Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Manny here before we start today's episode, I'm
Speaker 1: doing a call out for an advice episode. We're doing
Speaker 1: another episode where you send us a problem you're having
Speaker 1: or a dilemma that you're in, and me, Devin and
Speaker 1: Noah will give our takes and try to help you
Speaker 1: as best we can. So call the number in the
Speaker 1: show notes and leave us a message or send a
Speaker 1: voice memo to our email at Manny Noah Devin at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. Enjoy today's episode. I'm Manny. This is
Speaker 1: and this is no such thing the show where we
Speaker 1: settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, what happens to a property after a murder? No,
Speaker 1: there's no no touch thing, No touch, thank touch, thank.
Speaker 2: Touch, thank you, touch, thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, boys, we're here. What are you pointing at
Speaker 1: his shirt? We're getting spooky today? All right, boys, Uh,
Speaker 1: we're here to talk about, uh, this question that that
Speaker 1: actually I don't think I've ever really thought about before
Speaker 1: we came across this, And that question is what happens
Speaker 1: to a property so like an apartment or a home
Speaker 1: after there's been a murder, or especially like a high
Speaker 1: profile murder that's been in the news. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk to a journalist who essentially did the work for us.
Speaker 1: She's gotten to the bottom of this and you know,
Speaker 1: uncovered a bunch of nuances about this industry, so to speak.
Speaker 1: But before we get to that interview, I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you, guys, would this be a deterrent for you?
Speaker 1: You you were moving into a place, So let's say
Speaker 1: you let's do a scenario here where you're at the
Speaker 1: last stages. You know, maybe you've talked to the real
Speaker 1: estate agent, you put down a down payment, but then
Speaker 1: you find out that twenty years prior to big crime
Speaker 1: that happened there. I mean, well, how do you guys feel.
Speaker 3: I I think my only deterrent wouldn't be the act
Speaker 3: that happened there. I think it would be more if
Speaker 3: like people were coming by all the time, like if
Speaker 3: it was really high profile and like they're like tourists
Speaker 3: coming by and hounding the place. If it was like
Speaker 3: cleaned up or redone and there's not like signs of
Speaker 3: anything happening, Yeah, I think I don't think it would
Speaker 3: bother me. I don't think I'd be so spooked.
Speaker 1: Maybe if it was like a really extreme thing.
Speaker 3: Where you know whoever John Wayne Gacey or something like yea,
Speaker 3: you know the bodies were under this floorboard or something
Speaker 3: like something like that, where it's like, Okay, maybe that
Speaker 3: would be creepy, especially if I'm in, you know, some
Speaker 3: creaky house or something. But I think if it was
Speaker 3: just it's like, okay, yeah, something bad happened here, not
Speaker 3: like the most extreme. I mean, I think I could
Speaker 3: be okay with it as long as yeah, it's not
Speaker 3: like people are driving by or coming up and checking
Speaker 3: it out all the time.
Speaker 1: So you're not someone who thinks like there's bad vibes
Speaker 1: in the air like any like, you're not spiritual in
Speaker 1: that sense where you're worried about like the water faucet
Speaker 1: being turned on by itself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think as long as.
Speaker 1: You know the price is right, I could get over that.
Speaker 4: But I think the thing you'd have to think about
Speaker 4: is if you were to sell that house, would you
Speaker 4: have issues. Maybe you don't have an issue with it
Speaker 4: and you get a good price, but now it's time
Speaker 4: for you to sell it and everyone's like, I don't
Speaker 4: want to buy that house. That's the house where that
Speaker 4: crazy thing happened. Yeah, it's a good point, all right,
Speaker 4: And now okay, I put all this money into this
Speaker 4: house and I can't get you know, I'm always thinking
Speaker 4: about you know, I'm an HGTV head, so I'm always
Speaker 4: thinking about, you know, flipping it.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, so you have the house, you got
Speaker 2: to think about.
Speaker 4: It's an investment. At some point you're going to want
Speaker 4: to try to sell it.
Speaker 5: But I don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not like a big ghosts or spiritual guy.
Speaker 4: I think to know his point as long as it like,
Speaker 4: if I was to be able to walk into that
Speaker 4: place and not notice or no exactly, then I would
Speaker 4: be okay with it. Obviously, if it's a high profile
Speaker 4: thing and people are coming and taking pictures, like I
Speaker 4: didn't even think about the Sex and the City seen
Speaker 4: this the Brownstone in New York where it is this
Speaker 4: old man is like putting up you know, like ropes
Speaker 4: and stuff because people are sitting on a stoop like
Speaker 4: I think also the breaking bad House where he throwst
Speaker 4: of people like to take pictures in front of the house.
