Speaker 1: The Red Weather is a work of fiction. Any resemblance
Speaker 1: to actual persons or events reflects the adaptation of real,
Speaker 1: publicly available materials for creative and legal reasons. The content
Speaker 1: of this podcast is the sole responsibility of Red Weather
Speaker 1: LLC and does not reflect the views of responsibilities of
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia or its affiliates. Previously on The Red Weather in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, my neighbor and a trainer disappeared from
Speaker 1: a commune.
Speaker 2: They looked at Mick.
Speaker 3: He had somebody with him every step of the way,
Speaker 3: and we know he was with you for the rest
Speaker 3: of the night.
Speaker 4: She full won't changed his story.
Speaker 5: Suddenly she's dating Mick.
Speaker 1: Oh so they dated for real though?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Six months.
Speaker 1: Registered Harjenna on November eighteen, nineteen ninety five. So she
Speaker 1: had a new car within two weeks. Yeah. But it's
Speaker 1: not until this interview, which is her third one, that
Speaker 1: she says that she was with Mick Boten.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Moldinata.
Speaker 4: You want to talk about how this guy can look
Speaker 4: the other way when it comes to Mick. You got
Speaker 4: to talk about his campaign the next year. Who paid
Speaker 4: for that shit?
Speaker 1: I knew about him?
Speaker 2: A mixtape, A Haunted tape.
Speaker 8: It was many and many a year ago in a
Speaker 8: kingdom by the sea.
Speaker 1: This is Anna Traynor's voice, which I hadn't heard in
Speaker 1: thirty years. It's the infamous Haunted tape. It turns out
Speaker 1: it's a mixtape that Anna made in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: So there's music, of course, songs like Sour Times by Portoishead,
Speaker 1: songs she must have loved or felt compelled to share,
Speaker 1: but also, like a lot of us did back then,
Speaker 1: Anna recorded herself talking, and mostly she sounds like a
Speaker 1: teenager intents. At times, like when she reads ed Garland Poe,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 8: A child and she was a child in this kingdom
Speaker 8: by the sea. But we loved with a love that
Speaker 8: was more than love. I and my Annabelle Lee, with
Speaker 8: a love that the winged serifs of heaven coveted her
Speaker 8: and me.
Speaker 1: Other times she's completely irreverent, like when she records herself
Speaker 1: going through a drive through at McDonald's.
Speaker 8: Yeah number two, no pickles, but a coke two cops.
Speaker 9: Please, no, no, no, m.
Speaker 6: It is so good. No no. Never mind that she
Speaker 6: would drinks like a glass or wood or like not
Speaker 6: even like a glasshoul drink like a bottle of wine
Speaker 6: like every night, which is poison every day. Oh but
Speaker 6: god forbid, I have a fucking Coca Cola. Well you
Speaker 6: know what, Lany, this sons for you.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna have to choco a little latte.
Speaker 8: Wait one to chalk a little latte, talk a little
Speaker 8: l that's you.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what's going on here? Some kind
Speaker 1: of in joke.
Speaker 8: Wait that look on the lady's face.
Speaker 3: I can believe you said that.
Speaker 1: I can understand why the rumors started that this was
Speaker 1: a voice from beyond the grave. There are moments that
Speaker 1: feel eerie, especially not knowing what happened to her, Lucky,
Speaker 1: I really do you. It felt like a window cracked
Speaker 1: through time, a direct connection. I thought for sure it
Speaker 1: would open up a whole new line of investigation, but
Speaker 1: actually it had the opposite effect. I am actor and filmmaker,
Speaker 1: right or strong? This is the red weather last week
Speaker 1: had changed the way I was thinking about Anna's disappearance.
Speaker 1: I was talking with Sheriff Maldonado, the lead investigator from
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, and starting to wonder why he chose
Speaker 1: to focus on some suspects and ignore others.
Speaker 4: I know he got Crechateu story got Maldo to look
Speaker 4: the other way.
Speaker 1: And I had sat down with Sparks, an old acquaintance
Speaker 1: who was convinced, convinced that Maldonado and the Sheriff's department
Speaker 1: were thoroughly corrupt.
Speaker 4: Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over
Speaker 4: hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend who
Speaker 4: was all pissed because their girls sleeping around.
