S19 Ep130: The Baby Doll Serial Killer: John Eric Armstrong w/B.R. Bates and Gerald Cliff
Darkness Radio
Darkness Radio
4.7 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2024
⏱️ 161 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
He was unassuming, sweet, and friendly. “Saved” in church as a teen, he never caused trouble. In the Navy, they called him Opie. Though he was a big guy, he had a soft, boyish demeanor. “The boy next door,” said those who worked with and knew him.
But John Eric Armstrong had a dark secret—hidden even from those closest to him.
Prowling Detroit's well-known pocket of prostitution on historic Michigan Ave, this young husband and father picked up unsuspecting women who thought they were simply meeting a john. He seemed innocent, even driving a Jeep with a front plate reading "Baby Doll." But they soon discovered, he could turn on a dime -- fly into a rage. Sometimes he would leave his victims alive, but sometimes he didn’t.
In THE 'BABY DOLL’ SERIAL KILLER: The John Eric Armstrong Homicides, journalist B.R. Bates lays out the gripping story of this chameleon of a serial killer through his crimes – with a compassionate look at the life of each one of his victims – and the heroic efforts of law enforcement to catch him.
On today's TCT, B.R. Bates and former officer in the case, Gerald Cliff, PhD. join the show to talk about the specifics of the case, What motivated John Eric Armstrong to attack sex workers, and with the changes in technology since this case, why we are still in danger from potential serial killers!
Get your copy of "The Baby Doll Serial Killer: The John Eric Armstrong Homicides" here: https://bit.ly/4f42jfO
Check out B.R. Bates on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/brbates.author/
PLUS AN ALL-NEW DUMB CRIMES/STUPID CRIMINALS WITH JESSICA FREEBURG!
Order the two new books from Jessica here: https://jessicafreeburg.com/books/
Jessica and Ghost Stories Ink are giving away two tickets to their Palmer House Event, Nov. 14-17th, 2024 (you will have to pay for your hotel). To enter, simply send an email with your name, address, phone #, and the phrase, "I wanna ghost hunt with Jess and Tim!" to Jessica@jessicafreeburg.com! One entry per household please! Deadline for this contest is Sunday 11/2/24 at midnight! Good Luck!
Find out where the crew will be in your area:
https://www.darknessradioshow.com/p/events/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And the Welcome into the best in True Crime Podcasting. This is True Crime Tuesday. I'm your host Tim Dennis. |
| 0:27.0 | Got a very interesting show today folks. We're going to delve not only into the mind of a serial killer today, but we're |
| 0:35.0 | also going to take a look at a very interesting world, the world of sex work in Detroit |
| 0:41.2 | in the 90s and 2000s. |
| 0:44.5 | It's an interesting world in that it's an antiquated world. |
| 0:48.1 | It's a world that, I guess you could say, |
| 0:51.6 | you know, in today's world in technology you don't have much to do with the streets |
| 0:56.9 | anymore I mean you don't talk much about John's going to the street finding somebody who's drug addicted, or even has |
| 1:06.7 | different issues, maybe mental illness, maybe desperation, and dealing with that level of crime so much anymore. It's been taken to |
| 1:17.0 | technology. I don't believe things are safer, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating anything like that. In fact, |
| 1:25.4 | we're going to talk with Gerald Cliff, one of the authors of the book today, who's a |
| 1:30.0 | commanding officer of a violent crime section in Detroit, |
| 1:34.6 | and we'll ask this question, |
| 1:35.9 | because it's a tough situation to deal with. |
| 1:39.6 | But we're going to talk about John Eric Armstrong. |
| 1:48.3 | A person who took advantage of a lot of different women are not only in Detroit but around the world, I should say people because it wasn't just men women |
| 1:56.1 | a lot of different people around the world and their situations and tried to blame it on a lot of different things. |
| 2:04.4 | We'll find out what exactly you tried to blame it on. |
| 2:06.4 | It's an interesting layered case, |
| 2:09.6 | but I want to get right into it, |
| 2:11.4 | and we'll talk about John Eric Armstrong and it's fascinating, fascinating |
| 2:18.0 | case. The name of the book by the way folks as I move around this here is called the baby doll serial killer the John Eric Armstrong homicides. |
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