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Speaker 2: Hello, everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil.
Speaker 3: I'm Rasha Pecerreira and I'm Evett Genteeley and today's episode
Speaker 3: is beyond special to us. And this episode is going
Speaker 3: to be a two parter because it has been a
Speaker 3: long time in the making for this particular one.
Speaker 2: Yes, it absolutely has, and we are finally giving our
Speaker 2: Root of Evil and Facing Evil fans exactly what they
Speaker 2: want and in depth look at the making of our
Speaker 2: hit podcast. Asked Root of Evil the true story of
Speaker 2: the Hodel family and the Black Dahlia.
Speaker 3: And the best way to do that is to have
Speaker 3: the creator, the man himself, the producer, the writer, the
Speaker 3: director of Root of Evil, mister Zach Levitt is here
Speaker 3: with us on Facing Evil como.
Speaker 4: My I am so excited to be here. I thank
Speaker 4: you for asking me on. Thank you for the opportunity
Speaker 4: to talk about what was such a special time in
Speaker 4: my career, in my life and getting to know you
Speaker 4: guys and making the show, and this is sort of
Speaker 4: the conversation that I've been waiting to have for a while,
Speaker 4: to talk about the making of the show and what
Speaker 4: we went through and the journey. And I'm really excited.
Speaker 4: So thank you for having me on.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like this, like you said, this has been years
Speaker 2: in the making.
Speaker 5: This conversation.
Speaker 2: Every single listener is going to want to listen in
Speaker 2: on because we're going to answer all of the questions
Speaker 2: and Yvette and I get DMS messages, calls, all the
Speaker 2: things on the daily, and we have been getting all
Speaker 2: those since twenty nineteen when Root of Evil came out.
Speaker 2: We're going to answer everything, and we more importantly, we're
Speaker 2: going to have that amazing conversation with you, Zach, and
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about everything that was left on
Speaker 2: the cutting room floor of Rood of Evil. A lot
Speaker 2: of people don't know what was left on the counting
Speaker 2: room floor is monumental to the story and to our lives.
Speaker 2: And we're going to answer that big question, who was
Speaker 2: our mom's father? Was it George Hodell, Was it her
Speaker 2: grandfather or was it not. We're going to get into
Speaker 2: all of that today. Zach Lovitt is a two time Emmy, Peabody, NAACP,
Speaker 2: Image and New York Press Club Award winning documentary, film
Speaker 2: and podcast creator who has helmed some of the most
Speaker 2: popular and acclaimed documentaries of all time. Zach's hit podcasts
Speaker 2: include Gangster Capitalism, The Sunshine Place, Relative Unknown, and our
Speaker 2: smash hit true crime podcast, Root of Evil, The True
Speaker 2: Story of the Hodell Family and The Black Dahlia. And
Speaker 2: next up for Zach, not only is he creating, producing,
Speaker 2: directing all the things, he is finally stepping in front
Speaker 2: of the mic as the host of the highly anticipated
Speaker 2: podcast The Set.
Speaker 3: So prior to you making podcasts, Zach has made documentary
Speaker 3: films from his time with the NBA. So we're talking
Speaker 3: about thirty for thirty, Clutch City, Bad Boys, The Doctor,
Speaker 3: Doctor j Doctor Julius Irving, who I just have to
Speaker 3: say it was my dad's favorite, along with mine, The
Speaker 3: Dream Team, The Announcement, and Once Brothers. I mean, Zach,
Speaker 3: you have stood out as a fierce force and a
Speaker 3: tenacious storyteller.
Speaker 5: Zach, But what I.
Speaker 3: Really love most about you and this is this is
Speaker 3: so true and it's in your bio. But you can
Speaker 3: work with the biggest names in the entertainment, but then
Speaker 3: you can work with unknown characters like us. But you
Speaker 3: bring everybody's story to light. And we feel that in
Speaker 3: all that you do, like there's heart, there's grit, there's connection,
Speaker 3: and that is a that is a storyteller at its finest.
Speaker 5: Zach.
Speaker 4: So, well, here's what I'm going to say the next
Speaker 4: time I have a massive crisis of confidence on the
Speaker 4: next project that I do, which there will be, because
Speaker 4: it always comes where you say this is not going
Speaker 4: to be good. Nobody's going to want to see or
Speaker 4: listen to this. I'm going to listen back to that.
Speaker 4: So thank you for that. That's super kind. And you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, I think for me, I go into every
Speaker 4: story beginning with a sense of curiosity. Who are the people.
Speaker 4: That's really what I connect with, whether it's a it's
Speaker 4: a former basketball player or athlete, or the two of you,
Speaker 4: or anybody that I have, you know, put into one
Speaker 4: of these stories. It's a curiosity about your lives and
Speaker 4: what you've been through. And you know, gaining that level
Speaker 4: of understanding. To be able to convey that to the
Speaker 4: audience is what I love about what I do more
Speaker 4: than anything, making those connections. And you know, the greatest
Speaker 4: thing to me about these stories and working on documentaries
Speaker 4: are the relationships that you make, you know, And here
Speaker 4: we are five five years later from when we first
Speaker 4: spoke on the phone and I first came out to
Speaker 4: San Francisco and LA to meet up with you and
Speaker 4: and do these these shoots, these these recordings. Here we
Speaker 4: are five years later, and that relationship has grown to
Speaker 4: this point. And I love that about docs because it's
Speaker 4: such an intimate task. It's such an intimate journey to
Speaker 4: to get to know the people on a level where
Speaker 4: you know you can trust each other in the telling
Speaker 4: of the story and and trust each other with your deepest,
Speaker 4: darkest secrets and your lives, and you know, and that's
Speaker 4: a that's a big undertaking. And you know, I that
Speaker 4: is certainly something that I hold as incredibly important. And uh,
Speaker 4: I love the fact that I have been able to
Speaker 4: continue these relationships through the years, and that's a really
Speaker 4: rewarding part of what I do, being able to to
Speaker 4: to follow along in your lives as well. And look
Speaker 4: at I mean, now you have your own podcast, and.