Speaker 4: So some of that is like all right, it comes
Speaker 4: to the territory. But some of it is like all right,
Speaker 4: people like let's be respectful someone does live here. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so that would be my biggest worry is that if
Speaker 4: it's you know, you get these fanatics who would show
Speaker 4: up to your house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a notorious location.
Speaker 4: Yeah, at all hours it a night, or be sneaking
Speaker 4: around and it's like, all right, I don't want that
Speaker 4: to be happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought I've thought about this question. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not spiritual in that way where like
Speaker 1: I think there's a ghost or whatever, and that's why
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do it. I do wonder if I could
Speaker 1: get over the thought of the thing happening there, like
Speaker 1: if it would be occupying my mind while I lived there.
Speaker 1: Of course, if there if there was a situation where
Speaker 1: they were like, okay, you found out that this thing
Speaker 1: happened here, will give you give you this place half
Speaker 1: off or whatever, like if there's a consideration about the
Speaker 1: price attached to this, I would probably be okay. But
Speaker 1: I certainly think like if I was down in the
Speaker 1: basement doing laundry or whatever and like anything about that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just feel like, you know, people obviously not high profile,
Speaker 4: but lots of bad things have happened probably in all
Speaker 4: the places we've lived, unless you're a first person living there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, I hear my neighbors are you, And I'm like,
Speaker 4: that's not good stuff happened in and there. So I
Speaker 4: think to some degree, it's just like bad stuff happens everywhere.
Speaker 2: M h.
Speaker 4: I think it's different if we have like a collective
Speaker 4: memory about the thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean what has happened in this studio? Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the past. Yeah, it's possible, you know, go far
Speaker 1: enough back. Yeah, I've gotten bad vibes, Like how like
Speaker 1: to what what extent does it go? Like, could it
Speaker 1: be possible at four thousand years ago some guy hit
Speaker 1: another guy with a rock or something. And that's not
Speaker 1: really gonna deter me from.
Speaker 2: In the United States right here? Yeah, hey, is American
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: But I think the more interesting question is something I've
Speaker 1: just not thought about before, which is like, what exactly
Speaker 1: is the process of selling these places? So if some
Speaker 1: high profile murder happened in an apartment, what exactly is
Speaker 1: the process, Like, you know, do they let people know
Speaker 1: ahead of time before people try and buy the place?
Speaker 1: Are these places torn down? What the hell is happening?
Speaker 1: Is this an industry, and thankfully we've we've got a
Speaker 1: journalist joining us. Her name is Katherine Fenlosa, and she's
Speaker 1: interviewed a man who has become known as the Master
Speaker 1: of Disaster, which is you know, I know this is
Speaker 1: kind of a darker topic, but that is an awesome name. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we've got Katherine waiting for us on a call, so
Speaker 1: why don't we just bring her in? Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: we're here with Katherine Fenelosa. Catherine, we're ready to record
Speaker 1: if you are sure.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 1: Catherine is a journalist who is sharing with us an
Speaker 1: interview that she conducted with a man named Randal Bell.
Speaker 1: Randall has become known for his work surrounding the sale
Speaker 1: and management of real estate that's kind of been stained
Speaker 1: by crime, especially the kind of crime that is high profile,
Speaker 1: the kind of crime that might make it in the
Speaker 1: national news. So, Catherine, I guess my first question is,
Speaker 1: you know, the only person I can kind of imagine
Speaker 1: who'd be able to do this kind of work is
Speaker 1: someone who's, you know, a dark figure, someone who's brooding, pensive.
Speaker 1: Maybe not a whole lot of fun to hang around,
Speaker 1: But what was it like actually talking to the so
Speaker 1: called Master of Disaster.
Speaker 6: Well he is. He's a really interesting guy, and I
Speaker 6: don't know what I was expecting beforehand, but he's so
Speaker 6: kind and gentle that in some ways I was sort
Speaker 6: of surprised that this is his line of work, because
Speaker 6: it's he's dealing with, like truly the worst sides of humanity.
Speaker 6: He's been called to investigate basically the best way to
Speaker 6: handle some of the most notorious crimes in the country
Speaker 6: or natural disasters, and he does it with such a
Speaker 6: He describes himself as a surfer and a skier, and
Speaker 6: that comes across He lives in southern California, and he's
Speaker 6: got this very sort of Southern California beachy vibe to him, which,
Speaker 6: you know, I think if you met him on the street,
Speaker 6: his line of work would be the last thing you'd
Speaker 6: ever think of.
