Transcript of True Crime: A Sit Down With Patricia Cornwell New

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alayna and this is Morbido.

It sure is.

I really love saying Morbido.

Morbido.

We just, we're gonna rebrand.

Yeah, Morbidito.

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 something, it left.

It's the weekend. We never record on the weekend and it feels strange.

You know what that's from? The Weeknd. Wait, no, I do.

Yeah, you know, Urban Legend.

Yeah, and because I know I've said— I say that sometimes and I, I have to wonder if like 85% of the audience is like, why do you say it like that? Watch Urban Legend if you haven't because that's a key movie. It's the best. And the dean, when he gets got— before he gets right, he says— spoiler alert— he says the dean dies. 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 stims because— yeah, I love from Never Been Kissed—

ah, shit, I don't even know my own kid. I love saying that. Jose.

Jose.

Oh, randomly people just go Jose! People are probably like, what?

Like, it's from a movie.

I'm not Josie Grossie anymore.

And that's never been kissed. Thank you.

Exciting news. Let's move on to actual business. We want you to go get yourself something spooky, honey. Something spooky, something cute, something morbidito.

Something morbidito.

It's our merch. Head to SiriusXMStore.com and you can use code morbid 25% off of your merch order, and that is only for a limited time. It's the 4th through the 11th, so don't wait, do it! Don't wait.

It's really comfy, guys. The merch is cozy wosy.

It's really fucking good. I'm really excited about it. We, um, got to do a fun little thing the other day where we wore our merch for it.

We did.

That'll be some more news coming out soon, but let's get to the news of today because today's a cool freaking day.

Uh, we have Patricia Cornwell on the show again today. Again, again.

I feel like Patricia is like a family friend at this point.

She is.

This— we're recording this intro after we already talked to Patricia, and I think she actually said that to us. She said something along those lines.

She knows. She felt it.

It was, it was life-changing for me. I feel like every time we talk to her, I just end up very inspired.

It's true.

And I think you guys will 2, because this is an episode where we talk about a lot of different things. We're going to talk about, uh, we're going to talk about Scarpetta the TV show, um, which is fucking awesome. I'm telling you guys, go watch it. We're going to talk about, um, her new memoir, True Crime. Uh, it's literally called True Crime: A Memoir. It's really, really good. It's out tomorrow actually, which is May 5th, so you can go get it, go pre-order it if you're a day early, go get it if it's on the day.

If you're in the car, I I don't care where you're going now, go get it. You're going to a bookstore.

Yeah, I'm telling you, it's really great. We got the honor of reading it early, and I'm telling you, it's an amazing book.

So good.

But yeah, so this episode we talk about the memoir, we talk about Scarpetta, we talked about how to keep yourself safe.

Yeah, like life tips.

And what true crime has done to all of our psyches 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 as hell.

Like, I love Patricia. Patricia forever. Um, these episodes are always so much fun. I always end up getting off them and being like, can we talk to Patricia again?

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 time on the pod, 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 reel a couple of redheads in on episode.

I said, guys, we gotta do this another time because 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—

in decades, 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, uh, Her person there.

All right.

Walter Sickert.

So without further ado, here's that episode with Patricia. Here she is.

So, Patricia, first of all, huge congratulations on the most hugely anticipated Scarpetta series. I have personally been waiting for this, I feel like, 30 years. I've been just on pins and needles. Me too.

Me too.

I can't imagine. I'm so excited for it.

Well, thank you. I am excited. And I was just saying a minute ago, but I want everybody to hear this, that when I was at the premiere in early March, and of course, I'm looking at all the influencers and these shows and things that are really important to the studios and stuff out there, and your show is listed there.

Ah, that is mind-blowing.

So crazy.

Morbid is listed as one of the important podcasts that for— and of course, it makes sense. I mean, Scarpetta and Morbid fit hand in glove, don't they?

They do.

Oh, I think so.

I feel I feel that.

Well, I suspect she listens to you when she's not busy. You know, I bet you Scarpetta is tuning into Morbid on a regular basis. She doesn't tell me what she listens to, you know.

I love that. That's, that's in my head canon now.

Yeah, I was gonna say canon forever.

You know, we got to find a way to have Morbid have a cameo on that show. Wouldn't that be fun?

We would die for it.

I'm gonna say something to them next time I see them. I say, we got to do something. Because, you know, I would die for it. I'm gonna get in so much trouble. So here we are. Get in trouble.

Let's go.

But, but, um, 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 it's been, um, 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.

Well, it feels so conversational too. It's not your typical memoir.

No, definitely not.

Well, thank you for that. I mean, uh, you know, I just tried to Yeah, to try to write it as a story, like you're just telling people a story. I look at true crime, and I know that seems like a strange title. It was so funny when I Googled, you know, you have to Google for titles, you know that.

Oh yeah.

You know, it's hard to find a title hadn't been used. And it was surprising to me that really hadn't been used because it's more of a genre.