Speaker 1: I kind of agreed. I got in the vibe that
Speaker 1: Tender Hearts was a boogeyman for Maldonado. But why would
Speaker 1: they wanted to not be Mick? Well, one reason might
Speaker 1: be Mick's family. His dad, Thomas Boden, was an early
Speaker 1: Microsoft investor back in the pre dot com boom. Mick
Speaker 1: grew up on a big house with its own vineyard.
Speaker 1: My brother remembers.
Speaker 5: It, and it kind of stuck out like in the field. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it was like open vineyards and then it's just this
Speaker 5: big yeah like PLoP down. Yes, Well it's like that
Speaker 5: faux like Italian Tuscan wannabe vibe.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: So it's like just a huge it's a mansion, big
Speaker 5: mansion house, but it's trying to like be like classy
Speaker 5: at the same.
Speaker 4: Time rich perfect football play. And yeah, stud, you.
Speaker 1: Know Mick was rich on track. He already had early
Speaker 1: acceptance to Stanford. In other words, Mike and his family
Speaker 1: were good, upstanding folks, while Anna and the Tender Hearts
Speaker 1: was a sleazy, creepy commune. But in real terms, Sparks
Speaker 1: was sure that Mick's family had actually contributed to Maldonado's
Speaker 1: campaign for County sheriff the next year.
Speaker 4: Daddy promises Samullah. They half asked their investigation goes.
Speaker 3: Away journalism one all one, follow the money.
Speaker 1: That's Monica Tremblaine, the reporter who covered the case. So
Speaker 1: when I was in there with the evidence, Maldonado did
Speaker 1: this weird thing. I told her that Maldonado helped me
Speaker 1: sneak photos at the Sheriff's department, which felt to me
Speaker 1: like a sign of his corruptibility. No, I wouldn't read
Speaker 1: too much into that. I mean, I have sources all
Speaker 1: the time, back channel sources. So yeah, I guess you're right.
Speaker 10: It's not like this one little move means that he's
Speaker 10: a crooked cop.
Speaker 2: I mean, but helping you, helping a lad, that's what
Speaker 2: you want, right, Like, how do you think we got
Speaker 2: the Pentagon papers Watergate?
Speaker 1: I mean, as a journalist, that's the goal. I'm hardly
Speaker 1: a journalist. What are you waiting for information? She said
Speaker 1: she would look into the campaign contributions. All right, Well, really,
Speaker 1: what we need to do is get a hold of Mike.
Speaker 1: I had been trying to reach Mick from the moment
Speaker 1: I started this podcast to no avail. I tried every
Speaker 1: number I could find. Hi, is this luke No? I
Speaker 1: even tried to track him down through his brother, who
Speaker 1: had been a friend of mine for a brief moment
Speaker 1: in second and third grade. Okay, sorry about that. Thanks,
Speaker 1: And since our first sit down, Sparks was Mia, the
Speaker 1: mailbox is full and cannot accept any messages at this time. Goodbye,
Speaker 1: which was worrisome. If I was going to use any
Speaker 1: of his information, I would need him. He's not getting
Speaker 1: back to me either. My buddy Chris was the one
Speaker 1: who connected me to Sparks in the first place. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just shitty because he said so many things, and
Speaker 1: you know, I can try and confirm this stuff, but
Speaker 1: if I can't find him, I can't. It makes you
Speaker 1: look bad. Monica had actually interviewed in the nineties. She
Speaker 1: never went on record, but Monica still had her contact info.
Speaker 1: Hey did you know she's a grandmother? Now what this
Speaker 1: idea rocked my world? Yeah? I guess if she had
Speaker 1: a kid when she was twenty or something. Oh, come out, writer,
Speaker 1: it's not that crazy.
Speaker 2: A lot of people have kids young.
Speaker 1: The main feeling that this gave me was embarrassment. Here
Speaker 1: I am running around with a microphone and trying to
Speaker 1: call her about her teenage boyfriend, and she's a grandmother.
Speaker 1: Her life had moved on in every way. Well, if
Speaker 1: not me, then will she talk to you?
Speaker 10: I don't think so. On record.
Speaker 1: After my experience with Malton Otto and Thomas Greer, the
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department liaison, I was feeling more common with the
Speaker 1: idea of reciprocity of making deals. Can you do me
Speaker 1: a favor? Could you send her something and then ask
Speaker 1: her again if she might talk to me. I was
Speaker 1: talking about a copy of the transcript I had smuggled
Speaker 1: out of the Violent Crimes Investigative Unit. I'd noticed something
Speaker 1: from Mick's first conversation with Maldonado. And then this is
Speaker 1: you asking about here?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, harsh I sent Monica a screenshot that I'd collected
Speaker 1: with Maldonado's phone.
