June 2, 2025 • 59 mins
I’m so excited about this interview. It’s with Claire St. Amant. She’s a journalist and an author. And she was a TV producer for 48 Hours and 60 Minutes. Now she’s pulling back the curtain on true crime television. I learned a lot from her. She’s talking about her memoir: Killer Story.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You know, working in national television, it'll push you to
your limits and you'll end up doing things you never
thought you'd do. A lot of times, you know, you
look back at it and you're like, I can't believe
that really happened.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:53):
and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
unpublished details behind their stories. I'm so excited about this interview.
It's with Claire Cinema. She's a journalist and an author,
(01:14):
and she was a TV producer for forty eight hours
and sixty minutes. Now she's pulling back the curtain on
true crime television. I learned a lot from her. She's
talking about her memoir killer story. This book is right
up my alley because I'm pretty sure I have probably
(01:35):
seen every single episode that you were ever involved with
with forty eight Hours. I'm obsessed with forty eight hour mysteries.
I am. I think it's such a high quality show.
So I'm excited to talk about this. And I was
a television news producer for about half my life, so
we have a lot in common. I'm excited about this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, that sounds perfect you. You couldn't be more suited
for this book.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Okay, let's start with Well, where does that makes sense
to start with you?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
It has to be your work history. Why do you
have so much insight into this? Right?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So I worked at CBS News for about a decade.
I was a producer for forty eight hours and for
sixty minutes, and I was on the murder beat. So
if there was any kind of major murder story, terrorist attack,
mass shooting, I was there. We were, you know, on
(02:25):
the ground for serial killer man hunts and the aftermath
of numerous you know, police shootings and mass shootings and
more murder trials than I can even remember.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You know, what's so interesting is I think to the
majority of the population that sounds like a depressing, macabre,
you know, really upsetting job. But to my audience, everybody
is going to geek out over this because a lot
of people watch these shows. I watched Dateline too, I've
watched pretty much every show there is, So the insight
that you have is really going to be interesting. Were
(03:01):
you a true crime fan before you took this job
with forty eight hours or sixty minutes?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I was.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I was a local news reporter. I started out in print.
I worked for People newspapers in Dallas. You know. It
was my first job full time in journalism, and I
was covering everything. But the police blotter is my gateway
drug to crime reporting, and that's what brought me here.
So I just followed, you know, one story to the next,
(03:30):
and ended up quite by surprise, even to me, in
national television working in true crime.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Did you have a journalism degree or a master's screen
or anything. What was your schooling?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So? I had an English degree in writing and then
a journalism minor. I've I've been a journalist pretty much
since birth. I started my own neighborhood newspaper that was
called Kids News in elementary school, and you know, I
just never stopped. So I worked for every paper, you know,
at every school I ever ad ended, including you know,
(04:01):
my college newspaper, the Baylor Lariat, where I was always
always to be found in the newsroom or reporting some
story out on campus.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
So that was a very formative experience.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
What was your first big murder story for forty eight
hours when you started there?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So my first big murder story for forty eight hours
was Michelle Williams and Keller, Texas. So she was a
housewife who seemed to be just picture perfect, you know,
it was always going to fitness classes and doing pick
up and drop off with her young daughter. But actually
(04:42):
she had you know, a dark secret and a past
of numerous cons and lots of very suspicious behavior. And
one night, you know, she calls nine to one one breathless,
says her husband has been shot by an intruder and
that she been hit in the face and she needs
(05:02):
help immediately. And this is in Keller, Texas, a suburb
of Fort Worth. They live in a gated community. There
was virtually no violent crime like this, and so you know,
the full cavalry comes to this nine one one call
it like four in the morning, and they very quickly
discover that nothing is as Michelle Williams has described it.
(05:26):
And it looks like the scene has been staged. There's
the smell of bleach in the house, the murder weapon
is by the back door. It's very weird, and her story,
you know, starts to fall apart. But if you can
believe it, the Keller Police Department and the Trant County
DA's office had actually given Michelle Williams a plea deal
(05:48):
that she could plead guilty to deadly conduct and tampering
with evidence in her husband's murder, and she would have
only served about nine years. And I came to the
story then when I'm the plea deal was announced in
the local paper here in Dallas, and you know, I
was still working in local media at the time, and
I thought, who gets a plea deal for murder in Texas?
(06:10):
This makes no sense? And you know, what in the
world is deadly conduct? Like, you know, I had so
many questions, That's what.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I was going to ask. I've never heard that before,
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It only exists in Texas and Louisiana, and it is
a felony charge that is, basically, you were reckless with
a gun and someone accidentally got killed. So examples I
found were like, you're cleaning a gun and you're drinking
alcohol and the gun goes off, you know, and there's
someone else in the room and they're either grievously wounded
(06:44):
or they're killed, and so you are acting reckless with
a deadly weapon, but you didn't intend to kill anyone.
So it really the more I dug into the Michelle
Williams case, I was like, this doesn't actually apply because
her husband is asleep in bed and someone shoots him
from like.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Two feet away.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So you know, she tried to say it was suicide
at one point, and then she'd covered up the suicide
to try to get.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
The insurance money. Her story just kept changing.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So it was a journalist's dream because I had all
these different narratives to play with and got to really
dig deep into her background. And so I ended up
releasing a three part investigative series called Did Michelle Williams
Get Away with Murder? And it ran in Culture Map Dallas,
which was the news website that I was working for
(07:33):
at the time, and that got the attention of The
Big Three Dateline on NBC twenty twenty on ABC and
forty eight Hours on CBS, and so from there I
ended up working with forty eight Hours as a special consultant.
I was on air talking about the Michelle Williams case,
and you know, once I saw the budgets and the
(07:54):
resources and the talent at CBS News, I was like,
how do I hitch my into this horse? And so
I started pitching them, you know, Texas murder stories that
they hadn't heard of yet and giving them, you know,
all sorts of content access, you know, exclusives, and before
I knew it, I was working for CBS News full time.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Wow. I mean that's quite a story based on this
one case. And I mean, you're right. I think that
for a very long time, Texas stories were sort of underutilized.
I don't know if that's the right word. And now
I feel like it's either Texas, Florida or California or
somewhere in the Midwest. Yeah, okay, that's interesting and so
deadly conduct. I was thinking, isn't that manslaughter? In other places?
(08:40):
I think that would be manslaughter.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Right, both similar to that, I think.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So did she end up with nine years or did
they go, well, Okay, what happens.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Through my reporting and through forty eight hours involvement, her
plea deal actually falls apart. So she was given every
chance to go back to the safety of her plea deal.
But I think once she did an interview with CBS
News and gave this whole alternate story about how she
was innocent and there was another person who pulled the trigger,
(09:13):
she just couldn't resist going with that. So her plea
deal was thrown out and she went to trial, and
she was sentenced to sixty years in prison.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Is she still there, I mean, I'm assuming she is.
Is she still alive?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yes, she is still alive, and she is still in prison.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I have never understood people being willing to talk to
a network or any station really before the plea deal
goes through or the trial starts or any I've just
I don't get it. I don't understand it. But I
think you're right, it's just ubrius. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yeah, I think it's a lot of it's ego driven
and this ability that they think they have to win
people over with their version of events, so they want
to be on television. They want the attention and then
and they actually think that they can change the narrative
by talking. So I go into this a lot in
(10:06):
Killer Story because I speak with a lot of suspected criminals, murderers,
people who have been arrested, charged with murder, and you know,
I would go meet with them in jail and convince
them to give an interview to forty eight hours, you know,
from behind bars typically pre trial. That kind of became
(10:28):
my sweet spot because I learned that if you wait
until the trial dateline and twenty twenty are going to
show up and it's going to be this battle royale,
very uncomfortable, very competitive environment. And you know, I live
in Texas. I'm here. I can go sit at the jail,
you know, with more regularity than anyone else can, you know,
(10:51):
who lives in New York.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
It's a lot more difficult.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So I would go talk to these people multiple times,
you know, get them on our team, get them to
agree to be exclusive until we air, to not do
any other interviews, you know, until It didn't always work,
but that was my pitch, and I would try to
convince them that this was the best thing to do
and this is the best route to take and they
(11:15):
would get the most press if it was an exclusive interview,
and you know I had all sorts of tricks at
my sleeve.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Well, I got a call from forty eight hours twenty
years ago. I was teaching, you know, as I am
now at ut at the University of Texas in Austin,
and they said, we are wondering if you can go
cover a trial that's getting ready to happen. I don't
know if this was considered pre trial time, I guess,
but there wasn't a lot of time. It was the
Coulton Potoniac case that happened, yeah, and it was of
(11:45):
course near campus and everything, and where he is convicted
eventually of murdering a female acquaintance of his and that's
still a very controversial case. And so that's when I
kind of got a quick summary of what was to happen,
which was we found out this trial is happening. It's
been on our calendars. Now we'd like to try to
lock people in, just like you said, before the trial starts.
(12:06):
So I thought it was so interesting where you know
they're coming in and maybe you can illuminate a little
bit of this for the audience that you have these
producers who are coming into town or the correspondence. Sometimes
it's not very far in advance, and then the trial starts,
and so it feels very much like you guys have
been with them for months and months or years and years,
and then you kind of start to realize, oh, wow,
(12:27):
this is this was something that happened. Once the trial
was ready to go, there weren't going to be any delays.
And so I wasn't able to do it because I
had a teaching schedule and I just didn't want to
bag out on my on my schedule at that point.
But I was disappointed. So tell me how that would
work if you find out that, Okay, I like Karen
Reid write in Boston, which is now on its second trial,
(12:50):
what would the procedure be. Do you have would you
have had a lot of advanced notice or do they
keep a calendar of trials coming up? What happens?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Oh? Do they ever keep a calendar?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
It is a very detailed calendar all over the country.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Not a Google calendar. I'm assuming it's pretty big, yes, yes,
And who's.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Going where when and why? And there's always backups. You know,
this is the person that's going. This is the backup
if someone gets sick or they have a family issue
and they can't come. Because you have to cover these
trials if you want to be you know, a network
true crime show and get all the big interviews and stories,
you have.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
To have a game plan.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
So yeah, they have it all mapped out, and they
a lot of times like to use people that are
local so that they don't have to fly in you know, personnel,
and put them up in hotels and give them per
dems and you know, this all goes into the budget.
So yeah, if you had been able to do this,
you would have been a field producer. Who would you know,
(13:51):
be sitting in the trial taking notes, glad handing people
in the hallways, trying to take people to lunch, take
people to coffee, get them out of the courthouse and
book them to get them, you know, to sit sit
down for an interview. And because you know, a high
profile trial is going to have so many different members
(14:12):
of the media, the goal was always to get them
out of the courthouse alone, you know, in a restaurant,
in a coffee shop somewhere where you could have like
a private conversation about the case and hopefully get some
type of verbal agreement, you know, that they would work
with you and do an interview, and we always just
(14:34):
tried to go for you know, the exclusive.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Until we air kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So, yeah, the idea that you know, we know most
people are going to talk again about their story, their
involvement in a case, and you know, it's not really
realistic that somebody would only ever talk to you about
a case, and we don't actually need that, you know,
we just need for our bosses and everything else. We
just wanted that first interview that we could call an
(15:01):
exclusive because it wasn't appearing anywhere else, and then after
we aired, you know, they could do whatever other shows
they wanted to do, but.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
That was what we went for.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
It didn't always work, and you know, especially if they
were like they worked for the prosecution, and you know,
they wouldn't most of the time agree to anything like
that because they were employees of the state, right and
so they didn't want to look like they were giving favoritism.
