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The Current Transcript for October 23, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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The losses have already been substantial. Our games are not back on the air in China as we speak, and we'll see what happens next.

LAURA LYNCH: The losses Adam Silver is talking about are happening off the basketball court. The NBA commissioner finds himself trying to walk the narrow line between sports, the business of sports and politics, all because of a tweet and China's furious reaction to it. That's in half an hour. After that:

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I looked at what he shoplifted and it was a hammer and dog repellent. And I said, this is the guy. And that was that oh, wow moment that I still get goose bumps to this day, that this is actually the guy.

LL: Billy Jensen has spent years and much of his own money trying to track down murderers like the Golden State killer. He's not a detective. He's a journalist. His new book details how and why he went from covering crime to catching killers. But first up today, Canada's new political landscape. I'm Laura Lynch and this is The Current.

Minority government means Trudeau has 'some on-the-job learning' to do, says columnist

Guests: Marie Vastel, Susan Delacourt, Murray Mandyrk

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JAGMEET SINGH: We're going to fight with everything we have to ensure Canadians know that we're in it for them and we're going to deliver on our commitment to fight for them.

ANDREW SCHEER: More words and platitudes will not cut it. He must be willing to change course, to stop his attacks on the energy sector and to recognize that when western Canada succeeds, all of Canada succeeds.

YVES-FRANCOIS BLANCHET: The responsibility of the prime minister and the Liberal Party is to make this parliament work.

LL: Feisty words from the leaders of three main opposition parties with a Liberal minority government. The strategizing and possible deal making is only just beginning. And our weekly rotating national affairs panel is here to help us forecast what might lie ahead. Susan Delacourt is a national columnist and Ottawa bureau chief for The Toronto Star. Marie Vastel is parliamentary correspondent for Le Devoire. They're both in our Ottawa studio. And Murray Mandryk is a political columnist with the Regina Leader Post. He's in our Regina's studio. Hello.

GUESTS: Good morning.

LL: Susan. Let's talk about pie. I know that seems unusual. Can I ask you about this Election Day pie that you baked. For listeners who haven't seen pictures on social media? Tell us about it.

SUSAN DELACOURT: So, yes, I did bake a pie to watch election night with. We also eat dinner. We didn't just eat pie. Yes, it was a basic berry pie. But I put in equal parts, red berries and blueberries and a shaving of orange zest to represent the NDP.

MURRAY MANDRYK: Irish blueberries are not Saskatoon's. The rest is left out again.

SUSAN DELACOURT: It was delicious.

MURRAY MANDRYK: I'm sure it was.

SUSAN DELACOURT: And it's more appetizing than this parliament.

MURRAY MANDRYK: So blueberries are better than Saskatoon's, I suppose.

LL: All right. I'm not going to carry this too much longer, but the season with the minority government, what kind of tone do you expect to see? Will it be as sweet as the pie or a little more tart? And I'll stop there with the pie reference.

SUSAN DELACOURT: The opposite of anything like dessert, unless you're thinking just desserts. I was really surprised by the tone of all the speeches on election night. And if that was an indication of what the tone is going to be, it's abysmal that all of them were talking as though the election hadn't started yet. They were all talking as though they won. When I say all the three main federal party leaders, the NDP, the Conservatives and the Liberals, that it was almost 1984-ish the way they were talking about the election, as though it they had all won when in fact they all lost ground in some substantial way during that campaign.

LL: How did Justin Trudeau need to adjust his leadership approach now? I mean, he he has your seat. That's obvious. It's a minority, but he also had less than a third of the popular vote.

SUSAN DELACOURT: Yea, he was- All his skills are as a majority prime minister. He is a celebrity. He could, you know, travel the world. He could go out and do various town halls. He could lead the caucus on his coattails. That has flipped upside down now. He is he has to learn about caucus management, which we've known is a weakness for him. He has to like the House of Commons or at least stay there more than he has. He didn't like it in opposition. He doesn't like it in government. But the House of Commons is where his power lies and he has to quietly make deals with people. And that's not been his strength to date. So he says that he is a learner. He's going to be doing some on the job learning in the next weeks and months.

LL: Marie Vastel.

MARIE VASTEL: Yes, I agree with them. His approach to government has not necessarily been to build bridges, I guess, with the other parties. We've seen him be maybe a bit moralizing at times, and I think that will be the biggest challenge in the short term. I would suggest getting on the phone, building relationships with the other leaders because he does need to govern hopefully for his sake, for other's sake and for our sake more than a year or 18 months. And he is going to have to agree with some of them on some issues and not continue to act as though his platform is the best and the other ones are all awful. He he's going to have to find common ground with either the NDP or the Bloc, even though he has criticised them a lot during the campaign.

LL: Murray Mandryk, the Conservatives actually received about 240,000 more votes than the Liberals still lost by 36 seats. I'm wondering what that does to Trudeau's legitimacy in places like Saskatchewan and Alberta.

MURRAY MANDRYK: Well, it's never really existed in any kind of meaningful way. But I think the real problem right now is we're dealing with a situation where we have a perfect storm out here and that perfect storm doesn't exist without a Trudeau in office. There's always economic problems out here. There's always the situation where it's just tough, tough, tough to make a living. If you're in agriculture, sometimes if you're an oil and gas, sometimes if you're in mining right now, there is problems in those particular areas that do need to be addressing. They're combined with long standing problems, long standing grievances like equalization that have never gone away. And for Jason Kenney, or the conservatives to be complaining about this when they could have fixed it 10 years ago and chose not to keep their 2006 promise to Amanda Equalization formula is is hugely problematic and hypocritical. But the fact of the matter is, right now we're dealing with a situation where you have a bunch of provincial conservative premiers who very, very much, if not saying it directly. And some of them are coming pretty close to saying it directly, but they're saying that they view the prime minister of Canada is the [unintelligible] right now and it's feeding into sentiments right now that are not very positive.

LL: Okay, let's flip over to look at the conservatives and all of this. Marie Vastel, you traveled with the conservative campaign. What frame of mind do you think Andrew Shearer is in as he prepares to return to the opposition bench?

MARIE VASTEL: I think Mr. Shear is trying to be optimistic because he says they're the only national party to have gained ground in this election. I think they're forgetting about the Green Party and the Bloc, if you look at regional parties. But his argument is, well, we made gains everywhere that the Trudeau Liberals lost seats everywhere. So did the NDP. That being said, you know, they did gain half a million votes across Canada, but two thirds of those 500 million votes were in Alberta and Saskatchewan. They did get very high support in the Prairies, but their support went down a tiny bit in terms of percentage points in Ontario and Quebec. They only won three seats in Ontario. And he spent a lot of time in Ontario, in the GTA, as they all did. They lost one seat in Quebec. They lost two. Got both back from Maxime Bernier, but they lost one in terms of numbers. I don't know that you can necessarily argue that was a successful campaign. And Mr. Scheer is arguing that he's staying in place, that he has no intention of leaving the Conservative Party. But as we saw in the Toronto Star, Alex Boutilier's story, Susan's colleague, had a good story showing Ontario conservatives are angry. And unfortunately for Mr. Scheer, he has to go through a leadership review in April and that convention. Unfortunately for him, is in Toronto. It's not out west. It's not anywhere where he will be maybe harder for angered conservatives to go out and vote to express their discontent with his campaign, with his team, with him, whoever they want to blame. I think the next few months might be a little difficult for him to argue that this is a win, because I'm not sure a lot of people on the ground agree with him.

