Speaker 1: The Red Weather is a work of fiction, and the
Speaker 1: resemblance to actual persons or events reflects the adaptation of real,
Speaker 1: publicly available materials for creative and legal reasons. The content
Speaker 1: of this podcast is the sole responsibility of Red Weather
Speaker 1: LLC and does not reflect the views of responsibilities of
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia or its affiliates. Previously on The Red Weather in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, my neighbor and a trainer disappeared from
Speaker 1: the commune and a trainer was at a party in
Speaker 1: downtown Sebastpoll She had a fight with her boyfriend. Oh man,
Speaker 1: my boy, Mick, kid got a pass.
Speaker 2: You got a pass.
Speaker 1: Even if Mick managed to meet up with Anna then
Speaker 1: murder her. Couldn't have getting rid of the body and
Speaker 1: driven her car all the way to SFO. Not without hope, right,
Speaker 1: not without help? And we know he was with the
Speaker 1: rest of the night, Chris, they're here. When I finally
Speaker 1: got the transcripts of el Rick's interrogations, I realized Maldonado
Speaker 1: wasn't giving me the whole story. And look at that.
Speaker 1: Oh who said that? That's Maldonado? Man, And you're going
Speaker 1: to go meet this guy Sandals size six. I was
Speaker 1: reading the evidence catalog for Anna Tranner's case, long sleeve shirt, necklace.
Speaker 1: It was a list of objects recovered in the course
Speaker 1: of the investigation, but the descriptions were vague, too vague,
Speaker 1: like when it said sandals, did that mean birkenstocks or
Speaker 1: flip flops? Or most frustrating, this three compact discs. I
Speaker 1: think it doesn't even say what they are. I was
Speaker 1: dying to know what albums it was Anna listening to
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkins or Tory Amos. I mean that would say
Speaker 1: something about her, wouldn't it. I wanted to read everything,
Speaker 1: hold everything, but I also knew I couldn't help but
Speaker 1: give my own history and my own emotions to these details.
Speaker 1: And I was reminded of something maldon Auto said to
Speaker 1: me a few days earlier.
Speaker 2: You got to let the evidence tell the story, even
Speaker 2: if it's not the one that you like or the
Speaker 2: one that you want to get.
Speaker 1: There's a big difference between finding meaning and giving meaning,
Speaker 1: between understanding and fetishizing. And actually, the most important thing
Speaker 1: I was looking for wasn't an object. It was a
Speaker 1: few lines in the witness log gave three interviews. This
Speaker 1: was more important than the CDs, the sandals, even the
Speaker 1: small swift bullets in a plastic bag. But while I
Speaker 1: was sitting there making this discovery, I couldn't react.
Speaker 3: Yeah, lives like.
Speaker 1: What not sure, even though he was sitting right next
Speaker 1: to me and he was helping me. I couldn't let
Speaker 1: Sheriff Maldonado know how much of a game changer this
Speaker 1: was because after the last week, I wasn't sure I
Speaker 1: could trust him. I am actor and filmmaker writer Strong.
Speaker 1: This is the red weather. I was two weeks into
Speaker 1: reviewing the disappearance of Anna Trainor and getting nowhere new Elrich,
Speaker 1: the leader of Anna's intentional community, the Tender Hearts, had
Speaker 1: an alibi, but this only brought me up to speed
Speaker 1: with where the investingation turned cold in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: To get any further, I wanted access to the official
Speaker 1: case file. Hi, it's Ryder Strong calling that again for
Speaker 1: Sheriff Laughlin. Okay, uh yeah, okay, that'd be great, Thank you. Ooh,
Speaker 1: I mean she is blowing you off, giving you the
Speaker 1: cold shoulder. Yeah, but I don't. I'm I can't take
Speaker 1: it personally, and at least Maldonada's talking to me. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't even meet that guy. My friend Chris, who'd come
Speaker 1: home to help me with the podcast, had good reason
Speaker 1: to be wary. The day before, he had heard back
Speaker 1: from Sparks, which I know sounds like a code name
Speaker 1: I made up, but he called himself that for real.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 5: You want to talk and a trainer, you got to
Speaker 5: talk about those fuckers detecting that shit. Maldonado.
Speaker 2: Come on, man, he.
Speaker 1: Left this right after we saw the transcripts of Maldonado's
Speaker 1: interrogations of el Rick. They had uncovered that Elrick was gay,
Speaker 1: and Maldonado, talking to his deputies, had thrown out, oh
Speaker 1: so casually an anti gay slur, your shocks that you
Speaker 1: knew best palace sheriff is a homophobic Nazi fascist. Okay,
Speaker 1: but I know it's awful, Yes it is. But that's
Speaker 1: the way people talk back then, are you justifying it? No? No,
Speaker 1: but well here, let me I don't cut this out
Speaker 1: if you want me to. But didn't you use the
Speaker 1: F word back then? That F word? I don't think
Speaker 1: I did it. I probably did, and I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't even think of it. Literally, It was just like, motherfucker.
