November 18, 2025 • 18 mins
Pod Crashing episode 412 with Maggie Robinson Katz from the podcast Hands Tied BBC Studios and iHeartPodcasts announced that they have partnered for the first time on a new original true-crime podcast - Hands Tied.The eight-episode series is presented by the award-winning journalist Maggie Robinson Katz (Scamtown, Mafia Tapes) and co-produced by BBC Studios and iHeartPodcasts. Launching on August 6th, episodes will be released weekly and will be available globally on iHeartRadio and wherever you get your podcasts. In "Hands Tied," listeners will be introduced to Lizz Melgar Rose who went from being interested in true crime to living it. In 2012 relatives found Lizz's mother Sandy Melgar shut in a closet, her hands bound behind her back, and her father Jim Melgar murdered. This awful tragedy was also a mystery and one Lizz was determined to solve using her lifelong interest in true crime as a guide. Podcast host Maggie Robinson Katz delves deep inside the police investigation, the courtroom where the drama unfolded as the jury wrestled with this truly shocking crime, and inside Lizz's own subsequent battle for answers - and for justice. Because there is one thing Lizz is convinced of, the wrong person is in prison for her father's murder. Maggie Robinson Katz said: "Though 'Hands Tied' is an examination into the shocking murder of Jim Melgar, my hope is that it transcends the typical true crime tropes and listeners connect with the human story at its core. The story of a daughter, and her tireless quest for answers and justice. I am grateful to Lizz for trusting us with her story - and her strength to continue her pursuit of justice. I am also grateful to BBC Studios and iHeart for joining forces with me to explore this case." Rich Knight, Director of Audio at BBC Studios, said: "At the heart of this extraordinary series is a violent crime and a search for answers. I'm grateful to our colleagues at iHeart for working with us to realise this story. And of course, I'm grateful to Lizz for letting us into her life. I hope listeners will be as moved by her fortitude as we were." Will Pearson, President of iHeartPodcasts, said: "We are excited to debut 'Hands Tied' with BBC Studios and help amplify the unbelievable details of a case that led to Sandy Melgar's conviction. Listeners everywhere will instantly become invested in Lizz's search for answers and feel her frustration as she comes up against a system she believes has failed her and her family, again and again." Hands Tied is a BBC Studios production which is co-produced and distributed by iHeartPodcasts. The eight-episode series (plus two bonuses) is hosted by Maggie Robinson Katz and was produced by Maggie Latham and Executive Produced by Joe Kent for BBC Studios, and Cristina Everett for iHeartPodcasts. The trailer for the original true-crime podcast is available to listen to now and the series launches on Wednesday, August 6 globally and can be listened to wherever you access your podcasts. Episodes available here: Https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/hands-tied/id1829911900
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, if you're like me, you get a little tired
of searching for your favorite podcast on one of those
streaming outfits. You type something in and they say, oh,
did you mean this? No, the only place to go
is ero dot net a r r oe dot net.
All seventeen of my podcasts are waiting for you to
enjoy and to learn something. Thanks for supporting me throughout
the years. Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation.
(00:20):
Let's do some pod crashing. Episode number four hundred and
twelve is with Maggie Robinson Katz, the host of Hands Tied.
Good morning, Maggie, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm doing all right? How are you? Ero?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Absolutely fantastic. I gotta tell you right here from the
very beginning why I'm so fascinated with your podcast, And
it's because my wife's mother was found in a closet,
except she wasn't like Sandy who was tied up. She
had transitioned. And the thing is that I study podcasts
like yours because I want to gain the confidence. I
want to gain everything that I need to do so
that I can be like a Liz and try to
(00:53):
help find answers before my wife passes on and and
basically goes to the grave realizing, you know, not hopefully
with an answer and not like, well, we don't know,
it's a shutcase.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, I mean I think we all That's what we
all hope for, right is to have answers and closure
versus the ever ending questions that could plague you for
the rest of your life. Like, that's what we all want,
right errow?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, how did you step into this and how especially
when it comes to that connection with Liz, because I
mean she's a little sleuth as it is. I mean,
that's what I love about journalism and people trying to
solve crimes today. There are no politics around you. You
just go in, you get the information.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, I mean, because you know, once you see facts
and evidence, the facts and evidence still lie. So I
got into this, and Liz and I have a pretty
unique connection in that, you know, the very first podcast
Diver did was about my dad, and after he died,
I inherited like one hundred and fifty cassette types of
(01:54):
phone calls between him and this guy in the Philippines
name this American guy. So I decided I wanted to
know what happened to my dad, Why he lost all
this money, so I decided I wanted to go and
fly to the Philippines and meet my dad's con artists.
