Ep. 80 – MARCIA CLARK/TERRY HAYES – STEREO
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Christopher announces the publication date and publisher for his next supernatural thriller, THE VINES
Hollywood has really glorified the genius psychopath, the genius serial killer, he outsmarts all the police…the psychopaths are not that smart. What makes it hard to catch them is they don’t act on motives that are understandable, or you can’t logic your way through their motives. They strike at random, they strike on impulse, but that’s the kind of killer that’s hard to catch.
MARCIA CLARK
The Dinner Party Show Podcast — Ep. 80 Marcia Clark Interview Transcript
{This transcript is the Marcia Clark interview portion of Episode 80}
{This transcript is provided as a courtesy and was transcribed as best as possible. Any errors or omissions in the transcript are unintentional. The recorded audio file of the podcast episode is considered the master of what was said.}
Announcer: You are listening to The Dinner Party Show with Christopher Rice and Eric Shaw Quinn. Let’s Dish.
Christopher Rice: Welcome back to The Dinner Party Show. I’m Christopher Rice.
Eric Shaw Quinn: And I’m Eric Shaw Quinn.
Christopher Rice: And we actually called this show Beach Reading, but I think we forgot that we called it that, but that is why we just played a song called Life’s a Beach.
Eric Shaw Quinn: That’s right. And that’s what I said on my tweet and on my Facebook page today.
Christopher Rice: I think I forgot to say that on my tweet and Facebook page today.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Well, despite that fact, it’s still all about beach reads, and we’ve got an author right here in the studio who has a book coming out next week.
Christopher Rice: Marcia Clark is here. She’s nodding.
Eric Shaw Quinn: And it’s the perfect beach read, her latest Rachel Knight.
Christopher Rice: Absolutely. Latest installment in your Rachel Knight mystery series. The pre-order link for Barnes and Noble is up on our website at thedinnerpartyshow.com.
Marcia Clark: Thank you very much.
Christopher Rice: We encourage everyone to go there and buy the book. And this is the fourth?
Eric Shaw Quinn: And support the show.
Christopher Rice: The fourth?
Marcia Clark: Fourth.
Christopher Rice: The fourth installment. All right. Okay.
Marcia Clark: Yes. Yes.
Christopher Rice: Good.
Marcia Clark: So we’re going to talk about what it is?
Christopher Rice: We can talk about what it is. Yeah, absolutely.
Marcia Clark: We don’t have to.
Eric Shaw Quinn: No.
Christopher Rice: We have to talk about what it is.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Oh my God. Everybody wants to know.
Christopher Rice: Do you have something else you want to talk about, Marcia?
Marcia Clark: Not really. No. I’m open though.
Christopher Rice: I’d rather talk about the finger sandwiches in the lobby.
Marcia Clark: They’re really looking good too.
Christopher Rice: Yeah. But you know what you can do? You can do what I did. I had Eric read my plot synopsis. But if you want to talk about it…
Eric Shaw Quinn: If you brought your plot synopsis, I’ll be happy to read it.
Christopher Rice: I think that you… I have a sense that you’re good at public speaking. I just feel like it’s maybe in your past.
Eric Shaw Quinn: It’s something I remember. I can’t think quite why I think that.
Christopher Rice: The Olympics, I think. Yeah, you were at the Olympics in ’84. Okay. Anyway.
Marcia Clark: Yeah. I don’t even have a plot synopsis, and I think that the one that really is is set-
Christopher Rice: This book has no plot.
Marcia Clark: This book has no plot.
Eric Shaw Quinn: What’s it called?
Marcia Clark: It’s called The Competition.
Christopher Rice: Okay.
Eric Shaw Quinn: And what’s it about?
Marcia Clark: Here’s the thing. I’m not sure it qualifies as a beach read, because what happened is, a couple years ago, I got seized by, you know how something just bugs you and you have to understand it and you have to figure it out?
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yes.
Marcia Clark: And I got seized by the Columbine shooting.
Christopher Rice: Oh.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Oh. Yeah.
Marcia Clark: Way before Sandy Hook and all this stuff.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: I was just obsessed with, what makes a kid turn out like that?
Eric Shaw Quinn: Right?
Marcia Clark: And how does this happen, and why does it happen, and why don’t we catch it sooner?