Speaker 10: Oh naw, yeah right.
Speaker 1: In their first interview, Maldonado wanted to know why Mick
Speaker 1: was getting paged by Anna, and yet he spent the
Speaker 1: night with you, and here's what he said. Maldonado asks,
Speaker 1: so what about why are you showing up at her
Speaker 1: place so late? Mick says, likes me. Maldonado asks, she's
Speaker 1: your girlfriend, Mick. No, no, Maldonado says, so what a hookup?
Speaker 1: She's Mick? Not even Maldonado says, not hot, Mick. She's there?
Speaker 1: All right? Is there a guy like you? Has a
Speaker 1: lot of these? I do all right? You score, I
Speaker 1: do all right? This was a Mick that I.
Speaker 10: Remembered, and maybe if she knew what Mick had said
Speaker 10: to the cops might change her mind about talking to me.
Speaker 10: You know, right, you're better at this than you think.
Speaker 1: Two days later, Monica called me back, she's gonna talk
Speaker 1: to me. No, she's not gonna talk to you.
Speaker 3: But you know, Mick left something in her car years ago,
Speaker 3: and that was.
Speaker 1: How I got the mixtape. Monica didn't have a tape player,
Speaker 1: but my parents did. In their garage. The day the
Speaker 1: tape arrived, Monica had a trial she was covering, so
Speaker 1: I met her in the parking lot outside the courthouse.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, this was our first time meeting
Speaker 1: in person. Up until now, everything had been over zoom
Speaker 1: on the phone. All right, finally zoom. Sorry I do
Speaker 1: not have a tape player. Yeah no, yeah, would you?
Speaker 1: I just my parents never threw anything away.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm down to hear this, So give me an
Speaker 3: update on this tape the second that you listen to
Speaker 3: it will yeah, you never.
Speaker 1: How to digitize it or whatever, and then I'll send
Speaker 1: you topics. What's uh? What's this? I meant the trial
Speaker 1: that's now murder? Oh really yep? Drugs death death drug
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't get out.
Speaker 3: Okay, gotta get back.
Speaker 9: Recess is probably over.
Speaker 10: Talk soon yeah yeah, okayay.
Speaker 1: Thanks, thank you. I watched her hurry into the courthouse.
Speaker 1: It was really hard for me to imagine her job
Speaker 1: covering multiple cases, the crime beat in general. I was
Speaker 1: only looking into one case, and I was overwhelmed. I
Speaker 1: got home, dusted off my parents' old tape player, and
Speaker 1: got it working. Anna's mix is one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: minutes and it's.
Speaker 10: Full okay, but you have to listen to the whole thing.
Speaker 11: You can't fast forward it.
Speaker 1: Take The first song was Nick Cave's Red Right Hand,
Speaker 1: which launches Anna into a rant about society.
Speaker 7: I think you just like need it to be true
Speaker 7: that like you like me and that I like you.
Speaker 7: But it's not okay. It like isn't okay for society.
Speaker 7: That's what I'm saying, So I say, fuck society.
Speaker 1: Then there's the really unnerving presence of Concrete Lawns Tomorrow
Speaker 1: Wendy with it's chorus.
Speaker 8: And now for your listening pleasure, some more chick music.
Speaker 1: Saints by the Breeders was a song I didn't know.
Speaker 1: It definitely has a manic nineties energy. What she was
Speaker 1: saying didn't make sense, but one thing was clear. It
Speaker 1: put Mick front and center again.
Speaker 8: You're may sailor you're my relife, Nicky, because you are
Speaker 8: so cool.
Speaker 1: I sent Monica a digital copy that I made by
Speaker 1: running the line to my laptop. I was excited. It
Speaker 1: felt like real progress. There was no way the Sheriff's
Speaker 1: department wouldn't revisit Mick as a suspect now. But then
Speaker 1: I mentioned sharing it with them to Monica.
Speaker 3: Wait, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that.
Speaker 1: I would not do that, not yet. What really, why writer,
Speaker 1: you got.
Speaker 3: A source telling you they buried this case. They're corrupt,
Speaker 3: they took bribes.
Speaker 1: Okay, well that's Maldonado maybe, but Lachlan, like.
Speaker 3: They're gonna ask you where you got the tape.
Speaker 1: Look, don't mention my name. Why not.
