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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, it's Jake. Thanks for listening to deep Cover.

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Speaker 1: I'm starting to work now on season four, and I

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Speaker 1: want to remind you that when you sign up for

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Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus, you'll get access to binge drops of future

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Speaker 1: seasons of Deep Cover and exclusive content from other Pushkin

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Speaker 1: true crime hits like Death of an Artist, which just

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Speaker 1: rapped its first season, as well as Lost Hills, which

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Speaker 1: is returning with their third season this June. And of course,

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Speaker 1: don't miss early access to Revisionist History and The Happiness Lab,

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Speaker 1: which are both publishing year round for the first time

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. Check out Pushkin dot fm or

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Speaker 1: the Apple Show page for more information. Earlier this month,

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Speaker 1: I sat down for a live recorded conversation with my

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Speaker 1: friend Emily Basilon. She's a staff writer at The New

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Speaker 1: York Times magazine and a co host of Slate's Political Gabfest.

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Speaker 1: Emily someone I go to when I'm thinking through a story. Actually,

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Speaker 1: this often happens during runs that we take through East

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Speaker 1: Rock Park in New Haven, where we both live. We

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Speaker 1: kind of nerd out on these runs. We talk about

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Speaker 1: the process of recording and the ethical challenges that we

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Speaker 1: both face when telling our stories. So we took that

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Speaker 1: conversation rum the streets of New Haven to Brooklyn to

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Speaker 1: a place called Littlefield, and just so you can picture it,

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Speaker 1: it's a really great scene. It's a bar on the

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Speaker 1: stage with these two orange leather chairs, microphones, this cool

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Speaker 1: lighting display behind us. It was a fun night and

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Speaker 1: I'm excited to share that conversation with you here to

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Speaker 1: talk about season three, my favorite season. When Jake told

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Speaker 1: me about the idea for this season on a run,

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Speaker 1: I was immediately sold. I'm going to say this. I

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Speaker 1: hope it's true. I think I said this is going

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Speaker 1: to be the best season you did, but I didn't

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Speaker 1: know whether you're adjut you know, trying to up my confidence. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was certain because it's just such a good story.

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Speaker 1: So why don't we start, because I love these stories

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Speaker 1: from you, with your telling us how you found this

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Speaker 1: terrific story. Yeah, I mean, and also just say that

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Speaker 1: I years ago, an NPR producer said to me that

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Speaker 1: a good MPR segment should always feel like one person

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Speaker 1: talking to one other person. So in some ways, like

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Speaker 1: this run we had, or when I'll pitch the ideas,

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Speaker 1: that's how it starts. And so I live in New Haven.

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Speaker 1: We both went to Yale, and I've always been kind

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Speaker 1: of interested in people that faked their way into universities,

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Speaker 1: and there was a guy who faked his way into

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Speaker 1: Yale when I had been a student there, and I

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Speaker 1: started poking around about maybe there's a story about someone

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Speaker 1: who lived some kind of elaborate deception. And it turns

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Speaker 1: out I found a piece in the Harvard Crimson about

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Speaker 1: a woman named Esther Reid. I mean, this was just

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Speaker 1: kind of the tip of the iceberg, and so started

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Speaker 1: going down that path of like where else did she

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Speaker 1: go and who else was she? And yeah, that kind

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Speaker 1: of opened the rabbit's hole, and because of those years ago,

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Speaker 1: you had this kind of tantalizing lead. But then there

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Speaker 1: was this whole question of like, who is this person

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Speaker 1: now and would she talk to you? And why would

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Speaker 1: she ever talk to you. I wrote this kind of

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Speaker 1: generic letter saying who I was, and then I got

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Speaker 1: a callback from Esther And this is a bit of

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Speaker 1: a spoiler if you haven't gotten through episode six, but

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Speaker 1: she told me that yes, I'm now I go by

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Speaker 1: Esther Matthews, and I'm a professor of criminology at Gonzaga University.

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Speaker 1: I was like what, And then I just was kind

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Speaker 1: of really hooked on all right, this is really unusual woman.

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Speaker 1: What is her story? So I flew out to spoken

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Speaker 1: where she lives. I rented an airbnb. We set up

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Speaker 1: like a little studio in the living room of the airbnb,

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Speaker 1: and I just said, okay, like let's start talking. Tell

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Speaker 1: me your story. And this is kind of how it began.

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Speaker 1: This is a story about a young woman who ran

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Speaker 1: away from home. At least that's how it all started.

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Speaker 1: I think people think that I had this master plan

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Speaker 1: and I went out and did it, and like, you know,

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Speaker 1: like it's not fun, right, You're constantly scared, you have

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Speaker 1: no support, you have no one to talk to, which

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Speaker 1: is part of the reason it got so carried away.

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Speaker 1: Like if I had just talked to somebody, they would

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Speaker 1: have been like this is crazy. Along the way, there

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Speaker 1: were plenty of moments where she could have stopped running,

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Speaker 1: but she didn't. Sort of like I got on a

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Speaker 1: train track. There was clearly the wrong train track, and like,

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Speaker 1: my train is running away, and at some point you're

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Speaker 1: not thinking crap, how do we get off this train track?

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Speaker 1: You're just thinking crap, how do I stop this train

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Speaker 1: from like going off the rails. You know, I just

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Speaker 1: kept making horrible decision after horrible decision after horrible decision,

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Speaker 1: just trying to keep the train from crashing and killing

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Speaker 1: me at that point. So there's a lot of reflection

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Speaker 1: in Esther's voice, and you can tell that she's still

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Speaker 1: wrestling with the emotions she has, and the memories are

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Speaker 1: mixed in with how difficult and experience she had in

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Speaker 1: this past that you're excavating with her. Why did she

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Speaker 1: decide to talk to you? I think so at that point,

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Speaker 1: and as I say in the podcast, she was Professor

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Speaker 1: Esther Matthews. Almost no one at her university or in

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Speaker 1: this town knew that she was also this kind of

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Speaker 1: notorious figure from the tabloids, Esther Reid. But she lived

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Speaker 1: under this kind of specter of fear that someone was

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Speaker 1: going to eventually put the dots together, and that she felt,

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Speaker 1: if that was going to happen, why not do it

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Speaker 1: on my own terms and just kind of be out

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Speaker 1: in front of it, especially because she had had such

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Speaker 1: poor treatment in the media before. So I think there

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Speaker 1: was kind of a timing thing where she said, I've

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Speaker 1: been thinking about doing this. She knew that she knew

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Speaker 1: that that John Campbell had visited her LinkedIn page. She

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Speaker 1: knew that people would sometimes kind of poke around, and

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Speaker 1: so I think she just said, let's do this. We

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Speaker 1: had one of these discussions and Emily, you know, we

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Speaker 1: talked about this all the time on our runs, where

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Speaker 1: someone says they'll talk and then they say, oh this

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Speaker 1: is off limits and that's off limits and you can't

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Speaker 1: call them, and and I was waiting for that, and

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Speaker 1: she said, kind of got out in front of it,

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Speaker 1: and she said, look, I know you're going to want

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Speaker 1: to talk to other people. I'm not going to try

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Speaker 1: to control who you talk to. Look, you got to

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Speaker 1: do what you have to do. And that gave me

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Speaker 1: some confidence that I was going to be dealing with

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Speaker 1: someone who understood the process of what would be involved.

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Speaker 1: And so I think it's a short answer is timing.

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Speaker 1: So you mentioned John Campbell, who's the detective in this story,

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Speaker 1: and we made I think, kind of an unusual decision

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Speaker 1: to really start the podcast with him. I mean, Esther's

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Speaker 1: voice shows up early, but then you really moved to

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Speaker 1: his perspective, and he's not originally investigating Esther's disappearance. He's

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Speaker 1: investigating the disappearance of another young woman. Right. Yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: investigating the disappearance of a woman named Brooke Henson who

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Speaker 1: disappeared from the small town of Traveler's Rest, and he

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Speaker 1: wants to get to the bottom of this. But she

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Speaker 1: is vanished, and he hasn't given up on the case,

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Speaker 1: but he is the light is dim that he's going

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Speaker 1: to get to the answer and then whatever it is.

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Speaker 1: Six or seven years later, he gets a call from

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Speaker 1: New York saying, I think I found your woman, Brooke Henson.

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Speaker 1: She's a student at Columbia University. And of course it's

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Speaker 1: not really Brooke, it's Esther. But this leads him on

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Speaker 1: this quest to pursue Esther. And I'll just say I

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Speaker 1: wanted to talk to John. I called him up. He said,

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Speaker 1: coming down and chat. And I really wasn't sure what

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Speaker 1: to expect when I retire. I can't wait to put

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Speaker 1: this in a drawer. I mean, this is a that's

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Speaker 1: the thing I banged my elbow on all the time.

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Speaker 1: So it's not about carry a gun. I carry gun

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Speaker 1: because we have to. I'd rather be like Andy Griffith

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Speaker 1: and just be sharing for that a gun. And he's

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Speaker 1: he's just charming in a way that I was. He's disarming,

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Speaker 1: he laughs at himself, he's kind of goofy, and he's

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Speaker 1: a good detective, and so I immediately sensed, oh wow,

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Speaker 1: this guy is going to be an important kind of

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Speaker 1: character in the podcast. Why did he care so much

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Speaker 1: about this case? I mean, he really gets preoccupied with it.

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Speaker 1: I kind of want to use the word obsessed, although

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Speaker 1: it's not super respectful, but he's just really intensely driven

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Speaker 1: to work on this case. Is there not very much

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Speaker 1: interesting crime to solve and Traveler's Rest, well, funny you

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Speaker 1: should say that John. I asked John this question. He said, Look,

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Speaker 1: Traveler's Rest is like we call it the circle of Wagons.

