Speaker 1: In Atlanta. Another body was discovering today at Police Task
Speaker 1: Force headquarters. There are twenty seven faces on the wall, murdered,
Speaker 1: one missing. We do not know the person or persons
Speaker 1: that are responsible. Therefore, we do not have the mode
Speaker 1: from Tenderfoot TV and how staff works in Atlanta. Like
Speaker 1: eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently was as
Speaker 1: fixy victor. Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless
Speaker 1: he keeps on killing. This is Atlanta Monster. Please welcome,
Speaker 1: head of New Initiatives and an executive producer at How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works, Jason Hope. Thank you, so thanks everyone for
Speaker 1: coming today. Really excited about this panel. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about Atlanta Monster and Up and Vanish some of the collaboration.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's bring the panel up. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you guys introduce yourself. This is Meredith Payne and Donald,
Speaker 1: but give us a little bit more background on what
Speaker 1: you two of you guys do. Hi. I'm Meredith seven
Speaker 1: and I'm a creative producer at Tenderfoot TV. I'm Payine Lindsay,
Speaker 1: I host and produce Up and Vanish in Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm Donald Albright, President Tenni for TV on
Speaker 1: Paynts business partner. All right, let's get started. Payne and Donald.
Speaker 1: We we somehow found a way to um start Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Well, I met you first, and
Speaker 1: you hadn't heard him in Vanish yet, but you knew
Speaker 1: of I've been Vanished, and you shot me an email
Speaker 1: and he realized that we were in the same building
Speaker 1: and he said, come down to my office and I
Speaker 1: went down there, and I swear it was like a
Speaker 1: job interview. He was like, so you like podcasts. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, it's been making wine for a while.
Speaker 1: And then you started listening to Up and Vanished and you,
Speaker 1: for some reason brought up the Atlanta child murders in there.
Speaker 1: And you had brought up Delian Childmers to me like
Speaker 1: a week prior as a podcast idea. So you were
Speaker 1: saying it. You were saying it, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's all have the meeting. And then that's basically how
Speaker 1: it all started. Yeah, And it was one of those
Speaker 1: things where house stuff works. Although we have been doing
Speaker 1: podcasts for a long time, we had never done true crime.
Speaker 1: And I think we knew at that moment, well, we
Speaker 1: have to do something together, and you know, I grew up.
Speaker 1: I was probably nine or ten at the at the time,
Speaker 1: did not live anywhere close to Atlanta, but burned in
Speaker 1: my brain were those images of way Williams and the
Speaker 1: Atlanta child murders. And my parents kind of freaked out too.
Speaker 1: They pulled me in the house. Donald, You've got a
Speaker 1: similar story of growing up, although you were way far away.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I was two thousand miles away California. Um.
Speaker 1: I was only maybe three years old when this was happening,
Speaker 1: but I still remember kind of growing up with this
Speaker 1: because you know, being black, this happened to all you know,
Speaker 1: young black kids, young adults. Um. So just within the
Speaker 1: black community, it was something that we talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: our families, friends. Uh, And it just affected my childhood
Speaker 1: growing up because it felt like it was happening right
Speaker 1: on my block and you know, in my street, and
Speaker 1: I looked like those victims. So it's something just stuck
Speaker 1: with me. So when I asked Pain, um, I knew
Speaker 1: we want to do something different before going to up
Speaker 1: in Advantage season two, We're like, let's let's let's do
Speaker 1: something else. Let's do something other than a missing person.
Speaker 1: Let's try you know, try to give our audience something new.
Speaker 1: And I just texted randomly one evening. I was like,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of the latter of child murders?
Speaker 1: And he said no? And I was like, how could
Speaker 1: this mean so much to me? And he doesn't even
Speaker 1: know what it is and he's from Atlanta, you know.
Speaker 1: I know there's an age difference about ten years, but um,
Speaker 1: it's still something where you know, we know about a
Speaker 1: lot of cases that took place, you know, in the
Speaker 1: seventies and the sixties, but not very many people even
Speaker 1: who were born at that time, even remember Atlanta chymers.
Speaker 1: So something I felt like we needed to do, if
Speaker 1: for nothing else, to inform and educate the general public
Speaker 1: on you know, these tragedies. So before I asked Meredith
Speaker 1: and Paying a question about that, because you were younger
Speaker 1: than when these murders happened. Let's play a clip from
Speaker 1: Atlanta Monster. Another young boy was then the body was
Speaker 1: of a black teenager. Is the sixtieth victim to die
Speaker 1: by asphyxiation. He's methodical appointment. Killer has an insatiable appetite
Speaker 1: for the news. Our investigation is continuating. You know, we
Speaker 1: can set eyes on you that's very good, Thank you. So.
Speaker 1: Our perception kind of walking into this story was maybe
Speaker 1: people have heard about this, either you knew about it,
Speaker 1: you didn't know everything where you hadn't heard it about
Speaker 1: it at all. And the overwhelming reaction that we got
Speaker 1: from fans was I'm angry, I've never heard of this,
Speaker 1: and I think with a younger crowd that happened over
Speaker 1: and over. What was your perspective, Meredith, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I wasn't alive at the time it was going on,
Speaker 1: and I'm from New Orleans originally, so wasn't on my
Speaker 1: radar in that way. But I found it really interesting
Speaker 1: all the social parallels with what we're dealing with in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen and what was present in and
Speaker 1: I think that's really what stood out for me the most.
Speaker 1: To me, it was fascinating how much it sort of
Speaker 1: shaped the culture in Atlanta. Before I did podcast, I
Speaker 1: was directing music videos in Atlanta for a little bit,
Speaker 1: so a lot of them were hip hop video, so
Speaker 1: I was really kind of tied in to the hip
Speaker 1: hop scene in Atlanta, and some even newer songs were
Speaker 1: referencing Wayne Williams and the Atlanta murders. Outcast big boy.
Speaker 1: It was just kind of fascinated to me just how
Speaker 1: much just sort of permeated um all over the place.
