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Speaker 1: You're listening to Facing Evil, a production of iHeartRadio and

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Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast

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Speaker 1: are solely those of the individuals participating in the show

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Speaker 1: and do not represent those of iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV.

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Speaker 1: This podcast contains subject matter which may not be suitable

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Speaker 1: for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: Hello, everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil.

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Speaker 3: I'm Rasha Pecerreira and I'm Evett Genteeley and today's episode

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Speaker 3: is beyond special to us. And this episode is going

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Speaker 3: to be a two parter because it has been a

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Speaker 3: long time in the making for this particular one.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it absolutely has, and we are finally giving our

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Speaker 2: Root of Evil and Facing Evil fans exactly what they

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Speaker 2: want and in depth look at the making of our

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Speaker 2: hit podcast. Asked Root of Evil the true story of

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Speaker 2: the Hodel family and the Black Dahlia.

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Speaker 3: And the best way to do that is to have

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Speaker 3: the creator, the man himself, the producer, the writer, the

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Speaker 3: director of Root of Evil, mister Zach Levitt is here

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Speaker 3: with us on Facing Evil como.

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Speaker 4: My I am so excited to be here. I thank

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Speaker 4: you for asking me on. Thank you for the opportunity

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Speaker 4: to talk about what was such a special time in

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Speaker 4: my career, in my life and getting to know you

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Speaker 4: guys and making the show, and this is sort of

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Speaker 4: the conversation that I've been waiting to have for a while,

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Speaker 4: to talk about the making of the show and what

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Speaker 4: we went through and the journey. And I'm really excited.

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Speaker 4: So thank you for having me on.

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Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like this, like you said, this has been years

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Speaker 2: in the making.

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Speaker 5: This conversation.

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Speaker 2: Every single listener is going to want to listen in

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Speaker 2: on because we're going to answer all of the questions

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Speaker 2: and Yvette and I get DMS messages, calls, all the

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Speaker 2: things on the daily, and we have been getting all

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Speaker 2: those since twenty nineteen when Root of Evil came out.

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Speaker 2: We're going to answer everything, and we more importantly, we're

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Speaker 2: going to have that amazing conversation with you, Zach, and

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Speaker 2: we're going to talk about everything that was left on

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Speaker 2: the cutting room floor of Rood of Evil. A lot

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Speaker 2: of people don't know what was left on the counting

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Speaker 2: room floor is monumental to the story and to our lives.

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Speaker 2: And we're going to answer that big question, who was

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Speaker 2: our mom's father? Was it George Hodell, Was it her

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Speaker 2: grandfather or was it not. We're going to get into

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Speaker 2: all of that today. Zach Lovitt is a two time Emmy, Peabody, NAACP,

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Speaker 2: Image and New York Press Club Award winning documentary, film

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Speaker 2: and podcast creator who has helmed some of the most

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Speaker 2: popular and acclaimed documentaries of all time. Zach's hit podcasts

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Speaker 2: include Gangster Capitalism, The Sunshine Place, Relative Unknown, and our

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Speaker 2: smash hit true crime podcast, Root of Evil, The True

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Speaker 2: Story of the Hodell Family and The Black Dahlia. And

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Speaker 2: next up for Zach, not only is he creating, producing,

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Speaker 2: directing all the things, he is finally stepping in front

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Speaker 2: of the mic as the host of the highly anticipated

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Speaker 2: podcast The Set.

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Speaker 3: So prior to you making podcasts, Zach has made documentary

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Speaker 3: films from his time with the NBA. So we're talking

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Speaker 3: about thirty for thirty, Clutch City, Bad Boys, The Doctor,

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Speaker 3: Doctor j Doctor Julius Irving, who I just have to

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Speaker 3: say it was my dad's favorite, along with mine, The

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Speaker 3: Dream Team, The Announcement, and Once Brothers. I mean, Zach,

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Speaker 3: you have stood out as a fierce force and a

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Speaker 3: tenacious storyteller.

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Speaker 5: Zach, But what I.

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Speaker 3: Really love most about you and this is this is

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Speaker 3: so true and it's in your bio. But you can

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Speaker 3: work with the biggest names in the entertainment, but then

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Speaker 3: you can work with unknown characters like us. But you

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Speaker 3: bring everybody's story to light. And we feel that in

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Speaker 3: all that you do, like there's heart, there's grit, there's connection,

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Speaker 3: and that is a that is a storyteller at its finest.

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Speaker 5: Zach.

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Speaker 4: So, well, here's what I'm going to say the next

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Speaker 4: time I have a massive crisis of confidence on the

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Speaker 4: next project that I do, which there will be, because

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Speaker 4: it always comes where you say this is not going

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Speaker 4: to be good. Nobody's going to want to see or

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Speaker 4: listen to this. I'm going to listen back to that.

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Speaker 4: So thank you for that. That's super kind. And you know,

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Speaker 4: I mean, I think for me, I go into every

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Speaker 4: story beginning with a sense of curiosity. Who are the people.

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Speaker 4: That's really what I connect with, whether it's a it's

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Speaker 4: a former basketball player or athlete, or the two of you,

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Speaker 4: or anybody that I have, you know, put into one

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Speaker 4: of these stories. It's a curiosity about your lives and

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Speaker 4: what you've been through. And you know, gaining that level

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Speaker 4: of understanding. To be able to convey that to the

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Speaker 4: audience is what I love about what I do more

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Speaker 4: than anything, making those connections. And you know, the greatest

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Speaker 4: thing to me about these stories and working on documentaries

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Speaker 4: are the relationships that you make, you know, And here

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Speaker 4: we are five five years later from when we first

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Speaker 4: spoke on the phone and I first came out to

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Speaker 4: San Francisco and LA to meet up with you and

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Speaker 4: and do these these shoots, these these recordings. Here we

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Speaker 4: are five years later, and that relationship has grown to

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Speaker 4: this point. And I love that about docs because it's

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Speaker 4: such an intimate task. It's such an intimate journey to

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Speaker 4: to get to know the people on a level where

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Speaker 4: you know you can trust each other in the telling

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Speaker 4: of the story and and trust each other with your deepest,

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Speaker 4: darkest secrets and your lives, and you know, and that's

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Speaker 4: a that's a big undertaking. And you know, I that

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Speaker 4: is certainly something that I hold as incredibly important. And uh,

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Speaker 4: I love the fact that I have been able to

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Speaker 4: continue these relationships through the years, and that's a really

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Speaker 4: rewarding part of what I do, being able to to

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Speaker 4: to follow along in your lives as well. And look

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Speaker 4: at I mean, now you have your own podcast, and.

