Clifford Olson

I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself. I wasn't insane. I knew what I was doing at the time.

You say you have nothing to lose, so are you going to kill again? One of these days, Arlene, I'm going to make a move, and it's going to be a bloodbath.

I had just finished killing King at that time. And had he had me under surveillance, like he should have, King would have been alive today.

You know, I mean, you haven't met me personally, but my God, you know, this is a tragedy that can't be put into words. And no matter what I say to the parents or anybody else, it's not going to bring those children back. I have what's called inner peace in the sense that it still bothers me today. Certainly, I wouldn't be human if it didn't, and it will bother me till the day of my death.

But you've got to put things in the past, and you've got to look to the future along the linesome.

Not bad, thank you.

I just ramble on here, you know, and she just listens and, you know, she hums, yes, yes, yes. I never give her a chance to get anything in sideways.

Right, I've got them. I know why. I answered that myself in my own thing, but I've got to have somebody to write. I'm not after no one.

Okay, and it was good talking to you, Peter.

Hi, how are you? I'm fine, how are you? About ten minutes late. I called the bottom number.

Got a movie on, it's a comedy movie on baseball.

Coming live all the way from the Kingston Penitentiary, your local DJ, Clifford Robert Olsen, in stereo. These records and these tapes are all dedicated to Arlene.

Well, where's Arlene today? She's not at work yet. Oh, well, let's see what time it is. Oh, no, no, she won't be at work. She won't be at work for an hour. Well, she's not at home. Well, she's probably on the way then. Well, I called her just ten minutes ago and she wasn't in the car phone. Oh, well, God knows. Okay, listen, can you get a little message here?

I question a lot of that, too. I think a lot of that is bullshit, Arlene. I think a lot of those people are not sexually abused. They're used as an escape code to get out for what they're doing. You know, a lot of people just lie. You know, I mean, they've got to cover themselves. They're saving face. They've got to save a little pride, you know?

I called last night there, and I can appreciate not calling you at home, but I thought sometimes for an emergency or anything, that comes up, Peter, you know?

See, we closed the deal. Here, we closed the deal, I think it was the 25th. About, oh, 12 o'clock.

And then the next day we left at 9 o'clock when the money was delivered. Then we went directly from there out looking for bodies. You get what I'm getting at?

I'm going to spend the rest of my life in jail, and I'm not prepared to do that. And one of these days, Arlene, I'm going to make a move and it's going to be a bloodbath.

Yeah, I know, definitely. I mean, that comes first, you know, but I thought, like, if anything of an emergency ever come up, and one would have to give... The only emergency that would come up would be you going over the wall. Well, or did I kill somebody?

There was an unsettling amount of polite small talk. I could hear my grandfather patiently humoring Olson. Who's Christian? Chrétien. Oh, Chrétien, yeah.

He didn't answer or reply to the letter that I sent him, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah. You know?

I was drinking, but yet I knew what I was doing at all times. Yet I didn't give a fuck. I knew deliberately that I was going to go out day after day, year after year, pick these persons up, have sex with them,

He must be going for a coffee.

No, no, I just got back. Okay. We're all playing music. What I said about the Freedom of Information Act?

Well, no, I just run it short. I accessed my stuff from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Thank you, operator. That should have been Senator Clifford Olsen.

How are you? Where did you have to go?

No. Not pregnant?

Oh, okay. Hey, I hope we don't play this on, you know, during your interviews. No, I will edit that part out.

And then on the other hand... Tell me one nasty thing I said about your back.

Yes, I have. And I think I called you that on the phone, too.

You have not come in to interview me. I don't think that is a proper perspective for a reporter. Now, you might have reasons for that. You might be scared of a serial killer. What am I going to do, hold you up against the wall with a pencil? I'm asking you, why haven't you come in with Peter to visit?

I'm telling you, Arlene, yes, I do. Are you?

One night I did.

Okay, listen, just don't let anything out that I'm calling you or we'll cut right off.

No, but I'm saying that way we're okay.

Yeah, this is a conference call going through to my lawyer, which you're at his office, Arlene. You're the first interview I ever gave in the media. Very first.

