Extraordinary People #5 Survivor & Advocate Alecia Lockhart

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The following episode deals with pornographic and sexual situations and at times strong language. This is not suitable for young children and it is meant for mature audiences only. Parental advisory is strongly advised. John 15 13 says, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

02:04
But what happens when a courageous young woman comes forth to try to help catch a killer of someone she doesn't even know and tells a story that will change the path of her life forever? You get a warrior, an advocate, and a survivor. Join me as I talk to Alicia Lockhart on this Extraordinary People edition of True Crime in Authors.

02:34
Welcome to True Crime and Authors Podcast, where we bring two passions together. The show that gives new meaning to the old adage, truth is stranger than fiction. Here's your host, David McClam. What's going on everybody and welcome to another episode of True Crime and Authors, Extraordinary People Edition. Of course, I am your man, David McClam.

03:00
Hey, if you guys haven't already, make sure that you're following us on all of our social media networks. One link to a link tree in the show notes will get you everywhere you need to be. All right, so today, guys, my guest is someone who has been here before. So I won't give you the long bio. If you have listened to my episodes on the book Strangled, you know who she is. She is the co-author of that book. And she is also the co-host of Deep.

03:29
Dark Secrets podcast. So welcome my friend and fellow podcaster, Alicia Lockhart. Alicia, how you doing? I'm doing great. How are you today, David? I'm doing awesome. Thank you for coming on the show again today. It's an honor to have you here. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I think this is such a good idea because, um, there's so much that goes with strangled and deep dark secrets and my own personal story is a part of that too. But.

03:59
Sometimes when we go on shows, it's just like, wow, it's too much for one episode. So guys, what we're doing today is Alicia is back because if you have Red Strangle, which I hope you guys have, or if you've taken a listen to Deep Dark Secrets podcast, you know that that book and that podcast, at least the first season, deals with eradicating the death fetish community, which I am a part of helping them do that.

04:25
So we brought Alicia back to tell you her personal story that goes a little bit into Strangled about how she found herself in this part of the industry. So Alicia, I know you was really young, believe you was looking at a Craigslist ad and you found out that you answered that to be an assistant. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that and how you got to meet this person here. Yeah, and I am at this point now where even though this is sort of a traumatic experience

04:55
I really love sharing the story because I feel like especially young women, young models need to be aware of these sorts of scenarios. And I wish that when I was younger I had some like, you know, like cool older auntie or something that would have educated me on, I guess just like the red flags of going to job interviews and how to know when.

05:23
a job ad is shady or, you know, like potentially a front for human trafficking or, you know, just bad things like that because the world we live in today, there are, you know, bad people trying to lure young women into vulnerable places. And that's exactly what happened for me. I'll take you back a little bit. I was...

05:49
It was 2009. I was living in Portland, Oregon, and, um, you know, Portland's kind of a wild place, or at least it was back in 2009. I can't speak for it now because I have been away from there for several years now. I know it's changed a lot in the last 10 years or so. Lots of people move in, move in there and the city's growing. And, but back in 2009, I was.

06:16
pretty young and pretty naive and I was looking for, I mean, I wanted a steady job, I did, but I wanted to, I guess, be working for somebody that was maybe like a small business or just something that wasn't super corporate. And as I was searching through employment ads on the internet, I did check Craigslist, which is...

06:44
I mean, it's like a classified ad website. I'm sure most people know what it is. I don't think it's super popular anymore, but back in that time, it used to be, I mean, especially for like housing ads and things, people used it still then, or like classified ads for things for sale. But there was a job section in there, and I did see this ad where...

07:08
a guy had posted saying that he was looking for like a personal assistant secretary sort of thing. And he disclosed that he worked in the adult film industry and so whoever was applying would need to be comfortable with that. And you know, when I read the ad, I thought, okay, well,

07:31
Him mentioning the adult film aspect of this is a little weird. Like this could be somebody looking for a prostitute or something like that. But it also could just be a real small business owner who doesn't want to go through a bunch of interviews with people who just tap out during the interview and say, Oh, no, I would. I can't work for a pornography producer. So when I called him about the ad, he really

08:00
seemed like a normal person that was just needing office help. And I did meet up with him in a public space to do an interview. At that time, I arrived for the interview and it was like a warehouse in Portland. And we stood out on the sidewalk and introduced ourselves, and he still seemed pretty normal at this point.

08:26
And he told me a little bit about his work. And he told me that he made a lot of different pornography, different types, that he did fetish videos, and that he was currently filming a sequel to a clown pornography. He asked me if I was curious about seeing what they were doing, because they were filming there in the warehouse. And so at this point, he let me look into the...

08:56
warehouse, like by the door was propped open. And I look in there and I can see that there's like a whole camera crew and the models or actresses were in there working. And so I really felt, I guess just comfortable that this guy wasn't trying to lure women in for personal reasons, that he had a legitimate business and that he did need office help.

09:24
And I had a background just in like administrative work. So I just, you know, and also I've always been kind of a wild child or like a golf, golf chick. And so I just felt like this could be a really good job for me. And I said, yeah, sure. I'll take the position. So Craig's List has changed a lot since then. I know you didn't know this back then, but Craig's List was a hotbed for pornography also for sex trafficking and prostitution.

