6 – Sisterhood
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IT was a grim little ceremony. The restructuring of Victor palo log at the conclusion of his murder trial, the shuffling out of the courtroom and off to prison closure is the word that gets tossed out to meet such moments. No such thing, of course, nor do the trial or the verdict of the sentencing bring healing to Christian's parents. Now they knew they would live every day with sorrow, even their moments of happiness shot through with gray, like an overcast day.

I have grandchildren. I have, you know, the blessing of so many things in life. However, there's always, always this element of knowing that Christie is missing .

just twenty one and quite suddenly, just gone. She's not on vacation. No, she's not ever gonna part of you. My daughter's live and secretly sad because he is a really great person, so much he might have done, might have been perhaps like the other women have done, and have been the ones who survived. Victor palo locus. In this episode, you will hear how that group of strangers, connected only by their close calls with Christie killer, formed of family of sorts, a sister hood with a mission.

And twenty five years we're going to be there with balls on and say, don't let the sky out.

You will hear about one of those women hounded by an assistant. Suspicion undertook an investigation of her own. Had Victor paleologus murdered .

before he had seen my one. Jane, okay. And he had asked me if I i'd ever heard of the name Victor palo logo, which at the time I had not.

And you here how that investigation LED to a high stakes meeting with pavior logis himself in the prisoner ard.

I wanted him to know that I wasn't scared of him.

I'm Keith Morrison. And this is murder in the hollywood hills, a podcast from date line. Episode six, sister hood.

IT was a day after moving day, one of those days when a new house or apartment is cuttee with boxes. And the job of on tacking them all seems very daunting. IT had been a hectic couple of days, sweeping out the old place, moving into the new one. Katha bono had just taken a break from unwrapping dishes and pictures and nickname and collapsed into a come free chair. That's when he heard a close friend who was helping your settled in open the random box of books.

On top of that box, uh, was a book that someone had written about this case. And my friend sees my photo on the cover of this book, and she's, what the hell is this? What is? What is this book?

IT was a book about Victor palo logue and the Christie Johnson case, Katherine mist on the cover. The publisher had used all drivers license photos. Hers and the other women would encounter that guy. The photos were not flattering, looked like mug shots, like SHE and the other women, where the criminals Kathy let out a big side. IT was a long story, he said.

So I told to the story of the child I testified that you know several years before and um SHE hadn't heard that before and this friend of mine was an indian ilm producer and he was enthralled by the story and .

just I never heard before thy talked the more interested the friend became might be a few minute he told Cathy a documentary, a story about women battening together to take down the predator. Mind you, this was four years before the meet to movement brought about a national reckoning for men who use positions of power to sexually abuse women.

We decided we wanted to make a documentary about the women who testified in this case, because IT was their collective testimony that pretty much tip the scales in the prosecutions favor.

And so that how the project was born to make a film that would tell the story of the women who brought down a predator.

I wanted to put all of these women who stepped up on this case to talk to each other. Know we've never met each other?

No, because during the trial they had to be cyl. Oed kept away from each other. Each one of them walked into the courtroom alone and walked out alone, so they had not heard each other stories that no real idea how they all fit together. I wanted to meet.

I wanted to know how they felt about IT, and I wanted to know if they knew that what we had done together had sell. He was.

March twenty thirteen, when that idea for a documentary took rude, casey didn't know the finer details of the case, so SHE in her partner started by having coffee with Virginia, ia. Open chain, the now retired detector who d handle location from the beginning.

what I found out from her is that investigating him was kind of like investigating a ghost. They couldn't find much of anything. And so when the parade of women became the core of the case for the prosecution, there was to dig further into his history or his background.

And I still felt the need for that. I still felt the curiosity in knowing who is this person? Who are we dealing with?

Casey seems unica qualified to find out SHE not only at the time and the motivation sh'd also developed skills that few investigators poses and a psychotherapy.

I wasn't actually at one point .

that's right. After her first encounter with Victor seventeen years earlier, Cathy went back to school and became a license cycle therapist, and IT was that training. SHE said that let her to think Victor pillow gus might have left a longer trail of victims in his wake. And authorities knew about men in .

general will display their propensity for violence in the age range of eight to twenty four. Our first documented instance of Victor's violence is in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine, when he attacked Christian sion.

