This is exactly right.

The courtroom isn't just about justice. It's about power and money and some truly bizarre loopholes.

I'm Michael Foote. And I'm Melissa Malbranche, and we've got a brand new show called Brief Recess, Illegal Podcast.

Every week, we talk about wild tales from court, trials gone wrong, and cases and rulings that shape our world.

Today we're going to be talking about stolen antiquities, all the weird things Melissa found at in a state sale, the crazy conversations I had with the bouncer and J.K. Rowling. We make the complicated clear and the serious, surprisingly fun. From the exactly right network, new episodes of Brief Recess drop every Thursday. Watch Brief Recess on YouTube. Listen to Brief Recess on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This story contains adult content and language.

Listener discretion is advised. This guy, you know, if you believe in evil, Gaskins was it.

I mean, just extraordinarily violent.

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor in Austin, Texas.

I'm also the co-host of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right.

And throughout my career, research for my many audio and book projects has taken me around the world.

On Wicked Words, I sit down with the people I've met along the way,

amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters who have investigated and reported

on notorious true crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both good and bad,

and it's a deep dive into the unpublished details behind their stories.

Dick Harputlian might be a name you recognize. He's from South Carolina, and he's one of

Alex Murdoz defense attorneys, but he's also been a prosecutor, and one of his most

disturbing defendants was serial killer Donald Pee Wee Gaskins. Dick tells me the story of his most disturbing defendants was serial killer Donald Pee-Wee Gaskins.

Dick tells me the story of his trial from his book, Dig Me a Grave.

You know, this is a big switch for you.

Is this something that you've been thinking about a lot, a non-fiction book,

which is part autobiography a little bit for you.

...