So I think there were parts of Liz's story that
(02:14):
I could understand. You know, I do not understand what
it's like to lose a parent in the way that
Liz did at all, but I know what it's like
to lose your dad at a young age. I know
what it's like to rifle through paperwork to have this
question lingering about how my dad could fall for something
like this and try and get an answer to it.
(02:36):
And you know, I think Liz and I both sort
of connected in this aspiration of being two daughters who
just want to figure out what happened to our late fathers.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So then when it comes to locating those answers, this
is one of my burning questions as I listened to
your podcast, Hands tied, and that is how do you
find the answer, realizing it could be just another assumption.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
That's a great question, and I think, you know, I
think that what everybody has to ask themselves, from lawyers
to investigators to journalists. You know, I think at least
I can talk from my own experience, not Liz's experience.
I think for me it was very hard to separate
who I thought my dad was versus like, who you
know he was in terms of these phone calls, in
(03:20):
terms of this scam. And I think you kind of
have to try. And I don't know if humans are
actually able to do this one hundred percent, but you
just try to get rid of any bias or any
preconceived or trying to make this person be who you
think they are. And I think that's a weird thing
that I'm grateful for, at least in my own project.
(03:44):
Is I know my dad three sixty five. Now, I
know the best parts of him, and I know the
worst parts of him, and that makes him more human
to me, and you know, I love him all the
same man.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
That scares a bit GBI's out of me because I
don't have cassette tapes in that way. I've got radio
air checks. But my writing of thirty two years though,
I mean, I guess after I'm gone, they're going to
come in here and they're going to see who I
really am.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, what secrets do you have, Era, I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Know, but it's in the book if you want to
read it.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, send it over, I'll start reading it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Well, let's break down Liz Millgard. Let's find out who
she is and why she has that drive.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, so from a very young age, you know, I think,
like a lot of young people, teenagers, a lot of
people now who probably want to listen to Hands Tide,
have a deep interest in true crime. And Liz always
was really fascinated in true crime. You know, she explained
her childhood bedroom and it just had books upon books
(04:41):
of you know, different serial killer psychology, and she really
wanted to go to school and study what made serial
killers serial killers. She wanted to study criminal psychology and
get to know like what was in their brains and
how it gets them to act this way. So, you know,
with is she really went from being curious about true
(05:04):
crime studying it to then unfortunately being thrust into having
to live a true crime story. She found out about
it while she was in England and then had to
fly all the way to Texas where she heard that
her dad was killed and her mom was found in
a closet with her hands and feet tied, and then
she immediately had to jump into investigator mode, but in
(05:26):
a weird way. Luckily, since she studied so much about
true crime, she knew sort of how to navigate it.
She was able to kind of shift her brain into
this investigator mode where she knew what to ask the
police for, she knew not to touch evidence, she knew
how to look for evidence that could be pertinent to
(05:47):
the case. You know, she really really transformed and became
a full fledged investigator and still is. Honestly to this day,
she is still working tirelessly on this case.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
This fascinates me so much you and Liz do. And
the reason why is because you go into this investigation
without you having to go by the book as they say.
In fact, Bill Cunningham last night said on its National
show that crime isn't down, We just have fewer police
doing jobs. They're not hiring and they're not going in
that direction. So therefore I'm relying on people like yourself, Maggie.