Speaker 5: Thank you, mister Zach Lovett to mister Donald, all right,
Speaker 5: it's because.
Speaker 4: Of what you've been able to do and and people
Speaker 4: have made that connection with the two of you and
Speaker 4: they hear the you know, the warmth in your voices
Speaker 4: and the and the sincerity and so I'm just it's
Speaker 4: a stretch to say proud parent, but that's sort of
Speaker 4: what I feel sometimes, I know, God brother, Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 4: that's a much better analogy. So that's super rewarding for me.
Speaker 4: So this is like full circle.
Speaker 2: It is full circle, and you're you're a true storyteller exactly.
Speaker 3: And I was gonna that was going to be one
Speaker 3: of my first questions for you, Zach, is because you
Speaker 3: have this you know, immense body of work. Right where
Speaker 3: you started in the NBA, right it was all about
Speaker 3: the sports and the basketball. And then I guess my
Speaker 3: question is how did you transition from you know, documentary
Speaker 3: films to podcasting? How did that come about?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So, I mean I was lucky in a sense
Speaker 4: when I began working in production with the NBA. I
Speaker 4: always wanted to get into production. I just I didn't
Speaker 4: know anything about it. So you know, how do you
Speaker 4: break your way in? And so working at NBA Entertainment
Speaker 4: was the perfect opportunity. I mean, I'm a huge basketball fan,
Speaker 4: and it afforded me the opportunity to learn production from
Speaker 4: the start, you know, as a production assistant, work my
Speaker 4: way up, and I realized that I loved to do it.
Speaker 4: I loved pulling overnighters in the edit room and making
Speaker 4: the deadline and trying, you know, just trying to work
Speaker 4: on being an actual storyteller. And so I was able
Speaker 4: to do that and had that tremendous opportunity to make
Speaker 4: some thirty for thirties and these other films, and through
Speaker 4: that I sort of wanted to branch out. I didn't
Speaker 4: want to do sports stories anymore at that point. In fact,
Speaker 4: the ones that I did, I was always sort of
Speaker 4: searching for an angle to connect in a more human way,
Speaker 4: you know, rather.
Speaker 5: Than the heart of the story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, rather than portraying a basketball player, who is this person?
Speaker 4: And so that has always been what I've been drawn to.
Speaker 4: And at a certain point I had made the decision
Speaker 4: that I wanted to do that in a different way,
Speaker 4: and this opportunity became available to come on and start
Speaker 4: an Originals division for Caden's Thirteen, and initially it was
Speaker 4: going to be sports stories, and I said, well, I
Speaker 4: kind of want to do other stuff. And Chris Corcoran,
Speaker 4: who hired me, to his credit, he just sort of said,
Speaker 4: that sounds great, whatever you think. And having said all that,
Speaker 4: as I'm you know, having these talks to come on board,
Speaker 4: talks were already going on behind the scenes between Caden's
Speaker 4: Thirteen and TNT for a Sister podcast, which sounded really cool.
Speaker 4: I can actually picture where I was in my old house,
Speaker 4: stand in the room having this conversation, asking the question, well,
Speaker 4: are any of the family members around?
Speaker 3: That's exactly what I was going to ask, Like, take
Speaker 3: us back to that moment, right when you decided to
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when I read your mom's book, as I said,
Speaker 4: I was fascinated and I'm like, wow, there is a
Speaker 4: lot here.
Speaker 5: Right, one little layer of the onion exactly.
Speaker 4: It was the first layer of the onion. But I
Speaker 4: was devastated that to find out that your mom had
Speaker 4: passed because my initial thought was, she'll tell her own story. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she's never done this except for her book, and that'll
Speaker 4: be really interesting. And I knew from her book that
Speaker 4: she had a daughter named the Vett.
Speaker 5: I know, I'm not I'm barely mentioned. I'm in the epilogue.
Speaker 2: You probably didn't read the epilogue.
Speaker 4: So I remember on that call with TNT, they said, well,
Speaker 4: we'll put you in touch with the girls.
Speaker 5: And you're like the girls with.
Speaker 4: Any girls, there's more than one. And I said to myself,
Speaker 4: oh shit, like, how am I going to incorporate two
Speaker 4: of them as potential hosts? You know what is that
Speaker 4: going to look like? So all of these things were
Speaker 4: swirling in my mind in the background as we had
Speaker 4: our first conversation. And I'm trying to remember. I think
Speaker 4: I may have spoken with Sam Sheridan prior to speaking
Speaker 4: with you read Yeah, yeah, so Sam Sheridan was the
Speaker 4: writer and I think the ep and I am the Night, Yeah,
Speaker 4: And so I spoke to him. I remember the first
Speaker 4: question I asked him was, can you send me your
Speaker 4: reading list, like all the books that you read to
Speaker 4: write I Am the Night because I need to start researching.
Speaker 4: And so he sent me a whole list of books
Speaker 4: and I went out and I read all of them.
