When the curtain drops on everyday life,
true crime shows like this podcast and especially
those on television
expose the darkest side of humanity.
Television relentlessly
chases the latest trending crimes on police blotters
and court dockets.
Claire Satomall
pursued those stories in the cutthroat world of
prime time television
as a producer for CBS forty eight Hours,
and she also produced segments for sixty Minutes.
She's written a memoir about her experiences,
Killer Story, The Truth Behind True Crime Television.
Television executives have known for decades that the
audience is overwhelmingly
female.
We're talking 70 to 80%, sometimes more. Mothers
and daughters, best friends,
women of all ages coming together for what
amounts to a girl's night out
centered on murder.
You may wanna go back and listen to
my episode with journalist, Mike Cox.
He wrote a funny satire,
Getting Away with Murder,
Learning from Dateline and other true crime shows.
So what's going on here?
Why are women so drawn to true crime?
Claire Sanemaugh,
now a fellow true crime podcaster,
shares her insights.
Well, Claire, I'll I'll ask you the question
I get asked all the time.
Why is true crime so popular,
especially with women?
I have thought about this a lot because
I also get asked this a lot. And
I really think it's because
it's a safe way
to consume
all the terrible things that could happen to
us.
You know, women are
statistically more likely to be the victim of
violent crime
and enter, you know, personal violence. And
so I think
a lot of that fascination
comes from knowing that
many of the victims
are just like us. And so I think
that we're naturally drawn to stories where we
can see ourselves
in them, as scary as that might be.
And I always get the question from everybody
on the serial killers.
Is it nature
or nurture?
Now I have to believe it's it's a
combination of both. Do you get that question
a lot? I do. And I agree. I
think it is a combination of both. I
think some people are born
with
this,
you know, violent
tendency.
I think some people are born with a
shorter fuse.
I think that the idea that
violence is the answer, that they've been wronged
and they have to seek vengeance, you know,
I think that is sort of something that
is innate in in some people that they're
more
predisposed to that. But I think the nature
element
comes into play
with, you know, are they taught to
embrace
that,
tendency?
Are they taught to try to do things
differently? Do they have tools to manage their
anger? Are they shown outlets for their frustration?
Or does it get to be something where
violence is used against them regularly?
And so they see violence as the answer,
you know, and they they internalize that, that
that's how you get respect. That's how you
get results. And and I think that that
is a really dangerous thing to
teach anyone. And I think we see it,
you know, in our society play out all
the time that people grow old, but they
don't grow up and they still act like,
you know, spoiled kids. They still act like
the temper tantrum toddler.
Only this time they have a knife or
a gun in their hands.
Well, we're both in Dallas and, you know,
the FBI director was even here a number
of months ago
talking about gun crime among youth.
And it does seem to be like epidemic
that something has gone on out there. I'm
talking about 16, 17 year olds, men and
women.
What's your sense?
Well, without getting too political,
I do think the ease
in which we can access guns,
make it something that is as easy to
do
as to go to the store
and to pick one up. And so I
think that having that ability,
is a blessing and a curse and it
it does create opportunity for, you know, it
to be abused. And I think
if you're
growing up in an environment where you feel
that you don't have protection, that you feel
like you
could
face mortal harm at any moment,
and you wanna protect yourself, well, I could
certainly understand why you would start carrying a
gun,
but that introduces
a whole other layer of problems, you know,
in in our society. And I think there's
just a public safety element to
the idea that, you know, are we gonna
have gun battles on the street like it's
the Wild West? Is that, you know, what
we're really
wanting our our modern society to look like?
You know, I I find that disturbing.
Well, we're having them in cars, you know,
Texas leads the country in road rage,
especially Houston.
And it's people that normally
would never even think of doing this. But
there's something
going on. Heat of the moment. I don't
know if everybody is just angry.
It's hard to put your finger on. I
don't know how much you run into it,
but Yeah. I definitely
think about that when people cut me off
in traffic.
I'm not the one to,
retaliate or give them, you know, the finger
or anything because I know that people can
react completely disproportionately.
And you know I often say you know
for various behaviors well that's a good way
to get shot in Texas, you know, and
I just don't do it. So it's you
know one of those things is to to
start tailing someone after they've
cut you off in traffic. It's just
not risky behavior I'm not going to engage
in.
What attracted you to write about true crime
as a journalist?
