Crime of Your Life - Interview with the Creator

Presenting: Crime of Your Life

An interview with the creator, Jacob Randall.

Jacob has created what he calls "a quiet little podcast that focuses on obscure cases." We talk about everything from politics to the ethics of true crime as entertainment.

https://linktr.ee/crimeofyourlife

Episode Transcript

(00:12):
Welcome to the True Crime podcast.My name is t Z and I am
also the host of a podcast calledTapes from the Dark Side. Tonight,
I am joined by a very specialguest. His name is Jacob Randall,
and he is the host of apodcast called Crime of Your Life. If

(00:35):
you haven't listened to his episode,The Disappearing Story of Margie Aida Snead,
I highly recommend it. It isin your feed. It's the episode right
before this one. It's about ayoung woman who went missing in nineteen seventy
four, and it's it's it's aninteresting missing person's case. I found myself

(00:57):
fascinated by it, and I canhands down recommend it. I'm very honored
to have it featured in our feed, and I'm very honored to have Jacob
on this show with us tonight.So how are you doing tonight? Man,
I'm doing pretty well. I wouldsay average. It's but it's good
for a Wednesday, I guess,Oh, yeah, it's Wednesday. I've

(01:19):
lost track of time and space.I'm currently in the unemployed void of life.
But you are the host of apodcast called Crime of Your Life.
Can you just tell us a littlebit about the show, a little bit
about you, maybe what got youinto true crime, just whatever you want

(01:42):
to share with us. First ofall, thank you so much for having
me and the show. Crime ofYour Life is a narrative, scripted true
crime podcast where I talk about unsolvedcases. I kind of think it's a
little bit obscure because I'm trying todo cases that I either haven't heard,

(02:07):
haven't heard done, or haven't hearddone very often or that much, and
I'm trying to kind of bring myown perspective on them. But I got
started with true crime because of thecase that I talk about in my first
episode and a case I talk aboutin my second episode, the Melissa Wit

(02:27):
case, which she was a nineteenyear old woman who was abducted and murdered
in Arkansas in nineteen ninety four,and then some months later, in the
same area, a six year oldgirl was abducted and has never been found
and her name was Morgan Nick.And that occurred where I grew up,

(02:51):
and so those crimes had a realeffect on me, and there are other
events that kind of happened throughout mylife that influenced me. But it's it's
a pretty similar story to a lotof people. I think who get into
true crime, they have a crimethat happens in their vicinity or in their
life, or they're a part ofa crime themselves, and it just sort

(03:13):
of sticks with them, and youknow, eventually they go the route of
getting into true crime entertainment, thingslike unsolved mysteries and forensic files and all
of those things. So that waskind of my path into it, and
I wanted to do a podcast fora while. I've been listening to podcasts
for a few years and really lovingthe medium, and basically, I when

(03:38):
I thought of Crime of your Life, I was thinking just about the idea
that we all have a crime inour life that kind of changes us forever.
So that's kind of how I gotstarted. Oh that's awesome, man,
And so I actually have not listenedto your earlier episodes. Can you
tell us a little bit about thelis Wit case, what it was.

(04:01):
Was there a particular detail that grabbedyou with that or how did you get
sucked into that? Well? Iheard about it when I was six years
old, and I remember my familybeing really affected by it, and really
my mom in particular, I rememberher being kind of emotional about it,

(04:23):
and I don't I don't know.I don't really forget those moments when you
know, my parents cry or myparents get emotional about something in my life,
especially when I was a kid,and it it just, I mean,
it just always was something I remembered, I guess because she was so
young and she just disappeared, andfor a while it was just an abduction.

(04:46):
So it was a mystery in thatregard her body hadn't been found.
It is. She was abducted inDecember, early December of nineteen ninety four
from a bowling Alley parking lot,and the bowling alley was in the town
across from where I grew up,just across the river, in the River

(05:09):
Valley area, which is what thewhole that whole part of Arkansas, Northwest
Arkansas was called. And she whenshe was abducted, and because of the
time it took, it took acouple of months before her body was found.
It just seems like this insane thingno one knew and nothing like that

(05:31):
had ever really happened around where Igrew up. It was so unusual.
It was such an event, andI think even now, even when I'm
talking about it now, I can'tquite put my finger on exactly why I've
never stopped thinking about it or whatexactly stuck out to me, other than
it was just a complete mystery andI'd never heard anything like it before.

(05:54):
And then shortly after that, withthe abduction of Morgan Nick, who six
or six year old girl same ageas me at the time, those two
events happening in that part of Arkansas. I haven't really heard of anything like
that happening since then in that shortamount of time in that in the area

(06:16):
where I grew up, So itstill stands out to me as something strange.
And I just hadn't heard too manypodcasts talk about Melissa Witt. I
know that there have definitely been afew who have done a great job,
but I hadn't heard any that haddone a narrative the way that I did
it, And I hadn't heard anyof them connect it or at least try

(06:39):
to piece it together with the MorganNick abduction or any of the other events
that were kind of talked about aroundthe time. I know that's a long
answer, so thanks for thanks forlistening. Hey, that's why we're in
podcasting, because we're good at givinglong answers, right, Yeah, Yeah,
that's fascinating. I was slouching abit those first two answers, so

(07:00):
I'll try to sit up straight.So just those first two answers. My
very first podcast I tried, likeyears ago, was a movie review podcast
that never went anywhere. It wasonly like a couple episodes, but I
had my I would grab my neighborand like talk him into doing it with

(07:21):
me, and he would and wewould just have We had this one.
It was actually a camera mike,like a pro what was that a road
mike or something. It was adecent mic, but it was very directional,
and so I was always having totry to talk him into sitting up

(07:41):
and speaking towards the mike. It'sjust absolutely oh man, I'm still figuring
it out. I the audio qualityof my podcast is it's so frustrating.
I feel like your quality is good, man, from what I heard in
your latest one. Thank you.I mean that's I've gotten good feedback from

(08:01):
a few people I really trust onthat matter. So and I appreciate you
saying that too, because it's Imean, I feel like it's such a
challenge for me. Podcasting in generalis a huge challenge for me. Kind
of every step of it and ina really like a really tiresome way.

(08:22):
I really love it, but it'skind of difficult. I use the A
road Procaster now I just started,but before I was using you know,
a blue yettie like a lot ofpeople, and I just first Mike,
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's weird because it's like you
read a million things that tell youhow good it is, and that tell

(08:45):
you exactly what to do with it, and it just never worked right for
me. So it's very um it'sa very what's the word for a picky
or it picks up everything, soyou have to really be in a quiet
room and you make one little crinkleon your paper and it's reverberates through the

(09:05):
things. So I can commiserate withyou there. Upgrading from the yetti.
If we get into technicals a littlebit, I don't know. I feel
like it's interesting maybe people who areinto well, if you're listening to an
interview, I feel like you haveto have some sort of interest in technicals

(09:26):
or at least at least hopefully itwon't bore you. But what do you
what do you use for software?And you said that you you encounter a
lot of problems. You um,what is like something that you're struggling with
now, maybe on the technical side, or something you just recently overcame.

(09:48):
Well, you know, it's interestingbecause I I co produce another podcast called
Happy Horror Time, which is alike a horror movie comedy review podcast,
and it's really a lot of funtoo. We talked to a lot of
interesting guests, and but on myside of things, anyone that I myself

(10:11):
personally and anyone that I'm working with, we're very much kind of learning as
we go, and you know,no real budget and just trying to teach
ourselves as much as we can.And a lot of it just naturally doesn't
come natural for me specifically. Imean, I use Audacity, which a

(10:31):
lot of people use, and Iuse it personally just because it's easy for
me, and I feel like I'velearned a lot using it. I've learned
a lot about how to put thingstogether. And the point I was about
to make was that I work,I also co produce, or I'm starting
to. Another friend of mine hasa podcast that she's working on, and

(10:54):
I mess with their audio and Iwork on their audio, and I tend
I just feel like I can alwaysmake other people sound way better than I
can make myself sound, and it'sjust so infuriating, and I don't I
mean, there have to be peoplethat know what I'm talking about out there,
but it's um for me. Partof its recording in and of itself.

