Levi's Eyes-An Interview with Aphrodite Jones

0:00 Hi guys, I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead, brought to you by Darkcast Network Indie Podcasts with a Twist. Hi, guys, welcome to the next chapter. As you can tell, this is a very special episode. In fact, it's a special bonus chapter because this is an exclusive interview with a powerhouse in the community. Today, I'm sitting down with Aphrodite Jones, best selling true crime author, investigative reporter, and television host. She is here with us to celebrate the release of her new true crime novel, Levi's Eyes. But before we get into that, we're going to hear some details about her career and her long fight in shedding light on the psyche of killers and exposing the ripple effects that every murder generates. Aphroditi, thank you so much for being here today. It is truly an honor. Thank you, Courtney. It's my honor. So obviously we are here to celebrate Levi's Eyes. This new book that you wrote. It came out on September twenty seventh, if I am correct, that's right, And before we get into that, I would love

1:32 to hear how did you get into true crime? How did your career start? Unlike what you might think, I'm going to say this was an accident for me, or a calling, is what I like to call it. I was a professor down in Appalaysia and I also did news broadcasting on the radio. And at that time a woman was killed by an FBI agent, and because she was a quote hillbilly, nobody paid attention to it. And what I couldn't understand. I know I was on the end of the world there in Appalasia, two and a half hours from an airport, but I didn't understand, where's the news? This happened in nineteen eighty nine, It's CNN's around everybody's Why isn't this being covered? This is the first agent in the history of the FBI to admit to murdering his informant. He copped a manslaughter plea, he was put in prison. How could no one pay attention to it? So, having said that, I decided I'm going to write a book. I got a hold of the family, I got a hold of all the police, etc. I did all the work I needed to do. Also got an agent because I wrote the right proposal and At the end of that that book was published and it became a movie for television called Betrayed by Love. Patricia Arquette played the woman who was killed, and that was kind of the start of the career. So my second book, which is Cruel Sacrifice, involved a ring of girls who were lesbian, or maybe not lesbian, because one the girl who was killed was twelve years old.

3:04 One of the most horrific crimes ever can't be really talked about. There's no TVs show about it, there's no movie based on it because it's that horrific. And that book became a New York Times bestseller out of the gate. So at that point in Courtney, I had no choice but to continue with true crime. Truly, I know it's a calling. I'm able to bring catharsis to the people who have suffered the victims, and I'm also able to get information out of killers that I don't know anyone else gets. For example, in Levi's eyes, Oh my God, people are reading and going this guy said this is you, like, oh what, how how does this happen? But an event, you know. By the time I wrote my third book, which was all she wanted, I've changed it to all he wanted. It was about a transgender murder that happened in nineteen ninety two, and at that time the word transgender was not in our vocabulary in this country at all. And they also add at that time gay people wanted nothing to do with transgender people. Just f yi okay. In other words, there's a Lilith fare which is for women. Transgender people were not invited or included in that. So Brandon Tina, who is the centerpiece of this was murdered because she was a woman living as a man. And in that story it became the movie Boys Don't Cry with Hilary Swank. It launched her career at Academy Award. But at the time, even that movie didn't quite understand the essence of being transgender, so that the girlfriend of Brandon was characterized as being

4:40 gay, and the woman, Lanta Tisdel, was brought out to Hollywood by the filmmakers Christine Bascham et cetera, and when to see a preview screen name. When she saw it, she ran out of the theater in tears, because again back then, nobody truly understood what transgender it was. It wasn't a name. It wasn't a word. It technically is being transsexual, which I studied medical books for the book. Then once I wrote that and the boys dn't probably came out, and you know, I kind of felt like I still wanted to walk away from it because you don't have to tell you and you're doing this in your show. It's very dark, and especially if I'm writing a book, it's not a SoundBite. I'm honestly involved with the people whose lives have been touched. And you say ripple effects and the killers and the victims' families in that case and for example, which I changed the name to all he wanted. Once I figured out, I see this was really not a shit he It was a hey that Brandon was was becoming or had become. There had been no hormones or surgery though, so this is early days, you know. And even once that happened, I realized this is a calling. I'm helping people. They're able to tell their story and make a difference with the story. And you know, many people have someone murdered in their life and it just goes unnoticed. I mean, let's face it, you can't write a book that every single murder there ever was unfortunately.