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: And how come nobody saw the signs?
Eric Shaw Quinn: Totally.
Marcia Clark: That, to me, was the most compelling thing.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Always.
Marcia Clark: And really, were they bullied? Is that the whole story with them? Are they just victims of jocks, and they had to go out and shoot everybody as a result? So I got into… I researched it, and I had been studying the psychology of psychopathy and sociopathy back when I was a DA and back in the eighties and I had my first serial killer case, and I was puzzled then, too, like, “What makes someone like this? It’s so inhuman.”
Eric Shaw Quinn:
Right.
Marcia Clark:
So I kind of reinvigorated that research, and then studied the Columbine shootings, and then talked to shrinks and talked to a bunch of people. I have to write about this. Because I want to talk about, and I think we should be talking about, what it is that causes this. Because I think the first line of defense is to diagnose these kids, is to find who they are, figure out who they are, and then act accordingly. Do you know… For example, the best example, so I finished actually writing the first draft. I’m interrupting myself. I do that all the time.
Eric Shaw Quinn: It’s your story.
Marcia Clark: I guess I’m allowed to.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Tell it the way you want to.
Christopher Rice: Yeah. I’m riveted. I don’t care. Interrupt away.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: Okay. So what happened is, I wrote the whole first draft, and then Sandy Hook happened. And I was like, “Oh my God.”
Eric Shaw Quinn: Oh, wow.
Marcia Clark: “Maybe I shouldn’t… I should maybe just forget to write something else and don’t do this.”
Eric Shaw Quinn: Right.
Marcia Clark: And then I thought, “But maybe it’s important now, actually.”
Christopher Rice: Yeah. And maybe you’re exactly the person to write it. I don’t know.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: Who does know?
Marcia Clark: Or maybe this is the time.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: And maybe we should all be talking about it and writing about it and figuring this out…
Eric Shaw Quinn: Totally.
Marcia Clark: … together. And it does take a village, I mean, in this case, because there’s going to be all kinds of people who have contact with kids, who have a more objective point of view than the parents do.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: And they know stuff. School counselors, teachers, you got it, had kids and friends.
Eric Shaw Quinn: That neighbor who saw that kid opening that storage unit just recently.
Marcia Clark: Right. Right? Exactly.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Just like, “Oh my God, this is-
Marcia Clark: Exactly.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Or that new division in Arizona, they call it M.I.S.T. The mental health..
Marcia Clark: Oh, yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: … support team where they actually go out and…
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: …try and intervene before the fact with people who are having s mental health crisis. Yeah, all of it.
Marcia Clark: We need it all.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yes.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: We need it all. I mean, it’s like, great. Everybody can go talk about gun control and all the rest of it. There is many… This is a puzzle with a lot of pieces to it. No question about it.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Totally.
Christopher Rice: Right, right, right, right.
Marcia Clark: But the beginning of the answer has to be, let’s find out who these kids are before they act out and do something about it. And there is actually a neuroscientist, Dr. Kent Kiehl, who has talked about the fact that there are studies and there are actual programs now that can catch these kids and help them young and actually therapize them out of becoming dangerous to society. So there’s actually hope for these kids now…
Eric Shaw Quinn: Good.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: … that there didn’t used to be.
Christopher Rice: Right. Let me ask you something about your research. Did you read a book about Columbine by the author Dave Cullen?
Marcia Clark: Yes.
Christopher Rice: Yeah. Now, he took something like, I don’t know, seven or eight years to write that book, which in publishing is like a no-no.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: If you’re going to write a true-crime book, they want it out while the crime is still fresh.
Marcia Clark: Right. Right.
Christopher Rice: Sorry to put it that bluntly. And he said in that book that everything you will ever hear about every rampage shooting in the first two weeks will be wrong.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: That everything that we believe to be true about the Columbine shooters, and stop me if I’m getting ahead of your pitch here, was, in fact, not really true.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: They weren’t actually very bullied.
Marcia Clark: No.
Christopher Rice: They had friends. They had a social grouping. It was this very simple narrative that came together very quickly that, I guess, assuaged people’s own resentments about high school.
Marcia Clark: Yes.
Christopher Rice: Their own…
Marcia Clark: Yes.