(11:20):
I recording is very difficult, andin a weird way, it's related
to things like self care, likesometimes I'm just not hydrated enough to record,
so you hear more mouth clicks andyou hear my voice being uneven at
times, or I do, andI guess I'm really really hard on myself

(11:41):
as well. So it's just Iguess, the standard combination of insecurity and
not knowing how you sound when youhear yourself, and also being technically challenged.
It's kind of all of it.I like doing the narrative stuff most.
I like the writing and the researchingand the presentation when it comes out
the most. But I use Audacityfor recording m I use the procaster for

(12:07):
my mic I was using the BlueEddie, and I edit in Audacity as
well well, of course, Andthat's pretty much pretty much how it goes
for me. Nice I can Ican relate to the mouth clicks. I
feel like the self criticism like Iwent through a real, a real intense

(12:28):
phase. I think it was thelast few episodes I did where I was
like so critical of my tone andlike, like you're saying, you know
how when you go back like aday later and you try to match your
tone and the volume and the soundand everything, and I was just obsessing
over that. I was obsessing overthe mouth clicks. And um, this

(12:52):
most recent episode, hang on oneone second, we're getting a message.
Save regularly closing the tab will loseaudio. Most people save every fifteen minutes
and at that, Okay, I'mnew to this program, I'm gonna save
this. Oh yeah, So withwith my rost recent episode, I'm pretty
new to podcasting as well, andI feel like I got over a hurdle

(13:18):
as far as like not being ascritical. Hopefully the quality doesn't drop.
I guess we'll find out when thenewest my newer episode comes out, But
um yeah, I feel like Ifeel like it is a part of the
job, as being very critical.I found a lot of similarities between our

(13:39):
podcast listening to your most recent oneand I listened to yours two. Actually,
oh cool, yeah, and Ireally I really appreciated the level of
research that went in and looking atyour credits, I can see like you
read a lot of articles about thesubject, and you you do more than
just like UM read a Wikipedia article, you know. And uh so no,

(14:05):
I really, I really dug it. Man, tell me about tell
me a little bit about um Margieatist Need And did I say that right,
Margie? You did? Yeah?UM, you know, it was
a it's an interesting case because see, I would find it so challenging to
do a case like that because they'reso little UM. And it seems like

(14:30):
you are drawn to those cases.And I appreciate that because there's every day
there's a new podcast about Ted Bundyor um, you know, BTK or
whatever. So you know, Idoubt Margie has ever had a podcast about
her, and I think that's important. I think that's that's um. I
don't want to say commendable, butit's it's a it's a different angle.

(14:54):
I really I liked that I foundmyself even though there was very few kind
of deep tales to pull you in, I still found myself wanting more.
And maybe that's the lore of astory like that. But tell me a
little bit about that episode and yourconnection to it. Sure, well,

(15:16):
I have to first just thank youfor asking me that, because it's and
anyone listening it just it's so greatto have an opportunity to be asked questions
about the work that I do,and so I just appreciate it so much
that you have asked me to talkabout this. Margie adis Sneed. Yeah,
it's just one of those things whereI was up late at night and

(15:43):
as I often am, and that'sa lot of the time when I get
my most curious energy and I startdoing research and going down rabbit holes and
things like that. And I knowI'd come across her profile before on Namos
and on the Dough Network, andyou know, it stuck out to me

(16:03):
because it always has Hot Springs,Arkansas as the city where she was last
seen, and that's not far fromwhere I grew up in Arkansas, and
so it's always like kind of stuckin my mind every now and then when
I come across it. But Inever really went anywhere with it until I

(16:25):
was up really late one night andI was putting together a narrative because I
hadn't released anything in a while.And I'm working on a case that's taking
me a really long time right now, and I keep thinking I'm going to
put it out one week, andthen the week goes by and I'm not
done yet. So I needed toput together a narrative, and I've been

(16:45):
thinking about just doing something with missingpeople, and I started looking. I
always go back to Arkansas for somereason. I don't know, I'm trying.
I don't have a huge catalog,and it expands across different locations,
of course, but at least youknow a few of the episodes take place
in Arkansas, and it just Ijust always drawn back to where I'm from.

(17:11):
But I was reading about a fewcases that were recent in the in
Arkansas, and I was and Italk about those in my previous episode,
missing details of the missing, andit just sort of struck me that there
were a few disappearances in a smallarea in Hot Springs or around Hot Springs

(17:37):
or around Little Rock, which isthe Little Rock is the capital, of
course, and there wasn't a lotof information about them. And there was
information about one of the cases forAlan Buckle Senior, who was a sixty
three year old white male who wentmissing last December, but there were a
couple of other cases. Another man, David J. S Evens, fifty

(18:00):
two years old, blackmail. Verylittle information released in his case, nothing
in the media actually, just theHot Springs Police Department listed him on Facebook.
I think there was one web pagethat listed the case as well that
I can't I can't actually locate now. And then there was a girl thirteen

(18:25):
years old named Serenity Lahejzy who wentmissing in November. I think, yeah,
November, so November for Serenity lacheHosey, David J. Stevens in
December, and Alan Buckle Senior alsoin December. Only information coming through for
one of those cases, and it'sgetting a lot of media attention. Alan

(18:49):
Buckle Senor he went missing after goingout to buy groceries one day and his
white van was found abandoned park neara river, and his son has led
the campaign and led the search forhim as well. And it's very moving
and touching and terrible. But itjust really struck me as odd that only

(19:15):
one case was getting attention, andit happened in that small range of time.
And then I was trying to structurea narrative out of all of it,
and I needed one more case torelate to the situation. But the
one I found was actually from alot earlier, from nineteen seventy four,
and that was Margie A to Snead, And that's how I started there.

(19:38):
I started to reach out for informationfor all four of those cases to the
Hot Springs Police Department. I wentthrough the city clerk in Hot Springs and
filed a Freedom of Information Act request, multiple requests, and she kind of
held my hand. The city clerkername was Harmony More. She kind of

(20:00):
held my hand through it, andshe really did all the work actually,
and pretty quickly they came back withsome information on Margie Adi Sneed, but
nothing on the other three cases.But when I got that information on Margie
Adi Sneed, I was kind ofI was really surprised and really thrilled,
honestly, because it was a casefrom nineteen seventy four, and even though

(20:25):
it was really only a paragraph ona page with a little bit more information
on another page, it because therewas so little information on the profiles for
Margie Adi Sneed right now or atthat moment, it just seemed like I'd
found something really important or or atleast really useful, and that's that's how

(20:48):
it all kind of got started.Nice. Yeah, there's those moments in
the process of crafting an episode thatI find are like super rewarding. And
I've experienced those moments as well,where you know, you find a bit
of information that really like kicks youinto the next drive or the next level,

(21:11):
to the next gear to keep goingand crafting the story. And another
one of those moments for me is, um, when I start placing like
original audio with some voiceover and somemusic, like for the first time,
when I hear a little part ofit, I'm like, ah, man,

(21:33):
there it's kind of coming together.And I notice you use use a
little bit of music, use somevery light music in the background. I
thought it was a nice touch.It wasn't overbearing some people, Yeah,
it's like I know, it seemsto be a pretty divisive issue in the

(21:55):
true crime fan podcast fan community.Some people are like hardcore against any music
they just want the voice, andother people enjoy the music and seem to
like it. The track you used, is that is that a what do

(22:17):
you call is that like a creativecomments track? Or how'd you find the
music or do you plan to usemusic going forward, or what's your opinion
on that. Yeah, I lovemusic. I love music and podcasts.
I'm a huge fan of the wholemedium of podcasting, and I think there's
even though it's been around for anumber of years now, it's still a

(22:38):
very new medium by comparison to others, and there's just a lot of room
for experimentation. And I know allof my answers are super long, but
I'll try to like get to mypoint, which is this basically, take
your time. That's why we're Here'sa time limits, there's no pressure,
nothing. It feels nice to slowdown and actually talk. I've got to

(22:59):
be honest, thank you. Ispend a lot of my time thinking and
not talking. But yeah, Ilove music in podcasts. I love it
as a as an enhancement to theatmosphere and the story, and it just
helps me. It helps implant thestory into my mind and take me to
a place. At times, itcan be too much, and I didn't

(23:25):
want it to be too much withmine. I created my music myself.
I'm not a musician, but Ihave always kind of been a little bit
musical, and I kind of havean ear a little bit if I sit
down at a piano, I cankind of put together something kind of sad
sounding, or like a soap operakind of sound. That's about the best

(23:49):
I can do. So I cameup with a piano for the beginning,
and then I kind of thought itworked, and and then the the backing
music. Though. I worked onit for a little while, maybe a
few days, and I came upwith a couple others and then I put