09:53
Even there's a case I haven't done yet, but I'm going to on the Craigslist killer. You know, he was going to Craigslist to find his girls, to lure them to hotels, to kill them. And he was actually a very high, I think he was going to law school. Wow. These are a lot of things that nobody knew, but I'm sure, I believe in the book you guys called him, Carl knew what he was doing and hoping to lure that in. So when you get there, your mind is a little bit at ease because you see that he actually does have a studio. He does have...

10:22
You know, people in there, they're shooting pornography. So you're like, this dude may be on the up and up. What was the first inkling that you thought maybe this isn't what it's supposed to be? Well, what do they say? I'm trying to think of there's this phrase that people say about like hindsight is 2020. I, it's hard for me to jump back to where my perspective was then, because to be honest with you, David, I didn't.

10:51
I didn't really realize that this was not a real job until pretty much the end of our working relationship, he and I, which took, I'd say about two months to get there. And I'll share kind of how that unraveling happened for me. But I guess just to answer the question directly.

11:13
In the moment, I did not understand that. I was definitely confused each time that I would meet with him to work because there really wasn't a lot of work. It very much felt like a, I guess like a set. The office was like a set. It wasn't a real office. Only looking back on this, which I started doing in 2021, I started really unpacking this situation and how it had all played out.

11:39
And I'm much older now, you know, so many years past, but looking back at it now, it's very clear to me that this was never a legitimate office work thing, and that this was very much a setup to lure young women into working in the porn industry. So I know that you talk a little bit of a strangled about how it was weird that he never seemed to have the things needed for your job, no computers, you know, no printers, nothing like that.

12:09
I want to point out to the people that's listening that was probably sitting there going, well, you should have known that this wasn't real because they didn't have these things. Understand, I would have did the same thing because he's telling you, yes, I'm just now hiring an assistant, which doesn't necessarily mean that he would have had all the stuff he needed at that point. Maybe he wanted to get a computer that's just right for you. So after you start getting into he doesn't have this equipment day by day by day.

12:35
Is he promising you that he's gonna pay you? What's the excuses that he keeps using to why you can't do your job? Yeah, I wanna paint a picture for your listeners of like how this was. So, I mean, first red flag, well, a lot of people have been commenting on some of our social media stuff and people are harsh on social media. I get a lot of flack for like, why were you even open to working for a pornography producer?

13:02
And you know, that's just me. I have a very open mind. I'm not scared of much. And I'm open to a lot of different things. So I just didn't, and I was young and naive. So I just didn't think that things were gonna go wrong just from knowing that about him. And so number one red flag, I believe, should have been that this man hired me after like a 25 minute conversation with me. He did not.

13:32
asked to check my references. He didn't do any background checks. You know, there wasn't paperwork that he wanted to sign or anything like that. So that's always an indication that, you know, you're you may not be entering into the most legit work opportunity if some of those things exist. But he gave me a different address at the end of our interview because he hired me there on the spot, which is also a little weird. He gives me this address to show up.

14:01
the next Monday morning and start working. And I Google the address. The address is an office space, like one of those public office rental places where there's just tons of offices that you can rent out so you don't have to work from home or you have a public place to meet colleagues. So he had one of those. And again, I was like, oh, this guy's totally legit. I'm gonna show up and work at this new office. And...

14:30
I show up on Monday and he's there and he lets me in. And I, you know, wasn't uncomfortable at that point, but like David said, I sit down and I start looking around, right? And it's like, it's like these like plastic folding tables, like, you know, the cheap ones, you could just buy at Walmart, like a card table. And he's got a couple of...

14:54
Tupperware totes in there and he had his laptop that he brought with him, but there's really nothing else in there. There's no phone. There's nothing hanging on the walls. Like it just doesn't look like a real office. And he apologizes to me immediately. He's like.

15:14
Oh, I've just been so busy doing this and that. I haven't had a chance to set up this new office space, but you and I are gonna set it up together now that I have you here and I'll get you a computer and maybe we could just sit and talk today about what I need you to do, like what my business goals are for this, why I wanted a personal assistant and...

15:40
You know, that seemed right to me. I was like, okay, yeah, let's figure out what I can help with. And we talked a little bit about, um, him not filing taxes for several years and just having wads of receipts that he needed sorted through. So what becomes the lure at this point? So now I know you're, you're questioning, you know, he's giving you all these excuses, so how did he start to maneuver towards getting you

16:09
to hopefully do some type of film with him. Yeah, so we go through, you know, he had scheduled me for like a six hour shift we decided to start out with, and all the business talk about what I was going to be doing. And you know, I gave him some insight, like, hey, you should probably buy QuickBooks, the software, if you want me to start bookkeeping. And you know, we went through some legitimate business talk for maybe 45 minutes or so. And from that point on,

16:38
He was like, well, I don't really have anything else to do today. And, um, that concerned me a little bit because I did need a paycheck. And I was like, Oh no, this is, you know, I'm going to be a very short shift. But then he was like, don't worry. I'm just going to pay you for the whole day and maybe you could just stay here and we could get to know each other personally.

17:08
So that was the bait and switch. He was like, okay, I've lured this beautiful young woman into a private space and I have her trust. So now I'm going to pitch to her all the ways in which she should be a porn star, basically is the direction that he took it in. He wanted to know if I had a boyfriend. He wanted to know just if there was some kind of...