Speaker 1: I mean, for generations. This has sort of like been
Speaker 1: this urban legend in Atlanta a lot of ways. So
Speaker 1: we took the conversation with victims and their families and
Speaker 1: people who reached out to us very very seriously, and
Speaker 1: I think part of the approach here was not trying
Speaker 1: to step on what they wanted to talk about and
Speaker 1: actually talking to people that had never had a voice before. Donald,
Speaker 1: what do you think about the approach of kind of
Speaker 1: letting people talk and and really kind of enriching that
Speaker 1: as part of the story. I think after this long,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, when we first started research in this,
Speaker 1: we saw that, look, there's a story here to be
Speaker 1: told that it's not for us to tell. It's for
Speaker 1: the people who experienced it firsthand. It's for those people
Speaker 1: who whose lives changed by the way they were raised,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up right in the neighborhoods where kids
Speaker 1: were disappearing from. It is the people who are ten
Speaker 1: years old at the time, who are you know, writing
Speaker 1: that age group of the kids they were coming and
Speaker 1: missing and murdered. Let them talk. It's not about us
Speaker 1: telling you how you should feel about it. It's about
Speaker 1: that that brother you know who who was twenty years
Speaker 1: old and lost his ten year old younger brother. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the moms, it's the the friends. So
Speaker 1: it's not about what we were trying to do or
Speaker 1: what we were trying to accomplish. This really like, look,
Speaker 1: let us sit back. It's too delicate of a situation
Speaker 1: for us to come in and interject and ask a
Speaker 1: bunch of questions that are, you know, trying to turn
Speaker 1: over this rock. It's more like, look when we're talking
Speaker 1: to victims, families and so that you all can really
Speaker 1: experience how this impacted real people like these aren't characters.
Speaker 1: These are real people who lost loved ones. And there's
Speaker 1: there's you know, it's not easy to just sit on
Speaker 1: the phone and let someone talk. And I think that's
Speaker 1: one thing, even with up advantage, I think it's something
Speaker 1: that pain was able to do really well, was just
Speaker 1: sit back and like say less so that other people
Speaker 1: could say more. And that's how you get the good stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, people didn't want to talk to us also
Speaker 1: because this brought up really bad terrible memories. And then
Speaker 1: there were people who came forward also where they wanted
Speaker 1: to tell us about the time where they were almost
Speaker 1: do you know, by someone that it wasn't Wayne Williams,
Speaker 1: or by someone that they felt was Wayne Williams. And
Speaker 1: it took a lot of us saying look, we'll come
Speaker 1: meet you. You know who were scared to talk to us.
Speaker 1: They don't want their names out there, they wanted their
Speaker 1: voices disguise. There was you know, we dealt with everything
Speaker 1: you could imagine, and we just try to be really
Speaker 1: delicate with how we approach it because we knew how
Speaker 1: sensitive it was. In mereth Um, you and I, actually
Speaker 1: all of us, we would sit on the couch and
Speaker 1: talk about this all. That's why I have no notes,
Speaker 1: because we talked about this all the time. UM. Meredith
Speaker 1: is a complicated case. UM. Probably between the two of us,
Speaker 1: we've looked at how many hundreds of hours of archival footage,
Speaker 1: UM notes and research. I mean, how do you put
Speaker 1: all this stuff together and make sense of it and
Speaker 1: be able to tell a story and audio that people
Speaker 1: can digest. It's unbelievably hard. Sometimes I forget what is
Speaker 1: in the podcast and what's just in my head from
Speaker 1: all the articles I've read, and so I feel like
Speaker 1: sometimes the story for me it feels bigger in the
Speaker 1: child and just really boiling down and deciding what is
Speaker 1: crucial and how to balance both sides of the story.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's been crazy though. We found some crazy things,
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that we never even put out there.
Speaker 1: Um pay, let's talk about music. I think something snapped
Speaker 1: with me and Up and Vanish where I just love
Speaker 1: theme songs. I love the hook and I think everyone
Speaker 1: can hum the theme song of season one of Up
Speaker 1: and Banished in their heads. And that was a conscious
Speaker 1: effort on your part to really to really layer in sound,
Speaker 1: both emotionally and just kind of adding think about it.
Speaker 1: You add um music and sound, you add archival footage,
Speaker 1: you you add interviews, like how do you think about
Speaker 1: putting all this together? Especially with music. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to sound good, um, simple as that. I like being
Speaker 1: immersed in the moment and just sounds driving you. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it means that there's this really and tense music, or
Speaker 1: maybe it's just the soft drone in the background that
Speaker 1: you forget is there while this guy is talking. And
Speaker 1: then oftentimes give it a break and just let it
Speaker 1: be raw for a second, so you remember how real
Speaker 1: everything is. So I think that balance is what I'm
Speaker 1: always trying to find. And um for Atlanta Monster, I
Speaker 1: was I was like, we're going straight eighties with this thing.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get the Stranger Things soundtrack of podcasts. And
Speaker 1: so I found this guy on Spotify. His name was
Speaker 1: Makeup and Bandyset, and I found him on Twitter and
Speaker 1: I send a message and then next thing you know,
Speaker 1: he's scoring the entire soundtrack for Atlanta Monster. I think
Speaker 1: we hired him to make like ten songs. He made
Speaker 1: like a hundred songs. I'm just like every other day
Speaker 1: he was like, listen to this, listen to that, And
Speaker 1: I would send him segments of the podcast and he
Speaker 1: would kind of customize and score it. But it was
Speaker 1: awesome to me. The sound and just the identity of
Speaker 1: a podcast is super important to me. It's a brand.
Speaker 1: It's bigger than just a podcast to me. So the
Speaker 1: sounds and the music were super important, and that was
Speaker 1: one of the first things in the day one meeting.
Speaker 1: I was just playing samples, remember different music, and I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I think I see what you're doing here.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, the music is a big deal to me,
Speaker 1: and I was happy with the way it turned out. Well,
Speaker 1: the other thing that we did here that might be
Speaker 1: a little bit of a surprise and and frankly, I
Speaker 1: think we're all like ten years older as a result
Speaker 1: of this. UM in the aging process was out of
Speaker 1: the gates. We said, Um, we don't want to just
Speaker 1: tell his story and then release that story post post fact. Um.
Speaker 1: We we made the decision around the time where we
Speaker 1: knew we were going to have Wayne on the podcast
Speaker 1: to go real time. And maybe people don't realize that,
Speaker 1: but around episode five or six, we said, in order
Speaker 1: to really get more people to come forward and tell
Speaker 1: their stories and to have a dynamic where we're getting
Speaker 1: a little bit more energy, UM with what Wayne is
Speaker 1: saying and be able to react to it, let's go
Speaker 1: real time. It sounds like a great idea. UM. And
Speaker 1: it's tough. It was real tough. Meredith talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about the complicated nature of that. Um, it's a
Speaker 1: little daunting going on Monday and not knowing what the
Speaker 1: podcast will be like on Thursday night. UM. But it
Speaker 1: definitely we did get a lot of stories last minute
Speaker 1: things that weren't gonna pop up otherwise, like the man
Speaker 1: who started the basketball league, and I don't know. Sometimes
Speaker 1: messages would come to you random people. We didn't think
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to you ever, and so it
Speaker 1: definitely was an important part of the process. But it
Speaker 1: was nerve wracking to say the least, and definitely a
Speaker 1: time crunch. I'm pretty sure I cried during this production.