(24:11):
it. I tested out a coupleof them, and the one I have
is the one that stuck. Itkind of seems to support what I the
flow that I'm trying to go with, and it kind of has room for
variation in it too, which Ireally like. I can kind of talk
directly, unscripted or scripted, andit seems to kind of work. I
don't do a lot of unscripted talkingwith music, but it seems to support

(24:36):
whatever I want to do. Sothat's yeah. I created it, and
I do plan to create more.But I also want to get more music
from independent artists myself. I wantto start expanding a little bit more into
songs with actual words and lyrics forsome of my outros, and I want

(25:00):
variation in my backing music. Sothat's that's interesting. I didn't know you
you made the music. Yeah,I thought it fit the tone really well.
Um, what's the I think youdo? You know the horror movie
the others? Yeah, with NicoleKidman. Yeah, well you might know

(25:22):
this, but the director um createdall the music for that. I think
he creates all the music for allof his films. And that kind of
just brought up that. Um.I play guitar, but it's not in
the capacity where I would be ableto, you know, craft a soundtrack
from my stuff. Um, butI think that's really cool. Another podcaster

(25:47):
who helped me create this show,um less Gross. He has a show
called Worse Than Fiction, which I'velistened to. Yeah. Nice, Yeah,
he he makes a lot of hisown music, and he's a he's
kind of a war in my mind, behind the the keyboard or what had
I'm not even sure how he craftshis music if it's I think it's mostly

(26:08):
electronically, but it's it's really cool. Well, you both have really good
music. I thought. I actuallylistened to both of your shows a little
bit in the last couple of days, and I've heard I'd heard his show
prior and really like it. Butyeah, I really and that's what really
what I was talking about. Ithink that it can really enhance I think

(26:29):
it enhances your shows and it's reallygood. Um. Next, I wanted
to ask you, if you're okaytalking about it, what how old you
are and your podcast was pretty new. It looks like you started last year.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm thirty twoand I did start last year.

(26:52):
I've kind of been thinking about itlonger. I think I bought the domain
for my website, which has notbeen created created yet in twenty nineteen.
But yeah, I released my firstepisode in September, and I've been podcasting

(27:14):
a little longer than that. Istarted a year or two before that with
an environmental type of podcast. Itdidn't really ever get off the ground.
We only recorded a few episodes,and it was a friend of two friends
of mine and myself, and Ithink it was just sort of a stepping

(27:36):
stone to to doing what I reallywanted to do, which was a true
crime podcast. That's I wanted todo that even when I was doing what
I was doing with them, sonice. Yeah, true crime is the
genre of choice right now. It'sa it's a crowded field. But it's
also kind of fun because so manyyou know, there's just so many people

(27:59):
who are fans, ends in orare doing it and making content. Yeah,
and it's storytelling really or or that'swhat I try to do with mine.
I think, you know, differentpeople come at it from different for
different reasons and with different intentions withwhat they're doing. But I've always been

(28:22):
a storyteller, and I can onlydo stories that I really care about and
that I think I can bring somethingto and that I think are really important
in some way. But I findjoy or I find a lot of different

(28:42):
podcasts interesting at various levels of quality. I think, like I said before,
I'm just a fan of the mediumin general, of podcasting and true
crime definitely in particular. But Ilike that it's it's an accessible medium that
allows so many different people to makea presentation. And I personally like the

(29:07):
ones where the heart of the personcomes through a little bit, the heart
of the of the narrator or ofthe host comes through into the podcast a
little bit at least. That's that'swhat I'm drawn to. Yeah, that's
a that's that is The cool thingis that there's so many, um,

(29:29):
there's just so many true crime podcaststhat you get that vast variety of approaches.
And there's some people who are init because they've um somehow related to
a victim of a true crime,and so those are like your say,
and those are very personal kind ofpodcasts. Um Sarah Turner, I forget

(29:52):
what the name of her podcast is. The other one is, um,
oh shit, now I'm now I'mon a blank the New Mexico True Consequences
there oh yeah, Landon and hisbrother is Landon forgot but um And then
there's one storytelling I think. Ithink that's where we both overlap a lot.

(30:15):
That's kind of my main focus.I don't really have any passed with
true crime as far as like personalconnection to any victim or anything like that,
but just finding really compelling stories andtrying to tell them in an interesting
way. I feel like, umless gross his podcast is similar to that.

(30:38):
Um yeah, another one Cole ColeWeavers, who does um shit,
My memory is so horrible and I'mgonna feel like forgetting is that's okay?
I am too. I'm the worstwith names and I'm so bad. I've
been thinking all day if you askme names of things. I think I'm
prepared. We'll see, and thenwhen you're on the spot, you're like,

(31:00):
oh no, cool. Fuck.I was literally I was just talking
with him today on Facebook. He'sactually doing a horror podcast, which it's
funny. He's he's very um,he's kind of uh, don't know the
word for it. His approach itseems to me from an outsider, kind

(31:22):
of like a stepping stone approach,Like he had a really popular Instagram like
ten twenty thirty k followers for likea horror theme, and then he wanted
he started doing a true crime podcast, and then now he's doing a horror
themed podcast. His horror one Iremember as the town whispers. Oh is

(31:44):
um true crime one is just calledTales by Cole. I think I've heard
of that. I think that one. It's pretty popular and it's good.
It's a good show. Um yeah. And then what's the other approach.
There's the there's the comedy true crimewhere it's like wine and crime. It's
like the crime mom's getting drunk andchatting about true crime. And then then

(32:07):
there's just the talking one where there'slike no music, it's just talk.
So anyways, yeah, there's athere's a vast array. It made me
think of when you earlier were talkingabout crimes very personal to me. It
reminded me of a case. Andmaybe I'm just spitballing here. I have
no idea, but you know,who knows. Maybe we could collab on

(32:29):
it in the future. But there'sthis case. Um So, I live
in Asheville. It's where I grewup in Ashville, North Carolina. Oh
cool, there's a case. There'sa case with the local college, University
of North Carolina, Ashville UNCA,and there was a girl. There's a
botanical gardens near the college and I, you know, I grew up walking

(32:54):
down there all the time. It'snot too far from my house. And
they do they used to do Idon't know if they do it anymore.
They used to do a haunted mazeand Halloween with the people coming out with
the chainsaws and everything. But it'sa real nice in the day. It's
a real pretty type place. ButI just recently found out from a friend
that a girl was murdered there inthe seventies and like very brutal stabbing.

(33:21):
I think it was like a pocketknife and stabbed her to death and then
and she was you know, shewas young. It was all in the
media. But the weird thing isthey never found the killer. They never
found any clues, and it wasjust like cold, cold dead case that
got dropped because they couldn't find anythingabout it. But it's one of those

(33:42):
that I'm sure there's probably dozens ofthose in every city across America, but
it you know, it's that becauseI grew up there, I know what
it looks like and I have thatconnection to it. I was immediately like,
oh, I want to find outwho did this, or I want
to find out information about it,you know that kind of thing. Yeah,
well, there's something about even ifthere's not a lot of information there,

(34:07):
if you can can place yourself therebecause you grew up there, you've
been there before, that immediately putsyou a little bit ahead. At least
from the narrative standpoint. You atleast can come at it from this happened
in a place where I have been, And that's that's part of what I

(34:29):
did with the margi Atis Need case. I knew that I could at least
talk about Arkansas to a degree,and I could talk about my experience with
the area and some of what Iknew. But yeah, I'm really drawn
to cases like that, like whatyou just said, because it's just,

(34:50):
yeah, there's got to be somany more than we can ever know about.
Sometimes when I'm researching something, Icome across a case. Maybe it's
unsolved. Usually it's solved, andI have a different place in my future
with cases that have a resolution.But sometimes I'll come across one in an

(35:12):
old newspaper and it's something like whatyou just said, where it's really horrific
and brutal and terrible and it happeneda long time ago. And then I
go to find out if any otherpodcasts have talked about it, or if
it's been in the news, andit hasn't at all. Sometimes it just

(35:34):
the life of the story ends witha newspaper. Sometimes it doesn't even make
it to the Internet, and itjust makes me think about how plugged in
we are to the Internet and toour devices right now, and sometimes we
kind of fool ourselves, especially whenwe're when there's something like a pandemic or

(35:55):
something that's keeping us home more.We sometimes it's easy to fool ourselves in
thinking that the Internet is where allthe information is when really there's so much
more information elsewhere. The Internet's justcaptured some of it. And with the
Margie adis Need case, there wasactually more information in twenty thirteen on the

(36:16):
Internet, but it disappeared with time, which is kind of why I thought
it My episode would be called theDisappearing Story of Margie Adis Need. So
that's I don't know where I'm goingwith all of this, but I'm just
kind of thinking based off of whatyou said. I'm really drawn to those
kinds of cases, especially when itjust seems like the story itself has vanished.