17:33
pornography that I would be comfortable filming. And he really dug in there and got into some clarifying questions about, you know, how comfortable I was around other women, other men, like how comfortable I was with the porn industry, how comfortable I was with fetishes. He was just asking all these questions. And for me, looking back, I can see that this was a, like a well rehearsed speech for him. He knew.

18:01
I believe he knew from the very beginning of meeting me at that warehouse that this is where he was going to take this. So did he make any comments to you about maybe your body, the way you looked, being pretty, any of these red flags that maybe some of the ladies out in the audience should be aware of and have a run sense? Did he do any of those things to you? Yes, he did. And actually some of the, not only was he making comments about how

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beautiful and pretty I was and how I would sell a lot of films if I chose to be in any. He also had some physical responses going on that he couldn't, I mean it's hard for me to imagine, I guess he could have faked them, but he seemed nervous, like he was sweating, he was blushing. He just...

18:54
I mean, it seemed to me, I left my first shift being like, wow, that guy has a really big crush on me or something. Like that was, that was weird. So at this point, what made you, after you got through this conversation with him, was there any part of you that said, maybe I shouldn't just go back, be done with this or what made you want to go back at that point? So at that point, I definitely felt like it was a little weird.

19:24
Our conversation about pornography though, I was pretty firm with him. I was, you know, I told him there's absolutely no way that I would ever star in a film that had other people in it. I don't wanna be touched by anybody. I don't wanna have sex with anybody. I basically told him like, I'm not gonna be a good fit for you if you're looking for new models. And he really convinced me that I was wrong. And he talked to me about.

19:51
about how there are very obscure fetishes in the world that don't even seem sexual to some people. And we talked a bit about tickling fetishes or crush videos where people just step on objects or sometimes bugs actually, and sometimes animals too. There's crush videos on the dark web that are really disturbing. But there are some really soft crush videos where it's just items.

20:19
or food or ants or things that most people do feel not, I mean, most people don't feel that bad about crushing an ant. Yeah, I feel like I was a little bit swindled. I left that conversation feeling like he was a guy that had a crush on me, that was trying to help me make as much money as I possibly could since he knew I needed a job.

20:45
So that was really naive of me. And definitely, I think those were some red flags. I feel like I don't often have those boundaries, at least in that period of my life, I did not have very good boundaries. And so it didn't really bother me if a man was hitting on me, I kind of took it as a compliment. He hadn't gotten to a point where I was scared of him at that point.

21:12
So I wanna point out again, the fellow audience, that you are extremely young at this point, and young people, women especially, are who need money, are very easy to get lured into this. So if you guys haven't read the book, Strangle yet, need to go pick it up, because here we go. So he knows you're not getting naked, you're not having sex with anybody. So he comes in, he says, but I have another thing you can do that'll make you some money. What was that that he brought to you?

21:40
Yeah, so he knows I'm not going to do any hardcore pornography, but he calls me really, really soon. Like we're talking within the next like 48 hours. It was very soon. He calls and he says, Oh, I just got this very strange request from a client who has a private collection.

22:03
So he assures me that this video falls within all of my requirements that I had shared with him. Firstly, there's gonna be nobody in the video but me. Secondly, I will not be touched. There's nothing sexual going on in the video, he says. And thirdly, it will never be for sale online, which was another one of my stipulations that I didn't want video footage of me out on the internet anywhere.

22:32
So he tells me that this client called him for a custom video and had requested this very specific footage. And the footage that this client wanted on a DVD for his private collection was footage of a woman laying on a morgue slab dead. And that's pretty much all he told me about the film over the phone. And he was like,

23:02
This is, you know, this is a little dark. It's a little weird. It's a strange request, but I just, I feel like it's fate. I feel like you're the perfect person for it. I mean, like you're even a goth chick with green hair. Like you're gonna be perfect for this video. Do you wanna do it? It's, you know, it's gonna be the easiest $500 you've ever made. Okay, so at this point, he's offering 500 bucks for this film. As far as you're concerned, it's just laying there.

23:30
Did he ever tell you at any point that it would require you to be partially naked or anything of that nature? You know, I don't remember if we had specific conversation about that part or not. I think that I did know that I would, that I would be naked. I'm pretty sure I did know that going in, but I just didn't think it would be. An issue because there weren't other people involved and there wasn't going to be touching. And so up until this point, did you know?

24:00
that there was such a thing as people having a morgue fetish or anything of the death situation at all? Absolutely not. And I didn't research it at that point. I thought, wow, there is one freaky motherfucker out there looking for a morgue video? What is this? Like this is just a very strange one-off. You know, I believed that.

24:28
And I was dumb to it too, until I met LaDonna and read her first book about Melissa. And I was like, this really exists? Maybe because we're not those kind of people that go looking for these things. But folks, I'm here to tell you, it is out there. Death Fetish is real. So now you agree to do this film, he gives you an address to show up. Where did you end up going and tell us what happened before, during, and after the filming of the film that you remember.

24:55
Yeah, so he gives me a third address here. And so I'm also just thinking like, wow, this guy's like, you know, he's such a, he's such a good businessman. He has a warehouse, he has an office, he has another studio, which is just so naive of me. But I show up at this third location for shooting and it ends up being house. And I knock on the door.

