Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We talk all the time about online amateur sleuths. Some
of them are not operating on the best of intentions,
and that is the subject of today's True Crime Tuesdayday
Day Day.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Tuesdaydaydayday.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
The story is true.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Sounds true? No, it sounds made up.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Parry and Shannon present True Crime.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well, you remember those awful murders of the four University
of Idaho students. It was November twenty twenty two. Seems
like a lot longer ago than it was. Well, in
the weeks following those murders, where everyone was left in
this vacuum of non information, a lot of information started
raising its hand, good information or not. Online there was
(00:53):
a TikTok psychic among them, a TikTok psychic based out
of Texas that accused a respected history professor of orchestrating
the killings to cover up an affair with one of
the victims. She said that her claims were based on
her spiritual research through tarot ratings. Okay, now, obviously it
(01:16):
sounds crazy, preposterous, obviously false. But this woman, in the
process was able to amass one hundred thousand followers. She
developed quite the following on her fake claims over the
gruesome murders of these four students.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
By the way, the professor that she accused of orchestrating
all of this to hide the affair has sued for
defamation and is jury is going to determine punitive damages
coming up February of next year. Federal judge already ruled
in that professor's favor, calling the woman's tiktoks primarily self serving,
(01:59):
motivated by on line viral attention, and made with an
extremely harmful state of mind. Given the nature of the
statements about professor Rebecca Scofield. Well, think about this.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
That post was to the tune of two point five
million likes. So every time this professor named Rebecca googles
her own name, it's going to come up Rebecca Showfield,
and then it's going to see murder of University of
Idaho students forever, right, She's always going to be connected.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
True crime content creators as they're called, and other people
who would post on social media about these cases, they're
just posting bs. In many cases, they're just spitballing. And
because we have kind of lost our ability to have
(02:51):
any sort of examination of what we see online, that
just once you put something out there, it's it's very
tough for someone who's interested in one of these cases
to trace back what the origin of what a theory
might be. So they may assume that these theories came
from official court documents or interviews with police or other
(03:14):
things that you might see in a real journalists a
real reporter's purview. But these are just, like I said,
stuff that people throw against the wall to see what sticks.
They don't realize there's no basis to it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
There's nothing to keep a so called sleuth from making
false assertions, ruining lives in the process, just for likes.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So there are that's one of the cases, right, the
Idaho murders. If you remember also the Delphi murders. This
is where thirteen and fourteen year old girls were kidnapped
and killed. And if you remember, this was the girls
were able to capture an image of who did it
as he was walking a walk across a railroad trestle.
(04:00):
And there are all kinds of theories that still exist
to this day. Even though they've already caught the guy
and put the guy in jail forever, the girls' families
have to deal with the repercussions we're talking about on
True Crime Tuesday. These online sleuths who claim that they're
just trying to help solve cases and can actually cause
(04:23):
a whole lot more damage on top of what's already
been a travesty or a tragedy or both for some
of the people involved.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
The family members of thirteen year old Abby Williams and
fourteen year old Libby German say their lives were nearly
destroyed when the girls were kidnapped and killed. This was
in Delphi, Indiana, back in twenty seventeen. Abby's mom, Anna said,
when you reap a whole piece out of your life,
you'll never be the same. They have shown up at
(04:54):
these conventions, some of the family members which this happens,
and some people find whatever they need to find when
they go on stage at crime con for example twenty
twenty five, this was last month in Denver and tell
their story and maybe it's a way of keeping their
daughter's memories alive. It was at that Crime con convention
(05:17):
the family member shared memories of the girls, opened up
about their grief, discussed their reaction to the man's conviction
and one hundred and thirty year prison sentence last year
for the murders. They also talked about what's not always
talked about, and it is that shocking online harassment that
they have endured for years. They say that there are
a certain number of amateur sleuths that are just obsessed
(05:41):
with solving the case themselves, even at the expense of
traumatize the victims' families, the mothers, interfering with law enforcement investigations.
