WEBVTT - Inside Flashpoint 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:04.400 Flashpoint is released weekly and brought to you absolutely free, 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:09.119 but for ad free listening, early access and exclusive bonuses, 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:13.480 subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot com or on 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:15.520 Apple Podcasts. 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:23.239 Hello and welcome everyone to Inside Tenderfoot TV. Today we're 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.000 going inside Flashpoint, our latest show that takes an investigative 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.600 look at the narratives of the nineteen ninety six Olympic 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.319 bombing and the subsequent bombings in Atlanta, Georgia. There are 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.320 a lot of themes in this story that are still 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:39.080 very precient. Today I'm Laura from the Tenderfoot team, and 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.920 today I'm talking to host and co creator Cole Lakassio 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.400 and executive producer and co creator Doug Mattica to hear 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.080 about their experiences digging into such an intense story with 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.919 some seriously personal strings attached. Let's get into it. 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:02.440 Today. 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.600 I'm sitting down with col A Cassio and Doug Matica, 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:10.760 the producers and hosts of Flashpoint, and I'm really excited 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.000 to get into it. Welcome Cole and Doug. Thank you 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:13.600 for being here. 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:15.880 Thanks Dor, thanks for having us. 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:20.399 Yeah, so this show just wrapped up, which means that 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:22.760 everything is very fresh, and I kind of wanted to 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.840 start a little bit at the beginning of things before 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.560 getting into some of the more kind of hard hitting 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.399 topics of the show and your experience with it. Can 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:32.920 both of you just give a little bit of an 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.080 overview to our listeners of how you got involved in 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:38.240 podcasting in the first place, a little bit of your 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:43.959 history within this medium, and why you chose it for storytelling. 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.880 I got into it through Doug. Actually, I was in 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:53.760 college and I was working on in indie film over 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.280 the summer, is like an internship in between my junior 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:58.840 and senior year of college. I met Doug that way. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.880 He was a pretty around a film when I was 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.680 wrapping up college. I did radio all during school and 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.880 I loved it, but I was trying to figure out 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.840 a way to not have a typical journalism job after 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.840 I got out of college, and I'm glad I worked 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.320 on that film. I never considered film or storytelling like 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.800 that in any capacity until I met Doug, and so 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.200 I hit him up after college, and you know, I 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.440 went the typical like applying for jobs at like you know, 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.760 local papers and like ESPN and that sort of thing, 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:39.600 but they were all very entry level and not very 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.720 creatively rewarding. I hit up Doug and asked him what 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.920 he was doing, and he had just started a podcast company, 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.720 so naturally it was a good fit. So I moved 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:50.440 out to LA. 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.160 Well, at first I told him, don't do it, just 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:57.639 like my mentor told me, don't get in film. It's 0:02:57.680 --> 0:02:59.640 the worst thing you can do. Kid, don't do it. 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:02.959 I was told that when I was studying film too. 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:03.520 Yeah. 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:06.760 But you know, when you got it in your head 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.160 and you need to creative stuff, you just do it. Yeah. 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.799 And when was do you mind have asked? When? This was? 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:14.960 Just for a sense of kind of what the world 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:18.399 of podcasting was at that time, since it's this was grown. 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.440 I hit him up first in May of twenty nineteen. 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:22.880 That's where I graduated. 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.880 Okay, so established industry, but it's grown, right. 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.120 And I moved out to Los Angeles in July of 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:34.400 twenty nineteen. And you know, honestly, i'd never really listened 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.520 to a long form narrative podcast of any kind. My 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.400 first introduction to it, as I'm sure is the case 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:46.240 for many people, was Cereal Doug. And Doug gave me 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:51.120 basically a homework listening list and it included Cereal and 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:56.480 included Shitdown. I can't there were a few more, but 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:00.440 I started with Cereal and s Town Yeah, and kind 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:02.840 of just took off from there. It's such an awesome 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.680 medium to be able to craft the story you want 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.040 to tell without having to worry about visuals, which was 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.880 always actually my least favorite part of film. Were the 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:19.880 visuals important, but being able to really tap into and 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.680 take hold of the storytelling aspect of it was very 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.640 intriguing to me. So I'd moved out to La. The 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:29.560 very first thing I got to LA, I went to 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.640 the office and met up with him. We caught up 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.240 and he brought me inside and on his computer he 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.159 had an article about Eric Rudolf from Outside magazine and 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.200 I was like, why are you reading that? And he said, 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:46.640 do you know about this? Like you're from Atlanta, Like 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.240 I'm sure you know about Eric Rudolf. And the article 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.520 was talking about how it was mostly focused on the 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.919 man hunt and how he was able to sleep in 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.200 the woods. I think the title of it was Eric 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:02.400 Rudolf Slept Here. And he was blown away by it. 