I Sat Down With A Killer

From the producers of The Tinder Swindler, Jesse sits down to tell his side of the story.

A shocking true story of an allegedly fake story that some now say might just be a true story, featuring interviews with police, lawyers, journalists, investigators who claim to have uncovered new evidence about this case, and with Jesse himself.

This compelling documentary invites the audience to decide for themselves who is telling the truth about Jesse Smollett.

The truth about Jesse Smollett launches on August 22nd only on Netflix.

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There is a certain process of elimination when you are at the scene of a death.

Some cases are obviously going to be trickier than others.

Some cases, the whole time, the investigators are debating.

First of all, how?

Like, how did this even happen?

We don't know.

And if this is what truly happened, if our theory is correct, are we sure that's what really happened?

That's what the investigators are doing.

But for Detective Ryan, this case starts off really easy.

Dead man in the living room, in his own house.

He's dead, in his living room, in his house, in like a secluded wooded area.

He walks in.

Was it natural?

That's the first question.

Well, no, because there's droplets of blood right at the entrance of the house.

It doesn't seem like it was natural.

Detective Ryan steps into the house a little bit deeper now.

Was it a robbery gone wrong?

The door shows no signs of forced entry.

He steps inside further and there are just streaks of blood everywhere.

One of the other officers walks straight up to him and just says, well, somebody tried to cut this dude's head off.

Murder.

That's what this is.

We got the how.

The cause of death is murder with a hunting knife.

By the clues left behind in the living room, I mean, nothing of value is taken.

All of the blood is concentrated near the couch in this living room area.

Whoever did this hunted the dead man.

It's like they hunted them and killed him in his own living room.

And it wasn't quick either.

Like, there are slash wounds all over this man's body.

His throat is nearly slit.

You can see the bone on both sides.

There's blood all over the walls.

There's blood soaking into the carpets.

This guy was hunted.

He was killed rather painfully, rather violently in his own living room.

The first interesting detail that sticks out to Officer Ryan is that there's this bloody footprint that just feels so out of place.

Obviously, there's going to be lots of bloody footprints all over this living room, but it's concentrated in this specific living room area, except this one clear bloody footprint right in front of the door.

to the primary bedroom.

It's almost like the killer, whoever this person is, walked over there, put one foot just outside the door, never stepped inside.

What are they doing?

Detective Ryan steps inside the master bedroom and he starts looking around.

And that's when he sees it.

He's like, did the killer slit that man's throat, walk over to this bedroom to spit on the bed?

Detective Ryan knows instantly that whoever did this knows the dead man, targeted the dead man, hunted the dead man, and left a giant trail of evidence.

It's not long after that that Detective Ryan is going to find the killer.

And he's got a lot of questions to ask this killer.

And so do we.

Can you take us to when we're in the car after you kill Dennis?

I was bleeding severely.

I had a severe wound.

Speaking to my buddy in the passenger seat, I was...

Not even thinking about getting away with it.

I was thinking about stopping the blood flow.

Did you have a hole in your hand?

I did.

I put a knife right through it, severed the ligaments and tendons.

How long was the knife?

It was a hunting knife, so they're about

six inches long, six, eight inches.

And that was also the murder weapon?

Yes.

Did you take the murder weapon with you, or did you leave it?

Took it.

And there was blood everywhere.

Was it coming from your hand or was it someone else's blood?

A mixture.

Did you feel the need to get rid of the blood?

I had a glove on and

when I got back to my house, I could wring out the glove.

It was just pouring out of me.

And it was everywhere in my garage.

Can you walk me through the hole in your hand?

See, it wasn't straight through the hand.

It was down this way and out this way.

So it went the whole length.

And you could see pretty deep into the, because it was wide open at the time.

And you're just driving with one hand.

I had the glove on at the time, so I couldn't see it until I got back and standing in my garage pulled the glove off.

And then I was like,

oh boy,

we got a problem.

Did it hurt?

The hole in the hand?

Yeah, but

I was full of adrenaline and cocaine and alcohol.

I wasn't fixated on the pain.

No, the pain didn't bother me at the time.

The next morning, police are surrounding your house and you pour a glass of chard a day.

Yeah.

How many police officers are outside trying to arrest you?

12 to 20.

Are you scared?

I'm thinking life is over.

Your attorney describes it as horrific crime scene photos after you left Dennis's house.

Have you seen those photos?

I have.

Did you feel anything when you saw it?

Honestly, no.

Dennis's obituary reads: To those who knew him well, he will be remembered as a great man who always went above and beyond the call of duty and one whose love and loyalty for his friends was unparalleled.

Do you agree with that?

No, I do not agree with that.

You provided to us your records, like your psychology records from when you were in jail and then later prison.

Psychologists asked you, Do you feel relief after the homicide?

And you say, I can't say that.

Things were out of control.

No relief.

Yeah, I'm what happened in that night was horrific.

In his house, it was horrific.

And

it wasn't anything to sit back and rejoice over.

It was a

bloody, gory, horrific event.

Do you remember how many times you stabbed him, or do you only know from what's been told?

Only from what I've been told.

Initially when you were first arrested, I think there were questions of

maybe there is an insanity plea, maybe there are all these other things.

And one report reads, the most outstanding clinical feature was the absence of any significant overt psychopathology.

So does that mean that some psychiatrists were confused because you didn't strike them as a psychopath or someone that just kills out of nowhere?

Right.

They didn't find

any, you know,

anything psychologically wrong with me to do what I did.

You killed Dennis Pegg.

I did.

You stabbed him.

I did.

Reports say you slit his throat.

Yes.

You spit on his bed.

Yes.

And you drove off with a hole in your hand.

Correct.

And then you were arrested, and psychiatrists say that they found nothing wrong with you.

Correct.

And so technically you killed someone and you don't regret it?

No.

And everyone in town, while you're in jail waiting for a trial, a plea deal, waiting for whatever fate has in store, everyone in town has free Clark stickers.

on their cars.

People are writing articles.

People are selling bumper stickers that say free Clark.

They were everywhere instantly, like in less than a week's time.

Why did you kill Dennis Pegg?

The short answer is he was a monster.

What's the long answer?

The long answer is he had a 45-year reign of terror in our little town of Stillwater, New Jersey, raping boys.

Were you one of the boys?

I was.

I was reading in your memoir, Scarred.

You were born with a hole in your heart.

I was.

Just a defect in my heart.

And the doctors monitored me for the first six years of my life.

And they told my parents we were down to a six-month window to operate to repair it.

And so you had the surgery and you have a scar that you call a zipper.

You know, with all the stitching, it looks just like a zipper.

I know in the beginning when you were a kid, you were bothered by the scar.

Is that something you're still bothered by?

No,

I've come to make peace with my scar.

So, okay, what was your first impression of Dennis?

I know in your memoir, you talk about how he came over and he offered you a dollar to touch your scar because it was the thing that your parents were doing to try and get you to be proud of your scar was to show people for quarters.