But we could usually get one or two people who
(15:34):
were going to be on the episode to be exclusive,
and that would be enough to convince, you know, our
bosses that we had something unique on this story. A
big problem for us is that we aired on Saturday
nights and ABC and Dayline ABC twenty twenty and Dateline
NBC air on Friday night, so we had to be
(15:56):
a whole week ahead of them, and they only had
to be a day ahead of us, So it was
it was definitely a challenge. You know that that timing
was so difficult, but we tried. You wouldn't think it'd
be that hard to get people to wait a week,
but it was actually quite hard.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
And let's draw a distinction. I tell my students I
teach a true crime podcast class at UT. Let's draw
a distinction between the stuff that Dateline twenty twenty and
forty eight Hours produces, which is from a news station,
versus some of the things that we see on the
streamers documentaries. As far as what do the interviewees get
(16:34):
out of this, Yes, it's not a payment from news.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Correct. Yeah, so we don't pay for interviews.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
We you know, are only doing this as a journalistic enterprise,
and we ask people to give us an interview, but
we cannot pay them because if we pay them, you know,
suddenly we're entertainment and they're trying to please us, and
they're going to say what they think we want to hear,
and so it's just completely against our our news standards
(17:01):
to pay them. Now, we we would say we didn't
want people to incur any costs for doing the interview.
So you know, if there were a situation where they
didn't have transportation to the interview site, we could send
a car, you know, if they're you know, we sometimes
we would fly people to New York to do the
interview because there's so much you know, heat and pressure
(17:22):
in their hometown.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
And also it was actually.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Cheaper for us a lot of times to fly someone
to New York and do it in our studio where
everybody is based, and you know, so that sometimes is
an incentive we could give them, but was still within
our CBS news standards. So that is a surprise to
a lot of people who think that they will get
paid to be on our show. So that was a
(17:45):
very common conversation.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
That I had with people.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
One of the things that I like about forty Hours,
and I'm not saying the other folks don't do this,
but I feel like you all really do to go
above and beyond in getting the actual players in the story,
getting the family on both sides, the alleged killer and
the victim's family, And oftentimes I'll see on shows, not
(18:14):
necessarily the other two big ones, but just in general
where it's pretty much all neighbors and investigators and maybe
an attorney or two and that's it. So it's very
clear that either people said no or they were not
pursued to begin with. Do you think that that is
a thing or am I imagining that with forty eight
hour mysteries?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
You're not imagining it.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That is definitely our goal is to talk to someone
on all sides of the story, and the closer we
can get to, you know, the heart of the case,
the better. So the closer they were to the victim,
to the suspect, you know, that's our number one goal
is to get as close as we possibly can. I
(18:54):
talk about this in the book, because you know, there's
some stories that are just too big that we have
to cover, no matter who is willing to talk to us.
An example of that was the Alec Murdoch case in
South Carolina. We had to do that story. Everybody was
doing it. I was marooned in South Carolina that summer.
(19:14):
You know, we kind of have this phrase where we say,
like we'll interview the janitor if we have to anyone
who has some kind of connection to the story that
can give us any kind of access. And so that
was one of those cases where we couldn't get anyone
from the Murdoch family to participate. We really wanted to,
but we couldn't, and they were the victim and the suspect. Yeah,
(19:37):
so you know, we are grasping for any kind of
source that we could get. You know, we got some investigators,
we got people who lived in the area, you know,
to talk about it. I think we interviewed a law
professor in South Carolina to talk about, you know, the
uniqueness of the case. But that is very much a
(19:58):
last resort. That's not what we want to do. And
our bread and butter shows we're talking to the victim's
close family, surviving spouse, parents, you know, someone like that,
and we're talking to hopefully the suspect themselves. That was
always my goal was to go in there and get
the person accused of this crime to speak in their
(20:18):
own words, and that was not always possible because they'd
have high powered attorneys who would say absolutely not. But
a lot of times you know, either through the attorneys
or through the suspect themselves.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
You know, I was able to win them over.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
That's a lot of pressure for a producer. As a producer,
I was at WCBS and I was at ABC Radio.
You know, as a producer, I felt pressure certainly, But
in that time period I didn't have an entire show
writing on my shoulders. That just seems like incredibly stressful
to not only pursue and try to lock that in,
but just kind of going, Okay, I'm just gonna have
(20:55):
to do this when the trial starts and try to
get these people exclusively and then try to all them
away from dateline in twenty twenty. It just it seems
like a lot of pressure for somebody, especially a young producer.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It definitely was a lot of pressure. I think I
didn't know any better. Like I it was my first
job in television, and you know, my boss would be like,
we have to have the killer, and I was just
sort of like, well, I guess we got to have them,
you know, and I just kind of went all in
with it. But I would later learn that even when
we didn't get the killer, a lot of times there
(21:28):
would be so much propelling the story forward that we
would still go to air even without the killer, but
the killer was the bullet proofing of the story. If
we had the killer talking, there was no way that
story was getting canned. We were gonna make it even
if we got scooped by Dateline and they aired first.
You know, if we had the killer exclusive until we aired,
(21:50):
then that story was going to go. So that I
really hate wasting my time, and so that really helped
me to know that, well, if I can get the
suspect to go on camera and not to talk to
anyone else until we air, then I will know that
the stories ago and I haven't wasted my time and
I'll get to do it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
And that meant a lot to me.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
But if they have a good attorney, they're not going
to I mean, I would never let my client talk
to you guys before the trial, maybe not even after
the trial, maybe when all the appeals are done.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, you wouldn't believe the way.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You know, some attorneys will believe that it isn't the
best benefit of their client. So that was that was
always my favorite. The attorneys that really thought that, yeah,
this will help, we need to get our narrative out there. Yeah,
I was working every angle, you know, I could come
up with. In a lot of times, the district attorney,
(22:43):
the prosecutor, if it was a high profile case, they
would give press conferences about the case. They would talk
about the character of the suspect and how this was
a cold blooded murder and you know, all these different statements,
and so I would use that, you know, with the
defense and be like, well, the prosecutution is talking, the
prosecution is trying this case in the media, they're putting
(23:04):
all of this out on the record ahead of trial.
Don't you want to match them step first step? And
if they're going to talk, you know, why wouldn't you talk.
And if you're going to talk, well, why wouldn't you
let your clients speak for themselves. And you can be
in the room and you can object to any question
that we ask, and you know, usually what would happen
is they would maybe object to something in the beginning,
(23:27):
and then they would just completely fade into the background
and let us do our whole interview. I never had
a defense attorney that like stopped an interview or materially
like changed our interview style or questions. Like it was
always once we got them in the room and the
lights were up and the cameras were rolling. The defense
(23:47):
attorney really faded to the background.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
And I think at least you guys probably Dateline too,
have had those interviews show up in court.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, we have.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Either're using them as an exhibit, and you would think
it would teach a defense attorney better safe than sorry.
It's like putting your client on the stand is usually
not a good idea. So I am shocked. Do you
remember a case where that happened, where all of a sudden,
somebody from forty eight hours goes, oh, that's my story
as exhibit A.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yes, so that happened in the Michelle Williams case in fact,
because she did not take the stand, but they entered
our entire episode into evidence and they played her speaking
parts in court.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
So they found that relevant. I wonder what the counter
argument from the defense attorney would be if he signed
on to it. Do you remember was there an argument?
Speaker 2 (24:40):
So he was not actually the defense attorney at the
time that we did the interview. She had a different
attorney that was like a personal attorney, didn't even typically
do criminal defense. I mean, it was just all sorts
of unusual stuff. But yes, you know, I found that
except for the super high pro file defense attorneys like
(25:01):
the Dick Degarins of the world, we usually have like
one or two cases with this defense attorney, Like, they
don't come up over and over again because these cases
are so unusual. And so if it's a small town
and you know, this is our first time meeting with
this defense attorney, we have a better chance of getting
(25:23):
them to agree to let their client do an interview,
because well, they've never had anything like this happened to
them before. They've never had, you know, a big producer
ask them these questions, and they've never had this kind
of opportunity. You know, a lot of times it starts
with just getting the defense attorney themselves to agree to
the interview, and once we have that, you know, it's
(25:47):
just one more step to get their client on camera.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I feel like I've almost never seen it work positively,
except in the case of Karen Reid.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, where in.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Between the trials they release this documentary and I have
to say, regardless of how you feel, did she actually
intentionally run over her boyfriend who was a Boston cop.
You know, regardless of how anybody feels about her, guilt
or innocence. She did a great job on that documentary. Yeah,
and it's become this weird touchstone at least this year
where you have you know, pro police protesters or rally people,
(26:25):
and then you've got pro Karen Reid, and it's just
become this big thing. And I think a lot of
it is based on her personality, the way she presents
for better or for worse, and so I think that
actually has helped her maybe, but I don't think it
helps anyhills. I've never seen it.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, it is a tall order to have an interview
pre trial help you as as the defendant. But yeah,
sometimes they just can't resist the temptation to have an
audience of millions of people to get to share their story.
You know something else I would use to book people
would be this is not a court of law. Whenever
(27:02):
you decide whether or not to testify, you're gonna have
all sorts of rules and restrictions, and you know you
have to be cross examined, Like this is not that.
This is television. You control your own narrative here exactly.
You don't have to answer any question you don't want to.
You don't have to you know, be subject to this
interview if you choose to walk out. Of course we'll
(27:24):
be recording if that happens, and it does. Side note, No,
we don't tell them that part, but I mean they
know they know that we're recording the whole time. But
I of course would emphasize the fact that this is
not like testifying in court. This is entirely voluntarily you know, done,
and this is your chance to get to talk about
things that you want to and not talk about anything
(27:46):
you don't want to.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Were you, I think you're way too young for this.
I'm wondering if you were around when they pretty dramatically
switched the format of forty eight hours. It was not
always true crime, but when it was true crime, they
did it in three pieces, and I think it was
like twenty twenty twenty or you know, with commercial breaks,
so it was like the victim's point of view or
the family the killer's point of view, and then I
(28:12):
feel like it was prosecutors investigators, and it was such
an interesting way to tell that story where you're not
pinging back and forth. It is just like one hundred
percent of focus on that one focus. And then it
became you know, a typical hour but well done true
crime show. Do you know anything about that format? I
just I loved it. I thought it was great.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, I don't that was before my time. It does
sound very unique and interesting, though, I mean, I just
know the history of forty eight hours.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Like it started out.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
They were going to do a documentary in forty eight hours,
So they were going to film for forty eight hours straight.