Christian inclusion, you remember, was the Young woman who had to fight for her life with paya logos after going out with him on the first date.

and by then he was already twenty seven years old. And also his motor's oper, andie showed a lot of signs of sophistication by then. So it's really highly unlikely that was his first defense.

Zoom Kathy's home became a repository for all things, pail logos, public records, business filings, credit applications, anything you can find really IT all helped fill in the gaps. Kathy, I learned in the Victor was the Youngest of four boys that he grew up in south jersey, the a son of a man who immigrated from greece and worked at a popular dinner in the area called augus vas. Cathy could tell vitter pilley logo had no recorded running with the law. As a kid in the seventies, the family moved to new mexico.

Another brother had actually out in new mexico, but then the whole family had moved back to the east coast after that. And that if he went to the university of new mexico.

Cathy tried contacting members of the party, August family that he is, but no luck.

No one in his family was responsive. They did not want to talk to me.

I would love .

to hear them there. All the gaps in in understanding Victor psychology .

after a college nature moved to L. A. Where, as we now know, the story got complicated. IT wasn't long before dockets, and transcripts covered Cathy's coffee table, stacks of police files and probationary reports were piled on the living room floor. I tried to .

look up his as addresses or places of where he may have lived or worked. I started by looking into those places for cold cases of missing women or unsolved murders that had an mo that might be similar to his or could be a king .

to his investigation. Deepen three by five index cards. So covered the wall, our home office, details of various jane dose contact names and numbers.

And then I would contact those law enforcement agencies about that case and ask them if they knew about Victor pillock as and that he had lived in their area before.

Most of those calls went nowhere, but in the spring of twenty fourteen, Kathy learned about a cal casson pensylvania. Some details of the case had been posted online.

but woman's skeleton was found thousand nine hundred eighty eight ben sale, pennsylvania, just a few miles from where Victor have an address.

The remains were believed to be that of a Young woman between fifteen and twenty one years old 了 investig estimated and dead for three to five years when her remains were found in one thousand and eighty eight。

In a location where you'd have to be a local to know this area, IT was behind this abandoned distillery, and he was down in a bunker hole underground.

Cathy might have skipped over the story, gone on to some other case, but a few details about that poor Young woman fate jumped out at her like a caso gush.

Pse SHE had the heels, the stockings, a skirt and a chemise le.

not exactly like the outfits Victorias his victims to wear, but so very similar. And as he read on SHE thought this guy was into that same sex fantasy.

Another thing that stuck out to me with these heels, as they were not the right size for her feet, and there were cuts made back in the scenes on the ends of the shoes, almost as though SHE was wearing someone else's shoes, or maybe someone .

had brought them for her the full blown girl fanta baila logi encounter. Maybe IT was an early version.

They are not the White button down the shirt. They are not the black skirt. IT is not the black steltz. But IT could be an early attempt at holding this fantasy before he got really into the details of his specific preferences. Kathy called the .

number of the detective and benny em, who is handling in the case.

SHE told me who he was, and he was calling me about one of the the cases I .

had on the internet, that detective Christmas moon .

SHE asked me if I had ever heard of the name Victor pala logos, which at the time I had not. And SHE told me that he used to live in bensalem at one time, which were located just outside.

A little checking revealed that Victor moved out west before that girl was killed. But Kathy wonder, what if Victor had met this janae well back east visiting family? The stranger, perhaps, if he theory but enough to launch across country collaboration between the detective and the filmmaker. I know.

like here is about here, that seventy two degree is funny.

Guys been raining for two days away here. Cathy recorded this goal for the documentary he was working on. You've already heard several excerpts from that project in this episode. You will hear even more.

You were able to D N A of the body, right?

Yeah, heard D N A, heard D N A in the code system, or I need is the surviving family members say, hey, I missed and a sister.

i'm missing a daughter. The detective paid a visit to one of pay ilog s brothers and that the detective recently told us the brother confirmed that Victor had, in fact returned to the area to visit. One of those visits was in nineteen eighty five. That seems significant because that was about the time IT was estimated his je du had died.

He told me that Victor was at his wedding, and his wedding wasn't town. And that was one of the theory I thought we're making. Or did he bring a guest in a wedding?

