January 15, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, welcomes distinguished street-level journalist, Laura Ingle back to Zone 7 to discuss the realities of “boots on the ground” reporting. Laura shares stories from her career covering high-profile cases like the Scott Peterson trial, the Long Island Serial Killer, and the Miracle on the Hudson. Sheryl and Laura also tease her upcoming podcast, The Ingle Edit, a platform to share untold stories and in-depth reporting from her decades-long career.
Laura Ingle is an investigative reporter who has covered the Peterson case from the beginning. She reports for Fox News and NewsNation. Ingle received an Edward R. Murrow award in 2005 for her 2004 Scott Peterson trial coverage and was awarded four Golden Mikes from the Southern California Association of Television and Radio News Directors.
Listeners can learn more about Laura on X @lauraingle and IG @lauraingletv
Show Notes:
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(0:00) Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
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(1:00) Sheryl welcomes Laura Ingle back to Zone 7
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(2:00) The challenges of “boots on the ground” reporting
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(5:00) Covering the Trump trial
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(12:15) Miracle on the Hudson
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(14:30) Long Island Serial Killer (LISK)
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(20:00) The Ingle Edit: Laura’s new podcast
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(24:00) Revisiting the Scott Peterson case
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(26:45) Retracing the steps of Rachel Morin
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(30:00) Revisiting Tupac’s shooting
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(35:00) Power in a support system
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(36:00) ”And, you know, sometimes if you, if you doubt yourself and you've got somebody that believes in you, it pushes you on to that next level.”
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(36:30) ”The profession of journalism ought to be about telling people what they need to know, not what they want to know.” -Walter Cronkite
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Thanks for listening to another episode! If you’re loving the show and want to help grow the show, please head over to Itunes and leave a rating and review!
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Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a collaboration between universities and colleges that brings researchers, practitioners, students and the criminal justice community together to advance techniques in solving cold cases and assist families and law enforcement with solvability factors for unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnapping cases.
Social Links:
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Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Y'all. I've got my cases at work. I've got cases
that I cover for the Nancy Gray Show. I've got
cases for the Cold Case Institute, cases for Zone seven.
I've got cases that occasionally other podcasts or other shows
will ask me to cover. And occasionally sometimes I may
(00:29):
blend to sometimes the facts just get a little distorted
in my head. But you know, for Nancy, I may
have a data prep for the podcast. I may have
two days to a week. With the Cold Case Institute,
I may have a year. But when you talk about
these road reporters, these folks that go out and cover
(00:52):
something that is you know, breaking or you know happening
right this second, they have got to funnel a ton
of information quickly, and they've got to be right. So
tonight I have invited Laura engelback to his own seven
because here's the deal. She is a street level reporter.
(01:16):
She is a pro. She covers cases that are active
and unfolding. Sometimes I've seen it. I was just knocked
out recently because she had to travel from her home
in New York out west to cover a case that
was developing. Then she had to leave drive to a
(01:38):
smaller location to do a live hit on a case
that had breaking news and then go back to the
original scene. It was insane to me, and she did
it all flawlessly, without missing a beat. So I just thought,
you know what, We're going to bring her back. Y'all
know where she's the weekend anchor at News Nation. Y'all
(02:00):
have followed her from Scott Peterson to Michael Jackson to Tupac,
So please help me welcome the one and only Laura Inc. Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
What an introduction, Cheryl. Thank you so much for having
me back. It's always so great to be on.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Are you kidding? Let me tell you. I mean I
talked about it, you know, with a few of our
good buddies, and you know, Lauren and I were laughing
because we were like, we should play a game. You know,
where is Laura now? Because there was a period of
time there, honey, you were burning the road up. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
It was a busy year. Twenty twenty four certainly was
busier than most. The news never stops, as we always say,
but man, it just felt like there was a lot
that happened in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
There was a ton and you were front street for
most of it. But you know, it was twenty years
ago that I was teaching college at night as my
part time gig, and I started to hear student after
student they would tell me something and I would say,
where did you hear that? Because I hadn't even heard it,
and they were saying Facebook, and I didn't even know
(03:10):
what that was. But I quickly determined, whatever this Facebook
is is where they are getting their information. If they're
in their twenties, they are not watching the nightly news,
so to speak. Well, once I kind of got into
understanding what social media was, everybody's a reporter kinda because
(03:33):
you're either posting an opinion, you're posting photographs, you're putting
up you know, little videos, and you're telling people and
sometimes you are the one that's sharing something that's out there.
So you're part of the process of making sure people
are getting this information. But for you, here's the biggest difference.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
You have to be right one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And I think people forget that part. Like if they
post right now because I've seen it, you've seen it.
People will share and post that some celebrity has died
and then later they'll go, oh my bad, they're not
dead and no harm. But you can't do that.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
No, we have to vet and double check and source
and make sure that everything is right. And mostly most
of the stories that we are talking about on the
air involve a victim, So you really really don't want
to get it wrong. You want to honor the family
as you are moving through the story, getting new details
(04:35):
as they come, and present it with the you know,
with the grace and with the truth.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well, let's talk about a little bit of that grace
that I witnessed that you have. There was one scene
that you were sent to to cover something political, and honestly,
I mean I probably wasn't even going to watch it.
I'm not a political person, so I watch a ton
of your stuff when it's true crime, but something that
is in the political world whatever. But something happened that
(05:05):
day that was horrifying. I think it impacted you personally.
I think it had the potential to devastate a family,
and you did something almost against your profession. Really, because
(05:25):
I've always heard you know, if it bleeds, it leads, right,
tell us what happened when you were covering Trump?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, Trump, the former president now president elect, was on trial,
as we know, and we've been downtown Manhattan a lot
for his numerous legal cases, and this was in April.
It was April nineteenth, and we were waiting for a
jury to be seated in his trial, and that was
kind of the news of the day. We were waiting
(05:55):
to see, if you know, if we were going to
get this jury seated, and there were a lot of
protesters out. There's a in front of the Manhattan Criminal Court.
There is a line where the reporter stand right across
the street, and then there's this kind of fenced in
area where it's technically a park. You'll see people eat
(06:15):
lunch there in the summertime. It's cold in the winter,
but people will mill about and that's where they kind
of contain the protesters. So earlier in the day we
had seen protesters who people who did not want to
see Donald Trump on trial, with huge flags waving, doing
all that, and then you've got his supporters screaming back
at them. But actually at that moment it had kind
(06:36):
of died down. We were actually near the lunch break.
Things were relatively quiet, and we had just heard that
a jury had been seated. They just got their last
jur I believe was the timing of this and I
heard this blood curdling scream that was right in front
of us, in back of my cameraman, and I turned
(06:58):
and all of us turned and and just didn't quite
understand what we were looking at. And it was a
man on fire and people were screaming, and he was burning,
and he was standing and his arms were outreached, and
at first I thought it was a mannequin, because I
(07:18):
was like, well, there's no way that's actually a person,
because you know, somebody that brought something to this pro
and is just trying to make a point. And then
it was it was quickly evidently clear that this was
actually a human being that was on fire, and we
jumped on the air and as I started in the clip,
I've actually recently rewatched that clip, and they come to
(07:41):
me quickly, and I clearly don't have it together because
I'm looking over and my eyes are wild and I'm
trying to figure out what to do, and they come
back to me and I just kind of took a
beat and said, we've just witnessed somebody set themselves on fire.
