From Podcasting to Advocacy : Berkshire Podcast Festival

Melissa and Whitney had the opportunity to join Kristen Seavey and Eric Carter-Landin at the Berkshire Podcast Festival in October. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How's everybody doing today.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
It's awesome to be here, cold for me from the desert,
so I'm keeping my jacket on. Don't be surprised by
that kind of freezing right now. But it's beautiful here,
So very glad to be here. Kristin she's talking to somebody.
So we're gonna go ahead and just get started here
and do a couple of introductions. So my name is

(00:26):
Eric carter Landin. If you don't know me, I am
the host and producer of True Consequences, the co host
of Crime Lines and Consequences with Charlie, and also the
host of The Murder in My Family.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
So do quite a bit of podcasting.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
But I'm most proud of my role as an advocate
for my baby brother, Jacob, And if you haven't heard
Jacob's story, I highly recommend it. It's a massive injustice
that happened to my brother and my family and we're
still fighting for answers.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
So a lot of what we're going to talk about today.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Comes from for me, from that lens of being a
family member and what it's like to have to deal
with these kinds of things, Like nobody teaches you in
school how to fight for justice when your brother gets murdered,
so kind of kind of bring some light to those

(01:23):
things here. And these are two of my best friends
in the whole world. So Withny and Melissa, if you
want to share a little bit about yourselves.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
I'm Melissa in Liineweber, one half of the podcast Navigating Advocacy.
We are a weekly episodic podcast that talks about only
unsolved cases missing and murdered. We now exclusively work with families,
helping them anyway they need it. There's a lot of

(01:53):
families out there that don't know what to do when
their loved one goes missing or they have a death
in the family. It's a very lonely road, as Eric says,
So yeah, that's anything else, I'm just cut off.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
No, So I'm really loud.

Speaker 5 (02:15):
I'm Whitney.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
The other half of Navigating Advocacy, and something Eric did
not mention is the three of us have also formed
together to create Advocacy Conference, which is a conference that
brings together families of missing and murdered all in the
same room with resources other content creators, private investigators, nonprofits, experts.
Anyway they can meet with someone to help advance their case.

(02:37):
So that is also a project we are working on.
And Kristin welcome.

Speaker 6 (02:41):
Hello, Thanks, thanks for having me. I'm Kristin Cevie. I
am from Murder she told.

Speaker 7 (02:47):
I'm from Maine, and we cover New England.

Speaker 6 (02:49):
Cases and we work with families and law enforcement to
tell these stories and a lot of them are barely
a hit on the internet, if that. So we like
to dig really deep and tell stories that aren't being
featured on other podcasts.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
So one of the things that is kind of going
around right now is this idea of ethical true crime
content creation, and it's become kind of a buzzword, and
I feel like a lot of times that when that happens,
those concepts get cheapened a little bit. Right Because anybody
can say that they're ethical, it doesn't necessarily mean that
they are.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
There's no governing body.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Over true crime podcasts, so it's really subjective right now
as it stands, I can only speak from my experience
as a family member of a murder victim what it
feels like to watch what I would consider to be
typical types of true crime, or listen to typical types
of true crime, because a lot of times the humanity

(03:45):
is stripped away from the story and the focus is
on the sensationalism and things like that. So when I
started early on with True Consequences, initially I was doing
like the typical true crime podcast and it wasn't until
I started talking to family members like myself that I realized, Wow,
we could do so much more here. So my question

(04:06):
for my panelists here is how did you get into
the advocacy piece?

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Because for me, it's like.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Obvious, right, like I didn't have a choice, But for
you folks, it's a little bit different.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
So do you want to share that.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah, So when we started our podcast, we were actually
called the Cults Crimes in Cabernet.

Speaker 5 (04:25):
It started over the pandemic.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
We just sat around the table talking about true crime
and Whitney was like, let's record this. I believe there
was some day drinking going.

Speaker 5 (04:35):
On a pandemic.

Speaker 7 (04:38):
There's always day drinking.

Speaker 5 (04:39):
Then, so we went.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
We did that for a few months, kind of just
put whatever out there, and it wasn't until one day
we were like, hey, we wanted to do more. So
we decided to reach out to our very first family.
It was terrifying, but they had a public Facebook page,
so we're like this is an okay time to do
this a response back, and that led us to meeting

(05:02):
a case advocate.