Yeah.

And it's a title, but it's perfect for this because it's 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 in college that was a thinly veiled autobiography, um, because everybody should write a book about the first 19 years of their life because it would be so massively interesting to all, right?

Never.

But I, at least I got an honors grade for it in college. Oh, hell yeah. But that book was told very much from the point of view of a child. A young person. And so by using that as source material, because I had so many anecdotes and stories in it that I wouldn't remember today. For example, when I started that, I just come out of that psychiatric hospital with the— from the eating disorder. I mean, which was like a crazy movie. Oh yeah, you can't make up stuff like that. Me being in a place like that for 2 months when I was the only one who— well, I'm not gonna say I was the only one. I'm not gonna say anything. I'm just gonna say It was scary being there.

I can imagine.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

You're never supposed to say that somebody's crazier than you are, or they're not. So we won't get into comparisons 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 you're a patient in a psychiatric hospital, you weigh 89 pounds. And because you used to be a well-known tennis player in the area, they, they make you do an exhibition match in front of all of the patients.

That's, that's mind-blowing.

That's honestly nightmarish.

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 resort and then it became a private hospital. But anyway, you know, when you get all these wild stories in life, it doesn't seem fun at the time, but boy, are they gifts later.

Yeah, truly. It's one of those things that it's like, I should write a book about this. That's That's right. So you've been, you've spent decades telling stories about crime, justice, 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. There are not that many mystery writers, crime writers there are not that many autobiographies. And I mean, even Dickens didn't write an autobiography, because I think these people, you know, you die in the saddle, you're still working on your last book. And I didn't want to do this either. But then when they were— someone was talking about making a television show, having a character based on me. When I read a draft of a script, I didn't recognize the character. And it wasn't the writer's 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'd have to piece it together from many, many interviews over over the years, and present company excluded, not all people who interview you tell things accurately.

Yeah, I can imagine.

So I was just going to write down a bunch of notes, and the next thing I knew, I thought, you know, I should just try to— what happens if I start telling the story? I just finished my last book 3 or 4 months early. I've 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 say you start the page. I think of a scene and I thought, well, how would I start this story about my life? What scene? And it's the same way I start a Scarpetta novel. What a scene. Where is she right now? What is she doing? And I know you all, you relate 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.

And 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 upset and telling her to stop. That event changed everything that would ever happen to me ever again, because if she had not done that and then marched us, tried to take us up the mountain and give us to Billy Graham's family, which she successfully— we got up there because their caretaker saw us and knew something was really wrong with her watching, walking these kids, walking these kids up there in the snow, and But in there, I mean, I still see Ruth sitting in the living room way back then when I was 9 years old. And that was the beginning of my transferring really, truly my affection and my trust to that woman instead of my own mother. That's why I mean, I continued to live with my mother, but, but Ruth was like, she was this hero to me. And I'd— and I always, you know, she 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, um, and, and Billy wasn't there too much. But then when I had that hospital thing, that's when she tucked 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'd done. I mean, she was being 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 than anything we would write that these things can happen like this.

It's so true. Absolutely.

Well, I think there's power too in 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 is until you start telling it.

Yeah, that makes sense.

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 in a spaceship looking down. And it's both— the two things that I've been struck with is that 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 lived 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 you know, all the way up to North Carolina to a 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 a start.

That's unbelievable.

You know, that, that is really truly like that. That's the sort of stuff that is like an adult fairy tale.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It's such an upheaval. Like I have, I have twin, uh, 10-year-old twins and I just think of 9-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.

Well, you know what, it— when you— and it gives you more empathy for how my mother must have felt sometimes. I mean, a lot of it she didn't remember because when you have the electroconvulsive shock therapy, and she had hundreds of these treatments after two hospitalizations. It wiped out a lot of her memory, was gone. And so I honestly don't know that she remembered burning our clothes or take— I know a part of her, a part of her did remember taking us up to the Gramms. And I'll tell you how I know that is because she would avoid Ruth like the plague.

Oh, interesting.

She didn't go up and speak to her in church. The few times that— I mean, when you would see Billy in church, which was like a huge deal, it's like the president showing up. And I say this in the book, My mother put him on such a pedestal. He, you know, 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.

Wow. That's wild.

I was just around their older son, Franklin, just a couple weeks ago. We spent some time together and 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. Right? So embarrassed by what she'd done. And so, so you'll like the story. So what I tried to do to make her feel better, and this was probably in around 2004 or so, and when I was flying helicopters all over the place, and occasionally I would land my helicopter in Ruth's yard. She had— she's 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, it would blow her roses everywhere. It was— it looked like the Wizard of Oz coming down, you know, the house.

Oh yeah. You're like, oh, there's a fear.

She'd be out on the porch going like this. Billy would come wandering out like, what? What is happening? Who's landing in our yard?

Apocalyptic.

