Interview with Crime Writer Rod Sadler: S. 7, Ep. 14 The Crime Cafe

This episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Rod Sadler.



Check out his thoughts about the upcoming release on parole of a convicted serial killer.



This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense and thriller writing. I’m your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.



Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe



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Download a PDF copy of the interview here.







Debbi: Hi everyone. My final guest of 2021 had a 30-year career in law enforcement before turning his hand to writing true crime. He has three books out: To Hell I Must Go: The True Story of Michigan's Lizzie Borden, A Slayer Waits: The true story of a Michigan double murder, and his latest, Killing Women. I'm pleased to introduce my guest, Rod Sadler. Hi Rod. How are you doing today?



[01:34] Rod: Hello, Debbi. Thank you so much for having me. I am doing just great and I have really been looking forward to this.



[01:40] Debbi: Fantastic. Well, I have to tell you, your guest post. I really appreciate your being here, first of all, talking to us. Your guest post was most interesting, I have to say. I would think having an actual pen pal, if you'll excuse the pun, who is a serial killer would be interesting.



[02:02] Rod: Yeah. And I will tell you, it's much less than a pen pal. I guess it was for a short time, but when the first letter arrived—actually just to take a short side note here, if you're ever going to start a letter to a serial killer, let me give

you a piece of advice, and this is directly from my wife. Do it with someone else's return address. She was less than pleased when we started getting letters from him, so...



[02:33] Debbi: I can easily imagine. I can just imagine. What drew you to writing true crime in general? And the reason I

ask is that there are so many police officers that I've interviewed and some of them write crime fiction and some of them write true crime. How did you pick true crime? What drew to that as opposed to fiction?



[03:02] Rod: Well, it actually started as a genealogy project back in—oh my gosh—early in my career. I became a police officer in the early 80s and I worked for a campus police department. I'll try to make this short because I can ramble on, but my great-great grandfather had served as the sheriff in the county that we live in, and so I started doing some genealogy about him just to ...