Speaker 4: And it was such a wide range of topics, from
Speaker 4: surrealist art to the history of LA and you know,
Speaker 4: I found a bunch on my own that I read
Speaker 4: as well. And one of the things that he said
Speaker 4: on that conversation and I was just, I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: trying to sort of jump on the treadmill as it's
Speaker 4: speeding along. And you've been writing this thing for however long,
Speaker 4: a year or longer.
Speaker 5: I know that you worked with Mom for a year
Speaker 5: before he passed. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, any story that I do, my
Speaker 4: first thing is to do research, and I try to
Speaker 4: literally read everything possible it's ever been written about those topics,
Speaker 4: so that you know, if I'm going to tell the story,
Speaker 4: I have to be an authority on that story. But
Speaker 4: one of the things that he mentioned in that conversation was,
Speaker 4: so I just spoke to the girls Russia and Nivette,
Speaker 4: and I'm saying to myself, Okay, Rasha, I didn't know
Speaker 4: there was a second daughter. And he said, they told
Speaker 4: me that they just went on twenty three and meters.
Speaker 4: They just submitted their DNA to twenty three and meter
Speaker 4: but I told them not to check the results until
Speaker 4: they speak with you.
Speaker 5: He actually had it done before Mom passed.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but we hadn't checked because some things were
Speaker 2: coming up real funky, and we're like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this is going to prove that George was Mom's father.
Speaker 4: So I said, DNA results, you know, what is that
Speaker 4: all about? That sounds interesting and it sounds like it
Speaker 4: could be an interesting sort of reveal for the podcast.
Speaker 4: I'll just talk to them. I don't even know DNA
Speaker 4: results for what? Right again? I remember where I was
Speaker 4: the first time we spoke. I was sitting in my
Speaker 4: car in the parking lot of the library in the
Speaker 4: town I live in, because I had just taken out
Speaker 4: a bunch of books, and we spoke, and I remember
Speaker 4: feeling this utter sense of warmth emanating from the two
Speaker 4: of you, and you were both open to any idea
Speaker 4: that I had and ready to ready to really just
Speaker 4: tackle the story and go wherever I asked you to go.
Speaker 4: And whether it was fly to la or down to
Speaker 4: San fran from Portland or whatever whatever it was, you
Speaker 4: were both ready to do anything. And I asked you,
Speaker 4: you know, if you would be willing to be the hosts.
Speaker 3: Wait wait, wait, wait, I got to throw this in.
Speaker 3: So I remember where I was. I was in my
Speaker 3: car as well. You know, This was before twenty twenty
Speaker 3: when everything shut down. San Francisco was still bustling, people
Speaker 3: were walking everywhere, and we were getting this call from
Speaker 3: Zach Levitt. You know, Sam said, you're going to get
Speaker 3: this call from Zach Levitt. He wants to talk to
Speaker 3: both of you. And I just remember feeling so I
Speaker 3: always like to describe it as just you cradled us,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like you made us feel
Speaker 3: so at home in that very first conversation. From that moment,
Speaker 3: we you know, literally fell in love with you. And
Speaker 3: you know that that doesn't happen often, but we could
Speaker 3: tell that. You know, you were a solid, solid guy
Speaker 3: who really wanted to do the story right.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And you have to remember too, we have to tell
Speaker 2: our listeners this story. I remember, and I don't know
Speaker 2: if it was in that first conversation. And yes, I
Speaker 2: remember where I was. I was five feet from where
Speaker 2: I am right now since I'm recording in my closet.
Speaker 2: I was in my bedroom and I was instantly captivated
Speaker 2: by your voice and I'm like, oh my god, like
Speaker 2: I could listen to you talk for hours. But I
Speaker 2: remember you saying, and I don't remember if it was
Speaker 2: that first. I know, Zach, I know you don't like
Speaker 2: your voice, but I love your fat Zach.
Speaker 5: Accept it. You're a podcast post. Now you're in our
Speaker 5: same realm.
Speaker 2: But I remember, and I don't remember if it was
Speaker 2: that very first conversation or the thousands we had after that,
Speaker 2: but you're like, all right, Yvett and Russia like I'm
Speaker 2: not sure which one of you I'm going to pick
Speaker 2: as the host.
Speaker 4: Wow, I don't remember that. I was probably like hedging
Speaker 4: my best or something like right.
Speaker 2: And and we're like, yeah, you know, it's we're just
Speaker 2: happy to be a part of it. And Mom, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like she knew what a podcast was before podcasts existed,
Speaker 2: because she started recording and making all these recordings for
Speaker 2: years and years and years.
Speaker 5: And you know, Yvette and I have never had jealousy
Speaker 5: anything like that, and we're like.
Speaker 3: Never never any competition. So we were like, okay, well whoever.
Speaker 5: Yep, whatever, and then you were like, no, it has
Speaker 5: to be the two of you. I mean you tell
Speaker 5: us like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I do remember that part because and I
Speaker 4: think I told you this early on when we when
Speaker 4: we first met. I've never seen siblings and I have
Speaker 4: a brother that I'm super close with, but I've never
Speaker 4: seen siblings. There is no competition, there is no jealousy,
Speaker 4: There is nothing between the two of you except this,
Speaker 4: like I said before, this warmth. And you weren't proscriptive
Speaker 4: about it, like you know, we do everything together. But
Speaker 4: it was evident right from the start that this is
Speaker 4: how it had to be because you were finishing each
Speaker 4: other's sentences, and I mean it was like it was
Speaker 4: like you were twins or something. But yeah, the energy
Speaker 4: I knew that having the two of you together, and
Speaker 4: also you leaned on each other emotionally.