The brother didn't remember. But there was just one other thing about this, jane doe, that the detective thought might help by the fire or maybe lead to a boyfriend. Fetal bones, they're been found among the remains. This jan du was pregnant when he encountered her killer.

I kept saying all along, somebody has got to be missing this girl. And the fact that he was pregnant made me think .

that even more, and if DNA testing might identify the baby's father and Kathy wanted to know if that father might be Victor. Patio logos. Long shot, yes, one with problems. Problem number one was there wasn't enough DNA in those bones to upload decoder, the national DNA data bank, for comparison with millions of other samples. There was, however, enough DNA for a partial profile of the father. What the detective needed was a DNA sample from Victor for a direct comparison, which brings us the problem number two, california refuse to give up a sample of patio logis DNA for a cold case fishing expedition.

California didn't want to play ball with us on that. So we want through IT, we obtained in other ways.

The other way. That's where ono comes in.

So I decided to go in and come out with his DNA, if possible, and a confession of killing Christ, if I.

Msnbc films presents the things in chronically, a new four part series from nbc. New study featured decades of investigative reporting from deadline producer dan slavia that exposes the injustices of wrongful convictions.

I Better have my life in prison .

and time we can get .

back first two episodes, previous charity and nine P, M, ister on M, S, N, B, C.

By march twenty sixteen, Kathy to bono had three years invested in her documentary project. SHE talked to all the women who testified that Victor pei logis trial and several more who had not SHE had interviewed forensic psychologists, handwriting experts. Sh'd even got judge Robert perrie just had down for an interview .

about the case. So thank you so much for doing this.

Well, to me, this is an important case. The judge, remember the case? Well, there are bad people out there who will pray on Young women, and that's what happened here.

But now IT was time to shoot one of her movies, biggest scenes, the one where he brings together all the people who testified as the bai logue trial. I am so lovely that we all have a chance to meet each other today. IT was a three day weekend and city ago.

Terry hall and .

Susan Murphy was there. So were Alice Walker and Christine .

inclusion. I'm Christine.

Nice to meet you. Paul K. D. Came the real agent about a week house with Victor. Thank you, you guys, for having me here. And so did Christy's brother, Derek, and a couple of her best friends from sogo talk.

what do you .

want to know? Camera, cruise room, the big house. Care to the occasion. Iod, for the most Sparked by that most unusual gathering. And I thank .

you all for coming, because without you, I probably couldn't do as much justice as i'd like for for Christy's life.

During that remarkable weekend, the strangers became friends and listened as friends to each .

other stories. In third, MRI was murdered here.

They could let themselves be vulnerable and share IT all.

It's one of the moment of my life ulnar forget. I'm super grateful that I was able to .

be of help that Susan Murphy talking.

We ve got this group together now, and we've got a story to tell that hopefully a cautionary tale for for other Young people.

As a woman talked, IT became clear that they're had strong feelings about the tales they wanted to tell, not one of victimization, no one of empowerment, and who Better to tell IT than someone who'd also been one of play legacy targets.

I've done every interview for every immediate outlet, and they always get the story wrong. They're not stress enough how cunning and how subset table people can be to this kind of evil.

The Cathy understanding Victor patio logical psychology was key to demonstrating why he was a criminal who could never be rehabilitated ated. A predator who should never be paro.

When you look at vict pillows, is he really waves of flag in the in the face of anyone that has insight into any of this, that he might be .

psychopathic? But IT wasn't enough to just toss out claim like that. After Cathy SHE wanted to understand, he wanted to say IT with some authority.

So I wouldn't got trained by a the dark stone group. They are the people .

that trained the FBI profilers all too well, but would surely happen if SHE didn't get that training.

If you are a woman and you associated with the case like this, there's almost a glass wall that comes down in front of you where people can't really hear you anymore. They can't hear certain details. This is something we've heard women say forever.

Nobody y's listening to me. So what I wanted to do by getting this training was make sure that I could talk about Victor in terms of his psychopathy and in terms of his criminality, a very informed, educated way that really makes my voice worth listening to. And that's what I I went and make sure that I did really on.

