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by Stephanie Struyck Elgin
We’ve all heard stories about serial killers, read about them in the papers, seen them on the news, and even watched movies based on actual events.
Now imagine sitting face to face and sharing a room with some of the most notorious serial killers on death row…For actress/model/author Victoria Redstall, this would be just another day at work.
Born and raised in Surrey, England, Victoria set her eyes on an on camera career. After her parents decided not to send her to acting school at 18, the aspiring actress/model spent the next year saving money to come to America. At 19, she made her way to America and was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship from the Lee Strasberg Institute in Los Angeles. “I had a passion for the art of portraying a character,” states Victoria. “I loved the idea of expressing emotions, good and bad, and believing in the character that I was portraying.” She studied acting and went on to study broadcasting, reporting and journalism at Santa Monica College.
In 2007, she became an investigative journalist and completed her first document about a serial killer. “I was asked to host a new pilot called Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer.” But Victoria didn’t want to just host the pilot, she wanted hands on experience and to interview the killer. “The production company told me that if I found a good serial killer to interview, then I could host the show and also be the interviewer.” Victoria created a full-length documentary Room Zero, in 2008, interviewing her first notorious serial killer. Since then she has interviewed numerous others across the country.
Victoria has since written her first book Serial Killers – Up Close and Very Personal, which is now available to purchase.
What was it like interviewing a serial killer?
“It’s very difficult not to show emotion especially when I have so much compassion for victims and their family members,” states Victoria. “I have met a victim of a serial killer who got away and lived to talk about it. She was an incredible woman and I had so much admiration for her and what she did to escape that potential killer. It took all my strength to hold back my tears, however in the Documentary you can see a few teardrops fall when I thought I was off camera.”
Not everyone is cut out for a job like Victoria’s, however she does it with grace and professionalism. “My career is rewarding because I can connect with people from all walks of life. Trying not to pre-judge anyone, which can be difficult, I get to hear all sides of a story, and somewhere in the middle lies the truth.”
Despite interviewing serial killers for her documentary, Victoria’s passion and focus for the past year has been to find inmates accused of Capital murder in the U.S. and have been wrongly convicted. “I helped in saving an innocent man’s life on Oklahoma’s death row last year and he received three stays of execution. I had all the evidence to prove that Jeff Matthews was innocent including the on camera testimony of the arresting officer who had arrested him 17 years before. This man was the opposite of a serial killer; he wouldn’t have even killed a fly. However early this year a new Governor came in to office and two days later another innocent man was executed. This has propelled me to fight and prevent this from happening in the future.”
Victoria lives near the Santa Clarita Valley and enjoys attending events in our community. “The fact that Santa Clarita seems one of the sunniest towns in California from the moment you wake up until sundown is a dream,” states Victoria. In her free time, she loves hiking and cooking, and dinner parties with friends. “I am up before the sunrise and make full use of the day time. I’m a bit of a home body, and don’t go out much in the evenings so I use that time to write.” She has plans on writing another book based on The Grim Sleeper (an alleged serial killer), as well and has been pitching a new series focusing on the wrongly convicted, inspired by the late Jeff Matthews.
For more information about Victoria, visit www.victoriaredstall.com. To purchase Serial Killers Up Close and Very Personal visit www.amazon.com.
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