August 23, 2025 • 9 mins
Pod Crashing episode 383 with Soledad O’Brien from the podcast Murder on the Towpath. One of America's greatest unsolved mysteries, and the two women at its core; One black, one white. One poor, one rich. They never actually met. But their lives came to intersect through one tragic day when Mary Pinchot Meyer was mysteriously murdered on her daily walk in broad daylight in 1964. A black man stood accused, and a barrier-breaking civil rights lawyer, Dovey Roundtree, rose to his defense. Award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien weaves a tale of crime and culture that still resonates with our socio-political climate today
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, thanks for coming back to the conversation. Let's do
(00:02):
some pod crashing. Episode number three eighty three is with
Soledad O'Brien from the podcast Murder on the Toepath.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, I'm fantastic. Can you give me a background on
your name? That's amazing the name. I love it.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
The name Arrow was created in nineteen eighty one in Lewistown, Montana.
My wife was writing a book at the time and
she needed a character with a name for a gentleman
that was the manager of a nightclub. And I said Arrow,
and I spelled it with an E and I said Stevens.
And she says, I don't like Stevens. How about if
we say Arrow Collins. And so what happened was is
that we acted out the book in order to create
(00:35):
the scenes, and I became this this Arrow guy. And
then when I went back to Billings, Montana, I didn't
go back there as C. T. Anthony. I went back
there as Arrow Collins and it's grown from there.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I love it. Wow, what a great backstory. That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
It's weirdness, man, it's radio I love it.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I love it. And acting out the scene so that
you get the dialogue, right, is so brilliant.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And you know what, that was nineteen eighty one and
I still have those cassette tapes. Somebody's gonna find them
one day and they're gonna get They're gonna.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Go, we're gonna say, what do we do? How do
we play these? Well?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
What about your name? Where did it come from?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Oh? Well, that's just very devout Catholics. Maria de la
Teresa Marchadi O'Brien, the blessed Virgin Mary of Solitudes. That's
a fun name in seventh grade.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
How did the teachers handle it because they always mispronounced
you know, my my.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Sol soldad is and then my some of my coaches
all just call me, oh, Brian.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Your podcast plays out like a novel, and I have
to keep telling myself this really did happen, because the
characters that are involved in this, you're going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
So this this was handwritten. No, it really happened.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah. Yeah, it's so crazy, you know, and it kind
of starts off as your typical true Crome story. Right,
there's a murder, wealthy white lady social light walking along
a towpath Georgetown fabulousness, nineteen sixty four is murdered brutally,
horribly quickly, and pretty quickly they are able to come
(02:15):
across a guy, black guy, young guy, twenty five, someone
who I think we would consider it to be sort
of a drifter kind of guy, and they put it
together like he obviously did this horrible murder for this woman.
And then it all starts to unravel, like who is
this woman. Well, Mary Meyer, her ex husband high up
in the CIA. She is having an affair with JFK.
(02:39):
The President. She's a pacifist, he's a pastist the president.
The president himself is feuding with the CIA. I mean,
all these pieces start unwinding in very you almost can't
believe it, right, You're like, well, this obviously couldn't be true.
And yet one of the first things that happened is that,
you know, the ex husband and family members know quickly
(03:00):
run to grab Mary Meyer's diary right after she's killed. Wow,
that's unusual. And so I think for us being able
to unwind what's a true crime story but that is
undergirded with a lot of historical fact and complications and
twists and turns and conspiracy theories, was really fascinating for us.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Well, you have to remind us many times throughout the
story that this it's sixty years old. But yeah, you're
making me feel like that it just happened the other day.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, it's one of the true big unsolved murder mysteries,
and yeah it's it is relevant in a lot of ways.
I mean, the story of the woman who comes in
to defend Ray Crump, who's been now nabbed as the
killer in the story w Rountree, and even her own
path during the civil rights era. I remember it's nineteen
(03:48):
sixty four. How she becomes a civil rights attorney is
kind of just improbable, if not impossible, hard to believe.
And yet how she's able to strategize around figuring out
how to get her client off is pretty amazing. And
so I think there is a lot that's still relevant
even though it is a murder mystery from sixty one
(04:08):
years ago that remains unsolved and is very tied into
you know, the history of JFK and all the things
that we didn't know about his assassination.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Ultimately, please do not move. There's more with Solidad O'Brien
coming up next. Hey, thanks for coming back to our
conversation with Solidad O'Brien. You know the way that you
describe dove Roundtree, I mean you give her a voice.