LL: Susan, the headline in your paper says The knives are out for Andrew Scheer.

SUSAN DELACOURT: Well, Laura, we've been around a long time and this is what happens after elections as there is a there's going to be leadership wrangling, I think, and maybe not in the liberal so much right now and maybe not in the NDP. But I do think, I was hearing even before the election that there were conservatives who were cranky and angry with the way the campaign had been run. I think, you know, there's been some debate. We saw some commentators on CBC on election night, for example, saying was it such a great idea to put Doug Ford in the witness protection program, as they said, during this whole campaign. So I expect that, yes, that there's Murray says that that leadership review in April or the the vote on whether to have a leadership review, I think is what happens in Toronto is going to be a signature event of the political spring.

LL: Okay. Well, the Murray Mandryk. What do you think the view is from the West - and I think I better exclude B.C. from this. Let's just talk about Saskatchewan and Alberta - of Andrew Scheer and his performance?

MURRAY MANDRYK: Well, I think out here they're relatively happy with Andrew Scheer's performance because they did run a very regional based conservative campaign. That's obviously problematic is outlined earlier because it wasn't a national campaign where it's going to appeal to Ontario. But I think there's a general satisfaction was Scheer getting the message across of Western needs, particularly Alberta, Saskatchewan needs. And you're right, B.C. and Manitoba are somewhat different. There was obviously a net benefit to that for them in terms of the number of votes. There was huge margins of victory, not just in Alberta, impossibly large margins of victory in Alberta, but in here, too. But is it really brilliant from the conservative strategic standpoint that they had more votes in Alberta than they did in Quebec, in the Atlantic provinces combined? That's not really a national party and it's problematic out here now. It feeds rage and it and it certainly is why that Westerners think they have a voice out here. I don't think necessarily you're going to see Andrew Scheer's that voice. I think you'll see it is provincial premiers like Scott Moore and Jason Kenney, who will carry the water in terms of the discontent much in Western counter related to issues coming forward. But clearly, it's centered around a theme of taking another run at Trudeau and there'll be a happy crowd. It'll fall along in western Canada, eager to do so.

LL: If Canada is deeply divided, then I'm wondering, Marie Vastel, what does that mean for federal provincial relations across the country?

MARIE VASTEL: Yes, I think that's number two on Mr. Trudeau's list of calls. We've talked a lot about this regional divide and how Abbott and Saskatchewan really rejected Trudeau Liberals completely in this election on Monday night. But I don't think that we can completely exclude Mr. Trudeau of any blame. I was quite surprised in the campaign how much criticism he had towards Jason Kenney, Scott Mo, even Manitoba's premier a little bit, Brian Pallister and Doug Ford, obviously. But I was surprised that a national leader granted not of the same color party. He's a liberal, they're conservative. But to me, the whole time I kept thinking. But he might have to work with these guys afterwards. And this is where we are now. Mr. Kenny has campaigned very strongly against Mr. Trudeau and the Liberals, but so has Mr. Trudeau. And I think he, in terms of changing tone, yes, he has to change his tone in Ottawa with opposition parties, but he really needs to work on those relationships. We saw some recognize his victory, like Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick saying, okay, I accept the will of the people. I will get on board with a carbon tax. But he's the only one so far that has seemed to be willing to accept their verdict from Monday night. I think whenever the first ministers meeting is planned, it's not going to go that smoothly.

LL: All right.

SUSAN DELACOURT: It will be interesting, Laura, to see, you know, we love cabinet speculation here. And we were already doing a little bit of it in our office yesterday, too. But you'll remember in 2015, Justin Trudeau appointed himself as the federal provincial relations minister. Right. As things got more tense, he put his good friend Dominic LeBlanc lying there. I don't know that Dominic LeBlanc is going to fulfill that role either, but definitely that was a good cop, bad cop kind of relationship that was going on. So I'm going to be really interested to see who Justin Trudeau makes his federal provincial relations man.

LL: Well, here's the other question is how does he get representation from Alberta and Saskatchewan inside his cabinet or maybe inside his PMO? I mean, Ralph Goodale doesn't have a job.

MURRAY MANDRYK: That's incredibly frustrating from the Western perspective, because the solution to this is obviously to reach down and have some kind of relationship within the Liberal Party. That can't exist right now without Ralph Goodale in the federal cabinet right now in from Saskatchewan. I with all deference to whomever they elect in B.C. and Mount Manitoba. We don't have representation from in this government from either Alberta or Manitoba. So they're really going to have to find a way to address that, because the anger here is really quite palpable. It's in the extreme when expressed by the provincial premier here. But it's not unlike anything that you're hearing on the streets right now, and some place along the line, that just absolutely has to be addressed by the federal government.

LL: Susan, you want to jump in there?

SUSAN DELACOURT: Yes, I want to say one way I don't think it's going to happen is I think a common solution being offered is put Ralph Goodale in the Senate and have him.

LL: Well, he's already said he doesn't want it.

SUSAN DELACOURT: And also, there is that little matter of Justin Trudeau's big promise to make the Senate independent. So I think some creative minds should be at work right now. We saw Stephen Harper put Michael Ford [unintelligible] in the Senate and in his cabinet. I think over the next couple of weeks - I don't expect it until early November, actually - a new cabinet. It's going to have to be some kind of creative thing, and it's not going to be just a simple Senate solution.

LL: All right, Marie Vastel, focusing on Alberta and Saskatchewan. What about the divide between Quebec and the rest of Canada? What challenges that pose for Justin Trudeau and the Liberals?

MARIE VASTEL: Well, luckily for them, they do have the second biggest number of seats in Quebec. So they do still have, you know, a pretty strong presence. Some were worried that it would be more centered around Montreal. But they did kind of spread out a little further towards Quebec City. And they kept one in extreme east Quebec with Deanna Booty, who used to be a revenue minister so that they are somewhat spread out. The good news for Justin Trudeau, though, is that Quebec's premier Francois Degault yesterday incident insisted that he does want to keep working with Mr. Trudeau as his number one person he speaks to in Ottawa and not go through the Bloc Quebecois. So some perhaps we're worried that the fact that the Bloc Quebecois won 32 seats on Monday night might mean that there's this really big divide in terms of nationalism, sovereignty versus federal liberals. I'm not sure we're going to see that just because luckily for Mr. Trudeau, the premier of Quebec, Francois Legault isn't from the same sovereignty movement as the Bloc Quebecois leader. So they won't be really that closely associated. But we talked a lot about Alberta and Saskatchewan. But Mr. Trudeau also has some bridge building to do in Quebec. People rejected his policy, perhaps his will to intervene, possibly down the road against the secularism. Bill, Bill 21. He he's been criticized for a long time, actually, in Quebec for not having named Quebec lieutenant, which is something that federal parties usually do. He kept saying, well, we don't need a lieutenant, we have a general, and that's me. I also wonder if he might revisit that in light of the election results in Quebec and maybe recognize that he perhaps needs someone who's going to do a little bit more groundwork to help them win back that province.