And I wanted to be able to show the activity
that was behind my camera because that's where it was
literally right in the back of my cameraman Greg and
(08:03):
I said, turn the camera around and show the cast,
but do not show him on fire and dropping down
to the ground. And they were trying to get fire extinguishers,
and you know, sure there were a lot of police
officers around, but it's not like there was a fire
extinguisher right there in that little concrete patch of this
park ready to go. So people were scrambling to try
(08:24):
and get him out, and officers were hopping the fence
and this is a black wrought iron fence and trying
to get to him. And then he threw up a
bunch of papers, and producers were running to go get
these colorful pieces of paper, and I was starting to yell.
Once I was off camera, I said, don't touch the papers.
You know, we don't know what he threw up in
(08:44):
the air and what is on them. Everybody wanted to
hear see what he had to say. But yeah, we
did turn the camera around, but did not show him
in flames. I think there was a little bit that
was caught of the body being moved onto a gurney
that was covered in the fire retardant. There was a
detective and I still see him today. I don't know
his name, but he is my hero because I watched
(09:06):
him jump over the fence and when no one else did.
I saw him take off his trench coat. It was
freezing that day. He took off his coat and he
threw it over the man to try and get him
out because there wasn't a fire extinguisher, and just we
watched it all together in lifetime, and it wasn't just me.
There were other reporters that were on the air at
the same time, and I know that others did show it.
(09:27):
I tried my best not to protect The first thing
I was thinking about was his family, but also our audience.
You know, there's people walking by having a cup of
coffee in the kitchen. I just didn't want them to
see that, right, And.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Maybe somebody had just walked out and their children are
sitting there like you don't know, But for you in
that moment, that was traumatic for you too. You're thinking
of his mama, You're thinking of your audience. You're thinking
of these people that rely on you to show them
what they need. But not just everything. I mean, you
(10:05):
don't have to tell everything, you don't have to show everything.
I mean, it was clear from the chaos that was
even behind you, that something horrible was happening. And you know,
I just thought that was, in my opinion, that showed
who you really are in that moment.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Well, thank you. I just you know, you do your
best in break and this was crisis coverage, This was
the ATF. I mean, we saw everybody showing up. Then
it became very troublesome because then people started thinking, well,
what if he has a bomb somewhere? Is there somebody
else what? We don't know who just we have absolute
(10:47):
idea what's going on. All we know is that chaos
has just erupted outside of a courthouse where the former
president is on trial, and this guy has a backpack,
he had a fuel canister. We just did not know
what to do other than to do it live and
do it the best we.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Could, which you did. And I think if people really
understood that you went again to cover story A and
story B happened and you had no choice but to
cover it. So you know, what you select, how you
decide to tail, what you decide to tell, and what
you decide to leave out, and you did that in
(11:26):
a split second, and it was extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well, I thank you for that. It was it was
a difficult day for not just me, it was our producers.
We had a huge team of people. You know, this
is Trump facing those felony charges related to the twenty
sixteen hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. So it was
a big case. So we had teams from Washington. We
had my cameraman, who was my live shot cam. Then
(11:50):
I had the rover, which is our guy that roves
around and tries to get people, you know when if
there's anybody else that has a news conference that comes up.
Then you've got the producer in the court that was
outside the court, the producer who was with me, the producer.
You know, there were We had a huge team of people,
as everybody did.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
So listen, honey, that team's important. But you made that call.
So I'm just going to say that for God and
country to hear. But you know it's not always that.
I mean, you've also been on the front line of
seeing something so heroic and unbelievable. Let's talk about the
(12:28):
miracle on the Hudson.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, and we're coming up on another anniversary. It was
January And now that you know my husband, Kenny, you'll
appreciate this. We were on that day looking for an
apartment in New York City and we were running around
in his truck and we had stopped off at the
production company where he was working at the time, and
his cameraman ran out of the building and pounded on
(12:52):
our door. We were just, you know, we were sitting
outside deciding what apartment we were going to go look
at next, and he pounded on the door. Chris Ones
and I'll never forget it, and said, a plane just
went into the Hudson, and he ran off with his camera.
We're like, what do you mean a plane? Like a
small plane, they said, he said, And he turned around
and said, no, a big one. And Kenny and I
looked at each other and we both had our press
passes and we raced over to the Hudson and I
(13:14):
jumped out of the car while Kenny tried to park,
and I called into the station where I was working,
and I was live on the air on my BlackBerry
and I'm watching, so I have this picture. There's only
a couple of pictures of that day, but I do
have a couple where I'm holding my BlackBerry up to
my face and I've got a New York Mets baseball
(13:34):
hat on and I'm for it was the coldest day
in the history of the world. We always say that
for all of us that were there. And there's this
plane floating down the Hudson with the people on the wings,
and where are they going? Is it going to sink?
And then we were watching all of the rescue boats
go into action and all of the ferries trying to
get out there to get these human beings off of
(13:55):
the wings. And yeah, So we witnessed that all those
years ago in two thousand and nine, and then most
recently this January of twenty twenty four, reported on the
anniversary of that and the miracle, the true miracle that
we all witnessed that day in America did as well
on TV that all of those people, all of those
souls were saved.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Oh yeah, thanks to you and all the others. We
all got to witness something I mean obviously historic, but heroic.
I mean, that was unbelievable what was done. It really was.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
When you think about coming over the George Washington Bridge
and think about that bridge and what that would have
looked like had that been taken out, because he flew
right over it. And it was very close. And amen
to him, you know, like hat tip to Solly and
his crew who kept everybody alive that day.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah. Amen, And then you know, proximity. You've covered a
lot with the Long Island serial killer.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yes, yes, we've been. I've been very involved in this
for years through a couple of different networks, podcasts, documentaries
have done. And you know, it's interesting. I was actually
in between gigs, as we say, when there was an
arrest of the suspect in this case, Rex Hiroman. It
was July of twenty twenty three. But when we go
(15:17):
you know, once I got in with News Nation and
we started going to every court case and I finally
got to see him for the first time. And now
I see him all the time when I go into court.
It is such an interesting dynamic to see this man
who is charged with all of these murders that keep
getting piled onto his criminal complaint, and to see this
(15:39):
man because for so long we didn't know who could
this person be, who could possibly be responsible, who could
possibly have done something like this, And you always think,
I mean, we've been doing this a long time, but
you think, oh, it's got to be you know, some boogeyman,
some guy that was under.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
A bridge or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
It got to be this architect that worked on Fifth
Avenue in Manhattan. He lived in massive Pequal Park, he
took the train every day, and you know, that was
the guy, and we just it was so stunning to
learn that. Now to watch him in the courtroom and
he's so big. Oftentimes he needs two sets of handcuffs
to have his hands behind his back. And in this
(16:21):
last court appearance that I saw him at, he was
he was charged with Valerie Mack who we had been
waiting for that one. Parents and adopted parents and family
members were there. And it was probably one of the
most dramatic days in court because that was when we
heard Rex Human speak really for the first time. He
(16:42):
had said, you know, not guilty, your honor, but this
he had a full sentence on this day and said,
your honor, I'm not guilty of these crimes that I'm
being charged with, something to that effect. But it was
a full kind of blurt out and with that with
that thick accent that only long Islanders know when we
heard it. And then I heard this hiss from Valerie
(17:03):
Max's family that I was in the same row and
they were behind me and it was you know, I
can't even say the words that were spoken, but they
were not They didn't buy what he was putting down.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So yeah, well, you know, one thing that sets you
apart to me is that you are a boots on
the ground reporter. You want to go see it, you
want to walk it, you want to smell it, you
want to hear it, you want to understand it. That
changes the story for people because you're not just you know,
standing out in front of a courtroom saying, hey, this
(17:35):
is the deal with the Long Island serial killer. I
even had a chance to get in a car with
you and drive around and go to some of the
spots where the bodies were discovered. It changed the way
I understood the case. That's a gift.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I mean, it is so important. And I watch you
and you lead by example, Cheryl. I mean that's to
watch you too, go to these crime scenes that I've watched.