And they did this all over the country and it
was a okay program. But what really pushed them to
success is they did it in Austin. They were doing
a ride along with an Austin police officer and he
(29:00):
bonded to what he thought was a fire call at
a yogurt shop and it ended up being the yogurt
chop murders. The teenagers that were tied up and killed
and the yogurt chop and it's still unsolved to this day.
And the cameras were rolling that whole time. So that
and that was their most watched episode, you know, of
forty eight hours, and so that's what pushed the format
(29:22):
into being true crime all the time.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
That was more than thirty years ago. I mean, I
I you know, I was in high school when that happened. Yeah,
I do remember that now. Man, that's it's still I
think they're getting closer, but it's it's still an unsolved case. Okay.
And then why does forty eight do one hour when
I feel like Dateline gets longer and longer. I mean,
(29:47):
I don't really remember the last time I've seen a
one hour Dateline. They're always at least two hours, I think.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, you know, our time slot is one hour. That's
what the network has given us. That's what they, you know,
have ordered from us. And we can occasionally get a
two hour special, but usually what we do is we
just air an episode back to back. Okay, so we
don't you know, that just hasn't been our format. They
(30:16):
seem to really want us to stick with a one
hour and that has always been from up top, you
know that That's how it comes down that they want
these one hour long shows, and we certainly see Dateline
doing those.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Two hour episodes.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
We feel like, you know, a lot of times we
would talk about how it would be a better show
if it was one hour, because they're like filler and
there's all this recap like after every commercial break, like
just in case you're joining us, let's tell you everything
that happened and so that you know, as a producer,
as a writer, it doesn't sound very appealing actually to write,
(30:52):
to have to take something that we could tell tightly
in an hour and stretch it out into two hours.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
But you know, God bless them.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
They get the ad dollars, they get more commercial breaks,
they get you know, double the budget.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Then go for it.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Well, I can never say anything against Stateline only because
I Keith Morrison is just the most amazing person effort
and I just am crazy about when he is the correspondent.
I for sure pay attention and watch that episode, and
I think it becomes atmospheric. I think, you know when
they do that, they have to. They spend so much
(31:28):
time in the town and everything. But you know, at
the same time, I certainly think you all move at
a faster clip. So let's talk about So you get
there and you're thinking, I'm in the big leagues now,
and how old were you when you started at forty
and eight twenty nine? Okay, so you get there, and
what did you think it was going to be like?
And then what was it actually like for you?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Do you remember I was surprised at how much travel
there was. I think in my mind, I thought, well,
I'm their Texas bace producer. I'm going to be doing
a lot of things just right in my own backyard.
But Texas is so big, and I would you know,
oftentimes need to get on a plane to get somewhere
(32:10):
in Texas in time for what they needed. And then
you know, they realized that I'm living so close to
DFW Airport and it has a lot of direct flights
places all over the country that I could get there
faster than people from New York and so I would
be you know, dispatched to South Carolina to Florida to
(32:32):
Colorado because I could be there first, and if there
was something big happening, you know, they needed boots on
the ground, I would be sent. And you know, I
started packing a go bag that had every you know,
because it was too much. There's no time to pack, right, Yeah,
I had to go back too. Yeah, you know, I
think like the whole secret agent element of it was surprising,
(32:52):
Like the idea that it would be like one way ticket.
You're leaving, you know when's the next flight, and you
don't know when you're coming back because you're come back
once you get the story once you get people to
agree to interviews.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
That was surprising to me.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I thought it would be more like my other jobs
in media, which you know, did not involve cross country
travel and one way tickets. You know, everything was pretty
clearly defined. If you are ever going somewhere for a story,
it was you know, it was really more for like
a conference that you would go somewhere. It wasn't really
a lot of travel involved for the reporting.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
And then the competition.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
I had no idea how competitive it was between forty
eight hours Dateline and twenty.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Twenty and you know, the war games and.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
People don't fight fair, and there's all sorts of subterfuge
that goes on. That's really why I wanted to write
the book, was to show people what it's really like
to work in true crime TV. How you know, we
get these stories on the air, what we do to
convince people to talk to us, and you know, the
kinds of things that happen off care in every case
(34:02):
that never make air, but sometimes are even more interesting,
you know than the murder themselves.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Did you all ever work together other than a pool camera,
which I'm assuming you probably had to do a pool
camera at some point, which which means basically, the court says,
we'll let one camera in and you all have to
share the footage. Which was my favorite because then I
have to deal with all of that when.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I was in the field totally.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, the pool camera was about as close as we
came to working together. I mean, the stories I talked
about in the book. You know, it's producers saying things
to you know, family members about me. It's people who
are you know, saying oh, yeah, we're with we're working
with Claire, but they're actually working against me. People don't
(34:48):
realize it till the show, but the interview, where's Claire?
You know, Oh, she'll be here later. And then they
do the interview and they call me like what was that.
I'm like, that's not me. I don't work for that show,
you know, And I mean that kind of stuff happened.
So it was very interesting and it added a whole
new element to the job.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
And I bet you were picture perfect, the epitome of
kindness when you were out there too.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Oh of course, now read the book.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Trust me, I tell on myself at least as much
as anybody else. I think, you know, any good memoir
is honest and it shows the good, the bad, and
the ugly.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
And you know, I'm I'm not a girl scout. I
have that in the book.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I've done things that you know, I never expected to
put in a book and admit to. But I do
feel like, you know, working in national television and working
for a prestigious show, you know, does to like a
competitive driven person like myself, is that it'll push you
to your limits and you'll end up doing things you
(35:49):
never thought you'd do because you want to get the
story and you want to be successful and you're at
such a you know, hyper focused level that a lot
of times, you know, you look back at it and
you're like, I can't believe that really happened. You know,
it's it's not something without the heat of battle, you
(36:10):
know that you would have ever agreed to.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
But then you're like, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
You know. So writing the book was very therapeutic, and
it really helped me put things in perspective and process.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
You know a lot of things that happened.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
You know, when you're working in news, it's like drinking
from a fire hose and you barely have a chance
to think about what you did before because you got
to move on to your next story, and so I
really appreciated the chance to go back and look at,
you know, some of my biggest stories and how they
all came together.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Well, let's talk about your stories. What was kind of
the first big one that you feel like you tackled
assertively and with confidence and it was, you know, great
for the bosses, And then maybe we can talk about
one that you thought this could have gone better or
just sort of the part of it. I mean, I
certainly can imagine interviewing killers, convicted killers and just like
(37:05):
giving them a platform, and that must not have felt
good for certain instances.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
So the story that I'm the most proud of and
that I felt like was really forty eight hours at
its best and me doing what I do best is
the episode with Judge Julie Kusurik from Travis County. She
was is a district judge and she survived an assassination
attempt and it was just incredible. We did a live
(37:34):
to tell episode with her where she spoke, you know,
directly to the camera and gave her first person experience
of surviving this horrific attack, you know, in front of
her own home in front of her son, you know,
her fifteen year old son. And I worked for I
want to say, like three or four years to get
(37:55):
her to agree to do this interview. It was one
of my longest bookings ever. And I just knew that
her story was so powerful and I loved that, you know,
she was a fighter and she had you know, been
shot in the head, had used her own hands to
(38:17):
shield the gunfire, and you know, had lost a finger
in the process, barely survives, is in the ICU and
files for reelection from her hospital bed. Wow, And I
was like, what, what a hero. You know, this is
an incredible woman. And so I just wanted to meet her,
you know, on a personal level because I just thought
(38:39):
that was so admirable and you know, that was incredible
to just get to shake her hand and you know,
tell her, you know that I was so glad that
that she was this model of strength, and you know,
I just think she's just a great role model for
people everywhere. And the fact that she was their first
(39:00):
female district judge in Travis County, you know, it doesn't
hurt either. So that that was another just big bonus
for that story for me, and so we were able
to get her to participate. Her fifteen year old son,
you know who at this time I think was now
eighteen or nineteen, you know, participated. We had everybody, you know,
(39:23):
the killer himself was in federal prison and had been convicted,
so we didn't do an interview with him, but we
had all of the police cooperation and you know, the
whole file, and it was just.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
A really extensive investigation.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
You know, the FBI was involved and everybody got involved
in Yeah, that's one of my proudest stories.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Did you roll against him? Is that what the motive was?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
So, yes, he was a defendant in her courtroom, he
had actually misunderstood what was going on in his case,
and she was getting onto the attorneys for not working
diligently filing the proper paperwork on time. And she was
basically telling these attorneys, if you don't get your act together,
(40:15):
I'm just I'm gonna have to dismiss this case because
you're not doing what you need to do. You're not
doing it, you know, you keep asking for continuances and like,
I'm not happy. Well, the defendant misunderstood what was happening.
This was all revealed during his trial, and he held
his head in his hands and cried when he realized
that the whole motive for the murder was a complete misunderstanding.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
But yeah, can you believe it?
Speaker 2 (40:41):
It's really I mean you talk about senseless, This was
completely senseless. And yeah, he misunderstood. She was chastising the
attorneys and was moving toward dismissing his case. And he thought,
the judge is mad. Judge doesn't like me. It's not
going to end well for me. I better just take
(41:01):
this into my own hands.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yea, What is a case that you covered for forty
eight hours that was the most difficult for you? Just
maybe emotionally or the hardest interviews anything like that.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
In the book, I talk about being dispatched to the
Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. That
was the worst for me. I say that Parkland broke me.
I was never the same after Parkland. I flew out
there on Valentine's Day, the day that the shooting happened, stayed.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
There all week.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
It was awful, I mean, just to see what the
town was going through.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
To be there right as you know.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
People are still hospitalized trying to find out who's going
to survive. They're trying to figure out what to do
with the schools a crime scene. It just felt so
wrong to me to be there. And I had never
felt like an intruder as a member of the media before.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
I always felt like I'm doing a public service.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I am giving answers to people who need them. I
am speaking up, you know, and getting access to things
that the public has a right to ask for. And
I'm making sense of this tragedy, and you know, I'm
asking the tough questions. And when I was in Parkland,
I just felt like I shouldn't be there.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
I felt too early.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
It felt like the media vulture that I never wanted
to be, and I had a really hard time there,
and then just afterward with like what am I doing
with my life? It was the beginning of the end.
I didn't quit for four more years because it's hard
scary to quit, you know, especially, you know, whenever you've
(42:53):
worked so hard in your career and you're at a
place that you feel like is the pinnacle, and then
to walk away, you know, is very difficult decision. So
but Parkland is what turned the tide for me. It
took me a little while, but I just couldn't do
it anymore.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
I can imagine that would be the case. I've covered
school shootings before, and it's awful. You see these stages
of grieving right in front of you. You know, you
had people who didn't want to talk at all, they
were so upset, And then the students would want to
talk to you, and then after a while they were like,
get the hell out of here. We don't want you
here anymore. You know, they just it was over, and
they were unplugging our trucks and yea, the live streams
(43:32):
from our trucks. But I had a student at UT
who was a graduate student in the Radio Television Film department,
and she made a fantastic kind of visitor master's project,
a fantastic film about the church shooting that happened in
Sutherland Springs, which happened in twenty seventeen. Twenty six people killed.
It was a Baptist church, and she did it on
(43:55):
the deluge of media that came and how it made
the town so incredibly resentful. It was like and they
would show video it was like twenty cameras around two
people who were praying, and it's the same shots and
they're right over them. It was based on a letter
that a Dallas Morning News reporter wrote as an op
(44:18):
ed piece that just it's an apology letter to the
town of Sutherland Springs and said, I'm sorry if I
even you know, remotely added to that. And so that
that film really, for me was kind of a big
wake up call. And then she gets to interview all
of the family members will not all of them, but
many of the survivors from that church service, including the
(44:38):
pastor who lost almost his entire family. And you know,
it was very much like, we want the good journalists,
We want the ones who respect our boundaries, you know.
And I think that the Dallas Morning News reporter kept
up with them. And she goes back for the anniversaries
with no camera, no anything. They want to see an
investment in some way. And and you know, you don't
(45:01):
have time working for a network or a local station.
But we have to figure out how to make time,
is what I kind of concluded. But that's hard. And
I was going to ask you, how do you know when?
How did you know when to get out? I mean
you still went for four more years? Yeah, how do
you give up an opportunity that just thousands of people
would kill for to work for a network like that.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah, you know, the pandemic really pushed me over the edge.
I think, like a lot of people, it just challenged
my views of work and what you know, I wanted
my daily life to look like. And so the pandemic
was the first time that I wasn't traveling near constantly
(45:44):
for work and I was home with my family, and
I realized, you know, I kind of like these people.
I would like to be around more than just a
visiting cast member and always have a half packed suitcase
in the corner.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
I just wanted to see could I tell stories and
be home most of the time. And you know, I
wanted a way out of the cycle that I was in,
where I was juggling eight murder cases at a time,
looking at you know, my calendar, got to go for
(46:19):
this pre trial, hearing oh the trial's going to start here.
Oh this is where we're going to start filming, and
you know, it was just complete chaos, you know, and
I didn't want to live that way anymore. And so
I started thinking about projects that I could do in
the true crime space, because that's where I lived, and
that was my specialty and that was, you know, the
(46:40):
kind of stories that I knew so well and wanted
to tell. And so, you know, I started my podcast
in twenty twenty one, Final Days on Earth, and then
you know, I had the idea for the book, and
I had an idea for my own true crime docuseries
that's now in production that I sold to a cable network.
So I had these ideas that I wanted to do,
(47:03):
and none of them, you know, would be possible to
do while I was still at CBS. So I knew
I had to leave to make space for other things
in my life, other good things. And you know, I'll
always be grateful to CBS for the years that I
spent there and the experience that I had and the
lessons that I learned. And I'm I know, I couldn't
be where I am today without that kind of experience,
(47:25):
and I'm you know, I'm glad that I was there,
but I'm very glad.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
To have left.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Yeah, And I think that wherever you work, whatever the
format is, you know, it sort of shapes what your
POV is for the narrative. I certainly when I had
worked in the past on crime stories like Gary Condon
and you know, some of these really big stories. I
think we were definitely more killer focused, and I have
(47:52):
worked really hard to now be victim focused. I think
learning about the killer, of course, is important, and it's
a lot a reason why a lot of people listen
to your show, my shows, because you know, they want
to know, they want to get inside the mind of
these people. But you know, at the same time, I
found myself becoming very desensitized to the stories that I
(48:13):
was telling, and when I started writing books and then
getting involved with you know, our network, exactly right network,
and you know, just in general, I really tried to
change my tune. And now, while it's uncomfortable for me,
I definitely lean into being not desensitized, because when you
do that, then they're characters, especially for me, they're in history,
but they still matter. And so was that kind of
(48:35):
a feeling that you would end up having too, I mean,
there have to be some cases besides Parkland, even where
you just kind of went shit, I don't want to
do this, this is too hard. I don't want to
talk about this mom who just lost her children or
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah, I think talking to the victims' families over and
over again was a trauma. Yeah, you know, I wanted
to be sensitive, I wanted to be empathetic, and I
feel like in a lot of ways, I got so
emotionally attached to these people that it probably wasn't the
(49:10):
healthiest thing for me to be, you know, that close
to all of this trauma that wasn't mine. And I
think that was something that was really difficult for me,
is I felt so deeply for these moms who had
lost their kids, and you know, it was just really
(49:33):
hard to not think about that and to not you know,
really take on a lot of their grief. And I
know that it wasn't mine to take on, yet just
being in such close contact with them for so long,
it just started to feel really heavy. And even though
(49:56):
I had developed like these friendships and these you know,
relationships and connections with them, it's still felt in some
ways like exploitative, like, you know, and I didn't want
to have to ask them for anything again, you know.
And so there's a lot of nuance and a lot
of complexity to it. I do think that many of
(50:19):
the victims' families found it to be cathartic to speak
to us and found that there was a way for
them to take back this story and to do something
good with it. You know, their foundations that people have started,
there's scholarships, there's nonprofits, and I think highlighting those, you know,
(50:42):
at the national level with the platforms that we have,
you know, really did positively impact those projects. And I
think that a lot of people who are faced with
this unbelievable tragedy and violence and complete turn in the
road are looking for a positive outlet for how they're
(51:03):
feeling and something new to channel their their energy into.
And so sometimes you know, those types of side projects
that they did in the name of their loved ones.
You know, that really was a silver lining to the
whole experience, and I felt good about the fact that
we could bring attention to that, but the whole on balance,
(51:26):
you know, having to call them to meet with them,
to try to convince them to go on national television
and talk about this murder. You know, that's that's a
very difficult thing to do.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Do you feel like the attorneys and I know you
had a lot of attorneys we had a WCBS, and
I found them mostly annoying, but that's because they were
doing their job. So you know, you've got all these attorneys,
You've got executives who are not working directly with these stories,
who are screening things and okaying, do you think that
they understood kind up the gravity of reporting on these
(52:02):
sorts of stories that are so kind of intimate and
they're violent and it's many times men murdering women. Do
you think they saw them as just sort of these
stories like a political story or anything else, or do
you think they all understood that this was these were
people's lives and you know, they needed to make responsible decisions.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
I definitely don't think they all understood that. I think
it definitely varied attorney to attorney. I would say like
for the most part, it always felt very clinical with them,
like this was a job. This was professional, you know,
not an emotional thing. It was very rare for it
to feel like a personal, you know, emotional human thing.
(52:46):
For me. With the attorneys, it really felt like, well,
it was a fascinating case. This is so unusual from
a legal perspective, and I mean, it is all those things,
and maybe that's what you want in an attorney, you know,
like this dispassionate it legal mind, but it definitely was challenging,
you know, as a producer and just as a human
(53:07):
being thinking about you know, these cases, and a lot
of times attorneys or police officers they would only really
have like one case like this in their career. This
really over the top, you know, murder for hire, this
like cover up, you know, stage, crime scene, all these
different elements. This is not just a typical shooting where
(53:31):
someone died or you know, I mean it sounds funny
to say typical, but there's all kinds of murder out there, right,
and the like most common crime is just some sort
of misunderstanding, a robbery gone wrong, a drug deal gone wrong,
and you know, the gun goes off and people run, right.
But if we're doing an hour of television on it,
it's got lots more than that. And so you know,
(53:55):
I would find that these you know, attorneys or these
police officers, they would be so captivated by the uniqueness
of this one particular case that was rising to the
attention of you know, the national television shows. But we
would be working on cases like that every day, Yeah,
because we would be going across you know, all all
(54:15):
fifty states and you know, all these different counties and
finding the weirdest, wildest crime that ever happened there, and
so we would just go from extremely unusual, unique, bizarre,
twisted murder case to another one that was, you know,
just as compelling in a different way in a different city.
(54:38):
And so I think, as the producers and the people
working on this show, I feel like we saw more
of these twisted crimes than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
Yeah. I think one of the things I emphasize to
journalism students and really journalists I work with too, that
I've learned so much is, you know, when you do
a story, a true crime story like this in a
journalistic setting, that you must be able to explain clearly
why this story will resonate with everyone. What is it
that teaches us? And I do think that forty eight
(55:09):
hours does a great job. You know, I've watched the
Bianca Devins story that they did probably four or five times,
you know, which is about the murder of a four
young woman who you know, her family is just still
harassed constantly by online stalkers. And you know the Michelle Carter,
who you know, had I think just got released a
(55:30):
couple of years ago, Yeah, for encouraging her friend slash
boyfriend to take his own life. These cases where you
have to be able to say, this is what we
learn from crime. This is why we're telling you the story.
It's not to shock you or to delate you or anything.
It's because you can learn something right. And I feel
like that's the difference between a quality outlet that will
(55:51):
tell you a story versus some of these streamers. While
I'll watch and the title will be kind of icky,
and I watch the family and then I'll see the
of the victims, and then I'll see the reenactments and go,
I just don't think they would have liked this. Yeah,
I don't think they would have signed off on this
if they knew that it was going to be this graphic.
So did you feel like that similarly, I mean in
(56:14):
the world of true crime, where do you put forty
eight hours in actually any of the other network shows
twenty twenty or Dateline or anything else? Where do you
put them in the realm of icky true crime?
Speaker 2 (56:23):
You know, I always thought, you know, that we were
doing true crime the right way, that we were telling
the story responsibly, that we were you know, being an
advocate for the victims, that we were trying to get
to the heart of the matter and to tell stories
of justice being served, even you know, in the face
of tragic circumstances. You know, there's not more murder because
(56:47):
there's shows about murder, but you know more about these
murders because of the television shows. And I wanted to
be part of, you know, shining a light in dark places,
in doing the hard good work that goes into telling
stories of life and death.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
I mean, what could be more impactful.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
I feel like, you know, as a journalist than to
talk about you know, lives lost and you know the
legacy that they leave behind, and I feel like there's
a lot.
Speaker 3 (57:18):
Of good that goes on in these shows now.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
At the same time, I think every one of these
shows is capable of going in the wrong direction. They're
capable of covering a story that maybe they had no
business covering that, you know, maybe they didn't give the right.
Speaker 3 (57:38):
Angle to you know.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
I mean, I know that that happens, and I've seen
it happen, and I've been part of it, and I've
hated it. Right, So, I mean, it's a challenging thing
to report on something as serious as murder, you know.
I mean it's not something that I take lightly, and
I don't think that Anyone who does this job the
(58:00):
right way, you know, takes it lightly. But I think
there's a certain level of like, once it becomes kind
of groundhog Day and this is your job and it
starts to seem normal to you, and you get desensitized
to it. Yeah, And you know that's whenever I think
you're in danger of, you know, being on the wrong side,
(58:22):
the icky side of true crime.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget There are
twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast Tenfold More
Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexus
(58:59):
m Rosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode
was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer,
artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Listen to Wicked Words on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
(59:20):
Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold More Wicked, and
on Facebook at wicked words pod
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You know, working in national television, it'll push you to
your limits and you'll end up doing things you never
thought you'd do. A lot of times, you know, you
look back at it and you're like, I can't believe
that really happened.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:53):
and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
unpublished details behind their stories. I'm so excited about this interview.