And I got the sense maybe from your
book there's, you know, maybe you've had some
misgivings of kind of waiting around in the
refuse of society every day.
You know, I was drawn to it initially,
just because
as a journalist, I couldn't believe
all the story elements
that were just
right in front of my face in a
crime story. Whenever you go to the police
report and you get the narrative of the
case, you get the victim, the complainant,
witnesses,
names, phone numbers, addresses.
To me, it was like this
unbelievable
gift from from the journalism gods to to
give you this story
that,
you could just take a running start with
to tell it.
And you you had all of this
really valuable information at your fingertips if you
knew how to, you know, use the police
databases.
And so for me, that was the initial
draw. It was just all of this
information
that allowed me to
very quickly
start working on a story. And I, you
know, I love nothing more than a good
story.
So so that was, pretty tantalizing to me.
Was the police beat your start
in crime?
So, yes, it was. It was absolutely just
the police blotter at People Newspapers was my
start in crime. So I, I was a
general assignment reporter, you know, covering everything. I
was going to the school board meetings. I
was going to city council.
I was writing stories when little old ladies
turned a hundred and they were throwing birthday
parties. You know, I was doing it all,
Robert. So,
the police blotter was was part of my,
you know, weekly routine
and I just started to get really interested
in the patterns that I would see in
the kinds of crimes that were committed and,
you know, just really thinking about all the
different people who are impacted by crime. You
know, you have the police officers, you have,
of course, the victims, you have, you know,
the suspects and people who get, you know,
falsely accused of crimes. There's just it's a
really rich tapestry for writing.
Oh, it is a tapestry.
You know,
I'm very senior
in age to you. But, you know, my
peers
we've all talked about the best place to
start in journalism as a rookie was the
police beat.
And
you see really good reporters
come out of that. I mean, amazing reporters.
What is it you think about
that it is about
you can really craft a good journalist
covering the police beat.
I think it's a trial by fire. You
know, you're thrown in, you're talking to cops
that usually don't wanna talk to you. You're
dealing with matters of life and death. You
are chasing down,
you know people for statements and
interviews
and
you're learning you know the basics of records
requests and you know navigating the court system
and I think it really
gives
you, you know, a lot of skills that
can translate to other types of journalism,
you know, very easily. Political journalism,
you know,
feature writing, so many things. You know, you
can use the skills that you learn as
a reporter on the police beat. But, yeah,
I just think also the idea that there's
always something happening.
There's, you know, the crime beat never sleeps,
and you
you can always find a story, and there's
always, like, more things to dig into.
In your new book, Killer Story,
is it based largely on your experience as
a producer for forty eight hours doing crime
stories?
And you also talk about a story that
really was interesting is the woman who was,
murdering her husbands and you found a pattern.
Yeah. Yes. Talk about that
story.
Is that really what kind of set you
off?
It is. So the story of Michelle Williams
is
my origin story
in true crime television. I was at the
time working for Culture Map Dallas, and I
came across
just a scant story talking about a plea
deal that a woman named Michelle Williams had
reached
in the death of her husband.
And it said that she would, you know,
probably serve nine years and she was pleading
guilty to deadly conduct
and tampering with evidence and, you know, it
was just all very
curious to me and it really piqued my
interest
as a crime reporter because I know
you don't get a plea deal for murder
in Texas
very easily
And you certainly don't get something like nine
years,
you know, that that's that's unheard of. So
I was really drawn to this case and
I started digging into Michelle Williams' background
and I found out that
nothing about this woman was as it seemed.
And she had a trail of destruction. This
was her third husband.
This was the second time that she was
claiming, you know, that someone close to her
had committed suicide.
And this was a pattern that I discovered
that she would lie and manipulate
and use her,
you know, sweet innocent woman persona
as this damsel in distress to really get
preferential treatment
from law enforcement and from, you know, the
court system. And so
I ended up doing a three part investigative
series on Michelle Williams asking, did she get
away with murder in the death of her
husband because she was allowed to plead plead
guilty to something called deadly conduct, not murder.
And so, you know, after my story came
out, it was just a wave of
of media interest from
Dateline NBC,
from twenty twenty on ABC, and from forty
eight hours on CBS,
about this twisted murder story in in Texas.
