June 8, 2023 • 33 mins
President Aristide finally returns to office in Haiti, but to some in his movement, he’s not the same leader. With the murder of one more radio journalist, an era comes to an end.
Available to all on June 8, 2023.
Like what you hear? Follow us @kscope_nyc on Twitter and Instagram.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Previously on Silence.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
You have to realize also what Radio Haiti represented to
the Hitian public. They stood on the tarmac and they
said they wouldn't go. We didn't go. They felt that
they had to protect us, and to them to go
on that plane and do as if nothing had happened
was the worst thing.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Last time we heard from Michelle Montasse, she was fleeing
for her prints with her husband, John Dominique. It was
just after Aristide was overthrown by the military. Their station,
Radio Haiti was a beacon to Haitians everywhere. It was
an example to the vio broadcasters of what it meant
to tell the truth despite the obstacles. John Dominique had
(00:58):
this catchphrase, not.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Kill the truth with the bullet.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
What would happened at Radio Haiti, though, would mirror the
Vealeo murders and test the limits of hope that before
we get there, We're going to start with a love
story from Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. This is Silenced. I
was Velocian and.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I'm Anna Arana. This is episode seven The Flame. It
(01:45):
was the nineteen seventies and Michelle Montage had just graduated
from Columbia journalism school in New York City. Haiti was
suffering under the brutal du Valier regime, but even so,
Michelle's heart was still for her. It was home, so
she went back back in port of friends. She sometimes
(02:08):
went from one movie theater to another, watching films all day.
That's how she first met John Dominique.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I remember going to one movie house meeting that one
guy who is pipe.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
That's Michelle in a documentary called The Agronomist about her
and John's life. John was tall and lean, often with
a pipe dangling from his mouth.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I would go to another film in another movie house
three hours later, and that was.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
That was that same guy. Michelle met the man with
the pipe again when she went to interview for a
job at a newly launched radio station, Radio A t.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
A VI press a.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
La France.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
John had started Radio II and he interviewed Michelle for
a job at the station.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
I told her we need professional journalists.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Can you help us?
Speaker 5 (03:09):
And she came. She became more and more involved in
the radio radio HAIDI in this fight that I felt
compelled to do.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
It was the beginning of a long partnership, first professional,
then romantic.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
It was love at your site. It was passion at
your site, and I think it was the same for him.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Michelle and John were both from middle class families. They
were both educated abroad, but they both believed passionately in
the promise of Haiti. They were revolutionaries. John was working
with Haitian peasants to defend their land rights. He spent
six months in jail for that work. They were kindred spirits.
(03:58):
Together they built Haiti's first independent radio station, and John
inspired a whole generation.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Gean Dominique was one of those people that my idol.
One of the reasons I'm a journalist.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
His radio was the radio I went to to complaint
because the mayor did want us to study under du
Lempo study more.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
I listened to listen to historya in the morning for
me to.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Hear radio hating maneuver it around the dictatorship for decades.
They survived shutdowns, arrests, and shootings to keep the station going.
John and Michelle were exiled and returned. They celebrated Arist's
victory in the streets, then washed in horror as he
was overthrown. They fled the country yet again and were
(04:48):
living in New York when Aristide was finally reinstated as
president in nineteen ninety four, and that's when they got
a phone call.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Jean was invited by Augustine personally to fly down with him.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The US was going to fly Aristeed back to Haiti
with a military escort. Did Jean want to join him?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
He said no, for a lot of reason. He would
never have gone back in a foreign plane, even if
it meant going with Aristide.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
For Jean, Aristy's victory had represented independence from dictatorship and
from foreign meddling. Returning to Haiti on an American plane
would put his beliefs and his support for Aristide at odds.
Jean and Michelle returned separately and once again got the
station back up and running.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Jean would wake me up every morning, We'll give me
coffee in bed, and every time he would read me
the editorial he had written to have my opinion on it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
One spring morning in two thousand, Jean brought Michelle the
editorial as usual, but she felt it needed more work,
so he left for the station to refine it before
going on air.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
He left me to get dressed because I usually went
down to the station later than he did, and I
just was listening to the station. It was the Creole news.
It started at six, and then suddenly I hear the
anchor person saying something has happened, Something has happened, and music.
(06:23):
I called the station and I said, what's happening? And
they tell me Michelle come immediately.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Nothing to prepare Michelle for what she saw when she arrived.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So I just drove down and there was John's body.
Seeing bodies of people you do not know in the street,
it's scary, yes, that that is so very different from
seeing your own husband on the ground, this blood running.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
They rushed him to a nearby hospital.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I went to the hospital and I remember I was
I was holding I was holding Jean's feet because he
was always cold. His feet were always cold, so I
was holding his feet. I knew he was gone.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Jean Dominique and a security guard at the radio station,
Jean Claude Louison, were both shot and killed that April morning.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It was as if I was a ghost. Oh I was.
