Ever Thought You Could Solve a Crime Yourself? These 4 LA Moms Did It!

Have you ever watched true crime and thought you could totally solve a murder? These LA moms actually did it!

During the pandemic, four LA moms who were all in that season of life where their kids were getting older and they were quietly asking themselves "now what?” got together while bonding over their love of true crime. They started looking into an old local cold case just out of curiosity.

None of them had law enforcement backgrounds, but they started teaching themselves how to research, track down records, and follow leads in between carpools and family life.

They found new confidence, new careers, and a totally unexpected second chapter by trusting their instincts and working together. The case was 15 years old -- a double murder -- and they solved it!

There is now a book about them titled "The Carpool Detectives"! Listen back for more:

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is kiss FM. You're watching something Who done it?
Who done it? And you think they didn't figure out?
You know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go put
on my trousers. I'm gonna get out there. I'm a
fair out who did do it? It's not my job.
I'm not a cop, I'm not a p I I'm
not trained to. You know, I'm not Matt Locke. I'm

(00:24):
gonna get out there and figure is Matt Locker who
done it? I don't know. That just popped into my head.
I Matt Lock's an attorney. Yeah. I was trying to
think of there's a really old show called murder. She wrote,
what was her name, Jessica Lang, Jessica Lang. Look it up, kids,
we're Jessica Fletcher. Oh Jessica. Wait, who's Jessica Lang. Jessica

(00:46):
was an actress. She was in among Wow. You can't
expect to the gout. One of the names you can't
exp Angela Lansberry's who I'm thinking. I'm not even Jessica.
Look the show the Wheel. There's two wheels on a okay.
But the point is I never listened to your true
crime and be like I'm gonna go solve it. Now,
you're telling me that some La moms you had, some

(01:06):
time after their kids went to school, decided to pick
a cold case and they solved it.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yes, these moms had kids that are kind of getting older,
and they're kind of in that stage of their life
where they have a little bit extra more free time.
Maybe the kids are now driving, so they're not like
driving them so much, and they decided during the pandemic
to bond over their love for true crime. I saw
this whole article in the La Times about this book
and these moms, and they just started looking into this

(01:32):
this old case from like fifteen years ago, and it
was a cold case, just out of curiosity. They had
no law enforcement backgrounds. These four moms are just regular
moms working different jobs, different careers, and they tracked down records,
they followed leads, they would communicate, you know, in between
carpols and things, just like be like, what did you find?

(01:53):
What did you find? And ultimately they ended up solving
this fifteen year old case, which I just think is
so remarkable for them to completely now shift their careers
and this is like what they're doing. The book's called
The Carpool detectives if you want to check it out.
But the whole thing was just a really interesting second act.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Are they doing pro bono or are they getting fees
from something?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Because these are the questions, and I feel like we
need to like I want to have them on, like
if these are LA moms, like, come on.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
And we need to talk to you. Anything to be
scared of.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
That's the thing, right when you start digging into some
of these cases. What if there's relatives of said murderer
who knows? Like, yeah, I don't know. I would be
scared to be connected to anything like that.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Look, I can't listen to true crime anyway. I can't
even you sisty friends of mine, they love it before
I love.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
The true like run Away on Netflix's kind of true crime.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
It's not true true crime, fictional thing, but it's it's
a mystery. It's like who who did it? If it's
can't be like I can sleepy sleep after that one. Sure,
but it's fascinating. Good on them getting out there and
being proacted. I know coming up next they should work

(03:16):
on some new stuff. I mean, if you want to
solve some crimes, like what's what's active, what's out there Now,
we need to know uh Aren Grindy tickets next