Speaker 1: I was just so scared that I wasn't gonna make
Speaker 1: it out in time or something. Um. Now it's stressful
Speaker 1: because we're going, like, we'll just hop on a flight
Speaker 1: and go to New York or Chicago to interview, um,
Speaker 1: the guy in the micro trace lab about the fibers,
Speaker 1: and then the next day we're in the mountains and
Speaker 1: Georgia doing this. We also have to make a podcast.
Speaker 1: To the podcast is not just the interviews that you're getting,
Speaker 1: that is where most of it comes from, but who's
Speaker 1: chopping that up and bringing it down? Whatever? You someone
Speaker 1: for four hours, you're gonna hear ten minutes of it,
Speaker 1: so someone has to go through and pick that. So
Speaker 1: you know, I would ingest the audio. You'd be listening
Speaker 1: to it and tagging stuff and turning it back out
Speaker 1: and trimming it down and then sending it to makeup
Speaker 1: and Vandy set to put music on it, and really
Speaker 1: the whole time, we have this bigger picture of this
Speaker 1: story arc that we're trying to tell and how we're
Speaker 1: going to get there. But then something like a guy
Speaker 1: emailing you and saying, hey, Wayne Williams abducted me. That
Speaker 1: kind of changes things and is a new priority. And
Speaker 1: maybe you didn't plan on doing that that week, so
Speaker 1: I don't recommend doing it that way, but it um
Speaker 1: the coolest part about it is that it's a truly
Speaker 1: organic thing and anybody could come forward with new information
Speaker 1: and shape this story themselves, which we think is really cool.
Speaker 1: And Donald, listening back to I think we had about
Speaker 1: three stories of people that came forward, and we really
Speaker 1: put those out there near the end of the of
Speaker 1: the series. What's what was your reaction in hearing some
Speaker 1: of those stories or meeting some of those people. It
Speaker 1: was interesting. I think this pros and Consts of Pain
Speaker 1: said how we actually produced this podcast. The biggest benefit
Speaker 1: of being able to put it out and still not
Speaker 1: be finished with, you know, the finale, is that you
Speaker 1: get these people coming forward and the changed the trajectory
Speaker 1: of where this podcast was going in. I mean, we
Speaker 1: would find them in various corners. I like, my daughter
Speaker 1: actually put the trailer on Instagram and I read a
Speaker 1: comment on her page that said Wayne Williams tried to
Speaker 1: abduct my dad and my uncle. I asked her, who's
Speaker 1: this guy? Who's this person who commented that on your page?
Speaker 1: He said, oh, that's my friend. Let me talk to him,
Speaker 1: and I talked to his dad, and then a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks later we had his dad's story and that
Speaker 1: was the story about um, him him being at the
Speaker 1: his bike being stolen, and he said that Wayne Williams
Speaker 1: lured them to this church and tried to deduct them. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, the podcast doesn't sound the way it does
Speaker 1: if we don't allow put that extra stress and pressure
Speaker 1: on ourselves too, you know, actually give the audience, the
Speaker 1: listening audience, an opportunity to participate. But I mean hearing
Speaker 1: those stories firsthand. Like I did a pre interview with
Speaker 1: with Tony and I talked to him for thirty or
Speaker 1: forty five minutes and I heard this amazing story and
Speaker 1: then I would, you know, put it in drop box
Speaker 1: and tell pain. And Meredith is so I will sending
Speaker 1: it to you guys, and I said, look, this is
Speaker 1: something real. We need to bring him in and get
Speaker 1: a real interview done with them. And then I meet him,
Speaker 1: bring him upstairs, and he and Pain would go into uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a little office studio and uh knock out
Speaker 1: an interview. And then a lot of times I would
Speaker 1: then not not listen to it until everyone else got
Speaker 1: to listen to it, so that I could experience it
Speaker 1: the same way and just try to figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're too close to it, sometimes you can miss things.
Speaker 1: I like to experience something's the same exactly way the
Speaker 1: audience is. But I mean it's it's an extremely interesting process.
Speaker 1: And no story is this aim or comes to you
Speaker 1: the same way. You know, It's all they're all unique experiences. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, Pain, I think before we move on
Speaker 1: to our discussion and up and vanished, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: talk about I appreciate kind of Um. I call it
Speaker 1: fearlessness of of going there, going there with a conversation
Speaker 1: about race, picking up the phone and talking to anyone
Speaker 1: you can, jumping on a flight like you talked about.
Speaker 1: I think that matters in the the ultimate upcoming of
Speaker 1: the show. What do you what do you think about that? Like,
Speaker 1: how how do you react to that? And how does
Speaker 1: that inform the way you put stories together. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is an uncomfortable story to tell. Being a middle
Speaker 1: aged white guy, I was nervous about telling the story,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to do it the right way, and
Speaker 1: to me, that the only right way to do it
Speaker 1: was to let everyone else do the talking. The story
Speaker 1: wasn't about me. It's not about I wasn't even around.
Speaker 1: I was essentially learning this as I went along. So
Speaker 1: that was kind neat for me. Um, and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to tell a big story. I saw how much, uh,
Speaker 1: the atlantild murders had an impact on the city, on
Speaker 1: the culture in Atlanta, the whole nation really with the
Speaker 1: is sin o'clock to near your children are? I mean,
Speaker 1: these things that people remember but they don't know where
Speaker 1: they're from. And so I was just blown away by that,
Speaker 1: and I was nervous telling this story. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to be fearless in a sense because at
Speaker 1: a certain point, you just gotta I just gotta do it.
Speaker 1: And so you're always kind of making sure you do
Speaker 1: the right thing, and you can't be scared to get
Speaker 1: the story. Remember the first time I talked to Wayne Williams,
Speaker 1: I was like, shit, what have I got myself into? Now?
Speaker 1: What am I doing? What am I doing? With I
Speaker 1: was like what am I doing? What am I doing?
Speaker 1: It's like I don't know? Is the on the phone? Um?
