Behind the Badge - Alaska's Most Bizarre Crimes | Doug Fifer

Tiffany: Welcome to Darkcast network. Hello and welcome to true crime connections

>> Tiffanie: Darkcast network. Welcome to the dark side of podcasts. Have you ever wanted to ask a cop what are some of the craziest, funniest, and grossest stories that they have? Stay tuned. We're heading to Alaska.

>> Tiffanie: Hello and welcome to true crime connections. I am Tiffanie, your host. Today, you guys, we're going to have some fun. We are talking about 50 shades of crime. We're talking sex, drugs, and killer kink. And with me today is the author of that book, Doug Pfeiffer. Thank you so much for being here, Tiffanie.

>> Doug Fifer: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about it.


A patrol cop in Alaska can do a lot of different things

>> Tiffanie: Yes. So you were an anchorage. You were a police officer, but you did all kinds of stuff. You were doing, crime scene analysts, deviant sexual crimes, hostage negotiations, all kinds of shit. You were all over the place.

>> Doug Fifer: It was, Alaska's kind of cool. We, you know, our department's about 400 officers, but you can really train in all categories. It's not like your larger cities where you'll have multiple units that come in and do different things. Really. A patrol cop in Alaska can do a lot of different things. Kind of like just what you said. And it's by necessity. Our state is so big that you can't really have two or three officers running around. You might have an officer that has to handle a murder investigation by themselves.

>> Tiffanie: When I was first thinking about this episode, I was kind of like, what dumbass do you have to be to want to do crime in Alaska? You guys all have guns. Everybody owns a gun.

>> Doug Fifer: That's true. That goes both ways, right? It either amps up the crime or it can, quell a little bit, but in Alaska, seems to amp it up a little bit.

>> Tiffanie: I can see that. I watched some of the shows, and it's just like a whole nother world there. But I can see why you had to retire first before you wrote this book.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah, I don't think they would have been too. I mean, the book's great. They're all factual cases. I don't know. They've been too happy, if I was still a sworn officer actively investigating, to write it. So I kind of had to hold that till I retired and then, write it then, but, it had to wait. But I still think it's a different twist on true crime. I think the readers will like it.

>> Tiffanie: I got sucked in, literally. I couldn't put it down until I had to get back to work. But I don't know what I was more surprised about. Mister Simpson who likes to fuck dogs. we got the man who has a 14 inch freaking cucumber up his ass.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. Those, I hate to say you're just starting, but those are. Those are to ease you into the book. And as crazy as that sounds, you're going to see a lot of interesting cases moving forward.

>> Tiffanie: Right. Like, I never knew, like, semen throwing was, like, a phenomenon.

>> Doug Fifer: I probably wish it wasn't. And hopefully I'm never in one of those grocery stores or Walmart when that happens, because I think I'd be a little bit bitter with that.

>> Tiffanie: Oh, yeah. You're probably not making it to the car.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. So, yeah, that's. That's an interesting one. It's, you know, the perversions with people and criminals. You just never know. I mean, it's all over the place. it gets. It gets pretty weird.

>> Tiffanie: Do you think this is because, like, since it is kind of like an isolated state, like, do you think it's just boredom? Do you think some people turn to, like, drugs and alcohol or.

>> Doug Fifer: It's a good question. I thought about it. You know, I was born and raised there, so I thought about it my entire life. But traveling and talking to other cops in different jurisdictions and different states, I found out, you know, really, I referenced it in the book. This happens in any town, USA. It's not unique to Alaska. Now, I think Alaska has a special flavor, and because we get some of those transients from down to the lower 48, we call that the lower 48. It's below us that travel up there because you think it's very independent, which it is. And, there's a lot of land mass and very few people. So criminals tend to gravitate towards Alaska, thinking that they can get away with a lot of stuff. In the end, they don't, luckily for us. But I think that has, you know, that's part of it, I think.

>> Tiffanie: Right. They probably figure they got a lot of places to hide.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah.

>> Tiffanie: Having cucumbers up here.

>> Doug Fifer: No, that's, that was an interesting case, and I feel bad for my fellow officer that had to handle that case, because that'd be a tough one for sure.

>> Tiffanie: So, obviously, I didn't have enough time to finish the book, but believe me, I will.


One of the most shocking calls in the book involves a prison tattoo

But I'm so curious, like, what is the craziest call you've ever.

>> Doug Fifer: I think the craziest one that's in the book, it's in chapter three. You may not be there yet. it's called kink and ink. And then the case on that one is called the taboo. Tattoo. So once you get through that one, that was. That's one that I was shocked from a cop's perspective, which is hard to shock a cop, right? But I was newer at the time, and I had arrested a drug dealer that was selling heroin on her streets. so I was pretty excited for getting a heroin bust and, you know, helping out with the. Clamped down on the drug trade. And on our reports at the time, they asked, what kind of tattoos did a suspect have? And that's for identification purposes. So if you lied later on, I could look at your, you know, sleeve work or your back tat or whatever and say, this is the person. Cause, you know, people tend to lie to cops all the time. And so he told me he had a prison tat, and I was new enough to where I didn't know what a prison tat was at the time. And so I. Of a, woman, and I said, okay, is it your mom, your girlfriend? You know, what kind of tat is it? And so he kind of mocked me a little bit for, you know, being a little green as a cop, as a rookie, and said, you know what? A prison tap was so fast forward. We get to the jail, and I need a document on my report, what the tattoo is. So I told the correction officer, hey, I need to see his tab. It's on his back, but he won't tell me what it is. So the correction officer said, strip down naked. And the suspect did, keep in mind, jails have a lot more authority than police. When you get into jail, it's carte blanche for them. They tell you what to do, when to do it. And so he stripped down, but the tattoo on his back was of a beautiful woman with long, flowing hair. The anatomy perfectly, as you imagine, a naked woman. And I was shocked. So I interviewed him afterwards on this tattoo. He was so addicted to heroin that he started at 15 years old, was, stealing from his parents in six months. Kicked out of the house right after that. Went on to, drug dealing on the streets, minor drug dealing. To support his habit. He told me he had to do some unsavory acts. Never got into what that is, but I'm guessing it was prostitution. And then he got popped a couple times. His third arrest. He got a longer stint at San Quentin, which is one of the, penitentiaries in California. When he went in there, he still needed heroin, of course, and the mexican mafia was kind enough to provide him heroin with, the assurance that he'd pay him back later. He certainly had no means of paying him back. So after a few weeks of this, they gave him two options. He could become a prison prostitute or they would beat him to death. not many options there. So he chose to be a prison prostitute. But before they did that, they tattooed this extraordinary tattoo on his back, which shocked me to my core. I found it fascinating. so I would often use this story in citizens academies or wherever. I would teach about drugs and their effects. Because hitting rock bottom, I don't know that you could hit much more rock bottom than this guy did to have that tattoo. So that that story goes from a to z in the book. But that was really alarming to me, even as a cop, that an individual, you know, for a drug habit, would go to those lengths. You know, after working 25 years, I realized there's no lengths that people won't go to. Homicide, theft, robbery, anything.


