Candice Fox Sat In A Cage With A Serial Killer — And Asked Him Why

April 5, 2026·1 hr 11 min·4 clips

Candice Fox walked into a cage with serial killer Lawrence Bittaker — and no one told her he'd be uncuffed.

A door clanks shut. The cold open puts the guest inside prison security, under the death row sign, waiting in a silence no one bothers to explain. Holly Wainwright keeps the frame calm. She is filling in for Kate Langbrook, but the conversation still feels close, prepared, and quietly braced for danger. Candice Fox comes in as a contradiction. The host introduces a crime writer who has sat in a cage with a serial killer and spoken with spouses wrecked by murder, then insists the listener will like her. That warmth matters. It keeps the episode from turning the material into spectacle, even while it names murder, prison, money stress, and a childhood full of emotional weather. The strongest stretch turns inward. Fox describes being treated as the smart, capable child, the one expected to build shelves, tint windows, pull carpet, and write serious letters. Competence cost her something. When she tried to talk about bullying, her mother answered with stories of children carrying injuries and abuse far worse than hers. Fox learned to squash it down. The line hits because the host has already made room for the mess of it: real pain can shrink when someone else's pain looks bigger. Writing became another room. Fox calls it disassociation, then describes opening a door into a visual world where people appear, talk, and move while her body stays somewhere else. It is a sharp, sad image. It explains the fiction without flattening it, letting imagination feel like escape, habit, craft, and survival. The episode holds steady. Fox gets to be funny and vivid, but the prison cage, schoolyard shame, and childhood pressure stay in the room.

As heard by us

Candice Fox turns a death-row hook into a vivid conversation about childhood, crime writing, and the pull of dark stories.

Candice Fox's conversation with Holly Wainwright opens with the sort of scene crime writers dream of and most people would avoid: death row, a clanking door, and Fox inside a cage with a serial killer, asking why.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a lively interview with Candice Fox, the crime novelist behind Red Belly Crossing, Crimson Lake, and The Chase.

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