Speaker 1: But like I probably say what am I doing? Like
Speaker 1: every day, like what am I doing? Just because it's
Speaker 1: so bizarre to me sometimes that I'm I'm here. But um,
Speaker 1: people are people and they oftentimes they want to talk
Speaker 1: to you. So if you listen to them, you'd be
Speaker 1: surprised what they'll tell you. And that really is all
Speaker 1: that I am doing. Everything else is just the storytelling
Speaker 1: part of it. Um, So you can't be scared to
Speaker 1: talk to somebody. Some people will turn you down, but
Speaker 1: most people didn't, and most people don't they want to
Speaker 1: tell you something. That's what I've learned. Also, I think
Speaker 1: you have to clear the clear up the fact that
Speaker 1: you're thirty years old, you're not middle age. It's like,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not bad'll make you old and I'm
Speaker 1: not accepted the exactly. All right, that's a great natural break. Um,
Speaker 1: let's bring out our next guests. Please welcome. Dr Maurice Godwin.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you something Maurice. Yeah, I think uh,
Speaker 1: I think most everyone here is familiar with Up and Vanished.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna talk a lot about that before
Speaker 1: we do. Thank you. Let's take a look at a
Speaker 1: short clip. An investigative podcast about the disappearance of an
Speaker 1: Oscilla teacher is set to premiere Monday. Titled Up and Vanished,
Speaker 1: The story details the findings of Atlanta filmmaker Payne Lindsay
Speaker 1: as he makes a documentary on Terra Grinstead. The former
Speaker 1: Oscilla teacher has been missing for nearly eleven years now.
Speaker 1: When she was last seen in October two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: the Georgia Sweet Potato Paget. She was so loving and
Speaker 1: so open and just. She was just a very carried
Speaker 1: person and almost to the point where sometimes I thought
Speaker 1: it was too much. I really do feel like it
Speaker 1: is an abduction at this point. I think it's about
Speaker 1: the flip upside down. A lot of rumors in this
Speaker 1: case end up being truth. Do you want the truth?
Speaker 1: Here's the truth I found out on January the PM
Speaker 1: what happened to Tara? Dude? Want g I agents swarmed
Speaker 1: up the con Orchard and ben Hill County. This Happer,
Speaker 1: do you want us to cant Candy Dull series do
Speaker 1: the job to the person of Tara, her insane child,
Speaker 1: the mom from Tenderfoot TV and Atlanta. This is Love
Speaker 1: and Vanished, all right? So Payne, you look at that
Speaker 1: what year and a half almost two years later? What's
Speaker 1: what's your reaction? How is that sunken, middle aged white
Speaker 1: guy who um actually just watching that back and I
Speaker 1: was like, damn this It's still crazy to me. The
Speaker 1: whole thing is just crazy to me. Um. It gave
Speaker 1: me goose bumps just then just watching and UM, it's
Speaker 1: just an unreal story. And when I got involved, it
Speaker 1: was something that no one was talking about, and every
Speaker 1: one of Tara's friends was just torn up about this,
Speaker 1: and no one had any clue what happened. No one
Speaker 1: had any clue. And now there's been two arrests, which
Speaker 1: is just unreal. And I'm excited for the trial and
Speaker 1: if for Dustine this look yeah, And I actually started
Speaker 1: relistening yet again to Up and Vanished. UM. And I
Speaker 1: was struck after getting to know everyone more, especially you, Maurice. UM,
Speaker 1: I was struck by you know, this is something that
Speaker 1: you had followed for many years. Walked me through that
Speaker 1: initial conversation with Paine and and how you guys connected,
Speaker 1: how you built on that over over the course of
Speaker 1: many months. Okay, Well, I worked the case for her
Speaker 1: sister for twelve years, for eleven years, and UM and
Speaker 1: I had done I got no help from any law enforcement.
Speaker 1: So everything I found was found on my own, and
Speaker 1: UM and I had a book binder full of information
Speaker 1: for since those March of O six UM. One day
Speaker 1: I said I hadn't been to a web sluice, which
Speaker 1: which is a website about crime and stuff. I said,
Speaker 1: I hadn't been there in a long time. This was
Speaker 1: like January of O sixteen. So I said, let me
Speaker 1: let me go there and see what's happening, so about
Speaker 1: any case. So I went there and then I went
Speaker 1: to a clinical terrorist link and Uh, I noticed a
Speaker 1: new post nobody had responded and it was from pain
Speaker 1: and he was looking to do a documentary UM about
Speaker 1: terrorist case and he wanted to know about some information.
Speaker 1: And I got to think, and I said, well he
Speaker 1: needs help. So UM I called and left a message
Speaker 1: and he called me back and we talked for two hours.
Speaker 1: And it's it's only because of that contact between Pain
Speaker 1: and I that this case was solved. That's it. And uh,
Speaker 1: I mean we we butted heads, you know, or in
Speaker 1: the beginning, Uh still do but uh we we butted heads,
Speaker 1: um in the beginning and stuff. But I knew when
Speaker 1: he was making those trips to to a scylla, that
Speaker 1: he was doing the shoe leather work, that it was
Speaker 1: necessary on following one up, uh, everything that he could
Speaker 1: possibly follow up on and um and and and it
Speaker 1: worked and and there's no there and I'm sort of biased,
Speaker 1: but there's there's nothing. There's nothing else like up and vanished.
Speaker 1: There's no music that that this is a signature. This
Speaker 1: is a signature podcast in the podcasting history. How would
Speaker 1: you describe our relationship? You think, well, you know, we
Speaker 1: we we but it has I mean it was sort
Speaker 1: of like, uh, a man and a woman going through
Speaker 1: a bad divorce. Um, and they divorced and then remarried
Speaker 1: and there's and they're still fighting. But the main thing
Speaker 1: is our focus was on bringing justice and resolution to
Speaker 1: terrorists case. And um, and we did, I mean, Pain
Speaker 1: had got so much information on this thing. The GB
Speaker 1: I was calling him, They were calling me for his
Speaker 1: telephone number. Did you give it to him? Yeah? And uh,
Speaker 1: I mean this it's just unreal. But this is a
Speaker 1: signature with a hundred and fifty million plus downloads and
Speaker 1: a TV show coming out soon about it on Auction Channel. Um,
Speaker 1: this is a signature podcast that never will be repeated
Speaker 1: by any other podcast for the music, or the case
Speaker 1: or anything spectrum. I almost don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: We're done here. So I was actually thinking back a
Speaker 1: little bit about how the show started to build, and
Speaker 1: I think there is a little We were talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about this before we came on, about how
Speaker 1: the perception that this show only became big when the
Speaker 1: news broke of some of the suspects being arrested and
Speaker 1: actually is not true at all. It was actually really
Speaker 1: rising and kind of built organically as this tale of
Speaker 1: a small town of Cla, Georgia and kind of the
Speaker 1: relationships and kind of your you know, digging for the truth.
