October 1, 2025 • 37 mins
In February 2017, teenagers Liberty German and Abigail Williams were murdered while walking in the woods near Delphi, Indiana.
The next day, their bodies were discovered, and investigators revealed that Liberty had recorded a brief video of the suspect ordering the girls to “go down the hill.”
After years of speculation, dead ends, and online conspiracy theories, the 2022 arrest of local resident Richard Allen threw the case into an even deeper firestorm of controversy.
Guest Bio and Links:
Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee
Journalist Áine Cain and attorney Kevin Greenlee are the husband-and-wife team behind The Murder Sheet, an investigative true-crime podcast that made national news with its reporting on the Delphi case.
They recently co-authored "Shadow of the Bridge," the first book to chronicle the murders of Liberty German and Abigail Williams and the investigation that followed.
Shadow of the Bridge: The Delphi Murders and the Dark Side of the American Heartland
Missed their first Zone 7 episode? Behind the Scenes of the Delphi Trial: Haunting Truths, Unbreakable Community, and Justice in Focus
In this episode of Zone 7, Sheryl McCollum is joined once again by journalist Áine Cain and attorney Kevin Greenlee, the duo behind The Murder Sheet podcast, to talk about their book, "Shadow of the Bridge," and what it took to cover the Delphi case.
They describe the cramped courtroom and strict no reentry policy, the grind of working 17- to 18-hour days under a gag order, and how they decided what information to include in their book.
They also explain why they approach the “Odinism” claims with a critical, evidence-based lens, and what it was like to finally reveal information the jury, and the public never saw.
Highlights:
- (0:00) Sheryl welcomes guests Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee to Zone 7 to talk about Shadow of the Bridge
- (1:45) Áine describes the courtroom reality: small room, high tensions, the scramble for seats, and the no reentry rule
- (8:30) Moving for the trial, 17- to 18-hours days, and typing notes late into the night
- (11:00) Writing Shadow of the Bridge: swapping drafts, finding the balance, and the significance of the cover photo and title
- (18:15) "The way we viewed Odinism is you can’t tell the story without getting into it on some level” — balancing coverage of Richard Allen’s defense strategy
- (24:00 Gentle outreach and centering Abby and Libby
- (25:45) Vetting information and sorting the relevant from the noise
- (32:30) Favorite parts, hardest chapters, and Sheryl’s closing words
Enjoying Zone 7? Leave a rating and review. Your feedback helps others find the show and supports our mission to educate and investigate.
---
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 co-author of the textbook Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. She is the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a national collaboration that advances techniques for solving cold cases and assists families and law enforcement with unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnappings.
Social Links:
- Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
- Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
- Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
- Instagram: @officialzone7podcast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Y'all know them. Y'all have followed them. Lord knows y'all
followed them. Now tonight we are gonna be talking to
Anya Cane and Kevin Greenley from Murder Sheets. Y'all know
who I'm talking about, because they have done something I'm
not even sure I know a word because I ain't
(00:29):
a writer. They are now and it is kind of
knocking me out because they have never written a book before.
But not only have they've done it, they've done it magnificently,
and they've done it as a couple. Y'all know, good
and well. Sometimes it is hard to pick a Christmas
(00:50):
tree with a spouse, much less to side a book title.
How the chapters are going to go, how the story's
gonna unfold. That's hard. That's difficult work right there. So
let's bring them in and figure out how they got
this deal done. Kevin, Anya, how are you welcome? Welcome,
Welcome back to Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
We are so excited to be here, and thank you
so much for having us. We really appreciate it, love
the work you do, and it's an honor.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I just want to set the record straight if people,
for some reason did not hear the first episode y'all
did with me here on Zone seven. So I just
want to tell people, let's talk about your book, Shadow
of the Bridge, And then you have a subtitle that
I think is so powerful, the del Phi Murders, a
(01:40):
dark side of the American Heartland. You couldn't have hit
that more accurate. When this trial was going on. Some
of the stuff y'all heard about was absolutely accurate. People
were having a fight for a seat, the judge wasn't
having it. The courtroom was tiny. They didn't get back
room breaks, you didn't hardly get a lunch break. You
(02:03):
just everything was I mean, it was almost surreal when
I got there and I thought all of these rumors,
all these crazy things are true. And the courtroom was
so tiny, y'all that if there were any haters, you
were two feet from them. I mean, you weren't but
(02:23):
eight feet from the accused. And then his family was
sitting right there. You had the victim's family not even
a foot from you. It was really an odd layout
to me. Would y'all agree with that?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yes? I think you just summed it up really well.
And I think you know you had to be almost
constantly scanning for threats, whether it was like maybe a
fight's going to breakout, or it's just really cold out,
or you're really hungry. So it kind of put you
in a weird Hunger Games esque sort of mindset.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Sure, and when I say no bathroom breaks, I'm not kidding.
If you all of a sudden had to go, there
was no re entry, you just lost half a day. Well,
fortunately there were two of you. For that, to me,
it would make it difficult because you know, any marriage,
it's never fifty to fifty. Sometimes somebody has the line's
(03:15):
share of whatever load is happening right now, right But
y'all had to divide and conquer and divide and conquer
and somehow come back together. And you were I mean, Anya,
I saw your notebook one day and I'm like, oh no,
(03:36):
I mean I thought that looks like a crazy person.
I mean, you're writing down every single word. I don't
know if you knew shorthand or not, but I just
knew page after page because you know how Kevin, you
know what I'm talking about. When you sit next to
somebody in class that you know is smarter than you,
and they're like on the third or fourth page of
(03:56):
notes and you've only written a couple of things down.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Feel that way anytime that's Kevin.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Okay, marriage, I.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Feel that way about both of you because I felt
like I've only written a couple of things down. How
is she on her fifth page of notes? Like, I'm
clearly missing something? But I couldn't have written that all
down anyway. But here's what I thought was amazing. Number One,
Kevin is an attorney and Anya you are a journalist,
(04:27):
so with research skills, you both have it, even if
it's from a different avenue. I mean, that's how y'all met.
So y'all had that in sync already, which I thought
was fabulous. But here's the part people may not know.
In this business, whether it's writing a book or doing
a podcast or getting on TV, whatever it is, there
(04:49):
is some competition involved, and some people are cut through
about it. Y'all were so kind and so gracious and
helped so many people that other folks don't know about.
Y'all help me. Hear me and my sister, we didn't
even know what was up. We didn't know where to stand,
(05:10):
we didn't know where the line start and ended. We
didn't know how to take a break, we didn't know
where our cell phones went and y'all were fabulous about that.
I know y'all were all so good to Susan Hendricks
and other folks. I know it for a fact. I
know what the Prosecutor's podcast thanks of y'all and other people.
And I just think that speaks to who y'all are
(05:31):
as a couple and individuals more than anything.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Thank you. That means a lot, I mean it, And
you know what it was. You guys were so nice
to us too. And I'm just gonna say Susan Hendrix
probably saved us from getting a frost bright like several
times over.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yeah, she's a doll.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
She was like, let's get blankets. It was like, yeah,
y'all like the heat blankets. I would go up with
on Everest with that woman because she knows what she's doing.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
But no, she's a doll and she is the same way.