Speaker 2: I am doctor Randall Bell, and I'm a socioeconomist, and
Speaker 2: I specialize in real estate damage economics. What that basically
Speaker 2: means is that when there's a disaster or a crime,
Speaker 2: or an oil spill, or any number of things a
Speaker 2: natural disaster, I measure what in the legal field is
Speaker 2: called a diminution value. I measure loss and value but
Speaker 2: in order to do that, there's a lot of sociology,
Speaker 2: a lot of finance, a lot of research.
Speaker 1: So how did he get his start on your conversation
Speaker 1: with him?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it's interesting. He was a neighbor of Nicole Brown.
Speaker 6: You know, she was married to O. J. Simpson, the
Speaker 6: football star who then you know, depending on how old
Speaker 6: you are, in my childhood, he was like on the
Speaker 6: front of every wheaties box, and you know, he was
Speaker 6: everywhere selling literally selling orange juice.
Speaker 7: The orange juice I grew up on. It's rich in
Speaker 7: natural energy, as sweet as an orange right from the
Speaker 7: tree right.
Speaker 6: Randall Bell lived in the neighborhood where her father lived,
Speaker 6: and so after that tragedy, Lou Brown, her dad reached
Speaker 6: out to Randall just to say, you know, do you
Speaker 6: have any thoughts of what we can do with her condo?
Speaker 2: So when lud told me about the property, I was
Speaker 2: already pretty familiar with the demographics and it's a very
Speaker 2: high end area. It's West LA. I don't know that
Speaker 2: people really following the case really appreciated or fully acknowledged
Speaker 2: of the human side of it. And Lou and I
Speaker 2: became reasonably close. We would go to lunch several times together,
Speaker 2: and he would share things with me that I've never
Speaker 2: shared with anybody, just in terms of the grief and
Speaker 2: the the sadness that this, you know, happened, and what
Speaker 2: he was dealing with there. But in terms of the
Speaker 2: real estate, well, his question to me was, this property's
Speaker 2: we need to sell it for the estate. We got
Speaker 2: bills to pay. There's you know, every disaster has a
Speaker 2: or tragedy has the emotional side, but there's also practical
Speaker 2: issues going on kind of behind the scenes, and he
Speaker 2: was concerned about paying the bills. And he said, you know,
Speaker 2: because the property is so famous, is it going to
Speaker 2: sell for more or is it you know, he didn't
Speaker 2: know what was going to happen, and that's where I
Speaker 2: said to him, you know, Lou, I don't know, but
Speaker 2: let me figure it out.
Speaker 6: He really got to start helping Nicole Brown's dad figure
Speaker 6: out what to do with her place, and then he
Speaker 6: just sort of got a reputation as the guy to
Speaker 6: go to I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, we were what three years old on this Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was happening. So everything I know about this case
Speaker 1: has been learned through you know, movies or documentaries. Were
Speaker 1: actually pretty removed from like the human element of this,
Speaker 1: and it's fascinating to here that you know, he was
Speaker 1: so close to it was either like a next door
Speaker 1: neighbor or like in the neighborhood.
Speaker 6: He was in the neighborhood. Yeah, he was in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: You hear about all of these cases on the news.
Speaker 8: Our happenings in Los Angeles, and that all began with
Speaker 8: charges laid by LA Police against oj Simpson in connection
Speaker 8: with the brutal slang of his ex wife Nicole and
Speaker 8: twenty five year old Ron Goldman. Simpson charge with the
Speaker 8: two counts of murder was supposed to surrender to LA
Speaker 8: police had too Eastern this afternoon, but failed to show up.
Speaker 8: He is now considered a fugitive from this and police
Speaker 8: are on the.
Speaker 6: Hut and everyone is interested in the moment, and then
Speaker 6: sort of the attention goes on to the next you know,
Speaker 6: big sensational event and what happens to the families and
Speaker 6: the communities that are left behind that really have to
Speaker 6: like put everything back together. And that's what really happened
Speaker 6: with Randall helping Nicole's family, which was you know, someone
Speaker 6: does have to pay the pay the mortgage or the rent,
Speaker 6: and so what do you do because now you've got
Speaker 6: this property that has this this stigma attached to it.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 6: Another one that he did was Heaven's Gate, which was
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety seven, and that was in Rancho, Santa Fe, California,
Speaker 6: where a cult, the Heaven's Gate Cult, the thirty nine
Speaker 6: members all committed suicide.