LL: I imagine, Murray, though, that people out you're way we'll be watching very closely to see if Trudeau and Liberal Party make any concessions or what are seen to be concessions to Quebec.

MURRAY MANDRYK: It is a problem because it's almost counter balance in terms of what's weighing the anger in this province. Part of it is everything going on economically. Part of it is pure politics and partisanship. But part of its legitimate frustration with things like equalization and the notion that somehow while we're suffering out here, Quebec is doing just fine. Thank you very much because of the equalization formula. That's not exactly reality, but it is the view out here in terms of of how Westerners right now feel about this. And Trudeau is such a focal point towards this notion that we're being unjustly treated here, that we're being unfair. You can hear it in [unintelligible] voice. In perhaps a more eloquent way. You can hear it here and Jason Kenney's argument yesterday. So someplace along the line, issues that haven't necessarily been addressed for decades right now are going to have to be addressed in this minority parliament. Otherwise, it's going to be very, very difficult for the Trudeau government to govern in this situation.

LL: Okay, Marie, go.

MARIE VASTEL: Yes. It's funny because the perception not necessarily rightly so either in Quebec is that actually he has done a lot of things for Alberta, like by a pipeline, which is one of the things that they are in great disagreement with. I think we already saw before the election that the balance was getting a little difficult for Mr. Trudeau, giving concessions to the nationalist government in Quebec City without being criticized in English Canada. When we go back to Bill 21, he didn't want to intervene. He didn't want to [unintelligible] votes in Quebec. But you could see that the liberals were recognizing that people in the rest of Canada were quite upset that he wasn't more critical of. Bill 21, I think, will definitely keep seeing that difficult balance for them in terms of environment, in terms of helping the oil sands, in terms of still having subsidies for the oil sands. It's not ideal that the two regions in which the Liberals need to get back some gains and get better, better political support are two regions that are completely opposed in what they are asking for from the government.

LL: Ten seconds, Susan, last word to you.

SUSAN DELACOURT: Well, I'll tell you what I'm watching for today. I want to hear what the tone is of Mr. Trudeau's news conference at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. He was criticized a lot inside and outside the party for not being humble or reckoning enough with the results. So I want to see what he's going to say.

LL: All right. Thanks to all three of you. I'm sure we'll be talking much more in the weeks to come. Bye bye.

SUSAN DELACOURT: Bye.

MURRAY MANDRYK: You're welcome.

LL: Susan Delacourt is the national columnist and Ottawa bureau chief for The Toronto Star. Marie Vastel as parliamentary correspondent for Le Devoir. They were in our Ottawa studio. And Murray Mandryk is a political columnist with the Regina Leader Post. He was in our Regina's studio. The CBC News is next. Then:

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Sometimes you have to think through things that you say may cause harm, not only for yourself before for the majority of people.

LL: Basketball star LeBron James waded into a growing controversy that all started with a tweet supporting Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrators and quickly moved to China, clamping down on the NBA. We'll find out how the dispute is reverberating in Toronto in about six minutes. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

China-NBA despute

Guests: Jeff Beers, Mimi Lee, Morgan Campbell

LL: Hello, I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come, investigative journalist Billy Jensen went from writing about crime to actually solving murders. He tells me about that evolution in half an hour. But first, the game of hoops turns political.

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Five... Four... Three... Two... One.

[Music and cheers]

LL: It was a big, noisy night at Scotiabank Arena last night. The Toronto Raptors got their championship rings and unveiled the franchise's first championship banner to the Raptors. They also played some basketball and were victorious over the New Orleans Pelicans 130 to 122. But not everything was about the game last night. As fans made their way into the arena. Many were given free T-shirts emblazoned with the usual, The North, but also with Stand with Hong Kong.

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[Chatter]

VOICE 1: Free t-shirts . Support Hong Kong. Free t-Shirts.

VOICE 2: I'm supportive of it. I think I don't know about the leadership of the NBA, but as a fan, I'm supportive of it. I think the players should be able to speak their minds and so should the fans.

VOICE 3: Free t-shirts. Can you wear it inside?

VOICE 4: Yes, for sure.

VOICE 3: If you're going to the game please support freedom of expression, Free t-shirts.

VOICE 1: Free t-shirts.

VOICE 5: Living in Canada is good. You know, everybody has free speech. We live in a free nation. And it should be that no matter where you go, the NBA is an international game. And no matter where you go, nothing should limit that.

LL: Raptors fans outside Scotiabank Arena last night talking about the controversy between China and the NBA. This mix of politics and basketball all started after a tweet from Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey. It read: "Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong". The Chinese government responded quickly, suspending sponsorship and telecast deals with the NBA. The tweet was deleted and an apology issued. Mimi Lee is one of the people who is handing out T-shirts last night. She's with the Torontonian Hong Kongers action group. And she's on the line. Hello.

MIMI LEE: Hi. Good morning, Laura.

LL: Your group raised thirty four thousand dollars and made 7000 T-shirts. How many did you hand out last night?

MIMI LEE: We actually handed out all of them.

LL: All 7000. And people took them readily. Did they?

MIMI LEE: Some of them. Yes. And some of them actually came and asked for it because they've seen the reports that, you know, everything they had done.

LL: So why did you want to pass these T-shirts out at the arena last night?

MIMI LEE: Well, the whole point is that we saw what had happened over the NBA, SoCal, and we want to rally the fans to actually tell the world that we all stand with freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

LL: And where did the idea come from?

MIMI LEE: The idea came from L.A.

LL: Tell me how.

MIMI LEE: Well they have done fundraising already when we started our open page, we saw. Well, actually, I didn't see it. My friend saw it. He was in L.A. and he sent me the link and he said, well, you know, the open night is happening like both in Toronto and L.A. It would be cool if we have a joint action. So I got linked up with the person at L.A. His name is Sung. And then we chat a little bit and then we just decided, you know what, we'll try it and see how it goes.

LL: Were you surprised at the fans reaction?

MIMI LEE: Oh, absolutely. We were very thrilled to see how much money we actually was able to fund raised. And what happened was we initially our target was twenty thousand for 5000 T-shirts and we were like going, oh, you know what? If we don't get the target, then we will scale down our printing. And then at the end instead scaling it down. We actually made more.

