Bert Martinez:
Welcome. I’m excited. Today, David Holthouse is joining me. And David Holthouse is known as a gonzo journalist and documentary filmmaker. And you got to check him out.
Bert Martinez:
He’s got just a massive. What do you call it, Catalog of different things that he’s done. Some are available on Amazon, some are available on Netflix, Hulu, you name it. Just go to David Holthouse dot com. You can check out stuff there. David, thank you so much for joining.
David Holthouse:
Thanks for having me on, man. Appreciate it.
Bert Martinez:
You bet. All right, so I got to ask you, how did you get started? Because you’ve done just incredible different things. I think. One of your documentary has to do, has to deal with a dea. DEA agent infiltrating the actual. The. The Mexican drug cartel. Then you have one about Lorena Bovit.
Bert Martinez:
I mean, so from one end to the other, how did you get started?
David Holthouse:
Well, man, I mean, it really. It goes back to high school. Some buddies of mine and I started an underground newspaper in high school. And once I saw the sort of power of journalism to. To. To influence people’s thinking about their situation in life, I was sold. And so, you know, I started. I started writing professionally, you know, even at the university level.
David Holthouse:
So I was a. I was a gonzo magazine journalist for 25 years. And then, you know, I started making documentaries about. About a decade ago and have always been attracted to, you know, stories sort of on the margins. And in particular, you know, criminal subcultures has been my sort of bread and butter.
Bert Martinez:
Gotcha. It. What’s interesting about America is America really is subcultures. We. We are all about subcultures. Whether it’s, let’s say, a dark subculture, subculture, or even our own families, every family unit is a subculture. So, you know, to me, it’s very intriguing because you think you know something, and then there’s that. There’s that superficial level.
Bert Martinez:
One of the things I want to talk to you about is your latest program with the Hare Krishna. So, you know, when I think about Harry Krishna’s, you think about the guys at the airport. You think about the Beatles. It’s this very superficial stuff. And then you look at your documentary and you’re like, oh, my gosh, this is. It’s another crime syndicate, right?
David Holthouse:
Yeah. I mean, when I was first, that’s been the only project that I’ve done that I didn’t have a hand in. In conceiving of. And Developing the project for the jump. That series had already been sold to Peacock when I was approached to direct it. But as soon as they said the words Hare Krishna hitman, I was sold. I was like, I’m in. Because, like, you, man.
David Holthouse:
I mean, I remember when I was a kid seeing the Hare Krishnas in the airports, you know, like, selling flowers and soliciting donations. And I always associated them with the 1960s, you know, counterculture. Like you said the Beatles. George Harrison became a Hare Krishna. He converted. You know, that song, My Sweet Lord? That’s, you know, that’s about.
Bert Martinez:
Absolutely, yeah.
David Holthouse:
And. But as I got into it, my mind was kind of blown. I didn’t realize, like, they’re part of a spiritual tradition that vastly predates Christianity. I mean, it just goes, you know, way back. And so it. The hard Christian movement was not at all like an American invention. It was just that a guru came over from India at just the right time, which is to say, you know, the early mid-1960s, and was able to rapidly accumulate devotees from within the sort of hippie counterculture movement. You know, a lot of people that had sought enlightenment through psychedelics had kind of hit a plateau with where acid or mescaline would get them.
David Holthouse:
And he was like, basically like, you know, let me show you how to climb the mountain the right way.
Bert Martinez:
Right.
David Holthouse:
But, you know, it was that. That series is about organized crime in the Hari Christian movement. It’s pretty dark, I mean, because what happened was when the founding guru died, he was, you know, when he came to America first, And I think 1964, he was already a pretty old dude.
And, you know, he passed away in the 70s, and he sort of anointed 11 of his followers to try and carry on the movement here in the U.S. but they were, without fail, young men, and several of them, you could say we’re not spiritually prepared to be gurus, okay? Because to be a guru in that movement is to be a conduit to the divine. In other words, you could say that they’re regarded as a. As a God on earth. And some of them kind of walked the righteous path, but others took a really dark turn once they had that sort of power.
David Holthouse:
And the worst. Worst among the lot was. Was a guy by the name of Keith Ham, whose Christian name was Kirtan Ananda, who started a Hare Krishna commune that’s still there. And I would say. I would emphasize and underscore is now a place, I think, of positivity. It’s called New Vrindavan. Vrindavan in India is the town where Krishna sort of frolicked with cow maidens, the story goes, okay. And it’s a very deeply spiritual place, place of pilgrimage for all followers of Krishna in India.
David Holthouse:
And you’ll see lots of Western followers. Hare Krishna is there in Vrindavan, India. Well, so new Vrindavan was a commune. Is a commune in the hills of West Virginia, probably about two hours from Pittsburgh, is the closest major airport. And I mean, it’s parked way back up there in the hills. So especially in the 1980s, you know, you know, 70s, 80s, even early 90s, before cell phones, before the Internet, once devotees were up there, they were really sort of under the grip of this. Of their guru, Kirtan Ananda. And, you know, he had enforcers, you know, some of these guys.
David Holthouse:
One of the worst of the lot was a Vietnam vet, you know, who kind of found his way, had probably had a lot of PTSD issues and had found his way to the Hare Krishna movement and a lot of Hare Krishna temples around the US if they had sort of a problematic devotee that they didn’t know quite to do what to do with, they’d buy him a bus ticket to Pittsburgh, and then Kirtan and his crew would go pick him up and bring him up in the hills and he’d find a use for him. You know, he was good at that. Yeah. So.
Bert Martinez:
So I thought. I thought for a second you were going to tell me they would discipline him, but no, they put him to work.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, they put him to work. Yeah. Yeah. But he. In some cases, he disciplined people by having them, you know, murdered. And there’s really. I’m. They found several bodies up there in those woods around that commune over the years, and I’m sure there’s quite a few more that.
David Holthouse:
That have yet to be discovered and probably never will.
Bert Martinez:
So the ultimate transition.
David Holthouse:
Right, Right, right.
Bert Martinez:
Wow, that’s incredible. And to your point about giving these immature, you know, young men all that power, look, it’s tough. It’s tough for old, mature men to handle it. I mean, look. Look at our. Look at our political system, another subculture.
Bert Martinez:
And you see sometimes the different things that. That these politicians do, especially if. If they think that they have a lot of power, some of them, especially nowadays, I think the curtain of shame has been lifted. And it’s like, do whatever you want. It’s the wild, wild west. But could you imagine being a 20 something with. And you’re being told that you’re almost a God and people are flocking to you and tell you how awesome you are. That’s.
Bert Martinez:
That would be hard to take and. And not have it go to your head.
David Holthouse:
Yeah. I mean, they had, for practical purpose, practically speaking, unlimited power and wealth because the Hare Krishna movement had a lot of money. They had a lot of money coming in through both, you know, sort of legal and other than legal means that the guru in. In West Virginia, Kirtan Ananda, that we. That we. And that series is on Peacock, by the way. Anybody that wants to watch it. Christian is on Peacock.
David Holthouse:
You know, he had these crews of young, attractive women that would go out and they would just invent charities and they would work, you know, NASCAR races and rock concerts and college football games. And then they started selling just counterfeit, you know, unlicensed college football merchandise. Dice at college football games. And they made millions. They would come back, you know, in vans to the commune up in the. Up in the mountains and Kirtan and. And would sort of lay on this sort of throne, and they would just dump bags of money on him. So he was just literally wallowing in.
David Holthouse:
In money when they would get back, and, you know, he. Yeah, I mean, it was. I think it really went to their heads, some of them, let’s put it that way.
Bert Martinez:
Sure. And when you think about it in that. In that environment, not only are these people bringing you millions of dollars, but they’re not expecting a commission. Right. They’re just doing it. No, for, you know, free or close to. As close as you can to free. I’m sure they got some food and they.