Speaker 2: San Diego Sheriff's deputy stumble into a house of the
Speaker 2: multi million dollar mansion filled with dozens of bodies, the
Speaker 2: site of a grim mass suicide. Resident. Do you have
Speaker 2: any comment on the mass suicide. It's shocking. I think
Speaker 2: it's important that we get as many facts as we
Speaker 2: can about this.
Speaker 6: It was sort of like a UFO cult. It's a
Speaker 6: little it's a little weird. I've tried to like understand it.
Speaker 6: But yeah, So they thought there was a comment, I
Speaker 6: think it was called the Haley Bop comment, and they
Speaker 6: thought when this comment was coming, it was like their
Speaker 6: sign to be delivered to eternity. And so the thirty
Speaker 6: nine members were living in a mansion in this very
Speaker 6: wealthy neighborhood in southern California, and they all committed suicide,
Speaker 6: and each member got into bed. They all dressed identically,
Speaker 6: and I believe they drank some sort of poison and
Speaker 6: they each died in their beds, and Randall was called
Speaker 6: by the owner of this property to go in and
Speaker 6: figure out what to do with it. And when he
Speaker 6: went in the day after the last body was removed.
Speaker 2: I'm often asked, what's the most bizarre case I've worked on?
Speaker 2: It is probably that one. There were two things. One
Speaker 2: was just how bizarre the cult people were. I mean,
Speaker 2: in terms of their lifestyle. Every single jar in the pantry,
Speaker 2: every light switch, and this is not an exaggeration, every
Speaker 2: light switch, every switch of any kind, everything in the closets,
Speaker 2: everything was labeled. And I was really puzzled by it.
Speaker 2: And one day I was walking through the property with
Speaker 2: a Wall Street Journal reporter and she says, do you
Speaker 2: know why they do this? And I go, I have
Speaker 2: no idea, and she goes, because they don't want the
Speaker 2: cult members thinking for themselves about anything, even the most
Speaker 2: mundane thing. All the thinking's been done for you when
Speaker 2: you join the cult, And I thought, wow, that makes sense,
Speaker 2: and I haven't ever heard a better explanation in all
Speaker 2: these year since. But there was also the remnants of
Speaker 2: the incident. And I don't want to be graphic. I'm
Speaker 2: not really a graphic person. But when you have thirty
Speaker 2: nine bodies in a house for three days in the
Speaker 2: summer with no air conditioning, there were a lot of
Speaker 2: body fluids all over the property, and the property smelled
Speaker 2: so bad. I'll never forget. I got in my car
Speaker 2: when I was done going through it, and I went
Speaker 2: back to my house and I literally went around the
Speaker 2: gate to the backyard and jumped in the swimming pool
Speaker 2: with a full suit on. I did not want to
Speaker 2: carry that smell into my own house.
Speaker 6: And in the Heaven's gatecase. So how do you start
Speaker 6: doing what you need to do? Can you walk me
Speaker 6: through your process?
Speaker 2: The framework of it's pretty simple. We look at the costs,
Speaker 2: use and risk. So the first thing is the costs
Speaker 2: with Heaven's Gate. There was the cost of saying, okay,
Speaker 2: the house steaks. Is that just a thing where we
Speaker 2: get a bunch of frebreeze or do we need to
Speaker 2: deal with biological waste? So we hired an environmental company
Speaker 2: to come in and test the porest surfaces, the carpet,
Speaker 2: the drapes, the air conditioning, ducting, and they came back
Speaker 2: and said, unfortunately, there is biological matter that's decomposed and
Speaker 2: airborne and all these things need to be demolished. So
Speaker 2: the first step is costs. The second one is, you know,
Speaker 2: does the property have any utility while it's being repaired,
Speaker 2: And the answer was obvious, no, you don't move the
Speaker 2: family in, you don't live here, you don't try and
Speaker 2: rent it right now. So there's a calculation on the
Speaker 2: loss of use and that goes and gets submitted to
Speaker 2: the insurance companies. And then the third thing is the risk,
Speaker 2: and that being once you clean up the property and
Speaker 2: fix it up and put it on the market, and
Speaker 2: you say, hey, we've got a ten thousand square foot
Speaker 2: mansion and three acres of land and the spectacular view
Speaker 2: of San Diego and a pool and a jacuzzi and
Speaker 2: a tennis court and an elevator and all these amenities,
Speaker 2: and that's the garaguy you park your limo. Oh, by
Speaker 2: the way, this was the site of the nation's worst
Speaker 2: mass suicide. Well, that has a reputational problem, and obviously
Speaker 2: you're gonna have crime scene stigma, or in this case,
Speaker 2: you know, a stigma with the mass suicide and there
Speaker 2: are ways of extracting that data and calculating what an
Speaker 2: appropriate discount would be. So at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the costs, the loss of use, and
Speaker 2: the risk effects.