I've watched your socials through the years, and you just
unless you see it and it looks it always looks
so different. It feels when you're there and when you
and I were together on Long Island at the end
(18:13):
of the year for a wedding. I said, would you
We've got a little bit of time here. I know
this is a little unorthodox, but would you mind it's
raining going with me to Hempstead Lake State Park and
let's go check out, you know, not not in a
you know, a Luki lou way, just to try and
understand it so we can better tell the story for
(18:35):
the people to tell it to, and to hopefully glean
some type of information, because I you know, all all
you have to do is think about Gabby Patito and
think about Red White and Bethoon and that YouTuber that
had you know, they had a solid clue. They had
a solid glance at a vehicle, at her vehicle on
their camera. But you just hope that one piece of
(18:58):
information that you gather, that that you come upon, that
you see a certain way, that you show us in
a certain light, might just be something that triggers a memory.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I'll give everybody a perfect example. When you hear state park,
you think you know, you think you understand, but the
entrance and the exit matter. How far it takes you
to get there matters. What it looks like between this
long entryway to where she was discovered there's a thousand
(19:31):
places he could have put her and Laurie, you and
I saw one where I flat told you, if I
had a body, it'd go right here.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
He didn't go there, and she would I am telling
you she would have never been discovered ever. But that's
not what he did. No.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It is such a large and vast state park, and
there are multiple bodies of water, there are multiple groves
of trees. There's even you know, tennis courts and pickleball,
but forget about that. It's just it's the bodies of water,
it's the forests of the trees. But you know, as
we've talked to a former investigator who worked this scene
(20:10):
originally back in nineteen ninety seven, and my husband, who
is from Long Island, is like he came from the
Southern State Parkway.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I mean, this is like it's.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
A cut through the road where were peaches the victim
identified as Peaches. Where her torso was discovered was in
Hempstead Lake State Park. In quote, I say in quotes
because it was really off of this road that cuts
through the park. And it wasn't the rubber made tub
we've learned was not deep in the woods, but you're right, Cheryl.
(20:40):
I mean when we went there, you thought, well, if
you really wanted to hide it, it would have gone
here or here here. And you'll see some of that,
will you will.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
But let me tell you, I don't even know if
I was supposed to talk about it. But I know
something that's coming, and I want people listen to me
right now to get ready because Laura is fixing to
launch something sometime in twenty twenty five. I don't know
a date, but she's been working on the ingle edit
(21:12):
because here's what she understands. Her day job requires her
to do, like a four maybe a two to four
minute story. Well, you can't talk about Michael Jackson for
two minutes, you can't talk about Moscow for two minutes.
You can't talk about Long Island's heerial killer for two minutes.
You need sometimes forty five. Well, she's going to launch
(21:35):
a podcast that's fixing to knock y'all out because it's
her stories the way she knows that they need to
be told without leaving stuff on the cutting room floor. Now,
I hope I didn't let the cat out of the bag,
But there, y'all, go.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Oh, I appreciate you. I mean, you're my first guest.
I mean, you were the person that I was brainstorming
with about because I you know, through the years, I've
been a reporter since nineteen ninety sive I was a
rock DJ before that, so I've been doing radio for
a long time. I was a news reporter for a
radio station, several radio stations in California, then moved on
to TV. So through the years, I have, Gosh, in
(22:11):
my attic, we have been finding all kinds of things
that just really never saw the light of day that
and now all these stories are re emerging. I could
get into Kerrie Stainer because that was one that I
spent a lot of time with as well, and Michael
Jackson as well, and the San Francisco dog malling trial.
I mean, there's just a lot that I've covered through
(22:32):
my years of reporting, and specifically in these last few years.
And even in that time period where I was in
between gigs, I was still reporting, I was still gathering,
we were still going to these crime scenes and filming.
My husband and I and so we have all of
this material and have really just been trying to figure
out what to do with it, how to do it,
(22:54):
and we've come up with the ingle edit with your help,
sharel and we're going to do this. So we're going
to do this in twenty twenty five. This is our year.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
It's going to be extraordinary. And let me tell you,
as a cold case detective, the media the archives is
something not always go to because there are witnesses that
spoke to a reporter that maybe I didn't even know existed,
that gave great understanding of the victim or the scene
(23:22):
or what happened that may not even be in the report.
So what you're also capturing and keeping almost like this
time capsule for investigators is a money trade.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Well, we'll see what happens with that we've got. You know,
as you were just saying, not Cheryl, I was reminded
by the CD that I just found that I have
been looking for for ten years. I've been looking for
a copy of it, and you would think I would
have had fifteen twenty made. But I had this piece
that I did on Scott Peterson when we were going
to trial, and it was called unfaithful and accused the
(23:57):
case against Scott Peterson, and it was my Edward R.
Murrow winning piece in that report, in that special that
I did. It was all my stuff. It was the
stuff because I lived. I went to Modesto and then
I moved to Redwood City. I got an apartment and
I lived there. I lived there through the duration of
the trial and the sentencing hearing. But to back up,
(24:20):
when Lacy was missing, I know, now nobody's talking, right,
The neighbors don't talk. I even met Karen Servis, the
next door neighbor, in twenty twenty four, and I tried
to get her to talk to me, and she told
me that she couldn't speak on camera. She couldn't talk
because it was an ongoing case.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But all those years ago, in two thousand and three,
when the search was on, in the early stages after Christmas,
even in two thousand and two, there was a neighbor
that talked to me. I remember knocking on the door
and I got a lot. I got away with a
lot as a radio reporter, because if you're not on camera,
more people will talk to you. And it was a
neighbor across the street that told me that she had
(24:58):
had a conversation with Scott Peterson and he had told
her that he had been playing golf. I mean that's
been reported and documented, and it's been on all the documentaries.
But to hear a neighbor say that where it's on
the record, I have it and I'm going to play it.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Wow. And that's what I'm saying. Sometimes y'all capture things
that nobody else can. Everybody doesn't want to talk to
the police, but I don't hardly know anybody that won't
talk to a reporter, especially one like you, like my
buddy Karen Greer, that has this natural ease about them
(25:36):
where people do not feel intimidated, they're not pressured. It's just, hey,
let's have a conversation about what's happening.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, and it's not always easy, and some people don't
want to talk at all, and for understandable reasons. But
we're also an outlet when people do have things that
they want to get off their chest, or they want
to talk about, or they want to talk through. It's
almost like we are a form of therapy sometimes for
people to talk with about events that they've witnessed, about
(26:04):
experiences that they're going through, missing a loved one, trying
to get the word out, and that's where we can
step in and really help. I really, really believe that
the reporters who care that get the news out there,
they get the details right, can really help solve cases,
can bring light and attention to stories that need to
(26:26):
be told.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
They all need to be told.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
We wish we could tell them all, you know, and
so we do what we can and a lot of times,
as you said, it ends up, unfortunately on the cutting
them floor. But we're picking up those tapes.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
And moving forward with them. Love it. So tell us
about something you got to do in Maryland when you
retrace the steps of Rachel Morin.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
When Rachel Morin was missing then found murdered in hard
For County, Maryland, it was it was another yet another
heartbreaking case. And then we had the arrest of the
suspect of Victor Martinez Hernandez, who was in the country illegally,
and God bless law enforcement who were able to track
(27:15):
him down at a state and get him under arrest.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Still just charged.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
But you know, one of the things that we reported
on is she went for a jog and she was
in the woods, and until you get on that trail yourself,
you don't really understand it. So I had gone to
report on this and I had met up with her,
with her ex the father of her one of her children.