There was a part of me that was functioning in
another part that was already dead.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
But like Tony after Fritz's murder, Michelle was back on
the airwaves soon after Jean's assassination.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
He would say, Michel, I would say, that's how we
started our broadcast, and I kept on saying.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Delivered Radio Haiti's first editorial after Jean's death. It had
the title, Jean Dominique is Alive. Dominique fire radiated within
Jean every day of our lives at Radio Haiti. Like Prometheus,
Jean had stolen that fire from the gods. After Jean's murder,
(08:25):
there was an outpouring of national grief. Fifteen thousand people
filled Haiti's main soccer stadium for his funeral. This community
gave Michelle strength, and so did her colleagues at Radio Haiti.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I noticed one thing is that my reporters, they didn't
want to leave me alone. They didn't want me to
feel alone, and we thought that support I would have
made it, but they were there.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
The whole team felt a deep responsibility to keep going
to find injustice for Jean, because from the very beginning
they knew.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It was not someone just run of the meal. Bendy
took him in and shot him. It was obvious then
it was a gun for hire.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And I'll never forget Michelle telling us how she kept
saying hello to Jean every morning on air, even after
he'd been gunned down. It makes me think about what
Tony john Tenau told us about talking into the void
in the studio where Fritz used to stand.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Yes, the parallels are stunning. This was another targeted assassination
of a journalist to send a message in Haiti. This
was the equivalent of murdering Walter Cronkite mixed with jfk.
You cannot overstate how much of a shock it was
to everyone.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Right and in the Aftermathew actually sent to Haiti by
the Inter American Press Association to find out who orchestrated
the killing. Why tell me about the situation on the
ground when you first got there.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It was messy. When I first started reporting, rumors were
swirling and fingers were pointed at the military and the
old regime followers. It was the most obvious explanation. They
were enemies of the pro democracy movement that John Dominique
and his counterparts in Miami, like Fritz and the others,
had all been part of. But early on in my
(10:27):
investigation I got a tip and it pointed in a
very unexpected direction toward the people who were in power
now Aristide's own political party you have to understand about
the events leading up to John Dominique's assassination and how
it seemed to come out of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
We never felt really threatened in two thousand, never did.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Just a few years before, Haiti had his first peaceful
transition of power. Aristein's former Brinemans, who had gone into
exile with him, was now president.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
We never thought that Jean would be killed under a
democratic regime. We did not think it could happen, so
we were not taking any special precautions. We were not
being we didn't have bodyguards. We didn't feel that we
were in danger.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
But that didn't mean everything was perfect. From the moment
Aristide returned on the US plane in nineteen ninety four,
Michelle remembers a creeping sense that he was beginning to
turn his back on his political routes.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The first time that Aristide spoke at the National Palace,
Rohy and I were there. He was behind those glass partitions,
isolated from the people who put him in power.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
The early Aristet was a radical liberation theology priest. He
was at one with the slum dweller as a porter
prince and the farmer of the Haitian countryside. But now
he was employing totally different iconography, that is, the traditional politician,
wary of his own people, separated from them by last partitions.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
We realized much later that the Aristide who came back
was not the Aristil we had elected.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Remember, as a condition of returning to power, Oristate had
to give amnesty to many of the cocaine kernels and
frap types, the very people who had been involved in
his coup. He was also pressured to accept devastating economic
terms imposed by the US. Just one example, Haiti had
long been able to grow more than enough rice to
(12:42):
feed his people. That Oristate had to lower import tariffs,
and that opened up Haiti to a flood of cheap
American rice. Haitian rice production collapsed, Farmers who had tilled
the land for generations were suddenly jobless, and Haiti became
so substantially more dependent on the US.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
The issue that Jehan had with Aristide, the Aristin who
came back, he felt was no longer respecting what Jean
called the mandate. The mandate was what the Democratic movement
gave him.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Not only that, but there were rumors that the people
around Aristide were now involved in drug trafficking. John Dominique
does not want to stay quiet and a famous interview
in nineteen ninety six, two years after Aristid returned to Haiti,
John challenged him about corruption in his own political.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Party, Communicate Communicate.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I spoke with Gary Pierre Pierre, a Haitian American journalist
who founded the Haitian Times. He remembers hearing that interview.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
I remember one thing he told Aristid. He called him Cid,
which was like the trem of endearment that his had
for our gentlemen. Said, you know, this is not what
we talked about. This is not what the movement was
supposed to be. And you could feel arrested and anxiety
and answering that question. And there was a very cringe
(14:14):
worthy interview. He was being secured by gian Do Minique Bash.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
Next up Braggado.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
He asked him the questions. He says, isn't that what
you call the pets, the projects of the presidency. Isn't
that corruption? Aren't you trying to buy the good will
of the people who actually overthrew you? And Ristig was begging,
embarrassed by it.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Harry Steele was being called out by one of his
oldest allies live on air on one of the country's
most influential radio programs. This was not acceptable to a
president whom Michelle says increasingly had one goal.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
His objective became to stay in power, and we felt
it was at all costs because he didn't want another coup.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And so, yeah, they were not going to let him live.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
The movement failed the country in some ways and they
had to get rid of him.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
So, Anna, when you arrived in Haiti to investigate John
Dominique's death, you landed in the middle of a very
complicated practical dynamic.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah. Our state's party had finally returned to power and
they seemed desperate to hang on to it, and the
murder of John Dominique put people on edge. Really, Haitians
were used to people in power using violence, and even
though this was a new regime, few people wanted to talk,
and those who did felt they were taking huge risks.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
You told me one of your first steps was to
go see the investigating judge, a guy called Tori Gasson.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yes, I went to see him, and he offered to
let me see two cardboard boxes he had at that
time with all the documents in the case and I
was kind of amazed that he'd let me do that.
But then in the middle of the interview, he started crying.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Why do you think he was so candid?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
I think he was really afraid that something was going
to happen to him because the truth was very damaging
to many powerful people.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
You told me that you also felt scared while you
were reporting.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah, it was a scary trip. From the beginning. I
suspected I was being surveilled. I had to change hotels, cars.