Speaker 1: It was a hit way before. Talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about um, how how that grew um, and and also
Speaker 1: Donald just how you guys kind of snapped this together
Speaker 1: early to kind of have a plan if you had
Speaker 1: a plan to check it out there. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: mean quick history, um Pain said he was directing music videos.
Speaker 1: I was managing talent in the music industry. We were
Speaker 1: working together, UM, and we were both burnt out of
Speaker 1: it and said, look, we want to do something else.
Speaker 1: He's the one who came up with up and Vanish
Speaker 1: found the case and said I want to do a
Speaker 1: documentary on something on this case. We realized quickly we
Speaker 1: didn't have documentary type money. And the entry, you know,
Speaker 1: the bar to enter the podcast UM space is UM
Speaker 1: it's low. You know, it's a low level of entry
Speaker 1: when it comes to financial So I got some audio
Speaker 1: equipment and he just started on this journey. UM. We
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was gonna be. We didn't know
Speaker 1: if it would be big. We didn't know if it
Speaker 1: was a business or a hobby. And I think the
Speaker 1: first week he did about what was about maybe three
Speaker 1: months of pre promotion. UM shot some of that great
Speaker 1: footage issue you just saw, and first week it was
Speaker 1: like five thousand down loads and we're like, man, we
Speaker 1: we just we're doing something killing it. And I mean
Speaker 1: we didn't know about podcasting, We don't know about monetization.
Speaker 1: We didn't know about hosting. It was you know, we
Speaker 1: didn't know anything. And then about five episodes then we
Speaker 1: started really growing and uh we we remember looking back
Speaker 1: now seeing emails and people saying, hey, you know this
Speaker 1: is this might be something that's big. We're about to
Speaker 1: hit five hundred thousand downloads and I'm thinking, like, we're
Speaker 1: gonna hit a million downloads, and then next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: we're at ten million, and like, man, fifty million, a hundred.
Speaker 1: I'm like, then you just like you just don't realize
Speaker 1: how quickly this thing is excelled to be something much
Speaker 1: bigger you ever anticipated. And to answer you a question,
Speaker 1: before the week before the case was solved, I think
Speaker 1: we hit like fifteen million down loads. It was a
Speaker 1: really big podcast before the arrest were made. And then
Speaker 1: as soon as there's arrest were made, we had already
Speaker 1: relationships with with press, with Good Morning America, with Inside Edition,
Speaker 1: they were already in contact with this, so as soon
Speaker 1: as the case broke they called us first and they said, look,
Speaker 1: we want to you know, we want Pain to be
Speaker 1: on Good Morning America tomorrow. And then from there, I mean,
Speaker 1: we were doing twenty million downloads a month and you
Speaker 1: also bought a shirt from Walmart um and Ostilla because
Speaker 1: there was no other places. So my first time on TV,
Speaker 1: I was wearing this big, old baggy Walmart shirt. Walmart shirt,
Speaker 1: but um it fit nice. I mean go Walmart. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what's unique to me is that, like, as
Speaker 1: the podcast was growing and the numbers were shooting up
Speaker 1: really simultaneously, the it was just like this pressure cooker
Speaker 1: in the town of Oscilla, and it's really it was
Speaker 1: its height when the story broke and the tip came
Speaker 1: out and the two rests were made. It was just
Speaker 1: happening simultaneously. You could feel it. And you know, one
Speaker 1: of the guys was arrested, Bo Dukes for the first
Speaker 1: thing he sent his friend was just a link to
Speaker 1: up in Vanish. So at that point it was just
Speaker 1: almost if you were from Oscilla or South Georgia, you
Speaker 1: knew about this and you couldn't escape it. And so um,
Speaker 1: that to me was super unique. And then when the
Speaker 1: case broke, it just kind of just caught fire from there.
Speaker 1: It was just unreal. But when I first met Payne,
Speaker 1: he drove from Atlanta to my house, North Carolina to
Speaker 1: first interviewed me and stuff, and I told him, I said, listen,
Speaker 1: I don't think my accent is gonna go over. I
Speaker 1: think it might hurt the podcast. But um, it's done
Speaker 1: just the opposite. So Maurice, I was just gonna, I
Speaker 1: was just gonna compliment you on what an interesting person
Speaker 1: you are. But I mean that with all due respect.
Speaker 1: Um So we have UM, I think backstage some of
Speaker 1: the live shows, we have you in studio a couple
Speaker 1: of times. You're a really fascinating guy. You've you've got
Speaker 1: a really incredible deep background in criminal psychology, You've got
Speaker 1: a PhD. You've been coming to crime con for a
Speaker 1: long time. Um, talk to us a little bit about
Speaker 1: um you're feeling about about podcasts and and the role
Speaker 1: they have to play and solving some of these cases. Well,
Speaker 1: I think they can play a huge or old The
Speaker 1: main thing is, um pain. Um didn't sit behind a
Speaker 1: microphone in Atlanta and and and accomplished this. He stayed
Speaker 1: in a silita, He went to bars in a silla.
Speaker 1: He got he got in some touchy situations in a
Speaker 1: silla interviewing people. I mean he got pretty bad there
Speaker 1: for a while. I mean I was threatened and he
Speaker 1: was and um so he was doing the leg work,
Speaker 1: which what is what created up and vantished me even
Speaker 1: the episode that was about to come out before the
Speaker 1: rest we were moving we we had already moved on
Speaker 1: to looking at students. We had two A three that
Speaker 1: we were trying to find information on so to you know,
Speaker 1: with with Bow and Ryan being former students, I mean
Speaker 1: we were already headed in that direction. Um. But I
Speaker 1: think podcast can can do a great deal in helping
Speaker 1: move investigation alone. But you can't set behind a microphone
Speaker 1: and just wait till somebody calls you on the phone
Speaker 1: with a til. You've got to go out and create something,
Speaker 1: especially when you didn't have any paperwork. We had no
Speaker 1: documents from law enforcement, no nothing law enforcement. Everything that
Speaker 1: Paine did on this podcast in this case and myself too,
Speaker 1: we created are We created the information out of nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's good. It was good information, but
Speaker 1: we worked and worked and worked to get it out
Speaker 1: of people of and that that's one of the main
Speaker 1: differences help to Vanished and another podcasts. I think I'll
Speaker 1: say this too. I think you know we mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen million downloads before the arrest or still as a
Speaker 1: as a town of three thousand people. So if there's
Speaker 1: fifteen million people internationally listening to this, what do you
Speaker 1: think is happening in the town of three thousand. Everyone
Speaker 1: is talking, they're putting fingers at each other, and so
Speaker 1: when you're hearing about up and vanished, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what is this? What are they saying? Because I know
Speaker 1: something I'm not telling anybody, So you're going you listen
Speaker 1: to this podcast. Then our discussion board, I mean bow Dukes,
Speaker 1: who was arrested, Um, you know, in conjunction with the
Speaker 1: with the murder, was in our discussion board talking to people.