She had many, she had five children, I believe, And
(27:42):
we walked the path that she walked from the parking
lot to the very spot that she was taken to
in this huge drainage canal. It was difficult to imagine
in your mind what had happened. She was ambushed, she
was running, and we had kind of gone through it
(28:03):
that we believe the suspect was on one side of
the jogging trail. She comes around the corner, he grabs her,
pushes her over to the other side where the drainage
canal as drags her through the woods. But now there
are cameras, as we noted when we did our walkthrough,
and there's cameras along the entire trail, and we know
that that would have been helpful in the moment when
(28:25):
they were looking for her and looking for any signs
of her. But another devastating story, and it really one
of the things that we talked about was having a plan.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
But you know, she's been jogging.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
She had been jogging on that trail, the Maw and
Paw trails what it was called. She was a teenager,
I was told, and this was a familiar safe place
for her. She had plans to, I believe, go to
the tanning salon afterwards. She had made a call and said,
you know, she I'll see you later. I'm going to
go for a quick run. Obviously, if you've seen pictures
(28:58):
of her, she was extremely fit, very beautiful, thirty seven
years old, mother of five. And this happened on August fifth,
twenty twenty three, and then her body was found the
following day, and it was just it was just absolutely devastating.
But to understand it, to go back and walk through it,
to walk that trail, was something that we felt was
important to do on News Nation and to share what
(29:21):
that looked like so we could have a better understanding
of it.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
You know, it was important. And again, look what came
from your story. People are now protected there when they
weren't before.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yeah. When I was there with Matt McMahon, the father
of Rachel Moran's oldest child, we learned that she was
going to be a grandmother, if you can believe it,
Rachel Morrin, that she's a grandmother, and that her oldest
was expecting. So, you know, there's there's a lot to
be said about safety in this, and you can never
(29:56):
blame a victim ever with this kind of thing, and
it's just it's just one of those things that you
just think, you know, how how do I keep myself
safe jogging alone on a trail. You know a lot
of people said from that moment on that they would
be running with a buddy, that they would not go alone,
that they would make sure that their air earbuds were
(30:17):
not in and on loud.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And you know, everybody there for a little bit was
talking about Tupac Tupac and are we going to, you know,
finally get some answers out of Las Vegas. And one
thing that I thought that you did that was so
impactful and powerful is you went to the recording studio
in New York City where he was originally shocked. I
did well.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I was really close to that day, and in fact,
I was reporting on some protests, some Palestinian protests that
were going on down the road, and I was on
my way to the train, and this had all been
so fresh in the news, and you and I had
been talking and about this that happened in nineteen ninety four,
and I thought, you know, I'm right around the corner.
(31:01):
I'm going to go see if I can just take
a look inside of the Quad Recording Studios building, because
I've seen it on the news and I've walked by
it a million times. I just didn't realize that that's
what it was. So I went over to Seventh Avenue
and you know, somebody opened the door. There was a delivery.
So I went in and I didn't go up the elevator,
but I wanted to see the size of the lobby
(31:22):
because when you hear about Tupac being shot in the lobby,
to me, my first image in my mind is just
this huge lobby, right that it came a shot came
from across this this large marble floor. But that's not
at all what it was like. It was a really
tiny space that would be the size of a kitchen
(31:43):
in a Manhattan apartment. With a gun pointed at him.
He's kind of trapped, you know, there's this barrel. Yeah
there is, There is nowhere to get, There was nowhere
to go. So yeah, I took some video of that.
I'll post that on the Angle edit. And it was
just a really interesting, just another layer right of understanding
the story as it happened all those years ago. What
(32:05):
it might mean to the story today if it involves Didty.
We've talked a lot about Ditty and all of the
cases going on with him. I went over to the MDC,
the Metropolitan Detention Center, to check that out. We did
a day of live shots outside of that facility, which
is you hear about how rough it is on the inside,
(32:26):
I can tell you it's rough on the outside. And
there was one loan supporter of Ditty that day driving
by with a sign out the window which was free Diddy,
which was crazy. But We've got a lot more to go,
and I've been in court many times this year, this
last year with Sean Combs in the courtroom watching him
(32:46):
and recording his family showing up at court with the
entourage that is his family, which is relatively large. So
we've got a lot of legal cases, a lot of
big crime cases ahead of us in twenty twenty five,
many of which we do expect big developments with. So
we've got a lot of road ahead of us.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Cheryl, I love it well. I can't wait to get
back in the car with you and Kenny and go
to some more spots because it was phenomenal, not just
to watch you worn't but to watch y'all worked together.
I just thought that was such a beautiful thing that
not only as a couple, but that's two professionals, y'all
work so well with each other.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Well, thank you. I'll pass that along to Kenny as well.
He's he's been a terrific cameraman and he's he's a
very skilled audio technician and a professional drummer, so he
knows sound very well. And yeah, we've been we've been
recording together and we'll see what happens next. We've got
a lot more to go. And one of the things
that we did, and just a real quick story before
we go at Christmas, we went to go visit my family.
(33:48):
I'm from Sacramento, which is why the Lacy Peterson story
resonated with me immediately and so soundly, with just feeling
like it was somebody that I knew because Modesto is
so close to Sacramento. So Scott Peterson is now housed
at Muell Creek State Prison, which is very close to
my cousin, and so whenever I am in town, I'm
(34:10):
very close to that area. And I was at my
cousin's Christmas party and I met somebody who is a
former corrections officer who spent a lot of time working
Mule Creek and was part of the transportation team. So
he had some stories and we were talking at the
Christmas party and I said, hey, can I can we
see you tomorrow? We'd like to come and talk this out.
(34:31):
And so Kenny and I went and left and we
went to his ranch and we talked to him about
what life is like in Mule Creek State Prison, why
the transport, you know. One of the things that I
couldn't understand is that Scott Peterson has had the option
in these last few LA Innocence Project hearings in Redwood
City to have a field trip. He's the judge had
(34:54):
said to him, do you want to be in person
or do you want to be on zoom essentially via remote,
And he has chosen to be via remote every time.
And I would sit in the courtroom watching him on zoom,
thinking why wouldn't he want to take a trip. Why
wouldn't he want to, you know, see the road and
the flowers in the trees. And we talked about that
(35:16):
with this former corrections officer, and I thought his answers
were really interesting about what people go through to be
transported to court, and he had a theory on why,
and we'll share that.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Ooh, she's gonna leave y'all hang, and I love it.