Cathy started writing to Victor palo logos in prison and first to ask for a native view. And even though he declined, the correspondence continued.

I tried to make IT as appealing to him as possible. And the entirety of our letter's exchange could almost be seen as a bit of a chess game because there was a lot of strategy going .

on for three years. They wrote to each other about hobbies and interests, jobs and pets, travel occasionally. They flattered each other, almost like they were flaring. One letter, the play logos sent Cathy, was positively pornographic. The letter described his fantasies involving disturbing scenes that combine sex and violence.

I A lot of feelings about receiving this letter. There were mixed emotions. One of them was just satisfaction that I was able to earn his trust enough to to get him to talk to me in that way, to be able to learn what I wanted to learn, and then anger, knowing that that's what he actually wanted to do to me. That's what he wanted to do to other women.

Using a standard checklist method of assessing the metal makeup of people thought to have neuropsychiatric resorters or soppose y Cathy reviewed all that he knew about. Victor patio logis SHE talked to people who known him personally and professionally over the years. Je scored his letters jig, graded his relationships, rated his criminal history. And this is what you found.

if the highest score in a psychopathy report that you can have is a forty, Victor is a thirty six point eight. And this is a score that I gave him keep by allowing any kind of allowances that I could in the instrument for bringing that score down. And Victor is still a thirty six point eight on the psychopathy scale.

He is a severe psychopath. And with that, you can pretty much expect, uh, certain things out of that. Character psychology is a personality structure. And so with that, you can expect certain things.

What kind of things? Well, compulsive lying, for one.

there are really good on their feet. And someone like Victor is gonna very successful in. There was regularly moments .

i'd seen that up close, first hand, and soon enough. So what? Cai, in twenty seventeen, after years of study, the man, years of letter writing and relationship building, Kathy was ready to make her move.

I'd always known that creating this dynamic word, Victor, would lead to a day where I would visit him in prison and talk to him in person, because really my ultimate goal was i'm gonna get him to trust me, and i'm gonna him to tell .

me he killed Christi and to get A G S D N. A for comparison that jane doe cold case back in pensylvania. So on the Sunny sunday in july, Cathy walked into the california state prison for men in china. IT was Victor pay leo gus birthday, and Kathy's visit was a surprise. No cameras or recording devices were allowed on the inside, but waiting in the parking lot was her filmmaking crew.

And so waiting in my van with my production team was a forensic scientist and her kid to collect whatever was that .

I brought out on her right middle finger. Cathy placed one of those fabric feeling bandages, which he hoped to rub against party logos together, his DNA, because he was in a medium security prison. Gards LED her to an outdoor chard, told her, hill, meet you here. So i'm sitting at the .

picture table. He comes out of the prison and his walking towards me. So I stood up and walked towards him, and I did not want him getting towards me and over me.

I wasn't nervous. Um I walked straight up to him and just went in for a kiss and I kissed him on the cheek. I let him kiss me on the cheek.

I made mental note of where his lips touched me and I thought, okay, got a DNA. So we SAT down and he put his arms on the table, and I could see that he had saved his arms. So this was the perfect opportunity to reach over with my banded and robs arms and say, oh, I see that you shaved your arms.

Oh, my. He wouldn't seen that as they come on at all.

Well, now he did. He did. Saw that is a bit of a come for .

three hours at cathi. They SAT there in that prisoner ard. A casual observer might have thought they were star crossed lovers, hands touching, gazing intently into each other's eyes.

But remember, they used to be an actress. The skill said that was coming in handy. Now I can .

still see in my mind's, I K, he would reach over with his hand and sort of stroke my hand a little bit. I just allowed ed IT at that point um he wanted to drink. I bought him a drink.

He wanted a monster drink. He drink that. And that was also something I collected .

with me on the way out a treasure drew .

of DNA got we got plenty of plenty ful amount of his DNA 呀。

Of course, Cathy went in with the intention of getting more than Victor pii. Logan s. DNA. SHE wanted him to feel comfortable enough with her to talk about Christie Johnson, and SHE said, he did. I asked him to talk to me about IT.

I said, you tell me what happened with Christ? No, you know, you don't want to hear about that. I do.

I wanna hear about that. I want to to know. I wanna about that.