LL: Oh, and you gave them all away, as you said. I'm wondering when you when you were handing them out last night, how did the Scotiabank Arena respond?

MIMI LEE: The arena itself, they didn't really respond like officially, some of the security were very nice and in some of them was a little bit mean. So because we were at different entrances so that people going into different gates will be able to actually see us as well. So I know for a fact that one of our main spot they got, you know, sort of kick around.

LL: Physically kicked around or just told to move?

MIMI LEE: Well, of course, you know, they say they were told to move away. But then the spot that I was at, those security guards were like, really, really nice.

LL: Did the Toronto Raptors actually know about your campaign and what you were doing?

MIMI LEE: I suppose they know because the camera deliberately avoided our T-shirts.

LL: You mean inside the arena?

MIMI LEE: Yes.

LL: What do you mean? The one that's the good gives crowd shots?

MIMI LEE: Yes. Yes. They saw a T-shirt and then they panned away right away so fast.

LL: Okay. But that raises the question. What do you tell people who say you shouldn't be mixing sports and politics?

MIMI LEE: We didn't do that. They did it first. Because this is a reaction from what's going on with the tweet which you just mentioned, China, reacted. And politics is in already. This whole thing, we didn't start it. We are handing out the T-shirts to tell China we don't like it. And that's why we would like the fans to stand together and tell China that they they don't like it either. As far as I understand, a lot of fans don't like it.

LL: But we know that China is already suspended millions of dollars worth of contracts with the NBA. How do you think they're going to respond to your campaign despite the fact that, as you said, the camera panned away from the T-shirts?

MIMI LEE: Well, the NBA., I don't know how they respond. I think that was a very clear response already telling the camera not to have anything to do with our T-shirts. Even in L.A., same thing happened. The camera tried to avoid their T-shirts over there as well. So it's quite clear. They are not happy with what we are doing. And they try to, you know.

LL: So are you going to keep handing out T-shirts at Raptors games?

MIMI LEE: No. No. This was just a onetime thing.

LL: All right. Maybe we will leave it there. Thank you for your time.

MIMI LEE: Thank you.

LL: Mimi Lee is an organizer with the Torontonian Hong Kong's Action Group. She's in Toronto. For the NBA the story is about more than just freedom of expression. There are huge financial implications. Jeff Beer is a senior staff editor at Fast Company, a U.S. business magazine. He's in Toronto. And Morgan Campbell is a sports reporter for The Toronto Star. He's also in Toronto. Hello.

JEFF BEER: Morning.

LL: Jeff Beer. Let's start with you. What is your response to what Mimi Lee had to say?

JEFF BEER: Well, I think it's interesting. You know, obviously the cameras are avoiding the people wearing T-shirts for a number of reasons, primarily probably because maybe the same seats are being broadcast in China where they have broadcasting deals. I mean, widely reported when the controversy first broke. I mean, Tencent paid something like 1.5 Billion dollars to extend its streaming deal with the league.

LL: Tencent being the Chinese streaming service. Yes.

JEFF BEER: The giant Chinese company. So, you know, it's sort of understandable that maybe they would be avoiding the T-shirts. I think Morgan's colleague wrote last night regarding the Raptors response that they weren't going to remove anyone wearing the T-shirts from the arena. I think that the camera angles were rare as far as they went, I think there was a good move by the Raptors and by like removing people from what I think happened in Philadelphia during a preseason game, someone wearing a protest T-shirt was removed from the game. It just exacerbates the issue and makes it a bigger brand problem for weeks.

LL: Can we step back for a minute, Jeff? How did the NBA basketball come to be the most popular league sport in China?

JEFF BEER: That's a great question. I mean, it's has a lot to do with, I mean, it's decades in the making. I think a key moment was when Yao Ming, who was famous before even came to the NBA in China as a as a basketball player, went to play for the Houston Rockets, ironically enough, where there are more [unintelligible] and not just helped boost the game there. That spurred the league to increase its efforts. I think every year at least one team has gone over there and the league itself has been expanding its business relationships over there for both sponsorships and in broadcasting. So now we're at a point where there's something like 300 million basketball players in China, which is, you know, two thirds of the population in the United States alone. So it's a huge game and a huge market for the league.

LL: How many viewers are we talking about?

JEFF BEER: Well, I know this last year, I believe on Tencents platforms there was 490 million people watched the NBA and alone for game six of last 2019 finals, this year's finals, 21 million people in China watched it, and that compares to just over 18 in the U.S. So, I mean, a significant portion, it's not some outpost that enjoys basketball, that's for sure.

LL: And remind us just what that is worth to the NBA in terms of dollars and cents.

JEFF BEER: Well, there's a different there's a streaming deal itself, which, like I said, was 1.5 billion dollars. But then there's the associated advertising and corporate sponsorships. I know athletic apparel, Chinese brands like Li-Ning and Anta are our big sponsors of the league and particular players as well.

LL: All right. And we're talking U.S. dollars. Morgan Campbell, let's come over to you. When it comes to the NBA, its relationship with China. Is the Houston Rockets a particularly important team because of Yao Ming?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: You absolutely have to understand about Yao Ming that he was this marvel when he came over. He was an anomaly when he came over from China because he was 7 foot 6. And what you didn't know about Yao Ming was, from the North American perspective, was like whether he would be any good. Was he was he was he a skilled basketball player or was he just the guy that was 7 foot 6 who came with his built in audience? The truth was at the beginning, he was more the guy with the built in audience than the skilled basketball player. But like as his career evolved, you know, he turned into a legitimate quality player. So here he is doing his thing in the NBA at 7 foot 6. Now got a 7 foot 6 from anywhere in the world, again, he's going to get he's going to attract extra attention. But the fact that he's from the world's most populous country and gave the NBA this entree into this huge market, that was a massive deal for the league, for him and for the rockets.

LL: So did that make it that much worse when it was the Rocket's General manager Daryl Morey, who tweeted support for Hong Kong protesters?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: Yeah. And the Chinese Basketball Association like immediately cut ties with the NBA. And let's look this. There's one thing that keeps being glossed over and forgotten in this whole thing, which is that Daryl Morey did not come up with this tweet out of his own brain. This is a message that floated across this timeline. He retweeted it. That takes less than a second to put your thumb on the arrows and re-tweet a sorry, re-tweet a post in that post lived on his timeline for all of five minutes.

LL: How much damage got done, right?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: What was the point is we're treating Daryl Morey like he's a crusader for free speech when really Daryl Morey had a whim. Right. He re-tweeted it. And then when he saw the blowback, he said, well, I don't want to be in this fight anymore. And he deleted the tweet because he knew that- we always say free speech comes with doesn't mean freedom from consequences. Daryl Morey started seeing the consequences within five minutes, deleted the tweet. Yet here we still are.

LL: JEff Beer, the NBA has a long history of supporting players who speak out for social causes they champion. And that includes things like Black Lives Matter. So what is different this time? What line did Daryl Morey cross?