Right.

You're going back,

you know, to 1971 to have open heart surgery as a six-year-old child.

Open heart surgery today is still a risky endeavor.

So they were extremely proud of me for surviving this.

I was in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City for a month straight.

And

they were so proud.

They just wanted to show me off to their friends.

And they thought a neat way to,

you know, when you're a kid, you just want to fit in with all the other kids.

I had something now that made me stick out from everybody.

So they just thought it would be a way to get me comfortable with it by showing it to their friends and collecting a quarter.

Dennis Pegg was a family friend.

He was.

He was my brother's boy.

I had a brother who was six years older than me,

Jay, and he was

my brother's Boy Scout leader and uh we had a lot of land where we lived in New Jersey and he would hunt on our land with with my father and brother I wasn't old enough yet and my parents owned a restaurant back then and my father put on big Sunday night meals and he would come every Sunday and have dinner with us and tell stories about

he worked at the county jail as a sheriff's officer and he would tell stories about there.

Do you think that he targeted your family to get close to you guys or do you think he genuinely was just friendly with your parents?

Targeted.

Predators have to win over, one, they have to win over their community so nobody would ever suspect them.

Two, they have to win over the family and then

last, they have to win over the victim.

Can you tell me about the moment that he saw your scar

uh it was a it was just a couple months after I had the surgery everybody uh in my family was in our backyard and i came inside to get a drink and watch cartoons for a minute and dennis came to the front door which was right next to our den

and uh i heard his voice and i bounded up i loved dennis you know i just thought he was great he always had his gun on and a badge and uh

i let him in and he asked where everybody was and i told him everybody was out back.

And he said, let's sit in the den for a minute.

And then he said, you know, hey, I got a quarter.

Can I see your scar?

Didn't think anything of it.

Lifted my shirt, showed him.

And he said, I've never seen a scar so raised up like yours.

I have keloid condition, so my scar is pronounced.

And he goes, how about I give you a dollar if you let me touch it?

I couldn't possibly think of in my little six-year-old mind of any ulterior motives he would have.

And I said, sure, Den.

And he took his big meaty fingers and he ran them up and down my scar.

And then he went below my scar line to like my belt line.

And he was just probing and saying, is your stomach sore from the surgery?

And I'm like, no, not at all, Den.

And he's like, okay.

He's like, this has to be our little secret.

He goes, if you tell your parents that I gave you a dollar for touching your scar, we can't be buddies.

I'm like, I can keep a secret.

So when he's like probing and touching, did it just feel like because you had just gotten out of surgery, did it just feel like another adult that's maybe making sure you're okay?

Is that the feeling?

Yeah,

like I said,

there wasn't one thought in my mind that he could

have any other reason to touch other than he cared about me and my well-being

throughout the book.

You describe him as having meaty fingers.

And I know a lot of cases that we cover, a lot of victims remember specific sensations or very specific sense, even.

Is that something that you would like to remember distinctly as meaty fingers?

Yeah,

he was a big hulking guy, and I was a little tiny kid back then.

When I say hulking, he was probably 265 pounds, and just one of those big, beefy guys,

him touching my scar stands out so pronounced in my mind.

And

the visualization of his big meaty fingers is like ingrained in my memory.

I wish I could scrape it off and remove it, but I can't.

It's like ingrained in there.

I'm assuming that's a worse memory than the actual open heart surgery.

Yeah, um,

it's uh he like ruined my open heart surgery, ruined my scar.

I hated my scar because what would happen later on.

And he's the reason for me hating the way I looked.

Did he have any sort of fascination with your scar?

Or was it truly 100% just an excuse to start grooming you?

Yeah, I don't think he had any...

Things with a predator, they're never...

the way they seem.

A predator is a chess master, always multiple steps ahead of you.

So So like everything

may seem one way, but to them it's complete other way.

And I don't think he cared two hoots about my scar.

It was just an avenue to get what he

ultimately wanted.

You guys would go fishing.

There would be a lake.

You and a bunch of boys would go fishing.

Dennis Pegg would constantly be there.

And there was an issue with the sunfish, like these little fish in the lake that don't taste good.

They're not edible fish?

Yeah, I mean, they're tiny.

So

to fillet a sunfish, you'd have to fillet a lot of them to get any meat off of their.

So it's mainly sunfish.

Right down by the dam, there'd be a lot of sunfish.

And they're a really like gullible fish where you don't even need to put a worm on a hook.

You could just put your hook in the water and they see the bright shimmering and they just latch on to it.

And, you know, you catch them and you just release them.

Or so we thought.

he does not catch and release them what did he do no and again

for me to say

he didn't like sunfish is is wrong because he's a chess master remember he's a predator and he's one step ahead of us two steps three steps ahead of us

he would tell us little boys

that sunfish were a worthless fish and that they needed to be killed.

And he would catch them and

stomp on them with his boot.

Or he would catch them, throw them in the grass alongside the river and then pick up a big rock and smash it down on them.

And he'd be like, that's what you do to things that are worthless.

So everything's like a means to an end for him.

So he just wants to scare everyone?

It's a control thing.

It's a domination thing.

It's also to let you know if he considers you worthless, this is what will happen to you.

You know, we're down there as a group of young boys, and it's not just me he's targeting.

He's targeting all of us and

letting us all know how he feels about worthless things.

This is a little sidetracked, but I was doing research into sunfish because I didn't even know what they looked like.

And in a lot of indigenous cultures, they're actually known for protecting the young.

Really?

That's like they're some of the fiercest protectors of their young.

Wow.

Like, they will stay by their young for 10 to 14 days and starve themselves just to protect them.

And so it seems almost ironic that he specifically did not like sunfish as well.

Wow.

That's very interesting.

Yeah.

It's amazing.

So in one of the court documents, it mentions that he, did he drink a goldfish or he bit a goldfish in half, spit the halves into his beer?

Did he drink the beer with the goldfish?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he said he used to do that with his army buddies.

And he would just make you guys watch.

Made me watch.

This was at his house.

You're saying that he will bite a goldfish in half?

Yeah, he bit a goldfish in half and then swallowed it down with his beer.

And you can make up whatever psychological reference you want.

You know, again, it's to

scare me.

It's to show violence to me.

Like his demeanor during all of it is just...

Dennis, Dennis was a light switch.

He could be one way, outgoing, friendly, gregarious, fun-loving.

Instantly, eyes dilate, turn black, and he becomes a completely different person.

What happens at the Polaroids?

Yeah.

Down at the lake again, I lived at a lake community and there was a dam area and the dam would separate the lake and then into the river.

And that's where all us kids would hang out and play.

He did everything out of the watchful eye of my parents.

When everything happened, you know,

my mother said, I never even saw him with you.

And I'm like, everything happened down at the lake.

And he was giving beer.

to us young boys, not just me, down there.

So I'm like nine years old.

You know, get a picture of a little nine-year-old.

He invites me into his pickup truck down at the lake and let's have a beer.