Speaker 1: What ended up happening with the Heaven's Gate property.
Speaker 6: The house ended up going into foreclosure, and I believe
Speaker 6: a neighbor bought it for half of what it had
Speaker 6: previously sold for five years before. And the city tried
Speaker 6: to do a few things. They tried they changed the
Speaker 6: name of the street, which is not that uncommon in
Speaker 6: cases like this, you know, so that someone doesn't google
Speaker 6: an address and it comes up, you know. But when
Speaker 6: they did that, some local news stations cut wind of it,
Speaker 6: and so it's sort of backfired because then it just
Speaker 6: it put the story back on on the news cycle.
Speaker 6: But that one, that one did sell to a neighbor
Speaker 6: at you know, half of what the owner had bought
Speaker 6: it for.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. We have to take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to ask Catherine about
Speaker 1: some of the more difficult cases that Randall had to
Speaker 1: work on. All right, we're back. We're here with Catherine Fenelosa,
Speaker 1: a journalist who's interview with Randall Bell, aka the Master
Speaker 1: of Disaster has been fascinating us. Catherine. We've talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about some of the cases Randall has worked on,
Speaker 1: which are kind of inherently distressing. But I'm curious if
Speaker 1: there are any cases Randall worked on that were either
Speaker 1: emotionally difficult or even logistically difficult.
Speaker 6: He worked on the World Trade Center, Jim.
Speaker 7: Just a few moments ago, something believed to be a
Speaker 7: plane crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
Speaker 7: I just saw flames inside. You can see the smoke
Speaker 7: coming out of the tower. We have no idea what
Speaker 7: it was. It was a tremendous boom. Just a few
Speaker 7: moments ago. You can hear around me emergency vehicles heading
Speaker 7: towards the scene.
Speaker 6: His cases are it's so fascinating because it's such a
Speaker 6: wide range. But the World Trade Center in that case,
Speaker 6: he was also involved in trying to figure out what
Speaker 6: to do. The property in Lower Manhattan was really valuable,
Speaker 6: and so you can't have the entire place be a memorial,
Speaker 6: but figuring out the balance between a memorial and then
Speaker 6: needing to use, you know, rebuild for office space.
Speaker 2: I worked on the World Trade Center site and that
Speaker 2: was involving a lot of money, you know, obviously in
Speaker 2: the financial district of New York, and it was so large,
Speaker 2: both in terms of finances and also just the worldwide
Speaker 2: international scope that I wanted to be very careful in
Speaker 2: each step because I knew it would be so scrutinized
Speaker 2: at a level that I don't think has happened before
Speaker 2: since you know, I mean, think about it. You have
Speaker 2: two twin towers. You're given a task to put numbers
Speaker 2: on everything. And at the end of the day, courts
Speaker 2: don't award hugs, they don't award apologies. They award dollars.
Speaker 2: And that's what we're dealing with here in terms of
Speaker 2: putting dollar amounts on what all this meant in terms
Speaker 2: of not just the costs, the downtime with the property,
Speaker 2: the lasket, lack of use, and also what's appropriate to
Speaker 2: do with the site. It consumed every cell in my
Speaker 2: brain for months and months and months trying to figure
Speaker 2: everything out. We have a sign in my office on
Speaker 2: the wall that says, the more complex the case, the
Speaker 2: more simple the solutions. And I went back to basics
Speaker 2: and what we are taught in the field of real
Speaker 2: estate research is I looked for case studies around the
Speaker 2: world where something similar a proxy would give us clues
Speaker 2: of the appropriate direction that this should go. So we
Speaker 2: went to Oklahoma City, I went to Haroshima, Japan. I
Speaker 2: went to Pearl Harbor. I went to JFK, the Book Depository.
Speaker 2: I found sites all over the world where there had
Speaker 2: been horrific events, and I looked at the real estate
Speaker 2: and I talked to the people running the property, and
Speaker 2: they were all very gracious with their time and information
Speaker 2: that they gave to me. So I went on this
Speaker 2: international trip, if you will, to gather information, and that
Speaker 2: brought things back down to earth in terms of what
Speaker 2: would be appropriate or inappropriate with the World Trade Center site.