It's with Claire Cinema. She's a journalist and an author,
(01:14):
and she was a TV producer for forty eight hours
and sixty minutes. Now she's pulling back the curtain on
true crime television. I learned a lot from her. She's
talking about her memoir killer story. This book is right
up my alley because I'm pretty sure I have probably
(01:35):
seen every single episode that you were ever involved with
with forty eight Hours. I'm obsessed with forty eight hour mysteries.
I am. I think it's such a high quality show.
So I'm excited to talk about this. And I was
a television news producer for about half my life, so
we have a lot in common. I'm excited about this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, that sounds perfect you. You couldn't be more suited
for this book.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Okay, let's start with Well, where does that makes sense
to start with you?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
It has to be your work history. Why do you
have so much insight into this? Right?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So I worked at CBS News for about a decade.
I was a producer for forty eight hours and for
sixty minutes, and I was on the murder beat. So
if there was any kind of major murder story, terrorist attack,
mass shooting, I was there. We were, you know, on
(02:25):
the ground for serial killer man hunts and the aftermath
of numerous you know, police shootings and mass shootings and
more murder trials than I can even remember.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You know, what's so interesting is I think to the
majority of the population that sounds like a depressing, macabre,
you know, really upsetting job. But to my audience, everybody
is going to geek out over this because a lot
of people watch these shows. I watched Dateline too, I've
watched pretty much every show there is, So the insight
that you have is really going to be interesting. Were
(03:01):
you a true crime fan before you took this job
with forty eight hours or sixty minutes?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I was.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I was a local news reporter. I started out in print.
I worked for People newspapers in Dallas. You know. It
was my first job full time in journalism, and I
was covering everything. But the police blotter is my gateway
drug to crime reporting, and that's what brought me here.
So I just followed, you know, one story to the next,
(03:30):
and ended up quite by surprise, even to me, in
national television working in true crime.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Did you have a journalism degree or a master's screen
or anything. What was your schooling?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So? I had an English degree in writing and then
a journalism minor. I've I've been a journalist pretty much
since birth. I started my own neighborhood newspaper that was
called Kids News in elementary school, and you know, I
just never stopped. So I worked for every paper, you know,
at every school I ever ad ended, including you know,
(04:01):
my college newspaper, the Baylor Lariat, where I was always
always to be found in the newsroom or reporting some
story out on campus.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
So that was a very formative experience.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
What was your first big murder story for forty eight
hours when you started there?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So my first big murder story for forty eight hours
was Michelle Williams and Keller, Texas. So she was a
housewife who seemed to be just picture perfect, you know,
it was always going to fitness classes and doing pick
up and drop off with her young daughter. But actually
(04:42):
she had you know, a dark secret and a past
of numerous cons and lots of very suspicious behavior. And
one night, you know, she calls nine to one one breathless,
says her husband has been shot by an intruder and
that she been hit in the face and she needs
(05:02):
help immediately. And this is in Keller, Texas, a suburb
of Fort Worth. They live in a gated community. There
was virtually no violent crime like this, and so you know,
the full cavalry comes to this nine one one call
it like four in the morning, and they very quickly
discover that nothing is as Michelle Williams has described it.
(05:26):
And it looks like the scene has been staged. There's
the smell of bleach in the house, the murder weapon
is by the back door. It's very weird, and her story,
you know, starts to fall apart. But if you can
believe it, the Keller Police Department and the Trant County
DA's office had actually given Michelle Williams a plea deal
(05:48):
that she could plead guilty to deadly conduct and tampering
with evidence in her husband's murder, and she would have
only served about nine years. And I came to the
story then when I'm the plea deal was announced in
the local paper here in Dallas, and you know, I
was still working in local media at the time, and
I thought, who gets a plea deal for murder in Texas?
(06:10):
This makes no sense? And you know, what in the
world is deadly conduct? Like, you know, I had so
many questions, That's what.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I was going to ask. I've never heard that before,
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It only exists in Texas and Louisiana, and it is
a felony charge that is, basically, you were reckless with
a gun and someone accidentally got killed. So examples I
found were like, you're cleaning a gun and you're drinking
alcohol and the gun goes off, you know, and there's
someone else in the room and they're either grievously wounded
(06:44):
or they're killed, and so you are acting reckless with
a deadly weapon, but you didn't intend to kill anyone.
So it really the more I dug into the Michelle
Williams case, I was like, this doesn't actually apply because
her husband is asleep in bed and someone shoots him
from like.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Two feet away.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So you know, she tried to say it was suicide
at one point, and then she'd covered up the suicide
to try to get.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
The insurance money. Her story just kept changing.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So it was a journalist's dream because I had all
these different narratives to play with and got to really
dig deep into her background. And so I ended up
releasing a three part investigative series called Did Michelle Williams
Get Away with Murder? And it ran in Culture Map Dallas,
which was the news website that I was working for
(07:33):
at the time, and that got the attention of The
Big Three Dateline on NBC twenty twenty on ABC and
forty eight Hours on CBS, and so from there I
ended up working with forty eight Hours as a special consultant.
I was on air talking about the Michelle Williams case,
and you know, once I saw the budgets and the
(07:54):
resources and the talent at CBS News, I was like,
how do I hitch my into this horse? And so
I started pitching them, you know, Texas murder stories that
they hadn't heard of yet and giving them, you know,
all sorts of content access, you know, exclusives, and before
I knew it, I was working for CBS News full time.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Wow. I mean that's quite a story based on this
one case. And I mean, you're right. I think that
for a very long time, Texas stories were sort of underutilized.
I don't know if that's the right word. And now
I feel like it's either Texas, Florida or California or
somewhere in the Midwest. Yeah, okay, that's interesting and so
deadly conduct. I was thinking, isn't that manslaughter? In other places?
(08:40):
I think that would be manslaughter.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Right, both similar to that, I think.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So did she end up with nine years or did
they go, well, Okay, what happens.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Through my reporting and through forty eight hours involvement, her
plea deal actually falls apart. So she was given every
chance to go back to the safety of her plea deal.
But I think once she did an interview with CBS
News and gave this whole alternate story about how she
was innocent and there was another person who pulled the trigger,
(09:13):
she just couldn't resist going with that. So her plea
deal was thrown out and she went to trial, and
she was sentenced to sixty years in prison.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Is she still there, I mean, I'm assuming she is.
Is she still alive?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yes, she is still alive, and she is still in prison.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I have never understood people being willing to talk to
a network or any station really before the plea deal
goes through or the trial starts or any I've just
I don't get it. I don't understand it. But I
think you're right, it's just ubrius. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yeah, I think it's a lot of it's ego driven
and this ability that they think they have to win
people over with their version of events, so they want
to be on television. They want the attention and then
and they actually think that they can change the narrative
by talking. So I go into this a lot in
(10:06):
Killer Story because I speak with a lot of suspected criminals, murderers,
people who have been arrested, charged with murder, and you know,
I would go meet with them in jail and convince
them to give an interview to forty eight hours, you know,
from behind bars typically pre trial. That kind of became
(10:28):
my sweet spot because I learned that if you wait
until the trial dateline and twenty twenty are going to
show up and it's going to be this battle royale,
very uncomfortable, very competitive environment. And you know, I live
in Texas. I'm here. I can go sit at the jail,
you know, with more regularity than anyone else can, you know,
(10:51):
who lives in New York.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
It's a lot more difficult.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So I would go talk to these people multiple times,
you know, get them on our team, get them to
agree to be exclusive until we air, to not do
any other interviews, you know, until It didn't always work,
but that was my pitch, and I would try to
convince them that this was the best thing to do
and this is the best route to take and they
(11:15):
would get the most press if it was an exclusive interview,
and you know I had all sorts of tricks at
my sleeve.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Well, I got a call from forty eight hours twenty
years ago. I was teaching, you know, as I am
now at ut at the University of Texas in Austin,
and they said, we are wondering if you can go
cover a trial that's getting ready to happen. I don't
know if this was considered pre trial time, I guess,
but there wasn't a lot of time. It was the
Coulton Potoniac case that happened, yeah, and it was of
(11:45):
course near campus and everything, and where he is convicted
eventually of murdering a female acquaintance of his and that's
still a very controversial case. And so that's when I
kind of got a quick summary of what was to happen,
which was we found out this trial is happening. It's
been on our calendars. Now we'd like to try to
lock people in, just like you said, before the trial starts.
(12:06):
So I thought it was so interesting where you know
they're coming in and maybe you can illuminate a little
bit of this for the audience that you have these
producers who are coming into town or the correspondence. Sometimes
it's not very far in advance, and then the trial starts,
and so it feels very much like you guys have
been with them for months and months or years and years,
and then you kind of start to realize, oh, wow,
(12:27):
this is this was something that happened. Once the trial
was ready to go, there weren't going to be any delays.
And so I wasn't able to do it because I
had a teaching schedule and I just didn't want to
bag out on my on my schedule at that point.
But I was disappointed. So tell me how that would
work if you find out that, Okay, I like Karen
Reid write in Boston, which is now on its second trial,
(12:50):
what would the procedure be. Do you have would you
have had a lot of advanced notice or do they
keep a calendar of trials coming up? What happens?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Oh? Do they ever keep a calendar?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
It is a very detailed calendar all over the country.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Not a Google calendar. I'm assuming it's pretty big, yes, yes,
And who's.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Going where when and why? And there's always backups. You know,
this is the person that's going. This is the backup
if someone gets sick or they have a family issue
and they can't come. Because you have to cover these
trials if you want to be you know, a network
true crime show and get all the big interviews and stories,
you have.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
To have a game plan.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
So yeah, they have it all mapped out, and they
a lot of times like to use people that are
local so that they don't have to fly in you know, personnel,
and put them up in hotels and give them per
dems and you know, this all goes into the budget.
So yeah, if you had been able to do this,
you would have been a field producer. Who would you know,
(13:51):
be sitting in the trial taking notes, glad handing people
in the hallways, trying to take people to lunch, take
people to coffee, get them out of the courthouse and
book them to get them, you know, to sit sit
down for an interview. And because you know, a high
profile trial is going to have so many different members
(14:12):
of the media, the goal was always to get them
out of the courthouse alone, you know, in a restaurant,
in a coffee shop somewhere where you could have like
a private conversation about the case and hopefully get some
type of verbal agreement, you know, that they would work
with you and do an interview, and we always just
(14:34):
tried to go for you know, the exclusive.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Until we air kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So, yeah, the idea that you know, we know most
people are going to talk again about their story, their
involvement in a case, and you know, it's not really
realistic that somebody would only ever talk to you about
a case, and we don't actually need that, you know,
we just need for our bosses and everything else. We
just wanted that first interview that we could call an
(15:01):
exclusive because it wasn't appearing anywhere else, and then after
we aired, you know, they could do whatever other shows
they wanted to do, but.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
That was what we went for.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
It didn't always work, and you know, especially if they
were like they worked for the prosecution, and you know,
they wouldn't most of the time agree to anything like
that because they were employees of the state, right and
so they didn't want to look like they were giving favoritism.
