435: Conversations With Serial Killers w/ Jeffrey Smalldon

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

Erik Rivenes

History, True Crime, Education

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest this week is forensic psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Smalldon. He shares stories from decades of correspondence, prison visits and interviews with some of America’s most notorious killers, including Charles Manson, Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. His memoir is called "That Beast Was Not Me: One Forensic Psychologist, Five Decades of Conversations with Killers". The author's website: ⁠https://jeffreysmalldon.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:41.2	My guest today is Jeffrey Smalden. He is a board-certified forensic psychologist
1:47.4	who spent decades studying the minds of violent offenders and consulting on hundreds of death
1:54.0	penalty cases. Over the course of his career, he corresponded with and interviewed some of the most
1:59.9	notorious killers in history, including
2:02.4	members of the Manson family, Ted Bundy, and John Wayne Gasey. The focus of our interview today
2:09.1	is his 2024 memoir, That Beast Was Not Me, a Forensic Psychologist, looks back on five decades of murder. Great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on.
2:23.9	Thanks for having me, Eric. Good to be here.
2:26.8	So when did you first become interested in true crime? Do you remember when it kind of clicked for you?
2:33.1	Yeah, I do remember.
2:34.5	We were living in Bethesda, Maryland.
2:37.8	My dad was a FBI agent, and he was assigned to headquarters in Washington.
2:43.2	And I just remember we took a family trip to Ford's Theater.
	...

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