My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - Celebrity Hometowns with Paul Holes

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

For a special treat, Karen and Georgia sit down with celebrity guests to hear their stories, from hometown murders to personal accounts of mayhem to legendary family lore. Today's guest is Paul Holes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. Celebrity hometowns. That's right, segment. Here it is, portion of the show. New thing we're doing, we thought it would be fun to gather up all of our most famous friends and have them tell us about the inciting incident that got them into true crime, an interesting story from their life, some kind of badass grandma that they might have in their

background. Anything. Anything. Hauntings. Did your brother almost try to kill you on accident when you were kids? Is your grandma related to Al Capone? We heard it all and we want to hear it all. That's what hometowns are all about these days. And then what better than to get a hometown from a person that you've seen on TV, you know them from social media, from podcasting, from everywhere you look, the one and only, Mr. Paul Poles. Paul Poles. Look at him. How's it going? It's been a long time. It has. How's your quarantine going? You know, it's going good. In fact, the pandemic was my first break since I retired. So, yeah. That's right. You retired and immediately started a brand new career in the media.

Yeah. Right. So, you know, I, you know, March of 2020, I came back from New York. I was on Dr. Oz and the next day I had a fever and a sore throat. And I have a feeling that I probably had COVID out of New York. Yeah. You know, and it lasted four days. It wasn't too bad. And then from then on, you know, my life slowed down, which was much needed. So, you know, unexpected and scary, but it's also like, wow, this is what it's like to actually retire. To a point. Yeah. You know, but it was in some ways, you know, it's unfortunate. It had to do because of the pandemic, but then, you know, I moved out to Colorado. So I started enjoying Colorado things. You know, of course, everything was shut down here from, you know, restaurants

and stuff, but I could still go out in the mountains. I could still mountain bike. So that's what I did. That's great. That's awesome. And Paul, I remember when you got that fever on your flight home, because we were all talking about, oh, we don't have to shut the offices down right now. We can still, and we were kind of playing in that middle ground. And then Danielle called, she's like, Paul holds probably has it. We have to shut everything down and get it industrially cleaned. And it was, that's when we got serious because we were like, whether Paul actually has it, or he's just sick from traveling, whatever this is, we now know that this is how close it could be that we could give that everyone could give it to each other. Like it's serious business.

The exactly right offices are no more because we don't need them. Exactly. Well, and that's, you know, that's what's been surprising to me because I know going into this podcasting world, I was like, well, I need to be in the room with the person I'm talking to. That's what I'm used to. And then we're forced to do the online. But with, you know, like right now, I can see you to, you know, I can see you're looking at how your body language is. And, you know, that's what Billy and I do. And it worked. And the listeners didn't notice a difference. So it's something that, you know, makes life a little bit easier versus me constantly traveling out to LA to record. That's true. And now we know in the future, like it's not, it's so much better

to be in person. Everyone knows that, but it's not totally necessary that you have to upend your life every time you have to record. And no, that's true. You know, but I miss seeing you guys in person. And I think I'll be seeing you guys in person pretty soon. I hope so. Yay. That's great. Murder Squad has just done so well from the get go. Like you guys are a hip podcast. I mean, we all knew that it would be when we asked you to do it, but it's just so great to watch you guys grow because you really have been a juggernaut. And I don't think we've even had that conversation with you ever of just like congratulations and thank you for making a hit show. Well, you know, I think where the credit is deserved is with you guys. You know, you had the belief in us

and your fan base in part was something that gave us an advantage. You know, so yeah, I know, you know, I and Billy and I have talked, we understood that we had, you know, that type of opportunity. And, you know, we really do owe you guys a lot for the success that we've had on our side. You're so modest. You're very modest, Paul, especially when the hashtag hot for holes started and then went on for so long. I think it's still alive to this day. I mean, come on, you're like a member of new kids on the block and you know it. And we weren't going to let that opportunity pass by. I blame you guys for that. Are you kidding? We didn't start the fire. We did not start that fire. Hey, I have a question. Did you write a book during the pandemic? Like,

