Episode 32. The Death Fetish Community With LaDonna Humphrey & Alecia Lockhart

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This podcast is part of the Deluxe Edition Network. To find other great shows on the network, head over to deluxeeditionnetwork.com. That's deluxeeditionnetwork.com.

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fantasies. It's something that we all have. Usually they are harmless. But what happens when the fantasy becomes a fetish and the fetish crosses the line between being harmless and something deadly? You get something even more deadly than you bargained for. Join me and my special co-host, LaDonna Humphrey.

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and Alicia Lockhart as we examine the Death Fetish community on this episode of True Crime and Authors. Welcome to True Crime and Authors podcast where we bring two passions together. The show that gives new meaning to the old adage, truth is stranger than fiction. Here's your host, David McClam.

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What's going on everybody? Welcome to the episode of True Crime and Authors. Of course, I'm your man, David McClam. If you guys haven't already, make sure you'll follow us on all of our social media. One link to a link tree will get you every link you need to the show. Alright guys, so today is a little bit different and special episode because I have two co-hosts with me. You know them. They have been here before. They are the authors of the book Strangle.

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which is part two to LaDonna's book, The Girl I Never Knew Who Killed Melissa Witt, and they are the co-hosts of the Deep Dark Secrets podcast. Welcome LaDonna Humphrey and Alicia Lockhart. Ladies, how are you guys doing today? Doing well. Doing well. We are on the same wavelength here, Alicia. We're doing great. We're so glad to be here. We are as one. This just tells me you guys work a lot together, almost like twins.

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It feels that way sometimes, yeah. It does. Sometimes we can actually finish each other's sentences. It's pretty crazy. We're working on our telepathic communication so that we don't have to text anymore. I think all of us are like that. You just know what we're thinking at that point. So today, we are going to talk about a topic that's new to you guys' heart. That's why I brought you guys here.

02:41
I felt it was important to do an episode around this because a lot of people don't know. And as you know, there's a lot of people out there that has a lot of misconceptions. Like, it's not dangerous, it's only a fetish, it means nothing. So today guys, we're gonna talk about the Death Fetish community. And these two are experts because over at Deep Dark Secrets podcast in their season one, all they're doing is exposing the Death Fetish community. So if you guys don't know what Death Fetish community is, basically,

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It is a community of people that is attracted to what we call death fetish porn. It is usually pornography that usually features women and degrades them, and they are usually in a state of murder. They're dead in some way, shot, strangled, and it's very dangerous. So why don't you guys tell the audience, why do you think and know that this community is dangerous? Well, I think that...

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This was not a conclusion that we came to lightly. We've done tons and tons of research on this community, the producers, the members of the community in terms of like who is on the websites, in the forums, what they're up to. And the more that we've continued to research this whole topic, the more dangerous our research has made it clear that it is.

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And I say that because when you see just the term death fetish and you understand that there's this kind of kink, that in itself doesn't necessarily mean that it's dangerous. It's a very extreme kind of pornography. It's scary to see that those videos exist. But if you're assuming that that's just a video,

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and that nothing comes from it, yeah, I could see how you might look at that and say, oh, that's harmless. It's like a horror film. But as we've really continued to peel back the layers in terms of who the people are that are making these films, what they're doing with their time, and who the members of the community are, we started to notice that there were just case after case of real murders that tied back to this community.

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And once we realized that, in addition to all the research we've found about what violent pornography does to your brain, we really have just come to this conclusion that it is not harmless to watch these videos because there's this very clear, well-documented escalation process for somebody from the first time they see a video like this all the way through how that may impact their life.

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over many years and really inspire them to act in real life on some of these fantasies. Yeah, I think I would add to that. I mean, all of those things are correct. It's this real life experience of being immersed into this culture as we do this undercover investigation over the past year and a half. I guess it's not so much undercover anymore since we've launched the podcast. But one of the things that we really kind of dove into that Alicia

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that research and not just research that we've done, but research that has been done by experts. And one of the places that we lean on pretty heavily is an organization called Fight the New Drug, which that's non-legislative and non-religious. So, you know, pretty even kill out there. We don't feel like it's a fanatical agency that is taking a look at just mainstream porn, David. And that's what's so interesting about this because a good bulk of their research is about the dangers

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of mainstream porn and how that changes your brain and how that does escalate into wanting more and aggression towards women in general. So you take that and see how dangerous that is just for mainstream stuff and you apply it to death fetish and it's scary. Death fetish is scary and everybody out there should be concerned. Now I want to talk a little bit about that because of the fact that you bring up mainstream porn.