Bert Martinez:
I don’t know what else. But they’re not expecting a commission.
David Holthouse:
No, not at all. I mean, they. They. They. One of the things, even Hari Krishna today is you renounce material possessions. You renounce your own wealth. You know, you. You are living by the beneficence of Krishna.
David Holthouse:
Right. And so. And that’s. That’s true today. I mean, most of the followers today, like, most of their money goes right into the. Into the church. But that said, again, I just want to, you know, be clear that in my opinion, the heart, the Hare Krishna is. Khan is.
David Holthouse:
Is the church. They dealt with their dirty laundry in a much more open way than some other religious organizations have. And I think they’re. They’re well on the path of legitimacy. Legitimacy today.
Bert Martinez:
Yes. And so, again, just like a lot of other religions and cults, they had an issue, especially this Kirk on Kirtananda. Yeah. Thank you, Kirtan. He. He became a pedophile, or he. I guess he was always a Pedophile. What’s your take?
David Holthouse:
He always was. Yeah, I think he always was. Yeah. And that. That was one of the things is he really, like.
David Holthouse:
He really preyed on the. On the young boys in the commune in a pretty. Pretty horrific fashion. And. And there were other. That’s one of the things is that the Krishnas back then, they followed a sort of rigid tradition that’s still practiced in India today among.
Among Christian devotees of kids are separated from their parents at a fairly young age and put in Guru Coolas, which is kind of like a boarding school, because even for the parents, like, to be the ultimate sort of like pure devotee, you renounce all attachments and even including attachments to your own offspring. Now, not all of them choose that intense of a path.
David Holthouse:
There’s different sort of levels. Okay. Of renouncement of attachments. But some parents in India especially, still do that. But Kirtananda insisted on it. And the net result of that was that children and all, including all young boys, were separated from their mother and father. And a lot of cases, their moms were gone a lot of the time out there raising money, you know, scamming and scamming money for Kirtan Ananda. And the kids were physically separated from their parents and put under the tutelage of, you know, some pretty nefarious characters.
David Holthouse:
And. And. And frankly, you know, were very vulnerable to. To abuse by Kirtan Ananda and other, you know, pedophiles that were. That were part of that system. I mean, I think pedophiles, most, if not all of them live to. That’s their purpose in life. Okay.
David Holthouse:
Most of them, their purpose in life is to be a pedophile. So they’re constantly seeking out environments or hunting for environments where they can have access to vulnerable children. And so for that type of criminal, a situation like that Hare Krishna commune in the 70s and 80s was a perfect hunting ground.
Bert Martinez:
And, you know, from what I. From what I’ve observed or. Or read, some pedophiles have a specific age group. Once a child gets certain, you know, gets to be a certain age, they. They definitely move on to the next one.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, it’s usually puberty is kind of a. A point of delineation. You know, there’s predators that. That. I mean, this is. This is sort of horrific, even voice, but it’s the fact of the matter. There’s predators that prefer kids that are going through or have gone through puberty but are not yet weld into their teenage years. And then a I think most pedophiles prefer kids that are, you know, prepubescent.
Bert Martinez:
And. And like you said, he was probably a pedophile forever. Whatever. Whatever happened to him that. That sent him down that road, and he was. He now he has unlimited power. Smart in. In the sense of separating the kids from any kind of parental guidance or protection.
Bert Martinez:
And. And as a parent, that’s, to me, has got to be the craziest thing to say. Oh, yeah, here’s my child. Yeah, whatever.
David Holthouse:
Yeah. And a lot of those parents really regret having made that decision, you know, but it was eventually his undoing. I mean, there had always been rumors about Kirtan kids, but his devotees never really believed him. And then finally. And the. The. He had. The Tirta was his hitman, was.
David Holthouse:
Was his enforcer. And Tirta actually went to prison for murdering some devotees that had dared to challenge the Guru. But he kept his mouth shut. He never rolled over on Kirtananda. But then one day, Kirtananda was abusing this young boy in a Winnebago on the commune, and it was witnessed by multiple devotees in a way that he couldn’t possibly deny. And as soon as the dude in prison that was doing life heard that from multiple people that he trusted, he immediately, to his credit, went to the authorities and like, okay, I’m ready to testify against Kirtan Ananda. And that’s what finally did him in.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah, that’s interesting. There’s so much there to unpack. I mean, the one thing that, like, you mentioned, the devotees that absolutely will not, what do you call it, that believe the guru or the. Or the leader to their. Almost to their detriment. I mean, and in some cases, even if they see something horrific, they’ll excuse it or. Or justify it or. Or whatever.
Bert Martinez:
But it’s amazing to me how much evidence needs to be, I guess, amounted before somebody changes their mind.
David Holthouse:
Right, right. It needed to be that indisputable, like, eight different people seeing the curtains literally parked on this Winneb, witnessing this in a way that just could not be swept under the rug because there had been plenty of accusations. And. And, you know, by the way, the guy was thoroughly corrupt. I mean, he had, you know, they bought him a new, like, brand new SUV or luxury car, like, every year when most of the devotees, you know, at. On the commune were living a very, you know, sort of basic lifestyle.
David Holthouse:
I will say this, though. The Hari Krishna is then and now. The food is fantastic. They really eat well, man. They really eat well. Especially if you like Indian, Indian cuisine. I mean, it’s, it’s awesome. And they feed anybody, anybody that shows up, any, any, you know, Hare Krishna church or commune, they’ll feed you.
David Holthouse:
And in, you know, in the hills of West Virginia, that goes a long way for some people. There are people that, that get by there, by, with, with what the Hare Krishnas provide.
Bert Martinez:
So that’s interesting. It’s interesting, too, that it’s in West Virginia, because when I think of West Virginia, there’s always, again, another subculture. You have these militias out there as well.
Bert Martinez:
And so it’s just like, I, I. When I think of Hare Krishna’s, I’m. Again, I’m thinking of California and, and, and things of that nature. I never would have thought West Virginia.
David Holthouse:
Right. And it took a while, it took decades for them to, to achieve a sort of peaceful coexistence with the locals. You know, there’s still some tension there from time to time, but, but it’s now, it’s like, you know, the second or third generation of locals have been living, you know, in close proximity to the Hari Krishnas. Now it’s just part of life there. But when they first located, when the commune first opened there, it was, you know, things got a little hairy, especially when some of the local kids, like, joined, Joined the Hare Krishnas. You know, there were guys that would show up with guns, you know, demanding their kids back. And there was some violence on the commune as a result of that.
Bert Martinez:
Sure, I could definitely see that.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
Isn’t that also a John Denver song? Right. West Virginia, Almost Heaven.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. we wanted to use that song in the show. But John Denver’s estate, the price that they were asking was a bit too high.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah, I could see that. That is wild. All right, so, so just for the, for the audience and, and I had to look it up. What is a gonzo journalist?
David Holthouse:
Yeah, good question. I mean, it’s. If the Gonzo journal was really born in the late 1960s, and the most famous practice practitioner is Hunter S. Thompson, who I’ve often referred to as my patron saint. But what defines gonzo journalism, first and foremost is to discard the notion of objectivity in what you’re writing. You’re not necessarily. You may be striving to be fair, but you’re not striving as a journalist to be objective. You, you embrace your own point of view and opinions, and you express those in your reporting.
David Holthouse:
Now, that’s not nearly as radical a concept today as it was even when I started out in the late 80s and early 90s, you know, it was still sort of like that was verboten. Right. To mainstream journalists, to even think of that, that was going against the code. So that’s first and foremost. And you could also say that, you know, gonzo journalism, often the. The writer has a very strong voice. No gonzo journalist. True gonzo journalist sounds like any other true gonzo journalist.