(36:40):
Yeah, and that's I think ourage is definitely obviously the internet,
you know, obsession, and ifit's not on the Internet for me or
for our society, almost it's likeit doesn't exist. You know, if
you don't have a Wikipedia article aboutit, then it's non existent. Or

(37:00):
if it didn't if there's not atweet, Twitter thread or a Reddit post,
it's like non existent. I foundthat in my last case or two.
My very first case was there wereDoctor Phil episodes that have been posted
on YouTube and I couldn't find any, Like it was like they disappeared.

(37:21):
I couldn't get in touch with Doctorphil They probably didn't want to, you
know, they probably didn't care.But you know, I couldn't get the
tapes, and but yeah, usingthe using the way back machine and other
things. And um that's the otherthing too, with like police nine one
one recordings, A lot of alot of stuff like that is on YouTube,

(37:45):
but a lot of stuff is justsitting in police stations and we're an
archive somewhere. And I do thinkthere's probably you know, tons of stories
that are fascinating and tons of testimonythat will never hear. But now with
with podcasts, maybe we'll hear moreof it as we go forward. As

(38:09):
as as little uh what do youcall us little? I wasn't I was
thinking of a negative word. Um, but uh no, I mean it's
you could you could? You could? I thought you were gonna say,
yeah, I was thinking like littleviruses or whatever. You know, there's

(38:30):
that analogy I think at Joe Rogansaid about like your race as a virus
or whatever. It's very depressed.It's a very pessimistic view of humanity.
But um, yeah, more likekeyboard warriors or sluice. There's the there's
the pros and the cons. Butum, like with um, what's that

(38:51):
show? The um don't don't messwith cats on the internet or don't fuck
with cats? Yeah, don't fuckwith cats? The two the two people
who like try down what's his face? And so there's a good side to
it, a real killer. Yeah, there is a good side to it.
I mean, the thing is,the information exists, and it's just
a matter of who who has accessto it and who gets to do what

(39:14):
with it, and whether it's thepolice that have all the information or news
organizations that have it and only getto or only churn it out when they
want to pull in ratings or whathave you. But the information's out there,
and yeah, I feel I meanthe Joe Rogan thing with thinking where
you know a virus? I meanit is kind of depressing, but it's

(39:37):
it's possible. I don't think.I think that's a matter of context,
Like anything can be a virus ina certain in a certain context. But
I felt like a I felt likea pest that was kind of being swatted
away when I received the information inthe Margie adist need because the like I

(40:01):
said, Harmony Morrissey, the cityclerk, was very nice and kind of
super helpful and almost enthusiastic about someoneasking about this case, and she copied
me onto an email with the HotSprings Police Department, and even pretty quickly
they sent me the document with theinformation that I ended up using for my

(40:24):
narrative. But it was just ablank email with a document. No hello,
mister Randall or you know, misternobody or anything, you know,
just to you know, the bareminimum. I copied and paste this and
hit send, get out of myface. Is what I felt like and
which I don't. You know,I don't necessarily blame them, you know,

(40:45):
who am I to want this information? But you know what, I'm
the person that responded to your invitation, because when you put the information out
there, what are you doing itfor if you don't want people to inquire
or to use the information that's thereor then look for more. I just

(41:06):
all of these cases, especially ina case like Margie Adis need there is
nothing there on the page on herprofiles that are on the Internet. There's
just a picture and her name andyou know her age at the time she
was last seen in a city whereshe was last seen. There's a physical
description, but there's nothing there abouther about who she is about who's looking

(41:30):
for her, about what her disappearanceis even thought to be by anyone who
knew her, or there's just nothing, nothing at all. And the fact
that the profiles there, the factthat the police sent the information to name
is if if that's how that works, I'm assuming that's how that worked.

(41:52):
The fact that there's an invitation tothe public to either help with the case
or you know, provide information orsomething that to me justifies people like us
asking for information or for looking further. So it's just funny when you get

(42:13):
kind of an email that's just nothing, that kind of feels like a slap,
like go away, But hey,the information was there. So it's
like you got the full gambit ofthe amateur investigator, right, you got
the the woman did you say shewas a librarian, the city clerk,
city clerks, So you get thecity clerk who's like eager to help you

(42:34):
track down the information, and thenyou got the the police who are like
get out of our hair. Youknow. It's like it's like the classic
movie Man, like a micro versionof that. But and you know,
and I'm just a you know,a regular person with a with a podcast.
I don't think I'm actually going tosolve any crimes. Of course,

(42:55):
I'd like to solve these cases.And but hey, maybe maybe now that
I've created a narrative, Maybe nowthat I have created a narrative out of
that case with Margie Adis Need anda couple of other cases, hopefully someone
can come along and create a betternarrative. Maybe someone can come along who

(43:15):
has more information or who's better atwhat we're doing here and can solve it.
Someday that might happen. That thechances of that happening are greater than
the chances of me actually solving acase. But that's not why I started
doing this to solve cases. Ijust did it to tell the stories like

(43:36):
that I think are important. LikeI said, thank you for listening to
the True Crime Podcast with t Zand less advertisements help us keep this podcast
free for you, and so wewill take a quick one minute ad break.
Feel free to skip ahead one minuteif you don't want to hear the

(43:57):
ad and we will be right back. In my first case that I covered
it, I didn't understand the importanceof having an advocate as far as victim,
and it's I guess it's a privilegedthing, because I've just never been
in that position. I've never givenany thought to it. But seeing that

(44:20):
case, and that's the Dylan redWine case, and how that progressed as
far as dead end no leads,and then just persistent pestering of the police,
or maybe not pestering, but persistentfollow ups with the police by the
family, by the mother and thebrother, and how eventually they hired an

(44:42):
x was the x FBI profiler.I don't know how much money the precinct
spent to hire him, or ifit was pro bono or what the deal
was, but it seems like,I mean, it made me think of
Margie and people like her who It'slike maybe they didn't have that obviously,

(45:04):
that was many years ago and thetechnology was different as well, but just
the I mean, I just kindof thought a crime happens, and there's
some kind of you know, maybesome kind of priority lists that the police
go by and they kind of divvyup the time they spend in each investigation.
But it doesn't seem like that atall. It seems kind of like

(45:27):
whoever is calling them the most kindof gets the most intention sometimes and if
the publics give you know, pressurethem, we need to figure out who
did this? You know, that'sthe case they spend a lot of time
on, which could be kind ofI mean, there's flaws and when you
think about it, that kind ofsystem, but it's just, you know,

(45:49):
it's how it is now. Soyeah, I think any anytime anybody
opens the book and looks at acase, I wonder too about just with
the popularity of true crime, ifpeople don't sometimes roll their eyes, it's
like, oh, this is gonnabe like two twenty something girls drinking wine
and giggling over this person's murder andlike making a bunch of money on Patreon

(46:15):
off of it or something. Idon't. I don't know what people's notions
are of true crime, but sometimesthat's sometimes I get the feeling that and
there are shows like that, notthat they're bad or good, but there
are they are out there. Yeah, I I it's it's crazy because I
just think that it's part of ourlives. And there's the genre aspect of

(46:39):
it. There's the whole TV seriesand docuseries and the things that I and
I like those things, but ultimatelythe people that are really responsible for the
whole genre side of it and theI guess, the fad part of it

(47:02):
and making it into kind of anempire. Like I was thinking the other
day, how Netflix is really quitegood at the true crime documentary series thing.
They're quite good at it so muchcontent. I think that the resistance
to true crime, and maybe Idon't know if I'm making sense or not,

(47:24):
but I think it lies more inthe perception that's created by the money
aspect of it, and the influenceand the corporations and that aspect of it,
because to me, that's not whattrue crime really is. Is you
know, two people sitting around,you know, laughing and talking about murders.

(47:44):
I think that is true crime.But that doesn't encompass all of true
crime. And I think perceptions likethat are fueled by, you know,
what makes the most money sometimes,but there's and it's again necessarily a you
know, a bad approach to havinga podcast or to talking about true crime.