I got out of there in ten days because I
couldn't stay any longer as I felt that some of
the suspects powerful people in Haiti were keeping tabs on me.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
And then you wrote your report laying out the theory
that was out in the open but difficult for anyone
to acknowledge.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
The conclusion I came to after speaking to various sources
and reading the core documents was that the intellectual authors
of the crime likely did come from Aristeed's own political party.
Nine people, including some lower level members of Aristeed's party
and the alleged gunmen, were eventually charged.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Wow, so the million dollar question is Daroused know about
this murder in advance? Was involved?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I couldn't go there during my short time in Haiti.
But a lot of the debate has been center around
whether our state knew and approved the murder. But oftentimes
with political assassinations, people who are followers and aspiring for
power take it upon themselves to carry out killings, hoping
(17:52):
that they'll benefit from it. It's like the scenario we
built up around the murders of the four broadcasters in Miami,
used police reports and court documents.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I understand that the riff between Jean Aristeed was growing,
and Aristi's political party seemed to be mine in the
same corruption they campaigned against. But why would he kill
one of his own movement's allies.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Well that Landmark nineteen ninety six interview Jean did with Aristide,
it seemed to be a factor, and some of Aristide's
people seemed concerned that John may be interested in running
for office himself. That was a huge political threat. John
was incredibly popular with the people. But Michelle pointed out
(18:38):
to us that this didn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
How could you not be a candidate? He was killed
in April, the election was in.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Me Another theory is that John Dominique had touched at
third rail that he was planning to publicly name drug
traffickers within Aristide's own party. By Michelle Montasque categorically denis this.
She said, John would never have been so naive as
to call that out. Ultimately, we can't really know for
(19:09):
sure who was responsible. All I know is I saw
the documents from the investigation and they explicitly name high
ranking members of our state's party.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Michelle montag told us that Your Peace backed up some
of her own suspicions.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
What Anna which facts came up with was? She said
it was.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
From that camp, Aristet's camp.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
And I had reason to believe she was right. However,
I kept on asking myself, not only is it h
it was a crime, but it was stupid. You don't
kill Don Dominique, who is one of the most popular
figure in Haiti for what And to me, that was stupid.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Michelle still grieves both her personal loss, but also the
loss of the dream of helping Haiti out of the
darkness the de valiate dictatorship. She moans the hope she
and so many others had penned on Aristeid.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
It was a betrayal of uh so much that we
thought he stood for all of the Democratic movement fought four,
which is, you know, basic ideals of human rights. To me,
power is not worth it, but maybe to some it is.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
After Anna published her report, Michelle Montasse was still on
air Radio Haiti.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I'd been asking for justice day in and day out
for almost three years. I don't think I remember ever
being scared. Everything was so intense that you don't have
time to be afraid.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
But since John's assassination, Michelle had been forced to take precautions.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
We had to accept bodyguards because after John's assassination, we
felt maybe we should have bodyguards.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
And then on Christmas Day two thousand and two, Michelle
was coming back to her house.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I went through the gate at my house. My bodyguard
was next to me, was a young guy twenty six
years old.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Maxim sayed. He always joked with Michelle that he would
defend her because he was bigger than her. That's what
they called him at the station. Big Maxim spotted a
group of men approaching the house with guns drawn, and he.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Did something extraordinarily brave.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
He asked the other guard to close the gate, keeping
Michelle safe inside, and then he ran down the street,
distracting the men with guns and leading them away from
the house.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And he was killed. The worst day of my life
was the day I went to see his mother after
he was killed. That mother had been waiting for him
(22:07):
with the Christmas meal. I found her laying down on
the mat on the ground, and she was crying. She
was willing, and I told myself, she's going to hit me,
She's going to just kick me out. Instead of that,
(22:30):
she threw her arms towards me and she said, Mama.
She called me mother. So I laid down next to
her on the mat. We cried together.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Maximum was young, just twenty six years old. He loved
to talk about books and international affairs with Michelle. She
said the day he was killed was worse than the
day her husband was killed. Michelle's up response his death.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
He was a young man who didn't ask to die.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
It was a turning point.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I thought I would be on the air every single
day fighting for justice until I got justice.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I didn't realize until Maxim was killed that I was
putting other people in danger as well.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Within a couple of months, Michelle decided that the only
way to keep her team safe was to close down
Radio Haiti. At the meeting. When she told the staff
that she decided they should stop, they started pouring their
hearts out.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
One of them told me that his mother had kicked
him out of the house because he was endangering his
brothers and sisters. Another one told me that his wife
I'd ask him not to come to the house anymore
for the same reason.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
They were all used to risk, even inure to it. Michelle,
John Dominique, and of course Jean Claude, Fritz and Donna.
Through all the death and violence, they'd pushed and pushed
and pushed until finally things broke.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
After Maximum was killed, I realized that the people wanted
us silenced would not stop at anything. It was not me.
