Episode Transcript: #2360 - Caroline Fraser
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Thanks for doing this.
Thank you for having me.
So I've read about the premise of your book online and immediately I'm like, I got to talk to this lady.
That sounds crazy.
Please tell people what the premise is just to get started with this.
Yeah, well, I started thinking about this a long time ago.
The book's called Murderland.
Yeah, the book is Murderland.
And I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s around the time when there were a lot of, you know, serial killers beginning to pop up.
And there always had been this question, why are there so many serial killers in the Pacific Northwest?
And so that was the question I was really thinking about.
And the premise as it emerged from the research that I did and from some of the facts that I learned about what was happening in the Northwest in this run up to the 1970s is that there may be a connection between the lead pollution that was prevalent in the area.
Because of smelters and leaded gas and serial killers.
Because lead, of course, as we, I think most people now know, has a connection to heightened aggression and violence in the people who've been exposed to it.
So that was, you know, what emerged to me gradually over the years.
I mean, I didn't know a lot about this when I started.
I knew about the serial killers, but I didn't really know about the whole lead story.
And that came about, you know, I learned about it in part because of some murders.
I mean, I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is a lovely place.
Unfortunately, New Mexico has a high rate of homicides.