JEFF BEER: Yes, it's also interesting to note that Twitter isn't available in China. So that was also an extreme part of how quickly he deleted that tweet. Service wasn't even available there. But in terms of the NBA supporting various social political messages, I think that is part of. I mean, we've been talking a lot about the Chinese officials and corporate sponsors, their anger and reaction to this. But on the flip side, the league has spent a lot of time over the last little bit establishing itself and its brand as sort of one that focuses on a younger, progressive, diverse audience. And it's taken pride in the fact that it not only allows but encourages its players and coaches to to speak their minds on various issues. I mean Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich has spoken out plenty of times and Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr plenty of times against policies of Donald Trump. And, of course, LeBron James has spoken out against the president and also against police brutality. And plenty of players have spoken out in support of Colin Kaepernick. In fact, I mean, I spoke with Adam Silver last journey, and he told me that allowing players to speak their minds on everything from politics to fashion and music only serves to bring fans closer to the game. He saw it as a big positive.

LL: So what position has this the NBA commissioner, Adam Silver in?

JEFF BEER: Well, a tough position, that's for sure. I mean, it's the hypocrisy that some are seeing here is that, you know, on one hand, you're supporting speaking out on social issues like racism, police brutality at home. But, then sort of not supporting those same values and China. And that's where that's the rub. I think that's where the league is finding itself in some hot water. And I think they've been walked a fine line saying, you know, the league hasn't specifically come out talking about these issues before. It's more just open the floor to the players and coaches and others to do that. In this case, I think it's an interesting dilemma and not one they've resolved for sure.

LL: Morgan Campbell, Adam Silver was that was at the Raptors game last night. Did he say anything about this at all?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: I was out of the game when I did catch with Adam Silver saying before the game, before the ring ceremony, he said, we'll finally back to basketball. You know, the double entendre there is a clear. Back to basketball after an off season and back to basketball after three and a half weeks of talking about politics. But Adam Silver, I'm sure would like this issue to go away. I'm just not sure that it will.

LL: Well, again, also, Morgan, because LeBron James, who we spoke of earlier, who's weighed in on other issues, weighed in on this. What did he say?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: LeBron James said essentially, I don't have the comments in front of me, but essentially he said Daryl Morey was misinformed and he trotted out a version of the free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. Philosophy for which LeBron James took a lot of heat.

LL: Why? What did people say?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: They called LeBron James a hypocrite. There was a lot of what you guys were just discussing before. Right. This idea that LeBron James is the hypocrite because he can speak out against the president. He can speak out against police brutality, but he can't speak out against human rights abuses in Hong Kong. But again, this is why I remind people that nobody picked this fight with China, Daryl Morey stumbled into this fight with China. He wandered into this fight with China, for five minutes. He wanted this fight for all of five minutes. Yet somehow the expectation that LeBron James is going to pick up Daryl Morey rifle and charge to the top of the hill and take all these gunfire. Because you have to remember, like the material difference between criticizing China and criticizing police brutality is that these Chinese sources are worth an estimated at least half a billion dollars a year in revenue to the NBA, where there is no cost, no financial costs for it for criticizing Donald Trump. Donald Trump resorts aren't NBA sponsors. There's no material cost to criticize him.

LL: So you're saying there's not there's no real principle that stood for LeBron James's stand here. It's just about business.

MORGAN CAMPBELL: This is this is not about free speech. This is about paid speech. Because no one saying you can't think what you want on your own time. But LeBron James is not in a position to unilaterally decide to bash China and jeopardize all the deals, which is what people are asking him to do. Essentially, like I said, we saw what a single re-tweet. How much money that cost, how many people, within five minutes. So now why is LeBron James going to take it upon himself to jeopardize 500 million dollars in revenue now? That affects everyone. He's not going to make that decision unilaterally like now. As I wrote last week about the league and the union, want to sit down at the next CBA or the end of the Tencent deal and ask themselves some tough questions about how badly they need Chinese money. That's one thing. But to expect LeBron James to go out and take a torch to all the deals, in real time, at a media scrum, that's madness.

LL: Jeff Beer. Let's get you to weigh in on this.

JEFF BEER: I think of everything Morgan just said makes perfect sense. It's the difference between, you know, the domestic issues and poking the economic bear of China is here to meet the- Not to say that it's right. I mean, it does come across as hypocritical. But from a business standpoint, I mean, this you know, when LeBron James speaks or whoever speaks at the NBA speaks out against police brutality or some of the issues. There's going to be some that disagree with him. But for the most part, the League has aligned itself with, like I said before, you know, a younger, more progressive, more diverse audience who everyone knows, or at least that's on that sides with that perspective. Whereas here, this could actually have an effect on not just marketing opportunities, but player salaries and salary caps. So definitely I think the league and players are taking a soft glove approach. I do think that it's sort of woken a little bit of awareness among its domestic fan base, like any global brand that they're maybe operating in areas where the values aren't exactly the same or rights aren't exactly the same as at home. And that's something that every business has to sort of reconcile. The broader trend here is that right now, everything a company does, whether it's the NBA or Nike or Apple is part of its brand. I mean, it's not just all the carefully created advertising. It is everything from product supply chains to how it treats their employees to what political party the CEO donates to. So brands are no longer in complete control of their image. And I think this is the NBA coming to terms with its first example of this.

LL: Adam Silver has also been repeating this line about sports being a bridge between nations. And we've heard that many times over the years with regard to the Olympics. To Morgan Campbell. Does that ring hollow?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: I think there are limits to what sport can do to bring people together. Look at the United States. This is among the most divided times in that nation's history. But sports are still everywhere. So I think it's a noble ideal. But again, like the NBA is not aggressively expanding in China to bring about a democratic revolution from within China view of basketball. They're there for the money. The same with like the Maple Leafs. The same with a top ranked boxing when used to have these shows in Macao. Like it was not about making China democratic and being the First Amendment to China or some version of the First Amendment to China. It was about making money.

LL: Okay. So then, Jeff Beer, sports and politics, can they mix?

JEFF BEER: That's a great question. Internationally, it is, as we've seen over the last few weeks, incredibly murky. I think we've seen more I guess a more seamless mix here at home where again, like sort of the image of sort of hypocrisy aside, I think what the FDA and players like LeBron James have done for certain issues has been has been great. I mean, even you look at Colin Kaepernick and the NFL. I mean, certainly he's definitely had his consequences.

LL: I just want to remind listeners, he's a player who took a knee during the U.S. national anthem.

JEFF BEER: Yes. But basically, I think that for more high profile people talking about certain issues can help move issues forward.

LL: Jeff, I'm afraid we have to get going. We're running out of time. I thank both of you.

MORGAN CAMPBELL: Thanks very much.

JEFF BEER: Thank you.

Jeff Beer is a senior staff editor at Fast Company. Morgan Campbell is a sports reporter for the Toronto Star. We received a comment from the Chinese embassy that reads in part: "Sports exchange has always played a positive role in promoting China. U.S. friendship and relations will continue to interact with the international community on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit". Coming up, investigative journalist Billy Jenson. I'm Laura Lynch. This is The Current.