Twas going to be someone else, and I couldn't bear
the thought of another one of our journalists or anyone
around us be killed.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Radio Haiti shut down in two thousand and three after
broadcasting on and off for thirty five years, and not
long after Michelle left Haiti for the US for her
third and final exile. I first met Michelle at a
diner in New York City. She wanted to meet and
talk before agreeing to an on the record interview about
(24:51):
such a painful and still controversial topic. We sat together
for two hours on that occasion, and at the end
Michelle agreed to a recorded interview at her apartment. We
had this version of.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
This conversation a couple of weeks ago, and it was
obviously extremely painful.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
For you, and yeah, you decided to sit down.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
And have it again.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Is that something you feel you owe to Jean to
to fight for justice to what what what.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
He bids me. I feel that I owe it to Jean,
and I feel I owe it to the Hitian people
somewhere somehow, because they were always there for me. They
were always there for us when we were building that station,
when we were airing the news, when we were you know,
we're not superheroes. We're just people who just felt embolvedened
(25:45):
because they were supported by other people. It was just
the effort of so many of us towards some basic ideas,
not up in the sky, just basic rights, fighting for them.
I think it's worth it to continue.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
I mean makes you think about the nineteen ninety one incident,
whether people were choosing to go on the plane.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Unless you and John not on the plane.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yeah, Max sing with your bodyguard, but when he saw
the guys with guns there step to one side.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yes, yes, his.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Mother could have kicked out the house, and so she
caught you, my mom. So that the flame that you
lit was was extremely strong.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yes, that we all together lit it was an extremely
strong one. Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Michelle Montaze lives in New York now. Her apartment is
filled with art, some African and some Haitian. One picture
in particular, Cut My Eye as a painting of her husband,
John Dominique.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
The person in the big blue coat is Jean, and
next to him there is another figure. We're supposed to
represent the Haitian peasants. The cut rope is a sign
that Jean has helped liberate Haitian peasants from their chains,
(27:28):
like you know, our ancestors were liberated from the chains
of slavery.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And the painting John Dominique is at one with the
Haitian people, a partner in their historic victory freeing themselves
from slavery. But the movement he contributed so much to
still hasn't been realized.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
People. After the overthrew of laud Valier, they were all
saying the same thing. They were saying, babu lat b babuk.
Yet it's the gag that we had had over our faces,
all our lives. It was not just about going to
put someone else in the National palace. It was defending
(28:11):
freedom of speech and freedom of association.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
But the murder of John Dominique killed the dream. Some
in the diaspora started to think that Haiti was not
a place that they could ever return to.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
In the end, Aristide was ousted one final time in
two thousand and four. A French diplomat alleges that the
Bush administration was involved in a coup against him. Since then,
whatever was left to the pro democracy movement has mostly retired, dispersed,
or died. To this day, the intellectual authors of John
(28:46):
Dominique's murder have never been caught, but there are demonstrations
every year in Haiti demanding justice, and in Miami the
radio broadcast as murders still need to be solved.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Impunity It silences people. That's what ties together all of
the threads, Michelle and John Dominique, the Little Haiti murders.
When people are harmed or killed for their beliefs and
the perpetrators aren't helld responsible, everyone is less and less free.
(29:21):
Fear is a powerful strait.
Speaker 7 (29:23):
Jacket and I think that that was probably part of
the bravery of these radio folks.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It reached Danticut, Haitian writer. She was also a producer
on the Agronomous documentary and knew John Dominique.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
And I think that's what we're so brave about that
because you're shadowing a kind of silence, you're taking a
lot of risk that personally people are unable or unwilling
to take.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
While we're reporting the story, yet another assassination happened. This
time it was Haiti's President, jauven El Moyiz in twenty
twenty one.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
There is a painful circularity to the political situation in
Haiti sometimes that you'll see parallels or reincarnations of different
groups of different moments.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
The assassination is a complicated story, but it has telltale
US fingerprints all over it. At least one active FBI
informant and one former DEA informant have since been charged
with the murder. It seems to form part of a
pattern tracing back to the Duvaliers and even before them,
(30:39):
of the US picking winners in Haiti.
Speaker 7 (30:43):
And it's a very complicated story with the international power
starting with the US, where Haiti was never allowed to
fulfill its full potential.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
But at which says there is still hope, hope that
lies in the hands of Haitians.
Speaker 7 (31:05):
When we think about all that's happened in Haiti, like
from eighteen oh four to this moment. We need to
break a cycle in a certain way so that these
young people who are lying on the floor now are
not going to be the one shooting the guns tomorrow.
But all of us who love Haiti, we want to
(31:26):
find that daybreak, you know, we want to we want
to see that dawn. Just even in the last ten twenties,
a lot of people have lost their lives with that
dream in their heads. So hopefully it will happen one day,
you know, like we'll see a country emerged to be
(31:46):
what it's, what it was meant to be, what our
ancestors wanted it to be.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Next time, a conversation with Gary Pierre Pierre of the
Haitian Times about what happened to the vo movement led
by Jean Just and the radio broadcasters, and about where
Haiti goes from here.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
A special thanks to Trenton Daniel Now of the ass
Shaded Press. He was working for Reuters and the Haitian
Times and Haiti when I was there investigating John Dominique's murder,
and without Trenton's help, my own reporting would not have
been completed.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Silenced is a Kaleidoscope Content original produced by Margaret Catcher,
Jen Kinney and Kadmini Rugunov. Research assistants from Isabella Phipps,
Jeremy Bigwood and Kira Sinnis edited by Lacy Roberts, executive
produced by Kate Osborne, reported and hosted by Annie Arana
(33:00):
and me Oz Valoshin. Fact checking by Nicole Pasulka. Music
by Oliver Rodigan aka Kdenzer, Mix and sound design by
Kyle Murdoch. Thanks to mangoesh Ha, Tikta Costaslinas and viny Shuri.