But we could usually get one or two people who
(15:34):
were going to be on the episode to be exclusive,
and that would be enough to convince, you know, our
bosses that we had something unique on this story. A
big problem for us is that we aired on Saturday
nights and ABC and Dayline ABC twenty twenty and Dateline
NBC air on Friday night, so we had to be
(15:56):
a whole week ahead of them, and they only had
to be a day ahead of us, So it was
it was definitely a challenge. You know that that timing
was so difficult, but we tried. You wouldn't think it'd
be that hard to get people to wait a week,
but it was actually quite hard.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
And let's draw a distinction. I tell my students I
teach a true crime podcast class at UT. Let's draw
a distinction between the stuff that Dateline twenty twenty and
forty eight Hours produces, which is from a news station,
versus some of the things that we see on the
streamers documentaries. As far as what do the interviewees get
(16:34):
out of this, Yes, it's not a payment from news.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Correct. Yeah, so we don't pay for interviews.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
We you know, are only doing this as a journalistic enterprise,
and we ask people to give us an interview, but
we cannot pay them because if we pay them, you know,
suddenly we're entertainment and they're trying to please us, and
they're going to say what they think we want to hear,
and so it's just completely against our our news standards
(17:01):
to pay them. Now, we we would say we didn't
want people to incur any costs for doing the interview.
So you know, if there were a situation where they
didn't have transportation to the interview site, we could send
a car, you know, if they're you know, we sometimes
we would fly people to New York to do the
interview because there's so much you know, heat and pressure
(17:22):
in their hometown.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
And also it was actually.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Cheaper for us a lot of times to fly someone
to New York and do it in our studio where
everybody is based, and you know, so that sometimes is
an incentive we could give them, but was still within
our CBS news standards. So that is a surprise to
a lot of people who think that they will get
paid to be on our show. So that was a
(17:45):
very common conversation.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
That I had with people.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
One of the things that I like about forty Hours,
and I'm not saying the other folks don't do this,
but I feel like you all really do to go
above and beyond in getting the actual players in the story,
getting the family on both sides, the alleged killer and
the victim's family, And oftentimes I'll see on shows, not
(18:14):
necessarily the other two big ones, but just in general
where it's pretty much all neighbors and investigators and maybe
an attorney or two and that's it. So it's very
clear that either people said no or they were not
pursued to begin with. Do you think that that is
a thing or am I imagining that with forty eight
hour mysteries?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
You're not imagining it.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That is definitely our goal is to talk to someone
on all sides of the story, and the closer we
can get to, you know, the heart of the case,
the better. So the closer they were to the victim,
to the suspect, you know, that's our number one goal
is to get as close as we possibly can. I
(18:54):
talk about this in the book, because you know, there's
some stories that are just too big that we have
to cover, no matter who is willing to talk to us.
An example of that was the Alec Murdoch case in
South Carolina. We had to do that story. Everybody was
doing it. I was marooned in South Carolina that summer.
(19:14):
You know, we kind of have this phrase where we say,
like we'll interview the janitor if we have to anyone
who has some kind of connection to the story that
can give us any kind of access. And so that
was one of those cases where we couldn't get anyone
from the Murdoch family to participate. We really wanted to,
but we couldn't, and they were the victim and the suspect. Yeah,
(19:37):
so you know, we are grasping for any kind of
source that we could get. You know, we got some investigators,
we got people who lived in the area, you know,
to talk about it. I think we interviewed a law
professor in South Carolina to talk about, you know, the
uniqueness of the case. But that is very much a
(19:58):
last resort. That's not what we want to do. And
our bread and butter shows we're talking to the victim's
close family, surviving spouse, parents, you know, someone like that,
and we're talking to hopefully the suspect themselves. That was
always my goal was to go in there and get
the person accused of this crime to speak in their
(20:18):
own words, and that was not always possible because they'd
have high powered attorneys who would say absolutely not. But
a lot of times you know, either through the attorneys
or through the suspect themselves.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
You know, I was able to win them over.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
That's a lot of pressure for a producer. As a producer,
I was at WCBS and I was at ABC Radio.
You know, as a producer, I felt pressure certainly, But
in that time period I didn't have an entire show
writing on my shoulders. That just seems like incredibly stressful
to not only pursue and try to lock that in,
but just kind of going, Okay, I'm just gonna have
(20:55):
to do this when the trial starts and try to
get these people exclusively and then try to all them
away from dateline in twenty twenty. It just it seems
like a lot of pressure for somebody, especially a young producer.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It definitely was a lot of pressure. I think I
didn't know any better. Like I it was my first
job in television, and you know, my boss would be like,
we have to have the killer, and I was just
sort of like, well, I guess we got to have them,
you know, and I just kind of went all in
with it. But I would later learn that even when
we didn't get the killer, a lot of times there
(21:28):
would be so much propelling the story forward that we
would still go to air even without the killer, but
the killer was the bullet proofing of the story. If
we had the killer talking, there was no way that
story was getting canned. We were gonna make it even
if we got scooped by Dateline and they aired first.
You know, if we had the killer exclusive until we aired,
(21:50):
then that story was going to go. So that I
really hate wasting my time, and so that really helped
me to know that, well, if I can get the
suspect to go on camera and not to talk to
anyone else until we air, then I will know that
the stories ago and I haven't wasted my time and
I'll get to do it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
And that meant a lot to me.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
But if they have a good attorney, they're not going
to I mean, I would never let my client talk
to you guys before the trial, maybe not even after
the trial, maybe when all the appeals are done.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, you wouldn't believe the way.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You know, some attorneys will believe that it isn't the
best benefit of their client. So that was that was
always my favorite. The attorneys that really thought that, yeah,
this will help, we need to get our narrative out there. Yeah,
I was working every angle, you know, I could come
up with. In a lot of times, the district attorney,
(22:43):
the prosecutor, if it was a high profile case, they
would give press conferences about the case. They would talk
about the character of the suspect and how this was
a cold blooded murder and you know, all these different statements,
and so I would use that, you know, with the
defense and be like, well, the prosecutution is talking, the
prosecution is trying this case in the media, they're putting
(23:04):
all of this out on the record ahead of trial.
Don't you want to match them step first step? And
if they're going to talk, you know, why wouldn't you talk.
And if you're going to talk, well, why wouldn't you
let your clients speak for themselves. And you can be
in the room and you can object to any question
that we ask, and you know, usually what would happen
is they would maybe object to something in the beginning,
(23:27):
and then they would just completely fade into the background
and let us do our whole interview. I never had
a defense attorney that like stopped an interview or materially
like changed our interview style or questions. Like it was
always once we got them in the room and the
lights were up and the cameras were rolling. The defense
(23:47):
attorney really faded to the background.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
And I think at least you guys probably Dateline too,
have had those interviews show up in court.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, we have.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Either're using them as an exhibit, and you would think
it would teach a defense attorney better safe than sorry.
It's like putting your client on the stand is usually
not a good idea. So I am shocked. Do you
remember a case where that happened, where all of a sudden,
somebody from forty eight hours goes, oh, that's my story
as exhibit A.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yes, so that happened in the Michelle Williams case in fact,
because she did not take the stand, but they entered
our entire episode into evidence and they played her speaking
parts in court.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
So they found that relevant. I wonder what the counter
argument from the defense attorney would be if he signed
on to it. Do you remember was there an argument?
Speaker 2 (24:40):
So he was not actually the defense attorney at the
time that we did the interview. She had a different
attorney that was like a personal attorney, didn't even typically
do criminal defense. I mean, it was just all sorts
of unusual stuff. But yes, you know, I found that
except for the super high pro file defense attorneys like
(25:01):
the Dick Degarins of the world, we usually have like
one or two cases with this defense attorney, Like, they
don't come up over and over again because these cases
are so unusual. And so if it's a small town
and you know, this is our first time meeting with
this defense attorney, we have a better chance of getting
(25:23):
them to agree to let their client do an interview,
because well, they've never had anything like this happened to
them before. They've never had, you know, a big producer
ask them these questions, and they've never had this kind
of opportunity. You know, a lot of times it starts
with just getting the defense attorney themselves to agree to
the interview, and once we have that, you know, it's
(25:47):
just one more step to get their client on camera.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I feel like I've almost never seen it work positively,
except in the case of Karen Reid.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, where in.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Between the trials they release this documentary and I have
to say, regardless of how you feel, did she actually
intentionally run over her boyfriend who was a Boston cop.
You know, regardless of how anybody feels about her, guilt
or innocence. She did a great job on that documentary. Yeah,
and it's become this weird touchstone at least this year
where you have you know, pro police protesters or rally people,
(26:25):
and then you've got pro Karen Reid, and it's just
become this big thing. And I think a lot of
it is based on her personality, the way she presents
for better or for worse, and so I think that
actually has helped her maybe, but I don't think it
helps anyhills. I've never seen it.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, it is a tall order to have an interview
pre trial help you as as the defendant. But yeah,
sometimes they just can't resist the temptation to have an
audience of millions of people to get to share their story.
You know something else I would use to book people
would be this is not a court of law. Whenever
(27:02):
you decide whether or not to testify, you're gonna have
all sorts of rules and restrictions, and you know you
have to be cross examined, Like this is not that.
This is television. You control your own narrative here exactly.
You don't have to answer any question you don't want to.
You don't have to you know, be subject to this
interview if you choose to walk out. Of course we'll
(27:24):
be recording if that happens, and it does. Side note, No,
we don't tell them that part, but I mean they
know they know that we're recording the whole time. But
I of course would emphasize the fact that this is
not like testifying in court. This is entirely voluntarily you know, done,
and this is your chance to get to talk about
things that you want to and not talk about anything
(27:46):
you don't want to.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Were you, I think you're way too young for this.
I'm wondering if you were around when they pretty dramatically
switched the format of forty eight hours. It was not
always true crime, but when it was true crime, they
did it in three pieces, and I think it was
like twenty twenty twenty or you know, with commercial breaks,
so it was like the victim's point of view or
the family the killer's point of view, and then I
(28:12):
feel like it was prosecutors investigators, and it was such
an interesting way to tell that story where you're not
pinging back and forth. It is just like one hundred
percent of focus on that one focus. And then it
became you know, a typical hour but well done true
crime show. Do you know anything about that format? I
just I loved it. I thought it was great.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, I don't that was before my time. It does
sound very unique and interesting, though, I mean, I just
know the history of forty eight hours.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Like it started out.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
They were going to do a documentary in forty eight hours,
So they were going to film for forty eight hours straight.