You give for listeners, it's like, oh my god, they
could say something, they could, they could dig in, they could.
I need to do this in my own life. There's
(04:40):
so much going on in my own life. I need
to be like Dovey.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah. Yeah, she's amazing. And you know, I have to say,
I've done so many stories from the get go of
my career about the civil rights era, so it's really
unusual when there's a character, for lack of a better word,
that I've never heard of at all, that I just
don't know this story at all. And so it was
(05:04):
so fascinating to be able to go into her own
backstory and the way that she was able to fund
her education at a time when black women were not
being funded in education and certainly not to go off
to become lawyers. So her own backstory is absolutely fascinating.
But yeah, I think that that's the fun and the
challenge in a podcast, right, I mean, as you were
(05:24):
talking about, you know, how you tell stories, You've got
to actually give the person a voice so that the
listener can understand who, who are they, what motivates them,
why are they doing this thing? It can't just be
a narrative. It has to really make sense. You've got
to you've got to love, hate, understand, get into the
skin of the person who you're profiling at that moment.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
See, the thing is, you're proving so much with this
murder on the toepath in the way of going there's
something beyond the story you think. You know, we're going
to sit down and we're going to talk about it,
and we're going to learn about people. And because the
newspaper doesn't do that, and even a three mins news
report on at five o'clock in the afternoon doesn't dig
in like you're doing with this podcast, you've got to
feel blessed.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, yeah, you can't, of course. Yes. I mean, anytime
someone gives you know, we call that real estate, and
someone gives you real estate, it's good to have real estate. Yeah,
I think that's exactly right. And most of the broadcast
pieces actually are a minute fifteen, a minute thirty. I
used to have a boss who would say, when I
try to get my minute fifteen, to get to a
minute thirty, she'd say, listen, you can have a minute fifteen.
You could have the first minute fifteen or the last
(06:28):
minute fifteen. It's your choice. But I'm only giving you
a minute fifteen. And it's a tiny amount of time.
You don't get to explore, understand, sympathize, identify with, not
identify with any of the characters. And so to get
the real estate to be able to unwind stories and
then jump into backstories and examine relationships and people's motivation
(06:49):
and just point out craziness at times, it is a
tremendous luxury.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I'll tell you what. What was sent shivers through my
spine is when Mary was described beautiful even though she
was dead. Put shivers in my spine.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Could you imagine? We were so horrified. We had an
amazing production team, by the way, on this, they were incredible,
and we all talked about that, right like God, who
described who said that? Says that that is just yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And it's a community crime. And the thing is is
that is that could you have been that reporter that
would have followed what was going on and came across
that dead body? Because I mean, like you explain in
the storyline, the police were out there trying to catch
whoever the killer was. They needed to get that killer,
so you know, they didn't escape and so but the
body was left there and it's like she was alone
until that reporter showed up.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, it's so crazy and in so many ways, there's
so many things that you're just like, this makes no sense.
It makes no sense at all. So no, I couldn't,
you know, I when I did a lot of daily
news reporting, I was always after math person, Like I
literally came in a week later to do context. So no,
I would never Nope, Nope. The answer to that is nope, nobody.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Nope. Were you shocked when you learned that JFK they
had an affair, because I mean I was, I have
never heard this story before.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Oh yeah, no, you know, yes, I mean, of course.
And then of course you see the logs where she
signed in as a guest to the White House, you know,
so yes, and no, I don't think there's anybody in
the world who's like, what, JFK had an affair when
that's a lot, you know, part of his history, but
an affair with Mary Meyers, certainly that was surprising. And
(08:26):
then I think even more surprising was drugs, And even
more surprising was their relationship around how he thought about pacifism,
because of course that was in direct conflict with the CIA, right,
So you actually it's not irrelevant to what might have happened.