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.680 And Doug can talk about this more on what fascinated 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.640 him about it, but when I saw that article, I said, well, 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.000 I have a connection Eric Rudolf, and I told him 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.280 my story in my birth story, and the kind took 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.000 off from there. He actually came up with our original 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.599 title for the show on the spot right after I 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:22.960 told him that story. 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.880 Doug, were you looking were you looking into building a 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.480 podcast around his story kind of in your head already 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.599 before you talked to Cole about his connection to it? 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.760 Totally? I thought his story was and I think Cole 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:36.680 mentions this very briefly in one of the apps, but 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:43.240 like Eric's story, his timeline is kind of like very 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.680 synchronous with the timeline of the rise of the far right, 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.680 the religious right domestically. And I thought that was interesting 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.919 because he, you know, spoused a lot of those views 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.359 quite publicly, and he's been pretty prolific from prison. I 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.640 don't recommend you read his work, but he he's got 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:04.280 time on his hands, for sure, but he's also got 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.240 clarity of vision. But I was really interested in that 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:12.680 the sort of cultural historical piece, but also I was 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.160 amazed that somebody could hide for five years, How do 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.480 you do that? And so you know, this outside magazine 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.400 piece was fascinating. It really just got into the topography 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.839 of the region, and so I was what I was 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.160 doing is poking on trying to find an angle, like 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.719 what's the angle? How do I tell this terrorist story 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:37.040 and use it to give a broader cultural overview? But 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:40.800 what's the angle? Like anybody can tell the story? And 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:46.560 Jimmy Shoeshine here walks into my office. I mean, shit, 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.080 you not within an hour of And we had worked 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.599 together for two months NonStop in production, like we were 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.320 on set every day, so like this never came up. 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.159 Why would it? But yeah, he walks into my office 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:02.760 sees this, and he's like, oh, I have a story, 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.120 and I think he actually stepped outside. 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:06.159 For a second. 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:07.560 He's like, I want to confirm a couple of things. 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.320 Hold on, And he went outside and he made a 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:14.560 call and talked to Leah, his mom, and confirmed a 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.080 couple of things before he dropped the bomb. And then 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.880 he dropped it, and I was like, whoa. And it 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:21.640 just so happened that I was in the process of 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.600 setting up my first podcast, Whistleblower, with Tenderfoot. At the time, 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:27.400 it wasn't set up yet, but we were getting close, 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.920 and it was in production on Whistleblower that at a 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.360 certain point we were I think, you know, midway through 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.920 and in Atlanta, Cole's helping on that, he's editing on that, 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.640 and I Donald just at lunch one day, I was like, 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:43.480 what else you got? What are you working on? And 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.200 I gave him like a two sentence pitch on this 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:48.600 and he was like, I'll take that. 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.200 I mean, it's an incredibly compelling You have an incredibly 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.880 compelling position within I guess the broader narrative of Eric 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:02.320 Rudolph and the extremism that is growing. Cole, when did 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:07.040 you first find out about your birth story and your 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:09.239 relationship to Eric Rudolf? Because you talk in the show 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.880 about always being fascinated with this bombing And forgive me 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.360 because I don't remember if you had actually already been 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.840 interested in that as a young person and then found 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:20.600 out because you mentioned I think it was high school 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:23.560 or college that she told you. So were you interested 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:25.680 in this before you actually knew your connection to it 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:27.840 and then it grew or was it something that grew 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:29.760 out of finding out your birth story. 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.319 I knew about Eric Rudolf pretty early on in my life, 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.040 because I think when you grow up in Atlanta, you 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.800 know about that story, right, you know more than most would. 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.760 I think most people only know typically when you tell 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.720 them about the Olympic Park bombing, they know Richard Jewell, 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.160 they don't really know the name Eric Rudolf. But I 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.720 think for most people who have lived in Atlanta, you 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.120 know through the nineties, they're going to know about the 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.439 man hunt, They're going to know about the additional bombings. 