Speaker 3: I've earned your trust. I gave you the tape because
Speaker 3: she told me that was all right. She chose not
Speaker 3: to turn it into the cops for thirty years.
Speaker 1: But they told me that if there's new evidence that
Speaker 1: could they could open up the case. You believe them,
Speaker 1: you want that? Well maybe?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The greer, the guy, the liaison that they put me,
Speaker 1: he loves me. He's like he's actually ridiculously he's a fan.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Okay, look, don't fall for that.
Speaker 1: Okay, these are not your friends.
Speaker 3: Every cop, every team, law enforcement team that I have
Speaker 3: worked with, given a choice between something that makes them
Speaker 3: look bad and the truth.
Speaker 1: They never choose the truth. The more I thought about it,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel right not sharing evidence, so I didn't
Speaker 1: heed her advice. I wish I had the day I
Speaker 1: got Anna's tape, I listened to it three times all
Speaker 1: the way through. There was this girl, You'll Be a
Speaker 1: Woman Soon, which was from the pulp fiction soundtrack Pearl
Speaker 1: Jam's Daughter. There was some of the hip hop that
Speaker 1: everyone listened to in Sebastopol at the time Diggable Planets
Speaker 1: tribe called Quest. The one that really brought me back
Speaker 1: personally was a song by Annie DiFranco out of Range.
Speaker 1: The second that opening riff started, a memory rushed in Willow,
Speaker 1: cranking the song up while we drove around, bouncing and
Speaker 1: thrashing in her seat the way that only teenagers can do.
Speaker 1: Willow must have been introduced to Anno DiFranco by her sister.
Speaker 1: Some of the most interesting parts of the mix are
Speaker 1: when Anna included movie clips. I remember doing this too.
Speaker 1: The audio is terrible. She must have been holding her
Speaker 1: recorder right up to the TV world Clown's stupid Jetty.
Speaker 9: Day And for me, it's a civil mind.
Speaker 5: Individuality in malawis the personal freedom.
Speaker 1: Asshole that's from Wild at Heart. And this, of course
Speaker 1: I Keebo's singing from My Day.
Speaker 5: He and they had to fit it.
Speaker 2: Since Kim was ten years old and the name came
Speaker 2: in alongside of.
Speaker 1: The trays so called, which I recognized from bad Lands,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite movies. All in all, Anna had
Speaker 1: good taste, and apparently Nick did not. On this tape.
Speaker 8: There will be no Billy Joel, Fuck the Eagles, Fuck
Speaker 8: Hotel California, Fuck your dad's music.
Speaker 1: This is how she talks to him a lot, taunting him,
Speaker 1: teasing him.
Speaker 8: Is this torture?
Speaker 3: What does it hurt?
Speaker 8: Does it make you want to cut your ear off?
Speaker 1: And if you caught that? That's the first of many
Speaker 1: Vincent van goh references.
Speaker 8: Get used to it because I'm picking all the music
Speaker 8: in Operation van go I'm gonna make you camp. You're
Speaker 8: gonna hate it.
Speaker 1: She even reads from a book at one point. It's
Speaker 1: an encyclopedia.
Speaker 11: I guess.
Speaker 8: Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter whose vivid colors
Speaker 8: and expressive fresh work blah blah blah blah, love okay here.
Speaker 8: Van go suffered from severe emotional and psychological problems and
Speaker 8: died in France the age of thirty seven. Thirty seven,
Speaker 8: severe emotional and psychological problems. That's what happens when you
Speaker 8: let society tell you how to feel, which, by the
Speaker 8: way you do it, you do it all the time
Speaker 8: because you're scared.
Speaker 1: All in all, it sounds like she and Mick had
Speaker 1: a pretty strange dynamic.
Speaker 8: Everyone.
Speaker 11: Thanks, you're the man, but.
Speaker 1: I need you.
Speaker 11: And here's why.
Speaker 1: And this is really fucked up about you and your brain.
Speaker 10: You like it when I mean to you.
Speaker 1: There's no way the Sheriff's department wouldn't find this helpful.