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Speaker 5: Thank you, mister Zach Lovett to mister Donald, all right,

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Speaker 5: it's because.

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Speaker 4: Of what you've been able to do and and people

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Speaker 4: have made that connection with the two of you and

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Speaker 4: they hear the you know, the warmth in your voices

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Speaker 4: and the and the sincerity and so I'm just it's

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Speaker 4: a stretch to say proud parent, but that's sort of

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Speaker 4: what I feel sometimes, I know, God brother, Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 4: that's a much better analogy. So that's super rewarding for me.

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Speaker 4: So this is like full circle.

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Speaker 2: It is full circle, and you're you're a true storyteller exactly.

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Speaker 3: And I was gonna that was going to be one

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Speaker 3: of my first questions for you, Zach, is because you

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Speaker 3: have this you know, immense body of work. Right where

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Speaker 3: you started in the NBA, right it was all about

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Speaker 3: the sports and the basketball. And then I guess my

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Speaker 3: question is how did you transition from you know, documentary

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Speaker 3: films to podcasting? How did that come about?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? So, I mean I was lucky in a sense

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Speaker 4: when I began working in production with the NBA. I

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Speaker 4: always wanted to get into production. I just I didn't

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Speaker 4: know anything about it. So you know, how do you

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Speaker 4: break your way in? And so working at NBA Entertainment

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Speaker 4: was the perfect opportunity. I mean, I'm a huge basketball fan,

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Speaker 4: and it afforded me the opportunity to learn production from

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Speaker 4: the start, you know, as a production assistant, work my

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Speaker 4: way up, and I realized that I loved to do it.

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Speaker 4: I loved pulling overnighters in the edit room and making

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Speaker 4: the deadline and trying, you know, just trying to work

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Speaker 4: on being an actual storyteller. And so I was able

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Speaker 4: to do that and had that tremendous opportunity to make

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Speaker 4: some thirty for thirties and these other films, and through

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Speaker 4: that I sort of wanted to branch out. I didn't

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Speaker 4: want to do sports stories anymore at that point. In fact,

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Speaker 4: the ones that I did, I was always sort of

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Speaker 4: searching for an angle to connect in a more human way,

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Speaker 4: you know, rather.

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Speaker 5: Than the heart of the story.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, rather than portraying a basketball player, who is this person?

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Speaker 4: And so that has always been what I've been drawn to.

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Speaker 4: And at a certain point I had made the decision

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Speaker 4: that I wanted to do that in a different way,

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Speaker 4: and this opportunity became available to come on and start

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Speaker 4: an Originals division for Caden's Thirteen, and initially it was

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Speaker 4: going to be sports stories, and I said, well, I

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Speaker 4: kind of want to do other stuff. And Chris Corcoran,

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Speaker 4: who hired me, to his credit, he just sort of said,

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Speaker 4: that sounds great, whatever you think. And having said all that,

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Speaker 4: as I'm you know, having these talks to come on board,

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Speaker 4: talks were already going on behind the scenes between Caden's

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Speaker 4: Thirteen and TNT for a Sister podcast, which sounded really cool.

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Speaker 4: I can actually picture where I was in my old house,

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Speaker 4: stand in the room having this conversation, asking the question, well,

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Speaker 4: are any of the family members around?

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Speaker 3: That's exactly what I was going to ask, Like, take

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Speaker 3: us back to that moment, right when you decided to

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Speaker 3: do this.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, when I read your mom's book, as I said,

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Speaker 4: I was fascinated and I'm like, wow, there is a

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Speaker 4: lot here.

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Speaker 5: Right, one little layer of the onion exactly.

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Speaker 4: It was the first layer of the onion. But I

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Speaker 4: was devastated that to find out that your mom had

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Speaker 4: passed because my initial thought was, she'll tell her own story. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: she's never done this except for her book, and that'll

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Speaker 4: be really interesting. And I knew from her book that

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Speaker 4: she had a daughter named the Vett.

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Speaker 5: I know, I'm not I'm barely mentioned. I'm in the epilogue.

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Speaker 2: You probably didn't read the epilogue.

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Speaker 4: So I remember on that call with TNT, they said, well,

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Speaker 4: we'll put you in touch with the girls.

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Speaker 5: And you're like the girls with.

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Speaker 4: Any girls, there's more than one. And I said to myself,

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Speaker 4: oh shit, like, how am I going to incorporate two

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Speaker 4: of them as potential hosts? You know what is that

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Speaker 4: going to look like? So all of these things were

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Speaker 4: swirling in my mind in the background as we had

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Speaker 4: our first conversation. And I'm trying to remember. I think

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Speaker 4: I may have spoken with Sam Sheridan prior to speaking

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Speaker 4: with you read Yeah, yeah, so Sam Sheridan was the

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Speaker 4: writer and I think the ep and I am the Night, Yeah,

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Speaker 4: And so I spoke to him. I remember the first

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Speaker 4: question I asked him was, can you send me your

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Speaker 4: reading list, like all the books that you read to

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Speaker 4: write I Am the Night because I need to start researching.