6:14 And so the victims and the stories that I write understand that, you know, I make them understand that you're going to be able to help other people with this, and they appreciate that because it's also not just cathartic for them to talk about it, but it's also gives them a sense of hope that they can make a difference rather than living in victimhood for the rest of their lives. It's just hard not to do. I mean, I get it, but you know, at some point you have to have your life back, absolutely, and I think what you're doing is so important. You are giving that voice to victims and their families that would not have one otherwise, based on the work you do, based on the books that you write, and it's I can only imagine how truly difficult that is, you know, cloaking yourself in such darkness, because obviously I have a taste of that doing the podcast and you know, reading the court documents, reading the medical records, and you know, speaking to victims' families, but it is not to the level that you do when it with all the work that it takes to write the books that you write, because these are not fiction novels.

7:28 This is real life, this is you know, these are the families, and the law enforcement and and the trials. This is a lot of dark, dark content. So how do you kind of keep yourself from syncing into these terrible things and you know, protecting your mental health. That's a good question. And I had to come to terms with that when I was writing Curl Sacrifice, because at that time I was still a professor, and I was writing this at night, and I was writing through the night, and I got to a point where I'd be writing seven days a week and I had no life. I wasn't even brushing my teeth, which is insane. And when it was all over, and again that was the most harrowing story I've ever dealt with, I realized, if I'm going to save myself, okay, and if I'm going to maintain and be and be kind of stuck in this genre, if you will, I got to have a different life.

8:24 So at five PM, I made the rule, no more writing. Five pm. Writing is over weekends, no writing zero. Although I have to say, on Levi's eyes, I made a couple exceptions because I was on a big deadline. Nonetheless, very few exceptions and I've been writing that book for two plus years. I just and in my other life, Courtney, I go out in boats, I go on the beach, I take my walks, I go jogging and do all. You know, I'm out with my friends. It's just a cut it, you know. And the people who are closest to me, no, I don't really want to talk about this stuff like read the books. They already know. They've read the book, they've seen me on twenty twenty, they've seen my TV show whatever.

9:07 I don't really like to dwell in it when I'm not writing it and so or covering it. And so that's really how I survived and having two personas if you will, you know, I'm one person when I'm in the crime world and a complete goofball when I'm not. I love that. I love that you have these almost like these this alter ego where you are Aphrediti Jones, the regular woman, and then you're Aphroditi Jones, this true crime fighter justice getter. I love that, and it's it's very true for those out there that are interested in true crime and interested in this line of work, you do so need that separation. You need to protect your mental health, because it can be so easy to have you spiraling exactly, and you know if you look at it. For example, a huge level of suicide comes in a profession like being a psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor why is that well, because you're taking in all this negative energy and you're trying to help someone. But the more negative energy you're taking in, the more it's affecting your psyche, whether it entes in your dreams, it enters in your daylight thinking, you know, daydream So again, you know, I, if I'm going to do this, which I realized I was going to be having to do this, that was that was my way out, you know.

10:37 And again, I don't think about it when I'm not writing. I don't think about it when and once the book's done, I don't even want to think about I'll talk about it, but I'm never looking at it again. I don't read it done like it's done. I am a very meticulous writer, very perfectionist if you will, And so I'll write a chapter over twenty times each chapter, I mean, it's not uncommon for me to do that. And once that's been done, and I've lived with it as long as I can possibly stand in the chapter's over, I don't ever want to see it again. That makes a lot of sense. I think once you get the words out and they are exactly what you want to say, exactly what you need to say, it's like you've purged it from yourself. It's gone totally. And purging is a good. Another thing I learned, and the way I learned to do this is anybody who wants to be in the true crime field or feels that they'll wind up in that, whether it's in law enforcement, whether it's in podcasting, broadcasting, et cetera, or writing books, is that you know, I learned a long time ago. Protect yourself, as you say, right, protect yourself, find a way to just excommunicate yourself from the horrors of crime. You've got to do it or you will suffer. And I know because I suffered with cool sacrifice. And then I fell back into it when I wrote the book Read Zone, the San Francisco dogmalling Diane Whipple was murdered, killed by two dogs and horror, horrifying