25:25
And this woman opens the door and it's, you know, it's his, I think she was his fiance at the point. He'd been in a long-term relationship with her and she wasn't thrilled about me being there, but she let me in. As I was walking in, I was just like, I think I was processing in the moment, just like, wow, I guess I met his house. This is a little weird, but he...

25:52
came out right away and like kind of ushered me and her and their child to their dining table and he served us all some lunch and some drinks and mainly as I was eating there I just kind of listened to them having pretty typical family talk between the two of them and their child and we didn't talk about what we were about to do or anything.

26:22
fiance knew and I hope the child didn't know. But we finished our lunch and then, you know, he told her, okay, we're gonna go film now, we'll see you in a bit. He walked me outside and around, like through the carport area to a side door of the house and opened the door. And there was a staircase leading down and he, you know, was like,

26:51
go ahead in front of me. And so I started walking down these stairs. And that was definitely a moment for me where I was like, huh, this is a little weird. So when you get down there, what are you expecting to see? And what did you see? So again, still very naive, 22 years old, I'm walking down the stairs and I'm thinking that the camera crew that I saw before was gonna be down there.

27:20
and we get down there and nobody's down there. It's just me and him. And there's these two areas of the basement where one of them is set up kind of like a little living room with a couch and a rug and a coffee table. And then over on the side, there was like a whole fake morgue set up, like with, it wasn't like a real morgue slab though. I actually think it was a pool table with like a sheet over top of it.

27:48
So this was still tracking to me. I was like, well, he doesn't make morgue porn because he doesn't have a morgue here. It's just a pool table with a sheet. You know, like he's trying to make this video happen for this one weirdo. So now we get down to the basement, there's no camera crew. You know, he tells you, I guess we're doing this on our own. Do you feel nervous at this point? Or do you like, I'm already here. So let's just get through with this. Well.

28:15
I didn't feel nervous per se at that moment, but I definitely was like, huh, um, this was not what I was expecting, but you know, this is my employer. I'm going to work with him in the office. Like there's trust. I guess I just felt like we had already established an ongoing working connection and I really didn't think that he would do anything to damage that since we had future plans. And so he

28:44
you know, said, yeah, I'm just going to get my tripod set up for us. He was like, before I start recording though, I need to get you this thing. And he like went and turned around and then he pulled out this really old, like worn Ziploc bag. Like I'm talking like cloudy, just real stiff. It looked very old. He unrolls a Ziploc bag and he pulls a Mickey Mouse watch with a leather band out of it.

29:14
And he hands it to me and he says, I need you to put this on before we start filming. And I'm looking at it, you know, because it has Mickey Mouse on it. I'm like, is this a kid's watch? What is going on here? And he seemed to shift a little bit in his mood at that point. He seemed annoyed with me. And he told me that he didn't know whose watch it was, that it had been sent to him by the client.

29:42
and that it was the most important part of this whole morgue fetish film. And he even said, if you're not willing to put this on, then I'm going to have to find a different model to pay $500. So basically it was like a standoff. He was like staring me down and I stood there for a minute. And then I just, you know, I put it on my wrist and it fit like it was made for an adult. And I was just like, all right.

30:10
Here we go. And we'll get a little bit more into that because if the audience has been listening, they know exactly where that Mickey Mouse watch is gonna be heading. But we'll talk about that here in a second. So now that we're down here, you know, you got too suited with the watch and everything, do you remember anything during the filming or after? So here's where it gets a little bit weird. I put the watch on, I fully remember this, like.

30:37
David, as I'm describing this to you, it's like I'm watching a little movie in my head. I have a very visual memory most of the time. And from this point where I put the watch on, it's like there's a little bit of memory after this, but it very much switches from like full blown film to like I'm grasping to try to remember.

31:02
any other part of it. Like, I don't remember speaking to him. I don't remember anything about how he's filming really. I remember a few positions that I got placed in or changed to, if you might say, because I was playing dead.

31:22
Uh, so obviously I wasn't like moving around and he was moving me around, but I don't remember it the same as the earlier part of the day. Like I really have to strain to remember other parts of it. I do remember being in a particular position on the floor. And I also remember being propped up against a couch. And I also remember laying on the fake morgue slab, but

31:50
Other than that, I can't, you know, I don't remember leaving. I don't remember driving home, any of that. It's, it's all gone. Do you believe you were drugged? I do. Yeah. I absolutely believe that I was drugged. I can't say for certain with what, um, as I have researched it over the last two years, my best guess would be ketamine, like in a powder form. So you and I've had this discussion before.

32:19
You know, when I decided to join this fight with you guys, we all have had contact with Jessica Brown, and there was a time where I started pressing her on this film. Because as you know now, the guy lied to you. It did not just go to one person. It's everywhere. I never knew what the name of the film was because I wasn't going to pry into that. But Jessica decided to tell me what it was. And I know that we had conversations in our thread of

32:45
Do you feel you was drugged? And so I saw the first part. I just wanted to see the eyes because the eyes tell a lot about what's going on. You know, are you coherent? And if you look into your eyes and look at you, yeah, there was something going on. Yes, you're supposed to be playing dead, but I've seen other death fetish videos where they're playing dead and you can totally tell either they're playing or they're knocked out with something. And your eyes are just glazed over, they're glass. He's moving you around like a rag doll.

