I Sat Down With A Killer

28:04So he told me that he wrestled my older brother, Jay. And he wrestled my next door neighbor, Jeff. Jeff and Jay were inseparable. They were same age, same grade, in the scouts together. and he says to me, I wrestled Jeff and Jay. Let's see how tough you are. And I'm like, okay. And at first he would let me dominate, let's say, get the upper hand on him. And then like I said, that light switch would go off and his eyes would turn dark and black and he would pin me to the ground and he'd get his hulking 265 pound body on top of me and start gyrating and moving and grooving and looking back on it at the time, not really realizing what he was doing, but he was erect.

29:10And this was getting him off. And you're 11, so you're tiny. I was 10 when that started happening, When the wrestling started. I mean, he's like three, four, five times your size. Yeah. I mean, because of – I was a sick little kid when I was young. Like, you know, I was in the hospital constantly with the flu and bronchitis and anything because of the hole in my heart. They would put me into the hospital immediately. I'd be in an oxygen tent. And, you know, so I was constantly in the hospital, and I had to be careful for a long while after surgery with playing. There was some limitations put on me by the doctors, you know.

29:59So I was just a small little kid back then, sick kid. And this guy just took advantage of that. And he could tell I was insecure because my scar made me stand out. And they look for something to separate the weak from the pack, like any predator does. And my scar and my insecurities about it is how he separated me from the pack. And wrestling was the next avenue of physical touch. He's devoted four years now of stories and secrets, alcohol, pornography, and now it's time to get back to touch. There's a part where in your book, your memoir, you talk about how he pinned you down and he says something along the lines of like, come on, you can get out.

30:58Come on, squirm. Do you feel like he is getting off on you struggling? or yeah yeah it's exactly what he was doing you know he he would he would get me down you know like i would be in the dominating position on top of him and and then all of a sudden the light switch goes and he would get rough with me and like sort of throw me down my 10 year old body throw me down and get on top and be commanding me to try harder to get out, squirm more, move more, you know, because he's wanting me to move against him and what he has going on. He comes over for Christmas. What does he get you as a Christmas present?

31:46I had a Boy Scout hunting knife is what they were called. And he brought me a whetstone sharpening kit to sharpen the hunting knife. And over him drinking a glass or two of eggnog at our house, he taught me over the next hour, keep the blade at an 18-degree angle, how to drive it across the stone, the oil you got to use. And then he would have me do it and taught me how to get a perfect blade on my hunting knife. And that was something I kept perfectly sharp my whole life. The hunting knife? Yeah. What happens when you're 12? And what happens to Dennis's dog as well? I know that there was like a hunting ploy excuse of like, you're going to pretend to be shot in the woods because my buddy shoots everyone without thinking.

32:56So at 12, he concocted this whole big hunting ruse of having a friend who just shot and aimed and shot without knowing if it was safe to shoot. And he said, we've got to correct my friend from this bad habit, and I'm going to use you as a decoy out in the woods. You're going to be laying there with fake blood on you, and I'm going to take him out hunting, and he's going to do his typical shoot, and then we're going to come upon you lying there with fake blood. And you need to practice gurgling sounds, like you're gurgling blood, your death rattle, he called it. You have to practice your death rattle.

33:42So he got me down at the lake one day, got me back to his house. We're going to practice your death rattle at the house. And instead of offering me beer, he offered me blackberry brandy, you know, a glass of blackberry brandy with a beer. And he told me to chug it. And then he gave me another thing of brandy. and his house was it was a summer day but his house was like way hotter inside than outside and then in my adult mind now looking back i'm like did he have his heat on did he like purposely turn his heat on in his house to make it sweltering knowing what he had concocted like i say with a predator you never know what they're thinking so his house is boiling we're sweating he wants me to lay down on his bed to practice my breathing and it goes to it's so hot in here let's just take our shirt and pants off our shorts off and then it goes to he's behind me has me in a bear hug and I'm screaming, I'm crying.

35:05And he had a dog, which is called a coonhound. And coonhounds have this long, drawn-out howl, they do. And as I'm being I hear his dog howling away Because of my cries and screams And it didn't stop this guy Until he was done Doing what he wanted to do with me And afterwards He sat me down at his kitchen table And got another beer Like Almost like we were two lovers Who just had a romantic Tryst together and he brought his dog over to me and said, I want to show you what will happen to you if you ever open your mouth about what just occurred. And he started to beat his dog and beat his dog. And I'm crying and screaming and begging him to please stop, to please stop.

