Portrait of a Monster

A conversation with Paul Murphy, creator of "The Conspiracy Tapes"

In the 1970s, a young preacher who went by the name John Todd burst on the scene. He claimed to be a reformed witch, and presented a dangerous and demented vision of the world. Global power was in the charge of a dangerous cabal of witches and satanists. They controlled our local communities, the government, and Hollywood.

His ideas had a profound and deeply reaching impact. He informed the violent militarism at Ruby Ridge and the fiery disaster of Waco. Recordings of Todd’s voice were even found among the things of Osama Bin Laden when his compound was raided.

In a new podcast series for The Binge, Cover Up: The Conspiracy Tapes, creator Paul Murphy unravels the story of the most influential conspiracy theorist you’ve never heard of, and the recordings that spread his gospel around the world. What Paul finds in unearthing his life is darker and more twisted than you could possibly imagine.

I caught up with Paul on the week of the launch, and we talked about the series, and what it’s like to document a public figure who turns out to be a very real monster.

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Jonathan
So first question for you is…how does an Australian become obsessed with an American conspiracy theorist?

Paul Murphy 
It's funny, I said to my team when we were talking through it that I feel as though if I was British, people wouldn't be so thrown by it for some reason. The British have become like the official, you know, documentarians of American culture.

I had just moved to New York when I started researching this and I was thinking about this new country that I was calling home and at the time it was going to be home indefinitely. We ended up moving back to Melbourne when the pandemic hit, but at the time that was like this is our new home and I guess I wanted to understand the sort of cultural history that I was becoming a part of.

But I think also, I mean, I've been thinking about this sort of stuff well before I moved to the US and the truth of the matter is that the US has such an impact on Western culture and culture in Australia as well is that if I wanted to sort of like understand the origins of conspiracy theories in Australia, that would lead me back to America anyway.

So it's something about the impact that and the influence that America has on Western culture, I think.

Jonathan 
You’re a video editor, right?

You work in an audio-visual media and this is your first long-form audio documentary series. What is it about this story that felt like it warranted a podcast treatment in documentary over a more visual medium?

Paul Murphy  

Yeah, that's really interesting. I think there's two parts to that.

The first part is that I think I was getting sick and tired of working in a visual medium like when I'm editing picture I always start with the words first and sometime and and and when you do that so often you start to feel like a slave to picture after a while.
Like if somebody says something and you want to cut out a bit of that, then immediately you're going to have to put something in its place to hide that cut that you've done to the words. I was kind of enchanted by the idea of not having to worry about that secondary part of, you know, audio visual is to just focus on the audio.

I think also inherently in the story of John Todd, there is something about the power of just listening to a person's voice in an audio format and how that can cast a spell on you. So it seemed right that that would be the format that I would tell this story in.

Jonathan
Not to be not to be too cheeky here but you know, since we're talking about witches, John Todd, you listen to those tapes he did in a way kind of cast his own spell on the people who were impacted by his words.

Entering into an election year where a lot of the more controversial ideas that John Todd promoted are swirling around the political discourse. What do you think is the import of having a discussion about fringe ideas that have like kind of made their way into the mainstream by virtue of John Todd at this exact moment in time?

Paul Murphy  
I think because unless you really get to the root of these kinds of stories, if you allow if you allow them to sort of continue to exist in the fringes, in the shadows, that's where they fester and they will just continue to, you know, enter into the discourse as we've seen in the last six years.

Now I would say you know, I have been amazed to see how talk of not just Satanism, but witchcraft to referring to people within the Democratic Party as witches has entered into the discourse. And I think for like the mainstream to just look at these ideas and shrug them off and say, yeah, but that's just the crazies on the fringe. It's not good enough.

You do have to sort of get to the root and show you know the real story of how these ideas come to light. Otherwise they will just continue to sort of infect not just fringe conversation, but mainstream conversation.

Jonathan
Yeah, it's like a worm that might like crawl into your brain and die there.
Little topical humor there…

Paul Murphy  
I know, right?

Jonathan
Did your assessment of John Todd changed at all from when you started this project to when you finished it?

Paul Murphy  
Yes. And that only happened in the last that only happened in the last two or three weeks of making it, and that was when I got the evidence folder from the South Carolina police and I think, you know, I had, I had heard about the crimes that he had committed or the crime that ended up putting him in jail.

But being confronted with that evidence folder, it was really like being hit by a train. You know, I was really overwhelmed.

I had come to this story assuming that this man had spiraled out of control at some point and that had led to his imprisonment that that it was a fall from grace.
And what I realized looking at this folder that this was a really horrible person who had been like that well before he even came into the limelight as an ex-witch.

And that's when I was confronted with and continue to be confronted with the fact that I have, you know, spent a lot of time thinking about this man and tracking his history and realizing that he is a really horrible person who's done horrible things to people.

Jonathan
Knowing that at the heart of this story…was a reprehensible person, a monster.
What were the things that you were wrestling with while you were making this?

Paul Murphy  
Well, to be honest, I think the thing I was wrestling with the most was how to
communicate that as honestly and clearly to the audience as possible, because you know the audiences come along with me on this journey as well, and it would be so much easier for me to turn around at the end and say, oh, this guy committed some crimes and he went to prison and everything's all good now. But. I I feel like I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't. Convey that to the audience afterwards.
That no, this guy, this guy is a monster, you know?

He needs to be acknowledged as that more often on the web, whereas on the web you're more likely to find someone sort of venerating him and celebrating him. So yeah, I it was actually something that I had to sort of let down my own barriers and say no, you've just gotta be sort of raw with the audience about how awful this person was.

Jonathan

Right, which is such a peculiar and unique position to be in, oftentimes I think when we profile people over the span of their life, we’re able to reconcile some of their behavior. But it really does seem that like that's not possible with John Todd.

Paul Murphy  
Yeah.

And also finding a way to communicate that without, you know, having to sort of bring up a lot of victim statements as well, which I saw no value in going beat by beat through some of the things that he had done to people, even though I have those documents now, but being able to convey just how bad a person he was without having to sort of go through those horrible details, those disturbing details again.

Jonathan
I really appreciate everything you put into this story and I'm excited to see how people respond.

Paul Murphy  
Yeah. And I’ll take the chance as well to thank you, Jonathan.

You were helpful during this process. I'll never forget the day that we're all on the call and we were struggling to figure out how to make this work. And you were like, well, why don't we just start from the start? And something went off in my head there was like, yeah, why don't we just start from the start?

Jonathan
Yeah.

Paul Murphy  
That sounds so much better.

Jonathan
Well, I'm so glad I can be of any help.

You can listen to the whole series now by subscribing to The Binge.