33:14
which was the one thing. Even if you're playing dead, sometimes even in films, because I have people that are, I know people that's in films that go, hey man, sometimes I don't get the playing dead part right and they got to do it 80 times. It was one of those where I wanted to skim through it because I didn't want to, being that you're a friend of mine and I respect you, and I thought I said, I need to know where you drugged. And looking at that, absolutely. My wife who was going to school for a nurse, she goes, yeah, something's not right with that. Her eyes are just glassy.

33:42
And I know you guys are trying to press laws with that, but were you aware that he was doing any touching of you or did he tell you that he would touch you or anything of that nature? No, he, I was very adamant that I would never star in a film where I had to be touched by anybody. I mean, I think I knew that he would be kind of like moving me because I was playing dead and somebody would have to move me. So I did give him consent to put me in different...

34:12
setups, you know, like I said, it was fine for him to prop me up against the couch or lay me flat on a table. That was not a problem for me. And I knew that I would be naked in this film. So I, you know, I'll also say that it was not a problem for me that he took off my shoes and my pantyhose and my dress and, you know, my bra and my underwear. That's fine. I told him he could do that.

34:37
I didn't know that there was any other sort of touching that went on in this film, because I didn't see it until 2021. That was a really hard experience for me to start. Well, not only to find this film online and realize that I had been lied to, and processing that there's been this film of me online for almost 20 years. So that was tough in itself.

35:07
When I realized that, you know, I was being touched in my private areas in this film, I had to stop it because I was genuinely worried that if I kept watching it that I would watch myself being like fully raped on the film. That is not the case with the footage that's on the internet. I do not, you know, to be clear, there's no sexual acts like a traditional.

35:36
sexual act depicted in this film, what I would call it is more of like a molestation is what I see there because, you know, my vagina is being touched and he's putting Q-tips inside of it and those were not things that I consented to in that video. But I do want to go on to say, which is interesting because we were just talking about production before we started recording and like

36:04
Production is everything and I feel pretty worried that there could have been more than what was released in that video happening there in that basement. And part of the reason why I feel like that is because I've received some really scary text messages over the last couple of years since I've started becoming more vocal about this experience.

36:28
I've been getting messages about more explicit details about what happened in that basement to me when I was not conscious. And I do worry that more happened than what's on that film. I worry about that too for these reasons. Like you said, there was no, even though I didn't watch the whole thing for reading this sitting there, I mean, I skimmed through it because I wanted to see if there was anything that was done to you.

36:52
besides what was going on and there wasn't. I mean, the end of the video, he ends up jacking you up, picking you up, and then he walks out. But my worry was, what didn't we see? And the reason I say that is because just as a man, looking at his mannerisms, how he was talking, he was pretending like he was talking to somebody doing his video, the things that he was doing, and plus the infatuation that he had with you, I'm like, did it in there? He seems to be pretty out of it.

37:21
does she know if anything else is going on? And then when you read Strangled, some of the messages that was sent back to you, apparently from him, that was sexually explicit, you know, how it was, what it was, and I did this to you. I'm like, that will only come from somebody who has either done or attempted to have sex with you. So in my standpoint,

37:46
Regardless if it was penetration or not, to me is rape because the fact that he went further than what you agreed for him to do. And so to me, you were already raped, molested, but unfortunately I feel like there was more to that than what's going on. I know you've had contact with this guy since then. Nobody takes responsibility for anything they do in this, in this community at all.

38:09
Has he made any apology to you or has he told you anything else that went on that you did not see in the basement? Well, going back to those text messages, and I want to be clear that these messages are coming to my phone. They are from temporary phone numbers. Without a subpoena, there's really no way to trace who is sending these messages. I've tried. And every time they come in, because I still get them from time to time.

38:39
I always, you know, trace them back to see who the cell carrier is just to see if maybe somebody will slip up one time and not, you know, not protect their information. I'm waiting for that day. But some of the messages do say very contextual things that I just can't imagine anybody saying but him because he was in that basement with me. And I want to be clear that these messages were coming out before strangled was even written. So there really shouldn't have been anybody.

39:09
who knew about this other than him and maybe a handful of his friends that, um, you know, had discovered that I was in the forums researching. So some of those messages say things like, um, did your tits grow any since the last time I saw you? They were so small down in that cold basement. And like the message also said that I was a really bad lay because I just laid there the whole time without moving.

39:39
So yeah, that definitely to me sounds like it's from him. I don't know who else would write that. So now all of this kind of puts you, I don't know how you look at it, but some people say, well, now you've been slightly in the porn industry. I know a lot of these things in the porn industry leads to these kinds of things. Death fetish also leads to trafficking, things of that nature. You're now on the road to eradicate that.

40:04
So that goes back to the Mickey Mouse watch situation. All of this, the Mickey Mouse watch and the whole nine now lead you to where you currently are with our good friend, LaDonna Humphrey. So after you went through this traumatic experience, can you tell us what led you to that and how you ended up hooking up with LaDonna? Yeah. So originally this just started with me having a private conversation with my sister about.

40:30
how I had participated in that kind of a video when I was really young, and about how embarrassed I would be if it were ever leaked by the person who paid for it. And when I expressed this memory to my sister, she became very concerned that the Mickey Mouse watch was far more sinister than I even imagined. She felt like it sounded like a serial killer trophy.

