Team Roundtable: Missing Person Cases

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons (NamUS) database, more than 600,000 persons of all ages go missing every year,

On this episode of the FindJodi Podcast you'll hear a team discussion of missing person cases as an overall topic.

Why do some of these cases receive national media attention, while others receive none at all?
What can families and loved ones of the missing do to maximize media coverage?
What can be done to improve the systems involved in these investigations?

If you have information about Jodi’s case, you can reach the Mason City Police Department at [phone]. Or you can share information with the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) at [phone] or via email at [e-mail].

You can also reach us anonymously at FindJodi: (970) 458-JODI (5634) or via email: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Before sunrise on a mild summer morningin June nineteen ninety five, a twenty
seven year old television news anchor namedJody Husten Trutz hurriedly left her apartment in
Mason City, Iowa, headed forwork, but she never arrived, and

(00:26):
her disappearance has never been solved.In two thousand and three, two television
news reporters created finds Jody dot Com, a website dedicated to preserving Jody's memory
and keeping her case alive. Thisis the official Finds Jody Podcast. Welcome

(00:55):
back to the Finds Jody Podcast.I'm Scott Fuller on this episode something different
for this podcast and something a littleoutside of Jody Who's in Truts Case specifically.
Today, we have a roundtable conversationfor you with our whole team about
the topic of missing person cases.Generally, we want to examine what happens
from a law enforcement perspective and thena media perspective when a person goes missing.

(01:19):
Why are some of these cases coverednationally and some others of these cases
not covered at all? And isthere anything anyone can do to improve the
processes involved in these cases? JodyWho's in Truts Case? Brought us all
together from different backgrounds, But somethingelse the entire Find to Jody team has
in common is a passion for themissing. That team conversation is coming up

(01:42):
next on this episode of the FineJody Podcast. We have the whole team
with us today for a roundtable discussionabout missing person cases generally. So this
episode is not going to be aboutthe Jody Who's in true case specifically,
and if this does happen to beyour first episode, you can find plenty
more coverage on Jody's case in previousepisodes in the feed. But this is

(02:05):
a subject that we've been meaning toget to as a team podcast discussion for
a long time, and we havethe whole team with us today, Josh
Benson, Find Jody co founder andlongtime TV news anchor and reporter, Tara
Mannus Benson television producer, and Iwould say our resident digital media expert with
no offense to Josh, Caroline Lowe, longtime investigative reporter for WCCO in Minneapolis,

(02:30):
and j al Barrio, former headof investigations with Woodberry Police in Minnesota,
now retired again. This is anepisode on missing persons cases generally,
both from the media perspective and thelaw enforcement side. And I actually want
to start here with Jay at thestart of a missing person's case. Well,

(02:51):
how does a missing person case start? What represents like your typical case
and when do things become a littlebit different than your average investigation. You
know, there is no typical missingperson's case because there's such a spectrum of
you define missing persons. It couldbe a teenager that's run away, that's

(03:14):
a missing person. You get allthe way up to an elderly person that
has dementia, has walked away orforgot where they're at and they're not located.
And then in the middle you havesome of those that they're missing under
suspicious circumstances. So how it comesto the attentional law enforcement. Is a
family member or a friend obviously reportsmissing person, a teenager, they're not

(03:38):
home that night, they're not home. In the morning, they call my
son or daughters missing, they haven'tcome home. You know, you start
looking at the background social media stuff. Well you start investigating right away,
is it under unusual circumstances or isthis just a voluntarily disappearance or missing somebody
left the house and they just wantto time alone. There's a case here

(04:01):
in Minneapolis. It's about a weekand a half old now, Jessica went
I sent in the middle of December. Family friends call because they hadn't heard
from her two days. They goto the welfare check, They go to
the apartment. They find the doora jar, they find it. Nothing
is missing out of her apartment.Her phone is there, her purse is
there, winter clothing or there,her cars parked outside down the block.