You're the one that's going to uncover a story and
we bring it forward.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, I mean, it's like anything. Multiple eyes I think
are always a good thing because you know, as we
were kind of talking about before, it's hard to not
have biased So if you have a bunch of other
people looking at something, then someone else can spot something.
Somebody else might see some detail that seems important, someone
(06:41):
else might call out something that you missed before. So
I think also there's just the enthusiasm that a lot
of true crime people have where they just want to
pour over every single case document, every single court document.
And you know, a lot of investigators. There's a lot
of great ones out there, of course, but you know
(07:01):
they have tons and tons and tons and tons of
cases that they're trying to solve. At the same time,
you can't be as laser focus if you're just focusing
on just the one.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
That's my favorite word, focus. And I have to know
how did you find your focus? Because there's so much
clickbait out there, there's so much assumption and oh I
want this, I want that, and you're you so far
off the path, but yet you have stayed so in
tune with this.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Thanks. I really appreciate that. I think, geez, what do
I think? I think? For us, it was just important
to follow the story and follow the facts that we
found in our research, and to you know, our real
main protagonist in this story is Liz, so she we
(07:46):
were following her journey throughout the whole thing of her
early days with her parents, which she remembers, and then
you know, during the investigation and the trial and then
in this aftermath, so really are her main focus was
on Liz in her story.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Please Do Not Move. There's more with Maggie Robinson Cats
coming up next. The name of her podcast, hands Tied.
We're back with the host Meggie Robinson Cats. How did
you react when you found out that Sandy does not
remember what happened?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You know, I think a lot of people can fill
in what they think about it. You know, I know
Sandy has a lot of health ailments. She has seizures,
and that's what caused her memory laps that night, is
she had a seizure, and she was complaining of seizures
before that, So, you know, I think there are probably
(08:43):
two sides that people think, either that yep, it was
a medical thing that she did, you do you can't
have memory laps when you do have seizures, or it's
a convenient excuse. And I think both are ways that
listeners can go in this story, and I think that's
true with the story. I think there are people who
will hear it one way, and then there are people
who will hear it another way, And truly, the thing
(09:06):
that I hope that people when they listen to it
is that whether you believe in a person's innocence or not,
I think that the real human tragedy is what happened
to Liz and that she's mourning the loss of two parents.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Essentially, see the power of interpretation, because that's where to me,
it's a conversation starter, but it also is something that
could break you up because everybody has their own interpretation
and sometimes compassion gets out of hand because they go, well,
maybe you should look at it this way, and you
won't have such a bias.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, I mean we forget like these are people, and
these are people who are experiencing and retelling the worst
thing that ever happened to them. And no matter what
I think, we can all agree that what happened to
Liz is a huge tragedy. And that's my biggest hope
that no matter what listeners think in terms of innocence
(09:58):
are guilty that I I hope that they resonate and
can hear that part of the story and Liz's strength
and trying to get through each day.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Would you look at this as being hindsight, because I
mean I guess, you know, it's like when it's happening
in real time in a court room in a police investigation,
and now you go in there and you've got all
the court records of something that's already happened. Do you
see it as hindsight or do you see it as
foresight because something needs to be uncovered.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Ah. I think, you know, later on in the series,
I think that there's a couple of things that we
highlight that could have been done better in the investigation.
And you know, I think that there are there were
talking about bias. There is a couple of assumptions that
were made early on by the investigators, and I think
that question of you know, if they didn't immediately jump
(10:47):
to who they first suspected, could they have been open
to more possibilities? Would that open up the investigation more
instead of just lasering in. So I think through the
evidence that we show in the podcast, you know, I
think listeners for themselves can kind of decide what they
how they think the investigation went. And if you know,
something's were missed or if not.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Can you imagine being in Melissa's head in heart, knowing
that she just felt deep inside that they had the
wrong person in jail, it's like the wrong I mean
I would I'd be the person that would retreat. And
I think it goes back to that confidence saying, I go,
I guess if you guys have the evidence, okay, whatever,
go for it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, I mean I think that, And that's still something.
You know, She's still pouring over all of these documents.