Out of all the drugs, even fentanyl, cocaine, heroin is most prevalent

but the tabutat, too, is one that it did shock me even as a cop.

>> Tiffanie: So is that for, like, the guys that were having sex with him? Look at this beautiful woman, or woman.

>> Doug Fifer: And like, yep, you're exactly right. So there's three types. There's heterosexuals in prison that just, they just stay heterosexual. There's prison wolves and they're straight on the outside and maybe gay on the inside. And then there's homosexuals in prison. So he was, in essence, prostituted out for prison wolves. Those that are straight but engaging to it. It was more appetizing to them to look at a woman and not consider themselves gay in prison. Which, again, me trying to wrap my head around this was very shocking that this occurs in everyday life. But that was his sole purpose. And so they kept him on heroin, the mexican mafia. And then he performed sexual acts with other inmates to pay for that heroin. And then he eventually got out and came up to Alaska and then got popped again for heroin. Out of all the drugs, even fentanyl, cocaine, I've never seen a drug more potent or prevalent wreaking havoc on society than heroin.

>> Tiffanie: Overall, I've heard all you have to do is try it once in your hub.

>> Doug Fifer: he gave me an interesting analogy because I asked him why he couldn't stop. So he said, imagine, like, sex. If you like sex, your best orgasm, he said, multiply that by a thousand and that's heroin. Which I couldn't imagine. He kind of broke it down for me. So I, you know, I was learning as a younger cop, but I was always fascinated by that statement because, you know, I'm never going to do heroin, but I can't imagine that high.

>> Tiffanie: right. I would never want to chance it. To think that's what you're going to chase now for the rest of your life.

>> Doug Fifer: Or highly addictive, no doubt about it.

>> Tiffanie: Right. Did you guys see a lot of fentanyl?

>> Doug Fifer: Fentanyl tort is, is the newer type style drug. There's always new drugs that will replace old ones. So although we're on fentanyl now, in five years, I promise you there'll be a new synthetic, dope out there that's wreaking havoc. And then fentanyl is interesting for dealers because you typically, you're supposed to take it and cut it with powder cocaine, with heroin, with other drugs, and that kind of expands its potency and its use. The problem you have is when you get pure fentanyl or too much fentanyl, then it's highly deadly to the user, which we've seen in the news reports. So it's certainly rampant now. But they'll be a, drug to replace it, as there always is.

>> Tiffanie: Right. How did all the drugs come into Alaska? It's so, like, off to nowhere. Is it ships, airplanes, all the above.

>> Doug Fifer: Most people don't know. But your largest drug dealer on planet Earth is FedEx and upsitive. Not that they're actually, drug dealers of them, but there's more drugs shipped that way all over the nation, not just Alaska. A little more so in Alaska, because we're so remote. so that's the number one. And so our drug, interdiction, I think they estimated they grab about 3% of packages that come into Alaska. That means that 97% of all drugs shipped and mailed are getting to the destination. and that's probably pretty similar to the rest of the US. So it's really a fraction of drugs you're stopping now. They do the same. They bring it on ships, they bring it across the border. They have body packers, which is where you can insert the drugs into your body flying an airplane that way. So they do all the above, but I'd say shipping. But just FedEx and Ups is by far the way it gets into Alaska.

>> Tiffanie: The most crazy, because you would think like, that shit is like scanned x ray dogs. All the above they do it.

>> Doug Fifer: There's just so much that it's so hard to capture at all. And, you know, with Amazon and Ups and FedEx, we're just millions of packages daily, probably tens of millions. Right? So to scan every one of those not is not practical. So the ones they do this, do scan, they pick up a part of it, but it's, you know, it's a tough one to stop, for sure.

>> Tiffanie: Right? I mean, they are determined, and they find the craziest ways to get it in.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. I often tell suspects that I arrested throughout my career that if you put half the. Save everyone. But I would always ask them that. And, you know, they might give the a few cuss words back and tell me, mind my own business, which I got. But I always wondered, because they put so much effort into it, I wish they could have in regular society.

>> Tiffanie: I say the same thing about hackers. Like, obviously, you are so smart. Stop stealing money from people and do some good with it.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah, no doubt.

>> Speaker C: I'm Ted. I'm JJ, and we're here to tell you about our show. Conspiring to argue. I like it. That is not relevant. What do we do on the show? Well, on our podcast, what we do is take conspiracy theories, and either Ted or myself will argue about if the conspiracy is real or not. Yep. And sometimes. Sometimes the. The conspiracies are silly. Sometimes they're, you know, the pantheon of the greatest conspiracies of all time. It's a mixed bag. Sometimes they're about aliens. So check us out. wherever you listen to podcasts, sometimes they're about murder.