Speaker 5: Yeah we just lost mom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and you were both in there for
Speaker 4: each other. And then hearing you talk about one another
Speaker 4: that was the selling point. And you know, I do
Speaker 4: have to say because there was there was a consideration,
Speaker 4: like you know, early on, you know, when I took
Speaker 4: the job, it's like, Okay, everybody's got a podcast, right,
Speaker 4: it's like running dough, yeah, media or wherever, you know,
Speaker 4: listen to my podcast, and and you know, everybody sort
Speaker 4: of takes that opportunity to put themselves out there right
Speaker 4: and and to be you know, to have their own
Speaker 4: podcast and to be a host and that was never
Speaker 4: really a consideration for me, especially with this story, because
Speaker 4: one of the things, you know, when people ask me,
Speaker 4: you know what, what is sort of one of the
Speaker 4: overriding thoughts that you have as you're making these stories,
Speaker 4: and I always say, get out of the way of
Speaker 4: the story. And again it sounds you know, it sounds cliche,
Speaker 4: and it probably is. But for me, it was like,
Speaker 4: you know, if I can get the people that I
Speaker 4: need to to to open up and to talk, the
Speaker 4: story is great, and what the hell can I add
Speaker 4: to it other than putting it together and writing it
Speaker 4: and sort of shepherding it. But it's it's not my
Speaker 4: story to tell, So it was never going to be
Speaker 4: a consideration for me to host it myself. Which is
Speaker 4: funny because I have come full circle on now with
Speaker 4: with which we'll talk about later, the set coming out
Speaker 4: which I'm which I'm hosting. But the other thing was
Speaker 4: that I absolutely hate my voice, hate love and I
Speaker 4: to it.
Speaker 2: You're just a perfectionist, Zach, and I have to say
Speaker 2: that right now and put that out there, like you
Speaker 2: are a perfectionists because you're a true storyteller and you
Speaker 2: want to get it one hundred million percent right every
Speaker 2: single time.
Speaker 4: That's true to my own detriment something. But in addition
Speaker 4: to hearing you know, the way the two of you
Speaker 4: interacted with one another, it was also your voices. I
Speaker 4: was like, holy shit, your voices are so good and
Speaker 4: totally ready to do this, And so yeah, we were.
Speaker 4: We were sort of off and running. But of course
Speaker 4: at that point I had no idea who was who
Speaker 4: and how deep the story.
Speaker 2: Would get, right, and you know, talking about that on
Speaker 2: that level, we and I mean, I'm going to speak
Speaker 2: for you bet here, and I know she'll chime in.
Speaker 2: We never thought that our Hodel o'hanna, our Hodel family
Speaker 2: would sign on, only because Yvette and I have well,
Speaker 2: I've been much more open than Evett. But our mom,
Speaker 2: you know, told everyone she ever met her story and
Speaker 2: wanted to hear other people's stories as well, but everyone
Speaker 2: else was much more private. So I would love to
Speaker 2: know how you got our great uncle Steve, our uncle Peace,
Speaker 2: our uncle Love, our you know uncle Joy, our our
Speaker 2: aunt f two. Everybody like, how how did that happen?
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, when I heard from you that
Speaker 4: you had uncles named Peace, Love and.
Speaker 5: Joy, Yeah, that doesn't happen every day myself.
Speaker 4: I grew up in Woodstock, New York.
Speaker 5: I mean, and you've never heard of a Peace, Love
Speaker 5: and Joy.
Speaker 4: You know. I know a lot of people with some
Speaker 4: interesting names, but when I heard that their their names
Speaker 4: were Peace, Love and Joy, I said, Okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 4: I at least want to talk to them. That's that's
Speaker 4: really interesting. But before I even got there, I knew
Speaker 4: I wanted to speak with Steve, with Uncle Steve Odell,
Speaker 4: because I knew that in order to tell Fauna's story
Speaker 4: that you know, the black dahlia had to be a
Speaker 4: part of it. Absolutely Obviously, that's going to be the
Speaker 4: thing that people recognize, and it's a trojan horse, really
Speaker 4: great to tell this bigger story of the family. And
Speaker 4: I also, with or without Steve, this was always going
Speaker 4: to be a story about family, because there was no
Speaker 4: way that I was going to just do a black
Speaker 4: dahlia story. It had been done so many times. I
Speaker 4: knew I could bring some level of authenticity to it.
Speaker 4: But if it were just about the black Dallia, it
Speaker 4: was going to be viewed as something sensational and you know,
Speaker 4: capitalizing on this gruesome, unsolved murder. And I did not
Speaker 4: want that, Yeah, And I think that that's what we
Speaker 4: connected on for sure. And I think when I when
Speaker 4: I told you that I really wanted to tell the
Speaker 4: story of the family. You know, my sort of entry
Speaker 4: point was who would give away this baby to, you know,
Speaker 4: to a family in Sparks, Nevada, Nevada, a black family
Speaker 4: and tell them that she's black when she wasn't and
Speaker 4: put her through this turmoil of having no idea who
Speaker 4: she was? And you know what is that all about?