That was a case that went on solved for more
than five years, and as I mentioned, when you don't
have information for an amount of time, a vacuum exists
and people want to fill it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Plus, the family is in this awkward position of they're
subjected to these online taunts, online theories, outright accusations that
they had something to do with it. But they're still
trying to keep the story in the spotlight. They want
to draw attention to the case because they want any
(06:22):
lead that's possible, but it comes with just an overflow
of this detritus, this fire hose of awful that comes
from social media.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Libby fourteen year old Libby Germans grandma Becky says she's
a most upset by what she calls the vicious online
harassment of Libby's older sister, Kelsey. It was Kelsey who
dropped the girls off at the trail where they were
abducted less than a half an hour later. There's some
out there who are horrible to hear. Grandma Becky says,
(06:53):
it hurts me to see what they're saying about her.
Say what you will about me, but leave my family alone.
Kelsey tweeted in February after the murders, I'll never understand
how people can be so awful to people they've never met.
And somebody wrote back, stop trying to spin your sister's
(07:15):
murder into an fing career and go to the police
station right now and come clean again.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think a lot of this has to do with
this something that computers have done to us in general,
which is lessened our ability to understand there is a
human being on the other side of that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
We've seen it on our own. People write awful things
about us to us on social media. And if we
write back, because we do read that stuff and it
does hurt your feelings, and if we write back like hey,
not cool or wow, you know that wasn't that wasn't
nice or anything, people will be quick to pull a
(07:55):
one eighty because I don't think they understand there's like
this weird veil that comes down, and as soon as
people realize, hey, you hurt somebody with what you said,
it's like, oh, oh, okay, wall I didn't mean to
do that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It's it's someone standing on the edge of the Grand
Canyon and yelling right, hello, Hello, and hear the echo.
But it's when somebody says something back that they go, oh,
my gosh, I wasn't expecting that. I didn't know there
was somebody down there or over there or whatever.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Right, It's like when you shout just ridiculous things into
the Grand Canyon. You know what would you shout?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I would shout apple fritters for days.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And if somebody was like, you shouldn't have apple fritters
mix in a solid, it'd be like, I didn't mean
I wanted apple fritters every day for days. I just
meant I worried one. Right now, it sounds good.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
You know what Elmer would say? What Rull tied, that's right,
We talk all the time about online amateur sleuths. Some
of them are not operating on the best of intentions,
and that is the subject of today's True Crime Tuesdayday
Day Day.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Tuesdaydaydayday.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
The story is true.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Sounds true? No, it sounds made up.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Parry and Shannon present True Crime.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well, you remember those awful murders of the four University
of Idaho students. It was November twenty twenty two. Seems
like a lot longer ago than it was. Well, in
the weeks following those murders, where everyone was left in
this vacuum of non information, a lot of information started
raising its hand, good information or not. Online there was
(00:53):
a TikTok psychic among them, a TikTok psychic based out
of Texas that accused a respected history professor of orchestrating
the killings to cover up an affair with one of
the victims. She said that her claims were based on
her spiritual research through tarot ratings. Okay, now, obviously it
(01:16):
sounds crazy, preposterous, obviously false. But this woman, in the
process was able to amass one hundred thousand followers. She
developed quite the following on her fake claims over the
gruesome murders of these four students.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
By the way, the professor that she accused of orchestrating
all of this to hide the affair has sued for
defamation and is jury is going to determine punitive damages
coming up February of next year. Federal judge already ruled
in that professor's favor, calling the woman's tiktoks primarily self serving,
(01:59):
motivated by on line viral attention, and made with an
extremely harmful state of mind. Given the nature of the
statements about professor Rebecca Scofield. Well, think about this.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
That post was to the tune of two point five
million likes. So every time this professor named Rebecca googles
her own name, it's going to come up Rebecca Showfield,
and then it's going to see murder of University of
Idaho students forever, right, She's always going to be connected.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
True crime content creators as they're called, and other people
who would post on social media about these cases, they're
just posting bs. In many cases, they're just spitballing. And
because we have kind of lost our ability to have
(02:51):
any sort of examination of what we see online, that
just once you put something out there, it's it's very
tough for someone who's interested in one of these cases
to trace back what the origin of what a theory
might be. So they may assume that these theories came
from official court documents or interviews with police or other
(03:14):
things that you might see in a real journalists a
real reporter's purview. But these are just, like I said,
stuff that people throw against the wall to see what sticks.