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Speaker 1: It's a few miles across, and our job as constables

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Speaker 1: is to push the crime out of the city. And

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Speaker 1: that the kind of lawless mountains or what was once

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Speaker 1: the lawless Mountains beat a lawless mountains here. This roar

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Speaker 1: of a truck would come in and people would pile out,

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Speaker 1: and they'd say, we're looking for the law, you know,

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Speaker 1: and mountain justice had failed and they had to come

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Speaker 1: to into town to find find some law enforcement. And

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Speaker 1: so John was basically like within the circle of wagons

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Speaker 1: within this town. He felt like that he was a custodianigan,

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Speaker 1: someone who was really dependent upon to keep the peace,

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Speaker 1: and not a lot did happen, and then this young

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Speaker 1: woman vanishes, and I think he feels personally responsible in

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Speaker 1: some ways for getting to the bottom of this. And

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Speaker 1: you could say it becomes obsessed, but I relate to

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Speaker 1: that in a way. It's like you start to get

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a mystery and you're not going

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Speaker 1: to arrest until you get to it. And so he

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Speaker 1: just takes it a lot further than most would, right,

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Speaker 1: And so he is trying to solve the mystery of

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Speaker 1: Brooke Henson's disappearance and esther appears in his story in

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Speaker 1: the end almost by accident, because there are different aliases

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Speaker 1: that she's grabbing hold of and Brooke is one of them. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So this the thing that's kind of remarkable about the

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Speaker 1: story is he gets the call the Brooke Henson is

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Speaker 1: actually up in Columbia, right, and he doesn't really it

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Speaker 1: doesn't really make sense that she would vanish for seven

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Speaker 1: years and then show up at this school, and he

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Speaker 1: sends a police officer. The police officer talks to her

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Speaker 1: and he presents her with a series of questions that

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Speaker 1: only Brooke would know, and she answers most of them successfully,

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Speaker 1: and at that point, you know, you would think he

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Speaker 1: just lets it go. But this is where his doggedness

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Speaker 1: comes in. He says, no, I want DNA, which I

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Speaker 1: think I say in the podcast was ballsy, and somehow

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Speaker 1: the New York City cop agrees to it, and then

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Speaker 1: she runs. So here's what I find fascinating about John. Like,

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Speaker 1: on the one hand, it was kind of crazy of

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Speaker 1: him to push for DNA. On the other hand, his

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Speaker 1: hunch was right that it's possible that this person was

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Speaker 1: so adept at being an impostor that she knew these

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Speaker 1: kind of unknowable answers. And so that's the weird thing

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Speaker 1: about being an obsessive investigator is that if occasionally your unreasonable,

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Speaker 1: obsessive hunch is spot on, then you're going to follow

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Speaker 1: it at least the next time or maybe the time

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Speaker 1: after that, because you have positive confirmation that you are

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Speaker 1: right to be obsessed. And so to me, that was

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Speaker 1: a part of John that I could relate to and

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Speaker 1: that I understood. I think it's just he was on

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Speaker 1: his own train, you know. Esther says, she's on her train,

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Speaker 1: he's on his train, and it's not so easy to

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Speaker 1: get off of that. Yeah. So there are lots of podcasts,

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Speaker 1: especially movies, books in the genre of true crime. Right

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Speaker 1: it's sort of a national pastime right now to follow

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Speaker 1: some of these cases. There are different choices. You get

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Speaker 1: kind of hooked on a narrative. I find that podcasts

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Speaker 1: are an especially like engrossing way to enter stories and

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Speaker 1: become absorbed in them. Are there any ethical issues that

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Speaker 1: arise in this area of reporting? I mean, you're really

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Speaker 1: digging into people's lives. These are things that happened a

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Speaker 1: long time ago to real people. How do you think

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Speaker 1: about that with the story like this? Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: I think that you have to ask yourself at some

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Speaker 1: level what justifies doing this? Is it? Because if the

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Speaker 1: answer is strictly entertainment, then I don't think you can

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Speaker 1: do it. And so there were a few things that

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Speaker 1: I grappled with. One was I talked to this guy,

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Speaker 1: ben Ford, who is the chief of police, the current

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Speaker 1: chief of police down and Traveler's Rest, who is doing,

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Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, a very hard and

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Speaker 1: earnest job of still trying to find out what happened

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Speaker 1: to Brooke And this is a weird thing. This is

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Speaker 1: the only time that's ever happened to me. I interviewed

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Speaker 1: John Campbell and or I was about I hadn't even

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Speaker 1: interviewed I hadn't even gone to Traveler's Rest yet. And

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Speaker 1: I got a message, Jake, this is Ben Ford of

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Speaker 1: the Traveler's Rest Police Department. I would like to talk

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Speaker 1: to you. And that was because he knew you were

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Speaker 1: trying to get in touch with John Gimpbell. He got

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Speaker 1: word that I might be doing a story related to

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Speaker 1: Brooke Henson say. So I was like, this is weird.

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Speaker 1: Like usually on any kind of active investigation with law enforcement,

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Speaker 1: as you know, it's like they generally very leery of

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Speaker 1: the press. And so I called him and he said, look,

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Speaker 1: I'm running an active investigation. If you can get the

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Speaker 1: word out about the facts about what we know when

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Speaker 1: don't know, I'd be very appreciative. I will share with

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Speaker 1: you whatever I've got. So that was encouraging to me

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Speaker 1: because I felt like, oh, maybe there's a public service here.

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Speaker 1: And then I got in touch with a woman that

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Speaker 1: looked for missing people, and then she put me in

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Speaker 1: touch with Brook's cousins, and I just asked them straight up.

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Speaker 1: I was like, is this something you're comfortable with? And

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Speaker 1: they basically said, look, we still want to find her remains,

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Speaker 1: we're hopeful that maybe this will help, and we're also

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Speaker 1: just that she's not forgotten. And we had that conversation

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Speaker 1: and we revisited that in the fact checking part. I

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Speaker 1: ran back overall with every aspect of it with them.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I was thinking a lot about that and

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Speaker 1: the second part and we'll get to this is Esther's

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Speaker 1: treatment in the medium and revisiting that, and I felt

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Speaker 1: like there's a place where we can do a good,

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Speaker 1: hard look at the way this was played out, and

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Speaker 1: by taking a second look at it, there may be

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Speaker 1: some good that served from this. So it was as

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Speaker 1: I was grappling with this kind of looking at those

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Speaker 1: other things, that said, you know what, I think there

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Speaker 1: is value here in kind of telling the story well.

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Speaker 1: And some of this comes down again to timing, right,

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Speaker 1: we were talking about that earlier. But when you have

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Speaker 1: a cold case like this and a family that is

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Speaker 1: still wants to know answers, interest from reporters, podcasters can

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Speaker 1: be welcome in a way that it might well not

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Speaker 1: have been in the moment, right, this isn't a new story,

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Speaker 1: worry anymore. It was a big news story. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: you're coming in at a different time. Yeah, the dust

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Speaker 1: is settled a bit. I mean, Esther is able to

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Speaker 1: talk about this. I mean there's good and bad from that.

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Speaker 1: The hard part is it time has passed, so sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's hard to get people to remember what they were

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Speaker 1: thinking and feeling at the time. Another hard part is

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Speaker 1: if they were burned by the media, they don't want

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Speaker 1: to talk to you, and you have to spend a

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Speaker 1: lot of time explaining this is not going to be

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Speaker 1: a tabloid treatment of this. But yeah, it's nice to

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Speaker 1: be like talking about the Secret Service. I mean, I've

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Speaker 1: tried to do with the Secret Service before. The Secret

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Speaker 1: Service never talks in my experience, and I got don

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Speaker 1: long and basically as at she was like, it's like

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Speaker 1: years ago, I'll talk to you, you know, And so yeah,

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Speaker 1: there were some definite benefits as well. How did the

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Speaker 1: media cover Ester's disappearance once they knew she was missing? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's funny because when I first saw the

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Speaker 1: media coverage that this story got back in the day,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, how this is you kind of

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Speaker 1: think like this or story has been poured it out

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Speaker 1: like I'm late to the party, right, And so but

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Speaker 1: then I started taking a look a closer look at

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Speaker 1: the way it was reported out, and it was basically

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Speaker 1: like you know, fem fatale, It was, you know, very

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Speaker 1: much not what you're hearing her say in the opening,

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Speaker 1: that she kind of embarked on this path in which

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Speaker 1: she kind of was making incrementally bad decisions and was

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Speaker 1: we learned in the podcast was dealing with mental health

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Speaker 1: and all this that you know, she's portrayed as like

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Speaker 1: almost like a Bond villain, you know, as someone who's

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Speaker 1: seducing People's a kind of female version of Catch me

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Speaker 1: if you can. In fact, that was the play on

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Speaker 1: the forty eight Hours version of this. And so the

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Speaker 1: thinking is, Okay, is there a way to re examine

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Speaker 1: It doesn't mean you let her off the hook. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean you give her a pass for the laws

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Speaker 1: that she broke, But can you look at this and

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Speaker 1: see maybe there's a more nuanced portrayal of a real

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Speaker 1: human being here and not just the kind of cardboard cutout.

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Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back,

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Speaker 1: Welcome back. After we grab some drinks and mingled with

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Speaker 1: the crowd, I turned the tables on Emily asked her

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Speaker 1: some questions because we do similar work. She often reports

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Speaker 1: on criminal justice for the New York Times magazine and

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Speaker 1: finds her way into all kinds of interesting and convoluted

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Speaker 1: true crime stories. And there's one in particular that I

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Speaker 1: wanted to talk to her about, a story that Emily

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Speaker 1: spent years reporting on. It involves a young woman named

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Speaker 1: Nora Jackson. Nora was convicted as a teenager of killing

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Speaker 1: her own mother. She spent several years in prison, and

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Speaker 1: then one day her conviction was overturned. Emily became interested

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Speaker 1: in how someone like this happens and the role of

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Speaker 1: the prosecutor, a woman named Amy Wyrick. Emily wrote about

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Speaker 1: Norah's case for the New York Times magazine. Her story

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Speaker 1: also appeared in Emily's book Charged. You should check them out.