Speaker 1: It's just something I do it. Never even crossed my
Speaker 1: mind until I was older, right, But when you got older,
Speaker 1: you wised up. They were older back then, they were
Speaker 1: grown up. And the problem was Maldonado was an essential
Speaker 1: source if I wanted more information on this case. I
Speaker 1: knew I was going to have to make compromises. So
Speaker 1: the sad fact of the matter was I need his help. Fine,
Speaker 1: but asking about it, I wasn't sure I could do that.
Speaker 1: Ma wanted to meet at a fruit stand down the
Speaker 1: road from my parents. You find these kinds of places
Speaker 1: on the back roads of some on the county, a
Speaker 1: cart or a little wooden structure, sometimes a truck where
Speaker 1: farmers sell produce. They can develop into institutions that draw
Speaker 1: hardcore fans acolytes, and Maldonado claimed that this one Little
Speaker 1: Seed was the strawberry spots. Hey, how you doing, Hey,
Speaker 1: good to meet you.
Speaker 2: As legends. Family has been here for what decades?
Speaker 1: Andres is the owner of little Seed? So how long
Speaker 1: you've been here? Or I guess your family, you guys always.
Speaker 3: Well, my family, my grandfather, he had the west side
Speaker 3: of the valley, the whole hill actually before they put
Speaker 3: in the fence and all that shit, and the grapes.
Speaker 1: Actually, there weren't any grapes.
Speaker 2: It was all orchards back then.
Speaker 1: That's what I remember. My hometown used to be famous
Speaker 1: for its apples, specifically the Gravenstein apple, and Maldonado had
Speaker 1: a bit to say about that.
Speaker 2: You lost the basketball guys name man.
Speaker 1: It was from Russia, right Sebastopol and rushing some like
Speaker 1: argument with a shop owner or something that he doesn't know,
Speaker 1: andres rolled his eyes and I could tell he'd heard
Speaker 1: this one before. Don't listen to this.
Speaker 3: It was when they grew the first graven Stains and
Speaker 3: Johnny Apples say, you know he was, of course, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: well Johnny was coming to the area.
Speaker 2: You really, you really don't know that. You can tell
Speaker 2: him to stop though before it gets to you.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Johnny's wandering the country barefoot, planting trees.
Speaker 2: He's the apple guy, the apple prophet. So when he
Speaker 2: came to town, that's a big deal.
Speaker 3: Everyone wants to know what's old Johnny gonna think of
Speaker 3: the grave Steam?
Speaker 2: Well, he like it. People would play some bets. Andre's
Speaker 2: your grandfather was there? That's your story?
Speaker 3: Anyway, they bring him a gravity stea well for first
Speaker 3: they got to decide which orchard they're.
Speaker 1: Gonna take it from. There's a lot of.
Speaker 2: Back and forth about this.
Speaker 1: I only have so much time per episode, so suffice
Speaker 1: to say Maldonado walked me through a classic shaggy dog story.
Speaker 3: They were in this few Cooper's and the Martinelli's hate
Speaker 3: e joke. People says because one of the Cooper boys
Speaker 3: has run off with Martinelli's daughter. But everyone in that
Speaker 3: fight was really about the golden tree.
Speaker 1: One of those Mark Twain yarns that goes on way.
Speaker 3: Too long actually gets on his dog and gallops to
Speaker 3: the golden tree. Now, shots are fire bullets, wizm pass
Speaker 3: his head.
Speaker 1: To reach a very very underwhelming punchline.
Speaker 2: Finally, Johny takes a bite of this fee.
Speaker 3: He says, this is the best apple they've been sebastable
Speaker 3: ever since.
Speaker 1: That's that's horrible.
Speaker 2: Well that's five minutes of your life and never get back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dad jokes. Aside, apples did define the area for decades.
Speaker 1: Nowadays it's all cannabis and grapes, wine and weed. There
Speaker 1: are only a few old school family spots like Andres
Speaker 1: making do Oh, you gotta try this strawberry.
Speaker 3: He's never added, Oh well, okay, oh yeah, right, that's right,
Speaker 3: sevest Barry.
Speaker 1: See you get it.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a work.
Speaker 1: We went to the edge of the Tender Hearts property
Speaker 1: where Anna was last seen.
Speaker 2: This is where the guys on the engine passed her.