Speaker 4: Like why why would that happen? And you know you
Speaker 4: mentioned the onion analogy before, and it's it's it's like,
Speaker 4: once you start asking that first question, you're in the
Speaker 4: rabbit hole.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the Black Dahlia is a whole other, enormous
Speaker 4: rabbit hole that you know. It's like, you know, once
Speaker 4: you go in, you can never really get out. And
Speaker 4: in fact, once you see the pictures of Elizabeth Short,
Speaker 4: it's hard to get that out of your mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so in telling the family story, I knew that
Speaker 4: I wanted to incorporate this investigation. And if I'm telling
Speaker 4: the family story and the investigation, I have to have
Speaker 4: Steve Hodell, who literally wrote the book on the investigation.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and is of course part of the family. I mean,
Speaker 4: the idea of a son investigating his own father and
Speaker 4: the most famous unsolved murder in American history is that
Speaker 4: alone is enough for a massive story, and then you
Speaker 4: incorporate all of these other things that we found out.
Speaker 4: So I knew that I really wanted to get to Steve.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so once I got Steve, I spoke with Love,
Speaker 4: and Love was generous enough to say that he would
Speaker 4: do it. And Fauna number two, Deborah Elizabeth Fauna, she
Speaker 4: was difficult at first because you know, obviously her story
Speaker 4: is so personal and so devasting, and she wasn't sure
Speaker 4: that she wanted to tell it. And the last thing
Speaker 4: that I wanted to do was trigger her by digging
Speaker 4: into her tast and re traumatize her. Yeah, And I
Speaker 4: was really really sensitive to that. And so you know,
Speaker 4: I told everybody, look, I would love to have you all,
Speaker 4: and I don't want anybody else speaking about you or
Speaker 4: telling your story other than yourselves. Peace and Joy were
Speaker 4: the last to come around. And you know, once there
Speaker 4: was that agreement, I knew it was going to be
Speaker 4: special because I knew I knew that there was a
Speaker 4: story that none of them had told that. You know,
Speaker 4: I was hoping to provide this forum to maybe have
Speaker 4: some sort of catharsists or to be able to speak
Speaker 4: about what they'd been through and have people hear it
Speaker 4: and let them know that they were fans of theirs.
Speaker 4: And you know, and I think that that's you know,
Speaker 4: I never offer anybody any money. I've never done that once. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't offer anything other than you can finally tell
Speaker 4: your story, you know, and people are people are going
Speaker 4: to listen.
Speaker 3: There's power in that, you know, going into that room
Speaker 3: with all of us, it was cathartic, you know at
Speaker 3: that moment in time. You know, we had never done
Speaker 3: that before, so that, you know, was a blessing for
Speaker 3: all of us. But like you just said, everybody will
Speaker 3: continue to live their lives and tell their own story
Speaker 3: and in whatever way that they choose to. We do
Speaker 3: know that, you know, by doing Root of Evil, there
Speaker 3: was so much There was so much there that was
Speaker 3: left on the cutting room floor, right, Zach, And we
Speaker 3: really need to jump into that.
Speaker 4: Should we start with a six hour interview I did
Speaker 4: with with the two of you that I think I
Speaker 4: ended up using about three minutes of yes, because once
Speaker 4: you were, once you were narrating, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: well you know this is going to be even better
Speaker 4: with your narration.
Speaker 5: So I think it's really important.
Speaker 2: I want to take the opportunity to say this because Zach,
Speaker 2: what you shared, you know about the family, Yvet and
Speaker 2: I have promised the Hotels that we would never speak
Speaker 2: for them moving on in the future. But with all
Speaker 2: of the publicity and everything, you know you're with us,
Speaker 2: we did, doctor Phil, doctor Oz that today show all
Speaker 2: the things. I do want to take this opportunity to
Speaker 2: say that I learned so much in that process because
Speaker 2: I realized that what our family the Hotels went through
Speaker 2: is not my story to tell, and they chose to
Speaker 2: share their story with us, with the world, and anything
Speaker 2: I've ever said publicly, I just want them and everyone
Speaker 2: to know that I never ever, ever intentionally wanted to
Speaker 2: hurt any of them ever.
Speaker 5: And I know that whatever they choose to do, whatever
Speaker 5: stories they decide to.
Speaker 2: Tell, that we will always support them well always, and
Speaker 2: I want them to have as much healing as we
Speaker 2: have and success that we've had in everything, and I
Speaker 2: just want to send them just all love and light always.
Speaker 5: So I just really, really really.
Speaker 3: Wanted to say that, and you know, at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, you just have to remember you only
Speaker 3: get one family, right, I.
Speaker 4: Want to do the same Rasia. I spoke about those relationships,
Speaker 4: and you know, I know that that some people are
Speaker 4: you know, might be more private or or or just
Speaker 4: sort of want to move on, and I respect that,
Speaker 4: and I have nothing but love for everybody in the
Speaker 4: Hodel family, those who participated in those who didn't, and
Speaker 4: to have have trusted me with their stories. You know,
Speaker 4: it's a scary thing. It's a really it can be
Speaker 4: a really scary thing to put yourself out there like that,
Speaker 4: and it takes an insane amount of courage to do that. Absolutely,
Speaker 4: the bottom line is that all of you are such
Speaker 4: incredible people in every way, and so yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: it all starts from there, and then everything else, you know,
Speaker 4: god willing can fall into place, and of course it
Speaker 4: doesn't always because they're messy family dynamics, but it's an
Speaker 4: ongoing process, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you think about it, like what family has
Speaker 2: been in a room altogether, airing all the dirty laundry,
Speaker 2: all the dirty skeletons, all the secrets. With an award
Speaker 2: winning podcast creator and director and all these microphones.