36:11And he wouldn't until the dog lay in a heap at my feet.

36:19Now, I was just contacted just two days before this interview by a gentleman who, when he was 17 years old, needed a place to stay. And he stayed at Dennis Pegg's house for six months. and he said it was the most bizarre six months of his life he said the guy was a complete freak he said one thing that happened though is he got now when he was 17 he's 10 years older than me i would have been seven back then when he me would be five years later so this dog would be five years old. And this guy said, Dennis got this coon hound puppy when I lived with him, and it peed on the rug, and he beat the puppy so bad we had to take it to the vet to save its life.

37:18So even as a puppy, he beat it for simply doing what puppies do and peed on a rug. and then this is the same dog five years later that he beat and probably killed in front of me. You never saw the dog again? No. And a lady, a female guard who worked with him at the jail, told me how Dennis came in one day, all distraught, that his beloved coonhound dog, Duke, died. and we all gave him hugs and tears and we all loved dogs we were all dog people and she goes i am horrified to think that's because of what he did in front of you that he killed duke it says in your book that you felt guilty over what happened to the dog is that uh he only i i I felt he only did that to Duke because of my cries and screams.

38:28And if I hadn't cried and screamed during the...

38:36That, uh... What he did to Duke wouldn't have happened. Do you still feel that way, or...? Yeah. I mean, he might have had that planned. And, well, he couldn't determine if Duke was going to cry or not. Like I said, with a predator, you never know.

38:59But, yeah, I still feel guilty for Duke. Do you feel like Duke had more humanity than Dennis in that moment? I feel Duke and I were the only two in that room who had humanity. And that's saying a lot, since Duke's a dog.

39:23Dennis, I feel, lost his humanity a long time ago. As soon as you dedicate your life to hunting children, you really can't say you have humanity. That's pure evil to me. If you're going to define what the devil is, The devil is really the guy with a smile on his face who's charismatic, outgoing, friendly, charming, who everybody loves, who's involved in all these organizations, who's on the historical board, but who's only doing those things to fool people of his true nature. What changed after that day? My life was forever altered after that day. my whole trajectory in life changed that day. Nothing would be the same.

40:21I would tell myself that talking about what just happened would be reliving it, and we were never going to do that. We could just bury this down deep inside and go about our life. I convinced myself that that's what I could do. I led the most exhausting life because I would crank on a smile to the world. And inside, I was completely broken and destroyed. And I went through that way my whole life until I couldn't keep it up any longer. How many years passed since you're 12 and then the day that you see Dennis Pegg at QuickCheck? I was 45 when I saw him at the Quick Check. So you're talking 33 years.

41:1333 years, he's probably still hunting kids. Yes. And then there is a day that comes where you effectively hunt the hunter. You step into Quick Check. What happens there? It's like a gas station. It's a convenience store. Yeah, this one was just a convenience store. They have gas stations now. They're a lot larger. But this was just a convenience store in a little four-store mall. I'm getting a coffee. I'm at the Coffee Island making a coffee. The front door opens. I think it had a bell on it, so it made me look up. And I look up, and I look into Dennis Pegg's eyes. He sees me, and he yells out to me, Hey, how are you, buddy?

42:03And I instantly start going into a panic attack. I can tell just by the way he said, Hey, buddy, that he's going to come over to me. I had seen Dennis around our town over those 33 years. I recall once in a bar after college, me and my buddies were in a bar, and as soon as we ordered a beer, I get a pat on my shoulder, and it's Dennis Pegg. And I chug my beer, and I tell my buddies, we're going. There's no shame. No remorse, no shame, no guilt. Yeah, the predators, yeah, they don't ever show that. so so i had seen him around town but it had been probably 10 years since i saw him and what was different this time in that quick check which completely unraveled me was that he had a young boy by his side probably close to the age he me at and that young boy called him the same nickname Dennis used to make me call him.