On this one occasion, Ruth said, you should bring your mother up here. Because I— and mother had never been up to that house since the time she took us up there when I was 9 to give us away. Wow. So I said, you know what, I'm going to do that. But you know, this time we're going to go up, we're going to land in a helicopter.

Yeah, we're not trucking up there.

I flew my mother there and we landed in the helicopter. And I said, if you're going to 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 us sitting on Ruth's porch with Mom and Ruth and I on either side of my mother. And 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— and science will tell you that. Isn't that wonderful?

Oh yeah, it absolutely is. Yeah, I love that.

But how cool of you to just be willing to do that after everything that you'd gone through. And I can imagine those were hard times to write about.

I did not enjoy it. Yeah, I'm sure.

Like opening a wound.

Quote your show, I walked around feeling rather morbid for a while. I'm sure.

Yeah.

You know, so many people are gone. you know, have died. And, and I'm not that person anymore. I mean, I'm turning 70 not too long— in a few— in a 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 even seem real anymore.

Yeah, that's got to be a trip.

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 that 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 foster mother, I'm sorry I had to say it. 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?

Whether they like it or they don't.

And also for other artists, because it's not easy. And one thing you learn It's true. No, no. So you better be ready and never give up if you have something that you have value that you want to add, even if we're telling these grisly graphic Because we are showing people the bad things that can happen out there. And we make it palatable through mysteries. 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? But at the same time, I'd like to ask you a question. Would you undo and not know all this if you could? No way. No. See, I wouldn't either. Because it's like telling me then show up at a gunfight with a peashooter. Exactly. Exactly. 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 an 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, especially—

the world is changing, especially girls. I think it's so important.

Oh, and listen, I love— I saw, I saw somebody, um, some Women scientists, I think it was, had come up with a nail polish that—

Yes.

You're in the bar, you dip your finger in and it will change colors if someone spiked your drink while you went to the ladies' room.

I think that's incredible.

Genius. But, and 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. Yeah. Essentially.

Well, listen, if I had a kid, she'd have on nail polish, toe polish. Oh yeah. She'd have a GPS tracker. She'd probably have an invisibility cloak for when it's a bad moment. And yeah, I mean, I can't— I don't know how you tell your kids how to watch out in 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 are 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, if you're scared. We'll lead 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, or you're only going to— we've talked about this before— you're not going to have a ground, a landline, um, so that when they— a signal jammer turns off your Wi-Fi, that someone's going to break in and you don't hear them.

Exactly.

Cameras don't work. Yeah. So you know what I say? I say, you show me what kind of crap happens out there, and then you make my day, because we're gonna, we're gonna make it so hard for you to do that.

Yes.

Patricia, you just led me perfectly into our next question for you. There's a line in your memoir that hit Elena and I both like slap across the face 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's something you do out of either habit, instinct, 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.

Always, whether you're in a room or you're in a hotel, know where— how you're going to get out. 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, if somebody comes in here to start robbing everybody, what are you going to do?

Yep.

So it's just, it's, 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 an easy answer. It 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 tell you something I do. I walk through parking lots heading somewhere, and I look at every car I walk 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 the rearview mirror.

That's smart.

Gym bag in the back seat with the name and address on a sticker that you can see through the window.

Yup.

It could be anything, a bumper sticker.

Yup.

Or something that, that makes people think you're a single woman who lives alone. I don't know what it is, but do not— oh, you know what is a real crazy, crazy thing people do? People go to conventions and they walk out on the sidewalk with a name tag on. Oh, okay. So I'm a bad person and I'm going to abduct you. I'm going to come up to you and I'm going to say, Helen, what are you doing in Charleston?

You just say, what?

Yeah, I must know you.

Yeah.

You don't remember me? What? What are you— what's going on? I said, well, we met a couple of years ago. I don't expect— and next thing you know, this person has let their guard down. This is total scam.

Yeah. And so, so easily.

Yeah. Don't give people, don't stand in an airport line with a tote bag that has your home address on a tag that someone could see and take a picture of.

So, so smart.

Such good advice.

You don't want to get me started on this.

Oh yeah.

Oh, 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 make locking my doors at night like an Olympic sport.

It's like medieval Europe around here. She's like barricading the doors.

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 that we could hear something and react appropriately.

Well, I have a very unfortunate newsflash for you.

Oh Lord. Oh.

Okay. Home invasions during the day or the night, It may not make any difference what time of day it is. The biggest problem with people being home during a burglary is sometimes a burglar breaks in and is not intending anyone to be there, but then you become— it's called a crime of opportunity.

Yeah.

And so, and, and nowadays these home invasions happen, and the— we didn't used to have home invasions like we got now.

Honestly, now during the day it feels like it's being—

and it's terrifying. It's a lot scarier now, and it can 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.

I I love my alarm system.