Kennedy was feuding with people in the CIA. Some of
(08:48):
those people had been married to Mary Meyer. Like it
begins to create these connections. It seems so improbable, and
yet there they are.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Wow. So where did Martha gain the confidence to go
after to get her to participate even more than what
she was.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I think that at the end of the day, you know,
w Rowntree was motivated by doing the right thing and
seeing this young black man who was described as simple
in a lot of ways, she just felt like he
was not going to get a fair shake. And so
that's what I think motivated w Rountree, who had a
very strong sense of justice, especially for people of color
who were her people.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Wow, You've got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. The door is always going to be
open for you.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I so appreciate that, and I'm going to take you
up on that. Thank you will.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
You'd be brilliant today. Okay, you too.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Take care
Hey, thanks for coming back to the conversation. Let's do
(00:02):
some pod crashing. Episode number three eighty three is with
Soledad O'Brien from the podcast Murder on the Toepath.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, I'm fantastic. Can you give me a background on
your name? That's amazing the name. I love it.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
The name Arrow was created in nineteen eighty one in Lewistown, Montana.
My wife was writing a book at the time and
she needed a character with a name for a gentleman
that was the manager of a nightclub. And I said Arrow,
and I spelled it with an E and I said Stevens.
And she says, I don't like Stevens. How about if
we say Arrow Collins. And so what happened was is
that we acted out the book in order to create
(00:35):
the scenes, and I became this this Arrow guy. And
then when I went back to Billings, Montana, I didn't
go back there as C. T. Anthony. I went back
there as Arrow Collins and it's grown from there.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I love it. Wow, what a great backstory. That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
It's weirdness, man, it's radio I love it.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I love it. And acting out the scene so that
you get the dialogue, right, is so brilliant.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And you know what, that was nineteen eighty one and
I still have those cassette tapes. Somebody's gonna find them
one day and they're gonna get They're gonna.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Go, we're gonna say, what do we do? How do
we play these? Well?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
What about your name? Where did it come from?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Oh? Well, that's just very devout Catholics. Maria de la
Teresa Marchadi O'Brien, the blessed Virgin Mary of Solitudes. That's
a fun name in seventh grade.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
How did the teachers handle it because they always mispronounced
you know, my my.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Sol soldad is and then my some of my coaches
all just call me, oh, Brian.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Your podcast plays out like a novel, and I have
to keep telling myself this really did happen, because the
characters that are involved in this, you're going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
So this this was handwritten. No, it really happened.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah. Yeah, it's so crazy, you know, and it kind
of starts off as your typical true Crome story. Right,
there's a murder, wealthy white lady social light walking along
a towpath Georgetown fabulousness, nineteen sixty four is murdered brutally,
horribly quickly, and pretty quickly they are able to come
(02:15):
across a guy, black guy, young guy, twenty five, someone
who I think we would consider it to be sort
of a drifter kind of guy, and they put it
together like he obviously did this horrible murder for this woman.
And then it all starts to unravel, like who is
this woman. Well, Mary Meyer, her ex husband high up
in the CIA. She is having an affair with JFK.
(02:39):
The President. She's a pacifist, he's a pastist the president.
The president himself is feuding with the CIA. I mean,
all these pieces start unwinding in very you almost can't
believe it, right, You're like, well, this obviously couldn't be true.
And yet one of the first things that happened is that,
you know, the ex husband and family members know quickly
(03:00):
run to grab Mary Meyer's diary right after she's killed. Wow,
that's unusual. And so I think for us being able
to unwind what's a true crime story but that is
undergirded with a lot of historical fact and complications and
twists and turns and conspiracy theories, was really fascinating for us.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Well, you have to remind us many times throughout the
story that this it's sixty years old. But yeah, you're
making me feel like that it just happened the other day.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, it's one of the true big unsolved murder mysteries,
and yeah it's it is relevant in a lot of ways.
I mean, the story of the woman who comes in
to defend Ray Crump, who's been now nabbed as the
killer in the story w Rountree, and even her own
path during the civil rights era. I remember it's nineteen
(03:48):
sixty four. How she becomes a civil rights attorney is
kind of just improbable, if not impossible, hard to believe.
And yet how she's able to strategize around figuring out
how to get her client off is pretty amazing. And
so I think there is a lot that's still relevant
even though it is a murder mystery from sixty one
(04:08):
years ago that remains unsolved and is very tied into
you know, the history of JFK and all the things
that we didn't know about his assassination.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Ultimately, please do not move. There's more with Solidad O'Brien
coming up next. Hey, thanks for coming back to our
conversation with Solidad O'Brien. You know the way that you
describe dove Roundtree, I mean you give her a voice.
You give for listeners, it's like, oh my god, they
could say something, they could, they could dig in, they could.