was it thoroughly in or was it before you started it before? I started a book a couple of months after I retired, you know, and of course it was it was underway during the course of as I was doing everything. And then the pandemic really allowed us to drill down and try to get it done. And so now for the most part is done. And then you guys were the first ones to announce it. Yes, we're so excited. Yeah, can't wait to read it. It's so it's coming out. Is that right April of 2022? That's correct. It's available for preorder right now. I'm excited. It's, you know, it's something where the author and the publisher really pushed me because it's, you know, I thought going into writing the book, all people wanted to hear about was the, you know, the inside scoop of

Golden State Killer. And then they really said, no, people want to get to know who you are, as well as, you know, your career. So in many ways, this is my memoir. And in many ways, I've had to open up and divulge a lot of personal aspects of my life that, you know, I, it's very uncomfortable. I'm a very private person. I'm naturally an introvert, you know, but also at the same time, it's important for people to see how working in this line of work and in particular types of cases that I worked has impacted me on a personal level. And that really fundamentally is what are the primary goals of this book is for people to understand why I am me now. You know, so it's, it was an interesting process. I just hope that

people read it and understand when they read a lot of things about me. We got it. Oh boy. We got it. It's called unmasked my life solving America's cold cases. And please pre-order that's such an important thing for authors that I think a lot of people don't know is the pre-orders a big deal. So do that. But it is so weird when they push you to write, like we wrote a memoir and we're open books and we still had to be pushed to write personal things that we had no idea. Like, so as someone who's an introvert, I can't imagine how hard that was. Yeah, just consider the fact that all of those secrets are now going into the library of Congress forever recorded. That's right. Everything that you, everything that you admitted. No worries. No biggie. It's just recorded

for life. Oh, you're making me feel so much better. That's our specialty. Yeah. If we had to do it, you got to do it. Yeah. That's our rule for our friends. Yes, exactly. I can't wait to read it though. I think there's all those East Bay crimes that I know of growing up in, you know, in the Bay area. I just can't wait to get that the inside scoop. I talk about, you know, some of the cases I've been involved with. And, you know, I was in a unusual position to either have caught the cases from the get go or insert myself in the slut cases. And some of these cases are cases that the world knows about, but doesn't know that I was involved behind the scenes, you know. And so, you know, there's going to be details in there about some of these things that nobody's ever heard. And,

you know, again, I'm just excited to be able to put this out there and hope people find it a compelling read. So cool. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's a big deal to write a book. It is a big deal. You're an author. I never would have imagined I'd be here, but yes, you know, and I'm a podcaster. And you're a podcaster. First and foremost. You're an American's heartthrob. I mean, all of these things, you're a multi, you're a multi hyphenate. Is what they say. I'm a retired county employee. That's what I am. To put it simply. Yes. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, HelloFresh has you covered. HelloFresh makes home cooking easy and affordable

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first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Arisha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone

around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. Well, speaking of all those cases, maybe let's pivot into your quote unquote hometown because hometown means so many things. So maybe it's the case you remember from your childhood hometown that first piqued your interest or a case you worked on that maybe was the first case or the one that first stuck with you or made you realize the gravity of what you were doing or maybe your grandma was a badass. You can tell us anything. Oh, wow. You know, it's well, it's why because I, you know, I've been thinking about this a little bit. And there's so many different

ways that I could go. I remember, you know, my dad was in the Air Force and he was stationed at Hill Air Force Base. And this is in that 1973 1974 timeframe. And I as a young boy would just go, you know, do what you did as a kid back in the early 70s, you just go wander around and your parents had no idea where you were at. And I remember maybe a little smoking here and there, maybe some bike riding, some smoking. Oh yeah, at age four or five, you know, wait, you're just on your own on age four or five, just wandering the street chewing the copahead. And you know, it's, uh, yes, no, but it's funny because I do remember I would slide underneath the chain link fence, you know, to go outside of the base. And it was funny because I was,