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Speaker 4: And so he sent me a whole list of books

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Speaker 4: and I went out and I read all of them.

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Speaker 4: And it was such a wide range of topics, from

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Speaker 4: surrealist art to the history of LA and you know,

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Speaker 4: I found a bunch on my own that I read

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Speaker 4: as well. And one of the things that he said

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Speaker 4: on that conversation and I was just, I mean, I'm

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Speaker 4: trying to sort of jump on the treadmill as it's

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Speaker 4: speeding along. And you've been writing this thing for however long,

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Speaker 4: a year or longer.

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Speaker 5: I know that you worked with Mom for a year

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Speaker 5: before he passed. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, any story that I do, my

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Speaker 4: first thing is to do research, and I try to

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Speaker 4: literally read everything possible it's ever been written about those topics,

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Speaker 4: so that you know, if I'm going to tell the story,

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Speaker 4: I have to be an authority on that story. But

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Speaker 4: one of the things that he mentioned in that conversation was,

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Speaker 4: so I just spoke to the girls Russia and Nivette,

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Speaker 4: and I'm saying to myself, Okay, Rasha, I didn't know

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Speaker 4: there was a second daughter. And he said, they told

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Speaker 4: me that they just went on twenty three and meters.

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Speaker 4: They just submitted their DNA to twenty three and meter

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Speaker 4: but I told them not to check the results until

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Speaker 4: they speak with you.

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Speaker 5: He actually had it done before Mom passed.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, but we hadn't checked because some things were

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Speaker 2: coming up real funky, and we're like, oh my god,

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Speaker 2: this is going to prove that George was Mom's father.

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Speaker 4: So I said, DNA results, you know, what is that

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Speaker 4: all about? That sounds interesting and it sounds like it

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Speaker 4: could be an interesting sort of reveal for the podcast.

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Speaker 4: I'll just talk to them. I don't even know DNA

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Speaker 4: results for what? Right again? I remember where I was

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Speaker 4: the first time we spoke. I was sitting in my

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Speaker 4: car in the parking lot of the library in the

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Speaker 4: town I live in, because I had just taken out

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Speaker 4: a bunch of books, and we spoke, and I remember

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Speaker 4: feeling this utter sense of warmth emanating from the two

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Speaker 4: of you, and you were both open to any idea

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Speaker 4: that I had and ready to ready to really just

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Speaker 4: tackle the story and go wherever I asked you to go.

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Speaker 4: And whether it was fly to la or down to

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Speaker 4: San fran from Portland or whatever whatever it was, you

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Speaker 4: were both ready to do anything. And I asked you,

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Speaker 4: you know, if you would be willing to be the hosts.

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Speaker 3: Wait wait, wait, wait, I got to throw this in.

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Speaker 3: So I remember where I was. I was in my

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Speaker 3: car as well. You know, This was before twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: when everything shut down. San Francisco was still bustling, people

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Speaker 3: were walking everywhere, and we were getting this call from

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Speaker 3: Zach Levitt. You know, Sam said, you're going to get

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Speaker 3: this call from Zach Levitt. He wants to talk to

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Speaker 3: both of you. And I just remember feeling so I

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Speaker 3: always like to describe it as just you cradled us,

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Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like you made us feel

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Speaker 3: so at home in that very first conversation. From that moment,

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Speaker 3: we you know, literally fell in love with you. And

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Speaker 3: you know that that doesn't happen often, but we could

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Speaker 3: tell that. You know, you were a solid, solid guy

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Speaker 3: who really wanted to do the story right.

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Speaker 4: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: And you have to remember too, we have to tell

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Speaker 2: our listeners this story. I remember, and I don't know

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Speaker 2: if it was in that first conversation. And yes, I

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Speaker 2: remember where I was. I was five feet from where

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Speaker 2: I am right now since I'm recording in my closet.

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Speaker 2: I was in my bedroom and I was instantly captivated

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Speaker 2: by your voice and I'm like, oh my god, like

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Speaker 2: I could listen to you talk for hours. But I

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Speaker 2: remember you saying, and I don't remember if it was

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Speaker 2: that first. I know, Zach, I know you don't like

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Speaker 2: your voice, but I love your fat Zach.

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Speaker 5: Accept it. You're a podcast post. Now you're in our

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Speaker 5: same realm.

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Speaker 2: But I remember, and I don't remember if it was

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Speaker 2: that very first conversation or the thousands we had after that,

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Speaker 2: but you're like, all right, Yvett and Russia like I'm

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Speaker 2: not sure which one of you I'm going to pick

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Speaker 2: as the host.

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Speaker 4: Wow, I don't remember that. I was probably like hedging

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Speaker 4: my best or something like right.

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Speaker 2: And and we're like, yeah, you know, it's we're just

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Speaker 2: happy to be a part of it. And Mom, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's like she knew what a podcast was before podcasts existed,

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Speaker 2: because she started recording and making all these recordings for

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Speaker 2: years and years and years.

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Speaker 5: And you know, Yvette and I have never had jealousy

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Speaker 5: anything like that, and we're like.

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Speaker 3: Never never any competition. So we were like, okay, well whoever.

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Speaker 5: Yep, whatever, and then you were like, no, it has

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Speaker 5: to be the two of you. I mean you tell

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Speaker 5: us like.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I do remember that part because and I

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Speaker 4: think I told you this early on when we when

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Speaker 4: we first met. I've never seen siblings and I have

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Speaker 4: a brother that I'm super close with, but I've never

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Speaker 4: seen siblings. There is no competition, there is no jealousy,

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Speaker 4: There is nothing between the two of you except this,

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Speaker 4: like I said before, this warmth. And you weren't proscriptive

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Speaker 4: about it, like you know, we do everything together. But

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Speaker 4: it was evident right from the start that this is

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Speaker 4: how it had to be because you were finishing each

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Speaker 4: other's sentences, and I mean it was like it was

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Speaker 4: like you were twins or something. But yeah, the energy

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Speaker 4: I knew that having the two of you together, and

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Speaker 4: also you leaned on each other emotionally.