And basically, he gave me a story of consensual sex. They were playing with erotic as fixation. IT went so far, and IT was an accident, and then he panicked. That was his story.

IT was alive, of course. Yet another self serving story likely imagined in the moment.

We obviously know that this isn't true because he's sitting. They are talking to a woman who he tried exactly the same rules on.

but SHE didn't push back. SHE didn't confront him not that day. That day was for pretending he believed him. Kathy was playing the long game.

I was not done talking with him or holding onto this dynamic I created with him, where he felt safe enough to tell me things like this. So therefore .

the relationship of some relationship with him continued.

I still needed something that would be useful at a perl hearing to demonstrate that he is not reformed, he is not remorseful, and that he still is divided in his sexual desires. You couple of that with his left of psychopathy, and he remains a recidivist risk for the rest of his life. There is no drop off.

but but as as as an ox gene, and you could still be considered a risk for sexual violence.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Athi devona had every reason to believe that day in two thousand and seventeen that IT would be a long, long time before Victor dia augus ever became eligible for parole. Why couldn't see even judge Perry, the judge hood, sentenced him at a shorter SHE need not worry about Victor pai logos being paroled if I have someone i've sent to prison coming up for poor hearing about the letter from the poll boards saying, do you care to .

comment generally I don't at.

oh.

probably not IT wouldn't concern you that a Pearl board may. But now I think .

the parle board pretty, pretty much does this job.

You know he was on pro and he killed Christie.

He sure was. It's really disappointing that someone goes to prison and within a few weeks of coming out of prison is right back doing the same thing. Disappointing, yes, but in twenty fourteen, when that interview was recorded, that seemed unlikely to happen again, the least as far as vector period gus was concerned.

He was fifty two that year in facing at least another fourteen years in prison, but in twenty twenty two, california instituted an elder parole program to reduce prison overcrowding. And in the fall of twenty twenty three, Victor paya logis became eligible for parole because he met the state's minimum conditions for early release. He was over fifty, and he'd been incarcerated for twenty years. There was no announcement. There was no heads up given to the family of Christ.

Johnson IT was a surprise to us that he came up five years before what was aboriginally anticipated.

Mom Terry hall. He murdered .

Christian weeks after he was released last time. So I think i've speaks pretty highly. And what gonna en, if he's released to come.

M S, N B C films presents the syn chronically, a new four part series from nbc news studio featured decades of investigative reporting from deadline producer dan slavia that exposes the injustices of wrongful convictions.

I still have my life in prison.

and this time we can get back .

the sync critics. First two episodes premiere saturday at nine pm. Ter on msnbc.

In the ear, cathie bona worked on her documentary SHE experienced all the travellers of an independent film m maker. Her partner left the project. Funding dried up.

At one point, a big cable network stepped in with money to complete the project. IT was Green left for eight episodes, but pretty soon Cathy saw that the network brass at a different vision for her project. Then he did not. Eventually, the whole thing was shield.

When the documentary ended in the end of twenty seventeen, things had gotten so intense and stressful, not even necessarily because of dealing with Victor, but because of the network executives I was dealing with.

Even the DNA sample SHE gotten from Victor during that prison visit went nowhere. Paugus was not a match for the veto. Bones recovered alongside the pensylvania, a jane doe. Still, though he obviously wasn't the father that unborn child, could he still be a suspect and Young woman's murder? Yes, he could be IT doesn't clear him.

I mean, he, in my opinion, he's still a strong person of interest, but it's circumstantial.

That's been salem detective Christmas mullen.

There was a lot of circumstantial reason that know I I listened to Cathy and took a good, hard look at at Victor.

a good, hard look at all of IT, which, after an extensive search of several geneology ical data bases, produced a name, detective mcmullan was finally able to identify his jane doe in twenty body two. Her name was lisa todd, just seventeen years old when he vanished in one hundred and eighty five. Her home in northeast philadelphy was about a fifteen minute drive from the spot where her bones were found three years later. Why I had to taken thirty three years to identify lisa, call IT a clerical error.