And make sure that your alarm system is on a, a, a ground, you know, a, a real line. It's not wireless. So that if your wireless goes out— I mean, there are precautions you can take to outsmart the things that people are going to try to do stuff.

Yeah.

And frankly, um, 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 to see why you're here. Because that you can get these uniforms now.

Oh yeah, fake badges.

It's a shame, but you can't— the inherent trust that we felt as children in a world that was relatively safe by comparison. And 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 have to.

My kids, if I had little kids like you, I wouldn't let them walk about to the tennis courts and the pool. No. Yeah, that I used to do.

No, no, they don't go anywhere by themselves.

And we have little, like, they're— we know where they are at all times so we can follow them.

There's those little watches.

Yeah, they don't— 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.

But how could you not be knowing all the things that you know? And not only, yeah, but you have special knowledge of them, you worked in a morgue, you know. Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You know, you all have been exposed and you've talked to so many people. This is a reality. It's not just some fanciful whodunit.

Yeah, but I do think it gives you a leg up being informed the way that we are 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. I know that sounds weird.

No, it's so true.

If somebody, if you're, if some, if you're confronted with somebody, like I had somebody chase me down an escalator once. Oh, um, I was with a young, uh, this was way early on, not way before I was, you know, the scarpetta person. I was in Washington going down that escalator on Dupont Circle, which is like Dante's Inferno, which just goes and goes and goes. And we, and we were at the top and we were going down and this guy in camouflage started coming after us and saying You can run, but you can't hide.

Oh my God.

And he chased us all the way down to the bottom. When we got to the turnstile, 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 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 what I am. I said, I'm a cop and you better get your ass out of here right now. Do not make me say it again. Hell yeah. 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 or I was crazy as he might have been.

And he wasn't messing with me.

And he left. 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 the moment.

Something told me. Yeah, instinct. And so when I got back up to the top on the sidewalk, I mean, my knees turned to water.

Oh, sure.

But we— trust your instincts. If your gut tells you don't get on that elevator, don't cross to that side of the street, don't get in that Uber. And by the way, make sure when you are doing ridesharing, you always have something in your pocketbook or your pocket or your coat that you could use to help yourself if this person decides to abduct you.

Yes.

And I don't mean to be gross, but phone charger.

Mm-hmm.

Yup.

Yeah. You know, whatever you can.

An ink pen.

You—

are we really talking about this? Yeah.

A nail file.

I mean, you're as freaky as I am because, yeah, this is, this is the morbid discussion from hell. But anyway, but, but I don't mean, I don't mean to be gross, but you need to think about what you would do. So because you're— what will happen is you're better off that that guy wrecks the car than get you where he's going to take you and do what he's going to do.

Oh 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've thought about it, but it's— it'd 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.

Yeah.

And with a rideshare too, never give them your name up front. Don't go up and say, hey, is this for Elena? Like, make them say, hey, who's this for? Say, who's this ride for?

That's a good point.

I told my husband that recently. He thought I was crazy. I'm like, well, it's going to save you from getting abducted. Because if you give them their name, all they have to say is Yes. Yeah.

And now you're in the car, right?

Yeah. Always make them say it.

All right, well, switching gears here a little bit, uh, we talked about, we talked about all this, all these safety precautions, which I'm sure we're going to get back to.

Oh yeah, we just remember anybody can read my memoir, but they can't hear our crime tips like this.

Exactly, 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 first big crime award from Princess Margaret. Because I mean, you talk about Beverly Hillbillies and or, you know, Ma and Pa Kettle, 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 the call in my office. You know, I'm looking at my cinderblock wall and my steel desk across from the elevator where all the stink comes in up the shaft with my can of Lysol on the desk. Ring, ring. And I answer and it's 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? Excuse me? And, and it's being presented. I think it was something like the Royal Law Society. I don't know what it was. And by Princess Margaret. And I said, what?

Say it again. Who's this again?

And you have to go there and it's like next month or whatever. So I said, I'm being presented to royalty? Excuse me? I said, okay, well, okay, well, I have to think about this for a minute. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. You said pip pip cheerio. I go downstairs. Marcelle is gone. So I can't tell her she left and And the chief is down there and he's finishing a stab wound homicide case. And he's, he's in, he's holding his forceps with the wound he's excised, his hand from it.

This is one of my favorite things I've read.

And I walk in and I say, you won't guess, you never guess it. I just, Postmortem just won Best First Crime Novel in the UK and Princess Margaret's presenting me the award. And his reaction is he threw the thing at me. Why?

I laughed so hard.

Oh, man, I were talking about this. And I picked it up. I picked it up. Up and I put it in the little carton where it belonged. And I went and rinsed my fingers and said, well, I'll see you tomorrow. And I left.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for the congrats.

Then on my way home, I stopped at the most expensive clothing boutique in Richmond, Montaldo's.

Yes, girl.