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Speaker 5: Yeah we just lost mom.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and you were both in there for

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Speaker 4: each other. And then hearing you talk about one another

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Speaker 4: that was the selling point. And you know, I do

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Speaker 4: have to say because there was there was a consideration,

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Speaker 4: like you know, early on, you know, when I took

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Speaker 4: the job, it's like, Okay, everybody's got a podcast, right,

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Speaker 4: it's like running dough, yeah, media or wherever, you know,

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Speaker 4: listen to my podcast, and and you know, everybody sort

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Speaker 4: of takes that opportunity to put themselves out there right

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Speaker 4: and and to be you know, to have their own

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Speaker 4: podcast and to be a host and that was never

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Speaker 4: really a consideration for me, especially with this story, because

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Speaker 4: one of the things, you know, when people ask me,

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Speaker 4: you know what, what is sort of one of the

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Speaker 4: overriding thoughts that you have as you're making these stories,

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Speaker 4: and I always say, get out of the way of

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Speaker 4: the story. And again it sounds you know, it sounds cliche,

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Speaker 4: and it probably is. But for me, it was like,

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Speaker 4: you know, if I can get the people that I

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Speaker 4: need to to to open up and to talk, the

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Speaker 4: story is great, and what the hell can I add

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Speaker 4: to it other than putting it together and writing it

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Speaker 4: and sort of shepherding it. But it's it's not my

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Speaker 4: story to tell, So it was never going to be

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Speaker 4: a consideration for me to host it myself. Which is

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Speaker 4: funny because I have come full circle on now with

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Speaker 4: with which we'll talk about later, the set coming out

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Speaker 4: which I'm which I'm hosting. But the other thing was

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Speaker 4: that I absolutely hate my voice, hate love and I

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Speaker 4: to it.

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Speaker 2: You're just a perfectionist, Zach, and I have to say

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Speaker 2: that right now and put that out there, like you

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Speaker 2: are a perfectionists because you're a true storyteller and you

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Speaker 2: want to get it one hundred million percent right every

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Speaker 2: single time.

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Speaker 4: That's true to my own detriment something. But in addition

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Speaker 4: to hearing you know, the way the two of you

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Speaker 4: interacted with one another, it was also your voices. I

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Speaker 4: was like, holy shit, your voices are so good and

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Speaker 4: totally ready to do this, And so yeah, we were.

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Speaker 4: We were sort of off and running. But of course

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Speaker 4: at that point I had no idea who was who

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Speaker 4: and how deep the story.

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Speaker 2: Would get, right, and you know, talking about that on

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Speaker 2: that level, we and I mean, I'm going to speak

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Speaker 2: for you bet here, and I know she'll chime in.

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Speaker 2: We never thought that our Hodel o'hanna, our Hodel family

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Speaker 2: would sign on, only because Yvette and I have well,

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Speaker 2: I've been much more open than Evett. But our mom,

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Speaker 2: you know, told everyone she ever met her story and

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Speaker 2: wanted to hear other people's stories as well, but everyone

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Speaker 2: else was much more private. So I would love to

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Speaker 2: know how you got our great uncle Steve, our uncle Peace,

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Speaker 2: our uncle Love, our you know uncle Joy, our our

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Speaker 2: aunt f two. Everybody like, how how did that happen?

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Speaker 4: Well, first of all, when I heard from you that

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Speaker 4: you had uncles named Peace, Love and.

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Speaker 5: Joy, Yeah, that doesn't happen every day myself.

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Speaker 4: I grew up in Woodstock, New York.

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Speaker 5: I mean, and you've never heard of a Peace, Love

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Speaker 5: and Joy.

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Speaker 4: You know. I know a lot of people with some

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Speaker 4: interesting names, but when I heard that their their names

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Speaker 4: were Peace, Love and Joy, I said, Okay, that's interesting.

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Speaker 4: I at least want to talk to them. That's that's

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Speaker 4: really interesting. But before I even got there, I knew

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Speaker 4: I wanted to speak with Steve, with Uncle Steve Odell,

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Speaker 4: because I knew that in order to tell Fauna's story

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Speaker 4: that you know, the black dahlia had to be a

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Speaker 4: part of it. Absolutely Obviously, that's going to be the

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Speaker 4: thing that people recognize, and it's a trojan horse, really

377
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Speaker 4: great to tell this bigger story of the family. And

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Speaker 4: I also, with or without Steve, this was always going

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Speaker 4: to be a story about family, because there was no

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Speaker 4: way that I was going to just do a black

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Speaker 4: dahlia story. It had been done so many times. I

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Speaker 4: knew I could bring some level of authenticity to it.

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Speaker 4: But if it were just about the black Dallia, it

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Speaker 4: was going to be viewed as something sensational and you know,

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Speaker 4: capitalizing on this gruesome, unsolved murder. And I did not

386
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Speaker 4: want that, Yeah, And I think that that's what we

387
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Speaker 4: connected on for sure. And I think when I when

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Speaker 4: I told you that I really wanted to tell the

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Speaker 4: story of the family. You know, my sort of entry

390
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Speaker 4: point was who would give away this baby to, you know,

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Speaker 4: to a family in Sparks, Nevada, Nevada, a black family

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Speaker 4: and tell them that she's black when she wasn't and

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Speaker 4: put her through this turmoil of having no idea who

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Speaker 4: she was? And you know what is that all about?