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Speaker 1: We've included links to both in our show notes. Okay,

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Speaker 1: back to our conversation, and I'm wondering whether Emily, you

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Speaker 1: can just kind of turn back the clock and help

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Speaker 1: remind me and us how did you get drawn to

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Speaker 1: this story? What did you know initially, and what made

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Speaker 1: you think that this was a story you wanted to write.

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Speaker 1: So you are a story person who starts with like

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Speaker 1: a good sizzly concept of people who faked their ideas

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Speaker 1: to go to college. I often, to my detriment, are

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Speaker 1: more of an ideas person. And I was interested several

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Speaker 1: years ago in prosecutors who had a pattern of breaking

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Speaker 1: the rules in a way that harmed the people who

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Speaker 1: they were charged with. Prosecuting prosecutors obviously prosecute cases, but

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Speaker 1: they're also supposed to be a kind of arbiter of

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Speaker 1: justice in their own way. They represent the people. They

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Speaker 1: also have responsibilities to uphold all the laws and rules

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Speaker 1: in the justice system. And I was interested in the

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Speaker 1: prosecutors who cut corners. So there was a prosecutor I

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Speaker 1: did a little research. I was like looking around the

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Speaker 1: country for a kind of rose gallery of prosecutors. Frankly,

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Speaker 1: and at the time, the district attorney in Memphis, which

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Speaker 1: is Shelby County, her name was Amy Wyrick, and she

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Speaker 1: had a real pattern of failing to disclose evidence in

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Speaker 1: cases in which she'd gotten, you know, big convictions, and

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Speaker 1: Nora Jackson's case. Once I was like in that world

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Speaker 1: jumped out at me, you know, for some similar reasons

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Speaker 1: to why you were interested in esther. So, when Nora

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Speaker 1: was eighteen, her mother was brutally stabbed death in her home.

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Speaker 1: And her mother was a forty year old white stockbroker,

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Speaker 1: so it was like an unusual murder and the kind

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Speaker 1: of murder that is destab realizing to you know, white

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Speaker 1: middle class residence. There was no obvious suspect, and about

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Speaker 1: three months after the murder, Amy Wireck charged Nora, the

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Speaker 1: eighteen year old daughter, with her mother's killing. Nora didn't

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Speaker 1: have a criminal history, but she was known as a

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Speaker 1: kind of wild child, and the charges were brought and

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Speaker 1: there was a lot of publicity, and then a few

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Speaker 1: months later the DNA results came back from the crime scene.

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Speaker 1: You know, her mother's blood was everywhere, so there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of evidence to test, and in fact, Nora

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Speaker 1: was excluded as someone who was part of that crime

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Speaker 1: scene in any way, and there were other DNA profiles. However,

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Speaker 1: Wyreck prosecuted her anyway, and for a variety of reasons,

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Speaker 1: including what was later deemed misconduct on Wyreck's part, Nora

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Speaker 1: was convicted and then later the Tennessee Supreme Court actually

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Speaker 1: overturned her conviction, and I think we have a little

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Speaker 1: clip of Nora talking about finding out about that ruling.

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Speaker 1: Three years ago, in a woman's prison outside Memphis, Tennessee,

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Speaker 1: Nora Jackson was sitting in her cell watching television en mute.

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Speaker 1: You know, they'd have three one three two and three

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Speaker 1: three and three dash two is just like a repeat

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Speaker 1: of the news in the weather. Her roommate was in

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Speaker 1: the cafeteria and Nora wanted to get some privacy. And

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Speaker 1: I just was sitting there going to the bathroom and

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Speaker 1: just like watching it, and I saw my name come

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Speaker 1: across the bottom of the screen and then I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh shit. So she turns on the volume. The Tennessee

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court has granted Norah Jackson a new trial, and

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Speaker 1: she just, honestly, for a few minutes, couldn't believe it.

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Speaker 1: Nora Jackson is now awaiting a new trial. And even

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Speaker 1: though Nora had just won her appeal, something that rarely

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Speaker 1: happens in the state of Tennessee. This is after she

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Speaker 1: has spent nine years in prison. Emily Basilon has been

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Speaker 1: covering the case and like nobody was there because everybody

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Speaker 1: that dinner so I'm like screaming to get out because

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Speaker 1: I'm like wanting to get to the phone and nobody's

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Speaker 1: there missing. Is something going to eat them? Right? And

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Speaker 1: why was Norah in prison in the first place. Nora

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Speaker 1: was in prison because she was convicted of murdering her

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Speaker 1: mother Jennifer Jackson. Wow, that's an episode of The Daily

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Speaker 1: and that was I think Mike Barbarrow somehow like sounds

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Speaker 1: different now to me anyway, So go ahead, I want

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Speaker 1: to ask you a question as you're telling the stories.

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Speaker 1: So she charges Amy Rick, charges Norah with the murder

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Speaker 1: of her mother, and then you said, some period of

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Speaker 1: time later it comes out that the DNA was excluded.

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Speaker 1: So what is the sequence of events? Does she have

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Speaker 1: that DNA evidence when she makes the charge. No, Wyrick

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Speaker 1: didn't have the DNA results from the crime lab. You

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Speaker 1: might wonder why she didn't wait for them to come back. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I am wondering, Yes she didn't, but they were available,

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Speaker 1: They were part of the record. They were part of

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Speaker 1: the evidence that the jury heard, and the jury convicted

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Speaker 1: Nora anyway, And I think there are a few explanations

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Speaker 1: for that. One was the kind of failed strategy of

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Speaker 1: her defense lawyer and that didn't go very well. And

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Speaker 1: also the judge in the case admitted people saying all

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Speaker 1: kinds of stuff about Nora, like, for example, that you know,

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Speaker 1: her boyfriend had crawled in the window just you know,

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Speaker 1: one night to have sex with her a couple months

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Speaker 1: after her mother was killed. Just all of this irrelevant

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Speaker 1: but kind of scurrilous character assassination evidence, and perhaps that

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Speaker 1: had an effect on the jury. As you're talking about

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Speaker 1: the chargers being placed before the DNA evidence comes back,

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Speaker 1: it almost makes me think of a version of the

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Speaker 1: media getting out in front of the story that you

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Speaker 1: have an idea that this is who this person is,

428
00:24:03,596 --> 00:24:06,116
Speaker 1: they've done this, and then what happens when you find

429
00:24:06,156 --> 00:24:09,716
Speaker 1: evidence that might or ought to give you pause about

430
00:24:09,756 --> 00:24:13,276
Speaker 1: the theories that you've postulated prior to having that evidence. Yeah,

431
00:24:13,356 --> 00:24:15,556
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, one way to think about this

432
00:24:15,676 --> 00:24:19,676
Speaker 1: is tunnel vision for prosecutors that once they've chosen someone,

433
00:24:20,036 --> 00:24:24,556
Speaker 1: there's a lot of impetus, confirmation bias, professional reasons to

434
00:24:24,636 --> 00:24:27,876
Speaker 1: kind of stick with that person as the suspect. And

435
00:24:27,956 --> 00:24:31,156
Speaker 1: that is in fact what happened to Nora. So after

436
00:24:31,196 --> 00:24:35,636
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned her conviction. She had a

437
00:24:35,756 --> 00:24:38,716
Speaker 1: kind of second round of like a prolonged kind of

438
00:24:38,716 --> 00:24:41,716
Speaker 1: face off with Amy Wyrick because Wireck was threatening to

439
00:24:41,756 --> 00:24:46,236
Speaker 1: prosecute her again and in order to get a plea bargain,

440
00:24:46,716 --> 00:24:50,596
Speaker 1: and Norah ended up accepting a plea bargain to manslaughter

441
00:24:50,836 --> 00:24:53,676
Speaker 1: because she thought she was going to get out of prison.

442
00:24:54,116 --> 00:24:56,916
Speaker 1: But then it turned out that her lawyers had made

443
00:24:56,956 --> 00:25:00,316
Speaker 1: a mistake in calculating her time and that she actually

444
00:25:00,356 --> 00:25:03,876
Speaker 1: had to remain in prison for fourteen months. So that

445
00:25:04,076 --> 00:25:08,476
Speaker 1: was completely horrible because first of all, she had she'd

446
00:25:08,476 --> 00:25:11,276
Speaker 1: already been in prison I think at that point for

447
00:25:11,556 --> 00:25:17,116
Speaker 1: nine years, and also it was socially for her, really horrible.

448
00:25:17,276 --> 00:25:19,956
Speaker 1: Her world were people in prison who saw her as

449
00:25:20,036 --> 00:25:22,556
Speaker 1: kind of heroic for standing up to Amy Wyrick. You know,

450
00:25:22,596 --> 00:25:26,356
Speaker 1: all these women in prison, so rare to have, especially

451
00:25:26,356 --> 00:25:29,876
Speaker 1: in Tennessee, to have your sentence, your conviction overturned. But

452
00:25:29,916 --> 00:25:32,876
Speaker 1: then she had taken this plea, she'd kind of given

453
00:25:32,916 --> 00:25:35,716
Speaker 1: in in their eyes, and she was back among them,

454
00:25:35,756 --> 00:25:38,396
Speaker 1: so she hadn't even gotten what she thought she was

455
00:25:38,396 --> 00:25:41,556
Speaker 1: going to get. So that happened to be the point

456
00:25:41,596 --> 00:25:44,516
Speaker 1: when I kind of stumbled on this story and I

457
00:25:44,556 --> 00:25:47,836
Speaker 1: wrote Nora a letter in prison. I wrote her a

458
00:25:47,876 --> 00:25:50,796
Speaker 1: bunch of letters, and she wrote back to me a

459
00:25:50,796 --> 00:25:53,956
Speaker 1: couple of times, but I wasn't really sure whether she

460
00:25:53,996 --> 00:25:55,716
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to me, and it actually took me

461
00:25:55,836 --> 00:25:59,236
Speaker 1: ten months to persuade her to meet with me. How

462
00:25:59,276 --> 00:26:02,436
Speaker 1: did you do that? I called her on the phone