(48:07):
But I just I just feel likethe perception that people have in the
resistance to true crime, it's becausethey're looking at it through a certain lens,
or they're looking at a presentation ofit that's based in what I think
is just the media and money andthat influence because really there's this whole world
of independent true crime and all kindsof different creators and people who are doing

(48:32):
different things and taking an approach thatyou'll never get on the most commercialized platforms
like Netflix. You just never willand there's a lot of value in it.
Yeah, there's a lot of freedomin the podcast form because you don't
have a time limit, you don'thave any content, anything that's off topic.

(48:58):
I mean, you can pretty muchcover anything you want. You can
go into as much detail as youwant. At the end of the day,
though I always come back or notalways, but I come back to
philosophically. As far as as atrue crime goes, it's entertainment. And
whenever you commodify, whenever you commodifyreal stories, you get into gray area,

(49:30):
you know. And that's that waskind of my hesitation even going into
it at all, because it feltlike, I mean, I wanted to
tell stories, but the stories Ialways felt were the most fascinating to me
were real stories. But when youretell someone else's story, there's so much
there's a lot more risk maybe orthere there's ethical you know, there's just

(49:58):
ethical gray area, you know,it's not immoral to retell to someone's story.
It's not even immoral to retell someone'sstory and make money off of it
like Netflix does. But it doesbring up a lot of questions. It
does bring up a lot of uh, you know, what's the motive behind
this? Why? Why this story? Why are you telling it in this

(50:21):
way? And all? That reallyinterests me. But um, you know,
I try to I try to tellthe story that the stories that I
tell in a way that I canfeel at peace. And sometimes I'll go
back and forth on that, youknow, with the vic you know,

(50:42):
Okay, this is this is notone hundred percent related, but it's a
little bit of a pet peeve ofmine. When a true crime story goes
in, goes really hard on theperpetrators because it seem like just such low
hanging fruit, like oh, thisguy was such a piece of shit and
look he murdered this person. Lookwhat he did, you know, And
it's like, okay, I mean, there's a place for that, and

(51:06):
in that sentiment, for sure.I mean, I'm not saying that Ted
Bundy or people like him were goodpeople, but there seems I'm not sure
how those those thoughts relate. I'mkind of just throwing ideas out there.
Well, I just feel like justhearing you say that, though we have
so much in common and just inthe way that we think about it,

(51:28):
so many of the things that youjust said. For one, the I
think people are almost afraid. There'ssomething in the true crime community that I've
noticed there's almost a fear of enjoyingwhat you're doing. There's a like a
fear of of the art or ofthe fact that you're putting on a show.

(51:52):
It's almost like people go out oftheir way to say, I'm doing
this for the victims or I'm doingthis for you know, the voices that
can't be heard, which I'm notdoubting is the truth. But you don't
have to use that. You don'thave to downplay the fact that you have

(52:15):
a show and that you're trying toentertain people, because it is entertainment and
that's actually something that we have toremember about in general, the stories that
stick with us. My background isin performing arts, in theater. I
have a degree in theater, andso storytelling is sort of just where I

(52:37):
come from. But that's how welearn, and that's how we learn the
truth. And that's how things reallystick with us is through a story and
when it's told in a way thatreally moves us or gets into our heart.
So there's this fear that I seein the true crime community of people

(52:57):
being afraid some people are with themusic. They think it's disrespectful or they
think that it's um, you know, having music in your podcast when you're
talking about true crime. Sometimes theythink it's a I don't know, maybe
too showy, but it is ashow. And frankly, if you look
at the most successful true crime podcasts, a lot of them use music,

(53:21):
and a lot of them are justvery entertaining. They may not be what
we want, as you know,at the top as our entertainment. You
know, we might not want themost the podcast that seems to draw in
the most people and use these reallygood ingredients at their core. They may
not be ethical or they may notbe doing things in the way that is

(53:44):
best for the masses, I guess, but they're doing something right when they
when they reach people on an emotionallevel. And it's because I think a
lot of them are focused on storytellingand on the fact that they do have
a show, and they're not shyingaway from the fact that they're entertaining.
They still are. And a lotof other podcasts independent podcasts because I don't

(54:07):
want to sound like I'm defending mainstreampodcasts, because I not defending nor attacking.
But a lot of the podcasts thatI really like, the creators seem
to know that they can both careabout the people they're talking about and the

(54:27):
subjects in their stories and be passionateabout that, and also be passionate about
having a show that's entertaining and thatpeople were really really enjoy Like people get
really weird about even saying they enjoytrue crime, but you're not enjoying the
pain and suffering of people. You'reenjoying being told a story. Yeah.

(54:53):
And then just one other thing thatyou said though, that made me think
we have a lot in common.Oh my gosh, I just spoke so
long that I might forget what Iwas gonna say. Uh, but you
talked about Oh geez, you're allI'll what you just said and then then
maybe it'll come to mind. Um. But uh yeah, just one last

(55:17):
thing about true crime is entertainment.It's like it almost so people. It's
like, uh, what's the word. Uh, oh shit, the duality
or um not an oxymoron. It'salmost like a catch twenty two maybe,

(55:38):
but it's like people don't want toor not not people, but some there
is a tendency within true crime towant a shy away, like you were
saying, from the idea of itas an entertainment, but that impulse if
if you play that too much,it's almost like it comes off as inauthentic,

(56:01):
like the idea. If you don'tat least admit and accept that true
crime is entertainment, then it almostcomes off as an authentic And why else,
I mean, why else are werecording it? I mean, why
else are we putting it on apodcast feed? Or why do we have
patreons? Like every single podcast evermade has a Patreon. If it's not

(56:24):
for money, if it's not forit, And I'm not saying everybody wants
to make it into a career ora business, but at the end of
the day, it's not only entertainment, but it is that is one of
the things that it is for thepeople who listen. Yeah, and that's
perfectly okay to admit, Like everyoneshould just drop their guilt and stop because

(56:49):
it's getting in the way of theit's getting in the way of how people
tell stories and what people want totalk about. Well, I'll push back.
I'll push back on that just alittle because I do think that there
is a healthy sense of guilt thatwe can have around things, and I
do and I do think with truecrime there is a danger of exploiting people's

(57:15):
stories. And so I'm not sayingthat we need to just be guilt in
and all, Like I have atrue crime podcast, right, I like
true Crime was such an awful person, But there is a I think there
is a healthy sense of guilt thatcan keep us on our toes, like
am I am I exploiting? Likeam I doing something wrong? Does this

(57:37):
person want their memory in this way? Or you know? Those are not
necessarily bad things to ask ourselves inthe problem. Yeah, I agree with
you on that. You're You're completelyright that that balance is important. I
guess. I guess I'm more justthinking that people need to to just be

(58:00):
to acknowl that's really important. Peopleneed to acknowledge that they're they're storytelling and
that it's entertainment. But they doneed to keep that in mind too,
because yeah, it does go inthe other direction where you're just saying,
Hey, it's a show, I'mjust going to talk about anybody, sorry,
and that's that's not what you wanteither, So there does have to

(58:22):
be the balance. And it's interestingbecause I didn't think when I first started
podcasting with true Crime, I didn'tthink that it would be as difficult as
it is for me to talk aboutcertain subjects, Like I didn't think it
would be that difficult for me totalk about a murder in detail, but

(58:45):
it really is, And in theones that I talk about on my podcast,
I it's and they can be talkedabout in detail in the right way,
in a very productive way, butjust the tint itself is very very
difficult. So I wrestle with thatin general, just you know, should

(59:06):
I even be doing this? Ifsomeone reacts, how am I going to
tend to that? If someone fromyou know, a family member of one
of the victims that I'm talking about, how am I going to respond to
that? So I think it's importantto, yeah, to just to keep
that in mind and to be willingto change because you might have to pull

(59:30):
down an episode or you might haveto just change something if depending on how
you're feeling when when you're approached bysomeone who responds. Most of the cases
I do, it doesn't seem likethere's um, I don't know, it
doesn't seem like there are that there'sa lot of action around them. So

(59:52):
so far, I have never heardanything from anybody personally. But anyway,
that's a long way to say,yeah, you're right, Yeah, there's
a lot more risk. I feellike the cases I've picked, I've been
pretty um kind of. I wasgonna say lucky. I mean, I

