What It ACTUALLY Takes to Take Down a Cult Leader w/Mike King from @ProfilingEvil ​

Yeah.

That's a very good point.

And that trying to break that seal is exactly what we would like to talk about, because as we watch this documentary, Trust Me, the False Prophet, there were moments where the two of us were almost on our knees in frustration watching this because it seemed that it was just not taken seriously when Samuel Bateman had actual audio recordings, they had had him saying things that were so clearly abusive to minors.

And so we thought that would be evidence enough, but it didn't seem like the law enforcement in this show was taking it seriously, at least not at first.

You know, one of the real challenges, and I think one of the things that we face in the true crime community, especially for those who haven't worked inside the criminal justice system is we do want to hit the easy button and just take that immediate comment that's made.

And if everything works perfectly, if lawyers don't challenge facts, if evidence isn't excluded by a judge, then you might luck out and get one count or two counts based on that comment.

But when we think about Sam Bateman, for instance, and the things that were going on there, we really need to kind of pull back on the reins and recognize that, yeah, there's a chance that you might be able to pull it off.

But what you really need to do as an investigator is have the discipline to ride it out, even knowing that some people might be getting hurt along the way while you put a case together.

Because you only get what we say is one bite at the apple when you go to court.

And if you don't win it, you're done.

And do you want to have someone learn and go deeper underground, get more concealed in what they're doing, put more barriers in the way of anyone who might step up and talk, or do you want to build a case that you can actually win in court? And there's kind of give and take in both sides of that thinking, because especially when you have children or people that are being hurt, You can't allow that to happen, but you have to move at a pace that's going to guarantee you're going to get into court and be able to put a case on and not have the thing pushed away by a judge.

So what would you say is like the most important, if we could say there's like these pillars to as an investigator, you're deciding, okay, we got to come up with a really solid case.

Like you said, what would be the pillars of having a perfect case and knowing that you have enough evidence? What does that look like? in being like okay this is solid enough because we're watching christine in this documentary and she's continuing to try to gather evidence and evidence and evidence and as you're watching her compile things and you're hoping that on the back end the investigators compiling things you know before it can come to a head what is like the ultimate clear path look like

Yeah, and often I talk about a couple of principles that I maybe would like to mention at this point in our discussion.

And that is, number one, that you can't go in with a predisposed notion of where you're going to end up.

And there was a statement made in one of the books on Sherlock Holmes.

I think it was Bohemian in Rome.

Let's see.

Anyway, it was one of Sherlock Holmes books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where he said it's a capital mistake to theorize before you have facts, because insensibly you spend all of your time twisting facts to suit your theory.

rather than allowing the facts to help you develop a theory that then could stand up in a courtroom.

And so when you go in with emotion involved in a case, and that's the second kind of pillar of this that I want to mention, is that emotion is different than evidence.

And gut feeling is different than admissible facts.

And we have to keep that in mind because we might believe anything Everything in the documentary, we might believe every single thing that someone says, but unless you have something to corroborate that, it's weak testimony, even when it's eyewitness testimony.

And I often go back to an experience I had in the police academy as a young recruit.

Now, you know.