43:21And I heard that nickname and I saw that young boy and I just, it just ripped open everything for those 33 years that I told myself I could bury down and go about my life. When he would touch me, I would freeze. I would stiffen like a board and I felt my muscles like it's like a paralysis and i felt that coming on me and i i felt it hard to breathe and the thoughts in my mind just like your mind starts swirling where you can't even think and i'm like i gotta get out of here before i completely freeze and this guy like grabs me and I just left my coffee and whatever stuff I had on the island there and I ran out past him.

44:14We sort of shoulder bumped a little and he's like, where are you going? Where are you going, buddy? Come here. And I ran out and I hopped in my truck and I sped out of the parking lot and I went down the road and my life unraveled.

44:33Just completely unraveled. Do you think you saw yourself in the little boy? Or you just felt protective of the little boy? I couldn't get out of my mind over the next months that boy and wondering what part of the grooming process is he. Is he being shown Polaroid pictures? Is he having beers in his truck? Is he at the wrestling stage? Is he teaching his buddy how to shoot right in the woods by lying there with fake blood on him and doing the death rattle in his bed? It haunted me. I couldn't even work any longer. I was in business with my brother. We had Tire Automotive Center. And I walked out one day, and I just couldn't go to work anymore.

45:26I was having to drink before work just to go into work. Instead of filling my coffee mug with coffee, I was so out of sorts. I'm filling it with alcohol, and I'm doing other drugs.

45:43So I walked out of the business with my brother, and now I've got free time on my hand, which is never good when you have trauma. And I've got Dennis Pegg in the forefront of my mind. I've got that little boy in the forefront of my mind. And I had zero coping skills throughout my whole life. Mindfulness. All these foreign terms. I never incorporated it. I just dove headfirst into drugs and alcohol, literally around the clock. Just one drug on its own wasn't enough. So I'm just taking any drug I can get to try to numb myself, to try to block the thoughts from. You start unraveling after quick check.

46:34But then there's a guy that you see smirking. Who is this guy? You see him smirking on TV. What happens? Yeah, I was in bad shape. I wasn't sleeping much because of all the pain I'm doing. And I put on my TV, and it's Jerry Sandusky, the start of his molestation trial. Jerry Sandusky was one of the coaches at Penn State University. And he was running a football camp for young boys and over the course of years, decade plus, molesting boys at his football camp. He was finally facing trial for that. And his trial was starting on June 12th of 2012. And I saw him on the news get out of his lawyer's car and smirking and buttoning his coat jacket.

47:35I don't know what else to say. And I just started yelling curses at my TV and spitting on my bedroom floor. because I saw Dennis Pegg as him. I felt Dennis Pegg was never going to face justice. It's like a similar smirk that they have? Yeah, you know, they can never let their guard down. They'll never apologize to you. Victims always reach out to me and say, I want to go confront my abuser. And I'm just like, don't. You're going to get re-abused because they'll never give you the answer you want to hear. It's not worth your time. And so they keep that air about them. Dennis Pegg in that deli calls out to me like we're best friends.

48:25I'm a victim of his. Like what are you doing? And Sandusky's getting out smirking as his trial's starting. And that just infuriated me. I spent the rest of the day out with a couple friends drinking and me sneaking drugs I gotta go out and make a phone call in my truck I'll be right back and I'd go out and do coke and pop his necks I had someone, I stopped at an Italian restaurant on the way home that night, I was meeting a buddy at my house who I had lent money to and he was going to power wash the cedar siding of my house and stain it as repayment. So I was meeting him at home, but I stopped at this Italian restaurant and there was a guy in there who burned me on a business deal, a motorcycle deal.

49:25I took out a$33 ,000 loan to have him build me this custom motorcycle and he took the money, my money and a couple other people's money and closed up shop in the middle of the night, then left town. And all of a sudden, here he was in this Italian restaurant. So I went up to him and had words with him. And he was with his family. So I said, out of respect for your family, I'm not going to take this any further, but you've got to pay me. And he just told me to get lost. So I get home and I tell my buddy about seeing that guy. And we unloaded the equipment first and we're having a glass of wine at the kitchen table.

50:12And my buddy goes to me, that guy's got to be number one on your hit list.