I can't wait to hear it, because you know, I
worked in the jail with the Fulk County Sheriff's Department
for eight years and I have my own theory. But
I'll talk to you about that offline to see if
I'm right or wrong. But Laura Engele, thank you, thank you,
thank you for being own Zone seven, for being a
(35:47):
part of my Zone seven, and we cannot wait to
hear the angle.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Edit. I just want to thank you, Cheryl for not
only being such a support to me, but just somebody
who is encouraged me to continue to share these behind
the scenes stories that I do. And you know, sometimes
if you doubt yourself and you've got somebody that believes
in you, it pushes you on to that next level.
(36:12):
And that's where I have been with you, and I
want to thank you for being that spark with me
through these years of continuing to share these stories and
doing it together means a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
So I thank you, and y'all listen to her because
in twenty twenty five. If y'all got somebody that is
not your cheerleader, they aren't supporting you. They you know,
don't clap and don't go hey, you can do it,
don't fall with them. If they are not, you know,
your biggest champion, they should not be in your zone
seven period. So I'm going to end Zone seven the
(36:46):
way that I always do with a quote. The profession
of journalism ought to be about telling people what they
need to know, not what they want to know. Walter Cronkite.
I'm Cheryl mccollumn, and this is one seven mm hmm
Y'all. I've got my cases at work. I've got cases
that I cover for the Nancy Gray Show. I've got
cases for the Cold Case Institute, cases for Zone seven.
I've got cases that occasionally other podcasts or other shows
will ask me to cover. And occasionally sometimes I may
(00:29):
blend to sometimes the facts just get a little distorted
in my head. But you know, for Nancy, I may
have a data prep for the podcast. I may have
two days to a week. With the Cold Case Institute,
I may have a year. But when you talk about
these road reporters, these folks that go out and cover
(00:52):
something that is you know, breaking or you know happening
right this second, they have got to funnel a ton
of information quickly, and they've got to be right. So
tonight I have invited Laura engelback to his own seven
because here's the deal. She is a street level reporter.
(01:16):
She is a pro. She covers cases that are active
and unfolding. Sometimes I've seen it. I was just knocked
out recently because she had to travel from her home
in New York out west to cover a case that
was developing. Then she had to leave drive to a
(01:38):
smaller location to do a live hit on a case
that had breaking news and then go back to the
original scene. It was insane to me, and she did
it all flawlessly, without missing a beat. So I just thought,
you know what, We're going to bring her back. Y'all
know where she's the weekend anchor at News Nation. Y'all
(02:00):
have followed her from Scott Peterson to Michael Jackson to Tupac,
So please help me welcome the one and only Laura Inc. Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
What an introduction, Cheryl. Thank you so much for having
me back. It's always so great to be on.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Are you kidding? Let me tell you. I mean I
talked about it, you know, with a few of our
good buddies, and you know, Lauren and I were laughing
because we were like, we should play a game. You know,
where is Laura now? Because there was a period of
time there, honey, you were burning the road up. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
It was a busy year. Twenty twenty four certainly was
busier than most. The news never stops, as we always say,
but man, it just felt like there was a lot
that happened in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
There was a ton and you were front street for
most of it. But you know, it was twenty years
ago that I was teaching college at night as my
part time gig, and I started to hear student after
student they would tell me something and I would say,
where did you hear that? Because I hadn't even heard it,
and they were saying Facebook, and I didn't even know
(03:10):
what that was. But I quickly determined, whatever this Facebook
is is where they are getting their information. If they're
in their twenties, they are not watching the nightly news,
so to speak. Well, once I kind of got into
understanding what social media was, everybody's a reporter kinda because
(03:33):
you're either posting an opinion, you're posting photographs, you're putting
up you know, little videos, and you're telling people and
sometimes you are the one that's sharing something that's out there.
So you're part of the process of making sure people
are getting this information. But for you, here's the biggest difference.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
You have to be right one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And I think people forget that part. Like if they
post right now because I've seen it, you've seen it.
People will share and post that some celebrity has died
and then later they'll go, oh my bad, they're not
dead and no harm. But you can't do that.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
No, we have to vet and double check and source
and make sure that everything is right. And mostly most
of the stories that we are talking about on the
air involve a victim, So you really really don't want
to get it wrong. You want to honor the family
as you are moving through the story, getting new details
(04:35):
as they come, and present it with the you know,
with the grace and with the truth.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well, let's talk about a little bit of that grace
that I witnessed that you have. There was one scene
that you were sent to to cover something political, and honestly,
I mean I probably wasn't even going to watch it.
I'm not a political person, so I watch a ton
of your stuff when it's true crime, but something that
is in the political world whatever. But something happened that
(05:05):
day that was horrifying. I think it impacted you personally.
I think it had the potential to devastate a family,
and you did something almost against your profession. Really, because
(05:25):
I've always heard you know, if it bleeds, it leads, right,
tell us what happened when you were covering Trump?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, Trump, the former president now president elect, was on trial,
as we know, and we've been downtown Manhattan a lot
for his numerous legal cases, and this was in April.
It was April nineteenth, and we were waiting for a
jury to be seated in his trial, and that was
kind of the news of the day. We were waiting
(05:55):
to see, if you know, if we were going to
get this jury seated, and there were a lot of
protesters out. There's a in front of the Manhattan Criminal Court.
There is a line where the reporter stand right across
the street, and then there's this kind of fenced in
area where it's technically a park. You'll see people eat
(06:15):
lunch there in the summertime. It's cold in the winter,
but people will mill about and that's where they kind
of contain the protesters. So earlier in the day we
had seen protesters who people who did not want to
see Donald Trump on trial, with huge flags waving, doing
all that, and then you've got his supporters screaming back
at them. But actually at that moment it had kind
(06:36):
of died down. We were actually near the lunch break.
Things were relatively quiet, and we had just heard that
a jury had been seated. They just got their last
jur I believe was the timing of this and I
heard this blood curdling scream that was right in front
of us, in back of my cameraman, and I turned
(06:58):
and all of us turned and and just didn't quite
understand what we were looking at. And it was a
man on fire and people were screaming, and he was burning,
and he was standing and his arms were outreached, and
at first I thought it was a mannequin, because I
(07:18):
was like, well, there's no way that's actually a person,
because you know, somebody that brought something to this pro
and is just trying to make a point. And then
it was it was quickly evidently clear that this was
actually a human being that was on fire, and we
jumped on the air and as I started in the clip,
I've actually recently rewatched that clip, and they come to
(07:41):
me quickly, and I clearly don't have it together because
I'm looking over and my eyes are wild and I'm
trying to figure out what to do, and they come
back to me and I just kind of took a
beat and said, we've just witnessed somebody set themselves on fire.
And I wanted to be able to show the activity
that was behind my camera because that's where it was
literally right in the back of my cameraman Greg and
(08:03):
I said, turn the camera around and show the cast,
but do not show him on fire and dropping down
to the ground. And they were trying to get fire extinguishers,
and you know, sure there were a lot of police
officers around, but it's not like there was a fire
extinguisher right there in that little concrete patch of this
park ready to go. So people were scrambling to try
(08:24):
and get him out, and officers were hopping the fence
and this is a black wrought iron fence and trying
to get to him. And then he threw up a
bunch of papers, and producers were running to go get
these colorful pieces of paper, and I was starting to yell.
Once I was off camera, I said, don't touch the papers.
You know, we don't know what he threw up in
(08:44):
the air and what is on them. Everybody wanted to
hear see what he had to say. But yeah, we
did turn the camera around, but did not show him
in flames. I think there was a little bit that
was caught of the body being moved onto a gurney
that was covered in the fire retardant. There was a
detective and I still see him today. I don't know
his name, but he is my hero because I watched
(09:06):
him jump over the fence and when no one else did.