12:07 story. And in that story I wound up in that book, getting back into that vortex, and I almost didn't pull myself out and that's when I realized, Okay, that's it, that's it. I will give X amount of time to this, I will give X amount of space to this in my life. And then I got to have that other life. I've got to Absolutely, you have to have you. I always like to say that you have to protect your peace, and that's what you do by having that separation, that strict separation is protecting your piece, which is so important. It is it truly, truly is because like and then I talk about Carl Carlson, who's the subject matter of my new book, Levi's Eyes. This is a man who killed his own son. This is a man whose wife died in a fire, you know, thirty years prior, and he had gotten away with it until he was finally sentenced, convicted and there was a jury trial in California. This is somebody who is one of the darkest figures that I've dealt with for a long period of time. I spoke to him for two years Courtney, five days a week, for an hour every day, and taped all conversations with his permission, et cetera, which is unheard of before the trial, during the trial, and after the trial. Who does that no criminal I know in any event, all that dark energy from this man, I would literally shroud myself in a room that was dark, it was only audio, and I would have that dark room be the only

13:39 place I talked to him. And you know what I was going to say. When I did a PhD in literature, and one of the things you have to do is take qualifying exams, and those exams are a total of let's see, four hours ago, twelve hours. So one of the things that you're taught in trying to, you know, negotiate this because everything in anything that's ever been written in your field of literature will be you will be asked about in those twelve hours. In writing, people have said, just take everything that you just put together for the first two hours, you get an an hour and a half break in between, and throw it on the sidewalk. Forget it now, move to the next, you know, area that you need to be the expert in. And so that was another help to me, you know, to be able to realize you could just yeah, leave it on the sidewalk, put on a shelf. I don't need it's that's a great way I think of doing things, and a great way of approaching someone like him, you know, to protect your psyche and your piece. Speaking of Levi's eyes, why this case, why did you decide to write about this one? Okay? So this is a case I covered on my show True Crime on ID, and so I was already familiar with it when he had just taken plea deal admitting to not killing his son.

15:03 By the way, he admitted to seeing the truck drop on his son and walking away from the scene knowing that his son would die. That's as best as he was going to get to get a plea deal of fifteen years to life. Regardless, we find out from the tapes of his second wife that no, no, no, he admitted to her that he tipped the car over on his son. He had a seven hundred thousand dollars insurance policy that he coaxed his son into taking out a few weeks before the murder, and on the day Levi died, he brought his son into a bank to get a will motorized, and Levi I wrote a very short handwritten will that morning, saying I leave all my earthly possessions and whatever assets I had to my father to hold in place for my daughters because Levi had just gotten divorced.

15:52 It was an ugly divorce, and he felt that his ex wife would use the money for herself and not take care of the girls. So that what that was about. It's very rare, very rare to have a parent kill a biological child or any child, but in this case, for money. He wanted that money. His son became a meal ticket for him, which was also the case with Levi's mother, Christina Carlson, who's the one who perished in the fire in nineteen ninety one on New Year's Day. So, you know, I've had television stations come from all over the world about this, Japan, Korea. People are shocked that somebody is capable of this, and it's one thing, active passion. You know, there's a fight, there's there's issue. No, there was no fight. Levi happily went along and signed over that will on the same day he was murdered. That's a you're right. It is in the cases I've covered where mothers or fathers kill their children, and it is so rarely about money. And it's incredible to me the lengths that someone would go to in regards to greed. Well and So here's the other thing too go in this story, which makes it a trope, Which makes it even more important to me is as I started to research this, and remember I had already covered it on my show in twenty fourteen, after he had coughed a plea deal and was now in prison for the murder of his second degree homicide of his son Levi. I was wondering,

17:27 what's going to happen with Christina that murder that happened on New Year's Day in nineteen ninety one. Are they ever going to do anything about that? Because it was a closed case, it was considered an accident, same as Levi's. Well, sure enough, that case came to trial. It took many years, with a lot of finagal legal finesse with it. At the end of the day, I realized, oh, I'm just in time to attend that trial. I'd been waiting, and in twenty twenty January of twenty twenty and February of twenty twenty, I was out in California at his murder trial for first jury murder. He was convicted of it by a jury in California, and the sentencing was on March seventeenth, twenty twenty, and we all know what happened then, right, Yeah, the world's hut down, The world shutdown. And what did he do, this sniveling creep his daughters who now he has two daughters who he had now killed their brother Levi and killed their mother Christina. Okay, they're going to be in the courtroom to give their victim impact statements, as are Christina's family members, her father, Christina's sister, et cetera. What did he do? He claimed he had a fever. He felt like he had a fever. And back in those early days, you know, if somebody had a fever, you're like, stay away because it wasn't yet closed. Not everything was closed down. The courtroom was still open. People were there, and I wasn't because I'd have to fly from New York across the country, and I was like, you know what, I'm not getting on a plane. I don't know what's going on here. Cruise ships, planes, this is all not So. I was there for the verdict, but not for the sentencing. But he told