Speaker 1: I had told Maldonado that Willow started the fire that
Speaker 1: night after she found cannabis in the barn, which looking
Speaker 1: back now, I think was an act of rebelling against
Speaker 1: her mom. Yeah, she was totally pissed at Laney. My
Speaker 1: buddy Connor and I talked about this. Willow was being
Speaker 1: raised by her mom and all these other women on
Speaker 1: the Tender Hearts property, and they were supposed to be
Speaker 1: spiritual idealists. But when she found a barn full of weed,
Speaker 1: she knew the rumors were true. They were dealing drugs
Speaker 1: and she lit it up, so you knew where it started.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we would smell the pot too, but it
Speaker 2: was gone. And connecting those dots to Anna, well we
Speaker 2: had nutty.
Speaker 1: There's an irony here. By burning the weed she found,
Speaker 1: Willow actually prevented Elrick and her mom and the Tender
Speaker 1: Hearts from being charged with anything. There was no cannabis left,
Speaker 1: so there was no evidence. But in terms of Anna,
Speaker 1: even after Elrick's alibi, Maldonado and his team focused on
Speaker 1: the Tender Hearts.
Speaker 6: Okay, but that see, that doesn't make any sense to me. Right,
Speaker 6: they were a cult, but they weren't not really. Well, look,
Speaker 6: we know that now, I know that, you know that.
Speaker 6: But at the time, I mean, that was part of
Speaker 6: the zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: That's Monica Tremblaine, a reporter who was helping me.
Speaker 7: I mean, I guess you know about satanic panic, right,
Speaker 7: or wasn't that the eighties?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I mean at the West Memphis three all that that
Speaker 1: was the nineties. This was a good point. In ninety five.
Speaker 1: There were still rampant fears of cults, ritualistic killings. I
Speaker 1: even did a somewhat infamous episode of Boy Meets World
Speaker 1: where my character joined a cult. I believe that I
Speaker 1: finally found a place where people let me be who
Speaker 1: I am, you know, without trying to change me or
Speaker 1: or need to know what my goals are in life.
Speaker 1: I mean, why do I need that? Sean? What do
Speaker 1: you believe? What do you believe?
Speaker 8: In Corey?
Speaker 1: The transcripts and the message from Sparks were weighing heavily
Speaker 1: on me. Was Sheriff Maldonado biased in this investigation, too
Speaker 1: obsessed with weed and focused on the Culti commune, maybe
Speaker 1: even targeting Elric personally. It took me almost an hour
Speaker 1: before I could bring it up.
Speaker 3: The search party started in groups from here and then
Speaker 3: fanned out.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll show you so.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Lachlan sent me the transcripts and I went through
Speaker 1: the interviews with Elric.
Speaker 3: He played coy what a take three or four sitting
Speaker 3: downs before he finally broke broke.
Speaker 4: I mean, he didn't admit that anything happened to do
Speaker 4: with Anna Man had secrets.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you know it wasn't There's one part in
Speaker 1: the transcripts where you refer to him as a fagot?
Speaker 2: Did I?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the full quote. Is the Swami turned out
Speaker 1: to be a fagot?
Speaker 2: Damn? Well know it's different times back then.
Speaker 1: It's a slightly awkward moment because on one hand he
Speaker 1: was acknowledging the thing, but then on the other not really.
Speaker 1: But then what do I expect an apology to? Who? Did?
Speaker 1: I want him to break down and cry and shame
Speaker 1: and admit to some deep seated bigotry. Well, but so
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about in general with the tender hearts community. Sure,
Speaker 1: but you know what they were doing, what they were
Speaker 1: actually doing, that it'd be legal now. Maldonado only nodded.
Speaker 1: They were, you know, living off the land, selling cannabis.
Speaker 2: They were breaking the loan, right.
Speaker 9: But.
Speaker 1: Knowing now laws have changed, I mean, doesn't has it
Speaker 1: changed the way that you feel?
Speaker 2: How I feel about what?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, investigating, interrogating him, arresting him if you
Speaker 1: could hindsight's easy. Yeah, but you were I mean, you
Speaker 1: had the authority.
Speaker 2: Should I have called him a name?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: But I've said a lot of stupid shit in my dear,
Speaker 3: a lot of stupid ship.
Speaker 2: Look, there's there's there's no excuse. But the job is
Speaker 2: always the same. I'm not I'm not making the laws. Okay,
Speaker 2: I know what you're saying. I do.
Speaker 3: But but guys get in trouble if they start thinking
Speaker 3: that they can decide which laws to care about, which
Speaker 3: one's not to. You can't decide what evidence you like
Speaker 3: or don't like, which suspect or which witness. If I'm
Speaker 3: doing my job, I'm letting the evidence tell the story. Okay,
Speaker 3: it speaks for itself. I'm more like a reader a listener,
Speaker 3: So you gotta let the evidence tell the story, even
Speaker 3: if it's not the one that you like or the.