Speaker 1: I called my liaison, Thomas Greer, mister Hunter. Yeah, also
Speaker 1: seemingly could only think of me as the guy from
Speaker 1: Boy Meets World. Dunt, dunt, dun. Do you remember that
Speaker 1: Halloween episode which was better than Lachlan who had openly
Speaker 1: dismissed me as an actor? With a podcast like a
Speaker 1: cassette mm hmm old school, Yeah, it's it's got songs
Speaker 1: and then she has movie clips, but she also talks
Speaker 1: a lot to Mick. I was surprised, though, by Greer's
Speaker 1: reaction to the tape. And how do you know it's
Speaker 1: from the real girl, the Hannah? Yeah? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't know for sure, but yeah it's her. I
Speaker 1: mean it's and who gave it to you? I'd rather
Speaker 1: if can I keep that confidential? You know it's your
Speaker 1: tape you called me, But it does doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: much unless it's real. No, it's definitely, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's a direct source. I thought he would have been
Speaker 1: more excited.
Speaker 7: All right, well, uh, why don't you bring it over
Speaker 7: and we'll give it a listen.
Speaker 1: Hi, this is for Thomas Queer. Yeah, I can take that.
Speaker 1: The next morning, I dropped the tape off and Greer
Speaker 1: didn't even come out to get it. I left it
Speaker 1: at the front desk and I met Monica for lunch.
Speaker 1: We met at the Pine Cone Diner and went over
Speaker 1: the tear answer right, I mean, yeah, I don't. It's
Speaker 1: not like I remember her voice perfectly, but it totally fits,
Speaker 1: even though I have no idea what she's talking about
Speaker 1: half the time, more like all his van.
Speaker 10: Go stuff this idea, Yeah, I have no idea.
Speaker 1: The fact that Anna had made this tape for Mick
Speaker 1: and that he'd never brought it forward was not a
Speaker 1: good look for him. But then I have to be
Speaker 1: careful because I went into doing this podcast with a
Speaker 1: chip on my shoulder. Nick Bowden, going all the way
Speaker 1: back to when we were kids, was I don't know
Speaker 1: how to put this delicately not my favorite person. He
Speaker 1: was arrogant, condescending. I was friends with his brother for
Speaker 1: a little bit, and I remember going over to the
Speaker 1: house and Mick would torture us, lock us in a room.
Speaker 1: He was just a dick. Yeah, I just remember him
Speaker 1: just always, yeah, just being a dickhead. Chris in particular,
Speaker 1: was picked on relentlessly by Mick and his friends. Chris
Speaker 1: was a goofy, funny kid with a slightly off sense
Speaker 1: of humor, exactly the kind of kid someone like Mick
Speaker 1: would target. He'd strut around everywhere he went, anywhere he
Speaker 1: went like he owned the place, which maybe served him well.
Speaker 1: Christmas came early for Monster Clicks this week, when the
Speaker 1: new startup was acquired by Pullman Hendrix in a deal
Speaker 1: reportedly in the three to five. Mick did the smart
Speaker 1: Northern California thing and moved into tech out of Stanford.
Speaker 1: He was part of that first dot com boom. He
Speaker 1: sold an ad integration company in two two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: and apparently that sold to a bigger company, which sold
Speaker 1: to a bigger company, and on and on. Do you
Speaker 1: have any idea how much he's worried? It's a lot
Speaker 1: I mean this one. He just invests. He does very
Speaker 1: well with his investment firm, Jaylight. You know he started
Speaker 1: off rich, Yeah, it must be nice, and you said
Speaker 1: that is if you were in a different situation.
Speaker 3: I was really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my dad was a firefighter, my mom like Tom
Speaker 1: class at the JC, and you were on TV as well,
Speaker 1: so working Okay. This was one of the first times
Speaker 1: I got a sense of how good Monica is at
Speaker 1: her job. She was comfortable with conflict and not in
Speaker 1: an aggressive way. She would just let a moment sit there.
Speaker 9: I was just confused because she said must be nice,
Speaker 9: like you wouldn't make We're in totally different world.
Speaker 1: Well, I I grew up in Oakland, so Bronse Park. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that is different. We had spent the last few
Speaker 1: weeks talking obsessively about my childhood and my friends, and
Speaker 1: yet I didn't even know if Monica was married or
Speaker 1: had kids. Before I could ask, she moved right on, yeah, mixed.
Speaker 1: Dad he died. But I do still think it might
Speaker 1: be worth checking out those contributions for right okay right
Speaker 1: the ninety six campaign, she was pounding on her phone.
Speaker 1: It looked like she was writing four different stories at once,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna go to the registrar in person because
Speaker 1: there's nothing digital, and if that does not work, check
Speaker 1: with the FPPC. She sucks glove.