Speaker 2: I think we hit a grand slam of doing things right.
Speaker 5: The memorial is.
Speaker 2: Very fitting, it's very respectful, but at the same time,
Speaker 2: the site was carved into four pieces, one for the
Speaker 2: memorial and three that redeveloped, one with the Freedom Tower,
Speaker 2: and it was the right balance of respect and also
Speaker 2: moving forward with the other properties with the financial district,
Speaker 2: and I think it was a nice, fullistic solution to
Speaker 2: the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So Randall worked on the Sandy Hook case. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Like specifically the home of the shooter.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Sandy Hook was twenty twelve in Connecticut where a guy,
Speaker 6: Adam landsa murdered almost an entire kindergarten classroom and the teachers.
Speaker 1: The majority of those who died today were children, beautiful
Speaker 1: little kids between the ages of five and ten years old.
Speaker 6: The decision had been made to tear the school down,
Speaker 6: but Randall came in to work with the community about
Speaker 6: Adam Lands's family home another case that you've worked on.
Speaker 6: That in seeing that you worked on this case, it
Speaker 6: literally emotionally brought me back to the day was Sandy Hook.
Speaker 6: And this is like so inappropriate, but it's going to
Speaker 6: make me cry a little bit. I had a first
Speaker 6: grader and running to my kids, you know, elementary school
Speaker 6: in that day and all the parents, you know, everyone
Speaker 6: was silent. You were involved in that case. I'm sorry,
Speaker 6: this is like so, I'm surprised at how emotional it's
Speaker 6: making me. But do you mind talking about that case?
Speaker 2: I feel myself getting kind of emotionally charged a little
Speaker 2: bit because I have four big kids now, but they
Speaker 2: were little. It was horrific. What he did is horrific,
Speaker 2: and being in his bedroom seeing what I saw with
Speaker 2: the remnants of his obsession with guns being in his
Speaker 2: mother's bedroom where he shot his mom. It's for me too,
Speaker 2: and I need to be very careful with my self
Speaker 2: care because I'm dealing with the heaviest of the heavy situations.
Speaker 2: Like when I was the World Trade Center, I had
Speaker 2: to take breaks and just I had to self regulate
Speaker 2: because it can be too overwhelming. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: I need to be clear on what my objective is,
Speaker 2: what my purpose is to try and take this situation
Speaker 2: make it better. And that's what kind of feels me
Speaker 2: to go forward. Because with Sandy Hook, my client was
Speaker 2: the bank that got the property back in the foreclosure
Speaker 2: because there's obviously nobody paying the mortgage, so that they
Speaker 2: didn't want the property, but they got it back anyway,
Speaker 2: and they didn't know what to do with it. So
Speaker 2: I met with the mayor and she was a wonderful person,
Speaker 2: and I met with the chief of police and the
Speaker 2: school district people. I met with all of them, and
Speaker 2: I said, you know, the bank is in the business
Speaker 2: and making money, but not in this case. The bank
Speaker 2: simply wants to do that. Now I'm going emotional. The
Speaker 2: right thing for the town for the families, because there
Speaker 2: were families still living right down the street. What I
Speaker 2: did is I went to Sandy Hook, I went to
Speaker 2: other school shooting sites. I oftentimes get FBI clearance.
Speaker 5: I got all this.
Speaker 2: I don't know about all, but I think I actually
Speaker 2: did get all the recent school shootings, which blew me
Speaker 2: away how many aren't publicized, and visited a number of
Speaker 2: them and said, here's what happened here, and here and here,
Speaker 2: and I laid out a frankly a chart showing every
Speaker 2: possible option I can I have researched or found or
Speaker 2: am aware of, and we'll let the town make the decision.
Speaker 2: And one night I'm working in my office late and
Speaker 2: the mayor called me and she said, I've talked to
Speaker 2: the families. She says, do you think that we can
Speaker 2: get that place torn down? And I said, watch me,
Speaker 2: and we did. Some places are just simply not salvageable.
Speaker 2: And I think that's one of them. And I think
Speaker 2: the reasons are pretty apparent.