(01:00:14):
picked them, but it wasn't forthe reason that those people wouldn't mind me
doing a podcast on them. Itwas you know, the first case was
in Doctor Phil already, which wasfunny. I was talking with Less one
day and he's like, he's like, man, the red Wine family,
they must have there's something like this. I might be getting this a little

(01:00:36):
wrong, but I think he saidsomething about how the red Wine family they
must have heard of your podcast bynow, and I'm like, bro,
they they're used to Doctor Phil liketen million people. You know, they're
they're probably like a podcast with athousand listeners. It probably is like a
flea on their skin because they're justso used to that public pressure and attention,

(01:01:00):
and so a case like that,it's very low risk to cover.
And then I've done cases like youlike my second season, it reminded me
of your a little bit of mMargie because the person is deceased. To
anyone who even witnessed the crime inmy case is probably deceased. It was

(01:01:22):
back in nineteen sixteen, So it'slike it felt very even less so than
the first season. I felt veryum. I didn't have to spend much
time thinking about that, like whatwould a family member think or this or
that? And so yeah, Iwould be very interested. I'm sure those

(01:01:45):
moral kind of questions would come upa lot more if I was covering a
case that was active and maybe notcovered by a huge person like doctor philm
Like say, it was like thebiggest coverage they had got was a podcast
US with a thousand or a fewlisteners. You know. Yeah, it's

(01:02:07):
so much of the so many caseshave already been covered by corporate news and
and people with money and power.So I always think about that when when
I think about people who are beingcriticized or or what have you for for
covering a case or talking about acase I'm always thinking, well, you're

(01:02:27):
you're probably criticizing or in this case, you might be criticizing someone who's really
not benefiting from it in the waythat you think they are by doing it.
A lot of things that are reallyunder the stronghold of who has the
information and who has the money andthe power, which is another reason why
I'm drawn to cases where there's justnot that much information. You said something

(01:02:53):
earlier about in the podcast that kindof just do all the same cases and
things like that, which I youknow, there's nothing wrong with in my
opinion, but it's not. It'sjust not where my heart is personally.

(01:03:14):
Yeah, I've been drawn to thesmaller unknown cases. I did get a
request from a long time listener.She was like one of our first Patreon
supporters, and she asked, Ithink it was the toy box killer if
I would consider recovering that case.And I did start digging into it,
and the thing is, there's alot of recordings that he made that are

(01:03:36):
very fucking weird, and it hadme. It had me kind of realizing
that even with a lot of thebig cases. I mean, I've been
a true crime fan, but Ihaven't been like ah, like a true
crime addict where I spend every day, you know, reading about it.
So there's a ton of big casesthat I don't know a lot about,

(01:03:58):
and I have toy with that ideain my head, like maybe I would
do a bigger case one day,you know, just to just to fully
explore, you know, and learnthings I didn't know. And yeah,
but then i'd be a sellout manthen you and you don't subscribe, No,
I mean I know what. Iknow what that feeling is like,
though, yeah, because I don'tthe next case, the case that I'm

(01:04:21):
working on now, is a biggercase. It's not the most well known,
but it's definitely been done many times. But yeah, I think about
that too, like maybe I shoulddo a bigger case because I do feel
like they attract downloads, at leastwhen talking to people, I know they

(01:04:41):
attract they do attract attention, butI don't. I'm just not driven to
enough to do that, Like I'mnot. That doesn't entice me to,
you know, to talk about acase that so many people have already talked
about. There's nothing again, likesomeone said on Twitter, all the different

(01:05:02):
perspectives matter, and I agree withthat. So I don't think there's anything
wrong with doing cases that have beendone, but yeah, I think about
it sometimes, like what would Ido? But I can't put my finger
on one exactly. The only reasonI'm doing the one that I've got coming
up, which I'll just say,is the the Betsy Ardsma case who she

(01:05:26):
was She was murdered in nineteen sixtynine at Penn State in the library and
there's a trailer for it on myfeed. But the only reason I'm doing
that one really is because I hadthe opportunity to speak to someone who went
to school at Penn State in theweeks after her murder. So that's like

(01:05:50):
that there's a reason for me todo a big case in this situation.
But it's really really really hard,Like just when a case has like books
written about it and all this historybehind it, it's really challenging for me.
It's taken so freaking long. Ican't wait to be done with it.
Yeah, it's kind of like wheredo you? Where do you?

(01:06:11):
What do you focus on? That'smy first season. There were there weren't
any books written about it, butthere were a lot of interviews and you
can almost feel overwhelming at sometimes andat least for me, this is what
guided me and still guides me.Is like, what like when I'm listening
to a true crime podcast, Ialways want to like I come up with

(01:06:35):
questions like oh I wonder what thatwas and maybe it doesn't get covered or
something else. And so when I'mcrafting mine, it's always like I want
to put down obviously with some structure, but like where does my brain go,
like, oh well, who's thatperson? Oh well, why didn't
he do that? Or I wonderif there's any footage of this or know,

(01:07:00):
like I kind of try to guideit in that way of like wool,
what's interesting to me? Like ifI was gonna listen to this back,
would it be interesting? And thenif it, if there's any ever
anything that's just boring me, I'mlike, nah, I'm just gonna cut
that out and just go to somesomething else. Yeah, that's that's kind
of I noticed a similarity. Iwas listening to an episode of your show.

(01:07:23):
I think it was the episode andcorrect me if I'm wrong. I
think it's called The Pictures and ohyeah, that was a really enticing Scott
and oh yeah, just really reallyjarring information in the in the episode,
but it was really immediately pulled mein, and I was thinking, oh,
this is a great episode to startwith if you want to be pulled

(01:07:45):
in. But um, I yousaid something earlier that I thought of as
well that I forgot about, butI just remembered when you were basically you
were talking about the need that somepeople feel to sort of really come down
hard on the perpetrator or the killeror whatever in their in their narrative,

(01:08:11):
and I was going to just saythat I feel like I identify with your
your approach very much and not feelingthat that's really necessary to go for the
low hanging fruit. I don't know, I'm just I'm just basically saying I
see some similarities in your approach thatI to mind that I really appreciate.
So I'm looking forward to going throughthe rest of your catalog. Thanks man.

(01:08:35):
Yeah, we featured and uh,you know, I want to make
sure I'm not I'm not misspeaking herebecause I do enjoy some podcasts that really
just beat it up on the perpetrators. There's one, you know, there's
one we featured in our in theTrue Crime podcast feed and I and I

(01:08:56):
can't understand it. Too. That'sanother thing where if I can understand the
motive for why somebody is is maybea little harsher on the perpetrator, and
this guy was a nine one onedispatcher and so dealing with calls all day
and being that close to a caseor just true crime in general, I
can understand just being like, fuckthese pieces of shit that do these things.

(01:09:20):
And yeah, and um, well, that's when the real human comes
out in your work. That's whenthe real person kind of comes out right,
right, Because for me, I'vespent a lot of time already being
angry in my life and being angryabout you know, bad people and things

(01:09:40):
like that. So just with theshift of my worldview and where I am
now, that doesn't come through inmy in my writing and my narratives,
but for some people it does.And then so it makes sense. There
was a quote. Have you seenthe show, Um, mind Hunter?
Yeah, I really enjoyed that.There's a quote. I think it's at

(01:10:02):
the end of the first season whenum, what's her name? I think
she's the kind of the U fuckI forget, I forget her name.
She's kind of the researcher, moreof the the woman, the book woman
is kind of keeping a run onthem, and she says about empathizing with

(01:10:25):
a psychopath, we negate the selfand she's like warning Holden about that and
that that line really hit me becauseI always kind of this is a this
is a candid statement about myself.But I've always sometimes I have held myself

(01:10:45):
up with a little bit of pride, like, oh, look, I'm
actually empathizing with the killer when otherpodcasts talk bad about him. And so
that quote, it, uh,it hit a truth that I had never
considered, and I was like,oh, whoa, that's that's a little
uncomfortable to U sit with that idea. Well, I think about it,

(01:11:11):
and you know, you're not reallyempathizing with the killer unless you think the
killer is all of that, allthat person is. If we it's almost
like when we decide that someone isa monster, you know, we've dehumanized
them, or if someone is justa killer, and you know when you

(01:11:32):
when you do something like take thelife of someone else, it very much
does eclipse everything else about you thathappened up until that point. But at
the same time, it's also partof the it's it's a human being that
did it. A human being thatkilled someone. So you're I think it's

(01:11:57):
more empathizing with that part of themthat isn't a killer, whatever part of
it exists or did exist at somepoint. And it's a good point.
That's a good distinction. Yeah,I mean that's how I feel about it,
because you can't. I think that'ssomething that is a greater thing happening

(01:12:19):
in society is we're letting things aboutpeople and I'm not giving anyone a pass,
especially if you're a killer. Imean, of course, but we
we let things about other human beingsreally overtake the fact that there's still a
human being at all, and thenwe decide that we can't have any empathy

(01:12:44):
in any way for them, perhapsbecause it makes us part of the thing
that we view them as now.And so I kind of remember that quote
too in that, but I definitelythink, um, you know, I
to empathize with the person before thekiller is also just a very human response.