You were a hostage negotiator specializing in alaskan serial killers

>> Tiffanie: So you were a hostage negotiator, which. Holy shit, that could literally be life or death. That has got to be so intimidating.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. Typically, it's not life or death for me, which is good, because we're usually in a, you know, giant negotiator bus or in an apartment or somewhere like that. but certainly for the victims or hostages, it's life or death. So I went into negotiation probably about ten years into my career, and that was really my sweet spot. That's what I found that I was best at, just naturally. and that's what I loved the most, which made that work fun and easy. One of my very first investigations or negotiations was with Joshua Wade, who was an alaskan serial killer. kind of a unique thing for Alaska is we have the most serial killers per capita in the US, which people wouldn't guess. We have a small population, but we have the most serial killers per capita. So Joshua Wade had committed several homicides, and we had a manhunt in our city. Well, for the entire state, for him. And he evaded us for about four days, which is pretty difficult in Alaska because not many places to go or to hide. It's not a giant city. but he was able to evade us for four or five days with friends and associates. Officers were finally able to track him down. He fled, got away, initially, broke into an apartment and took several hostages at this apartment complex. They called me out to negotiate with them, and over the course of time, I was able to release one, and, then the second, a hostage. So in that scenario, those people face grave danger from a serial killer. He knows he has really nothing to lose, from killing because he's likely to have a life sentence. So those were always, I don't want to say fun for me, but very interesting and engaged my mind because I knew very you had little leeway to make a mistake. otherwise somebody could get hurt. So you had to focus. It was kind of like a chess match with your minds, which I always enjoyed. Joshua Whaden was a smart guy. It seems odd to call a serial killer smart, but he had a high iq, which, again, I found fascinating, that you're a serial killer and you're probably a smart guy. Ultimately, he came out, he didn't want to be harmed, right? He liked to victimize women, but didn't want to be hurt himself. And really what he wanted to do is smoke a bowl of weed before he came out, whereas most police officers or law enforcement would not allow that in this situation, when that's your only want at the time, I'm probably certainly going to allow that. I'm not going to give you the drugs, but if you have them and you wanted to smoke a bowl, that's the least of our worries at that time as cops and negotiators. That's one of my most interesting one. If we fast forward, post that negotiation, him getting 100 plus years in prison, he was probably good for about an additional ten years or ten murders, sorry, that were unsolved. So what I did when I retired is I wrote, Joshua Wade in prison, kind of like a pen pal letter saying, hey, I'm the negotiator that talked you out. I don't know if you remember me or not. You know, I helped interrogate you. but I like to talk to you about those additional murders. I thought to myself, I'd probably never get a reply. You know, prison, they don't like to talk to cops, ex cops, anything like that. You know, it was only a few weeks later and I got a letter that he said, sure, I'll talk to you. So as a negotiator, I reestablished rapport with this serial killer. We wrote back and forth, and then in prisons, I didn't even know this, they actually have little iPads that they can text and they can call in and actually have audio communications. It seems a little bit much for me, but that's what they have nowadays. So I was able to then, subsequently, after writing, contact him in prison, and I have hours and hours of audio with him, which is quite strange. And he's truly an evil individual. So, he walks through the murders he committed. I mean, very graphic in detail. And then he admits to about ten unsolved, not admits all of it, but says he's good for about ten more. Over that course, I tried to work with him on giving up those homicides. And for serial killers and anybody with life, prison, they life in prison, they don't want to give up. That's all they have left. But he gave some clues on some homicides that I was familiar with that only the perpetrator could have known. So for several of those, I know he was good for. What he wanted is to be moved to a better prison. He was housed in Indiana, and, again, that takes more specific facts to work with current investigators to kind of make that happen. I was never able to get quite there on those facts. Still talking with him. This was up to, you know, a month ago, several weeks ago, Joshua Wade was released to general population. Probably got ahold of some, drugs or heroin and overdose in the cell. So he's now deceased. And while I don't feel bad for his death at all, because he was truly a monster, I do feel bad that I couldn't get over the hump on some of those unsolved ones to bring closure to the families. And again, I'm not naive enough to believe that he would have ever given it to me. But there may have been a shot. now that shot's pretty much gone, and he's gone as well, which is probably a good thing. But that's a really unique case for me as a negotiator.

>> Tiffanie: I always wondered that, like, you would think they want to give you all the information because it just glorifies them and what they've done, especially when they're already sentenced for, like, killing, say, 1015 people. What the hell's another five more? Why wouldn't you just tell?

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah, it's bargaining chips, is what it is. It really is. They want to hold the. They want to hold those to be able to, get into a different prison, get a better cell, not have a roommate in their cell. so they use those as bargaining chips. Once they're all given up, they don't have any. Where I've seen them confess to them all, is, let's say that they're sent to death row and that's it. And they know it is. And they're gonna be executed relatively soon. Then they may give up all their murders because they want that glorification. You're exactly right. What I found with, serial killers, and I mentioned this in my book, I talk about Israel keys. He's a serial killer in Alaska. But they're very ego driven, just like you said. and they don't even like to be. We compared him to Ted bundy. Cause he would read books on him. It actually pissed him off a little bit. He didn't want to be compared to Ted bundy. He wanted to do his own killing and be respected for his own killing. So you're right. Ego plays a lot in these, multi murders. it's very strange, but that's really what they get off of.

>> Tiffanie: I get that. I can totally see that. It just always pisses me off when they won't tell the families where they buried bodies. Let the families have their loved ones back.


Most serial killers say it was about power, not empathy

Don't do that.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. Pisses me off, too. But remember, they're thinking in the mind of a serial killer, where you and I are just thinking, hey, there's families out there. Let's help them get it solved. They're operating on a different brain, wavelength. So it's always interesting talking to them. But they are some evil individuals, and, they have no empathy. Remember that, right. Joshua Wade could commit a homicide and then go get a, cheeseburger and eat it. No effect whatsoever. where most people involved in a traumatic incident need some time, certainly not hungry. so much different than normal people.

>> Tiffanie: Did they ever tell you why they did it?

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah, they would say why they did it. They enjoyed the homicide, the taking of a life, because it was so powerful. So in their lifetime, they never had anything that lived up to that. Even drugs for them, sex, anything. But taking that life was the ultimate power. And they're on power trips. So that that was the majority of it. I mean, some had different reasons, some would never give it up. But overall, I think the majority of them, it is really about power. And ending a life to them is the most powerful thing you can do.

>> Tiffanie: Well, you're playing God.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah.

>> Tiffanie: Do you know if most of them had, like, childhood trauma?

