Caroline Fraser: Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose book Murderland investigates a possible link between lead and heavy-metal pollution in the Pacific Northwest and the region's surge of serial killers. She grew up near Tacoma during the 1970s killings.
What this episode covers
Caroline Fraser explains the thesis of Murderland: that lead and arsenic pollution from smelters and leaded gasoline may have contributed to the spike in violent crime and serial killers from the 1970s through the 1990s. She traces the Asarco smelter in Tacoma, the Guggenheim and Rockefeller mining interests, and corporations like Standard Oil and DuPont that knowingly spread leaded gas. The conversation connects Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway, and Richard Ramirez to lead-contaminated childhood environments and reviews the science linking lead and cadmium to aggression, lowered IQ, and frontal-cortex damage. Rogan and Fraser broaden out into broader environmental harms: DDT, fluoride, microplastics, PFAS forever chemicals, gas stoves, and corporate cover-ups. The episode repeatedly returns to the theme of companies profiting while knowingly poisoning communities.
Recommended on this episode
Peaky Blinders
Steven Knight
“it makes me really think about Peaky Blinders. You ever watch that show? It's one of my favorite series of all time. It's so good.”— Joe Rogan
The guest's own work
Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers
Caroline Fraser
“the book's called Murderland. Yeah, the the book is Murderland. And, um, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s”— Caroline Fraser
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Dune
Frank Herbert
“Frank Herbert who wrote Dune he was from Tacoma and in fact the stuff in Dune about the pollution and what has happened to the planet”— Caroline Fraser
The Stranger Beside Me
Ann Rule
“Anne Rule, the woman who wrote the first uh book about Ted Bundy, who knew Ted Bundy. She she worked with him uh at a rape crisis clinic.”— Caroline Fraser
Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History
Suzanne Humphries
“Have you ever read dissolving illusions? uh Suzanne Humphre wrote this book about and one of the aspects of the book is about DDT”— Joe Rogan
Lucifer Curves: The Legacy of Lead Poisoning
Rick Nevin
“Rick Nevin. Um he wrote this uh book called Lucifer Curves. Um see those which contain all these these different graphs that show this.”— Caroline Fraser
Countdown
Dr. Shanna Swan
“Dr. Shannon Swan from Harvard who wrote a book called Countdown. It's all talking about how the phalates and these microplastics entering into women's bodies”— Joe Rogan
The Crown
Peter Morgan
“it was like there was a whole episode of the crown that was devoted to this. Um it was while Winston Churchill was prime minister.”— Caroline Fraser
Big reveals from this episode
- Fraser's central claim: lead pollution from smelters and leaded gas may be tied to the Pacific Northwest's cluster of serial killers.
- You can look up Ted Bundy's childhood home on a GIS map and see how much lead and arsenic was in his yard.
- In 1974 Fraser found at least six active serial killers working the Seattle / I-5 corridor at the same time.
- After a 1973 filter fire, Idaho's Bunker Hill smelter did a back-of-napkin calculation valuing nearby kids' lives at ~$11 million each and kept operating.
- Children in Kellogg, Idaho averaged 50 micrograms/deciliter of lead in blood; the CDC concern level was five.
- Fraser's own Mercer Island neighborhood produced serial killer George Russell, an arsonist who killed firefighters, and other violent classmates.
- Rick Nevin's graphs show violent crime rising with leaded gas then 'falling off a cliff' after lead was removed.
- Glass water bottles can leach MORE microplastics than plastic ones, due to paint on the caps.
Worth remembering
- Leaded gas had safer alternatives like ethanol, but they couldn't be patented or sold profitably, so corporations chose lead.
- Thomas Midgley invented both leaded gasoline and CFCs, then died strangled in a pulley harness he built after lead-related illness.
- Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, grew up in El Paso near an Asarco smelter, not in Los Angeles.
- Eating one freshwater fish can equal roughly a month of drinking PFAS-contaminated 'forever chemicals' water.
- MRI studies show lead-related frontal-cortex damage is more marked in men than women.
- Fraser claims 95-99% of polio infections are asymptomatic, suggesting some 'polio' cases were actually DDT poisoning.
- London's Great Smog of 1952 was so thick people were killed crossing the street; a Clean Air Act pollutant cut added 1.6 years to average American life.
- Humans reportedly carry roughly a spoon's worth of accumulated microplastics in their brains.
- Gary Ridgway grew up near SeaTac when jet fuel was leaded, then worked painting trucks with lead-based paint.