463
00:26:03,876 --> 00:26:05,716
Speaker 1: and talked to her a couple of times. It was

464
00:26:05,876 --> 00:26:09,716
Speaker 1: very in and out, like she was responsive, then she wasn't,

465
00:26:10,196 --> 00:26:12,916
Speaker 1: And she had all kinds of reasons to mistrust the

466
00:26:12,956 --> 00:26:16,356
Speaker 1: media because by then she'd been the subject of I

467
00:26:16,356 --> 00:26:19,516
Speaker 1: think a twenty twenty special or maybe forty eight hours,

468
00:26:19,556 --> 00:26:22,916
Speaker 1: I think both, and neither of them had been helpful

469
00:26:22,956 --> 00:26:26,116
Speaker 1: to her at all, and in both cases she had

470
00:26:26,196 --> 00:26:28,756
Speaker 1: kind of been led along, or she said she felt

471
00:26:28,756 --> 00:26:30,836
Speaker 1: like she'd been misled, and then it turned into a

472
00:26:30,956 --> 00:26:36,516
Speaker 1: kind of tabloid you know, very who done it and

473
00:26:36,996 --> 00:26:40,236
Speaker 1: kind of implicating her. I mean, in these situations, there's always,

474
00:26:40,276 --> 00:26:43,916
Speaker 1: I always feel like an unspoken kind of agreement that's made,

475
00:26:43,956 --> 00:26:46,596
Speaker 1: Like you have your interest, which is writing the story,

476
00:26:46,836 --> 00:26:49,516
Speaker 1: and she has her own set of interests. Why she

477
00:26:49,716 --> 00:26:51,956
Speaker 1: ultimately decided she wants to speak with you, she's hoping

478
00:26:52,356 --> 00:26:55,516
Speaker 1: that your story will do something for her. What do

479
00:26:55,556 --> 00:26:58,396
Speaker 1: you think that she hoped your story would do and

480
00:26:58,516 --> 00:27:01,756
Speaker 1: did you feel that your story would in fact do that? Well?

481
00:27:01,756 --> 00:27:03,716
Speaker 1: When I first went to see her in prison, and

482
00:27:03,756 --> 00:27:06,356
Speaker 1: actually I went to Memphis, and then she almost decided

483
00:27:06,396 --> 00:27:08,116
Speaker 1: not to see me, but then she changed her mind

484
00:27:08,156 --> 00:27:10,876
Speaker 1: at the last minutely and we sat down in this

485
00:27:10,916 --> 00:27:13,396
Speaker 1: little classroom at um sh At that point, she was

486
00:27:13,436 --> 00:27:16,356
Speaker 1: at the jail, and what she really wanted to tell

487
00:27:16,356 --> 00:27:20,316
Speaker 1: me about were the black women she was imprisoned with,

488
00:27:20,436 --> 00:27:23,236
Speaker 1: and how much worse off they were, and how much

489
00:27:24,076 --> 00:27:28,156
Speaker 1: how strange she felt about the attention she was getting,

490
00:27:28,676 --> 00:27:32,036
Speaker 1: given that there were these people around her she thought

491
00:27:32,276 --> 00:27:35,676
Speaker 1: deserved attention. So it was that same feeling of like,

492
00:27:35,716 --> 00:27:38,036
Speaker 1: oh my god, there are all these cases, Why am

493
00:27:38,116 --> 00:27:42,276
Speaker 1: I focusing on this one particular person and not these

494
00:27:42,316 --> 00:27:47,596
Speaker 1: other people? And I was. She was very firm and

495
00:27:48,716 --> 00:27:53,956
Speaker 1: clear that other people were more deserving of being interviewed,

496
00:27:54,036 --> 00:27:56,876
Speaker 1: and that she felt that there was something wrong about that.

497
00:27:57,236 --> 00:28:01,756
Speaker 1: And so even though it only drew her to me,

498
00:28:02,076 --> 00:28:04,996
Speaker 1: drew me to her more, I didn't change course. There

499
00:28:05,036 --> 00:28:08,436
Speaker 1: was something sort of impressive about that, because she might

500
00:28:08,476 --> 00:28:12,516
Speaker 1: have wanted to keep the attention for herself, and for

501
00:28:12,556 --> 00:28:15,396
Speaker 1: a long time, I think she was very ambivalent. It

502
00:28:15,436 --> 00:28:19,196
Speaker 1: really wasn't until she had been released, until I had

503
00:28:19,236 --> 00:28:21,916
Speaker 1: really been pursuing her for a couple of years that

504
00:28:22,036 --> 00:28:26,276
Speaker 1: she started trusting me, which I totally understand. I think

505
00:28:26,356 --> 00:28:30,076
Speaker 1: that eventually the idea that it was the New York Times,

506
00:28:30,116 --> 00:28:32,316
Speaker 1: it was interested that I was going to be able

507
00:28:32,316 --> 00:28:35,196
Speaker 1: to tell her story in a way that really got

508
00:28:35,236 --> 00:28:39,356
Speaker 1: across the legal complexity and the wrongdoing on the part

509
00:28:39,356 --> 00:28:43,436
Speaker 1: of the prosecution. I think that she cared about that,

510
00:28:43,996 --> 00:28:47,956
Speaker 1: and Amy Wyrick was not interested in talking to me, was,

511
00:28:48,236 --> 00:28:52,836
Speaker 1: you know, obviously very clearly resistant to my doing the story.

512
00:28:52,836 --> 00:28:55,876
Speaker 1: And that also, I think kind of endeared me to

513
00:28:56,036 --> 00:28:58,236
Speaker 1: Norah because she could see it was sort of like

514
00:28:59,116 --> 00:29:02,116
Speaker 1: I was. It was like a different kind of press

515
00:29:02,276 --> 00:29:05,876
Speaker 1: was coming in, and she appreciated that. Eventually, you had

516
00:29:05,876 --> 00:29:08,916
Speaker 1: asked me why I thought that John Campbell was so

517
00:29:09,836 --> 00:29:13,356
Speaker 1: vehemently interested obsessed when it was this case and that

518
00:29:13,516 --> 00:29:15,676
Speaker 1: was driving this. So I'm going to flip the question

519
00:29:15,676 --> 00:29:20,156
Speaker 1: on you. Why did Amy Wyrick double down on this

520
00:29:20,236 --> 00:29:22,916
Speaker 1: case and give so much attention to it? What was

521
00:29:23,276 --> 00:29:25,916
Speaker 1: as best as you could tell, what was her motivation. Well,

522
00:29:25,956 --> 00:29:29,356
Speaker 1: Wyreck tried this case when she was a prosecutor working

523
00:29:29,516 --> 00:29:33,356
Speaker 1: for the elected district attorney in Shelby County, and it

524
00:29:33,396 --> 00:29:36,636
Speaker 1: made her famous. She was on TV news. She was

525
00:29:36,676 --> 00:29:42,356
Speaker 1: this young woman being this very strong in her eyes

526
00:29:43,036 --> 00:29:46,916
Speaker 1: advocate for justice, you know, standing in the place of

527
00:29:46,956 --> 00:29:52,116
Speaker 1: Norah's mother and convicting someone. And it was it's very,

528
00:29:52,276 --> 00:29:55,316
Speaker 1: very unusual for children to actually kill their parents, and

529
00:29:55,436 --> 00:29:58,836
Speaker 1: especially for daughters to kill their mothers. But for Wyreck

530
00:29:58,956 --> 00:30:01,556
Speaker 1: that was only kind of part of the way of

531
00:30:01,996 --> 00:30:04,916
Speaker 1: talking about the case that she was despite all of

532
00:30:04,956 --> 00:30:08,796
Speaker 1: those obstacles, that she was doing it anyway because this

533
00:30:08,876 --> 00:30:11,796
Speaker 1: was justice. She was really that was her line, and

534
00:30:11,876 --> 00:30:14,916
Speaker 1: she wound up being elected district Attorney in Shelby County

535
00:30:14,956 --> 00:30:19,076
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen. And I think that Nora's case really

536
00:30:19,116 --> 00:30:22,396
Speaker 1: catapulted her into the kind of front of the community

537
00:30:22,476 --> 00:30:25,196
Speaker 1: in a way that was politically helpful to her. It

538
00:30:25,236 --> 00:30:29,756
Speaker 1: seems that the evidence against Nora was extremely circumstantial, But

539
00:30:29,836 --> 00:30:34,636
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, did you ever have any moments of doubt

540
00:30:34,716 --> 00:30:39,636
Speaker 1: about her innocence? Yeah, I decided that I didn't have

541
00:30:39,716 --> 00:30:41,956
Speaker 1: to know whether she was innocent or not, and I

542
00:30:42,036 --> 00:30:44,636
Speaker 1: kind of set that aside. I mean, Nora would hate

543
00:30:44,676 --> 00:30:48,316
Speaker 1: that if she were here, because it's so deeply important

544
00:30:48,356 --> 00:30:51,596
Speaker 1: to her to be believed, and I completely understand that.

545
00:30:52,716 --> 00:30:55,076
Speaker 1: But I just decided there was so much wrong with

546
00:30:55,156 --> 00:30:59,836
Speaker 1: this case legally speaking, that it was okay that I

547
00:30:59,916 --> 00:31:04,956
Speaker 1: was not standing there arguing for her innocence as her lawyer,

548
00:31:05,076 --> 00:31:07,156
Speaker 1: even as a journalist. I was just telling you the

549
00:31:07,196 --> 00:31:09,356
Speaker 1: story of what had happened to her. And my story

550
00:31:09,356 --> 00:31:13,636
Speaker 1: in the magazine is really about prosecutors hiding evidence, and

551
00:31:13,676 --> 00:31:15,756
Speaker 1: I think that really was sort of how the story

552
00:31:15,836 --> 00:31:19,356
Speaker 1: unfolded in my book as well. Tell us about where

553
00:31:19,436 --> 00:31:21,956
Speaker 1: Nora is now, I mean, give us the quick update.