David Holthouse:
It encourages individualism and often has a fascination with the darker corners of society and doesn’t necessarily judge criminals to be bad people simply because they’re breaking the law.
Bert Martinez:
Interesting. Interesting, yeah. So as a gonzo journalist, you’re not going undercover. You’re literally just. You’re jumping into that culture. And as long as they like you and trust you, you’re going to stay there until you’re done collecting enough for the story.
David Holthouse:
Right, Right. Like, Hunter S. Thompson’s first book was Hell’s Angels, and that’s exactly what he did. He embedded with the Hell’s Angels, lived among them, wasn’t undercover, didn’t join the Hells Angels. They understood from the jump that he was a journalist that was doing a story on them, but it just really took the time to do the story right. And my own methodology is to. To spe not weeks within a subculture before I ever take out a pen and pad or a tape recorder and do an interview. Just give it proper time for them to get used to me and vibe me out and get comfortable with my presence being a part of things.
David Holthouse:
Whether it’s. That’s a Chicano street gang or militias or Hari Krishna’s or whatever. Right. You know, and, and, and then, and then start to do the reporting once you’re already sort of fully embedded in the world. So you can’t rush it to do it. Right. You can’t rush it. You can’t be in a hurry.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so walk me through this again. The Mexican street gang, there you just, what, contact the leader and say, this is who I am. I want to get to know your. Your gang and, and eventually do a story about it. They check you out and they say yes or no.
David Holthouse:
In that particular instance, that happened in the, in Phoenix in the 1990s, and there was a. There was a terrible gang war going on between Chicano gangs in the Phoenix metropolitan area. I mean, I think it. It was like, it was really confusing network of alliances.
There were at least 10 different separate street gangs involved and that, you know, they were racking up a body count and I heard through a sort of source that there was the leader of the biggest and most powerful gang that was called the La Victoria Locas, was trying to broker some kind of peace. And so that was my end. So, like, hey, man, you know, I kind of got word to him, like, I’m interested. Come talking about what you’re trying to do to, like, tamp down the violence.
David Holthouse:
And that got me a sit down with him. And then out of that sit down, I was like, you know, I think there’s an even, like, bigger story here about the culture of your barrio, about the history of your set, you know, which dated back to right when some guys got back from World War II, some World War II veterans that sort of started the gang, if you will. And that’s how I got that story going. Yeah, you got to find an in. You know, it’s not as. It’s better to have some sort of specific ask or some sort of specific entree into the world other than just, hey, I just want to start hanging out with you guys. Although I lived on. I lived on the street with.
David Holthouse:
With street kids in Tempe, Arizona, IN. I think it was 98 for a few weeks. And with those kids, I could just show up and be like, hey, I just want to knock around with you guys for a while and write a story about it. That was. That was fine. Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
Wow, that is pretty cool. And so you also did a story, if I’m not mistaken, about was it Nazis or skinheads or.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, now in that. That was different. That I did do undercover. That.
Bert Martinez:
Okay.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, I had. That was one sort of subculture that I don’t think any outsider is really ever going to be welcome into. And so my sort of. Any. Any efforts I made to get a sit down with any leader or to just come observe one of their events, it was like hard. No or no response at all. And in 2002, there was an event that was going to be held near Denver, Colorado, called the Rocky Mountain Heritage Fest. That was a neo Nazi gathering of neo Nazi groups and other white supremacists from all over the country.
David Holthouse:
And an investigator with the Anti Defamation League contacted the editor of my paper. I was. At that time, my main job was to. Was writing for. For Westward, which was an alternative weekly paper that was part of the Village Voice media empire. And my editor at the time was pretty legendary journalist named Patty Calhoun. And ADL approached her and was like, do you have any journalists that’ll be interested in learning how to go undercover as a neo Nazi skinhead And she was like, oh, yes, I got just the guy for that. So, you know, long story short, I spent a couple weeks, like, learning how to walk and talk and sort of like, cramming on Neo Nazi ideology, listening to the music, reading the books, the magazines, etc.
David Holthouse:
Thinking that this would just be a one off, that I would. That I would sort of infiltrate this event, write the story and be done with it. But I. What I found was a movement that was far better funded and better organized and more frankly, fascinating than I expected. And so I started going undercover at Neo Nazi events in other cities where the Village Voice chain had a paper and write a story for that paper. And, and that eventually became where I went to work for the Southern Poverty Law center, which is a nonprofit civil rights law firm based in the Deep south that for decades has done investigation into the, into the white supremacist movement. So I went to work for them for five years. Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
All right, wait, so when you say you went to work for them in what capacity?
David Holthouse:
Doing investigative journalism on hate groups, Price supremacist hate groups, including a, you know, fair amount of undercover work.
Bert Martinez:
Gotcha.
David Holthouse:
Which at that time had evolved to, to include, you know, border. Border militias, as well as, like, your more traditional Ku Klux Klan and Neo Nazi skinheads. Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
That’s incredible. All right, so you’re. When you’re doing this stuff, whether it’s undercover or just, I’ll use the, the term, you’re embedding yourself in this culture, Right? Are you, are you afraid you’re going to pick anything up? I mean, I imagine some of these people that you meet, maybe not so much in the undercover world, but when you get to meet somebody and they know who you are, you’re going to develop a friendship, some, Some kind of connection there. Do you take anything away with you? Some from, from all these different subculture things that you’ve done?
David Holthouse:
Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, I’ll say that I think I understand what you’re asking. And, and, and the only way to, to really practice that kind of gonzo journalism properly is to give yourself over to the subculture somewhat to some degree. For example, you know, with, with, with Neo Nazi organizations, there is a powerful sense of belonging that can be intoxicating. I mean, that’s one of the reasons why they have any success attracting members. It’s not just the hateful ideology.
It’s also the sense of belonging when there’s a lot of kind of Lost Boys. I mean, most of their members are male, right? That have no sense of identity, that have no sense of culture, that, you know, don’t have a, didn’t have a great upbringing, aren’t tight, don’t have a lot of family that find something in, in those groups that they’ve been looking for.
David Holthouse:
And so I, the only way, especially when I was working undercover, to make it seem like I belonged was to give myself over to that, that sense of group identity, in a way. And I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t occasionally attractive or a rush. I know it was back to the, back to the story about the, the street gangs in Phoenix in the 90s. There was one point where I’d been embedded with those guys long enough that I was in one of their, I guess you’d call a safe house. It’s a place where nobody necessarily lived there.
People were free to crash there, and there’s all kinds of contraband in this place. And, and one of them spotted a tactical team on the side of the house, and they thought that that house is about to get raided. And one of them handed me a gun, and it was like this, this is getting ready to go down.
David Holthouse:
I was like, what the, you know, hell do I do now? And fortunately, it turned out that they, that, that the tactical team was hitting a meth lab that was right across the street from the safe house. So it was like. But it was a nervous, like, 90 seconds, man, where I was really thinking, like, what do I do here? You know, on the one hand, I can’t start shooting at cops. On the other hand, I can’t be seen by these guys to be anything other than somebody that would be willing to defend their house with them. So I was in a, I was in a tight spot.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah, that would have to be very alarming because again, like you said, you don’t want to do anything. I definitely want. You don’t want to shoot another person, especially police officer, but at the same time, you don’t want to upset these guys. Wow. That, that would be, that would be super scary. I, I, I just don’t know what I would do in a situation like that. And any other close calls?
