Maureen Callahan > Quotes

“Adventurers and loners, romantics and desperadoes, eccentrics and slow suicides—the luxuriousness of the place, its seduction and savagery, calls to the wildest among us. Alaska, the land of black moons and midnight suns.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“As the final decade of the millennium dawned, there would be no greater expression of the cultural, economic, and social revolutions to come than fashion. What rock 'n' roll was to the '50s, drugs to the '60s, film to the '70s, and modern art to the '80s, fashion was to the '90s: the fuse, then the filter.”
― Maureen Callahan, Champagne Supernovas: Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, and the '90s Renegades Who Remade Fashion

“What Keyes was describing was the textbook progression, from childhood, of a sadist and a psychopath. Torturing and killing small animals, pets especially, is experimentation in controlling and killing another living thing for pure pleasure. It is practice, the last step before graduating to humans. Even as an adult,”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“What Kate wore, whether on the street or the red carpet was much cooler to them than what she modelled. Her paparazzi photos were becoming indistinguishable from her editorials.”
― Maureen Callahan, Champagne Supernovas: Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, and the '90s Renegades Who Remade Fashion

“Anna Wintour hadn't been to any of McQueen's shows, and McQueen didn't like it. McQueen said American Vogue could borrow the dress only if they flew it to New York and back, in its own seat, with an escort. It was a fuck-you and they took it, and the dress was shot by Richard Avedon. "Fashion people haven't got any brains," McQueen said.”
― Maureen Callahan

“If the FBI hadn’t been informed of this interview, it was highly unlikely the Department of Justice had—and DOJ was the final word, the lone authorizing agency on federal death-penalty cases. Investigators and prosecutors had to do everything—everything—by the book. And Kevin Feldis was pissing all over it. Nor was this an isolated example.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“I decided to go back to my old stomping grounds,” he said. “Back east.” Another clue. Had Keyes killed more on the East Coast than the West? They could tell he was getting off on telling investigators things they’d never heard nor had ever known to fear. It could be difficult to tell how much he was exaggerating, but so much of what he had told them bore out. They were inclined to believe him. “I have hundreds of plans,” Keyes said, “and a grand plan.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Ari Onassis was a Greek shipping magnate, a billionaire, an antisemite, a vulgarian, and a bisexual with a string of bought-and-paid-for young men that he savagely beat after sex. On October 17, 1968, he and Jackie Kennedy, thirty-nine years old to his sixty-two, announced they would marry in three days’ time.”
― Maureen Callahan, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

“I’m walking this over to you, I’m talking to you, which means this is important.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“She told Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. that she couldn’t find slumber at night despite all the sleeping pills she took, that her medications did nothing to stop her mind from obsessively replaying the assassination. She told Roosevelt that Bobby Kennedy was the only person keeping her from killing herself. For Bobby, the same was true of Jackie.”
― Maureen Callahan, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

“Breaking apart his cell phone and removing the battery was something the team hadn’t seen before either. For Kat Nelson, those dark spots in his history, the hours that his phone gave off no signal, would be a tell. That’s when Keyes was doing something.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black… “Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”
― Maureen Callahan, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