554
00:31:22,556 --> 00:31:25,036
Speaker 1: So for a while Nora was living in Brooklyn. She

555
00:31:25,116 --> 00:31:29,076
Speaker 1: got out of prison twenty sixteen, and she was actually

556
00:31:29,076 --> 00:31:31,436
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn for a while. But now she is back

557
00:31:31,476 --> 00:31:35,756
Speaker 1: in Memphis. She's you know, it's hard. It's really hard

558
00:31:35,796 --> 00:31:37,596
Speaker 1: to get out of prison after you've been there for

559
00:31:37,636 --> 00:31:40,516
Speaker 1: a while. You kind of have to really restart your life.

560
00:31:41,556 --> 00:31:44,796
Speaker 1: Often people have a kind of prolonged form of PTSD

561
00:31:46,316 --> 00:31:48,836
Speaker 1: that they're figuring out just how to live in the

562
00:31:48,996 --> 00:31:52,316
Speaker 1: real world again. And Nora has no family, so in

563
00:31:52,356 --> 00:31:55,676
Speaker 1: addition to the death of her mother. Her parents were divorced,

564
00:31:55,716 --> 00:31:57,916
Speaker 1: but her father had actually been murdered a year and

565
00:31:57,956 --> 00:32:00,156
Speaker 1: a half before her mother was killed, which is like

566
00:32:00,276 --> 00:32:03,676
Speaker 1: another I know, really and perhaps that it was connected,

567
00:32:03,676 --> 00:32:06,476
Speaker 1: and maybe that's the kind of missing element of the

568
00:32:06,996 --> 00:32:11,276
Speaker 1: unsolved murders all along. But she really didn't have family,

569
00:32:11,396 --> 00:32:14,996
Speaker 1: and so that has been really hard for her to be.

570
00:32:15,556 --> 00:32:18,916
Speaker 1: You know, she got out of prison in her late twenties,

571
00:32:19,276 --> 00:32:21,396
Speaker 1: mid to late twenties, and she had kind of grown

572
00:32:21,516 --> 00:32:23,796
Speaker 1: up in prison, and in some ways that meant that

573
00:32:23,836 --> 00:32:28,156
Speaker 1: she didn't quite grow up. So now she's in Memphis

574
00:32:28,156 --> 00:32:31,636
Speaker 1: and she had a lawyer, or not the child Laura

575
00:32:31,636 --> 00:32:34,676
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier, but a later lawyer who

576
00:32:34,836 --> 00:32:38,756
Speaker 1: is just a kind of incredibly caring person and so

577
00:32:38,876 --> 00:32:42,276
Speaker 1: right now she is actually working for him in Memphis

578
00:32:43,356 --> 00:32:46,516
Speaker 1: and you know, and getting on her feet, trying to

579
00:32:46,556 --> 00:32:51,316
Speaker 1: get her own place. She also has a dog named Liberty,

580
00:32:51,956 --> 00:32:55,596
Speaker 1: very deliberate name, who I'm very fond of. I actually

581
00:32:55,596 --> 00:32:57,796
Speaker 1: took care of Liberty for a little while long after

582
00:32:57,836 --> 00:33:00,796
Speaker 1: my book came out, just to be clear, and so

583
00:33:00,956 --> 00:33:03,276
Speaker 1: I just went to Memphis to see that I was

584
00:33:03,316 --> 00:33:05,476
Speaker 1: there to work on a different story. But of course

585
00:33:05,516 --> 00:33:08,476
Speaker 1: I wanted to see Nora, and my big question was

586
00:33:08,516 --> 00:33:11,476
Speaker 1: whether Libert was going to remember me, which she did,

587
00:33:11,476 --> 00:33:14,316
Speaker 1: which is great. One thing I will say to you,

588
00:33:14,356 --> 00:33:17,396
Speaker 1: Emily is that there are many journalists who interview people,

589
00:33:17,796 --> 00:33:20,796
Speaker 1: hear their story, and they never call them back or

590
00:33:20,796 --> 00:33:23,116
Speaker 1: hear from them again. And I don't know of another

591
00:33:23,196 --> 00:33:26,756
Speaker 1: journalist who's more committed to treating people as human beings,

592
00:33:27,396 --> 00:33:29,676
Speaker 1: not just for the week or day, but for years

593
00:33:29,796 --> 00:33:35,676
Speaker 1: often afterwards, and it's a rare thing. Thank you. Should

594
00:33:35,676 --> 00:33:41,036
Speaker 1: we take some listener questions? Absolutely? After the break, we

595
00:33:41,116 --> 00:33:43,996
Speaker 1: talked more about Deep Cover, Never Seen Again, and I

596
00:33:44,036 --> 00:33:59,116
Speaker 1: answer a few questions from the audience. We're back next up.

597
00:33:59,116 --> 00:34:01,956
Speaker 1: We took questions from listeners in the audience. We had

598
00:34:01,996 --> 00:34:04,596
Speaker 1: them write their questions out on paper and then put

599
00:34:04,636 --> 00:34:07,516
Speaker 1: them in a bucket. Yes, very old school, I know.

600
00:34:07,916 --> 00:34:11,516
Speaker 1: It was like seventh grade, everyone passing notes. Then someone

601
00:34:11,556 --> 00:34:14,196
Speaker 1: handed the bucket to Emily and she read them aloud.

602
00:34:15,276 --> 00:34:17,836
Speaker 1: Is there anything you wanted to include in the podcast

603
00:34:17,876 --> 00:34:21,556
Speaker 1: that didn't make the cut? Yeah, I mean there was

604
00:34:21,636 --> 00:34:25,636
Speaker 1: a lot. There was a lot probably there when I

605
00:34:25,676 --> 00:34:29,476
Speaker 1: went down to Traveler's Rest, I mean, when I went

606
00:34:29,476 --> 00:34:32,836
Speaker 1: down to Traveler's Rest. Before I connected with Brooks cousins,

607
00:34:33,556 --> 00:34:37,836
Speaker 1: I connected with this husband and wife team, Patrick and

608
00:34:37,876 --> 00:34:40,676
Speaker 1: Tammy Welch, and I didn't end up getting to put

609
00:34:40,716 --> 00:34:43,236
Speaker 1: them in the podcast, and I still feel badly about

610
00:34:43,236 --> 00:34:47,116
Speaker 1: that because what they do is they basically devote all

611
00:34:47,156 --> 00:34:50,356
Speaker 1: their spare time to try to look for people who

612
00:34:50,356 --> 00:34:52,836
Speaker 1: have gone missing, people that have kind of gone off

613
00:34:52,876 --> 00:34:57,756
Speaker 1: the radar of law enforcement, and actively kind of keep

614
00:34:57,876 --> 00:35:00,876
Speaker 1: the search alive. And the first thing they told me

615
00:35:00,916 --> 00:35:02,876
Speaker 1: straight up was like, look, it's great you're doing this

616
00:35:02,916 --> 00:35:05,956
Speaker 1: on brook but there's actually a ton of people that

617
00:35:06,036 --> 00:35:11,156
Speaker 1: are missing in this area. And they were they had

618
00:35:11,196 --> 00:35:13,076
Speaker 1: like a map in their house with all the pin

619
00:35:13,156 --> 00:35:15,316
Speaker 1: points of the people and where they went missing. And

620
00:35:15,396 --> 00:35:17,156
Speaker 1: it wasn't like they were all connected and this was

621
00:35:17,196 --> 00:35:21,116
Speaker 1: some conspiracy. It was just they were like the custodians

622
00:35:21,116 --> 00:35:24,236
Speaker 1: of these people's memory. And then they drove with me

623
00:35:24,356 --> 00:35:28,276
Speaker 1: up to the dark corner where Brooke may have gone missing,

624
00:35:28,996 --> 00:35:33,156
Speaker 1: and the whole thing was so intense for Tammy she

625
00:35:33,236 --> 00:35:35,796
Speaker 1: didn't want to go, but she reluctantly went with us

626
00:35:35,796 --> 00:35:38,836
Speaker 1: in the pickup truck. And it was it was one

627
00:35:38,836 --> 00:35:40,156
Speaker 1: of these scenes where it was kind of late at

628
00:35:40,236 --> 00:35:42,996
Speaker 1: night and were driving down some shadowy roads in the mountains,

629
00:35:43,236 --> 00:35:44,756
Speaker 1: and I just got a sense for like, this is

630
00:35:44,756 --> 00:35:47,996
Speaker 1: how these people spent their weekends. And it just made

631
00:35:47,996 --> 00:35:50,996
Speaker 1: you think about all the stories we can't tell. And

632
00:35:51,036 --> 00:35:52,476
Speaker 1: I kind of get to this at the end that

633
00:35:52,876 --> 00:35:56,556
Speaker 1: we often fixate on very particular types of stories that

634
00:35:56,676 --> 00:35:58,756
Speaker 1: kind of play into the fem fatale or that have

635
00:35:58,996 --> 00:36:02,876
Speaker 1: some sort of Hollywood appeal, But there's all these kind

636
00:36:02,876 --> 00:36:05,636
Speaker 1: of nameless cases of people that go missing. And there

637
00:36:05,716 --> 00:36:08,196
Speaker 1: was just something really poignant and powerful about this couple

638
00:36:08,196 --> 00:36:11,236
Speaker 1: and their pickup truck kind of winding their weight on

639
00:36:11,316 --> 00:36:13,476
Speaker 1: the darkened roods of this county, kind of going to

640
00:36:13,476 --> 00:36:17,076
Speaker 1: the last spots where these people were. And they're doing

641
00:36:17,116 --> 00:36:19,316
Speaker 1: great work, and I hope that they hear a shout

642
00:36:19,356 --> 00:36:24,236
Speaker 1: out for that in this bonus episode. Another listener question.