Speaker 7 (05:04):
We ended up going on our.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
First foot search, and that's kind of how it started.
Definitely listening to the families their struggles. I don't believe
you can be in the true crime industry and hear
everything that they're dealing with and not open your heart
and want to do more. So that's really kind of
how we started and evolved from there.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
What she said, Kristen, Yeah, I was going to.

Speaker 7 (05:29):
Ask if you had more.

Speaker 6 (05:30):
But so when I started Murder, she told I knew
that I wanted to work with families because there just
wasn't enough information to have a full episode with the
research that I was finding. And these cases aren't in
the media, people aren't talking about them.

Speaker 7 (05:46):
They're in my own backyard.

Speaker 6 (05:48):
So I'm also an actor, and to me as an actor,
you know, I want to learn everything that I can
about my character. And I viewed true crime as it's
the victim story, it's not the killer story. And consuming
true crime, I always noticed that everything starts at the murder,
but I'm like, but what about the rest of it?

(06:09):
So I knew that I wanted to kind of give
it a more human approach, and the best way to
do that was to work with families. And one of
the very first interviews that I did was actually a childhood.

Speaker 7 (06:21):
Friend of mine from Maine.

Speaker 6 (06:23):
She was killed out in California and it's still unsolved,
and her case got very little attention because there's some
drugs involved, and I think it just got categorized as
a certain thing and it was just that thing and
nobody cared about it. But her family still cares and
they don't have justice, and they want people to know
how amazing she was and that she wasn't just a

(06:45):
quote unquote junkie, which is what people told her mom.
She was, you know, like her life had value. So
I think like the advocacy part started after I worked
with families and realized that like, they haven't had a
voice like this. A lot of them have never been
heard in the way that we are listening to them
and talking to them and giving them that place to

(07:09):
feel heard and to have their story told the way
that they want it to be told, and not just
the little SoundBite that the media gives them in their
two minute spot on the news on the anniversary so
I think.

Speaker 7 (07:20):
That's kind of where it started.

Speaker 6 (07:22):
And we also work with a lot of law enforcement,
and we're partnered with the Carrie Police Department on a
missing person's case from nineteen eighty three. So it also
kind of like spills over to that too, where I
want this show to be an asset for the police
departments as well that are looking for an outlet to
reach listeners like you who might have information that they

(07:42):
don't even know. Because if people aren't talking about these cases,
I mean, are they getting solved some of them?

Speaker 7 (07:49):
Probably not.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
I think there's so much value in providing that space
for the family members to tell their story and their
own words because to your point, getting edited for content
by the news is super painful, right because usually they
leave out what is most important to you. And I
get it, corporate news has to do what they're going
to do. But to have that outlet, to be able

(08:13):
to just express yourself and tell your story, take that
power back.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
It's huge. It's such such an amazing gift to be
able to give to families.

Speaker 6 (08:21):
Yeah, I mean like with podcasting too, Like I understand
that the news has a very specific amount of time
that they can do it, but like we have forty minutes,
we have an hour, we have whatever it needs to
be to tell the story.

Speaker 7 (08:34):
And you know, I want people to walk.

Speaker 6 (08:36):
Away from listening to it feeling like they know the
person and not just knowing them based on how they
were killed. I want them to think of them like
they could be their own family member.

Speaker 7 (08:47):
You know.

Speaker 6 (08:48):
I feel like people all want the same thing. We
just want to be loved, and we want to be accepted, and.

Speaker 7 (08:53):
We just want to live a good life.

Speaker 6 (08:54):
And I just feel like we connect with these people
in more ways than we realize.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
What do you think that true crime creators can do
to help move things forward? Because I believe strongly that
true crime has an amazing ability or potential to do
a tremendous amount of good work, and I think that
a lot of that potential is being squandered. So what

(09:22):
do you think or what do you do as creators
to elevate.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
That and to put that into the forefront of your work.

Speaker 4 (09:30):
I mean, you've got to use We talked a lot
about language, so through our process, ours was such an evolution.
Like Melissa said, we started at the kitchen table over
a glass of wine, like most people do when they're drinking,
when they're consuming true crime, and when we met with
the families, hearing their voice, getting out there and just
being an extra set of hands one day. It really

(09:53):
takes in the feelings become your feelings. You kind of
connect to these people and attach to these people. Trying
to get your listeners to do that. Putting those feelings
and that humanizing the victims.