40:59
And so she Googled Mickey Mouse watch plus murder to see if there were any cases where a victim was missing a Mickey Mouse watch. And what she found was the case of Melissa Witt from Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1994. And just for anyone who hasn't listened to other episodes that we've done together or my podcast, the murder of Melissa Witt

41:27
happened in 94 and she was 19 years old. She got abducted out of a bowling alley parking lot. She got driven to a national forest, which was like almost an hour drive away from the bowling alley. And in the national forest, she was strangled and left naked behind this giant rock that looked like a tombstone.

41:53
or she had been wearing a Mickey Mouse watch the night of her abduction and murder, and it's never been recovered. And so. LaDonna Humphrey, who, um, you know, runs a nonprofit for missing and murdered women, uh, LaDonna Humphrey has so many hats that she wears, but she's been very passionately advocating to bring awareness to Melissa's unsolved case and to aid the police in any way that she can to help them get this case solved. And so.

42:21
When my sister Googled Mickey Mouse watch plus murder, all of these articles and podcasts and web pages and social media pages about Melissa Witt came up because of the watch. And so when I saw all of that, I felt very strongly that this could be connected and that I needed to get a hold of LaDonna Humphrey and the police in Fort Smith, Arkansas and just let them know,

42:51
I had this really strange experience that was very much centered around a Mickey Mouse watch and you guys should look into this. You should figure out who ordered this video. And it was really weird because in the video, you know, he does a lot of painting in directly on this watch. I mean, it's very eerie. Now you know the connection to that. You've talked to LaDonna. LaDonna now is taking you seriously. What made you somebody that totally had no connection to this?

43:21
You know, your story is, you know, kind of a tragic one. It could be a little bit of an embarrassment. A lot of your family members maybe didn't know. What made you want to come forward with this story to aid somebody you didn't know? That's a great question. I think that for me, this process has been very, like, one step at a time. I did not ever imagine myself to be in the place that I'm at right now with it. But I just kept...

43:51
tuning into my intuition as I was making decisions about what felt right for me to do. And when I discovered this potential connection, it just felt right for me to report it. I didn't feel okay keeping that information to myself. And I thought that it wouldn't harm anything to share that story privately with the police or with LaDonna and that they could take it over from there. But as...

44:20
I gave that tip to them, I realized that there were going to be some hurdles for them in terms of finding my former employer's contact information or websites. And I just felt like I could probably do that pretty easily, but I didn't know if they'd be able to. And an example that I'll give about that is just like, for me, I knew what his warehouse, his office and the basement studio looked like, right?

44:51
So I figured that I would recognize that setting and those backgrounds in a way that they maybe wouldn't if they were digging through videos. I wanted to help them so that they could be at a point where they'd be able to actually do something with this tip and follow it down. And I just felt really strongly that I was supposed to do that. So I went ahead doing that thinking that, okay, if I could just find his website.

45:17
And if I, you know, like where the clients were ordering videos from, I figured if I could just find that I would hand it over to them and be done. And that's so funny to me now, because as I started to do that, I found my video and at this point I realized how wronged I had really been. And also how dangerous this person I was in a basement with was. I did not, you know, I hadn't perceived him as a rapist.

45:46
at this point. And when I saw that video, it made me really concerned that I might not have been the only girl who had this experience with him. It also made me quite concerned that maybe some other women who had filmed with him could have actually wound up dead in that scenario and that we could be watching videos of real dead women. And I also want to say that when I started

46:16
what I found was thousands and thousands of morgue porn videos. And so I knew that I had been lied to and that this man could easily have been slipping in some real snuff films into these simulated ones. And from that point on, I just felt like it was a huge injustice and it was a mystery and that women's lives were at stake. And that is just not something that I felt like I could turn away from.

46:45
And I don't know how you and LaDonna do it, because as you know, I've went and looked at some death fetish pornography, and I'm like, as many hours of you guys have been to this, I don't know how you do it. The guy that you're speaking of, that's all he does. I found a whole grip of his films, which I must say the production quality of his films is not something I would pay for, actually. Ooh, sick burn!

47:11
But I wondered that too, because there's a couple of his films that I'm like sitting here going, is that girl playing? Or is she dead? Or is she drugged? Or what? Because I'm like, this is like a little bit too good to be doing that. And some of the things that he was saying, not really an overly attractive guy at all, he always puts himself like in the center of his films, right? So it's kind of like the producer that wants to be the star. He's always there. So I wonder the same thing. Oh, yeah, David. So this is super interesting.

47:41
He maintains that he doesn't have a death fetish. And I just, I can't imagine wanting to star in, I mean, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's probably about 3,000 videos of him doing that with different women in different settings. Some of them are more, some of them are like out in the woods, which reminds me of Melissa Witt too. It's just like, you don't star in 3,000 videos.

48:09
of something that you have no interest in. And if you don't have a fetish of having sex with a dead woman, yeah, that's not going to be arousing to you. Oh my gosh. That's such a good point because there's a physical component there and he's definitely aroused. Right. I mean, it has to be something to turn you on to make you want to go through with it. And if you're not into that, then they wouldn't even, you know, it'd have been, okay, I'm doing this for a client. Let's her and get this done, get you out of here.

48:38
But that wasn't the case. The guy is all googly-eyed in it and he's happy and you know, you hear his voice is just this is the greatest thing that he could do. Yes, his voice is like quivering in some of the films and he, you know, he talks to the dead body the whole film. It's just him with this narrative running about her and what he's doing. And you're right, there's definitely a lot of passion.