(04:26):
So then that's a little bit differentthan a teenager walking away from home,
going out with friends and not cominghome. And then you got the elderly
person. Generally it's a healthcare facilityor somebody had staying with their son or
daughter. It's taking care of them. The menta case at home, they
wandered off. In some cases theyoften they'll have a car still access and

(04:48):
they drive and they just get lost. They don't remember where they're at.
So there's a wide spectrum of casesthat you gotta look at, and you
gotta look at each case on itsown. Is this a voluntarily disappeared person
or involuntarily a missing person? Joshand Tara, to both of you,
because I heard both of you discussingthis recently on one of Josh's spaces on

(05:11):
Twitter. I think very well,when we hear about a case in the
public, usually it's because of mediacoverage. It's escalated from what Jade just
described to a certain set of circumstanceswhere it's now this specific, involuntary,
usually missing person and it's kind ofinexplicable what happened to them. So from
the newsroom, how many of thesedo you get and which ones warrant media

(05:34):
coverage and how is that kind ofdetermined. I think that one thing that
usually happens is it goes down tworoads. Either we get a phone call
from a concerned family member that says, you know, we've reported someone missing
and the police say, you know, there's nothing they can do at this
point, and the family member isurging the media to give it attention.
Or we get a press release thatcomes in and says, you know,

(05:57):
whether it be an Amber alert,whether it be a Silver alert, or
just a regular missing person and possiblyendangered person that comes in and we go
from there. If it's someone thatwe think is a runaway, typically those
don't get a lot of coverage unlessthere's something you really important there, like
they need a medication, or theyleft home without their phone, and maybe
they've had some suspicious dealings online,talking to someone who's older, maybe an

(06:20):
inappropriate relationship, something that they couldbe in danger. That's when the media,
we would step in and put iton TV. If it's a missing
person, you know, a runaway, a teenager, it does get kind
of muddy because sadly that happens quiteoften. Yeah, and I think that's
where the really slippery slope is forthe media, because Scott, you talk
about this space is recently, Ido a space every week where we get

(06:43):
together and talk about the news ofthe day, but it's pretty much primarily
covers missing person cases. And whatI'm finding is, ever since the Gabby
Potito case, we're seeing an influxof people super interested in missing person cases.
And so I've started to follow thiscommunity on Twitter and they're really passionate.
They're all over the world, andthey're kind of like a cluster of

(07:04):
people that just want to dedicate theirtime to help figure out what happens to
missing people in these cases. Thoughthe question we get a lot as well,
why is one case getting more attentionthan the other, Because if you
look at the Gabby Potito case.Here is a young white woman and she
disappeared for a bit. They foundher remains. It appears to be a
domestic violent situation. You know,why did that get so much coverage?

(07:28):
Well, then this parlays into missingperson cases and the question we get is
why cover this case versus another case? And so when it comes to the
media, like Tara said, it'susually an Amber alert or an official notice
from police or even the family themselvesthat come on to say, hey,
we have a missing person. Wewant to try to figure out what's going
on. Can you give it somecoverage? And so we have to determine
as a TV station what warrants coverageon a case like that. So when

(07:50):
there's an Amber alert, obviously that'senough to go by because the police have
done the diligence and it met therequirements for an Amber alert to be issued,
and a right we have a certainamount of time usually with a missing
person sure at first forty eight hoursis so crucial. So for us,
we want to get it out thereas quickly as possible. And now that
there's TV news apps, you cansend a push alert. Everyone gets it.

(08:13):
Hopefully everyone's already getting it on theirphone from each state, sending it
out via your network carrier, andthat helps push the messages as well.
Right, but it had met thecriteria to issue an ambre alert, and
that's the police doing their work,not the media TV stations, because we
don't have that authority to make thosedeterminations. So we already know that the
diligence has been done and amber alerthas been issued, and so we can

(08:35):
actually run with that story and putit out on the airwaves. So that's
the easiest for us. The shortanswer is, if we're going to run
with the story on the air,it has to be issued from a news
release from the police department or anambrellert or something official to allow us to
run with it. Because how manytimes a day does this happen? Sadly,
yes, too many every day almostwell. And I try to reassure
the parents that most of them comehome. Okay, it's awful if you're

(08:56):
the parent going through it, butI've had so many of these calls and
within a couple of days, ifnot sooner, they are found. But
as a parent, you know,I can't imagine what it's like to go
through and they always assume the worst. They think it's going to be like
one of these cases we've covered thathas a terrible turn. What I tend
to have jumped on over the yearsfrom a long term missing the ones that

(09:18):
are clearly not just gone for afew days. The difference in terms of
what gets covered and doesn't get coveredis often a really persistent parent example I
can think of the Jay's familiar within Minnesota, Susan Swiedell has been missing
thirty four years. On January nineteenth, I hear from her sister, who
has created a Facebook page for aSusan. I hear from her every January
in between, if she's going tobe at the Washington County Fair handing out

(09:41):
flyers, if she's putting something onTwitter. I've connected her with people back
in Minnesota, even though I'm notcovering things daily, but her persistence nags
at me. I mean, it'sreally hard for me not to do something
when I get a text her amessage from Christine Swidel. Another one that
I'm working on right now that isbothering me that I heard about just a
few mon ago. A CNN producerasked me about a flyer in the Mason