David Holthouse:
Yeah, there’s been a few. I mean, there’s a couple times where I had to, where I was undercover, where for one reason or another, you know, somebody got suspicious of me, and I had to, I had to do some fancy footwork. One time I, one time I slipped up and I called a guy Dog. I used, I was like, yeah, dog, it’s right over there. I was giving him directions. And as soon as the word left my mouth, I mean, that’s just not kind of slang that, you know, white supremacists use. I was like. I knew I was in trouble one time, One close call was that very first undercover assignment I did.
David Holthouse:
And the ADL investigator that. That trained me was like, you got to go. You got to borrow a car. I was driving, I think a Saab at the time. She’s like, nope, not that you got to borrow a car.
David Holthouse:
American made, not too new, you know, preferably a sedan. And so, like, I borrowed a Buick from. From a friend of mine, and I went through every inch of it, I thought, and getting rid of all of her stuff. And like, the one move I made that was really smart is I had a neo Nazi rock band CD in the disc player. And this is, I think, may have saved my life. Because what happened was at some point, these guys, they were. The guys that were running security for this event were called the Hammer Skins. And the Hammer Skins were like, they’re, for one, they’re.
David Holthouse:
They’re sober, most of them, they’re straight edge. They don’t drink, do drugs. They’re smarter than your average skinhead. And they were sort of the stormtrooper elite of the movement, at least at that point in time. And they weren’t buying my act totally. And they searched my car, and underneath the passenger side floor mat, where I hadn’t picked it up to look, was an Annie DeFranco CD. And Annie DeFranco, for those that may be watching this, that aren’t aware, is a lesbian folk singer. Okay.
David Holthouse:
And they were basically like, what the hell is this? You know, And. But then they went to see what I had in my CD player, and they turned it on, and it was screwdriver or some other hate rock band. So that at least bought me enough goodwill to, like, think up a story fast. And that story was basically like, look, this is a friend of mine’s car, you know? You know, she’s into that stuff. I’m not. And then they’re like, well, is she white? I was like, yes, she’s definitely white. And they said, okay, well, maybe you can bring her out to the concert tonight, and we can, like, start trying to educate her. So that was.
David Holthouse:
That was a tense moment. Yeah, that was a tense moment.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so I have to ask you, did you bring her out to the concert?
David Holthouse:
No, I didn’t.
Bert Martinez:
That would be such a. Hey, I know I just borrowed your car, but I need you to do one other favor for me.
David Holthouse:
Right, right.
Bert Martinez:
All right. So your, Your, Your most current project is Ukraine.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And I know you’re. It’s still in development, but what can you tell us about this project?
David Holthouse:
Well, it’s. I have to keep it a little bit under wraps, but it’s basically about the, the secret history of Ukraine and what the true nature of Ukraine is and is not from the collapse of the Soviet Union up to present day. So it’s not necessarily about the war that’s going on, but it’s definitely set against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and will ask some pretty serious questions about could the war have been averted, how it could have been averted, and do some pretty, I think, serious investigation into how the U.S. state Department may have misplayed their hand a few times in Ukraine in a way that, that, that led to the war. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have a history of, in going back at least as far as the Vietnam War, of kind of backing the wrong horses in, in, in other countries. And I think that we did that in, in Ukraine, like, declared some guys to be bad guys when maybe they weren’t, declared some other guys to be good guys when maybe they weren’t. And here we are.
Bert Martinez:
Well, and I could see that. I mean, look, our, our intelligence network, as good as it is, is, is not infallible.
David Holthouse:
Right.
Bert Martinez:
You know, we saw that with George Bush Jr. For lack of better terms with the WMDs. Right. And, and they had all this. Supposedly had all this intelligence that, that Hussein had all those WMDs, and he didn’t have any. And interestingly enough, I’ve always thought that the, the, that they would have left Saddam Hussein alone, but for the fact that he wouldn’t cooperate. He was kind of, you know, a thorn in their side, and so they had to take him out. But I think if he would have cooperated, if he would have.
Bert Martinez:
If he would have had some kind of diplomatic relationship with the US they probably would have left him alone maybe forever, but at least for a much longer period of time.
David Holthouse:
Yeah. You know, and it’s interesting too how, like, personal, personal grudges. Right. Can also affect things. I think that George W. Bush was really pissed off that Saddam Hussein had tried to have his dad assassinated. Okay. So I think, like, that actually, that, that personal level animosity actually drove some major foreign policy decisions.
David Holthouse:
Sure.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. It would be, it would be, I think, crazy not to think that it, that it didn’t influence their decisions. All right, so back to the Ukraine based on the information that you’ve developed so far, your take on us helping Ukraine, did it, did it, did it bolster your support or did it weaken your support? As far as the US Helping Ukraine.
David Holthouse:
It definitely spending time in Ukraine, on the ground there definitely bolstered my support for the US Backing Ukraine. And there’s, and I think there’s two aspects to it. One, is it just being ethically and morally the right thing to do? I mean, one of my big questions when I, when I going into Ukraine, and first of all, by the way, as an American citizen, it is shockingly easy to get into Ukraine.
It is, it’s, it’s like you just, you just walk, if you walk across the border from Romania or Moldova or Poland and it’s, it’s easier to get into Ukraine than it is to walk into Tijuana from San Diego. I was like, that’s it, really? Okay, all right, so US Passport, you’re in. Okay. So, not that I’m necessarily encouraging anyone to go through that, but I’m just saying as a matter of practical logistics, it’s very easy to get into Ukraine these days, even, even, you know, in the state of war that’s going on. But one of my first questions going in was, okay, like, there’s an argument out there that Ukraine is basically Russia and that Putin is basically just taking back territory that is culturally and ethnically Russian.
David Holthouse:
And so what’s the big problem? That’s not true, in my opinion. That may be true of some of those eastern territories that, that Russia has taken over. But the part of you, parts of Ukraine that I visited, I’m telling you, like, we Americans have more in common with Canadians than those Ukrainians have in common with Russians.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some, you know, Venn diagram overlap between their cultures. You know, a lot of people in Ukrainians speak Russian, for example, but they are distinct people. And it’s a cliche to describe a populace as being freedom loving people, but it really applies accurately to Ukrainians is what I found. They love the idea of being a free democracy. They are determined to root out the corruption at the highest levels of their government, which continues to be a major problem for them and has been since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
David Holthouse:
And they really like, hold America in high esteem and the idea of a republic and the sort of representative democracy that at least America is striving for in high regard in a way that I haven’t found in, in other former Soviet satellite countries. Okay. Like, I don’t want to just. I don’t want to castigate any other people in general. I’m just saying that, like in Poland or in Russia, I haven’t found the same sort of like, thirst for freedom that I really found among the Ukrainian people. And it was hard there not to.
Also, just the tremendous sense of unity in that country at this point in the war, given how much conflict and division there is in the United States, to be in a place where you can just feel the cohesion among the people was really enthralling and impressive and inspiring to me. And we’ve kind of let them down a few times.
David Holthouse:
Like we, the US Back when they gave up their nuclear arsenal, you know, in the 90s, we assured them, you know, we’ve got your back on this. And then when Russia went into Crimea, you know, in 2014, you know, just to 10 years ago, we, we, you know, basically pleaded, slash, demanded that they stand down and not start fighting and gave them an assurance that we would stop Russia from, from further encroaching on their territory, that we didn’t, we didn’t really stick to that commitment.
So that’s the ethical and moral argument. Just setting that aside, being in Ukraine and having Iranian drones fired in my general direction really kind of opened my mind to, to the dangers of the tendrils of this war that’s going on in the Middle east and this war that’s going on in Ukraine reaching out to one another in a way that could possibly start World War III. Meaning, like, you start to look at things like, okay, Russia is getting drones from Iran and shooting them at Ukraine.