And that's where I got my little outfit. They put me on a little wooden box and dressed me up. Hell yeah. They taught me how to curtsy. And I wrote down in my journal at the time how much I spent on everything. You know, I think I was appalled that I spent $1.98 on really fancy pantyhose or something. That was, you know, I was used to the legs or whatever the cheap stuff was. And so, but 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 ask questions of royalty. You don't chat with them. I was just being southern.

I wouldn't know that.

Yeah.

How are you supposed to know?

I don't know, you ride horses. Everybody rides horses in the royal family, you numbnut.

I would have been the same way.

What are you supposed to do? Can I pet your horse?

You're like, I'm just happy to be here. Let's chat about it.

It was, and then, I mean, it was crazy. And then, and then to wake up the next morning and it snowed. I was snowed in at London. That's gnarly. And so I wandered the whole day through, you know, looking in all these beautiful stores that I couldn't afford. I didn't know I hadn't moved there yet, but I did do something rather cheeky years later. Oh God, I shouldn't tell this story either because, oh, my neighbors are going to know this now. But I'd gone back when a couple years later for something and I, um, I'd moved to this wealthy neighborhood and it's that I call it, you know, Windsor Farms in Richmond is the place to live. And I had found a starter home there because it was handicap equipped and it was not old. It was faux Tudor. I mean, let's be honest, every Tudor there is faux Tudor, but okay. But mine was really faux Tudor because it hadn't been built too long ago. And I had gotten a fire sale for it. So I was able to afford to move there. Well, everybody else, you know, they— it was— there was some attitudes in that neighborhood, shall we say.

I imagine.

And they were very curious about why I was living there. And they would ask you who your family was. They want 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 flag shop and I bought one of these hospitality flags you hang over your door. And it was a rampant lion on it, very British looking, from a very British Tudor house. And I wanted them to initial, to embroider the initials F.R. on the corner of the flag. They said, why? I said, just because I want it.

Okay.

So it was now custom made. So anyway, I had now my custom made flag for my faux British house. And I get this thing and I hang it over the entrance and there's this beautiful rampant lion flag over my faux Tudor house flapping. 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. They custom made this for me. They said, oh, that's lovely. I'm sure. Yes. I'll have to look up that place. Well, what it really means, and I won't say it out loud, it means effin' rich. Because that's the only reason I could afford to live there. It's not because I was anybody special. Oh my God. And so that was my way. And, and that effin' rich flag hung above my door the whole time I lived there.

That is— I just, I already had so much respect for you. Nobody ever knew.

Not a single person knew.

I love that so much.

I already had so much respect for you, but it's leveled up even more. That's incredible.

I don't need the family name. This is why I'm here. I love that a lot.

It's always good to have a private joke as long as you're not hurting somebody else's feelings. And nobody knew. And, and then the honest truth was, let's be honest, why are we so special here? Because we can afford to live here. That's the only reason.

You were just being honest, like, let's go.

You're straight up about it.

Oh, I love that a lot. And speaking of like favorite parts of the memoir, one of my favorite things in the memoir was was when he threw the stab wound at you, and you were just like, why did he 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 too, was personally, when I saw that, I read it in there and I said, yup, that's, that is morgue 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 Kesha to get through autopsies?

We always had a playlist.

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 Kesha. And so he'd be like dancing in the middle of doing things. And he was so meticulous, like he was doing his job to a T. He never messed up. He was never disrespectful, but he was just dancing, singing, doing the whole thing. I loved working with him because he made it such a experience.

That's 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 I've seen in an autopsy suite 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 forensic pathology fellow, a young woman, and there weren't there weren't, you know, this is back in the day when there weren't too many women. Oh yeah. She was just getting started. So Casey, this is like, so what they would do is a body comes in that's decomposed, that's really bad.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and you know what, when you unzip it, there's all kinds of things moving around. Oh yeah. There, you know what I'm talking about?

That's when you know.

That's the kind of stuff that the new person would get.

Yep.

And it's totally deliberate.

Yeah.

Or a bat got killed in the morgue and someone fixes it in formalin and hangs it from a string over someone's desk.

Oh my goodness.

Which, by the way, is not funny when you're sitting down and you look up and there's that thing hanging over your desk.

Yeah, that's pretty awful.

Yeah. People—

but, you know, but the one thing in the medical examiner's 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 tables.

Yeah, never.

Nope. But 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 medical examiners had gone to a house where a lady had died on the couch. And it was probably natural causes, but she wasn't under the care of a physician. So 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 like Mrs. Magoo. And she says, I can't find my glasses anywhere. Has anybody seen my glasses? Meanwhile, 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 saying, "I didn't know she wore those glasses. I didn't know she wore glasses at all." What?

And so a family story.

So I think, I don't— I, maybe they got returned to that medical examiner.

I don't know. Oh my God, do you want them after that?