In october of nineteen, nineteen eighty five, lisa had been reported as missing and even said he was pregnant. IT was just a few months later SHE heard a teeth. Th birthday passed and apparently he was .

just taken out of the system or simply slipped through a rather large crack. That was not, however, what happened with Victor piano gas. Early parole hearing that was intentional policy. Even this hearing was scheduled for november seven, twenty twenty three. Oh, IT was posted online in advance, alright, but IT seemed that anybody who might have wanted to speak in opposition to pay the logos parole was in the dark, unaware, uninformed Christies mom, Terry hall.

I was not notified the way I found out that I was coming up five years earlier than what they settle was was a close friend of wine was Ashley monitoring on a regular basis to see where the inmate was and to her surprise um realized that I was coming up uh prematurely .

that friend, the one who told Terry that pay illogical, was coming up for early parole won't you know IT was cafe the bono?

I have a the link to Victors cdc r page, that is california department of corrections page. It's in my books, barks. And every so often I just chek that page and I will tell me what his parole status is that how I learned that he was eligible for parole.

As you might imagine, a plan to oppose parole logos can together quickly. Once Cathy was on the case, parole IT had been the fear of all those who came to cashews gathering in santiago back in two thousand and sixteen, the fear that Victor pilot gust might one day be parole and be free to pray on someone else's daughter, Terry hall.

I would say there's zero chance that he would be rebilitate. There's one hundred percent chance that he's going to be even more of a danger under .

guideline set forth by the current los Angeles district attorney, George gas, prosecutors are not allowed to appear at pro hearings or speak in opposition to the inmates are all no that job falls to the victims and or someone they might design to speak.

IT was going to be Christie johnsen's mom, her dad, her brother. IT was going to be Christine inclusion, women that he did physically attack. And I was going to be me, and I was listed as the representative for some of these women so that I could speak while I was at this hearing.

What does surprise that would have been for Victor pi logue, seeing his old pen pal standing with the others who showed up to opposes parole. Well, IT never came to that months before that schedule. Hearing Victor paya logis waved his right to parole, did he know that his victims had organized to oppose spiral for him? We don't know. Victor pale augus did not respond to our request for a comment for this podcast.

I can only guess that that might be why he waved his poor hearing voluntarily for two more years. Maybe he looked at that day and thought, i'll never win on that day, I don't know.

could be, and but maybe he assumes you and the others were get tired of coming to hearings and he will snow through.

right? That's not gonna happen. We can't let that happen.

Palio gus will be eligible for parle again in twenty twenty five that again after that, every two years cassia bono and the other women have vowed to show up for every one of those buro hearings until the day Victor palo logis dies behind bars. It's been more than twenty one years, though, since the afternoon when the sky threatened rain and Christie Johnson stopped a little car in front of Douglas in france, while current lan's house to us for directions.

And I remember Douglas sort of coming in the house and saying, is another one of those like little hopeful girls who is going to a photo shoot um I hope she's going to be .

OK that france was current land. And of course, now we know Christie Johnson would not be OK SHE died one week shy of her twenty second birthday at the hands of a predator, one that was practiced at the art selling dreams.

Just tell all the Young girls to be very, very, very, very careful. Don't go, don't go to some strangers house with by yourself, you know, bring bring a, you know, a friend and make sure that you're safe, because this can happen again.

Oh yes, IT can and likely will happen again. There are plenty of creeps, predators out there, more perhaps than the cops and the courts can handle on any given day. But for the women was experiences with one.

Those predators made them as sisterhood. The lesson of the Christie Johnson case seems clear. Justice for those who've been victimized is a struggle, a struggle that never.

we need to say, active and in participation in these things, to make sure that the system stays locked down on guys like this, to make sure that we've follow through that. The unfortunate thing about being a victim is you have to participate fiercely fierce in what happens next, or IT just .

goes away.

Murder in the hollywood hills is a production of date line, and nbc news tib chem is a producer, ryan drew Kelly a dean, and martial house fell their audio editors cars and commons and kiani read or associate CER adam gordin is co executive producer, paul ryan is executive producer, and lisco is senior executive producer. Remind me news audio sound mixing by bob malaria, castine Anderson, Price and barns is head of audio production.

Hey, guys, really guys here, we're not going to check out the sunday sit down podcast on this weeks episode. I get together with the one and only hugh grant to talk about his chilling new film, heroic and a four decade run of unforgettable movies. You can find our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.