Speaker 2: One that you want to hear.
Speaker 5: That guy is utterly.
Speaker 1: Full of shit. The next day, when I met up
Speaker 1: with Sparks, he had a different take.
Speaker 5: Mall and I was barely a cop, totally a dickhit.
Speaker 1: Oh he picked up. Hey, it's Chris Delveccio. Chris got
Speaker 1: Sparks to agree to meet with me. I do know
Speaker 1: his real first name, but I'm going to stick with
Speaker 1: Sparks for legal reasons, but also it fits. No no
Speaker 1: no no no no no. No cameras. It's a podcast.
Speaker 1: They'll have like a microphone. You won't even know it's there.
Speaker 1: I actually won't be there. I got to get back
Speaker 1: to LA, but it'll be you and Rider, and you
Speaker 1: remember writer. Chris was catching a flight home, and I
Speaker 1: was sad to see him go. It felt like a
Speaker 1: sign that I wasn't getting anywhere.
Speaker 10: Don't beat yourself up if you don't solve anything.
Speaker 1: This would be cool to at least have this stuff recorded, right,
Speaker 1: And you got the box with the pager. Yes, great,
Speaker 1: we found a pager on my parents' property. It was
Speaker 1: mostly a random relic from the nineties, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to see if we could extract numbers from it. All Right,
Speaker 1: so there are private investigators who specialize in old technology,
Speaker 1: but they no, they're pricey as hell.
Speaker 3: What are we talking about.
Speaker 1: It's like four thousand dollars just a look, I know,
Speaker 1: I have a guy. Surprisingly, this is an area where
Speaker 1: Hollywood connections came in Handy. Chris is a TV writer
Speaker 1: and he's worked on some big shows, including one that
Speaker 1: needed outdated technology props. Okay, man, so you've got to
Speaker 1: buy email, writer's email, my number, writer's number. You are
Speaker 1: in the loop.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Ranking Lyle Rinkin runs a tech consulting company for art departments.
Speaker 1: When you're making a show with medical machines or computers,
Speaker 1: especially period pieces, you need someone who has all that
Speaker 1: stuff and knows how to run it.
Speaker 7: Okay, there you go.
Speaker 1: He's gonna try it, my boy, rinking He's got you. Yes,
Speaker 1: he is actually a next level order, way worse than
Speaker 1: your parents. He has two warehouses, just like wall to
Speaker 1: wall Ark of the Covenant.
Speaker 11: He has that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the valley, God, I would love to see that.
Speaker 1: We boxed the pager up and Chris took it to
Speaker 1: the post office on his way to the airport. He
Speaker 1: was heading back to his normal life, normal work, which
Speaker 1: made me feel like maybe I should too. I did
Speaker 1: have a script I was supposed to be writing, after all,
Speaker 1: but for now I went to meet Sparks. I suddenly
Speaker 1: felt very alone. Sparks had sent a Google Maps pin
Speaker 1: deep in West County, but there was no service. Once
Speaker 1: I got close. I ended up going down this dirt
Speaker 1: road for ten minutes. I didn't even see any houses.
Speaker 1: There were some rusty cars, farm equipment. I had to
Speaker 1: turn around a few times. Finally I found a gravel
Speaker 1: driveway that dead ended. There was a garage. Hello, Hello, fuck.
Speaker 1: I got or Die up as soon as I saw him.
Speaker 1: I knew I had met Sparks in the nineties, but
Speaker 1: he remembered Chris better. He brought him up while I
Speaker 1: was setting up my mics.
Speaker 5: Christo that yeah, man, I couldn't believe getting a call
Speaker 5: from his ass. While You remember Danny Carino, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 5: he was like a big tall guy. Oh yeah, man,
Speaker 5: he's the massive Delatio constantly really yeah, you remember the
Speaker 5: whole fancy pants.
Speaker 1: Thing I actually did. Chris had Warren suspenders to the
Speaker 1: eighth grade dance. He never lived that down.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I thought it was normal. I called him fancy
Speaker 5: pants he did. Oh dude, he lost his shit really?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I went up on top of coffee cats.
Speaker 5: He was throwing chairs.
Speaker 1: What yeah, Chris? Yeah, bro, I think I would have
Speaker 1: heard about my best friend throwing chairs around, which maybe
Speaker 1: was my first indication that I should take everything that
Speaker 1: Sparks said with a grain of salt. But then he
Speaker 1: had a lot of interesting things to say about Anna's case.
Speaker 11: And over a fact, mcsorted bullshit.