50:21And it's been 33 years since I was, and I've never told anyone. and for whatever reason, I couldn't stop the words coming out of my mouth. I just said, actually, he's number two on my hit list. The piece of garbage who me as a young boy is number one. And there it's out for the first time. The air was like heavy, like time stopped. The clock stopped on the wall. And we're just like you and I are sitting across from each other on a table and we're just staring at each other. And he's like, are you for real? Are you messing with me? So this is the first time in 30 years that you tell anyone. Yeah, yeah.

51:05To be exact, 33 years. Yeah. You tell Bob, it just happens. You don't even decide. It's not like. Yeah, it just came out before I could even like stop my mouth from speaking. You know, I was just so tired and exhausted and beaten down from drugs. and seeing that other guy inflamed me at the Italian restaurant. And it just came flying out. Who is the first to talk, you or Bob? Bob, as I recall, is the first to say, like, are you for real? And I'm like, yeah, I'm for real. And then he's like, who is he? I'm like, he was my Boy Scout leader. and like where did it happen when did it happen you know so i'm just saying you know and he's like where does he live and i'm like you know he lives like two miles from here and um i think at that point i said to him you know what it's time to go confront this guy you know um ever since seeing him with that boy in that quick check i've just been haunted and i'm like it's time to go confront him now dennis dennis peg he had retired uh from the sheriff's department but he was still the firearms instructor every everybody in law enforcement has to get recertified with their handgun every year and he was the firearms instructor for two counties sussex and morris so every cop every sheriff's officer had to go to him to get recertified so the guy was a complete gun nut and i told bob that and i said we ought to take something with us i gave bob a steak knife and i went under my bed to where i kept that boy scout hunting knife he taught me how to sharpen and i grabbed that now stephanie Basically, this was a suicide mission, you know, a steak knife, a hunting knife against a guy who had 33 guns in his house.

53:19Shotguns, rifles, and over a dozen handguns. If you were doing what he was doing for 45 years, you would think he would have a gun at the ready under every table, on every armrest, on every couch cushion. you would think like my time you know i'm i'm rolling i'm rolling the dice here 45 years in i better i better be ready so it should have been a suicide mission when i went there what did bob say to you made that suggestion i just handed him the knife and i said i'm gonna go get my hunting knife and uh and that was pretty much it it wasn't you know it wasn't like that long drawn out thing where we're crossing our t's and dotting our i's and this is how this is gonna happen and that's how that's gonna happen it was just like i'm like let me just go confront this piece of garbage you know and uh we'll take these with us and it's a six inch hunting knife right yeah was that the biggest knife you had or was it more so poetic justice because he was teaching you to sharpen that specific knife or you had like no thoughts you're like let me just grab I would think it's subconscious poetic justice.

54:36You know, like, take this with you, you know. So you have no plan, just a knife. You guys drive to Dennis's house. At what point are you like, maybe this is not a good plan? No, just like I said, he had a long driveway. It had a 90-degree turn in it. Bob pulled up there and at the 90-degree turn stopped, went up the driveway. His front door was open, and there he is sitting. He had a storm door. It's a summer night, so the storm door's shut. I mentioned earlier the definition of a devil. Well, to me, it looked like the devil sitting in his lair. That's all I saw. But seeing him, this is the first time I'm back at that house in 33 years since what happened with me and the dog.

55:27I never went back to that house. And I instantly started going to that panic attack again. Just breathing got real hard. And I feel like rigor mortis in my muscles. And before I completely froze, I walked up to his door, that storm door, and ripped it open, broke the hinge. and I'm standing in his doorway. It's 9.30, quarter to 10 at night and there's somebody you ripped in your doorway who just ripped open your door and he casually looks over his shoulder at me and goes, hey, how are you? And it just seemed like the most incredulous thing to say in that moment. But again, they can never let their guard down.

56:28Like, a normal person would like get on their hands and knees and start praying like, oh my god, I wronged you. I'm so sorry. I know why you're here. Please forgive me. I'm sick. I need help. Come in. Let's talk. No. No. Do you think if he did that, anything would be different?

56:57If someone's down on their hands and knees praying to you, praying at you, begging for forgiveness, I would think so. So he just says, hey. How are you? What happens next?