But I'm saying that there was just this tight knit group,
like I already felt, you know, just this kinship with Kelsey,
and I just felt like I needed to be there
for her, you know what I mean, you just just
show up. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't
(06:21):
make anything better, but just know what I, Hey, I'm here,
I'll take you to dinner kind of thing. Well, I
just saw y'all help person after a person after person,
so I just thought that was super cool. I just
want to say that I don't know if y'all you.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Know, it's very nice of you to say. And you know,
at the end of the day, you mentioned Kelsey, And
at the end of the day, it really is about
the families, and it's about the girls, and it's about
their legacies and it's about honoring that. And so it's
not about us trying to get an exclusive or cut
people out. If there's people there who care about the
(06:56):
girls and the families, we want to help them so
they have the tools to share the truth and to
honor these girls.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, and I'm going to say this, like it was
really easy to do when we were kind of modeling
after people like Kelsey and her family. They were so
kind and patient with people there. I think we've talked
about this on the show, but they were giving people food,
and I was like, people should be taking care of you,
and you're taking care of everybody else, you know, And
I'm like, Becky Patty's given everyone this, like, you know,
(07:25):
banana bread, and I told her at some point, I
was like, Becky, you're a better woman than I. I
would have been throwing that banana bread at some of
these jerks. And she was like, well, you know, I'm
just going to give food to people who are hungry.
And I'm like, that's amazing. So we want like when
we had that as sort of an inspiration, it was
it became easier to try to lead with some compassion
and kindness. I mean, I don't know, because I do
(07:47):
feel like most of the people there, such as yourself, it
was so nice to meet your sister.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
She was awesome.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Such as yourself, and then other people who visited, they
just wanted the truth. And it's like we all got
to kind of stick together a little bit because it's
a difficult situation.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
It was difficult, and I agree with you, Becky, Patty
was the standard. I've never seen anything like it. And
I know Charlene and I you know, we laughed about it,
and I'm like, oh, I might have been passing out
some muffins, but they would have had some poison in it,
Like what do you talk about? I mean, she was
just beyond gracious and again treated everybody as best she could,
(08:27):
which was crazy. Y'all moved there. I mean, your whole
lives were turned upside down. And I can remember at
one point, Annie, you were saying you were so exhausted.
But every night you had to type up your notes,
You had to get things in order, you had to
get ready to get back in line to do it
all again. And you know, for y'all to keep up
(08:48):
with just your day to day, I mean you had
other emails, you had other responsibilities, you had bills, you
had a house, you had a life, you had family members.
That's a lot to put on old to do what
you did every day for seventeen hours a day, it
was tough.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And we were lucky we had people in our lives
who understood what we needed to do, so they weren't,
you know, offended when we sort of disappeared for a month.
The saddest thing was we didn't get to spend we
always are hanging out with our dog Annie. She's a
great dog, and we had to, you know, she had
to spend a lot of time apart from us, and
I don't know, I was really worried at first, but
(09:27):
I think she had a blast with her sort of staycation.
So I ended up kind of being offended. It's like,
don't you miss us. It's like, no, I'm having all
the treats. It's like okay, but that was stressful.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I think being away from your dog would be probably
the most difficult.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, but she didn't care at all.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So that's good.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Feel a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
That's good. Now. Y'all started writing the book while the
trial was going on. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, No, that's that's what we mean. We were writing
throughout we so it's we Actually we had I would say,
like a draft before the trial, but we wrote very rough,
very rough. We knew, hey, like probably half of this
is going to turn out to be wrong or need
to be scrapped, so we had something very rough, tried
to add to it during trial, but really wrote the
(10:15):
bulk of it after trial. Is that fair to say, Kevin?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That is fair to say because there was a gag
order in place.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I was going to ask you about that, Kevin, how
difficult that was because there's folks that are paramount you
can't interview.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
That's right, and the people on the prosecution law enforcement side,
the families, they took that gag order very very seriously.
And they did not talk to us until after the
gag order was lifted, which was at the end of December,
and we had to deliver the book at the end
of January.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Wow, that's a lot of work really quick.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Oh yeah, it was like a power host. We were working.
How long a day were we working after that January?
Speaker 3 (10:57):
We were working seventeen to eighteen hours a day.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, it was intense.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, I figured it had to be seventeen it had
to be. Now again, as a married couple, how did
y'all I'm sure there were no arguments or fights about me,
of course, No, of course not. I mean, I can't
even imagine what you would argue about. So even from
the title who kind of well, I don't know not who.
(11:26):
But how did y'all decide who was going to do
what and how the job was divided up? Or did
y'all just do everything together at the same time.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
So you know what you said earlier about trying to
divide and conquer. I think that's what smart people would do.
I don't know whether it's codependency or we were just
like relying on each other during the trial. Kevin and
I didn't do that as much as we probably could
or even should have. You know, we talked a lot
about it. Hey maybe I'll go one day, you go
the next day, and we'll kind of you know, one
(11:57):
person can sleeve, one person can go to trial. But
we were so stressed we kind of just never really
separated that much except for a couple of occasions, and
that's kind of been the whole way we've worked through
the And I think you're asking about the title. So
I was really happy about this because the cover of
the book is actually you know, a photograph that Kevin took,
(12:19):
and the title is what I came up with because
I sort of felt like, you know, shadow of the Bridge.
I mean, it all centers upon what happened on this
bridge and it kind of cast everything into shadow for
all these years to come. So I kind of felt
and like the girls were, you know, forced down the
hill kind of into this shadowy area. It's just kind
of so that was something we kind of teamed up
(12:42):
on and we both kind of got something on the
cover there.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And then we sat down very early on in the process,
i think right after the trial, and we started having
conversations about how to organize the book because, as you well,
know this is a very very comple Cadences story.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
And so very complicated.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, we had to figure out how to tell it,
which includes what do we want to leave out, what
do we have to include, what do we stress? And
we developed a very very rough outline, and then we
would each take different sections of it and write a
rough draft of that section, and then we kind of
change them and revise each other's word.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, and I'm gonna tell her this and Kevin's going
to kill me, probably, But I remember there was this
one day where it was like, Okay, I'm going to
look at Kevin's section two and you kind of had
left it more in a rough draft form, and I
was like, oh my god, are you kidding me? And
then I looked at and I was like, I am
like how why is this happening? And then I look
at his section like five or whatever, and I was like,
(13:45):
this is brilliant. So I was laughing. We were laughing. Afterwards.
I was like, yeah, I was about to kind of
yell at you about section two, but second five so good.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I can't be mad the rest of your marriage anytime
she says anything crazy to go hey, section five.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Section five, Okay, so during the trial before trial happened,
we had a conversation where we were like, you know,
because you know, we get along very well, but it's
not like we fight a lot. But we knew our
tensions were going to be really high and it was
going to be stressful. So we said, let's just try
to be really really patient with one another. If someone's
(14:25):
being kind of snippy, let it go. If someone's being
kind of annoying, just let it go. Like let's just
kind of roll with it. And we were able to
really hold to that I think treaty, and it was great.
And the one time and this was I just thought
the funniest thing.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
We were spending a lot of time in Monticello, which
is a city in White County that's pretty near Delphi,
and that's where we were staying for a lot of it.
But we were in this I think it was a
McDonald's and we were getting into we were getting into
an argument about something like not yelling at a McDonald's,
but like just kind of like, oh, come on, you know,
like that kind of thing. And I remember like punching
in this like the chicken nuggets order onto the Kiosk
(15:03):
screen and being like, oh, you know, just aggravating each other.
And then one of our sources called and we talked
to them quickly, and then we were like, wait, what
were we even fighting about. We didn't even remember, so
we were just kind of laughed about it because we
were like that whatever it was was obviously not very sure.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Well, I'm going to tell you if y'all can survive this,
because there were days y'all were cold, you were sleep deprived,
you were hungry. You couldn't just take a break when
you wanted to. You had to stay in that courtroom.
You had to stay silent. You know, you didn't have
your phone, you didn't have your dog. So that's a
testament it should be easy straight now, honey.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
That's what And that's what I think it was weird
because when we that was difficult. I think it was
harder when we came back eventually because it was like,
we want to just be back to normal, and it
took a while, so there was a learning curve. So
I think that was where you know, we need to
stop only working or only talking about work, or like
we can't let every conversation just become Delphi, which is
(16:03):
what it had been for a while and kind of like, hey,
let's go out and do activities that are non crime related.