Speaker 4: I mean, you could have stopped that getting together in
Speaker 4: a room because very few.
Speaker 3: Right I was going to say that exactly, I would say,
Speaker 3: very few have ever done that. And you know, there's
Speaker 3: been so many, you know, different movies, you know that
Speaker 3: deals with families, and one side of this family doesn't
Speaker 3: agree with what the other side of the family does.
Speaker 3: But the most important lesson I think that both Rush
Speaker 3: and I learned is you have to respect what other
Speaker 3: people went through, and you can never walk in their shoes.
Speaker 3: You can only tell the story from your perspective, your truth.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: And I think you did that and you you directed
Speaker 3: us in a beautiful way, you know, Zach so And
Speaker 3: that's why the story was so welcoming to so many.
Speaker 4: It's hard to distill one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Speaker 4: eight lives into a podcast where there's there's so much there.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, just as the two of you
Speaker 4: took this platform, I mean, you know, I had hoped
Speaker 4: that it would be a platform for for everybody to
Speaker 4: sort of run with it in whatever way they chose afterwards.
Speaker 4: In making it, I knew that it was an incredibly unique,
Speaker 4: wild story, and we can get a couple of the
Speaker 4: details sort of you know, moments that I lost my
Speaker 4: shit where I was like, oh my god, yeah, us too.
Speaker 4: But you know, you never really know for sure when
Speaker 4: you're making these things how the audience will respond. But
Speaker 4: I had a feeling that people would listen because it
Speaker 4: is such a wild story, but I certainly couldn't have
Speaker 4: ever anticipated the audience that it would have.
Speaker 5: I want to know what was your oh shit moment?
Speaker 4: I think my biggest oh shit moment. I decided to
Speaker 4: put that at the end of episode three. You know,
Speaker 4: I mentioned before about doing all of this research going
Speaker 4: into the story, and one of these one of the
Speaker 4: major topics of research was surrealist art. And I can't
Speaker 4: remember who I heard it from. Maybe it was maybe
Speaker 4: it was in Steve's book, I don't remember, but you know,
Speaker 4: look into Robinson Jeffers because he had a poem called
Speaker 4: Tomorrow and I read it and I was like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, this is like, you know, the overriding theme
Speaker 4: is about incest, and I'm like, okay, this is very
Speaker 4: you know, this is really strange. And then to find
Speaker 4: out that he had another poem named Fauna, I was like,
Speaker 4: holy shit. I mean, I remember like losing sleep a
Speaker 4: lot during the making of this first sort of the
Speaker 4: mental piece of wrapping my mind around the Black Dahlia
Speaker 4: murder and the fact that yeah, yeah, and the pictures
Speaker 4: and how gruesome it was, and you know, really getting
Speaker 4: into the details of that. But then the darkness of
Speaker 4: understanding that George could have named his daughter and had
Speaker 4: a hand in naming his granddaughter after these poems about.
Speaker 5: Incest because of the surrealist connection.
Speaker 4: You had this incest trial in nineteen forty nine, yep,
Speaker 4: And I'm like, how sadistic could you be to do
Speaker 4: something like that? And so I knew that that would
Speaker 4: have the same impact on the audience. I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: pretty jaded at this point, you know. Yeah, but if
Speaker 4: it rocked me, I'm like, it's going to rock other people.
Speaker 4: And I remember, you know, that was one of the
Speaker 4: few times I like went on social media after that episode,
Speaker 4: dropped on Twitter.
Speaker 5: It's the only place you can find Zach Levitt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, Yeah, I'm not a big social media person,
Speaker 4: And I remember seeing the reaction people's jaws dropped. There
Speaker 4: were there were like videos of people like, you know,
Speaker 4: redoing their reactions.
Speaker 5: Right, and the memes and the gifts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, totally. That was That was That might have
Speaker 4: been one of the biggest moments where I was like,
Speaker 4: holy shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we didn't know that either. We knew that
Speaker 2: George named Mom, but we didn't know where it came from,
Speaker 2: not at.
Speaker 4: All, Like I didn't yep, well that's where it came from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you know back then that Root of Evil
Speaker 3: would change the game in podcasting forever?
Speaker 4: I thought that it would rest an eight with people
Speaker 4: because at the end of the day, it's about a
Speaker 4: family and as Kelly Kelly Hodel, Steve's brother says in
Speaker 4: one of the episodes, like all families have skeletons if
Speaker 4: you go back far enough. And I totally believe that
Speaker 4: to be true. And so, you know, going into this
Speaker 4: and I think I try to do this in all
Speaker 4: of the stories that I tell. How can I connect
Speaker 4: with people broadly? You know, starting with a story that
Speaker 4: nobody really has had this experience? How can people connect
Speaker 4: with a story that is just totally foreign to them? Right,
Speaker 4: if you're interested enough, you'll stick around because it's a
Speaker 4: fucked up story. But at the end, let's sort of
Speaker 4: take this story that is my internal story and let's
Speaker 4: turn it around and sort of push it out there
Speaker 4: to you the listener. And here's how I dealt with
Speaker 4: these things. How are you know? If I can do it,
Speaker 4: you can do it? That sort of thing. And I
Speaker 4: did want to have a positive message at the end
Speaker 4: of Root of Evil, and that's what you all delivered
Speaker 4: so beautifully, which is, you know, if we can get
Speaker 4: through this trauma, or if we're willing to talk about it,
Speaker 4: not get through, because you know, it's always a work
Speaker 4: in progress, but if we can continue to speak about
Speaker 4: it and be willing to go to these dark places
Speaker 4: to help you and to help myself by putting it
Speaker 4: out there, you know, maybe you can do it too.