49:04
going on there in his voice. Like I just don't buy it, but he's not into the things that he's filming. The pushback from the death fetish community and people who need to understand, there is a whole community of thousands of people that's into this stuff. For all you know, your next door neighbor could be in it, your coworker could be in it. They say that this stuff is harmless. They say that it's just a fetish, that people who was against it is pretty much what they call kink shaming.

49:32
which is somebody who's shaming somebody because they're into something that's kinky. From the things I've read, the forms that I've seen, and the things that's there, to me this doesn't seem harmless. What would you say to people that may be looking at death fetish porn, thinking about getting into it, what would you say about it being harmless?

49:59
Undercover accounts I have in various forums and I do watch What's being posted in there and what the culture is like some websites are more timid than others But at the end of the day, it's this huge group of people Like you said around a hundred thousand people worldwide who are into this and if you just do a quick little numbers game there that basically means that One out of every hundred people in public is somebody with this fetish

50:27
And that's really, really scary. To kind of combat your question about, is this harmless? To me, I don't think it's harmless. And the reason why I don't think it's harmless is because I think that continued exposure really to anything, anything at all, is going to normalize that thing. It's going to make it more comfortable for you. And it's gonna make your tolerance change.

50:56
And so, yes, while you maybe started going into these forums when you were 15 or 16, and it wasn't a big deal, if you stay in there for years and years, you're going to become desensitized to violence, abduction, rape, torture, and murder towards women. And you may be fine now, you may be fine in five years, but there is a slow gradual descent happening for you mentally as you continue to consume this content. And

51:25
Uh, we have a podcast called the deep dark secrets podcast. We're dedicated to exploring all the angles of death fetish and how it is damaging as we continue to find murder cases that link back into these forums. It's crazy to see, like we can verify this guy was a member of these death fetish forums for many years, and then finally went on to murder. And a lot of the cases that we cover, usually it's like, you know,

51:54
somewhere between five and 10 years that they look at the content before they go out and actually do it in real life. And for what I do, I'll tell the audience this, uh, being a true crime podcaster, let me tell you guys, serial killers have linked themselves to the death fetish community. A number of them have Ted Bundy being the most notorious one before he died, did a whole interview with Dr. James Dobson on why he did what he did. And he,

52:23
definitely said the death fetish community after he did, you know, he wanted to know what it was like to kill someone and have sex with the body. This stuff is not harmless, no matter what they tell you. And I know you guys have been docs. If you guys know what that means, that's an internet term for when somebody shares your valuable information like your home address, phone number, things of that nature. It's not harmless. And on Deep Dark Secrets podcast, if you guys have not listened to this, everybody needs to listen to this, especially if you are a young woman, if you have a daughter, because

52:53
The more that they say is harmless, the more cases you guys keep bringing up that is connected to the death fetish community. I've heard cases I've never even heard of before that you guys have recently done, cannibalistic murder cases, cases of women that's been non-suspecting. Tell us a little bit about Deep Dark Secrets. I know your first season is all about eradicating death fetish. How did you and LaDonna come to put this podcast together? What are you hoping to gain from it?

53:22
Yeah, the podcast was one of those steps that I talk about where like, you know, I didn't ever imagine myself to be a podcast host. I didn't ever think that would be something I would do. But it seems to be the most natural way to share the information that we have and to continue sharing the information. And so the way that that was born was that we felt very strongly we needed to write a book about

53:50
just the angle of the Melissa Witt case that the watch had there and how it related to two other murders that also are related to Mickey Mouse watches and happened to be in places where my former employer lived as well. So we were just like, we can't use his real name because he's not convicted of anything right now, but we think that these communities need to know about this and we think the world needs to know about death fetish because it's dangerous.

54:18
So we wrote this book that touches on Melissa Witt's murder case, Melissa Trotter's murder case. As we were writing that book, which was several months process and really cool experience to co-write with somebody and.

54:35
Just, LaDonna and I are very lucky. We just fit together like puzzle pieces. Like it was very easy for us to write together and we both continually found ourselves inspired by the others writing, you know? Like I'd write a little bit and she'd go in and see mine and write a whole chapter. And then I'd be like, oh, that reminds me. I need to write this. So we had had a lot of research and experiences to draw from over a year of looking into the Deaf Fetish community.

55:04
the Melissa Witt case and all of that. And it felt to me like the book wrote itself. It was really, really good. But we were also starting to get into pornography research and things like that to kind of support some of the things that we were telling in the book. And as we started doing that, we started finding these murder cases, other murder cases, besides the ones that we were focusing on.

55:33
And that's really when we just realized that we could not do the work we wanted to do through the book and that we needed to continue, you know, trying to find a way to change some of the laws around this type of content being produced and that we still had a lot of work to do just connecting with models and making sure that everybody in those films was okay. And so we decided.

55:59
towards the end of the book that we would go ahead and start outlining and launch a podcast about death fetish and other cases as well. And we didn't want to go too deeply into that book because it is a series of books around Melissa Witt's Unsolved Murder. And we wanted to make sure that we were focusing as much on Melissa Witt as possible in the book Strangled. And so Deep Dark Secrets podcast was sort of born out of

56:28
the desire to make death fetish known publicly and connect all the other dots in terms of other cases and crimes related to this super seedy secret community on the web. And I will say this for anybody who's listening, if you guys listen to my episode that I did on why I'm against the death penalty, Melissa Trotter and Melissa Witch case has always been considered to be connected somewhere. They think the same person did it.