And so I ended up working with forty
eight hours as a consultant
on that story
and that really launched my career in
television. It was my first experience with TV
and
it was just the beginning of of a
new phase of my career. We covered, you
know, the fact that Michelle Williams plea deal
was taken off the table, once the authorities
realized how much she had lied about in
her past. And she actually went to trial
for murder
and was found guilty and sentenced to sixty
years in prison.
So I I take a lot of, pride
in that story in in finding out
more information about her than authorities had been
able to figure it out, you know, in
their investigation
and
really helping
the family, you know, the victim's family get
justice, get, a just verdict for, you know,
their loved one's death.
Did you ever go see her in prison?
Do you ever interview her? I have tried.
She has, declined
my interview request, Robert. Yeah. Imagine that.
Is she going to be eligible for parole
in the future? I'm just wondering what the
sentence was.
Yes. So she would be eligible for parole,
but unlikely to to get it. I think
she would be,
have to serve, I wanna say, thirty years
of her sentence
before she would be eligible for parole, but
I know the victim's family plans on Protest.
Yeah. Exactly. Protesting that and and being present,
and vocal about how they do not want
her to get out.
In your time with sixty minutes, what was
a particular story there that you just you
know, we all gonna shake our head about,
like, boy, you can't make this stuff up?
Sure.
So I my big story with sixty minutes
was called the ranger and the serial killer.
And it was a story of a Texas
ranger who had elicited
93
confessions
from serial killer Samuel Little,
who at the time was in LA County
Prison
on a life sentence for three murders that
he had said he had been falsely accused
of, that he did not commit. He was
adamant that he was innocent.
And after
this Texas Ranger
went and interviewed him,
over the course of of many, many interviews,
many hours, many days, he ended up confessing
to not only those three murders,
but to 90 others and
really
providing so many rich details about the cases
and the victims
where he would actually sketch
his victims.
And he had these haunting
portraits
of,
these women that he killed, and they were
actually used
to identify
the bodies.
Many times,
authorities had found these unknown Jane Does and
the bodies had been out for some time.
There's decomposition.
They did not know who they were. And
so Samuel Little's own words and drawings were
made public and family members would come forward
and say, that looks like my mom. That
looks like my sister.
And you know, would remember
details that would allow
authorities to corroborate those cases. So that was
just an unbelievable
investigative journey and was so interesting to be
part of
that story and to, you know, share it
with the nation.
Do you know how many actually ended up
being confirmed of the 90? So I believe
the last time I checked, it was somewhere
in the sixties.
I know we had broken,
I think it was, like, 61
when the FBI
announced Samuel Little as the most prolific serial
killer in the history of The United States
because he had gone past the other established
kill number, which I I believe was, like,
60 from,
yeah, previous serial killer. As a reporter, I'm
curious. Did you ever get a little apprehensive
in the process? Because everybody got burned by
Henry Lee Lucas in this state Yes. Years
ago. Yeah. Yes. So that absolutely came up.
And the Texas Ranger who was interrogating Samuel
Little, he was very aware of the Henry
Lee Lucas case and the pitfalls that authorities
made at that time by putting this information
out in front of him. And so he
was very careful never to put information in
front of him to allow Samuel Little to
himself
bring up the dates, the places,
the cities
where he killed. And so by doing that,
he really avoided
the false confession
pitfall.
And many people have tried to prove that
Samuel Little, you know, did not commit these
crimes. And to date, I don't know of
a single murder that Samuel Little has confessed
to that has been proven to be anyone
else's.
Many many journalists from the Washington Post, from
all sorts of fabulous
media companies have looked into this to see,
is there a false confession? And to date,
I have not seen any evidence that that
they found one. Did you ever get the
opportunity to interview him?
Samuel Little, I did not. So the closest
we got so LA County does not allow
media interviews with their inmates on prison grounds,
but we were able
to do a phone call interview with him.
And so correspondent
Sharon Alfonsi with sixty minutes, you know, conducted
that phone conversation.
And as one of the producers, I was
in the room as as she was talking
to Samuel Little over the phone. And that
that's as close as I got. Probably
a little bit closer than I would have
liked was whenever we went into his cell
at LA County Prison
and he was not in it,
but we were allowed inside and we could
see, you know, he gets fan mail, which
is really disturbing to think about, and he
hangs it up on his walls and, you
know, he gets still gets, like, lots of
newspapers and and other forms of media that
he he keeps
and, you know, he had all sorts
of snack cakes and
it was this kind of bizarre, like, almost
like a summer camp cabin atmosphere because he
had, like, pictures that people had drawn, you
know, tacked up on his wall and his
own drawings and letters from pen pals. And
it was a strange experience, and it was
very
eerie to be, you know, in his
space and know that this is where, you
know, this man that had killed so many
people, this is where he relaxes.