19:02 me, because he kept calling it, you know, long after the sentencing, that you know it was my lawyer suggested that I do that this way I would just watch it. I could hear it from the holding cell. In other words, he wasn't going to go out there and face his daughters or anybody else. He wasn't about to listen to anything in person that his family members would say to him about what he did to destroy their lives. And it shows just how much of a coward he is by doing that. Think you took away someone so loved and cherished, and you don't have the courtesy of doing the one thing that might lessen a little bit of their pain, by facing them and allowing them to tell you exactly how your actions impacted and will impact their lives exactly. And the other thing, too, is not It's not often, but many times the killer will say they're sorry to the victim's family, even if they don't want to make complete guilt. Let's say I'm so sorry this happened. You know, they didn't have that opportunity.

20:12 There was no opportunity to get their point across to him, which is the most important thing. But also to see his face like did he look regretful, did he look like did he look as though he you know, he regretted this, that he was apologetic? No they didn't get to see it because the coward that he is, sniveling as I call him, was sitting in the back room in a holding cell, listening on a speaker, listening, as he says, for all we know, he was tuned out, checked out. Good point, Courtney, because guess what when I asked him about the various statements of his two daughters and his brother and others had testified, he tho, I'm not sure what you know. I don't remember all of it, of course, right, so who knows what he was actually listening to? And of course he denied it, you know why, and whatever they had said, they're exaggerating, and you know, they made a big deal out of this when I never killed my son. I took a plea deal. I shouldn't have taken a plea deal. So all of that, this story has what we call in the business legs. So the fact that he had admitted to killing Levi actually allowed the California Police Law Enforcement the DA in San Andreas, Calaberas County, to open up the case against Christina. So that all of that sat around for twenty five years and nothing was happening because he had her cremated he moved out of town and went back to New York. And if you remember nineteen ninety, it was the first day of ninety one, so all those years ago. Once he left for

21:44 New York, which he did immediately after the memorial with his kids and his dog, they didn't have the resources in a small Calaberas county to go after him and fly people out to New York to do further interviews. So there was fire. Investigators had started the investigation. They believed he was guilty. He was interviewed in the beginning, so was his daughter, Aaron, who was six years old at the time of the fire. But they needed more, they needed more evidence, they needed to try to pin him down. But now he's in New York, he's upstate New York, and they don't They're denied the funding, so it's just sat there nothing. They just closed it as an accident and he was paid because it was an accident. He was paid two hundred thousand dollars for her life that he took it. It's so sad to look back and think about all of the cases like this one that happened twenty thirty years ago, where the resources weren't there where the technology wasn't there, and these people have gotten away with it simply because law enforcement didn't have those resources. But the fact that twenty five years after the fact, he finally got what was coming to him. At least it finally happened and the family got that justice, even though it took so long, they finally got their justice. And that is what is so important to me and to the Book of the Dead. And when we do these cases, it

23:15 doesn't matter how long it takes. Everyone deserves justice. Absolutely, one thousand percent. I agree. And you know in that case, in this case, the family of Christina out in California, her sister in particular, collect Lussan was hounding the prosecutors all along because something else happened in Carl's life, and that's called a fire, another fire at his farm in New York, where his prized horses, Belgian horses were died in the fire. And guess what he did. He had heavy insurance on those horses, which he upped the amount of two three weeks prior to the fire, and then the fire happened. It was also deemed an accident, so he killed is his prized horses. There's pictures in the book of him sitting on that horse, Ginger, who he loved, and he took to events, and I mean, think about it, killing a horse, killing these animals that are helpless.

