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Speaker 1: Talking to Death is released every Friday and brought to

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Speaker 1: you absolutely free. But if you want ad free listening

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Speaker 1: and exclusive bonuses, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot

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Speaker 1: com or on Apple Podcasts.

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Speaker 2: Talking to Death is a production of tenderfoot TV and

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Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 1: And we're back. Mike. I like your shirt.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. I almost match you today, kind of do

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Speaker 2: what size shirt is?

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Speaker 1: That?

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Speaker 2: It's a large? Which is too big?

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Speaker 1: Have you noticed that in the last couple of years,

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Speaker 1: size large and size medium and men's shirts are the

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Speaker 1: most inconsistent things on earth? When did that happen?

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Speaker 2: I've been a medium my whole life, right or not

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Speaker 2: my whole life. I guess when I was little, I

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Speaker 2: didn't wear a medium.

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Speaker 1: But if you came out of the womb, you were

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Speaker 1: wearing the fucking big old media.

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Speaker 2: Now now, when I if I get a medium, once

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Speaker 2: I wash it and dry it is it's as small.

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Speaker 2: It's a crap top, which I hear it's in now

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Speaker 2: men's crop tops show a little tom.

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Speaker 1: It can be. It can be not my style, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: I I'll order a large in a medium and they'll

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Speaker 1: be from the same brand, different sizes before I wash

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Speaker 1: it or dry it, and I have to hang dry

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Speaker 1: anything that fits ever because it'll never fit again.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, these came large. I got two of them. They

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Speaker 2: were way big, so I immediately washed and dried them,

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Speaker 2: and now they're like decently decently fitting, but still a

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Speaker 2: little big.

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Speaker 1: Are they making the shirts with cheaper material now that

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Speaker 1: just shrinks in the dryer, because I feel like growing up,

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Speaker 1: I didn't have that problem where every single shirt would shrink.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. Your mom is probably just better at

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Speaker 2: launder than you.

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Speaker 1: That's very true. I'm like, what's the hottest setting and

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Speaker 1: how fast could these be ready? Because I have to

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Speaker 1: go in twenty minutes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. When I went from an apartment to

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Speaker 2: my house, we inherited with this washer and dryer, and

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Speaker 2: the dryer does not have like the wetness the moisture

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Speaker 2: sensor on it, so it just keeps going. And that's

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Speaker 2: a shrink factory. Wow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, those old ones get so hot too.

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Speaker 2: I don't know why there's no automatic sensor on it

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Speaker 2: for the dryer, so it'll just keep drying. If they're dry,

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Speaker 2: it'll keep going. It'll start a fires do a time

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Speaker 2: dry right, Just yeah, I just now if it shirt's

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Speaker 2: a good size, if it's a medium and it fits me,

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Speaker 2: well I just hang dry it.

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Speaker 1: Have you tried drying some that are a little too big?

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Speaker 1: Just yeah, you can kind of nail it.

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Speaker 2: That's so I did with this one. Yeah. I've been

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Speaker 2: getting large as and just letting them dry and shrink

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Speaker 2: and it kind of works.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like when you wanted to shrink it doesn't. Wow,

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Speaker 1: we've gotten way off track here, but this is important stuff, guys.

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Speaker 1: Today's guest is Gilbert King. He is an author, a

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Speaker 1: I call him a journalist. He has earned a Pulitzer Prize.

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Speaker 1: He has an amazing true crime podcast called Bone Valley,

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Speaker 1: and actually, very recently, I think was it just yesterday

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Speaker 1: or a couple of days ago, the subject of his

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Speaker 1: podcast was in the news.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the articles were two days ago. The

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Speaker 2: main person involved in his podcast he was falsely accused

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Speaker 2: of murdering his wife and he's been in prison for

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Speaker 2: thirty five years and he gets out on parole in

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Speaker 2: a little over a week. Bone Valley was a great podcast.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's like the holy grail of why you

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Speaker 1: know you make a true crime podcast like that. If

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Speaker 1: you're investigating a cold case and you know someone got

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Speaker 1: it wrong decades ago, you're hoping that it gets enough

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Speaker 1: attention to you know, raise some red flags and some

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Speaker 1: new action to take place. But that's amazing. This guy

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Speaker 1: is a wealth of knowledge. We had a really fun

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Speaker 1: time just chatting about making true crime podcasts. He's a

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Speaker 1: big history buff, knows way more about anything that happened

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Speaker 1: pre twenty sixteen than I do. I think that's where

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Speaker 1: my brain stops, Like what happened before that? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Did COVID come the next year? I don't remember. We

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Speaker 1: had a really fascinating conversation about Leo Schofield's case, which

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Speaker 1: is the subject of his podcast, Bone Valley, corruption in

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Speaker 1: the legal system, true crime in general, storytelling, and how

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Speaker 1: he puts his stories together and how he keeps track

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Speaker 1: of all this different information because it's it's hard, it's

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. I feel like I learned a lot.

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Speaker 1: I think you guys will too. So, without further ado,

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Speaker 1: today's guest is Gilbert King. But yeah, thanks again, man.

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Speaker 1: This is super exciting.

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Speaker 3: Oh my pleasure.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of just kick things off, you know,

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Speaker 1: just give me a little bit of your background, Like

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Speaker 1: who are you today?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'm a guy that really didn't had a

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Speaker 3: podcast by accident. I mean, I mostly do write nonfiction books,

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Speaker 3: and so the books I do generally take like five

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Speaker 3: years to do. They're historical. I basically go back and

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Speaker 3: look at basically crimes from the pre Civil rights era,

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Speaker 3: crimes that basically became a big story and then got forgotten.

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Speaker 3: And so that's what I was doing for a long time,

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Speaker 3: writing about like cases in Florida, Louisiana, and then I

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Speaker 3: kind of stumbled into this case. I don't won't get

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Speaker 3: into it right now, but I kind of stumbled into

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Speaker 3: this and said, well, this isn't really what I work on.

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Speaker 3: It's like from the eighties, everyone's alive. I'm used to

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Speaker 3: dealing with dead people and documents.

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Speaker 1: But why was that? Why were you interested in doing

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Speaker 1: that part of it? Where was like so long ago?

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Speaker 3: You know, I just got really fascinated when I started

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Speaker 3: realizing that I didn't really understand a lot of American

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Speaker 3: history that took place before the Civil Rights movement. So

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Speaker 3: like I was familiar with Martin Luther King and the

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Speaker 3: city and the protest, but what was happening in the

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Speaker 3: forties and fifties, like after World War Two. And when

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Speaker 3: I started looking at it, I was just like, all

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Speaker 3: these really interesting criminal cases that arose and nobody knows

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Speaker 3: about them, and I was like, God, people should know

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Speaker 3: about this. For example, one of the books I wrote

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Speaker 3: was called Devil in the Grove and it's about a

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Speaker 3: case that took place in Florida in the late nineteen forties.

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Speaker 3: And you know, it's every bit as dramatic as the

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Speaker 3: Scottsboro Boys case, which everyone's heard of. This one was

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Speaker 3: called the Groveland Boys, and nobody had ever heard of them,

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Speaker 3: and this was a much more violent and aggressive story.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the sheriff didn't like that, Thurgood Marshall overturned

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Speaker 3: the verdict of these young men who got convicted of,

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Speaker 3: you know, sexually assaulting a white woman, which is like

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Speaker 3: the worst thing you could possibly imagine in the Jim

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Speaker 3: Crow South and Marshall came in and took it to

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Speaker 3: the US Supreme Court and got it reversed. And the

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Speaker 3: local powers that be, including this murderous sheriff in this

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Speaker 3: county in Florida, just said that's fine, I'll just go

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Speaker 3: pick up the inmates myself and we'll bring him back

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Speaker 3: for the retrialt and then he basically shot them. I'm

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Speaker 3: just a pure assassin.

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Speaker 1: Basically he did.

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Speaker 3: He did shoot them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, he basically he shot them.

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Speaker 3: Okay, he definitely shot them.

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Speaker 1: Wow, that's insane.

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Speaker 3: It is crazy. But one of them died instantly. The

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Speaker 3: other one is kind of like having a cell phone

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Speaker 3: in the nineteen forties. He actually got shot three times

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Speaker 3: but only pretended to be dead. And so he said,

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Speaker 3: I was sitting there watching them as they said, we

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Speaker 3: got to make this look like an escape, and they're

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Speaker 3: tearing at the sheriff's clothes and they're fabricating all this evidence.

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Speaker 3: And then they take this photograph from the scene and

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Speaker 3: all of a sudden, one of the witnesses is say, hey,

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Speaker 3: that boy just moved, And sure enough, he was still

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Speaker 3: alive from the gunshots. And he went back that night

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Speaker 3: to the hospital and started telling the FBI everything.

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Speaker 1: That happened, Oh my god.

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Speaker 3: And you know it was there was actually forensic evidence

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Speaker 3: because his story produced a bullet that was lodged in

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Speaker 3: the sand about ten inches below the surface. So the

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Speaker 3: FBI had this proof that the sheriff and the deputy

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Speaker 3: were like murderers. And even still no one's ever not

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Speaker 3: too many of this, yeah yet right now, And this

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Speaker 3: involve Thurgood Marshall. You know, before Brown versus Board, he

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Speaker 3: wasn't really he was known as mister civil Rights, but

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Speaker 3: he was taking these death penalty cases by himself down

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Speaker 3: the South, and I just thought we should know about that,

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Speaker 3: as you know, people who could sue.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, these things happened, like we shouldn't forget about them.

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Speaker 1: They were probably swept under the rug a little bit,

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Speaker 1: is he like right.

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Speaker 3: Oh, definitely, And you know, like what ended up happening

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Speaker 3: is like the official narrative of the sheriff kind of

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Speaker 3: carried the day. So they you know, this is hard

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Speaker 3: to imagine, but back then they just hit all the

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Speaker 3: evidence and just pushed it all away and said, you know,

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Speaker 3: defend it is not allowed to see it. We're still

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Speaker 3: under investigation. And so Thurgood Marshall never really knew that

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Speaker 3: this guy was really I mean, he knew that he

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Speaker 3: was an attempted murder, but he didn't have the proof

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Speaker 3: to do anything.

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Speaker 1: About it, like hit physical evidence and stuff like that.

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Speaker 3: There was a bullet that was clearly from a thirty

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Speaker 3: eight caliber and the FBI wrote this very powerful memo

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Speaker 3: saying you have to prosecute these guys, and they just

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Speaker 3: blew them off. And it was just like white supremacy

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Speaker 3: in the South. Yeah, there's no like, black people weren't

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Speaker 3: even voting really at this point, so they were totally disenfranchised.

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Speaker 1: So you were curious about what America was like before

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Speaker 1: the Civil rights movement just kind of in a nutshell here,

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Speaker 1: what have you learned?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, the one thing that it's hard to imagine,

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Speaker 3: but like because I was working with some screenwriters at

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Speaker 3: one point they were trying to develop this and they're like, well,

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Speaker 3: you know what about the protests, And no, there was

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Speaker 3: no protests in the South in the nineteen forties. That

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Speaker 3: was an illegal you know, gathering, so you couldn't protest

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Speaker 3: these kind of things. The deputies would just come along

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Speaker 3: and just beat you senseless, and that was like something

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Speaker 3: they did all the time. So this was before the

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Speaker 3: days of protest, and there was just these cases that

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Speaker 3: were like really preserved really well, especially in like Florida

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Speaker 3: is really good with records, and I would talk to

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Speaker 3: people from these areas, these towns and I'm never heard

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Speaker 3: of that. I didn't know Thurgo Marshall came. These were

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Speaker 3: old people too, And that's how really the whole narrative

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Speaker 3: just got kind of got swept under. And I was

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Speaker 3: finding like all sorts of really strange cases like this

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Speaker 3: that would like, you know, if you saw them today,

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Speaker 3: you go, I cannot believe that's a real case. And

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Speaker 3: these things really happened.

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Speaker 1: How are you finding them in the first place?

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Speaker 3: You know. I was just so really embedded in Florida

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Speaker 3: that like people would come up to me all the time,

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Speaker 3: kind of like a book talks I was doing. At

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Speaker 3: one time, I was down in Groveland, Florida, and this

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Speaker 3: old old deputy came up to me and he goes,

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Speaker 3: you got your book right, because I was on that

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Speaker 3: guy's force and he was a killer. But he goes,

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Speaker 3: but there's another case nobody wants to write about because

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Speaker 3: it involves a rich lady.

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Speaker 1: Wow, you're like, tell me more. Yeah, It's like one

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Speaker 1: of those moments.

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Speaker 3: And then he started telling me. I'm like, there's no

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Speaker 3: way this is true. He basically yeah, He basically said

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Speaker 3: there was a black a young black man who had

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Speaker 3: raped a white woman in the South which is like

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Speaker 3: the most provocative thing you could do, the quickest way

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Speaker 3: to get run out of town or lynched. And apparently

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Speaker 3: because they were from a high society and they had

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Speaker 3: some money, they didn't want it known that the wife

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Speaker 3: had been sexually assaulted by a black man.

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Speaker 1: Wow, what it's strange like on the others end.

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Speaker 3: Right, because it didn't happen that often. So what ended

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Speaker 3: up happening is the husband was the mayor of this town.

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Speaker 3: He was a very powerful guy. He got together with

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Speaker 3: the sheriff and the prosecutor and they said, can we

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Speaker 3: just switch the race of the attackers so it doesn't

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Speaker 3: look like my wife was touched by a black man

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Speaker 3: in this way? And they switched They framed a mentally

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Speaker 3: disabled white teenager. What just so that the wife didn't

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Speaker 3: carry the stigma it should be a pariah in this

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Speaker 3: community if she was known to be sexual assaulted by

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Speaker 3: a black man. So they just switched the race and

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Speaker 3: framed mentally disabled kid and sent him away. And like,

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Speaker 3: I couldn't believe he was telling me this, and he goes, oh,

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Speaker 3: we framed him. I'll tell you how we did it.