Speaker 5 (10:05):
And putting all of that forward is essential.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
So really focusing on the person as opposed to what
happened to them is big for us.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
But just as content listeners, like that's how we started out,
it's you know, going with those podcasts that are doing
the right thing, that are giving back. It's even just
sharing those social media posts that someone's missing or they're
looking for someone, Like, there's so much that just the
listeners can do from their side as well to help

(10:38):
advocate for these missing and murdered cases.

Speaker 6 (10:42):
Yeah, I think giving listeners simple ways that they can help,
because I feel like a lot of people are like, well,
I want to help, but I don't know what to do.
You know, is it enough that I just share this
post on Facebook with my two hundred friends, And yes, absolutely,
it doesn't matter where you're from, even if you're sharing
a case from Maine and you're living in California, Like,

(11:02):
people move, and I feel like now we're so connected
by the Internet that sharing is such an easy way
that you know, you can get cases in front of
other people.

Speaker 7 (11:12):
Oh hey, so I think empowering.

Speaker 6 (11:16):
People to get involved, but in simple ways, like you
can sign that petition, you can share that post. Those
are free, they don't cost you anything, and truly they
make a huge difference for people who haven't gotten that attention,
that want people to see their loved one's case, but
nobody is listening to them.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
That has literally changed my life and my mom's life,
just the simple act of signing a petition and sharing
the story because for forty years, almost nobody's listened, nobody's cared,
nobody's said hey, we'll help you. But to those of
you that did do that, that do that on a
regular basis and take those calls to action, it may

(11:58):
feel insignificant. It oh, I'm just sharing that, Like my
friends are just going to see that and whatever.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
It's huge. It's huge for my mom.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
It lets her know that Jacob's never going to be forgotten,
and that is The best thing that we could get
out of this situation is his memory gets to live on,
and in his memory, we get to do some amazing things.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Right.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
So I'm always challenging myself as not just a creator,
but as a human, like what can I do? Can
I do more? Can I help? Can I be more helpful?
So I found it a nonprofit. It's based out of
New Mexico, where I live, and we grant money to
families of the missing and murder to help them fight
for justice, to help them get answers. We pay for counseling,

(12:41):
we pay for funeral expenses, we pay for PIS, DNA testing,
anything that they may need. If they need search and
rescue supplies, water bottles for those search and rescue people
that are out there, we provide that. And so it's
called Angels Voices, Silence No More. And I just think
that there is a tremendous amount of opportunity to just

(13:01):
take that listen and turn it into positive action. Take
this tragedy and turn it into some good energy. Let's
stop focusing on the horrible pieces of this and let's
remember that this is somebody's life.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
And it's important I get on the ramp. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
And then of course we started advocacy con and Kristen's
gonna be there. We're gonna have a lot of amazing
people there. There's so much opportunity and you can help
people in your own backyard. And these women, which I
want to just kind of call out real quick, these
women showed up to New Mexico put together a honk

(13:44):
and way for families that were out there. We had
like fifty sixty people show up, and it made the news.
And now all of these cases that nobody cared about,
people are seeing them, people are hearing it. And so
I want to come in these women because and Kristen,
because these women are not in my position. They don't

(14:05):
have to be here doing this, but they do it anyway.
And so I love you all. I do thank you quick.

Speaker 6 (14:14):
I think it's important to remember that, like, at the
end of the day, consumers of true crime and you know,
people like me, like I'm not directly impacted by homicide
or by violent crime in the way that Eric is
that we can walk away. I can go to sleep
at night and not wake up, and my brother's case
is still unsolved, but that never leaves him, that never

(14:35):
leaves his family, and that never leaves the stories that
we're telling the people who are directly impacted by that.
So I think that that's definitely something to remember.

Speaker 7 (14:45):
People are more than just.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Content, and these tragedies are are more than the tragedy, right,
And I think the real tragedy is the person that's lost.
And I just love the way that you all handle that,
and my friends as well. They do a tremendous job.
So we talked a bit a little bit about what
listeners could do. I know that you two ladies really

(15:09):
focus on action oriented advocacy.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Can you talk about what that is, what that looks like.

Speaker 5 (15:15):
Sure?