(01:13:12):
Important to know the distinction and whereyou're empathizing, though. I guess
that's a that's a really good point. And I do think that if we
had to take society and say,um, are we too far on the
side of of non empathy um orare we too far on the side of
empathizing with killers so much that wegive them a free pass. I think

(01:13:38):
we're way on the other side,you know, we're like the punitive approach
of the justice system. I'm fundamentallyjust opposed to it. I don't I
don't think it logically even makes anysense. I think it it creates a
cycle of of of crime and andit it's a very unhealthy way that we
approach it too, because too justto um to turn somebody into a monster

(01:14:03):
in your head, no matter whatthey've done, even if it's the most
monstrous act, you almost lose apart of your own humanity. I think
this is kind of a it's kindof a little bit of I don't know,
a spiritual idea, maybe more sothan maybe we're getting beyond the scope
of true crime. But I dothink like, while there is on one

(01:14:27):
side the risk of negating the selfand maybe losing your humanity by empathizing too
much, I think there's also thatrisk on the other side of of losing
your humanity by not empathizing at alland turning them just into a literal monster

(01:14:47):
and not a human being. Anymore, because I don't think that that's realistic
either. Oh yeah, I mean, we're we're nowhere close to giving a
pass to two killers. We're nowhereclose. Are is the news for you
realize that? Yeah, and wewe do have a system, and that

(01:15:09):
that perpetuates that we have more killersin my opinion, because of our response
to them. We have more violenceand more danger in the world because of
our response to it, especially throughour criminal justice system. And you know,
we're kind of when we're talking aboutspiritual and these bigger ideas and getting

(01:15:31):
away from true crime, but it'sall really related to me. It's all
relevant. I have a brother whois incarcerated for non violent offenses. But
the experience that he's having and thatother people I know are having who are
inside with him, is not goodfor society, is not good for him,

(01:15:59):
is not good for anyone. Andyou know, he, my brother,
is just lucky that he has asupport system here on outside waiting for
him. But yeah, I thinkwith my stories, you'll hear. My
third episode is called Faking Death withBenny Went, and that's a story where

(01:16:20):
so many people have just called BennyWent the guy in it, you know,
an asshole. They've just said,Oh, this horrible person because he
faked his own death. And thetruth is he was hiding for twenty years
in another state with another life,and he left his fiance behind and stuff
that, you know, makes methink, yeah, that guy is kind

(01:16:42):
of an asshole. But at thesame time, I was so drawn to
the story, and I didn't wantto just think that. Thinking that would
have just thinking that would have keptme from going further into the story and
finding and seeing if there were morethere. When we look at people in
those ways and just decide someone's evil, someone's bad, someone's horrible, we

(01:17:04):
disagree with him. They've done somethingthat makes us not want to acknowledge their
humanity. It keeps us from acknowledgingtheir humanity keeps and it hurts part of
our own humanity. But so wasthat guy's name Benny went? Benny went?
Yeah, he how do you spellit? His last time went?

(01:17:25):
I believe is wi n T.And there's not a lot of information out
there. I think. I thinka couple of other podcasts have talked about
him in the context of of pseudocideand and faking your own death, But
I don't think a whole narrative hasbeen done, and so I created a
narrative based on that case and destinating. I heard of somebody a story similar

(01:17:50):
to that. I don't know ifit was that guy, but I've heard
something. Yeah, those stories arevery interesting that you just disappear in show
up in a new life. Yeah. Well, it's still an unsolved case
to me, just in the sensethat he's never talked about those twenty years
where he was missing or where wherehe disappeared. He he doesn't want to

(01:18:12):
speak about it. So there's astory there, but again one that I
wouldn't have even approached if I hadthis kind of binary thinking about him as
a person, because pretty much allthe comments on the Internet and half the
stuff you read when you're looking forinformation on Benny Went is just people saying
this, this idiot, you know, this asshole, he committed this.

(01:18:35):
You know, he disappeared and fakedhis death and then he got caught by
you know, because he had abroken tail light or a light bulb on
his vehicle. Just the dumbest thingever. Like I've seen him on lists
of like I think he's been oninternet list of like top ten dumbest you
know, attempts to fake your owndeath or something like that, and it's

(01:18:57):
just this really condoning what he did. You know, he broke hearts and
he and he hurt people that heloved. And but there's more to it
than that, because he also managedto remarry and start a new life with
someone and have a family and tosome observe observable degree, you know,
be a fairly upstanding citizen from whatI could see. So there's just more

(01:19:20):
to it than that. But it'sjust when I was researching, I was
really laughing at the fact that allthese people think he's this horrible person or
whatever, and here I am,I'm going to do this narrative and not
really say he's horrible or bad orgood, but just try to say something
else. And you know, Ihaven't heard too much about it, but

(01:19:42):
well, just stuff from a froma logistics standpoint, If you managed to
fake your own death for twenty years, I feel like you automatically are not
bad at at faking your own death. You know it did, right,
you said he appeared on like adumbest criminals or something, Right, I
was like, well, he gotaway with it for twenty years. Row

(01:20:05):
really good so, and he didget caught with a just a breaking kind
of a tiny little law in whatin a way that you might think is
just really stupid or but you know, so did Ted Bundy? And nobody
talks about Yeah, and nobody,I mean almost all of them that get

(01:20:27):
caught it's some small thing. Yeah, but nobody says Ted Bundy, is
this, you know, one ofthe dumbest serial killers or you know,
dumbest people ever or whatever. Well, that's a whole another topic of the
weird. So we on the onehand, it's almost like in response,
and it's not directly obviously, buton one hand you have the complete demonization,

(01:20:49):
and then you have the romantis romanticization, if that's a word, the
romanticizing of Ted Bundy and the what'sthe most recent guy that's gotten a lot
of the Richard Ramirez Richard Ramirez,I mean you could even say Israel keys
to a degree, Israel Keys,Yeah, a little bit to a degree.

(01:21:12):
Jeffrey Dahmer Jeffrey Dalmer Manson, Imean not as much anymore, but
yeah, Yeah, it's weird howyou have some people who it's like the
complete um throw them under the bus. They're the worst humans ever. And
then it's like the people who wantto marry them have sex with them,
and yeah, very strange dichotomy.Yeah, it's just there's this the balance,

(01:21:38):
like the most common thing isn't theloudest thing, or what should be
the most common thing, which isa healthy balanced view, you know,
where you recognize that's a human personthat got really screwed up and now they've
done some stuff that we just can'taccept in our society, and I know,
understanding that and not just completely thinkingthey're a monster and should be you

(01:22:03):
know, spend the rest of theirdays and worse pain than they inflicted.
You know, a balance between thatand also you know, not worshiping them
and thinking that there's some kind ofhero. Just those extremes either side,
the fact that they're so loud andso present is just strating. It's frustrating

(01:22:26):
in it. I wonder if it'sa little bit like politics in so far
as the loudest voices are usually themost extreme. And I mean, no
matter what you think of Joe Biden, whether you hate the guy or you
love the guy, he's very moderateand he's right. I mean, I
know Trump was the opposite of moderate. But I think there's a large population

(01:22:50):
in America who does have pretty moderateviews and probably you know, don't want
to spit on the graves of somebodywho happened to murder somebody else, and
also don't want to marry them.You know, I think there is a
longing for a more moderate approach,hopefully maybe well yeah, I don't know.