Speaker 1: He meant, Mick Bowden and his ex boyfriend. Okay, so
Speaker 1: what do you mean, Oh.
Speaker 5: He's suddenly not with his girlfriends, like vanishes into the
Speaker 5: thin air. He's with a new chick he.
Speaker 1: Was talking about. After Anna page Mick, he tried to
Speaker 1: pick her up at the payphone, but she never showed,
Speaker 1: and so Mick said, he then spent the night.
Speaker 5: With Here's nobody remembers it was Halloween, right, but there's
Speaker 5: school in next day.
Speaker 1: Was true. It was easy for me to forget because
Speaker 1: I wasn't in a normal school situation. I was still
Speaker 1: traveling back and forth to work in LA and going
Speaker 1: to a tiny alternative school in the woods.
Speaker 5: Oh, you know, I used to post up a gad
Speaker 5: flies you know that spot get some coffee before driving
Speaker 5: up to Rosa. I saw it come to school that morning.
Speaker 1: And she was by herself.
Speaker 5: Jie said, Nick was with it.
Speaker 1: Later, guess you got brand new Jetta? Oh for that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 11: Actually the next month.
Speaker 5: Dude, are you saying she full on't changed his story?
Speaker 5: Suddenly she's dating Mick.
Speaker 1: Oh so they dated for real?
Speaker 5: Yeah, six months and then she's driving that sweet sweet Jedda.
Speaker 1: Cars were a big deal when we were teens, a
Speaker 1: big marker of identity. We knew who everybody's car was.
Speaker 1: We knew everybody's mom's car. We could tell who was
Speaker 1: that Coffeecats or Round Table Pizza or any parking lot
Speaker 1: by driving by and seeing their car. So it's not surprising.
Speaker 1: Even my brother Shiloh remembers the Jetta uh purple uh
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five Volkswagen Jetta stick shift tinted windows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a stretch, I know. I know, in
Speaker 1: situations like this, you really got to ask yourself how
Speaker 1: reliable is your source, as in, can I trust a
Speaker 1: drug dealer? Well, come on, and somebody that's not a
Speaker 1: huge fan of cops to begin with. That was true.
Speaker 1: Sparks spent a lot of time giving me his opinion
Speaker 1: of law enforcement.
Speaker 11: Let's talk about Moll the not God, dude, I mean
Speaker 11: he's a cop.
Speaker 5: Cops are dicks.
Speaker 11: The thing about that most of the cops is like
Speaker 11: they would just be a dick to your face. And
Speaker 11: like him to your face, he's all cool, like mister,
Speaker 11: you know, I your buddy, you know, right, your pal,
Speaker 11: And then you know he was really not.
Speaker 5: He was like trying to play a game, and like
Speaker 5: you know with me, he knew, he knew where I ran. Like, yeah,
Speaker 5: we had this little spot called Swamp of Vania. You
Speaker 5: ever hang out there?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: Really? Yeah, oh yeah, I guess you're going.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 11: I was cool man, Like we just sit, we were
Speaker 11: chill and drink.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 11: It was like this in this little kind.
Speaker 1: Of like ravine water, like a culvert.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, And you know he knew about it
Speaker 5: and like let us have it because you know, he'd
Speaker 5: come to me every once in a while and like,
Speaker 5: you know, watch some intel.
Speaker 1: You so you're you were like an informant.
Speaker 11: Oh yeah, he wishes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Anyway, one time we went out to went out to
Speaker 5: the spot Swamplvania and shit was trashed, couch was all
Speaker 5: ripped up. Oh dude even put like barbed wire across
Speaker 5: the path we used to get out there.
Speaker 1: How do you know that it was him?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 5: Because it was the day after he came to me
Speaker 5: and he wanted to know about some meth thing going
Speaker 5: on in Forestville or something I did or anything. I
Speaker 5: didn't know anything about it, so he wanted to intel.
Speaker 11: I had nothing for him.
Speaker 5: And uh yeah, he took our shanger laf fucking bitch.
Speaker 11: Dude's a villain, bro of.
Speaker 1: It was hard to take this seriously, but then again,
Speaker 1: maybe I didn't want to for an obvious reason.
Speaker 2: She pulled the bullets and this this tree over here,
Speaker 2: one of these trees.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and where they end up there inevidently in a
Speaker 1: walker somewhere at the Violent Crimes.
Speaker 2: Unit investigating unit.
Speaker 1: Man, I would I'd love to see that stuff.
Speaker 4: Talked a lot on man mm hmm. She got to
Speaker 4: the transfer. Yeah, but then she hasn't called me back.
Speaker 2: Tell you me, That's what I'll miss.
Speaker 3: Red tape typing reports, filing reports of dating reports.