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Speaker 4: Like why why would that happen? And you know you

396
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Speaker 4: mentioned the onion analogy before, and it's it's it's like,

397
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Speaker 4: once you start asking that first question, you're in the

398
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Speaker 4: rabbit hole.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

400
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Speaker 4: Yeah, and the Black Dahlia is a whole other, enormous

401
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Speaker 4: rabbit hole that you know. It's like, you know, once

402
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Speaker 4: you go in, you can never really get out. And

403
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Speaker 4: in fact, once you see the pictures of Elizabeth Short,

404
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Speaker 4: it's hard to get that out of your mind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And so in telling the family story, I knew that

407
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Speaker 4: I wanted to incorporate this investigation. And if I'm telling

408
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Speaker 4: the family story and the investigation, I have to have

409
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Speaker 4: Steve Hodell, who literally wrote the book on the investigation.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and is of course part of the family. I mean,

412
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Speaker 4: the idea of a son investigating his own father and

413
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Speaker 4: the most famous unsolved murder in American history is that

414
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Speaker 4: alone is enough for a massive story, and then you

415
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Speaker 4: incorporate all of these other things that we found out.

416
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Speaker 4: So I knew that I really wanted to get to Steve.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And so once I got Steve, I spoke with Love,

419
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Speaker 4: and Love was generous enough to say that he would

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Speaker 4: do it. And Fauna number two, Deborah Elizabeth Fauna, she

421
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Speaker 4: was difficult at first because you know, obviously her story

422
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Speaker 4: is so personal and so devasting, and she wasn't sure

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Speaker 4: that she wanted to tell it. And the last thing

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Speaker 4: that I wanted to do was trigger her by digging

425
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Speaker 4: into her tast and re traumatize her. Yeah, And I

426
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Speaker 4: was really really sensitive to that. And so you know,

427
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Speaker 4: I told everybody, look, I would love to have you all,

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Speaker 4: and I don't want anybody else speaking about you or

429
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Speaker 4: telling your story other than yourselves. Peace and Joy were

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Speaker 4: the last to come around. And you know, once there

431
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Speaker 4: was that agreement, I knew it was going to be

432
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Speaker 4: special because I knew I knew that there was a

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Speaker 4: story that none of them had told that. You know,

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Speaker 4: I was hoping to provide this forum to maybe have

435
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Speaker 4: some sort of catharsists or to be able to speak

436
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 4: about what they'd been through and have people hear it

437
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 4: and let them know that they were fans of theirs.

438
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 4: And you know, and I think that that's you know,

439
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,440
Speaker 4: I never offer anybody any money. I've never done that once. Yeah,

440
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 4: I don't offer anything other than you can finally tell

441
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 4: your story, you know, and people are people are going

442
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 4: to listen.

443
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:11,880
Speaker 3: There's power in that, you know, going into that room

444
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 3: with all of us, it was cathartic, you know at

445
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 3: that moment in time. You know, we had never done

446
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 3: that before, so that, you know, was a blessing for

447
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:26,880
Speaker 3: all of us. But like you just said, everybody will

448
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 3: continue to live their lives and tell their own story

449
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:34,399
Speaker 3: and in whatever way that they choose to. We do

450
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,199
Speaker 3: know that, you know, by doing Root of Evil, there

451
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 3: was so much There was so much there that was

452
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 3: left on the cutting room floor, right, Zach, And we

453
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 3: really need to jump into that.

454
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,160
Speaker 4: Should we start with a six hour interview I did

455
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:50,879
Speaker 4: with with the two of you that I think I

456
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 4: ended up using about three minutes of yes, because once

457
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 4: you were, once you were narrating, I was like, Okay,

458
00:25:57,680 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 4: well you know this is going to be even better

459
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 4: with your narration.

460
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:02,959
Speaker 5: So I think it's really important.

461
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 2: I want to take the opportunity to say this because Zach,

462
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 2: what you shared, you know about the family, Yvet and

463
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 2: I have promised the Hotels that we would never speak

464
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 2: for them moving on in the future. But with all

465
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,439
Speaker 2: of the publicity and everything, you know you're with us,

466
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 2: we did, doctor Phil, doctor Oz that today show all

467
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:24,399
Speaker 2: the things. I do want to take this opportunity to

468
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 2: say that I learned so much in that process because

469
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 2: I realized that what our family the Hotels went through

470
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 2: is not my story to tell, and they chose to

471
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:43,719
Speaker 2: share their story with us, with the world, and anything

472
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:49,399
Speaker 2: I've ever said publicly, I just want them and everyone

473
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 2: to know that I never ever, ever intentionally wanted to

474
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 2: hurt any of them ever.

475
00:26:55,880 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 5: And I know that whatever they choose to do, whatever

476
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 5: stories they decide to.

477
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 2: Tell, that we will always support them well always, and

478
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 2: I want them to have as much healing as we

479
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 2: have and success that we've had in everything, and I

480
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 2: just want to send them just all love and light always.

481
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 5: So I just really, really really.

482
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 3: Wanted to say that, and you know, at the end

483
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:23,640
Speaker 3: of the day, you just have to remember you only

484
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 3: get one family, right, I.

485
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 4: Want to do the same Rasia. I spoke about those relationships,

486
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 4: and you know, I know that that some people are

487
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 4: you know, might be more private or or or just

488
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 4: sort of want to move on, and I respect that,

489
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 4: and I have nothing but love for everybody in the

490
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 4: Hodel family, those who participated in those who didn't, and

491
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,159
Speaker 4: to have have trusted me with their stories. You know,

492
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 4: it's a scary thing. It's a really it can be

493
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 4: a really scary thing to put yourself out there like that,

494
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:02,119
Speaker 4: and it takes an insane amount of courage to do that. Absolutely,

495
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,880
Speaker 4: the bottom line is that all of you are such

496
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 4: incredible people in every way, and so yeah, I mean

497
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 4: it all starts from there, and then everything else, you know,

498
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 4: god willing can fall into place, and of course it

499
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 4: doesn't always because they're messy family dynamics, but it's an

500
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 4: ongoing process, right.