Speaker 1: The tipster was in our discussion board talking to people.
Speaker 1: You know. I think two weeks after the podcast started
Speaker 1: you received a tip of a group of friends who
Speaker 1: were somehow connected to this, and bow Dukes was in
Speaker 1: that picture. So, um, we're circling around like sharks, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And it's stilla in the threats
Speaker 1: who are coming from people who knew we were getting close.
Speaker 1: They knew that look, you better not say my name
Speaker 1: on your cast because they were they didn't want to
Speaker 1: be associated as you know, being potentially guilty or not
Speaker 1: even guilty, but the type of person who would cover
Speaker 1: this up and just not say anything for a decade.
Speaker 1: And I think one thing important to impressed me. When
Speaker 1: I first met Pain, he said, I don't care what
Speaker 1: anybody thinks. And if he, if he, if he, if he,
Speaker 1: if he had to take him the attitude he would
Speaker 1: to go half as far as he did in the
Speaker 1: Tea gram steadcase, I care what you think. Record all right,
Speaker 1: So in a few minutes, we're gonna open up for
Speaker 1: Q and A. If you if you all do have
Speaker 1: a question, please stop up to the microphone. But I
Speaker 1: have two more important questions. Uh. I just heard something
Speaker 1: from season two of Up and Vanished just a few
Speaker 1: minutes ago. Pain painted, Meredith. You you guys have been
Speaker 1: on the road. What can you what can you tell us?
Speaker 1: What can you break news on with regards of what's
Speaker 1: coming with season two? Um, there will be a season
Speaker 1: two of Up and Vanished on a whole new case. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. UM, we were saying, maybe we added up yesterday.
Speaker 1: We were sent over three thousand cases from people, and
Speaker 1: we've gone through at least three dozen cases thoroughly, and
Speaker 1: then we narrowed it down to like six cases. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, I got a phone call
Speaker 1: from somebody that I know, and it just changed the
Speaker 1: whole plan altogether. And we've been out west um, not
Speaker 1: in Georgia, in this tiny little town UM, investigating this
Speaker 1: missing person's case and talking to people and building this story.
Speaker 1: And it's UM, it's really bizarre. And we think that
Speaker 1: this is a place where UM it's in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways similar to Tearr Grinstead's story, and we're hoping
Speaker 1: to create a similar environment UM in this town where
Speaker 1: people are talking again. Cases go cold because people weren't
Speaker 1: talking about them anymore. So we want to get people
Speaker 1: talking again and just turn over some stones and find
Speaker 1: out what happened to this person. And it'll be coming
Speaker 1: out in uh likely August this year. So yeah, and Meredith,
Speaker 1: you've been on the road to any any little bit
Speaker 1: that you can tell us anything. Blow this. By the way,
Speaker 1: I wasn't even I should stop there. I've I think
Speaker 1: Paine has been telling me lies through text of where
Speaker 1: he's actually at and I'm convinced that he's trying to
Speaker 1: throw me off the trail to so pay attention. It's
Speaker 1: not in Georgia, it's in the West coast. I can
Speaker 1: get me at all get a new number. He's getting there.
Speaker 1: How about you, Mereth, I'd say it's UM very different totally.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like a real place. It feels like
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with the show Twin Peaks, it feels
Speaker 1: like Twin Peaks. All right, that sounds great. UM. Secondly,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a busy summer. You've got a
Speaker 1: TV show starting up production here pretty soon for Oxygen
Speaker 1: UM anything you want to talk about their UM super excited. UM.
Speaker 1: It's been a long journey, but we have been developing
Speaker 1: an up and vanished TV show, UM where we're gonna
Speaker 1: go UM to other small towns and tell their story
Speaker 1: of a missing person and trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: happened to them and just take what we've learned from
Speaker 1: this and tell their stories and create an outlet for
Speaker 1: people and a vocal piece for families who need UM
Speaker 1: who need that. So we're super excited about that. UM
Speaker 1: flying out again next week to talk to them about it,
Speaker 1: and UM things are going well and hopefully very soon
Speaker 1: we'll have an update on when you can watch this.
Speaker 1: So yeah, awesome And and my and my last uh
Speaker 1: A question for for all of you is, UM, where
Speaker 1: do you see the stories. Where do you see things
Speaker 1: heading for for your your team? Are you you want
Speaker 1: to get in more into TV? Is it a hybrid
Speaker 1: of storytelling? Like now that things that I know you're
Speaker 1: a filmmaker at heart. Pain, What's what's kind of the
Speaker 1: thing that's driving you moving forward? Now? UM, I just
Speaker 1: want to tell great stories. UM. I like podcasts. I
Speaker 1: like telling it that way. UM. I've always want to
Speaker 1: be a filmmaker since I was a kid. So I
Speaker 1: want to make films. I don't want to just label
Speaker 1: myself one thing. I'm a filmmaker, I'm a podcaster. I'm
Speaker 1: doing this. I can only do that. I want to
Speaker 1: do all of it. I want to tell stories on
Speaker 1: every scale, every medium that I can that that works,
Speaker 1: and UM, that's what I'm trying to do. So, UM,
Speaker 1: I love podcasts. There's still other podcast ideas I have
Speaker 1: that are outside of Atlanta Monster End Up in Advantage
Speaker 1: that I'm eventually going to do as well. But I
Speaker 1: also want to take a stab at TV and film
Speaker 1: and UM tell story that way, and so I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to the chance to do that. All right, let's
Speaker 1: open it up for some questions. How about you? Hello? UM,
Speaker 1: I actually wanted to ask about my dad. I grew
Speaker 1: up hearing about the Atlantic child murders, actually, even though
Speaker 1: they predate me abo about three years and thirty three,
Speaker 1: So I'm ancient. Um. I don't know how I'm I'm
Speaker 1: upright and walking um anyway, But no, he always told
Speaker 1: me about that because he had gone to conventions. He
Speaker 1: was a police officer um, and gone to training and
Speaker 1: heard lectures and everything. And I think he may have
Speaker 1: talked to some of the detectives. I don't remember, but
Speaker 1: he always told me about the capture Wayne Williams when
Speaker 1: they heard the splash in the river and found him
Speaker 1: not far away, and that was an educated guest reasoned
Speaker 1: that he might be dumping a body there, and they
Speaker 1: thought they might may be able to find it. But
Speaker 1: the was always stuck with me was the terror of
Speaker 1: the random chance they had someone there, they had someone
Speaker 1: there that hurt it, and they found him quickly enough,
Speaker 1: and they were able to find a body later to
Speaker 1: tie it to it. And what do you think. I
Speaker 1: hate calling it luck because there was a lot of
Speaker 1: hard work involved. What do you think about the role
Speaker 1: of luck or chance in solving these murders, especially when
Speaker 1: it's serial killer, and it's often a stranger crime. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't put anything past him. I thought one time, what
Speaker 1: if Wayne knew they were doing this takeouts. I had
Speaker 1: a theory for a second that maybe Wayne tossed nothing
Speaker 1: off the bridge. Maybe Wayne's just hanging out over here
Speaker 1: being suspicious and he's just like, what, I didn't do anything,
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what he did when he got
Speaker 1: pulled over. I don't know what you're talking about, but
Speaker 1: why was he there? And why is this story changing?