>> Doug Fifer: I think most certainly do. In my interviews with Joshua Wade Post, he'd certainly reference some childhood drama. And again, this is so far back in different states, that tracking this down and verifying it is difficult. A lot of those traumatic incidents with those perpetrators on him would now be deceased, and so it's difficult to track it back. In my experience, I would say that certainly they had some sort of trauma, but also a lot of them have some, you know, their brain just isn't comprised as a normal human. and whether that's from trauma or maybe some of them were born like that, I don't know. It's always unique to the, to the individual. But I think both of them play heavily, for sure.

>> Tiffanie: I've always said that's usually why a serial killer is made, because most of them were either molested, neglected, abused themselves, they had no voice, they had no power. They grow up, I'm going to have all the power.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah, that certainly could be part of it. And I think if you read on serial killers, not just the Alaska ones, I think that they can always trace back something where there's a key point, whether they were molested, beaten, abused, bullied, something pretty traumatic. And again, I think most of us with normal brains, even with some of that trauma, we can cope and we can deal with it. So, ah, I think that there is something in the brain and maybe scientists someday will find it, that's odd and allows these individuals to have no empathy and to be able to do what they do. But I think it's a combination for sure.

>> Tiffanie: Right.


Pizza deliveries are actually quite popular with crime, especially robberies

You also mentioned in your book about the pizza delivery, like, how pizza deliveries are actually quite popular with crime, especially robberies. But the Brian Douglas Wells, when you put, I was like, I know that case. That was freaking insane.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah, that's the one in Erie, Pennsylvania, where, they were going to commit a robbery and they were going to use a pizza delivery guy. And he went to the bank. He had a, makeshift shotgun, and he got about 8000. He was supposed to get a lot more. But what had happened with him is, the investigation showed that he was initially probably part of this gang that conceived this robbery to get some money. And then ultimately they cut him out of it and had the bomb detonate. They didn't really want him around, and this was supposed to be when they got the money. Unfortunately for the suspect is when he left the bank, police were pretty quick to show up and grab him. And then the bomb detonated on his chest, ultimately killing him. That was on live tv. There's, a Netflix show on that. so what's interesting, in my career, I've had a lot of interactions with pizza, which seems odd. A lot of them were robberies where the delivery man delivered the pizza, and then whoever it was robbed him at gunpoint, took the money. or they go to a house to deliver the pizza. And one interesting case, were drug dealers. And rather than give them money, they gave him a bag of pills and said, you're paid. Well, the pizza delivered. I was a nice kid. He's like, I can't take these. He called less. I came out there, and it was Oxycontin, which is a prescribed pain pill that gets people high. At that time, it was very popular. It's still popular now, but much less so. and he still had the bag of dope on him. So we knocked on the door and arrested the dope dealers and put them in jail for simply ordering a pizza. They could have just given them cash. We'd have never known any different. But, you know, dope dealers aren't the smartest. And then the most shocking case I had was a, pizza delivery guy. But, you know, I don't name it in the book. I say it is one of the top three in the nation. So by default, you can kind, of narrow it down to which giant pizza delivery place this is nationwide. But he had a bad habit, obviously ejaculating on the pizza, and then he would deliver the pizza to unsuspecting housewives that he delivered to before that he liked. And so when he, you know, eventually he was stopped in this neighborhood, neighbors thought it was a little bit weird. He's parked at the end of this, cul de sac, just sitting there. So when I contacted him, he was, sweating profusely. He was actively trying to masturbate by himself in the pizza delivery truck when I came up on him, which is very odd. And that's why I thought he was nervous. But after about 20 or 30 minutes of interrogating him, and he was sweating profusely, which I know is a key. It wasn't normal. and then he made the comment, I did something bad. Well, in police work, something bad could mean you killed somebody. So he wouldn't admit it. But eventually I said, well, I'm going to go to every house. I'm going to call your work, go to every house you delivered to, because I got to know if anybody's hurt. So you might as well tell me because I'm going to detain you here, and we're going to figure this out. So finally, after a long time talking with him, he admitted to ejaculating on this pizza and then smearing it in and delivering it to this housewife that, who he liked for whatever unknown reason. And then when he was masturbating in the car, he was in the truck, he was trying to do it again, but he couldn't because he had just done it. So this was bizarre world. I almost thought that candid Cameron was going to come out with cameras, because there's no way in hell this was real. But what was interesting at the time is we had law books, and they cover everything from assault to robbery to burglary to theft. But this crime, it really doesn't cover in the law book. So I called the on call district attorney and I said, here's what I have. Here's the case I have. What can we charge him with? Because I don't know. And the district attorney made me repeat what I had just said because he couldn't believe what, what I just said. And he said, well, I gotta call you back. I don't even know what the crime is. So he said, go get the pizza. Right, as evidence. So I said, okay, hung up with him, went to the house. there wasn't any of the pizza left to start off with. And then to that, to that person, I had to explain to him what had happened. you can just imagine being in their shoes at the shock and awe of what was just said from a police officer in full uniform. So, you know, it's tough. And then I had to go back with the suspect and the day or district attorney I eventually talked to, and he said, I can't. I can't really think of a crime. And now I'm shocked because I have no crime to charge this guy with. That just did this, indecent act. And he asked me, did you get the pizza? And I was like, well, there's no pizza left. What would you like me to do? so then he was concerned that we didn't have any evidence, which for the case. So what I did is I wrote up the report, and we actually had to let this guy go at the time, which I found very odd. Now, the, pizza chain obviously terminated him from employment, which was good. And then I thought that eventually we were charging with a crime and get past this, and, you know, even the media might pick this up nationwide because it was so strange. Then I didn't realize the power of big business because that entity came in, got a hold of the family in question, and there was a, you know, a seven figure deal, that went down, on a civil agreement. And then that was it for the case. So I detail that entire case out in the book. You know, there's a little more, more to it than what I've explained. That's the brief version. But I, promised you one thing. I have never ordered from takeout pizza since that incident happened. So either I'm bringing my pizza home to cook, or I'm watching it be cooked in a restaurant. There's no takeout for me. And although I'm sure that's extremely rare, it stuck with me, so long that I've never eaten from takeout pizza again.