Our executive producers at iHeart are Katrina Novel and Nikki Etor.
(33:21):
If you like what you hear, please rate reviews, share
and subscribe to our channel. Thank you,
Previously on Silence.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
You have to realize also what Radio Haiti represented to
the Hitian public. They stood on the tarmac and they
said they wouldn't go. We didn't go. They felt that
they had to protect us, and to them to go
on that plane and do as if nothing had happened
was the worst thing.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Last time we heard from Michelle Montasse, she was fleeing
for her prints with her husband, John Dominique. It was
just after Aristide was overthrown by the military. Their station,
Radio Haiti was a beacon to Haitians everywhere. It was
an example to the vio broadcasters of what it meant
to tell the truth despite the obstacles. John Dominique had
(00:58):
this catchphrase, not.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Kill the truth with the bullet.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
What would happened at Radio Haiti, though, would mirror the
Vealeo murders and test the limits of hope that before
we get there, We're going to start with a love
story from Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. This is Silenced. I
was Velocian and.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I'm Anna Arana. This is episode seven The Flame. It
(01:45):
was the nineteen seventies and Michelle Montage had just graduated
from Columbia journalism school in New York City. Haiti was
suffering under the brutal du Valier regime, but even so,
Michelle's heart was still for her. It was home, so
she went back back in port of friends. She sometimes
(02:08):
went from one movie theater to another, watching films all day.
That's how she first met John Dominique.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I remember going to one movie house meeting that one
guy who is pipe.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
That's Michelle in a documentary called The Agronomist about her
and John's life. John was tall and lean, often with
a pipe dangling from his mouth.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I would go to another film in another movie house
three hours later, and that was.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
That was that same guy. Michelle met the man with
the pipe again when she went to interview for a
job at a newly launched radio station, Radio A t.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
A VI press a.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
La France.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
John had started Radio II and he interviewed Michelle for
a job at the station.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
I told her we need professional journalists.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Can you help us?
Speaker 5 (03:09):
And she came. She became more and more involved in
the radio radio HAIDI in this fight that I felt
compelled to do.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
It was the beginning of a long partnership, first professional,
then romantic.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
It was love at your site. It was passion at
your site, and I think it was the same for him.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Michelle and John were both from middle class families. They
were both educated abroad, but they both believed passionately in
the promise of Haiti. They were revolutionaries. John was working
with Haitian peasants to defend their land rights. He spent
six months in jail for that work. They were kindred spirits.
(03:58):
Together they built Haiti's first independent radio station, and John
inspired a whole generation.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Gean Dominique was one of those people that my idol.
One of the reasons I'm a journalist.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
His radio was the radio I went to to complaint
because the mayor did want us to study under du
Lempo study more.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
I listened to listen to historya in the morning for
me to.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Hear radio hating maneuver it around the dictatorship for decades.
They survived shutdowns, arrests, and shootings to keep the station going.
John and Michelle were exiled and returned. They celebrated Arist's
victory in the streets, then washed in horror as he
was overthrown. They fled the country yet again and were
(04:48):
living in New York when Aristide was finally reinstated as
president in nineteen ninety four, and that's when they got
a phone call.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Jean was invited by Augustine personally to fly down with him.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The US was going to fly Aristeed back to Haiti
with a military escort. Did Jean want to join him?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
He said no, for a lot of reason. He would
never have gone back in a foreign plane, even if
it meant going with Aristide.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
For Jean, Aristy's victory had represented independence from dictatorship and
from foreign meddling. Returning to Haiti on an American plane
would put his beliefs and his support for Aristide at odds.
Jean and Michelle returned separately and once again got the
station back up and running.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Jean would wake me up every morning, We'll give me
coffee in bed, and every time he would read me
the editorial he had written to have my opinion on it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
One spring morning in two thousand, Jean brought Michelle the
editorial as usual, but she felt it needed more work,
so he left for the station to refine it before
going on air.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
He left me to get dressed because I usually went
down to the station later than he did, and I
just was listening to the station. It was the Creole news.
It started at six, and then suddenly I hear the
anchor person saying something has happened, Something has happened, and music.
(06:23):
I called the station and I said, what's happening? And
they tell me Michelle come immediately.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Nothing to prepare Michelle for what she saw when she arrived.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So I just drove down and there was John's body.
Seeing bodies of people you do not know in the street,
it's scary, yes, that that is so very different from
seeing your own husband on the ground, this blood running.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
They rushed him to a nearby hospital.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I went to the hospital and I remember I was
I was holding I was holding Jean's feet because he
was always cold. His feet were always cold, so I
was holding his feet. I knew he was gone.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Jean Dominique and a security guard at the radio station,
Jean Claude Louison, were both shot and killed that April morning.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It was as if I was a ghost. Oh I was.
There was a part of me that was functioning in
another part that was already dead.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
But like Tony after Fritz's murder, Michelle was back on
the airwaves soon after Jean's assassination.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
He would say, Michel, I would say, that's how we
started our broadcast, and I kept on saying.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Delivered Radio Haiti's first editorial after Jean's death. It had
the title, Jean Dominique is Alive. Dominique fire radiated within
Jean every day of our lives at Radio Haiti. Like Prometheus,
Jean had stolen that fire from the gods. After Jean's murder,
(08:25):
there was an outpouring of national grief. Fifteen thousand people
filled Haiti's main soccer stadium for his funeral. This community
gave Michelle strength, and so did her colleagues at Radio Haiti.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I noticed one thing is that my reporters, they didn't
want to leave me alone. They didn't want me to
feel alone, and we thought that support I would have
made it, but they were there.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
The whole team felt a deep responsibility to keep going
to find injustice for Jean, because from the very beginning
they knew.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It was not someone just run of the meal. Bendy
took him in and shot him. It was obvious then
it was a gun for hire.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And I'll never forget Michelle telling us how she kept
saying hello to Jean every morning on air, even after
he'd been gunned down. It makes me think about what
Tony john Tenau told us about talking into the void
in the studio where Fritz used to stand.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Yes, the parallels are stunning. This was another targeted assassination
of a journalist to send a message in Haiti. This
was the equivalent of murdering Walter Cronkite mixed with jfk.
You cannot overstate how much of a shock it was
to everyone.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Right and in the Aftermathew actually sent to Haiti by
the Inter American Press Association to find out who orchestrated
the killing. Why tell me about the situation on the
ground when you first got there.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It was messy. When I first started reporting, rumors were
swirling and fingers were pointed at the military and the
old regime followers. It was the most obvious explanation. They
were enemies of the pro democracy movement that John Dominique
and his counterparts in Miami, like Fritz and the others,
had all been part of. But early on in my
(10:27):
investigation I got a tip and it pointed in a
very unexpected direction toward the people who were in power
now Aristide's own political party you have to understand about
the events leading up to John Dominique's assassination and how
it seemed to come out of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
We never felt really threatened in two thousand, never did.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Just a few years before, Haiti had his first peaceful
transition of power. Aristein's former Brinemans, who had gone into
exile with him, was now president.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
We never thought that Jean would be killed under a
democratic regime. We did not think it could happen, so
we were not taking any special precautions. We were not
being we didn't have bodyguards. We didn't feel that we
were in danger.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
But that didn't mean everything was perfect. From the moment
Aristide returned on the US plane in nineteen ninety four,
Michelle remembers a creeping sense that he was beginning to
turn his back on his political routes.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The first time that Aristide spoke at the National Palace,
Rohy and I were there. He was behind those glass partitions,
isolated from the people who put him in power.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
The early Aristet was a radical liberation theology priest. He
was at one with the slum dweller as a porter
prince and the farmer of the Haitian countryside. But now
he was employing totally different iconography, that is, the traditional politician,
wary of his own people, separated from them by last partitions.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
We realized much later that the Aristide who came back
was not the Aristil we had elected.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Remember, as a condition of returning to power, Oristate had
to give amnesty to many of the cocaine kernels and
frap types, the very people who had been involved in
his coup. He was also pressured to accept devastating economic
terms imposed by the US. Just one example, Haiti had
long been able to grow more than enough rice to
(12:42):
feed his people. That Oristate had to lower import tariffs,
and that opened up Haiti to a flood of cheap
American rice. Haitian rice production collapsed, Farmers who had tilled
the land for generations were suddenly jobless, and Haiti became
so substantially more dependent on the US.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
The issue that Jehan had with Aristide, the Aristin who
came back, he felt was no longer respecting what Jean
called the mandate. The mandate was what the Democratic movement
gave him.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Not only that, but there were rumors that the people
around Aristide were now involved in drug trafficking. John Dominique
does not want to stay quiet and a famous interview
in nineteen ninety six, two years after Aristid returned to Haiti,
John challenged him about corruption in his own political.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Party, Communicate Communicate.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I spoke with Gary Pierre Pierre, a Haitian American journalist
who founded the Haitian Times. He remembers hearing that interview.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
I remember one thing he told Aristid. He called him Cid,
which was like the trem of endearment that his had
for our gentlemen. Said, you know, this is not what
we talked about. This is not what the movement was
supposed to be. And you could feel arrested and anxiety
and answering that question. And there was a very cringe
(14:14):
worthy interview. He was being secured by gian Do Minique Bash.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
Next up Braggado.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
He asked him the questions. He says, isn't that what
you call the pets, the projects of the presidency. Isn't
that corruption? Aren't you trying to buy the good will
of the people who actually overthrew you? And Ristig was begging,
embarrassed by it.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Harry Steele was being called out by one of his
oldest allies live on air on one of the country's
most influential radio programs. This was not acceptable to a
president whom Michelle says increasingly had one goal.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
His objective became to stay in power, and we felt
it was at all costs because he didn't want another coup.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And so, yeah, they were not going to let him live.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
The movement failed the country in some ways and they
had to get rid of him.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
So, Anna, when you arrived in Haiti to investigate John
Dominique's death, you landed in the middle of a very
complicated practical dynamic.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah. Our state's party had finally returned to power and
they seemed desperate to hang on to it, and the
murder of John Dominique put people on edge. Really, Haitians
were used to people in power using violence, and even
though this was a new regime, few people wanted to talk,
and those who did felt they were taking huge risks.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
You told me one of your first steps was to
go see the investigating judge, a guy called Tori Gasson.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yes, I went to see him, and he offered to
let me see two cardboard boxes he had at that
time with all the documents in the case and I
was kind of amazed that he'd let me do that.
But then in the middle of the interview, he started crying.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Why do you think he was so candid?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
I think he was really afraid that something was going
to happen to him because the truth was very damaging
to many powerful people.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
You told me that you also felt scared while you
were reporting.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah, it was a scary trip. From the beginning. I
suspected I was being surveilled. I had to change hotels, cars.