Speaker 4 (15:16):
So this is a term that technically was coined by
Sarah Turney when we met with her once, and we
loved it, so we ran with it. Action oriented advocacy,
in our minds is just doing something. My life motto
is do more. I have a tattooed on my arm.
Ask Melissa, I say yes to everything she has to say.
You don't have time for that. So this is kind

(15:36):
of where it came from. We as mothers, we both
have two boys from eighteen to nine, are very volunteer oriented,
whether that's in our kids' school, in the community. In
name it, we've probably signed up for it. And this
advocacy style came from that. In the pandemic that took

(15:58):
away that cup for us feeling that volunteer spirit. So
we turned that into a aspect of our podcast where
we will go out. We host these Honkin Waves, which
we didn't even know what a Honkin Wave was until
we showed up for a case and they were like,
we're gonna do this. I'm like, we like that. We're
taking that. You just stand on a corner with some
posters and make some noise. It's that simple. So now

(16:21):
we try to do some form of action oriented advocacy
with every case. A big one for us is mail
out of flyers. You know, you miss a whole demographic
of people that don't have social media by sharing the flyer.
It's sixty eight cents for a stamps, print the flyer out,
handwrite an envelope and mail it to someone in that area.

Speaker 5 (16:39):
You never know who you're gonna get in front of.
That's a big one for us.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
We do flyer Fridays where we're handwriting hundreds of envelopes
to mail out, sharing posts that's of course, that's one's
always there.

Speaker 5 (16:50):
We've done foot searches. Our most I.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Guess biggest piece of advocacy is the first case we
ever got involved with was Brandon Lawson. He disappeared on
the side of the highway when his truck ran out
of gas. He called for nine one one nine one
wants help. He also called his brother. Police and his
brother both arrived and he was never seen again. He
wasn't coming out when they were there. Nine years later,

(17:15):
we met with the case advocate. We went out there,
we did a foot search and we found evidence leading
to human remains being found. We found his clothes out
there and we were able to call Texas Rangers in
to finalize the search. They have since taken the remains
for DNA testing. We're coming up on three years three
years in February that we still don't have the results

(17:35):
of that because it's a cold case. It's not pressing.
There's not a murder conviction waiting for these results, so
it just takes time and there's a lot of scientific
other factors that is way over my head and pay
grade to be able to explain it to you. So
that's what we do is taking action, just doing something.
You don't have to have a specific skill set or

(17:57):
a degree or a license to help someone in one
small way.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah, we just we take our cues from the family.
We're like, what do you guys need? Where do you
feel like we can help the most? So, yeah, we
usually travel once every couple of months to the location
of the missing or murdered help out any way we
possibly can, and yeah, take it from them, like what
do you need us to do? And if they don't

(18:23):
have any ideas, they're like, it's been so long, I
don't know what will help. We usually will do a
flyer campaign, a honk and wave, some kind of event
to get the community talking about the case again, because
a lot of people, even if it's been twenty years,
they're like, oh, I thought that was solved, and we're like, no,
it's not. So just definitely getting that community involved and

(18:45):
remembering that person is I mean, honestly, that's all we
can do, and it feels super like we can do more.
But the families definitely are so grateful for any help
that they get.

Speaker 6 (18:59):
A lot of the cases that are on murder, she told,
like I mentioned earlier, don't really have a hit on
the internet. You know, there's like a main state police
blurb that's just like here's the person, here's when they died.
Call this number if you have information. Some of them
don't even have photos. Most of them do, but you know,
in the broader New England, like not all of them
have photos, and are people connecting with this blurb about

(19:23):
a person in this photo. A lot of them think
that they're solved because they're so old. We work with
a lot of older families, you know, from like the eighties,
the nineties, even farther back than that, so the demographic
is definitely older and you have to reach them. We've
found that with the Reeves Johnson case, where we're making

(19:43):
cold calls to everyone we possibly could think of and
come across.

Speaker 7 (19:48):
But I think just like having.

Speaker 6 (19:51):
A place where people who are like, whatever happened to
that guy that was shot out at the by the school,
you know that back in the nineties, and then it's like.

Speaker 7 (20:01):
Oh, yeah, that's that's.

