August 15, 2019 • 39 mins
iO, Austin, and Zac sit down for a very special behind-the-scenes bonus episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
How are you doing, io? Are you good? Welcome to
the studio. Thank you. I really like this studio. It
has the effect of like the womb. Now I come
in here and I feel safe and hello Zach, Zach
right here, I'm here Zach our editor and what other
title editors? Such an underestimation of what Zaa does on
(00:21):
the show. All the credits on the show are fucked.
I'm like, none of this actually equates to what everybody does. Yeah, well,
I'm glad we're doing this episode of the show so
that we can actually talk about what the fuck happens. Yeah.
So this episode is going to have a lot of spoilers,
basically all the spoilers for the whole season. So if
(00:42):
you haven't heard the series, go back and binge it first.
So we were just listening to that south By Southwest talk.
So before we launched the show, Io and I went
to south By Southwest to like play a trailer. But
I told everybody I knew that we were premiering It's
Out by Self West, So I for sure got eighty
(01:03):
percent of the value of anything. It's out by Southwest
is getting to say that you prepared It's health Byself. Yeah, Hi, everybody,
thanks for coming. It's like just intimate enough to perfect.
It's good because we got some very intimate conversations to share.
This was before the show would come out, and so
(01:26):
there were a lot of secrets that you couldn't talk about. Oh,
I want to tell them so many things about nights. Oh,
We're still in the last phases of the investigation, so
I'm still like, I want to tell you guys what's
coming on. But one of the big secrets didn't have
to do with the investigation at all, right, It had
to do with storytelling decision that we made. When do
(01:48):
we reveal Hio's connection to the story? Right, And we've
always for as long as you and I were talking
about the story, that was like the thing that we
read with it's like and it's investigated by the kid.
It's so cool, Like it's like this personal journey, and
that's what made it interesting. And so then Mark came in,
(02:09):
Mark Smirling, our other editor. Well, Mark came in at
the eleventh hour with this hair brand idea that turned
out to be genius. That was, let's not reveal it
until after Rebecca's told the entirety of her story. The
story of them meetings. So just a few weeks before
the show launched, we went to south By Southwest to
test out Mark's new structure idea of holding back my
(02:31):
relationship with Rebecca. Yeah, there's a there's a major secret
that wha we will have probably and then we'll talk
about this secret. And then we played the trailer and
the trailer doesn't reveal that I'm her kid. And then
I was like, and by the way, so how did
you find out about this story? Well, the big secret
(02:54):
is that Rebecca is my mom. I think it works.
And I remember there was an audible gasp in the
room and we were like, Okay, where let's do it today,
Zach Austin and I peel back the curtain a bit.
(03:14):
We'll give you some juicy secrets about how we made
the show and we'll reflect on how we feel about
it now from Crimetown. I'm io till it right, And
this is a behind the scenes bonus episode of the
Ballad of Billy Balls Austen, helloo, all right, tell about
(03:47):
what you want to know. Well, first of all, what's
Billy's real name? What's the full legal name, William Heightsman.
There might be a daughter and I think my mom
might know her name for some reason. She thinks that
she lives in Oregon. All right, well, if she exists,
I'm confident we can find them. To me, what's missing
(04:12):
all of this, It's like we need the other we have.
If we get this police report, we find out what
happens then and you can introduce some of that. Yeah, yeah,
that would be as at the end of this, there's
some sort of coming together these two Io and Rebecca.
Either bad or good, we don't know, but something's common
(04:32):
sort of see it. Yeah. Epilogue four, The Ballad of
the Ballad? All right, Io, So how did this whole
(04:54):
thing come together? How did it start? I was planning
to write a book. It was called The Ballad of
Billy Balls and His Baby Girl. That was and it
was gonna be a memoir, nonfiction, murder investigation book. And
then I was listening to all these true crime podcasts.
I went through a breakup, and I was like in
(05:16):
the sweltering sun in Joshua Tree building furniture, listening to
every true crime podcast I get my hands on. I'm
a sick motherfucker. Like everybody listening to this podcast, You're great,
You're all great, Yeah, and then I heard your name
as I was listening to Crimetown. I'm Zach Stewart Pontier.
I'm Mark Smirley. Welcome to Crimetown. I was like, no
(05:39):
fucking way. I'd met Zach probably fifteen or so years
ago through my friend Jamie Raisin shout out Jamie, who
was working on a movie that Zach was editing, and
he wouldn't stop talking about this brilliant young editor, Zach,
Zach Zach. So when I found out that I had
(06:00):
gotten into podcasting, I was just like, I know, I
want to make a podcast. I don't know, I want
to like this medium is beautiful and exciting and really cool.
And then I just asked you to have lunch. You
were starting to work on Crimetime season two and it
was freezing and we were at a Whole Food and
like gwanas, I told him about the book, and he
(06:21):
was like, that would make an epic podcast. Have you
ever thought about making a podcast? And I was like, well,
I've thought about it, but I didn't. Oh, yeah, that's genius.
Because he was a musician, and because you were saying
my mom had documented the big parts of her life,
he was always recordings, and her accents so crazy and wild,
and the way she talks is so crazy and wild,
and I figured everybody around would also be audio gold.
(06:45):
And so as soon as you said it, I was
like being like, yeah, yes, it has to be a podcast,
and I kept writing and whatever, but it really at
that point I was like, Oh, that's what this is
supposed to be, right, And then I went off and
tried to make it on my own, which was a
(07:05):
great lesson in people saying no to things and you
being like, no, I'm sure. Everybody I talked to from
these other networks and stuff, we're like, well, have you
found the Killer? Do you know how it ends? And
I was like, no, you don't understand. It's not It's
just it's an amorphous. It's a study in humanity. And
nobody wants to hear that. They're like, who's the good guy,
who's the bad guy? And I was like, no, it's
(07:25):
it's about love but death. But I couldn't articulate it,
but I knew you got it because we came up
with it to get there. Basically, Yeah, and then the
heavens parted and I came in here and you guys
were like, so this is Austin, go have lunch with him.
I was like, okay, who the fuck is You guys
(07:49):
are basically like we are slammed and Austin's the man
and we want him to be like the lead on this. Yeah.
I mean yeah. From my perspective, it was Zach just
being like, all right, so what do you think about this?
There's and he gave me your pitch deck. What was
the spiel that he How did he explain? It was
(08:09):
his elevator pitch of the ballot? I mean, I don't
remember it that clearly, but it was something like, all right,
so there's this murder mystery that takes place in the
East Village in the early eighties. And I was like, oooh, okay,
all right, keep going. He was a musician who all right,
all right, and then you have to work with Io
till it right, And I was like no, and so yeah,
(08:31):
that that was it. I was excited about it. I
was excited about the prospect of it. We had no
idea what it was going to be, and so that
was that was honestly a little exciting. Um. So it
was a thing where it was go have lunch with
Io and see how you get along, see if you'll
be able to work together. And then we sat down
(08:53):
and had lunch and you were lovely and you told
me about California and all this stuff, and I was like,
all right, great do it? Was it thumbs up like
in the yeah, in the in the lunch where you
guys like we're doing this for me, I was like,
I had no questions about him. I think our only
question at that point was whether or not somebody was
going to give us the money to make it right
(09:14):
until we got Cadence Um really on board and they
came in and they were great. The first trip when
I came to New York in December, I came here
for a week before we had a green light. I
bought the ticket. Yeah. That week we just kind of
like sat down. I remember you like asking me what
(09:36):
do you hope to get from this project? And it
was still all it was like raw meat, you know,
it still very like un seasoned. Then we should play
we should play some of that in yeah, because it's
like so interesting to hear, like the wide eyed sort
of yeah we saw so in terms of this project,
(09:58):
what exactly do you want to get from this? This
is my first recorded sit down with Austin. We need
to piece together a picture of who Billy was, a
real picture of who Billy was versus my mom's interpretation.
And then we need to somehow, which is going to
be the hardest part, crack the NYPD case files and
(10:23):
get them to possibly incriminate themselves in a murder. And
it might just be that it might be right there
on a piece of paper, arresting officer so and so,
and this is the guy that shot him. That's the
guy I want to get to. I want to find
who the dude is. Who is the guy in the
cowboy hat. It's like strangely prescient or whatever. Yeah, certain
(10:50):
things that you're saying, I absolutely haven't. I want to
sit down with him, and I want to ask him,
do you remember this man? Do you remember this day
it happened? Why did you shoot this guy? Why did
you go back to the hospital? Why did he die?
And then certain things are just like you know, and
(11:11):
maybe he's so old he'll be like we needed to
get rid of him. You know. Maybe the guy's dead.
I don't know, but if I could find his killer
and have a real conversation with him, it might set
my mom freeze. Really what I would hope it's a really,
it's just the fucking interesting thing about this process. This
(11:40):
show is such a People have expressed surprise at the
fact that we were making it as we put it out,
and I think that that doesn't even begin to touch
on the like it was real, live growth and real
live emotion and things changing in my family week to week.
(12:05):
This is impossible for most people to imagine. The episodes
came out at six am on Thursday mornings, and at
one am, three am, four am on every fucking Wednesday night.
Austin is here in the studio most likely with Kenny,
probably Zach making the ship before it comes out in
like a matter of hours, and Sambert engineer. Over the
(12:27):
course of the season, you kind of go from being like,
oh my god, we only have four days to do this,
like holy shit, to like by the end of sy
you're like, we have four days, Like we're fine, we
got time, Okay, Yeah, let's try this. I mean we
got four days still has to come out. Yeah, Like
it was not pre done, It was not preordained at all.
A lot of things happened last minute or by stroke
(12:49):
of luck. Everything from Ron Kuby coming in to save
the day, to that faint imprint of the undercover CoP's
name on the police report, and even basic production choices
like what our theme song would be on and also
the theme song. Whole thing. We went through so many, yeah,
because I was like really wanting to use Billy's music.
(13:11):
That was a whole thing. Yeah, So we had Kenny
take sound of Billy's song. We asked Kenny Qcak, our
resident composer and sound engineer, to try turning a few
of Billy's tracks into potential theme songs for the show.
Here's one early sketch. You should play some of that
(13:38):
and you'll hear just how fucking wrong they are. And
I take total and I was the one pushing it
so that I'm not It's not Kenny. Kenny was actually
following the horrible direction that I was. But we were
(14:01):
trying stuff. You have to try, Yeah, to try, you
have to try. We swing hard. But when it's not working,
like pretty much everybody gets on board, Okay, it's not working, Yeah,
let's try something else. And like I thought of Light
Asylum with something you really saved the day. That fucking song,
kid ass, you had a relationship with Shannon. I've known
(14:22):
Shannon since I was like a teenager. Yeah, I'm talking
about Shannon funchis the lead singer of Light Asylum. I
loved Shannon. She used to perform at the Bowery Poetry
Club with my mom. I think I just knew her
from the village, from like when I literally I was
a kid. And now people are like rediscovering light Asylum
or first time discovering light Asylum and like, oh my god,
(14:45):
are they a good band? Sho we play some of
their other music for yes, this is one of my
favorite Light Asylum songs. It's called IPC. They're so good.
(15:20):
But what people don't know is that the decision to
use Light Asylum happened probably a week before we launched
the show, if that, which is why you don't hear
Light Asylum in our trailer. Coming up, we get into
(15:44):
our favorite moments from making the show. That's after this
break and okay, so we're back in the studio with me,
Austin and our editor Zach Like, what what are some
(16:07):
of your favorite parts of the show. Our favorite parts
of making the show. The fact that we got the answers,
like that's just so fucking I'm so proud of that, Like,
that's so insane. We found the guy in the cowboy hat,
we got the police report, We like Amanda talk to us,
(16:30):
you know, like, we got we found his body. Yeah.
All the things that I wanted to solve, we solved,
which is crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I already cried
about this in the credits. But my relationship with Austin.
I'm not looking at him because I can't. But my
relationship with Austin is like a gift that I will
never you know. Yeah, that's something for life. You guys
(16:53):
have been through it. Yeah, And I think there's just
it's so personal, and my mom's such a character, and
and there's a you know, I've freaked out a couple
of times and had like just like irrational panic about
weird shit and just stick in the mud about the
wrong things because I was just having an emotional response
(17:13):
to how crazy this whole process was. And like there's
Austin just being like, Okay, I'm gonna take a walk
and talk to you and like give you space to
air your feelings and stay on the fucking phone with
you for three hours while you figure out what the
fuck's wrong with you, and that is a when you're
dealing with something as emotional and trauma connected as this
(17:35):
whole thing was. Was essential to making it possible. So
I got Austin out of this. Um. Yeah, I don't
know what about you. What are some of your favorite things?
I love the Hard Island episode the birds. The birds
are nice. The sounds want to leave you alone for
(18:00):
a minute with them? Yeah, you could leave me alone
for just a few minutes, maybe one. But I've been
renound birds. Why because all my life when I was
drawn up, my brother had birds are always mostly harmless
fur all of them. Where do you keep all of
(18:24):
those birds? Isn't bad? Pronounced aviary? The birds? Okay, we
have to tell them that the Birds was Austin's. I
(18:44):
want the whole world to know. They know, they know
most of it is Austin's genius. No, alright, move one
found compliments. Just everyone knows that's true. I love the
way you hand that interview with the guy in the
cowboy hat, who wasn't actually wearing a cowboy hat. But
(19:05):
but I love the way that that worked. It was
really a special thing. I wonder if you're comfortable telling
me a little bit about like what you felt in
that situation, Like, was that a rare occurrence or that
like a conference that I actually end up in a
shoot out of any time? And I was not happy
with it at all. I mean, you can't be happy
(19:27):
being involved in something like that. So it's bothered you
not bet you didn't want that to happen. Yeah, I
can't amaze anyone being happy about it. Obviously we were
shooting people over the cops of like forty years and
he was the only one. He's the only one. Yeah,
(19:52):
oh my god. Like the fact that you you were
able to have a connection with that person, I think
made the show in a lot of ways, because I
think if that goes a different way, it's like not
as and it would have totally been reasonable for it
to go a different way because of everything that everybody
who listened to the show totally understands. But I just
(20:14):
love that. Thank you very much, all right, take care bye.
I love the ending. I love like I think of
that like Tarantino like moment of seeing them like go
off into the sunset, and I love that, which was
your gene? Yeah, I we should give them credit here. Yeah,
this was not I mean so it was that in
(20:35):
the studio with your mom during that last sit down.
It all happened in the way that you heard in
that episode. You revealed to your mom whatever she wanted
to know. It was very tense. Do you want to
know anything about the cop or any of that stuff?
I'd like to see him fry and be six feet
on there. All right, That's that's it. I mean, side note,
(21:00):
I'm sitting here in the studio watching this happen. And
when she asked about his name, what's his name? Are
you sure you want to know that? Yeah? I want
to know why? Why do you think I could see
you processing it? And I'm like gripping the seats. I'm like,
don't tell her, don't tell her, don't tell her. I
(21:21):
don't know, Mom. Let's I gotta think about whether or
not it's smart. It's kids to tell you that that
interview did happen the way that it happened in the
last episode. But zach as is your role in this
show to kind of supervise the bigger picture structural things.
(21:43):
You had an idea to bring it back and end
with the scene with Billy. There was a story about
you guys going to Boston, right. Oh, it's like a
beautiful thing. It's literally them driving off into the well
so the snow sets, said, I imagine her draped across
(22:07):
the bench seat, her bleached blonde head resting on Billy's
thigh as he skids through the snow, a cigarette dangling
from his mouth. She reaches up and caresses the collar
bones of the man she will love forever as they
sing together. Freezing air flies up from the highway below,
(22:34):
but they're unfazed, warmed by love. God, we knew when
my mom sat down and she sang that fucking song.
Austin and I looked at each other and we knew.
Even she knew, and she said it, and it's the
(22:56):
best end of for your show. More positive questions, like
but I think that's a great way to end the
whole show. Sure, but that was not originally what we
thought the ending was going to be. As we were
structuring the show, as we were reporting everything, where we
(23:17):
were certain it was going to end on Heart Island
with your mom in front of the grave. That's really
what we thought. Yeah, but until you took that trip,
good old Rebecca never fails to surprise you. We had
always imagined you had always imagined that that would be
this Catharsis for your for your mom, which it wasn't.
So then we're constantly okay, well, then there needs to
(23:37):
be a final sitdown. But the final sitdown wasn't going
to be in the studio originally not going to be
at her house, which would have been a totally different thing.
And then circumstances shift again and now it's in the studio,
and now okay, we're rolling with that. Okay. So it's
like you we're like, it's a very live ball and
all of the decisions that we're making are kind of
like reacting to things also being present and trying to
(24:01):
like mold it the way we think it should kind
of be going. It's a fucking fascinating process. Well, I
just want to say, like, none of the work that
(24:22):
I've ever done has touched people the way this has. Wow. Yeah,
like your openness and you're like the personal nature of
this story like profoundly impacted the people that listened. So
it's like all these voicemails, all these emails, all these comments,
like you're just like wow, Like you know, people liked Crimetown,
(24:44):
but it's not the same thing. It's not deep, it's
not as deep. Yeah, to like be a part of
this thing that like was connecting on that level was
really special. Yeah. It feels really really amazing to hear
and see and read all these methoges from people saying
that it it's like impacted them, emotionally changed them, pushed them,
made them think about things. You know, this both affected
(25:07):
me as a mother and a daughter. And the phrase
the past matters for your journey, but the ultimate end
goal is radically authentic presence with another person that just
resonated with me with the past with my father and
also wondering what it is that I'm doing to my
own children. So I just listened to the whole podcast.
(25:31):
It was amazing. You guys like looking touch me and yeah, wow,
just fucking well. Go and ask man bawling in his
car thank you. I actually lost someone as well who
(25:52):
was the lost of my life, and I realized that
I listened to this podcast, but I will love him forever.
So anyway, I wanted to thank you. Also, thank your
mom for most of you being so vulnerable, and thank you.
I agree with Ham that doctor Ham, that vulnerability is
a superpower. I feel stronger than I was when I
(26:17):
went into this. I feel that vulnerability hasn't cost me anything,
Like it was painful to make it, but like I find,
I think it would be more painful to make something
that wasn't vulnerable. If nothing else from this story, I
hope that people take that that would be incredible more
(26:37):
vulnerability and honesty and art and in the world. Yeah,
what's your life like now? Io post show? My life
now involves a lot of desert and I have been
(27:02):
remodeling a house and like building furniture in it, and
I think that's just like what I created to escape
my brain. Mostly I drive around in my nineteen ninety
Ford Ranger pickup truck that has no AC It's white,
and it's currently between one hundred and four and one
(27:24):
hundred and thirteen degrees daily in Josh Retreat, but it's
dry heat, so it's manageable, right, And I take my
little dogs and I put them in my truck, and
I load my truck up with tools, and then I
go and I put things together and build things and like,
listen to Weird Murder pot I'm basically right back where
I started, And I, Oh, how is your mom? Doing.
(27:49):
How's Rebecca great question? My mom, She's okay. That's the
honest answer is she's okay. You know, she doesn't have
the context of what we were making. She did not
want to listen to it because it's not entertainment for her.
(28:13):
It's her greatest trauma. And so I think there was
a lot of kind of feeling like her most personal
information was being put out in the world without her control,
and she was like kind of flailing around in the
dark a little bit. There was a moment though, during
this show. So my mom has a version of my
(28:34):
childhood that's different than mine, where she thinks it was
you know, roses and peaches and glorious, because she doesn't
remember a lot of what happened. And so my dad
came in for his episode and he in that interview
that was the first time he's ever owned the role
of drugs in his judgment in my childhood. So that
(28:58):
really changed my relationship with my father. And so she
went up to lunch at his house in the Bronx
and he had a conversation with her, and she called
me afterwards sobbing and said basically apologized for fucking up
my childhood, for the first time in my whole life,
and I was totally didn't know what to do. I
(29:20):
was like standing in my late construction site in Joshua
treat just kind of like, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
I love you, I love you bye. And that is
a moment that I've literally been waiting for my whole
life and only happened because of this process. But then booms,
(29:42):
she went right back into you know, denial and the
fear and the irrational kind of outbursts. So I think
in the end, she is better for the fact that
I've grown through this process. But if she could choose out,
which she probably would not have done this. Although I
(30:04):
don't know, you know, it's the heart Island thing, like,
we don't know how that affected her yet. It's going
to take time for that to settle in, so I
don't know how she's doing. Just like the show, it's
complicated and that's what makes it beautiful but also difficult. Wait. Wait,
(30:32):
so we never got to my favorite parts of the show.
One of my favorite parts of this was a lot
of Ioe, your and my venturing out into the city
and just being knuckleheads and our first reporting trip. We
went up to the Upper east Side to talk to
this woman that we're calling Natasha is six and the letch.
(30:52):
And after that interview, we went and got a sandwich.
Hot and krusty. That's our best bet. I like HoTT
and crusty. There black and white cookies are really good.
And we were standing in line and You're like, uh,
Ruth Bader Ginsberg is he over there? Ruth Ginsberg is here?
Oh my god, she was so tiny. It looks like
(31:17):
Ruth Bader Ginsberg. No, that was Ruth Bader Ginsberg. No
fucking way, Yeah it was. I don't know. I think
I was fucking with you and I think it worked. No,
this was her. I have the Instagram story. I posted
an Instagram story of this little old lady and wrote
RBG question mark. I pulled the story back up in
(31:41):
the studio. Tell me is that her? I don't think so.
No way. Way. We're coming from Austin Counters and pulls
up a real photo of RBG online. This is her.
The hair color is not right, glasses are exactly the same.
(32:02):
Oh my god, it really looks like her. It's hard,
that's why it looks like her. The posture does seem
like her. It really, I feel like but I feel
like a lot of people who are eighty six probably
might have that posture. This mystery must be solved. Can
you see her rings anywhere? Is there a picture of
(32:24):
like her hands anywhere? Because this person has on I'm curious.
Austin pulls up another picture of RBG that shows her hands, Ezac,
this is fucking RBG. Look at the rings, Look at
the rings. You see it? Oh yeah, Oh my god,
(32:45):
it was fucking RBG. And we didn't fucking talk to her.
Oh I stared at the whole time. I narrated her
whole eating experience into the microphone, into the microphone, I
was thrilled. That's the tape. Ruth Bidder Ginsburgh just finished
her soup. She's cleaning up her tray. She's cleaning the
(33:06):
crumbs off her tray. She's such a saying. RBG just
put on bright red lipstick like a boss. Somebody's coming
to meet RBG, an older man. RBG is getting up.
We solved another mystery. Boy RBG like soup. Groundbreaking investigative journalism.
(33:32):
I just thought it was an old lady who looks
like her. Unbelievable and I was always trying to think
in my head of a moment when we could get
that in the show. Here it is, Here it is.
(33:54):
I want to thank everybody who's listened to this show
for all of your feedback, all of your voicemails, everything
you've written to me online. The response has been tremendous
and it gives us all so much wind in our sales.
Thank you. I'm gonna miss you. Crimetown is Zach Stewart
(34:28):
Pontier and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls is
hosted by me, Io till It Right and made in
partnership with Cadence thirteen. Now you have to find me
on the internet, and Io loves you on everything. If
you want to know more about my story, you could
pick up my memoir Darling Days. We still have that
voicemail line set up for you to call us. I'm
(34:50):
going to keep checking it, so please call. The number
is five to seven zero three nine two nine six
six zero. Truly, it's one of the greatest joys of
my life to hear how this show has affected you,
guys and your dad jokes. This episode was produced by
me and Kevin Shepherd, our senior producer is the King
(35:13):
Austin Mitchell. Editing is by Zach Stewart Contier and Mark Smirling.
This episode was mixed by Sam Bear. Music by Kenny Quciak.
Now you know what that means. Our title track is
Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Thank you, Shannon and Bruno
so so so much. You made this show. That's all
(35:35):
thanks to Daniella, Ariah, Rachel, Lee Wright, Emily Wiedemann, who,
by the way, are all of our girlfriends and wives,
Green Card Pictures, Alessandro Santro, Bill Clegg, Ben Davis, Oran
Rosenbaum and the team at Hayden's thirteen, and of course
my mom, without whom none of this would be possible.
(36:05):
Never talk out about Babet's god Sa Sa Sa Sa
(39:00):
ny Mony Mon
How are you doing, io? Are you good? Welcome to
the studio. Thank you. I really like this studio. It
has the effect of like the womb. Now I come
in here and I feel safe and hello Zach, Zach
right here, I'm here Zach our editor and what other
title editors? Such an underestimation of what Zaa does on
(00:21):
the show. All the credits on the show are fucked.
I'm like, none of this actually equates to what everybody does. Yeah, well,
I'm glad we're doing this episode of the show so
that we can actually talk about what the fuck happens. Yeah.
So this episode is going to have a lot of spoilers,
basically all the spoilers for the whole season. So if
(00:42):
you haven't heard the series, go back and binge it first.
So we were just listening to that south By Southwest talk.
So before we launched the show, Io and I went
to south By Southwest to like play a trailer. But
I told everybody I knew that we were premiering It's
Out by Self West, So I for sure got eighty
(01:03):
percent of the value of anything. It's out by Southwest
is getting to say that you prepared It's health Byself. Yeah, Hi, everybody,
thanks for coming. It's like just intimate enough to perfect.
It's good because we got some very intimate conversations to share.
This was before the show would come out, and so
(01:26):
there were a lot of secrets that you couldn't talk about. Oh,
I want to tell them so many things about nights. Oh,
We're still in the last phases of the investigation, so
I'm still like, I want to tell you guys what's
coming on. But one of the big secrets didn't have
to do with the investigation at all, right, It had
to do with storytelling decision that we made. When do
(01:48):
we reveal Hio's connection to the story? Right, And we've
always for as long as you and I were talking
about the story, that was like the thing that we
read with it's like and it's investigated by the kid.
It's so cool, Like it's like this personal journey, and
that's what made it interesting. And so then Mark came in,
(02:09):
Mark Smirling, our other editor. Well, Mark came in at
the eleventh hour with this hair brand idea that turned
out to be genius. That was, let's not reveal it
until after Rebecca's told the entirety of her story. The
story of them meetings. So just a few weeks before
the show launched, we went to south By Southwest to
test out Mark's new structure idea of holding back my
(02:31):
relationship with Rebecca. Yeah, there's a there's a major secret
that wha we will have probably and then we'll talk
about this secret. And then we played the trailer and
the trailer doesn't reveal that I'm her kid. And then
I was like, and by the way, so how did
you find out about this story? Well, the big secret
(02:54):
is that Rebecca is my mom. I think it works.
And I remember there was an audible gasp in the
room and we were like, Okay, where let's do it today,
Zach Austin and I peel back the curtain a bit.
(03:14):
We'll give you some juicy secrets about how we made
the show and we'll reflect on how we feel about
it now from Crimetown. I'm io till it right, And
this is a behind the scenes bonus episode of the
Ballad of Billy Balls Austen, helloo, all right, tell about
(03:47):
what you want to know. Well, first of all, what's
Billy's real name? What's the full legal name, William Heightsman.
There might be a daughter and I think my mom
might know her name for some reason. She thinks that
she lives in Oregon. All right, well, if she exists,
I'm confident we can find them. To me, what's missing
(04:12):
all of this, It's like we need the other we have.
If we get this police report, we find out what
happens then and you can introduce some of that. Yeah, yeah,
that would be as at the end of this, there's
some sort of coming together these two Io and Rebecca.
Either bad or good, we don't know, but something's common
(04:32):
sort of see it. Yeah. Epilogue four, The Ballad of
the Ballad? All right, Io, So how did this whole
(04:54):
thing come together? How did it start? I was planning
to write a book. It was called The Ballad of
Billy Balls and His Baby Girl. That was and it
was gonna be a memoir, nonfiction, murder investigation book. And
then I was listening to all these true crime podcasts.
I went through a breakup, and I was like in
(05:16):
the sweltering sun in Joshua Tree building furniture, listening to
every true crime podcast I get my hands on. I'm
a sick motherfucker. Like everybody listening to this podcast, You're great,
You're all great, Yeah, and then I heard your name
as I was listening to Crimetown. I'm Zach Stewart Pontier.
I'm Mark Smirley. Welcome to Crimetown. I was like, no
(05:39):
fucking way. I'd met Zach probably fifteen or so years
ago through my friend Jamie Raisin shout out Jamie, who
was working on a movie that Zach was editing, and
he wouldn't stop talking about this brilliant young editor, Zach,
Zach Zach. So when I found out that I had
(06:00):
gotten into podcasting, I was just like, I know, I
want to make a podcast. I don't know, I want
to like this medium is beautiful and exciting and really cool.
And then I just asked you to have lunch. You
were starting to work on Crimetime season two and it
was freezing and we were at a Whole Food and
like gwanas, I told him about the book, and he
(06:21):
was like, that would make an epic podcast. Have you
ever thought about making a podcast? And I was like, well,
I've thought about it, but I didn't. Oh, yeah, that's genius.
Because he was a musician, and because you were saying
my mom had documented the big parts of her life,
he was always recordings, and her accents so crazy and wild,
and the way she talks is so crazy and wild,
and I figured everybody around would also be audio gold.
(06:45):
And so as soon as you said it, I was
like being like, yeah, yes, it has to be a podcast,
and I kept writing and whatever, but it really at
that point I was like, Oh, that's what this is
supposed to be, right, And then I went off and
tried to make it on my own, which was a
(07:05):
great lesson in people saying no to things and you
being like, no, I'm sure. Everybody I talked to from
these other networks and stuff, we're like, well, have you
found the Killer? Do you know how it ends? And
I was like, no, you don't understand. It's not It's
just it's an amorphous. It's a study in humanity. And
nobody wants to hear that. They're like, who's the good guy,
who's the bad guy? And I was like, no, it's
(07:25):
it's about love but death. But I couldn't articulate it,
but I knew you got it because we came up
with it to get there. Basically, Yeah, and then the
heavens parted and I came in here and you guys
were like, so this is Austin, go have lunch with him.
I was like, okay, who the fuck is You guys
(07:49):
are basically like we are slammed and Austin's the man
and we want him to be like the lead on this. Yeah.
I mean yeah. From my perspective, it was Zach just
being like, all right, so what do you think about this?
There's and he gave me your pitch deck. What was
the spiel that he How did he explain? It was
(08:09):
his elevator pitch of the ballot? I mean, I don't
remember it that clearly, but it was something like, all right,
so there's this murder mystery that takes place in the
East Village in the early eighties. And I was like, oooh, okay,
all right, keep going. He was a musician who all right,
all right, and then you have to work with Io
till it right, And I was like no, and so yeah,
(08:31):
that that was it. I was excited about it. I
was excited about the prospect of it. We had no
idea what it was going to be, and so that
was that was honestly a little exciting. Um. So it
was a thing where it was go have lunch with
Io and see how you get along, see if you'll
be able to work together. And then we sat down
(08:53):
and had lunch and you were lovely and you told
me about California and all this stuff, and I was like,
all right, great do it? Was it thumbs up like
in the yeah, in the in the lunch where you
guys like we're doing this for me, I was like,
I had no questions about him. I think our only
question at that point was whether or not somebody was
going to give us the money to make it right
(09:14):
until we got Cadence Um really on board and they
came in and they were great. The first trip when
I came to New York in December, I came here
for a week before we had a green light. I
bought the ticket. Yeah. That week we just kind of
like sat down. I remember you like asking me what
(09:36):
do you hope to get from this project? And it
was still all it was like raw meat, you know,
it still very like un seasoned. Then we should play
we should play some of that in yeah, because it's
like so interesting to hear, like the wide eyed sort
of yeah we saw so in terms of this project,
(09:58):
what exactly do you want to get from this? This
is my first recorded sit down with Austin. We need
to piece together a picture of who Billy was, a
real picture of who Billy was versus my mom's interpretation.
And then we need to somehow, which is going to
be the hardest part, crack the NYPD case files and
(10:23):
get them to possibly incriminate themselves in a murder. And
it might just be that it might be right there
on a piece of paper, arresting officer so and so,
and this is the guy that shot him. That's the
guy I want to get to. I want to find
who the dude is. Who is the guy in the
cowboy hat. It's like strangely prescient or whatever. Yeah, certain
(10:50):
things that you're saying, I absolutely haven't. I want to
sit down with him, and I want to ask him,
do you remember this man? Do you remember this day
it happened? Why did you shoot this guy? Why did
you go back to the hospital? Why did he die?
And then certain things are just like you know, and
(11:11):
maybe he's so old he'll be like we needed to
get rid of him. You know. Maybe the guy's dead.
I don't know, but if I could find his killer
and have a real conversation with him, it might set
my mom freeze. Really what I would hope it's a really,
it's just the fucking interesting thing about this process. This
(11:40):
show is such a People have expressed surprise at the
fact that we were making it as we put it out,
and I think that that doesn't even begin to touch
on the like it was real, live growth and real
live emotion and things changing in my family week to week.
(12:05):
This is impossible for most people to imagine. The episodes
came out at six am on Thursday mornings, and at
one am, three am, four am on every fucking Wednesday night.
Austin is here in the studio most likely with Kenny,
probably Zach making the ship before it comes out in
like a matter of hours, and Sambert engineer. Over the
(12:27):
course of the season, you kind of go from being like,
oh my god, we only have four days to do this,
like holy shit, to like by the end of sy
you're like, we have four days, Like we're fine, we
got time, Okay, Yeah, let's try this. I mean we
got four days still has to come out. Yeah, Like
it was not pre done, It was not preordained at all.
A lot of things happened last minute or by stroke
(12:49):
of luck. Everything from Ron Kuby coming in to save
the day, to that faint imprint of the undercover CoP's
name on the police report, and even basic production choices
like what our theme song would be on and also
the theme song. Whole thing. We went through so many, yeah,
because I was like really wanting to use Billy's music.
(13:11):
That was a whole thing. Yeah, So we had Kenny
take sound of Billy's song. We asked Kenny Qcak, our
resident composer and sound engineer, to try turning a few
of Billy's tracks into potential theme songs for the show.
Here's one early sketch. You should play some of that
(13:38):
and you'll hear just how fucking wrong they are. And
I take total and I was the one pushing it
so that I'm not It's not Kenny. Kenny was actually
following the horrible direction that I was. But we were
(14:01):
trying stuff. You have to try, Yeah, to try, you
have to try. We swing hard. But when it's not working,
like pretty much everybody gets on board, Okay, it's not working, Yeah,
let's try something else. And like I thought of Light
Asylum with something you really saved the day. That fucking song,
kid ass, you had a relationship with Shannon. I've known
(14:22):
Shannon since I was like a teenager. Yeah, I'm talking
about Shannon funchis the lead singer of Light Asylum. I
loved Shannon. She used to perform at the Bowery Poetry
Club with my mom. I think I just knew her
from the village, from like when I literally I was
a kid. And now people are like rediscovering light Asylum
or first time discovering light Asylum and like, oh my god,
(14:45):
are they a good band? Sho we play some of
their other music for yes, this is one of my
favorite Light Asylum songs. It's called IPC. They're so good.
(15:20):
But what people don't know is that the decision to
use Light Asylum happened probably a week before we launched
the show, if that, which is why you don't hear
Light Asylum in our trailer. Coming up, we get into
(15:44):
our favorite moments from making the show. That's after this
break and okay, so we're back in the studio with me,
Austin and our editor Zach Like, what what are some
(16:07):
of your favorite parts of the show. Our favorite parts
of making the show. The fact that we got the answers,
like that's just so fucking I'm so proud of that, Like,
that's so insane. We found the guy in the cowboy hat,
we got the police report, We like Amanda talk to us,
(16:30):
you know, like, we got we found his body. Yeah.
All the things that I wanted to solve, we solved,
which is crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I already cried
about this in the credits. But my relationship with Austin.
I'm not looking at him because I can't. But my
relationship with Austin is like a gift that I will
never you know. Yeah, that's something for life. You guys
(16:53):
have been through it. Yeah, And I think there's just
it's so personal, and my mom's such a character, and
and there's a you know, I've freaked out a couple
of times and had like just like irrational panic about
weird shit and just stick in the mud about the
wrong things because I was just having an emotional response
(17:13):
to how crazy this whole process was. And like there's
Austin just being like, Okay, I'm gonna take a walk
and talk to you and like give you space to
air your feelings and stay on the fucking phone with
you for three hours while you figure out what the
fuck's wrong with you, and that is a when you're
dealing with something as emotional and trauma connected as this
(17:35):
whole thing was. Was essential to making it possible. So
I got Austin out of this. Um. Yeah, I don't
know what about you. What are some of your favorite things?
I love the Hard Island episode the birds. The birds
are nice. The sounds want to leave you alone for
(18:00):
a minute with them? Yeah, you could leave me alone
for just a few minutes, maybe one. But I've been
renound birds. Why because all my life when I was
drawn up, my brother had birds are always mostly harmless
fur all of them. Where do you keep all of
(18:24):
those birds? Isn't bad? Pronounced aviary? The birds? Okay, we
have to tell them that the Birds was Austin's. I
(18:44):
want the whole world to know. They know, they know
most of it is Austin's genius. No, alright, move one
found compliments. Just everyone knows that's true. I love the
way you hand that interview with the guy in the
cowboy hat, who wasn't actually wearing a cowboy hat. But
(19:05):
but I love the way that that worked. It was
really a special thing. I wonder if you're comfortable telling
me a little bit about like what you felt in
that situation, Like, was that a rare occurrence or that
like a conference that I actually end up in a
shoot out of any time? And I was not happy
with it at all. I mean, you can't be happy
(19:27):
being involved in something like that. So it's bothered you
not bet you didn't want that to happen. Yeah, I
can't amaze anyone being happy about it. Obviously we were
shooting people over the cops of like forty years and
he was the only one. He's the only one. Yeah,
(19:52):
oh my god. Like the fact that you you were
able to have a connection with that person, I think
made the show in a lot of ways, because I
think if that goes a different way, it's like not
as and it would have totally been reasonable for it
to go a different way because of everything that everybody
who listened to the show totally understands. But I just
(20:14):
love that. Thank you very much, all right, take care bye.
I love the ending. I love like I think of
that like Tarantino like moment of seeing them like go
off into the sunset, and I love that, which was
your gene? Yeah, I we should give them credit here. Yeah,
this was not I mean so it was that in
(20:35):
the studio with your mom during that last sit down.
It all happened in the way that you heard in
that episode. You revealed to your mom whatever she wanted
to know. It was very tense. Do you want to
know anything about the cop or any of that stuff?
I'd like to see him fry and be six feet
on there. All right, That's that's it. I mean, side note,
(21:00):
I'm sitting here in the studio watching this happen. And
when she asked about his name, what's his name? Are
you sure you want to know that? Yeah? I want
to know why? Why do you think I could see
you processing it? And I'm like gripping the seats. I'm like,
don't tell her, don't tell her, don't tell her. I
(21:21):
don't know, Mom. Let's I gotta think about whether or
not it's smart. It's kids to tell you that that
interview did happen the way that it happened in the
last episode. But zach as is your role in this
show to kind of supervise the bigger picture structural things.
(21:43):
You had an idea to bring it back and end
with the scene with Billy. There was a story about
you guys going to Boston, right. Oh, it's like a
beautiful thing. It's literally them driving off into the well
so the snow sets, said, I imagine her draped across
(22:07):
the bench seat, her bleached blonde head resting on Billy's
thigh as he skids through the snow, a cigarette dangling
from his mouth. She reaches up and caresses the collar
bones of the man she will love forever as they
sing together. Freezing air flies up from the highway below,
(22:34):
but they're unfazed, warmed by love. God, we knew when
my mom sat down and she sang that fucking song.
Austin and I looked at each other and we knew.
Even she knew, and she said it, and it's the
(22:56):
best end of for your show. More positive questions, like
but I think that's a great way to end the
whole show. Sure, but that was not originally what we
thought the ending was going to be. As we were
structuring the show, as we were reporting everything, where we
(23:17):
were certain it was going to end on Heart Island
with your mom in front of the grave. That's really
what we thought. Yeah, but until you took that trip,
good old Rebecca never fails to surprise you. We had
always imagined you had always imagined that that would be
this Catharsis for your for your mom, which it wasn't.
So then we're constantly okay, well, then there needs to
(23:37):
be a final sitdown. But the final sitdown wasn't going
to be in the studio originally not going to be
at her house, which would have been a totally different thing.
And then circumstances shift again and now it's in the studio,
and now okay, we're rolling with that. Okay. So it's
like you we're like, it's a very live ball and
all of the decisions that we're making are kind of
like reacting to things also being present and trying to
(24:01):
like mold it the way we think it should kind
of be going. It's a fucking fascinating process. Well, I
just want to say, like, none of the work that
(24:22):
I've ever done has touched people the way this has. Wow. Yeah,
like your openness and you're like the personal nature of
this story like profoundly impacted the people that listened. So
it's like all these voicemails, all these emails, all these comments,
like you're just like wow, Like you know, people liked Crimetown,
(24:44):
but it's not the same thing. It's not deep, it's
not as deep. Yeah, to like be a part of
this thing that like was connecting on that level was
really special. Yeah. It feels really really amazing to hear
and see and read all these methoges from people saying
that it it's like impacted them, emotionally changed them, pushed them,
made them think about things. You know, this both affected
(25:07):
me as a mother and a daughter. And the phrase
the past matters for your journey, but the ultimate end
goal is radically authentic presence with another person that just
resonated with me with the past with my father and
also wondering what it is that I'm doing to my
own children. So I just listened to the whole podcast.
(25:31):
It was amazing. You guys like looking touch me and yeah, wow,
just fucking well. Go and ask man bawling in his
car thank you. I actually lost someone as well who
(25:52):
was the lost of my life, and I realized that
I listened to this podcast, but I will love him forever.
So anyway, I wanted to thank you. Also, thank your
mom for most of you being so vulnerable, and thank you.
I agree with Ham that doctor Ham, that vulnerability is
a superpower. I feel stronger than I was when I
(26:17):
went into this. I feel that vulnerability hasn't cost me anything,
Like it was painful to make it, but like I find,
I think it would be more painful to make something
that wasn't vulnerable. If nothing else from this story, I
hope that people take that that would be incredible more
(26:37):
vulnerability and honesty and art and in the world. Yeah,
what's your life like now? Io post show? My life
now involves a lot of desert and I have been
(27:02):
remodeling a house and like building furniture in it, and
I think that's just like what I created to escape
my brain. Mostly I drive around in my nineteen ninety
Ford Ranger pickup truck that has no AC It's white,
and it's currently between one hundred and four and one
(27:24):
hundred and thirteen degrees daily in Josh Retreat, but it's
dry heat, so it's manageable, right, And I take my
little dogs and I put them in my truck, and
I load my truck up with tools, and then I
go and I put things together and build things and like,
listen to Weird Murder pot I'm basically right back where
I started, And I, Oh, how is your mom? Doing.
(27:49):
How's Rebecca great question? My mom, She's okay. That's the
honest answer is she's okay. You know, she doesn't have
the context of what we were making. She did not
want to listen to it because it's not entertainment for her.
(28:13):
It's her greatest trauma. And so I think there was
a lot of kind of feeling like her most personal
information was being put out in the world without her control,
and she was like kind of flailing around in the
dark a little bit. There was a moment though, during
this show. So my mom has a version of my
(28:34):
childhood that's different than mine, where she thinks it was
you know, roses and peaches and glorious, because she doesn't
remember a lot of what happened. And so my dad
came in for his episode and he in that interview
that was the first time he's ever owned the role
of drugs in his judgment in my childhood. So that
(28:58):
really changed my relationship with my father. And so she
went up to lunch at his house in the Bronx
and he had a conversation with her, and she called
me afterwards sobbing and said basically apologized for fucking up
my childhood, for the first time in my whole life,
and I was totally didn't know what to do. I
(29:20):
was like standing in my late construction site in Joshua
treat just kind of like, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
I love you, I love you bye. And that is
a moment that I've literally been waiting for my whole
life and only happened because of this process. But then booms,
(29:42):
she went right back into you know, denial and the
fear and the irrational kind of outbursts. So I think
in the end, she is better for the fact that
I've grown through this process. But if she could choose out,
which she probably would not have done this. Although I
(30:04):
don't know, you know, it's the heart Island thing, like,
we don't know how that affected her yet. It's going
to take time for that to settle in, so I
don't know how she's doing. Just like the show, it's
complicated and that's what makes it beautiful but also difficult. Wait. Wait,
(30:32):
so we never got to my favorite parts of the show.
One of my favorite parts of this was a lot
of Ioe, your and my venturing out into the city
and just being knuckleheads and our first reporting trip. We
went up to the Upper east Side to talk to
this woman that we're calling Natasha is six and the letch.
(30:52):
And after that interview, we went and got a sandwich.
Hot and krusty. That's our best bet. I like HoTT
and crusty. There black and white cookies are really good.
And we were standing in line and You're like, uh,
Ruth Bader Ginsberg is he over there? Ruth Ginsberg is here?
Oh my god, she was so tiny. It looks like
(31:17):
Ruth Bader Ginsberg. No, that was Ruth Bader Ginsberg. No
fucking way, Yeah it was. I don't know. I think
I was fucking with you and I think it worked. No,
this was her. I have the Instagram story. I posted
an Instagram story of this little old lady and wrote
RBG question mark. I pulled the story back up in
(31:41):
the studio. Tell me is that her? I don't think so.
No way. Way. We're coming from Austin Counters and pulls
up a real photo of RBG online. This is her.
The hair color is not right, glasses are exactly the same.
(32:02):
Oh my god, it really looks like her. It's hard,
that's why it looks like her. The posture does seem
like her. It really, I feel like but I feel
like a lot of people who are eighty six probably
might have that posture. This mystery must be solved. Can
you see her rings anywhere? Is there a picture of
(32:24):
like her hands anywhere? Because this person has on I'm curious.
Austin pulls up another picture of RBG that shows her hands, Ezac,
this is fucking RBG. Look at the rings, Look at
the rings. You see it? Oh yeah, Oh my god,
(32:45):
it was fucking RBG. And we didn't fucking talk to her.
Oh I stared at the whole time. I narrated her
whole eating experience into the microphone, into the microphone, I
was thrilled. That's the tape. Ruth Bidder Ginsburgh just finished
her soup. She's cleaning up her tray. She's cleaning the
(33:06):
crumbs off her tray. She's such a saying. RBG just
put on bright red lipstick like a boss. Somebody's coming
to meet RBG, an older man. RBG is getting up.
We solved another mystery. Boy RBG like soup. Groundbreaking investigative journalism.
(33:32):
I just thought it was an old lady who looks
like her. Unbelievable and I was always trying to think
in my head of a moment when we could get
that in the show. Here it is, Here it is.
(33:54):
I want to thank everybody who's listened to this show
for all of your feedback, all of your voicemails, everything
you've written to me online. The response has been tremendous
and it gives us all so much wind in our sales.
Thank you. I'm gonna miss you. Crimetown is Zach Stewart
(34:28):
Pontier and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls is
hosted by me, Io till It Right and made in
partnership with Cadence thirteen. Now you have to find me
on the internet, and Io loves you on everything. If
you want to know more about my story, you could
pick up my memoir Darling Days. We still have that
voicemail line set up for you to call us. I'm
(34:50):
going to keep checking it, so please call. The number
is five to seven zero three nine two nine six
six zero. Truly, it's one of the greatest joys of
my life to hear how this show has affected you,
guys and your dad jokes. This episode was produced by
me and Kevin Shepherd, our senior producer is the King
(35:13):
Austin Mitchell. Editing is by Zach Stewart Contier and Mark Smirling.
This episode was mixed by Sam Bear. Music by Kenny Quciak.
Now you know what that means. Our title track is
Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Thank you, Shannon and Bruno
so so so much. You made this show. That's all
(35:35):
thanks to Daniella, Ariah, Rachel, Lee Wright, Emily Wiedemann, who,
by the way, are all of our girlfriends and wives,
Green Card Pictures, Alessandro Santro, Bill Clegg, Ben Davis, Oran
Rosenbaum and the team at Hayden's thirteen, and of course
my mom, without whom none of this would be possible.
(36:05):
Never talk out about Babet's god Sa Sa Sa Sa
(39:00):
ny Mony Mon
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