I saw him take off his trench coat. It was
freezing that day. He took off his coat and he
threw it over the man to try and get him
out because there wasn't a fire extinguisher, and just we
watched it all together in lifetime, and it wasn't just me.
There were other reporters that were on the air at
the same time, and I know that others did show it.
(09:27):
I tried my best not to protect The first thing
I was thinking about was his family, but also our audience.
You know, there's people walking by having a cup of
coffee in the kitchen. I just didn't want them to
see that, right, And.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Maybe somebody had just walked out and their children are
sitting there like you don't know, But for you in
that moment, that was traumatic for you too. You're thinking
of his mama, You're thinking of your audience. You're thinking
of these people that rely on you to show them
what they need. But not just everything. I mean, you
(10:05):
don't have to tell everything, you don't have to show everything.
I mean, it was clear from the chaos that was
even behind you, that something horrible was happening. And you know,
I just thought that was, in my opinion, that showed
who you really are in that moment.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Well, thank you. I just you know, you do your
best in break and this was crisis coverage, This was
the ATF. I mean, we saw everybody showing up. Then
it became very troublesome because then people started thinking, well,
what if he has a bomb somewhere? Is there somebody
else what? We don't know who just we have absolute
(10:47):
idea what's going on. All we know is that chaos
has just erupted outside of a courthouse where the former
president is on trial, and this guy has a backpack,
he had a fuel canister. We just did not know
what to do other than to do it live and
do it the best we.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Could, which you did. And I think if people really
understood that you went again to cover story A and
story B happened and you had no choice but to
cover it. So you know, what you select, how you
decide to tail, what you decide to tell, and what
you decide to leave out, and you did that in
(11:26):
a split second, and it was extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well, I thank you for that. It was it was
a difficult day for not just me, it was our producers.
We had a huge team of people. You know, this
is Trump facing those felony charges related to the twenty
sixteen hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. So it was
a big case. So we had teams from Washington. We
had my cameraman, who was my live shot cam. Then
(11:50):
I had the rover, which is our guy that roves
around and tries to get people, you know when if
there's anybody else that has a news conference that comes up.
Then you've got the producer in the court that was
outside the court, the producer who was with me, the producer.
You know, there were We had a huge team of people,
as everybody did.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
So listen, honey, that team's important. But you made that call.
So I'm just going to say that for God and
country to hear. But you know it's not always that.
I mean, you've also been on the front line of
seeing something so heroic and unbelievable. Let's talk about the
(12:28):
miracle on the Hudson.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, and we're coming up on another anniversary. It was
January And now that you know my husband, Kenny, you'll
appreciate this. We were on that day looking for an
apartment in New York City and we were running around
in his truck and we had stopped off at the
production company where he was working at the time, and
his cameraman ran out of the building and pounded on
(12:52):
our door. We were just, you know, we were sitting
outside deciding what apartment we were going to go look
at next, and he pounded on the door. Chris Ones
and I'll never forget it, and said, a plane just
went into the Hudson, and he ran off with his camera.
We're like, what do you mean a plane? Like a
small plane, they said, he said, And he turned around
and said, no, a big one. And Kenny and I
looked at each other and we both had our press
passes and we raced over to the Hudson and I
(13:14):
jumped out of the car while Kenny tried to park,
and I called into the station where I was working,
and I was live on the air on my BlackBerry
and I'm watching, so I have this picture. There's only
a couple of pictures of that day, but I do
have a couple where I'm holding my BlackBerry up to
my face and I've got a New York Mets baseball
(13:34):
hat on and I'm for it was the coldest day
in the history of the world. We always say that
for all of us that were there. And there's this
plane floating down the Hudson with the people on the wings,
and where are they going? Is it going to sink?
And then we were watching all of the rescue boats
go into action and all of the ferries trying to
get out there to get these human beings off of
(13:55):
the wings. And yeah, So we witnessed that all those
years ago in two thousand and nine, and then most
recently this January of twenty twenty four, reported on the
anniversary of that and the miracle, the true miracle that
we all witnessed that day in America did as well
on TV that all of those people, all of those
souls were saved.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Oh yeah, thanks to you and all the others. We
all got to witness something I mean obviously historic, but heroic.
I mean, that was unbelievable what was done. It really was.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
When you think about coming over the George Washington Bridge
and think about that bridge and what that would have
looked like had that been taken out, because he flew
right over it. And it was very close. And amen
to him, you know, like hat tip to Solly and
his crew who kept everybody alive that day.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah. Amen, And then you know, proximity. You've covered a
lot with the Long Island serial killer.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yes, yes, we've been. I've been very involved in this
for years through a couple of different networks, podcasts, documentaries
have done. And you know, it's interesting. I was actually
in between gigs, as we say, when there was an
arrest of the suspect in this case, Rex Hiroman. It
was July of twenty twenty three. But when we go
(15:17):
you know, once I got in with News Nation and
we started going to every court case and I finally
got to see him for the first time. And now
I see him all the time when I go into court.
It is such an interesting dynamic to see this man
who is charged with all of these murders that keep
getting piled onto his criminal complaint, and to see this
(15:39):
man because for so long we didn't know who could
this person be, who could possibly be responsible, who could
possibly have done something like this, And you always think,
I mean, we've been doing this a long time, but
you think, oh, it's got to be you know, some boogeyman,
some guy that was under.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
A bridge or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
It got to be this architect that worked on Fifth
Avenue in Manhattan. He lived in massive Pequal Park, he
took the train every day, and you know, that was
the guy, and we just it was so stunning to
learn that. Now to watch him in the courtroom and
he's so big. Oftentimes he needs two sets of handcuffs
to have his hands behind his back. And in this
(16:21):
last court appearance that I saw him at, he was
he was charged with Valerie Mack who we had been
waiting for that one. Parents and adopted parents and family
members were there. And it was probably one of the
most dramatic days in court because that was when we
heard Rex Human speak really for the first time. He
(16:42):
had said, you know, not guilty, your honor, but this
he had a full sentence on this day and said,
your honor, I'm not guilty of these crimes that I'm
being charged with, something to that effect. But it was
a full kind of blurt out and with that with
that thick accent that only long Islanders know when we
heard it. And then I heard this hiss from Valerie
(17:03):
Max's family that I was in the same row and
they were behind me and it was you know, I
can't even say the words that were spoken, but they
were not They didn't buy what he was putting down.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So yeah, well, you know, one thing that sets you
apart to me is that you are a boots on
the ground reporter. You want to go see it, you
want to walk it, you want to smell it, you
want to hear it, you want to understand it. That
changes the story for people because you're not just you know,
standing out in front of a courtroom saying, hey, this
(17:35):
is the deal with the Long Island serial killer. I
even had a chance to get in a car with
you and drive around and go to some of the
spots where the bodies were discovered. It changed the way
I understood the case. That's a gift.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I mean, it is so important. And I watch you
and you lead by example, Cheryl. I mean that's to
watch you too, go to these crime scenes that I've watched.