She's still trying to in her mind, you know, find
the true killer of her dad because she believes that
the wrong person is in prison for this crime. So
she is working tirelessly for it. She still pours over
(11:45):
the documents. You know, she still is trying to. She's
they're working with a new legal team now, so she's
trying to give information to this new legal team and
there is some new testing that is being done.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Let me ask you a question as a journalist, as
an investigator, and do you lean in on a chat
GPT to help you in investigating this kind of stuff?
And how do you trust the information that's coming across
that computer screen.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I don't know, I think because I'm you know, I
cut my teeth before chat GBT, so I just like
I'm too ingrained in what I do is just I
have to kind of read everything and make a bunch
of notes because I want to understand it in my
own brain by you know, it's like old school studying
a little bit. I've got the textbook in front of me.
I'm highlighting things and making my own notes because that's
(12:34):
the only way it can start to make sense of
something in my brain.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Oh, I'm so with you on that, because you should
see the way that I show prep. It's a mess.
It's a mess, but somehow, some way it all comes
together as one.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Take me through the visual. What does it look like? Oh?
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It really is. I mean, I've got every book open.
I do go to websites. I want to make sure
that I'm getting the right answer. I go to three
and four different websites to see, if you know, what
is the coincidence? Is there something here that works together?
And so if you could see my handwriting, you go,
why are you and Rad? You're the perfect doctor dude?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, So that phone call proves to be a very
important game changer here for Liz.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The phone call that she received. Yeah, so you know
she I mean, this is what changed her life. Like
she was just I just want to clarify you're talking
about the phone call when she heard about her dad
being killed. Yes, okay, I just wanted to make sure,
so yeah, she yeah, I mean this completely changed her life.
(13:37):
You know, she was celebrating Christmas, and again, like if
you can think of a possibly worse time to get
bad news like this, it's Christmas and then to get
the yearly constant reminders where there's lights everywhere, people are
being really happy, and she's with her in laws in
England and then gets this news that something horrible has
(13:58):
happened back home, that her dad has been killed. And
in this first moment when she gets this phone call,
she doesn't know what happened to her mom. She nobody
tells her where Sandy is her mom, and she just
has to immediately go into action mode and try to
book flights and fly there as quickly as they can.
And I always try to remind people, you know, you
(14:19):
got to this happened in twenty twelve. And when she's
flying back, she has no WiFi, she can't email people,
she can't text message people, like she is just in
this airplane, not knowing what's happening on the ground and
not knowing what's going to await her when she arrives.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Well, you say twenty twelve, and yet when I'm listening
to it, it just feels like it happened yesterday and
we're just getting the news now.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah. Yeah, well I take that as a compliment to
the storytelling that's unfolding.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
How do you build your stories in the way? I mean,
because you've got so much sound, how do you bring
them together to create forward motion?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Great question? You know, I think each story is different,
so I really never want to get into a prescribed
mold on how things are told. So you know, I'm
sure you say this too, but you know, at least
with podcast storytelling, you know, we really want the tape
to lead, so the interviews any archivele so that we
(15:22):
always want to have the tape lead. And you know,
for us, when we were all working on the story together,
we felt like to put people immediately in Lizza's shoes
is right at the beginning, you know, to create this
idea of like a warm Christmas and then turn it
around so that listeners can maybe feel the moment of
(15:45):
your celebrating and then the worst thing happens to you,
and then you know, we try to tell the story
sort of lineary from there to help the listener understand
and have it unfold for them at the same time,
and try to have when Liz is finding out something
or when I'm finding out something, that that's when the
listener is finding something out too.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Do you ever want to go into a conversation recording
but they don't know it Maybe you've got some some
metaglasses on you're recording it with through a video or something.