Speaker 1: Why is he still lying about it thirty plus years later.
Speaker 1: It's the only story in your life that matters right now.
Speaker 1: You should have figured it out by now. And so
Speaker 1: that part bothers me. He lied to me about it.
Speaker 1: I think I wouldn't put it past him that he
Speaker 1: was there, knowing that the police were there, almost wanting
Speaker 1: to get caught. I'm also almost thirty three, so ancient
Speaker 1: over here as well. That's you're not going to live
Speaker 1: this down payne Um. My question is did you ever
Speaker 1: actually get you? Obviously Atlanta Monster ended with you not
Speaker 1: getting to speak to Wayne in in jail. Um because
Speaker 1: of all of the lockdowns and things that prevented. Did
Speaker 1: you ever get to go after the fact, or do
Speaker 1: you have plans to actually talk to him in person
Speaker 1: at all? Yeah, I mean there may be a point
Speaker 1: where I talked to him face to face on camera, UM,
Speaker 1: for maybe a documentary about this project or something. Um.
Speaker 1: But other than that, I have a lot of material
Speaker 1: of Wayne that I can use for that as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Well, I'm forty three, so I'm absolutely decrediful. Um.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a tiny town in northern Minnesota
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties, and I heard about the Atlanta
Speaker 1: child Monster in my almost all white town, and that
Speaker 1: it was that our mothers would tell us you'd be
Speaker 1: home by dark because just like that man was taking
Speaker 1: children in Atlanta, there's somebody out there that's going to
Speaker 1: take you. You know. It was kind of this thing
Speaker 1: that we heard, So I always grew up knowing a
Speaker 1: little bit about it, and as I got into true crime,
Speaker 1: I kind of became somewhat fascinated with Wayne in a sense. Um,
Speaker 1: And after listening to the podcast in the sense I'm
Speaker 1: on the one hand, Okay, it's a convenient scapegoat for
Speaker 1: the city to get this public relations nightmare out of
Speaker 1: the way. Then I listened to him, and the story conflicts,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, well, yeah, he absolutely did it, and
Speaker 1: I don't know a whole lot about did these killings
Speaker 1: really truly stop with his apprehension? Were there still children
Speaker 1: missing and in any big city, I suppose they go
Speaker 1: missing but that fit his profile afterwards, or the police
Speaker 1: just kind of like putting those under the rug because
Speaker 1: they don't want to do I can't really get an answer,
Speaker 1: and I wondered if you guys had any thoughts in
Speaker 1: that or definitive idea either way on were these poor
Speaker 1: little children still missing afterwards being taken? And thank you?
Speaker 1: I think you're right on both. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: both things could happened. I think that, uh, the murders
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily entirely stop. Of course, they wanted people to
Speaker 1: think that because it made their case look better. I
Speaker 1: think it's just a story of law enforcement needing to
Speaker 1: close this thing out, needing almost having to sweep it
Speaker 1: under the rug. It was the wrong thing to do.
Speaker 1: They handled it the wrong way, but that's what they did.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't mean that Wayne wasn't guilty of anything.
Speaker 1: So did they handle the wrong way? Yes? They did?
Speaker 1: Is Wayne guilty of something, yes, and you know the
Speaker 1: mythology of the mythology that builds the longer that time
Speaker 1: passes on, so many things like did that stop? Did
Speaker 1: murders stop? Or not? Um, so many examples of this.
Speaker 1: I think it was a one sided narrative for so
Speaker 1: many years that these things kind of became urban legends.
Speaker 1: And as a result, I think we needed to We
Speaker 1: need to get some of the crazies in there too.
Speaker 1: Like part of this was getting all the stories on
Speaker 1: the table, even the ones we didn't believe, and let
Speaker 1: them talk to and let you make up your mind. Yea, yeah.
Speaker 1: But the story isn't just about um the victims or
Speaker 1: Wayne Williams. Is how big this thing was in the
Speaker 1: city and how big it was culturally, you know, for generations.
Speaker 1: So we wanted you all to understand why someone could
Speaker 1: come up with such a crazy conspiracy theory. And it's because, yeah,
Speaker 1: the city did you know, sweep us under the rug
Speaker 1: for how many murders? Ten, twelve, fifteen. This is one
Speaker 1: of those cases where anything you're thinking, any opinion here
Speaker 1: of what happened in the Lanta child murders could be
Speaker 1: partially true. All theories can work together in some way.
Speaker 1: The clan could have done some, Wayne could have done some.
Speaker 1: Some could have been around them. Um, the city did
Speaker 1: rush to judgment and close this. And you know, there's
Speaker 1: everything that you're thinking could be partially true. And that's
Speaker 1: the that's why this case is so big, that's why
Speaker 1: there's so many questions that are still left unanswered. Yes,
Speaker 1: go ahead. I am sixty four, lovely. About about nineteen
Speaker 1: years ago, I had a son that was murdered. It's
Speaker 1: not got anything to do with Wayne Williams. I've not
Speaker 1: been able to watch any kind of crime stories that
Speaker 1: we're on regular TV because I can't afford cable. I'm
Speaker 1: so proud to be here. About nine years ago, a
Speaker 1: private investigator, through her friend begging, she agreed to take
Speaker 1: my sen's case. On when you said about law enforcement,
Speaker 1: we have Barney fives that work in the county where
Speaker 1: I came from. Arrogant, arrogant, barn Barney Fine. My son
Speaker 1: was executed. I lived in a small area. We know
Speaker 1: who killed our son, we know there's no proof. About
Speaker 1: two years ago, the new district attorney exhumed his body
Speaker 1: because I woke up in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: thinking about DNA undrew his fingernails. Uh. I was so
Speaker 1: angry because there was t B. I have no faith
Speaker 1: in anybody, but there was twenty people and the private
Speaker 1: investigator that had helped me in the exhimation. Uh. Of
Speaker 1: course nothing came out of it. This is a small
Speaker 1: area and we know who did it and this people.