(10:03):
City Police lobby. Right next toJody, there's a flyer for a young
woman who's been missing since nineteen eightythree. Her name is Grace Esquiville.
She was about twenty five when shedisappeared. She left behind a six year
old daughter who'd been staying with thegrandparents a night before. Grace doesn't get
the kind of coverage. You don'tsee the annual stories of press releases on
her. When I started looking intoit, I could find very few people

(10:26):
who even had heard of her,And then as we did an archive search,
we found that it got a lotof attention back in the nineteen eighties,
and often when Jody's case was inthe news would be listed as one
of three other missing cases in thearea. In fact, that she and
Jody are the two long term missingwomen in Mason City. So I've been
doing some digging lately, hoping wecan help her family. One of the
things I run into recently is herfamily says Christmas is really hard for them.

(10:50):
Four days before Christmas is Grace's birthday, so they didn't fill up for
talking a few weeks ago. ButI know that we have the power to
make people aware again. What ifthere's somebody right there in Mason City who
knows something. So I'm hoping throughon this podcast in other ways we can
help others, but these again longterm missing persons and who clearly didn't just

(11:11):
disappear on their own. One thingyou said, Caroline that really stands out
to me is the difference when thosefamily members really step in and make it,
you know, say hey, weneed to do these things like the
anniversary, kind of like we dofor Jody. Right, Jennifer Kessey out
of Orlando, Florida, disappeared Januarytwo thousand and six, So it's you

(11:31):
know, pushing eighteen years now,and her parents you'll see them outside Millennium
Mall near where her car was found. They will always be putting up flyers.
Still they have dedicated their life,Drew and Joyce, to finding their
daughter, and they still have hopethat she's alive. It eats at you,
and you can see it in theirfaces. It eats at them.
But then I think about it.A little girl, Haley Cummings. She

(11:52):
disappeared. It was out of NorthFlorida, and no one even talks about
her, and they did for along time. We did in the media.
But yeah, you know that's onewhere it just falls by the wayside,
right because she disappeared in two thousandand nine. And Josh, you
and Tara particularly recently have been doingmore on these old, older ones and
getting them out there. And Ithink that there are more and more podcasts.

(12:16):
There's one called Unfound, which isspotlight a Jody's case, and they
take cases that are about a yearold. They do a weekly spotlight on
a case and they are always lookingfor cases to highlight. So I think
if somebody's out there and has oneand it's particularly longer term, there are
resources. There are different groups thatare helping people, and Josh, I
think sure more on that that youcan go to and give you tips on
ways to get that attention, makethat connection. Say with a reporter in

(12:41):
your town, call that reporter up, get on their radar, nag them,
and if one reporter doesn't do something, try another one. But get
to know who covers the crime beat. And I think you'd be surprised how
many would be receptive. I knowwe've all done stories and they're not Many
of the ones we've done are nothigh profile. You just have to keep
bothering, bugging, making some noise, if you will, if you're a
loved one. Yeah, I thinkwhat's pretty heartbreaking about it all, too,

(13:03):
is with Twitter especially, it's sucha rapid fire platform, and you
know, it's the short updates peoplecan get messages across. As part of
this community online that I follow.With Twitter, there's missing person posters created
all the time, and they youknow, they tag us on them,
and it's unbelievable. It's almost dailythat we're getting new ones. But in
my DMS, my direct message ison Twitter, I'll have family members or

(13:26):
I'll have people interested in a specificcase saying, hey, please follow this
case, you know, give atweet about this case, and these just
stack up. It's overwhelming. Andwhat I also see with the community who
dedicates their time and their resources tofollowing the case is the absolute burnout that
happens to them. And I'm witnessingthis firsthand on Twitter, and I'm watching
these people who are very close tothis community come in and dedicate hours of

(13:50):
their time to check records, makephone calls, print flyers, and as
you see them work through it,you're just amazed by the energy they have
for it. But then all ofa sudden, they hit a point where
they just they're broken because they're burntout and they realize they're not getting anywhere.
In these cases, maybe it's notthe case that they're not getting anywhere,
but they're not seeing the progress thatyou know, a human being would

(14:11):
like to see and something that somuch effort has been put into. And
you guys in this team, weknow that that pain. We know how
long we've been working on Jody's case, and we know how much effort we've
put into it. And I'm sureall of you have felt the burnout along
the way. You know we've putup so much time and you know what's
the payoff. We never see theend result, and that can be frustrating
unless you know what you're in forfor the long haul. I think over