I've watched your socials through the years, and you just
unless you see it and it looks it always looks
so different. It feels when you're there and when you
and I were together on Long Island at the end
(18:13):
of the year for a wedding. I said, would you
We've got a little bit of time here. I know
this is a little unorthodox, but would you mind it's
raining going with me to Hempstead Lake State Park and
let's go check out, you know, not not in a
you know, a Luki lou way, just to try and
understand it so we can better tell the story for
(18:35):
the people to tell it to, and to hopefully glean
some type of information, because I you know, all all
you have to do is think about Gabby Patito and
think about Red White and Bethoon and that YouTuber that
had you know, they had a solid clue. They had
a solid glance at a vehicle, at her vehicle on
their camera. But you just hope that one piece of
(18:58):
information that you gather, that that you come upon, that
you see a certain way, that you show us in
a certain light, might just be something that triggers a memory.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I'll give everybody a perfect example. When you hear state park,
you think you know, you think you understand, but the
entrance and the exit matter. How far it takes you
to get there matters. What it looks like between this
long entryway to where she was discovered there's a thousand
(19:31):
places he could have put her and Laurie, you and
I saw one where I flat told you, if I
had a body, it'd go right here.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
He didn't go there, and she would I am telling
you she would have never been discovered ever. But that's
not what he did. No.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It is such a large and vast state park, and
there are multiple bodies of water, there are multiple groves
of trees. There's even you know, tennis courts and pickleball,
but forget about that. It's just it's the bodies of water,
it's the forests of the trees. But you know, as
we've talked to a former investigator who worked this scene
(20:10):
originally back in nineteen ninety seven, and my husband, who
is from Long Island, is like he came from the
Southern State Parkway.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I mean, this is like it's.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
A cut through the road where were peaches the victim
identified as Peaches. Where her torso was discovered was in
Hempstead Lake State Park. In quote, I say in quotes
because it was really off of this road that cuts
through the park. And it wasn't the rubber made tub
we've learned was not deep in the woods, but you're right, Cheryl.
(20:40):
I mean when we went there, you thought, well, if
you really wanted to hide it, it would have gone
here or here here. And you'll see some of that,
will you will.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
But let me tell you, I don't even know if
I was supposed to talk about it. But I know
something that's coming, and I want people listen to me
right now to get ready because Laura is fixing to
launch something sometime in twenty twenty five. I don't know
a date, but she's been working on the ingle edit
(21:12):
because here's what she understands. Her day job requires her
to do, like a four maybe a two to four
minute story. Well, you can't talk about Michael Jackson for
two minutes, you can't talk about Moscow for two minutes.
You can't talk about Long Island's heerial killer for two minutes.
You need sometimes forty five. Well, she's going to launch
(21:35):
a podcast that's fixing to knock y'all out because it's
her stories the way she knows that they need to
be told without leaving stuff on the cutting room floor. Now,
I hope I didn't let the cat out of the bag,
But there, y'all, go.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Oh, I appreciate you. I mean, you're my first guest.
I mean, you were the person that I was brainstorming
with about because I you know, through the years, I've
been a reporter since nineteen ninety sive I was a
rock DJ before that, so I've been doing radio for
a long time. I was a news reporter for a
radio station, several radio stations in California, then moved on
to TV. So through the years, I have, Gosh, in
(22:11):
my attic, we have been finding all kinds of things
that just really never saw the light of day that
and now all these stories are re emerging. I could
get into Kerrie Stainer because that was one that I
spent a lot of time with as well, and Michael
Jackson as well, and the San Francisco dog malling trial.
I mean, there's just a lot that I've covered through
(22:32):
my years of reporting, and specifically in these last few years.
And even in that time period where I was in
between gigs, I was still reporting, I was still gathering,
we were still going to these crime scenes and filming.
My husband and I and so we have all of
this material and have really just been trying to figure
out what to do with it, how to do it,
(22:54):
and we've come up with the ingle edit with your help,
sharel and we're going to do this. So we're going
to do this in twenty twenty five. This is our year.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
It's going to be extraordinary. And let me tell you,
as a cold case detective, the media the archives is
something not always go to because there are witnesses that
spoke to a reporter that maybe I didn't even know existed,
that gave great understanding of the victim or the scene
(23:22):
or what happened that may not even be in the report.
So what you're also capturing and keeping almost like this
time capsule for investigators is a money trade.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Well, we'll see what happens with that we've got. You know,
as you were just saying, not Cheryl, I was reminded
by the CD that I just found that I have
been looking for for ten years. I've been looking for
a copy of it, and you would think I would
have had fifteen twenty made. But I had this piece
that I did on Scott Peterson when we were going
to trial, and it was called unfaithful and accused the
(23:57):
case against Scott Peterson, and it was my Edward R.
Murrow winning piece in that report, in that special that
I did. It was all my stuff. It was the
stuff because I lived. I went to Modesto and then
I moved to Redwood City. I got an apartment and
I lived there. I lived there through the duration of
the trial and the sentencing hearing. But to back up,
(24:20):
when Lacy was missing, I know, now nobody's talking, right,
The neighbors don't talk. I even met Karen Servis, the
next door neighbor, in twenty twenty four, and I tried
to get her to talk to me, and she told
me that she couldn't speak on camera. She couldn't talk
because it was an ongoing case.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But all those years ago, in two thousand and three,
when the search was on, in the early stages after Christmas,
even in two thousand and two, there was a neighbor
that talked to me. I remember knocking on the door
and I got a lot. I got away with a
lot as a radio reporter, because if you're not on camera,
more people will talk to you. And it was a
neighbor across the street that told me that she had
(24:58):
had a conversation with Scott Peterson and he had told
her that he had been playing golf. I mean that's
been reported and documented, and it's been on all the documentaries.
But to hear a neighbor say that where it's on
the record, I have it and I'm going to play it.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Wow. And that's what I'm saying. Sometimes y'all capture things
that nobody else can. Everybody doesn't want to talk to
the police, but I don't hardly know anybody that won't
talk to a reporter, especially one like you, like my
buddy Karen Greer, that has this natural ease about them
(25:36):
where people do not feel intimidated, they're not pressured. It's just, hey,
let's have a conversation about what's happening.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, and it's not always easy, and some people don't
want to talk at all, and for understandable reasons. But
we're also an outlet when people do have things that
they want to get off their chest, or they want
to talk about, or they want to talk through. It's
almost like we are a form of therapy sometimes for
people to talk with about events that they've witnessed, about
(26:04):
experiences that they're going through, missing a loved one, trying
to get the word out, and that's where we can
step in and really help. I really, really believe that
the reporters who care that get the news out there,
they get the details right, can really help solve cases,
can bring light and attention to stories that need to
(26:26):
be told.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
They all need to be told.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
We wish we could tell them all, you know, and
so we do what we can and a lot of times,
as you said, it ends up, unfortunately on the cutting
them floor. But we're picking up those tapes.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
And moving forward with them. Love it. So tell us
about something you got to do in Maryland when you
retrace the steps of Rachel Morin.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
When Rachel Morin was missing then found murdered in hard
For County, Maryland, it was it was another yet another
heartbreaking case. And then we had the arrest of the
suspect of Victor Martinez Hernandez, who was in the country illegally,
and God bless law enforcement who were able to track
(27:15):
him down at a state and get him under arrest.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Still just charged.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
But you know, one of the things that we reported
on is she went for a jog and she was
in the woods, and until you get on that trail yourself,
you don't really understand it. So I had gone to
report on this and I had met up with her,
with her ex the father of her one of her children.