643
00:36:24,676 --> 00:36:26,796
Speaker 1: One of Estra's lies was that she was a professional

644
00:36:26,876 --> 00:36:30,796
Speaker 1: chess player. So did anyone ever ask Estra to play chess,

645
00:36:31,276 --> 00:36:34,516
Speaker 1: that ever threatened to blow her cover? I know, such

646
00:36:34,516 --> 00:36:37,636
Speaker 1: a crazy thing to make up that there, I get,

647
00:36:37,716 --> 00:36:40,636
Speaker 1: you know, she was apparently a pretty solid chess player,

648
00:36:40,636 --> 00:36:42,516
Speaker 1: because you know from the podcast what happens when she

649
00:36:42,556 --> 00:36:44,956
Speaker 1: says I'm a tennis player, and then she's like, oh shit,

650
00:36:45,036 --> 00:36:49,116
Speaker 1: I don't actually not to play tennis. I did talk

651
00:36:49,156 --> 00:36:52,916
Speaker 1: to one former boyfriend who didn't go on the record,

652
00:36:52,956 --> 00:36:54,916
Speaker 1: but he did play her in chess. He did ask

653
00:36:54,956 --> 00:37:00,636
Speaker 1: her she did beat him. You, Yeah, exactly. I mean

654
00:37:00,796 --> 00:37:02,796
Speaker 1: we're talking about this backstage a second ago. Like I

655
00:37:02,796 --> 00:37:05,356
Speaker 1: would be intimidated if I met if you just said

656
00:37:05,356 --> 00:37:07,116
Speaker 1: I'm a professional chess player, There's no way in hell

657
00:37:07,116 --> 00:37:11,396
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even played checkers with you. So I suspect

658
00:37:11,436 --> 00:37:18,076
Speaker 1: that's scared off enough people that she could pull it off. Yeah.

659
00:37:18,156 --> 00:37:20,476
Speaker 1: How do you think Esther's case would have been handled

660
00:37:20,516 --> 00:37:25,916
Speaker 1: differently today? Well, we kind of we kind of talked

661
00:37:25,956 --> 00:37:27,996
Speaker 1: about this a little bit the way that my mind

662
00:37:28,076 --> 00:37:32,116
Speaker 1: goes to the media, and I just think that I

663
00:37:32,156 --> 00:37:36,956
Speaker 1: would hope that I would hope that the ass that

664
00:37:36,996 --> 00:37:40,996
Speaker 1: we wouldn't just kind of immediately. Look, when you have

665
00:37:41,036 --> 00:37:43,276
Speaker 1: a story as a journalist, right, when someone brings you

666
00:37:43,356 --> 00:37:48,476
Speaker 1: a story and you're operating on impartial information, right, your

667
00:37:48,516 --> 00:37:52,876
Speaker 1: brain spins out. There's vast terra incognita, and we when

668
00:37:52,876 --> 00:37:54,996
Speaker 1: we go on our runs. Oh, I think I talked

669
00:37:55,036 --> 00:37:56,876
Speaker 1: to some of Esther and she might have done that. Well,

670
00:37:56,916 --> 00:37:59,116
Speaker 1: you ask me a question. I don't know, but I

671
00:37:59,156 --> 00:38:00,636
Speaker 1: have an idea of where the story maybe. But that

672
00:38:00,796 --> 00:38:03,636
Speaker 1: story that I have that I'm projecting out into Terra

673
00:38:03,756 --> 00:38:07,596
Speaker 1: Incognita is actually probably based on books I've read and

674
00:38:07,676 --> 00:38:11,236
Speaker 1: crappy movies I've watched, and local news stories I've read,

675
00:38:11,636 --> 00:38:15,356
Speaker 1: and is prompting me to make assumptions about who that

676
00:38:15,396 --> 00:38:17,236
Speaker 1: person is and how the story is in fact going

677
00:38:17,276 --> 00:38:20,196
Speaker 1: to play out based on like probably templates, like the

678
00:38:20,196 --> 00:38:23,116
Speaker 1: fem fatal template. So what happens is you get like

679
00:38:23,316 --> 00:38:26,996
Speaker 1: part way into the reporting, and inevitably you start getting

680
00:38:27,076 --> 00:38:30,196
Speaker 1: facts that challenge the assumptions that you've made in the template.

681
00:38:30,236 --> 00:38:32,476
Speaker 1: And our mutual friend Jack Hit always says, and I

682
00:38:32,476 --> 00:38:34,876
Speaker 1: think this is so wise. He says, as soon as

683
00:38:34,876 --> 00:38:37,516
Speaker 1: the story turns out not being what you thought it was,

684
00:38:38,236 --> 00:38:41,076
Speaker 1: that's when your story begins. But there's dissonance there because

685
00:38:41,116 --> 00:38:43,036
Speaker 1: you're like, oh shit, this isn't the story I thought.

686
00:38:43,076 --> 00:38:45,076
Speaker 1: I'd mean, I told my editor and my producer was

687
00:38:45,116 --> 00:38:47,196
Speaker 1: going to be this, and I promise that, And now

688
00:38:47,236 --> 00:38:49,036
Speaker 1: you have to go back and say it's not quite that.

689
00:38:49,716 --> 00:38:52,796
Speaker 1: And I think that sometimes it's easier when you get

690
00:38:52,796 --> 00:38:55,916
Speaker 1: to that point and just say, wow, it's basically right.

691
00:38:56,956 --> 00:38:59,676
Speaker 1: I mean, she did have three boyfriends in one year,

692
00:39:00,076 --> 00:39:03,076
Speaker 1: and they were at military institutes, so she did kind

693
00:39:03,076 --> 00:39:06,156
Speaker 1: of go through them, and you could see how if

694
00:39:06,196 --> 00:39:09,356
Speaker 1: you just keep pushing and sticking to the preconception have

695
00:39:09,836 --> 00:39:12,996
Speaker 1: you could just plow down that road. And I say

696
00:39:12,996 --> 00:39:15,596
Speaker 1: that with empathy because I feel like, as a journalist,

697
00:39:15,636 --> 00:39:18,676
Speaker 1: I've stared down that and probably done some version of that.

698
00:39:18,836 --> 00:39:22,756
Speaker 1: I would think in this moment now, where there's more

699
00:39:22,796 --> 00:39:27,596
Speaker 1: awareness of the way, you know, we depict among other

700
00:39:27,716 --> 00:39:32,196
Speaker 1: people women in the news and such, that someone would say, hey,

701
00:39:32,356 --> 00:39:35,756
Speaker 1: wait a minute, here is this story that we're progressing on.

702
00:39:35,876 --> 00:39:38,516
Speaker 1: Does it all check out? Are we making assumptions? Are

703
00:39:38,516 --> 00:39:42,316
Speaker 1: we playing into stereotypes and templates that may not be

704
00:39:42,556 --> 00:39:45,676
Speaker 1: one hundred percent justified. That's why I would hope we

705
00:39:45,676 --> 00:39:48,916
Speaker 1: would play out differently today. Yeah, I mean some of

706
00:39:48,956 --> 00:39:53,636
Speaker 1: this is it just really depends on Esther's honesty. I

707
00:39:53,636 --> 00:39:56,356
Speaker 1: mean I think that that was a really I'm going

708
00:39:56,396 --> 00:39:58,636
Speaker 1: to use the word lucky. Maybe that's not right, But

709
00:39:58,836 --> 00:40:02,196
Speaker 1: somewhere in the alchemy of your interviewing her and her

710
00:40:02,436 --> 00:40:07,596
Speaker 1: reflecting there's some like pretty gritty candor that comes across right,

711
00:40:08,156 --> 00:40:11,116
Speaker 1: I think. And I would also say that like in

712
00:40:11,196 --> 00:40:13,316
Speaker 1: fairness to people that were reporting her on back then,

713
00:40:13,956 --> 00:40:16,156
Speaker 1: Let's be honest, this was a person who had his

714
00:40:16,156 --> 00:40:19,476
Speaker 1: history of not being candid when she was younger. Now

715
00:40:19,556 --> 00:40:21,956
Speaker 1: is a different story, she's a professor, it's a different life.

716
00:40:22,196 --> 00:40:24,076
Speaker 1: But at the time, this is someone who had been

717
00:40:24,076 --> 00:40:26,436
Speaker 1: a serial identity thief, who had told people that she

718
00:40:26,636 --> 00:40:28,876
Speaker 1: was a chess champion when she was in fact not,

719
00:40:29,236 --> 00:40:33,276
Speaker 1: who had told lies to her boyfriends, etc. And so

720
00:40:33,636 --> 00:40:36,156
Speaker 1: I think that's the really tricky part about telling a

721
00:40:36,196 --> 00:40:39,756
Speaker 1: story with an unreliable narrator is that you must be skeptical,

722
00:40:40,036 --> 00:40:42,716
Speaker 1: you must be dubious. You can't let them off the hook.

723
00:40:42,996 --> 00:40:46,116
Speaker 1: But that doesn't give you that blank check to project

724
00:40:46,196 --> 00:40:49,396
Speaker 1: whatever you want upon them. And so, yeah, it's easy

725
00:40:49,436 --> 00:40:51,796
Speaker 1: for me to say that now twenty years later looking back,

726
00:40:51,876 --> 00:40:56,036
Speaker 1: But but you've learned a thing or two. Okay, speaking

727
00:40:56,076 --> 00:40:59,636
Speaker 1: of compulsive liars, what about who am I going to say,

728
00:40:59,796 --> 00:41:03,076
Speaker 1: George Santos? Do you have a better understanding of what

729
00:41:03,236 --> 00:41:07,396
Speaker 1: motivates people like him? I think George is his own

730
00:41:07,436 --> 00:41:14,036
Speaker 1: special creature. We can probably all agree on that. Yeah, no,

731
00:41:14,796 --> 00:41:17,476
Speaker 1: is there a short answer. I mean, I don't. I

732
00:41:17,476 --> 00:41:19,476
Speaker 1: don't presume to know what's going on with that guy.

733
00:41:19,796 --> 00:41:27,436
Speaker 1: I do I think that I think with Esther I did.