57:17We all have two faces. The face we show the world and the face behind closed doors. I've been showing the world that one face. And no one for 33 years has seen the face behind closed doors. Dennis is now going to see my other face. The face filled with rage. The face filled with hate. The face filled with anger. And I said, hey, how am I? Let me show you how the hell I am. And I raced across his room. He stood up and a violent struggle started. I started slashing at him with the knife. He started punching me. A violent, bloody brawl ensued. at one point he connected with a you know he's still this monster poking guy and he connects with a square shot to my jaw and as I'm falling down I grab his shirt to keep from falling down and I bring the knife down and that's when I'm holding his shirt and that's where it goes straight through and straight out and in into his skin just a little

58:45we continue going at it and i mean we're talking minutes here it's not it's not like a long drawn-out thing you know maybe three four minutes two minutes three minutes it was quick and he slips in the blood and he falls down and it's a mix of our blood you know like i'm gushing blood now and he's up against the wall i leaned down in front of him i got eye to eye with him and i said it's not so fun little boys now is it dennis and i slit his throat and bob was standing in the doorway wide-eyed and i said go get the van and bring it up because I had one more thing I wanted to do. I walked over to the bedroom.

59:36He ripped me in and I spit on the bed. The answer to everyone's question is, did this solve everything? No, it didn't solve everything. you don't heal from trauma by adding more trauma you don't heal from sexual abuse by murdering someone it's not how you heal i stopped the predator from ever harming another young boy 45 years was long enough of raising young boys um it should never have came to that it would be uncovered that multiple boys over the years had come forward and filed lawsuits against him and he got out from every one of them but i did what i did and i knew walking out of his house that night that my life was over you can't have the wound i have and just show up at a hospital and be like, I was cutting a steak and drove a six-inch hunting knife through my hand and severed all the ligaments and tendons.

1:00:47I need help. Did you think about doing that, though? I knew it wasn't an option. I just knew things were never going to be the same again. So at no point during this altercation, and I know minutes are brief, but at no point he doesn't apologize no there was just the only words he said was hey how are you and throughout the whole attack he made like a high-pitched squeal he never uttered a word like stop let's talk don't do this nothing there was no words just a high-pitched squeal like a like a wounded animal almost Not one other word other than that initial thing when I was standing in his doorway.

1:01:39Did you feel like you were in control of your movements at that time? Or did you feel like you were watching from the outside in? Or you were just like on autopilot? What is that? Yeah, I definitely wasn't in control of my movements.

1:01:55It was like something had taken over my body. and uh man would i would i be honest if i said i had an out-of-body experience during that no i wouldn't be honest but it was like that it was like it was like looking at at this real going on and and just like that's how i when i look back at it like i just i can't believe what happened I can't believe that I got to that point of brokenness to go do that and potentially flush my whole life away just from never healing from trauma. It's keeping the secret and not addressing it and not trying to grow from it or heal from it or learn from it or do anything other than let it just poison my system for decades.

1:02:53And that's what it did. And that's the part that I look back on now, and I'm just like, man, I probably would have died of a drug overdose. And everybody would have been like, oh, my God, Clark had a great education, and he was so popular. And what did he go die of a drug overdose from? I mean, that's where my life was headed.

1:03:25Are you saying that even when you killed Dennis, you didn't even feel a moment of relief? No, there was no relief because of the wound I had, because of how gory and horrific killing someone was. Again, I don't view Dennis as having humanity, but it hurts your soul to kill somebody. It's not therapeutic in any way. It's not healing. It damages your psyche. It damages your soul. It hurts. And I had to be completely broken to go do that. Do you have nightmares about it? No. You never think about it? No, I don't give him. Again, if I killed an innocent person, that would haunt me. If I killed a human, that would haunt me.

1:04:28I don't view Dennis as an innocent person or a human. Why did you walk to the bedroom? That was to go spit on the bed he ripped me in. At what point were you like, I'm going to spit on this bed? Was it just like... I don't know what came over me. Like, you know, again, it's not like Bob and I sat at the kitchen table, like across from each other like you and I are. And I said, yeah, after I do this, this, this and this, then in my bloody footprints, I'm going to walk to the bed. He spit me out or spit on the bed, you know. So, like, I don't know what possessed me to go do that. It's something to just bring things full circle and to a closure.

