Dec 14 2024
This week’s Crime Cafe interview features journalist, attorney, podcaster, and true crime writer Kerrie Droban.
We talk about psychopaths and writing about them. And other stuff.
You can download a copy of the interview here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is an award-winning true crime author, podcaster, attorney, and television journalist. She writes about violent subcultures such as outlaw motorcycle gangs and about criminal pathology. She has appeared on numerous television documentaries and shows. Her books have been adapted to create the show Gangland Undercover and have been optioned for film. It’s my pleasure to have Kerrie Droban with me today. Hey, Kerrie. How are you doing?
Kerrie: Good. Thank you so much for having me.
Debbi: I’m so glad you’re here with us today. I was just checking your website and I was fascinated to see that you grew up in a “spy family”. What was that like?
Kerrie: I did. I know. Everybody asks me that. It was actually the perfect backdrop for true crime and really sort of set the ball in motion, unbeknownst to me until a lot of years later. I grew up in a family of secrets and undercover operations and I really didn’t know anything about what my parents did until I was 17. And so it really just sort of set this whole career in motion of what does that do to somebody who lives in a duplicitous world where you’re not really sure what’s real, what isn’t real? What are the stakes of keeping secrets and living in a family where you at one point, on one occasion you have to protect them while they’re trying to protect you at the same time. You know, you really just don’t really know who to trust and who your confidences are. It was an interesting world. I had two brothers, and my brothers and I, none of us really knew what the other knew. So it was one of those sort of compounded duplicity. You couldn’t really ask, and so we sort of lived in a world of walking on eggshells, not really knowing who knew what and what was real.
I grew up in a family of secrets and undercover operations and I really didn’t know anything about what my parents did until I was 17. And so it really just sort of set this whole career in motion of what does that do to somebody who lives in a duplicitous world where you’re not really sure what’s real, what isn’t real?
Debbi: Oh my gosh. What a background to have as a person getting into crime writing of any sort.
Kerrie: Yes, yes. It was perfect.
Debbi: Yeah. And you had a Masters in writing, essentially from the writing seminar program at Johns Hopkins University first before you went to law school.
Kerrie: Yes. I started out actually as a poet. I mean, that’s a very circuitous route into true crime, but I wound up honing my skills as a poet and realized you really can’t make a living as a poet, and unless I wanted to be a poetry professor, I really wasn’t going to go very far with poetry. So that’s what launched me into law school.
Debbi: That’s interesting, because I had a similar story except it was with history. I was a journalism major, and I thought about getting a Masters in History and decided I don’t really plan on teaching history and ended up in law school.
Kerrie: Oh, wow.
Debbi: Funny how that happens.
Kerrie: I know. It’s sort of like your practical brain says, okay, how are you going to actually feed yourself, you know?
Debbi: Exactly.
Kerrie: Poverty was not fun.
Debbi: Oh, God. I can name some classes that were totally not fun. I hated Estates and Trusts for one thing. Lord, Lord. I read your guest post and I thought it was really good. I wanted to recommend that everybody read it. What struck me about it was kind of the general sense that psychopaths can’t really be fixed as such, in any sense that we would normally think of “fixing” a person. And in fact, we have to be better educated to avoid being in danger from them. That’s kind of what seemed to be your point. I just wondered if you had any thoughts on how environmental factors might affect persons in becoming a psychopath.
Kerrie: Yeah. I mean, it’s a subject that has fascinated me for a very long time, and of course, it blends in really well with true crime writing, and being a criminal defense attorney and being a family law lawyer. What struck me really starkly in practicing in this area, is that people really didn’t have an understanding of that kind of pathology. And when you don’t understand psychopathy, then you really don’t know how to – number one – litigate it, address it. Judges don’t know how to give appropriate sentences. Victims don’t know how to survive this. I mean, it becomes this sort of escalating ball that really can take you into areas that are not even helpful.
