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.
The gist
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.
Big reveals
- 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.
Things 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.
Recommended in this episode
Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.
Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
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 00:00:32Find it on Amazon
Peaky Blinders
Steven Knight (inferred)
“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 01:37:14Find it on Amazon