1:05:09I needed to do that. Did it bring closure? I thought it brought complete closure to my life and his. There was two deaths that day. The life I had been living up to that point, I could never go back to living the way I was. And I literally thought, I forfeit the rest of my life. I'll either kill myself or spend the rest of my life in prison. I forfeited any healthy, happy life to just put an end to his reign of terror. And that's what I thought. It's interesting because like when I'm reading your memoir and going through that moment, because I mean, the way that it's written, I feel like I'm there.

1:05:53I'm obviously not experiencing like the depth of emotions, but it feels very, I'm there with you. It almost feels therapeutic when you spin on his bed. And it's like kind of interesting because I know you don't advocate for people to do and following those steps, but it just, I guess it was relief for the reader. There's some sort of poetic justice in doing that. Yeah. Yeah. I think if everybody, and it's a lot of everybody's, if they could spit on the bed they were ripped in, they would want to do it. Yeah. You have a hole in your hand. You drive home, and you say you need to tell your mom. What is the thinking behind that?

1:06:37You're telling your mom because you don't know what's going to happen next? Yeah, my mom had just come up from Florida. Welcome home, mom. Oh, man. And I called my best friend at the time and the girl I was dating and asked them to come over because I just – my life's over, Steph. You know, like am I going to kill myself after this? or am I going to spend life in prison? It's one of those two things. So let me say goodbye to my buddy. Let me say goodbye to my girlfriend. And let me get my mother up and say goodbye to her because this isn't going to turn out good. And your mom is, she's 80. How old was she at the time?

1:07:31Yeah, like 81 maybe. And so your plan is I'm going to wake my mom up, tell her goodbye. But your mom's plan is I'm going to clean up the blood and we're going to run. We're going to get away with murder together. Mom's like, we're getting away with murder.

1:07:56I guess it's good to laugh about it now, right? So she wakes up and you tell her what happened. You still don't tell her. The thing is, I couldn't even tell her then that I was by Dennis. I still couldn't. I couldn't bring it out. And she was like dumbfounded. Why would you go do this? Why? And I said to avenge a lot of other kids in this town. And she goes, still, why you? Why are you the Avenger? Why? I don't get it. Why? And I couldn't tell her. Like, for me too, Mom. I still couldn't say it, even though I told it to my buddy earlier. She helped me upstairs. I wrapped my hand in duct tape, which fixes everything.

1:08:47So I wrapped it with a paper towel and duct tape and took a couple Xanax and went to bed. And my mother went downstairs and started scrubbing the floors all night long to get the blood up. And so she's like, we're going on the run. But you wake up and the cops are surrounding. Yeah, yeah. She told my sister that she was going to take me and we were going to go on the run. I know. It says in the book, you guys are thinking the end of the world, which is Florida. Right. Because we're going to go to Florida. Yeah. No, I like the plan. I think your mom is really adorable. I mean, I was just so fascinated by your mother because, you know, she's cleaning up the blood.

1:09:38She's ready to go Bonnie and Clyde with you. And then the cops come the next morning. They've got on the loudspeakers. They're saying Clark come out. And she's like, no, the neighbors are going to hear. Your mom is so fascinating. She said to one of the troopers as I was still in my bedroom, what are the neighbors going to think? He's like, ma 'am, I really don't give a damn what the neighbors think. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so you see the cops outside. So they took her out. They took her out of the house. And you look out the window, and they're just trying to be sneaky, trying to... Yeah, like I said, they're hiding behind trees.

1:10:21They don't know what I have, if I'm loaded up with an AR-15 or what my mental state is. They've got a dead body. So every one of them has their gun drawn. Everyone's taking some sort of protection. There's this big rock to the left of the yard, and there's trees, and there's the shed out back. And they're just all behind everything. And then they're behind their cars lining the street. And I just couldn't believe it. I was lying in bed like, how are we going to get out of this? Like, how are we going to get out of this? And like, there's got to be a way out of this. And before I could even possibly think of any way out of this, the cops are there.

1:11:19And I'm just in your stomach just drops. and you're just like, it's over, bro. It's over. And all I could think, you know, they ordered me out of the house over a bullhorn. And as I walked to that front door, I just called out to God, let one of these guys kill me when I step out. Like, it's over. It's over, God. Like, I don't want to do life in person. Just take me now. and let him shoot me when I walk out. And I stepped out that front door with my state police shirt on that I put on. And I put my arms out to the side. And I just sort of tilted my head back and I just waited for the crack of a gun.