Speaker 1: There's been other people that's died there. It's Carroll County, Tennessee, Mackenzie, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: My son was fifteen years old, Tony Drumwright, and he
Speaker 1: was an absolute great kid. You couldn't get him to
Speaker 1: say us, to wear a word. And there was a
Speaker 1: meth lab in our woods that he happened up on.
Speaker 1: And we you know, we know all of this, but
Speaker 1: we cannot prove anything. And it's just been so frustrating
Speaker 1: to me and I will never shut up about it,
Speaker 1: private investigators. It's cost me my family and my marriage
Speaker 1: and it's been a real struggle every day. But Shila Wausaki,
Speaker 1: which is a speaker here, she is the private investigator
Speaker 1: that's been trying to help me, and I pray that
Speaker 1: someday it will come to pass. But when you said
Speaker 1: that about law enforcement, it's just really disheartening. Now we
Speaker 1: have a new district attorney in Carroll County, and I
Speaker 1: feel like I was pivotal in helping him get elected.
Speaker 1: I trust him, but you know, he can only do
Speaker 1: what he can do, and the people that worked for
Speaker 1: him are still the same arrogant, pompous Barney Five's So
Speaker 1: I know that has nothing to do with what you
Speaker 1: guys are doing, but I just want to interject that
Speaker 1: Sheila had told me that here about a month ago,
Speaker 1: she did a podcast. First time I've ever heard what's
Speaker 1: a podcast? I still haven't been able to hear it,
Speaker 1: But tomorrow I'm bringing in my computer and they're gonna
Speaker 1: get me up to date. We'll thank you than sorry
Speaker 1: for the loss to you. I just wanted to interject that,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. So I'm twenty eight, so I
Speaker 1: guess I'm a child. Uh So. The thing that really
Speaker 1: strikes me about both of these cases is how they
Speaker 1: really give you a snapshot of the identity of a community.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also really interesting that both of
Speaker 1: them have had the opportunity to get responses from the
Speaker 1: community that they're about in real time. And I was
Speaker 1: hoping you could talk a little bit about how as
Speaker 1: a creator, as a storyteller, the experience has been to
Speaker 1: be getting feedback from the people that you're sort of
Speaker 1: trying to portray. It's, uh, it's interesting. It's nerve wracking.
Speaker 1: You're you're always trying to I mean, you gotta answer
Speaker 1: for everything you do. So, um, I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: be honest about it and just straightforward and kind of
Speaker 1: like you said it back to the fearlessness. At a
Speaker 1: certain point, you gotta just let go and not be
Speaker 1: afraid to get out there and talk to somebody and
Speaker 1: then put it out there. Um, it's interesting when the
Speaker 1: town is listening to it, you can see it having
Speaker 1: an effect on people. Um, they may they may be
Speaker 1: scared to talk to you again, or someone might come
Speaker 1: out of the woodwork and want to talk to you
Speaker 1: all of a sudden. It's a constant game and battle
Speaker 1: you're you're playing, and so it's you gotta be on
Speaker 1: your toes at all times and just be careful. So
Speaker 1: it definitely makes it more difficult, but their result is
Speaker 1: people talking again and um, new information being able to
Speaker 1: shape this story, which is important. Yeah, I mean, can
Speaker 1: we finally have conversations about some of these big topics
Speaker 1: in America? Can we put them out there? I feel
Speaker 1: like listening to podcasts is a way for us to
Speaker 1: put something out there, but for people in their own
Speaker 1: one to one intimate space to be able to kind
Speaker 1: of get a little bit deeper in a way that
Speaker 1: they cannot engage on Twitter or with the local news.
Speaker 1: And it's just being honest. It's having an honest conversation.
Speaker 1: And podcasting is the most honest form of communication these days,
Speaker 1: I believe, and that's why it resonates so much, and
Speaker 1: I think we need to do more of that last question,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, thank you. I'm twenty nine, so I have
Speaker 1: a couple of months left of my youth. Um. So
Speaker 1: it's my understanding that there was some DNA that linked
Speaker 1: Williams to bal dessert. Can you tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that and your thoughts on it and
Speaker 1: why it wasn't in the podcast much. Um? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, I'd be clear, it didn't entirely link him.
Speaker 1: It was it was partial and it was yeah, they've
Speaker 1: matched in a way, but it wasn't any more conclusive
Speaker 1: than um I would say the bloodstains or anything else. Um.
Speaker 1: And to me, it was that was sort of an
Speaker 1: investigative finding from somebody else, but we was CNN who
Speaker 1: too Brooke then Yeah, and we actually talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about that where recent I we had that conversation
Speaker 1: about do they still have the clothes from some of
Speaker 1: the kids, and could they match the d N A
Speaker 1: and could they go back in time? And the answer is,
Speaker 1: we don't know. We don't know where that stuff is,
Speaker 1: we don't know if it would will ever be public. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it is really interesting to hear in kind
Speaker 1: of the present day news of the Golden State Killer
Speaker 1: and others, this kind of new wave of what can
Speaker 1: we do with older cases and match DNA evidence? I
Speaker 1: think that is compelling, but kind of where do we
Speaker 1: go from here? We just we didn't want to put
Speaker 1: something out there where we didn't have the whole, the
Speaker 1: whole story, and so that was one thing that we
Speaker 1: just really didn't concentrate on. There's really no more that
Speaker 1: I could add to that, and I knew that there
Speaker 1: was already investigative findings that we had through Larry that
Speaker 1: was new information that said the same thing, but actually
Speaker 1: even more clear and more definitive. And you know, having
Speaker 1: talked to Patrick Baltazar's brother and heard his side of
Speaker 1: the story. There was just a lot of just misinformation
Speaker 1: over there, and I wanted to find the information on
Speaker 1: my own. Bauma is every piece information out there just
Speaker 1: doesn't make it in there, and it's that for some
Speaker 1: people that that's like, uh, it's hard to understand that.
Speaker 1: But we looked at the big picture at all times
Speaker 1: and we were never going to omit something that we
Speaker 1: thought did steered you the wrong way. We also wanted
Speaker 1: to make sense to you too, because for a while
Speaker 1: it didn't even make sense to us. That's a good question.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, except well, thank you to Meredith Payne,
Speaker 1: Donald and Maurice, and thank you all days here. Thank
Speaker 1: you with a future starting sh