Speaker 4: And you know, I had this sort of idealistic idea that,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe we could help people along the way.
Speaker 4: And I think ultimately that's what really resonated with people.
Speaker 4: It wasn't, you know, because you watch you look at
Speaker 4: the reviews, you look at what people latch onto, and
Speaker 4: it's not really about the black Dahlia, even though I
Speaker 4: think we sort of put it out there in the
Speaker 4: podcast that George Hodell was the killer. That's why I
Speaker 4: believe I know there are others out there that don't
Speaker 4: believe that.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the elephant in the room, shall we,
Speaker 2: So we want to know the story of what the
Speaker 2: original ending of episode seven was and what the finale
Speaker 2: of Root of Evil episode eight was supposed to be.
Speaker 3: Take a deep breath, Sack, take a deep breath.
Speaker 5: That was a.
Speaker 4: Difficult moment for me in a lot of ways. So
Speaker 4: circling back to my first conversation on this project with
Speaker 4: Sam Sheridan when he mentioned that the two of you
Speaker 4: had been on twenty three and meters sort of digging
Speaker 4: around seeing what would come back as far as DNA results.
Speaker 4: Because of course, your mother, Fauna didn't know who her
Speaker 4: father was, you know, when you talk talk about the
Speaker 4: elephant in the room, Not only did she not know
Speaker 4: who her father was, she had thought for many years
Speaker 4: that it could have been George Hodell. So not only
Speaker 4: would he have been her grandfather, but he would have
Speaker 4: also been her father, which would mean that he would
Speaker 4: have impregnated his own daughter tomorrow who gave birth the Fauna.
Speaker 4: And that is not something that is unbelievable because we
Speaker 4: know that there was an incest trial in Los Angeles
Speaker 4: in nineteen forty nine, where this well known doctor in
Speaker 4: La doctor George Hodell, was accused of having incest with
Speaker 4: his daughter Tomorrow and impregnating her and then getting her
Speaker 4: an illegal abortion.
Speaker 2: So those are facts, and there were witnesses that ended
Speaker 2: up recanting even though he was acquitted.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, there was a whole trial as we go
Speaker 4: through in Root of Evil. So the idea of George
Speaker 4: impregnating Tomorrow second time is not something that is out
Speaker 4: of the realm of possibility, right, so we start from there. Okay,
Speaker 4: who is Mom's father? And so that was something that
Speaker 4: I thought from the very beginning, if we could answer this,
Speaker 4: that would be a pretty dramatic way to close out
Speaker 4: the series. Yeah, so that was always in the back
Speaker 4: of my mind. I never knew if we would get
Speaker 4: there or not. But you know, we sort of were
Speaker 4: off and running with so many other beats of the story,
Speaker 4: and you know, tracking this piece down and interviewing this
Speaker 4: one and that one, and then I remember when we
Speaker 4: first got together the first time in San Francisco. We
Speaker 4: went on the computer and we went on twenty three
Speaker 4: and meter and I said, Okay, let's let's do it.
Speaker 4: Let's see, let's see.
Speaker 5: What we got yeah, let's look at it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you guys went on and I had never
Speaker 4: been on a DNA website up until that moment, and
Speaker 4: so I didn't really know what I was looking at
Speaker 4: at first, and I was hoping to get some sort
Speaker 4: of reaction from from the two of you, like what
Speaker 4: are we looking at? And it turned out to be
Speaker 4: a total nothing burger.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we didn't know. Yeah, we didn't know. Right, We
Speaker 5: had no clue. Is there so many half siblings all
Speaker 5: the thing? Yeah, it was a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was more like you might be related to
Speaker 4: this person, you might have this background in your DNA.
Speaker 4: But it certainly wasn't going to answer the question of
Speaker 4: was George Odell Fauna's father? Right, was not going to
Speaker 4: answer that.
Speaker 5: There was no definitive answer. Yeah, not without somebody analyzing
Speaker 5: all that data.
Speaker 4: So we go through. I am writing the episodes and
Speaker 4: putting them together. We're, you know, we're we're building the
Speaker 4: you know, the final product. And there was always this
Speaker 4: idea in my mind. I remember asking the two of you,
Speaker 4: when was the last time you were in the same
Speaker 4: room with your uncles and your aunt, and you said,
Speaker 4: all of us together, it's been.
Speaker 5: Decades nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4: Probably, yeah, so again sort of having this idealistic approach
Speaker 4: of like, maybe I can bring the family together and
Speaker 4: you know, heal some wounds and put things back together
Speaker 4: for them. I mean, you know, I had these noble intentions.
Speaker 4: Maybe I was naive, and I certainly didn't you know,
Speaker 4: I didn't live the lives that any any of the
Speaker 4: Hodell family has. So, but everybody was into it. Everybody agreed,
Speaker 4: and I knew one way or another that it was
Speaker 4: going to be a powerful moment. It was.
Speaker 5: It was very powerful.
Speaker 4: It was everybody was crying in the room. I was
Speaker 4: crying everybody. I could almost start tearing up thinking about
Speaker 4: it right now, honestly.
Speaker 5: I mean too. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So we put a pin in the twenty three and
Speaker 4: me thing, Okay, we'll pull up out. Literally the day
Speaker 4: before we were going to record that in the room
Speaker 4: with all of us together, my producer found out that
Speaker 4: we could take Fauna's DNA profile, which you had also uploaded.