I mean, because there are sometimes that you once you
bring out that microphone, people go a different direction. They're
no longer in that moment. They're going, Okay, what am
I going to say? That's not going to get me
in trouble? Oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that. But that's kind
of like the gift of podcast interviews is you know,
they're usually long and they are just conversations. You know,
kind of like what we're having right now is it's
a conversation and they don't have to be perfect by
any means. So, you know, I always want people to
(16:48):
feel comfortable with me that they don't have to perform,
like we can talk about you know, we can talk
about anything, but the case for the first hour if
we want to, but I really want to build a
rapport with people and a place of trust and really
help guide them through the conversation to get to these
harder places. So it's a warm up act and also
(17:12):
just a place of building and also just I like
talking to people and having conversations, and I hope that
that comes through when I talk to other people as well.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That's so funny you bring up that word trust because
somebody asked me because they have to go to an interview,
and they said, how do I begin to build up
my trust with that person that I'm going to meet
for the very first time? And I said, make it
about them? Do you agree?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah? I mean I think if anybody wants to show curiosity,
and I think, you know, if I showed that I'm
curious about you and you show that you're curious about me,
then we'll just keep exchanging things that we like don't like.
I think it just comes from being open and being curious.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Where can people go to find out more about you?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
You know, I have a website. I'm horrible at updating it,
so you know, maybe check on it in a couple
of weeks. But it's maggiearcats dot com. And then you
can listen to Hands Tied pretty much anywhere where you
get your podcasts, Spotify, Apple, you know, Amazon, wherever you
(18:19):
listen to podcasts, but that's where that's where they can
find out and they can listen to some of the
other things that I've made.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Well, you got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. Twenty minutes with you is not enough.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I agree, Arrow, I loved it. I can talk to
you forever.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Okay, you too,
Hey, if you're like me, you get a little tired
of searching for your favorite podcast on one of those
streaming outfits. You type something in and they say, oh,
did you mean this? No, the only place to go
is ero dot net a r r oe dot net.
All seventeen of my podcasts are waiting for you to
enjoy and to learn something. Thanks for supporting me throughout
the years. Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation.
(00:20):
Let's do some pod crashing. Episode number four hundred and
twelve is with Maggie Robinson Katz, the host of Hands Tied.
Good morning, Maggie, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm doing all right? How are you? Ero?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Absolutely fantastic. I gotta tell you right here from the
very beginning why I'm so fascinated with your podcast, And
it's because my wife's mother was found in a closet,
except she wasn't like Sandy who was tied up. She
had transitioned. And the thing is that I study podcasts
like yours because I want to gain the confidence. I
want to gain everything that I need to do so
that I can be like a Liz and try to
(00:53):
help find answers before my wife passes on and and
basically goes to the grave realizing, you know, not hopefully
with an answer and not like, well, we don't know,
it's a shutcase.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, I mean I think we all That's what we
all hope for, right is to have answers and closure
versus the ever ending questions that could plague you for
the rest of your life. Like, that's what we all want,
right errow?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, how did you step into this and how especially
when it comes to that connection with Liz, because I
mean she's a little sleuth as it is. I mean,
that's what I love about journalism and people trying to
solve crimes today. There are no politics around you. You
just go in, you get the information.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, I mean, because you know, once you see facts
and evidence, the facts and evidence still lie. So I
got into this, and Liz and I have a pretty
unique connection in that, you know, the very first podcast
Diver did was about my dad, and after he died,
I inherited like one hundred and fifty cassette types of
(01:54):
phone calls between him and this guy in the Philippines
name this American guy. So I decided I wanted to
know what happened to my dad, Why he lost all
this money, so I decided I wanted to go and
fly to the Philippines and meet my dad's con artists.
So I think there were parts of Liz's story that
(02:14):
I could understand. You know, I do not understand what
it's like to lose a parent in the way that
Liz did at all, but I know what it's like
to lose your dad at a young age. I know
what it's like to rifle through paperwork to have this
question lingering about how my dad could fall for something
like this and try and get an answer to it.
(02:36):
And you know, I think Liz and I both sort
of connected in this aspiration of being two daughters who
just want to figure out what happened to our late fathers.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So then when it comes to locating those answers, this
is one of my burning questions as I listened to
your podcast, Hands tied, and that is how do you
find the answer, realizing it could be just another assumption.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
That's a great question, and I think, you know, I
think that what everybody has to ask themselves, from lawyers
to investigators to journalists. You know, I think at least
I can talk from my own experience, not Liz's experience.