24:15 It goes in line with he doesn't care about men, women, children, animals, nothing, Everything is there for him to devour and turn to money. And so when that happened, Christina's sister went to the authorities again in Caliber's County and said, look, here's another instance of an accident that's before Levi was killed, of an accident that matches perfectly with this accident that our sister, my sister was in and the fire, and they wouldn't reopen the case. It wasn't until Carlson took the plea deal and admitted that he left his son to die, which he did. This car he pushed the truck over on Levi. Okay, he pushed the truck over and he admitted that to his second wife, which was amazing because she was tremendous in getting that confession out of him. Anyway, so once that happened, that's when California opened it up again, and that's when the extradition process came and he was sent to California, and now he's going to face a trial. And now it was and here's the best part. The firing investigator of the lead investigator, Carl Kent, had done the original investigation and there was plenty on the fire scene for them to do that. They realized, they found where the kerosene was, they knew it was a double whore, all of this, and they had video recordings of the scene, they had audio recordings with him in the interviews. And he saved those boxes of materials because in that time

25:48 period a case that was left already considered to be not a criminal case, an accident, all those files would have been thrown out within seven years. He retired in nineteen ninety seven. The thing happened in nineteen ninety one. He took those files with him and stored them in his basement in a locked facility, so the chain of custody was clean because he was the lead investigator. And all of that were all the various reports from all the firefighters, etc. Tapes And had he not done that, there would have been no justice. But this man got on the stand and said, you know, I wasn't really kosher to take these boxes of evidence, but I knew that someday in the future we're going to need them, and I couldn't let them be destroyed. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, So he's a hero in all this. If not for Karl Kant, we would not have had justice here for Christina. Absolutely. The fact that it's like he had almost like this got feeling like I'm going to need these one day, right. I remember, he knew that children were there, and Carl saved his children out of that fire, So all three children. The problem is he took by his own account, which I don't necessarily believe, but by his own account, he grabbed Levi first. And what did he do with Levi? Levi is about to turn six, Okay, so he knows kind of what's going on. He takes Levi and puts him in his pickup truck and tells him to lay down on the floorboard and don't look up. Now, if you

27:22 have a burning house with your other two children, two daughters, and your wife in the burning house, who's going to take the time to walk out to your pickup truck, place your son in the air, tell him to lay down on the floorboard and close the door. The house is burning Yeah, there's there's there's a lot of questions there, I don't think and Levi didn't stay on the floorboard, that's the thing. So what did Levi see? What did he know? Absolutely? Absolutely what what did he see that day? And it makes me wonder if if what he possibly saw could have contributed to his death later on? And it did. It did because he confronted his father when he get old enough once And that's the weird part of this though. After the confrontation and after Carl denied it and Da da Dad, then he becomes close with his father again. He knows what he saw, but Carl is such a shape shifter that he's got his son exactly where he wants him. Their buddies again, they're working together. Everything's wonderful.

28:30 Let me help you take out an insurance policy for your girls. So how does levit go along with this? I think there's something to be said about a child wanting to believe the best in their parent. And it's so sad the way that a parent can take that on wavering love that a child has for them and twist it and manipulate it and destroy it in such terrible ways. And that's the thing. I mean, that's really at the crux of this story. But the other thing at the crux of this story, Courtney, is the fact that I had this unfettered access to this murderer for two years, and because of COVID that was the second year, because after he was sentenced, he was stuck in the Caliberis County jail because no one was moving anybody around. And so because he's in the jail for another nine months, he has complete access to the phones. And so we're talking five years a week. Why is that different than if you're in prison. Well, if you're in prison, just you understand because I also speak to prisoners.

29:32 I've gone into prisons, done those interviews. I have phone conversations that are recorded. But in a prison, you've got a lot of people, So people are waiting online for those phones. Right in a jail where he was stuck, people come in because they were drunk, because of some drunk driving or whatever. For one night, you're not living in the jail, but he was. So he was the rock star of the jail and he had all the access to everything because nobody else was really using these phones all day long. And so we would have these four or fifteen minute conversations because that's what you're allowed. And so through all of that, this man's bizarre mentality I was able to extract. And so when you read the book, you see it from some of it from his bizarre perspective, and then you also hear the things he said that will make your head spin. Okay, people think they know this story. It has been done on TV twenty twenty, Dateline, et cetera, et cetera, my show, a lot of shows, but it's not the same as getting into this psychopath's heat. And that's what I feel I've been able to accomplish here in the hopes that if you think somebody's like this in your life, perhaps you kind of get away from him or see something because that anybody said something or done something when the horses were killed, when Christina was killed, maybe Levi I would be alive.