Speaker 4: I think that was the moment where we all realize,
Speaker 4: as the country, okay, there's nothing that there's not gonna
Speaker 4: be any one act that is going to change the
Speaker 4: conversation around gun control in this country, if this hasn't
Speaker 4: done it nothing well. And I have my brothers a
Speaker 4: lot younger than me, and he was about the age
Speaker 4: of those kids, so like it was also for me,
Speaker 4: I was like, this is horrific, and if this is
Speaker 4: not something that can actually make us do something, it's
Speaker 4: not going to happen. But then I can't imagine, you know,
Speaker 4: going in that community and having to sort of like
Speaker 4: face it head on. And I think a lot of
Speaker 4: people are probably relying on him to kind of be
Speaker 4: this rock in these moments right where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this tragedy is happening, I need you to sort of
Speaker 4: guide me on what to do next with this property
Speaker 4: or in this moment, like I need you to be
Speaker 4: the sort of like stable guide in this sort of
Speaker 4: tragedy that's happening around me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely. I think Randall he does hit in an
Speaker 6: interesting position because he's trying to help places financially and logistically,
Speaker 6: but he also kind of has to act like a therapist,
Speaker 6: you know, and talk to all these people and listen
Speaker 6: and then try and figure out what is the best
Speaker 6: for them, not just financially but emotionally. What's the best
Speaker 6: for these communities and these families.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And another one of these cases that Randal worked
Speaker 1: on that wasn't just emotionally charged but also politically charged,
Speaker 1: was what happened in Orlando. Could you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that.
Speaker 6: Twenty sixteen somebody went into this gay nightclub and murdered
Speaker 6: forty nine and injured fifty three people. And that one.
Speaker 6: From talking to Randall, I sort of got the impression
Speaker 6: that one was the most personally life changing for him.
Speaker 6: He talks about going in with the owner of the
Speaker 6: nightclub and there was no power, but he said it
Speaker 6: wasn't dark inside because the size of the bullet holes
Speaker 6: that had gone through the glass windows were so large.
Speaker 6: He said they were like cannonballs, And so there was
Speaker 6: just light streaming from outside. And there was a like
Speaker 6: a fifteen foot wide dark stain on the floor, and
Speaker 6: he asked the owner what is that and the owner said,
Speaker 6: that's blood that was underneath the dance floor. They had
Speaker 6: ripped up the dance floor and there was so much
Speaker 6: blood that had seet down into the foundation.
Speaker 2: That's where I became very vocal about and being an
Speaker 2: LGBT fer me. I'm not gay myself, But that's where
Speaker 2: I thought, I need to do more personally and anytime,
Speaker 2: any chance I get to speak out against this kind
Speaker 2: of injustice, because that's what fueled this thing. But we
Speaker 2: can't speak out of our own ways. My ways small
Speaker 2: and probably insignificant. But I'm going to use whatever voice
Speaker 2: I've got to say racism or any of this stuff
Speaker 2: is just horrific, and I'll say it as loud and
Speaker 2: proud as I can to the day I die. And
Speaker 2: that's that case really woke me up to being loud
Speaker 2: and proud about speaking up against social injustice.
Speaker 1: I imagine, like a nightclub property is, you know, for
Speaker 1: his purposes is kind of a valuable thing. What ended
Speaker 1: up happening with that nightclub.
Speaker 6: So that the city of Orlando bought the property and
Speaker 6: the plan is is that that is going to be
Speaker 6: turned into a memorial. Okay, so supposedly in twenty twenty
Speaker 6: seven that should be a memorial.
Speaker 1: How did all of this work? How does it affect
Speaker 1: him personally? I mean, does this kind of dampen his
Speaker 1: outlook on life? Have you guys talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: how he kind of processes all of this, how he's
Speaker 1: able to keep doing it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was a question I had for him, because
Speaker 6: in some ways, I honestly think the work he's doing
Speaker 6: is some of the hardest around crimes because he's he's
Speaker 6: really sitting in the emotions with these communities long after
Speaker 6: like the initial tragedy, and he's trying to figure out
Speaker 6: how to help make them whole, Like how do you
Speaker 6: heal these help heal these communities, and whether it's just
Speaker 6: like making sure they're getting enough money right through like
Speaker 6: the different insurances or whatever it is, but how do
Speaker 6: they then rebuild? He talks about going to New Orleans
Speaker 6: after Katrina, and you know, there were just tens of
Speaker 6: thousands of homes that were destroyed and people just literally
Speaker 6: swept away in these waters, and and he talks about
Speaker 6: families showing up with what little they had from another state,
Speaker 6: like emptied out their four hundred dollars from their bank
Speaker 6: account and came and just tried to help anybody who
Speaker 6: needed it. So he said it's sort of in these
Speaker 6: worst moments that he sees the best sides of people
Speaker 6: and that ultimately, you know, it keeps them going because
Speaker 6: we as humans do want to help each other in
Speaker 6: the face of sort of unimaginable events.