I was collecting bottle caps for whatever reason, right? I was looking for a trash on, you know, but as a kid, you think this is the coolest thing. And then as I got older, I realized that when I was out there by myself, that's when Ted Bundy was in the area, you know, so it was one of those things where you go, wow, you know, what would have happened, right? Even though, you know, his predilection was for, for women, you know, still a young boy, maybe somebody that a predator couldn't have passed up. And, and I think, you know, back over my time, you know, for similar incidents, incidences in terms of, wow, that was really stupid. But in terms of, you know, for me, what really got me into my career, it wasn't any type of case. It was a TV show, you know,

and I know when, when we did our show together up in Sacramento, when you guys brought me out on stage, I talked about it a little bit in terms of Quincy, you know, the medical examiner, the pathologist, and you know, that show portrayed this pathologist Quincy, Jack Clugman, who's not only doing the autopsies, but is doing the forensic work, is investigating the cases, you know, he really isn't a real person, but I was fascinated with it. And then ultimately, when I went to college at UC Davis, I was pre-med because I wanted to become a forensic pathologist. And I ended up, you know, I took a human anatomy course, which was taught out at the med school at UC Davis has an excellent med school. And so I got access to the medical

schools library and they had a, they had a shelf, maybe two shelves worth of forensic pathology books. And this was really the first time that I was opening the pages and seeing images of death in all its states. And that was shocking to the system, you know, for the, the uninitiated to see, you know, what happens when somebody dies, the decomposition processes or, you know, vehicular accidents, which are horrific in terms of the injuries or airplane crashes. You know, you start not only going, geez, this is, this is gruesome, but it's also that check on your own mortality, you know, as, as now I'm in my early 20s, I think I was 20, 21. It really is that thought invoking aspect about what life is all about. But I became

fascinated with that. But because I was more interested in playing guitar and girls, I did not, I did not have the grades to go to med school. Again, you were 2021, like what else would you be doing? You were going to be a rock and roll doctor. Yeah, you know, when I was really at that point, okay, med school was out and I was kind of struggling what I wanted to do. You know, I thought because my degree is in biochemistry, that I would go into biotechnology, which is brand new at the time. And I actually interned at a biotech company in Davis called Calgene. And so I thought, well, this seems to be the

direction I want to go. But I don't know. And then I'm at a job fair at the UC Davis gym. It's a huge complex. And it was, you know, like on the basketball floor, all sorts of booths are set up, but a lot of biotech companies were there. And I was standing in line to talk to some biotech company and I look over at this other booth. And there is an old style TV, you know, the old, you know, CRT TVs, right? Sitting up on one of those TVs stands at this booth. And the image on the TV was a man lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the kitchen. And I was immediately like, what's that? Excuse me. Excuse me. I get out of that line and I get over, I go over there. And there was a, an older gentleman, Victor Reeves from the California

Criminalistics Institute, who was basically recruiting for criminalistics, which I had never heard of. But he was saying, yeah, criminalists are forensic scientists that work in the lab, but we also go out to do crime scene investigation. And I was sold. So at that point, I was like, okay, this is what I want to do. And I immediately went to the UC Davis job, kind of their career library and flipped through, you know, recent job announcements and found a forensic toxicologist announcement for Contra Costa County up in the Bay Area, California. And I applied. And that's literally how I got into at least the beginning of my career. But as a forensic toxicologist, I'm doing drug analysis and alcohol analysis. And I quickly became bored. And I don't do bored. Well,