This journalist crowdsources tips to help solve murders in his spare time

Guest: Billy Jensen

LL: I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current. Just a warning about this next interview, it contains explicit details about violent crimes that some listeners might find upsetting. That's because it's in part about the crimes of the man who became known as the Golden State Killer. He terrorized people in Sacramento, California, in the late 1970s and 80s with a spree of burglaries, rapes and murders. He was able to elude police for decades until two simple items revealed his identity. Dog repellent and a hammer. The story of how he was caught is one of the many remarkable tales told in Billy Jensen's new book, Chase Darkness with Me: How One True Crime Writer Started Solving Murders. And Billy Jensen is in our Toronto studio. Hello.

BILLY JENSEN: Hi. How you doing?

LL: I'm well, thank you. Remind us of the crimes of the Golden State killer.

BILLY JENSEN: You know, there was just so many of them. There were 13 murders, at least that we know of. And at least 50 sexual assaults. And they occurred all throughout California. And, you know, between from the late 1970s, up through 1986. And then he just seemingly stopped.

LL: Can you give us some sense of the particularly disturbing details of how he went about doing his - excuse the word - business?

BILLY JENSEN: What he would do is he would attack people in their most vulnerable and in their most safe spaces. So you had serial killers like the Zodiac or Son of Sam who were shooting people on lover's lanes. This guy would go into a person's house, go into the room that they were sleeping in with their significant other. He would tie up the man, tie up the woman, take the woman into another room, and then tell the man if you move, if I hear these dishes and this is what he would do. He would put dishes on the back of the man so he would be face down. If he says, if I hear these dishes move, I'm going to kill your wife. He would take the wife into another room. Rape the wife, and then he would terrorize them for about two or three hours, just not knowing if he left or not. And he would eat food in the kitchen and he would steal, you know, things that weren't necessarily expensive, but that were personal. And then he would leave. After a while - he did this 50 times and then he graduated to actually killing both of them.

LL: Now, the person who actually coined the name Golden State Killer is a woman named Michelle MacNamara. Tell me about her.

BILLY JENSEN: Yes, Michelle was a true crime writer and she had a blog called True Crime Diary. And I met her in 2011-2012, and we did a small podcast together. She had written a story about the case when she did coin him the Golden State killer. Originally, he had two names and his names are East Area Rapist, Original Night Stalker. And because he had two sets of crimes that were eventually connected via DNA. And those names didn't really catch. And nobody really knew about this guy as being one of the most horrific serial killers in history. So she coined him the Golden State killer in an article that she wrote for the Los Angeles magazine. And we became friends. Eventually she got the book deal so we couldn't do the podcast anymore. And but we would meet every, you know, month or so and have drinks or have lunch. And she would talk about the case and how she was writing the book. And then I would talk about, you know, the cases that I was working on.

LL: What is it about her that stands out to you in your memory? Because she actually did die.

BILLY JENSEN: Yes. She had such an amazing ability to get police officers to not only reach out to her and share information with her, but also share information with each other. And, you know, she would basically take these two different departments and two different grizzled detectives and say, all right, you guys are obviously aren't talking. We're going to dinner, going to buy you some drinks and we're going to get together and actually try and figure this thing out. On top of that, she was an unbelievably amazing writer and wrote with such empathy and really did place you in the moment. So, you know, that coupled with a tenacity is why, you know, the book was so good. When she passed away suddenly in her sleep and I called up her husband, who is the comedian, Patton Oswald. And I said, listen, I'll I'll do anything. I kind of wanted money. I'll do anything I can just to finish this book, because I knew how good it was going to be and I knew how hard she worked on it. I was like, this thing has to see the light of day. And we worked on it and we were able to get it out there.

LL: It's just just amazing that you actually took it all on, took her materials, put out the book and then, tell me about the night you found out that the police had made an arrest.

BILLY JENSEN: Yes. So we were in. We were actually all in Chicago myself, her lead researcher Paul Haynes, who I work with in finishing the book, Payton and Gillian Flynn, who wrote the Forward, you know, she wrote Gone Girl and we were all there together for the first time. And it was in Chicago was a book reading. Her family was there. Michelle's family was there, it was a very emotional night. And I remember, you know, I got the same question that I would always get, which is will he ever be caught? And I said, yes, he'll be caught within five years because of familial DNA. And I thought within five years. So we went back to the hotel and I got a message saying that there's a press conference and I said 'there's a press conference tomorrow, huh?' And I thought maybe there is an maybe a new reward or something along those lines because the book had become a number one bestseller and maybe there was something going on and then it started to just keep on unraveling. Then it was they know who it is. And then it was they have a suspect in custody. And, you know, after chasing somebody for five years. Really, me, I was doing it for two, for the book. But knowing how many how long other people had been chasing him for, you don't believe it. You know, so it was a matter of starting to do research then and opening up the computer, realizing I'm not going to sleep tonight. And the names started trickling in and we got the name and it was Joseph D'Angelo. So then you go into newspapers.com and you start looking for all of these different articles. So you see like, oh, he was in the Navy and you find an article about him from being in the Navy. And we think now we always thought he might be in the military. Then we saw that he had been a police officer and we thought, yeah, you know what? We always thought he was either a police officer or definitely had a police radio because he would always evade capture. And when the police would be staking out one neighborhood, he would hit another neighborhood. And then I found this article that said that he was a police officer who had been arrested and thrown off the force for shoplifting. And, you know, I went, wow. And then I looked at what he shoplifted. And it was a hammer and dog repellent. And I said, this is the guy. And that was that oh wow moment that I still get goosebumps to this day, that this is actually the guy. And then everything just sort of fell into place from there. And it was a pretty amazing day.

LL: Tie that together for us. Hammer and dog repellent. What did that tell you?

BILLY JENSEN: It told me that he didn't want people knowing that he was buying this stuff. So he was stealing them and dog repellent. We know that, you know, he would attack houses that had dogs and the dogs would not deal with them. They wouldn't, you know. So sometimes he would actually break into the house ahead of time. And we think that he was feeding the dogs to make friends with them. But other times he had to have it around just in case he encountered a dog. And then a hammer, you know, just to break into some of these houses, you know, because he would always come in through like a sliding glass door in the back or something like that.

LL: You mentioned earlier that you told people, yes, he would be caught. He would eventually be caught because of a familial DNA. If there was DNA, why wasn't he caught sooner?