I think for me it was very hard to separate
who I thought my dad was versus like, who you
know he was in terms of these phone calls, in
(03:20):
terms of this scam. And I think you kind of
have to try. And I don't know if humans are
actually able to do this one hundred percent, but you
just try to get rid of any bias or any
preconceived or trying to make this person be who you
think they are. And I think that's a weird thing
that I'm grateful for, at least in my own project.
(03:44):
Is I know my dad three sixty five. Now, I
know the best parts of him, and I know the
worst parts of him, and that makes him more human
to me, and you know, I love him all the
same man.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
That scares a bit GBI's out of me because I
don't have cassette tapes in that way. I've got radio
air checks. But my writing of thirty two years though,
I mean, I guess after I'm gone, they're going to
come in here and they're going to see who I
really am.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, what secrets do you have, Era, I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Know, but it's in the book if you want to
read it.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, send it over, I'll start reading it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Well, let's break down Liz Millgard. Let's find out who
she is and why she has that drive.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, so from a very young age, you know, I think,
like a lot of young people, teenagers, a lot of
people now who probably want to listen to Hands Tide,
have a deep interest in true crime. And Liz always
was really fascinated in true crime. You know, she explained
her childhood bedroom and it just had books upon books
(04:41):
of you know, different serial killer psychology, and she really
wanted to go to school and study what made serial
killers serial killers. She wanted to study criminal psychology and
get to know like what was in their brains and
how it gets them to act this way. So, you know,
with is she really went from being curious about true
(05:04):
crime studying it to then unfortunately being thrust into having
to live a true crime story. She found out about
it while she was in England and then had to
fly all the way to Texas where she heard that
her dad was killed and her mom was found in
a closet with her hands and feet tied, and then
she immediately had to jump into investigator mode, but in
(05:26):
a weird way. Luckily, since she studied so much about
true crime, she knew sort of how to navigate it.
She was able to kind of shift her brain into
this investigator mode where she knew what to ask the
police for, she knew not to touch evidence, she knew
how to look for evidence that could be pertinent to
(05:47):
the case. You know, she really really transformed and became
a full fledged investigator and still is. Honestly to this day,
she is still working tirelessly on this case.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
This fascinates me so much you and Liz do. And
the reason why is because you go into this investigation
without you having to go by the book as they say.
In fact, Bill Cunningham last night said on its National
show that crime isn't down, We just have fewer police
doing jobs. They're not hiring and they're not going in
that direction. So therefore I'm relying on people like yourself, Maggie.
You're the one that's going to uncover a story and
we bring it forward.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, I mean, it's like anything. Multiple eyes I think
are always a good thing because you know, as we
were kind of talking about before, it's hard to not
have biased So if you have a bunch of other
people looking at something, then someone else can spot something.
Somebody else might see some detail that seems important, someone
(06:41):
else might call out something that you missed before. So
I think also there's just the enthusiasm that a lot
of true crime people have where they just want to
pour over every single case document, every single court document.
And you know, a lot of investigators. There's a lot
of great ones out there, of course, but you know
(07:01):
they have tons and tons and tons and tons of
cases that they're trying to solve. At the same time,
you can't be as laser focus if you're just focusing
on just the one.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
That's my favorite word, focus. And I have to know
how did you find your focus? Because there's so much
clickbait out there, there's so much assumption and oh I
want this, I want that, and you're you so far
off the path, but yet you have stayed so in
tune with this.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Thanks. I really appreciate that. I think, geez, what do
I think? I think? For us, it was just important
to follow the story and follow the facts that we
found in our research, and to you know, our real
main protagonist in this story is Liz, so she we
(07:46):
were following her journey throughout the whole thing of her
early days with her parents, which she remembers, and then
you know, during the investigation and the trial and then
in this aftermath, so really are her main focus was
on Liz in her story.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Please Do Not Move. There's more with Maggie Robinson Cats
coming up next. The name of her podcast, hands Tied.