>> Tiffanie: I can see that. And you weren't even the one to eat it. But you're, like, mean the same thing, like you were saying with the. The people who go to, like, target and go to all these stores and they. The greeting card section, first of all, who knew that was a happening place?

>> Doug Fifer: No idea.


States scramble post incidents to enact new laws against bizarre behavior

>> Tiffanie: But, like, how is throwing your semen on somebody not a crime? Like, at least like a, missile or, like, you know what I mean? Like, if you spit on a cop, that's a crime.

>> Doug Fifer: Yep.

>> Tiffanie: So it should be treated as such.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. So the pizza incident in Alaska, we subsequently enacted a law where you can't put fluids, on a pizza. So that is criminal now. It wasn't then, which is odd, and then it's actually trending now. Seen flinging, which I find odd, especially in Portland and other states. Those states are enacting laws making a criminal. I document a few Alabama recently enacted laws. So as these criminals go on to new weird type, behaviors, you know, legislatures and cities have to enact these new laws to cope with them because they're so far out that, you know, standard laws don't deal with it. So you're right, it is odd. But states scramble post incidents, to enact laws and allow law enforcement to be able to arrest, on them. But again, you know, misdemeanors are very small crimes. The perpetrator is not going to serve a lot of time. Frankly, a lot of times, they don't serve any time. And I document that in some of my cases where they may get probation, 30 days probation. I mean, it's. I'm kind of shocked at that because these are. These are predators in the making, and I think intervention at this point would be good for them. whether it works and solves it or not, I don't know. But certainly being on probation or giving a warning is not solving anything for sure.

>> Tiffanie: They're like, I got away with it. They're not going to do anything about it. Just like Mister Simpson who's sleeping with dogs. Like that should be bestiality.

>> Doug Fifer: Yep, that's the, and unfortunately, city and town is called Qualluk, and that's where my family originates in Alaska. He's not our family, so I'm lucky on that part. At, least I hope he's not related somehow. But it's a small, small community. So that was strange that that incident happened there. And again, we didn't have a bestiality law in Alaska at the time. He couldn't be charged with it. and he just didn't rape one dog, he raped two in a dog park. This, wasn't his first time doing this. This, is the first time he was caught doing it. So that was an interesting case. And it was sad we couldn't charge him. He literally got a slap on the wrist for that. Again, Alaska smartened up and we now have the bestiality law. But I will tell you, and I document this throughout the book, that, there's still an active state in the US that doesn't, and Hawaii, New Mexico, and several others have only recently criminalized bestiality. And I mean, within the last year or two.

>> Tiffanie: It's just sad that you have to put that kind of law in place. Like, I have a cat. I never in a million parents think I want to do anything sexual to her. It just blows my mind. People are just crazy.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. And I think that's the power, too, because I referenced that, you know, sex. Everybody thinks sex is physical and certainly is, but really it's power. And these individuals, when you get behind the psyche of them, even a serial killer that likes to have sex with corpses or just necrophilia where they like an immortality, that's the power that drives them mentally. Right. So physically, it's important. I get it, but power drives it all. And these little paraphilias, fetishes, kinks, whatever you want to call it, it's driven by that power, ultimately. And I saw that all throughout my career.

>> Tiffanie: I can only imagine the stuff that you saw.

>> Doug Fifer: It was an interesting job. Never got old, for sure. Always changed.

>> Tiffanie: Well, yeah. Sounds like every day was a new day.

>> Doug Fifer: That's part of the fun of law enforcement. I think that's what kept me so into it. I never, loved it. If that's. If I had to do it all over again, I would certainly do it. It was the most fun I ever had. Not just these cases, we did a lot of good cops, not just myself. But even other agencies tend to gravitate towards the weirdest sexual crimes when we all get in a group, because it even fascinates us how weird these people can get. It's not that homicides and robberies and serial killers aren't fun to investigate, but we always tend to gravitate towards that weirdness in our conversations. And we share only the weirdest of sexual stories. Might be a little therapy for us, too, but that's, you know, if we're after training, if we're having dinner, that's where we go 100% of the time.


Auto erotic asphyxiation is more common than you might think

>> Tiffanie: Have you ever gotten to, like, a scene where, like, a couple was being kinky, but it might have gone a little too well?

>> Doug Fifer: The most scenes I've gone to where the person didn't make it was autoerotic death. And that's where, you know, it's every number of ways, traditional ways, is to loop a belt around your neck and, you know, for your viewers that don't maybe don't know what it does when you restrict oxygen and you have an orgasm, it's supposed to heavily increase that orgasm, but you don't want to restrict it too much, because the downside is you die. So what I would see on investigations and people that masturbate a lot use this while they're masturbating is they would use a belt, tack it into the ceiling, they would lean forward, do their thing, and then when they passed out, they would fall forward, break the nail out, and the belt would come off, and they would regain consciousness. But every so often, the nail wouldn't give way, and so they'd pass out forward, and they would end up, I mean, hate to say it, suffocating. And they would die. when that happened, they would call law enforcement. We'd have to investigate the scene. But, auto erotic asphyxiation is more common than you might think. I did a lot of calls reference that I really didn't find where couples did it. It was more individuals that did it. So I never found where couples were both deceased in my career. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, because I'm certainly sure it has, but most of them were individuals themselves.

>> Tiffanie: Gotcha.