Putin had a delegation from Hamas visit the Kremlin back in March. Okay, there’s Israeli special forces on the ground in Ukraine working with Ukrainian resistance fighters behind enemy lines. It’s like, I’m sorry, as World War 3 started and I didn’t get the memo, I mean, this is, you know, that the points of connection between these two conflicts in different parts of the world.
David Holthouse:
And so I just think, setting aside the whole ethical, moral question, I just think it’s in our interests to help Ukraine tamp this down as, as, as quickly as possible. And I think that the best way to do that is for them to be negotiating with Russia from a point of strength. Look, I don’t think that, I don’t think that Putin’s ever going to give that territory he’s taken back. Okay?
Bert Martinez:
Right.
David Holthouse:
I think Ukraine has lost that. But I got the sense in talking with the people in Ukraine that, that they would be willing to give up that territory. Not all of them, but, but, but a strong majority would be willing to give up that territory because that, those eastern provinces did, they were culturally Russian. Stalin resettled those after there was a huge famine in Ukraine in the middle of the last century.
And those were the first areas that he, he resettled those parts of Ukraine with Russians from the interior of Russia. And so the point being is that Ukrainians believe they could lose those territories and still culturally remain Ukraine. It would sting a little bit economically because there’s some, there’s some valuable natural resources there, but they’re like, look, we could give that up and still be Ukraine, but they’re only going to do that if they have an assurance, security assurance, that Putin’s not going to come back for another bite at the apple in five years. So, but to even negotiate that kind of a settlement where maybe it’s some kind of, kind of like DMZ like we have in North South Korea, it’s not perfect, but it’s worked since the 1950s.
David Holthouse:
It’s kept the peace. Right. And I think that that may be the best, the best, worst option. But to even do that, they need to be negotiating with Putin from a point of strength. They need to be, it needs to be a real stalemate. And, and for that, they needed, they need more. They need artillery shells, they need F16s, they need drones, they need everything we can give them to sort of like, hold Putin at bay. So that’s my take.
David Holthouse:
I know reasonable minds can, can disagree on this. That’s just my opinion after having been there.
Bert Martinez:
And I would say that I, I think that the, the only thing that would concern me would be what you said about Putin coming back five, seven years from now and saying, hey, knock, knock, here I am, I want the other piece now. Right.
David Holthouse:
Right.
Bert Martinez:
And people have made the, the analogy between what Putin’s doing and what Hitler did. And I think it’s, I think it’s a good analogy because, because that was the same reason that Hitler said, hey, I’m just going to take this little territory because originally Poland did belong to us and we lost it or whatever his, his deal was. And, and I’m just going to take this little bit. I’m just going to take this little bit.
And before you know it, he’s taken over France and he was trying to take over Britain. And, and so I think it is a very slippery slope. And I agree with your take. We do have to come.
Bert Martinez:
When I say we, we in the US And Ukraine have to come from A position of strength. And I think that the current administration, their, their strategy. You’ve already said this a couple times. We, we flubbed, we flubbed it a few times. And, and trying to get resource, resources to Ukraine because of, I think it was the Republicans who voted it down once. And, and I can’t remember, but because the fact that, to your point, we’re not, we’re not unified anymore. We have all this. We call it.
Bert Martinez:
We’re, bickering so much within ourselves, there’s so much division. We can’t manage our way out of a paper bag. So, so until, until that changes, I think I, I think it’s going to be, I think it’s mean. I think it’s going to be tough for.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, I mean, I’m from Alaska, and just earlier this week, you know, there was a Russian official that referred to Alaska as our meaning Russia is Alaska. And he wasn’t joking, man. I mean, and then that, that sort of bizarre interview that Putin did with Tucker Carlson wasn’t as bizarre, I think, as a lot of people took it to be. I think that Tucker Carlson was baffled during the first 20 minutes when Putin is, like, laying out all these historical references to history from Centur from the four hundreds to eight hundreds.
But my takeaway from that is that Putin really regards himself as this historical figure that’s destined to return Russia to a state of being an empire. Okay? And to do that, he’s got to start regaining the territory, starting with Ukraine, that, that at various points in history were part of the Russian empire. So in other words, he thinks of himself as a reconquering czar. I think that, that’s, that’s my read on the dude.
David Holthouse:
Meaning that he’s not going to stop unless he’s forced to stop. Okay? There are some commonalities there with, you know, with, with, with, with, with the Third Reich and just driven by the nationalism and not the sort of, you know, genocidal hatred, maybe, but, and I think there’s some validity to the argument that, that we shouldn’t necessarily have been handing out NATO membership cards, you know, like they were Cracker Jack box prizes. Right? I mean, because Lithuania is a NATO country, we have a mutual defense treaty with them. Okay, well, look how close that is to Ukraine. And that’s definitely on, you know, Putin’s snack menu down the road.
So if we let him have Ukraine and then he rolls tanks into a NATO country, then what happens, man? Then we’re faced with either going to war with Russia or throwing the NATO treaty onto a dustbin. Neither of those are good options. That’s not a good look.
Bert Martinez:
No, absolutely correct. And, and a lot of people don’t know this, but at one point Alaska was, was a Russian territory.
David Holthouse:
Right, Sorry, should have said that. Yeah, every Alaska kid learns that in grade school. But yeah, that’s not, that’s not really.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah, I did. Look, I, I didn’t learn that in grade school. I didn’t learn it in American history. I learned it trying to remember, but I only Learned it like 10 years ago and it blew me away. Because you would think that would be brought up at one point.
David Holthouse:
Right.
Bert Martinez:
In high school or wherever you study American history. Oh, by the way. Yeah, this territory, we got that from Alaska.
David Holthouse:
Yeah. And given how much oil there was and remains in Alaska, it was a steal, dude.
Bert Martinez:
It was absolutely. It’s amazing to me. But yeah, that would be, that would be something that again, I would say the average American does not know. I mean, they hear about us.
The history books, at least from what I remember. It talks about when Alaska became a state, but not who we got it from. Which again, I found that to be fascinating.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so I want to talk about something that I found it to be exceptionally brave of you to talk about, and that was what happened to you as a 7 year old kid where unfortunately you got raped. I don’t know how else to say it. You’ve said this a couple of times in, in some of the articles and, and my hat’s off to you. I thought it was very brave because this is something that isn’t talked about very much and, and how, you know, I, I guess my first question is, when did you decide to start talking about this terrible event?
David Holthouse:
Yeah, that’s a good question and I’m going to answer it, but I’ll say it’s a lot easier. So I think it’s a lot more common for victims of childhood sexual assault to speak up now than it was when I first started to address it publicly, which was in 2004, 20 years ago. It’s not necessarily easy, but, but there are far more of us that are, that are out, if you will, as survivors.
But to answer your question, I mean, I always, I’d always kept what happened a secret. What happened was I was, I was raped by the, the teenage son of family friends in the fall of 1978 when I was seven years old. And I never told anyone, you know, and I, I kept it a secret until 2002 when I just sort of Found out by chance that. That the rapist was living in the same. I was living in Denver, and he was living in a suburb of Denver.
David Holthouse:
And for some reason, that just triggered what I now understand to be if my. A full blown, sort of post traumatic stress disorder episode. Sure. And, I mean, I was just like sleepless, nightmares, flashbacks, you know, the whole thing. But I found peace by deciding to kill this man.
Bert Martinez:
I think, by the way, is a very natural thing.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
You know, I’m not. When I. When I read that, I’m going, yeah, that’s what I would have done.
David Holthouse:
Yeah. Well, good. Yeah. You know, I’ve read about how. How about some people sometimes when they decide to commit suicide, they sometimes, like, find a sense of peace, you know, I’m not ever an advocate for suicide, but I will just say that that for me was something similar. When I decided to commit a murder, all of a sudden I felt peaceful. A sense of peace I hadn’t felt in weeks. And so I actually started, you know, plotting to carry this out.