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Speaker 3: I mean he was actually talking about complicity and so

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Speaker 3: I was like, all right, this is a story, and

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Speaker 3: I started filing record requests, and you know, everything was

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Speaker 3: checking out. He was telling me the truth. And but like,

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Speaker 3: those are the kind of really bizarre, like Southern gothic stories. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: you know, around a crime narrative that I was finding

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Speaker 3: down there for these kind of stories.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think it's important that we know these

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Speaker 1: stories in twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 3: I think one of the things that's really important is

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Speaker 3: that I don't think people really understand how oppressive white

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Speaker 3: supremacy really was. Before the nineteen sixties, there were laws

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Speaker 3: on the book that still like boggle my mind. Like

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Speaker 3: I'll give you an example. There was a fight or

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Speaker 3: worker fight laws, and they were on the books in

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Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties, and basically they gave a sheriff in

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Speaker 3: a town legal permission to find like a couple of

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Speaker 3: black men gathered on a corner and if you had

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Speaker 3: to be working seven days a week, or you had

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Speaker 3: to be enlisted in the military. These were these worker

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Speaker 3: fight laws.

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Speaker 1: Do you think for black people or yeah, well, I

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Speaker 1: mean they're for white people.

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Speaker 3: But they were only really they were forcing it on, right,

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Speaker 3: and so what they end up doing is just grabbing

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Speaker 3: these guys off the street and throwing them in jail, saying,

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Speaker 3: you know, Sunday, but you weren't working. And it became

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Speaker 3: what's known as the bailbond racket. So these sheriffs would

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Speaker 3: throw these guys in jail and then call up the

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Speaker 3: citrus groves and say, yeah, I got nine bodies for you.

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Speaker 3: They work for free until they pay off a fine. Wow.

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Speaker 3: And this was going on constantly, and you could imagine

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Speaker 3: like how oppressive that is for a family who all

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Speaker 3: of a sudden their bread winner is just thrown in

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Speaker 3: jail for ten days.

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Speaker 1: Unimaginable.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and this happened all the time, and by law,

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Speaker 3: the sheriff actually got to keep the fines. So he

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Speaker 3: was just providing free labor for the citrus industry in Florida,

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Speaker 3: and they got to keep the fines. I mean, you

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Speaker 3: couldn't imagine one more corrupt system. And yet this was

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Speaker 3: on the books well through the fifties, way after World

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Speaker 3: War Two. And so these are the kind of things

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Speaker 3: that you were able to do, you know, and those

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Speaker 3: are law enforcement things, like those are actual laws. But yeah,

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Speaker 3: some of the things that were happening, like you know,

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Speaker 3: the blurring of the lines between law enforcement and the clan.

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Speaker 3: Like I had a couple of these deputies tell me, yeah, well,

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Speaker 3: if we couldn't do it by law, we just do

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Speaker 3: it at night in the clan. It's a different uniform.

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Speaker 3: And they're telling me these things like had to get

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Speaker 3: rid of the suspect and couldn't do anything, so we

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Speaker 3: just take care of it.

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Speaker 1: At night, geez.

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Speaker 3: And so we start to see this white supremacy kind

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Speaker 3: of baked into law enforcement in the Deep South. I mean,

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Speaker 3: that's when it becomes really disturbing. People are just absolutely

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Speaker 3: powerless to fight this.

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Speaker 1: What do you think society should glean from that today?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you know, I think sometimes when these

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Speaker 3: stories happen, when you see like a Trayvon Martin type story,

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Speaker 3: they kind of resonate and people I have people tell

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Speaker 3: me all the time, like, nothing's changed, this hasn't changed.

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Speaker 3: I can't really say that because you have no idea

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Speaker 3: how bad it used to be. You know, in you know,

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Speaker 3: Trayvon Martin's case, at least protests took to the streets,

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Speaker 3: the NAACP took to the streets, and then they reevalued it.

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Speaker 3: The police chief like resigned in shame, and they actually

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Speaker 3: tried George Zimmerman. I mean you might not like the

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Speaker 3: verdict he was acquitted, but you could say, like, at

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Speaker 3: least he got a trial. Back in the days, in

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Speaker 3: the forties and fifties, none of this would ever happen.

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Speaker 3: Grand juries were just like, no, that's not it's a

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Speaker 3: black guy. Our cops are white, right right, We're not

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Speaker 3: doing anything.

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Speaker 1: So it's like, yeah, maybe it hasn't changed enough. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it hasn't, and you need to kind of look back

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Speaker 1: to see how we got here to understand where we

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Speaker 1: are today even yeah, way right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, because you really wouldn't recognize the criminal justice system

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Speaker 3: if you were to watch a trial from like, you know,

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Speaker 3: you could this is before the Bill of Rights got incorporated,

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Speaker 3: So you could be watching a criminal trial and you know,

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Speaker 3: a guy doesn't want to testify, and the prosecutor can

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Speaker 3: just stand up and go he must be hiding something

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Speaker 3: because he's not willing to testify. He must be a

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Speaker 3: guilty conscience, and they could use that in court. So

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Speaker 3: there's a lot of protections we have now. For instance,

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Speaker 3: coorse confessions used to be legal, so you could literally

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Speaker 3: beat a guy over the head with a with a

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Speaker 3: phone book and say now did you do it? And

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Speaker 3: if yes, you're like confession and that was accepted.

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Speaker 1: They were doing that for real, right, Oh yeah, they were.

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Speaker 3: Doing it all the time. They did a report. President

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Speaker 3: Truman did a Commission on Civil Rights report and he said,

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Speaker 3: there are some jails that we investigated where they weren't

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Speaker 3: even they wouldn't start with questioning. They would start with

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Speaker 3: a beating and then they would go to the questions

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Speaker 3: when it involved black defendants. Wow, And then they were

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Speaker 3: finding this all the time, like it was nobody. There's

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Speaker 3: no one in say society that objected to this, and

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Speaker 3: black voices just really had no platform. So that's the

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Speaker 3: thing you're seeing over and over the brutality of it.

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Speaker 3: It's so much worse than I imagined.

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Speaker 1: Do you consider yourself an author journalist? I mean, do

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Speaker 1: you even hear about the label a little bit?

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Speaker 3: You know, because when I start thinking about it, like,

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Speaker 3: I use journalism, but it's not all that I use.

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Speaker 3: Like I do still a lot of history and oral

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Speaker 3: history and reporting like that, So you know, there's of

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Speaker 3: parts of what I do is journalism, But I really

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Speaker 3: do feel like I come from an area of narrative

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Speaker 3: nonfiction books, where it's just a different form of storytelling

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Speaker 3: than typical journalism. And I know this because I have

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Speaker 3: a lot of journalists call me up saying, hey, can

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Speaker 3: you do that. I'm like, yeah, I can do that

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Speaker 3: usually like you withheld evidence until later. I'm like, well,

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Speaker 3: that's part of storytelling, you know, right.

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Speaker 1: Did you get to end of the book? Yeah, yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: Like keep.

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Speaker 3: Going, you're gonna learn more. But I think they think,

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Speaker 3: well I knew this going in, Like that's okay. Maybe

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Speaker 3: in journalism that you have to lead with your strongest points,

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Speaker 3: but I don't have to do that. And narrative so

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Speaker 3: like I can reveal things later on in the story

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Speaker 3: and you know, it's not tricking anyone. It's just deciding

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Speaker 3: how you really want to tell a story.

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Speaker 1: But also there's a valid truth to if the if

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Speaker 1: this crime happens. We only know so much today. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and people slowly learned things throughout time in the first place,

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Speaker 1: just because it happened and it's tied in a bow,

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Speaker 1: we know the whole story. They didn't start that way

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Speaker 1: for the people who experienced it either, right, I think

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Speaker 1: almost for me, kind of taking you through how this

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Speaker 1: stuff was learned in a way is sometimes that narrative

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Speaker 1: through line in some cases with like maybe you learned

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Speaker 1: that this happened. You know, this smoking gun was found

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Speaker 1: two years later, but they didn't have that in day one, right, right,

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Speaker 1: right right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it's so funny you say. I listened

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Speaker 3: to your interview with Mark Smirling, which I thought was really.

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Speaker 1: He's I love.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he's great, great. I actually met him once a

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Speaker 3: couple of years ago, and I was just absolutely fascinated

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Speaker 3: by him. But he you guys were talking about the

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Speaker 3: like the Jinx moment, and I was like, smoking gun

393
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Speaker 3: dah thing. I was like, oh, I just thought of

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Speaker 3: a story that happened when I was researching a book.

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Speaker 3: And you know it's I don't really get smoking gun

396
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:16,159
Speaker 3: documents ever, Like it just doesn't happen that. Yeah, you

397
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Speaker 3: want them all the time. But I was going through

398
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Speaker 3: like there was it was misfiled, it got it was

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Speaker 3: it started out as an FBI report and it ended

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Speaker 3: up in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is

401
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Speaker 3: like the state FBI basically, And uh, I took me

402
00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:32,080
Speaker 3: a long time to get those second files. And I'm

403
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Speaker 3: going through I'm like, shit, this is an FBI report.

404
00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:35,360
Speaker 3: What's it doing in here?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it was a smoking gun, like at that

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Speaker 1: moment that.

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Speaker 3: Oh my god, the whole conspiracy when they decided to

408
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Speaker 3: I was telling you this story earlier about switching the

409
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Speaker 3: race of the defendants so that the wife didn't carry

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Speaker 3: the stigma of having been assaulted by a black man.

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Speaker 3: These guys were in a car, all of them powerful people,

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Speaker 3: the prosecutor, really powerful business people or the mayor. And

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Speaker 3: one guy was in there and he was on the

414
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Speaker 3: board of the what it was called, the Lake County

415
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Speaker 3: Mental Retardation Committee, and he was, no, it doesn't sound good,

416
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Speaker 3: but back then it even looked bad back then.

417
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Speaker 1: Yeah, probably back then, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: But you know, they had different ways of phrasing things

419
00:19:13,800 --> 00:19:17,600
Speaker 3: back there, obviously, And so it's just gone through this document.

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Speaker 3: And there was an informant in the car who worked

421
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Speaker 3: for that committee and he's like, I find this offensive.

422
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Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna, like basically be a whistleblower. And

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Speaker 3: he told an FBI agent and it's all documented in

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Speaker 3: this report and they said, yeah, they decided they had

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Speaker 3: to change the race of the attacker because he couldn't

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Speaker 3: stand the thought of his wife being touched by a

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Speaker 3: black man in this way. And it's all right there

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00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:40,840
Speaker 3: on the report. And so I was like talking to

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Speaker 3: that family of this husband and wife that the kids

430
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Speaker 3: were talking to me, and you know, it got to

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Speaker 3: the end and I said, so, where are you going

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Speaker 3: with this story? And I had to sort of give

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Speaker 3: him an update, and I said, well, I did find

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Speaker 3: a smoking gun document and they're like, what tell me

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Speaker 3: about it? And then they were like I told him.

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Speaker 3: They said who was it? And I gave the name

437
00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:03,720
Speaker 3: of the guy, and I could hear him gasp on

438
00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:06,240
Speaker 3: the phone, and he's just like, that was our next

439
00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:09,360
Speaker 3: door neighbor for decades and like, you know, they must

440
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:10,679
Speaker 3: have been having barbecues together.

441
00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:15,040
Speaker 1: And then you find the person under your nose, right yeah.

442
00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:16,640
Speaker 3: And I just thought, oh, that was a horrible thing.

443
00:20:16,760 --> 00:20:19,200
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to have heard that if I wasn't there.

444
00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:22,560
Speaker 1: Right, And the thing is about true crime, I feel like,

445
00:20:22,840 --> 00:20:26,560
Speaker 1: is that there is no good answer. Yeah at the end,

446
00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:29,800
Speaker 1: right right, I mean, like there is there's justice, But

447
00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:32,960
Speaker 1: when you find out that so and so did a

448
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:36,240
Speaker 1: bad thing, yeah, that's that's still so and so doing

449
00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:38,080
Speaker 1: a bad thing. Yeah, right, and.

450
00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:40,840
Speaker 3: Even like decades later, like these families are you know,

451
00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:43,880
Speaker 3: like they they want to protect you know, the legacy

452
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:46,119
Speaker 3: of horror families and it's just like you hear that

453
00:20:46,200 --> 00:20:49,800
Speaker 3: kind of stuff, you know. But I mean, they actually

454
00:20:49,880 --> 00:20:53,240
Speaker 3: were very kind to me, and I'm really very thankful

455
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:55,000
Speaker 3: that they participated. They said, if you're going to do

456
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:56,680
Speaker 3: the story, and want you to know everything, and they

457
00:20:57,080 --> 00:20:59,880
Speaker 3: gave me a lot of documents. Yeah, it was nice.

458
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:01,400
Speaker 3: I had to break it to them that way.

459
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:04,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, but when you find something that is that smoking

460
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,720
Speaker 1: gun or hey, I'm the only person who knows this

461
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:10,280
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, and I need to tell you this

462
00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:12,639
Speaker 1: because this is also why you're so also why you

463
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:15,199
Speaker 1: want me to do this right exactly, is in the

464
00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:15,840
Speaker 1: hopes of this.

465
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:18,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true, you know, and for the most part,

466
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:20,359
Speaker 3: like everybody else was so happy that I had this

467
00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:21,240
Speaker 3: because you know, they.

468
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,360
Speaker 1: Of course on the other end, but this is an

469
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:24,080
Speaker 1: exciting news.

470
00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:25,040
Speaker 3: No, it really isn't.

471
00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:27,200
Speaker 1: And I just think something, right, who did you.

472
00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:29,320
Speaker 3: Think if somebody like just said, hey, we're doing a

473
00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:31,560
Speaker 3: story about someone in your family, and like, can you

474
00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:33,560
Speaker 3: be willing to talk to us, maybe share your diary

475
00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 3: at the diary.

476
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:35,600
Speaker 1: I've thought about that, like if you came to me,

477
00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:37,800
Speaker 1: but hey man, I love you, bro, but no.

478
00:21:37,840 --> 00:21:39,760
Speaker 3: Way, Yeah, I wouldn't want anyone.

479
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 1: Yeah you want me to do a story on you,

480
00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:45,280
Speaker 1: podcast on you? Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah.

481
00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:48,119
Speaker 3: I mean I like, I don't even have like the

482
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:49,120
Speaker 3: murder stuff in my head.

483
00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:52,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're talking about just some regular every day Yeah.

484
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:52,600
Speaker 2: Right.

485
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,680
Speaker 3: I always suspect, like somebody they probably have an indication.