Bunny had a hit list including her 15 year old son

Very interesting. I always thought bunny, who was, a former playmate, had a hit list, including her 15 year old son.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah, that. I call her the bad Bunny. In the, case that was, I was called out as a negotiator on that call. Bunny, who was, in fact, a playboy playmate, had called several hospitals, attorneys offices, doctors, and said she was going to murder them. Come in and murder them. They called us out to the scene because she was in her house with a gun. So I called into Bunny's house. We verified she was there, was her residence, her number. I called in as a negotiator and literally told her, hey, this is Doug from the Anchorage police department. What's going on today? So she proceeded to tell me that she'd, been wronged by a couple doctors, plastic surgeries, a couple attorneys. When she wanted to sue the doctors, she was going to shoot up the hospital. you know, those are all things that, you know, my brain's processing. And that she had a hit list on, on a sign, kind of like an easel with the big giant flip over papers that you have. And so as a negotiator, I said, well, why don't you tell me who's on the hit list besides the attorneys, the doctors, accountants and them. And so she read through it and it was a long list. So I said, well, how many people do you have on it? She's like, just one more. She was almost excited. So I said, who is that? And she said, and I'm thinking it's going to be an ex husband or something. And she said, it's my 15 year old son. Well, that shocked me a little bit, because that's an odd thing, that you would want to kill your son. So I said, why would you want to kill your son? And she said, because the world's a bad place and I love him, but killing him, I'll send him to a better place. And she really believed this. and I referenced it in some of my cases in the book that this happens. I actually worked one triple homicide where the mother systematically killed all three of her sons to send them to a better place, not because she wanted to murder him. so that's, you know, that's. Again, the son was at school at the time. When we were negotiating. I verified it. He was 15 at a high school and he wasn't due home till about 30 minutes on the bus. I talked with her about this and we had our SWAT team surrounding this house. So there's no way he's getting in. So from a law enforcement standpoint, perfectly chill. There's no rush. I got all the time in the world. Bunny had a. I, could hear her racking the chamber of a gun on the phone. And so, you know, I know that sound from being a cop and racking my own gun 10,000 times in my career. So I asked her, I said, what kind of gun do you have? And she was taken aback because she realized I knew somehow, but not by the noises. And she said, well, I have a Glock 45, which at the time was the exact same weapon that I carried. So we got into this conversation about the Glock, how she liked it. And, you know, eventually I walked her into that. She's gonna have to come outside and surrender because, I'm not gonna. And she's like, no, I can't because I've had, my son's going to be home soon. I'm going to start with him. So I explained to her that you're not going to do that. We can never let that happen. And your house is surrounded. It was at this time, this is all audio recorded. Bunny thought when I originally called her and I said, this is Doug from the Anchorage police department, she thought I was at the department just calling courtesy wise. She had no idea her house was surrounded. So what was interesting, as soon as she realized that, you know, looked outside, saw, I'm not going anywhere. She said, oh, okay. I can't go anywhere. I'm gonna have to give up that quick. So she was gonna put the gun in the safe she had upstairs because she loved gun safety. We talked about that. I said, no problem. Put it away. Even better for us. Come out with your hands up. Well, during this time, and this was a mistake in law enforcement part, and it happens, the son had come home on the bus. Now I was parked down the street where I couldn't really see, in a, police car with a secondary negotiator. So the son got off the bus, walked right past our squat team into the house. So an officer came running down to our car, which is kind of odd. My other negotiator jumped out of the car to talk to him. I'm still on the phone with Bunny. I'm waiting for her to get the. She can't open the safe in her bedroom somehow. And he gets back in the car and he says, we got a problem. So I put her on mute while she's still trying to get in the safe. And he tells me this. And I was like, oh my God. Like, I'm. I'm shocked. Now we got a problem. I'm, thinking I'm going to hear a gunshot at any moment. Our SWAT team is now mobilizing to go in because we don't have time. We got to go in and save this kid before she does something. So Bunny comes back on the phone with me and says, I can't get my safe open. And I said, bunny, no problem. Leave the gun on the bed. You come out, and we'll take care of it. I'm just trying to get her out of the house. I don't even know where kiddo is at. She doesn't know he's home. At this point, she says, no gun safety. We talked about it. I can't leave a gun. I remembered, and I'm thinking, come on, lady, just put the gun down. So I remembered back to us talking about the glock, and we went over how she loaded it.


Bunny allegedly fantasized about having sex with corpses, not killing them

She took it apart to clean it. Well, to take it apart to clean it, you have to take it apart where it's inoperable, right. You have to take the slide off. So I asked her, do you know how to take the slide off? And she said, oh, yeah, I do it all the time. So I said, well, how about you take the slide off, set it two pieces, and then that's safe. And then I could hear the slide coming up, and it kind of makes a grinding sound when it comes off. And I knew the slide was off. Gave the command of the SWAT team, go in, because now the guns, she could put it back quickly, but right now, they went and arrested her upstairs, right in the bedroom. Son was downstairs watching tv the whole time. It was a split entry. And you know how 15 year olds, are. They could care less to tell their parents are home. So he just went downstairs to watch tv. We arrested Bunny. What was unique about this case is when she told me on the phone she was a Playboy playmate, I actually had to hit pause on the phone. Unprofessional. But I started laughing a little bit, because there's no way in hell she was a Playboy playmate. People tell us things all the time. So my buddy and I, my other negotiator, we kind of joked that I'd done some modeling, he'd done some major motion pictures. And Bunny was still talking this whole time on the phone, so she didn't hear this. So then I unmuted, and then we get to where we arrested her. Typically, at that point, for negotiators, that's a wreck. She's arrested the kids safe. The, patrol cops who are there will handle detectives, they'll handle all the rest of it. And we pretty much take off high five, because we got the suspect out safely. Everybody's safe. So right before we're going to leave, our SWAT team said, we need you to come back to the house. Which a little bit odd for us. They wanted to show us something. So we went up. We went up to the house, and I went up to her bedroom. And her centerfold as a playmate was framed up, above the bed. She had all the magazines out on the bed. She had mentioned during the interview that she dated some superstars, actors back in the day. Hollywood hunks, she called them. Their pictures where her were framed on the wall. She was the real deal. It taught me a valuable lesson to never disbelieve when you don't know. So I'm always thankful for Bunny, because, one, she didn't kill anybody, and two, she taught me a valuable lesson. Never did I have a negotiation moving forward where I didn't believe unless I had proof that it was not true, because that taught me a valuable. The board that was there with the names on it as we looked through it, on these names, she wanted to kill. She had drawings of lust, murderous. And what Bunny suffered from was she fantasized about having sex with corpses, not killing them. And she drew these out. These were some weird images on these papers. So Bunny obviously had some severe mental illness, but, that was her fantasy. Now, whether she wanted to kill to do that, I don't know. But I was shocked that going through these pages, I, didn't even know what lust murder was at the time. I did after that. So, ah, we documented all that. Ah, Bunny, she was charged at the time with terroristic threatening. That's where you're actively threatening a building or something to commit homicide or some huge act. She ultimately landed in our psychiatric, ward for a long stint, appropriately. But, a very unique case. I guess it's kind of cool to negotiate with deploy Bunny, but it was certainly a weird time. And keep in mind for your listeners, this was many, many years after this centerfold, but she was, in fact, the real deal.