David Holthouse:
The aforementioned Chicano street gang from the 1990s. I traveled. Traveled to Phoenix, and I got a. I got a. A weapon from them that had been altered in such a way by a sort of. Not sort of by one of their gunsmiths. They know how to alter weapons to defeat ballistics and ballistics, you know, forensic ballistics checks. And so I was pretty serious about it.
David Holthouse:
And then just by. By happenstance, my mom and dad were going. They just decided to finally pack up my sort of childhood bedroom at the house I grew up in, Anchorage, Alaska. And they found a diary that I’d written about the rape a few years after it occurred when I was 10 or 11 years old. And they confronted me with the diary in such a way that I didn’t have time to lie. And as soon as I. As soon as they asked me if it was true and I paused for a few seconds, they knew that it was true. Yeah.
David Holthouse:
So. And it turned out that my mom then immediately called the rapist mom and told her what her son had done, et cetera. And so as soon as I knew that, I knew I couldn’t go through this murder plot because my. The whole basis for it was be. There was nothing to tie me to this. There was no obvious motive. There was nothing to connect me to him other than the fact that our parents had been friends in Alaska 25 years ago. So.
David Holthouse:
But as soon as my mom called his mom, it was like, well, you know, I. Now I’m suspect number one. So I Decided to write about it instead. And I wrote a piece called Stalking the Boogeyman that was then later adapted as a play that was, you know, know is played in several cities around the world and you know, was opened off broadway about 10 years ago in 2014.
So yeah, I’m out with it, you know, and I try and be an advocate for survivors and especially male survivors of childhood sexual assault because when I was growing up, one of the reasons that I never told anybody is that there was this sort of stereotype or cliche in our society that persists today that if you are a male survivor of childhood sexual assault, you are almost destined to become an offender yourself. And I, there’s no denying that in many cases that is the truth that, that, that pedophiles were themselves abused as kids, sexually abused as kids.
Bert Martinez:
Right.
David Holthouse:
But I think that there are far more of us, and by us I mean survivors that hurt ourselves rather than hurting other kids. You know, that sort of turn that destructive impulse. Like, I mean there’s a, there’s a lot of self destructive behaviors that are very common to, to victims of childhood sexual assault.
Bert Martinez:
And you think that happens because you’re walking around with guilt and shame and fear and so it’s, is that why you’re hurting yourself?
David Holthouse:
Pain and pain? I think that, I think those that. I don’t know let me be very clear about this. I firm believer in capital punishment for, for childhood people that prey on children. I have. That’s like the one crime that I think is, is, I think it’s the worst crime because it kills whoever that person was going to be if, if you hadn’t done that to them. So I equate it with murder.
Bert Martinez:
But I agree with you. I mean it destroys that person that your child hit. Your childhood ended at seven years old.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, yeah. But what you, what you, the takeaway from, from someone treating you like that is that you’re not worth very much. And I just, I, in my own case, I didn’t place for a lot of, for the first sort of third of my adult life. I didn’t place a lot of value on my own existence. And that was the reason why I was able to undertake a lot of the really dangerous assignments I did. Meaning I see a direct line now from that, from that, that childhood trauma to, to my career path.
Bert Martinez:
It makes total sense to me too because again, if you think you’re worthless or not worth very much, then yeah, it doesn’t matter whether I live or die. I’ll volunteer for something risky and dangerous. Makes to me it makes sense.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I mentioned that that legendary editor of mine, Patty Calhoun, when I came to her with this story idea, I was like, you know, I was raped when I was a kid. I’ve been planning to kill a guy. Now I can’t. I’d like to write about it. Her immediate reaction was, this explains so much about you. I was like, what are you talking about? She’s like, this explains why you are the way you are, Old House, believe me. And I didn’t see it.
David Holthouse:
I was just like, whatever. But then, you know, a little bit further down the road, I, I realized, yeah, she was right. That did, that did explain me at that time so well.
Bert Martinez:
And the thing that fascinated me about the article. So first of all, you’re plotting his, his murder, his death, which I think is, is good. And, but, but then the other thing which I find just as good is that you don’t necessarily forgive him, but in the article, you withhold his name. You give him a break. I, I’ll say that you don’t forgive him, but you kind of give him a break because you could have, you could have used his name and you didn’t talk about this.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, I know. And that was. I. Yeah. The article is called Stalking the Boogeyman. You can find it on my website. I mean, if you just Google it, I’m sure you could find it easily. The article ends with a confrontation between me and the man who, who, who raped me.
David Holthouse:
And I went into. And I had, and I recorded the whole conversation. I had. I was carrying a backpack that had a gun, a different gun, my own gun. And, and, but it was wired for sound. And so I got a recording of the conversation. And I did that because my intention going into that confrontational meeting with him was to get evidence that I could use to convince the newspaper’s lawyers, if not the police, to hold him to account. As it turned out, the statute of limitations had already expired in Alaska.
David Holthouse:
There’s no way he was going to be charged with that rape. But I at least needed to have this evidence for the, for the newspaper’s lawyers in order for them to feel comfortable using his name. But once I met with him, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to use his name anymore. And so again, Patty Calhoun, my editor, said, I mean, it was getting close to deadline, to press deadline. She said, this is what you do, go in a room, write two endings. Write one ending where you name him, and write one ending where you don’t. And we’ll just look at it purely from a storytelling perspective and just decide which feels like a stronger ending. So that’s what we did.
David Holthouse:
And it felt like a stronger ending to, to not naming. Because the idea is, you know, these people are among us and they look, you know, there’s nothing that’s not like they have a scarlet, you know, pee on their forehead for pedophile. Right. It’s like they, they can be anybody and, and they are anybody. Priests, coaches, etc. And so it pays as parents, it pays to be very wary.
Bert Martinez:
Absolutely. I think there’s a video not only on YouTube but on social media. And this gentleman had interviewed a pedophile. And the pedophile basically says, I’m looking for children either with single moms that are busy or, or where fathers are not really involved in. In that child’s life.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And I thought, what an incredible strategy. It makes sense. And in this video should be broadcasted to, you know, in every school, junior high, high school, you know, religious organization, because the, the people that we trust the most are the ones that are going to probably, what do you call it? Rape our children.
David Holthouse:
Yeah. Because unfortunately, like we talked about before, pedophiles seek out access to kids, whether it’s on Hare Krishna commun. Or youth sports league. And it’s just that’s, that’s really, that’s really a drag for all of the, like, good coaches out there. Right. And good youth pastors out there, that they have to fall under sort of a cloud of suspicion. But it would still, you know, behoove any parent to, to, to be very careful your kids spending time with. Now, in my case, I, you know, my dad was very much part of my life.
David Holthouse:
My parents were together, and I don’t think that they were or, you know, that, That I was, that I was in any way deemed vulnerable by this guy. I think he was just an ambush predator. And there are those kinds of pedophiles as well that just like, strike quickly and with violence. And they’re, there’s. They’re. They’re the minority, but that is, some of them have that methodology, which is, in my case was a very violent, you know, sexual assault.
Bert Martinez:
Right.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And on top of that, he, he threatened your life. He threatened your, your family’s life, if I remember the article correctly.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
I mean, so, so not only are you dealing with this trauma, but the added weight, responsibility that this guy could harm my family. He could be telling me the truth. I don’t know. It’s an empty threat or it could be real. And based on the fact that I just had this violent experience, I’m going to lean towards believing the guy.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, well, and, yeah, and when you’re seven too, it’s basically like, this is a monster. I mean, there are monsters, right? There are monsters in the closet. Like all your childhood fears have come to be realized. This is a monster. This is somebody that looked like somebody that was cool and that wanted to hang out with you and that was like a friend of your family that, you know, that quickly could do something, could like rape you, you know, could threaten you with a samurai sword and scare the hell out of you and then, and then violently rape you. And that’s a monster. And so that’s how you conceive of them, perceive them as a kid. And so then when a monster says, I’ll come to your house and kill your parents, you believe them, man, you believe them?