We're back with the host Meggie Robinson Cats. How did
you react when you found out that Sandy does not
remember what happened?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You know, I think a lot of people can fill
in what they think about it. You know, I know
Sandy has a lot of health ailments. She has seizures,
and that's what caused her memory laps that night, is
she had a seizure, and she was complaining of seizures
before that, So, you know, I think there are probably
(08:43):
two sides that people think, either that yep, it was
a medical thing that she did, you do you can't
have memory laps when you do have seizures, or it's
a convenient excuse. And I think both are ways that
listeners can go in this story, and I think that's
true with the story. I think there are people who
will hear it one way, and then there are people
who will hear it another way, And truly, the thing
(09:06):
that I hope that people when they listen to it
is that whether you believe in a person's innocence or not,
I think that the real human tragedy is what happened
to Liz and that she's mourning the loss of two parents.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Essentially, see the power of interpretation, because that's where to me,
it's a conversation starter, but it also is something that
could break you up because everybody has their own interpretation
and sometimes compassion gets out of hand because they go, well,
maybe you should look at it this way, and you
won't have such a bias.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, I mean we forget like these are people, and
these are people who are experiencing and retelling the worst
thing that ever happened to them. And no matter what
I think, we can all agree that what happened to
Liz is a huge tragedy. And that's my biggest hope
that no matter what listeners think in terms of innocence
(09:58):
are guilty that I I hope that they resonate and
can hear that part of the story and Liz's strength
and trying to get through each day.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Would you look at this as being hindsight, because I
mean I guess, you know, it's like when it's happening
in real time in a court room in a police investigation,
and now you go in there and you've got all
the court records of something that's already happened. Do you
see it as hindsight or do you see it as
foresight because something needs to be uncovered.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Ah. I think, you know, later on in the series,
I think that there's a couple of things that we
highlight that could have been done better in the investigation.
And you know, I think that there are there were
talking about bias. There is a couple of assumptions that
were made early on by the investigators, and I think
that question of you know, if they didn't immediately jump
(10:47):
to who they first suspected, could they have been open
to more possibilities? Would that open up the investigation more
instead of just lasering in. So I think through the
evidence that we show in the podcast, you know, I
think listeners for themselves can kind of decide what they
how they think the investigation went. And if you know,
something's were missed or if not.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Can you imagine being in Melissa's head in heart, knowing
that she just felt deep inside that they had the
wrong person in jail, it's like the wrong I mean
I would I'd be the person that would retreat. And
I think it goes back to that confidence saying, I go,
I guess if you guys have the evidence, okay, whatever,
go for it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, I mean I think that, And that's still something.
You know, She's still pouring over all of these documents.
She's still trying to in her mind, you know, find
the true killer of her dad because she believes that
the wrong person is in prison for this crime. So
she is working tirelessly for it. She still pours over
(11:45):
the documents. You know, she still is trying to. She's
they're working with a new legal team now, so she's
trying to give information to this new legal team and
there is some new testing that is being done.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Let me ask you a question as a journalist, as
an investigator, and do you lean in on a chat
GPT to help you in investigating this kind of stuff?
And how do you trust the information that's coming across
that computer screen.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I don't know, I think because I'm you know, I
cut my teeth before chat GBT, so I just like
I'm too ingrained in what I do is just I
have to kind of read everything and make a bunch
of notes because I want to understand it in my
own brain by you know, it's like old school studying
a little bit. I've got the textbook in front of me.
I'm highlighting things and making my own notes because that's
(12:34):
the only way it can start to make sense of
something in my brain.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Oh, I'm so with you on that, because you should
see the way that I show prep. It's a mess.
It's a mess, but somehow, some way it all comes
together as one.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Take me through the visual. What does it look like? Oh?
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It really is. I mean, I've got every book open.
I do go to websites. I want to make sure
that I'm getting the right answer. I go to three
and four different websites to see, if you know, what
is the coincidence? Is there something here that works together?