They don't realize there's no basis to it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
There's nothing to keep a so called sleuth from making
false assertions, ruining lives in the process, just for likes.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So there are that's one of the cases, right, the
Idaho murders. If you remember also the Delphi murders. This
is where thirteen and fourteen year old girls were kidnapped
and killed. And if you remember, this was the girls
were able to capture an image of who did it
as he was walking a walk across a railroad trestle.
(04:00):
And there are all kinds of theories that still exist
to this day. Even though they've already caught the guy
and put the guy in jail forever, the girls' families
have to deal with the repercussions we're talking about on
True Crime Tuesday. These online sleuths who claim that they're
just trying to help solve cases and can actually cause
(04:23):
a whole lot more damage on top of what's already
been a travesty or a tragedy or both for some
of the people involved.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
The family members of thirteen year old Abby Williams and
fourteen year old Libby German say their lives were nearly
destroyed when the girls were kidnapped and killed. This was
in Delphi, Indiana, back in twenty seventeen. Abby's mom, Anna said,
when you reap a whole piece out of your life,
you'll never be the same. They have shown up at
(04:54):
these conventions, some of the family members which this happens,
and some people find whatever they need to find when
they go on stage at crime con for example twenty
twenty five, this was last month in Denver and tell
their story and maybe it's a way of keeping their
daughter's memories alive. It was at that Crime con convention
(05:17):
the family member shared memories of the girls, opened up
about their grief, discussed their reaction to the man's conviction
and one hundred and thirty year prison sentence last year
for the murders. They also talked about what's not always
talked about, and it is that shocking online harassment that
they have endured for years. They say that there are
a certain number of amateur sleuths that are just obsessed
(05:41):
with solving the case themselves, even at the expense of
traumatize the victims' families, the mothers, interfering with law enforcement investigations.
That was a case that went on solved for more
than five years, and as I mentioned, when you don't
have information for an amount of time, a vacuum exists
and people want to fill it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Plus, the family is in this awkward position of they're
subjected to these online taunts, online theories, outright accusations that
they had something to do with it. But they're still
trying to keep the story in the spotlight. They want
to draw attention to the case because they want any
(06:22):
lead that's possible, but it comes with just an overflow
of this detritus, this fire hose of awful that comes
from social media.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Libby fourteen year old Libby Germans grandma Becky says she's
a most upset by what she calls the vicious online
harassment of Libby's older sister, Kelsey. It was Kelsey who
dropped the girls off at the trail where they were
abducted less than a half an hour later. There's some
out there who are horrible to hear. Grandma Becky says,
(06:53):
it hurts me to see what they're saying about her.
Say what you will about me, but leave my family alone.
Kelsey tweeted in February after the murders, I'll never understand
how people can be so awful to people they've never met.
And somebody wrote back, stop trying to spin your sister's
(07:15):
murder into an fing career and go to the police
station right now and come clean again.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think a lot of this has to do with
this something that computers have done to us in general,
which is lessened our ability to understand there is a
human being on the other side of that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
We've seen it on our own. People write awful things
about us to us on social media. And if we
write back, because we do read that stuff and it
does hurt your feelings, and if we write back like hey,
not cool or wow, you know that wasn't that wasn't
nice or anything, people will be quick to pull a
(07:55):
one eighty because I don't think they understand there's like
this weird veil that comes down, and as soon as
people realize, hey, you hurt somebody with what you said,
it's like, oh, oh, okay, wall I didn't mean to
do that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It's it's someone standing on the edge of the Grand
Canyon and yelling right, hello, Hello, and hear the echo.
But it's when somebody says something back that they go, oh,
my gosh, I wasn't expecting that. I didn't know there
was somebody down there or over there or whatever.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Right, It's like when you shout just ridiculous things into
the Grand Canyon. You know what would you shout?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I would shout apple fritters for days.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And if somebody was like, you shouldn't have apple fritters
mix in a solid, it'd be like, I didn't mean
I wanted apple fritters every day for days. I just
meant I worried one. Right now, it sounds good.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
You know what Elmer would say? What Rull tied, that's right,
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