So he gives me a beer and I thought it was great.

You know, like, here's a lieutenant.

He's a lieutenant in the sheriff's department.

And I'm getting to have a beer with him.

I'm thinking, this is fantastic.

And he says,

One of my friends just bought an old farmhouse and there was a desk, old desk left behind.

So I started going through the drawers and it was filled with uh porno pictures you want to see some and and you know I'm like thinking like Playboy magazine type stuff he you know reaches he had cargo shorts you know cargo shorts had the big pockets on them so he opens up his his cargo shorts pockets and takes out a handful of Polaroid pictures

And he just, he's looking at them and he just starts, starts giggling like a little schoolboy would giggle.

and he's like oh these are a riot he's like here

and it was a close-up of a young penis

and he's like here's another one and here's another one and it was just penis after penis and he and he's slapping my knee in his truck laughing aren't these so funny aren't these a riot and i'm like

where's all the women then

And he's like, oh, those must have been in the other drawer.

Next time I go over to to that house, I'll open up the other drawer for you.

But look at these.

Aren't these a riot?

Aren't these so funny?

And he's,

and I'm just like, eh, you know.

So you think he took these Polarites?

I mean, there was no friend.

There was no farmhouse.

No.

He took these.

Yes.

Yeah.

He always had

large stories.

And looking back now, I don't know if any...

if one of them was true.

I have no idea.

He would invite you to his house and then he would try to feed you beers.

What would happen a lot is the dam area where I lived, the river went right through Stillwater to

a bridge area, the Gristmill Bridge.

There was an old grist mill right at the bridge.

And he would say down at the dam area, the fish aren't biting that good.

Let's go over, you know, towards the grist mill.

Or there's twin bridges in another section of the river or he'd say let's go to the twin bridges and he would always mysteriously slip in the mud his foot would go into the mud or he'd slip and go into the river and get his boot wet and we'd have to go to his house so he could change his shoe sneaker or change his boots and that's how he would get me over there and then while we're there well let's have a beer while we're here so it would be just to get me comfortable going to his house and having a beer at his house were the houses like far apart or did people see that there's constantly boys going in and out of his house no he lived he lived up a long driveway and the house house sat alone up there so you can't see anything like if you were to scream people can't hear it's pretty there was houses down below but his was a driveway that went up did a 90 degree turn to the house and it was the only house up there his house house,

I don't want to call it a cabin.

It was a two-bedroom,

one-bathroom house, and it sat up on a hill that overlooked the elementary school playground.

Was he like looking there all the time?

Was he outside?

I went to that elementary school, Stillwater Elementary School.

I was in Little League baseball, and he was at every game that I can recall.

Down on the fence, there was a fence that would go around the ball field.

He would be down there.

there.

He would come around the fence to the bench where we'd sit at and grab your shoulders.

Oh, great job out there.

Great job.

Just always down at the playground with the young kids.

No one thought it was weird?

Because he doesn't have kids of his own, right?

Not married, no kids.

But he's the lieutenant in the sheriff's department.

He's the Boy Scout leader.

The Boy Scouts did their meetings in the gym of the elementary school.

So

he's wrapped around

everything in the town.

He's on the Stillwater Historical Society board.

The little old ladies loved him.

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From the producers of the Tinder Swindler, Jesse sits down to tell his side of the story.

A shocking true story of an allegedly fake story that some now say might just be a true story, featuring interviews with police, lawyers, journalists, investigators who claim to have uncovered new evidence about this case, and with Jesse himself.

This compelling documentary invites the audience to decide for themselves who is telling the truth about Jesse Smollett.

The truth about Jesse Smollett launches on August 22nd only on Netflix.

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I mean, this goes on for years now.

You know, the touching of the scar happened when I was six years old.

It goes on to, like I said, inviting me into his truck down at the dam to have a beer with him.

And this has to be our secret.

And in my mind, I'm like, I don't want to ruin this.

So I'm not telling, I'm not going to tell my parents I had a a beer with the lieutenant from the sheriff's department.

This is fantastic.

You know, and he made you like his equal.

You know, he put you on equal foot.

He made you like feel special and it's us against the world.

Everything he told me, I mean, I mean, one of the stories I recite is

he was always taking trips out west.

And on one of his trips, he said he met the Marlborough Man.

Now, if you grew up in the 70s, 80s, the Marlborough Man was a fictional character, but on the back of every magazine with a Marlboro cigarette dangling in his mouth.

And he was the coolest dude imaginable.

Dennis took the coolest, machoist guy in America and told me he met him on a trip and he was gay.

He said, it didn't bother me in the least.

He was such a great guy.

We hung out for three days and had dinners and just, you know, just spent a lot of time together.

So, and again, he would say, this has to be our secret.

Don't tell anybody the Marlborough Man's gay.

He confided that in me, you know,

I don't want his secret getting out.

Did he ever meet the Marlborough man who played the Marlborough Man?

I have no idea.

Probably not.

Was the Marlborough Man gay?

Who knows?

It's just, like I said,

nothing is ever as it seems with a predator.

And so what's he doing?

He's taking the machuous guy in America,

fictional character, but machuist,

and making him gay and trying to gauge my response and trying to normalize it.

Like, hey, the machoist guy in the world is gay.

And that's...

Again,

that's what I would surmise he was doing.

I can't get into his mind.

He tries to start wrestling with you.

That was kind of like the gateway into.

Yeah, you know, so he's taken years now, you know, of porn pictures, Marlborough Man, beers,

slipping into the river, go to the house,

beers, you know, so he's, he's, he's invested years of grooming.

And at some point, you have to initiate more touch.

That's why I see people tussle a young boy's hair and it just sends a chill down my spine.

Because to the normal person, it's like, oh, cute little Billy, you know?

But to a predator, they need to initiate touch.

And that little tussle of the hair is going to go to a pat on the knee, is going to go to a pat on the thigh.

is then going to go to a wrestling match.

So he told me

that he wrestled my older brother, Jay,

and he wrestled my next-door neighbor, Jeff.

Jeff and Jay were inseparable.

They were same age, same grade, in the scouts together.

And

he says to me, I wrestled Jeff and Jay.

Let's see how tough you are.

And I'm like, okay.

And

at first he would let me

dominate, let's say, you know, get the upper hand on him.

And then, like I said, that light switch would go off,

and his eyes would turn dark and black.

And he would pin me to the ground and he would get his hulking 265-pound body on top of me and start gyrating and moving and grooving.

And

looking back on it at the time, not really realizing what he was doing, but he was

erect.

And

this

was getting him off.

And you're 11, so you're you're tiny.

I was 10 when that started happening, when the wrestling started.

I mean, he's like three, four, five times your size.

Yeah, I mean, because of,

I was a sick little kid when I was young.

Like, you know, I

was in the hospital constantly with the flu and bronchitis and anything because of the hole in my heart.

They would, they would put me into the hospital immediately.