Speaker 3: Legally they're supposed to respond in ten days, but you
Speaker 3: you see, all it works.
Speaker 2: So okay.
Speaker 1: I paid the bill with sparks off the grid, the
Speaker 1: tape with the Sheriff's department, and having interviewed most of
Speaker 1: my family and friends already, I started to feel like
Speaker 1: I should probably head home. How's Indie? I called my wife, Alex.
Speaker 7: Oh, he he's.
Speaker 11: Okay, you know, already crying about having to do the
Speaker 11: conservatory on Saturday, even though yet it's five days away.
Speaker 1: Alex had been holding down the fort back at home
Speaker 1: for almost three weeks now. She's in the business too,
Speaker 1: and like most of us these days, she's a multi
Speaker 1: hyphen it writer, director, producer, actor. When you're married and
Speaker 1: both of you work this way where everything is freelance,
Speaker 1: you have to take turns. Whoever's got a job, whoever's
Speaker 1: got a project. The other one becomes a single parent.
Speaker 1: And the truth was going back to my hometown and
Speaker 1: looking into Anna's case was a little different. Not an
Speaker 1: actual job. She would never say so but I was
Speaker 1: pretty sure Alex's patience was wearing thin been able to right. No,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be writing a script, an actual job.
Speaker 1: It was due in a matter of weeks, but I
Speaker 1: hadn't even written a word yet. I know, I know
Speaker 1: you think I should come home. I don't say that, no,
Speaker 1: but I can. I can feel it.
Speaker 11: It just that is a job that you have, right,
Speaker 11: I know you're supposed to be writing. That's all you
Speaker 11: ever want to do is write, and you're not doing that.
Speaker 1: It's fine, I'll come home.
Speaker 10: I mean, there's nothing happening here and I can't just
Speaker 10: keep sitting around.
Speaker 1: Right then, though, an email came through. Oh wait, I
Speaker 1: actually just got a note from the Sheriff's office.
Speaker 10: Can you come in and meet me at nine am tomorrow?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 10: They listened to the tape.
Speaker 1: The next morning, I went to the building and waited
Speaker 1: to see Greer. I couldn't wait to hear his thoughts
Speaker 1: on the tape. Finally, I was no longer begging for
Speaker 1: access or evidence or a return phone call. The Sheriff's
Speaker 1: department was taking me seriously. And this is really painful
Speaker 1: to admit, But while I sat there, I actually had
Speaker 1: a fantasy. I mean, I know it's ridiculous, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't help it. It was me embedded with Greer and
Speaker 1: a team of cops, like a swat team, I guess,
Speaker 1: And I'd have my mike and my headphones, so I'm
Speaker 1: recording audio while we jumped out of the vans and
Speaker 1: marched into this big office building. It's jaylight, mixed company,
Speaker 1: shock faces of employees. Mick protested while Greer cuffed him,
Speaker 1: and then Mick would catch my eye. But then, while
Speaker 1: waiting in the lobby, I got a text from Monica.
Speaker 1: It said Sparks may have been right. I texted her
Speaker 1: back about what She replied with three dollar bills follow
Speaker 1: the money. I called Monica back from the lobby.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: There are two contributions to the nineteen ninety six Maldonado campaign.
Speaker 3: These two companies, Free Flow and Overture Holdings. Thomas Bolden
Speaker 3: was on the board for both.
Speaker 1: That would be mixed. Dad, Well, jesus, I'm walking into
Speaker 1: Greer right now.
Speaker 6: Strong.
Speaker 1: Wait, is he gonna let you were born? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, well then well you got to ask him about this,
Speaker 3: just get his response in real time.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not sure. I can do that write a
Speaker 1: strong Yeah, no, I got I gotta go, I gotta.
Speaker 7: Go forget it.
Speaker 1: When Greer walked me down the hallway, I tried to
Speaker 1: give him something that I had found at my parents'
Speaker 1: house while digging out the tape player. Hey, so I
Speaker 1: guess what I found? M what's this? It was a
Speaker 1: Boy Meets WorldScript from the nineties. My parents had kept
Speaker 1: a box of them, and I thought he'd appreciate it. Oh,
Speaker 1: uh cool, Yeah, I can sign.
Speaker 7: For you if you.
Speaker 8: Come on in.
Speaker 1: We walked into a bare room with a metal table.
Speaker 1: Sheriff Grace Laughlan was waiting.
Speaker 11: Hi.