Speaker 2: You want me to get a recall? I think if
Speaker 2: I came in with you, she might give us a film.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I'd be grayer.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, thanks man.
Speaker 7: Well, poor Robert Maldonado can enjoy his retirement.
Speaker 1: And it worked. It's a situation. Or I'm just playing
Speaker 1: catch up.
Speaker 7: Yeah, me too, trust me, me too. Uh And I
Speaker 7: have a full case load as it is. You know,
Speaker 7: this office is responsible for all of Sonoma County.
Speaker 1: Lachlan explained that they didn't have the resources to reopen
Speaker 1: the case because.
Speaker 7: They're not there.
Speaker 1: I'm not there.
Speaker 7: And that's when you're talking new testimony, new evidence.
Speaker 8: Well, I mean doesn't like me coming forward? Isn't that
Speaker 8: new testimony? Or I mean it's a new information and after.
Speaker 7: I'm making a podcast. Ouch, there's never been anything to
Speaker 7: move the needle on this, okay, nothing from a missing
Speaker 7: person to homicide or kidnapping anything. There's no body, no
Speaker 7: new witness, so.
Speaker 8: Okay, you know, okay, well, actually there is a witness
Speaker 8: that I'm talking to.
Speaker 1: Who is this?
Speaker 8: Well, I'm not I'm trying to still gather, you know,
Speaker 8: all the background and but basically what they're saying there
Speaker 8: are some contradictions. Contradictions maybe or you know, maybe it's
Speaker 8: easy to clear up, but I really can't do that
Speaker 8: unless I can see the evidence.
Speaker 7: Okay, is this person on the record.
Speaker 1: It was a good question. I had a phone number
Speaker 1: for Sparks, the Google pin to a garage, but I
Speaker 1: didn't even have a last name.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I have them recorded, but I still
Speaker 8: need to get par officials.
Speaker 7: All right, Look, if you're serious, I'll put someone on
Speaker 7: this all right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you mean like a detective, like a liaison.
Speaker 7: Okay, this person will be our contact from now on.
Speaker 7: So you give them what you've got and they will
Speaker 7: coordinate access.
Speaker 1: Did you hear how she slipped in? You give them
Speaker 1: what you got? Was I expected to hand over my
Speaker 1: recordings for accents? I wasn't ready to do that because
Speaker 1: Sparks didn't just accuse Maldonado of slashing up a couch
Speaker 1: and blocking his chill spot. And he wasn't only saying relied.
Speaker 1: He took aim at Maldonado in the entire Sheriff's department.
Speaker 11: You want to talk about how this guy could look
Speaker 11: the other way when it comes to Nick.
Speaker 5: You got to talk.
Speaker 11: About his can pay the next year and paid for
Speaker 11: that shit.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what do you mean, Like, is Maldonado like
Speaker 1: stealing from crime scenes or.
Speaker 5: Something, no legit money. He was a sheriff.
Speaker 11: That's an elected position.
Speaker 5: Right, Mick definitely got a pass Daddy promises Samoolah. They
Speaker 5: half asked their investigation. It goes away.
Speaker 1: That's a big allegation. I know, I know, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of paranoid, but also not impossible. Mixed. Dad was wealthy,
Speaker 1: well connected, and it was weird to me that Maldonado
Speaker 1: fixated on Elric and the tender hearts. Okay, what about
Speaker 1: the smaller stuff because this car thing, it's interesting that
Speaker 1: Mick bought a car, a Jetta and she changed her story. Right,
Speaker 1: you could try the DMV or maybe if she read
Speaker 1: stood for new insurance. But if you get access to
Speaker 1: the files, this just gets a little bit easier. I
Speaker 1: had no idea what my chances were now that Lachlan
Speaker 1: had passed me off to a new liaison, someone named
Speaker 1: Thomas Greer. It seemed obvious that Lachlan was trying to
Speaker 1: get me off or back let someone else stonewall me.
Speaker 1: I needed more information from Sparks like to start his
Speaker 1: full name, but he didn't show up for our second meeting.
Speaker 1: While I sat in my car, I called Chris, so,
Speaker 1: I'm back here at the garage. Nada. How much do
Speaker 1: you know about this guy? Waited for over an hour.
Speaker 1: I was a little nervous. Greer had set a time
Speaker 1: for us to meet at the Sheriff's department. I invited
Speaker 1: Maldonado to hoping he could vouch me, but in terms
Speaker 1: of intel to offer, I felt like I had nothing.
Speaker 1: I just knew I didn't want to be an actor
Speaker 1: making a podcast. How is this? Yes, that's a giant Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: I think to wear glasses good? Yes, So I put
Speaker 1: on the one sports code I had packed and my glasses.