Well, really, see, being a Christian, I'm forgiven in the sense that it's over and done with, and I'm not to whine and cry what happened. But still, being human, I have those inner thoughts and feelings that, Jesus, how could me, of anybody in North America, commit such things?

He said that I'm normal. That's it?

Yep.

Well, do I sound like a highly organized psychopath to you? My God, lady. Go ahead.

Go ahead. You're a reporter.

I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself. I wasn't insane. I knew what I was doing at the time.

You say you have nothing to lose, so are you going to kill again? One of these days, Arlene, I'm going to make a move and it's going to be a bloodbath.

Ten seconds after I entered the Corey building and walked into that big room, there were beautiful photographs of Diane. Picture, picture, picture, picture, picture, picture. None of the pictures. I text him.

Your life is irrevocably changed. Diane MacGyver is dead. There will be a price for that. There will be consequences for that. And you need to start reconciling and moving forward that way.

I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself.

There's a million things in life that are hard to explain. And to jump from that to these odd things, they all add up to malice murder. I mean, people do dumb shit all the time.

I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself.

I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself.

The only offer we had before trial was that he would plead guilty to murder with a very reduced sentence, which is an odd feature of Georgia law. Because it was murder, you can't collect. That's the Slayer Statute. Involuntary manslaughter, you can, because it's not an intentional killing. Did you know that the state offered us five years back then? Yes. Total of five years.

What did Billy think about that? I'm curious. You know, I didn't think that was an unreasonable offer because I thought we were likely to get convicted of involuntary manslaughter, which could get you 10. The way it was, if I can just finish, the way that's a little bit complicated is the 10 years was parolable, the five would not be.

So it was a close call, and Tex said, no, I'm not pleading guilty to murder.

Well, that's different than the, there was, as I said, the... There's more to this than I can explain, which is why we hired a lawyer to deal with the, you know, the estate issues with two lawyers. And Mary Margaret Oliver is a very fine lawyer who I've known since the day I set foot in Georgia 50 years ago. And, you know, as I said, there's the life insurance prong.

There's the wrongful death benefits, however much they were. There's the estate. There's the property. There's the jewelry and the furs that were sold. All of those came under different provisions of law that governed what goes to the heirs and who are the heirs. So they're going to be litigating that until Texas is in his grave.

I have no idea. I'm not sure that's true. You may be right. I'll accept what you're telling me. But if you were just told that, I'd want to find out. Ms.

I don't know whether she did or not, but okay.

I'm not sure he's becoming a millionaire. I mean, no, I think that's an odd way to phrase it. She died as a result of an accident. He was negligent. You know, the fact that he recovers the real estate that they own together, that he collects that, that there was life insurance that has to pay.

You know, I guess, you know, what he wanted to do, he should tell the life insurance company, give it to charity, give it to Billy Corey. You want the money? I mean, what do you do with a life insurance policy where you're the beneficiary? Tell the life insurance company, give it to an orphanage in Ethiopia. It is an odd situation. Yeah, I mean, I think it's unfair. I don't know.

If you posed it to him, he'd probably say, the only thing that matters to me is I've lost my wife.

Well, there's different kinds, but this is certainly one that I will remember forever. And I doubt my epitaph will have the names of cases, but if it did, this would be one of them. And maybe a tragedy all around? Yeah, but that's often the case. It's often the case. Whether it's a murder case or even vehicular homicide cases are unbelievably tragic.

So that was not my job. My job was to get a disposition. I consulted with those lawyers. I said, you know, if we plead the involuntary, is that going to have an impact on the money? And they said, no, that's not going to impact it. But that wasn't, I told Tex a long time ago, if we can get the prosecution to give you involuntary, to sentence you to involuntary.

And that wasn't any deception on the part of Adam Abadi.

I mean, this was meeting with Fonny Willis. This was not some secret deal done, you know, in the closet with Adam. Fonny Willis spent a long time talking to us repeatedly. Me and my partner, Amanda Clark Palmer, met with Fonny repeatedly to talk about, you know, this case. And the prosecution laid out to her. She became our jury as to what the settlement would be.

And I know she met with Billy, too. So maybe Billy was unhappy with her. But, you know, it is a case that's odd, you know? Yeah. Odd maybe is an understatement.