1:12:08And it never came. And instead I was ordered off my porch, down to the front lawn, spread eagle, handcuffed, and taken away. Were you disappointed when you didn't hear a shot go off? Yeah. Because in that ride to the police barracks was like the longest ride of my life. And I'm just like, man, one of these guys couldn't kill me. Put me out of my misery.

1:12:42I'll have to find a way in prison to do it. I'll have to take care of this myself. You killed a cop. You're arrested by a bunch of cops. You're about to go to the jail that that cop worked at. Worked at. Things are not looking good. Oh, boy. Understatement of the year. Yeah. Yeah. But there are some cops, some detectives who seem to they give you some sage advice in that weird moment. What happens there? Like what was the energy like? Are all the arresting officers? Do you feel like hatred dripping off of them because you killed a cop? Or do they do you not even notice what their energy is? What is that dynamic?

1:13:29Well, I'm I'm thinking like I'm public enemy number one amongst law enforcement. and I just killed one of their own. And yet at the state police barracks, this lieutenant, Howie Ryan, comes in and goes, I have to apologize to you. And I'm like, what are you apologizing to me for? And he's like, I've heard rumors about Dennis Pegg for a long time. And he goes, I want to apologize to you for never stopping him. He goes, I can't arrest somebody on rumors. I need victims. I need cold, hard facts. And I had neither of those. And I apologized to you. And at first step, I felt, and then he left the room.

1:14:13And I felt, wow, that's pretty cool. And then I'm like, just started fuming. I'm like, even the state police knew. Everybody knew about Dennis Peck and Young Boys. Everybody's got a story. The state police just admitted they knew. And yet, I'm the one who just had to flush his life away. and look at life in prison to stop them. And they knew. And then, so I went from feeling good for a second, getting really pissed off for another second, and I'm like, what's the matter anyway? I'm done. I'm done. When that cop, Howie Ryan, came back in the room, he could see that I had, like, mailed it in. He said, I just, I could tell you were done.

1:15:02And he goes, something moved in me that even though you thought you were done, I didn't think you were done. And he said, look, I've got your DNA all over that crime scene. He was in charge of the CSI team that worked Peg's house. He's like, your blood's everywhere. He goes, this isn't a whodunit. He goes, but that doesn't necessarily mean your life's over. My detectives and detectives from the prosecutor's office are in another room waiting to interrogate you. He goes, if you go in that room and open up your mouth, you could potentially destroy the rest of your life. He goes, I'm telling you right now, go in there, exercise your Fifth Amendment right, request a lawyer, and stay shh.

1:15:53Keep your mouth shut. Stay quiet. And I said to him, but I don't have a lawyer. And he goes, I'm going to take care of that for you. He goes, I'm going to get you a lawyer. And he left the room. And on his cell phone, he called one of the big lawyers in our county and said, I need you to send over, fax over to the state police barracks, a retainer for somebody like immediately. immediately and the lawyer said who is he and what did he do and he goes Clark Frederick's murder and he goes okay then and had a thing over in a couple minutes so he tells you not to talk do you listen to him I do right when you get arrested it seems like the whole town is divided A lot of people feel like you did this for very nefarious reasons.

1:16:50Other people start hearing what Dennis has been doing around town. Do you feel like at any point were there just dividing opinions? Did it feel like everybody had their own thought about what the reason, the motive was? Yeah, there was some vocal people on his side who were pro-Dentis, who just referred to me as a drunk drug addict who just killed a great man. Yeah, I just woke up one day and said, Dennis Pegg, I'm going to go kill you for no reason. before it really started coming out about what happened. Because, yeah, the little old ladies on the historical society that worked with him were like, he was such a sweet man.

1:17:38The mayor in store at the time was like, oh, he was a giant of a human being. And then people like Howie Ryan are like, no. I knew all about rumors about this guy. Your audience is going to have to get the book because there's a line from Howie Ryan in the book to the prosecutor. It's one of the greatest lines you will ever hear. I don't want to give it away. It's such a it's the most powerful line you will ever read said by him. We will put the page number so you guys can go get it. Yeah. And I will tell you what page piece. I know exactly what I'm talking about. I know exactly what. That was a powerful line, right?