And they did this all over the country and it
was a okay program. But what really pushed them to
success is they did it in Austin. They were doing
a ride along with an Austin police officer and he
(29:00):
bonded to what he thought was a fire call at
a yogurt shop and it ended up being the yogurt
chop murders. The teenagers that were tied up and killed
and the yogurt chop and it's still unsolved to this day.
And the cameras were rolling that whole time. So that
and that was their most watched episode, you know, of
forty eight hours, and so that's what pushed the format
(29:22):
into being true crime all the time.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
That was more than thirty years ago. I mean, I
I you know, I was in high school when that happened. Yeah,
I do remember that now. Man, that's it's still I
think they're getting closer, but it's it's still an unsolved case. Okay.
And then why does forty eight do one hour when
I feel like Dateline gets longer and longer. I mean,
(29:47):
I don't really remember the last time I've seen a
one hour Dateline. They're always at least two hours, I think.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, you know, our time slot is one hour. That's
what the network has given us. That's what they, you know,
have ordered from us. And we can occasionally get a
two hour special, but usually what we do is we
just air an episode back to back. Okay, so we
don't you know, that just hasn't been our format. They
(30:16):
seem to really want us to stick with a one
hour and that has always been from up top, you
know that That's how it comes down that they want
these one hour long shows, and we certainly see Dateline
doing those.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Two hour episodes.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
We feel like, you know, a lot of times we
would talk about how it would be a better show
if it was one hour, because they're like filler and
there's all this recap like after every commercial break, like
just in case you're joining us, let's tell you everything
that happened and so that you know, as a producer,
as a writer, it doesn't sound very appealing actually to write,
(30:52):
to have to take something that we could tell tightly
in an hour and stretch it out into two hours.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
But you know, God bless them.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
They get the ad dollars, they get more commercial breaks,
they get you know, double the budget.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Then go for it.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Well, I can never say anything against Stateline only because
I Keith Morrison is just the most amazing person effort
and I just am crazy about when he is the correspondent.
I for sure pay attention and watch that episode, and
I think it becomes atmospheric. I think, you know when
they do that, they have to. They spend so much
(31:28):
time in the town and everything. But you know, at
the same time, I certainly think you all move at
a faster clip. So let's talk about So you get
there and you're thinking, I'm in the big leagues now,
and how old were you when you started at forty
and eight twenty nine? Okay, so you get there, and
what did you think it was going to be like?
And then what was it actually like for you?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Do you remember I was surprised at how much travel
there was. I think in my mind, I thought, well,
I'm their Texas bace producer. I'm going to be doing
a lot of things just right in my own backyard.
But Texas is so big, and I would you know,
oftentimes need to get on a plane to get somewhere
(32:10):
in Texas in time for what they needed. And then
you know, they realized that I'm living so close to
DFW Airport and it has a lot of direct flights
places all over the country that I could get there
faster than people from New York and so I would
be you know, dispatched to South Carolina to Florida to
(32:32):
Colorado because I could be there first, and if there
was something big happening, you know, they needed boots on
the ground, I would be sent. And you know, I
started packing a go bag that had every you know,
because it was too much. There's no time to pack, right, Yeah,
I had to go back too. Yeah, you know, I
think like the whole secret agent element of it was surprising,
(32:52):
Like the idea that it would be like one way ticket.
You're leaving, you know when's the next flight, and you
don't know when you're coming back because you're come back
once you get the story once you get people to
agree to interviews.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
That was surprising to me.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I thought it would be more like my other jobs
in media, which you know, did not involve cross country
travel and one way tickets. You know, everything was pretty
clearly defined. If you are ever going somewhere for a story,
it was you know, it was really more for like
a conference that you would go somewhere. It wasn't really
a lot of travel involved for the reporting.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
And then the competition.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
I had no idea how competitive it was between forty
eight hours Dateline and twenty.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Twenty and you know, the war games and.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
People don't fight fair, and there's all sorts of subterfuge
that goes on. That's really why I wanted to write
the book, was to show people what it's really like
to work in true crime TV. How you know, we
get these stories on the air, what we do to
convince people to talk to us, and you know, the
kinds of things that happen off care in every case
(34:02):
that never make air, but sometimes are even more interesting,
you know than the murder themselves.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Did you all ever work together other than a pool camera,
which I'm assuming you probably had to do a pool
camera at some point, which which means basically, the court says,
we'll let one camera in and you all have to
share the footage. Which was my favorite because then I
have to deal with all of that when.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I was in the field totally.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, the pool camera was about as close as we
came to working together. I mean, the stories I talked
about in the book. You know, it's producers saying things
to you know, family members about me. It's people who
are you know, saying oh, yeah, we're with we're working
with Claire, but they're actually working against me. People don't
(34:48):
realize it till the show, but the interview, where's Claire?
You know, Oh, she'll be here later. And then they
do the interview and they call me like what was that.
I'm like, that's not me. I don't work for that show,
you know, And I mean that kind of stuff happened.
So it was very interesting and it added a whole
new element to the job.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
And I bet you were picture perfect, the epitome of
kindness when you were out there too.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Oh of course, now read the book.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Trust me, I tell on myself at least as much
as anybody else. I think, you know, any good memoir
is honest and it shows the good, the bad, and
the ugly.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
And you know, I'm I'm not a girl scout. I
have that in the book.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I've done things that you know, I never expected to
put in a book and admit to. But I do
feel like, you know, working in national television and working
for a prestigious show, you know, does to like a
competitive driven person like myself, is that it'll push you
to your limits and you'll end up doing things you
(35:49):
never thought you'd do because you want to get the
story and you want to be successful and you're at
such a you know, hyper focused level that a lot
of times, you know, you look back at it and
you're like, I can't believe that really happened. You know,
it's it's not something without the heat of battle, you
(36:10):
know that you would have ever agreed to.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
But then you're like, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
You know. So writing the book was very therapeutic, and
it really helped me put things in perspective and process.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
You know a lot of things that happened.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
You know, when you're working in news, it's like drinking
from a fire hose and you barely have a chance
to think about what you did before because you got
to move on to your next story, and so I
really appreciated the chance to go back and look at,
you know, some of my biggest stories and how they
all came together.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Well, let's talk about your stories. What was kind of
the first big one that you feel like you tackled
assertively and with confidence and it was, you know, great
for the bosses, And then maybe we can talk about
one that you thought this could have gone better or
just sort of the part of it. I mean, I
certainly can imagine interviewing killers, convicted killers and just like
(37:05):
giving them a platform, and that must not have felt
good for certain instances.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
So the story that I'm the most proud of and
that I felt like was really forty eight hours at
its best and me doing what I do best is
the episode with Judge Julie Kusurik from Travis County. She
was is a district judge and she survived an assassination
attempt and it was just incredible. We did a live
(37:34):
to tell episode with her where she spoke, you know,
directly to the camera and gave her first person experience
of surviving this horrific attack, you know, in front of
her own home in front of her son, you know,
her fifteen year old son. And I worked for I
want to say, like three or four years to get
(37:55):
her to agree to do this interview. It was one
of my longest bookings ever. And I just knew that
her story was so powerful and I loved that, you know,
she was a fighter and she had you know, been
shot in the head, had used her own hands to
(38:17):
shield the gunfire, and you know, had lost a finger
in the process, barely survives, is in the ICU and
files for reelection from her hospital bed. Wow, And I
was like, what, what a hero. You know, this is
an incredible woman. And so I just wanted to meet her,
you know, on a personal level because I just thought
(38:39):
that was so admirable and you know, that was incredible
to just get to shake her hand and you know,
tell her, you know that I was so glad that
that she was this model of strength, and you know,
I just think she's just a great role model for
people everywhere. And the fact that she was their first
(39:00):
female district judge in Travis County, you know, it doesn't
hurt either. So that that was another just big bonus
for that story for me, and so we were able
to get her to participate. Her fifteen year old son,
you know who at this time I think was now
eighteen or nineteen, you know, participated. We had everybody, you know,
(39:23):
the killer himself was in federal prison and had been convicted,
so we didn't do an interview with him, but we
had all of the police cooperation and you know, the
whole file, and it was just.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
A really extensive investigation.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
You know, the FBI was involved and everybody got involved
in Yeah, that's one of my proudest stories.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Did you roll against him? Is that what the motive was?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
So, yes, he was a defendant in her courtroom, he
had actually misunderstood what was going on in his case,
and she was getting onto the attorneys for not working
diligently filing the proper paperwork on time. And she was
basically telling these attorneys, if you don't get your act together,
(40:15):
I'm just I'm gonna have to dismiss this case because
you're not doing what you need to do. You're not
doing it, you know, you keep asking for continuances and like,
I'm not happy. Well, the defendant misunderstood what was happening.
This was all revealed during his trial, and he held
his head in his hands and cried when he realized
that the whole motive for the murder was a complete misunderstanding.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
But yeah, can you believe it?
Speaker 2 (40:41):
It's really I mean you talk about senseless, This was
completely senseless. And yeah, he misunderstood. She was chastising the
attorneys and was moving toward dismissing his case. And he thought,
the judge is mad. Judge doesn't like me. It's not
going to end well for me. I better just take
(41:01):
this into my own hands.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yea, What is a case that you covered for forty
eight hours that was the most difficult for you? Just
maybe emotionally or the hardest interviews anything like that.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
In the book, I talk about being dispatched to the
Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. That
was the worst for me. I say that Parkland broke me.
I was never the same after Parkland. I flew out
there on Valentine's Day, the day that the shooting happened, stayed.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
There all week.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
It was awful, I mean, just to see what the
town was going through.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
To be there right as you know.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
People are still hospitalized trying to find out who's going
to survive. They're trying to figure out what to do
with the schools a crime scene. It just felt so
wrong to me to be there. And I had never
felt like an intruder as a member of the media before.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
I always felt like I'm doing a public service.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I am giving answers to people who need them. I
am speaking up, you know, and getting access to things
that the public has a right to ask for. And
I'm making sense of this tragedy, and you know, I'm
asking the tough questions. And when I was in Parkland,
I just felt like I shouldn't be there.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
I felt too early.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
It felt like the media vulture that I never wanted
to be, and I had a really hard time there,
and then just afterward with like what am I doing
with my life? It was the beginning of the end.
I didn't quit for four more years because it's hard
scary to quit, you know, especially, you know, whenever you've
(42:53):
worked so hard in your career and you're at a
place that you feel like is the pinnacle, and then
to walk away, you know, is very difficult decision. So
but Parkland is what turned the tide for me. It
took me a little while, but I just couldn't do
it anymore.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
I can imagine that would be the case. I've covered
school shootings before, and it's awful. You see these stages
of grieving right in front of you. You know, you
had people who didn't want to talk at all, they
were so upset, And then the students would want to
talk to you, and then after a while they were like,
get the hell out of here. We don't want you
here anymore. You know, they just it was over, and
they were unplugging our trucks and yea, the live streams
(43:32):
from our trucks. But I had a student at UT
who was a graduate student in the Radio Television Film department,
and she made a fantastic kind of visitor master's project,
a fantastic film about the church shooting that happened in
Sutherland Springs, which happened in twenty seventeen. Twenty six people killed.
It was a Baptist church, and she did it on
(43:55):
the deluge of media that came and how it made
the town so incredibly resentful. It was like and they
would show video it was like twenty cameras around two
people who were praying, and it's the same shots and
they're right over them. It was based on a letter
that a Dallas Morning News reporter wrote as an op
(44:18):
ed piece that just it's an apology letter to the
town of Sutherland Springs and said, I'm sorry if I
even you know, remotely added to that. And so that
that film really, for me was kind of a big
wake up call. And then she gets to interview all
of the family members will not all of them, but
many of the survivors from that church service, including the
(44:38):
pastor who lost almost his entire family. And you know,
it was very much like, we want the good journalists,
We want the ones who respect our boundaries, you know.
And I think that the Dallas Morning News reporter kept
up with them. And she goes back for the anniversaries
with no camera, no anything. They want to see an
investment in some way. And and you know, you don't
(45:01):
have time working for a network or a local station.
But we have to figure out how to make time,
is what I kind of concluded. But that's hard. And
I was going to ask you, how do you know when?
How did you know when to get out? I mean
you still went for four more years? Yeah, how do
you give up an opportunity that just thousands of people
would kill for to work for a network like that.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah, you know, the pandemic really pushed me over the edge.
I think, like a lot of people, it just challenged
my views of work and what you know, I wanted
my daily life to look like. And so the pandemic
was the first time that I wasn't traveling near constantly
(45:44):
for work and I was home with my family, and
I realized, you know, I kind of like these people.
I would like to be around more than just a
visiting cast member and always have a half packed suitcase
in the corner.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
I just wanted to see could I tell stories and
be home most of the time. And you know, I
wanted a way out of the cycle that I was in,
where I was juggling eight murder cases at a time,
looking at you know, my calendar, got to go for
(46:19):
this pre trial, hearing oh the trial's going to start here.
Oh this is where we're going to start filming, and
you know, it was just complete chaos, you know, and
I didn't want to live that way anymore. And so
I started thinking about projects that I could do in
the true crime space, because that's where I lived, and
that was my specialty and that was, you know, the
(46:40):
kind of stories that I knew so well and wanted
to tell. And so, you know, I started my podcast
in twenty twenty one, Final Days on Earth, and then
you know, I had the idea for the book, and
I had an idea for my own true crime docuseries
that's now in production that I sold to a cable network.
So I had these ideas that I wanted to do,
(47:03):
and none of them, you know, would be possible to
do while I was still at CBS. So I knew
I had to leave to make space for other things
in my life, other good things. And you know, I'll
always be grateful to CBS for the years that I
spent there and the experience that I had and the
lessons that I learned. And I'm I know, I couldn't
be where I am today without that kind of experience,
(47:25):
and I'm you know, I'm glad that I was there,
but I'm very glad.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
To have left.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Yeah, And I think that wherever you work, whatever the
format is, you know, it sort of shapes what your
POV is for the narrative. I certainly when I had
worked in the past on crime stories like Gary Condon
and you know, some of these really big stories. I
think we were definitely more killer focused, and I have
(47:52):
worked really hard to now be victim focused. I think
learning about the killer, of course, is important, and it's
a lot a reason why a lot of people listen
to your show, my shows, because you know, they want
to know, they want to get inside the mind of
these people. But you know, at the same time, I
found myself becoming very desensitized to the stories that I
(48:13):
was telling, and when I started writing books and then
getting involved with you know, our network, exactly right network,
and you know, just in general, I really tried to
change my tune. And now, while it's uncomfortable for me,
I definitely lean into being not desensitized, because when you
do that, then they're characters, especially for me, they're in history,
but they still matter. And so was that kind of
(48:35):
a feeling that you would end up having too, I mean,
there have to be some cases besides Parkland, even where
you just kind of went shit, I don't want to
do this, this is too hard. I don't want to
talk about this mom who just lost her children or
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah, I think talking to the victims' families over and
over again was a trauma. Yeah, you know, I wanted
to be sensitive, I wanted to be empathetic, and I
feel like in a lot of ways, I got so
emotionally attached to these people that it probably wasn't the
(49:10):
healthiest thing for me to be, you know, that close
to all of this trauma that wasn't mine. And I
think that was something that was really difficult for me,
is I felt so deeply for these moms who had
lost their kids, and you know, it was just really
(49:33):
hard to not think about that and to not you know,
really take on a lot of their grief. And I
know that it wasn't mine to take on, yet just
being in such close contact with them for so long,
it just started to feel really heavy. And even though
(49:56):
I had developed like these friendships and these you know,
relationships and connections with them, it's still felt in some
ways like exploitative, like, you know, and I didn't want
to have to ask them for anything again, you know.
And so there's a lot of nuance and a lot
of complexity to it. I do think that many of
(50:19):
the victims' families found it to be cathartic to speak
to us and found that there was a way for
them to take back this story and to do something
good with it. You know, their foundations that people have started,
there's scholarships, there's nonprofits, and I think highlighting those, you know,
(50:42):
at the national level with the platforms that we have,
you know, really did positively impact those projects. And I
think that a lot of people who are faced with
this unbelievable tragedy and violence and complete turn in the
road are looking for a positive outlet for how they're
(51:03):
feeling and something new to channel their their energy into.
And so sometimes you know, those types of side projects
that they did in the name of their loved ones.
You know, that really was a silver lining to the
whole experience, and I felt good about the fact that
we could bring attention to that, but the whole on balance,
(51:26):
you know, having to call them to meet with them,
to try to convince them to go on national television
and talk about this murder. You know, that's that's a
very difficult thing to do.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Do you feel like the attorneys and I know you
had a lot of attorneys we had a WCBS, and
I found them mostly annoying, but that's because they were
doing their job. So you know, you've got all these attorneys,
You've got executives who are not working directly with these stories,
who are screening things and okaying, do you think that
they understood kind up the gravity of reporting on these
(52:02):
sorts of stories that are so kind of intimate and
they're violent and it's many times men murdering women. Do
you think they saw them as just sort of these
stories like a political story or anything else, or do
you think they all understood that this was these were
people's lives and you know, they needed to make responsible decisions.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
I definitely don't think they all understood that. I think
it definitely varied attorney to attorney. I would say like
for the most part, it always felt very clinical with them,
like this was a job. This was professional, you know,
not an emotional thing. It was very rare for it
to feel like a personal, you know, emotional human thing.
(52:46):
For me. With the attorneys, it really felt like, well,
it was a fascinating case. This is so unusual from
a legal perspective, and I mean, it is all those things,
and maybe that's what you want in an attorney, you know,
like this dispassionate it legal mind, but it definitely was challenging,
you know, as a producer and just as a human
(53:07):
being thinking about you know, these cases, and a lot
of times attorneys or police officers they would only really
have like one case like this in their career. This
really over the top, you know, murder for hire, this
like cover up, you know, stage, crime scene, all these
different elements. This is not just a typical shooting where
(53:31):
someone died or you know, I mean it sounds funny
to say typical, but there's all kinds of murder out there, right,
and the like most common crime is just some sort
of misunderstanding, a robbery gone wrong, a drug deal gone wrong,
and you know, the gun goes off and people run, right.
But if we're doing an hour of television on it,
it's got lots more than that. And so you know,
(53:55):
I would find that these you know, attorneys or these
police officers, they would be so captivated by the uniqueness
of this one particular case that was rising to the
attention of you know, the national television shows. But we
would be working on cases like that every day, Yeah,
because we would be going across you know, all all
(54:15):
fifty states and you know, all these different counties and
finding the weirdest, wildest crime that ever happened there, and
so we would just go from extremely unusual, unique, bizarre,
twisted murder case to another one that was, you know,
just as compelling in a different way in a different city.
(54:38):
And so I think, as the producers and the people
working on this show, I feel like we saw more
of these twisted crimes than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
Yeah. I think one of the things I emphasize to
journalism students and really journalists I work with too, that
I've learned so much is, you know, when you do
a story, a true crime story like this in a
journalistic setting, that you must be able to explain clearly
why this story will resonate with everyone. What is it
that teaches us? And I do think that forty eight
(55:09):
hours does a great job. You know, I've watched the
Bianca Devins story that they did probably four or five times,
you know, which is about the murder of a four
young woman who you know, her family is just still
harassed constantly by online stalkers. And you know the Michelle Carter,
who you know, had I think just got released a
(55:30):
couple of years ago, Yeah, for encouraging her friend slash
boyfriend to take his own life. These cases where you
have to be able to say, this is what we
learn from crime. This is why we're telling you the story.
It's not to shock you or to delate you or anything.
It's because you can learn something right. And I feel
like that's the difference between a quality outlet that will
(55:51):
tell you a story versus some of these streamers. While
I'll watch and the title will be kind of icky,
and I watch the family and then I'll see the
of the victims, and then I'll see the reenactments and go,
I just don't think they would have liked this. Yeah,
I don't think they would have signed off on this
if they knew that it was going to be this graphic.
So did you feel like that similarly, I mean in
(56:14):
the world of true crime, where do you put forty
eight hours in actually any of the other network shows
twenty twenty or Dateline or anything else? Where do you
put them in the realm of icky true crime?
Speaker 2 (56:23):
You know, I always thought, you know, that we were
doing true crime the right way, that we were telling
the story responsibly, that we were you know, being an
advocate for the victims, that we were trying to get
to the heart of the matter and to tell stories
of justice being served, even you know, in the face
of tragic circumstances. You know, there's not more murder because
(56:47):
there's shows about murder, but you know more about these
murders because of the television shows. And I wanted to
be part of, you know, shining a light in dark places,
in doing the hard good work that goes into telling
stories of life and death.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
I mean, what could be more impactful.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
I feel like, you know, as a journalist than to
talk about you know, lives lost and you know the
legacy that they leave behind, and I feel like there's
a lot.
Speaker 3 (57:18):
Of good that goes on in these shows now.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
At the same time, I think every one of these
shows is capable of going in the wrong direction. They're
capable of covering a story that maybe they had no
business covering that, you know, maybe they didn't give the right.
Speaker 3 (57:38):
Angle to you know.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
I mean, I know that that happens, and I've seen
it happen, and I've been part of it, and I've
hated it. Right, So, I mean, it's a challenging thing
to report on something as serious as murder, you know.
I mean it's not something that I take lightly, and
I don't think that Anyone who does this job the
(58:00):
right way, you know, takes it lightly. But I think
there's a certain level of like, once it becomes kind
of groundhog Day and this is your job and it
starts to seem normal to you, and you get desensitized
to it. Yeah, And you know that's whenever I think
you're in danger of, you know, being on the wrong side,
(58:22):
the icky side of true crime.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget There are
twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast Tenfold More
Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexus
(58:59):
m Rosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode
was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer,
artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Listen to Wicked Words on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
(59:20):
Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold More Wicked, and
on Facebook at wicked words pod
Host
Kate Winkler Dawson
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