486
00:21:56,280 --> 00:21:59,800
Speaker 3: I think that this family was in particular, like they

487
00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:02,679
Speaker 3: were motivated, like they felt that their father was not

488
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:07,240
Speaker 3: a racist, and so like they were like nervous because

489
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:09,159
Speaker 3: I do kind of investigate a lot of that stuff.

490
00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:11,199
Speaker 3: But at the end, I think it was like I

491
00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:13,280
Speaker 3: had to tell him, like I didn't find anything racial

492
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 3: than your father's. In fact, I found a lot of

493
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,640
Speaker 3: people that I talked to that were really grateful because

494
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 3: he used to give clothes and you know, he had

495
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:22,119
Speaker 3: money and he was very supportive. And I've talked to

496
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:23,919
Speaker 3: people said he you know, he paid greater than the

497
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:26,639
Speaker 3: market rate for us, and so I was able to

498
00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 3: go back to him and said, you know, I never

499
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 3: found one thing where someone said a bad thing about.

500
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:31,920
Speaker 1: In a way that was validated for them. Yeah.

501
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,560
Speaker 3: I think they felt better about that than the conspiracy

502
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:37,120
Speaker 3: to frame, you know for sure, Yeah, for some reason,

503
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:39,159
Speaker 3: I don't know, but but you know, at least I

504
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 3: was able to say that in truth. You know, they

505
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:41,200
Speaker 3: couldn't find.

506
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:50,920
Speaker 1: Anything as someone who does narrative nonfiction like yourself, for you,

507
00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: why are you interested in these darker stories about murder?

508
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that's a really good quoestquestion. I asked

509
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 3: myself that a.

510
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:03,959
Speaker 1: Lot, and I'm asking as someone who it does that

511
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,880
Speaker 1: as well, So feel free to spit it back.

512
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess if you think about it,

513
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of Shakespeare is about true crime,

514
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,160
Speaker 3: and it's just a form of storytelling that we all

515
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,480
Speaker 3: accept and some of the great narratives, you know, going

516
00:23:18,520 --> 00:23:22,439
Speaker 3: back as far as we can remember. And so I've

517
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:24,560
Speaker 3: always been drawn to this, even as a kid. I

518
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 3: remember once, you know, I was probably twelve years old

519
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:32,360
Speaker 3: before all your times again, but here we go Son

520
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:34,320
Speaker 3: of Sam, which everyone's heard of that, right, but you know,

521
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 3: I grew up here, and so I remember, like the

522
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:40,920
Speaker 3: buzz in the morning when Jimmy Breslin has a new column,

523
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 3: he son of Sam struck last night, and you know,

524
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 3: there was no internet, so you're just reading these pages

525
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:48,600
Speaker 3: and you feel like this is amazing. Son of Sam

526
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 3: is actually writing to the correspondent and he's talking about

527
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 3: his next moves and what he and I, as a kid,

528
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 3: I was just like, oh my god, this is unbelievable.

529
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,199
Speaker 3: Not that I couldn't wait for the next murder, but

530
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 3: I was really in to the serial version of this.

531
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 3: It was that whole summer, and you know, he was

532
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:06,919
Speaker 3: striking frequently, and it was always in the newspapers, and

533
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 3: even on days when he didn't strike, you'd had like

534
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 3: where are the cops on this? And I just remember

535
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:13,879
Speaker 3: just being so blown away that I would run to

536
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:15,680
Speaker 3: the store the next morning to see if I could

537
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 3: get the newspaper to see if something happened. And I

538
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,920
Speaker 3: just that was such a powerful part of my childhood

539
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 3: and and just you know, ended up really getting into

540
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 3: true crime with my mother. We would read a lot

541
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 3: of these kind of books. Yeah, and just follow this together.

542
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:30,160
Speaker 3: It was a really bonding.

543
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty cool.

544
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. And you know, lo and behold, I'm

545
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 3: still doing it today. I feel like it you do.

546
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, exactly, Mom, I'm still doing it.

547
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,160
Speaker 3: I know some people, well you're doing like civil rights

548
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 3: like it's crime narrative. I'm sorry to inform you that

549
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 3: it's a crime narrative. You know.

550
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:48,639
Speaker 1: So for those who don't know, just because I mean

551
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 1: wide range of audience, Son is Sam, just recap what

552
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: was that all about that summer? What was going on?

553
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:56,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like in the I think seventy seven,

554
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 3: maybe seventy six or seventy seven, right around there, this

555
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 3: guy David Berkowitz, but like nobody knew who he was.

556
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:05,480
Speaker 3: He was just seemed like he was evil and he

557
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 3: was definitely demented and he was you know, he was

558
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 3: talking about his dog named Sam, and Sam was making

559
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 3: him strike and he was taking orders from the dog,

560
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:17,199
Speaker 3: and there was just all this weird stuff about it.

561
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: And he was going around killing people.

562
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was a forty four caliber killer was one

563
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 3: of his nicknames too. And he would just drive around

564
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,639
Speaker 3: like Brooklyn and Queens and just like he often struck

565
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 3: in like lover's lane situations. Okay, so he found a

566
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:32,400
Speaker 3: couple in a car, he was just opened fire.

567
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: Yeah almost with that first killing, where just a couple

568
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: in the car and yeah, sitting ducks for some psychopath

569
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: to go kill somebody.

570
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 3: Right, and you can imagine the cumulative effect of these

571
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 3: was just people were terrified to go out on dates.

572
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 3: I mean, it really affected was the whole summer, and

573
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 3: it was just you know, one after another. Sometimes the

574
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 3: person would live, sometimes the boyfriend would die, but the girl.

575
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 3: You know, but I don't know how many he killed.

576
00:25:57,280 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 3: It was probably six or so. But it was just

577
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 3: absolutely terrifying to a city. And ultimately they ended up

578
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 3: catching him. Like there was a car that was illegally

579
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 3: parked and they just did a check on it and

580
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:11,120
Speaker 3: it turned out to be his car, and he had

581
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:14,160
Speaker 3: some crap in there that was like Son of Sam

582
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 3: related and they got him, and you know.

583
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,919
Speaker 1: He was just like this technicality, right, really just actually

584
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:19,679
Speaker 1: backed into it.

585
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 3: But you know he was like this strange guy that

586
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 3: like that's the killer. He's like this nerdy guy with

587
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 3: glasses and says his dog is talking to him, and

588
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 3: you know, it was a weird thing. But you know,

589
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 3: it just absolutely paralyzed the city at the time because

590
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:38,679
Speaker 3: people were just terrified to go out, and and the

591
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,439
Speaker 3: fact that it lasted all summer long. You know, you

592
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 3: were just gripped by it like, especially as a kid,

593
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 3: like did he strike last night? Did he? You know,

594
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 3: I'm got to run up and get that paper. And

595
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 3: you know, sure enough, Jimmy Breslin is writing about it

596
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:52,919
Speaker 3: because Son of Sam is writing him and giving him

597
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 3: letters and predicting when he's going to strike again.

598
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: Yeah.

599
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 3: I was overwhelmed by it. I ended up meeting Jimmy

600
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:00,479
Speaker 3: Breslin a few years ago, right before he died, and

601
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 3: I just said, you don't understand what an impact you

602
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:06,640
Speaker 3: made of me as a kid, like just Georgie tellums. Oh,

603
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 3: I said, you know, I just there was nothing more thrilling.

604
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 3: And not only were you covering this and what it

605
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 3: was doing to the city, but you know, Son of

606
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 3: Sam was writing to you, he was targeting you. And

607
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 3: I asked him questions, did you ever feel scared that

608
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 3: you know, he might come at you? He's nah, not

609
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 3: scared of him at.

610
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: All, you know, he was just yeah, of course New

611
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 1: York are boiled.

612
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 3: But uh yeah, but those things like really they're they're

613
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 3: they really form who you are. I felt like I

614
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 3: have like certain criminal cases in my background that I've

615
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,400
Speaker 3: been aware of since I was a real young kid.

616
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that they've had to have informed your writing. Yeah,

617
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: you're and the growth through you getting even better and

618
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: better at your writing. I would assume just the things

619
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: that impacted you, that drove your curiosity probably even more.

620
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, I think that's a fair way to

621
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 3: put it. You know. I think if I was, you know, like,

622
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 3: I would have written a different kind of book than

623
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 3: I do now, you know, because now my interests are

624
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 3: a little bit greater. So I do like the legal

625
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 3: angle a little bit more like I like, you know,

626
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 3: thinking about laws and strategy and then a history of

627
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 3: civil rights if I can find those kind of things.

628
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:10,719
Speaker 3: But you know, to be honest with you, like this

629
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 3: last story I did for the podcast, there was no

630
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 3: civil rights in it. It was a straight up murder

631
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 3: case basically. Yeah, but you know, there was also something

632
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 3: about it that really drew me in. There's always something

633
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 3: a little bit different that I, you know, like about.

634
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: These stories covering true crime stories, making podcasts about them.

635
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: I get asked, you know, does it ever get you know,

636
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:37,679
Speaker 1: too emotionally heavy and stuff like that. I'm curious to

637
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: you what that balance is because I think that for me,

638
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: in order to tell a good story and an objective

639
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: story and to keep my wits about me and stay

640
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: in the lane here and not lose it or just

641
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: go down some conspiracy land valley over here. Yeah, right,

642
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: just to stay straight with it. I have to kind

643
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: of check myself and in a way be above that

644
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 1: to look at the facts and the story itself without

645
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: letting it tear me down to not be able to

646
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: see that. So, yeah, what is it to you? Because

647
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:22,479
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, we're not soulless robots, right, but like,

648
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: how do you manage the heaviness of that or over

649
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: a lifetime of doing it?

650
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly, Like I don't think i've really like in

651
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 3: the past when I write about these things, it's just

652
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 3: like really not a lot of survivors, and so the

653
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 3: family connections are not quite as strong. But like in

654
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 3: this last story that I did, you know, everybody's still

655
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 3: alive and you're in it. I've heard you and Mark

656
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 3: talking about this like you're they're in it for life

657
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 3: with you. I mean, this is a connection and it's

658
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 3: a commitment and you have to understand that and sort

659
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 3: of think that that's part of the jobs. It's really

660
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 3: difficult to do because you know, I've definitely gotten caught

661
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 3: up in this, especially in these wrongful things. We're kind

662
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 3: of living through them in the real time, and the

663
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 3: courts are shooting him down and like you know better,

664
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 3: and like you know, you don't know the whole story,

665
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 3: and it's like just so frustrating to watch the legal

666
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 3: community just kind of fail him. And that's a hard thing,

667
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,080
Speaker 3: you know. The other thing though, I think, I don't

668
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 3: know if this is a good answer, but it is

669
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 3: kind of true. You know, like if you're going into surgery,

670
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 3: the last thing I really want to hear from my surgeon.

671
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, I love people so much, you know,

672
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 3: this really means someone like I just want someone to

673
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 3: fix something.

674
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: Like be a robot, Yeah exactly.

675
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 3: I don't want you getting weepy over me.

676
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: I want to be soulless with a steady hand.

677
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 3: Yeah. And so there is some of that, like to

678
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 3: be able to just sort of step back and say,

679
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 3: all right, there. They might not like what I'm gonna say.

680
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 3: They came to me with this story, but it's going

681
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 3: to be hurtful to them in some way, and like

682
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 3: where do you draw the line, Like, well, this stuff happened,

683
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 3: and it's important to the story, and you have to understand,

684
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 3: like I have to be a little soulss here, but

685
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 3: that's part of the story. You might not like that part,

686
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 3: but you know, and so learning to like keep a

687
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 3: little bit of a distance between you know, the subjects

688
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 3: and things. So far, I've had really haven't had a

689
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 3: problem managing it. You know. It's I end up really

690
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 3: liking everybody and believing in it. So it's like it's

691
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 3: not a problem. You know, like they're checking in with me,

692
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 3: what's the update, when is this show coming out? Like

693
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 3: of course I'm going to tell them all that stuff.

694
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 3: You know.

695
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of camaraderie in it that way. Yeah,

696
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: I agree, right.

697
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 3: I agree, you know, like and you know, especially like

698
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 3: when you're all feeling the same way about the case, Like,

699
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 3: all right, this is a big thing, coming up to

700
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 3: big hearing. This is do or die for him, this

701
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 3: is so important of his life and he's going to

702
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 3: be coming up for parole or going before an evidentiary

703
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 3: panel of judges. Uh, you know, it's life or death

704
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 3: for these people, and for me it's like, well, yeah,

705
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 3: I guess I could move on to another story. But

706
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 3: you know, truthfully, it's like I'm feeling it too in there,

707
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 3: Like I just you got to know these people like yeah,

708
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 3: this means years more in prison and it's wrong.

709
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: It's yeah, and you know what you know now and

710
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 1: now it's bothering you. Yeah.

711
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you know, I think I think the

712
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 3: thing about books is you don't let any of that

713
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 3: come in. You just stay in the third person. But

714
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:09,719
Speaker 3: with you know, when you're talking and it's a podcast

715
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 3: that you know, your your feelings are out there, and

716
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 3: it's different. It's different for me. I was not used

717
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 3: to that. I had to really trust producers to say, look,

718
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:19,479
Speaker 3: this is this is works. You know this happened, and

719
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 3: yeah you're vulnerable and you look kind of stupid here,

720
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 3: but it really serves the story. And I trusted them.

721
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 1: So how does one like yourself accidentally fall into making

722
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 1: a podcast?

723
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 3: Well, you know, this is interesting because I was had

724
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 3: no desire to. I wasn't. I was listening to them,

725
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 3: I you know, I love listening to them, but it

726
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 3: didn't seem like something I could do.

727
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 1: Why.

728
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 3: I just felt like I didn't know anything about audio

729
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 3: and interviewing on audio, which I mean.

730
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 4: I had to learn that I don't know if you

731
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 4: learned the hard way, Like I mean, we all learned

732
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 4: the hard way, right, Yeah, but yeah, I totally get

733
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 4: what you're saying, though, Yeah, Like that's not my thing,

734
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 4: that's someone else's thing, right, right.

735
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

736
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 3: You know you listen to your tape and every minute

737
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 3: you're like uh huh yeah uh. I'm like, oh, shut up.

738
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, why do I sound like that?

739
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 3: Yeah? I know, and so, like I just didn't know

740
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 3: anything about it. But I was doing a book talk

741
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 3: down in Florida and a judge came up to me

742
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 3: and he just handed me this business signing books at

743
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 3: the end of the day, and he gave me a card,

744
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 3: and he gave me a name of a prisoner and

745
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 3: he said, not just wrongfully convicted, he's an innocent man.