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And I know that like with any other drug, there's usually a gateway. Here's the questions I always get. So I posted to you guys, so you can help me out. So you've been doing a lot of research into this. Mainstream porn is basically, as you know, it's supposed to be what they consider straight lace porn. Everything from men to female, female, female, things of that nature. What people don't understand is how does that reprogram your brain if it is just harmless in the sense? Like if you have one that somebody made,

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maybe they're masturbating, how does that rewire your brain and maybe lead you into a gateway like death fetish? Oh, that's, I think the best way to explain that is that when you are engaging in something, whether you're doing it yourself or you're watching other people do it, like through pornography or anything really, your brain starts to respond to that. And in this case, when it's...

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pornographic, your brain starts to associate those images and the things that you see with pleasure and all the things that go along with it. And pretty soon with enough usage of pornography as a tool, right, you will not become aroused or even be interested in sex without that fix that you're getting that you've been watching. And it just escalates from there. And what's happening in mainstream porn, which is very frightening and it's been going on for years,

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is just this idea that women like rough sex or the rape culture or anything like that. And it escalates, escalates, escalates. And I personally have seen that in the research that I've done, that it often starts out like that, not always. I would say, and I think this will scare listeners, I would say that it only starts out like that maybe about 25% of the time, because what Alicia and I have seen over and over and over,

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is that a lot of the people that are immersed in the death pornography culture, they say that they had these thoughts, this idea, this preference starting at a very young age. I'll kick that over to Alicia so she can give her thoughts on that, but we've seen that a lot. Going back to what you were saying just about, softcore or mainstream porn, I think that the issue with

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viewing that kind of content that looks consensual and just really mainstream or soft core is that there is this desensitization. So you're starting to watch that, you're watching it more and more, and then all of a sudden it isn't very arousing or exciting. And yeah, you do, it seems like there is this turn towards...

09:43
Just a little bit more unusual like whether that's adding more people in or getting into fetishes or like LaDonna said Doing things that are a little bit more rough or unique I think that people start looking into different kinds of pornography because they've become desensitized and that regular just You know one person on one person whatever you would experience in your bedroom typically

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you've watched it so much, you've become addicted to it, you're watching it and you're not getting that pleasure, that excitement from that basic kind of film anymore. And so that causes you to seek out something that is a little bit more surprising or something that's going to get a reaction out of you since this other mainstream porn is now boring to you and doesn't give you any excitement anymore.

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Well, yeah, and you know, it's that brain, you know, your brain has this reward center, so to speak, and that's what helps form those habits. And you know, that reward center, it starts to release chemicals, you know, dopamine, it starts establishing those connections, and it just very easily escalates like what she's talking about to something that you would not have necessarily jumped into in the beginning, but you've just kind of eased your way into it because you've fed your brain with this.

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you know, pleasure chemical, even if it started off slowly. And it's a frightening process. And, you know, our platform obviously isn't to diminish or to talk about mainstream porn, but I think that's an important example because it's a segue. You know, you segue into, well, all of these things seem better to me, or I'm gonna try that, or I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. So it's something that's opened my eyes because these are things that I didn't know. I mean, I've learned a lot in our research.

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You guys had a guest on your show recently. Uh, she runs the probably council podcast named Bridget. I'm reaching out to her to bring her on my show because, uh, she's trying to eradicate the whole porn industry. And I'll link your episode you had with her because the things that she was saying was enlightening things. I did not know things that are dangerous to the point that if I just give the audience a little tidbit of that, she was stating that, uh, females on porn hub most likely can be trafficked. So from some of the things and scenes that they do.