I'd be in an oxygen tent.

And,

you know, so I was constantly in the hospital and

I had to be careful for a long while after surgery with playing.

There was some limitations put on me by the doctors, you know, so

I was just a small little kid back then, sick kid.

And

this guy just took advantage of that.

And

he could tell like I was insecure, you know, because my scar made me stand out.

And they look for something like to separate the weak from the pack, you know, like any predator does.

And my scar was, you know, and my insecurities

about it is how he separated me from the pack.

And wrestling was the next avenue of physical touch.

He's devoted four years now of stories and and secrets

alcohol pornography and now it's time to get back to touch there's a part where in your book your memoir you talk about how he pinned you down and he says something along the lines of like come on you can get out come on squirm do you feel like he is getting off on you struggling or

yeah yeah it's exactly what he was doing you know he

he would get me down, you know, like I would be in the dominating position on top of him.

And then all of a sudden the light switch goes and he would get rough with me and like sort of throw me down, my 10-year-old body, throw me down and get on top and

be commanding me to try harder to get out.

squirm more, move more, you know, because he's wanting me to move against him and what he has going on.

He comes over for Christmas.

What does he get you as a Christmas present?

I had a Boy Scout hunting knife is what they were called.

And he brought me a whetstone sharpening kit to sharpen the hunting knife.

And

over him drinking, you know, a glass or two of eggnog at our house, He taught me over the next hour, you know,

keep the blade at, you know, an 18-degree angle, how to drive it, you know, across the stone, you know, with the oil you got to use.

And

then he would have me do it and

taught me how to get a perfect blade on my hunting knife.

And that was something I kept perfectly sharp my whole life.

The hunting knife?

Yeah.

What happens when you're 12?

And what happens to Dennis's dog as well?

I know that there was like a hunting ploy excuse of like you're going to pretend to be shot in the woods because my buddy shoots everyone without thinking.

So at 12, he concocted this whole big hunting ruse of having a friend

who just shot and

aimed and shot without knowing if it was safe to shoot.

And he said, you know, we've got to correct my friend from this bad habit.

And

I'm going to use you as a decoy out in the woods.

You're going to be laying there with fake blood on you.

And I'm going to take him out hunting.

And he's going to do his typical shoot.

And then we're going to come upon you lying there with fake blood.

And you need to practice gurgling sounds, like you're gurgling blood, you know, your death rattle, he called it.

You have to practice your death rattle.

So he got me down at the lake one day,

got me back to his house.

We're going to practice your death rattle at the house.

And

instead of offering me beer, he offered me blackberry brandy, you know, a glass of blackberry brandy with a beer, and he told me to chug it.

And then he gave me another thing of brandy.

And his house was,

it was a summer summer day, but his house was like way hotter inside than outside.

And in my adult mind, now looking back, I'm like, did he have his heat on?

Did he like purposely turn his heat on in his house to make it sweltering?

Knowing what he had concocted?

Like I say, with a predator, you never know what they're thinking.

So his house is boiling.

We're sweating.

He wants me to lay down on his bed to practice my breathing.

and it goes to it's so hot in here let's just take our our shirt and pants off our shorts off

and then it goes to

he's behind me has me in a bear hug

and

me

and I'm screaming I'm crying

And he had a dog,

which is called called a coonhound.

And coonhounds have this long,

drawn-out howl, they do.

And

as I'm being, I hear his dog howling away because of my cries and screams.

And it didn't stop this guy

until he was done doing what he wanted to do with me.

And afterwards, he sat me down at his kitchen table

and got another beer, like

almost like we were two lovers who just had a romantic tryst together.

And

he brought his dog over to me

and said, I want to show you what will happen to you if you ever open your mouth about what just occurred.

And he started to beat his dog and beat his dog and I'm crying and screaming and begging him to please stop, to please stop.

And he wouldn't until the dog lay in a heap at my feet.

Now,

I was just

contacted

just

two days before this interview by a gentleman

who, when he was 17 years old, needed a place to stay.

And he stayed at Dennis Pegg's house for six months.

And he said it was the most bizarre six months of his life.

He said the guy was a complete freak.

He said, one thing that happened though is he got, now, when he was 17, he's 10 years older than me.

I would have been seven back then.

When he me would be five years later,

so this dog would be five years old.

And this guy said, Dennis got this coonhound puppy when I lived with him, and it peed on the rug.

And he beat the puppy so bad, we had to take it to the vet to save its life.

So, even as a puppy, he beat it for simply doing what puppies do and

peed on a rug.

And then, this is the same dog five years later that he beat and probably killed in front of me.

You never saw the dog again, no.

And a lady,

a female guard who worked with him at the jail,

told me how Dennis came in one day, all distraught, that his beloved coonhound dog Duke died.

And we all

gave him hugs and tears, and we all loved dogs.

We were all dog people.

And

she goes, I am horrified to think that's because of what he did in front of you, that he killed Duke.

It says in your book that you felt guilty over what happened to the dog?

Is that

he only

I felt he only did that to

Duke because of my cries and screams.

And if I hadn't cried and screamed during the rip

that

what he did to Duke Duke when it happened.

Do you still feel that way?

Or

yeah.

I mean, he might have had that planned.

Well, he couldn't determine if Duke was gonna cry or not.

Like I said, with a predator, you never know.

Um

but yeah, I still feel I still feel guilty for Duke.

Do you feel like Duke had more humanity than Dennis in that moment?

I I feel Duke and I were the only two in that room who had humanity.

And that's saying a lot since Duke's a dog.

Dennis, I feel, lost his humanity a long time

ago.

As soon as you

as soon as you dedicate your life to hunting children and them,

you really can't say you have humanity.

That's pure evil to me.

If you're going to define what the devil is, the devil is really

the guy with a smile on his face who's charismatic, outgoing, friendly, charming, who everybody loves, who's involved in all these organizations, who's on the historical board, but who's only doing those things to fool people of his true nature.

What changed after that day?

My life was forever altered after that day.

My whole trajectory in life changed that day.

Nothing would be the same.

I would tell myself that talking about what just happened would be reliving it and we were never going to do that.

We could just bury this down deep inside and go about our life.

I convinced myself that that's what I could do.

I led the most exhausting life because I would crank on a smile to the world.

And inside, I was completely broken and destroyed.

And I went through that way my whole life until I couldn't keep it up any longer.

How many years passed since you're 12 and then the day that you see Dennis Pegg at Quick Check?

I was

45

when I saw him at the Quick Check.

So you're talking 33 years.

33 years, he's probably still hunting kids.

Yes.

And then there is a day that comes where you effectively hunt the hunter.

You step into Quick Check.

What happens there?

It's like a gas station.

It's a convenience store.

Yeah, this one was just a convenience store.

They have gas stations now.

They're a lot larger, but this was just a convenience store in a little like four-store mall

i'm getting a coffee i'm at the coffee island making a coffee the front door opens i think it had a bell on it so it made me look up and i look up and i look into dennis pegg's eyes he sees me and he yells out to me hey how are you buddy

And I instantly start going into a panic attack.