746
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 3: And I'm like, a judge just gave me this, Like

747
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 3: that makes no sense.

748
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: Judge gave me.

749
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was at a convention for judges, and so

750
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 3: I showed it around to some defense lawyers and they

751
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 3: were all like, wait, a judge gave you that, Like

752
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 3: they're not supposed to do that, you know, It's like

753
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 3: it violates the ethical canons of the job. Yeah, And

754
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 3: he was like well, yeah, he's saying this guy is framed,

755
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 3: and you know, like he knows how it was done.

756
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 3: And I just showed it to some defense attorneys and

757
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 3: they're like, wow, that's unusual. And then it got to

758
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 3: one one defense attorney who was there as a public defender,

759
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 3: and I remember he looked at me. He was from

760
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 3: that town. He goes, I know this case, you should

761
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 3: call that guy. Really, so he kind of tipped me

762
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 3: off there's something wrong here, and so, you know, sure enough,

763
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:03,520
Speaker 3: I went through. I started looking at it and talked

764
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 3: to the judge and I said, well, look, I'm in

765
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 3: the middle of a book. It's probably going to be

766
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 3: a long time that I can get to this, and

767
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 3: I can feel like, no, dude, this guy's in prison, like,

768
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:15,359
Speaker 3: you know years. He said, do me favorite just read

769
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 3: the transcript, and I thought I was kind of saying

770
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 3: it to get him off the phone. I was like,

771
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 3: all right, i'll take you. Yeah, which you know, it's

772
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 3: two thousand pages and I sort of felt obligated. Yeah,

773
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 3: and I'm reading and I'm like even I could see it,

774
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 3: you know, like, oh my god, the prosecutor is getting

775
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 3: away with so much here. I can't believe he's getting

776
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 3: away with this stuff, and like the evidence didn't make

777
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 3: sense to me. And I call him back to them.

778
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:37,799
Speaker 3: I said, I, I ask you some questions because I saw

779
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 3: some stuff in here that even I could see it.

780
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 3: I'm not a lawyer. And he goes, yeah, that's exactly right.

781
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 3: You know, it was done in this real small town,

782
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:46,319
Speaker 3: this real small county and fun and they could get

783
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 3: away with this kind of stuff. And then he went

784
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 3: on to answer a lot of questions and I was like, oh,

785
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 3: this is amazing. And so a couple months later, I decide,

786
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,560
Speaker 3: all right, maybe I'll just write a feature story on it,

787
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:58,839
Speaker 3: you know, just leave it at that. I went down

788
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 3: to the prison and met Leo Schofield and just.

789
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:06,800
Speaker 1: To back up, what was the premise here? What happened? Yeah,

790
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: just so from the start, like what was the circumstances.

791
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question, because when I'm reading the transcripts,

792
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 3: you sort of get a sense Leo Scofield is like

793
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 3: this twenty one year old rock and roll or lead

794
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 3: guitarist for some like crappy like band in Lakeland. They're

795
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 3: called RHINO, which stands for rock your nuts off, and

796
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 3: you know they're a bunch of young teenagers or you know,

797
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 3: they're working in rock yeah, exactly, and then you know

798
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 3: they're trying to get out there, and you know, Leo

799
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,320
Speaker 3: meets a girl. She's seventeen, Michelle, and she's a waitress,

800
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 3: and you know, they're living in a trailer at roommates

801
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 3: and you know, just have no money, but they're trying

802
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 3: to live the dream, right, And they're only married for

803
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:47,439
Speaker 3: six months, like Leo's twenty and she's seventeen. They get

804
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 3: married and she goes off to work one day and

805
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 3: she's supposed to come home and pick him up at

806
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 3: band practice. She never shows up. And this goes on

807
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:59,319
Speaker 3: for several days. She just does not show up ever,

808
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 3: and then they find her car, and then on day

809
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,359
Speaker 3: three they find her body in the water not too

810
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 3: far from the restaurant and she was stabbed twenty six times.

811
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:09,959
Speaker 2: Wow.

812
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 3: And they don't have any suspects. There's no like evidence,

813
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 3: and Leo himself has been calling police and medium and police.

814
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 3: He's trying to get them involved, but they're like, looks,

815
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 3: you know, if she turns up, you know, we'll let

816
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 3: her know that you're looking for him. But she was

817
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,799
Speaker 3: eighteen at the time. So it's heart too early for

818
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 3: the missing persons report, but he you know, he's very

819
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 3: active in that. And then you know, they never find

820
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 3: a guy who did this, and Leo is like, is

821
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 3: a suspect, but they don't really have any evidence against him.

822
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 3: He's got a pretty good alibi. But after like a

823
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 3: year and a half, this really aggressive prosecutor comes in

824
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 3: and says, that's the guy. The husband go after him,

825
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 3: and they do, and they basically try him, and you know,

826
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 3: there's all sorts of volatility in this relationship, so you

827
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:53,799
Speaker 3: have witnesses and friends. Oh, they're always fighting and this

828
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. Leo gets convicted and sentenced to death

829
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 3: or a sentence to like in prison. He escaped the

830
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 3: death penalty. So it's been about thirty five years now.

831
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:10,279
Speaker 3: He's been in prison seventeen years into his sentence. And

832
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 3: this is the remarkable part of the story. He actually

833
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 3: gets remarried in prison to a social worker years later,

834
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 3: and she becomes obsessed with his case and he says, look,

835
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm going to tell you I'm innocent, but

836
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:24,400
Speaker 3: you know, like guys say that all the time, do

837
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 3: your own investigation. I'm not going to sit here and

838
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 3: beat you over the head with this.

839
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she does.

840
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 3: She starts investigating, she starts getting the files, and she

841
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 3: finds that there's some fingerprints that were found in the

842
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 3: car that Michelle was driving that were never identified, and

843
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 3: so she says, we got to get these fingerprints, and

844
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 3: she gives him to a cop friend. The cop friend

845
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,720
Speaker 3: runs them and they basically come back to this guy

846
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 3: who lived right down the street from where Michelle disappeared,

847
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 3: and he's killed a bunch of people and he's in prison, right,

848
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 3: and so now they're like, oh, well, this is obviously

849
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 3: the guy. He's killed several people in prison, he lived

850
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 3: in the area. They you know, they open up this reinvestigation,

851
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,399
Speaker 3: they find his girlfriend. They're like, oh, that the place

852
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 3: where Michelle's body was found. Yeah, that's where he used

853
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 3: to take us for sex, you know, and so it

854
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 3: was his spot. Yeah, and he's forensically linked to the

855
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 3: car she was driving. But the guy in charge of

856
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 3: this investigation was the prosecutor who prosecuted Leo, and so

857
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 3: now he's like, I'm gonna lose that conviction if I

858
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 3: so he just shuts it down and says it was

859
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 3: just a coincidence. He was stealing stereos. That's how he

860
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 3: got his fingerprints there. He's not a killer, he's just

861
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:37,360
Speaker 3: a thief.

862
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 1: He just killed all the other women, but not Yeah,

863
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: that's what.

864
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:42,359
Speaker 3: I you know, couldn't understand. You guys actually prosecuted him

865
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 3: twice for Murdy. Yeah, right, And then he goes through this,

866
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 3: you know, they get through they go through an evidence

867
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:52,280
Speaker 3: you're hearing, and Leo bakesically gets denied. And then about

868
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:56,240
Speaker 3: ten years later, this guy Jeremy who's up in prison

869
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,959
Speaker 3: for another murder. He says, I might as well come clean,

870
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 3: and he starts confessing and tells exactly how he killed Michelle.

871
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 3: He knows details of you know, like how he saw

872
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 3: her on the pay phone when she was calling Leos.

873
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 3: He and I'll be right over, and she's thought she

874
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,239
Speaker 3: knew him from the neighborhood and said, oh it's raining,

875
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 3: can I give you a ride? And he just drove

876
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 3: her to that Jeremy's layer basically, and that's where he

877
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 3: stabbed her. And he has, you know, all the details

878
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 3: of this. He's pretty impressive that he could recall all this,

879
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 3: and and yet the courts wouldn't believe. They just said, oh,

880
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:32,879
Speaker 3: he's he's making things up because he initially denied it,

881
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 3: and now he's saying he did it well.

882
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,359
Speaker 1: Isn't the guy in prison always denied it. Yes, that's

883
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: the thing, right, they denied it. Yeah, this guy denied

884
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: it and then changed his mind that he did it

885
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:44,919
Speaker 1: right and tells you a whole story about it. Right,

886
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 1: Why would he do that if he didn't do it right?

887
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 1: Exactly in this case, in this scenario, right.

888
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so like you know, it's pretty you know

889
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:53,759
Speaker 3: when you look at like the evidence that ties him.

890
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 3: He's not just forensically connected, but you look at the

891
00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:59,320
Speaker 3: way his life was led. It was just extraordinarily violent.

892
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:01,759
Speaker 3: They were always robberies that went bad. He's not like

893
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 3: a serial killer who sets out to do these. He's

894
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,759
Speaker 3: got a really low IQ. You know, had all sorts

895
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 3: of damage and foster families and and you know, this

896
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 3: was just the kid he was, and he would just

897
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 3: get these. Always needed money. He would go out and

898
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 3: try and rob someone, and if it went bad, he'd

899
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 3: kill them. Extraordinarily impulsive. And you know, while we were investigating,

900
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 3: we found another murder that we thought was him, and

901
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, this one's not solved. It's a thirty

902
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 3: five year old cold case. And then ultimately we went

903
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 3: into the prison to interview this guy, Jeremy, and you know,

904
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 3: I remember, like, all right, maybe the last question I'm

905
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 3: going to ask him him is about this taxicab driver

906
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 3: that I think he killed. And he just brought it

907
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 3: up in the middle of the interview. He just filled

908
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:44,240
Speaker 3: that taxicab.

909
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: You're building up to it, and so how to go down?

910
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 3: He just told exactly how it happened. And I mean,

911
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 3: he knew everything, and he said, I used to live

912
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:52,959
Speaker 3: in that town and me and my brother are living there,

913
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 3: and you know, I just didn't have any money. I

914
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 3: hailed a caxi up the road, I drove him a

915
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,360
Speaker 3: little past the town, shot him, and then I stole

916
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 3: the car and crashed the car. All that stuff. He

917
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 3: had all the details. And like again he's got like

918
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,760
Speaker 3: a seventy five IQ, So he's not like a mastermind criminal.

919
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, he just was bumbling around and getting away with stuff.

920
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's exactly what happened. And it's sill. It

921
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 3: was just a few weeks after he killed Michelle, he

922
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 3: was still on this violent rage and you know, and

923
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 3: so he just admitted to it. And you know, later

924
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 3: on I stayed in touch with him, and you know,

925
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 3: I said, he can you tell me anything more about

926
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,720
Speaker 3: this taxi driver killing, because I'm, you know, really curious.

927
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,399
Speaker 3: He drew me a map of the streets and how

928
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 3: it went, like the car went over here, I hit

929
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 3: this car, I bounced off and hit a powerpole. All

930
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:36,320
Speaker 3: of it was correct.

931
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: He makes sense to you, and you saw all of it.

932
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 3: I mean, he was naming witnesses. He because like there

933
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 3: was a time where he crashed the car. People came

934
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:45,960
Speaker 3: running out to see him, and he thought he'd be recognized,

935
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 3: so he kind of put his hand over his face

936
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 3: and get He said, get away. It's gonna blow.

937
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: Oh my god.

938
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 3: So he was to make people run.

939
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: Cognizant of that, Yeah he was.

940
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 3: And he said, yeah, this kid I grew up with John,

941
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 3: this Caribbean kid. I saw him there and sure enough

942
00:41:57,680 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 3: I looked at the tree's in there, you know. So

943
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 3: he had everything right. He knew it all. And he said,

944
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:05,280
Speaker 3: you know, I ended up just going into a basement

945
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 3: of a house and just laying under the blankets, knowing

946
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 3: that the dogs were gonna come for me and the

947
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 3: cops were gonna get me and they never came.

948
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 1: That's so insane.

949
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this guy's like getting away with all these murders.

950
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:17,760
Speaker 3: He's like the luckiest guy in this part of Florida.

951
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 3: He just never gets caught, you know. I mean it

952
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,880
Speaker 3: took his fourth murder when he finally got caught. And

953
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 3: you know, he's not a master criminal, he's just violent

954
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 3: and leaves the scene.

955
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: This story lands in your lap and you read these

956
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:34,680
Speaker 1: transcripts two thousand pages and you're saying, oh my god,

957
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:39,359
Speaker 1: this is there's something here. And then eventually you make

958
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: a podcast about this. Yeah, tell me about that.

959
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I mean at this point, like we

960
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 3: were like we put so much into this, and we

961
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:50,360
Speaker 3: were doing it for so long, and one of the

962
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 3: problems was we ran into COVID, and so COVID just

963
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 3: kind of shut everything down. We couldn't even travel anymore.

964
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: How did it impact you as a researcher or storyteller?

965
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 3: I just was stuck in the library. Basically, I was

966
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:06,360
Speaker 3: doing an a fellowship at the New York Public Library

967
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 3: and then they shut that down right around March of

968
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 3: twenty twenty.

969
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:11,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there was nothing I was.

970
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:13,759
Speaker 3: Working on I needed to be in that library, and

971
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 3: so I said, well, I guess we're just gonna have

972
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 3: to start making phone calls and doing interviews on Zoom

973
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 3: and stuff like that because I don't want to stop

974
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 3: on this. And so it actually paid off really well

975
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 3: because we had like an extra nine months to work

976
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 3: on this, and finally we got to traveling again, so

977
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 3: we were able to get down there. We spent a

978
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 3: lot of time in Florida just talking to people. We

979
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 3: did way more than we needed to do because we

980
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:38,759
Speaker 3: didn't know what's the right amount of tape to come

981
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 3: back with.

982
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: Also, where does it stop? Yeah, dude, when do I stop? Right?

983
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 3: Yeah? Exactly. And you know, I think the moment I

984
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 3: think we sort of figured out was like our interview

985
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:52,319
Speaker 3: with Jeremy was just like it's so far exceeded all

986
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 3: our expectations.

