Last week I talked with journalist and author Dan Zupansky for his TRUE MURDER podcast, and it was the longest, most in-depth interview to date on all things Chained Birds. Dan covered the entire book from start to finish and just released the almost 90-minute interview on all his platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
There was much I didn’t know about Dan when I booked a slot on his podcast, and it turns out we have a lot in common. We’ve both written true crime books featuring prisoners and their trials, and we each became part of the stories we were writing. In Dan’s case, he got to know one of Canada’s most infamous killers, Sidney Teerhuis, when he chose to write about Teerhuis’ 2003 grizzly (doesn’t even begin to describe it) murder of Robin Greene in a Winnipeg hotel room. Dan exchanged letters and phone calls with Teerhuis while imprisoned, and it was because Dan shared some of the killer’s graphic drawings with the court that Terrhuis received the maximum sentence under Canadian law.
Dan’s experience turned into his book Trophy Kill: The “Shall We Dance Murder” in 2010, which is also the year he launched his podcast True Murder. Dan interviews true crime authors on his weekly show and is known for reading every book they write. His thoughtful questions and empathy toward book characters, victims, and writers of difficult subjects are some of the things that set him apart from other true crime podcast hosts. One of his book reviewers and podcast fans even called him “the Godfather of modern true crime.”
All I know is my book and I could not have been in better hands. It’s evident now from our interview that, in many ways, Dan had worn my shoes as an investigative journalist — something I didn’t know at the time. I’m so appreciative of the conversation. Thanks, Dan, for peeling back the many layers of Chained Birds 😊
Carla Conti is a true crime journalist, storyteller, and prison reform advocate. Her debut book, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir, will be published by WildBlue Press on November 12, 2024.