(01:23:15):
I don't think of I mean,personally, I don't think of of
those two moderates. Is the sameum with with Joe Biden. I do
agree with the you know, whetheryou know love him or hate him,
the perception of him is that he'sthis middle of the road moderate. Um.
I think what that actually means isis is a different conversation. But

(01:23:41):
I do agree with you. Well, but I do agree with you though,
like what you're saying the sentiment thatmost people are are are are balanced
in middle of the road, Mostpeople in the middle of the road than
the most extreme voices almost yeah,but they're not the loudest, um right,
unfortunately, And you know, Icould go into a whole conspiracy theory

(01:24:03):
world about that, But because Ibelieve that's intentional, I believe when you
see that in true crime with theextremes with fans of you know, Ted
Bundy and Richard Ramirez and things likethat, and then also people who think
that they're just you know, alsopeople who are outside cheering their execution with
smiles on their faces and signs youknow that they handmade like those that manifestation

(01:24:31):
those extremes. I think you seeit there and you do see it in
politics as well, and and Ithink they're related, and I think it
all connects back to just society asa whole and who has power, who's
controlling society, who is really influencingsociety, so that you know, from

(01:24:51):
the top down, so that peoplethat so many people can think in certain
ways an outnumber the people who aremore balanced. I don't think most people
want the situation that we're in inthe world or in this country, and

(01:25:14):
yet for some reason, the situationis reflective over is reflective of what a
certain faction of people want who seemto have more power and more influence.
Well, I think it also theInternet. Coming back to the Internet,
we kind of went full circle herein a sense. It well, it

(01:25:39):
rewards that human nature in such animmediate way of the what do you call
it the rubber necker or that impulseto slow down when you pass a car
crash because you want to see what'sgoing on. It's almost like, I
mean, I think, not tohate to even brings name up again,

(01:26:00):
but to even um talking about Trumpand and the kind of the train crash
kind of spectacle of him. Itwas every day there was a new craziness,
and it was like even if you'ddegree it disagreed, if you agreed,
it didn't matter. You wanted toknow what's going on. And it's
kind of like true crime is thatway a little bit, And so I

(01:26:21):
think it rewards um. There's acertain built in hunger for the odd,
the bizarre, the weird, andthat's okay, you know. I think
that we just have to um,we have to just keep an eye on
it, make sure it doesn't getout of control, make sure we're still

(01:26:43):
telling these stories in ethical ways.And I think it's yeah, I think
it's out of control though. Imean, you're basically talking about how politics
has become like a genre like entertainment. Oh yeah, yeah, that's a
good point. That commodification of politicsand as an entertain as it's just the

(01:27:06):
it's not I think we've we've alreadygone too far. But I feel like
I'll start depressing people if I gettoo far into that. But but um,
yeah, there's there's definitely um parallelsto be drawn between a true crime
as a genre and politics as agenre because they're both about at the center

(01:27:28):
of them, they're both about information. Really at the at their core,
politics is about the truth and theinformation. Um it's not about political leaders
and about laws necessarily, it's aboutwhat's right, what's true, what's real
at least it is now, andhow we're looking at it now. People
are always trying to find what's trueand what's real, and at its core,

(01:27:51):
true crime is also like that too, trying to tell the truth,
a story, the information, gettingthe information right, and true crime is
political in and of itself. Thepursuit of an unsolved case is political because
you are pursuing information that has eitherbeen withheld by certain power structures. You're

(01:28:20):
challenging structures of power. So alot of the times you're looking for information
from the police, you're looking forinformation from those who have power, and
politics is about challenging structures of poweras well. You are dealing with backlash
just like in politics, if youpublish information through your true crime podcast,

(01:28:41):
you can receive a response that altersthe course of what you do in the
future, very much like in thepolitical realm when you say something in the
field of politics or you legislate ina way that has backlash as well.
So there's a lot to a lotof milarities to be drawn between the two

(01:29:01):
in that way. But they've bothbecome they're both a genre at this point.
But in terms of which one ismore consequential to our daily lives,
I mean, I think it's clearlypolitics, of course, Like that we're
talking about our lives being in thehands of a few people, and now

(01:29:23):
we're not even talking about it interms of what's best for us, but
we're really talking about things through thegenre the lens, like which team is
going to win and who's going tobenefit from what, and what's most exciting,
you know, starting to see politicianson magazines and and you know,

(01:29:45):
just becoming celebrities. It's it's adirection, and that's I got to put
a put a pin on that forme, because I'll get way too far
into it and then I'll get banned. Thank god, We don't host a
political Yeah, you don't want tohear it from me, believe me.
Well, I will say I willchallenge one thing you said. As far
as um, which medium holds themost power? I mean, I do,

(01:30:12):
obviously on the surface degree that politicsholds the most power. But as
far as life or death, youknow, you gotta somebody, You got
a killer that's at least in theimmediate immediate, in your immediate future.
If you're faced with a Ted Bundyor somebody like that, it's some way

(01:30:33):
more on your radar than what Congressis doing next week. You know.
Sure, Well, I mean,but the question really is should it be?
And I guess yeah, when whensomething is in your immediate vicinity,
that's really how true crime I guess, Well, the genre of true crime

(01:30:58):
doesn't affect our daily lives in theway that the genre of politics does,
in my opinion, But I getwhat I think, I get what you're
saying with how we feel more affectedby true crime and what's in it,
which is crime? Is you know, cut out the word true and just
say crime. Yeah, Because it'slike you can walk out the front door
and be the victim of a crime, or it is so much more personal

(01:31:24):
in your personal daily life in thatway. But at the same time,
I'll just say with politics, Ithink it should be in the sense that
life and death is there too.It just doesn't necessarily feel as present because
it might not be in your houseor outside of your house. But you
know, congress without congressional approval,we just dropped bombs on Syria, and

(01:31:48):
there are innocent people that die fromthat, that die when we drop bombs
on other countries without congressional approval,and that's life and death too. We
just don't think about it because it'sout of sight. But the implications of
those kinds of things, one countrybombing another and in what that does,

(01:32:13):
The implications I think do affect ourdaily lives in ways that we don't comprehend
necessarily in this moment, depending onwhat level of the latter you're on in
America. But I think more andmore as time goes on, they're beginning
to have a more visible impact inour daily lives. Still not in the

(01:32:35):
way that like crime does in thecontext of true crime. Still not in
the way of like, hey,there's a serial killer in my town,
or there's a you know, therewas a shooting down the street or someone
was abducted in my neighborhood or something. But I think with the way it's
going, see I just said,I just said I was going to put

(01:32:55):
a pin in me talking about that. But I think we're heading more toward
that at um. The more thatwe have politics as a genre in the
way that true crime is, um, I think it's it's it's dangerous.
Well, we do have that.We do have a few, they're pretty

(01:33:16):
rare, but there are those crossovers. Um. I think there was one
that covered Nixon. Well, I'msure there's been one, but the podcast,
Yeah, I feel like there wasa pretty big Yeah, I think
it was, Um, I'm gonnait was the it was slow Burn.

(01:33:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.I enjoyed that. I didn't I didn't
listen to that one. But Imean, you're right as far as they're
almost inseparable, Like if you ifyou look at um, like the most
famous one on Netflix making a murder, I mean it was so tied up
to flaws in the justice system.Same with SERI probably the most famous true

(01:34:01):
crime podcast, And so the twoare intertwined in a in a very a
very intimate way. Which is kindof interesting. It's kind of yeah,
it's kind of cool how many similaritiesyou can find too, Like like we
were talking about, when you justtake politics, just take true crime,
because I guess they both are sucha part of life that, oh yeah,

(01:34:25):
you can't. You can't look out, you can't. It's hard to
look at one or the other ina vacuum without bringing up the other one.
How it affects it. Yeah,especially as you spend more time with
it, you start to see thatit's all connected everything that we're talking about.
Yeah, absolutely cool. Man.Did you have any uh, final

(01:34:46):
thoughts or anything else, any questionsfrom me or you know, I just
really appreciate you taking the time totalk with me, even if this interview
weren't being published. I I justreally have enjoyed talking to another person about
podcasting. And it's just such agift that you guys are talking about people

(01:35:10):
talking to people about their work,because I know that you must know what
it's like to not have the opportunityto do that as often as we might
like. So I'm just really grateful. So thanks so much. It's been
really really good to talk to you. Definitely, man, Sam as well,
hopefully we'll have you on the showagain. I love thanks for sharing

(01:35:31):
us your story with us. Man, Yeah, thank you so much.
All right, bro, thank youfor listening to the True Crime Podcast.
My name is t Z and I'vebeen your host today. If you'd like
to support the show, the bestthing you can do is give us a

(01:35:53):
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(01:36:16):
tell your friends to subscribe, andwe will see you next time.