BILLY JENSEN: So familial DNA, and we talked about this in the book. It's a this and geographic profiling is going to be the two things that catch him. So the familial DNA, when they have his DNA, they were trying to do a one to one match. So they would put it through CODIS or they would put it through the state database and try to see if that same DNA was there. With familial DNA, what you're doing is you're able to put it into a public database and search for any first cousins, second cousins, third cousins, and then you have to do genealogy to match it back to that person. And, you know, we knew that the answer was going to be behind that locked door of 23andMe and ancestry.com. You couldn't access those databases, but what you could do is access - what Paul eventually did was access a database called GEDmatch. And with accessing GEDmatch, he was able to find a third cousin and then working with genealogists narrowed it down to D'Angelo. Then they where they had to stake out D'Angelo and eventually get a something that he discarded that had his DNA on it. And then you do that one to one match. And they said, this is the guy. And then they went in for the arrest.

LL: You talked about those DNA sites where people upload their DNA to look for relatives. That could be a powerful investigative tool for the police. This case set off a raging debate about the use of DNA collected through those sites because, as you said, the door is locked. If it was open, it would be so much easier. What do you think of the privacy concerns, though?

BILLY JENSEN: You know, the privacy concerns there definitely legitimate. My biggest concern with anything of that nature is, is health insurance and people being able to you know, if the health insurance companies got a hold of your DNA and knew that you had, you know, your genes, you had this gene or that gene or your rates would go up and yet your deductibles would go up. Everything would go up. That's where I'm concerned about. But, you know, I'm in the business of solving murders and I'm in the business of helping families. So I would love to see those doors open so we can solve as many of the murders as we can.

LL: But what about those who would have privacy concerns beyond what you just mentioned, the health care issues, other issues such as people just not wanting their DNA to be used for law enforcement without their permission?

BILLY JENSEN: Well, you know, everybody in GEDmatch who has you know, they recently changed the rules on it. The rules of GEDmatch were that they could use it for serious offenses, violent offenses. And, you know, now you have to opt in. You have to say, all right, I'm okay with law enforcement using it, but for the most part, you know, 99 percent of these are going to be second cousins, third cousins that you've never even met before. And, you know, what would you rather have, you know, potentially a family member that you've never met before, being mad at you for helping law enforcement put them behind bars or a family that is still struggling with who killed their son or daughter?

LL: Let's bring this back to Michelle MacNamara for a moment. The book, how long after the book was being published did they actually catch the Golden State killer?

BILLY JENSEN: Two months.

LL: Did the publication of her book play a role in the capture, do you think?

BILLY JENSEN: It wasn't the publication. It was, actually. And I thought about this a lot as I got that question everywhere. And it really wasn't the book. It was Michelle's death. When Michelle died, because she was the, you know, the wife of a prominent comedian, it became international news. And people were introduced internationally to the Golden State killer. And it bumped his profile up a lot more. And it's no accident that two months after she died, there was a press conference with a renewed interest in the case, a new reward, new partnerships with the FBI. I don't think that's an accident. And I think that it was her work with that article and then leading up to that and then her passing away that put the resources behind it in order to be able to get it done.

LL: Billy, how did you become so interested in tracking down murderers?

BILLY JENSEN: Well, you know, I would write stories about unsolved murders. You know, I was interested in crime for a very early age. In the book, I talk about my father and my father was an ex-con who would who would tell me stories about crimes. And while we were watching the newspaper there, while we were watching the television, he explained to me or he would read the newspaper, explained to me different things on what you should do and shouldn't do. And I started writing about crime. But very early on in my career, I decided that I don't want to write about crimes that are solved. I want to write about crimes that that are unsolved. And the thing about that is that you're writing stories with no endings. And I did that for 15 years. When Michelle passed away, it really hit me. And, you know, I used to say, I hate the guy that got away with it. That's the reason why I do this. I used to hate him because of the family and the victim. But it's also the investigators or the citizen detectives who have devoted so much of their life to these stories. And there's this guy selfishly sitting in a corner knowing the answer. So I just got completely fed up. And that's how I you know, I was watching a video one day in bed and not being able to sleep about it, you know, a little bit after Michelle passed away and I saw this video of a man being attacked in Chicago. And I saw the video. And the attacker was so clear. And I said, you know what? Why can't they find this guy? And after- it's been four months. It's been a national story. This guy had attacked a man in the street. He had knocked him out cold. He had made everybody go away from him while he was in the street. And then a cab ran over his body and killed him. And I said, you know what? I think I know why. And it's because media has become so fractured. Nobody is watching TV the same way that they were 40 years ago. But I can use social media to catch him. And that's what I did it.

LL: We do have some tape that I want to play for you about that. This is a 911 call about the assault on Marques Gaines in Chicago on February the 7th, 2016. Just a warning, it's shocking to hear.

SOUNDCLIP

DISPATCHER: He is breathing? Okay.

VOICE 1: And he is bloody.

DISPATCHER: And he is bloody. Okay. How does he look? 20s, 30s, 40s?

VOICE 1: Like 30.

DISPATCHER: 30s? Okay. What's your phone number, sir?

VOICE 1: [Unintelligible]

[Noises]

VOICE 1: Oh my goodness. He is dead, I think. The car hit him.

DISPATCHER: A car just hit him?

VOICE 1: Yes.

LL: This is obviously very disturbing. And you say you saw that video and you decided you wanted to try to hunt down the man who punched him. Tell me what you did.

BILLY JENSEN: So I reached out to the family and I reached out to the police. I said, listen, I've got an idea and here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to use social media and I'm going to do geo targeted advertising. And I just need to find, you know, somebody that either was there or somebody that knows this person. And just looking at his face, he had a very distinctive widow's peak, but all of the camera angles were from above. So you couldn't really tell how tall he was? He couldn't really tell. You know, his face was just a little bit distorted. It was pretty decent video, though. So I set up a Facebook page. I called the River North Puncher. And I and I wrote in his voice and I said, do you know who I am? Do you recognize me? I'm wearing this hoodie. I'm wearing this. I'm wearing that, that kind of thing. This is where it happened and then played the video. I also went on Twitter and posted it on Twitter, bought some geo targeted ads on Twitter and also begged for re-tweets. And through a series of read tweets, I got someone that said, I hope this helps. And it was a front facing picture of the guy. And I thought wait a minute, how do you have a front facing picture of the guy?

LL: At the scene?

BILLY JENSEN: Yes, it seemed like it was at the scene. And I thought maybe this guy who had just sent this to me, like digitally reconstructed it or something. And I wrote back to him. I said, where'd you get this? And he doesn't write back. And I'm begging with this guy over Twitter, DM me, I'll follow you. You follow me, DM me. He finally follows me and he says, my friend took it, but maybe this will help even more. And it's a video. And I look at the video and I take a deep breath and I press play. And the video starts with, you know, clear as crystal with Marques Gaines, the man who was punched in the crosswalk, passed out, knocked out, and then the video pans up. And the puncher is walking straight towards me. And. I couldn't believe it. This guy who I had reached out to, the Twitter sphere had found it, had been there, or his friend had been there, and took a video right after it happened. And he was one of the people that was scared away. And you hear the guy yelling at everybody to get away or your next kind of thing, the puncher. And this guy's walking right towards me. And so I know now that I hear his voice, he doesn't have an accent. I know I can tell how tall he is. I can tell all of these different things. Now I have a front facing picture. I take that and I go into Cook County, which is where Chicago is. They put all their mug shots up. And I just went through thousands and thousands of mug shots looking for that distinctive widow's peak. Somebody that was probably over 6"2. And I found him. And, you know, package that up, sent it to the police. Police didn't do anything.