Speaker 4: I should have mentioned that earlier. We weren't just looking
Speaker 4: at your DNA profiles.
Speaker 5: We had moms.
Speaker 4: We were looking at Mom's DNA profile, which told her
Speaker 4: her ethnic background and that kind of thing. But we
Speaker 4: had this digital DNA profile and if we uploaded it
Speaker 4: to this other website, it would tell you if you
Speaker 4: were a product of incest, and so we didn't need
Speaker 4: the answer of okay, it will tell you that George
Speaker 4: Hodell is your father. But if if the results come
Speaker 4: back yes you are a product of incest, we know
Speaker 4: who the father is. It's George, right. We literally the
Speaker 4: day before we were set to record, Lloyd says, I
Speaker 4: found this website and I spoke to and you know,
Speaker 4: I'm being crazy, I'm like, okay, speak to the person
Speaker 4: it runs it, just to make sure. I was like, look,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to do this if we're not one
Speaker 4: thousand percent sure that this is authentic and not some
Speaker 4: you know, money grab on the internet or whatever. And
Speaker 4: you know, I just I wasn't going to fuck with
Speaker 4: everybody like that. You know, this is your lives and
Speaker 4: it had to be accurate. And so Lloyd spoke with
Speaker 4: this woman who is like the foremost DNA expert, and
Speaker 4: I got on the phone with the two of them
Speaker 4: and I was able to authenticate it and Okay, this
Speaker 4: is this is what we need to do, because again,
Speaker 4: like you know, talking about whether it's surrealist art or
Speaker 4: these other facets of the story. Okay, now now I'm
Speaker 4: looking at DNA and these scientific results that I don't understand.
Speaker 4: How can I understand that? So she walked me through
Speaker 4: it and I said, Okay, we now know that if
Speaker 4: we just click enter on this website we will have
Speaker 4: these results. And I was like, holy shit, holy shit, holy.
Speaker 5: Shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy.
Speaker 4: Shit, because we're all going to be in the room
Speaker 4: tomorrow together. And nobody wanted it to be George Hodell
Speaker 4: for obvious reasons. You never want that to be your
Speaker 4: family history. I mean, it's awful.
Speaker 2: I didn't want it, but I thought it with every
Speaker 2: part of my being that he was the father, right,
Speaker 2: and we know everyone knows that I did not, But
Speaker 2: still you still want confirmation regardless. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And to everybody's credit, you were all willing to,
Speaker 4: you know, to be a witness to that and to
Speaker 4: go through with it, as scary as it is. I mean, god,
Speaker 4: you know, finding out if this guy that you know
Speaker 4: was a monster could have been the father of your mother. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so yeah, going into it with anxiety, trepidation, you know,
Speaker 4: all of those feelings, but also knowing like if we're
Speaker 4: going to do this, let's do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 4: You've all put your lives out there and this is
Speaker 4: a big moment that everybody wants to hear.
Speaker 5: So did you know the day before? Did you know
Speaker 5: before we did it in the recording? He did, didn't you, Zach?
Speaker 4: So I will tell you that we put it in
Speaker 4: the day before and the results came back while everybody
Speaker 4: was setting up in the room.
Speaker 1: Holy.
Speaker 4: So I knew that my reaction was not going to
Speaker 4: be a part of the podcast, and I had to know.
Speaker 4: So I went in the hallway and I checked.
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course you did. Of course you did. I
Speaker 5: knew you knew, but I couldn't read your face.
Speaker 4: That's like, yeah, I tried to betray nothing. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: tried not to betray anything.
Speaker 5: He didn't.
Speaker 4: And then yeah, after our whole session together, and I
Speaker 4: use that word because it really felt like a therapy session,
Speaker 4: it was.
Speaker 5: It absolutely was.
Speaker 4: Now here we have this critical piece of information which
Speaker 4: is going to be the culmination to the whole story. Right.
Speaker 4: We started with Fauna's story. Yeah, in episode one that
Speaker 4: she was given away at birth? Why was she given
Speaker 4: away at birth? When she finds out at the end
Speaker 4: of episode one, that she was saved by the ghetto, right.
Speaker 5: That that's right, she was saved by the ghetto.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe that her father is this awful serial killer.
Speaker 4: I mean, God, could there be anything worse. So we
Speaker 4: have this opportunity now to end the series, to bookend
Speaker 4: the series with you know, question in the beginning, answer
Speaker 4: in the very end. And I thought that that would
Speaker 4: be incredibly rewarding for the audience, but more so than that,
Speaker 4: it was about all of you, like providing this answer
Speaker 4: to all of you that you never had. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: so there was this opportunity to close the book on
Speaker 4: these thoughts that you've had all your lives, that your
Speaker 4: mother lived her whole life with. And we can answer
Speaker 4: that question right here, and we're about to do it.
Speaker 4: So let's do it.
Speaker 5: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: We'll continue this conversation on the next episode of Facing Evil,
Speaker 1: which will be available tomorrow, June sixteenth. Stay tuned to
Speaker 1: hear the shocking truth about the Hodell family legacy. Facing
Speaker 1: Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. The
Speaker 1: show is hosted by Russia paquerero In a Vet Gentile,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, and Alex Williams Our executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk. Donald
Speaker 1: albright In Payne Lindsay our executive producers on behalf of
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is Carolyn Talmage.
Speaker 1: Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on
Speaker 1: social media or email us at facingevilpod at tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows