August 2, 2024 • 68 mins
Madison McGhee is the creator and host of the gripping podcast "Ice Cold Case," where she investigates the cold case murder of her father, John C. McGhee. J.C. was found shot in their family home, a crime that has haunted Madison for years. Driven by a deep desire for justice and closure, Madison uses her podcast to explore the details of her father's murder, uncover new leads, and bring attention to the unresolved case. Her relentless pursuit of the truth and her emotional connection to the story make "Ice Cold Case" a compelling and heartfelt journey for listeners.
Subscribe to Tenderfoot+ for ad-free listening - https://tenderfoot.tv/plus/
Follow Talking to Death on Social:
IG: @talkingtodeath
TikTok: @talkingtodeathpodcast
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 (00:00):
Talking to Death is released every Friday and brought to
you absolutely free. But if you want ad free listening
and exclusive bonuses, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot
com or on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Talking to Death is a production of tenderfoot TV and
iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Welcome back to Talking to Death. This week, Pain sits
down with Madison McGhee. Madison is the creator and host
of the Ice Cold Case podcast, where she investigates the
cold case murder of her own father. In this episode,
Madison breaks down her own investigative work into her father's
cold case. They discuss her struggles in making a podcast
(00:42):
about such a sensitive topic and the toll that that
process takes, and Pain impart some of his own investigative wisdom.
This week, Madison McGhee.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
Good to see you. It's been a minute. I know.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
It was crime con right that we saw each other,
which was such.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
A like yeah, like yeah, we like barely talked. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I think I saw you for thirty seconds, and I
guess everyone for thirty seconds. I don't think I had
thirty seconds of my own like thinking that, yeah, is
not disruptive by something else, good time, but it was
a whirlwood.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I don't want to be pain Lindsay at Crime Gone Ever,
You're just too it's too crazy.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
It can be a little much.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
It's like the one time in you know the world
where I go downstairs to a Starbucks and there's a
good chance that almost everyone knows who I am. Like
usually that like that doesn't happen anywhere, but yeah, in
that particular environment, it's it's likely and you have to
(01:53):
kind of be aware.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Of that totally totally.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
But yeah, that was fun. You had a cool panel. Yeah,
how was that for you?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I mean, because you have your own very unique kind
of entry point into the true crime podcast space. Not
many people start making a true crime podcast because of
something that they're really actually related to. Yeah, and so
I think you fall into a very unique category. And
(02:23):
so for those who don't know your backstory and how
you got into this true crime podcasting thing too, what
started it all in terms of I want to make
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, my dad was murdered when I was six and
I didn't know until I was sixteen. And even then,
when I found out, I wasn't like podcast, it was like,
oh my god, my whole life is ruined. And then
as I spent I don't know, maybe be like six
(03:00):
or seven years processing that, it sort of evolved into
I want to solve it, and I am kind of
creative and I need an outlet to do that, and
podcasting was like the lowest lift, and so now I'm
here doing this.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
So you say, you found out your dad was murdered
when you were six, but you didn't really know that
he was murdered until you were sixteen.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
What do you mean, Yeah, I knew my dad died,
but I was told that he had a heart attack. Okay,
so that's just sort of how I had processed. You know,
it's not easy, of course, losing a parent ever, especially
at a young age, but you know, I was able
to sort of process it through this like scientific lens
(03:54):
of like this happens to people. And then to find
out at sixteen that it was more at the hands
of someone else, it felt a little like before your
time sort of situation that made it a little bit
harder to like process again. And then also I was
lied to so that there was like a lot of
layers involved in in that discovery.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yes, So, like I mean, anyone losing a parent is
awful and something that you know, I've never thankfully had
to deal with yet. And I can imagine you being
six years old trying to rationalize how your father may
have died of.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
Some sort of natural causes.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, like it that kind of got flipped on its
nose a little bit, or tell me how that went down.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So I realized that I had like a really strong instinct.
When I was sixteen, I was visiting my dad's side
of the family for the first time since his funeral.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
And we my mom and I.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Were there and we saw my cousin Omar, and he
was saying goodbye to us as we were leaving, and
I had like a physical reaction to seeing him. It
felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. So
I hurled forward. I mean, the breath was knocked out
of my lungs. I couldn't breathe. My mom was like,
what's wrong. She thought I was having like a panic attack,
(05:19):
And I almost like saw a movie in my head,
and I watched my dad laying on the floor and
my cousin Omar standing next to him, and of course
at the time, I thought my dad had a heart attack.
So I get in the car and I'm telling my
mom what I saw, and I'm like, I think Omar
was there and like watched my dad die and didn't
(05:41):
help him while he was like having a heart attack,
And my mom freaked out, and we go to a
Buffalo Wild Wings and I haven't eaten meat sense, And
my mom tells me that my dad was murdered and
that Omar was probably there and had some sort of
connection to the story in that morning, and it was
(06:03):
weird that I knew that, and she thought someone had
told me something, but no one had said anything to me.
So yeah, that's how I found out.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So, I mean, assuming you didn't have a lot of
prior knowledge to the inner workings and the details of
what may have happened to your dad in terms of
the murder, when you had this exchange with Omar, that
seemed like it was pretty brief, right it was when
you were parting ways or would you give him a
hug or what was the circumstances.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
No physical touch? Yeah, we were leaving, but.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
You look, you looked at him.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Yeah, I just saw him, uh huh.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And so like when in that moment when you see him, like,
take me back, like, what did you experience?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I mean, it was like I truly felt like someone
punched me in the stomach, Like it felt like a
fist hit my stomach, Like the moment I was walking away,
we were at my grandmother's house and he lived there,
but he lived upstairs, and so while we were there visiting,
(07:06):
he was not downstairs at all, and as we were
like getting ready to go, at some point he came downstairs.
And then as we were like outside walking down the
steps to go to the car, he's on the front
porch and he must have said like by or something,
because we my mom and I both turned around, and
the moment I turned around, it was like someone punched
(07:27):
me in the stomach.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Did it feel like an instinctual threat to you or
was it some sort of energy thing or where you
didn't really know what to.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Make of it?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, I mean I had no idea what was going on.
I didn't feel threatened in the moment, Like I wasn't scared.
I mean I was afraid that like something weird was
happening to me, but I wasn't like someone is like yeah,
I was just like this is so strange. And then
it was like I mean, it was so quick, but
it's like I felt like I watched a forty five
minute movie. You know, it's so weird. Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
What do you make of that, like just that experience
in and of itself? What do you think that was
like some sort of like you know, precognition or like
some sort of you know, what were you picking up on?
You know, what's the logical way to explain that or
the other way?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
There's none, you know, there's no.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Give me your take. You experienced it, I wasn't there.
So like you've had years to probably like look back
on it in hindsight. What was why'd you feel that way?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I mean, I'm a superhero. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
I you're superhero, like I don't I don't get punched.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Metaphor.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I it's hard to explain because I don't know where
I stand in the like spiritual sense, right. I grew
up super religious. So at the time You're like, oh,
Odd is telling me something, you know? But now I'm like,
what was that?
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I don't know?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
So I don't know, but I do I can pinpoint
other moments in my life that aren't as severe where
I've been like, oh, something weird is about to happen,
and then it does. And so I don't know if
that's just like we all have that and I'm more
aware of it, or I don't know, it could have
been my dad. I mean, who knows, right, Like, it
(09:28):
just depends on like what you believe and all of
that kind of stuff, And I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
It was something instinctual that you didn't consciously set in
motion that you reacted to. And you know, I believe in,
you know, instincts.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
I think that there's probably a million ways to explain them.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Sometimes there's circumstances that you know, defy you know, logic,
But yeah, it seems like you were definitely picking up
on something that so subconsciously at was important and heavy,
and in hindsight, I guess you still remember it that way.
(10:09):
And so yeah, after this experience, you know what kind
of unfolds over the next couple of years as you're
a young adult growing into you know, an older teenager eighteen,
you know, and you're kind of like, I guess, piecing
together parts of your past that you thought were one
way but now there are another, Like take me through
(10:31):
that process after this Omar incident and as you're growing
older and maturing and probably like looking at it from
a million different angles.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, so it's kind of an interesting time. It was
on my dad's birthday in twenty twelve, which is the
year I graduated high school. So I am like three
weeks away from going to college, and so my whole
life is like shifting and evolving, like from a personal perspective,
(11:01):
and now this is like this big bomb that's like
dropped into my life, and now everything feels like it's
so chaotic. I had plans at the time to major
in biochemistry with a minor in neuroscience and be a doctor.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Oh wow, that is not what happens.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
Sounds hard.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I went to college and I changed my major like
almost immediately, and it was so I mean, I was
always really interested in filmmaking, and I thought, because I
grew up in West Virginia, that that would never make
me any money, so that would always just be something
I would do for fun on the side. And I
(11:47):
sort of saw that as like a path to closure
for my dad and myself, but also a job, and
so I sort of pivoted into that world and really
was just desperate to learn how to make movies and
documentaries so that one day, eventually I'd be able to
tell my dad's story.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
So at some point you were inspired enough to take
the trauma that you had experienced and you know, your
upbringing and all the unanswered questions that you had, you
know endured, and put that into a podcast. So, yes,
what gave you the nerve to do that? And what
(12:32):
were you hoping to get out of that?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
That's a great question. What gave me the nerve to
do that?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I think it was this weird combination of free time,
which I didn't really have a lot of until I started,
and this delusion that like maybe it would do something.
And I think that kind of ties in with like
the why, right. I thought, when I first started looking
(13:04):
into my dad's case, you couldn't find anything, Like there
wasn't an article that would come up from a local
newspaper about John Cornelius McGee's murder, and so I had
to like drive to Ohio. I was living in Portland,
Oregon at the time. I did drive forty one hours
to Ohio and like fish in a library from like
(13:28):
beginning of July for like years and years and years
of two thousand and two, just trying to find these articles.
And so at that point it was like, if I
can just make this case a little more popular, then
maybe it will get solved because right now, I mean,
the Belmont County Sheriff's Department at the time was getting
away with doing nothing because nobody was checking in on that.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So that was sort of the goal.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
And it was a lofty goal considering like I was
doing it by myself, but that was the idea, and
I guess the sort of push was that I finally
had some time to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, so you had time to sort of craft this plan,
and I guess in a way take a risk, and
you knew that, you know, if you just did nothing,
then nothing was probably ever going to happen, because nothing's
ever happened at all.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
So right maybe at.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
The very least, you know, you poking here and there
are just even finding an article you know that otherwise
would never be found. Maybe that starts to create some
sort of momentum that otherwise.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Would Like there was something at the time I wasn't
super vocal about, like, oh, my dad was murdered, but
I couldn't imagine having a conversation with someone like later
in life and saying like, oh, yeah, my dad was
murdered in two thousand and two and it's an unsolved case,
and them look at me and just out of curiosity
(15:02):
be like, oh, did you do anything about that?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And me just be like, well, no, I just whatever, righte?
Speaker 5 (15:08):
What'd you find out? And you're like, oh, I never
really looked into it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, like that seems that's just not my personality, and
so yeah, that I feel like it was just a
natural progression to do this.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, it's kind of a strange burden in a way.
I mean, burden is more like, you know, for yourself,
it's like, yeah, you're looking down the barrel of the
rest of your life and this comes up and you're like, yeah,
I I never really did anything about that.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I mean it was like, no matter what I would,
this would be my story and I would have to
do that. Yeah, and like that super shitty, but it
is what it is.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
Yeah, right, it's very shitty.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
But what is it shittier to regret not having given
something a shot?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Is that how you look at.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It or it's how I looked at it at the time.
I go back and forth every day about if I
should have ever done this or.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Not really what happened, you know how, Like there's.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Those photos of like.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
The like Obama like when he entered office and then
when he left and he looks like five hundred years older.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
Yeah, like three years older me like.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
That, I've only been doing this for a year and
a half and like that is me. And actually Meredith,
our mutual friend, asked me a while ago. She was like, well,
if you could do anything differently, like what would you do?
And I was like, oh, I just wouldn't have done it,
Like I would have never done this.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Oh I could do it.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
I would have never done this at all.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
What's been the hardest part of doing this that that
makes you have that kind of knee jerk reaction of like, oh, yeah,
if I would have changed anything, like maybe I wouldn't
have been involved in this because of why, I.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Mean, gosh all of it, right. I think that.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
When you have sort of the hope that this will
do something. I mean I remember the feeling when I
first hit publish on the first.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
Episode, and like and what was that feeling.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
That feeling of like just like I have finally done
something that like might move the needle a little bit,
and the unknown, I think is almost more exciting than
like when you know obviously what happens. And so looking back,
I see sort of the cost of all of this
(17:33):
in my personal life, my professional life, my financial life,
my mental health, I mean, my entire sense of self.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
What do you mean, like, how do you feel differently?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I mean, I don't know who I am without this,
and I don't like that feeling.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
He feels very tied to it.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, And I feel like even to like other people,
I don't.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
It's very very hard now in a way.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I mean I struggle with anxiety and depression and pre this,
but I think it's almost gotten. Like I thought I
was like the worst ever, and I'm like, oh, I'm
way worse now. The paranoia almost of everyone I meet
and interact with. It's like, oh, do they only want
to be my friend because I have this like true
crime podcast and they're so obsessed with true crime and
(18:25):
they love true crime, and like they don't actually like
me or want to be my friend. Or if I
stopped doing this, what I stop hearing from everyone in
my life?
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Like what what is real? And what is not?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And you know, I've really sort of like hunkered down,
and I've like I don't really hang out with anyone anymore,
Like I don't do anything. I like sit at home
with my cat. Like I'm very My life looks a
lot different than it did when this started.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
That a good thing or a bad thing, or just
a new thing that you're navigating or or you don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I guess I'm just navigating and sort of taking everything
as it comes. But like I think about, you know where,
all the time I've spent on this podcast and this investigation,
like which is a lot. I could have made five movies,
like I could have done so much with my time, one.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
Hundred buildings and yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Done anything.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And so if this never gets solved, it's like, oh
my god, what did I spend the last x amount
of time doing?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
And like the night, I mean last night, I was
up all night working on this and it's.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Like for what, Well, you asked yourself that, and did
you have an internal response?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
No, I have no idea. I'll let you know the
figure it out.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
But then you kept doing it though, right, you said
for what? But then and you went back head down
and did it again.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, yeah, I guess yeah, thank.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
You PhD Well.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
I mean, like maybe it's a rational question, especially when
you feel like you're spending your wheels and you're like
this isn't going anywhere, or you know, this is like
time gets wasted and that you know, I personally hate
wasting time, wasting other people's time, Like you know, it
just feels like so unproductive and just not like I'm
(20:28):
moving forward in life, and you know, going through a
cold case, I feel like that's like ninety percent of
it is.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
All of this.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
You know, I would even call it wasted energy, but
it most certainly feels like it because you could go
down this whole thing for days, weeks, months and really
not yield anything. And maybe all you did yield was
that that's.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Not what you should be doing.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It took you six months to figure that out, and
that's annoying. You wish you just knew that right away
and you could spend that six months having done something
else or putting the energy elsewhere. As someone who you
know builds this show and you're making a show about
your investigation into your father's unsolved murder, what's your take
(21:25):
on the true crime genre and the audience who is
so obsessed with it.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's been a wild ride. I grew up, which is
so weird to look back now, because my mom knew
my dad was murdered the whole time. My mom had
me watching America's Most Wanted when I was like six,
So I've been watching that show like every Saturday night
(21:52):
for most of my life. And I would have considered
myself sort of a consumer of true crime. So then
to sort of fall into like subject of it definitely
shifted my perspective of like the craft of it and
(22:13):
the art of it. It's very different than like making
a movie, which can be about anything, and the characters
are made up and if you change their story or
they get heartbroken, they're fake, it doesn't matter. And this
is so much more real. So it definitely feels different.
(22:37):
You know, I remember, and I will never do this again,
but I remember in like high school, being like, oh yeah,
I love that documentary about whatever whatever getting killed, right,
And you're like, WHOA, that's weird to say now, because
like that's my dad, and that's someone else's cousin, and
that's someone else's sister, and like it just has humanized
(23:00):
the whole thing for me. But then also as like,
I don't know, I mean, it's such a bigger conversation,
but the types of stories that are told, right, my dad.
The only reason that like you couldn't find anything about
my dad is because no one gives a shit about
a black drug dealer from Ohio who was an informant
and got shot in his house.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
It's like, yeah, obviously, I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
And that they pushed it into a dusty box to
never be.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Found, not what was coming to him, you know, And
like that is that's because the genre has set that tone, right,
So it's tough, but I think the interest level, you know,
I really believe that because I have these conversations every
day now. If my dad's story hasn't turned into a
(23:52):
derivative yet because of a long list of reasons, including
it's not popular enough, and there's all of these reasons.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Why, right, what.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
Do you mean derivative? What derivative do you want it
to be?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Like a documentary or whatever?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I mean, I don't necessarily want to go that route,
but like you know, there's eight hundred Joon Binney Ramsey docks, right,
there's forty about all of these different cases right, And
there's reasons why we don't see stories like my Dad's
not necessarily my dads, but stories like my dads because
they're not getting purchased. I believe if they were and
(24:32):
they were put on streaming platforms, people would watch them.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
There are network.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Execs saying that no one wants that, and that's why
they're not buying them. But they set the tone of
what people want, because people want what they're given, especially
in the entertainment industry, and so I think that that's
where I think that the genre sort of sets that
tone because if more of those stories were being told,
people would consume them.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
They're just less told.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So when you set out to make this podcast, you
had to do a super deep dive into the details of,
you know, what may have happened the night of suspects,
persons of interest family.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
You know, I would imagine.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Very difficult, you know, intricate things that you're dealing with
as you're going through there, like what did you kind
of initially discover as the potential circumstances of when and
how your dad was actually murdered?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
So it's such a weird story.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Almost immediately you realize that the story on paper on
the police files is not probably the most accurate version
of the story, just because it doesn't make a lot
of sense. So my dad lived next door to his sister,
and his sister's son, who was like an adult child,
(26:01):
like eighteen nineteen twenty, is there and there's three people
in the house and their house gets broken into, and
that's the beginning of this morning of you know, eventually
my dad getting.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Killed and four ish.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
They don't even know how many people break into the
house and are there for like forty minutes, like ransacking
the house looking for money.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
The house, Yeah, yeah, they're there.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
They're there for money, and they don't find any after
forty minutes, and they end up next door at my
dad's house with Omar, and then they shoot my dad
as he's like approaching the door because he hears someone outside,
and they kick in the door. My dad is standing there.
(26:53):
They shoot him one shot. He falls to the ground.
They don't even enter the house and they leave. So
it's weird because the police are sort of adamant that
this is a home invasion gone wrong. They didn't mean
to shoot anyone. They were just there to rob people,
but they didn't take anything, and they were there for
a really long time, so it doesn't really make sense.
(27:16):
And so that's sort of where I pick up this,
and that's what I'm left with. And then it's like
here you go, like figure it out.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
And so Omar was there? Correct? Yeah, was he shot?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
No?
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (27:38):
It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
I think that he wasn't the target, so he wasn't shot,
or he.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Was with the other guys.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
And you know, I could see a scenario where they,
you know, they barge into the house next door and
maybe they get spooked by it and IDI person there
and they just pulled the trigger. But that would also
mean that Omar was there and saw that happen.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I mean there's three people in the other house where
they've spent a lot of time, and they've seen their faces,
which is obviously like in all of these stories, like
if you see someone's face, it's almost like you know
you're gonna die. And none of them are hurt at all.
So it's just so strange my dad didn't have a
(28:29):
gun in his hand.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
I mean, there's just a lot of weird.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Things that would make you wonder like why shoot? And
also if the people who I believe were there were
really there, they knew my dad. So even if they're
spooked that my dad's at the door, he's unarmed. He's
gonna immediately see someone he knows. Even if he has
beef with them. He's probably just gonna be like, get
(28:53):
out of here. His daughter's in the bedroom, Like, he's
not gonna do anything. So it's very strange that if
you do know this, you're still going to shoot them
and it be an accident.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
I don't know, it just seems to you.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
Yeah, it's strange.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I also do believe there were like four ish people
there and only one of them could have done it,
And so I'm very curious out of these four people
who did.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
It forensically here like there was one shot.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
So yeah, if there's four people, only one person shot,
if they all shot, there'd be four shots. So but
that also means that there is potentially three witnesses to
somebody shooting.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
And I guess if you were there and covered this up,
I guess you were also in some way a part
of this crime.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Do you know how tight these individuals were then and
how tight they may be now?
Speaker 5 (29:52):
And you know, all these years.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Later, yeah, they were pretty close at the time leagues,
if you will, but also like lifelong friends. I mean,
this is a small town, so they have known each
other for a really long time at this point. There
are a couple of them that I believe are still
(30:16):
connected to each other through LLC filings I've found, but
I don't.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Know those ventures that have not or been started or
something or what do you mean.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, yeah, their names are on it, or their names
are on bank accounts together for these businesses or things
like that. Now I don't that doesn't necessarily speak to
if they're like buddies still and like hang out.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
But but like presumably you only do that with people
you kind of trust and still communicate with.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think that the lifelong trust,
especially in these towns, with what they're presumably doing, is
really important. So I do think that some of them
are still connected. Three of them are currently in prison.
So there's that. And one is not.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Having you know, meticulously gone through a lot of police
reports and interviews and all the evidence that you could
get your hands on in this case, you know, kind
of shaping the.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
Narrative of your father's murder. Are there any things that.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You believe that the police really mishandled in this case
that changed the course of it forever, to the point
where you know, all these years later that his daughter's
having to make a podcast to try to figure out
what happened.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yes, they.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
From the beginning, for whatever reason, displayed incredible negligence. I
say that because benefit of the doubt, which I don't
know if they deserve. It's a small town, there's not
a lot of funding, not great staffing. The first person
(32:12):
on the scene was a traffic cop who was on
his way to work and got the call.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
So he showed up.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
You know, like he's not gonna know he's there to
give parking tickets.
Speaker 5 (32:22):
And speeding tickets.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, yeah, so you know, but at the same time, I,
as we've discussed, am not that smart, and I would
know to tape off a scene, or swipe for fingerprints
or look for gunpowder residue on hands, Like there's certain
things that like you just know from watching any television show.
(32:48):
And they never taped off the scene. My family was
walking in and out of the house within minutes of
this happening. I don't know that they have any evidence
at all. And so yeah, I mean there's lots of
places within this investigation where it could have been solved
or there could have been hope of it getting solved.
(33:10):
And now it's really up to three of those four
guys saying, Hey, I don't want to go to prison
for the rest of my life. I'll tell you who
did it. Yeah, And I don't know if that will
ever happen.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Because because really, like based on the way that you're
saying that they handled the scene and how they unfolded,
there wasn't any major collection of evidentiary items that are
in some locker somewhere that.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
Could be the smoking gun.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
All these years later, it's kind of like a whole
bunch of nothing, and the crime scene was tainted and
now it's just about he shit, he said, she said,
And you got a group of people.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
But like the physical evidence is almost like.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Not enough to really I guess point anywhere unless there
is something that you and unless there is something there
in terms of like I guess the type of gun
or or the means.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
It's so weird.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, it was a handgun and they couldn't find it.
When my sister got home from giving her statement at
the police station, my dad had a lot of guns
in the house. He was a drug dealer, so he
had several and I also think that's what's so strange
is on his way to the front door, he never
(34:34):
grabbed one, which just leads me to believe he knew
the people obviously on his front porch, because I if
he didn't, he would have grabbed a gun. But when
my sister got home, all of the guns had been
removed from the house and she never.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Saw them again.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Stolen removed, I.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Mean to find stolen they were. They were taken by
family members because the police told them to get them
all out of the house, so they loaded them up
on a I mean they're like they've been sold given away. Okay, Yeah,
they were loaded up onto a truck bed and driven
(35:15):
out and who knows where they ended up. So my uncle,
because one of the detectives who was my dad's sort
of like person he reported to as an informant when
he arrived, told my uncle Curtis.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
To get all of the guns out of the house,
so he did.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Why would he do that, It's.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
A great question.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
There's a lot of speculation in the town that my
dad was killed with one of his own guns. I
don't know logistically how that would be possible. These people
never entered the house, but it is an interesting theory
given sort of that information. But yeah, I don't know.
(36:01):
I mean, my sixteen year old sister shows up, sees
a bunch of guns on a truck bed covered by
a blanket being driven away, walks inside of a house
where all of her family members are going in and
out after her dad has been murdered in the living room,
and every gun that was in her house is gone.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
So there is no like the gun that killed your dad.
No one knows where that is.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
No, and my sister and her mom, we have different moms.
Two weeks after this happened, found a bullet casing in
the living room of my dad's house. So like that
wasn't even like put in a bag. I mean, it's
just like so obvious that.
Speaker 5 (36:43):
The only one is that the only bully, the only one.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
That's the only one she saw. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Interesting, And so do you believe that to be the
actual bullet that was used in the gun?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
I don't know, because again I don't know what the
police if they found one, if they put it in
a bag, if it's somewhere in a you know, filing
cabinet somewhere. But it's possible, but it's also possible that
it's not. It's hard to say. I also don't know
(37:20):
like if that bullet casing came from a handgun or
something else, Like my sister wouldn't know that either.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Have you asked the police these questions like are they
cooperative in the way of, hey, you know, do you
guys have a bullet casing from the crime scene of
my dad's murdered Have you been able to ask that
kind of question? And if so, do they have a
response to that.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
So I have talked to them just a handful of times.
Once was in person, I had gotten the case files.
I read through them all, and then I drove again
from Portland to Ohio to meet with them face to face,
and sort of that was more of like, let's just
go through these case files. I'm really curious, like, according
(38:08):
to you, what really happened that day? And then I
went back and I sent an email of like, here's
some questions I have. I've led to get back on
the phone or a zoom or just respond to this
email with the answer to these questions. And there were
like ten one of them was because they were very
weird about it's an open case and you can't have everything,
(38:31):
and we've given you what we can, et cetera, et cetera.
So one of my questions was, I don't need to
see it, but can I have a list of evidence
that you have, just so I know what you have
what you don't have. And that was one of the
questions on that list. And they've never responded to that request.
So as I talk to them, which it's been a
year since we've spoken, I always bring that up, and
(38:54):
it's just they just don't respond.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
The bullet casing found by your family, where's that one gone?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
For sure?
Speaker 5 (39:04):
What do you mean gone? Where did it go?
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Probably thrown away?
Speaker 5 (39:08):
Why so?
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I mean, my sister.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Was sixteen, very close to my dad, much closer than
I was, struggled very hard with this. I mean, she
was in the house when it happened. She called nine
to one to one.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Her mom.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Was not. I mean, my dad took care of my sister,
so when her mom sort of stepped in to take
on that role, it was very much like and I
think everyone in my family had this mentality of like,
let's just move on from this. So as things were,
you know, being found. My sister now will reach out
(39:56):
if she hears something or oh I heard this name.
But I think at the time, I mean I didn't
see my sister for twenty years. I think it was like,
let's just move on.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
She wanted to almost purge herself from this and cleansing,
like this is a horrible experience. I don't even want
it to be around these things.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yeah, I would imagine that, you know, reopening this on
your own a chord and poking around and talking to
you know, friends and family members who I would imagine
some of them don't want to talk about this right
for you know, good and bad reasons. And you know,
(40:39):
has there been any strain on your relationship with your
family since you started creating this podcast?
Speaker 3 (40:47):
What family? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (40:50):
Why do you feel like it? Did you feel like
that before you started?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, it's a weird position I'm in because I did.
I didn't really know them before doing this.
Speaker 5 (41:03):
Okay, so in a way that may did that help
you maybe like to be able.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
To just yeah, it was definitely. I knew that the
response was going to be like where did this bitch
come from?
Speaker 5 (41:13):
Like?
Speaker 3 (41:13):
What are you doing? Why?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Are you here, you know, uprooting our lives like this,
and in ways it made me a little numb.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
But I am.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Such an EmPATH that, like it took a huge toll
on me just knowing that. Like, I mean, I get
upset if like I cried the other day in the
car because I accidentally cut someone off and they were
like yelling at me, and like that's the type of
person I am. So even if I'm like, I don't
really care about them, the fact that they're mad at me,
(41:48):
I'm like, oh my god, they're mad at me, and
so I don't like that.
Speaker 5 (41:52):
Yeah, you don't want to be the cause of more hurt.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, do you feel like they're you know, despite the
reopening of wounds, which is never fun. It's never it's
always ugly, it's not a pretty thing, but it it's
something that has to be done if there's a serious
attempt being made to try and figure out what happened, right,
(42:18):
do you feel like your family is on board with
trying to figure out what happened despite how difficult it
may be to I don't know see and hear all this.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
I think there are family members that want this solved
for sure. And I mean my sister is such a
good example. Actually, she doesn't love the podcast. She's not
loving you know, my method of doing this, but she's
so supportive.
Speaker 5 (42:50):
Why not.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
She's pretty private and wasn't that enthused about all of that.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Don't talk about me.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I have a job then yeah, yeah, just basic like
I didn't sign up for this, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
But she's super supportive and she's like, you have to
do what you need to do for closure to figure
out what happened. And she thinks that I'm close and
wants me to find the answer. So I think that
there's that as well. But she's super supportive, and I
think that's the perfect example of like, wouldn't be my method,
but I get it, and I'm here for you. And
(43:24):
I have other family members that are sort of just like,
leave me out of it. I don't really care about
all this. I just want to move on with my life.
And then I have family members that are like, if
I ever get the chance, I'm going to put a
bullet in your head. Right.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
So there's a lot there's a spectrums of everything, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Yeah, and there's a lot of moving parts and you know,
feelings and ties, and you're dealing with family, and you
know you're not trying to hurt cause any more hurt
than was already caused, right, Right, And I think what's
in fortunate about investigating a cold case, like, at least
(44:05):
from what I've learned personally, is that no matter what,
somebody is going to be upset because it's upsetting. The
whole thing is upsetting, right, Revisiting an upsetting events or
you know, these series of unknowns that you've kind of
(44:28):
pushed out of your your brain a little bit because
they were driving you crazy. You know, revisiting that is
upsetting because something upsetting happened. And so it's kind of
like it's the shitty part about finding the truth that's
that's like a further aftermath of what somebody did in
the first place by murdering by murdering your Yeah, do
(44:52):
you think that you know throughout all the episodes you've
done so far, and the people you've talked to and
learning along the way as you as you're growing as
a storyteller and an amateur investigator yourself, Now, do you
feel like you do you feel like you've been able
to uncover anything new or important enough that gives hope
(45:19):
to a potential resolution down the road.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Yes, it's such a weird.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Set of circumstances because I entered this naively thinking that
my dad's murder was a mystery. I think a lot
of people know exactly what happened that day and exactly
who was there, and have just been so eager to
(45:54):
move on with their lives that they just don't want
to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I think that I have figured it out, which is
great because I don't give a fuck. I'm going to
tell everyone who killed my dad, right, But these people
have been able to get away with it for so
long that, yeah, I do feel like I've uncovered something.
But now I'm sort of unfortunately learning how not mysterious
(46:29):
this really was, and how half of this town probably
has known the entire time.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
What really happened.
Speaker 5 (46:36):
Wasn't some big conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
It's just like, Hey, there was a couple of dudes
here one day and they kind of all know what
happened and they just never said anything, which is almost
kind of I mean, would piss you off, probably because
it's you know, if it was that simple, then why
haven't we Why hasn't it you know, come to a resolution, right.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, totally. And I think that there's lots of reasons
for that. I think that, I mean, we're talking about
career criminals, right, they yes, they know what they're doing.
They all have each other's backs. And also it's such
a unique part of the country where the border of
Ohio and West Virginia is really important. West Virginia doesn't
(47:18):
have the death penalty Ohio does. They killed my dad
on the Ohio side, if they get charged for murder,
it's not up to me or anyone else except the
prosecutors and the DA what they get charged with. And
so there's this level of like, I mean, I've talked
to a lot of people who are around at the time,
dealing drugs at the time, and they all would agree,
(47:42):
you'd rather get caught in West Virginia than Ohio for anything.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
Well, if the murder happened in Ohio, I'm assuming that
that's where it would be prosecuted or.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
If yeah, so they'd be screwed potentially.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
So, if you're aware of these individuals and you feel
like you know pretty strongly that they know something more
than they're telling and they've kept secrets and it's not
this big mystery that it has been made out to be.
Speaker 5 (48:13):
For your whole life.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
What next steps do you take to try to infiltrate that?
And I don't know, get somebody to say something or
engage in a conversation.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
It's a I'm in a really interesting position currently because
I've actually spoken to one of these individuals face to face.
Speaker 5 (48:35):
How they go?
Speaker 3 (48:37):
I mean, it was wild.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Was it a surprise knock knock or were you? Did
you plan?
Speaker 3 (48:43):
No, it was it was planned. They reached out to me.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
I thought they were in prison, was planning to sort
of write them a letter and get added to their
visitor list and visit them behind glass.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
And I woke up one morning.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
To a message on Facebook and they had been released
and they had heard the show and they reached out
to me.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Why did they reach out to you? Did they tell
you why they wanted to reach out?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Yeah, they wanted me to know the truth, which was
their truth is that they weren't there and had nothing.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
To do with it.
Speaker 5 (49:13):
But what's the other truth.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
That they pulled the trigger?
Speaker 5 (49:18):
So you think that there's a potentially this person is
just saying it I did nothing, But maybe he's really
saying that he did it.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Yeah, I think it's very possible that this person was
there and did it, and now he's back in prison,
and two of the other guys are also in prison,
and there's one that is not, and he seems to
have sort of turned his life around. He works for
the Public Defender's office, and I think if anyone has
(49:55):
the most to lose, it's someone like that, and they
would be willing to tell me what happened in exchange for.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
Something else. So that's my only hope at this point.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
I mean, it is interesting to me that this individual,
on his own accord, reached out to you to say
that he wants you to know the truth, and his
truth was just simply that I didn't do anything right. Yeah,
because I you know, unless you, I guess, really definitively
(50:38):
pointing the finger at specifically this person.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
It seems a little bit out of line. It seems
a little I did.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
And maybe you know that does that require or the
follow up?
Speaker 2 (50:57):
I mean no, I mean it seems it strange. And
I mean even our our interaction it was all so bizarre.
I mean, just the calmness, the I mean it was
it was like I was talking to his like a sociopath,
(51:19):
like it was so weird. But yeah, I mean he
says he didn't do it. I mean there was a
point in time where I'm like, I mean, if this
guy killed my dad, would he sit across a table
from me? I mean, that just seems so crazy.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Maybe he would if he was really spooked about getting
caught and is all of a sudden doing you know,
completely bizarre drastic measures to give the opposite impression.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
But yeah, I have a theory.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
At the time, he was really adamant that he had
just been released from and he received a seven year
sentence for a drug charge and was released because he
appealed and won. And his appeal was that he was
set up by the Belmont County Sheriff's Department, and so
him winning sort of set this standard that like, he
(52:18):
gets set up for crime sometimes by Belmont County, Right,
so if they think he killed my dad, maybe that's
a setup too. But when I talked to him, he
was very much like, I want to help you. We
can work together. And again there's that selfish motive of course,
of if I find someone else who did it, then
it wasn't you. But a few months later he gets
(52:41):
arrested again on a massive drug trafficking charge. So I
feel like there was almost this hope that like if
I could come in and be like, look at how
corrupt Belmont County is, that serves him and then he
maybe knew this charge was coming down the line and
it would have all worked out for him, And so
(53:01):
I didn't know that obviously when I met up with him.
But yeah, I mean I'm just trying to play all
these scenarios in my head to try to justify, you know,
why anyone would want to meet up with me and
sit down with me, and none of the other guys
have done this. I reached out to Wan to talk
to them through a mutual friend and they said no,
(53:22):
so I'll just show up at their house.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
But yeah, are you still in contact with the guy
who is now back in prison?
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Not since he went to prison, he would call me
like once a week.
Speaker 5 (53:36):
Are you able to write him or like make contact?
I mean, obviously it's more difficult now.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
But yeah, I mean I could. I haven't yet, it's
still fairly new, but yeah I.
Speaker 5 (53:50):
Could, Like is this dude facing like hard time now?
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (53:58):
Or he'll be there for a while. I guess either way.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
I'll be there for a little bit. I don't know.
It's so weird because it's just the lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Right, They go in to prison for like five six
years and they come out, and then they go back
and then they come out.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Has that shaped your approach moving forward in the next installment?
Speaker 2 (54:19):
So I have ideas for sort of what Part three
will look like, and it includes a much more.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
Like quote unquote official approach.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
So now I'm sort of at a point where I've
done all the research, I've built the context, I've gotten
familiar with the world. Now if all I can do
is like mail a file to the Belmont County Sheriff's Department,
Like what's in it?
Speaker 3 (54:49):
What do I put in there? Do I say?
Speaker 2 (54:51):
I found this and these people are connected, and I
have evidence of this LLC and this bank account and
this happening, And at this time this was this person's
email and just a list of like my own kind
of case file almost And so Part three is going
to be me sort of assembling that and hopefully putting
(55:16):
it to bed on my end, like this is what
I have, and this is what I've found, and like, yes,
do something with this or don't. But you're gonna look
like assholes if you don't, because now the whole world
is watching you.
Speaker 5 (55:28):
Is your plan to mail it? Literally?
Speaker 3 (55:30):
I mean, I'll probably bring it myself.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
I mean I think the best way to do it
is call a meeting that they eventually have to just
say okay, fine, and you just sit there and you
unpack it and give it to them physically and we
get to hear what the fuck they say?
Speaker 3 (55:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that that.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:48):
I would.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
I would want to, you know, go in person, because
there's little things like I'd really love to test. Omar
says that these guys poured rubbing alcohol on them when
they broke into the house, and the detective said that
he could smell the rubbing alcohol on them. But I
(56:09):
think that's kind of strange. So I'm going to like
dump rubbing alcohol on clothes and let them sit outside
for twenty minutes and then go back and see if
I can smell it. And like I'm going to do
like my own sort of yeah, like line by line investigation,
which I haven't really done because I've been talking to
people and trying to get information and doing all this stuff.
(56:30):
So yeah, my approach is going to get a little
more aggressive and be a little different. But it's almost
like this is it, Like this is all I have
left to do, and this is all I can do,
and then it's really like not up to me, like
they have to decide what to do with that.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
So do you feel like the lack of control in
the ultimate outcome in real life and as a creative
person and your narrative is maddening?
Speaker 2 (57:05):
It's horrific. It's it's really tough. I'm very type A
and I'm a LEO, so I definitely try to control
everything I'm you know, I'm a producer, so it's just
like I produce my life, I project manage my laundry
(57:28):
like I just am always in that mindset. And so
it is really really hard to be working with a
scenario and people that are really kind of doing whatever
they will and I have no control at all over it.
I can just tell the story as it's happening. It's
a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Just in conclusion, Since you've made a podcast and you've
put yourself out there, you know, you've had some really
cool covering on your show and your dad's story, your story,
so like what has your experience been with starting with
the positive in terms of I don't know, have people
(58:13):
reached out and been touched by your story and shown
their support in that way and that been a positive thing.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Yeah, I've been met with so much support. It's been
honestly a bit overwhelming, only because when I did this,
I mean it was me and a couple friends in
my living room doing.
Speaker 3 (58:37):
This and then like hitting uploads.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
So for anyone at all to be listening is like
always so wild and it's been really great just to
know that, you know, it was a fine line because
while I wanted this story out there, it's so wildly
personal you kind of wonder like is this going to
resonate with anyone? Like will anybody even understand this enough
(59:02):
to like want to listen because it is very like
personal and specific.
Speaker 1 (59:07):
It's my story, right, Like do people care about my
story like this a little bit? Yeah, Like you know,
I get that.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
So it was really nice to sort of see, how,
you know, I open up about my mom struggling with
addiction and what it was like growing up with an addict,
and you know, those types of things, and maybe someone
who doesn't relate to their dad getting murdered. They understand
other elements of the story, and I think that has
been really great to sort of see the impact of
(59:37):
that and you know, going back to like what's it
all for, Like that is a nice reminder sometimes. Yeah,
and then on the other side, I think it's funny.
I'm always like, I'm just such a like comedic person.
I get really sensitive and I will cry about it
(59:59):
in the show, but then I'll leave and I'll post
on my Instagram like the worst comment and like laugh
about it because it is just like, at the end
of the day, so funny to me that someone says
the crazy stuff that they say. And I always refer
to like anyone who listens to my show. I would
feel weird if I was like, oh, they're my fan,
Like that's weird. They listen to my podcast, and like
if I know them in real life, they're my friend.
(01:00:21):
And I love looking at like the one star reviews
and I'm like, those are my fans, Like those are
the fans for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
The times they don't miss it, yeah, fucking yeah, episode.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
They don't miss an episode, So it is I try
to be late about it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Some days I'm like I'm quitting because Susie hates my
podcast and thinks that I'm bad at this and hates
that I read so slow and blah blah blah blah blah.
There's like one comment that was like listen at one
point two five or two times or not at all.
Speaker 5 (01:00:58):
Like said okay with Jesus, Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Yeah, that escalated very quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
But yeah, it's it's just I don't know it is
what it is because I guess the on the other
side of it, because it's my story. I'm like, there
is no critique you can make that I can change, Like,
I can't do anything about this because the story and
the meat of this is not changeable.
Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
Like this is just the reality.
Speaker 5 (01:01:23):
Yeah, Like you're telling a story that is your story.
Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
So yeah, like I can't do anything about this, So.
Speaker 5 (01:01:29):
I'm not sorry, like it this is what happened in
my life.
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
So yeah, and like next next script I write, I'll
send it to you for no Y, but for this
yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:01:40):
So what are we looking forward to next?
Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
I mean, you have a big summer, you have, you know,
a lot of episodes you've been working on. You know,
you've only dove deeper into this case and I feel
like I just my good instinct is that you're going
to keep uncovering more and more, and you know, no
matter how much time it takes or the level of
(01:02:04):
cooperation at the right particular time, I think that there's
enough momentum there and a force to be reckoned with
that it's going to force a hand of something eventually.
So in your eyes, how do you see, like, how
do you want this to play out? How does this
(01:02:25):
how does the the podcast chapter of you investigating your dad?
Speaker 5 (01:02:31):
And or does it?
Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
God? I hope so right?
Speaker 5 (01:02:38):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
I think?
Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
I think, I mean, in a perfect world, obviously, I
think it ends with solving the case. Obviously an ideal
scenario is like through the court system and like a prosecution. Yes,
but I'm okay with just knowing, so so yeah, figuring
it out in some sense and knowing definitively like knowing
(01:03:05):
because someone who was there said or someone confesses or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Just knowing the truth I think would be great.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
You know, there's been a lot of people that have
reached out with their own stories and sort of looking
for help and answers and a lot of questions about
you know, what is next and what I want to
do with this sort of Frankenstein that I've built. I
(01:03:35):
want to make movies, So I'm gonna make a movie soon,
and that is going to be sort of my next
hyper fixation. And I think that I need a break
from whatever I've done. Sure, so if there's a world
(01:03:56):
in which that sort of revives as like another person's
story or helping someone else, is I'm not saying no
to but uh yeah, no, I have a slate of
projects that I want to make that have nothing to
do with.
Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
This.
Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
I would say, after this or while this is happening,
you could probably expect to see a Madison McGee film
pretty soon. I am talking to one of my favorite,
all time favorite creators about what will happen eventually when
(01:04:32):
this podcast becomes a scripted something, so.
Speaker 5 (01:04:36):
That that still is a goal, right, Like you would
love to see the.
Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
HBO treatment of this tale? Yeah right, Yeah, that'd that'd
be very cool.
Speaker 5 (01:04:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
I think there's a really unique opportunity to tell this
story because of the location and the demographic of people
that the story sort of talks about that deserve to
be seen on television.
Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Yep, it's got the Yeah, it's got the setting, it's
got the time period.
Speaker 5 (01:05:12):
It's got the race issue that is.
Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
You know, people are more aware of now today than
they were I guess yesterday and years prior. And it's
also got you at the center spearheading a real life
you know, investigation, and it's a fucking mystery, right, And yeah,
(01:05:38):
people like mysteries because yeah, it drives them crazy.
Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
To not know what happened, at least for me, you.
Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Know, totally that's funny. I envision it and I put this.
I just spent all night writing this sort of pitch.
But it's almost I want it to feel just as
much like a coming of age story as it does
a mystery, because I think it shouldn't feel like a
crime show, but it is, but it shouldn't feel like that.
Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
And that's something you probably do even better through of
like visually, right, like that you know, six year old
you to sixteen year old you and like kind of
I don't know how it would be structured, but you know,
flashbacks and like telling a story in a way that
like can really express how that shaped you and the
(01:06:33):
dynamics of what you're getting into in modern day.
Speaker 5 (01:06:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
I think that's like in itself is like a really
powerful character and like a protagonists. Yeah, but what do
I know? I don't I'm not a writer. But but
let me know when you want me to executive produce it,
and i'll I'll send you an invoice. Perfect, perfect, Well,
(01:07:01):
it was great catching up with you, and we should
plan like some sort of Boston trip. I know Meredith
will totally be coming at some point.
Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
Yeah, I feel like she just got back from somewhere
in Italy.
Speaker 5 (01:07:15):
Yeah, for like a Taylor Swift thing. It sounded cool.
Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, but yeah that could.
Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Be fun and we could maybe even yeah, do some
content and just have fun and like I don't know,
shoot some ship, record some shit, just kind of see
what happens.
Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
We need to make a song, okay, anyways, all.
Speaker 5 (01:07:33):
Right, well send me the beat.
Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
But yeah, no, this was great, thanks for having me,
all right.
Speaker 5 (01:07:40):
I'll see how soon.
Speaker 6 (01:07:44):
Talking to Death is a production of tenderfoot TV and
iHeart podcast created and hosted by Payne Lindsay. For Tenderfoot TV,
executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Co executive
producer is Mike Rudy. For iHeart Podcasts, executive pretty users
are Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, with original music by
Makeup and Vanity Set. Additional production by Mike Rooney, Dylan Harrington,
(01:08:08):
Sean Nerney, Dayton Cole and Gustav Wild for Cohedo. Production
support by Tracy Kaplan, Mara Davis, and Trevor Young. Mixing
and mastering by Cooper Skinner and Dayton Cole. Our cover
art was created by Rob Sheridan. Check out our website
Talking to Death podcast dot com.
Speaker 5 (01:08:32):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Talking to Death.
Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
This series is released weekly absolutely free, but if you
want ad free listening and exclusive bonuses, you can subscribe
to tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or go to tenderfootplus
dot com
Talking to Death is released every Friday and brought to
you absolutely free. But if you want ad free listening
and exclusive bonuses, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot
com or on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Talking to Death is a production of tenderfoot TV and
iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Welcome back to Talking to Death. This week, Pain sits
down with Madison McGhee. Madison is the creator and host
of the Ice Cold Case podcast, where she investigates the
cold case murder of her own father. In this episode,
Madison breaks down her own investigative work into her father's
cold case. They discuss her struggles in making a podcast
(00:42):
about such a sensitive topic and the toll that that
process takes, and Pain impart some of his own investigative wisdom.
This week, Madison McGhee.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
Good to see you. It's been a minute. I know.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
It was crime con right that we saw each other,
which was such.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
A like yeah, like yeah, we like barely talked. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I think I saw you for thirty seconds, and I
guess everyone for thirty seconds. I don't think I had
thirty seconds of my own like thinking that, yeah, is
not disruptive by something else, good time, but it was
a whirlwood.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I don't want to be pain Lindsay at Crime Gone Ever,
You're just too it's too crazy.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
It can be a little much.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
It's like the one time in you know the world
where I go downstairs to a Starbucks and there's a
good chance that almost everyone knows who I am. Like
usually that like that doesn't happen anywhere, but yeah, in
that particular environment, it's it's likely and you have to
(01:53):
kind of be aware.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Of that totally totally.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
But yeah, that was fun. You had a cool panel. Yeah,
how was that for you?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I mean, because you have your own very unique kind
of entry point into the true crime podcast space. Not
many people start making a true crime podcast because of
something that they're really actually related to. Yeah, and so
I think you fall into a very unique category. And
(02:23):
so for those who don't know your backstory and how
you got into this true crime podcasting thing too, what
started it all in terms of I want to make
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, my dad was murdered when I was six and
I didn't know until I was sixteen. And even then,
when I found out, I wasn't like podcast, it was like,
oh my god, my whole life is ruined. And then
as I spent I don't know, maybe be like six
(03:00):
or seven years processing that, it sort of evolved into
I want to solve it, and I am kind of
creative and I need an outlet to do that, and
podcasting was like the lowest lift, and so now I'm
here doing this.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
So you say, you found out your dad was murdered
when you were six, but you didn't really know that
he was murdered until you were sixteen.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
What do you mean, Yeah, I knew my dad died,
but I was told that he had a heart attack. Okay,
so that's just sort of how I had processed. You know,
it's not easy, of course, losing a parent ever, especially
at a young age, but you know, I was able
to sort of process it through this like scientific lens
(03:54):
of like this happens to people. And then to find
out at sixteen that it was more at the hands
of someone else, it felt a little like before your
time sort of situation that made it a little bit
harder to like process again. And then also I was
lied to so that there was like a lot of
layers involved in in that discovery.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yes, So, like I mean, anyone losing a parent is
awful and something that you know, I've never thankfully had
to deal with yet. And I can imagine you being
six years old trying to rationalize how your father may
have died of.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
Some sort of natural causes.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, like it that kind of got flipped on its
nose a little bit, or tell me how that went down.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So I realized that I had like a really strong instinct.
When I was sixteen, I was visiting my dad's side
of the family for the first time since his funeral.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
And we my mom and I.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Were there and we saw my cousin Omar, and he
was saying goodbye to us as we were leaving, and
I had like a physical reaction to seeing him. It
felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. So
I hurled forward. I mean, the breath was knocked out
of my lungs. I couldn't breathe. My mom was like,
what's wrong. She thought I was having like a panic attack,
(05:19):
And I almost like saw a movie in my head,
and I watched my dad laying on the floor and
my cousin Omar standing next to him, and of course
at the time, I thought my dad had a heart attack.
So I get in the car and I'm telling my
mom what I saw, and I'm like, I think Omar
was there and like watched my dad die and didn't
(05:41):
help him while he was like having a heart attack,
And my mom freaked out, and we go to a
Buffalo Wild Wings and I haven't eaten meat sense, And
my mom tells me that my dad was murdered and
that Omar was probably there and had some sort of
connection to the story in that morning, and it was
(06:03):
weird that I knew that, and she thought someone had
told me something, but no one had said anything to me.
So yeah, that's how I found out.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So, I mean, assuming you didn't have a lot of
prior knowledge to the inner workings and the details of
what may have happened to your dad in terms of
the murder, when you had this exchange with Omar, that
seemed like it was pretty brief, right it was when
you were parting ways or would you give him a
hug or what was the circumstances.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
No physical touch? Yeah, we were leaving, but.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
You look, you looked at him.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Yeah, I just saw him, uh huh.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And so like when in that moment when you see him, like,
take me back, like, what did you experience?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I mean, it was like I truly felt like someone
punched me in the stomach, Like it felt like a
fist hit my stomach, Like the moment I was walking away,
we were at my grandmother's house and he lived there,
but he lived upstairs, and so while we were there visiting,
(07:06):
he was not downstairs at all, and as we were
like getting ready to go, at some point he came downstairs.
And then as we were like outside walking down the
steps to go to the car, he's on the front
porch and he must have said like by or something,
because we my mom and I both turned around, and
the moment I turned around, it was like someone punched
(07:27):
me in the stomach.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Did it feel like an instinctual threat to you or
was it some sort of energy thing or where you
didn't really know what to.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Make of it?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, I mean I had no idea what was going on.
I didn't feel threatened in the moment, Like I wasn't scared.
I mean I was afraid that like something weird was
happening to me, but I wasn't like someone is like yeah,
I was just like this is so strange. And then
it was like I mean, it was so quick, but
it's like I felt like I watched a forty five
minute movie. You know, it's so weird. Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
What do you make of that, like just that experience
in and of itself? What do you think that was
like some sort of like you know, precognition or like
some sort of you know, what were you picking up on?
You know, what's the logical way to explain that or
the other way?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
There's none, you know, there's no.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Give me your take. You experienced it, I wasn't there.
So like you've had years to probably like look back
on it in hindsight. What was why'd you feel that way?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I mean, I'm a superhero. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
I you're superhero, like I don't I don't get punched.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Metaphor.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I it's hard to explain because I don't know where
I stand in the like spiritual sense, right. I grew
up super religious. So at the time You're like, oh,
Odd is telling me something, you know? But now I'm like,
what was that?
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I don't know?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
So I don't know, but I do I can pinpoint
other moments in my life that aren't as severe where
I've been like, oh, something weird is about to happen,
and then it does. And so I don't know if
that's just like we all have that and I'm more
aware of it, or I don't know, it could have
been my dad. I mean, who knows, right, Like, it
(09:28):
just depends on like what you believe and all of
that kind of stuff, And I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
It was something instinctual that you didn't consciously set in
motion that you reacted to. And you know, I believe in,
you know, instincts.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
I think that there's probably a million ways to explain them.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Sometimes there's circumstances that you know, defy you know, logic,
But yeah, it seems like you were definitely picking up
on something that so subconsciously at was important and heavy,
and in hindsight, I guess you still remember it that way.
(10:09):
And so yeah, after this experience, you know what kind
of unfolds over the next couple of years as you're
a young adult growing into you know, an older teenager eighteen,
you know, and you're kind of like, I guess, piecing
together parts of your past that you thought were one
way but now there are another, Like take me through
(10:31):
that process after this Omar incident and as you're growing
older and maturing and probably like looking at it from
a million different angles.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, so it's kind of an interesting time. It was
on my dad's birthday in twenty twelve, which is the
year I graduated high school. So I am like three
weeks away from going to college, and so my whole
life is like shifting and evolving, like from a personal perspective,
(11:01):
and now this is like this big bomb that's like
dropped into my life, and now everything feels like it's
so chaotic. I had plans at the time to major
in biochemistry with a minor in neuroscience and be a doctor.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Oh wow, that is not what happens.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
Sounds hard.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I went to college and I changed my major like
almost immediately, and it was so I mean, I was
always really interested in filmmaking, and I thought, because I
grew up in West Virginia, that that would never make
me any money, so that would always just be something
I would do for fun on the side. And I
(11:47):
sort of saw that as like a path to closure
for my dad and myself, but also a job, and
so I sort of pivoted into that world and really
was just desperate to learn how to make movies and
documentaries so that one day, eventually I'd be able to
tell my dad's story.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
So at some point you were inspired enough to take
the trauma that you had experienced and you know, your
upbringing and all the unanswered questions that you had, you
know endured, and put that into a podcast. So, yes,
what gave you the nerve to do that? And what
(12:32):
were you hoping to get out of that?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
That's a great question. What gave me the nerve to
do that?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I think it was this weird combination of free time,
which I didn't really have a lot of until I started,
and this delusion that like maybe it would do something.
And I think that kind of ties in with like
the why, right. I thought, when I first started looking
(13:04):
into my dad's case, you couldn't find anything, Like there
wasn't an article that would come up from a local
newspaper about John Cornelius McGee's murder, and so I had
to like drive to Ohio. I was living in Portland,
Oregon at the time. I did drive forty one hours
to Ohio and like fish in a library from like
(13:28):
beginning of July for like years and years and years
of two thousand and two, just trying to find these articles.
And so at that point it was like, if I
can just make this case a little more popular, then
maybe it will get solved because right now, I mean,
the Belmont County Sheriff's Department at the time was getting
away with doing nothing because nobody was checking in on that.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So that was sort of the goal.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
And it was a lofty goal considering like I was
doing it by myself, but that was the idea, and
I guess the sort of push was that I finally
had some time to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, so you had time to sort of craft this plan,
and I guess in a way take a risk, and
you knew that, you know, if you just did nothing,
then nothing was probably ever going to happen, because nothing's
ever happened at all.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
So right maybe at.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
The very least, you know, you poking here and there
are just even finding an article you know that otherwise
would never be found. Maybe that starts to create some
sort of momentum that otherwise.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Would Like there was something at the time I wasn't
super vocal about, like, oh, my dad was murdered, but
I couldn't imagine having a conversation with someone like later
in life and saying like, oh, yeah, my dad was
murdered in two thousand and two and it's an unsolved case,
and them look at me and just out of curiosity
(15:02):
be like, oh, did you do anything about that?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And me just be like, well, no, I just whatever, righte?
Speaker 5 (15:08):
What'd you find out? And you're like, oh, I never
really looked into it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, like that seems that's just not my personality, and
so yeah, that I feel like it was just a
natural progression to do this.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, it's kind of a strange burden in a way.
I mean, burden is more like, you know, for yourself,
it's like, yeah, you're looking down the barrel of the
rest of your life and this comes up and you're like, yeah,
I I never really did anything about that.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I mean it was like, no matter what I would,
this would be my story and I would have to
do that. Yeah, and like that super shitty, but it
is what it is.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
Yeah, right, it's very shitty.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
But what is it shittier to regret not having given
something a shot?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Is that how you look at.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It or it's how I looked at it at the time.
I go back and forth every day about if I
should have ever done this or.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Not really what happened, you know how, Like there's.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Those photos of like.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
The like Obama like when he entered office and then
when he left and he looks like five hundred years older.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
Yeah, like three years older me like.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
That, I've only been doing this for a year and
a half and like that is me. And actually Meredith,
our mutual friend, asked me a while ago. She was like, well,
if you could do anything differently, like what would you do?
And I was like, oh, I just wouldn't have done it,
Like I would have never done this.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Oh I could do it.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
I would have never done this at all.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
What's been the hardest part of doing this that that
makes you have that kind of knee jerk reaction of like, oh, yeah,
if I would have changed anything, like maybe I wouldn't
have been involved in this because of why, I.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Mean, gosh all of it, right. I think that.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
When you have sort of the hope that this will
do something. I mean I remember the feeling when I
first hit publish on the first.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
Episode, and like and what was that feeling.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
That feeling of like just like I have finally done
something that like might move the needle a little bit,
and the unknown, I think is almost more exciting than
like when you know obviously what happens. And so looking back,
I see sort of the cost of all of this
(17:33):
in my personal life, my professional life, my financial life,
my mental health, I mean, my entire sense of self.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
What do you mean, like, how do you feel differently?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I mean, I don't know who I am without this,
and I don't like that feeling.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
He feels very tied to it.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, And I feel like even to like other people,
I don't.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
It's very very hard now in a way.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I mean I struggle with anxiety and depression and pre this,
but I think it's almost gotten. Like I thought I
was like the worst ever, and I'm like, oh, I'm
way worse now. The paranoia almost of everyone I meet
and interact with. It's like, oh, do they only want
to be my friend because I have this like true
crime podcast and they're so obsessed with true crime and
(18:25):
they love true crime, and like they don't actually like
me or want to be my friend. Or if I
stopped doing this, what I stop hearing from everyone in
my life?
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Like what what is real? And what is not?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And you know, I've really sort of like hunkered down,
and I've like I don't really hang out with anyone anymore,
Like I don't do anything. I like sit at home
with my cat. Like I'm very My life looks a
lot different than it did when this started.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
That a good thing or a bad thing, or just
a new thing that you're navigating or or you don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I guess I'm just navigating and sort of taking everything
as it comes. But like I think about, you know where,
all the time I've spent on this podcast and this investigation,
like which is a lot. I could have made five movies,
like I could have done so much with my time, one.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
Hundred buildings and yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Done anything.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And so if this never gets solved, it's like, oh
my god, what did I spend the last x amount
of time doing?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
And like the night, I mean last night, I was
up all night working on this and it's.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Like for what, Well, you asked yourself that, and did
you have an internal response?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
No, I have no idea. I'll let you know the
figure it out.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
But then you kept doing it though, right, you said
for what? But then and you went back head down
and did it again.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, yeah, I guess yeah, thank.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
You PhD Well.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
I mean, like maybe it's a rational question, especially when
you feel like you're spending your wheels and you're like
this isn't going anywhere, or you know, this is like
time gets wasted and that you know, I personally hate
wasting time, wasting other people's time, Like you know, it
just feels like so unproductive and just not like I'm
(20:28):
moving forward in life, and you know, going through a
cold case, I feel like that's like ninety percent of
it is.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
All of this.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
You know, I would even call it wasted energy, but
it most certainly feels like it because you could go
down this whole thing for days, weeks, months and really
not yield anything. And maybe all you did yield was
that that's.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Not what you should be doing.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It took you six months to figure that out, and
that's annoying. You wish you just knew that right away
and you could spend that six months having done something
else or putting the energy elsewhere. As someone who you
know builds this show and you're making a show about
your investigation into your father's unsolved murder, what's your take
(21:25):
on the true crime genre and the audience who is
so obsessed with it.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's been a wild ride. I grew up, which is
so weird to look back now, because my mom knew
my dad was murdered the whole time. My mom had
me watching America's Most Wanted when I was like six,
So I've been watching that show like every Saturday night
(21:52):
for most of my life. And I would have considered
myself sort of a consumer of true crime. So then
to sort of fall into like subject of it definitely
shifted my perspective of like the craft of it and
(22:13):
the art of it. It's very different than like making
a movie, which can be about anything, and the characters
are made up and if you change their story or
they get heartbroken, they're fake, it doesn't matter. And this
is so much more real. So it definitely feels different.
(22:37):
You know, I remember, and I will never do this again,
but I remember in like high school, being like, oh yeah,
I love that documentary about whatever whatever getting killed, right,
And you're like, WHOA, that's weird to say now, because
like that's my dad, and that's someone else's cousin, and
that's someone else's sister, and like it just has humanized
(23:00):
the whole thing for me. But then also as like,
I don't know, I mean, it's such a bigger conversation,
but the types of stories that are told, right, my dad.
The only reason that like you couldn't find anything about
my dad is because no one gives a shit about
a black drug dealer from Ohio who was an informant
and got shot in his house.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
It's like, yeah, obviously, I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
And that they pushed it into a dusty box to
never be.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Found, not what was coming to him, you know, And
like that is that's because the genre has set that tone, right,
So it's tough, but I think the interest level, you know,
I really believe that because I have these conversations every
day now. If my dad's story hasn't turned into a
(23:52):
derivative yet because of a long list of reasons, including
it's not popular enough, and there's all of these reasons.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Why, right, what.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
Do you mean derivative? What derivative do you want it
to be?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Like a documentary or whatever?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I mean, I don't necessarily want to go that route,
but like you know, there's eight hundred Joon Binney Ramsey docks, right,
there's forty about all of these different cases right, And
there's reasons why we don't see stories like my Dad's
not necessarily my dads, but stories like my dads because
they're not getting purchased. I believe if they were and
(24:32):
they were put on streaming platforms, people would watch them.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
There are network.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Execs saying that no one wants that, and that's why
they're not buying them. But they set the tone of
what people want, because people want what they're given, especially
in the entertainment industry, and so I think that that's
where I think that the genre sort of sets that
tone because if more of those stories were being told,
people would consume them.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
They're just less told.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So when you set out to make this podcast, you
had to do a super deep dive into the details of,
you know, what may have happened the night of suspects,
persons of interest family.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
You know, I would imagine.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Very difficult, you know, intricate things that you're dealing with
as you're going through there, like what did you kind
of initially discover as the potential circumstances of when and
how your dad was actually murdered?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
So it's such a weird story.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Almost immediately you realize that the story on paper on
the police files is not probably the most accurate version
of the story, just because it doesn't make a lot
of sense. So my dad lived next door to his sister,
and his sister's son, who was like an adult child,
(26:01):
like eighteen nineteen twenty, is there and there's three people
in the house and their house gets broken into, and
that's the beginning of this morning of you know, eventually
my dad getting.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Killed and four ish.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
They don't even know how many people break into the
house and are there for like forty minutes, like ransacking
the house looking for money.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
The house, Yeah, yeah, they're there.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
They're there for money, and they don't find any after
forty minutes, and they end up next door at my
dad's house with Omar, and then they shoot my dad
as he's like approaching the door because he hears someone outside,
and they kick in the door. My dad is standing there.
(26:53):
They shoot him one shot. He falls to the ground.
They don't even enter the house and they leave. So
it's weird because the police are sort of adamant that
this is a home invasion gone wrong. They didn't mean
to shoot anyone. They were just there to rob people,
but they didn't take anything, and they were there for
a really long time, so it doesn't really make sense.
(27:16):
And so that's sort of where I pick up this,
and that's what I'm left with. And then it's like
here you go, like figure it out.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
And so Omar was there? Correct? Yeah, was he shot?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
No?
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (27:38):
It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
I think that he wasn't the target, so he wasn't shot,
or he.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Was with the other guys.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
And you know, I could see a scenario where they,
you know, they barge into the house next door and
maybe they get spooked by it and IDI person there
and they just pulled the trigger. But that would also
mean that Omar was there and saw that happen.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I mean there's three people in the other house where
they've spent a lot of time, and they've seen their faces,
which is obviously like in all of these stories, like
if you see someone's face, it's almost like you know
you're gonna die. And none of them are hurt at all.
So it's just so strange my dad didn't have a
(28:29):
gun in his hand.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
I mean, there's just a lot of weird.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Things that would make you wonder like why shoot? And
also if the people who I believe were there were
really there, they knew my dad. So even if they're
spooked that my dad's at the door, he's unarmed. He's
gonna immediately see someone he knows. Even if he has
beef with them. He's probably just gonna be like, get
(28:53):
out of here. His daughter's in the bedroom, Like, he's
not gonna do anything. So it's very strange that if
you do know this, you're still going to shoot them
and it be an accident.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
I don't know, it just seems to you.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
Yeah, it's strange.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I also do believe there were like four ish people
there and only one of them could have done it,
And so I'm very curious out of these four people
who did.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
It forensically here like there was one shot.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
So yeah, if there's four people, only one person shot,
if they all shot, there'd be four shots. So but
that also means that there is potentially three witnesses to
somebody shooting.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
And I guess if you were there and covered this up,
I guess you were also in some way a part
of this crime.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Do you know how tight these individuals were then and
how tight they may be now?
Speaker 5 (29:52):
And you know, all these years.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Later, yeah, they were pretty close at the time leagues,
if you will, but also like lifelong friends. I mean,
this is a small town, so they have known each
other for a really long time at this point. There
are a couple of them that I believe are still
(30:16):
connected to each other through LLC filings I've found, but
I don't.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Know those ventures that have not or been started or
something or what do you mean.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, yeah, their names are on it, or their names
are on bank accounts together for these businesses or things
like that. Now I don't that doesn't necessarily speak to
if they're like buddies still and like hang out.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
But but like presumably you only do that with people
you kind of trust and still communicate with.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think that the lifelong trust,
especially in these towns, with what they're presumably doing, is
really important. So I do think that some of them
are still connected. Three of them are currently in prison.
So there's that. And one is not.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Having you know, meticulously gone through a lot of police
reports and interviews and all the evidence that you could
get your hands on in this case, you know, kind
of shaping the.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
Narrative of your father's murder. Are there any things that.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You believe that the police really mishandled in this case
that changed the course of it forever, to the point
where you know, all these years later that his daughter's
having to make a podcast to try to figure out
what happened.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yes, they.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
From the beginning, for whatever reason, displayed incredible negligence. I
say that because benefit of the doubt, which I don't
know if they deserve. It's a small town, there's not
a lot of funding, not great staffing. The first person
(32:12):
on the scene was a traffic cop who was on
his way to work and got the call.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
So he showed up.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
You know, like he's not gonna know he's there to
give parking tickets.
Speaker 5 (32:22):
And speeding tickets.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, yeah, so you know, but at the same time, I,
as we've discussed, am not that smart, and I would
know to tape off a scene, or swipe for fingerprints
or look for gunpowder residue on hands, Like there's certain
things that like you just know from watching any television show.
(32:48):
And they never taped off the scene. My family was
walking in and out of the house within minutes of
this happening. I don't know that they have any evidence
at all. And so yeah, I mean there's lots of
places within this investigation where it could have been solved
or there could have been hope of it getting solved.
(33:10):
And now it's really up to three of those four
guys saying, Hey, I don't want to go to prison
for the rest of my life. I'll tell you who
did it. Yeah, And I don't know if that will
ever happen.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Because because really, like based on the way that you're
saying that they handled the scene and how they unfolded,
there wasn't any major collection of evidentiary items that are
in some locker somewhere that.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
Could be the smoking gun.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
All these years later, it's kind of like a whole
bunch of nothing, and the crime scene was tainted and
now it's just about he shit, he said, she said,
And you got a group of people.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
But like the physical evidence is almost like.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Not enough to really I guess point anywhere unless there
is something that you and unless there is something there
in terms of like I guess the type of gun
or or the means.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
It's so weird.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, it was a handgun and they couldn't find it.
When my sister got home from giving her statement at
the police station, my dad had a lot of guns
in the house. He was a drug dealer, so he
had several and I also think that's what's so strange
is on his way to the front door, he never
(34:34):
grabbed one, which just leads me to believe he knew
the people obviously on his front porch, because I if
he didn't, he would have grabbed a gun. But when
my sister got home, all of the guns had been
removed from the house and she never.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Saw them again.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Stolen removed, I.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Mean to find stolen they were. They were taken by
family members because the police told them to get them
all out of the house, so they loaded them up
on a I mean they're like they've been sold given away. Okay, Yeah,
they were loaded up onto a truck bed and driven
(35:15):
out and who knows where they ended up. So my uncle,
because one of the detectives who was my dad's sort
of like person he reported to as an informant when
he arrived, told my uncle Curtis.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
To get all of the guns out of the house,
so he did.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Why would he do that, It's.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
A great question.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
There's a lot of speculation in the town that my
dad was killed with one of his own guns. I
don't know logistically how that would be possible. These people
never entered the house, but it is an interesting theory
given sort of that information. But yeah, I don't know.
(36:01):
I mean, my sixteen year old sister shows up, sees
a bunch of guns on a truck bed covered by
a blanket being driven away, walks inside of a house
where all of her family members are going in and
out after her dad has been murdered in the living room,
and every gun that was in her house is gone.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
So there is no like the gun that killed your dad.
No one knows where that is.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
No, and my sister and her mom, we have different moms.
Two weeks after this happened, found a bullet casing in
the living room of my dad's house. So like that
wasn't even like put in a bag. I mean, it's
just like so obvious that.
Speaker 5 (36:43):
The only one is that the only bully, the only one.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
That's the only one she saw. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Interesting, And so do you believe that to be the
actual bullet that was used in the gun?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
I don't know, because again I don't know what the
police if they found one, if they put it in
a bag, if it's somewhere in a you know, filing
cabinet somewhere. But it's possible, but it's also possible that
it's not. It's hard to say. I also don't know
(37:20):
like if that bullet casing came from a handgun or
something else, Like my sister wouldn't know that either.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Have you asked the police these questions like are they
cooperative in the way of, hey, you know, do you
guys have a bullet casing from the crime scene of
my dad's murdered Have you been able to ask that
kind of question? And if so, do they have a
response to that.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
So I have talked to them just a handful of times.
Once was in person, I had gotten the case files.
I read through them all, and then I drove again
from Portland to Ohio to meet with them face to face,
and sort of that was more of like, let's just
go through these case files. I'm really curious, like, according
(38:08):
to you, what really happened that day? And then I
went back and I sent an email of like, here's
some questions I have. I've led to get back on
the phone or a zoom or just respond to this
email with the answer to these questions. And there were
like ten one of them was because they were very
weird about it's an open case and you can't have everything,
(38:31):
and we've given you what we can, et cetera, et cetera.
So one of my questions was, I don't need to
see it, but can I have a list of evidence
that you have, just so I know what you have
what you don't have. And that was one of the
questions on that list. And they've never responded to that request.
So as I talk to them, which it's been a
year since we've spoken, I always bring that up, and
(38:54):
it's just they just don't respond.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
The bullet casing found by your family, where's that one gone?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
For sure?
Speaker 5 (39:04):
What do you mean gone? Where did it go?
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Probably thrown away?
Speaker 5 (39:08):
Why so?
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I mean, my sister.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Was sixteen, very close to my dad, much closer than
I was, struggled very hard with this. I mean, she
was in the house when it happened. She called nine
to one to one.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Her mom.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Was not. I mean, my dad took care of my sister,
so when her mom sort of stepped in to take
on that role, it was very much like and I
think everyone in my family had this mentality of like,
let's just move on from this. So as things were,
you know, being found. My sister now will reach out
(39:56):
if she hears something or oh I heard this name.
But I think at the time, I mean I didn't
see my sister for twenty years. I think it was like,
let's just move on.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
She wanted to almost purge herself from this and cleansing,
like this is a horrible experience. I don't even want
it to be around these things.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yeah, I would imagine that, you know, reopening this on
your own a chord and poking around and talking to
you know, friends and family members who I would imagine
some of them don't want to talk about this right
for you know, good and bad reasons. And you know,
(40:39):
has there been any strain on your relationship with your
family since you started creating this podcast?
Speaker 3 (40:47):
What family? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (40:50):
Why do you feel like it? Did you feel like
that before you started?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, it's a weird position I'm in because I did.
I didn't really know them before doing this.
Speaker 5 (41:03):
Okay, so in a way that may did that help
you maybe like to be able.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
To just yeah, it was definitely. I knew that the
response was going to be like where did this bitch
come from?
Speaker 5 (41:13):
Like?
Speaker 3 (41:13):
What are you doing? Why?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Are you here, you know, uprooting our lives like this,
and in ways it made me a little numb.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
But I am.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Such an EmPATH that, like it took a huge toll
on me just knowing that. Like, I mean, I get
upset if like I cried the other day in the
car because I accidentally cut someone off and they were
like yelling at me, and like that's the type of
person I am. So even if I'm like, I don't
really care about them, the fact that they're mad at me,
(41:48):
I'm like, oh my god, they're mad at me, and
so I don't like that.
Speaker 5 (41:52):
Yeah, you don't want to be the cause of more hurt.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, do you feel like they're you know, despite the
reopening of wounds, which is never fun. It's never it's
always ugly, it's not a pretty thing, but it it's
something that has to be done if there's a serious
attempt being made to try and figure out what happened, right,
(42:18):
do you feel like your family is on board with
trying to figure out what happened despite how difficult it
may be to I don't know see and hear all this.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
I think there are family members that want this solved
for sure. And I mean my sister is such a
good example. Actually, she doesn't love the podcast. She's not
loving you know, my method of doing this, but she's
so supportive.
Speaker 5 (42:50):
Why not.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
She's pretty private and wasn't that enthused about all of that.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Don't talk about me.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I have a job then yeah, yeah, just basic like
I didn't sign up for this, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
But she's super supportive and she's like, you have to
do what you need to do for closure to figure
out what happened. And she thinks that I'm close and
wants me to find the answer. So I think that
there's that as well. But she's super supportive, and I
think that's the perfect example of like, wouldn't be my method,
but I get it, and I'm here for you. And
(43:24):
I have other family members that are sort of just like,
leave me out of it. I don't really care about
all this. I just want to move on with my life.
And then I have family members that are like, if
I ever get the chance, I'm going to put a
bullet in your head. Right.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
So there's a lot there's a spectrums of everything, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Yeah, and there's a lot of moving parts and you know,
feelings and ties, and you're dealing with family, and you
know you're not trying to hurt cause any more hurt
than was already caused, right, Right, And I think what's
in fortunate about investigating a cold case, like, at least
(44:05):
from what I've learned personally, is that no matter what,
somebody is going to be upset because it's upsetting. The
whole thing is upsetting, right, Revisiting an upsetting events or
you know, these series of unknowns that you've kind of
(44:28):
pushed out of your your brain a little bit because
they were driving you crazy. You know, revisiting that is
upsetting because something upsetting happened. And so it's kind of
like it's the shitty part about finding the truth that's
that's like a further aftermath of what somebody did in
the first place by murdering by murdering your Yeah, do
(44:52):
you think that you know throughout all the episodes you've
done so far, and the people you've talked to and
learning along the way as you as you're growing as
a storyteller and an amateur investigator yourself, Now, do you
feel like you do you feel like you've been able
to uncover anything new or important enough that gives hope
(45:19):
to a potential resolution down the road.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Yes, it's such a weird.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Set of circumstances because I entered this naively thinking that
my dad's murder was a mystery. I think a lot
of people know exactly what happened that day and exactly
who was there, and have just been so eager to
(45:54):
move on with their lives that they just don't want
to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I think that I have figured it out, which is
great because I don't give a fuck. I'm going to
tell everyone who killed my dad, right, But these people
have been able to get away with it for so
long that, yeah, I do feel like I've uncovered something.
But now I'm sort of unfortunately learning how not mysterious
(46:29):
this really was, and how half of this town probably
has known the entire time.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
What really happened.
Speaker 5 (46:36):
Wasn't some big conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
It's just like, Hey, there was a couple of dudes
here one day and they kind of all know what
happened and they just never said anything, which is almost
kind of I mean, would piss you off, probably because
it's you know, if it was that simple, then why
haven't we Why hasn't it you know, come to a resolution, right.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, totally. And I think that there's lots of reasons
for that. I think that, I mean, we're talking about
career criminals, right, they yes, they know what they're doing.
They all have each other's backs. And also it's such
a unique part of the country where the border of
Ohio and West Virginia is really important. West Virginia doesn't
(47:18):
have the death penalty Ohio does. They killed my dad
on the Ohio side, if they get charged for murder,
it's not up to me or anyone else except the
prosecutors and the DA what they get charged with. And
so there's this level of like, I mean, I've talked
to a lot of people who are around at the time,
dealing drugs at the time, and they all would agree,
(47:42):
you'd rather get caught in West Virginia than Ohio for anything.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
Well, if the murder happened in Ohio, I'm assuming that
that's where it would be prosecuted or.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
If yeah, so they'd be screwed potentially.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
So, if you're aware of these individuals and you feel
like you know pretty strongly that they know something more
than they're telling and they've kept secrets and it's not
this big mystery that it has been made out to be.
Speaker 5 (48:13):
For your whole life.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
What next steps do you take to try to infiltrate that?
And I don't know, get somebody to say something or
engage in a conversation.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
It's a I'm in a really interesting position currently because
I've actually spoken to one of these individuals face to face.
Speaker 5 (48:35):
How they go?
Speaker 3 (48:37):
I mean, it was wild.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Was it a surprise knock knock or were you? Did
you plan?
Speaker 3 (48:43):
No, it was it was planned. They reached out to me.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
I thought they were in prison, was planning to sort
of write them a letter and get added to their
visitor list and visit them behind glass.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
And I woke up one morning.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
To a message on Facebook and they had been released
and they had heard the show and they reached out
to me.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Why did they reach out to you? Did they tell
you why they wanted to reach out?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Yeah, they wanted me to know the truth, which was
their truth is that they weren't there and had nothing.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
To do with it.
Speaker 5 (49:13):
But what's the other truth.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
That they pulled the trigger?
Speaker 5 (49:18):
So you think that there's a potentially this person is
just saying it I did nothing, But maybe he's really
saying that he did it.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Yeah, I think it's very possible that this person was
there and did it, and now he's back in prison,
and two of the other guys are also in prison,
and there's one that is not, and he seems to
have sort of turned his life around. He works for
the Public Defender's office, and I think if anyone has
(49:55):
the most to lose, it's someone like that, and they
would be willing to tell me what happened in exchange for.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
Something else. So that's my only hope at this point.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
I mean, it is interesting to me that this individual,
on his own accord, reached out to you to say
that he wants you to know the truth, and his
truth was just simply that I didn't do anything right. Yeah,
because I you know, unless you, I guess, really definitively
(50:38):
pointing the finger at specifically this person.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
It seems a little bit out of line. It seems
a little I did.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
And maybe you know that does that require or the
follow up?
Speaker 2 (50:57):
I mean no, I mean it seems it strange. And
I mean even our our interaction it was all so bizarre.
I mean, just the calmness, the I mean it was
it was like I was talking to his like a sociopath,
(51:19):
like it was so weird. But yeah, I mean he
says he didn't do it. I mean there was a
point in time where I'm like, I mean, if this
guy killed my dad, would he sit across a table
from me? I mean, that just seems so crazy.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Maybe he would if he was really spooked about getting
caught and is all of a sudden doing you know,
completely bizarre drastic measures to give the opposite impression.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
But yeah, I have a theory.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
At the time, he was really adamant that he had
just been released from and he received a seven year
sentence for a drug charge and was released because he
appealed and won. And his appeal was that he was
set up by the Belmont County Sheriff's Department, and so
him winning sort of set this standard that like, he
(52:18):
gets set up for crime sometimes by Belmont County, Right,
so if they think he killed my dad, maybe that's
a setup too. But when I talked to him, he
was very much like, I want to help you. We
can work together. And again there's that selfish motive of course,
of if I find someone else who did it, then
it wasn't you. But a few months later he gets
(52:41):
arrested again on a massive drug trafficking charge. So I
feel like there was almost this hope that like if
I could come in and be like, look at how
corrupt Belmont County is, that serves him and then he
maybe knew this charge was coming down the line and
it would have all worked out for him, And so
(53:01):
I didn't know that obviously when I met up with him.
But yeah, I mean I'm just trying to play all
these scenarios in my head to try to justify, you know,
why anyone would want to meet up with me and
sit down with me, and none of the other guys
have done this. I reached out to Wan to talk
to them through a mutual friend and they said no,
(53:22):
so I'll just show up at their house.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
But yeah, are you still in contact with the guy
who is now back in prison?
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Not since he went to prison, he would call me
like once a week.
Speaker 5 (53:36):
Are you able to write him or like make contact?
I mean, obviously it's more difficult now.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
But yeah, I mean I could. I haven't yet, it's
still fairly new, but yeah I.
Speaker 5 (53:50):
Could, Like is this dude facing like hard time now?
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (53:58):
Or he'll be there for a while. I guess either way.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
I'll be there for a little bit. I don't know.
It's so weird because it's just the lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Right, They go in to prison for like five six
years and they come out, and then they go back
and then they come out.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Has that shaped your approach moving forward in the next installment?
Speaker 2 (54:19):
So I have ideas for sort of what Part three
will look like, and it includes a much more.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
Like quote unquote official approach.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
So now I'm sort of at a point where I've
done all the research, I've built the context, I've gotten
familiar with the world. Now if all I can do
is like mail a file to the Belmont County Sheriff's Department,
Like what's in it?
Speaker 3 (54:49):
What do I put in there? Do I say?
Speaker 2 (54:51):
I found this and these people are connected, and I
have evidence of this LLC and this bank account and
this happening, And at this time this was this person's
email and just a list of like my own kind
of case file almost And so Part three is going
to be me sort of assembling that and hopefully putting
(55:16):
it to bed on my end, like this is what
I have, and this is what I've found, and like, yes,
do something with this or don't. But you're gonna look
like assholes if you don't, because now the whole world
is watching you.
Speaker 5 (55:28):
Is your plan to mail it? Literally?
Speaker 3 (55:30):
I mean, I'll probably bring it myself.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
I mean I think the best way to do it
is call a meeting that they eventually have to just
say okay, fine, and you just sit there and you
unpack it and give it to them physically and we
get to hear what the fuck they say?
Speaker 3 (55:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that that.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:48):
I would.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
I would want to, you know, go in person, because
there's little things like I'd really love to test. Omar
says that these guys poured rubbing alcohol on them when
they broke into the house, and the detective said that
he could smell the rubbing alcohol on them. But I
(56:09):
think that's kind of strange. So I'm going to like
dump rubbing alcohol on clothes and let them sit outside
for twenty minutes and then go back and see if
I can smell it. And like I'm going to do
like my own sort of yeah, like line by line investigation,
which I haven't really done because I've been talking to
people and trying to get information and doing all this stuff.
(56:30):
So yeah, my approach is going to get a little
more aggressive and be a little different. But it's almost
like this is it, Like this is all I have
left to do, and this is all I can do,
and then it's really like not up to me, like
they have to decide what to do with that.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
So do you feel like the lack of control in
the ultimate outcome in real life and as a creative
person and your narrative is maddening?
Speaker 2 (57:05):
It's horrific. It's it's really tough. I'm very type A
and I'm a LEO, so I definitely try to control
everything I'm you know, I'm a producer, so it's just
like I produce my life, I project manage my laundry
(57:28):
like I just am always in that mindset. And so
it is really really hard to be working with a
scenario and people that are really kind of doing whatever
they will and I have no control at all over it.
I can just tell the story as it's happening. It's
a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Just in conclusion, Since you've made a podcast and you've
put yourself out there, you know, you've had some really
cool covering on your show and your dad's story, your story,
so like what has your experience been with starting with
the positive in terms of I don't know, have people
(58:13):
reached out and been touched by your story and shown
their support in that way and that been a positive thing.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Yeah, I've been met with so much support. It's been
honestly a bit overwhelming, only because when I did this,
I mean it was me and a couple friends in
my living room doing.
Speaker 3 (58:37):
This and then like hitting uploads.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
So for anyone at all to be listening is like
always so wild and it's been really great just to
know that, you know, it was a fine line because
while I wanted this story out there, it's so wildly
personal you kind of wonder like is this going to
resonate with anyone? Like will anybody even understand this enough
(59:02):
to like want to listen because it is very like
personal and specific.
Speaker 1 (59:07):
It's my story, right, Like do people care about my
story like this a little bit? Yeah, Like you know,
I get that.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
So it was really nice to sort of see, how,
you know, I open up about my mom struggling with
addiction and what it was like growing up with an addict,
and you know, those types of things, and maybe someone
who doesn't relate to their dad getting murdered. They understand
other elements of the story, and I think that has
been really great to sort of see the impact of
(59:37):
that and you know, going back to like what's it
all for, Like that is a nice reminder sometimes. Yeah,
and then on the other side, I think it's funny.
I'm always like, I'm just such a like comedic person.
I get really sensitive and I will cry about it
(59:59):
in the show, but then I'll leave and I'll post
on my Instagram like the worst comment and like laugh
about it because it is just like, at the end
of the day, so funny to me that someone says
the crazy stuff that they say. And I always refer
to like anyone who listens to my show. I would
feel weird if I was like, oh, they're my fan,
Like that's weird. They listen to my podcast, and like
if I know them in real life, they're my friend.
(01:00:21):
And I love looking at like the one star reviews
and I'm like, those are my fans, Like those are
the fans for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
The times they don't miss it, yeah, fucking yeah, episode.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
They don't miss an episode, So it is I try
to be late about it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Some days I'm like I'm quitting because Susie hates my
podcast and thinks that I'm bad at this and hates
that I read so slow and blah blah blah blah blah.
There's like one comment that was like listen at one
point two five or two times or not at all.
Speaker 5 (01:00:58):
Like said okay with Jesus, Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Yeah, that escalated very quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
But yeah, it's it's just I don't know it is
what it is because I guess the on the other
side of it, because it's my story. I'm like, there
is no critique you can make that I can change, Like,
I can't do anything about this because the story and
the meat of this is not changeable.
Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
Like this is just the reality.
Speaker 5 (01:01:23):
Yeah, Like you're telling a story that is your story.
Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
So yeah, like I can't do anything about this, So.
Speaker 5 (01:01:29):
I'm not sorry, like it this is what happened in
my life.
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
So yeah, and like next next script I write, I'll
send it to you for no Y, but for this
yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:01:40):
So what are we looking forward to next?
Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
I mean, you have a big summer, you have, you know,
a lot of episodes you've been working on. You know,
you've only dove deeper into this case and I feel
like I just my good instinct is that you're going
to keep uncovering more and more, and you know, no
matter how much time it takes or the level of
(01:02:04):
cooperation at the right particular time, I think that there's
enough momentum there and a force to be reckoned with
that it's going to force a hand of something eventually.
So in your eyes, how do you see, like, how
do you want this to play out? How does this
(01:02:25):
how does the the podcast chapter of you investigating your dad?
Speaker 5 (01:02:31):
And or does it?
Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
God? I hope so right?
Speaker 5 (01:02:38):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
I think?
Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
I think, I mean, in a perfect world, obviously, I
think it ends with solving the case. Obviously an ideal
scenario is like through the court system and like a prosecution. Yes,
but I'm okay with just knowing, so so yeah, figuring
it out in some sense and knowing definitively like knowing
(01:03:05):
because someone who was there said or someone confesses or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Just knowing the truth I think would be great.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
You know, there's been a lot of people that have
reached out with their own stories and sort of looking
for help and answers and a lot of questions about
you know, what is next and what I want to
do with this sort of Frankenstein that I've built. I
(01:03:35):
want to make movies, So I'm gonna make a movie soon,
and that is going to be sort of my next
hyper fixation. And I think that I need a break
from whatever I've done. Sure, so if there's a world
(01:03:56):
in which that sort of revives as like another person's
story or helping someone else, is I'm not saying no
to but uh yeah, no, I have a slate of
projects that I want to make that have nothing to
do with.
Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
This.
Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
I would say, after this or while this is happening,
you could probably expect to see a Madison McGee film
pretty soon. I am talking to one of my favorite,
all time favorite creators about what will happen eventually when
(01:04:32):
this podcast becomes a scripted something, so.
Speaker 5 (01:04:36):
That that still is a goal, right, Like you would
love to see the.
Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
HBO treatment of this tale? Yeah right, Yeah, that'd that'd
be very cool.
Speaker 5 (01:04:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
I think there's a really unique opportunity to tell this
story because of the location and the demographic of people
that the story sort of talks about that deserve to
be seen on television.
Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Yep, it's got the Yeah, it's got the setting, it's
got the time period.
Speaker 5 (01:05:12):
It's got the race issue that is.
Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
You know, people are more aware of now today than
they were I guess yesterday and years prior. And it's
also got you at the center spearheading a real life
you know, investigation, and it's a fucking mystery, right, And yeah,
(01:05:38):
people like mysteries because yeah, it drives them crazy.
Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
To not know what happened, at least for me, you.
Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Know, totally that's funny. I envision it and I put this.
I just spent all night writing this sort of pitch.
But it's almost I want it to feel just as
much like a coming of age story as it does
a mystery, because I think it shouldn't feel like a
crime show, but it is, but it shouldn't feel like that.
Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
And that's something you probably do even better through of
like visually, right, like that you know, six year old
you to sixteen year old you and like kind of
I don't know how it would be structured, but you know,
flashbacks and like telling a story in a way that
like can really express how that shaped you and the
(01:06:33):
dynamics of what you're getting into in modern day.
Speaker 5 (01:06:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
I think that's like in itself is like a really
powerful character and like a protagonists. Yeah, but what do
I know? I don't I'm not a writer. But but
let me know when you want me to executive produce it,
and i'll I'll send you an invoice. Perfect, perfect, Well,
(01:07:01):
it was great catching up with you, and we should
plan like some sort of Boston trip. I know Meredith
will totally be coming at some point.
Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
Yeah, I feel like she just got back from somewhere
in Italy.
Speaker 5 (01:07:15):
Yeah, for like a Taylor Swift thing. It sounded cool.
Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, but yeah that could.
Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Be fun and we could maybe even yeah, do some
content and just have fun and like I don't know,
shoot some ship, record some shit, just kind of see
what happens.
Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
We need to make a song, okay, anyways, all.
Speaker 5 (01:07:33):
Right, well send me the beat.
Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
But yeah, no, this was great, thanks for having me,
all right.
Speaker 5 (01:07:40):
I'll see how soon.
Speaker 6 (01:07:44):
Talking to Death is a production of tenderfoot TV and
iHeart podcast created and hosted by Payne Lindsay. For Tenderfoot TV,
executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Co executive
producer is Mike Rudy. For iHeart Podcasts, executive pretty users
are Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, with original music by
Makeup and Vanity Set. Additional production by Mike Rooney, Dylan Harrington,
(01:08:08):
Sean Nerney, Dayton Cole and Gustav Wild for Cohedo. Production
support by Tracy Kaplan, Mara Davis, and Trevor Young. Mixing
and mastering by Cooper Skinner and Dayton Cole. Our cover
art was created by Rob Sheridan. Check out our website
Talking to Death podcast dot com.
Speaker 5 (01:08:32):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Talking to Death.
Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
This series is released weekly absolutely free, but if you
want ad free listening and exclusive bonuses, you can subscribe
to tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or go to tenderfootplus
dot com
Host
Payne Lindsey
Popular Podcasts
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.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
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