987
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 1: Like that's the holy rail of your story.

988
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:58,439
Speaker 3: It really was, you know, because like all the time

989
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 3: Leo was just talking about who is this? Who did this?

990
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 3: You know, it's not it's not me, obviously, it's it's

991
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 3: got to be some monster. And you realize this who

992
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 3: it is. It's Jeremy. He's not like a monster, He's

993
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 3: just kind of this pathetic individual. You know, he's not

994
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 3: planning these things out. He's living day to day on

995
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 3: the streets. And you know, it wasn't the monster that

996
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 3: Leo was expecting, and so that was really interesting. And

997
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 3: part of the story I think that's really powerful is

998
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:26,360
Speaker 3: is Leo himself, you know, the guy who's wrongfully convicted.

999
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 3: You know, nobody cares about Jeremy and this whole story.

1000
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 3: And it turns out Leo's like the only one who

1001
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 3: has any empathy for him, because he says, you know,

1002
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 3: if this guy didn't come forward and say this, I

1003
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 3: you know, nobody would know the real story. He goes,

1004
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm saying I'm innocent, but who's gonna believe me?

1005
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,439
Speaker 3: I'm in prison the rest of my life. But now

1006
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:47,879
Speaker 3: you have this guy who can tell details about how

1007
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:50,719
Speaker 3: he killed my wife and they're you know, they're legitimate.

1008
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 3: Leo just feels like, thank god he did that, you know,

1009
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:58,080
Speaker 3: because otherwise I would not have any chance, you know.

1010
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 3: And Leo's likely going to be paroled in couple of months,

1011
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 3: and he knows that, you know, having been rejected from

1012
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 3: parole constantly because he shows no remorse. I mean, how

1013
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 3: can you show remorse? He's like innocence.

1014
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm trying to imagine if

1015
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:15,360
Speaker 1: if I went to prison for life or a murder

1016
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: that I didn't do, and I knew that I was

1017
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:19,759
Speaker 1: going to be in prison for the rest of my life,

1018
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: eventually you would have to mentally accept that that is

1019
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: your fate. And then at some point, just the validation

1020
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:32,240
Speaker 1: of you believing me that I didn't really do it

1021
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: is almost more, yeah, than getting out, because you think

1022
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: that's not even an option, which is the thing that

1023
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: you said, Like he's the only guy who feels empathy

1024
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 1: because he's like, thank you, yeah, because no one else

1025
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: would listen to me if you didn't say that, or

1026
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:47,719
Speaker 1: or they wouldn't be deny it this.

1027
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 3: Right, and you're you're absolutely right about that. And like

1028
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:53,000
Speaker 3: one of the things like that's really important to him

1029
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 3: is like, you know, having this innocence claim and just

1030
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:58,440
Speaker 3: you know, finally being believed. But the other thing that's

1031
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 3: really important is like you know, he went through some

1032
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 3: really dark times like just seeing his case, you know,

1033
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:07,359
Speaker 3: rejected time and time again and just realizing like you're

1034
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:10,279
Speaker 3: in for life, you're not getting out, And at some

1035
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 3: point he started to recognize that you know, all this

1036
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 3: bitterness is going to kill me. And he's a very

1037
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 3: spiritual guy. And I've met some of these guys who've

1038
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 3: been exonerated after spending decades and like, like they are

1039
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 3: like Gandhi level. I don't know how they do it, like,

1040
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 3: because I would think that something like that would destroy me,

1041
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:30,479
Speaker 3: just knowing that the courts don't believe me. There's nothing

1042
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:30,839
Speaker 3: I can do.

1043
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: I just keep in idea to your break me too.

1044
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, And his thing is like he's a very spiritual guy.

1045
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 3: He says, the only thing that can really save me

1046
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 3: is if I just lose all this bitterness and I

1047
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:43,120
Speaker 3: have to learn to forgive that guy for killing my

1048
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 3: wife because that I can't carry that to the grave.

1049
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 3: And so he's the guy that sort of does it

1050
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 3: himself to say I forgive him, And you know, I

1051
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:52,959
Speaker 3: want him to know that that I can't. I don't

1052
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:55,879
Speaker 3: carry this. We're not going to be friends, but I'm

1053
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 3: not going to carry this with me, like it'll destroy me.

1054
00:46:59,000 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 1: That it's hardy to hear him.

1055
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's constantly surprising you with stuff like that.

1056
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 3: You know, things that he would say that I was

1057
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 3: like really like he said, like the worst part is

1058
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 3: not being denied parole. It's hearing the prosecutor get up

1059
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 3: there and repeat those lies about him being a monster

1060
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:16,840
Speaker 3: and a killer himself. And he says that all the

1061
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:18,840
Speaker 3: people I care about are in there listening, and I

1062
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:20,799
Speaker 3: just for them to have to hear that from an

1063
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 3: official from the state is just so triggering to him.

1064
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 3: And I was like, I would never think that, you know,

1065
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 3: like I think that's the guy who's supposed to send

1066
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 3: me to jail, you know, but he's saying it's not true,

1067
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 3: and those words just really burn him, you know, to

1068
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 3: hear them officially said in court. Yeah, I would never.

1069
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: Expect lying about you, Yeah, about someone you cared about,

1070
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: and you're ruining other people's lives, a lot lives with

1071
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 1: your lies. Yeah, that would be the most hurtful part.

1072
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:50,480
Speaker 1: I feel like, really, you don't consider that when you

1073
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: go into a case like this.

1074
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 3: No, never, I never would have thought about that. And

1075
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 3: he was like apologizing for me to have to hear that.

1076
00:47:56,680 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 3: I'm like, I totally expect.

1077
00:47:58,680 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: No, this is I'm learning from.

1078
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it really is. And you do end

1079
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 3: up learning a lot from these guys because they look

1080
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 3: at their cases in ways that you know, they know

1081
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 3: it better than anybody, you know. I mean that was

1082
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:11,479
Speaker 3: the one thing we found. Like he knows his case

1083
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:15,239
Speaker 3: like inside out. It's really disturbing because he'll point to

1084
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 3: things like, look at this, I don't know why that

1085
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 3: person lie, but that never happened that way, And I

1086
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:22,239
Speaker 3: was like, that's not even a big thing, but to

1087
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:24,440
Speaker 3: him it means something because it's a lie in court

1088
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:25,319
Speaker 3: and it's about him.

1089
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's his everything, right, his existence.

1090
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 3: It's just so triggering and I just never would have

1091
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:33,319
Speaker 3: expected that. I think this guy's hardened and hurt at all,

1092
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 3: but like he's still triggered by the most basic things

1093
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,240
Speaker 3: like somebody said something hurtful about me in public.

1094
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,840
Speaker 1: You know, you get very very deep into this case

1095
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: and eventually you make a podcast and as a as

1096
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 1: a creator, as a writer, author, What was that jump

1097
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 1: like for you from going to you know, writing pages

1098
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 1: in a book that you, like you said earlier, spent

1099
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:01,360
Speaker 1: five years on, which is also impressive than a different,

1100
00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 1: probably timeline than most podcasts out What was that like?

1101
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: Was that vulnerable for you to be leading a story

1102
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 1: through your vocal piece?

1103
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:15,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was all new to me and like,

1104
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:17,160
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that's really interesting. Like

1105
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 3: I said with COVID, I had time on my hands,

1106
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 3: so I'm like.

1107
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: All right, let me anyway.

1108
00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:24,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, all right, let me start writing the

1109
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:26,720
Speaker 3: script because there's nothing else to do. And I started

1110
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 3: writing these scripts about how I thought it go like

1111
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 3: ended up when we ended up getting with the producers there,

1112
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:34,320
Speaker 3: looked at him like this kind of sucks.

1113
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,680
Speaker 1: Like and I'm like, to you, they said yeah, yeah, yeah,

1114
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 1: like it's politely, it's not good.

1115
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:43,720
Speaker 3: And then they basically explained to me we write around

1116
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 3: the tape, like there's no way around that. You've got

1117
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 3: to have good tape first. And I was like, I

1118
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:49,719
Speaker 3: didn't know that, you know, I just didn't. I just

1119
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:52,160
Speaker 3: felt like the tape was accompanying the stuff that I

1120
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:52,479
Speaker 3: was writing.

1121
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:56,080
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Yeah, that's that's how I work it, too,

1122
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 1: But I can't. I think maybe just accidentally learned that

1123
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:02,879
Speaker 1: through my own experience. But Mark would tell you that too,

1124
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:05,440
Speaker 1: like he piggybacks off of the tape.

1125
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:05,919
Speaker 3: Right.

1126
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: I want to build a podcast story that if you

1127
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:11,720
Speaker 1: were to play it and take me out of it entirely,

1128
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 1: you kind of know what happened, right, right right. So

1129
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:17,239
Speaker 1: what I'm what I'm saying is only adding to it

1130
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:21,400
Speaker 1: or expanding it or giving it more context or direction.

1131
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 1: But they're telling the story in a way which is

1132
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 1: got to be one pint eighty different from what you

1133
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: came from.

1134
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 3: Totally true, But you know, I felt like, here's the

1135
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 3: thing that saved me. And you probably could agree with this.

1136
00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 3: I feel like I was around these really young, talented

1137
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:40,920
Speaker 3: people who knew how to tell stories with audio, and

1138
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 3: I didn't know that, and so they kind of just

1139
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 3: put me through the education process and like showed it

1140
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 3: to me and they said, you know, look at this

1141
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:50,400
Speaker 3: and see how this sounds. We're getting the same points across,

1142
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:53,360
Speaker 3: but we're using tape instead of your boring writing.

1143
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: No offense, you know, if you're boring, ass out stuff

1144
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:00,719
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, And so like I just.

1145
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:02,759
Speaker 3: Said, look, I'm not in this for my feelings. I

1146
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:03,120
Speaker 3: don't care.

1147
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 1: I like to be good good man.

1148
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:06,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's all I mean. And I really didn't have

1149
00:51:06,560 --> 00:51:09,239
Speaker 3: an ego about it. And it's just like trusting these

1150
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 3: young people. I feel like every time I thought something,

1151
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 3: there's here's an example. So we go into the evidence

1152
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 3: room and we're gonna look at the autopsy photos. And

1153
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 3: I'm there with a young researcher who's like twenty two

1154
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 3: years old. This is like our first job, Kelsey, and

1155
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:26,000
Speaker 3: I didn't really prepare her for that, Like I've seen

1156
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 3: a million, but she hasn't. And so we're in there

1157
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, the autopsy photos come out,

1158
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 3: and you know, they're they're pretty awful. You know, I'm

1159
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 3: sure woman's been stabbed twenty six times and we're seeing

1160
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 3: all this, and so, you know, because we didn't really

1161
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 3: know what we were doing. We were recording everything. Even

1162
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 3: just walking to the car, we just keep the thing up.

1163
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I think so now, you know. And

1164
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 3: we get back to the car, we're gonna debrief, and

1165
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,600
Speaker 3: she just starts crying and it's just like just hit

1166
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 3: her all that stuff. He's, you know, kind of the

1167
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:57,880
Speaker 3: same age as the victim, and I ever seen that, Yeah,

1168
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 3: And I'm just like, take your time, it's all right.

1169
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 3: And we get back and the producers heard that and

1170
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 3: I said, this is great, this is really powerful, and

1171
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:09,399
Speaker 3: I was like, no, I think it's really manipulative. It's

1172
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 3: like we're going to be manipulating the audience. And I

1173
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 3: just don't. I don't want to show her crying.

1174
00:52:13,320 --> 00:52:15,319
Speaker 1: Why do you feel like that was manipulative to use

1175
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: that to For me, it just felt like I was

1176
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:20,800
Speaker 1: exploiting everybody how to feel because here she's like you

1177
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:21,839
Speaker 1: should feel its way too.

1178
00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:24,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I just didn't know, and I my instincts

1179
00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:27,160
Speaker 3: just said no, don't, don't do that. And they said,

1180
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:29,880
Speaker 3: it's this really works, you know, instead of you writing

1181
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:33,000
Speaker 3: the poignant thing about you know, the feelings about Michelle

1182
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 3: being dead and going back in time, like Kelsey crying

1183
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 3: said at all.

1184
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 1: Right there in a way that scene and capsulates, encapsulates

1185
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:42,759
Speaker 1: like kind of what you would probably want to say

1186
00:52:42,800 --> 00:52:43,040
Speaker 1: in a way.

1187
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:44,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we didn't need the words, you know, like

1188
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 3: it just it just and I just trusted them on

1189
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 3: that and they were absolutely right because everybody said the

1190
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 3: same thing. But my instincts initially, like from the journalism side,

1191
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 3: like no, don't manipulate them when I'm not going to

1192
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 3: take like I'm not going to do tricks like that.

1193
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:58,920
Speaker 3: They were like, it's not a trick. This really happened,

1194
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 3: and you know, we're acknowledging it. And I totally believe

1195
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:03,840
Speaker 3: it now, but I didn't see it at the time.

1196
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:06,399
Speaker 1: That makes complete sense. Yeah, And it's one of those

1197
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:08,759
Speaker 1: things where I think sometimes when you're I mean, you

1198
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:10,919
Speaker 1: were there in the car with her. Yeah, Yeah, it's

1199
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 1: different when you were there in the tape. And I'll

1200
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 1: even find myself if I go on any podcast like

1201
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 1: Up in Vanish or Atlanta Monster that I've done, and

1202
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:22,839
Speaker 1: maybe i recorded some tape two months ago and I'm

1203
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 1: just now listening to it again, I remember and see

1204
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: and hear things differently in that moment, almost as an

1205
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:36,959
Speaker 1: objective viewer listener, and I'm like, holy shit, that this

1206
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 1: moment is actually unique. Yeah, because I can tell that

1207
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 1: I'm either like learning something here or this person was

1208
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:47,320
Speaker 1: really feeling that way. But in the moment, it didn't

1209
00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: seem like that to me, right.

1210
00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:50,839
Speaker 3: That that happened all the time, all the time, right,

1211
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:52,960
Speaker 3: you know. But thank God to have people that know

1212
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 3: what they're doing and they can say, no, this, that's

1213
00:53:55,560 --> 00:53:57,839
Speaker 3: why it works. You're listening. Oh, you're right.