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I do know what you guys just said is true. I don't know if you know who he is, but there's a famous Christian singer his name is Kirk Franklin. Kirk Franklin was addicted to pornography when he was very young. He wrote a song about it actually. When he got married, the things that he saw in porn, he wanted his wife to do. And they gave a whole testimony about it. Like, I mean, they spent a number of years where, she was like, he wanted me to do all these weird things and things that he has to all these films and things that was pretty much impossible.

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They almost got divorced over it a couple of times, but he was able to quit and be delivered from that. I think when it comes to porn, the gateway to it is easy. When I was younger, I think every male dabbled into it. And a lot of people don't like to hear this, but it's true, transgender porn is mainly geared towards men because it's something in the pleasure chain that says, if you see a brass as a woman, and even if they're not gay, it goes that way.

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I've talked to a number of people that's into that industry and they say, yeah, we marketed towards men because we know that that's going to be people that watches that. So then that kind of gates way in now into like strangling and then into death fetish, which if you look up death fetish on Google, it just lists a lot of things from strangulation to, you know, murder scenes and things of that nature.

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I guess the thing I want to tell you guys about is it's important to know that anybody could be into this. How many people, because I couldn't find the number. I know you guys have it. Do you know approximately how many people is in this community? Worldwide at any given time, about a hundred thousand people. We think that that number is actually growing. But from all of the research that I've done, starting with my first book, The Girl I Never Knew, that spilled over into all the work that Alicia and I are doing, I feel pretty comfortable saying.

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that it's about 100,000 strong across the world. So 100,000 strong across the world. I've come up to some posts, but they were like 2016ish. They're, of course, it's from a website that you guys are very familiar with from Femme Fatalities. Dun, dun, dun. But I wanna read one and see what you guys think because basically what this post is, is this person is pretty much crying that they can't find anything, I guess, that's good anymore.

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And I guess this proves your point about segueing into something much harder. Here's what the post said. It says, hey all, times have certainly changed incredibly since I found this community at a time when death fetish movies were still being marketed on VHS tapes, remember those or not. Back then, the majority of our type of material consisted of clips from mainstream movies and TV shows. Then the market exploded and the popularity of digital media and high speed internet helped to feed this market. Suddenly,

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There were tons of community producers and lots and lots of material for our community to enjoy. Recently, you may have seen many such producers disappear from the marketplace. Did the market get saturated? Are former customers getting their death fetish fixed elsewhere such as in online gaming or other sources? Have your personal purchasing habits changed? These and other questions are, I'm sure, being asked of many of our community producers.

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So please share your thoughts on the subject. What do you want to see more of in the way of your fetish fix? What are you no longer interested in purchasing? And what do you want to see as the future of our community? Inquiring minds wanna know, signed blue. Right below that, this other person mentioned somebody who you two are familiar with. Says, the market is far from saturated because I don't see anything of interest to me anymore. The last good fantasy death fetish video I bought was dead professionals.

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by Chris Corner. Interesting. So what do you got make of that post? Cause there's a lot to uncover in that post. They're saying that they're not interested in things anymore. They feel like everybody is going away. But the things I picked up on is they used to get their content from movies and now people's moving on getting this stuff from online gaming. So even our children is not safe with this stuff. What'd you guys just thought on that? There is so much to unpack out of that.

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There's a little nod to the history of Death Fetish productions there too, and that's absolutely right. There were Death Fetish websites in the mid-90s, and it sounds like there was some stuff going on even in the 80s in terms of VHS. There was a company called Wave that would make videos that you could mail order or go to a horror convention and buy them.

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I think UK Strangle Girls is another company that was operating way back, way, way back then before there were even forums and communities on the internet. So there, yeah, there was this kind of content around that timeframe. And then, you know, through the late 90s, early 2000s, it did really boom. The industry had all these producers coming and being like, oh, I can make some money doing this. People want it. There's a market for it.

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the laws did seem to tighten a little bit with the Bush administration. And so there was this like wave of producers that went out of business because they were worried about legal issues or because their credit card processor had been shut down. So there's been some like fluctuations in the market there and

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I tend to think that in this current state, there are, you know, different obscenity laws state to state. Like if we just focus on the US for now, every state has different, different obscenity laws. And so depending on where a producer lives, they may not want to make death fetish films because they can get legally charged for making an obscene body of work.