This is where he
reclines. You know, it was a disturbing,
experience.
You know, I've done a lot of reporting
on Texas death row, and I see the
same thing, the fan mail,
particularly women
that come to Oh, that's bizarre. Yeah. And
pals and all.
And I
still have trouble wrapping my head around it.
I'm just like, it's hard to understand.
It is. You know, part of it, I
think, is that a certain kind of woman
is drawn
to this, quote, unquote, powerful man
that is locked away and cannot actually harm
them anymore.
I think there's a weird,
like, safety
element
in that they are
completely incapable
of causing them physical harm, but they can
have, like, this emotional relationship
with this
violent,
powerful man that they're probably drawn to
due to some very sad things that have
happened in their lives and like some strange
psychology
about just being attracted to bad men.
And so I found that, you know, women
will make
pen pals with these murderers knowing that they'll
never get out and they like it that
way. You know, they can't they can't cheat
on them. They can't abuse them.
They can't actually steal money from them. And
so it's this sort of
really bizarre,
unusual,
quote unquote relationship,
you know? It's not a physical relationship. It's
not a relationship in the way that you
and I would have, you know, a relationship
with someone outside of prison. But to them,
it's actually a very romantic,
intimate,
emotional
connection. You talked about the Texas Ranger.
Certainly overseas,
the Rangers have this huge mythology, and even
here in The States.
What do you think that is?
And is it justified in this day and
age?
So the Texas Rangers, you know, they have
a unique role in law enforcement
in our state. They are able to have
jurisdiction
across the entire
Lone Star State, which is expansive.
So they aren't limited to a city or
county. And I think the idea that they
can
literally go into any
town in Texas and start investigating a crime
and arrest
someone, you know, that alone
is pretty special
and allows them to, you know, stand above
local law enforcement.
I also think the specialized
nature of
their training
and the types of cases that they look
into, like, if the Texas Rangers are
involved, it's a very serious crime. It's a
weird crime. It's an unusual
case. And so
I have worked with a lot of cold
case investigations
that involve the Texas Rangers and they come
in and they do new interviews and they
retest evidence and they do the kinds of
things that, you know, victims' families are
like have been asking for, you know. And
so I I think they rightfully so, you
know, get a lot of credit for looking
into these
forgotten cases. These, you know, their unsolved crimes
unit is is very busy in Texas.
I like to say that you might find
them in the morning on a horseback and
in the evening on their laptop. I mean,
they're very, even though they're the don't be
misled by the Western garb and everything, they're
very sophisticated and got great answers. They are.
And a lot of times, yeah, they're the
first to use new technology and to look
at advances in, you know, DNA testing or
other forensics. And, yeah, I I definitely think
that they are on usually on the cutting
edge of of new technology, which you wouldn't
necessarily think with the with the cowboy hats
and the boots and Well, you know, they
were at the forefront of, forensic genetic genealogy
in this state, in Texas. So Yeah. That's
fascinating. Yeah. But, you know, they they stay
out of the limelight. You know, when there's
a press conference, even though they might have
helped solve the crime, they let the sheriff
take all the credit. Yeah, that's right. They
stay in the background. On cold cases, you
know, there's 300,000
cold cases across the country. Heck, there's more
than a thousand in Fort Worth alone.
I've always called it sort of the silent
scandal. What is your sense of, will
we ever get there?
It's really
a
never ending
mountain to climb because
as these cases,
you know, they don't have enough evidence to
test, they don't have witnesses,
and they just kind of start stacking up.
And so I I do think that,
as we have more, you know, advances in
technology
and the ability for, like, touch DNA and,
you know, other types of,
forensic testing,
I think we'll get
a higher, you know, solve rate. But, yeah,
unfortunately, there is just a backlog
of these cases that have not been solved
and continue to grow colder by the day.
And we know
how important it is to investigate these cases
when they're fresh and when the days are
short on the calendar from from when the
crime occurred. And so it just gets harder,
you know, memories fade,
evidence degrades,
and, you know, the longer a case sits
there, the harder it is to solve.