Bert Martinez:
Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, so in the article, and again, correct me if I’m wrong, one of the, one of the things that you talked about is that he had kind of convinced you that this was a, that your experience was one off. I mean, that, that, that he had not done this to anybody else. But, but later on you found out different. And so you eventually do name them in a different article. Is that right?
David Holthouse:
I did. I wrote. It was. Yeah, yeah, that’s right. It was, it was more than a decade later. It was more than. No, it was about a decade later. Sorry, it’s about 10 years later.
David Holthouse:
I wrote a follow up piece called Outing the Boogeyman. And what happened was I, you know, I told him, I wrote, I sent him a letter right before the original article, stalking a Boogeyman was published. I said, look, this article is coming out. I’m not going to name you. I almost, that was my plan, but I’m not going to name you. But there’s enough details in here that it’s going to give your past a good hard shake. And if anybody else comes to me and says that you raped them when they were a kid in Alaska or anywhere else, like, game on, I’m going to write another piece. I’m going to name you.
David Holthouse:
Well, almost a decade passed and I was testifying in support of some anti child abuse legislation in Juneau, which is the capital of Alaska. So I was testifying before a legislative committee. And after I testified, two different people who didn’t know one another came up and one said he also raped me when I was a kid. And the other said he raped my husband and my husband’s brother when they were kids. Wow. And so I, you know, in the one case, the person was saying he raped me. I talked with them, I believed them. In the other case, I went and met with the woman’s husband, didn’t meet with his brother because he didn’t want to talk to me, but met with the woman’s husband, found him to be very credible, thought these people were telling the truth.
And so then I did publish a follow up article in which I, which I named the guy. So. Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
Did anything happen to him? Did he get fired?
David Holthouse:
I don’t know. I don’t know.
Bert Martinez:
Okay.
David Holthouse:
I don’t know. Yeah, I, I know that. The only thing I do know is that he had been involved in youth sports and he was no longer, you know, kind of allowed to do that. That’s the only thing that I know happened as a consequence.
Bert Martinez:
Well, that’s good. That’s it. That you probably saved somebody’s life there. And, and this thing, this law eventually got overturned.
David Holthouse:
Right.
Bert Martinez:
Because if again, I believe there was. You read, I read an article where I think thanks to your help and some of the other people in, in Alaska, the statute of limitations of 10 years is no longer a thing. It’s, it’s, that’s forever.
David Holthouse:
There’s no longer a statute of limitations on, on, on raping kids in Alaska. That’s something that’s a crime that can come that, like murder, you can be charged with at any point for the rest of your life. Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And I wish, I wish that would be adopted nationwide because I think it needs to be treated that harshly.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, I agree with that.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. It’s incredible that, that somebody at a, at a young age would have to deal with that and, and lose their, their childhood and, and then they carry that with them. My, my niece had a similar experience with her grandfather and it was. Both my nieces were molested or abused by their grandfather. So this goes to show what you’re talking about. This is anybody.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And, and what was so interesting is that one of my nieces was able to put it in a box. And, and, and when she finally talked about it, she was very matter of factly, she said, mom, this is what happened to me. I, I’ve dealt with it. I’ve moved on, I’ve locked it up. I’m, I’m good to go. The, the, my other niece, who was the younger one Took two. Substance abuse.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And, and unfortunately ended up passing away. She fell asleep at the wheel and passed away that way. But it’s just something, that one incident for my younger niece changed her life, changed the trajectory. A very happy, like all kids are, most kids are very happy. Even when you look at something, these kids that are grown, that they’re having to grown up in, in a war torn country. Right. As long as they have family, they tend to be happy people.
David Holthouse:
Bert Martinez:
But this one event, when they get sexually abused or raped or it, it changes, it takes that happiness away. And so, yeah, I think a national, a national law making that a, that statute of limitations forever, I think that’s, that would be a great help for a lot of people.
David Holthouse:
Yeah. I mean the damage that it does to society is tremendous. I mean, if you look at, if you look at drug addicts, if you look at criminals, if you look at homeless people, you’ll find in many if not most cases a history of childhood trauma and very often childhood sexual trauma. That’s just the truth, man. So it’s, it creates very, very damaged people. Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
Yes, I agree, I agree. And it’s, again, it’s something that our politicians are slow to act on.
David Holthouse:
Yeah. And I just, I mean, look, man, when I was a kid, 70s, 80s, it was frankly taboo to even kind of talk about it in the way that you and I are right now. So there’s been progress in that. I think it’s probably kids, at least when they become adults, have more of an opportunity or an invitation to deal with it openly. Even if it’s just dealing with it internally, with themselves, about what happened to them in a way that they understand that it’s not, tragically, it’s not at all a rare occurrence. It’s actually quite common. Yeah, absolutely. Still, it’s kind of a terrible secret that we all conspired to, to, to keep under the surface because it’s very uncomfortable to talk about.
Bert Martinez:
I agree. I think, I think that it’s, I, I think it’s one of those things that first of all, people don’t know how to bring it up. And so if you don’t know how to bring it up, how do you know? You know, then you don’t know how to talk about it.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And just, just plain sex, good, normal sex for most people is a hard subject to approach. I got to talk to my kids about the birds and the bees. How do I do that? You know, and so if you can’t, if you can’t approach normal sex, then Approaching a rape is almost a non starter.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
All right, I wanna again thank you for sharing that story. I think it helps people and I, I hope everybody will. I don’t know, just make a note that their pedophiles are all over the place. Their grandfathers, their priests, they’re, you name it, they’re everywhere. And we have to be very vigilant when it comes to our children. All right, so I want to talk about one of your other projects which I found rather confusing just because the name of the project is Sasquatch. It’s on Hulu.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And so I thought it was going to be about another assassin. Yeah. Bigfoot. Bigfoot. And it kind of is. But talk about this. It’s a very interesting take. It’s a, the, it’s, it’s three episodes, they’re about an hour or so each.
Bert Martinez:
But, but give us the background story.
David Holthouse:
Because I, I just so, I mean it’s, it. When I was in 1993, for a very short time, I worked on a dope farm, weed farm in the Emerald Triangle. The Emerald Triangle is the region, Northern California that’s, you know, famous slash infamous for growing really high grade weed. So it’s Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt counties. That’s the Emerald Triangle. And I was in northern Mendocino county working on a weed farm and there was all this sort of like chatter among the, the, the, you know, they call them trimmigrants because these, these kids like show up during harvest season, you know, to work on weed farms, helping the harvest and trim the buds for sale.
And there was all this chatter about like how this, there was this, you know, sort of hostile band of Sasquatch that had been, that had been like harassing weed growers especially that had had weed farms way back, you know, up in the woods, well off the road system, where they’d have to hike in with backpacks and stuff. And there was just all these rumors basically that there were these hostile, you know, Sasquatch that were, that were harassing you know, marijuana farmers.
And, and then one night there was. I was at a house for. These guys showed up and they claimed that they had just been at the site where, where they’d found three guys dead on a weed farm. And they clearly been killed by a Sasquatch. And I didn’t at the time. I was like, I don’t think that probably a Sasquatch killed three people, but I think these guys, these guys seem freaked out enough that I Think they may have just seen three dead bodies. I didn’t think that they were just, you know, pulling some kind of hoax, let’s put it that way. And so I just kind of like filed it away as a bizarre experience and didn’t think about it until about four years ago.