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And so I think that a lot of these producers have shied away from making the kind of pornography they would like to make because of the risks involved with the law. There's been a few producers who have been charged. Like there's a guy that we'll be doing an episode on pretty soon. He was known as Dr. Don in the community and he was a Canadian producer that got in big trouble for making this kind of content. So I guess to try to bring that.

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full circle, this person is saying that there's less content. I would say that's probably accurate. I think there are people who have pulled out who just don't feel like it's worth the risk or the amount of money that they're making off the films is not worth the legal risk. I agree. All of the above and then some. And I think a lot of what we see too, Alicia, are producers, smaller producers, they're making this stuff for themselves or for a small group of people now.

19:01
Not all of them, but I mean, Thomas Oliver comes to mind. I think he's doing less and less and less. But he can't stop making them because he's obsessed. He has his own death fetish. Yeah, that's absolutely. So I think to some degree, what scares me is that some of these people are making this just to keep death fetish alive because they think it's so important to their circle, to their community, to, you know, feeding this habit and.

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that habit starts with themselves. I think that's almost the most dangerous thing is when you've, you know, like you, you hear about drug dealers, you're not supposed to have a drug habit and be a drug dealer, right? You know, that doesn't make any sense. But some of these quote unquote fetish dealers have their own death fetish. And I think that makes it all the scarier. We know that the fetish community, or as you guys like to call them fetishers, I've gotten attacked by a few, not recently, but

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that may change after this episode, telling me that I was misguided, that is just a fantasy, that people's kink shaming, which just to be perfectly clear, that is not what we're doing here. This is a very real danger. But when I saw some of these, I can't tell if they're real or not. It is dangerous. It is not something that should be taken lightly. But these guys, if you ran into somebody, will say it is.

20:21
Is it very easy to get lured into this? Because we have a lot of young women out there now that is looking for work, they're falling into apps like Plenty of Fish, where I'm sure there's a lot of producers, as you may know, Alicia, that is using websites like these to attract girls. What do you say about the dangers of death fetish? Why are we trying to eradicate that? I think I'll take this one just because I do have that.

20:47
firsthand experience having accidentally modeled in one of these films, there definitely are producers who paint these sorts of films in a way that would make a lot of different models comfortable to do them, or they are approaching models from, I think Model Mayhem is a website where I know they're picking up models.

21:13
You know, so they might just be approaching women who are used to doing just more mainstream things, or sometimes they're approaching women who have made it known that they're willing to be in pornography. So I think every producer has a little bit different of an approach there. But even if you take apart the experience I had with the man that I used to work for and you put that to the side,

21:40
I do see these producers kind of talking shop in the Death Fetish forums about how they find models and how they get women comfortable to star in these films. And it is a process. They all talk about how they have to finesse a woman from point A to point B to get her to be comfortable with this kind of film and how.

22:03
Sometimes they will, you know, like have an interview or a meetup with a model and that model is just not comfortable and they had to film several other things with them first before they could get them to do one of these. And so based on what I've seen from one producer talking to another, just talking shop in the forums, it seems like it's pretty typical that they're having to almost like groom women into or like trick them into

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filming these kinds of films. And I think that it's, for some models, it's not something that they will do with a stranger. It's like, once they get comfortable with a producer, then they're more open to filming these kind of like, strangulation or death scenes, but they, you know, need to know them a little bit first. If there is one, we all need a good sleep. And for this, we need a great pillow.

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using code TCA15 found in the show notes. For a better and more comfortable sleep, get your sweet Z pillow today. I would think that by this time, because a lot of these producers are older than me. So you would think by this time they would have stopped. But you guys recently just did an episode called Secrets of Sisters Oregon, Harry Pollard. This guy's older than I am.

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at it. Alicia, why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Cause I know that you kind of like us sending him an email and the response you got back was pretty flattering. So. Yeah. We, on our podcasts, on the Deep Dark Secrets podcast, we have a few different kinds of episodes that we'll do. And one of the episodes that we like to do is that if we do a lot of research on a producer and we pull business licenses and their physical location or true identity.

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then we go ahead and share that with their community. And so that episode that you're referencing, that was an episode we really wanted to give to Oregon. We wanted the residents of a town called Sisters Oregon to know that there was a death fetish producer in their community. And this guy, like you said, his name is Harry Pollard. Yeah, he is...

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He's I think we called him like the forefather of death fetish because he's just been in this business since the early 90s. So yeah, if you really look at that, he's been making these films for, I would say, a good portion of his life and he is very old. He is, you would think he would have retired from this business by this point.

25:45
But when I started going through his website, which is currently called Rainforest Studios, which I find so fascinating, if you stumble across the website, Rainforest Studios, and it says that they do photo shoots or that they film projects for people, you're not gonna think that this is a pornography company or a pornography producer, let alone a death fetish producer. Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. I mean, it's...

26:14
It's frightening to me to see how many of these guys have spent their whole entire lives doing this, because there's quite a bit of them out there. Not maybe as old as Harry, Dirty Harry. That's I think what we call him in our episode. But, you know, we've got Bluestone out of Canada. You know, he's he's not a spring chicken. You know, neither is Chris Corner. I mean, he's close to my age. You know, I'm going to I'm knocking on 50. So you've got these people that have spent.

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a good portion of their life doing this and, you know, they're moving on up there in age. So the good part of that, I think, is that they're moving on up there in age and eventually they won't be making these movies anymore. I just don't know if a new and younger version of Harry Pollard or Thomas Oliver, who Thomas Oliver is very old, or Chris Corner will rise up from the community. It's possible.

27:10
Well, this guy's older than sin, so there's no way that he's still filming new films. You know, this is probably just like a 30-year archive of all of his stuff that's for sale, and maybe it's a passive income source for him now or something. But I did see that he had an ad there on the site saying that he was looking for models, and I was blown away. I did not expect to see that, you know, knowing how old he was, knowing how big his body of work already was.

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And so yeah, I did just shoot him a little email saying that I was a model in the area that was interested in seeing what kinds of films he made. Like he wrote back really quickly and he let me know that he needed me to send him just a collection of nude photographs of me so that he could make sure that I wasn't fat, is what he had to say. Wow. I mean, there's even discrimination in Death Fetish World, I guess.

28:09
Apparently it's funny, some of the things that you see, what they'll say or what you read in the forums. It's just, it's mind boggling, but yeah, I chuckle at that. And just to further the point home that this is very dangerous. Three of your biggest notorious serial killers admitted that they had some type of a death fetish and this is why they killed. Gary Ridgway was one of them. Ted Bundy is the other. And then I'll give you Jeffrey Dahmer.

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I'll throw one in there just for a bonus called Pandram. All of these guys admitted that, but nobody was more open to this subject than Ted Bundy. It was so important to Ted Bundy that he sat down before his death with James Dobson, who was a pastor, and he told you what the dangers of this kind of pornography is. He told you why he got into it, and it started out by looking at it. Then he wanted to know what it felt like to do it.

29:06
And I think that's why a lot of rape from mainstream point comes is because you see this and your thought pattern of a woman becomes something that is different. Like a woman is just a sexual object or a toy or somebody that's meant to always pleasure you. So, or you can take what you want at any given will. Do we know? I've tried to look this up. I haven't found anything. I've seen a couple that to me was questionable.

29:30
I don't know, I know you guys don't know for sure, but in your mind, do you think that somebody has actually been murdered in one of these films before and we just don't know it? Oh, I can, I'll speak up first. I would say I believe so, absolutely. You know, we've viewed some films that we just don't know for sure how that film truly ended. And we started a quest to see if we could find if those women were still alive. That's how serious we took it. I don't believe for one second that

29:59
they have not mingled real snuff films within the Death Fetish community. Some of those films are so frightening. The women are turning purple. They're screaming and writhing in real pain. And I mean, I'll kick it over to Alicia now too for her opinion, but I would say absolutely yes without hesitation. I agree. I think that there's a lot of films out there, just thousands and thousands. Like one producer will have 3000 films, if not more.

30:29
And I just don't think that it's likely that they're all fake. I know they call them simulated snuff films, but I just don't buy it. Some of them are really, really violent and hardcore. And like LaDonna said, there will be things that you just can't fake in some of these films. And that is your skin turning a different color, your eyes rolling back in your head. And I think that

30:57
Some of them are very clearly fake, but there are definitely just as many that we watch and were worried about the model in the film. Firstly, did she leave the set? Was she able to get up and walk away? And there's a whole spectrum there. So just because a model left a set, was able to physically walk away from it, doesn't mean that she wasn't abused, harmed, drugged.

31:24
I mean, there's a whole gamut of things that I believe are happening to women that are modeling in these films. And I mean, murder isn't off the table or even accidental death in some of these films. I don't think it would be smart to say that that couldn't happen because to me, it looks like it probably does happen in those films. Well, one of the things that we know that does happen because we've read about it in the forums and we've talked to at least one, you know, ex-Death Fetish producer.

31:53
is that there are producers that will take things to the edge. They will see how far they can push a model. They will see, you know, they'll try to do more and more and more and more. Well, let me just try the strangulation just a little bit longer. Let me do this just a little bit longer. And that can lead to accidental death, absolutely. But it can also lead to all these other things. Can you imagine the trauma that you would get as a model?

32:19
being pushed to that limit or being tricked into something or being offered $500 extra to let them strangle you an extra five minutes. I mean, there's just all of those things that are happening that can lead to so many things. It's just dangerous all the way around. And the thing is, is the women that they choose is either very young, they're looking for money, kind of like the whole, you know, you disappear, prostitution ring gets killed, is people that people don't feel like anybody cares.

32:48
or they're not gonna say anything. And it's pretty sad. In your case, Alicia, you were very young, thought you was going for a job, looking to get paid and turned off into this, right? Now, is there any way to spot these people? Because they're just like you and I. We could be sitting next to them at work, they could be sitting next to us in church, you could be eating a cross from them. I mean, is there any vibes that you guys have seen that maybe somebody will give off or conversation-wise that they're into this? That's a great question.

33:16
I feel like it's pretty hard to predict who is going to be into this. And just from us researching, even just the producers or the forum members, they come from all backgrounds. You can't just say, oh, it's only this kind of person or it's only poor people or it's only old guys. There's people of all ages, of all just different sexual preferences.

33:45
And I think that it's pretty hard to predict this about somebody. And when we have covered murder cases that involved the murderer tying back to this community and there being like an extensive search history of this kind of pornography on their computer, a lot of times they do have families, neighbors, partners that just had no idea. Like

34:11
you look at the cannibal cop in New York. He was a guy who was basically conspiring to kidnap and murder women with a group of men on different forums online. And he was an upstanding citizen. He was a cop in New York, and he had a wife and a new baby. And they're just, the people that have this fetish, they hide it very well. I mean, if I were trying to teach people how to spot this in their own personal lives,

34:41
you're just you're looking for somebody who needs to be online or alone with their computer a significant amount of time each day. So if you've got a partner or a husband who's staying up late to use the computer, or they just can't stay away from their computer, I feel like that's probably the most telltale sign. What do you think, LaDonna? I would agree with that. I would say that that that absolutely is a telltale sign. Because I would say nine times out of 10, you can't tell

35:11
you know, you do know. I'll give you an example. There's a guy named Kevin Ray Underwood that killed a little girl named Jamie Rose Bolan. And prior to this murder, he was talking to the woman that cut his hair and people that he worked with about cannibalism and odd things, right? And so one of the things that Alicia and I try to...

35:34
Hammer Home and these episodes where we talk about these murderers that come out of the community, is that if you see something or hear something, say something. Do something. Because I really feel like a lot of times when they do talk about cannibalism or they have an obsession with violence, that there's some time for some intervention. And those cases are going to be rare. But I feel like potentially Jamie Rose's life could have been

36:04
save, her life could have been saved had somebody said something or done something. And so that's another thing that we're trying to accomplish with the podcast is just to empower people to say, yeah, this made me uncomfortable. I'm going to tell my supervisor. I'm going to tell, you know, if it's happening at church, the pastor of my church or the school, I'm going to tell the principal and at least make sure there's a record of it somewhere. Because for the most part, you're not going to have those opportunities. You're not going to know who the death fetish predator is. But in those rare cases,

36:33
where they do talk about things or they blog about it, you've got to do something because you could potentially save someone's life. When it comes to the cannibal cop, Mr. Gill, I am doing that case. As you guys have found out, he no longer wants to talk to anybody about it. I am going to read his book. He did write a book about it, just so I can call BS and a lot of things that's there, because I've researched the case, but after you guys did it. And so for the audience, it's a doozy. He was a cop. He was planning with another guy

37:03
get this woman, they were going to cook her and eat her. Wife finds out and he beats the case. So you guys gonna have to tune in when I do that one because you'll be shocked. I know you guys have reached out to Gil and Gil pretty much has said he was done with it. I reached out to Gil and got no answer. He definitely does not wanna talk about this anymore. But you guys gotta tune in for that because it's extraordinary. And when I read down like a cop, I'm like, this is somebody that goes in your house.

37:32
to help you and he's going to thousands of people's houses every day. And these are the thoughts that he has. It's just crazy. So I just want to have a conversation on this today for a few minutes, because I felt it was very important to put this on my platform. As you know, it is such a wide broad topic. You couldn't cover everything in 40 minutes to an hour. That's why you guys have your podcast. So let's end off with, I want you guys to let me know. I know you have a petition. I haven't got around to signing it, but I am signing that today.

37:59
So why don't you tell us about your petition over at Deep Dark Secrets podcast and all the things you guys are doing to eradicate death fetish. Well, I think the most important thing that we're doing right now, besides educating people about death fetish, is asking them to sign that petition. And that's really just, we're asking people to join with us, link arms, put your name to the petition to demand that teeth be put into federal obscenity laws. We have some that exist, they need to be strengthened and there definitely needs to be.

38:29
consistent sentences and action taken for producers and others that consume this kind of content. You can go to our website, deepdarksecretspodcast.com, click on advocacy, scroll down the page and click on the link to sign our petition. But in addition to that, we're also doing some other important things. And I want Alicia to touch on that, if she will.

38:54
kind of around the idea of our investigation and seeing what real life people are saying in these forums and how they're trying to lure people like Alicia or myself to meet them in places like Kansas City or other meeting places so they can murder us. And so I think that's probably an important topic to touch on too with what we're doing. Yeah, I would say that our mission has, you know, many different angles and it continues to just kind of

39:22
organically shift and grow as we see needs in different areas. And so, you know, tracking down models that have been in these videos and making sure that they're okay is an angle that we're always going to keep working, making communities know that there are death beddish producers there with them. You know, like the guy you mentioned, Harry Pollard, he's doing like middle school track photography with little girls.

39:50
So making sure that communities are aware of these kinds of people that are in their communities is important. Like LaDonna said, we want to help kind of tweak or adjust the federal and state obscenity laws eventually, and we're going to be continuing to advocate for those law changes. So we've got all these angles that we've been working on for a long time, but another aspect that has become...

40:18
sort of front and center lately too, is just that we want to go through these communities and have conversations one on one with some of the members and determine, well, how serious really is this? Because just casually chatting with different members in the Death Fetish forums, I have been able to...

40:39
I guess just assess what the risks are with different individuals in these forums. And I'm telling you, David, these guys are really serious. Some of them are absolutely ready to take those steps in the physical world to murder people. And as LaDonna said, I did have this experience with this guy in Kansas City, Missouri pretty recently where he...

41:01
you know, he had a whole plan for what he was gonna do to me. And he gave me a time, a date, and a location to show up at because he wanted to pick me up there at a Barnes and Noble in his town and take me back to his house to murder me. And he was, you know, he had everything planned out. He had all the tools there. He intended to eat me after he murdered me. And so it's not enough to just say,

41:27
all these cases have happened in the past because to tell you the truth, they're gonna keep happening in the future. There are all these guys that are in these forums that are ready to murder somebody now. They're just looking for the right person to do it. And so we know that about these people in this community. And I feel like that's enough to say, hey, there's a big problem here. We need to do something about this. Absolutely, because a couple of the cases you guys have done, I have never heard of before, but when you listen to them,

41:57
I mean, I listen to these when I'm driving. I probably should stop doing that because people think I'm having a seizure in my car because I'm yelling and screaming back at the, at the stereo. But, uh, definitely something to check out because yeah, like you said, you know, some of these stories you guys have come up with, you know, that's happened. Some of the things I've read on the forums, just the way it's written.

42:19
people come, oh, they were just playing. No, man, you know when something's written when they just playing. I mean, these guys are going all in, playing meticulously, here's the date time, the pots, utensils, you know, cook at this temperature. I mean, all of these things go into that and you're just like, this is like the weirdest thing I've ever heard, but unfortunately it's real. So in closing, what would you guys like to say to my audience, your audience that may be listening, and all your fans out there? I'll start with you, Alicia.

42:48
Well, I just want to say thank you to everyone for like hanging in there with us and really absorbing the content because we know it's like really dark and uncomfortable and hard to hear and we're just so thankful for everyone that's been supportive. You included David because it just, you know, it's going to take a big group of us to make this kind of a change that we're trying to make. And so I just want to say thank you to everybody for continuing to be supportive.

43:15
and to just do that however it works for people. So just signing the petition or just sharing our podcast with other people so that they can know what Death Fetish is and moving from there. So yeah, I just wanna thank everyone for the support. It's been really fantastic to be able to connect with people over this topic. I agree. I just, I think thank you from the bottom of my heart for the listens, the support, the joining with us, the signing the petition.

43:43
the taking a stand because together we can help save the next girl. And I think that's the goal here is that we want to put a dent in this and try to prevent another Jane Longhurst, another Jamie Rose, another Hope Barden. We want to educate and empower our listeners, I guess, and essentially the world on the dangers of death fetish and violent pornography. And I think, you know, standing together to stop violent porn.

44:12
Well, I thank you ladies for joining me today. It is my honor and pleasure to call you guys my friends. LaDonna, I felt like me and you became friends the moment that I met you, and that's been several months ago now. I think it's coming up slightly to a year pretty soon here. It'll be about a year on September. And Alicia, same with you. Thank you for all the work you guys are doing, and I will do my part to continue to help spread this word so that we can get rid of this community.

44:39
Thank you, David. You're an amazing human. We love to call you friend and I look forward to us working together for a long, long time. Yep. You're we're keeping you. You're ours now. You're our people. Well, thank you ladies. And likewise to you. And anytime you guys want to come back, you know how to get ahold of me. You're always welcome. Okay. We'll be back soon. I have a feeling. So we'll, we'll send you some.

45:05
offline information about some things that we've got going and maybe we can get something scheduled David. Thank you for having us today. Sounds good. Thank you ladies. All right guys, we heard it there. Once again, my friends, LaDonna Humphrey and Alicia Lockhart, you can find them at Deep Dark Seekers podcast on Anchor and Everywhere You Listen To podcast. You can also find their books, The Girl I Never Knew Who Killed Melissa Witt and Strangled on Amazon and in the Kindle Unlimited program.

45:33
Remember, if you download the book that's not good enough, you need to actually read the book. Gotta flip the pages. Also, next week coming up, the author you will hear from is Lauren M. Leisure. She is the author of the book, Sin of Saints. It is an intriguing fantasy romantic novel. Make sure you tune in for that. We have an industry conversation around the book and what she is doing now. And of course,

46:02
can't let you go without having an extraordinary person. My extraordinary person next week is none other than my co-host this week, Alicia Lockhart. We had a conversation around how she got into the Death Fetish community, how she got into a porn film. You don't want to miss that. We go a little bit deeper than we did here today and how she survived all of that. If you want to support the show, you can do so for as little as $5. Just click the link to buy me a coffee.

46:29
All right, guys, hope you've been good out there, being safe and always remember, always stay humble. An act of kindness can make someone's day. A little love and compassion can go a long way. And this is the podcast where two passions becomes one. I'll catch you guys on the next one. Thank you for listening to True Crime and Authors. Don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe. Join us on social media, on Facebook at True Crime and Authors.

46:57
on Twitter at Authors True, on YouTube and TikTok at True Crime and Authors, and email at truecrimeandauthors at gmail.com. Cover art and logo designed by Dazzling Underscore Ray from Fiverr. Sound mixing and editing by David McClam, intro script by Sophie Wild from Fiverr. And I'm the voice guy, your imaging guy from Fiverr. See you next time on True Crime and Authors.