1214
00:53:57,880 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 1: I do like that checks and bounce this thing a

1215
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:02,400
Speaker 1: little bit to where it's like you need you know,

1216
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 1: I need it too. If I'm neck deep in a story,

1217
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:08,400
Speaker 1: someone tell me if I'm losing it over here, like

1218
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 1: this sounded okay, right, Like right, Mike, It's like, you know,

1219
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:14,239
Speaker 1: you need to like be checked a little bit.

1220
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. You have to trust that too.

1221
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:19,040
Speaker 1: Because trust also gotta trust that. Yeah, so scary.

1222
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I you know, I've done this, like just

1223
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:23,359
Speaker 3: go down these rabbit holes. I think it's the most

1224
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 3: fascinating thing in the world, this connection. It's like sometimes

1225
00:54:26,560 --> 00:54:28,880
Speaker 3: like in my books, they're like four pages and the

1226
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:32,520
Speaker 3: editor go, don't need this, Like that was three months

1227
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:32,960
Speaker 3: of my life.

1228
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:35,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, You're like, I work so hard on that.

1229
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:37,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're like it's just not helping, and like

1230
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:40,120
Speaker 3: sort of like all right, I trust this person. They

1231
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 3: will tell me. But you know again, I'm like I

1232
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:44,360
Speaker 3: could have done a whole hour on that stuff.

1233
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 1: You know.

1234
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:47,120
Speaker 3: If we're doing a podcast like this is absolutely fascinating

1235
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:50,840
Speaker 3: and nobody else believes me, it's like, all right, you

1236
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 3: did a great job, but it's not important.

1237
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:56,719
Speaker 1: You know, the phrase killing your darlings, Yeah, that's that's

1238
00:54:56,800 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 1: like one of the things that I had to learn

1239
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:03,840
Speaker 1: early on. And I I think for honestly creators of anything,

1240
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 1: I think, but especially stories like this, whether it's podcast

1241
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:12,640
Speaker 1: form or book form. You know, it can't be everything

1242
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:16,239
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah, something's gotta go, Something has to

1243
00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:19,319
Speaker 1: be the focus. You might be personally in love with

1244
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:22,879
Speaker 1: this little aspect of it, but you got to kill

1245
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:24,879
Speaker 1: your darlings because one something's gotta go.

1246
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:26,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really impossible, and it.

1247
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:29,759
Speaker 1: Still hurts every time, but like you get, you know,

1248
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:33,719
Speaker 1: stronger with it. But I always hate having to let

1249
00:55:33,719 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 1: something go that I thought was going to be this.

1250
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 1: It isn't anymore else. I put working time into that.

1251
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I had a whole headspace where I was

1252
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:44,480
Speaker 1: going to go over here. But now now we're not.

1253
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:47,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm not really comfortable. Like I spent Like

1254
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:49,480
Speaker 3: there was one detective in Florida that I interviewed like

1255
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 3: six or seven times.

1256
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 1: Oh wow.

1257
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:53,040
Speaker 3: It went out fishing with him and was keeping the

1258
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:55,360
Speaker 3: keep it, reporting it. It was great and he was

1259
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 3: like this salty like you know New York detective who's

1260
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:00,760
Speaker 3: working out here's always smoking and it's also great character

1261
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 3: and yeah, like it's almost like we had so much

1262
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 3: of him that we couldn't just use him in parts,

1263
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 3: so we ended up having to take him out completely.

1264
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 1: Wow, it's like it's like the opposite. Yeah, yeah, it's

1265
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 1: amazing how that works.

1266
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:13,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm like, I can't believe he lost this guy.

1267
00:56:13,360 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 3: He was like one of our best guys. But like

1268
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 3: I totally understood, like he opened up too many other

1269
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:20,520
Speaker 3: doors that we'd have to resolve if we went with it.

1270
00:56:20,640 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 1: Yeh, did you ever use them at all?

1271
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:22,719
Speaker 3: No?

1272
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 1: Not even like a moment, not.

1273
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:26,399
Speaker 3: Even a minute. I mean, it's strange. I've thought about

1274
00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:27,839
Speaker 3: doing like bonus episodes with him.

1275
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:29,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, it made his way to do that probably.

1276
00:56:29,719 --> 00:56:32,439
Speaker 3: I think there's probably something because his stuff was really

1277
00:56:32,440 --> 00:56:34,640
Speaker 3: great and he was really essential to the case. He

1278
00:56:34,719 --> 00:56:37,040
Speaker 3: was the cold case detective who first went to see

1279
00:56:37,120 --> 00:56:39,440
Speaker 3: Jeremy and and confronted him on this, and he had

1280
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:42,200
Speaker 3: all these thoughts and yea, but everywhere it led to

1281
00:56:42,239 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 3: something that we had to do more. And it's just

1282
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 3: like it was.

1283
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, it's sometime, Yeah, I mean it' It's funny

1284
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: that you say that because recently and the next season

1285
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:52,480
Speaker 1: of Up and Vanish, there's there's an interview that we

1286
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:55,400
Speaker 1: did about a month ago with this guy who he

1287
00:56:55,520 --> 00:56:59,400
Speaker 1: sounds really good. He's he's very convicted, and he's enthusiastic

1288
00:56:59,520 --> 00:57:02,600
Speaker 1: and just has so many good things to say. But

1289
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: also all these different tangents that are very hard to

1290
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:09,839
Speaker 1: navigate into. Trying to trying to fit that into some

1291
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 1: larger narrative was just becoming an impossibility or maybe just

1292
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:17,600
Speaker 1: a fruitless like mission to go on. And so it

1293
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:20,520
Speaker 1: we kind of consciously, actually you and I did decided,

1294
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: you know what, like this, let's just go ahead and

1295
00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:25,560
Speaker 1: just determine that this isn't going to be like what

1296
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: we would want it to be. But instead we sort

1297
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 1: of used, like in the beginning of episode one, an

1298
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:36,280
Speaker 1: interaction with this person that kind of jump starts all

1299
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:39,600
Speaker 1: these other things because because it did sound so good

1300
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 1: and it was so authentic, he'll just pill to help

1301
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 1: us get here. Yeah he doesn't have to come back though,

1302
00:57:45,160 --> 00:57:47,080
Speaker 1: but no, but i'd like him too. But like in

1303
00:57:47,160 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 1: our story, that's not how it's gonna work, because it can't.

1304
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 1: I wanted to find a way to fit them in there. Right,

1305
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:53,479
Speaker 1: It's kind.

1306
00:57:53,400 --> 00:57:54,760
Speaker 3: Of what I was. It's one of your doclaries I

1307
00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:55,200
Speaker 3: could tell.

1308
00:57:55,640 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 1: I'm like, does this work now?

1309
00:57:57,000 --> 00:57:59,400
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, that's pretty funny.

1310
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I totally get it what you're saying.

1311
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:04,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's like a lot of things, like you know,

1312
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 3: you end up doing a lot of research on something

1313
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:08,360
Speaker 3: that you think is going to be important, and you

1314
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:09,680
Speaker 3: know it's like one or two lines.

1315
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 1: You know, I got to get better at that. And

1316
00:58:13,760 --> 00:58:15,680
Speaker 1: I think that it's been you spend probably a lot

1317
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 1: of time deciding what to focus on. Yeah, which is

1318
00:58:20,520 --> 00:58:21,480
Speaker 1: a strange thought.

1319
00:58:22,080 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. You know one of the things

1320
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:26,760
Speaker 3: I really wanted to do with this podcast. There was

1321
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:28,360
Speaker 3: no way to do it. I had to learn this,

1322
00:58:28,520 --> 00:58:31,480
Speaker 3: but I want to do like a parallel narrative, like

1323
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a there's a book called

1324
00:58:34,160 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 3: It's by Eric Larson, A Devil in.

1325
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 1: The White City, Okay, and I know that title.

1326
00:58:38,960 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 3: Yeah. It takes place in Chicago in the eighteen nineties

1327
00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:43,160
Speaker 3: during the World Fair, and you have the architect who's

1328
00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 3: trying to build this yeah, and it's a spectacular city

1329
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:49,200
Speaker 3: that they temporary city that they've built in Chicago. And

1330
00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:51,400
Speaker 3: at the same time, you have this serial killer who's

1331
00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 3: in Chicago and all the young women who are coming

1332
00:58:54,600 --> 00:58:56,680
Speaker 3: to get work at the World's Fair he's killing them.

1333
00:58:56,920 --> 00:58:59,080
Speaker 3: And it's just like you go bouncing back and forth

1334
00:58:59,120 --> 00:59:01,640
Speaker 3: between the architect the killer, and I thought this would

1335
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 3: be really cool to do this with Leo the wrongfully

1336
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:07,480
Speaker 3: convicted guy and Jeremy the actual killer. But there was

1337
00:59:07,520 --> 00:59:09,560
Speaker 3: just no way to do it because the way he's

1338
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:12,360
Speaker 3: introduced comes in halfway through the story.

1339
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:15,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like, yeah, it wouldn't necessarily work that way,

1340
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:18,640
Speaker 1: but yeah, I do like those parallel narratives though. And

1341
00:59:18,720 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 1: if I mean, obviously you're still that's on your checklist

1342
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 1: of I mean, so you did a podcast also, Yeah,

1343
00:59:26,200 --> 00:59:28,920
Speaker 1: I listened to it. I enjoyed the hell out of

1344
00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 1: its very successful too. I mean it's also for your

1345
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 1: first podcast. That's like you got people who've made a

1346
00:59:36,040 --> 00:59:38,120
Speaker 1: dozen and they've never come close to the way you

1347
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:40,439
Speaker 1: you did, and I think that it really shows. And

1348
00:59:40,760 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: I've had peers of mind that I respect say go

1349
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:47,439
Speaker 1: listen to this. Wow, And I'm like, okay, fine, because

1350
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:49,920
Speaker 1: I rarely listen to podcasts and that you don't have

1351
00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:53,040
Speaker 1: the head. But I'm like, all right, if you're saying that,

1352
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:55,919
Speaker 1: I will, yeah, right, But no, you did a great job.

1353
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:57,240
Speaker 1: Would you do it again you want?

1354
00:59:57,320 --> 00:59:59,320
Speaker 3: Yeah? I definitely, I really love this. I mean I

1355
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:01,960
Speaker 3: loved everything about it, especially like for someone who's like

1356
01:00:02,080 --> 01:00:04,720
Speaker 3: used to just going off for myself for five years

1357
01:00:04,720 --> 01:00:06,120
Speaker 3: and just working by myself.

1358
01:00:06,200 --> 01:00:08,840
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's it's it's not good. You know, I

1359
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:10,640
Speaker 1: really you can lose yourself a little bit in that.

1360
01:00:10,680 --> 01:00:13,000
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was nice to have some teammates every

1361
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:14,000
Speaker 1: now and then, but I really.

1362
01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:15,320
Speaker 3: Do And it's like, you know, they were just young

1363
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:17,480
Speaker 3: people who really care about this stuff. I can learn

1364
01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:19,480
Speaker 3: as much from them as they can learn from me.

1365
01:00:20,520 --> 01:00:23,240
Speaker 3: So I just really love that, the the collaboration and

1366
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 3: working with the team, and especially Kelsey, who's like, you know,

1367
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:28,840
Speaker 3: she started out as my researcher and then you know,

1368
01:00:28,920 --> 01:00:30,760
Speaker 3: we're trying to do this and it's like, well, Kelsey,

1369
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 3: looks like you're gonna have to learn audio equipment, and

1370
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:35,520
Speaker 3: she like taught herself all that, and then I come

1371
01:00:35,560 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 3: back to New York and she's like turns out to

1372
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 3: be a really good editor, and I was like, oh,

1373
01:00:39,680 --> 01:00:41,840
Speaker 3: I just got you on as a researcher, but you know, all.

1374
01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:43,440
Speaker 1: These other things keeps building here r yeah.

1375
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:46,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then she she becomes on like she's on

1376
01:00:46,320 --> 01:00:48,240
Speaker 3: tape now like basically the co host with me, and

1377
01:00:48,320 --> 01:00:50,880
Speaker 3: like like it's so great to see that arc and

1378
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:52,840
Speaker 3: she's just it's just together, we just have a really

1379
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:56,000
Speaker 3: good way of working together, like her her strengths sort

1380
01:00:56,040 --> 01:00:58,840
Speaker 3: of compliment mine and that, and vice versa, so we

1381
01:00:58,840 --> 01:01:00,560
Speaker 3: can sort of go off in our own little direction

1382
01:01:00,640 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 3: a little bit. It's really nice.

1383
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:07,000
Speaker 1: How do you feel about the genre of true crime today?

1384
01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:11,480
Speaker 1: Because there's clearly been a major surge in the past

1385
01:01:12,200 --> 01:01:18,040
Speaker 1: six seven years. To me, like the Landmark moment was cereal. Yeah,

1386
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 1: you know, the Jinks is making a murderer, These big,

1387
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:26,720
Speaker 1: splashy zeitgeist moments that I guess in a way maybe

1388
01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:30,720
Speaker 1: grabbed even more people's attention into true crime stories. And

1389
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:35,160
Speaker 1: it's just just snowballs since then. You've been doing this

1390
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:39,120
Speaker 1: stuff for a long time. How do you feel about

1391
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:42,360
Speaker 1: true crime is a genre and the stuff people are

1392
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:45,000
Speaker 1: putting out good, bad, ugly just in general?

1393
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:47,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I really I still love it. I

1394
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:50,880
Speaker 3: mean I really do if they're really well done, especially

1395
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:53,000
Speaker 3: kind of like you like, somebody will say you got

1396
01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:55,600
Speaker 3: to listen to this, you know. Atlanta Monster is one

1397
01:01:55,600 --> 01:01:57,400
Speaker 3: I found on my own, and I was like telling everybody.

1398
01:01:57,600 --> 01:01:58,680
Speaker 3: I was the person out there.

1399
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:00,960
Speaker 1: Going, OK, yeah, that's awesome, thank you.

1400
01:02:01,040 --> 01:02:02,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I thought, because it's like those are kind

1401
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:05,680
Speaker 3: of rare sometimes going into you know, Atlanta and doing

1402
01:02:05,720 --> 01:02:07,760
Speaker 3: basically a story where all the victims are black.

1403
01:02:08,040 --> 01:02:09,200
Speaker 1: I was terrified of that.

1404
01:02:09,360 --> 01:02:11,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's like, who am I to be telling

1405
01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:12,160
Speaker 3: this story all that?