She had many, she had five children, I believe, And
(27:42):
we walked the path that she walked from the parking
lot to the very spot that she was taken to
in this huge drainage canal. It was difficult to imagine
in your mind what had happened. She was ambushed, she
was running, and we had kind of gone through it
(28:03):
that we believe the suspect was on one side of
the jogging trail. She comes around the corner, he grabs her,
pushes her over to the other side where the drainage
canal as drags her through the woods. But now there
are cameras, as we noted when we did our walkthrough,
and there's cameras along the entire trail, and we know
that that would have been helpful in the moment when
(28:25):
they were looking for her and looking for any signs
of her. But another devastating story, and it really one
of the things that we talked about was having a plan.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
But you know, she's been jogging.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
She had been jogging on that trail, the Maw and
Paw trails what it was called. She was a teenager,
I was told, and this was a familiar safe place
for her. She had plans to, I believe, go to
the tanning salon afterwards. She had made a call and said,
you know, she I'll see you later. I'm going to
go for a quick run. Obviously, if you've seen pictures
(28:58):
of her, she was extremely fit, very beautiful, thirty seven
years old, mother of five. And this happened on August fifth,
twenty twenty three, and then her body was found the
following day, and it was just it was just absolutely devastating.
But to understand it, to go back and walk through it,
to walk that trail, was something that we felt was
important to do on News Nation and to share what
(29:21):
that looked like so we could have a better understanding
of it.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
You know, it was important. And again, look what came
from your story. People are now protected there when they
weren't before.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yeah. When I was there with Matt McMahon, the father
of Rachel Moran's oldest child, we learned that she was
going to be a grandmother, if you can believe it,
Rachel Morrin, that she's a grandmother, and that her oldest
was expecting. So, you know, there's there's a lot to
be said about safety in this, and you can never
(29:56):
blame a victim ever with this kind of thing, and
it's just it's just one of those things that you
just think, you know, how how do I keep myself
safe jogging alone on a trail. You know a lot
of people said from that moment on that they would
be running with a buddy, that they would not go alone,
that they would make sure that their air earbuds were
(30:17):
not in and on loud.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And you know, everybody there for a little bit was
talking about Tupac Tupac and are we going to, you know,
finally get some answers out of Las Vegas. And one
thing that I thought that you did that was so
impactful and powerful is you went to the recording studio
in New York City where he was originally shocked. I
did well.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I was really close to that day, and in fact,
I was reporting on some protests, some Palestinian protests that
were going on down the road, and I was on
my way to the train, and this had all been
so fresh in the news, and you and I had
been talking and about this that happened in nineteen ninety four,
and I thought, you know, I'm right around the corner.
(31:01):
I'm going to go see if I can just take
a look inside of the Quad Recording Studios building, because
I've seen it on the news and I've walked by
it a million times. I just didn't realize that that's
what it was. So I went over to Seventh Avenue
and you know, somebody opened the door. There was a delivery.
So I went in and I didn't go up the elevator,
but I wanted to see the size of the lobby
(31:22):
because when you hear about Tupac being shot in the lobby,
to me, my first image in my mind is just
this huge lobby, right that it came a shot came
from across this this large marble floor. But that's not
at all what it was like. It was a really
tiny space that would be the size of a kitchen
(31:43):
in a Manhattan apartment. With a gun pointed at him.
He's kind of trapped, you know, there's this barrel. Yeah
there is, There is nowhere to get, There was nowhere
to go. So yeah, I took some video of that.
I'll post that on the Angle edit. And it was
just a really interesting, just another layer right of understanding
the story as it happened all those years ago. What
(32:05):
it might mean to the story today if it involves Didty.
We've talked a lot about Ditty and all of the
cases going on with him. I went over to the MDC,
the Metropolitan Detention Center, to check that out. We did
a day of live shots outside of that facility, which
is you hear about how rough it is on the inside,
(32:26):
I can tell you it's rough on the outside. And
there was one loan supporter of Ditty that day driving
by with a sign out the window which was free Diddy,
which was crazy. But We've got a lot more to go,
and I've been in court many times this year, this
last year with Sean Combs in the courtroom watching him
(32:46):
and recording his family showing up at court with the
entourage that is his family, which is relatively large. So
we've got a lot of legal cases, a lot of
big crime cases ahead of us in twenty twenty five,
many of which we do expect big developments with. So
we've got a lot of road ahead of us.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Cheryl, I love it well. I can't wait to get
back in the car with you and Kenny and go
to some more spots because it was phenomenal, not just
to watch you worn't but to watch y'all worked together.
I just thought that was such a beautiful thing that
not only as a couple, but that's two professionals, y'all
work so well with each other.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Well, thank you. I'll pass that along to Kenny as well.
He's he's been a terrific cameraman and he's he's a
very skilled audio technician and a professional drummer, so he
knows sound very well. And yeah, we've been we've been
recording together and we'll see what happens next. We've got
a lot more to go. And one of the things
that we did, and just a real quick story before
we go at Christmas, we went to go visit my family.
(33:48):
I'm from Sacramento, which is why the Lacy Peterson story
resonated with me immediately and so soundly, with just feeling
like it was somebody that I knew because Modesto is
so close to Sacramento. So Scott Peterson is now housed
at Muell Creek State Prison, which is very close to
my cousin, and so whenever I am in town, I'm
(34:10):
very close to that area. And I was at my
cousin's Christmas party and I met somebody who is a
former corrections officer who spent a lot of time working
Mule Creek and was part of the transportation team. So
he had some stories and we were talking at the
Christmas party and I said, hey, can I can we
see you tomorrow? We'd like to come and talk this out.
(34:31):
And so Kenny and I went and left and we
went to his ranch and we talked to him about
what life is like in Mule Creek State Prison, why
the transport, you know. One of the things that I
couldn't understand is that Scott Peterson has had the option
in these last few LA Innocence Project hearings in Redwood
City to have a field trip. He's the judge had
(34:54):
said to him, do you want to be in person
or do you want to be on zoom essentially via remote,
And he has chosen to be via remote every time.
And I would sit in the courtroom watching him on zoom,
thinking why wouldn't he want to take a trip. Why
wouldn't he want to, you know, see the road and
the flowers in the trees. And we talked about that
(35:16):
with this former corrections officer, and I thought his answers
were really interesting about what people go through to be
transported to court, and he had a theory on why,
and we'll share that.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Ooh, she's gonna leave y'all hang, and I love it.
I can't wait to hear it, because you know, I
worked in the jail with the Fulk County Sheriff's Department
for eight years and I have my own theory. But
I'll talk to you about that offline to see if
I'm right or wrong. But Laura Engele, thank you, thank you,
thank you for being own Zone seven, for being a
(35:47):
part of my Zone seven, and we cannot wait to
hear the angle.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Edit. I just want to thank you, Cheryl for not
only being such a support to me, but just somebody
who is encouraged me to continue to share these behind
the scenes stories that I do. And you know, sometimes
if you doubt yourself and you've got somebody that believes
in you, it pushes you on to that next level.
(36:12):
And that's where I have been with you, and I
want to thank you for being that spark with me
through these years of continuing to share these stories and
doing it together means a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
So I thank you, and y'all listen to her because
in twenty twenty five. If y'all got somebody that is
not your cheerleader, they aren't supporting you. They you know,
don't clap and don't go hey, you can do it,
don't fall with them. If they are not, you know,
your biggest champion, they should not be in your zone
seven period. So I'm going to end Zone seven the
(36:46):
way that I always do with a quote. The profession
of journalism ought to be about telling people what they
need to know, not what they want to know. Walter Cronkite.
I'm Cheryl mccollumn, and this is one seven mm hmm
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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