What struck me really starkly in practicing in this area, is that people really didn’t have an understanding of that kind of pathology. And when you don’t understand psychopathy, then you really don’t know how to – number one – litigate it, address it.
So to answer your question, it’s a whole nature/nurture question. Are psychopaths born? Are they made? And I think the consensus, and in fact most of the research that I’ve done, is they are really born that way, and so because of that, they’re different. It’s a very nuanced personality disorder. Oftentimes it’s sort of interchanged with verbiage like sociopaths or narcissists, or people will just say it as sort of hyperbole. Oh, he’s such a psychopath. But I think it’s really important to understand what that personality disorder is in order to know how to address it, particularly in the litigation area.
I’ve seen people – lawyers, judges, victims – become re-traumatized, re-abused by the very system that’s designed to protect them. So and, and the reason it’s important to understand that environment doesn’t necessarily play a factor is because you don’t want to wind up blaming the victim, blaming the parents of the child who might be born that way, or what do you do when you’re faced with them? We have so much teen violence now, which is really hard to comprehend, hard to wrap your brain around. I mean, what do you do with them? Do you try them as adults? Do you rehabilitate? We’re a nation that really wants to rehabilitate criminals, and I know this sounds weird coming from a defense attorney, like an imposter defense attorney.
I don’t believe that rehabilitation can actually help somebody who is a psychopath, and the common other terminology for this – antisocial personality disorder. When I was a capital lawyer, that was sort of the kiss of death diagnosis where if somebody had antisocial personality disorder, there was no cure. There was no helping them. And so then you talk about, well, how do you keep other people safe from them?
Debbi: Yeah. That’s a very good question. Where do you land on something like the death penalty?
Kerrie: Interesting, because I was a capital lawyer for about 15 years and really started litigating in those areas mostly on the appellate post-conviction side, and so I would see them after they were convicted, and after they had gone through these lengthy mitigation hearings where you would see the lawyers presenting really umpteen factors in their childhood that could have contributed to the way they became. Things like they had domestic violence in the family. They had abuse, they had trauma, they had sexual abuse, you name it, and how did that impact the later crime?
I actually stopped being a capital lawyer when I got to the one case that just I couldn’t do anything with. And I had to get off of that case because in my opinion, it was the first time that I actually encountered what I would describe as a true psychopath. There was no way to help this person, and I felt, just from a moral/ethical standpoint, there was really nothing that I could authentically argue to help my client.
I actually stopped being a capital lawyer when I got to the one case that just I couldn’t do anything with. And I had to get off of that case because in my opinion, it was the first time that I actually encountered what I would describe as a true psychopath.
I really believed – and this was sort of my moral crisis at the time or my ethical crisis – I really believed that if I continued to … I couldn’t represent him because I really believed that he deserved to die. That is so stunning for me to be able to say that as a defense attorney, but it really sort of flipped everything on its head for me and I started to really reevaluate the work that I was doing, why I was doing it, why this particular defendant was different from the other ones that I had represented, and what made him different. And so that’s what sort of launched me on this whole trajectory of, well, maybe there’s another way of analyzing these cases.
Debbi: This is great. I mean, I just love hearing this from a defense lawyer because we don’t get to hear enough from defense lawyers, I think. A lot of people have this picture of them as sleazy or something like that, and they’re not.
Kerrie: They’re not. It is such a tough job. It’s a really tough job.
Debbi: It’s a tough job. Yes.
Kerrie: Actually it sort of launched me into a whole other sort of area of like the ripple effect of representing people like this, representing psychopaths. What does it do to the lawyers? I think lawyers need to be trained in that area as well, and not just spit out the party line of let’s do all of this mitigation when sometimes there isn’t mitigation. It doesn’t exist, as in the case of the one client I had to withdraw from. There was nothing, and that’s what led me to conclude evil is not a mental illness. I really went on this sort of soapbox of let’s not conflate the two terms because they’re not the same, and they deserve to be treated differently.
And I think it’s really important for a defense lawyer to … any lawyer, but really a defense lawyer … and the reason I say that is because psychopaths will manipulate anyone. They’ll manipulate the judges, their lawyers, the juries, and they will get away with it, and they will use the courtroom as another method of manipulation. And so unless you are really attuned to that, you’re going to fall right into that trap. It has happened to colleagues of mine, and the ripple effect stays with you forever. I mean, you can get roped into it.
The classic case that I always think of is my colleague who represented Jodi Arias and all of the fallout that he went through of having to represent somebody like that. What’s important for – I’m sure that your viewers understand this – there are a lot of defense attorneys who represent capital clients, 99% of them are court appointed, so we don’t pick and choose who the clients are. And so if somebody is assigned to a truly vile person, and I can think of, for example, James Holmes, the mass shooter of Colorado movie theater killer shooter. The attorneys that represent James Holmes, the defense lawyers, they were vilified, they were hated by the public. It was almost as if they were an extension of James Holmes, which is really an unfair characterization, but it happens quite often to defense lawyers, and it really, I think, can have a psychological toll on practicing in that area.
I think that’s really important too, to sort of have the public understand that, that they’re not extensions of their client. They’re not. Just because they’re out there defending somebody like that. I mean, everybody deserves a defense and all that stuff, but I think it’s really important to understand the kind of client that you’re dealing with, how they’re going to manipulate everything that you say or do in the courtroom, and that’s really what sort of my path has taken me on, all this true crime stuff. I’ve really been fascinated by that. What is that ripple effect? What does it do to people? What does it do to the community? What does it do to the lawyers representing them?
I think that’s really important too, to sort of have the public understand that, that they’re not extensions of their client. They’re not. Just because they’re out there defending somebody like that.
Debbi: Those are great questions. And yeah, really, what does it do to the community as well as the lawyers? I mean, that has to take a toll on your psyche after a while. One of the questions I had for you was if you ever got depressed doing this work.
Kerrie: Yes. I think I would be lying if I said I didn’t. I think that what was really key for me in doing capital work and then of course doing true crime work and really starting to drill down into some of these really dangerous characters, was to make sure that I had my own balance. I didn’t let it absorb me, and you have to realize when it is absorbing you. You have to realize when it’s important to step away, to practice mindfulness, to recognize that this is not your identity.
Just because you’re representing somebody who embodies the worst of the worst, it’s not who you are. You don’t have to take it on. It’s easy to say that, but I’ll be honest, I was in therapy for many years. Probably the only thing that kept me going was having some kind of sounding board.
I know this sounds kind of tongue in cheek, but you know they have the scenes in The Sopranos where he goes to see his therapist. Well, it’s really true. It’s that kind of relationship where you go to your therapist and you say, listen I do something really strange and a lot of people don’t understand it, and I can’t talk to anybody about it because everything’s confidential. It’s secret so you can’t talk to your client about how your client’s affecting you. You can’t talk to anybody really. Maybe the State Bar, maybe the Ethics Committee, but not really, because it’s just not that kind of thing where you can divulge anything personal about what you’re going through with respect to what your client’s facing.
So it’s a very interesting sort of private, hellish world, but it did remind me in a lot of ways of that Sopranos scene. Well, he has many scenes where he goes to see his therapist.
Debbi: Yes. Yes. What authors have most inspired your own writing?
Kerrie: Oh, it’s interesting because even though I am a true crime writer, I don’t read a lot of true crime. I find I have to really step away from that, and so I am very fascinated by memoirs. I absolutely love reading about other peoples’ lives and other peoples’ experiences because again, I really believe that we can learn so much from shared stories and I admire the courage that it takes a lot of these writers. One that comes to mind is Glennon Doyle, Glennon Melton Doyle, who’s one of my favorite writers. What I love about her is her authentic voice, how she can just completely 100% be herself and not worry about how other people are going to perceive her. I just find that so courageous and so fascinating, and I don’t know how she does it, but she does it and it’s amazing to me and so I’m very intrigued by that.