1406
01:02:12,400 --> 01:02:14,320
Speaker 1: SAND was like why is it me? And and yeah

1407
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:16,440
Speaker 1: and then or why? Then? I was like, ok, am

1408
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:18,440
Speaker 1: I getting in my own way by not telling this

1409
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:21,880
Speaker 1: story because I'm thinking that? And you know, thankfully I

1410
01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:24,200
Speaker 1: my business partner, Donald is black, and I was able

1411
01:02:24,280 --> 01:02:27,520
Speaker 1: to tell vulnerably tell him these things right, and he's like,

1412
01:02:27,560 --> 01:02:29,440
Speaker 1: hey man, look and he was able to tell me

1413
01:02:30,240 --> 01:02:33,440
Speaker 1: what was, validate what I was thinking and saying, and

1414
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:35,280
Speaker 1: kind of be my guide a little bit, so I

1415
01:02:35,320 --> 01:02:38,000
Speaker 1: didn't feel like I was entering a territory that I

1416
01:02:38,040 --> 01:02:42,600
Speaker 1: shouldn't but also respectfully letting everyone else tell their story. Actually, yeah,

1417
01:02:42,640 --> 01:02:42,920
Speaker 1: you know.

1418
01:02:43,160 --> 01:02:45,200
Speaker 3: That's really interesting that you say that, because I that

1419
01:02:45,200 --> 01:02:48,080
Speaker 3: that happens to me a lot. Like people quite like, well,

1420
01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 3: gives you the right to tell this story? You know,

1421
01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:52,160
Speaker 3: Like I'm like, you know, all the black people idea,

1422
01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:53,880
Speaker 3: it is like they're the ones that are helping me.

1423
01:02:53,920 --> 01:02:55,200
Speaker 3: They're like do this, you gotta do this.

1424
01:02:55,440 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 4: You know, they'd be like shut the fuck up's really

1425
01:02:58,160 --> 01:02:58,520
Speaker 4: do it?

1426
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:01,640
Speaker 3: Like I'm never gonna resistance from black people. They're like,

1427
01:03:01,960 --> 01:03:02,640
Speaker 3: go ahead, we'll tell you.

1428
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:04,920
Speaker 1: What someone's doing it. Yeah, another white story.

1429
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:07,280
Speaker 3: It's like right, But then there's like the other side

1430
01:03:07,320 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 3: of it where it's you know, like I find it

1431
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:12,320
Speaker 3: like sometimes in academic you'll get questioned about that, like

1432
01:03:12,440 --> 01:03:15,320
Speaker 3: are you appropriating these voices? I'm like, yeah, I like

1433
01:03:15,720 --> 01:03:18,280
Speaker 3: my answer to that, like is like I'm actually, for

1434
01:03:18,320 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 3: the most part in my books, I'm investigating white supremacy.

1435
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:23,240
Speaker 3: That's what I'm doing, and I'm finding all the documentation.

1436
01:03:24,960 --> 01:03:27,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just you know what that is.

1437
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:29,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so it's like if I was, I mean,

1438
01:03:29,560 --> 01:03:31,920
Speaker 3: the problem is you can't write about criminal justice in

1439
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:35,040
Speaker 3: America without talking about race. And so like you go

1440
01:03:35,160 --> 01:03:37,120
Speaker 3: back and look at these stories, it like race is

1441
01:03:37,120 --> 01:03:39,959
Speaker 3: a big part of it. But I'm not like trying

1442
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:42,440
Speaker 3: to take the lives of these young men and appropriate

1443
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:44,600
Speaker 3: them and tell their stories. That's not what the work

1444
01:03:44,680 --> 01:03:47,320
Speaker 3: is about. So once I sort of explain that her,

1445
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:49,240
Speaker 3: once people like read it, they go, oh, I get it. Now,

1446
01:03:49,240 --> 01:03:51,840
Speaker 3: I get what you're doing. So, you know, and I

1447
01:03:51,840 --> 01:03:54,440
Speaker 3: think with that with true crime too, like you know,

1448
01:03:54,480 --> 01:03:56,600
Speaker 3: there's there's cases out there that just when I hear

1449
01:03:56,640 --> 01:03:58,640
Speaker 3: about them, and I hear the way they're executed, they

1450
01:03:58,720 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 3: just blow me away, you know, like just like wow.

1451
01:04:01,520 --> 01:04:04,560
Speaker 3: And most of those, for my part, are like wrongfully

1452
01:04:04,600 --> 01:04:07,919
Speaker 3: convicted stories, you know, stories about wrongful convictions, because there's

1453
01:04:07,960 --> 01:04:09,920
Speaker 3: some real urgency in it about somebody.

1454
01:04:09,720 --> 01:04:14,320
Speaker 1: Who's story is on death row. Right, Yeah, if they

1455
01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:18,360
Speaker 1: didn't do it now is when we do something about it, right,

1456
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:20,080
Speaker 1: That's that's some real urgency right there.

1457
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:23,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so it feels like, you know, like those

1458
01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:24,920
Speaker 3: kind of stories, like I just feel like when you

1459
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:27,360
Speaker 3: could feel that urgency and you you know, you know

1460
01:04:27,440 --> 01:04:30,840
Speaker 3: how important this is to to everybody, it gives you

1461
01:04:30,840 --> 01:04:33,000
Speaker 3: a little more more gravitas and a little bit more

1462
01:04:33,120 --> 01:04:36,120
Speaker 3: passion I think to like try to do something. But

1463
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:38,960
Speaker 3: you know, I definitely struggle with it, you know, like

1464
01:04:38,960 --> 01:04:40,920
Speaker 3: like the journalistic side of it, Like should I be

1465
01:04:40,960 --> 01:04:43,920
Speaker 3: that close? And I realized I have to be because

1466
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:46,720
Speaker 3: I get done all my investigation. I know the truth now.

1467
01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:49,480
Speaker 3: I mean as far as I can know, I believe this,

1468
01:04:49,640 --> 01:04:51,640
Speaker 3: and like I'm not going to just like stand.

1469
01:04:51,400 --> 01:04:53,360
Speaker 1: Back and not be Yeah, that would be the wrong

1470
01:04:53,400 --> 01:04:56,160
Speaker 1: thing to do. It's yeah, being close is almost just

1471
01:04:56,360 --> 01:04:59,320
Speaker 1: part of the deal. And then you it's up for

1472
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:01,880
Speaker 1: you to figure out out how close is too close

1473
01:05:02,360 --> 01:05:06,120
Speaker 1: really for the protection of others, Yeah, even more than

1474
01:05:06,120 --> 01:05:09,480
Speaker 1: yourself sometimes, you know, knowing too much or saying too

1475
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:13,240
Speaker 1: much too soon, being considerate of what this might look

1476
01:05:13,240 --> 01:05:15,760
Speaker 1: and sound like to everyone else around. Who is a

1477
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:18,800
Speaker 1: bigger part of this real story, real life than you are?

1478
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:21,920
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, And you know, I also look back, like

1479
01:05:21,920 --> 01:05:24,080
Speaker 3: at you know, you look at the history of journalism,

1480
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 3: and like Ida Tarbell one hundred years ago, she did

1481
01:05:28,000 --> 01:05:30,760
Speaker 3: the stories that really brought down Standard oil so this

1482
01:05:30,840 --> 01:05:34,480
Speaker 3: is an illegal monopoly and went after John D. Rockefeller

1483
01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 3: for you know, destroying and she did an amazing job.

1484
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 3: She wrote this multi serious thing that just really it

1485
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:43,880
Speaker 3: broke up Standard Oil. That's because the public And like

1486
01:05:43,960 --> 01:05:46,280
Speaker 3: you think, well, was she biased, Yeah, she really was.

1487
01:05:46,400 --> 01:05:47,600
Speaker 3: Her her father was.

1488
01:05:47,600 --> 01:05:49,360
Speaker 1: She had a mission and she did it. Yeah. But

1489
01:05:49,400 --> 01:05:51,560
Speaker 1: also it was just facts, Yeah.

1490
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:53,040
Speaker 3: It was it was she was telling it factually. But

1491
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:56,400
Speaker 3: like she got involved because Rockefeller ruined her father's business. Yeah,

1492
01:05:56,440 --> 01:05:58,640
Speaker 3: and she's like this is wrong and she knew it

1493
01:05:58,760 --> 01:06:01,480
Speaker 3: and she went out and investigated. But like she's biased,

1494
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:03,840
Speaker 3: and like I know that, like you know, Ida B.

1495
01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 3: Wells when she was investigating lynchings, she thought lynchings were wrong.

1496
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:09,040
Speaker 3: She took a side on that, you know, like, right,

1497
01:06:09,160 --> 01:06:10,960
Speaker 3: I feel like it's okay to take a side in

1498
01:06:11,040 --> 01:06:12,520
Speaker 3: journalism exactly.

1499
01:06:12,560 --> 01:06:15,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that with journalism, those lines more

1500
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:18,440
Speaker 1: than ever, I think have been blurred and blurred. And

1501
01:06:19,200 --> 01:06:21,320
Speaker 1: I mean there's places that you can go to get

1502
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:25,320
Speaker 1: maybe the most objective, or there's people who strive to

1503
01:06:25,440 --> 01:06:27,800
Speaker 1: be that. But I mean, shit, if you're talking about

1504
01:06:27,800 --> 01:06:30,120
Speaker 1: the media and stuff, yeah, it's like what do you mean?

1505
01:06:30,200 --> 01:06:34,080
Speaker 1: It's like where did you hear that story? Because everyone's

1506
01:06:34,160 --> 01:06:36,200
Speaker 1: telling you kind of what they want to tell you, right,

1507
01:06:36,200 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 1: being real, right, yeah, yeah, and then.

1508
01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:40,520
Speaker 3: You know you're just up against a lot of a

1509
01:06:40,520 --> 01:06:43,280
Speaker 3: lot of that. But like, you know, the thing is

1510
01:06:43,320 --> 01:06:45,640
Speaker 3: like when you when you start working on these different

1511
01:06:45,720 --> 01:06:47,479
Speaker 3: years and you start figuring it out, and you feel

1512
01:06:47,480 --> 01:06:49,360
Speaker 3: like you know as much as anybody, and you're like,

1513
01:06:49,520 --> 01:06:52,760
Speaker 3: obviously this is where the story lies. You know, I'm

1514
01:06:52,800 --> 01:06:54,840
Speaker 3: not going to risk my career by going, you know,

1515
01:06:55,000 --> 01:06:57,520
Speaker 3: putting my you know self out there for somebody. I

1516
01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:00,520
Speaker 3: think it did it. Yeah, So like I sometimes those

1517
01:07:00,600 --> 01:07:01,800
Speaker 3: arguments just kind of wash off me.

1518
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:04,360
Speaker 1: You have like just let them reloriously. Yeah, it's like clearly,

1519
01:07:04,680 --> 01:07:06,959
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not making this up because that would

1520
01:07:06,960 --> 01:07:10,040
Speaker 1: be very dumb of me. Right, and I'm finally convicted.

1521
01:07:10,160 --> 01:07:12,560
Speaker 1: I believe this, and you know, yeah.

1522
01:07:12,320 --> 01:07:15,680
Speaker 3: That's another thing that I often think about, like, you know,

1523
01:07:15,760 --> 01:07:18,400
Speaker 3: like the difference between a writer or a podcast or

1524
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:21,280
Speaker 3: any anybody who's doing these kind of stories. You know,

1525
01:07:21,920 --> 01:07:25,439
Speaker 3: if you make a mistake and you like, let's just say,

1526
01:07:25,480 --> 01:07:28,280
Speaker 3: like you're writing a story about some case and you

1527
01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:30,560
Speaker 3: come across a document and go, oh, this makes them

1528
01:07:30,600 --> 01:07:33,040
Speaker 3: look really guilty. I'm going to hide this and not

1529
01:07:33,160 --> 01:07:35,520
Speaker 3: let anyone see this because this really ruins my story,

1530
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:38,880
Speaker 3: you know, like your books will be pulled from the shelves.

1531
01:07:38,880 --> 01:07:41,520
Speaker 3: You'll probably get called out on this, right, And I

1532
01:07:41,600 --> 01:07:44,000
Speaker 3: look at this when prosecutors are doing that and nothing

1533
01:07:44,040 --> 01:07:46,120
Speaker 3: ever happens to them, Like they don't have the kind

1534
01:07:46,120 --> 01:07:49,080
Speaker 3: of accountability I would. My name would be destroyed if

1535
01:07:49,080 --> 01:07:51,240
Speaker 3: I did something like that. But these guys will well

1536
01:07:51,360 --> 01:07:54,640
Speaker 3: on to the next case because there's just no accountability

1537
01:07:54,680 --> 01:07:56,720
Speaker 3: for that kind of stuff. And that's what I was seeing,

1538
01:07:56,760 --> 01:07:59,680
Speaker 3: like and a lot of these investigations, like these prosecutors

1539
01:07:59,680 --> 01:08:02,120
Speaker 3: did this. The worst thing that ever happens to them,

1540
01:08:02,160 --> 01:08:05,360
Speaker 3: is they get their name mentioned in a higher courts brief.

1541
01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:08,240
Speaker 3: You know, in the opinion they'll say the prosecutor aired

1542
01:08:08,760 --> 01:08:12,880
Speaker 3: in withholding evidence that would have benefited the defendant. Like

1543
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:14,800
Speaker 3: that's the worst thing that can happen to you, is

1544
01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:16,880
Speaker 3: like getting named in opinion. You don't lose your job

1545
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:19,880
Speaker 3: for that, like you ruin somebody's life. And so like

1546
01:08:20,040 --> 01:08:23,360
Speaker 3: sometimes this whole argument like about like, well, you know,

1547
01:08:23,600 --> 01:08:25,759
Speaker 3: I don't. We don't try our cases in public opinion.

1548
01:08:25,960 --> 01:08:28,160
Speaker 3: We do it in the court where there's gravitas. I'm like,

1549
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:31,400
Speaker 3: that's where things are happening that are really shitty are happening.

1550
01:08:32,320 --> 01:08:34,719
Speaker 1: That's one of those broken things that we we're still

1551
01:08:34,720 --> 01:08:36,639
Speaker 1: working on, right right, Yeah, And you.