Christopher Rice: …Including mine. Because I went there with it right away.
Marcia Clark: Right? Didn’t we all?
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: I mean, everybody had that experience of feeling less than and feeling different than and feeling bullied-
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: … or even not bullied, but ostracized or isolated. It’s a typical aspect of high school, psychology, it’s high school experience, so we all have that and everybody relates. Well, the bad news about that, and the reason it took hold the way it did for Columbine is that’s simple to understand.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: You understand a kid who got bullied.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Easy narrative, right.
Marcia Clark: Right? Easy narrative.
Christopher Rice: The narrative fallacy. Right. Yeah.
Marcia Clark: We get it. Well, and we can do something about it. We can stop the bullying.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: Hey, easy.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: That’s a great solution, except it’s not true.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: It wasn’t true at all, and neither one of them —
Eric Shaw Quinn: But we should still stop the bullying.
Marcia Clark: Oh, there’s no question about that.
Christopher Rice Yeah. Sure. Right.
Marcia Clark: Of course, of course.
Eric Shaw Quinn: But yeah, it’s not going to fix the problem.
Marcia Clark: But that’s not the answer.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: It wasn’t the answer for Columbine. Neither one was bullied, as a matter of fact. And one of them, and I really don’t like using their names, and that’s one of the things that I’ve been writing about and talking about is, stop publicizing the names of these shooters.
Christopher Rice: Yes, absolutely.
Marcia Clark: Because I think an aspect to them, and one of the things I talk about in the book, in the course of this novel, is they want the publicity. They think about going out in a blaze of glory. They want to be famous.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: And the fact that they’re going to be dead doesn’t matter to them. Life doesn’t matter to them, not yours and not theirs. So it’s not going to deter them, to know that they’re not going to be around to enjoy that glory. So the less we advertise the names, the better off we’ll be.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Totally.
Marcia Clark: So that’s one thing that we can do.
Christopher Rice: Yes. Right, right.
Marcia Clark: But as for being bullied and all the rest of that and all those tropes that everybody kind of relied on, they’re not true. And I found out a great deal more about it as well as I researched and talked to therapists and read books about them, that, number one, the number one thing about these guys is they all do plan, they all engage in fantasizing as they plan, they write, they keep journals that they keep hidden. And that’s why people don’t know. They know enough. They’re not mentally ill. They’re disordered. And there’s a difference.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: Because a disordered person can have problems, but knows what right from wrong is, knows how to hide what they’re doing, and knows that they need to hide what they’re doing so they get away with it.
Christopher Rice: And is there more hope of stopping a disordered person than there would be a mentally ill person? Is there more hope of reasoning with a disordered person?
Marcia Clark: No, not necessarily.
Christopher Rice: Oh. Okay.
Marcia Clark: I know, right?
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: The problem is they don’t think they need any help. Narcissist, psychopath, sociopath…
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: … they don’t feel they need help. They think you’re a weakling, you know?
Eric Shaw Quinn: But the evidence exists. Like one of the things that they pointed out with the Santa Barbara, horrible, that horrible situation, the campus there, that that kid, that when the police went, if they had actually gone into his room, would have found…
Marcia Clark: Oh, that makes me crazy.
Eric Shaw Quinn: …all of the evidence that they needed of what he was planning.
Marcia Clark: So here’s what happened, and here’s the thing, I mean, I think that knowledge is everything, education is everything. And that’s why I pushed forward with the book and said, “I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve learned all this.” There’s all this research, and I put it all into the book, and had Rachel actually consulting with shrinkers throughout the whole thing to profile, “Who are these kids? How do we find them?” And in the course of that, I’m telling you what the research has shown.
In the case of the Santa Barbara shooter, the mother, somebody tipped the mother, I don’t remember exactly how she found out about the YouTube video, if you guys have seen it.
Christopher Rice: Right. Right.
Marcia Clark: Horrifying thing.
Christopher Rice: Horrifying.
Marcia Clark: So she saw the video, and she called the police and said, “Go get him. This is dangerous.” And I think they thought that he was going to kill himself. They didn’t think he was going to kill others. Nevertheless, the police show up, and having been told about the video, they go, and they talk to the kid. The kid knows how to act. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Nothing’s wrong. It’s okay.” And they walk away. They don’t even look at the video before they go and see him. And had they looked at the video, there would’ve been an immediate search. I mean, a massacre would’ve been stopped.