David Holthouse:
Kind of was at a position in my career where I could, where I could was fishing around for the next idea, for the next, next series to work on. It was like, well, I wonder what’ll happen if I, if I, you know, try and find out if there’s any validity to that, to that story or find or. There was clearly there was a lot of chatter about violent Sasquatches in northern Mendocino county in 19. The fall of 1993. And there was these guys that claimed that they’d seen three victims that have been killed by a Sasquatch.
So I was like, well, I’ll, I’ll just, I’ll. I’ll start making some calls and see if I can find anybody else that heard this story. And after a bunch of dead ends, I started to hit on people that were like, yeah, you know, I, I heard that story and as a matter of fact, I know I know something more about what the truth behind that, that legend of the three dead bodies killed by a Sasquatch is.
And so I don’t want to, I don’t want to say any more other than to say, go watch it on Hulu. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the premise of the show is like trying to track down the source of this. Source of this legend.
Bert Martinez:
And it’s done very well. So I, I’m going to put all the, all the different shows and the, all the different links to your shows here on the, on the podcast. Because the, the Sasquatch one is, is riveting from, you know, from the very get go. I think within like three or four minutes, you get hooked and you want to know, okay, what’s going on?
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so I gotta ask you as a. Were you trimming the, the pot plants? What were you doing?
David Holthouse:
I wasn’t actually trimming buds. I was just sort of tending to plants. I mean, I think it was the particular farm I was at, it was. Some of it was moving plants into new, you know, spaces where they could then be harvested. And, and it was a lot of my, I was unskilled labor. Okay. It was unskilled labor just moving, you know, potted weed plants around to different, you know, locations, basically. Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
Okay. All right, all right. So guys, check it out. It’s Sasquatch, it’s on Hulu. You’ll find it very entertaining. And, and it goes by really quick. I, I want to ask you about your grandfather. This was one of these little pearls that I wasn’t expecting.
Bert Martinez:
So talk about your grandfather there in Kansas City.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, so my dad, when I was in Ukraine in, in, in February and March, my dad died actually. And so I am. His death freed me to talk about this because I made my dad a promise. And that promise was I wouldn’t talk about this publicly until he was gone. Now he’s gone and I’m free to talk about it publicly. So here we go. And this was a family mystery. I’m like, I’m meaning my, my grandfather’s on my dad’s side identity or who he was or how he lived his life.
David Holthouse:
It was just a real, like he didn’t talk about it, you know, not only with my, with my mom and dad, but even like, you know, extended family. I could, I just sensed as a kid it was a no go zone. And once I became an adult, I started to pick up, you know, pieces of information here and there.
And then once I became an investigative journalist, you know, I figured out how to like dig for records and you know, how to work within law enforcement archives, etc. So. And then finally, very late in his life, my dad opened up about, about his father. So the upshot is this, is that my dad, who’s, or my grandfather rather my dad’s dad, whose name was Carlton Holthouse, was a, there’s no other way to put it, was a gangster. He worked in the Kansas City outfit.
David Holthouse:
He’s his, he, he grew up on, on a farm and his fam. Family was fairly prosperous. But then his father, my great grandfather, was killed in a train accident. And then the Great Depression hit and so suddenly my grandfather, Carlton Holthouse went from being, he was kind of like the man of the house all of a sudden and the Depression hit and farming was no longer the, you know, no longer providing economically. So he somehow he, he started playing in high stakes poker games in Kansas City.
And somehow that parlayed that into becoming a member of Al Capone’s outfit in Kansas City. And he, in the, in the early 40s, he had robbed some post offices and post offices back then they had these kind of money orders, but they’re more like bearer bonds. It was like a certificate that you could immediately exchange for cash with no questions asked.
David Holthouse:
So it’s a modern equivalent today of a bearer bond. And so post Offices were like banks. They were frequently robbed. And he’d robbed a series of post offices. The cops were after him. And he had stashed my mom, my dad, and my grandmother at a farmhouse in Missouri. And he. And told him to wait there.
David Holthouse:
And the plan was, is that they were going to run to Alaska. And they were there for a couple weeks and he showed up to get them with a partner of his, partner in crime. And the cops had laid an ambush and there was a shootout. And my grandfather was caught and was. Went to prison for a long time. His partner, however, got away and did run up to Alaska. And I don’t, you know, and became one of kind of the founding fathers of Alaska. I mean, and then the first.
David Holthouse:
The first clue about any of this that I got was in the late 80s, this guy, my grandfather’s partner, died. And when he died, the governor of Alaska ordered that the flag statewide be flown at half mast to honor him. Wow. And my dad that night got drunk and let a few things slip. You know, I mean, he thought it was funny, but also it triggered something in him, you know, his own childhood trauma. And he like, had a few whiskeys more than he usually did and like, let a few things slip about his grandfather. And that was when I first kind of like got on the case, if you will. Yeah.
David Holthouse:
But I, The. The more. Look, I. My whole career has been based around the fact that. That. That criminals feel comfortable around me. That’s true in Sasquatch.
That’s true with the street gangs, with. Even with the neo Nazis. I just. And I think that if I hadn’t been a journalist or a storyteller, documentary filmmaker, I probably would have been a criminal of some kind. And the more I found out about my grandfather, the more that made sense to me. I think it’s literally in my blood.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah, to me it makes sense too. And what’s interesting about your grandfather is that he’s not the only grandfather gangster out there. I mean, you look at the JFK family, right? Father, grandfather to some, but Joseph Kennedy was also an outlaw.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And let me tell you, when you’re an outlaw and you’re making that kind of money as an outlaw, I bet you he, you know, besides being a bootlegger, there’s. He probably did a few other things to protect his territory.
David Holthouse:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
I mean, because it’s the old saying, right? When. When drugs are involved, guns are. Guns are there to, you know, to enforce.
David Holthouse:
Yeah, yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And so you got drugs. In this case it was alcohol, but still, it was a, it was an illegal substance, which means you also have cash. Somebody’s carrying a gun.
David Holthouse:
Oh, yeah. I mean, I found, I found some letters, you know, some family. Some letters between my great grandmother Carlton’s mom and other family members in which she was lamenting the influence of, of a guy that she called Jelly over my grandfather.
And I am not 100 sure, but I’m 95 sure that that’s a reference to a guy by the name of Jelly Bean Nelson who was, I mean, some people have heard the Kansas City massacre, that was a big shootout between cops and Kansas City gangsters at the, at the train station in Kansas City. That’s still there. And so I, you know, that’s the latest avenue that I’m investigating, but I’m pretty sure that, that, that, that my grandfather is working with Jelly Bean Nelson, who was very violent gangster.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. That’s incredible. David, I’ve had such a great time getting to know you and learning about, you know, your background and some of the stuff that you’ve done. It’s exhilarating, to say the least. And I, you know, you have one of these careers that you, that is probably never, ever going to be boring because you can, you’re, you’re always going to a different place and starting not necessarily a new life, but almost a new life. Right. Because once you embed yourself in these subcultures, it is a brand new beginning.
David Holthouse:
Yeah. I mean, that’s one of the one things that really drew me to journalism and then by extension, documentary filmmaking is, it’s like an all excellent says pass to places that you would never otherwise go and meeting people that you would never otherwise meet, you know? Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
So that’s incredible. Thank you, thank you so much for stopping by and, and I’d love to have you back again.
David Holthouse:
Sounds good.
Bert Martinez:
Thanks, David. All right, man, we’re out.
David Holthouse:
Okay, good.
Bert Martinez:
Thank you so much. I appreciate that I’m just a, just like I said, I’m amazed at the different things that you’ve done and, and I appreciate it.
David Holthouse:
Thank you, man. Yeah, enjoyed it.
Bert Martinez:
All right, have a good one. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye.