at all. And there was a deputy sheriff, criminalist position opening up after a few years on the job. And they were the ones that got to go out to do the crime scenes, work the homicides. And I was like, yeah, that's what I want to do. And from that point on, you know, I just kind of, I got hired into that position. I got hooked into cold cases and serial predator stuff and did the deep dive early in my career, and then ended up working so many cases, you know, and it was fortunate, you know, this is a busy area and a unique, unique area. And so I was exposed to so much over the course of my career. That's amazing. How did cold cases get solved back then? I know we didn't have genetic genealogy. So it's just like gum shoe or a little bit of blood or, you know, when I first

started, DNA was pretty much brand new in crime labs. And there were some cold cases being solved. But they were what you'd call the low hanging fruit. It was the, you know, they had the obvious physical evidence, the easy physical evidence to use. But as time went on, those dried up and, you know, you didn't see a lot of cold cases being solved until DNA matured. But you still have, you know, the boots on the ground investigation. I just know, you know, from my experience, that, you know, you get so locked in on a suspect because of circumstantial evidence. And just to see these suspects that you're convinced this is the guy and then to watch the objective forensic science evidence, eliminate that guy. If it's a cold case, for me,

I really am much more comfortable seeing, you know, I want that objective evidence to support my thoughts because I have been wrong, you know, and that's just, that's the limitation of that human thought process. You know, you think, Oh, this can't be a coincidence. He's got to be involved. And it turns out, Oh, it's just a coincidence. Yeah, it's crazy how many coincidences there are in this. It is. Like this is not possible. But that's right. But it's possible. Yeah. Did you ever feel like you had to argue for when DNA was early on, but it was around? And did you ever feel like you were the ambassador for that kind of testing? Or did everybody accept it as it came? Was there pushback against it? What was that like? No, you know,

DNA technology was a very well embraced within the forensic science community and within law enforcement. You know, the pushback came, of course, by the defense, because it was new and they wanted to fight it and it incriminated their defendant. So there, you know, that's where DNA really proved itself was in the courts. You know, now, I know that kind of the struggle that I had within my department is that the resources just weren't there to work cold cases. You know, the 1990s was very busy. A lot of gang violence, a lot of drug violence, a lot of drug labs, you know, I was out, you know, all these beavis and butthead cooks that were going on, you know, it was just, you know, the duffel bag filled with chemicals, you know, so to try to find the time

to work a case that was 20 years old was hard. And the reality is, is I was the only one that consistently would do it every now and then. An investigator would come on board that showed an interest and then that person would get reassigned. Yeah. And but for me, it became a passion. And I just did it. My bosses often didn't know what I was up to. Maverick over here. Yes. So, and it was just Quincy. That was Quincy. I was influenced by the TV show. Yeah. Quincy didn't wait for permission. He just went and did it. You know, I talk to people and I say, you have to take risks. You know, if you want to make a difference, you got to take risks. Otherwise, you're just going to be another cog in the machinery of the agency you're working

for. I took the risks. Unfortunately, I didn't get bit. And fortunately, you know, the my biggest risk was, you know, maintaining and persisting on Golden State Killer. And that worked out well. You know, we got a very, very bad guy off the streets. But it's that that's kind of I think across the board, you know, that's the struggle that many agencies have is they don't have the resources to dig up these old cases. You know, so that's where you get into the arguments of, in my book details as to where I was, I was being criticized because for my own staff, because I was pursuing these cold cases when staff couldn't keep up on the current casework. And they're saying, you know, holes is killing us. I love it. The bad boy in the lab. Now, Paul, do you remember

when you filmed cold case files? Was that the first thing like that that you ever did for TV? Okay, so no, you know, the very first TV outside of the, you know, a real quick snippet on news, like for O.J. Simpson to date myself. But the very first thing I did believe in that was Unsolved Mysteries. Really? Wow. Yeah. You know, it was the case. It was East area rapist. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. So in 2001, when we had the DNA link from East area rapist to the original night stalker down south, Unsolved Mysteries decided, you know, they wanted to interview me. So I went up to Sacramento and interviewed in a motel room, which was fairly straightforward. But then I was down in San Diego for sergeant school. And then they called up and said, Hey, we would love to have