Speaker 1: Oh hi, yeah, nice to meet. Take a seat. Was
Speaker 1: this an interrogation room? I sat down for your state standing.
Speaker 1: They got right to the tape, but not in the
Speaker 1: way that I hoped.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's uh, compelling stuff. But see here here's the
Speaker 9: real thing. It's a serious chain of custody issue.
Speaker 1: How what does that mean?
Speaker 9: You hand over a tape but you won't tell us
Speaker 9: who gave it to you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, I I'm sorry. Does that even matter?
Speaker 5: I mean, it's if it's real, it matters.
Speaker 1: Well, it's definitely real. Well, come on, writer, you're an actor.
Speaker 9: You make movies, right for a living, you're working with
Speaker 9: audio equipment.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, then can you it's like tested?
Speaker 9: I mean, I'm sure, yeah, yeah, we have a forensic
Speaker 9: scheme processing it. But I uh, I don't understand the
Speaker 9: hesitation here?
Speaker 1: What hesitating it?
Speaker 4: Tell us where you got it?
Speaker 9: So can you tell us the name of the person
Speaker 9: who give you this?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry? Right, So they just they want to remain.
Speaker 9: You see how that's not helping us help you. You
Speaker 9: said you have a new witness.
Speaker 1: Who's that? I I okay? And that I can if
Speaker 1: with that one, I can get back to you, you know,
Speaker 1: probably in a couple of days. I just I need
Speaker 1: to get his Okay.
Speaker 9: We're all for journalists, obviously, we invited you in here, right,
Speaker 9: we're letting you record right now. All we want is
Speaker 9: more eyes and ears on any case. We want everyone
Speaker 9: to come forward, tell us, tell us what they know.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: But then this wasn't just about me.
Speaker 9: We heard you've been talking to Monica Tremaline. H You
Speaker 9: know her history, right.
Speaker 1: She's got a bit of a reputation for what.
Speaker 9: She has had to retract more than one story published,
Speaker 9: some things before she gets all the facts, and then
Speaker 9: other times not publishing things, not sharing information that could help.
Speaker 1: If you listen, you can hear my phone going crazy.
Speaker 9: Do you need to get that.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 9: No, we're the ones who can solve this case. We
Speaker 9: have the people, we have the resources. We are the professionals,
Speaker 9: not Monica Trimbling, not you.
Speaker 1: It does sound like you're going to reopen the case.
Speaker 1: When I asked that, they looked at one another.
Speaker 9: If we verify the tape, then it could move up
Speaker 9: the chain and career. He'll put it on his active rotation.
Speaker 9: But we need full transparency. Anything you find, any information
Speaker 9: you have, anybody that comes forward, that's yeah.
Speaker 1: Of course I'd walked into this building with this fantasy
Speaker 1: that I would help crack the case and join the
Speaker 1: SWAT team take down a criminal. And I'd love to
Speaker 1: tell you that this was the moment that I did
Speaker 1: the right thing, did the bold thing. But unlike Monica,
Speaker 1: I am incredibly uncomfortable with conflict. It turns out I
Speaker 1: am just an actor with a podcast. So I didn't
Speaker 1: tell them how I got the tape. I didn't tell
Speaker 1: them about the pager I found. I didn't mention sparks,
Speaker 1: and I didn't confront them on the campaign contributions.
Speaker 11: You didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: Monica wasn't happy.
Speaker 10: No, I mean they wanted to know where we got
Speaker 10: the tape.
Speaker 1: You have to push back, Well.
Speaker 10: I mean maybe eventually. I'm right now, I'm not in
Speaker 10: the position. I don't feel like I'm the right person
Speaker 10: to do that.
Speaker 1: Right. If you're not gonna go for this, then what
Speaker 1: are we doing?
Speaker 10: Okay, well, I will go for it. I'm just right now,
Speaker 10: you know, I want to get all the information. I'm
Speaker 10: looking at these people and they're they're helping me. They're
Speaker 10: probably going to reopen the case, and I'm looking at them,
Speaker 10: so I don't want to No.
Speaker 1: You're just you're tiptoeing around. You're just not trying to
Speaker 1: piss anybody off. Well, yeah, why should I have?
Speaker 10: I don't, you know, I don't want to piss them
Speaker 10: off unnecessarily.
Speaker 1: But they're not your friends.
Speaker 10: Okay, I know, but they might be reopening the case, right,
Speaker 10: and if I pissed them off, then they don't talk
Speaker 10: to me. That nobody wins in that scenario.