I got out of there in ten days because I
couldn't stay any longer as I felt that some of
the suspects powerful people in Haiti were keeping tabs on me.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
And then you wrote your report laying out the theory
that was out in the open but difficult for anyone
to acknowledge.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
The conclusion I came to after speaking to various sources
and reading the core documents was that the intellectual authors
of the crime likely did come from Aristeed's own political party.
Nine people, including some lower level members of Aristeed's party
and the alleged gunmen, were eventually charged.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Wow, so the million dollar question is Daroused know about
this murder in advance? Was involved?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I couldn't go there during my short time in Haiti.
But a lot of the debate has been center around
whether our state knew and approved the murder. But oftentimes
with political assassinations, people who are followers and aspiring for
power take it upon themselves to carry out killings, hoping
(17:52):
that they'll benefit from it. It's like the scenario we
built up around the murders of the four broadcasters in Miami,
used police reports and court documents.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I understand that the riff between Jean Aristeed was growing,
and Aristi's political party seemed to be mine in the
same corruption they campaigned against. But why would he kill
one of his own movement's allies.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Well that Landmark nineteen ninety six interview Jean did with Aristide,
it seemed to be a factor, and some of Aristide's
people seemed concerned that John may be interested in running
for office himself. That was a huge political threat. John
was incredibly popular with the people. But Michelle pointed out
(18:38):
to us that this didn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
How could you not be a candidate? He was killed
in April, the election was in.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Me Another theory is that John Dominique had touched at
third rail that he was planning to publicly name drug
traffickers within Aristide's own party. By Michelle Montasque categorically denis this.
She said, John would never have been so naive as
to call that out. Ultimately, we can't really know for
(19:09):
sure who was responsible. All I know is I saw
the documents from the investigation and they explicitly name high
ranking members of our state's party.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Michelle montag told us that Your Peace backed up some
of her own suspicions.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
What Anna which facts came up with was? She said
it was.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
From that camp, Aristet's camp.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
And I had reason to believe she was right. However,
I kept on asking myself, not only is it h
it was a crime, but it was stupid. You don't
kill Don Dominique, who is one of the most popular
figure in Haiti for what And to me, that was stupid.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Michelle still grieves both her personal loss, but also the
loss of the dream of helping Haiti out of the
darkness the de valiate dictatorship. She moans the hope she
and so many others had penned on Aristeid.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
It was a betrayal of uh so much that we
thought he stood for all of the Democratic movement fought four,
which is, you know, basic ideals of human rights. To me,
power is not worth it, but maybe to some it is.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
After Anna published her report, Michelle Montasse was still on
air Radio Haiti.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I'd been asking for justice day in and day out
for almost three years. I don't think I remember ever
being scared. Everything was so intense that you don't have
time to be afraid.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
But since John's assassination, Michelle had been forced to take precautions.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
We had to accept bodyguards because after John's assassination, we
felt maybe we should have bodyguards.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
And then on Christmas Day two thousand and two, Michelle
was coming back to her house.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I went through the gate at my house. My bodyguard
was next to me, was a young guy twenty six
years old.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Maxim sayed. He always joked with Michelle that he would
defend her because he was bigger than her. That's what
they called him at the station. Big Maxim spotted a
group of men approaching the house with guns drawn, and he.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Did something extraordinarily brave.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
He asked the other guard to close the gate, keeping
Michelle safe inside, and then he ran down the street,
distracting the men with guns and leading them away from
the house.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And he was killed. The worst day of my life
was the day I went to see his mother after
he was killed. That mother had been waiting for him
(22:07):
with the Christmas meal. I found her laying down on
the mat on the ground, and she was crying. She
was willing, and I told myself, she's going to hit me,
She's going to just kick me out. Instead of that,
(22:30):
she threw her arms towards me and she said, Mama.
She called me mother. So I laid down next to
her on the mat. We cried together.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Maximum was young, just twenty six years old. He loved
to talk about books and international affairs with Michelle. She
said the day he was killed was worse than the
day her husband was killed. Michelle's up response his death.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
He was a young man who didn't ask to die.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
It was a turning point.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I thought I would be on the air every single
day fighting for justice until I got justice.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I didn't realize until Maxim was killed that I was
putting other people in danger as well.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Within a couple of months, Michelle decided that the only
way to keep her team safe was to close down
Radio Haiti. At the meeting. When she told the staff
that she decided they should stop, they started pouring their
hearts out.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
One of them told me that his mother had kicked
him out of the house because he was endangering his
brothers and sisters. Another one told me that his wife
I'd ask him not to come to the house anymore
for the same reason.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
They were all used to risk, even inure to it. Michelle,
John Dominique, and of course Jean Claude, Fritz and Donna.
Through all the death and violence, they'd pushed and pushed
and pushed until finally things broke.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
After Maximum was killed, I realized that the people wanted
us silenced would not stop at anything. It was not me.
Twas going to be someone else, and I couldn't bear
the thought of another one of our journalists or anyone
around us be killed.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Radio Haiti shut down in two thousand and three after
broadcasting on and off for thirty five years, and not
long after Michelle left Haiti for the US for her
third and final exile. I first met Michelle at a
diner in New York City. She wanted to meet and
talk before agreeing to an on the record interview about
(24:51):
such a painful and still controversial topic. We sat together
for two hours on that occasion, and at the end
Michelle agreed to a recorded interview at her apartment. We
had this version of.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
This conversation a couple of weeks ago, and it was
obviously extremely painful.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
For you, and yeah, you decided to sit down.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
And have it again.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Is that something you feel you owe to Jean to
to fight for justice to what what what.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
He bids me. I feel that I owe it to Jean,
and I feel I owe it to the Hitian people
somewhere somehow, because they were always there for me. They
were always there for us when we were building that station,
when we were airing the news, when we were you know,
we're not superheroes. We're just people who just felt embolvedened
(25:45):
because they were supported by other people. It was just
the effort of so many of us towards some basic ideas,
not up in the sky, just basic rights, fighting for them.