56:55
Larry Swearingen was executed who was the man accused of Trotter's murder and now is coming back that he may not have been the one who done it. So that adds, there's a lot of evidence about it. I'm doing that case to point that out, but I wanted you guys to know that. So it is very possible that the guy who killed, we know Melissa is still out there and the guy who killed Trotter could be out there too as well. As far as Deep Dark Seekers podcast go, it's an excellent podcast.

57:23
Uh, you sound way too sweet to do a podcast like this. I think I told you, you know, everybody says my voice is good. I think you have a better voice to be. I can listen to you read the phone book, but when you come on, you're like, this is the girl that's going to talk to me about something that's dark. You do a really good job, but you know, your voice is too sweet to do this kind of podcast. Well, I hope that people can handle it. Maybe that's what's needed.

57:52
Yeah, maybe so, because you know, it's just like, you know, she just sounds really too sweet to do these kinds of things. So tell us where can we find Deep Dark Secrets podcast? How often you guys upload episodes there? Well, a Deep Dark Secrets podcast is we've tried to make it findable on any platform. So I think we're on like 14 different platforms. It should be pretty easy to find it. Definitely on your major ones like Spotify and Apple podcasts.

58:19
and Anchor and you know the the real popular ones were there but we're also on smaller ones as well and we have a website which is deepdarksecretspodcast.com. If anybody starts listening to the podcast and they feel like they want to help in some way I would suggest going to our website and clicking on the advocacy link up in the top bar.

58:43
because if you scroll down through there, you'll find a petition that we have going to put some teeth in federal obscenity laws. And it just takes like 30 seconds to sign the petition. And we fully intend to be working with legislators this year. And we wanna be able to give that to them to show them that there are people that really care about this cause and that we need to tweak the laws a little bit so that there's more enforcement going on. And these laws, the federal obscenity laws are about

59:13
pornography. So basically the reason why we're pushing this is because we want to be able to get this content removed from the surface web so that young impressionable people cannot find it and think that it's okay to jay off to videos of murdered women. And I will point this out. Yes, there are a lot of filth in the laws. I'm glad you guys are fighting for those. But if you do watch mainstream porn and you never heard about the death fetish community, it's because they won't even touch it.

59:42
So if you go to any place like a porn hub or X videos or anything like that, you don't see these things because they won't touch it. They swore off to it because it could cause their site to be brought down. So anybody that's telling you that this is mainstream and is innocent, just think about that. In closing, Alicia, what would you like to say to all of the listeners out there, anybody that's a fan of you and LaDonna's, what would you like to say today?

01:00:06
Oh, I love the ability to do that. I just want to thank everybody for continuing to, um, you know, spread the word and share the podcasts with people. And I want you all to know that we're so humbled by all the comments and messages that people send us. We get people sending us prayers and personal stories and

01:00:26
We love connecting with all of you. So, you know, don't be a stranger, reach out and say hi to us. And also just like thank you from the bottom of both of our hearts. I feel confident speaking on Madonna's half too here, just in saying that we know it's a really gross, dark, depressing topic. And it means the world to us that people are willing to continue discussing it with other people.

01:00:52
Well, Alicia, I thank you for coming on the show. You know, I think that you are an incredible woman. You're incredibly brave. You are a survivor. I'm glad that I met you. I'm a better person for knowing you. Uh, and I'm glad to, uh, be able to call you my friend. So thank you for coming on the show today. I really, truly appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. I feel the same about you. I'm so glad that we've met and that we've been able to kind of work together. And I've just been so, um,

01:01:21
impressed with you doing the research that you've done on this topic too to just be informed about it and make your own decisions about it and you know like I'm floored that you're even communicating with some of the members of the death fetish community at this point too And I can't wait to see where you go with with that angle. Well, thank you You guys know I'm always here for you. So we will indeed be talking soon

01:01:49
Alright guys, well that was the incredible Alicia Lockhart. Again, make sure we go out and support her. She is the co-author of the book Strangle, can be found on Kindle Unlimited. If you are subscribed to there, you can read that book for absolutely free. Make sure you read it and just don't download it because they don't make any money off of that which they're using to put back against their cause unless you are turning the page.

01:02:13
Also, let's keep in mind that there's another book out there, The Girl I Never Knew Who Killed Melissa Witt that is done by LaDonna Humphrey. Those two books go hand in hand. Also can be read for free. Deep Dark Secrets podcast usually drops a upload every Monday. You can find them in several spots. You will find a link to their podcast in the show notes. As well if you go to my link tree, at the very top there is a link for Deep Dark Secrets and they are a sponsor on my podcast. So lots of ways to find them.

01:02:43
Alright guys, I hope you guys are being good out there. Be safe. Always remember, always stay humble. A little love and compassion goes a long way. Kindness is the word of the day. And this is the podcast where two passions becomes one. I'll catch you guys in the next one. Thank you for listening to True Crime and Authors. Don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe. Join us on social media.

01:03:11
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01:03:41
on True Crime and Authors.