Or the time a station wagon full of bodies that had been embalmed and are on their way to Medical College of Virginia. And there's a car accident and all the bodies are on the highway. Oh, and the state trooper stops and obviously they aren't dressed after they're embalmed. And the state trooper stops and he gets on his radio and he says, oh my God, there's been this terrible accident. It was so violent, it blew all their clothes off. Oh, the poor guy.

He's like, what happened?

He still gets hazed about that to this day, probably.

Well, that's the time something gets carjacked and you get to— and you get a look at what's in the back and you go, oh, I shouldn't have done that.

That's like, whoops. That would be instant karma. Yeah, to be honest. Absolutely it would. But you know what, 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 envy since I was born. And I tell everybody I run around with the Secret Service, the FBI, and I'm going, "Envy, envy. I have badge envy. I have uniform envy." When Stacy and I met the Carabinieri in Italy, we both decided we would sign on just for their uniforms.

I get it.

They look like Armani dressed them.

Oh, yeah.

The red silk-lined capes and all this. And so when I had a chance to— when Marcella suggested, say, look, you have to have legitimacy. I mean, you did as an autopsy technician, you can be down there. I had no legitimacy to be in the morgue. And I said, well, what can I do to have legitimacy? She said, well, you could be a volunteer police officer. That would probably do it.

I think— got it.

I didn't even know there was that. And I thought, wow, I kind of like that thought anyway.

Sure.

Kill two birds with one stone.

Yeah.

It's so funny when my, when Charlie would, would take photographs of me 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. And 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 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 suffer through from just the discomfort of the job. Like, I'd be out directing traffic, and the carbon monoxide is getting to me.

Oh, I didn't even think about that.

A little woozy, and the heat coming up through my— these awful shoes. You know, I got one of them right here. You know, this is one of my shoes I wore back then. Oh my God.

They don't look like they have good support.

They're horrible.

Yes.

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. The hat would give me a terrible headache. Oh, yeah. You know, just the discomforts of things that 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 I'd 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, I already had one book published, the Ruth Graham biography and all the rest of it. And so this, this lieutenant very diplomatically said, most people who become officers do better if they're kind of like everybody else.

Huh.

And I'm not sure what she was saying there. You're like, what does that mean? I think that was like a big fat no.

It was a nice way.

But, but I, I am, I cherish that I ever did that. I'm so glad I did it. It, you know, be hard to do that today.

Yeah, absolutely.

Different world. But it, oh, the other thing is I, if you were a volunteer, the rest of the rank and file for the most part had no use for you. Yeah. When we roll up on a scene, they would look at us like we were like, why are you here? Yeah, we were not the real deal. They wanted, you know, kind of go on. We don't need your help with anything. Or somebody would make a smart aleck remark about, hey, you know, you're not wearing a gun. And I'd point to my watch. I'd say, you don't know what this can do. It's got a special feature to it. Don't bother me.

Iconic.

I love that. The unknown. Leave me alone. 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 officer, but but I really wanted to be involved in autopsies 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— your 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 a sort of a metaphorical archeology site. Yeah. Waiting to be excavated. And you're the first person who's going to put the trowel in that and see what's under that surface. And you might find something you never imagined. And that's what's interesting. That's what's fun about autopsies, 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. That 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 that's right, 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 sure that doesn't happen 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 door. Exactly. That is exactly what motivates Scarpetta. It's not just— justice is for the living, it's not for the dead. The dead, it doesn't anymore. Exactly. 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 thing someone did, but also that you're not going to 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's going on there. Absolutely. And make it mean something. Yeah.

And speaking of autopsies, this 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? Like, what led to written on a body, and did the bad person do it, or did the victim do it? I mean, what does that mean? There's so many things like that, but you— so much of it, even when it's stupid, like, and you never forget some of these cases, Right Guard deodorant in his pocket, in his coat pocket.

I guess he wants to make sure he smells nice around her.

I don't But, but he had, you know, it was all, it was dented because of what happened to him. But he's roaring around and he decides it's a good idea to stand up in the back of the pickup truck right at the same time they go under a bridge. Oh man. That's the end of that. Yeah.

And so, but now that, that is like that, you would check the stupid box.

But at the same time, I could smell— it was actually, it wasn't, it was Old Spice. Oh yeah, distinct. And I could smell it. And here he is on this table and here's his little dented can of deodorant. And as stupid as it was, how sad. Yeah, sad, sad. And I think of his 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 remember the names of some of these people from long ago. Yeah. 'Cause it must just be so strange to be so close to, like, the last act that somebody did. Like, that boy putting on his deodorant. You know that's one of the very last things he did. It's super intimate. And this person is obviously dead on a table, but that makes them so alive in your head. That's gotta be strange to reconcile.

Yes, it gives you a peephole into their—

to their inner being for one moment. And I may have told you this story before, but a similar thing was a woman who'd gotten hit by a car at 3 o'clock in the morning walking home from the bar.

And when I was in the morgue the Oh, that's awful. That would— and nobody knew whether to laugh or cry.