31:00 And that almost leads me into my next question, how or why do you think he was so willing to talk to you and tell you everything? Because he is a narcissist, which is a big characteristic of a psychopath, and in his mind, any attention is good attention. And also you have to understand I know how to draw somebody out. So I'm not going to point fingers at him. I'm gonna let him tell me his story, because in his story he is so insane that none of it adds up. He's saying, well, you know, I didn't if I wanted to kill my wife or money in the fire, I could have left my children in there too, and then I would have collected double the money because he had insurance policies out of those children. I mean, who says this Not a good father, that's for sure. No, not a good father. A monster.

31:56 He's a monster, absolutely, an absolute monster. And it is so amazing that Levi got justice and everyone got justice, that family got justice, because at the end of the day, the fact that he got away with murdering his way for twenty five years is astounding, yep. But the fact that now he can no longer hurt his other children, his grandchildren, his family members, his animals, all for greed or for any other reason he wants to come up with in his mind, is so powerful. It is, and it's and you know, you just wish, thank god he's there.

32:42 He still thinks he's going to get out, by the way, he still writes to me, and he wants my help in getting them out. Now. The other weird thing, his second wife is the one who wore a wire and trapped him into confession. There was no evidence about Levi's death. It was ruled an accident. He was cremated just the same way Christina was cremated, so there's no evidence the other a truck fell on him. So the only way to get him arrested was to have him confess something to her. So she wore a wire and she was able to draw out slowly over a series of five different times that she met with him and taped conversations because at that point they were getting divorced. She was realized she was living with a killer. And the other thing she realized and found out from a private eye, is that he had taken out life insurance policies on their two granddaughters, on Levi's daughters, so they were going to be next one of them was going to have an accident. These children. It is amazing the things that it is astounding, The things that he was capable of doing, its mind blowing. And the thing is, Courtney, what's even more mind blowing is remember he gets to go to New York. He winds up having a child. He gets married to Cindy Best, he has a child with her.

33:58 Okay, so there are blended family. So he gets to have twenty five years of a new family. He's a new man. And while the horses burn and die, nobody suspects anything because it's a barnfire. Barnfires happened, you know, fairly frequently. I discovered with the hay going up in flames. But now when there's horse is in there, no, So he gets away with it all. He gets away with everything. He's had a whole new life. And in that new life he's still so demented and twisted, and a lot of stuff went on it. I don't want to give it away, but I will say this. He had he liked to kill animals. There's a real twisted, bizarre element to this psychopath. And so to answer your question why do you want to talk to me? One is he wants to convince me he didn't do this. He didn't do any of this. This was not him. And the other was he loves the attention.

34:57 He just doesn't even care. I'll tell you anything. And lastly, I know how to draw things out. So we're talk to him about his parents and his father and that relationship and his relationship with Levi. So as I started to gain information and knowledge of this guy, I realized that there was he never felt he was enough, and part of it was not just greed, but he wanted to be rich and famous, and so that was the concept. I'm going to remember too. Two hundred thousand dollars back in nineteen ninety one is an equivalent of a million and a half dollars today, because that was almost a four million dollars there, and back then, you know money doubles every seven years or something, so I think it would have been a million and a half dollars that he collected back then. It's a fortune he hit a lot of and now he's going to be making himself into a huge success with that money. But that didn't happen. Good. Yeah, as you said, he got to live this this whole new life, be this potshot guy that he thought he was for twenty five years. Kill his first wife, kill his horses, kill his son, probably kill one of his grandchildren next. When if the resources were there, none of it would have happened. It would have stopped after the first that's right, it would have stopped with Christina, and it would have given that family justice then

36:30 rather than justice served cold thirty years later. You know. I mean, so they've had they had to suffer for thirty years thinking and most of the time until he actually killed Levi and there was proof through Cindy Best, his second wife, that he was going to be charged, and he was charged and convicted of that murder. They're thinking the whole time, nothing's going to happen. They're waiting for all these years and nobody's doing anything. Well, there was nothing to do. He had her cremated and she died smoke inhalation. And you know, he had boarded up the window of the bathroom that she was in when she died in the fire, and she helped him board it up. It's kind of like Levi. He helped with the car.