501
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:25,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you think about it, like what family has

502
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 2: been in a room altogether, airing all the dirty laundry,

503
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 2: all the dirty skeletons, all the secrets. With an award

504
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 2: winning podcast creator and director and all these microphones.

505
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 4: I mean, you could have stopped that getting together in

506
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 4: a room because very few.

507
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 3: Right I was going to say that exactly, I would say,

508
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 3: very few have ever done that. And you know, there's

509
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 3: been so many, you know, different movies, you know that

510
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 3: deals with families, and one side of this family doesn't

511
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 3: agree with what the other side of the family does.

512
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 3: But the most important lesson I think that both Rush

513
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 3: and I learned is you have to respect what other

514
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 3: people went through, and you can never walk in their shoes.

515
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 3: You can only tell the story from your perspective, your truth.

516
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 4: You know.

517
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 3: And I think you did that and you you directed

518
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 3: us in a beautiful way, you know, Zach so And

519
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 3: that's why the story was so welcoming to so many.

520
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 4: It's hard to distill one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

521
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 4: eight lives into a podcast where there's there's so much there.

522
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, just as the two of you

523
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 4: took this platform, I mean, you know, I had hoped

524
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 4: that it would be a platform for for everybody to

525
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 4: sort of run with it in whatever way they chose afterwards.

526
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 4: In making it, I knew that it was an incredibly unique,

527
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 4: wild story, and we can get a couple of the

528
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 4: details sort of you know, moments that I lost my

529
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 4: shit where I was like, oh my god, yeah, us too.

530
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 4: But you know, you never really know for sure when

531
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 4: you're making these things how the audience will respond. But

532
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 4: I had a feeling that people would listen because it

533
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 4: is such a wild story, but I certainly couldn't have

534
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 4: ever anticipated the audience that it would have.

535
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 5: I want to know what was your oh shit moment?

536
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 4: I think my biggest oh shit moment. I decided to

537
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 4: put that at the end of episode three. You know,

538
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 4: I mentioned before about doing all of this research going

539
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 4: into the story, and one of these one of the

540
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 4: major topics of research was surrealist art. And I can't

541
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 4: remember who I heard it from. Maybe it was maybe

542
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 4: it was in Steve's book, I don't remember, but you know,

543
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 4: look into Robinson Jeffers because he had a poem called

544
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,280
Speaker 4: Tomorrow and I read it and I was like, oh

545
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 4: my god, this is like, you know, the overriding theme

546
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 4: is about incest, and I'm like, okay, this is very

547
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 4: you know, this is really strange. And then to find

548
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 4: out that he had another poem named Fauna, I was like,

549
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 4: holy shit. I mean, I remember like losing sleep a

550
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 4: lot during the making of this first sort of the

551
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 4: mental piece of wrapping my mind around the Black Dahlia

552
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 4: murder and the fact that yeah, yeah, and the pictures

553
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 4: and how gruesome it was, and you know, really getting

554
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 4: into the details of that. But then the darkness of

555
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 4: understanding that George could have named his daughter and had

556
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 4: a hand in naming his granddaughter after these poems about.

557
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 5: Incest because of the surrealist connection.

558
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 4: You had this incest trial in nineteen forty nine, yep,

559
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 4: And I'm like, how sadistic could you be to do

560
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 4: something like that? And so I knew that that would

561
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 4: have the same impact on the audience. I mean, I'm

562
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 4: pretty jaded at this point, you know. Yeah, but if

563
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 4: it rocked me, I'm like, it's going to rock other people.

564
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 4: And I remember, you know, that was one of the

565
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 4: few times I like went on social media after that episode,

566
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 4: dropped on Twitter.

567
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 5: It's the only place you can find Zach Levitt.

568
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, Yeah, I'm not a big social media person,

569
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 4: And I remember seeing the reaction people's jaws dropped. There

570
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 4: were there were like videos of people like, you know,

571
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 4: redoing their reactions.

572
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:33,719
Speaker 5: Right, and the memes and the gifts.

573
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, totally. That was That was That might have

574
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 4: been one of the biggest moments where I was like,

575
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 4: holy shit.

576
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we didn't know that either. We knew that

577
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 2: George named Mom, but we didn't know where it came from,

578
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 2: not at.

579
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 4: All, Like I didn't yep, well that's where it came from.

580
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you know back then that Root of Evil

581
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 3: would change the game in podcasting forever?

582
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 4: I thought that it would rest an eight with people

583
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 4: because at the end of the day, it's about a

584
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 4: family and as Kelly Kelly Hodel, Steve's brother says in

585
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 4: one of the episodes, like all families have skeletons if

586
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 4: you go back far enough. And I totally believe that

587
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 4: to be true. And so, you know, going into this

588
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 4: and I think I try to do this in all

589
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 4: of the stories that I tell. How can I connect

590
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 4: with people broadly? You know, starting with a story that

591
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 4: nobody really has had this experience? How can people connect

592
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 4: with a story that is just totally foreign to them? Right,

593
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 4: if you're interested enough, you'll stick around because it's a

594
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 4: fucked up story. But at the end, let's sort of

595
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 4: take this story that is my internal story and let's

596
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 4: turn it around and sort of push it out there

597
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 4: to you the listener. And here's how I dealt with

598
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 4: these things. How are you know? If I can do it,

599
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 4: you can do it? That sort of thing. And I

600
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 4: did want to have a positive message at the end

601
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 4: of Root of Evil, and that's what you all delivered

602
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 4: so beautifully, which is, you know, if we can get

603
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 4: through this trauma, or if we're willing to talk about it,

604
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 4: not get through, because you know, it's always a work

605
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 4: in progress, but if we can continue to speak about

606
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 4: it and be willing to go to these dark places

607
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 4: to help you and to help myself by putting it

608
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 4: out there, you know, maybe you can do it too.

