Don't Talk to Strangers.

In this bonus episode of Don't Talk to Strangers, I sit down with Jay Rubin Appleman, author of Children of the Snow, and host of the Invest investigation discovery series of the same name.

We talk about the case, how it impacted our childhood, the false information fed to the public

over the years, and what's next for the investigation.

Music Today I'm talking with Jay Rubin Appelman, author of the new book The Kill Jar, which focuses on the Oakland County child killer and as yet unidentified serial killer,

responsible for the deaths of four children in the Detroit area between 1976 and

1977. When was the book released?

The book was released on August 14th, but it was a long time in the making.

I noticed that from when I read the book, that you've been working on it for a long time

several years, but as someone who grew up in the Detroit area, when did you decide you

wanted to write about this?

Well, I didn't decide that I was going to tell this story until 2005. The sort of origins of the impulse to tell the story started in me very, very early. You know, when I was seven years old, somebody tried to abduct me. I was in Southfield at a strip mall called Evergreen Plaza at the time. I don't know what it's called now, but they're 11 mile on Evergreen.

And during that period, everybody was looking for the alleged Oakland County Child Killer, as you said, this as yet unknown serial killer, although I have qualms about that description and we'll get into that.

But at the same time that I was at this strip mall, the Oakland County Child Killer was being hunted.

And somebody tried to abduct me this day.

I was snatching some candy from one of the shelves.

Seven, I lived about five blocks away, and I stuck the candy into my pants, and I looked

down the aisle, and there was a larger man, appeared to be a security guard, he was wearing a

blazer. I can see every inch of him now, still. I've never lost any poor descriptive capabilities

of this guy. Anyway, I split. I put the candy back back and I split because I thought I was getting busted for shoplifting.

And I left the parking lot and I crossed a major intersection of like two lanes one way

and then two lanes another way.

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