I think it's worth it to continue.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
I mean makes you think about the nineteen ninety one incident,
whether people were choosing to go on the plane.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Unless you and John not on the plane.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yeah, Max sing with your bodyguard, but when he saw
the guys with guns there step to one side.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yes, yes, his.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Mother could have kicked out the house, and so she
caught you, my mom. So that the flame that you
lit was was extremely strong.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yes, that we all together lit it was an extremely
strong one. Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Michelle Montaze lives in New York now. Her apartment is
filled with art, some African and some Haitian. One picture
in particular, Cut My Eye as a painting of her husband,
John Dominique.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
The person in the big blue coat is Jean, and
next to him there is another figure. We're supposed to
represent the Haitian peasants. The cut rope is a sign
that Jean has helped liberate Haitian peasants from their chains,
(27:28):
like you know, our ancestors were liberated from the chains
of slavery.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And the painting John Dominique is at one with the
Haitian people, a partner in their historic victory freeing themselves
from slavery. But the movement he contributed so much to
still hasn't been realized.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
People. After the overthrew of laud Valier, they were all
saying the same thing. They were saying, babu lat b babuk.
Yet it's the gag that we had had over our faces,
all our lives. It was not just about going to
put someone else in the National palace. It was defending
(28:11):
freedom of speech and freedom of association.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
But the murder of John Dominique killed the dream. Some
in the diaspora started to think that Haiti was not
a place that they could ever return to.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
In the end, Aristide was ousted one final time in
two thousand and four. A French diplomat alleges that the
Bush administration was involved in a coup against him. Since then,
whatever was left to the pro democracy movement has mostly retired, dispersed,
or died. To this day, the intellectual authors of John
(28:46):
Dominique's murder have never been caught, but there are demonstrations
every year in Haiti demanding justice, and in Miami the
radio broadcast as murders still need to be solved.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Impunity It silences people. That's what ties together all of
the threads, Michelle and John Dominique, the Little Haiti murders.
When people are harmed or killed for their beliefs and
the perpetrators aren't helld responsible, everyone is less and less free.
(29:21):
Fear is a powerful strait.
Speaker 7 (29:23):
Jacket and I think that that was probably part of
the bravery of these radio folks.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It reached Danticut, Haitian writer. She was also a producer
on the Agronomous documentary and knew John Dominique.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
And I think that's what we're so brave about that
because you're shadowing a kind of silence, you're taking a
lot of risk that personally people are unable or unwilling
to take.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
While we're reporting the story, yet another assassination happened. This
time it was Haiti's President, jauven El Moyiz in twenty
twenty one.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
There is a painful circularity to the political situation in
Haiti sometimes that you'll see parallels or reincarnations of different
groups of different moments.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
The assassination is a complicated story, but it has telltale
US fingerprints all over it. At least one active FBI
informant and one former DEA informant have since been charged
with the murder. It seems to form part of a
pattern tracing back to the Duvaliers and even before them,
(30:39):
of the US picking winners in Haiti.
Speaker 7 (30:43):
And it's a very complicated story with the international power
starting with the US, where Haiti was never allowed to
fulfill its full potential.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
But at which says there is still hope, hope that
lies in the hands of Haitians.
Speaker 7 (31:05):
When we think about all that's happened in Haiti, like
from eighteen oh four to this moment. We need to
break a cycle in a certain way so that these
young people who are lying on the floor now are
not going to be the one shooting the guns tomorrow.
But all of us who love Haiti, we want to
(31:26):
find that daybreak, you know, we want to we want
to see that dawn. Just even in the last ten twenties,
a lot of people have lost their lives with that
dream in their heads. So hopefully it will happen one day,
you know, like we'll see a country emerged to be
(31:46):
what it's, what it was meant to be, what our
ancestors wanted it to be.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Next time, a conversation with Gary Pierre Pierre of the
Haitian Times about what happened to the vo movement led
by Jean Just and the radio broadcasters, and about where
Haiti goes from here.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
A special thanks to Trenton Daniel Now of the ass
Shaded Press. He was working for Reuters and the Haitian
Times and Haiti when I was there investigating John Dominique's murder,
and without Trenton's help, my own reporting would not have
been completed.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Silenced is a Kaleidoscope Content original produced by Margaret Catcher,
Jen Kinney and Kadmini Rugunov. Research assistants from Isabella Phipps,
Jeremy Bigwood and Kira Sinnis edited by Lacy Roberts, executive
produced by Kate Osborne, reported and hosted by Annie Arana
(33:00):
and me Oz Valoshin. Fact checking by Nicole Pasulka. Music
by Oliver Rodigan aka Kdenzer, Mix and sound design by
Kyle Murdoch. Thanks to mangoesh Ha, Tikta Costaslinas and viny Shuri.
Our executive producers at iHeart are Katrina Novel and Nikki Etor.
(33:21):
If you like what you hear, please rate reviews, share
and subscribe to our channel. Thank you,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.