LL: The police didn't do anything?

BILLY JENSEN: And then I at least didn't do it now. They just said, thank you. That's it. And I said, all right, well, maybe it's because they can't find him. And I'm tracking him now, because now I know his name and everything. I'm tracking him on Facebook. And I see that he is he saying that he's in Holbrook, New York. And I knew that was B.S. because I saw a picture that he had taken. It might have been a selfie. And behind him is a work truck. And it's a Minnesota Minneapolis City truck logo. I saw a logo on the truck. And I said, you know, his brother lives in Minneapolis. Then he gets into a relationship. You know how on Facebook you can say you're in a relationship with a woman from Minnesota. And I'm begging with the police. He's in Minnesota. He's at his brother's house. Eventually, the police start to listen. They get the U.S. marshals involved. And probably five months after I ID-ed him, they got him and we're able to pull him out. And that's where he was. It was in Minnesota.

LL: What was that like for you when you found out that they arrest him?

BILLY JENSEN: You know, it was- I got the call from Marques's cousin, who's really like his sister. They grew up together in the same house. And it was a brief moment. And she'd she just didn't even say hello. She just said they got him. And it was a brief moment of euphoria. And it didn't last as long as I thought it would be, because it was really probably maybe two or three seconds. And then it was just a matter of, you know, you're not going to get this guy back, you know, and it's- There's a hollowness.

LL: You mean Marques Gaines isn't coming back.

BILLY JENSEN: Yes. There's a hollowness that like. When it gets real, it's you know, you want to think that I want to tell markets how I how we did it, you know, and how we were able to find him and go have a beer with Marques. He was a bartender. So and it really was that hollowness. But then it was the, okay, this worked and now let's do the next one. You know, and it was right into the next one. The same thing that happened with Joseph D'Angelo with the Golden State killer. As soon as we found out, as soon as I knew that I found that dog repellent, the shoplifting thing, I said all the other cases sort of wiped away that he had done, because I knew he had done them, it was what else has he done now? Now we know who he is. Now we can track him and build a timeline to see what else has he done. So it's always as soon as it's solved, it's always you know what? Let's go to the next one, because there's 220,000 unsolved murders in America since 1980. There's always going to be a next one.

LL: I read that in your book and I was astounded by that number. In the case of the man who punched Marques Gaines, what kind of what happened to him? Was he convicted and sentenced?

BILLY JENSEN: He was convicted of assault. He was sentenced and he's already out. And I, you know, I think - his rap sheet when I did find him was a mile long. I think he would probably do something like this again.

LL: Does he know about the role you played?

BILLY JENSEN: I don't know. To be honest with you, if he Googles his name is probably going to find it.

LL: Do you worry about that?

BILLY JENSEN: You know, a cop once told me when I asked him that same question, he said, don't be afraid of the bullet with your name on it. Be afraid of the 10,000 bullets without your name on it. You know, there's a lot of things out there that can kill you. So I can't live my life like that.

LL: So how many killers have you helped track down?

BILLY JENSEN: About 10.

LL: I wanted to ask you, are any of the alleged killers that you tracked down facing the death penalty?

BILLY JENSEN: There is one, actually. And I have issues with the death penalty. I'm not a proponent of it. I understand that it works in especially in an investigative capacity, as a as a tool. It's not a deterrent. I don't think it will be a deterrent. You know, people are going to kill no matter what. Which is unfortunate. But, yes, there's a case in El Monte. I helped identify this man who had jumped over a jack in the box counter and shot a kid. And we were able to ID him. Again, you had that euphoric moment. And then I was wondering, well, what's going on with that case? And when I talked to detective again, they said, like, yes, we can't really talk about the case because, they're going for the death penalty. And I believe in rehabilitation, not necessarily rehabilitation of someone's going to become free. But I think you potentially could become rehabilitated within the prison walls and do good and do some good for humanity if you're able to do that. And that happened and, you know, especially the circumstances of the case. But it was because it was during a robbery. That's how they wrote, you know, it's a murder with special circumstances. It was because it was during a robbery. But the circumstances that I saw doesn't really seem like it warranted it. It seemed like maybe the guy had just gone off or something. I'm not sure. Maybe the guy did put up a fight or whatever, but I'm just not a proponent of the death penalty. So, yeah, I definitely had mixed feelings about that.

LL: You have to let us know what killer you've got your sights on now.

BILLY JENSEN: Well, let's see. Well, I don't talk about, obviously, the ones that are- You know, there's some that I have talked about. There's the Owls Head Park murder in Brooklyn. If you do a search for that and there was such clear video of it and I saw it. And I'd gotten cocky and I said, I'm going to get this guy in a week. And it's been three years now and I still haven't gotten him. And he had murdered a woman and left her in a skate park, brutally beaten, slashed. That is one that I'm working on. When I ran that ad, I've probably spent four grand on that one. And it's reached millions of people, literally millions. When I ran it, I got a four word response one night and it just said that was my mom. And it was one of her sons who had seen it. And I've been working with the brother and everything. They knew the ads were out there. I said to myself after I saw that I'm going to be looking for this guy the rest of my life, you know. So there's that. There's some murders in Columbus, Ohio, that I'm going after, you know, and then there's a bunch others that I can't really talk about, but that I think that we're pretty close on. You know, that's the thing. And it just never ends. After I had gotten sort of my 10 and then we had solved the 13 for the Golden State killer and you're looking at the math, that's 23 out of 220,000. And that's what can really get you down. That gets you down and then you talk to the victim's family and then you got to get right back up again.

LL: That seems like a good place to end it, though, I know your investigations will, as you said, never end. Billy Jensen, thank you.

BILLY JENSEN: Thank you so much.

LL: Billy Jensen is the author of Chase Darkness With Me How One True Crime Writer Started Solving Murders. He was in our Toronto studio. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Fenton Bailey is one of the producers of RuPaul's Drag Race. But he's got a new project, a documentary tracing the design of the Statue of Liberty. He tells guest host Angelina Tetteh-Wayoe about it on Q. Coming up next. Earlier in the program, we were talking about the NBA and its woes in China. To end the show today, let's hearken back to a simpler time when the biggest basketball concern was whether Toronto's beloved Raptors would win the championship, which, of course, they did last season. Maybe thanks in part to this inspirational song written for them by Canadian rapper Peter Jackson called Toronto Raptors 2019 NBA Finals Anthem. Maybe it will bring them a little luck this season, too. I'm Laura Lynch. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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[Song by Peter Jackson]

Wednesday October 23, 2019 Full Episode Transcript

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