Bob Dekle

In a simulcast of the Storehouse Media Group’s award-winning Criminally Good podcast with hosts Jen and Sherrie, Neil welcomes George Robert “Bob” Dekle Sr., the longtime Florida prosecutor best known for helping bring serial killer Ted Bundy to justice. Dekle reflects on a family steeped in the law, with a father and grandfather who were lawmen and a great-grandfather who was a judge, alongside a few relatives on the other side of it, including his brother Billy. He also recalls watching the closing arguments of a double-murder trial as a seventh grader, an experience that helped set him on the path to becoming a trial lawyer and serving as a prosecutor for thirty years. He discusses his first first-degree murder case as a prosecutor, the 1978 murder of twelve-year-old Kimberly Leach, and how investigators from different agencies were brought together into a single task force to pursue it. Dekle is careful to keep the focus where he believes it belongs, remembering Kimberly as a bright, good girl whose future was stolen, and framing his book, The Last Murder: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Execution of Ted Bundy, which he dedicated to her memory, as a story about how the killer was brought to justice rather than about the killer himself. He explains that he wrote the book as a teaching tool for young prosecutors. He also talks about his many other true-crime histories, including The East River Ripper and Six Capsules: The Gilded Age Murder of Helen Potts, his lifelong love of chess and the chess-variant books he has written, and a very different new book, Human Jesus, Divine Christ: His Mission, His Message, His Ministry, expected in 2027. His books can be found on Amazon by searching for George R. Dekle Sr.Note: A second segment with author Edward Albin began right at the top of the hour and was cut off, so it is not covered here.Find Bob Dekle’s books, including The Last Murder, on Amazon under George Robert Dekle.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-neil-haley-show--6503396/support.