37:13 She helped him board it up with seventeen nails, and he made sure her habit was at two pm she took a bath, so he made sure she was in the bathroom, in the bathtub, and the most vulnerable possible position. You're nude, your doors closed, you're in the bathtub, the window that you could escape from is nailed shut with the plywood. And this is when the house went up in flames. Carol doesn't know how it happened. It could be that a light fell on kerosene, that fell on the floor. I mean, the various iterations of how he starts to explain that fire, and also how he tries to explain away, Oh, we took out life insurance on Christina months before this happened. No, it was like seventeen days before it happened. I mean, and there's a record of that.

37:58 Yeah, and there's a record of that. He's got, you know, in his mind, you forgot that happens so long ago that that's over in his mind. That's that's over. Nobody's going to say anything about that anymore. This is part of the psych psychopathy of this man. Like he's forgotten about it, he's left it in the past, He's onto his next victim. It's it's bizarre because again, it's not like a serial killer who is acting out of some demented element in their mind and going after strangers. No, he's using his own family members as a meal ticket. Yeah, it's it's crazy to me. The fact that he can act like the deaths of Christina and the horses and all of that. It's it's in the past, it happened whatever, it's how it's it's the callousness with which he thinks like that, which is almost more baffling to me. That this was someone that you were supposed to love and cherish and promised to love and take care of, and you threw her away as if she doesn't matter because you wanted a paycheck. Yeah yeah, and your own son, and your own son, you threw him away, someone that loved and trusted you and essentially forgave you with the thing that he suspected you of exactly, and you threw that away for a paycheck. Yep, for a fortune. Because again, now,

39:31 seven hundred grand in two thousand and eight when that happened, is seven hundred thousand dollars is a lot to anybody, but for him, who never made a real living, he struggled with all these crappy jobs. Here we go, and he went into business. He went into the duck business. And there's a whole level of other insanity that goes on in that business when it falls, when it winds up going under. I don't want to give it all away. But I will say that even that people think they know this story, I can only tell you that you do not know anything but the tip of that iceberg. Because these fires, these these things that occurred, you get to see what's behind it just a little bit, and you get to see how he handles his wife, his daughters in explaining and justifying things away if there is a question. But he's able to do that in an insidious way so that they don't even know he's justifying anything. That's what's interesting about this man, how he's able to manipulate and connive and create that whole new family that thinks he's wonderful. And his kids, who were also the daughters told laid down on the bottom of the floorboard in the car in a California fire. Clearly they forgave him too, like, no, that was an accident, and YadA YadA, and we're good. We love daddy.

40:58 Ya'ma daddy's girl, Bobby, and the youngest one, Katie was a daddy's girl. Well you're not even thinking about what happened to your mother. Why he got you out, but he couldn't get your mother out of a bathroom. So It's just it's very interesting that part of this the psychopathy that I was able to capture. It is insane the details that he provided you with so willingly. And for everyone out there, I really truly encourage you to pick up Levi's Eyes. You can get it on Amazon and we'll put those links down below for you. Guys. Thank you. It is definitely a book you want to you want to check out. It is you If you want a real look inside the mind of a killer, this is the this is the book you need to read. Well, thanks for saying that.

41:53 I appreciate that it was. You know, this was four years of my life. Never have I taken that long to actually write a book. Typically I can do that much much faster, but this just it called for it. Because I had two years of listening to this killer. I couldn't start writing until I got all that information. I tended the trial, and then of course there's three thousand pages of documents that I have, and you know, police reports, court transcripts, and preliminary trial and yeah, I just the amount of information that I had to comb through in order to tell this story. On another level, people who want to write your crime or want to be involved in it, you got to understand number one, forget about how you have to comb through it. First of all, you have to get it absolutely absolutely dissipation of all the you know, I got participation of the sister Collette Busson did interviews, the brother Mike Carlson, did interviews, the defense attorney one of them, did interviews. The lead detective in New York did interviews. So I had all of that, but that you've got to convince people that this is going to be something worthwhile. And then after you've done that, but you've got to get all the documents. And court documents are about two dollars a page transcripts, so put that math together.