1:18:24No, that was... Unbelievable line. Yeah. Yeah. At that point, once you've been arrested, you're facing first degree murder charge initially. So you're facing life in prison. Life in prison. And you have an attorney and they're saying, have a little hope, but not too much hope. Yeah. And it's funny that the lawyer, Howie Ryan at the barracks called George Daggett, who sent the retainer over. I never even interviewed him at the jail as one of my lawyers. I don't know why. But I interviewed a bunch of other lawyers. And one lawyer just wanted to get me bailed out. We'll get you bailed out of here in three days.

1:19:08And I'm like, all right. And then this other lawyer came in all flashy with his gold jewelry, Rolex watch. And he's listing all these cases he's worked. And I knew the cases, and he lost them all. In my head, I'm like, but you lost all those. And then this guy, Dan Perez, came in. He just looked like a really good guy, really down to earth. And he came in, and he said, I think we can have a valid defense for this. I was like, really? He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He goes, it's not going to be easy, but I don't think your life is over. I was like, really? I'm like, you're hired. What's that?

1:19:55During that time, Dennis had a security deposit box that the police go through. Yeah. And they find a bunch of letters. Right. That he wrote 10 years before he died. Correct. And when he was in his young to mid 50s, healthy. They all have some variation of pray for me. I hope I didn't disappoint you. Forgive me for any failings. Do you think some of these letters are to victims? Yeah. Yeah. And they're creepy. There's something really creepy about them. Weird. And the prosecutor told me after the fact that he thinks there was 14 of them in there, that 13 were probably victims. Would you ever think, like, right now, to, like, write letters to people in case you die?

1:20:55No. He was 50-something years old. Like, what would make you do that? And he does keep writing, interestingly, like, if I go to heaven, pray for me. But if you're already dead, I don't know what exactly he's asking for in prayer. Yeah. Is it to get to heaven? It's weird. Yeah. Yeah, it was, I read those and it just like left me feeling yucky. Yeah. Because, and then if you assume that they're to victims, like, I tried my best. I thought we were family. Forgive me for shortcomings. What are your shortcomings? How many victims do you think that he had? My buddy's wife is the sheriff's secretary.

1:21:49And she sat in on every meeting with the sheriff in the early days. And they estimate well over 100. One of the other victims is very close to you. Family, relation. Who was that? My brother. My arrest opened up my brother's Pandora's box. You know, like seeing that boy in that deli opened my box up, my arrest opened my brother's box up. And my brother wasn't ready to face it. He wasn't ready to handle it, didn't want to deal with it. You know, like I told myself at 12, we're just going to bury this and go about our life. Well, that's what my brother had done his whole life. and everyone urged him to get help, to see a therapist.

1:22:44And my brother did what I did, was to numb himself. And I found him dead on our kitchen floor a couple years ago from drinking himself to death. This is going to be a two-part interview. you. This is part one. In part two, we're going to ask Clark about how and why the FBI came to him to warn him that someone put a hit out on his life. He has, I mean, there's his entire journey, or I guess more so fight in prison, trying to get through it while he's surrounded by criminals who are accused of doing the very thing that Dennis Pegg did, which is harm children. There are letters that Dennis Pegg left his presumed victims in his safety deposit box and how someone very close to Clark is killed by Dennis Pegg after Clark gets out of prison?

1:23:38Like, how does that even happen? We're going to go through all of that in part two. Also, how the hell does Clark get out of prison when he's facing a first degree murder charge and life in prison? That will all be asked in part two. But in the meantime, if you feel like you can't wait for those answers, which same, you can get Clark's memoir. It's probably the most intense memoir that I've ever read. And I've read copious amounts of memoirs before. There are just so many aspects of his story that aren't included in our episodes that you can find in depth in his book. I think I finished the whole book the first time around in like four hours.

1:24:13It was one of my quickest reads. There's something about it where I don't know how Clark does this, but every time you catch yourself feeling like, okay, there's a black hole that we've now went into, there's no way out of it. You get out and then there's just like another black hole and it is like the most intense emotional journey that I have ever been on. You can also find Clark on his social media accounts and his own podcast which I will link below but with that being said that is part one of the two-part series of the story of Clark Fedrix and I will see you in part two.

1:24:58Thank you.