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.600 So I kind of grew up with that story in 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:03.679 the back of my mind, just knowing like this is 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:08.160 a crazy story. I knew about my birth story parts 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.920 of it. I knew about my biological father. I knew 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.839 about the fact that he just wasn't part of our 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.880 lives past the age of like two. For me, it 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.880 was not a good situation. Thankfully, my mom got out 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:24.600 of it. She had a lot of support from her 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.720 parents and my grandparents. But I did not know about 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.640 the Eric Rudolf part of it until high school. It 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.040 was something that I mean, my mom's a very open person. 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.880 She's an open book, but you have to ask her 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.240 certain things to get those pieces of her life, and 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:43.679 I think it's something that she wasn't trying to keep 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.240 from me. She told me everything else. It's just something 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.960 that she put away, and I don't think it was 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.600 really important to her after she made the decision to 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.199 keep me. I think trauma is a very powerful thing. 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.400 I think it does a lot to memories. I think 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.800 that played into that. So when I heard that part 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:06.360 of the story and I was interested in going this 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.839 route of journalism, I kind of always kept it up here, 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.720 you know, to hopefully one day be able to tell 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.119 that story. But in a way that doesn't come across 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.960 as supportive of his actions, right, because I've always been 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.160 a pro choice person as long as I've been able 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.480 to understand what that means. So I certainly didn't want 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:31.720 people to get the wrong idea about it. But it 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.520 was always there and I always wanted to tell that story. 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:36.400 I just need to find the right way to tell it. 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.000 And thankfully linking up a Doug and then Tenderfoot, we 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:41.840 were able to do that. Right. 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:44.800 Do you mean to run with the old title a 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:45.400 little bit here? 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:47.120 Yeah? That I think? Is it? 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:48.959 So? Yeah? Cool was talking about trying to find the 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:54.720 right way to tell the story, and originally we had 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.199 intended to and just for like two years in our 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:02.720 mind and our conceptualization of an ideation process. This podcast 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.440 was called Eric Rudolf Saved My life, not mine his, 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:10.360 but but and on the one hand, we wanted to 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.560 embrace everything about the paradoxical nature of this story. Yes, 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.240 Eric Wrudo was a monster. Yes, Cole doesn't exist unless 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.880 his monstrous actions save his life. But to start off 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.640 on that, the first foot forward being he saved me. 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:27.520 And there was always something that felt off about that. 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:32.720 But it was also cool because, well, but we want 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:34.480 to we don't want people to be able to avoid 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.360 the paradoxical moment here. We really want people to have 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:42.320 to hold these you know, contradictory truths. Yet it was 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:43.679 a bit it was a bridge too far at the 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:45.480 end of the day. I mean, Alex was a was 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.280 a really strong and sound voice in figuring that out 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:50.960 with us, with the whole process for us. 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:53.880 Yeah, and just for contact, Alex Bespa said, is one 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:55.880 of the other executive producers on the show. 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.720 Yeah, I didn't want to change it. I didn't want 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:04.320 that didn't either, And we after we had that initial 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:08.880 conversation with Donald and Alex about it, we kind of 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.720 digging our feet in a little bit, like being a 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.199 little stubborn, and we started talking about other potential titles, 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:19.960 and nothing was coming up even close to that title 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.520 in our minds, and how strong that title was. When 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.840 I told people about the story prior to its release 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:30.520 and I used that title, they said, Wow, that is 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.680 such an amazing title. Do not change that title to 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.280 get you attention. But those were very specific types of 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.880 people that were telling me that too. Those were people 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.559 that were more in line with our thinking and understanding 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:45.959 the type of story we wanted to tell. Those were 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.760 not people who were coming into it cold or seeing 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.560 the title come up on their podcast feed for the 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.240 first time. You know, so, I think it needs context, 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.040 and when you're making a podcast, you don't always have 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.280 that opportunity to vibe context before people listen to it. 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:07.160 Right, I think from my perspective this hearing this, this 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:08.800 is the first time I've heard the other titles, and 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:13.480 option I do kind of get that there's this The 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.400 whole show is a paradox. The whole subject is a paradox. 