Are you seeing any new trends in crime?
I'm seeing trends of criminals trying to get
smarter with the technology,
trying to cover their tracks.
But even so, you know, if you turn
off your cell phone and go commit a
crime and then turn it back on,
well, that stands out as an unusual activity.
So I think that in a lot of
ways, you know, technology is really catching up
to many criminals and
there's a lot more
data for people to come through, you know,
not only your cell phone, your smartwatch, your
Fitbit,
but license plates readers, you know, toll tags.
There's
lots of information available that
police officers are using, you know, to solve
these crimes and to put the the puzzle
pieces together.
Well, as you know, Dateline's the mother of
all
televised crime shows. Breakdown for our listeners
the formulas,
story formulas, that each of these shows
they have. Yeah. So I mean, you know,
true crime shows, we all talk about telling
them in acts. That's something that comes up,
you know, time and time again and whether
you're working for the networks or cable or
who you're, you know, whatever you might be
working for. They tell the story in in
five or six acts and that's,
you know, they these little bite sized pieces
of,
drama, right, for the audience. And you always
wanna end on a cliffhanger before you go
to commercial break and get them to come
back. And, you know, these shows are really
built
for
the
linear television
experience. They're not built to binge.
And so they really just wanna keep you
glued to your chair
for for one hour, and that's that's the
goal. And at the end of the hour,
you have the satisfaction that the case has
wrapped up. You know who the bad guy
is. They're being punished.
And, you know, you can sleep better at
night because we got to the bottom of
this case.
Which is not always the case.
No. It's definitely not that cut and dry.
But if you watch true crime television, you
would think that it is. Well, in contrast
to what you did in true crime television
to now a podcast, what's the difference? What
do you like about the podcast?
Yeah. The podcast really allows me to go
as deep as I need to and, you
know, go down all the trails that are
available to me and follow the story wherever
it takes me. And sometimes that's
six episodes. Sometimes it's 10. Sometimes it's 15.
And there's really not
anything that limits the amount of airtime that
you can have in a podcast because you
can always release a new episode.
So that's exciting to me. So for you,
what's kinda is the hallmark
of a great true crime story that you're
looking for?
I look for twists and turns. You know,
I look for those moments where you think
you know
the answers, you think you know who did
it, and suddenly
your entire perspective changes based on new witness
testimony, new evidence, you know, and the idea
that things are not as they seem. Same
here. I'm really drawn to the mind.
Yeah. What makes them tick? You know, bottom
line in all of it. Well, based on
your
all the crimes you've seen,
what advice do you have
to people
listening to
this, elders and or young women, young men,
about safety?
So I usually tell people,
if you're not worried about the person sleeping
next to you, then you're probably gonna be
okay because that's your biggest risk. Your intimate
partner
is your biggest risk for
violent crime.
And so if you have concerns about that
person,
get out now, right? Like that that is
very real.
The other big risk is anyone that you
let into your home.
So talking about contractors,
talking about
anyone who might do regular work in your
home, housekeeping.
A lot of times these people might be
casing
these houses to see who would be an
easy target for crime. So a good way
to not be an easy target, have security
cameras, make sure they have a visible light
so people know that they're working it on.
I like to tell people wave to the
camera when they come into my house, if
they're, you know, not a friend,
if if it's someone who
who I've hired to come into my house,
I want them to know that I have
cameras. I also have a very large dog
that barks and, you know, these are things
that are very easy to do that just
really make you
a less likely target for this type of
crime where they would think, I'm gonna come
back and steal the TV and the computer
and, you know, they don't wanna come back
to the house with cameras everywhere and with
a big barking dog.
Speaking of barking dogs, I travel with a
168
pound
Great Dane named Bob.
He'll pounce on command whether he's in the
back of my SUV or guarding the front
door.
Like most police beat reporters, I have no
desire to become the subject of a true
crime drama.
That's why I follow a simple mantra,
stop, pause, observe.
It's not just a phrase, it's a survival
skill
crafted by FBI agent, Robin Juric, who I
profiled in two earlier episodes.
It reminds us to slow down and see
what others miss
because danger rarely announces itself.
And the truth is most victims
never saw it coming.
To learn more about Stop, Pause, Observe,
subscribe to my newsletter, Stories to Keep You
Safe on the homepage
of truecrimereporter.com.
I'm Robert Riggs
reporting.