Christopher Rice: Right. Right.
Marcia Clark: And that makes me crazy every time I think about it, that it was right there.
Christopher Rice: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Eric Shaw Quinn: But it’s evolving the way in which we respond to these people. And part of it is about staying away from simple narrative…
Marcia Clark:
Yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: … which I think is really a detriment to a lot of news reporting.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: People come up with the easy story that they want to tell about something, and then you can’t get them to change when the facts come in.
Marcia Clark:
Yeah. Yeah.
Christopher Rice: And it’s about instant gratification.
Marcia Clark: True.
Christopher Rice: It’s about having the headline right away. And sometimes you just don’t know the story right away.
Marcia Clark:
Right. You don’t know why.
Christopher Rice:
Yeah.
Marcia Clark:
You may know what…
Christopher Rice:
Yeah.
Marcia Clark:
… but you don’t know why.
Christopher Rice:
Yeah.
Marcia Clark:
And to speculate before you know what’s going on is what causes the problem. And it’s what caused the problem in Columbine, because that story got traction about them being bullied and all that stuff…
Christopher Rice: Right. Right.
Marcia Clark: … and stay that way for years.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah. Gus Van Sant even made the movie. Didn’t he?
Christopher Rice: Oh, yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: Yeah. It seeps into the consciousness…
Marcia Clark: Yes.
Christopher Rice: …what people call a narrative fallacy.
Marcia Clark: Yes.
Christopher Rice: Yeah, absolutely.
Marcia Clark: Yes.
Eric Shaw Quinn: So Marcia, is Rachel investigating a particular incident?
Marcia Clark: Yes. Yes.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Or is she just looking at-
Marcia Clark: Oh, no, no. She’s investigating, there is a massive school shooting, and they find two kids dead in the library, and it looks like this is a copycat of Columbine. They find two kids dead in the library, and they first believe that those are the shooters, and they come to find out they’re not.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Oh.
Marcia Clark: And it’s a set up. And the shooters are actually at large, and they have to find the shooters.
Eric Shaw Quinn: That’s terrifying.
Christopher Rice: Wow. Excellent, from a suspense point of view, but we’re sort of blending the two topics here.
Marcia Clark: Yeah. It’s kind of harrowing.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: So that’s what they do, and that’s why they bring shrinks on board, because they’ve never had to investigate a case like this. The motives are too bizarre. They’re not like anything else. It’s kind of like a serial killer. You don’t understand why, because who would do this?
Christopher Rice: Yeah. I remember when I did research, I was going to write a novel about serial killers, and it ultimately evolved past that. But I was researching forensic science around serial killers, and a lot of what people said, or beginning to say, is that we were very limited by the idea that the only samples we could research were the serial killers who wanted to engage with law enforcement. That classic setup we see all the time, he’s got a nickname, he’s sending trophies.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: But there was a whole class of serial killers out there who had no interest in fucking with the police, excuse my language.
Marcia Clark: Exactly.
Christopher Rice: And they were getting away with crimes all the time.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Excuse your language? Too late.
Christopher Rice: You shouldn’t say fuck and police in the same sentence.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Oh, okay.
Christopher Rice: But maybe we should have a little separation rule. But anyway…
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah, rules, that’s going to work.
Christopher Rice: Yeah, rules here on The Dinner Party Show.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: Anyway, so we were limited in our thinking about them. And those stereotypes permeated Hollywood, and then Hollywood amplifies them into the minds of the audience.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: And the audience is who’s turning on the news and expecting to see a certain three stories all the time.
Marcia Clark: It’s absolutely true, Chris. And it’s really interesting to me, Hollywood has really glorified the genius psychopath, the genius serial killer, he outsmarts all the police.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Right?
Marcia Clark: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, bullshit. I’m sorry.
Eric Shaw Quinn: It almost drives me crazy.
Marcia Clark: It’s really—
Eric Shaw Quinn: Some—
Marcia Clark: Yes.
Eric Shaw Quinn: I ended up losing… I started as a fan of, what was Kevin’s show?
Christopher Rice: The Following.