Speaker 6 (20:03):
That case, and then you google it and then there's
something there that people can actually listen to and they
hear the family's perspective and there's the case in details
that they can share with people who might actually have information.
So I think even just like having something there for
people to listen to and talk about and share is
also just like really big.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Especially for the old cases.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Like having a digital footprint is so important for a
case right now. If you don't have a subreddit, if
you don't have.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
You know, content.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Creators creating episodes about your case, and you don't really
understand that, it's hard to navigate.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
You know, there there. I used to say there is
no guidebook.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
There is now because Whitney and a couple of other
people wrote one, but there didn't used to be a
guidebook for families of the missing and murdered. It would
just be like whatever the police department is going to
tell you that you should be doing, which may or
may not be right. Usually it's not, especially in small
communities where they're not used to people going missing or
people getting murdered.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
You start to see that.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
But I know, my friend Charlie talks a loud about
breaking out of the anniversary coverage.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
It's so critical to just.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Have that extra little bit of awareness for these families,
for these cases, because like you said, you never know
who's going to be watching.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
You never know who's going to be listening. It could be.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Somebody that they hear something and they think, oh my gosh,
I might know something about that. There's so many times
that that happens with cases, but it doesn't happen if
you don't have a digital footprint or you don't have coverage.

Speaker 6 (21:33):
Yeah, I mean a lot of these cases too, Like
I know the DNA is king, but a lot of
these cases are not DNA case cases.

Speaker 7 (21:40):
They need people to come forward with tips.

Speaker 6 (21:42):
And whenever I hear of a case that was solved
by a tip, like, I love that because I think
that the public needs to know how important calling in
information is, even if it's like insignificant, or you think
it's insignificant, like let the police decide that. So you know,
I don't know. Maybe people are drunk and they're talking
at a party and then something starts to spin and
then someone makes a phone call and that's sometimes that's

(22:05):
all it takes, is just one phone call.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, do you guys want to add anything else or
can we open it up to questions from the audience.

Speaker 7 (22:13):
Let's open it up.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Do you folks have any questions for us? We've been
blabbing at you for a good twenty five minutes. Yes, yeah,

(22:58):
oh yeah, yeah, that's such a good point. So and
I'm sorry, what was your name, Susan? Thank you, thank
you for that question. So the question was do you
find that social media sometimes burries missing and murdered posts?

Speaker 1 (23:21):
And yes, one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
I have a petition that I've created which is asking
these social media companies to adjust the algorithm to serve
those up in those local communities more frequently, even if
people aren't following, because I think that.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
There's a lot of gosh, how do I.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Say this without sounding like an old man, there's a
lot of superficiality on social media. People like what makes
them feel good, and I don't blame people for that.
I like what makes me feel good too. I like
laughing at parrots that cuss on reels. It's my favorite thing.
So if you don't, if you don't have cussing parrots
in your feed, start looking for them. They're amazing, talking

(24:02):
dogs with the buttons, Yeah, calling their owner's bitch, and yeah,
it's amazing. But what happens is, you know, you put
the word murdered in a caption, tank, you're not going
to get any engagement. It's not getting served up to anybody,
and so it's a huge problem. I think that the

(24:24):
only way we can get around that is if people
start sharing those things and then the algorithm learns that
people are interested in this content.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
I do get a lot more on my feed.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Just because of the what I'm doing on a regular basis.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
We can teach it, we can teach it.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
We can also change the trajectory and the future of
true crime.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
You all have that power.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
It's in your hands, it's in your ears, who you
choose to listen to, who you choose to engage with,
whose content you choose to conce zoom. That is what
drives this mega industry that Josh was talking about. That's
where the money is. But if the money shifts to
the people, and I'm saying that we want to do
this to get rich, but if that attention shifts to

(25:12):
the people that are doing this work or that are
humanizing the stories, that changes things right. And now families
have the opportunity to really take control of the story.
And I know that some people don't like that. I
know it's controversial, and I don't think every family is honest.

(25:35):
You know, some families are involved in some of these cases.
I think we have to be smart about that. And
I'm talking too much, So any other questions or do
you guys want to answer additional beyond my blabbing.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
I just wanted to mention if you do share something
on social media, just make sure you update it whenever
there is an update.

Speaker 7 (25:54):
If there is an.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Update, keep the most up to date information on there.
It really helps, like either the algorithm, I make sure
that the correct information is getting out there.

Speaker 7 (26:07):
The other questions, any other questions?

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to recap that question
and then I'm gonna let one of you guys answer
because I've been talking too much.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
So do you think do we think that.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
The popularity of true crime has caused law enforcement to
be more open and receptive? Is that the gist of
the question and sharing more information with the public? Okay, yeah,
My answer is it depends, but I'll let you guys

(27:10):
weigh in.