you reenact the phone call, you know, of the, you know, when I called down to Orange County about this link. And that was so cool because they had me drive up to Los Angeles and in some old building downtown in a studio there, you know, an old set with bubbling beakers and test tubes in the background, which was just so fake and not real. So classic. Wait, what? You didn't have Bunsen Burners as you were filled eyewash station over here. Well, there were eyewash stations, but, you know, but it was, that was, that was really the first time it. So I had to act, you know, on the phone. And then I had some, some extra that was on the set saying, well, you know, you didn't give a long enough pause to hear the person on the other side. Oh my God. Okay. You know,

but that, that was, that was the first time. Wait, how many takes, how many takes did you have to do to pretend to talk on the phone? You know, there were multiple takes, but I don't remember how many. I was just, I was so nervous, right? Because that wasn't what I was used to. But, you know, it was a cool experience looking back on it. And that was the first time. And then back in, it was like in the 2008, 2009 timeframe, media got interested in the case again. So that's when I did the interview with cold case files, true Hollywood stories, investigates. And that's when one of the producers of that show, Todd Lindsey, he's the one who claims to have told Michelle McNamara about the C. Stara rapist case. And that's, of course, when Michelle got hooked

as to what is this case. And then of course, you know, everybody knows her story at this point. Yeah, of course. That's amazing. It's so crazy to me that if you hadn't, it's like, I always think of turning points, little moments in people's lives. And if you hadn't seen the TV at that job fair, with a dude in blood, or if you had seen it and been like, what the hell? And like creeped out by it. But somehow, like, I feel like we can identify that with that as murdering knows that we see something like that. And we go, what is that instead of what the hell? Yeah, you the feeling is, you know, you're being drawn towards something that's repelling other people. And so then you're trying not to you're like, how much do you judge yourself or how much do you say,

you know, to talk to yourself about that? Or how much do you just go, I don't give a shit, I need to know what is going on. Yeah, yeah, it's one of those points in my life that I look back on. And it was something that drew me into where for whatever reason, I just have the personality and that the skill set to do that kind of work. And it's just was, you know, by coincidence that I saw that TV. So it is those those little points in your life that I mean, they make huge differences. I mean, that literally, if I hadn't seen that, I'd probably be working for a pharmaceutical company driving around having docked, you know, giving out, you know, drug samples to the doctor, right? And high, high on pills. I'd be so high. I'd be so high. Yeah. Your own pill

addiction. It would have been a mess. I mean, pills are so easy. They're just easy to do. And we'd never have the hot for holes hashtag. And where would we be? That would be, we would be lost. None of this would be happening. That's right. See that TV. That's right. That was great. Thank you. You know, we love you, Paul. Yes, everybody does. We're so proud that you are in our family. It just means the world to us that that you and Billy do that show and that you actually did join us after all, because it's it's just the coolest. Yes, we're your number one fans. But you know, you know, I love you guys too. I mean, there's there's a special connection, you know, and Karen, you know, we we've we've flirted in the past. You know, I mean,

once this quarantine is over, I have a photo of the three of us from the Sacramento show. I'll send it along if we want to put it on Instagram. Oh, sure. This is really cute. It's fun backstage, backstage, baby, fun times. So April of 2022, make sure that you pre order unmasked my life solving America's cold cases by none other than Paul Holes. Always, always, always rate, review, and subscribe to the Murder Squad. New episodes are released every Monday. Paul Holes, thank you. Thank you so much for being on our celebrity hometown show. So fun. Yes. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. Great to see you. Yes, for sure. See you too. Bye. Elvis, do you want to cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton. Our

associate producer is Alejandra Keck, engineered and mixed by Andrew Epin. Send us your hometowns at my favorite murder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at myfavemurder. For more information about the podcast, live shows, merch, or to join the fan cult, go to myfavoritmurder.com. And please rate, review, and subscribe. Goodbye.