Eric Shaw Quinn: The Following.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: Oh, yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: I started as a fan, but it reached a point where it was like, “Well, all right, I just can’t do this anymore.”
Marcia Clark: It’s just too absurd…
Eric Shaw Quinn: It’s just…
Marcia Clark: Right.
Eric Shaw Quinn: The police are just not this stupid.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: The country would just implode if public officials were really…
Marcia Clark: Right.
Christopher Rice: But also-
Marcia Clark: And the psychopaths are not that smart.
Christopher Rice: Yes.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yes.
Christopher Rice: The psychopaths are not that brilliant.
Marcia Clark: That’s right.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: Exactly. So what makes it hard to catch them is they don’t act on motives that are understandable, or you can’t logic your way through their motives.
Christopher Rice: Right, right.
Marcia Clark: So they strike at random, they strike on impulse, but that’s the kind of killer that’s hard to catch. It’s not that they’re so smart.
Christopher Rice: Yes, yes.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Right. It’s that they’re so completely random that there’s no pattern to identify them with.
Christopher Rice: Do you think it’s safe to say that most murders, or most homicides, or acts of sort of drunken rage slash desperation, that they’re almost crimes that are sloppy? Not to mitigate the loss of life with that word, but I remember things changing for how I perceived law enforcement when I finally watched that show, The First 48, which is basically, I think it’s on The Learning Channel or something like that, and it just follows a murder investigation. And I guess it’s because if they don’t solve it in the first 48, they’re not going to solve it. That’s usually what they say.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: If they don’t have a suspect?
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: But what the show proves is that it’s often very easy to solve it in the first 48.
Marcia Clark: Oh, I got to tell you, that’s the funny thing about working in the criminal justice system is people say, “Oh, you must get all your stories that you write in your novels from there.” Oh, I wish.
Christopher Rice: Yeah. Right.
Marcia Clark: But no, the truth of the matter is, the typical run-of-the-mill case, and I mean 99% of the cases I have, and I’m still handling, are so boring and so simple and ridiculous. Chewy shoots Johnny in the liquor store, because Johnny has his Walkman or whatever.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah, right.
Marcia Clark: I dated myself. Walkman, oh my God. Nobody has a Walkman anymore.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Walkman. Wow.
Marcia Clark: Oh, jeez. Flashback.
Christopher Rice: Disc man, yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: His boombox.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: Oh, dear God. 2008 is not even… Nevermind.
Christopher Rice: I know.
Marcia Clark: But I mean, they’re all like that.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: They’re really, really dumb, and they’re 1, 2, 3 step crimes. So when you get something that’s more complex, something that has a lot more to it, it becomes a much more difficult thing. And one of the things that makes it have more to it is when you have a motive that’s not explicable. Typically, most crimes involve either rival gangs, or somebody you know, a husband or a wife or something like that.
Christopher Rice:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what a friend of mine, a writer friend, said that the Houston Police had said they way to not get murdered is to not either cheat or sleep with somebody else’s spouse in Houston. If you didn’t do either of those things, you had a fighting chance of not getting shot.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Well, I think that’s pretty good advice, even if guns aren’t involved.
Christopher Rice: I think it’s great advice. I do. I do.
Marcia Clark: So anyway, that’s what The Competition is about. And it was just one of those, I thought, “This is a tough subject.” And then unfortunately, Sandy Hook happened, and now so many, and then after that, one after another another, we wound up…
Eric Shaw Quinn: Something like 75 so far this year or something…
Christopher Rice: Unbelievable.
Eric Shaw Quinn: …since Sandy Hook. It’s…
Christopher Rice: Unbelievable.
Eric Shaw Quinn: …unbelievable.
Marcia Clark: It really is.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Weekly.
Marcia Clark: It really is.
Christopher Rice: It sounds like you went through the same thing that most people who are in favor of gun control go through, which is that the window of when we were asked not to talk about it, it’s too soon. It just kept coming. It was always too soon…
Marcia Clark: Yeah. It was always too soon.
Christopher Rice: …from the last shooting. And I finally lost it on Facebook one day, and I said, “How many more children have to die…
Marcia Clark: Right.
