Mapping the Night

05/04/24 • 39 min

Crime movies, documentaries and literature come in several genres: True Crime (just the facts, Ma’am), “Non-Fiction Novel,” (made famous by Truman Capote with his masterpiece, In Cold Blood) and pure fiction. But even with fictitious crime novels, there are hybrid approaches. Some are “based on a true story,” or “inspired by a true story,” or “drawn from today’s headlines.”

Mapping the Night by David Bethel, falls comfortably into that last category. Drawn from an actual murder case that took place in New York City, it is meticulously researched, authentic, with just the right amount of humor, arising from the interaction of the participants.

It is my pleasure to welcome author David Bethel to Murder Most Foul.

It is my pleasure to welcome author David Bethel to Murder Most Foul.

Previous Episode

Butcher Baker

To all who knew him, Robert Hansen was a typical hardworking businessman, husband, and father. But hidden beneath the veneer of mild respectability was a monster whose depraved appetites could not be sated. From 1971 to 1983, Hansen was a human predator, stalking women on the edges of Anchorage society—women whose disappearances would cause scant outcry, but whose gruesome fates would shock the nation. After his arrest, Hansen confessed to seventeen brutal murders, though authorities suspect there were more than thirty victims.

There are countless books, documentaries and movies about the monster who came to be known as the “Butcher Baker.” But the book, by late Alaska State Trooper Walter Gilmour and author Leland E. Hale, is arguably the most complete and most compelling work to date. “Butcher Baker” tells the story of the most prolific serial killer in Alaskan history, from the dark urges that drove his madness, to the women who died at his hand, and finally, to the authorities who captured and convicted him.

My guest today is Leland E. Hale author of "Butcher Baker."

Next Episode

Fatal Attraction (Part Two)

In 1990, Jens Soering, a German honors student at the University of Virginia, was sentenced to life after a spectacular televised trial for the 1985 murders of his lover’s Elizabeth’s parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom. In a classic example of “he said/she said,” at their trials the star-crossed lovers each pointed the finger at the other as the actual murderer. Were Jens and Elizabeth Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? From his Virginia prison cell,Soering deployed his charm to create his own personal innocence project, recruiting celebrities such as Martin Sheen, John Grisham, Amanda Knox and even Angela Merkel.

Soering was paroled and deported to Germany in 2019. Soering sold the rights to his story and launched a media campaign which portrayed him as a victim of America’s cruel and arbitrary courts. Yet skeptics have questioned Soering’s claims, and he is now locked in a pitched battle to define his place in history.

A chief skeptic in the matter is Andrew Hammel, a bilingual German/English criminal lawyer and investigative journalist. Mr. Hammel traces the entire story, beginning with the bizarre romance which led to two gruesome killings. Drawing on five years of research and confidential sources with fresh revelations, Hammel takes the reader behind the scenes of one of the most extraordinary true-crime cases in modern history – and its equally gripping aftermath.