I can tell just by the way he said,

hey, buddy, you know, that he's going to come over to me.

I had seen Dennis

around our town over those 33 years.

You know, I recall once in a bar

after college, me and my buddies were in a bar, and as soon as we ordered a beer, I get a pat on my shoulder, and it's Dennis Pegg.

And I chug my beer and and I tell my buddies we're we're going there's no

no

no remorse no shame no guilt yeah the a predators

yeah they don't ever show that

so so I had seen him around town

but it had been probably 10 years since I saw him and what was different this time in that quick check which completely unraveled me was that he had a young boy by his side probably close to the age he me at and that young boy called him the same nickname

dennis used to make me call him and i heard that nickname and i saw that young boy and i just

it just ripped open everything for those 33 years that i told myself i could bury down and go about my life When he would touch me,

I would freeze.

I would stiffen like a board.

and I felt my muscles like it's like a paralysis and I felt that coming on me and I I felt it hard to breathe and

the thoughts in my mind just like your mind starts swirling where you can't even think

and I'm like

I got to get out of here before I completely freeze and this guy like grabs me and I just left my coffee and whatever stuff I had on the on the island there and I ran out past him we sort of shoulder bumped a little and he's like where are you going where you going buddy come here and I ran out and I hopped in my truck and I sped out of the parking lot and I went down the road

and my life unraveled just

just completely unraveled Do you think you saw yourself in the little boy?

Is that, or you just felt protective of the little boy?

Did you really?

I couldn't get out of my mind

over the next months that boy and wondering what part of the grooming process is he.

Is he being shown Polaroid pictures?

Is he

having beers in his truck?

Is he at the wrestling stage?

Is he

teaching his buddy how to shoot right in the woods by lying there with blood on fake blood on him and doing the death rattle in his bed?

You know,

it uh haunted me

i i couldn't even work any longer like i was in business with my brother we had tire automotive center and uh

i walked out one day and uh i just couldn't go to work anymore i i was having to drink before work just to just to go into work you know instead of filling my coffee mug with coffee I was so out of sorts.

I'm filling it with alcohol and I'm doing other drugs.

So I walked out of the business with my brother and now I've got free time on my hand, which is never good when you have trauma.

And I've got Dennis Pegg in the forefront of my mind.

I've got that little boy in the forefront of my mind.

And

I had zero coping skills throughout my whole life.

I,

you know, like mindfulness, like all these foreign terms.

I never incorporated it.

You know,

I just doved headfirst into drugs and alcohol, like literally around the clock.

Just one drug on its own wasn't enough.

So I'm just taking any drug I can get to try to numb myself, to try to block the thoughts from.

You start unraveling after quick check, but then there's a guy.

that you see smirking.

Who is this guy?

You see him smirking on TV.

What happened?

Yeah, um,

I was in bad shape.

You know, I wasn't sleeping much because of all the pain I'm doing.

And I put on my TV and it's Jerry Sandusky, the start of his molestation trial.

Jerry Sandusky was one of the coaches at Penn State University.

And he was running a football camp for young boys and over the course of years,

decade plus, molesting boys at his football football camp.

He was finally facing trial for that.

And

his trial

was starting on June 12th of 2012.

And I saw him on the news get out of his lawyer's car and smirking and buttoning his

coat jacket.

I don't know what else to say.

And I just started yelling curses at my TV and spitting on my bedroom floor because I saw Dennis Pegg as him.

I felt Dennis Pegg was never going to face justice.

It's like a similar smirk that they have?

Is it a

yeah, you know, they can never let their guard down.

They'll never apologize to you.

Like

victims always reach out to me and say,

I want to go confront my abuser.

I'm just like, don't.

You're going to get re-abused because they'll never give you the answer you want to hear.

It's not worth your time.

And so, so they keep that air about them.

Dennis Pegg in that deli calls out to me like we're best friends.

I'm a victim of his.

Like, what are you doing?

Like, and Sandusky's getting out smirking as his trial's starting.

And that just

infuriated me.

I spent the rest rest of the day out with a couple friends drinking and me

sneaking drugs.

I got to go out and make a phone call in my truck.

I'll be right back.

And I'd go out and do Coke and Papa's Max.

I had someone, I stopped at an Italian restaurant on the way home that night.

I was meeting a buddy at my house who I had lent money to, and

he was going to power wash the cedar siding of my house and stain it as repayment.

So I was meeting him at home, but I stopped at this Italian restaurant, and there was a guy in there who burned me on a business deal, a motorcycle deal.

I took out a $33,000 loan to have him build me this custom motorcycle, and he took the money.

my money and a couple other people's money and closed up shop in the middle of the night, then left town.

And all of a sudden, here he was in in this Italian restaurant so I went up to him and had words with him and he was with his family so I said out of respect for your family

you know

I'm not gonna take this any further but you know

you gotta pay me you know and he just told me to

get lost you know so I get home and I tell my buddy about seeing that guy.

And, you know, we unloaded the equipment first and we're having a glass of wine at the kitchen table and my my buddy goes to me that guy's got to be number one on your hit list

and

it's been 33 years since

i was you know and i've never told anyone and for whatever reason i couldn't stop the words coming out of my mouth I just said, actually, he's number two on my hit list.

The piece of garbage who me as a young boy is number one.

And there it's out for the first time.

The air was like heavy.

Like time stopped.

The clock stopped on the wall.

And we're just like you and I are sitting across from each other on a table and we're just staring at each other.

And he's like, Are you for real?

Are you messing with me?

So this is the first time in 30 years that you tell anyone?

Yeah, yeah.

To be exact, 33 years.

Yeah.

You tell Bob, it just happens.

You don't even decide.

It's not like.

Yeah,

it just came out before I could even stop my mouth from speaking.

You know, I was just so tired and exhausted and beaten down from drugs.

And seeing that other guy inflamed me at the Italian restaurant and just,

it just came flying out.

Who is the first to talk?

You or Bob?

Bob's, as I recall, is the first to say, like, are you for real?

You know, and I'm like, Yeah, I'm for real.

And then he's like,

Who is he?

I'm like, He was my Boy Scout leader.

And, like,

where did it happen?

When did it happen?

You know, so I'm just saying, you know, and he's like, Where does he live?

And I'm like,

you know, he lives like two miles from here.

And

I think at that point, I said to him, you know what?

It's time to go confront this guy.

You know,

ever since seeing him with that boy and that quick check, I've just been haunted.

And I'm like, it's time to go confront him.

Now, Dennis Pegg, he had retired

from the sheriff's department, but he was still the firearms instructor.

Everybody in law enforcement has to get recertified with their handgun every year.

And he was the firearms instructor for two counties, Sussex and Morris.

So every cop, every sheriff's officer had to go to him to get recertified.

So the guy was a complete gun nut.

And I told Bob that, and I said,

we ought to take something with us.