Yeah, right. What I mean, but for a moment you got a peephole into her longing for something. That's so sad. Yeah. But it's like, but they put people— those— they need us to be there to tell those stories. Yeah, absolutely. Acknowledge it and to say you care enough to try to know what they felt. Yeah, right.

Well, speaking of that kind of personal connection, You touch heavily on the Southside Strangler in the memoir, uh, Timothy Wilson Spencer. Now, you had met 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?

Postmortem was hard to write because it was inspired by the killings there, and 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 Postmortem, none of the details have anything to do with what happened with the real people. I don't exploit their privacy, or even know much about it, because Marcella did not let anyone look at the records. And I was never— I never saw the autopsies, 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 we would be looking around at the house with all the lights out in the window. Just sort of like in the TV show, like Scarpetta and Marino, you know, they're talking about what the killer did and what happened. And they're, they're trying to reconstruct it while they're parked outside that house. But, but, you know, and Susan Hellums, 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 to them.

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've just been through that. It takes a very special person to be able to do that. It was hard enough doing it with Jack the Ripper, but everybody been dead for over 100 years.

That's typically the kind of case that we cover. Like, Elena loves to cover the 1800s kind of cases because it does make it a little, you know, to be further removed is better sometimes.

And I think it's honestly super interesting, older cases like Jack the Ripper and things, because how they solved any cases back then, I'm It's remarkable. 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 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 looked like at Adam McCourt, you know, at night. And all it would really do is you get this kind of yellowish reddish glow. Yeah. Real thick lens. And I thought, all you're doing is putting a laser dot on you.

Yeah.

That was a late— you're just showing everybody that you're— you're here. You're, you're back, except the laser dot's pointed at you so that all the criminals could see what the cop was doing. But it makes you realize how the heck they could see anything out on the streets that night when the Ripper was killing these people. There were no streetlights. There might have been some 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 more than we are today.

Because they had to. It's just, you know, adaptation.

Yeah, absolutely.

They didn't have— everywhere we go there are lights now.

Yeah.

We are almost overlighted.

Yeah, because when we get in the dark, it's like—

We have light pollution. You can't see the stars anymore.

I know, it makes me sad. It is sad. I love seeing the stars.

And we're always staring at our phones too, so you get the blue lights. We're ruining our eyes.

Screens everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, well, and I think it's really fascinating with the Jack the Ripper case too, 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—

yeah, but you know, you know, we should do, we should do a show, we should do one of your shows sometime on the Ripper. We absolutely should.

Huge story.

But let me just tell you this, if there was nothing precise about what he did, it's, it's— people think it was, but he was slashing and grab. What I, I'll tell you what I think he did based on everything I've seen and what snippets of autopsy reports are left and the few scene photographs and what have you is that I'm quite certain that even if he approached the person, the, the sex worker, which is what most of the victims were, when he didn't, he didn't attack him then. He did it from the rear.

Oh yeah.

He came behind them and did this at their throat. They went down on the ground and then he would go around and he would cut through their clothing and start and cut through the abdomen and grab out the intestines and fling them out of the way and take that. It 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 throat. Then it was putting an incision down the middle. Then it was pulling things out and throwing them. Then Mary Kelly, who was, I don't know, 5 or 6 or 7, I don't remember which number, but she was flayed to the bone. Oh yeah. And he took her heart with him.

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.

Hmm.

Wouldn't 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. Mm-hmm. He had these little rat holes, bolt holes, where hovels were in Whitechapel and all over the place. And then he would spend time with the body before he wrapped it up in something and even put pieces of a newspaper in it too. He was always, he was the master of red herrings and fake clues. But he was just violent is what he was. And he was a coward. He picked on people who were absolutely defenseless. They were drunk. Drunk. It was late at night. They were wearing everything they own, and nobody cared. Nobody gave a rat's ass about them.

I mean, that's the thing. He knew they wouldn't be as investigated.

Or if this had been women coming out of the theater in the West End, it'd be a different story.

It might be solved.

It would be solved.

It would be.

Well, it might have been solved if some of the people around Sickert might have been honest about him. I do believe that his wife Ellen, at the time him. The wife he had at the time, I believe she knew what he was doing.

Oh damn.

Interesting.

She said she was leaving him when she filed for divorce because of those women. Yet oddly, there's never been any proof that he ever had an affair with anybody. Interesting. Is there any proof that he ever had sex with anybody? Oh. So, but I'm not sure he was capable of it because of his early surgeries on his— either genitals or something. I mean, his southern hemisphere is all we know he had surgery on.

Right.

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 else. And there's been nobody like Walter Sickert. 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 up there on the wall, staring at you right now above.

Oh, damn.

Police notice, a police notice. That's original. There's only like 3 of those in the world.

Wow.