Speaker 1: Writer, You've only been doing this for a few weeks now, right.
Speaker 1: They have had this case for thirty years, and you
Speaker 1: have done more on it than they have.
Speaker 6: Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know?
Speaker 1: All right, I'm off like I left my parents and
Speaker 1: drove back to LA that day. Yeah, guys, I listened
Speaker 1: to Anna's mix on the way, justifying the fact that
Speaker 1: I hadn't confronted Lachlan and career. I'm not a journalist,
Speaker 1: I'm not a detective. Maybe I'd done some good, kicked
Speaker 1: over a few stones, and I found the tape. Hopefully
Speaker 1: they would reopen Anna's case. I could go home, get
Speaker 1: back to my writing job while they looked into it more.
Speaker 11: Well.
Speaker 1: And this idea that the Sheriff's department might be corrupt
Speaker 1: or had been corrupt, that was important, of course, but
Speaker 1: was it my battle. Monica's the professional. She could keep digging.
Speaker 1: If she found something solid well, then she could bring
Speaker 1: it to me or her editors or whomever, and maybe
Speaker 1: get something published. Turns out Monica didn't have to wait
Speaker 1: for me or anyone. Like most writers these days, Monica
Speaker 1: runs her own sub stack, and by the time I
Speaker 1: woke up, the news had already broken and Missing Person's
Speaker 1: investigation from nineteen ninety five. Okay, whenever reviews come out
Speaker 1: for something that I've worked on, I have Alex read
Speaker 1: it first. For some reason, it feels better to have
Speaker 1: a human buffer. I did that with Monica's article too.
Speaker 11: It's about contributions to a campaign.
Speaker 1: Oh she put it all in there.
Speaker 11: Sure for Robert Maldonado did not respond to call, of.
Speaker 1: Course, not for a moment, one brief shining moment. I
Speaker 1: hope that Monica might have put this out there without
Speaker 1: involving me.
Speaker 11: The allegations came to light because right Or Strong, the
Speaker 11: actor best known for his role in Boyman's World, has
Speaker 11: been revisiting the case for a podcast.
Speaker 1: Shit, and suddenly this project, before I'd even finished editing
Speaker 1: my very first episode, was out in the world, and
Speaker 1: I had a bad feeling it was not going to
Speaker 1: make things easier. That day, the deluge messages and emails,
Speaker 1: news outlets wanting comments and stuff like this happens anybody
Speaker 1: who represents me, or ever once represented me, starts fielding
Speaker 1: requests old agents from when I was still acting, publicists
Speaker 1: I worked with years ago. Anywhere somebody can find contact
Speaker 1: info for me, they try. And the whole morning I
Speaker 1: watched phone calls come in from unknown numbers. But then
Speaker 1: there was one that I recognized, and I knew I
Speaker 1: had to answer.
Speaker 9: Well, congratulations, you've got the clicks.
Speaker 10: No, I had no idea.
Speaker 1: It wasn't ever anything that I was in. None of
Speaker 1: this means right, This makes it harder.
Speaker 9: This is exactly why we need to control the flow
Speaker 9: of information.
Speaker 6: This is the kind of thing that we cannot have.
Speaker 1: I tried to explain myself to distance myself from Monica,
Speaker 1: but I could barely get a word in.
Speaker 9: Okay, look, I don't need the state and the district
Speaker 9: attorney suddenly banging on my all. We were trying to
Speaker 9: help you, and now we're fielding conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: I know, and I appreciate your help.
Speaker 9: And I aponoized Robert Maldonado to no longer speak with you,
Speaker 9: and officer career is under orders to keep us for control.
Speaker 1: At that point, I was cut out of the case,
Speaker 1: no more access to the evidence or the sheriff's office.
Speaker 1: I thought this was it, that there was no way
Speaker 1: I could put anything together without help or new leads,
Speaker 1: without more evidence. I didn't realize that my biggest breakthrough,
Speaker 1: what I really needed to push the case forward. I'd
Speaker 1: already heard it was right there on the tape. The
Speaker 1: Red Weather is an iHeart podcast hosted by River Strong.
Speaker 1: Sound engineering, editing and mixing by Bou milkis produced by
Speaker 1: Tess Bartholomey. Executive producers at iHeartRadio Trevor Young and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 1: Associate producer Beau milkis original score by Kyle Morten. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying the show, please remember to leave a review
Speaker 1: and rating. Thanks for listening.