I gave Bob a stake knife and I went under my bed to where I kept that Boy Scout hunting knife he taught me how to sharpen and I grabbed that.

Now,

Stephanie, basically this was a suicide mission.

You know, a stake knife, a hunting knife against a guy who had 33 guns in his house.

Shotguns, rifles, and over a dozen handguns.

If you were doing what he was doing for 45 years, you would think he would have a gun at the ready under every table, on every armrest, on every couch cushion.

You would think, like,

my time, you know,

I'm rolling the dice here 45 years in I better I better be ready

so it should have been a suicide mission when I went there what did Bob say when you

made that suggestion I just handed him the knife and I said I'm gonna go get my hunting knife and that was pretty much it it wasn't you know it wasn't like that long drawn out thing where we're

crossing our T's and dotting our I's and this is how this is going to happen and that's how that's going to happen.

It was just like, I'm like, let me just go confront this piece of garbage, you know, and we'll take these with us.

And it's a six-inch hunting knife, right?

Yeah.

Was that the biggest knife you had, or was it more so poetic justice because he was teaching you to sharpen that specific knife, or you had like no thoughts?

You're like, let me just grab a knife.

I would think it's

subconscious

poetic justice, you know, like

take this with you, you know.

So you have no plan, just a knife.

You guys drive to Dennis's house.

At what point are you like, maybe this is not a good plan?

No, just, uh, like I said, he had a long driveway.

Yeah, it had a 90-degree turn in it.

Bob pulled up there and at the 90-degree turn, stopped, went up the driveway.

His front door was open and there he is sitting.

Like he had a storm door.

It's a summer night, so storm doors shut.

I mentioned earlier, you know, like the definition of a devil.

Well, to me, it looked like the devil sitting in his lair.

That's all I saw.

But seeing him, this is the first time I'm back at that house in 33 years since what happened with me and the dog.

I never went back to that house.

And I instantly started going to that panic attack again.

Just

breathing got real hard, and I feel like rigamortis in my muscles.

And before

I completely froze, I walked up to his door, that storm door, and ripped it open, broke the hinge.

And I'm standing in his doorway.

It's 9:30, quarter to 10 at night, and there's

somebody you ripped in your doorway who just ripped open your door.

And he casually looks over his shoulder at me and

goes hey how are you

and it just seemed like the most

incredulous thing to say in that moment but again they can never let their guard down like a normal person would would like get on their hands and knees and start praying like oh my god I wronged you.

I'm so sorry.

I know why you're here.

Please forgive me I'm sick I need help

come in let's talk

no

no do you think if he did that anything would be different

if someone's down on their hands and knees praying to you praying at you

begging for forgiveness I would think so yeah

so he just says hey.

How are you?

What happens next?

We all have two faces.

The face we show the world and the face behind closed doors.

I've been showing the world

that one face

and no one for 33 years has seen the face behind closed doors.

Dennis is now going to see my other face.

The face filled with rage.

The face filled with hate.

The face filled with anger.

And I said, hey, how am I?

Let me show you how the hell I am.

And I raced across his room.

He stood up and a violent struggle started.

I started slashing at him with the knife.

He started punching me.

A violent, bloody

brawl ensued

at one point he connected with a you know he's still this monster hulking guy and he connects with a square shot to my jaw and as i'm falling down i grab his shirt to keep from falling down

and i bring the knife down and that's when I'm holding his shirt and that's where it goes straight through and straight out and in in into his skin just a little

we continue going at it and

I mean we're talking minutes here it's not it's not like a long drawn-out thing you know maybe three four minutes two minutes three minutes I it was quick

and he slips in the blood and he falls down and it's a mix of our blood you know like I'm gushing blood now

and he's up against the wall.

I leaned down in front of him.

I got eye to eye with him.

And I said, it's not so fun raising little boys now, is it, Dennis?

And I slit his throat.

And Bob was standing in the doorway wide-eyed.

And I said,

go get the van and bring it up.

Because I had one more thing I wanted to do.

I walked over to the bedroom.

He ripped me in, and I spit on the bed.

The answer

to everyone's question is, did this solve everything?

No, it didn't solve everything.

You don't heal from trauma by adding more trauma.

You don't heal from sexual abuse by murdering someone.

It's not how you heal.

I stopped a predator.

from ever harming another young boy.

45 years was long enough of rapping young boys.

It should never have come to that.

It would be uncovered that multiple boys over the years had come forward and filed lawsuits against him, and he got out from every one of them.

But

I did what I did,

and

I knew walking out of his house that night that my life was over.

You can't have the wound I have and just show up at a hospital and be like, I was cutting a steak and drove a six-inch hunting knife through my hand and severed all ligaments and tendons.

I need help.

Did you think about doing that, though?

I just, I knew it wasn't an option.

Like, you know, like,

I just know

things were never going to be the same again.

So at no point during this altercation, and I know minutes are brief, but at no point he doesn't apologize.

No, there was just the only words he said was, hey, how are you?

And throughout the whole attack, he made like

a high-pitched squeal.

He never uttered a word like, stop,

let's talk, don't do this.

Nothing.

There was no words, just a high-pitched squeal.

Like a wounded animal almost.

Not one other word other than that initial thing when I was standing in his doorway.

Did you feel like you're in control of your movements at that time?

Or did you feel like you're watching from the outside in?

Or you're just like on autopilot?

What is that?

Yeah, I definitely wasn't in control of my movements or any.

It was like something had taken over my body.

And

man.

Would I be honest if I said I had an out-of-body experience during that?

No, I wouldn't be honest, but it it was like that.

It was like,

it was like looking at this real going on and just like, that's how I, when I look back at it, like, I just, I can't believe what happened.

I can't believe that I got to that point of brokenness to go do that and potentially flush my whole life away.

just from never healing from trauma.

It's keeping the secret and not addressing it and not trying to grow from it or heal from it or learn from it or do anything other than let it just poison my system for decades.

And that's what it did.

And that's the part that I look back on now and I just like, man, I probably would have died of a drug overdose.

And everybody would have been like, oh my God, Clark.

Clark had a great education and he was so popular.

And what did he go die of a drug overdose from?

I mean, that's where my life was headed.

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Are you saying that even when you killed Dennis, you didn't even feel a moment of relief?

No,

there was no relief because of the wound I had, because of how gory and horrific killing someone was.

Again, I don't view Dennis as having humanity, but you're still, it hurts your soul to kill somebody.

It's not therapeutic in any way.

It's not healing.

Like, it

damages your psyche.

It damages your soul.

It hurts.

And I had to be completely broken to go do that.

Do you have nightmares about it or

you never think about it?

No, no, I don't I don't give him

again if

I killed an innocent person

that would haunt me.

If I killed a human that would haunt me.

I don't view Dennis as an innocent person or a human.

Why did you walk to the bedroom?

That was to go spit on the bed he ripped me in.

At what point were you like, I'm going to spit on his bed?