609
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 4: And you know, I had this sort of idealistic idea that,

610
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 4: you know, maybe we could help people along the way.

611
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 4: And I think ultimately that's what really resonated with people.

612
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 4: It wasn't, you know, because you watch you look at

613
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 4: the reviews, you look at what people latch onto, and

614
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 4: it's not really about the black Dahlia, even though I

615
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 4: think we sort of put it out there in the

616
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 4: podcast that George Hodell was the killer. That's why I

617
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:50,799
Speaker 4: believe I know there are others out there that don't

618
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 4: believe that.

619
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:14,320
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the elephant in the room, shall we,

620
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 2: So we want to know the story of what the

621
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 2: original ending of episode seven was and what the finale

622
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,800
Speaker 2: of Root of Evil episode eight was supposed to be.

623
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 3: Take a deep breath, Sack, take a deep breath.

624
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:32,799
Speaker 5: That was a.

625
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 4: Difficult moment for me in a lot of ways. So

626
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 4: circling back to my first conversation on this project with

627
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:45,800
Speaker 4: Sam Sheridan when he mentioned that the two of you

628
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 4: had been on twenty three and meters sort of digging

629
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 4: around seeing what would come back as far as DNA results.

630
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 4: Because of course, your mother, Fauna didn't know who her

631
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 4: father was, you know, when you talk talk about the

632
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 4: elephant in the room, Not only did she not know

633
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 4: who her father was, she had thought for many years

634
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:10,399
Speaker 4: that it could have been George Hodell. So not only

635
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:12,800
Speaker 4: would he have been her grandfather, but he would have

636
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,759
Speaker 4: also been her father, which would mean that he would

637
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 4: have impregnated his own daughter tomorrow who gave birth the Fauna.

638
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:27,759
Speaker 4: And that is not something that is unbelievable because we

639
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 4: know that there was an incest trial in Los Angeles

640
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 4: in nineteen forty nine, where this well known doctor in

641
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 4: La doctor George Hodell, was accused of having incest with

642
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 4: his daughter Tomorrow and impregnating her and then getting her

643
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 4: an illegal abortion.

644
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 2: So those are facts, and there were witnesses that ended

645
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 2: up recanting even though he was acquitted.

646
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, there was a whole trial as we go

647
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 4: through in Root of Evil. So the idea of George

648
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 4: impregnating Tomorrow second time is not something that is out

649
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 4: of the realm of possibility, right, so we start from there. Okay,

650
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 4: who is Mom's father? And so that was something that

651
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,360
Speaker 4: I thought from the very beginning, if we could answer this,

652
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 4: that would be a pretty dramatic way to close out

653
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 4: the series. Yeah, so that was always in the back

654
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 4: of my mind. I never knew if we would get

655
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 4: there or not. But you know, we sort of were

656
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 4: off and running with so many other beats of the story,

657
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 4: and you know, tracking this piece down and interviewing this

658
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,320
Speaker 4: one and that one, and then I remember when we

659
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 4: first got together the first time in San Francisco. We

660
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 4: went on the computer and we went on twenty three

661
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 4: and meter and I said, Okay, let's let's do it.

662
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 4: Let's see, let's see.

663
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 5: What we got yeah, let's look at it.

664
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you guys went on and I had never

665
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 4: been on a DNA website up until that moment, and

666
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 4: so I didn't really know what I was looking at

667
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 4: at first, and I was hoping to get some sort

668
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 4: of reaction from from the two of you, like what

669
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,279
Speaker 4: are we looking at? And it turned out to be

670
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 4: a total nothing burger.

671
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 5: Yeah, we didn't know. Yeah, we didn't know. Right, We

672
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:17,839
Speaker 5: had no clue. Is there so many half siblings all

673
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 5: the thing? Yeah, it was a lot.

674
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was more like you might be related to

675
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 4: this person, you might have this background in your DNA.

676
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 4: But it certainly wasn't going to answer the question of

677
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 4: was George Odell Fauna's father? Right, was not going to

678
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 4: answer that.

679
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:37,359
Speaker 5: There was no definitive answer. Yeah, not without somebody analyzing

680
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 5: all that data.

681
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 4: So we go through. I am writing the episodes and

682
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 4: putting them together. We're, you know, we're we're building the

683
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 4: you know, the final product. And there was always this

684
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 4: idea in my mind. I remember asking the two of you,

685
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 4: when was the last time you were in the same

686
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 4: room with your uncles and your aunt, and you said,

687
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 4: all of us together, it's been.

688
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 5: Decades nineteen eighties.

689
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 4: Probably, yeah, so again sort of having this idealistic approach

690
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 4: of like, maybe I can bring the family together and

691
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 4: you know, heal some wounds and put things back together

692
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 4: for them. I mean, you know, I had these noble intentions.

693
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 4: Maybe I was naive, and I certainly didn't you know,

694
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 4: I didn't live the lives that any any of the

695
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:30,720
Speaker 4: Hodell family has. So, but everybody was into it. Everybody agreed,

696
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 4: and I knew one way or another that it was

697
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 4: going to be a powerful moment. It was.

698
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 5: It was very powerful.

699
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 4: It was everybody was crying in the room. I was

700
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 4: crying everybody. I could almost start tearing up thinking about

701
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 4: it right now, honestly.

702
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 5: I mean too. Yeah.

703
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 4: So we put a pin in the twenty three and

704
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:54,439
Speaker 4: me thing, Okay, we'll pull up out. Literally the day

705
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 4: before we were going to record that in the room

706
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 4: with all of us together, my producer found out that

707
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 4: we could take Fauna's DNA profile, which you had also uploaded.

708
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:10,879
Speaker 4: I should have mentioned that earlier. We weren't just looking

709
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 4: at your DNA profiles.

710
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 5: We had moms.

711
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 4: We were looking at Mom's DNA profile, which told her

712
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 4: her ethnic background and that kind of thing. But we

713
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 4: had this digital DNA profile and if we uploaded it

714
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 4: to this other website, it would tell you if you

715
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 4: were a product of incest, and so we didn't need

716
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 4: the answer of okay, it will tell you that George

717
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 4: Hodell is your father. But if if the results come

718
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 4: back yes you are a product of incest, we know

719
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:48,279
Speaker 4: who the father is. It's George, right. We literally the

720
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 4: day before we were set to record, Lloyd says, I

721
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 4: found this website and I spoke to and you know,

722
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:59,839
Speaker 4: I'm being crazy, I'm like, okay, speak to the person

723
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 4: it runs it, just to make sure. I was like, look,

724
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 4: I'm not going to do this if we're not one

725
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:09,800
Speaker 4: thousand percent sure that this is authentic and not some

726
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 4: you know, money grab on the internet or whatever. And

727
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 4: you know, I just I wasn't going to fuck with

728
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,320
Speaker 4: everybody like that. You know, this is your lives and

729
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:23,239
Speaker 4: it had to be accurate. And so Lloyd spoke with

730
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 4: this woman who is like the foremost DNA expert, and

731
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 4: I got on the phone with the two of them

732
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 4: and I was able to authenticate it and Okay, this

733
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,439
Speaker 4: is this is what we need to do, because again,

734
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 4: like you know, talking about whether it's surrealist art or

735
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 4: these other facets of the story. Okay, now now I'm

736
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 4: looking at DNA and these scientific results that I don't understand.

737
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,279
Speaker 4: How can I understand that? So she walked me through

738
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 4: it and I said, Okay, we now know that if

739
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 4: we just click enter on this website we will have

740
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:01,280
Speaker 4: these results. And I was like, holy shit, holy shit, holy.

741
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 5: Shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy.

742
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 4: Shit, because we're all going to be in the room

743
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:11,440
Speaker 4: tomorrow together. And nobody wanted it to be George Hodell

744
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,719
Speaker 4: for obvious reasons. You never want that to be your

745
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,240
Speaker 4: family history. I mean, it's awful.

746
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:20,479
Speaker 2: I didn't want it, but I thought it with every

747
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:23,359
Speaker 2: part of my being that he was the father, right,

748
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 2: and we know everyone knows that I did not, But

749
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 2: still you still want confirmation regardless. Yeah.

750
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And to everybody's credit, you were all willing to,

751
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:36,400
Speaker 4: you know, to be a witness to that and to

752
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 4: go through with it, as scary as it is. I mean, god,

753
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:42,880
Speaker 4: you know, finding out if this guy that you know

754
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 4: was a monster could have been the father of your mother. Yeah,

755
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 4: so yeah, going into it with anxiety, trepidation, you know,

756
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 4: all of those feelings, but also knowing like if we're

757
00:42:57,120 --> 00:42:58,800
Speaker 4: going to do this, let's do it. Let's do it.

758
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 4: You've all put your lives out there and this is

759
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 4: a big moment that everybody wants to hear.

760
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,360
Speaker 5: So did you know the day before? Did you know

761
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 5: before we did it in the recording? He did, didn't you, Zach?

762
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 4: So I will tell you that we put it in

763
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:18,280
Speaker 4: the day before and the results came back while everybody

764
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 4: was setting up in the room.

765
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:20,359
Speaker 1: Holy.

766
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 4: So I knew that my reaction was not going to

767
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,880
Speaker 4: be a part of the podcast, and I had to know.

768
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 4: So I went in the hallway and I checked.

769
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course you did. Of course you did. I

770
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 5: knew you knew, but I couldn't read your face.

771
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,840
Speaker 4: That's like, yeah, I tried to betray nothing. Yeah, I

772
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:40,560
Speaker 4: tried not to betray anything.

773
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 5: He didn't.

774
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 4: And then yeah, after our whole session together, and I

775
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:52,280
Speaker 4: use that word because it really felt like a therapy session,

776
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 4: it was.

777
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 5: It absolutely was.

778
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 4: Now here we have this critical piece of information which

779
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 4: is going to be the culmination to the whole story. Right.

780
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 4: We started with Fauna's story. Yeah, in episode one that

781
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 4: she was given away at birth? Why was she given

782
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 4: away at birth? When she finds out at the end

783
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 4: of episode one, that she was saved by the ghetto, right.

784
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 5: That that's right, she was saved by the ghetto.

785
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe that her father is this awful serial killer.

786
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 4: I mean, God, could there be anything worse. So we

787
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,760
Speaker 4: have this opportunity now to end the series, to bookend

788
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 4: the series with you know, question in the beginning, answer

789
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 4: in the very end. And I thought that that would

790
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 4: be incredibly rewarding for the audience, but more so than that,

791
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 4: it was about all of you, like providing this answer

792
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 4: to all of you that you never had. Yeah, And

793
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 4: so there was this opportunity to close the book on

794
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 4: these thoughts that you've had all your lives, that your

795
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 4: mother lived her whole life with. And we can answer

796
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 4: that question right here, and we're about to do it.

797
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 4: So let's do it.

798
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 5: Let's do it.

799
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:15,720
Speaker 1: We'll continue this conversation on the next episode of Facing Evil,

800
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: which will be available tomorrow, June sixteenth. Stay tuned to

801
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: hear the shocking truth about the Hodell family legacy. Facing

802
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. The

803
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 1: show is hosted by Russia paquerero In a Vet Gentile,

804
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, and Alex Williams Our executive producers on behalf

805
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:02,200
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk. Donald

806
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: albright In Payne Lindsay our executive producers on behalf of

807
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:11,480
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is Carolyn Talmage.

808
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:15,840
Speaker 1: Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on

809
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 1: social media or email us at facingevilpod at tenderfoot dot tv.

810
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV, visit the

811
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

812
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 1: favorite shows