And so if you could see my handwriting, you go,
why are you and Rad? You're the perfect doctor dude?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, So that phone call proves to be a very
important game changer here for Liz.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The phone call that she received. Yeah, so you know
she I mean, this is what changed her life. Like
she was just I just want to clarify you're talking
about the phone call when she heard about her dad
being killed. Yes, okay, I just wanted to make sure,
so yeah, she yeah, I mean this completely changed her life.
(13:37):
You know, she was celebrating Christmas, and again, like if
you can think of a possibly worse time to get
bad news like this, it's Christmas and then to get
the yearly constant reminders where there's lights everywhere, people are
being really happy, and she's with her in laws in
England and then gets this news that something horrible has
(13:58):
happened back home, that her dad has been killed. And
in this first moment when she gets this phone call,
she doesn't know what happened to her mom. She nobody
tells her where Sandy is her mom, and she just
has to immediately go into action mode and try to
book flights and fly there as quickly as they can.
And I always try to remind people, you know, you
(14:19):
got to this happened in twenty twelve. And when she's
flying back, she has no WiFi, she can't email people,
she can't text message people, like she is just in
this airplane, not knowing what's happening on the ground and
not knowing what's going to await her when she arrives.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Well, you say twenty twelve, and yet when I'm listening
to it, it just feels like it happened yesterday and
we're just getting the news now.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah. Yeah, well I take that as a compliment to
the storytelling that's unfolding.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
How do you build your stories in the way? I mean,
because you've got so much sound, how do you bring
them together to create forward motion?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Great question? You know, I think each story is different,
so I really never want to get into a prescribed
mold on how things are told. So you know, I'm
sure you say this too, but you know, at least
with podcast storytelling, you know, we really want the tape
to lead, so the interviews any archivele so that we
(15:22):
always want to have the tape lead. And you know,
for us, when we were all working on the story together,
we felt like to put people immediately in Lizza's shoes
is right at the beginning, you know, to create this
idea of like a warm Christmas and then turn it
around so that listeners can maybe feel the moment of
(15:45):
your celebrating and then the worst thing happens to you,
and then you know, we try to tell the story
sort of lineary from there to help the listener understand
and have it unfold for them at the same time,
and try to have when Liz is finding out something
or when I'm finding out something, that that's when the
listener is finding something out too.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Do you ever want to go into a conversation recording
but they don't know it Maybe you've got some some
metaglasses on you're recording it with through a video or something.
I mean, because there are sometimes that you once you
bring out that microphone, people go a different direction. They're
no longer in that moment. They're going, Okay, what am
I going to say? That's not going to get me
in trouble? Oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that. But that's kind
of like the gift of podcast interviews is you know,
they're usually long and they are just conversations. You know,
kind of like what we're having right now is it's
a conversation and they don't have to be perfect by
any means. So, you know, I always want people to
(16:48):
feel comfortable with me that they don't have to perform,
like we can talk about you know, we can talk
about anything, but the case for the first hour if
we want to, but I really want to build a
rapport with people and a place of trust and really
help guide them through the conversation to get to these
harder places. So it's a warm up act and also
(17:12):
just a place of building and also just I like
talking to people and having conversations, and I hope that
that comes through when I talk to other people as well.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That's so funny you bring up that word trust because
somebody asked me because they have to go to an interview,
and they said, how do I begin to build up
my trust with that person that I'm going to meet
for the very first time? And I said, make it
about them? Do you agree?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah? I mean I think if anybody wants to show curiosity,
and I think, you know, if I showed that I'm
curious about you and you show that you're curious about me,
then we'll just keep exchanging things that we like don't like.
I think it just comes from being open and being curious.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Where can people go to find out more about you?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
You know, I have a website. I'm horrible at updating it,
so you know, maybe check on it in a couple
of weeks. But it's maggiearcats dot com. And then you
can listen to Hands Tied pretty much anywhere where you
get your podcasts, Spotify, Apple, you know, Amazon, wherever you
(18:19):
listen to podcasts, but that's where that's where they can
find out and they can listen to some of the
other things that I've made.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Well, you got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. Twenty minutes with you is not enough.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I agree, Arrow, I loved it. I can talk to
you forever.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Okay, you too,
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