I don’t read a lot of true crime. I find I have to really step away from that, and so I am very fascinated by memoirs. I absolutely love reading about other peoples’ lives and other peoples’ experiences because again, I really believe that we can learn so much from shared stories.
Another one is Cheryl Strayed, the fact that she could take one experience out of just a terrible tragedy in her life and not let it define her life, but show you how she moved through it. What I love about those two authors in particular is that they’re not celebrities. You know, they’re not out there … I mean, now they are in the public eye, but at the time they weren’t and this was just a slice of their life that they were willing to share with the world. And because they did that, we all gained something from it.
I remember reading Cheryl Strayed’s book and thinking at the time I was going through some very traumatic experience in my own life, and I thought, wow if I had not found her book, I don’t know that I would’ve had the same sort of epiphany that I had coming out of my own tragedy. I find that such courageous writing, and it reminds me in a lot of ways of the – because there are times where I come back to true crime writing – and I don’t know if it’s a worldwide phenomenon, it might be, but I’m just going to say the American phenomenon, we have savage appetites for crime and it really sort of made me think about that a lot on sort of an academic level. What is it about it that really draws us in, and predominantly women? I mean, women make up the main audience of true crime, which is even more fascinating to me.
Debbi: Why do you think that is?
Kerrie: Well, there are many theories on it, but I think in a lot of respects, it’s sort of that idea of – I’m not much of a roller coaster rider and I don’t like riding roller coasters – but it’s that idea of being on a roller coaster, being able to have the thrill of almost in my opinion, almost dying from the speed and then whipping around things, but knowing that you’re not going to. So for a woman who is in – and I hate to say this – in all likelihood, going to be the target of a predator or more likely than a man, for example, to be a victim of a crime, for women, it’s that sort of I’m going to sit in the comfort of my living room. It’s like watching a horror film unfold, and I’m going to see this play out on a screen. So I’m protected, but I’m watching it and maybe I will learn something. I will learn something about the pathology of that predator. I will learn something about how that victim became a victim, and what can I take away from it.
And so that always brings me back to why I write true crime, and why I devote so much of my time to doing podcasts of it, is that I really believe that there is a fine line between entertainment and education. I think that it’s such an important vehicle to be able to educate people about these different pathologies and about if this happened to this woman, what could you do differently? What could you learn from this, and what can you take away from it?
I really believe that there is a fine line between entertainment and education. I think that it’s such an important vehicle to be able to educate people about these different pathologies and about if this happened to this woman, what could you do differently?
But the one thing I will say about true crime that I really would love to see a turn in, which I haven’t seen too much of yet, is to not have the victim be a footnote. I think that that’s something that really does need to change. It’s not sensationalizing so much the killer or the predator or making that such the focal point, even though it’s really important to know that sort of pathology, I think in many respects, it’s really important not to forget the victim that this happened to, and they have a life and how did it impact that? Again, that’s that ripple effect. How did it impact that community, that person? I mean, taking one precious life out of that, and how did it change the trajectory of so many lives? So it’s really sort of a double-edged coin.
Debbi: Yeah, yeah, for sure. What kind of writing schedule do you keep, and how much time do you spend on writing versus, say, the podcast?
Kerrie: Well, I think I’m probably a little bit insane that way, a little ADHD. I have kept the schedule probably, oh my gosh, for as long as I can remember really, and it just sort of became my biorhythm. I get up at 4 every morning, and I work from about 4 to 7, and then I go to my day job, which is law. I really try to compartmentalize those two because it’s too difficult to bring them into the same space, so I really focus on writing, and by writing, it doesn’t necessarily have to be being physically at a typewriter writing something. It can be thinking about an idea. It can be going for a walk, it can be reading something, watching something. I get a lot of inspiration from watching documentaries.
And then, now that I have these two podcasts, one of my podcasts, Crime Stands Still, started out of a case that I represented a woman for 15 years who I believe was wrongfully convicted, and I was actually her post-conviction lawyer. And so at the end of the day, she said to me, there’s nothing left that you can do in the legal system, so what can you do in a different media platform? I had never really thought about podcasting until I got to her case, and I thought, you know what? Her case is so interesting, so compelling, I think I’m going to start there. So I started by telling her story and offering different legal theories and different perspectives, different new evidence that the jury never heard, and so that became that platform. That was kind of easy to do and fun to do because I already had all the research.
The other one I do is Crime Bites, where I just do kind of snippets of what’s in the headlines, and I offer it from a defense attorney’s perspective. What would I see legally that maybe an audience doesn’t get from another podcaster? What can I offer that’s different? I do spend quite a bit of time on that one, because I have to, number one, find the case and figure out what’s interesting about it. I don’t want to just talk about a case that’s sensational, but I will talk about something that is in the news and maybe offer a different perspective. It’s quite a bit of work so I devote maybe two days a week to researching and writing those scripts and doing those podcasts, and then the rest of the time as a lawyer. So it’s a juggling act.
Debbi: Wow. It must be quite a juggling act. I really admire your determination and persistence there and your work ethic. That’s great. What advice would you give to anyone who’s interested in having a writing career?
Kerrie: Well, the one thing that I would say to somebody that I wish somebody had said to me was do not expect it to replace your day job, at least not for a very long time and if you’re very, very lucky, because you cannot or shouldn’t I think, be doing it for the money because it’s not there and it’s not there for a variety of reasons. 90% of the time it has nothing to do with the quality or time expended on your book.
It’s just a fact. There’s so many books out there. The publishers take the lion’s share of the royalties and so it can be very frustrating. I’m traditionally published, so I can’t really speak for the self-publishing arena, but being published traditionally, it’s been a very sobering experience. While they certainly have a wide distribution and they get your books in a lot of places, and it’s fun to see that, you lose a lot of control over the creative project. You really don’t see a lot of money from it.
Debbi: That’s right.
Kerrie: Yeah. And that’s why I’m still a lawyer. I get asked that all the time. Why do you still do this? Well, because I have to.
Debbi: People have this notion that somehow you come out with a book and suddenly you’re a millionaire. No, it’s not the way it works at all.
Kerrie: No.
Debbi: That’s definitely true for self-published, I can tell you that from a personal perspective. I know that from experience. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?
Kerrie: The only other thing that I would add is in addition to just doing it because you have a passion for it, don’t write to the market necessarily, but write to what you are absolutely passionate about, because you’re going to spend so much time working on it, rewriting and editing, no matter what, no matter if you’re self-published or traditionally published, it is going to consume your life for a couple of years at least. And so be prepared for that and be sure that you really love what you’re doing. And the last piece of thing I would say is don’t read the reviews.
Debbi: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely!
Kerrie: Just don’t read them, because people will write whatever. They haven’t tried to write a book and so they’re just going to be trolls in a lot of cases.
Debbi: The heck with them.
Kerrie: Yeah.
Debbi: Ignore that kind of stuff. If there are people out there who like you, that’s enough, isn’t it?
Kerrie: Right.
Debbi: Have that crew of people who like you. Well, thank you so much for being here, and this was a great talk and I could probably talk for an hour about this, but unfortunately I don’t have the time. Zoom won’t let me.
Kerrie: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Debbi: Oh, I’m pleased to do it. Believe me. It’s always nice to have a lawyer on, too, especially a defense lawyer. I love defense lawyers, so … not that I don’t like prosecutors, I know they have a very important job, but defense lawyers really take it on the chin sometimes, and I like to defend them..
Kerrie: That’s cute.
Debbi: So, in any case, I just want to thank everyone who’s listening. If you would please, leave a review if you enjoyed the episode. And also, we have a Patreon page with perks for supporters, so check that out. With that I’ll just say, take care and until next time, happy reading.
*****
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