734
00:41:27,756 --> 00:41:31,596
Speaker 1: I did kind of understand it. Like I don't know

735
00:41:31,676 --> 00:41:34,196
Speaker 1: that Esther agreed with my assessment of it, But I

736
00:41:34,236 --> 00:41:37,596
Speaker 1: feel like, to some extent, we grew up in a

737
00:41:37,636 --> 00:41:40,716
Speaker 1: certain town with certain friends and family, and we go

738
00:41:40,756 --> 00:41:43,476
Speaker 1: away to college, we moved to a different place, and

739
00:41:43,516 --> 00:41:47,676
Speaker 1: we enjoy being someone different in small ways. And that

740
00:41:47,716 --> 00:41:50,156
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that we always lie about it, but I

741
00:41:50,196 --> 00:41:54,836
Speaker 1: think that sometimes it's born from this desire to remove

742
00:41:54,876 --> 00:41:57,876
Speaker 1: ourselves from a place where we were. And I think

743
00:41:57,876 --> 00:42:00,596
Speaker 1: that what happened in Esther's story in particular, is that

744
00:42:00,956 --> 00:42:03,276
Speaker 1: the law enforcement looked at is there must be some

745
00:42:03,356 --> 00:42:08,156
Speaker 1: sort of kind of deeper, more methodical, devious play here

746
00:42:08,276 --> 00:42:11,676
Speaker 1: of espionage or something. And to me, it like just

747
00:42:11,716 --> 00:42:16,996
Speaker 1: spoke to a more human impulse to just have space

748
00:42:17,076 --> 00:42:20,356
Speaker 1: and reinvent. And that is not again to excuse it

749
00:42:20,516 --> 00:42:23,236
Speaker 1: or to say that it's all right, but to try

750
00:42:23,276 --> 00:42:27,236
Speaker 1: to understand it as a kind of basic human desire

751
00:42:27,356 --> 00:42:30,116
Speaker 1: that just kind of, as she says, ran out of

752
00:42:30,156 --> 00:42:32,796
Speaker 1: control in her case. So yeah, in some ways the

753
00:42:32,796 --> 00:42:36,396
Speaker 1: answers yes, But with Santos, I don't know, it's in

754
00:42:36,476 --> 00:42:40,196
Speaker 1: his own category. What led to the media thinking Esther

755
00:42:40,396 --> 00:42:43,636
Speaker 1: was a potential spy when the story broke Yeah, so,

756
00:42:43,956 --> 00:42:46,556
Speaker 1: I mean it starts off. I was talking to a

757
00:42:46,636 --> 00:42:49,636
Speaker 1: listener in the audience during the intermission and we're kind

758
00:42:49,636 --> 00:42:53,716
Speaker 1: of on the same page. It started off with a

759
00:42:54,076 --> 00:42:57,676
Speaker 1: kind of John Campbell trying to come up with an

760
00:42:57,676 --> 00:43:00,036
Speaker 1: explot It didn't make sense, right, It doesn't make sense.

761
00:43:00,036 --> 00:43:02,916
Speaker 1: Why do you enroll at college is a different name,

762
00:43:04,156 --> 00:43:06,436
Speaker 1: and there's no obvious game to be made for it,

763
00:43:06,476 --> 00:43:09,436
Speaker 1: and so in the absence of that knowledge, start putting

764
00:43:09,436 --> 00:43:11,836
Speaker 1: together other possible theories. Oh, she's dated two guys from

765
00:43:11,876 --> 00:43:14,196
Speaker 1: West Point and the shipman. Maybe it's this. I mean,

766
00:43:14,276 --> 00:43:16,036
Speaker 1: in some ways, that's what detectives are supposed to do.

767
00:43:16,036 --> 00:43:19,236
Speaker 1: They're supposed to speculate. But what happened was, for those

768
00:43:19,236 --> 00:43:22,756
Speaker 1: of you that listen to know, is that when they

769
00:43:22,756 --> 00:43:24,716
Speaker 1: were trying to get the word out about the case,

770
00:43:25,276 --> 00:43:27,836
Speaker 1: the police chief in Traveler's Rest of the time told

771
00:43:27,956 --> 00:43:30,476
Speaker 1: John he should owe the detective, he should open the

772
00:43:30,476 --> 00:43:32,956
Speaker 1: file and feel free to talk to the press. And

773
00:43:32,996 --> 00:43:35,436
Speaker 1: that's when John started to air some of his theories

774
00:43:35,516 --> 00:43:38,916
Speaker 1: about espionage, and there was a local news station that

775
00:43:39,036 --> 00:43:42,436
Speaker 1: ran some of them, and then there was a kind

776
00:43:42,436 --> 00:43:46,116
Speaker 1: of middleman who job it was was to find interesting

777
00:43:46,116 --> 00:43:48,116
Speaker 1: local stories and selve them to the national media. And

778
00:43:48,156 --> 00:43:50,476
Speaker 1: he quickly wrote up a press release based on this

779
00:43:50,556 --> 00:43:55,596
Speaker 1: impartial information, and three days later later it was running nationally.

780
00:43:56,036 --> 00:43:58,596
Speaker 1: And so the story just kind of got a bit

781
00:43:58,636 --> 00:44:01,476
Speaker 1: ahead of itself. And that that's how I mean, that's

782
00:44:01,476 --> 00:44:03,516
Speaker 1: what we do an episode four, we kind of connect

783
00:44:03,596 --> 00:44:06,156
Speaker 1: the dots of this pipeline of how it comes from

784
00:44:06,236 --> 00:44:11,756
Speaker 1: kind of you know, speculation to kind of headlines. Yeah,

785
00:44:11,836 --> 00:44:15,956
Speaker 1: sou new question. Part of the story is themed around

786
00:44:15,996 --> 00:44:19,636
Speaker 1: tough mental health challenges and also running away. What advice

787
00:44:19,676 --> 00:44:21,636
Speaker 1: do you think Esther might give to someone in a

788
00:44:21,676 --> 00:44:24,836
Speaker 1: similar situation? You know? This is It's interesting because when

789
00:44:24,836 --> 00:44:29,356
Speaker 1: we first started talking to Esther, I'm not sure how

790
00:44:29,356 --> 00:44:31,876
Speaker 1: exactly I posed it, but sometimes I'll often say this

791
00:44:31,916 --> 00:44:33,156
Speaker 1: is a version of like when I was asking you

792
00:44:33,156 --> 00:44:35,196
Speaker 1: before about nor like what do you want out of

793
00:44:35,196 --> 00:44:38,356
Speaker 1: the story, because it's just you don't always get an

794
00:44:38,356 --> 00:44:43,036
Speaker 1: honest answer, but it's helpful sometimes you do. And she said, look,

795
00:44:44,876 --> 00:44:51,436
Speaker 1: I was suffering from real mental health issues. And I

796
00:44:51,476 --> 00:44:53,876
Speaker 1: think that I felt and I made some bad choices,

797
00:44:53,916 --> 00:44:58,436
Speaker 1: and if I had had someone to talk to, OH,

798
00:44:58,476 --> 00:45:00,236
Speaker 1: I could have been honest about what was going on,

799
00:45:00,436 --> 00:45:03,236
Speaker 1: and I had been gotten some help earlier, I might

800
00:45:03,276 --> 00:45:07,596
Speaker 1: have made some better some better choices. And so I

801
00:45:07,636 --> 00:45:10,076
Speaker 1: think that she looks at this as situation of what

802
00:45:10,196 --> 00:45:14,396
Speaker 1: happens to kind of anxiety and desperation, and she has

803
00:45:14,396 --> 00:45:18,116
Speaker 1: social anxiety when it's kind of unchecked and left left

804
00:45:18,156 --> 00:45:21,196
Speaker 1: to kind of spiral with no help. And so to me,

805
00:45:21,236 --> 00:45:22,796
Speaker 1: I think that was a large part of the motivation

806
00:45:22,836 --> 00:45:30,316
Speaker 1: of her, of her of her talking about the story,

807
00:45:31,196 --> 00:45:35,356
Speaker 1: and she's now currently it's interesting that this is her

808
00:45:35,396 --> 00:45:38,236
Speaker 1: big thing, is like advocating for mental health kind of

809
00:45:38,276 --> 00:45:40,596
Speaker 1: premptively before people go off the rails and end up

810
00:45:40,676 --> 00:45:43,556
Speaker 1: in incarcerated. You know. One thing that strikes me about

811
00:45:43,676 --> 00:45:46,916
Speaker 1: Esther and Nora is that they had really strange things

812
00:45:46,956 --> 00:45:49,796
Speaker 1: happened to them that they participated in, but that like

813
00:45:50,316 --> 00:45:52,996
Speaker 1: also are just hard to explain. And I think there

814
00:45:53,076 --> 00:45:57,276
Speaker 1: is something about having someone just lay out your story clearly.

815
00:45:58,596 --> 00:46:01,076
Speaker 1: Noura sometimes says that she just like feels like she

816
00:46:01,116 --> 00:46:03,316
Speaker 1: can just take the magazine and hand it to people

817
00:46:03,476 --> 00:46:07,796
Speaker 1: just as an explanation of what happened. Anyway, I wonder

818
00:46:07,836 --> 00:46:10,916
Speaker 1: if that's something that helpful to esther, and I mean,

819
00:46:11,036 --> 00:46:15,036
Speaker 1: probably it is, right, I think so. I mean, I

820
00:46:15,076 --> 00:46:19,516
Speaker 1: didn't you know, we did this very intense session with

821
00:46:19,556 --> 00:46:22,356
Speaker 1: her when before it came out, where we went back

822
00:46:22,356 --> 00:46:24,716
Speaker 1: over it. I read back what other people said about her,

823
00:46:24,756 --> 00:46:27,356
Speaker 1: and I read back what I said to her, and

824
00:46:27,436 --> 00:46:30,036
Speaker 1: it was it was hot and it was intense. She

825
00:46:30,156 --> 00:46:32,836
Speaker 1: was not happy with some parts of it. But I

826
00:46:32,876 --> 00:46:37,516
Speaker 1: think that that even that even that conversation was a

827
00:46:37,556 --> 00:46:41,956
Speaker 1: conversation that she hadn't had in any of the previous

828
00:46:42,076 --> 00:46:45,036
Speaker 1: media treatments of it, And so I think that there

829
00:46:45,156 --> 00:46:46,676
Speaker 1: was When we talked to her a few days later,

830
00:46:46,716 --> 00:46:49,236
Speaker 1: she's like, I appreciate that we had at least the

831
00:46:49,316 --> 00:46:52,876
Speaker 1: chance to do that, and she was, but it's awkward.

832
00:46:52,916 --> 00:46:54,396
Speaker 1: I could see why hot people don't want to do

833
00:46:54,476 --> 00:46:56,956
Speaker 1: it because it wasn't fun. It is not fun, you know.

834
00:46:57,316 --> 00:46:59,476
Speaker 1: Last question, Yeah, it's kind of related to what we're

835
00:46:59,476 --> 00:47:02,396
Speaker 1: talking about. How do you recognize your past experiences and

836
00:47:02,436 --> 00:47:05,076
Speaker 1: traumas while covering a story and work to keep them

837
00:47:05,196 --> 00:47:11,356
Speaker 1: from influencing your interpretation and telling of the story. Wow. Well,

838
00:47:11,396 --> 00:47:13,476
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll start by saying that I don't think

839
00:47:13,516 --> 00:47:15,836
Speaker 1: I've had anything as traumatic happened to me as esther

840
00:47:15,956 --> 00:47:18,636
Speaker 1: had with I mean the loss of her mother at

841
00:47:18,636 --> 00:47:20,596
Speaker 1: that age. And if you've listened to the podcast, you

842
00:47:20,676 --> 00:47:24,316
Speaker 1: know how parents, how her parents divorced and she was struggling.

843
00:47:26,356 --> 00:47:29,636
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. I did say to her at times, like, look,

844
00:47:29,676 --> 00:47:32,036
Speaker 1: I get it. I didn't say I get it. I

845
00:47:32,036 --> 00:47:37,316
Speaker 1: said I I am sympathetic because I have had anxiety before,

846
00:47:37,596 --> 00:47:40,556
Speaker 1: but I don't think i've had it like you. And

847
00:47:40,596 --> 00:47:44,196
Speaker 1: so I think that it's actually important not to assume

848
00:47:44,276 --> 00:47:48,996
Speaker 1: that you've had their experience, because that's the problem. Like,

849
00:47:49,596 --> 00:47:51,436
Speaker 1: you know, if I start to let myself think that, like, oh,

850
00:47:51,476 --> 00:47:53,956
Speaker 1: I've had anxiety too, and I didn't make up X

851
00:47:54,076 --> 00:47:56,876
Speaker 1: number of identities, then I'm not on some level getting it.

852
00:47:58,076 --> 00:48:02,636
Speaker 1: So I think that it's I think that you have

853
00:48:02,716 --> 00:48:06,156
Speaker 1: to the starting point almost has to be that I'm

854
00:48:06,156 --> 00:48:08,676
Speaker 1: not seeing this the way you see it, but like,

855
00:48:09,236 --> 00:48:11,596
Speaker 1: try to help me see it, right. I mean, I

856
00:48:11,676 --> 00:48:15,116
Speaker 1: think you're talking about empathy and one and recognizing the

857
00:48:15,156 --> 00:48:18,076
Speaker 1: limits of empathy in terms of pretending to stand in

858
00:48:18,156 --> 00:48:21,556
Speaker 1: someone's shoes, right. I mean, empathy is a tool for

859
00:48:21,676 --> 00:48:23,796
Speaker 1: journalists like us, but I think we also have to

860
00:48:23,796 --> 00:48:27,876
Speaker 1: be really careful and how we handle it totally. I mean,

861
00:48:27,916 --> 00:48:29,596
Speaker 1: I think that's why it's important. You've got to talk

862
00:48:29,636 --> 00:48:32,236
Speaker 1: to the other family members. And there's many things that

863
00:48:32,316 --> 00:48:35,276
Speaker 1: weren't included in this podcast, things that like, in some

864
00:48:35,316 --> 00:48:37,796
Speaker 1: ways the most you could say, some of the most

865
00:48:37,836 --> 00:48:40,276
Speaker 1: significant things that that are part of a story, the

866
00:48:40,396 --> 00:48:43,556
Speaker 1: things that are actually not included because you've debated at

867
00:48:43,676 --> 00:48:46,396
Speaker 1: nauseum about whether or not to include them, and they

868
00:48:46,396 --> 00:48:51,156
Speaker 1: would be interesting, but you feel you can't include them.

869
00:48:51,276 --> 00:48:54,876
Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel like every twist in turn is

870
00:48:54,916 --> 00:48:57,156
Speaker 1: like some sort of dilemma in which you know and

871
00:48:57,156 --> 00:48:58,996
Speaker 1: you're getting back on Twitter, Oh you didn't do this,

872
00:48:59,036 --> 00:49:02,796
Speaker 1: you do that, and it's like, yeah, I had a

873
00:49:02,836 --> 00:49:05,876
Speaker 1: reason for it. Yeah, you're all right. You know, we're tried,

874
00:49:05,996 --> 00:49:08,996
Speaker 1: Like we told one version of the truth, the version

875
00:49:08,996 --> 00:49:10,756
Speaker 1: of the truth as best we could see it. And

876
00:49:10,796 --> 00:49:13,476
Speaker 1: that's where the team of people, the four of us,

877
00:49:13,556 --> 00:49:17,956
Speaker 1: sat down and went through this understanding, damn well, there's

878
00:49:18,036 --> 00:49:21,676
Speaker 1: no entirely objective way to tell a story, and you

879
00:49:21,716 --> 00:49:24,476
Speaker 1: want to tell it as compellingly as you possibly can,

880
00:49:24,756 --> 00:49:27,156
Speaker 1: so that we have the clicks that justify season four.

881
00:49:28,916 --> 00:49:35,956
Speaker 1: And yet at the same time, you know that you're

882
00:49:35,996 --> 00:49:39,516
Speaker 1: telling just one version of the truth, and you're going

883
00:49:39,556 --> 00:49:41,476
Speaker 1: to get it from one side to the other. And

884
00:49:41,636 --> 00:49:44,396
Speaker 1: as my wife says to me, it just has to

885
00:49:44,436 --> 00:49:47,356
Speaker 1: be a version of the truth that you can live

886
00:49:47,396 --> 00:49:49,556
Speaker 1: with even if no one else likes, which is really

887
00:49:49,556 --> 00:49:52,476
Speaker 1: hard to do, but that's the goal. I think. Yes,

888
00:49:52,596 --> 00:49:54,676
Speaker 1: I feel like I have heard that line from Kasha

889
00:49:54,676 --> 00:49:56,076
Speaker 1: a number of times from you, and it's like in

890
00:49:56,116 --> 00:49:58,396
Speaker 1: my head too, which I really appreciate because Kasha is

891
00:49:58,476 --> 00:50:01,716
Speaker 1: very wise. Jake, this has been so much fun. I

892
00:50:01,756 --> 00:50:05,076
Speaker 1: am really looking forward to season four. Thank you so much.

893
00:50:05,076 --> 00:50:12,516
Speaker 1: In congratulations, thanks for listening to this special live episode

894
00:50:12,516 --> 00:50:15,036
Speaker 1: of a deep Cover. I want to express my heartfelt

895
00:50:15,036 --> 00:50:18,596
Speaker 1: thanks to Emily for a great conversation. We'll have another

896
00:50:18,636 --> 00:50:22,076
Speaker 1: episode coming out next month. I'll be talking with Ben Ford,

897
00:50:22,236 --> 00:50:25,276
Speaker 1: the current chief of Police and Traveler's Rest, all about

898
00:50:25,316 --> 00:50:29,076
Speaker 1: Brooke Henson and the continued surge for closure in that case,

899
00:50:37,916 --> 00:50:39,956
Speaker 1: and I have a favor to ask. It'll only take

900
00:50:39,956 --> 00:50:43,596
Speaker 1: you about two minutes, I promise. If you like deep Cover,

901
00:50:44,116 --> 00:50:47,636
Speaker 1: please leave review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people

902
00:50:47,676 --> 00:50:50,156
Speaker 1: find the show, it gets the word out, and it

903
00:50:50,236 --> 00:50:52,876
Speaker 1: helps us make the case that yes, there should be

904
00:50:52,916 --> 00:50:57,596
Speaker 1: a season four and beyond. Thank You. Deep Cover is

905
00:50:57,636 --> 00:51:01,116
Speaker 1: produced by Amy Gaines and Jacob Smith. This episode was

906
00:51:01,276 --> 00:51:05,876
Speaker 1: edited by Sophie Crane, mastering by Sarah Brugere. Our show

907
00:51:05,956 --> 00:51:09,676
Speaker 1: art was designed by Seancarney. Original scoring and our theme

908
00:51:09,796 --> 00:51:13,596
Speaker 1: was composed by Luis Gara. Special thanks to Nicole Morano,

909
00:51:13,876 --> 00:51:19,116
Speaker 1: Jason Gambrell, Mia Lobell, Greta Con, Jacob Weisberg, and Karen Shakerjee.

910
00:51:19,836 --> 00:51:23,836
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Albern. I want to remind you that when

911
00:51:23,836 --> 00:51:26,636
Speaker 1: you sign up for Pushkin Plus, you'll get access to

912
00:51:26,716 --> 00:51:30,196
Speaker 1: binge drops of future seasons of deep Cover and exclusive

913
00:51:30,196 --> 00:51:33,916
Speaker 1: content from other Pushkin true crime hits. Check out Pushkin

914
00:51:34,036 --> 00:51:37,276
Speaker 1: dot fm or the Apple Show page for more information.