That's where it became important for us to try to
regain some distance where we can work together, but then
also not let work dominate our lives.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
That's really smart. And I think it's smart that y'all
had these things in place before you really started, because
it could have been real different.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, gosh, you know, I'm we've had
a lot of practice communicating.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, and I had I had this nightmarish memory. I
remember reading an article where Jimmy Carter of all people,
talked about the process of writing a book with his wife,
and of course they had famously a wonderful marriage, and
it was like, that's the closest we ever came to divorce.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Really weirdly, we probably we gotten more annoyed with each
other writing a book than actually being a trial. I
think that because we had more energy to be annoyed.
But I think we eventually The thing is, I am like,
so I throw in way too many details, I missing details.
I'm throwing everything at you to the point where it's
(17:19):
slowing everything down. And then Kevin takes too much stuff
out he cuts too much, and it's like, wait, this
doesn't even mean anything anymore because we have no idea
what we're talking about here. So, you know, we had
to find a balance between that, and I hope we
achieved that, but it was a situation where it was
kind of we are dealing with slightly different writing styles
and writing like Ethos, so it was important to kind
(17:39):
of without getting mad, without making it personal, without getting upset,
just figure out how do we give each other feedback
and balance it. And I think we achieved that.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
It's beautifully done. And I'm going to tell you you
know how they said the Beatles wrote like John would
write something and then Paul would write something, and they
would blend it. I can't even tail where it's blended.
It's just y'all. I think it is beautifully done.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
That's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
So yet we were really worried it would sound like
two different people like.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Up here's Anya to get really, you know, overly sentimental
about something, and then up Kevin's gonna give some legal jargon.
You know, that was what we were worried about.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I think it is so just fluid. It is fantastic,
Like even the way you handled odinism. Talk a little
bit about that, like who first broached Hey, should we?
Should we not? Is it relevant? Is it not relevant?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah? No, that's a great question because we you know,
I think we did an outline. We were like, wow,
we're putting a lot into odinism right now. And I
think the way we viewed odinism is you can't tell
the story without getting into it in some level, but
that you know, we don't necessarily want to overinflate its
importance either, And we also didn't want to do anything
(18:55):
where it was almost like trying to you know, how
do I say this like whitewashing, Like we didn't want
to put it in there as like, oh, this is
a normal theory that made a lot of sense, you know,
but we also didn't want to necessarily like write it off.
So I think we tried to balance that and we
looked at it as you know, this is something that
(19:16):
the defense of Richard Allen, for whether or not people
agree with this or not, they went all out on
and as a result, you have to at least look
at it, and in fairness, the only reason the defense
went all out and it is because you know, at
some point investigators looked into it and documented their findings,
so they were coming from it was coming from discovery,
(19:38):
So we wanted to look at it, but we wanted
to apply a more critical lens to it.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Then.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I think it's gotten in a lot of mainstream media
outlets where you know, understandably, you're a reporter, you got
a five o'clock deadline, the defense just filed this wild thing,
and you're thinking, hey, they're the defense attorneys. It must
be some you know, there must be some level of
credibility here. Let's oh and you know, I think they're
running with it, but they're not necessarily like looking into
(20:05):
it as much as we did and as much as
others did. Actually, not just us, but I think people
who are more in the new media actually were a
little bit more skeptical at some of this over time
because they were able to really go in and say, well,
they're saying this, but I'm not so sure, but yeah,
I don't know. So that's kind of where we were
coming from it. We didn't want to just erase it,
but we also didn't want to just present it as
(20:27):
like kind of you know, we wanted to kind of
just put the facts out there. No.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I think that was the best way to do it,
because if you didn't have it, people would use that
is see, they didn't even want to talk about it.
They know better, and I know, like Kevin for me,
I was on Nancy Grace that week that all that
came out, and she's like, I want you to weigh
in on Odinism, and I'm like, girl, I've never heard
of it. I think I know who odin was kind
(20:52):
of sort of, but I don't have any idea what
this would look like like whatever they're proposing occurred. Well,
every single expert that I knew didn't know anything about it.
So that's when I started to craft this ain't this
ain't it If nobody I know has ever heard of it,
(21:15):
nobody's responded to it, nobody's ever worked it, that ain't
what you're saying here.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
That's an excellent point. It's very hard to say, oh,
this crime happened this certain way if you can't point
to any other instance in the history of mankind where
the crime happened this certain way. And no one could
point to any instance where Odinism or white supremacists committed
a ritual homicide of two white girls Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
We talked to a terrific expert named Stuart Wexler who
looked into like white supremacy and things like that, so
he had a background in this, and you know, he
pointed out that, hey, there can be situations where white
supremacists norse, pagans, odinis, whatever you want to call them,
where they've assassinated people. But the case he was talking
about was an adult man who was a DJ who
(22:03):
was like against the white supremacist and making fun of
them on his show. When you're talking about white children,
white supremacists tend to be, you know, wanting to have
more of those, you know, and like that's not really
who they're going to be targeting. They're going to be
targeting people who are minorities or people who are their
perceived enemies, and so you know, kind of portraying it
(22:25):
as a ritual sacrifice. It's like, okay, but how is
it a ritual if it's only ever been done once
as far as we.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Know, right, and wasn't done well.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, and like also here's something that was just so
annoying about this whole thing that I just people were
just like, oh, well, there are sticks on the bodies,
so those are runs. Here's a question. If I threw
out a bunch of sticks in my yard, some of
them might resemble like the letter B or the letter B,
But if they don't really actually spell anything, then what
are we doing here? Like we can't you can't make
(22:57):
something out of nothing like it either well something or
a dozen.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
And that's what I was trying to say. It wasn't
done well. I mean, if you had a you know, pentagram,
it should be clear. If you have a goat's head,
it should be clear. If you've got six six six,
it should be clear. Like there was nothing that anybody
could see that this was Oh, I see what the
you know, activity is supposed to be. I say, what
(23:23):
the meaning is supposed to be wasn't there at all.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I'm a Catholic, right and we have you know, symbols
or there might be like things that represent like a
different saint or whatever. And it's like if the symbols
are so murky and obscure that they don't really mean anything,
Like how am I supposed to signal to another Catholic
what I'm trying to do here? Like, you know, like
language needs some level of clarity, even if it's a
(23:48):
secret language or an obscure language, because otherwise it's not
a language, it's just a vagueness.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Anya, that's a great point. Now, Kevin, let me ask
you this, As y'all are talking and having back and
forth and you're waiting for the gag order to be lifted,
how did y'all then decide to approach and include the
family story.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Well, we knew the family story was absolutely crucial. We
both felt that in a lot of coverage of the case,
people were talking so much about Owenism and all these
other things that the girls were getting lost in their
own stories, to be honest, But at the same time,
(24:30):
we didn't want to intrude and we didn't want to
take any precious memories that the family had and try
to exploit them. So we really tried to be respectful
in that regard.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, we sort of went to the families and sort
of just approached it very gently and said, this is
our intention with the book. We'd like to tell the truth.
We'd like to center the fact that we think Abby
and Liby are heroes because we think that they solved this.
But you know, yeah, so I mean, like, so that's
our intention. That's where we're coming from, but don't feel
(25:06):
like you have to, like, you know, just give us
your memories so we can you know, have them for
the book, like those are yours. If there's stuff you
want to bring to us to our attention, we would
be happy to you know, kind of talk about that
and whatnot, but also don't feel pressure. So that was
sort of a way that people could come to us
at their own pace and do what they wanted to do,
(25:27):
versus like feeling like they had to. And you know,
I think that was something that I feel good about
doing because you don't want to ignore the family story.
You don't want to not reach out and have them engaged,
but you also don't want to just be like running
them down and beating on their door and stressing them out.