Speaker 7 (27:10):
My answer is, also it depends.

Speaker 6 (27:12):
You know, like I have situations where people won't respond
to me, like law enforcement won't respond or they'll flat
out deny it. But then I'm also like partnered with
a detective and I can say that I'm partnered on
this case with the detective, so there's a wide range.

Speaker 7 (27:31):
But I do think I think that a lot.

Speaker 6 (27:33):
Of police officers right now, with the climate, are afraid
of talking because there's people, there's people who would just
like be an armchair detective and just take what they
say and change the meaning of it, or you know, like.

Speaker 7 (27:47):
They're afraid to look bad.

Speaker 6 (27:49):
So I do think that there is a little bit
of like, you know, tepid feelings about engaging with podcasts
or releasing more media. But I think that the smart
ones are picking the right podcasts to work with and
seeing the value in reaching an audience because you know,
you guys listen to podcasts. You consume a lot of them,
and so I think that the right partnership can do

(28:11):
a lot. And I try to encourage, you know, whoever
I'm reaching out to, you know that it's important, I
think for people to hear the detective's voices.

Speaker 7 (28:21):
But I don't know. Sometimes I'll see like updates.

Speaker 6 (28:26):
You know, like I think the Holly Puranian case in Massachusetts,
like they released a couple of years ago new information.
It's a couple of years too late, but at least
they're releasing new information that are getting people talking. So
I think it really just depends on the jurisdiction. I
think local police departments are more open to it, and
state jurisdictions are absolutely not.

Speaker 7 (28:49):
Your foya's denied.

Speaker 6 (28:50):
We will not talk to you, even if it's the
same public information that's on the website.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
FBI is the same way too.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Fbis like, if we have these records, you're not getting them.

Speaker 7 (29:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (29:01):
Like my FBI FOYA for a case was just like
listing the pages. It was like eight pages of listing
the numbers of the pages that they removed from the FOYA.

Speaker 4 (29:11):
I think you can ask Jordan here. He has a
FOYA baby that has been I think he just turned
three or.

Speaker 5 (29:18):
Two years old. Three years old.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
I don't know if Jordan's over here, but he does
Foyer requests and he's got one that takes forever.

Speaker 5 (29:24):
So toya's are always a nightmare.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
I agree, though, I think it depends on the different departments,
and it depends on the resources that they have. If
they're a department that has a lot of resources, they
might be more willing to try new things like using
content creators. Those smaller town departments are like, absolutely not.
My great great grandpa was sheriff when that happened, and
he said, I couldn't tell anybody.

Speaker 5 (29:47):
So there's things like that.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
I caused the Socorro City Police Department to delete their Twitter.

Speaker 7 (29:56):
That's a great day, great day.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
At first I thought I was blocked, but then my
friend Charlie told me, nope, their Twitter is gone, so
that made me feel really good.

Speaker 7 (30:05):
Congratulations.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, it's amazing what happens when you call people out.
Any other questions. Yes, yeah, I think that there's a

(30:47):
lot of wild speculation online and it seems harmless, and
I know that it's in our nature as humans to
try to figure out mysteries, but if there's no basis
in fact, sometimes those things can really really damage a case,
and not just the case, but the public perception of

(31:10):
the case, which is super super important.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Right.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
This idea that a victim has to be perfect in
order for people to care needs to go away, like
right now, because it everybody matters. It doesn't matter what
they're struggling with. Everybody struggles with stuff, and if you
think you don't, you're probably deluded. Sorry to tell you,
but I think that take cues from the people that

(31:38):
are advocating for the case. If they're saying I need
the shared share it. If they're saying, hey, can you
call the media do those things? Wild speculation, I think
is dangerous, and I get it people want to be
armchairs loose, but I just I have a hard time
with that. Anything else that you think should be avoided.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
I would say, don't just go do a footsor on
your own. That could be illegal and you're trespassing. Sometimes
it definitely has to be sanctioned by law enforcement, cleared
through a community. But sometimes I mean, if you do
have a missing person go missing in your area, they'll
they'll put a call out like, hey, we need volunteers, anybody.
Let's if anyone could bring water, that kind of thing.

(32:20):
They usually tell you definitely, don't just go out on
your own into some rural area and try to find something.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Consider the source wherever the information is coming from. Consider
the source, whether that's law enforcement doing a foot search,
or a family member sure to missing flyer or it
was I don't know, what's one of those spoof websites
out there that's like aliens are here. One of those
obviously that's not like the greatest source. So just consider
the source.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
And there's also some like red flags that you can
look at when you're seeing a post to know if
it's a scam or not. Most family members aren't going
to post their missing person on a garage by sale page, like,
just know that it's probably not going to happen. So
if there's hardly any information, sometimes you can push back

(33:08):
and ask for that information. But if you don't have
the last time that somebody was seen, or the clothes
that they were wearing, or where they were, I'd be
leery about it because sharing it's really not gonna not
gonna help, honestly.

Speaker 5 (33:22):
And also, don't be afraid to make the mistake.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
You shared it, you realized it was a mistake, delete
the post like it's not a big deal. Own up
to it. We I mean, our name changed. This whole
thing is an evolution. You're learning as you go. We
learn which rite, what's wrong, what has changed. So just
be willing to accept that I made a mistake, I
fixed my mistake, I'm so sorry about that, and carry on.

Speaker 6 (33:44):
Yeah, I think most reputable sources too will update, like
if it's a current case, especially like let's say it's
a current missing person's case. If I find out from
a reputable source, like people will comment be like she
was found, and I'm like, I need to find that
source first, but I will update the post so if
you shared it now, that update will also be on
your page, just so that I can keep the most

(34:06):
current information and people aren't looking for someone who's no
longer missing.

Speaker 7 (34:10):
But I don't.

Speaker 6 (34:11):
I hate these fake posts because I feel like it
discourages people from sharing. But I think that there are
cues that you can like teach yourself to differentiate between
what's real and what's not, Like if it's being shared
from a police department or like an official you know,
town scanner page or you know, something like any of
the podcasts here, like it's going to be legit because

(34:32):
we've done that vetting research for you.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Hopefully hopefully some people don't. Josh, how are we on time?
Fifteen minutes? Okay, good a dang, twelve fifteen We got
three minutes? One more question, go ahead? Yeah, yeah, So

(35:10):
I think that's a really good question. So have we
ever had instances where the family is putting up roadblocks
or not wanting us to talk about the case, And
I certainly have, and provided the family is not involved
in directly in the murder, I will respect their wishes.
If they don't want to fight for justice for their
loved one, that is completely their choice. It doesn't say

(35:31):
anything one way or the other. It is extremely difficult
and exhausting and it never ends. And so I don't
blame any family that doesn't want to do this because
it sucks. It does. Fighting against a government is not easy.
So I think what I've done in the past is

(35:53):
if they say I don't want to talk about it,
I won't cover the case. If their family is not
around and it's an older case. Sometimes I will if
I think that my coverage is going to help move
the case forward, or sometimes I think about is there
a lesson in this? Is there something about the law
that we all need to know because of this case?

(36:15):
So I think intention goes a long way with what
you do in those situations. But I'll let my coo.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
So, just like Eric, if a family does not want
their loved ones case out there, we do not cover
it at all, even if we've done all the work
put it out there and they're like, hey, we don't
love this, we will take it down immediately.

Speaker 7 (36:38):
We definitely take our cues from the family.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Luckily now we work with families and so they actually
hear our episode before it ever comes out. So if
there's anything that they don't like about it, they don't
like what they said, they thought they said something dumb,
we completely change it as well so that they're comfortable
with it prior to it ever going out to the public.

Speaker 6 (37:00):
Yeah, I think making them a part of the process.
Sometimes people will get cold feet. Like I've learned since
the very beginning that you can't make them work on
your time.

Speaker 7 (37:10):
You have to work on their time.

Speaker 6 (37:12):
So I can't call someone, I can't call someone up
and be like I need an interview like right now
because my episode goes out on Tuesday, because that's just
not the way I work. And I want them to
feel supported and a lot of the times like they
haven't talked about this before, So I want to give
them that space to feel supported and you know, like

(37:33):
their voice is going to be heard the way that
they want it to be.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
So I just want to thank you guys for coming
and listening to us and come to Advocacy con in
Indianapolis March twenty eighth, through the thirtieth. Subscribe to these
amazing shows and enjoy the rest of the festival.

Speaker 7 (37:48):
Thank you, thank you.