43:09 If it's a three week, four week trial, you know you're literally dealing with thousands of pages. And so there are so many nuances yere to get the police to cooperate with you, to get the police to hand you over police files, audio files that have been entered into evidence, and getting all of that. So I was able to do that because I've done it for thirty years. But it ain't easy. It's not easy. I can fully attest to that. It is not easy. It is expensive, it is hard to because obviously you have to speak to these family members and the victims' family members or the victims if they are fortunate enough to have survived, you know, you you can't just come at them with, hey, I want to write a book on your trauma. You know, it's there's a specific way of going about things. There's a specific way of having to go through all of these court records and the court documents and the autopsy records and all of that, and it's it is a lot of work. It is a true labor of passion trying to tell the story in a way that does justice to the families and for the families. And I think that's part of the problem with some true crime is that it's not done in an ethical way where the victims and their families are at the forefront. And you know that, right And I hear what you're saying, and I know you know, true

44:39 crime has become entertainment, and I don't believe in that. I believe, if anything, you can call it infotainment, as long as you're getting a message out of it that's going to help you make this world a safer place, make you more aware of warning signs, you know, for example, domestic violence. Christina suffered domestic violence and hit it. There are many women and that are victims of domestic violence that wind up getting murdered. I covered stories like that, but yet people have seen signs of it, but they ignore it because they're afraid. Maybe you won't be afraid. Maybe you'll see something and say something. Maybe you'll figure out a way to get your sister extracted from the marriage. Not that persistent and try. I'm not saying you can do it, but there's got to be a lesson in the story, and there's got to be something positive that you can take away from this darkness.

45:27 And that's always my goal. I mean, that's what I write with that keeps me going through the story, that keeps me going for four years on a particular case, because I'm always keeping in mind that I am not sensationalizing this. I am telling this as it happened, from the voices of the people who experienced it, and recreating the dialogue at the same time based on the interviews I've done so that I know, or court transcripts or police reports or depositions, so that I know that I'm being true to what actually happened. Absolutely, that's what's so important, and that's what makes you different from you know, someone that found a case went cash grab and wrote a book about it or created a podcast around it, or whatever the case may be. And that's something that we try and do here is there is a lesson in every case that we present. It is handled with care and with as much love as we can give because these are real people, these are real tragedies. And if I can help make someone safe or safer, then that's what's that's what is what we are going to do. So that's what makes you different, and it makes you different as well, because again, you know, news tends to sensationalize everything. It's just the way it is.

46:47 You know, people don't want to hear good news, they don't want to be they just they want the surface. Give me the surface. Okay, this this, this, and this is how horrible. Oh my god, thank god it wasn't me. They don't I really don't understand realize what the ripple effects of any particular crime war on how far that goes, and it can go for generations as well, friends, family, coworkers. So all these people are devastated, especially when they don't even know it's a murder, and then later they discover it's a murder, and now they're living with They've been spending all this time with this person. As in Cyndy Best, she's married to this guy. She's sleeping next to a killer. I think about that, and the police and her PI are saying, just stay there so you can get more information, just stay with him, and she stayed as long as she could possibly stand it. But after a while she's sleeping with scissors and a knife under her bed and nunchucks and she can't do it anymore. Absolutely, absolutely, it has been such an honor having you on talking about your career, talking about your latest book. As I said, that link will be down below. I really really encourage you guys to pick it up. It is such an enlightening read, and I really hope that you all have gotten something out of this interview with Aphrodite. It is the approach that I will have with the cases that I cover in the future will be different based on this conversation because I have learned so much in the short

48:21 time that I have spent with you, and thank you. I appreciate that you're welcome so guys, you know that I will have links down below if you head to our website, we will have attached a little biography on Aphrodite so you can learn a little bit more about her, learn about her television show which is on Amazon Prime. Yes, yes, so that will all be there for you. I hope you guys enjoyed this special special episode. I know I did recording it, and we will see you all in the next chapter. Thank you so much, Afredite for being here with me today. Thank you, we have some pleasure. As always, we will see you next time. Bye, guys, thank you so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead. And don't forget that you can always connect with us on Instagram, you can connect with us on Twitter, and you can absolutely connect with us on Patreon. We also have a merch store as well that we have frequent discount codes coming out for so that you guys can get merch hand you're on by myself at a better cost. We hope you have a lovely rest of your week, and just remember, please be kind and don't forget to always stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant. Bye guys, Bye bye.