Speaker 1: It's also it's fascinating too, because it's not work that
Speaker 1: it's going to dry up for him, you know, it's
Speaker 1: these these kind of like high profile crimes unfortunately like
Speaker 1: just going to keep continuing, especially as him was saying,
Speaker 1: where you like kind of don't really do anything legislatively
Speaker 1: to prevent some of them, and so yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: really kind of daunting to think that, like he's just
Speaker 1: got a lot of work to do and will continue
Speaker 1: to have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 6: Randall sort of ended up in this line of work
Speaker 6: also because I think he had a he has a
Speaker 6: memory growing up of driving into La with his dad
Speaker 6: and it was after the La riots and seeing homeless
Speaker 6: families living on the street, and he asked his dad,
Speaker 6: He was like, what are what are those people doing?
Speaker 6: And his dad started to explain to him, you know,
Speaker 6: about the riots and also just that there were people
Speaker 6: who who didn't have a place to live, and Randall
Speaker 6: I think was six, and he just kept asking his
Speaker 6: dad like I don't understand, you know. I think it
Speaker 6: was maybe his first exposure where he was old enough
Speaker 6: to realize like maybe a little bit of his innocence
Speaker 6: had been broken where he was like, wait, this is awful,
Speaker 6: Like how can little kids be living on the street,
Speaker 6: And that always stuck with him and his dad didn't
Speaker 6: have an answer for him. But I think it's something
Speaker 6: that he could never shake. And so I think when
Speaker 6: lou Brown called him and said, what do we do
Speaker 6: with Nichole's place? Because we have to keep you know,
Speaker 6: we got to keep paying the bills. We've got to
Speaker 6: figure out what to do with this, I think he
Speaker 6: had that empathy and wanting to help people who were
Speaker 6: in a really difficult situation, and also trying to understand,
Speaker 6: you know, something horrible has happened, it's not your fault,
Speaker 6: and maybe there's no way, sort of going back to
Speaker 6: your point about Sandy Hook and you know, I remember thinking, God,
Speaker 6: if we're not going to enact gun legislation, after that
Speaker 6: same thought, it's never going to happen. And I think
Speaker 6: Randall is sort of in that same situation where he's like,
Speaker 6: we're not making things all that much better after these events,
Speaker 6: but we need to come together as people to do
Speaker 6: what we can. You know, you can't wait for someone
Speaker 6: else to try and make things better. And maybe he's
Speaker 6: still you know, trying to answer that question that he
Speaker 6: had as a kid, like how can this stuff be happening?
Speaker 6: And so it's you know, I think he thinks of
Speaker 6: this line of work as his little way of trying
Speaker 6: to make life better for people who find themselves in
Speaker 6: just a horrific situation.
Speaker 2: It is insanely heavy stuff. I fully acknowledge it. And
Speaker 2: one of the coping mechanisms is that I work hard,
Speaker 2: but I also play hard. I live by the beach,
Speaker 2: I go skiing a lot, as much as a sixty
Speaker 2: six year old guy can do. I beat most of
Speaker 2: the snowboarders down the hill. I have a work life balance.
Speaker 2: I do it very conscientiously. But what is it about me?
Speaker 2: I think I've come full circle with that day that
Speaker 2: my dad took me down to the LA Riots, because
Speaker 2: you know, you see the families that are homeless on
Speaker 2: the sidewalk. I saw it as a six year old
Speaker 2: kid and just saying, why would why is this going on?
Speaker 2: I was just baffled, and I don't know that I
Speaker 2: have the answer to that, but I do feel like
Speaker 2: I've contributed a little bit to making things better. My
Speaker 2: Mom's not here to brag for me, so I'll just say,
Speaker 2: these cases tend to find me, and I'm very proud
Speaker 2: of that I've made. I think that contribution. I think
Speaker 2: that's what keeps me going.
Speaker 5: That's why I don't want to retire.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to No Such Thing. Produced by Manny,
Speaker 1: Noah and Devin. The theme song is produced by me
Speaker 1: Manny and this episode was mixed by Steve Bone. No
Speaker 1: Such Thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Executive produced
Speaker 1: by Mangesh Hachi Kador and Kate Osborne. This episode was
Speaker 1: produced with the help of America's Crime Lab. Great podcast
Speaker 1: that everyone should go check out, and thank you to
Speaker 1: our guest Catherine Finelosa. If you like what you're hearing,
Speaker 1: please give us a five star review wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: to this, and be sure to check out our website
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