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:22.400 Your relation to it is so paradoxical. And knowing, like 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.080 you said, Doug, that Eric's continued to publish from prison, 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:32.240 he is this kind of champion within this specific community, 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.160 you may have ended up with a lot of people 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:39.400 very non paradoxically clicking through right and listening to the 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:43.120 show with very different like it'd be great to get 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.960 people of different viewpoints listening to it, but I could 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.199 see how that might have been one of the concerns, right, 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:50.720 is that the sort of I don't want to say ironic, 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:55.280 but like slightly ironic nature that that title has, Like 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.320 you're saying, you can't give any context around it for 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:58.679 that first introduction. 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.360 Yeah, I think we have a lot of people listening 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.560 that are at the end of the day, when they 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:05.920 get to the end, they're pissed off because a lot 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:10.080 of maybe assumptions or beliefs or values that they think 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:14.000 they need to hold on to are challenged maybe in 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.920 a way they're not comfortable with. We're getting some of 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.520 that anyways, which is fine. Another challenge, just on the 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.400 creative side, was if that's the title, are we giving 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.160 up the ghost here? Are we like teasing the listener 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.840 into figuring out what the reveal is right from the drop, 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:32.240 you know? And at the end of the day, I 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.720 don't think the reveal was really that. It was cool. 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.200 I think it was I like the way we handled it, 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:39.600 but like that's not what it's about. Getting to that 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.040 and owning the what you learned from the reveal and 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:43.840 then taking that with you through the story is much 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:44.440 more important. 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.440 And I do want to give Alex a lot of 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:51.440 credit too, because he is the only person that came 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.520 up with the title where I was willing to let 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:59.480 go of the old title because I think Flashpoint is 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:01.640 such a st title and it speaks to the show 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.320 in so many ways. Yeah, and where we are today 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.680 in this climate, can you talk. 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.920 A little bit about where you maybe once you decided, okay, 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.720 we're doing the show, how you started that process of 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:21.080 research and crafting the narrative arc and whether that shifted 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.600 over time. Like, I'd love to hear about that whole 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.280 process because of all that nuance. And yeah, where it 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:28.760 begins versus where it ends up. 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.800 You know, it all starts during COVID, like the peak 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.840 of COVID. And I think it was that summer in 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.680 twenty twenty I had my first It all started with 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.440 an interview with my mom. It was in our basement. 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:44.680 I was living with my parents at the time. I 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.200 had just moved back from Los Angeles and was living 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:50.480 at home all through COVID and we sat down and 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:52.680 just I put a mic in front of her and 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.320 we talked for two hours. And the bulk of what 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.520 you hear in episode two is from that first interview 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.800 that we did. Doug and I hadn't talked to anyone else. 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.480 We talked to ourselves about the type of story we 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.160 wanted to tell, but we hadn't talked to experts at 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.920 this point. We hadn't talked to anyone related to the 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.520 story except my mom. So we started with that interview 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:15.720 and we took it from there. 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.080 That's amazing. Wow, all right, so she shared her story 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:24.200 with you, And then how did you go about deciding 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.400 who to interview who else? What other voices you were 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:29.120 going to bring into the show, because there's a lot 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:29.600 of them. 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:35.440 Doug was very good at helping me understand the Christian identity, 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.000 the religious component to the story, and he was very 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.800 good at pointing me to experts that could talk about that, 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:48.560 people he's followed on Twitter for years, Substack wherever I 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.520 was very much focused on the crime story and finding 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.120 those people people connected Eric Rudoff family members. 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.080 The Tenderfoot team was also really good at helping us find. 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:01.640 Yeah Eye contacts and police. 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:07.320 Yeah, but also one person always inevitably led to another. Yeah, 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:09.160 Like we would talk to one FBI guy, they would 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.600 teach us with a GBI guy, so on and so forth. 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.520 Weird anecdote is that for a while there in twenty 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.320 twenty one, everyone I reached out to or top to 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:25.359 died or had someone close to them pass away. 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:27.000 It was quite a wrong. 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.320 Like I talked to GBI agent Charles Stone, who comes 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:34.200 up many times in the podcast, and I found out 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:36.280 I think it was a month and a half later, 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:37.359 he passed away. 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:38.080 WHOA. 