Speaker 1: I wanted to look serious smart, which yes, means that
Speaker 1: in order to not be an actor, I dressed in
Speaker 1: a costume, literally the most actor thing in the world. Yeah, hi,
Speaker 1: U Raderstrong, I'm here to Thomas Greer. Turns out I
Speaker 1: couldn't have been more wrong in how to prepare to
Speaker 1: meet officer career mister Sean Hunter, because he was a
Speaker 1: boy meets World super fan, like I know you, Oh
Speaker 1: cool dude, I grew up on you. I used to
Speaker 1: hate being recognized, especially in my hometown. When you're a kid,
Speaker 1: anything that makes you stand out is just mortifying. But
Speaker 1: these days people tell me that they know who I am,
Speaker 1: or that they liked the show, and it's great. It's
Speaker 1: wholly positive. N percent of the time, Greer might be
Speaker 1: the other one percent. You know, you actually met my cousin.
Speaker 1: I did, Susan Lacy, you remember, I know? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: were taking her to prom.
Speaker 10: Really, of course you don't remember, and you were probably
Speaker 10: told every girl that you were going to prom.
Speaker 1: Man, you were the man. It was awkward, but suddenly
Speaker 1: I was optimistic you might open the case file.
Speaker 3: Oh tapanga, dude, topanga.
Speaker 1: Oh she was hot, that good and you didn't hit
Speaker 1: that luckily. When Maldonado arrived, Greer shifted into a more
Speaker 1: professional mode.
Speaker 4: Yeah you too, Yeah, I've seen a lot of Maldonado
Speaker 4: tags around here.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. He walked us past the lobby and into
Speaker 1: the building, which, if I was honest, I wanted to
Speaker 1: be like a James Bond facade that once we walked
Speaker 1: through the doors, there would actually be a high tech
Speaker 1: storage facility. People in lab coats standing over beakers, metal
Speaker 1: shelving a gun range, but it was just more office building.
Speaker 1: The two of them went into a room and left
Speaker 1: me in the hallway. I sat on a chair waiting,
Speaker 1: and suddenly it felt like every audition I've ever been on.
Speaker 1: And then Monica called, Hey, what's up? Hey? So maybe
Speaker 1: the drug dealer isn't that so crazy after all? What
Speaker 1: do you mean?
Speaker 6: Registered her Jenna on November eighteen, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: So she had a new car within two weeks.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I gotta go, gotta go.
Speaker 1: Maldonado and Greer took me into an evidence review room.
Speaker 1: Let me now you want to pull, which is how
Speaker 1: I found myself looking at an evidence catalog like a
Speaker 1: menu with too many options. What did I want to see?
Speaker 1: The CDs, bullet fragments, none of it really. The most
Speaker 1: important thing was checking out making stories, but Maldonado was encouraging.
Speaker 2: I don't never know, might not something loose that?
Speaker 10: Okay, well it's a little superficial, but I would love
Speaker 10: to see some of this stuff, like this book maybe,
Speaker 10: And then could I see the bullets?
Speaker 1: I held the three bullets from the tree in my hand. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm actually smaller than I thought. They were tiny flattened
Speaker 1: bits of metal, and Anna's copy of the book The
Speaker 1: Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman was well worn.
Speaker 1: It was it was like, I don't know a lot
Speaker 1: of kids read it. It's like this.
Speaker 10: New age philosophy book. What's this other note?
Speaker 1: Here in the catalog after the Way of the Peaceful
Speaker 1: Warrior was a line that said damage heart spelled hart.
Speaker 3: That might be a note that the book is damaged,
Speaker 3: or could be a type of damaged art.
Speaker 1: Couldn't help it. I kind of love the poetic value
Speaker 1: of the line damage Heart, but I had already made
Speaker 1: career go back to the storage too many times. I
Speaker 1: was only treading water and binding time because I'd already
Speaker 1: seen the list of interviews. Can I just look at
Speaker 1: these transcripts with Mick and.
Speaker 4: You got it?
Speaker 2: Boss?
Speaker 1: What do you think? I'm just wondering about the timeline
Speaker 1: that night? No more the investigation power most. At this
Speaker 1: point I had my notebook out on the table, which
Speaker 1: was a mess of scribbles. But right around here I
Speaker 1: realized I had written notes about Sparks, including the words
Speaker 1: Maldo is a villain circled. I covered it up with
Speaker 1: my arm. Well, yeah, because Mick stopped talking to you,
Speaker 1: but hate lawyered up, and you never thought about her
Speaker 1: rescue it for what we didn't have crime.
Speaker 3: We're still hoping, I mean actually mostly expecting that she
Speaker 3: might call up in a month or two and say, hey, Mom,
Speaker 3: so I had to golf.