Christopher Rice: …before we’re allowed to talk about this subject?” But I think you’re right. I think the other thing we’re talking about is this unwillingness to adopt a multi-pronged approach to anything. “It needs to be either this, or it needs to be that.”
Marcia Clark: Yeah. Yeah.
Christopher Rice: Like God forbid, we try everything to stop something that’s this big a problem.
Marcia Clark: This big, yeah, and continuing, ongoing problem.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: And to me, people love to vilify the parents.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: “How could the parents not know? How could they,” blah, blah, blah. Okay. You know what? It’s really easy not to know. Barbara Walters did the interview of the Santa Barbara shooter’s father, and he’s a normal guy. He’s a good guy. And he was in touch with his son, and he was trying to keep on top of things. But these guys know how to hide what they’re doing. They’re not stupid necessarily.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: I mean, they don’t have to be a genius not to say to Dad, “I want to go shoot Mommy.” You know?
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: I mean, they don’t talk about it. So you can see that… Here’s the thing that was, to me, one of the key issues is you can see that your son, for example, is antisocial. He’s reclusive, he doesn’t have a lot of friends, he’s not a very happy kid. But how do you draw the equation from that to mass murder?
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: I mean, how do you make that leap? How do you say, “Okay, well, my kid isn’t getting along with friends very well. Therefore, I have to go search his room for guns and watch out on YouTube?”
Eric Shaw Quinn: Read his diary for plans to…
Christopher Rice: Right, right.
Eric Shaw Quinn: …kill everybody at school or whatever. Yeah. I mean, nobody wants to think that of their own child. And it’s not anybody’s first thought.
Christopher Rice: No. And it adds to the roster of terrible fears parents have already.
Marcia Clark: Oh, yeah.
Christopher Rice: And they all already want to search the room for drugs all the time, I’m sure.
Marcia Clark: Right. Right.
Eric Shaw Quinn: And the teenagers are already lying secretive little bastards.
Christopher Rice: I know. Right?
Marcia Clark: They all are though.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Right. I was.
Marcia Clark: I was too.
Christopher Rice: I was all right. I was a little evasive. Though, the other thing that it made me think of is… Oh, the thought just went out of my head. We were… Oh, yeah. I finally realized, when we were all attached to that narrative about Columbine and school shooters were all bullied victims, it was like, “I know a lot of bullying victims who did not shoot up their school.”
Marcia Clark: Amen. And there you go. And there you go.
Christopher Rice: I’m one. You’re one.
Marcia Clark: Right.
Christopher Rice: We were bullied in various ways.
Marcia Clark: Right.
Christopher Rice: And we… So there’s something else there that needs to be examined.
Marcia Clark: Yes.
Christopher Rice: It’s not… We’re not the control group. It’s… Yeah.
Marcia Clark: No, exactly. And here’s the thing, I mean, people were looking at the Santa Barbara shooter, and he was complaining, whining on the video about women who would not sleep with him.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: “Look at me, I’m gorgeous, and women won’t sleep with me,” as though that is actually a reason. It’s not a reason. He would’ve found something else…
Christopher Rice: Right. Thank you.
Marcia Clark: …if it hadn’t been that.
Christopher Rice: That’s it. That’s it.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: Almost… That’s what I’ve come to believe from reading mountains of crime fiction and from having friends like you, who know what they’re talking about, that a psychopath or somebody with homicidal urges will find any excuse to act on them.
Marcia Clark: Exactly.
Christopher Rice: In this country, you may become a terrorist, because it gives you license to murder. In this country, you may become a domestic terrorist and say you’re all about the flag.
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice: It’s just…
Eric Shaw Quinn: Or abortion rights.
Christopher Rice: Yeah, exactly. Which I think often goes that way.
Eric Shaw Quinn: It’s okay for me to kill doctors because I’m trying to save lives.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Like, okay.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: I’m not sure how that works exactly. But…
Marcia Clark: Yeah.
Christopher Rice:
There are people who have an overpowering urge to kill other people…
Eric Shaw Quinn:
Right.
Christopher Rice:
… and there are people who don’t.
Marcia Clark: Exactly.
Christopher Rice: And I think-
Eric Shaw Quinn: And they’re just looking for an excuse to kill other people.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: And there will… Yes. And if it’s not this, it’ll be that.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Right.