So we tried to have kind of a way where
they could feel empowered to do what they wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I think one of the most difficult things about covering
any case that you are so intimately involved in, you know,
things that don't make it to coort, you know, things
the jury never heard. I think that's an important part
of this book too, that y'all are both able to
now tell things people did not know.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah, that was so hard sometimes because you know, for
safety reasons or for reasons of trying to preserve the
case or Richard Allen's rights. Even in some instances you can't.
You can't just share everything you know at all times.
It just wouldn't be responsible. But you do want to
inform the public, and I think this book was the
chance to kind of give people a peek behind the
curtains and here, here's what was really going on when
(26:32):
this whole thing was happening. And I think we feel
in that way, but I think the investigators did too.
When we talked to them, they were you know a
lot of them would be like, oh man, I'm so glad,
like finally I can tell people about this situation happened.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
That's right, that's right, because you know, you've got some
folks that have been pretty vocal online about how corrupt
the law enforcement is, how the judge was crazy, how
everybody that thinks Richard Allen did it is on and
it's some big conspiracy. They had zero evidence. I mean,
(27:04):
you've heard all so again, I think there's some parts
of this book where people are gonna be like, Okay, well,
that's hard to refute. Oh, I didn't realize that could
y'all put things in such a succinct way. And I
don't want to give things away, but y'all, when I
tell you, I think Anya just said it perfect.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
It is.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
You get a peek behind the curtain for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, you get to see some of the fights between
law enforcement. You get to see some of the like
instances where they were like, you know, going back and
forth or not sure what to do, or they maybe
felt they did the wrong thing. So like it's going
to be warts and all, but I really appreciate that.
I think one thing that for me, there's a handful
of people and it really is a small group. When
(27:49):
you look at them, they're just very loud where they're
just I mean, I hate to say this, but it's
almost like a cult where they've just like made this
their whole personalities, where they think everything's a conspiracy and
everyone's evil except for them, and so, I mean, they're
all very badly behaved and ridiculous. And some of them
are in the book, but I would say most people
who you encounter, they're just not sure and that's understandable.
(28:11):
They're just like, hey, I read a couple headlines or
I read a couple articles. I don't really understand the case,
and I don't feel comfortable with the idea that someone
went to prison if I'm not sure that that's the
guy who did it. And it's like, hey, I understand
where you're coming from. I'd probably be in the same
boat if I hadn't seen all of this. And so
this book is a chance to give people an opportunity
(28:32):
to kind of make up their own minds based on everything,
and in the end they may come to different conclusions.
They can at least be starting from the foundation of
having all the relevant information.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And I would imagine too. I mean, Kevin can't take
his attorney had off. He can't. That's the way he's
trained to think. And when you have to make a decision,
do we include that Richard Allen's wife didn't I make
the stand? Do we include that or not? Because I
think you made a great point on you that, yeah,
he's got rights and those have got to be respected
(29:08):
and he may appeal. So you don't want to do
anything to hurt the integrity. But at the same time,
you're sitting there writing with an attorney sitting to your left,
breathing down my neck and breathing down your neck, trying
to ruin your book.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Watching me like shying attorney hat.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Honey, you better put allegedly. I don't want to say allegedly, you're.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Gonna go nuts at this. But sometimes I always felt
like I was the more I mean, on the show,
I'm the hot head and Kevin's the cool mister cool.
But behind the scenes sometimes I could be the more
cautious one because I would be like, I don't know,
like like, let's get a couple more sources on this,
and Kevin's like, let's go. So we don't try to
be cautious. We also don't want to be unfair to anybody.
(29:55):
You know, there were certain people who just would not participate,
and we're not gonna pull punches or white water just
because people don't participate. But we also don't want to
just be like, oh, we're in somebody's head when we're not.
I think like, there's there's situations too where, yeah, you know,
and like we never want to just kitchen sink somebody
like throw everything but the kitchen sink at them. So
you know, with with Richard Allen, there'd be certain things
(30:17):
where you know, we ultimately felt very much that he
was guilty as charged and the jury made the right
call and should that verdict should be respected. But at
the same time, there would be things that people would
make a big deal about that we would say we
didn't really feel like that was so much of a
big deal. Like, you know, when he was on a
recording saying I'll just tell them what they want to hear.
(30:39):
Some people thought that sounded like a confession. We kind
of thought that sounded like it could be something incriminating,
or it could be just more of him saying I'll
just tell the detectives what they want to hear, even
if it's not true. So we're not going to you know,
beat up on him on that. So we tried to
be like just thoughtful about what we felt was really
relevant versus what is just kind of you know, noise
(31:00):
is If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Well, I did learn something just then Kevin and I
should not write a book together so much. It would
be fabulous, but we might get so so I didn't
have a question. Let's go, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I'll just be there with my editor hat on, and
then you guys can be like kind of a little cowd.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
You know, in Kevin's defense, I mean Richard Allen did
say I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yes, And we we with our with where we were
going with this. We wanted to everything we were going
to have was either going to be in the court
record or something where it would be like we had
multiple sources all saying the same thing independently, So we
tried to make sure that everything was vetted. I mean,
one thing that I kind of have had a bit
(31:51):
of heartburn about, you know, was just like, hey, like
it's it's it's something where you know, like you know,
you want to I mean, it would have been nice
to at people from Alan's side and from Allan's family
sort of just sharing their story, and that I mean
we asked for that, We pushed for that, and and
that was with the intention of we'd really love to
(32:12):
have been able to talk to them, figure out how
they felt about things, and humanize their stories even more.
But you know, at the same time, when people don't
want to participate, that's their right. But it doesn't mean that,
you know, we did our due diligence there as far
as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Okay, I want to ask both of you, because I
know this was a labor of love. I know it
was tasking. I know it was hard work. I know it,
and especially working with somebody love, I mean, that is
not always easy.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
My grandmama, she would say, travel with them or build
something with them, that's how you'll figure out what they're about.
But I would add to that and I'd say cover
a case with them. It's a lot, but y'all have
done it brilliantly. But I want to ask both of you,
what was your favorite section of the book. What was
(33:06):
your favorite thing that came out, or the way you
put it together, whatever just grew you the most.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
I'm so impressed with Anya's writing in general, and most
of the book I think, certainly it was like fifty
to fifty, but one section that she did on her
own completely was the very ending, and we've heard from
so many people that it brought a tear to their eyes,
(33:33):
and I was really affected by it. I just thought
it was some wonderful writing, and just generally throughout the process,
I've really been blessed to work with someone as talented
as she is. It makes it a whole lot easier
when if you're working on a project and you look
over and your partner is someone as wonderful and as
(33:55):
talented as Anya Kid, sweetie.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
I'm going to cry. Now, well, that's really nice Kevin.
I mean, honestly, Kevin is easy to work with because
he is easy going and he undercuts my ridiculous perfectionist tendency.
So I'll be someone who's like, oh, geez, like, we
got to get this paragraph, and he'll just be like,
calm down, and I'll be like, yeah, that's fair, and
he'll say it in a nicer way than just calm down.
He'll be able to actually help me, and he is
(34:22):
great to work with. I really liked I think I
mentioned I section five. I think that was the section
where the investigators are starting to kind of piece together
the lead that ultimately led them to Richard Allen.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:34):
And I thought Kevin wrote that it just felt very propulsive,
It felt like it was like pushing us forward, and
that I was excited to read that because even though
I knew exactly what happened, and I'd gone over it
in my head so many times, he was able to
cut it down, edit it, and piece it together in
a way that just felt really like you're watching this
(34:56):
happen almost and it's chilling, it's disturbing, but it's also
something that you want to know what happens next. And
I think that for me. And then another thing for
me was we got the opportunity to talk to some
of these investigators. And I know this is something that
you'd appreciate, but just like learning about the human beings
behind the job and their personalities and what they struggled
(35:19):
with and getting to help them try to, you know,
kind of almost making them come alive a little bit
in the book, or at least attempting to do that
was gratifying because it was like, these guys are really good,
solid guys, and they're solid investigators, and you know, for
reasons that are understandable to a certain extent, but also
for reasons that are kind of nonsense. At this point,
(35:39):
a lot of them have been you know, the investigation
was really maligned as like, oh and nept and incompetent
and horrible and all these people are all obviously corrupt
because it's not solved yet, and I think that's the
furthest thing from the truth. I think they there were
mistakes made, There were problems. Any investigation is going to
have that, but these people never gave up, and they
should be celebrated for that. I think that's what we
(36:01):
should want from law enforcement. You know that they're going
to continue to try to investigate even if things are
not always looking good. And that's what these guys did.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Y'all. Go get Shadow of the Bridge. Go get it.