1552
01:08:36,600 --> 01:08:39,080
Speaker 3: Know, like I feel like I have accountability if I

1553
01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:42,320
Speaker 3: if I started withholding documents someone found them, Like my

1554
01:08:42,840 --> 01:08:46,280
Speaker 3: reputation is trash exactly, which is probably as it should be.

1555
01:08:46,720 --> 01:08:49,320
Speaker 3: But why isn't the prosecutor who actually did real harm

1556
01:08:49,320 --> 01:08:52,040
Speaker 3: by sending innocent man to prison? Why does he just

1557
01:08:52,080 --> 01:08:53,800
Speaker 3: get to go on to the next case. That doesn't

1558
01:08:53,800 --> 01:08:54,439
Speaker 3: make any sense to me.

1559
01:08:54,520 --> 01:08:56,160
Speaker 1: It was the level of like, if you're the prosecutor

1560
01:08:56,200 --> 01:08:59,040
Speaker 1: who's trying to put this person behind bars. The first

1561
01:08:59,040 --> 01:09:01,640
Speaker 1: thing you wave to the jury is that thing. Right,

1562
01:09:01,680 --> 01:09:04,840
Speaker 1: if you're the defense, you don't wave that first. You

1563
01:09:04,920 --> 01:09:07,599
Speaker 1: wave the other thing that makes them look better first,

1564
01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:12,519
Speaker 1: and then you talk about what you acknowledge that bad thing,

1565
01:09:13,240 --> 01:09:16,920
Speaker 1: whatever explanation that you have. It's it's like the same thing, right.

1566
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:19,040
Speaker 1: It's very strange, Yeah, it is.

1567
01:09:19,080 --> 01:09:21,920
Speaker 3: And you see that constantly reports, you know, like you know,

1568
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:24,960
Speaker 3: prosecutors and just like things that are happening, they just

1569
01:09:25,040 --> 01:09:28,559
Speaker 3: kind of snowball and it's almost like the judges are

1570
01:09:28,600 --> 01:09:29,920
Speaker 3: from that and a lot of them are from the

1571
01:09:29,920 --> 01:09:32,280
Speaker 3: same prosecutor's office. Yeah, so they kind of know that

1572
01:09:32,439 --> 01:09:35,040
Speaker 3: language and they're like, okay, we'll just let this slide.

1573
01:09:35,080 --> 01:09:37,720
Speaker 3: We know, let's not name him publicly. That's that's the

1574
01:09:37,760 --> 01:09:39,320
Speaker 3: thing they do. It's got to get really bad if

1575
01:09:39,360 --> 01:09:41,960
Speaker 3: they name you. Instead of saying the prosecutor, they say

1576
01:09:42,000 --> 01:09:43,120
Speaker 3: John Smith. You know.

1577
01:09:43,320 --> 01:09:43,519
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1578
01:09:43,640 --> 01:09:47,880
Speaker 3: But usually, like you know, the withholding evidence Brady violations,

1579
01:09:48,080 --> 01:09:51,120
Speaker 3: they're just the prosecutor aired in doing this, or you know,

1580
01:09:51,200 --> 01:09:53,840
Speaker 3: the police the policeman misspoke.

1581
01:09:53,800 --> 01:09:56,000
Speaker 1: Like oh he lied on this note, he didn't he

1582
01:09:56,080 --> 01:09:57,040
Speaker 1: bolt faced lie?

1583
01:09:57,160 --> 01:10:00,479
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, And so I find this like a

1584
01:10:00,520 --> 01:10:03,000
Speaker 3: lot of the stuff I'm dealing with, like, you know,

1585
01:10:03,240 --> 01:10:06,120
Speaker 3: the Sheriff's office, Like in one of the cases that

1586
01:10:06,160 --> 01:10:09,560
Speaker 3: we were investigating, the guy got acquitted because it was

1587
01:10:09,600 --> 01:10:11,920
Speaker 3: the wrong guy. You tried the wrong guy. And what

1588
01:10:12,000 --> 01:10:14,560
Speaker 3: happened was one of the main witnesses stood up in

1589
01:10:14,600 --> 01:10:16,360
Speaker 3: court and said, I can't do this anymore. I'm lying.

1590
01:10:16,720 --> 01:10:18,760
Speaker 3: I lied in the first trial. They're making me say this.

1591
01:10:19,040 --> 01:10:19,879
Speaker 3: It's all bullshit.

1592
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:20,439
Speaker 1: Wow.

1593
01:10:20,560 --> 01:10:23,120
Speaker 3: And the trial grinds to a halt and the guy's acquitted.

1594
01:10:23,680 --> 01:10:25,960
Speaker 3: And then I asked the sheriff like about this, and

1595
01:10:25,960 --> 01:10:29,080
Speaker 3: they said, well, he got off on a technicality, like technicality,

1596
01:10:29,640 --> 01:10:32,600
Speaker 3: it was a it was an acquittal. That's not a technicality.

1597
01:10:32,600 --> 01:10:33,800
Speaker 1: You got into the constitution.

1598
01:10:34,080 --> 01:10:37,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, like I don't know how Like they're always like, well,

1599
01:10:37,120 --> 01:10:38,800
Speaker 3: you have to respect the juries to say you only

1600
01:10:38,800 --> 01:10:40,880
Speaker 3: say that when they're when they convict, but when they're innocent,

1601
01:10:40,960 --> 01:10:42,479
Speaker 3: you're out there saying, well, we got the right guy.

1602
01:10:42,680 --> 01:10:45,879
Speaker 1: It's just because again when they don't get what you want, yeah, exactly.

1603
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:48,599
Speaker 3: And so like there's those kind of things that are

1604
01:10:48,600 --> 01:10:51,000
Speaker 3: happening in the courtroom. They're like, oh man, that's that

1605
01:10:51,120 --> 01:10:52,400
Speaker 3: that doesn't seem legit to me.

1606
01:10:53,360 --> 01:10:57,360
Speaker 1: On the Bone Valley podcast, you know, what's the future

1607
01:10:57,360 --> 01:11:01,120
Speaker 1: of you and other podcasts? New seasons.

1608
01:11:01,320 --> 01:11:04,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're you know, looking into a second season. And

1609
01:11:04,479 --> 01:11:07,879
Speaker 3: you know, it's always hard because you know, the impulse

1610
01:11:07,920 --> 01:11:10,639
Speaker 3: is to just find a completely new case. We had

1611
01:11:10,640 --> 01:11:13,639
Speaker 3: something happen within this case because we obviously never stopped

1612
01:11:13,640 --> 01:11:16,920
Speaker 3: investigating after the podcast case. It never thought little things

1613
01:11:16,920 --> 01:11:18,920
Speaker 3: were coming up. I'm like, oh, and so yeah, we're

1614
01:11:18,920 --> 01:11:20,800
Speaker 3: going We're diving back into it. We're gonna go back.

1615
01:11:21,040 --> 01:11:23,680
Speaker 3: I love the same area. It's just like kind of

1616
01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:25,280
Speaker 3: an offshoot from what we were doing before.

1617
01:11:25,360 --> 01:11:27,960
Speaker 1: But that's smart. You already have a base there too,

1618
01:11:28,000 --> 01:11:31,639
Speaker 1: and you have resources and keep picking away if there's

1619
01:11:31,680 --> 01:11:32,240
Speaker 1: something there.

1620
01:11:32,400 --> 01:11:34,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is, Like there's some there's a new angle

1621
01:11:34,280 --> 01:11:36,360
Speaker 3: that it took and it's really interesting and and uh

1622
01:11:36,880 --> 01:11:38,920
Speaker 3: so we're just starting to really develop it and get

1623
01:11:38,960 --> 01:11:40,639
Speaker 3: into it. But I'm pretty sure it's going to happen.

1624
01:11:40,720 --> 01:11:41,679
Speaker 1: So that's exciting.

1625
01:11:41,880 --> 01:11:44,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I'm writing a book about this Bone

1626
01:11:44,280 --> 01:11:46,439
Speaker 3: Valley case, which I never wanted to do, Like I

1627
01:11:46,560 --> 01:11:47,000
Speaker 3: was why not.

1628
01:11:47,120 --> 01:11:49,280
Speaker 1: I mean that that's what you're that's what you're you

1629
01:11:49,280 --> 01:11:51,479
Speaker 1: would think right, I've been the best at forever. So

1630
01:11:52,120 --> 01:11:54,439
Speaker 1: now you're like, no, I want to do podcasts only yeah.

1631
01:11:54,560 --> 01:11:56,200
Speaker 3: Because everyone's like, what are you gonna write them? Because

1632
01:11:56,200 --> 01:11:57,639
Speaker 3: there's a lot of stuff we had to leave out

1633
01:11:57,720 --> 01:11:59,840
Speaker 3: of the podcast. It just goes down these you know,

1634
01:12:00,479 --> 01:12:03,559
Speaker 3: rabbit holes, and uh, finally I just said, you know what,

1635
01:12:03,640 --> 01:12:05,679
Speaker 3: I just I have to do this. There's we left

1636
01:12:05,680 --> 01:12:07,679
Speaker 3: out a lot, and there's so much more to say,

1637
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:10,080
Speaker 3: and and I've already done all the research, so now

1638
01:12:10,080 --> 01:12:12,280
Speaker 3: it's just a matter of writing it again. But it's

1639
01:12:12,439 --> 01:12:15,000
Speaker 3: it's it's nice because we can add a lot to

1640
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:18,000
Speaker 3: it that listeners have never heard before. Oh yeah, you know,

1641
01:12:18,000 --> 01:12:20,120
Speaker 3: we had hundreds of hours of tape and stuff that

1642
01:12:20,280 --> 01:12:22,360
Speaker 3: we didn't go in those directions, and it really needs

1643
01:12:22,400 --> 01:12:24,439
Speaker 3: to go in some of those directions. So I'm gonna

1644
01:12:24,479 --> 01:12:25,840
Speaker 3: be busy with this for the next year.

1645
01:12:26,160 --> 01:12:29,120
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, And please bring in the guy who you

1646
01:12:29,160 --> 01:12:32,519
Speaker 1: went fishing with, dude, Oh yeah, because that guy he

1647
01:12:32,680 --> 01:12:35,240
Speaker 1: is great. Yeah, and invite me next time you're out

1648
01:12:35,280 --> 01:12:35,559
Speaker 1: there too.

1649
01:12:35,720 --> 01:12:37,200
Speaker 3: Go oh yeah, he's got his own boat and we

1650
01:12:37,280 --> 01:12:39,960
Speaker 3: go out with these other cops and it's just, you know,

1651
01:12:40,120 --> 01:12:42,400
Speaker 3: there's nothing better than fishing. With cops and just hearing

1652
01:12:42,439 --> 01:12:45,280
Speaker 3: the stories from them, you know, just yeah, the ones

1653
01:12:45,320 --> 01:12:47,280
Speaker 3: that got away, the ones that did you know, everything,

1654
01:12:47,840 --> 01:12:48,719
Speaker 3: true characters.

1655
01:12:49,200 --> 01:12:53,320
Speaker 1: Really well, thank you man. This has been an absolute blast.

1656
01:12:53,400 --> 01:12:54,400
Speaker 3: Oh it was a pleasure.

1657
01:12:54,439 --> 01:12:56,120
Speaker 1: And I really I'll look up to you too, and

1658
01:12:56,320 --> 01:12:58,920
Speaker 1: you're you're talented individual and you know, I'm glad that

1659
01:12:58,920 --> 01:13:02,439
Speaker 1: we're in the same space together, and you know, I

1660
01:13:02,520 --> 01:13:05,160
Speaker 1: would be flat out of one day our passed across

1661
01:13:05,200 --> 01:13:07,000
Speaker 1: on some sort of project, and you know, I.

1662
01:13:06,960 --> 01:13:08,920
Speaker 3: Would love that. I've been listening to the show and

1663
01:13:09,000 --> 01:13:11,320
Speaker 3: like I just it's really you guys are really good together,

1664
01:13:11,520 --> 01:13:13,760
Speaker 3: like you and Mark. That was a really great Thank

1665
01:13:13,800 --> 01:13:14,000
Speaker 3: you man.

1666
01:13:14,040 --> 01:13:14,640
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.

1667
01:13:14,760 --> 01:13:16,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I want to be listening more so.

1668
01:13:16,400 --> 01:13:19,120
Speaker 1: Awesome, Thank you, Payne, thank you so much. I appreciate man. Yeah,

1669
01:13:19,360 --> 01:13:20,160
Speaker 1: nice meeting you too.

1670
01:13:20,320 --> 01:13:25,679
Speaker 2: Likewise, Talking to Death is a production of Tenorfoot TV

1671
01:13:25,920 --> 01:13:30,000
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts, created and hosted by Payne Lindsay. For

1672
01:13:30,120 --> 01:13:34,080
Speaker 2: Tenderfoot TV, executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright.

1673
01:13:34,560 --> 01:13:39,000
Speaker 2: Co executive producer is Mike Rooney. For iHeart Podcasts, executive

1674
01:13:39,000 --> 01:13:42,799
Speaker 2: producers are Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, with original music

1675
01:13:42,920 --> 01:13:46,719
Speaker 2: by Makeup and Vanity Set. Additional production by Mike Rooney,

1676
01:13:46,880 --> 01:13:51,640
Speaker 2: Dylan Harrington, Sean Nurney, Dayton Cole, and Gustav Wilde for Coohedo.

1677
01:13:52,120 --> 01:13:56,080
Speaker 2: Production support by Tracy Kaplan, Mara Davis, and Trevor Young.

1678
01:13:56,560 --> 01:14:00,360
Speaker 2: Mixing and mastering by Cooper Skinner and Dayton Cole. Our

1679
01:14:00,400 --> 01:14:03,720
Speaker 2: cover art was created by Rob Sheridan. Check out our

1680
01:14:03,760 --> 01:14:11,960
Speaker 2: website Talking todeathpodcast dot com.

1681
01:14:12,040 --> 01:14:14,320
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Talking to Death.

1682
01:14:14,760 --> 01:14:18,160
Speaker 1: This series is released weekly absolutely free, but if you

1683
01:14:18,160 --> 01:14:21,679
Speaker 1: want ad free listening and exclusive bonuses, you can subscribe

1684
01:14:21,720 --> 01:14:25,920
Speaker 1: to tenderfoot plus on Apple Podcasts or go to tenderfootplus

1685
01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:29,839
Speaker 1: dot com