Was it just like

I don't know what came over me?

Like, you know, again, it's not like Bob and I sat at the kitchen table, like across from each other, like you and I are.

And I said, Yeah, after I do this, this, this, and this, then in my bloody footprints, I'm going to walk to the bed he spit me on, or me on a spit on the bed, you know?

So, like, I don't know what possessed me

to go do that.

It's something

to just bring things full circle and to a closure.

I needed to do that.

Did it bring closure?

I thought it brought complete closure

to my life and his.

There was two deaths that day.

The life I had been living up to that point, I could never go back to living the way I was.

And I literally thought, I forfeit the rest of my life.

I'll either kill myself or spend the rest of my life in prison.

I forfeited any healthy, happy life to just put an end to his reign of terror.

That's what I thought.

It's interesting because like when I'm reading your memoir and going through that moment, because I mean, the way that it's written, I feel like I'm there.

I'm obviously not experiencing like the depth of emotions, but it feels very, I'm there with you.

It almost feels therapeutic.

when you spin on his bed and it's like kind of interesting because I know you don't advocate for people to do and follow in those steps, but it just, I guess it was relief for the reader.

There's some sort of poetic justice in doing that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think if everybody,

and it's a lot of, it's a lot of everybody's, if they could spit on the bed they were wrapped in, they would want to do it.

Yeah.

You have a hole in your hand, you drive home, and you say you need to tell your mom.

What is the thinking behind that you're telling your mom because you don't know what's going to happen next?

Or?

Yeah, my mom had just come up from Florida.

Welcome home, mom.

Oh, man.

And

I called my best friend at the time and the girl I was dating and asked them to come over because

I just,

my life's over, Steph.

You know, like, I,

am I going to kill myself myself

after this?

Or am I going to spend life in prison?

It's,

it's one of those two things.

So let me say goodbye to my buddy.

Let me say goodbye to my girlfriend.

And let me get my mother up and say goodbye to her.

Because

this isn't going to turn out good.

And your mom is...

She's 80.

How old was she at the time?

Yeah, like

81, maybe.

And so your plan is I'm going to wake my mom up, tell her goodbye.

But your mom's plan is, I'm going to clean up the blood and we're going to run.

We're going to get away with murder together.

Mom's like, we're getting away with murder.

She was, oh

man, I guess it's good to laugh about it now, right?

So she wakes up and

you tell her what happened.

You still don't tell her.

The thing is, I couldn't even tell her then that I was f ⁇ ed by Dennis.

I still couldn't.

I couldn't bring it out.

And she was like dumbfounded:

why would you go do this?

Why?

And I said, to avenge a lot of other kids in this town.

And she goes, Still, why you?

Why are you the Avenger?

Why?

I don't get it.

Why?

And I couldn't tell her, like, for what you know, for ringing me too, mom.

I just, I still couldn't say it, even though I told it to my buddy earlier.

She

helped me upstairs.

I wrapped my hand in duct tape, which fixes everything.

So I wrapped it with a paper towel and duct tape and went to, took a couple Zanaks and went to bed.

And my mother went downstairs and started scrubbing the floors all night long to get the blood up.

And so she's like, we're going on the run, but you wake up and the cops are surrounding.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

She told my sister that she was going to take me and we were going to go on the run.

I know it says in the book you guys are thinking the end of the world, which is Florida.

Right.

You guys are going to go to Florida.

No, I like the plan.

I think your mom is really adorable.

I mean, there is, I was just so fascinated by your mother because, you know, she's cleaning up the blood.

She's ready to go Bonnie and Clyde with you.

and then the cops come the next morning they've got on the loudspeakers they're saying clark come out and she's like no the neighbors are gonna hear

your mom is so fascinating she said she said to one of the troopers as i was still in my bedroom what are the neighbors gonna think

he's like ma'am i really don't give a damn what the neighbors think oh my gosh okay so you see the cops outside so they took her out like they took her out of the house.

And they're like, you look out the window and they're just like trying to be sneaky, trying to.

Yeah, they're, like I said, they're behind, they're hiding behind trees.

You know, they don't know

what I have if I'm loaded up with a

AR-15 or what my mental state is.

You know, they've got a dead body.

Yeah.

So

they're there.

Every one of them has their gun drawn.

Everyone's taking, you know, some sort of protection.

There's this big rock to the left of the yard, and there's trees, and there's the shed out back, and

they're just all behind everything, and then they're behind their cars lining the street.

And

I just couldn't believe it.

I was lying in bed, like,

how are we going to get out of this?

Like, how are we going to get out of this?

And, like, there's got to be, there's got to be a way out of this.

And before

I could even possibly think of any way out of this, the cops are there.

And I'm just, and your stomach just drops.

And you're just like, it's over, bro.

It's, it's, it's over.

And all I could think, you know, they ordered me out of the house over a bullhorn.

And as I walked to that front door, I just

called out to God,

let one of these guys kill me when I step out.

Like, like,

it's over.

It's over, God.

Like, I don't want to do life in prison.

Just take me now.

And

let him shoot me when I walk out.

And I stepped out that front door with my state police shirt on that I put on.

And

I put my arms out to the side.

And I just sort of tilted my head back.

And I just waited for the crack of a gun.

And it never came.

And instead, I was ordered

off my porch down into the front lawn spread eagle handcuffed and taken away

were you disappointed when you didn't hear a shot go off yeah yeah you were because in that in that

that ride to the police barracks was like the longest ride of my life and I'm just like

Man, one of these guys couldn't kill me, put me out of my misery.

Like,

I'll have to find a way in prison to do it I'll have to

I'll have to take care of this myself you killed a cop you're arrested by a bunch of cops you're about to go to the jail

that that cop worked at

things are not looking good

you know yeah understatement of the year yeah

but there are some cops some detectives who seem to

give you some sage advice in that weird moment.

What happens there?

Like, what was the energy?

Like, are all the arresting officers, do you feel like hatred dripping off of them because you killed a cop, or do they, do you not even notice what their energy is?

What is that dynamic?

Well, I'm thinking like I'm public enemy number one amongst law enforcement.

I just killed one of their own.

And yet, at the state police barracks, this lieutenant, Howie Ryan, comes in and goes, I have to apologize to you.

And I'm like,

I'm like, what are you apologizing to me for?

And he's like, I've heard rumors about Dennis Pegg for a long time.

And he goes, I want to apologize to you for never stopping him.

He goes, but I can't arrest somebody on rumors.

I need victims.

I need cold, hard facts.

And I had neither of those.

And I apologize to you.

And at first, Steph, I felt, and then he left the room.

And I felt, wow,

that's pretty cool.

And then I'm like, just started fuming.

I'm like, even the state police knew.

Everybody knew about Dennis Peck and young boys.

Everybody's got a story.

The state police just admitted they knew.

And yet, I'm the one who just had to flush his life away and

look at life in prison to stop him.

Like, and they knew.

And it's, and then, so, so I went from feeling good for a second getting really pissed off for another second and then i'm like what's it matter anyway i'm done i'm i'm done when that cop howie ryan came back in the room i he could see that i had like mailed it in he he he said i just i could tell you you were you were you were done and he goes something moved in me

That even though you thought you were done, I didn't think you were done.

And he said, look, I've got your DNA all over that crime scene.

He was in charge of the CSI team that worked Pegg's house.

He's like, your blood's everywhere.

He goes, this isn't a whodunit.

He goes, but that doesn't necessarily mean your life's over.

My detectives and detectives from the prosecutor's office are in another room waiting to interrogate you.

He goes, if you go in that room and open up your mouth, you could potentially destroy destroy the rest of your life.

He goes,

I'm telling you right now, go in there,

exercise your Fifth Amendment right, request a lawyer, and stay, shh, keep your mouth shut, stay quiet.

And I said to him,

but I don't have a lawyer.

And he goes, I'm going to take care of that for you.

He goes, I'm going to get you a lawyer.

And he left the room and on his cell phone, he called one of the big lawyers in our county and said, I need you to send over facts over to state police barracks, a retainer for somebody like immediately.

And

the lawyer said, who is he and what did he do?

And he goes, Clark Fredericks, murder.

And he goes, okay, then.

And

had a thing over in a couple minutes.

So he tells you not to talk.

Do you listen to him?

I do.

Right when you get arrested, it seems like the whole town is divided.

A lot of people feel like you did this for very nefarious reasons.

Other people start hearing what Dennis has been doing around town.

Do you feel like at any point where they're just dividing opinions, did it feel like everybody had their own thought about what the reason, the motive was?

Yeah, there were some vocal people on his side who were pro-Dennis,

who just

referred to me as a drunk drug addict who just killed a great man.

Yeah, I just woke up one day and said, Dennis Pegg, I'm going to go kill you for no reason.

Before it

really started coming out about what happened, you know, because yeah,

the little old ladies on the historical society that worked with him were like, he was such a sweet man.

You know, the mayor in Stower at the time was like, oh, he was a giant of a human being.

And then people like Howie Ryan are like,

no, I knew all about rumors about this guy.

Your audience is going to have to get the book because there's a line from Howie Ryan in the book to the prosecutor.

It's one of the greatest.

lines you will ever hear.

I don't want to give it away.

It's such a,

it's the most powerful line you will ever read said by him.

We will put the page number so you guys can go get it.

Yeah.

And I will tell you what page piece I know.

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

I know exactly what line number.

That was a powerful line.

Yeah.

No, that was an unbelievable line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At that point, once you've been arrested, you're facing first-degree murder charge initially.

So you're facing life in prison.

Life in prison.

And you have an attorney, and they're saying, have a little hope, but not too much hope.

Yeah.

You know, I

and it's funny that the lawyer, Howie Ryan at the barracks called George Daggett, who sent the retainer over.

I never even interviewed him at the jail as one of my lawyers.

And I don't know why, but I interviewed a bunch of other lawyers.

And, you know, one lawyer just wanted to get me bailed out.

We'll get you bailed out of here in three days.

Like,

I'm like, all right.

And then this other lawyer came in all flashy with his, you know, gold jewelry, Rolex watch, and he's listing all these cases he's worked.

And I knew, I knew the cases, and he lost them all.

But in my head, I'm like, but you lost all those, you know, like, so I'm like, and then this, uh, this guy, Dan Perez, came in.

He was, he just looked like a really good guy, you know, like really down to earth.

And he came in

and he said, I think we uh can have a valid defense for this.

I was like, really?

He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He goes,

he goes, you know, it's not going to be easy, but I don't think your life is over.

I was like, really?

I'm like, you're hired.

During that time, Dennis had a security deposit box that the police go through.

Yeah.

And they find a bunch of letters.

Right.

that he wrote 10 years before he died.

Correct.

And when he was in his young to mid-50s, healthy.

They all have some variation of pray for me.

I hope I didn't disappoint you.

Forgive me for any failings.

Do you think some of these letters are to victims?

Yeah.

Yep.

And look, they're creepy.

There's something really creepy about them.

And the prosecutor told me after the fact that he he thinks

there was 14 of them in there, that 13 were probably victims.

Would you ever think, like, right now, to like write letters to people in case you die?

No.

He was 50-something years old.

Like, like,

what would make you do that?

And he does keep writing, interestingly, like, if I go to heaven, pray for me.

But if you're already dead, I don't know what exactly he's asking for in prayer.

Yeah.

Is it to get to heaven?

It's weird.

Yeah.

I read those and it just like left me feeling yucky.

Yeah.

And then if you assume that they're to victims, like

I tried my best.

I thought we were family.

Forgive me for shortcomings.

What are your shortcomings?

How many victims do you think that he had?

My buddy's wife is the sheriff's secretary, and she sat in on every meeting with the sheriff in the early days, and they estimate well over 100.

One of the other victims is very close to you.

Family relation.

Who was that?

My brother.

My arrest opened up my brother's Pandora's box.

You know, like seeing that boy in that deli opened my box up.

My arrest opened my brother's box up.

And my brother wasn't ready to face it.

He wasn't ready to handle it, didn't want to deal with it.

You know, like, like, I told myself at 12, we're just going to bury this and go about our life.

Well, that's what my brother had done his whole life.

And

everyone urged him to get help, to see a therapist.

And my brother did what I did, was to numb himself.

And

I found him dead on our kitchen floor a couple years ago from drinking himself to death.

This is going to be a two-part interview.

This is part one.

In part two, we're going to ask Clark about how and why the FBI came to him to warn him that someone put a hit out on his life.

He has, I mean, there's his entire journey, or I guess more so fight in prison, trying to get through it while he's surrounded by criminals who are accused of doing the very thing that Dennis Pegg did, which is harm children.

There are letters that Dennis Pegg left his presumed victims in his safety deposit box and how someone very close to Clark is killed by Dennis Pegg.

After Clark gets out of prison.

Like, how does that even happen?

We are going to go through all of that in part two.

Also, how the hell does Clark get out of prison when he's facing a first-degree murder charge and life in prison?

That will all be asked in part two.

But in the meantime, if you feel like you can't wait for those answers, which same, you can get Clark's memoir.

It's probably the most intense memoir that I've ever read.

And I've read a copious amount of memoirs before.

There are just so many aspects of his story that aren't included in our episodes that you can find in depth in his book.

I think I finished the whole book the first time around in like four hours.

It was one of my quickest reads.

There's something about it where I don't know how Clark does this, but Every time you catch yourself feeling like, okay, there's a black hole that we've now went into.

There's no way out of it.

You get out and then there's just like another black hole.

And it is like the most intense emotional journey that I have ever been on.

You can also find Clark on his social media accounts and his own podcast, which I will link below.

But with that being said, that is part one of the two-part series of the story of Clark Federicks.

And I will see you in part two.

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