“Keyes had told investigators that there were two texts that he studied closely, both written by pioneering behavioral profilers in the FBI: Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide, and the Criminal Mind by Roy Hazelwood, and Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglas, in turn the model for Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Chacon retired in July 2014, and at his going-away party said the one thing he’d never miss was pulling another dead child out of the water. He meant it as a joke, but it left his colleagues stunned. To this day, he suffers from post-traumatic stress. He will probably have it the rest of his life. He sometimes thinks that the reason he and his wife were never able to have children despite years of trying, specialist after specialist offering no solution, was so he’d never have to know a parent’s grief.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Yet Alaska remains the “Great Land,” as James Michener called it: the closest we have to a time before man, unsullied terrain, nature so titanically overwhelming it’s impossible not to be awed and a little afraid.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Studies of twins have shown that psychopathy may be a trait more heritable than environmental, yet good children can thrive despite bad parents, and vice versa.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Another passage nailed Keyes: “The sexual offender is never fully inactive,” Hazelwood wrote. “He may not be acting out against a specific victim, but he will be making plans, selecting new targets, acting out against other victims, or gathering materials. He is never dormant.” Keyes was a cluster bomb. Investigators were learning that some of his tactics were borrowed from different predecessors, reconstituted for the modern age.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Before beginning Samantha’s recovery, Chacon had his team gather in one of the tents, where they were invisible to cameras and agents on the ice. They observed a moment of silence, and as they exited, they saw an enormous bald eagle circling overhead. Chacon took it as a sign that Samantha was watching over them. The divers looked at each other, nodded, and silently went to work.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“And while investigators didn’t necessarily think Keyes was responsible for all of the missing kids on his computer, their inclusion was disturbing. Who reads about missing children and babies for kicks?”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Before his death in 2016, Hazelwood spoke about Keyes. Hazelwood’s decades of service had left him with a cynical view of the FBI’s truthfulness in general, and he believed stranger abductions are far more common than the Bureau insists. He was convinced that the proliferation of hard-core pornography, so easily and anonymously accessible online, has contributed to increasingly sadistic crimes and murders.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“New York City, near death and calling for her desperately. His cries had broken her heart. In his anguish she heard the little boy who’d been left in one too many hospital beds by his mother and father. But back then Jackie did what the doctors said and stayed in the hallway, trusting they knew best. She had sworn that she would never leave Jack alone like that again.”
― Maureen Callahan, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

“Then there was the driving, the ability to stay awake without the aid of drugs, just his Americano coffees and soaring adrenaline, moving through five states in as many days. Until Samantha, Keyes had left no digital trail, no cell phone or credit card activity. Until Samantha, he swore he’d never killed in his own backyard. Decades of mayhem, geographical boundaries unknown.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“I've got lots more stories to tell.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“She was having nightmares, vivid and unceasing. Most days she couldn’t get out of bed. She was as inconsolable as ever, reminiscent of the months after Jack’s death when little Caroline told her schoolteacher, “My mommy cries all the time.”
― Maureen Callahan, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

“Payne thought Keyes was still most concerned about media coverage. Keyes swatted that away. “I know it’s inevitable,” he said. “I’m not in this for the glory. I’m not trying to be on TV.” When Bell heard the tape of this interview, the word “glory” struck him. It was another tell. Who calls the rape and murder of an eighteen-year-old a thing to be glorified for? Payne and his team had come to believe they were dealing with a serial killer. And Keyes had just told Doll and Payne: You’re right. And you’ll never find another body without me. —”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Cumberland Island was like no place Carolyn had ever seen. Remote, untouched by industry or technology, maybe forty people total lived on this strip of land situated between Florida and Georgia. Its pristine beaches were the domain of wild horses and enormous sea turtles and resembled a land before time, before humans existed. The only place to stay was a mansion-turned-inn, run by descendants of Andrew Carnegie. On the other end of the island was a tiny white chapel built in 1893. John wanted them to be”
― Maureen Callahan, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

“They were careless people… they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby”
― Maureen Callahan, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

“Chacon retired in 2014, and at his going-away party said the one thing he'd never miss was pulling another dead child out of the water. He meant it as a joke, but it left his colleagues stunned. To this day, he suffers from post-traumatic stress. He will probably have it the rest of his life. He sometimes thinks that the reason he and his wife were never able to have children despite years of trying, specialist after specialist offering no solution, was so he'd never have to know a parent's grief.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Now fifty years old, Jackie was in her prime. She was building her dream house on Martha’s Vineyard, had raised two children in uniquely difficult circumstances, had earned the respect of her peers in publishing, and had fallen in love with Maurice Tempelsman, a man she had known since her years with Jack. She had no desire to marry again, ever, and that was just fine with him; he remained married to his first wife and had no desire to divorce. Jackie had always had a penchant for married men and the emotional distance baked into those arrangements, but Maurice was different; he was devoted to her. Jackie Onassis, in short, had found her bliss. She was now the architect of her own life.”
― Maureen Callahan, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

“The Anchorage Correctional Complex, the Alaska Department of Corrections, and state attorneys are so corrupt that in 2016 these attorneys advised prisons not to keep records and not to document causes or circumstances of inmate deaths. In January 2018, the Anchorage Daily News reported that ACC had secretly wired visitation rooms Keyes used, and that these rooms remained wired ever since, illegally recording attorney-client conversations.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century