl and do something i shouldnt be doing. Morning like reading too many or too many books and not doing my writing. But but i think that discipline really stuck with me and and i think to point barbara about waiting to be inspired the great thing about working for magazines is that you never can wait for the muse inspire you. You have to do those cover lines you have to get it in and you just learn, get something down with the idea. You can always tweak it. And so thats pretty much how i, i write, i write a certain number of pages every day and. Theyre not always good, but i them and always knowing i can edit the next day of course weve. Got to get you on your next book. I know but its such hard work. Oh my god its so hard. Its paying full to write. I mean, its fun to write the fun stories. Oh, and then you did this and the bullet this way. But to write the truth. Oh, but youre glad did it, right . Oh, god, yes, yes, yes. Because it goes back what doctor jackie lee said to me all those years ago, do creative make something. I finally got to do that. And and you know, of course you pushed me. I kept saying, gee, kate, i should really a book. And you said finally, oh, for gods sake. Well, then just sit down, write it. And i did. And i. How about another question . Because we run out of time. Yes. Oh, we have. Are you friends or. Oh, okay who gets to go first . So you said you were hired right on the spot after a physicians assistant. What type of training did you have to go through on the job training . They for three months i followed senior investigators around on every single case in town. And back then there were 2400 homicides, a year. Now, if you get three or 400, its a big deal in new york city. But 2400 homicides a year meant i was see everything. Then i went to the police academy, nypd for their homicide course, investigations course. I went to fbi academy for their scene investigation course. And i studied and studied. But mostly it was just looking every death in town. And so, you know, i the medical background but the investigator background thats what they gave me their. And actually my mom was a Nurse Practitioner also she could be doing that so you could be doing this forensic nursing is very hot, very good. Yeah, of course. Its heartbreaking, though. Oh, there is such a thing. Oh, yeah. Forensic nursing, you know, working with Sexual Assault victims and also as investigators in certain jurisdictions, you. So quit drinking and then you had this traumatic job and you needed certain outlets and you were given the advice to, you know, find outlets and so and to be creative as you just said again, im curious what did you do to find that . And then you said there was a point where like you were getting with your and it was more difficult to maintain relationships. How did you fix. You know, how im sorry. Its the first part of the question. Again we werent drinking any longer. Oh, right. You had this traumatic job and they told you to find out whats right. Be creative. Find. What did you find . You know it took a while. I just got. Harder and harder and colder and colder and and i tried to drink every single day and thank by the grace of of some higher power in the universe. I havent had a drink in 32 years. So was hard but then i found this house up in the catskill mountains, a shabby little house on a stream with a mountain behind. It and it was dirt cheap. And i bought it and fixed it up and i mowed a lawn and i planted flowers and i started to create something. I finally surrounded with things of beauty and. I got a cat and a dog and i played with them in the grass and that probably saved my was that that there but then. 911 things got bad for me you know pretty little house no longer did it i apart i really did and youll want to give away the ending of the book but it got real bad. But then hey, here i am. Made it. Thank you. I made it. I made. And im thrilled that i had the best in the world that. I got through it with the help of excellent good and from some kind of, you know, maybe a little universe, little help there somewhere along the line, i got everything i wanted. And im the luckiest girl in the world. We have time, andy said for one more question. Yes. So the new yorker, i used to make the whole. So the new yorker right. And im so curious about chapter in the book, number one. Chapter number is fascinating. The three you guys are riveted right. What about the other city that so curious to me i from a car family as well i like a raymond never referred to what you talked about in other city. I want to hear more about that. Well you know, there was another book. Oh, good. I do have an idea for one. But, you know, theres where i need to help is where the ideas come from. But the other city is the chapter how people live, just about how they die. But in new york city, i think its the best place in the world to look at death because. Theres so many ways to live. People live in caves and tunnels abandoned under the bedrock the city. And not only do they live in those caves, but they decorate them. They have bookshelves, they have tables, they have candlelight. Thats how they or they live, you know, in penthouses filled with art and on any given day. I could go from a penthouse with with impressionist masterpiece and look at them. And then 2 hours later be crawling an abandoned building to pull out some poor drug addict who overdosed in a trash heap. So people live in the damnedest, they live in shacks, they live in tents, they live in the richest city in the world. Some of the strangest ways to live and i, i always wonder, like, i got to those stories because i saw them theyre real. But people. Kate real writers, which is what want to be next. Where come from. I mean im reading this book right now and i was a little late getting here because i didnt want put it down. Wait, what . What happened . Oh, my god. I got to just move ahead. Like where, do your ideas come from, you know, just some from a headline or in this case, when my mom died a few years ago we found out one of part of her small estate but it was dc and had gone to some woman we didnt know who it was. And i was like my brother, who is exact or not. And i were like, oh my god, who is this . Mom have like a kid. We didnt know about is some family secret thats about to be and find like one of my other brothers said i think that is that the married name of a many times married relative of ours the second husband were like, oh my gosh. And we called and she said, yeah, that was your i got the check. And my brother said, well, what you do with it and and she said, i spent some renovating apartment and the rest i gave to charity. Yeah, right. Yeah, sure. But it turned out so we were like, oh my, the idea our mom this money to this distant relative, it was so strange what turned out it was a bank error that the bank had of the check by mistake. But that got me thinking, you know what . If she really sent the money to somebody we didnt know why or what if i got a check, you know, inheritance, someone i didnt know why and really what fiction authors often do and barbara since i hope shes got a thriller in i will be explaining this to her you go do the what if game you know what if what what if and thats sort of how i think a lot of fiction authors it thriller authors. Well we are out of time i just want to say that barbara has given you really just a taste of her fabulous book. I loved it. I sent to a number of friends of mine are thriller authors like joe and karen slaughter and. They just loved it. And youve gotten only a morsel love it. And its also just its such an honor for me to know, barbara, for all these years, i think 2005 was when that cop told me to go to barbara and i think it really adored becoming friends with her and i think forgiven me for sending her a bottle of wine. After that first interview, a happy barbara tell me you have right of course. Yeah, yeah, of course. I took it back to there was a good bottle of wine so i took it back to the store and they gave me the money that i could buy candy with it, which im really addicted to. So thanks for. Coming tonight. Thank you all. Thank you so much the