It is a masterpiece, y'all. I cannot tell you how
much I have enjoyed talking to y'all again. I adore
a good love story. I'm a sucker for a good couple,
(36:34):
but I'm going to tell you it just brings me
joy when I see a good couple succeed. So I'm
going to end Zone seven the way that I always
do with a quote. When I first suggested the podcast,
it was before we were married or living together. Part
of my thinking was, at least this way I get
(36:57):
to talk to her for an hour a week. Kevin
Greenley about Anya came Murder Sheets podcast.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
It's romantic.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I'm Cheryl mccollumn and this is Zone seven.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Mm hmm.
Y'all know them. Y'all have followed them. Lord knows y'all
followed them. Now tonight we are gonna be talking to
Anya Cane and Kevin Greenley from Murder Sheets. Y'all know
who I'm talking about, because they have done something I'm
not even sure I know a word because I ain't
(00:29):
a writer. They are now and it is kind of
knocking me out because they have never written a book before.
But not only have they've done it, they've done it magnificently,
and they've done it as a couple. Y'all know, good
and well. Sometimes it is hard to pick a Christmas
(00:50):
tree with a spouse, much less to side a book title.
How the chapters are going to go, how the story's
gonna unfold. That's hard. That's difficult work right there. So
let's bring them in and figure out how they got
this deal done. Kevin, Anya, how are you welcome? Welcome,
Welcome back to Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
We are so excited to be here, and thank you
so much for having us. We really appreciate it, love
the work you do, and it's an honor.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I just want to set the record straight if people,
for some reason did not hear the first episode y'all
did with me here on Zone seven. So I just
want to tell people, let's talk about your book, Shadow
of the Bridge, And then you have a subtitle that
I think is so powerful, the del Phi Murders, a
(01:40):
dark side of the American Heartland. You couldn't have hit
that more accurate. When this trial was going on. Some
of the stuff y'all heard about was absolutely accurate. People
were having a fight for a seat, the judge wasn't
having it. The courtroom was tiny. They didn't get back
room breaks, you didn't hardly get a lunch break. You
(02:03):
just everything was I mean, it was almost surreal when
I got there and I thought all of these rumors,
all these crazy things are true. And the courtroom was
so tiny, y'all that if there were any haters, you
were two feet from them. I mean, you weren't but
(02:23):
eight feet from the accused. And then his family was
sitting right there. You had the victim's family not even
a foot from you. It was really an odd layout
to me. Would y'all agree with that?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yes? I think you just summed it up really well.
And I think you know you had to be almost
constantly scanning for threats, whether it was like maybe a
fight's going to breakout, or it's just really cold out,
or you're really hungry. So it kind of put you
in a weird Hunger Games esque sort of mindset.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Sure, and when I say no bathroom breaks, I'm not kidding.
If you all of a sudden had to go, there
was no re entry, you just lost half a day. Well,
fortunately there were two of you. For that, to me,
it would make it difficult because you know, any marriage,
it's never fifty to fifty. Sometimes somebody has the line's
(03:15):
share of whatever load is happening right now, right But
y'all had to divide and conquer and divide and conquer
and somehow come back together. And you were I mean, Anya,
I saw your notebook one day and I'm like, oh no,
(03:36):
I mean I thought that looks like a crazy person.
I mean, you're writing down every single word. I don't
know if you knew shorthand or not, but I just
knew page after page because you know how Kevin, you
know what I'm talking about. When you sit next to
somebody in class that you know is smarter than you,
and they're like on the third or fourth page of
(03:56):
notes and you've only written a couple of things down.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Feel that way anytime that's Kevin.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Okay, marriage, I.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Feel that way about both of you because I felt
like I've only written a couple of things down. How
is she on her fifth page of notes? Like, I'm
clearly missing something? But I couldn't have written that all
down anyway. But here's what I thought was amazing. Number One,
Kevin is an attorney and Anya you are a journalist,
(04:27):
so with research skills, you both have it, even if
it's from a different avenue. I mean, that's how y'all met.
So y'all had that in sync already, which I thought
was fabulous. But here's the part people may not know.
In this business, whether it's writing a book or doing
a podcast or getting on TV, whatever it is, there
(04:49):
is some competition involved, and some people are cut through
about it. Y'all were so kind and so gracious and
helped so many people that other folks don't know about.
Y'all help me. Hear me and my sister, we didn't
even know what was up. We didn't know where to stand,
(05:10):
we didn't know where the line start and ended. We
didn't know how to take a break, we didn't know
where our cell phones went and y'all were fabulous about that.
I know y'all were all so good to Susan Hendricks
and other folks. I know it for a fact. I
know what the Prosecutor's podcast thanks of y'all and other people.
And I just think that speaks to who y'all are
(05:31):
as a couple and individuals more than anything.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Thank you. That means a lot, I mean it, And
you know what it was. You guys were so nice
to us too. And I'm just gonna say Susan Hendrix
probably saved us from getting a frost bright like several
times over.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yeah, she's a doll.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
She was like, let's get blankets. It was like, yeah,
y'all like the heat blankets. I would go up with
on Everest with that woman because she knows what she's doing.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
But no, she's a doll and she is the same way.
But I'm saying that there was just this tight knit group,
like I already felt, you know, just this kinship with Kelsey,
and I just felt like I needed to be there
for her, you know what I mean, you just just
show up. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't
(06:21):
make anything better, but just know what I, Hey, I'm here,
I'll take you to dinner kind of thing. Well, I
just saw y'all help person after a person after person,
so I just thought that was super cool. I just
want to say that I don't know if y'all you.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Know, it's very nice of you to say. And you know,
at the end of the day, you mentioned Kelsey, And
at the end of the day, it really is about
the families, and it's about the girls, and it's about
their legacies and it's about honoring that. And so it's
not about us trying to get an exclusive or cut
people out. If there's people there who care about the
(06:56):
girls and the families, we want to help them so
they have the tools to share the truth and to
honor these girls.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, and I'm going to say this, like it was
really easy to do when we were kind of modeling
after people like Kelsey and her family. They were so
kind and patient with people there. I think we've talked
about this on the show, but they were giving people food,
and I was like, people should be taking care of you,
and you're taking care of everybody else, you know, And
I'm like, Becky Patty's given everyone this, like, you know,
(07:25):
banana bread, and I told her at some point, I
was like, Becky, you're a better woman than I. I
would have been throwing that banana bread at some of
these jerks. And she was like, well, you know, I'm
just going to give food to people who are hungry.
And I'm like, that's amazing. So we want like when
we had that as sort of an inspiration, it was
it became easier to try to lead with some compassion
and kindness. I mean, I don't know, because I do
(07:47):
feel like most of the people there, such as yourself, it
was so nice to meet your sister.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
She was awesome.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Such as yourself, and then other people who visited, they
just wanted the truth. And it's like we all got
to kind of stick together a little bit because it's
a difficult situation.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
It was difficult, and I agree with you, Becky, Patty
was the standard. I've never seen anything like it. And
I know Charlene and I you know, we laughed about it,
and I'm like, oh, I might have been passing out
some muffins, but they would have had some poison in it,
Like what do you talk about? I mean, she was
just beyond gracious and again treated everybody as best she could,
(08:27):
which was crazy. Y'all moved there. I mean, your whole
lives were turned upside down. And I can remember at
one point, Annie, you were saying you were so exhausted.
But every night you had to type up your notes,
You had to get things in order, you had to
get ready to get back in line to do it
all again. And you know, for y'all to keep up
(08:48):
with just your day to day, I mean you had
other emails, you had other responsibilities, you had bills, you
had a house, you had a life, you had family members.
That's a lot to put on old to do what
you did every day for seventeen hours a day, it
was tough.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And we were lucky we had people in our lives
who understood what we needed to do, so they weren't,
you know, offended when we sort of disappeared for a month.
The saddest thing was we didn't get to spend we
always are hanging out with our dog Annie. She's a
great dog, and we had to, you know, she had
to spend a lot of time apart from us, and
I don't know, I was really worried at first, but
(09:27):
I think she had a blast with her sort of staycation.
So I ended up kind of being offended. It's like,
don't you miss us. It's like, no, I'm having all
the treats. It's like okay, but that was stressful.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I think being away from your dog would be probably
the most difficult.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, but she didn't care at all.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So that's good.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Feel a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
That's good. Now. Y'all started writing the book while the
trial was going on. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, No, that's that's what we mean. We were writing
throughout we so it's we Actually we had I would say,
like a draft before the trial, but we wrote very rough,
very rough. We knew, hey, like probably half of this
is going to turn out to be wrong or need
to be scrapped, so we had something very rough, tried
to add to it during trial, but really wrote the
(10:15):
bulk of it after trial. Is that fair to say, Kevin?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That is fair to say because there was a gag
order in place.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I was going to ask you about that, Kevin, how
difficult that was because there's folks that are paramount you
can't interview.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
That's right, and the people on the prosecution law enforcement side,
the families, they took that gag order very very seriously.
And they did not talk to us until after the
gag order was lifted, which was at the end of December,
and we had to deliver the book at the end
of January.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Wow, that's a lot of work really quick.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Oh yeah, it was like a power host. We were working.
How long a day were we working after that January?
Speaker 3 (10:57):
We were working seventeen to eighteen hours a day.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, it was intense.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, I figured it had to be seventeen it had
to be. Now again, as a married couple, how did
y'all I'm sure there were no arguments or fights about me,
of course, No, of course not. I mean, I can't
even imagine what you would argue about. So even from
the title who kind of well, I don't know not who.
(11:26):
But how did y'all decide who was going to do
what and how the job was divided up? Or did
y'all just do everything together at the same time.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
So you know what you said earlier about trying to
divide and conquer. I think that's what smart people would do.
I don't know whether it's codependency or we were just
like relying on each other during the trial. Kevin and
I didn't do that as much as we probably could
or even should have. You know, we talked a lot
about it. Hey maybe I'll go one day, you go
the next day, and we'll kind of you know, one
(11:57):
person can sleeve, one person can go to trial. But
we were so stressed we kind of just never really
separated that much except for a couple of occasions, and
that's kind of been the whole way we've worked through
the And I think you're asking about the title. So
I was really happy about this because the cover of
the book is actually you know, a photograph that Kevin took,
(12:19):
and the title is what I came up with because
I sort of felt like, you know, shadow of the Bridge.
I mean, it all centers upon what happened on this
bridge and it kind of cast everything into shadow for
all these years to come. So I kind of felt
and like the girls were, you know, forced down the
hill kind of into this shadowy area. It's just kind
of so that was something we kind of teamed up
(12:42):
on and we both kind of got something on the
cover there.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And then we sat down very early on in the process,
i think right after the trial, and we started having
conversations about how to organize the book because, as you well,
know this is a very very comple Cadences story.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
And so very complicated.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, we had to figure out how to tell it,
which includes what do we want to leave out, what
do we have to include, what do we stress? And
we developed a very very rough outline, and then we
would each take different sections of it and write a
rough draft of that section, and then we kind of
change them and revise each other's word.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, and I'm gonna tell her this and Kevin's going
to kill me, probably, But I remember there was this
one day where it was like, Okay, I'm going to
look at Kevin's section two and you kind of had
left it more in a rough draft form, and I
was like, oh my god, are you kidding me? And
then I looked at and I was like, I am
like how why is this happening? And then I look
at his section like five or whatever, and I was like,
(13:45):
this is brilliant. So I was laughing. We were laughing. Afterwards.
I was like, yeah, I was about to kind of
yell at you about section two, but second five so good.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I can't be mad the rest of your marriage anytime
she says anything crazy to go hey, section five.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Section five, Okay, so during the trial before trial happened,
we had a conversation where we were like, you know,
because you know, we get along very well, but it's
not like we fight a lot. But we knew our
tensions were going to be really high and it was
going to be stressful. So we said, let's just try
to be really really patient with one another. If someone's
(14:25):
being kind of snippy, let it go. If someone's being
kind of annoying, just let it go. Like let's just
kind of roll with it. And we were able to
really hold to that I think treaty, and it was great.
And the one time and this was I just thought
the funniest thing.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
We were spending a lot of time in Monticello, which
is a city in White County that's pretty near Delphi,
and that's where we were staying for a lot of it.
But we were in this I think it was a
McDonald's and we were getting into we were getting into
an argument about something like not yelling at a McDonald's,
but like just kind of like, oh, come on, you know,
like that kind of thing. And I remember like punching
in this like the chicken nuggets order onto the Kiosk
(15:03):
screen and being like, oh, you know, just aggravating each other.
And then one of our sources called and we talked
to them quickly, and then we were like, wait, what
were we even fighting about. We didn't even remember, so
we were just kind of laughed about it because we
were like that whatever it was was obviously not very sure.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Well, I'm going to tell you if y'all can survive this,
because there were days y'all were cold, you were sleep deprived,
you were hungry. You couldn't just take a break when
you wanted to. You had to stay in that courtroom.
You had to stay silent. You know, you didn't have
your phone, you didn't have your dog. So that's a
testament it should be easy straight now, honey.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
That's what And that's what I think it was weird
because when we that was difficult. I think it was
harder when we came back eventually because it was like,
we want to just be back to normal, and it
took a while, so there was a learning curve. So
I think that was where you know, we need to
stop only working or only talking about work, or like
we can't let every conversation just become Delphi, which is
(16:03):
what it had been for a while and kind of like, hey,
let's go out and do activities that are non crime related.
That's where it became important for us to try to
regain some distance where we can work together, but then
also not let work dominate our lives.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
That's really smart. And I think it's smart that y'all
had these things in place before you really started, because
it could have been real different.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, gosh, you know, I'm we've had
a lot of practice communicating.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, and I had I had this nightmarish memory. I
remember reading an article where Jimmy Carter of all people,
talked about the process of writing a book with his wife,
and of course they had famously a wonderful marriage, and
it was like, that's the closest we ever came to divorce.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Really weirdly, we probably we gotten more annoyed with each
other writing a book than actually being a trial. I
think that because we had more energy to be annoyed.
But I think we eventually The thing is, I am like,
so I throw in way too many details, I missing details.
I'm throwing everything at you to the point where it's
(17:19):
slowing everything down. And then Kevin takes too much stuff
out he cuts too much, and it's like, wait, this
doesn't even mean anything anymore because we have no idea
what we're talking about here. So, you know, we had
to find a balance between that, and I hope we
achieved that, but it was a situation where it was
kind of we are dealing with slightly different writing styles
and writing like Ethos, so it was important to kind
(17:39):
of without getting mad, without making it personal, without getting upset,
just figure out how do we give each other feedback
and balance it. And I think we achieved that.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
It's beautifully done. And I'm going to tell you you
know how they said the Beatles wrote like John would
write something and then Paul would write something, and they
would blend it. I can't even tail where it's blended.
It's just y'all. I think it is beautifully done.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
That's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
So yet we were really worried it would sound like
two different people like.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Up here's Anya to get really, you know, overly sentimental
about something, and then up Kevin's gonna give some legal jargon.
You know, that was what we were worried about.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I think it is so just fluid. It is fantastic,
Like even the way you handled odinism. Talk a little
bit about that, like who first broached Hey, should we?
Should we not? Is it relevant? Is it not relevant?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah? No, that's a great question because we you know,
I think we did an outline. We were like, wow,
we're putting a lot into odinism right now. And I
think the way we viewed odinism is you can't tell
the story without getting into it in some level, but
that you know, we don't necessarily want to overinflate its
importance either, And we also didn't want to do anything
(18:55):
where it was almost like trying to you know, how
do I say this like whitewashing, Like we didn't want
to put it in there as like, oh, this is
a normal theory that made a lot of sense, you know,
but we also didn't want to necessarily like write it off.
So I think we tried to balance that and we
looked at it as you know, this is something that
(19:16):
the defense of Richard Allen, for whether or not people
agree with this or not, they went all out on
and as a result, you have to at least look
at it, and in fairness, the only reason the defense
went all out and it is because you know, at
some point investigators looked into it and documented their findings,
so they were coming from it was coming from discovery,
(19:38):
So we wanted to look at it, but we wanted
to apply a more critical lens to it.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Then.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I think it's gotten in a lot of mainstream media
outlets where you know, understandably, you're a reporter, you got
a five o'clock deadline, the defense just filed this wild thing,
and you're thinking, hey, they're the defense attorneys. It must
be some you know, there must be some level of
credibility here. Let's oh and you know, I think they're
running with it, but they're not necessarily like looking into
(20:05):
it as much as we did and as much as
others did. Actually, not just us, but I think people
who are more in the new media actually were a
little bit more skeptical at some of this over time
because they were able to really go in and say, well,
they're saying this, but I'm not so sure, but yeah,
I don't know. So that's kind of where we were
coming from it. We didn't want to just erase it,
but we also didn't want to just present it as
(20:27):
like kind of you know, we wanted to kind of
just put the facts out there. No.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I think that was the best way to do it,
because if you didn't have it, people would use that
is see, they didn't even want to talk about it.
They know better, and I know, like Kevin for me,
I was on Nancy Grace that week that all that
came out, and she's like, I want you to weigh
in on Odinism, and I'm like, girl, I've never heard
of it. I think I know who odin was kind
(20:52):
of sort of, but I don't have any idea what
this would look like like whatever they're proposing occurred. Well,
every single expert that I knew didn't know anything about it.
So that's when I started to craft this ain't this
ain't it If nobody I know has ever heard of it,
(21:15):
nobody's responded to it, nobody's ever worked it, that ain't
what you're saying here.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
That's an excellent point. It's very hard to say, oh,
this crime happened this certain way if you can't point
to any other instance in the history of mankind where
the crime happened this certain way. And no one could
point to any instance where Odinism or white supremacists committed
a ritual homicide of two white girls Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
We talked to a terrific expert named Stuart Wexler who
looked into like white supremacy and things like that, so
he had a background in this, and you know, he
pointed out that, hey, there can be situations where white
supremacists norse, pagans, odinis, whatever you want to call them,
where they've assassinated people. But the case he was talking
about was an adult man who was a DJ who
(22:03):
was like against the white supremacist and making fun of
them on his show. When you're talking about white children,
white supremacists tend to be, you know, wanting to have
more of those, you know, and like that's not really
who they're going to be targeting. They're going to be
targeting people who are minorities or people who are their
perceived enemies, and so you know, kind of portraying it
(22:25):
as a ritual sacrifice. It's like, okay, but how is
it a ritual if it's only ever been done once
as far as we.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Know, right, and wasn't done well.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, and like also here's something that was just so
annoying about this whole thing that I just people were
just like, oh, well, there are sticks on the bodies,
so those are runs. Here's a question. If I threw
out a bunch of sticks in my yard, some of
them might resemble like the letter B or the letter B,
But if they don't really actually spell anything, then what
are we doing here? Like we can't you can't make
(22:57):
something out of nothing like it either well something or
a dozen.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
And that's what I was trying to say. It wasn't
done well. I mean, if you had a you know, pentagram,
it should be clear. If you have a goat's head,
it should be clear. If you've got six six six,
it should be clear. Like there was nothing that anybody
could see that this was Oh, I see what the
you know, activity is supposed to be. I say, what
(23:23):
the meaning is supposed to be wasn't there at all.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I'm a Catholic, right and we have you know, symbols
or there might be like things that represent like a
different saint or whatever. And it's like if the symbols
are so murky and obscure that they don't really mean anything,
Like how am I supposed to signal to another Catholic
what I'm trying to do here? Like, you know, like
language needs some level of clarity, even if it's a
(23:48):
secret language or an obscure language, because otherwise it's not
a language, it's just a vagueness.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Anya, that's a great point. Now, Kevin, let me ask
you this, As y'all are talking and having back and
forth and you're waiting for the gag order to be lifted,
how did y'all then decide to approach and include the
family story.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Well, we knew the family story was absolutely crucial. We
both felt that in a lot of coverage of the case,
people were talking so much about Owenism and all these
other things that the girls were getting lost in their
own stories, to be honest, But at the same time,
(24:30):
we didn't want to intrude and we didn't want to
take any precious memories that the family had and try
to exploit them. So we really tried to be respectful
in that regard.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, we sort of went to the families and sort
of just approached it very gently and said, this is
our intention with the book. We'd like to tell the truth.
We'd like to center the fact that we think Abby
and Liby are heroes because we think that they solved this.
But you know, yeah, so I mean, like, so that's
our intention. That's where we're coming from, but don't feel
(25:06):
like you have to, like, you know, just give us
your memories so we can you know, have them for
the book, like those are yours. If there's stuff you
want to bring to us to our attention, we would
be happy to you know, kind of talk about that
and whatnot, but also don't feel pressure. So that was
sort of a way that people could come to us
at their own pace and do what they wanted to do,
(25:27):
versus like feeling like they had to. And you know,
I think that was something that I feel good about
doing because you don't want to ignore the family story.
You don't want to not reach out and have them engaged,
but you also don't want to just be like running
them down and beating on their door and stressing them out.
So we tried to have kind of a way where
they could feel empowered to do what they wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I think one of the most difficult things about covering
any case that you are so intimately involved in, you know,
things that don't make it to coort, you know, things
the jury never heard. I think that's an important part
of this book too, that y'all are both able to
now tell things people did not know.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah, that was so hard sometimes because you know, for
safety reasons or for reasons of trying to preserve the
case or Richard Allen's rights. Even in some instances you can't.
You can't just share everything you know at all times.
It just wouldn't be responsible. But you do want to
inform the public, and I think this book was the
chance to kind of give people a peek behind the
curtains and here, here's what was really going on when
(26:32):
this whole thing was happening. And I think we feel
in that way, but I think the investigators did too.
When we talked to them, they were you know a
lot of them would be like, oh man, I'm so glad,
like finally I can tell people about this situation happened.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
That's right, that's right, because you know, you've got some
folks that have been pretty vocal online about how corrupt
the law enforcement is, how the judge was crazy, how
everybody that thinks Richard Allen did it is on and
it's some big conspiracy. They had zero evidence. I mean,
(27:04):
you've heard all so again, I think there's some parts
of this book where people are gonna be like, Okay, well,
that's hard to refute. Oh, I didn't realize that could
y'all put things in such a succinct way. And I
don't want to give things away, but y'all, when I
tell you, I think Anya just said it perfect.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
It is.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
You get a peek behind the curtain for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, you get to see some of the fights between
law enforcement. You get to see some of the like
instances where they were like, you know, going back and
forth or not sure what to do, or they maybe
felt they did the wrong thing. So like it's going
to be warts and all, but I really appreciate that.
I think one thing that for me, there's a handful
of people and it really is a small group. When
(27:49):
you look at them, they're just very loud where they're
just I mean, I hate to say this, but it's
almost like a cult where they've just like made this
their whole personalities, where they think everything's a conspiracy and
everyone's evil except for them, and so, I mean, they're
all very badly behaved and ridiculous. And some of them
are in the book, but I would say most people
who you encounter, they're just not sure and that's understandable.
(28:11):
They're just like, hey, I read a couple headlines or
I read a couple articles. I don't really understand the case,
and I don't feel comfortable with the idea that someone
went to prison if I'm not sure that that's the
guy who did it. And it's like, hey, I understand
where you're coming from. I'd probably be in the same
boat if I hadn't seen all of this. And so
this book is a chance to give people an opportunity
(28:32):
to kind of make up their own minds based on everything,
and in the end they may come to different conclusions.
They can at least be starting from the foundation of
having all the relevant information.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And I would imagine too. I mean, Kevin can't take
his attorney had off. He can't. That's the way he's
trained to think. And when you have to make a decision,
do we include that Richard Allen's wife didn't I make
the stand? Do we include that or not? Because I
think you made a great point on you that, yeah,
he's got rights and those have got to be respected
(29:08):
and he may appeal. So you don't want to do
anything to hurt the integrity. But at the same time,
you're sitting there writing with an attorney sitting to your left,
breathing down my neck and breathing down your neck, trying
to ruin your book.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Watching me like shying attorney hat.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Honey, you better put allegedly. I don't want to say allegedly, you're.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Gonna go nuts at this. But sometimes I always felt
like I was the more I mean, on the show,
I'm the hot head and Kevin's the cool mister cool.
But behind the scenes sometimes I could be the more
cautious one because I would be like, I don't know,
like like, let's get a couple more sources on this,
and Kevin's like, let's go. So we don't try to
be cautious. We also don't want to be unfair to anybody.
(29:55):
You know, there were certain people who just would not participate,
and we're not gonna pull punches or white water just
because people don't participate. But we also don't want to
just be like, oh, we're in somebody's head when we're not.
I think like, there's there's situations too where, yeah, you know,
and like we never want to just kitchen sink somebody
like throw everything but the kitchen sink at them. So
you know, with with Richard Allen, there'd be certain things
(30:17):
where you know, we ultimately felt very much that he
was guilty as charged and the jury made the right
call and should that verdict should be respected. But at
the same time, there would be things that people would
make a big deal about that we would say we
didn't really feel like that was so much of a
big deal. Like, you know, when he was on a
recording saying I'll just tell them what they want to hear.
(30:39):
Some people thought that sounded like a confession. We kind
of thought that sounded like it could be something incriminating,
or it could be just more of him saying I'll
just tell the detectives what they want to hear, even
if it's not true. So we're not going to you know,
beat up on him on that. So we tried to
be like just thoughtful about what we felt was really
relevant versus what is just kind of you know, noise
(31:00):
is If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Well, I did learn something just then Kevin and I
should not write a book together so much. It would
be fabulous, but we might get so so I didn't
have a question. Let's go, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I'll just be there with my editor hat on, and
then you guys can be like kind of a little cowd.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
You know, in Kevin's defense, I mean Richard Allen did
say I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yes, And we we with our with where we were
going with this. We wanted to everything we were going
to have was either going to be in the court
record or something where it would be like we had
multiple sources all saying the same thing independently, So we
tried to make sure that everything was vetted. I mean,
one thing that I kind of have had a bit
(31:51):
of heartburn about, you know, was just like, hey, like
it's it's it's something where you know, like you know,
you want to I mean, it would have been nice
to at people from Alan's side and from Allan's family
sort of just sharing their story, and that I mean
we asked for that, We pushed for that, and and
that was with the intention of we'd really love to
(32:12):
have been able to talk to them, figure out how
they felt about things, and humanize their stories even more.
But you know, at the same time, when people don't
want to participate, that's their right. But it doesn't mean that,
you know, we did our due diligence there as far
as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Okay, I want to ask both of you, because I
know this was a labor of love. I know it
was tasking. I know it was hard work. I know it,
and especially working with somebody love, I mean, that is
not always easy.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
My grandmama, she would say, travel with them or build
something with them, that's how you'll figure out what they're about.
But I would add to that and I'd say cover
a case with them. It's a lot, but y'all have
done it brilliantly. But I want to ask both of you,
what was your favorite section of the book. What was
(33:06):
your favorite thing that came out, or the way you
put it together, whatever just grew you the most.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
I'm so impressed with Anya's writing in general, and most
of the book I think, certainly it was like fifty
to fifty, but one section that she did on her
own completely was the very ending, and we've heard from
so many people that it brought a tear to their eyes,
(33:33):
and I was really affected by it. I just thought
it was some wonderful writing, and just generally throughout the process,
I've really been blessed to work with someone as talented
as she is. It makes it a whole lot easier
when if you're working on a project and you look
over and your partner is someone as wonderful and as
(33:55):
talented as Anya Kid, sweetie.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
I'm going to cry. Now, well, that's really nice Kevin.
I mean, honestly, Kevin is easy to work with because
he is easy going and he undercuts my ridiculous perfectionist tendency.
So I'll be someone who's like, oh, geez, like, we
got to get this paragraph, and he'll just be like,
calm down, and I'll be like, yeah, that's fair, and
he'll say it in a nicer way than just calm down.
He'll be able to actually help me, and he is
(34:22):
great to work with. I really liked I think I
mentioned I section five. I think that was the section
where the investigators are starting to kind of piece together
the lead that ultimately led them to Richard Allen.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:34):
And I thought Kevin wrote that it just felt very propulsive,
It felt like it was like pushing us forward, and
that I was excited to read that because even though
I knew exactly what happened, and I'd gone over it
in my head so many times, he was able to
cut it down, edit it, and piece it together in
a way that just felt really like you're watching this
(34:56):
happen almost and it's chilling, it's disturbing, but it's also
something that you want to know what happens next. And
I think that for me. And then another thing for
me was we got the opportunity to talk to some
of these investigators. And I know this is something that
you'd appreciate, but just like learning about the human beings
behind the job and their personalities and what they struggled
(35:19):
with and getting to help them try to, you know,
kind of almost making them come alive a little bit
in the book, or at least attempting to do that
was gratifying because it was like, these guys are really good,
solid guys, and they're solid investigators, and you know, for
reasons that are understandable to a certain extent, but also
for reasons that are kind of nonsense. At this point,
(35:39):
a lot of them have been you know, the investigation
was really maligned as like, oh and nept and incompetent
and horrible and all these people are all obviously corrupt
because it's not solved yet, and I think that's the
furthest thing from the truth. I think they there were
mistakes made, There were problems. Any investigation is going to
have that, but these people never gave up, and they
should be celebrated for that. I think that's what we
(36:01):
should want from law enforcement. You know that they're going
to continue to try to investigate even if things are
not always looking good. And that's what these guys did.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Y'all. Go get Shadow of the Bridge. Go get it.
It is a masterpiece, y'all. I cannot tell you how
much I have enjoyed talking to y'all again. I adore
a good love story. I'm a sucker for a good couple,
(36:34):
but I'm going to tell you it just brings me
joy when I see a good couple succeed. So I'm
going to end Zone seven the way that I always
do with a quote. When I first suggested the podcast,
it was before we were married or living together. Part
of my thinking was, at least this way I get
(36:57):
to talk to her for an hour a week. Kevin
Greenley about Anya came Murder Sheets podcast.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
It's romantic.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I'm Cheryl mccollumn and this is Zone seven.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Mm hmm.
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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