I need to do this in my own life. There's
(04:40):
so much going on in my own life. I need
to be like Dovey.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah. Yeah, she's amazing. And you know, I have to say,
I've done so many stories from the get go of
my career about the civil rights era, so it's really
unusual when there's a character, for lack of a better word,
that I've never heard of at all, that I just
don't know this story at all. And so it was
(05:04):
so fascinating to be able to go into her own
backstory and the way that she was able to fund
her education at a time when black women were not
being funded in education and certainly not to go off
to become lawyers. So her own backstory is absolutely fascinating.
But yeah, I think that that's the fun and the
challenge in a podcast, right, I mean, as you were
(05:24):
talking about, you know, how you tell stories, You've got
to actually give the person a voice so that the
listener can understand who, who are they, what motivates them,
why are they doing this thing? It can't just be
a narrative. It has to really make sense. You've got
to you've got to love, hate, understand, get into the
skin of the person who you're profiling at that moment.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
See, the thing is, you're proving so much with this
murder on the toepath in the way of going there's
something beyond the story you think. You know, we're going
to sit down and we're going to talk about it,
and we're going to learn about people. And because the
newspaper doesn't do that, and even a three mins news
report on at five o'clock in the afternoon doesn't dig
in like you're doing with this podcast, you've got to
feel blessed.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, yeah, you can't, of course. Yes. I mean, anytime
someone gives you know, we call that real estate, and
someone gives you real estate, it's good to have real estate. Yeah,
I think that's exactly right. And most of the broadcast
pieces actually are a minute fifteen, a minute thirty. I
used to have a boss who would say, when I
try to get my minute fifteen, to get to a
minute thirty, she'd say, listen, you can have a minute fifteen.
You could have the first minute fifteen or the last
(06:28):
minute fifteen. It's your choice. But I'm only giving you
a minute fifteen. And it's a tiny amount of time.
You don't get to explore, understand, sympathize, identify with, not
identify with any of the characters. And so to get
the real estate to be able to unwind stories and
then jump into backstories and examine relationships and people's motivation
(06:49):
and just point out craziness at times, it is a
tremendous luxury.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I'll tell you what. What was sent shivers through my
spine is when Mary was described beautiful even though she
was dead. Put shivers in my spine.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Could you imagine? We were so horrified. We had an
amazing production team, by the way, on this, they were incredible,
and we all talked about that, right like God, who
described who said that? Says that that is just yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And it's a community crime. And the thing is is
that is that could you have been that reporter that
would have followed what was going on and came across
that dead body? Because I mean, like you explain in
the storyline, the police were out there trying to catch
whoever the killer was. They needed to get that killer,
so you know, they didn't escape and so but the
body was left there and it's like she was alone
until that reporter showed up.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, it's so crazy and in so many ways, there's
so many things that you're just like, this makes no sense.
It makes no sense at all. So no, I couldn't,
you know, I when I did a lot of daily
news reporting, I was always after math person, Like I
literally came in a week later to do context. So no,
I would never Nope, Nope. The answer to that is nope, nobody.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Nope. Were you shocked when you learned that JFK they
had an affair, because I mean I was, I have
never heard this story before.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Oh yeah, no, you know, yes, I mean, of course.
And then of course you see the logs where she
signed in as a guest to the White House, you know,
so yes, and no, I don't think there's anybody in
the world who's like, what, JFK had an affair when
that's a lot, you know, part of his history, but
an affair with Mary Meyers, certainly that was surprising. And
(08:26):
then I think even more surprising was drugs, And even
more surprising was their relationship around how he thought about pacifism,
because of course that was in direct conflict with the CIA, right,
So you actually it's not irrelevant to what might have happened.
Kennedy was feuding with people in the CIA. Some of
(08:48):
those people had been married to Mary Meyer. Like it
begins to create these connections. It seems so improbable, and
yet there they are.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Wow. So where did Martha gain the confidence to go
after to get her to participate even more than what
she was.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I think that at the end of the day, you know,
w Rowntree was motivated by doing the right thing and
seeing this young black man who was described as simple
in a lot of ways, she just felt like he
was not going to get a fair shake. And so
that's what I think motivated w Rountree, who had a
very strong sense of justice, especially for people of color
who were her people.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Wow, You've got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. The door is always going to be
open for you.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I so appreciate that, and I'm going to take you
up on that. Thank you will.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
You'd be brilliant today. Okay, you too.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Take care
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