They put up 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, and spoke 7 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 be anything. Now we know. Yeah. We definitely know now. And that's the thing. When the DNA came out recently and everybody's like, "Oh, they figured out who it was." I was like, "No, they didn't." Everybody was messaging us. I was like, "No, they didn't.

Don't believe it." It is not true. That DNA, that is not correct.

That DNA is ridiculous. Mitochondrial DNA.

We need to have you back. We need to have you back for a full-blown Jack the Ripper episode because we need to do a follow-up on our old one. Our own series, actually.

Yeah, we do.

So we'd love to have you for that.

We would love to have you.

You just let me know. I'm— I'm— you consider me your— my— your friend of the family here.

Love it.

I love that.

I'm part of the Morbid family.

Oh, hell yeah, we are. And it's kind of like switching gears for a second, just back to the Scarpetta TV show, because I am just like over the moon for it.

It's incredible.

It's incredible.

I'm gonna tell them. They'll be— they will love to hear that you love it.

Oh, I love— and I was gonna let them know today. Oh, I love that because I've been waiting for this. Like, I— as soon as I started reading the Scarpetta series, which was— I mean, I think I was like— you were probably— I think I was like maybe 12 or 13 when I said— like 12, I think, because my grandmother used to read them, my mom used to read them, they were 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 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 in the series came. So my husband took that up every year. He'll get me the next book.

I just read Postmortem for the first time and I am absolutely in it now. Like I can't wait to read the next one.

So this—

Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that.

And the series has really like hit, like it hit the notes that I was like, And Nicole Kidman's amazing. Jamie Lee Curtis, like Bobby as Marino, like, itty 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 because it's just like—

I didn't do it. I mean, Jamie and Blumhouse, the producers, and of course, the more huge people. We've got 3 Oscar winners on the show.

It's insane.

Jamie, Nicole, and Ariana DeBose. 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 with you, threw me 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 trying to— it's like listening to someone else's music, right? Back to composing your own. But ultimately, 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 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 going to send a note to everybody and tell them that Morbid likes it because we love it. They will appreciate that.

Oh, great. Yeah, it is. It is a hit for an adaptation. Like 100%. Truly. I love it.

And thank you.

And just to— just to wrap up, because I know we've kept you a while, but—

Well, that's all right.

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, I'm excited about it, but I'm always shocked when anybody wants to read one of my books. 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, Scarpetta did it. And by the way, I don't even know where she is half the time. She's probably hanging out in your world now.

Honestly. Even better. And giving me permission to kind of—

I mean, she'd rather be with Nicole Kidman, let's be honest. I have to say. Who wouldn't?

I was gonna say.

No, send her home. Send her home when you're finished shooting, please.

Who wouldn't love to be with Nicole Kidman?

No, no kidding. It just happens.

But I have to ask, was there any point during the beginning of this that 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 going to be huge.

When things got really big in the early '90s, you know, back in the Stone Age, but the best time, Scarpetta was probably the biggest thing out there in most of the '90s.

Yeah.

And then J.K. Rowling had the nerve to come along whenever that was. And I mean, who the hell does she think she is coming along?

That's a great question.

To sell more books than me.

But anyway, you just stop it. Who the hell does she think she is?

Only I had called from Potter's Field, from Harry Potter's Field. Field. Oh, yeah, sold a lot more books. But 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 generation's not familiar. And I— 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.

Yeah.

When it started, when— and then suddenly now you have— then you had CSI came along and all these shows and, um, 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 Oh, yeah. Never, never, never. Never think that you've arrived, that you don't have to try as hard. Mm-hmm.

That's a great lesson.

I love that. And I definitely learned that because I could see that, uh, you, you have to keep this, keep up the same things you've always been doing or it won't work.

Absolutely.

It stopped working after a while.

Wise words.

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: A Memoir?

That there's redemption in life. That 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. It was incredible.

Well, big hugs to you guys. I love you both. Always happy to talk to you. And let's 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. You did.

Or thanks, Scarpetta, for letting me send along a word.

And by and large, I pretty much do what she tells me to.

I love that. I really appreciate it.

Nicole, she picked you. What can I say?

I'll take it. Wow. I will take it.

That's big.

Thank you again, Patricia. Thank you so much, Patricia. You're the best.

Good to see you.

Great to see you both.

Wasn't that just the best?

Honestly, every time.

Every single time.

And I'll never get over talking to Patricia Cornwell at all. I know. Because it's just been my entire life that I've been reading her books.

No, we got finished with that and I'm like, no, like, stop being so inspiring, Queen.

Truly. Queen Patricia.

Queen Patricia.

Truly.

Forever.

Queen Patricia.

I realized that we didn't have her say the Keep It Weird with us.

I know.

So let's all in unison say it together.

Yeah. Okay.

Guys, we love you. We hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep Keep it weird!

That was fun, wasn't it? Yeah, but not sure that you didn't join us in unison.

Yeah, and keep it as weird as Patricia. I mean, you better, because that's a good weird, period. It is.