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.600 I went to his house, we sat down for about 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.120 two and a half hours. He just had surgery, and 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.240 I found out about six weeks later he passed away. 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.080 So I'm very fortunate to have been able to sit 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.320 down with him. Wow. 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:57.240 Okay, So was the narrative arc then sort of developed 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:01.159 organically or did you have a really specific from the 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.000 get go? We want to you know, start here reveal 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:09.080 Cole's relationship to every like, you know, focus on the 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.280 Olympic bombing first and then shift to the clinic and 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.320 then reveal Cole and then like, how did you actually 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.359 draft out where the show was going to go? Or 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.080 was that something that really was kind of an organic 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.520 result of all these conversations, one leading to the other. 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.680 When we first started the show, we wanted to save 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:31.199 the reveal until the last act of the whole series, 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.159 so it would have been around episode six, and of 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.880 course we revealed that in episode two, and I think 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:42.000 that was the right move because I think once people 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:46.240 understand my connection to the story, they're able to hold 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:50.879 onto my words a little harder and maybe listen a 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:55.679 little closer than they would otherwise given my connection. But 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.840 the original outline we had certainly is not what we 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.040 up with. We wanted to dig into the connections, the 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.960 stuff that made people angry. We wanted to dig into 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.520 that in episode two. Of course we didn't. I think 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.280 that was the right move because, regardless of people's viewpoints 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.159 or where they stand on abortion, I think most people 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.480 listen to all eight episodes, and that is the most 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:24.760 valuable tool we could have had in making this show. 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:32.160 Yeah, we initially were scripting episodes where each each episode 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:38.040 had sort of a tangential history piece, and little by 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:39.919 little it was taking you up through and it was 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:44.040 going through the timeline of Rudolph's life. Also, the timeline 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.320 of Leah's life and also the timeline of America's sort 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.760 of cultural maturity from you know, the sixties when he 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:55.080 was born, when we start our story with Goldwater, et cetera, 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.560 and jumping back and forth in time was just proved 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.080 really way too challenging. Donald and he's just he's so 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.040 he's so savvy about this stuff without having to try. 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.560 He's just like, no, simplify, tell the crime story, and 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.159 then break it down. So we resisted that for a minute, 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.280 and then we were like, yeah, okay, cool. 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.440 Can you talk a little bit about this whole process 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:22.840 of crafting the narrative because there were so many people 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:27.640 that you also talked to and connected with directly, Cole. 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.879 I don't remember the name of the gentleman who you 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:36.320 talked to on the phone, but you called for the question. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.639 So you called him right and you told him your connection, 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.119 Derek Rudolph, and then he made all these assumptions about 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.920 your viewpoint, which is just how people are. But can 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.639 you talk a little bit about just that experience that 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.080 you had, maybe your internal experience around reaching out to 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:57.080 people who you maybe disagree with, who might have been 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:03.600 making assumptions based on your relationship it indirectly to Eric's actions. 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:06.760 Was that experience like for you conducting interviews and how 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.359 did you kind of maintain emotional clarity and try to 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.800 stay a little I guess neutral and objective in those conversations. 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.760 Yeah, it's a great question. I think when I first 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.600 started reaching out to people, I wasn't getting the response 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.480 that I would have liked because I wasn't explaining my 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.600 connection to this story. I was coming into it from 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.800 I'm a journalist doing a story on Eric Rudolf in 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.920 his other bombings and the subsequent manhunt. I would love 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:41.000 to talk to you in silence. I quickly realized if 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.520 I followed up and didn't bury the lead on my connection, 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:47.760 people were much more willing to talk to me because 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:51.760 they were interested. They were interested in the story. And yeah, 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.960 I think there were instances too where people came into 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.240 it with their own set of views and they projected 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:02.480 that onto me. And surely I must think this because 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.840 of X, Y and Z, but that just wasn't the case. 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.280 When I talked to Tom Brandham, he immediately assumed I 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:13.600 thought Eric Rudolf was, in his words, a hero that 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.720 couldn't be further from the truth. Now, did I correct 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:20.240 him when I talked to him, No, because I was 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:24.800 looking to get an interview, and I did. I ran 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:27.679