Marcia Clark: So, “I saw too many blue cars today. Oh, that’s it.” You know?
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: And the other thing is to empower the parents.
Christopher Rice: Mm-hmm.
Marcia Clark: Like you had… The shooter in Sandy Hook is a good example. His mom was on top of things, and she was actually trying to handle it.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: She did it in a misguided way…
Christopher Rice: But it was also…
Marcia Clark: …but she was trying.
Christopher Rice: Oh, Sandy Hook. I’m sorry.
Marcia Clark: Sandy Hook.
Christopher Rice: I was going to say that Santa Barbara shooter was college age.
Marcia Clark: No.
Christopher Rice: But yeah, Sandy Hook, we’re talking about a very young man. Yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Yeah. He was living in the house.
Marcia Clark: Yeah, he was living in the house. Well, actually, he was 19. But he had lived at home and been homeschooled for such a long time.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: And she knew he had a problem.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: And he was diagnosed with Asperger’s.
Christopher Rice: Yes.
Marcia Clark: As was the Santa Barbara shooter. And I do think that there’s… It’s not an alarming coincidence that both got Asperger’s diagnoses. I think therapists are afraid to give the psychopath label. It’s such a dire diagnosis, and Asperger’s can share some characteristics in other… Asperger’s, by the way, is not associated with violent conduct.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: And that’s why it’s really bad that they did that, because an Asperger’s diagnosis does not make you worry about guns, et cetera.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: But it is a misdiagnosis, in my opinion.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: But in Sandy Hook, she tried to engage with him in the way that she was advised to engage. They say Asperger’s kids have a tendency to have narrow focus on what they’re interested in, one thing.
Christopher Rice: Right, right.
Marcia Clark: They’ll get really obsessed. His one thing was guns.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: Okay. Right?
Christopher Rice: Yeah. Right.
Eric Shaw Quinn: Right.
Marcia Clark: So she buys him guns, she buys herself guns. She takes him shooting in order to try and relate to him, because that’s what they told her to do.
Christopher Rice: Right.
Marcia Clark: Okay. That was the wrong thing to tell her.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Marcia Clark: I mean, of all things to have him do.
Christopher Rice:
Right.
Marcia Clark: But you need therapists to be honest and think about the whole range of possibilities.
Christopher Rice: Absolutely.
Marcia Clark: Not just the most benign.
Christopher Rice: Marcia Clark, you make me wish we still did a two-hour show.
Eric Shaw Quinn: I have one last question, I know it’s going to infringe on our final time.
Christopher Rice: We have one minute.
Eric Shaw Quinn: But okay. So why is it called The Competition?
Marcia Clark: Because the shooters in that case are trying to outdo all other shooters.
Christopher Rice: Ah, I see.
Eric Shaw Quinn: And there we are.
Marcia Clark: Which they do. Which they do.
Eric Shaw Quinn: So it’s The Competition.
Christopher Rice: The Competition, it’s on sale next week?
Marcia Clark: Yes. July 8th.
Christopher Rice: And we have pre-order links for Barnes and Noble, and I believe iBooks up at thedinnerpartyshow.com. We love having you here.
Marcia Clark: I love being here.
Christopher Rice: It’s always great.
Marcia Clark: It’s always so fun.
Christopher Rice: The party people love you, and they love your voice, I’m hearing.
Marcia Clark: Oh.
Christopher Rice: They love hearing you talk, and we hope you’ll come back very soon.
Marcia Clark: Of course.
Christopher Rice: We’ll have you.
Marcia Clark: I love you guys so much.
Christopher Rice: Yeah.
Eric Shaw Quinn: You can move into the lead. You’ll beat out Alec Mapa and Anne Rice as our most frequent guest.
Christopher Rice: Absolutely.
Marcia Clark: I live for that.
Eric Shaw Quinn: The Frequent Diners Club.
Christopher Rice: Excellent.
Marcia Clark: The Frequent Diner… Oh, do I get miles? Okay.
Christopher Rice: Yes, you’ll get… We’ll put you… We’ll make you part of our rewards program here on The Dinner Party Show. We’ll be back in just a minute. In the meantime, here is a word from one of our sponsors.
The Dinner Party Show with Christopher Rice & Eric Shaw Quinn podcast