>> Tiffanie: That's crazy for so many different reasons. First of all, we got to be safe with our gun, like, excuse. What?

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. And she was going to commit homicide in her mind, right?

>> Tiffanie: And usually women aren't the ones want to have sex with corpses. Usually that's a man thing. So that's very unique.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. If you want the stats, I'll give it to you. It's 90% men that offend and 3% women, really, so, I mean, predominantly men. In my career, I've only seen men, but there are documented cases of women, one of which I have a case in.

>> Tiffanie: Can you tell me who bunny is?

>> Doug Fifer: You know what I do in the book some names I do readily give, as you'll see, and you can google and search cases. I reference everything to my website that pulls up articles. I even have some pictures a little too graphic in the book that viewers, if they would like to go see you can. Depends on your level of comfort with that. I describe them in detail, but if you want to see live crime scene pictures, you're welcome to go to the website. some of the names, what I do for the families, and I keep them. You know, I call her bunny. And you'll see some of the other victims, or suspects that maybe didn't perpetrate on others, just themselves. I protect the families with giving them, different names or calling them something else, because I think it's hard. And, you know, with the media and social media, anybody can find anybody nowadays. And so I would feel bad as a cop and a writer when I spent 25 years protecting families to have anybody leave back to them and not, that they would or wouldn't, but I feel more comfortable. So Bunny will remain unnamed because she's got a kiddo in Alaska and other family. I think it's probably for the best.

>> Tiffanie: I'm just glad he's okay. And I can only imagine finding out that you could have been seconds away from your mother blowing, like, your head off. That is insane.


The triple homicide was planned, manipulated, and carried out

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. The one I worked with, the triple homicide, the mom actually took crystal light, which was her kid's favorite drink, and she put sleeping medication into the drink. And so these, you know, they were all teenagers from 13 to 17. And the night before, she gave him crystal light, heavily dosed with sleeping medication. She set her alarm clock for 02:00 a.m. woke up, killed one of the kids in the bedroom, set her alarm clock for 04:00 a.m. woke up, executed the second kid in his bedroom, set her alarm for 06:00 a.m. it went off, but she was too tired. Kept going off, going off. The third child, teenager, got up and actually went to school. Got himself ready, went to school. Before she woke up, she didn't stop there. She waited the entire day till he arrived home. He went into the living room, and they had a computer with a gaming set. Sat down to play games, and then she executed them in, the back of the head. The third homicide, so this is over a period of, you know, 12 hours that this was planned, manipulated, and carried out. She then went across the street to, payphone. At the time, which we had it, was a grocery store, and called 911. And reported the incident. She, obviously suffered from severe mental illness. but that was a graphic scene. and that was, you know, that she wanted to send them to a better place. She freely and opened it, admitted it. She thought she had done a great thing.

>> Tiffanie: I couldn't imagine, and I've never heard of one that would kill one. Go back to sleep, set an alarm for another one. Usually you make your rounds in the house and then do what you do.

>> Doug Fifer: So that's very strange, unique case. I haven't ever seen that before. That's some premeditation. And why you would set that other than your mind's just not operating on our level. Right. Not normal at all. So it's hard to get into her brain and figure it out. I have no clue. she fully admitted, and she was, in prison for the rest of her life.

>> Tiffanie: I don't know if I want to get in that brain.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah, I wouldn't. I would love to get into it to find out what makes individuals tick, to then maybe help law enforcement solve these cases quicker. you know, it's hard to prevent them, but, maybe, I think intervention at some point before, you know, as cops, learn more about why this happens. I'm a firm believer of interdiction. Earlier, I talk about. There's a case in there under teachable tidbits. That's. I don't know if you got to that chapter at the very end of the book. You'll like this. I do a nice, fun chapter because the book's heavy. Right. We talk about a lot of serious cases. So, teachable tidbits are little, like sexual naughty nuggets that I found out throughout my career that I learned from people that maybe people haven't thought about using in their own sex life. That's safe and it's not criminal. So we're talking pretty, pretty easy stuff here, but stuff that you would never have thought about in your own sex life. So I have a whole chapter on that with cases in there. But we had a guy that, he was called the Crisco Kid, and I actually found him parked up in an abandoned, like, area of this housing area. So it was a lot, but it was. There was no house there yet. The neighbors called and said he's sitting there too long in his truck. The windows are all fogged up. Typically in Alaska in the wintertime, that's two people having sex. And we show up, tell them, hey, go have sex somewhere else, and that's it. We leave. It's not a big deal on this case. When we walked up to this truck, we parked right outside of the, where he was pulled up to. We started walking in. The kid saw us. He jumped out of his truck and ran back to us, which is a little bit unusual. And he said, hey, everything's okay. No problem here. And we said, great. No problem. The, officer in front of me said, hey, we got to check the car, the truck, to make sure everybody's all right, nobody's being harmed. He said, nobody's in there. We're fine. But we knew that probably wasn't true because of the. It was all fucked up. So as the other officer went to go around him and check the truck, I say, kid, he was, he was 19. He grabbed him on his arm. Well, it's a big no no to grab a cop, right when we're investigating any scene, because we don't know if you're crazy. Are you gonna hurt us? And this cop that he grabbed was a giant cop, like, I called him the rock. He was that big. And in 0.2 seconds, this kid was slammed down and handcuffed before I could even move. That's how quick this cop was. And the, Other officer came up to me, and he had this puzzled look in his face, and he lifted his arm up, and he had some stuff on his arm. And at first I thought maybe he was stabbed or hurt because he was so bewildered and shocked. And then he yelled out, you know what the f is on my arm to this kid? And I saw a substance on his arm. Not quite what you're thinking, but it was weird. It's a substance, right? And the kid said, I don't know what it is. And so he sat there. I guarded him. And the other officer stormed off to the truck to see what was in there. And I remember when he got close, he pulled out his gun to look in. So I figured, there's somebody in there, a danger. So I pulled out my gun. That's just what you do when you're a cop, because you don't know what the hell is going on.


The Crisco kid was taking Crisco and masturbating in his truck

And, he quickly holstered his gun, and then he stared inside it and just shook his head. And I'm watching this, you know, I'm watching with the truck. And here he comes back. Well, what's odd is a police officer wouldn't leave somebody in the vehicle by themselves because it's a danger for us. So it's odd that he's just walking back to me. And so I said, hey, what's going on? You know what's in there? He's like, go take a look for yourself. Now, when cops do that, it's got to be pretty extraordinary because we see all kinds of stuff. So I already knew this is something that's not normal. So I'm a little excited, and I want to go see. So I go rushing up to this door, and I look in, and I just. I mean, it takes a split second to. For it all to kind of gel together and comprehend. But there was a can of Crisco, and that's the baking shortening that you use. Just Crisco. There's a giant butcher knife, and I mean giant. And then there was a woman's porn magazine and then a lot of tissues on. he had a bench seat. It was an older truck and on the floorboard. And so what he was doing in the end was he was taking Crisco and he was masturbating. Well, stabbing this porn magazine with a knife. Cutting women up. Fascinating. At 19 years old, now, that's a serial killer in the making, right? That's where we need interdiction. But at the top, there's no crime to that for law enforcement. So what I did at that time is, I thought, you know, would be a great idea, is that we track individuals like this because they're going to perpetrate. That's not normal, right? If you parked your truck and you masturbated, that's one thing. This was violent behavior by a 19 year old. He lived at home with his mom. He was unemployed, kind of a loner. Strange, strange kid. so I went back to the department. We got all his information again, couldn't charge him. There's no crime. You can do that all you want. And I asked the department, can we form like a team? And I'll be on that team. This will be fun. And we'll track these individuals that we find like that. Find like this. They didn't laugh at me, but they said, you got. You got a lot to learn as a copy. So they told me we could put every officer on, one of these perps across the nation, and we wouldn't have enough officers. And I didn't realize it at the time how perverse this was and how many individuals like that were out there, but you simply didn't have the manpower to do it. So I always looked. I call him the Crisco kid in there. I always look for him to come across the police slaughter for me to have contact with him in some type of deviate case. Later on, never happened. I never knew what happened to him. And I always wondered. So what I had is one of my FBI buddies who was a behavioral, specialist with the FBI, I gave him the case report, and I had him do behavioral, analysis on the Crisco kid, on, what offender he might become, what he might be doing. And I include that in the book because not only was I always fascinated on what would happen to him, but I think after reading the story, your listeners and readers in the future will be like, well, what happened to this kid? So he gives a pretty detailed case study on where he could be or couldn't be in the future. Now, it's not always exact, but it's pretty interesting to read and from my past experience, is probably pretty spot on.

>> Tiffanie: I always thought profilers were really cool the way that they could do that. But, I mean, a loner lives with mom, unemployed.

>> Doug Fifer: That's.

>> Tiffanie: That's just. Was it by the book or that's.

>> Doug Fifer: Textbook, that's checking the boxes, right? And so that case, although teachable tidbits, is funny. That case is featured in there because, you know, most people would use lotion or something else in that he used, the baking, vegetable oil. So that was quite unique. But there's a cough drop story in there. There's little things that people might think, well, I never thought about that's used in for sex. It's not criminal. And so it's more of a fun, laughable chapter. Still cases law enforcement related, but quite interesting.

>> Tiffanie: It is very interesting to see what people can come up with their little concoctions for. M sure, I will make sure that I put a link in the show notes. So anybody who would like to go to your website or buy a book, they're able to get it, because, I mean, like I said, I got to like page 40, and I was like, this is gold.

>> Doug Fifer: Well, when you get. And I appreciate the link, and it's on Amazon or wherever you want to buy books, 50 shades of true crime. But when you finish the book, if you do me a favor, shoot me a message and let me know. What. What story or case shocked you the most? I'm always fascinated by that. And this is kind of like Baskin Robbins. Everybody asks. It's a different story because I have my favorite. That intrigues me, but everybody else has got a different one, which I always find interesting.

>> Tiffanie: Oh, for sure. I mean, it's little interesting things that'll pique somebody's attention, for sure.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah.


Doug says always trust your gut when dealing with sexual predators

Ah, no, I appreciate you having me on. And, it was a fun book to do. And again, for your listeners, just so they're aware, it's a different twist on true crime. there's a lot of true crime out there, and I like that type of reading. I read it myself, but I wanted to do a book that's a little bit different in that aspect. So it really focuses on that sexual deviancy.

>> Tiffanie: Yeah. And, I mean, you gotta look at patterns. Patterns are so important. It shows you where somebody is going in life. Like, when they're doing this crazy shit, it's only gonna escalate.

>> Doug Fifer: Yeah. It's rare. It goes other way. I'm with you. I've seen it, in my career. So you're right. So I always tell people, and, you know, when I teach classes on safety, always trust your gut. Right? If it feels wrong or you're sensing something, it's nine times out of ten, people ignore it, and it's right there in front of them. So trust your gut. And it's rarely wrong in my experience.

>> Tiffanie: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Doug. I really appreciate it. This was a fun twist. Usually my episodes are not downing, but, you know, it was nice to have a little bit of light mint.

>> Doug Fifer: I hope your listeners love it. And thanks for having me on. I do appreciate it.

>> Tiffanie: Yeah, of course. I think we all know somebody who can benefit from this episode. Please make sure to share it with them. and thank you guys so much for listening to my podcast. This really means a lot to me. If one of my episodes has helped you in any way, I would really like to know. It's important for me to know that the work that I'm doing is actually helping people. If you want more of me, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me on Instagram and TikTok. If you or anyone you know is in need of national hotlines, please go to truchrimeconnections.com. i have all the phone numbers there listed for anything that you could possibly imagine. All right. My renowned roots community, keep building hope and gaining strength. Until next time.