Conversations with Killers

June 10, 2025
12:00pm - 1:00pm

Encouraged by his professor for an undergraduate course in abnormal psychology, Jeffrey Smalldon began corresponding with Charles Manson and other members of the so-called Manson Family when he was only twenty-one years old.

Almost a decade later, when two of his co-workers were murdered in the large hospital where he was busy trying to adjust to a career as a health care administrator, he decided to begin work toward his PhD in psychology at Ohio State, and to start laying the groundwork for a career in forensic psychology.

During his long career, he consulted on close to 300 death penalty cases in both state and federal court (at the state level, they originated in approximately fifty-five Ohio counties). Along the way, he also sought out contact with notorious killers like Ted Bundy, Donald Harvey, and John Wayne Gacy.

Dr. Smalldon's presentation will focus primarily on his encounters with some of the most infamous murderers of our time.

He'll begin with a description of the strange and uneven journey he took before reaching the start of his career as a forensic psychologist. He'll provide audience members with an account of how he found himself smack dab in the middle of the Manson Family way back in 1975, only about four years after Charles Manson and his three female co-defendants were found guilty of multiple counts of murder and sentenced to death.

Then he'll describe what happened in his life during the gap between the end of his correspondences with Manson, Squeaky Fromme, and other members of the Manson Family -- and December 30, 1983, when two of his co-workers at the large Columbus hospital where he was then a fledgling administrator were brutally murdered in a small research lab just around the corner from the main corridor of the hospital, sometime between 4:30 and 5:00 in the afternoon on a Friday.

He'll highlight his attempts to glean insights about serial murder from two of the most notorious serial murderers of the late 20th century, Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. In particular, he'll spend time discussing his three-year correspondence with Gacy and the near twenty hours that he spent with Gacy in a private, unsupervised visiting room on death row ("the condemned unit") in Illinois.

Finally, he'll talk about his consultation -- as the defense's mental health expert -- on one of Ohio's most infamous serial murder cases, the case involving sniper Thomas Lee Dillon.

Then, he'll open it up to questions and comments from members of the audience.

Dr. Jeffrey Smalldon grew up the son of a Hoover-era G-Man. From an early age, he exhibited an interest in strange, unusual people, for example snake handlers, sideshow performers, celebrities, nudists, illusionists, gypsies -- and criminals. 

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"Lunch With Books" is the library’s flagship program for adult patrons. These lunchtime programs feature authors, poets, musicians, historians, and more every Tuesday at noon. Bring lunch (to the Library Auditorium or your computer), feed your brain!