Speaker 1: Greer came back with the transcripts. I'm pretty sure these
Speaker 1: are the ones you wanted. A rich yep, oh wow.
Speaker 7: So.
Speaker 1: Comes in. But it's not until this interview, which is
Speaker 1: her third one, that she says that she was with
Speaker 1: Mick but correct. That was right after Elrick's alibi, right
Speaker 1: at the moment when attention would have focused on Mick.
Speaker 1: I pulled out my phone to take a photo of
Speaker 1: the pages, but Greer stopped me.
Speaker 2: No photos?
Speaker 1: Really? Yeah, do you can write down what you want?
Speaker 3: I can go back to Lachlan.
Speaker 1: It's probably not a big deal.
Speaker 4: But I got to get a clue.
Speaker 1: How long is that without it? Donna Maldonado threw his
Speaker 1: hands up. He was also frustrated. I'm not proud of
Speaker 1: what I did. Next, I excuse myself to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: There's a story everyone knows about somebody famous. You've heard
Speaker 1: it about someone It's a story where a famous person
Speaker 1: can't get into a restaurant or a club, or they
Speaker 1: get pulled over for a speeding ticket, and they say,
Speaker 1: don't you know who I am? It's probably never true,
Speaker 1: but the point of the story is, look at this
Speaker 1: sad famous person. Look how desperate they are and pathetic,
Speaker 1: how much they expect, how much they demand, how much
Speaker 1: they rely on status. These stories haunt me. I guess
Speaker 1: they haunt anyone who gets recognized. It's a story about
Speaker 1: how not to be if you're famous. And yet here
Speaker 1: I was making a phone call. Hey, all right, I
Speaker 1: have a really big favor. I know this is super annoying,
Speaker 1: but do you have a second right now? Hey, I
Speaker 1: thought you might want to say hi to a friend
Speaker 1: of mine. I had called Danielle Fischel, my old cast
Speaker 1: made from Boybeat's World. Yes to Panga on FaceTime?
Speaker 5: Oh no, no, no, you didn't.
Speaker 1: Is this he did? Now Here's where I realized I
Speaker 1: hadn't thought any of this through at all. I had
Speaker 1: distracted career got him out of the room, but in
Speaker 1: doing so, I had also just let my phone, the
Speaker 1: very thing I needed to take photos of the pages,
Speaker 1: walk out the door. You hear that sound right there.
Speaker 1: That's mal Donado dropping his phone on the table right
Speaker 1: in front of me, and then he gave a little
Speaker 1: go ahead wave with his hands.
Speaker 9: So I picked up his phone and I took photos
Speaker 9: of every page I could.
Speaker 1: All right, well, thanks for this, Yeah, no problem. I
Speaker 1: hope you got something good for the podcast.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was a confusing moment because I was thankful
Speaker 1: I needed copies of these documents, and Maldonado had helped me,
Speaker 1: So on one hand, makes me feel like he's a
Speaker 1: good guy. On the other, doesn't this lend credence to
Speaker 1: the idea that he's willing to bend the rules, that
Speaker 1: he's corruptible? Hey, uh, thanks for that.
Speaker 3: Of course, I told you the one thing I don't
Speaker 3: miss red tape.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm naive, but I've always wanted to believe that
Speaker 1: people do the right thing for its own sake. But
Speaker 1: so much of life as a series of trade offs.
Speaker 1: You help person because they've helped you. You have your
Speaker 1: friend Danielle talk to a fan for you. You give
Speaker 1: information or withhold information from the police, and sometimes you
Speaker 1: end up with a slash couch. Other times you get
Speaker 1: the evidence you need. Now, I had copies of the
Speaker 1: interviews with Mick and I was able to build a timeline,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, between their interviews with the Sheriff's Department,
Speaker 1: both Mick and had changed her story. Whether he paid
Speaker 1: her off with the Sweet Sweet Jetta or not, it
Speaker 1: certainly looked like they coordinated, like they could have worked
Speaker 1: together to secure mixed alibi. And if Maldonado was a
Speaker 1: villain wanted to look the other way, that might have
Speaker 1: been enough, more than anything I needed to hear from Instead.
Speaker 1: As insane as this sounds, I heard from Ana. The
Speaker 1: Red Weather is an iHeart podcast hosted by River Straw.
Speaker 1: Sound engineering, editing and mixing by Bow milkis produced by
Speaker 1: Tess Bartholomey. Executive producers at iHeartRadio Trevor Young and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 1: Associate producer Bo milkis original score by Kyle Morgan. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying the show, please remember to leave a review
Speaker 1: in rating. Thanks for listening,