(14:33):
time, as you work on differentmissing person cases, you have to take
the breaks, you have to getaway from it. Even today on Twitter,
I saw a girl who's been focusedon one case that we've been following
was actually several, but she justsaid that's it and she has she said
I'm leaving, I'm getting off Twitter, and people in the responses are like,
that's what you need. To do. You need to walk away,

(14:54):
you need to take a break,you need to get your head right,
and you need to, you know, take some time for yourself. Come
back with you already, and theyall embraced her and supported her and say
We're going to be here when youcome back. It's just really powerful what's
happening right now on Twitter and justthese communities and people trying to dedicate their
time and the resources to help findpeople. A perfect example is Harmony Montgomery.
That's happening right now. A littlegirl who's been missing for two years.

(15:18):
Yeah, this is a bizarre Noone even new. The police didn't
know, DCYF didn't know. It'sManchester, New Hampshire, a little seven
year old girl. Somebody who's tippedoff police to say, hey, we
haven't seen this girl in a longtime. They looked into it. She
hasn't been seen for two years andshe's seven, so she was five.
She was five when she disappeared.So what happened in two years Absolutely nothing,

(15:41):
Actually twenty seven months. Nothing happened. In the last two days since
this podcast is recorded, two arrestshave been made. But I think it
also shows the power of citizen sleuth, but having all those people out there
collectively working on it and make thismaking a difference. Jay, can you
talk about now social media and thatlandscape as it relates to missing persons cases

(16:03):
is changing every six months or everymonth, But media coverage in general,
when a case gets to that pointwhere it's receiving extensive media coverage, how
does that help an investigation and sometimeshave the opposite effect. Yeah, like
Josh and Taro are talking about,they have certain criteria they have to use
if it's going to be broadcasting andnews. At that point, obviously there's

(16:26):
extensive investigation that's gotten into it andthe criteria has probably been met. So
the media and social media is agreat benefit to law enforcement. How do
you get the word out there?What's the details about this? Is the
last person in a saw or spoketo this person, So it can be
very beneficial. Social media is apowerful outlet to get the information out there,

(16:49):
especially when law enforcement sometimes are limitedin their resources, where social media
can reach thousands and thousands of people. Pretty asked the podcast there's several podcasts.
I'm looking at one right now,still Missing podcasts, And one of
the first episodes was on the WashingtonCounty Susan's sidell case, you know,

(17:11):
and that gets more details generally thanwhat you're going to see in the media.
So it's a great benefit to lawenforcement. It will generate tons of
leads. One thing they have tobe careful of though, using the media.
If you're not set up with theresources in your department to handle the
influx of calls that will be generatedbecause of the media coverage of social media,

(17:36):
that could be really hamper your investigation. You're gonna miss you can miss
leads, you miss tips. Ifyou don't have the resources there, you
can be inundatio so much overwhelmed thatthings are going to be missed. So
you've got to be prepared. Sometimesthese tips might come in the middle of
the night. Your patrol officers beprepared to take that information forward to the

(18:00):
investigators and needs to be followed up. There's so many times that information has
dropped its followed through the cracks.The downside, I don't really really see
the big downside of the media coverageand the social media other than what I
had mentioned the influx of the numberof tips and leads that might be coming

(18:21):
in. Well, I think sometimesi've observed is misinformation and reporting less so
because of the standards that we talkedabout, but also it's sort of brand
new in social media and website commentsand things like that. Is misinformation or
incorrect information, suspect naming sometimes docksthat gets spread and then is taken as
fact. Yeah, that's good,that's go ahead, Josh. The one

(18:45):
thing I'm seeing a lot of isthe frustration from people, especially on Twitter,
trying to get the attention of lawenforcement to pass an Amber alert or
to get one issued. And youknow, from a law enforcement perspective,
they got to meet a certain criteria, as you know, but from state
to state a lot of that changes. Missing person alerts, Amber alerts,
Silver alerts, whatever type of recordthey use or alert system they use to

(19:08):
get the word out, a certainlevel of criteria needs to be met.
But what's frustrating to a lot ofpeople who are following these cases is that
you know, you may have amissing child for six seven months and an
Amber alert has never been issued.Well, what I'm finding now is a
lot of people are literally calling thepolice department and they're in strengthened numbers trying
to push it through to get anamber alert issued and in some cases it's

(19:30):
actually working. And a lot ofthese are smaller town police departments that just
I don't know if they if theyknow comparably to a larger city police department,
you know, what the standards are, what they have to achieve before
they can issue an alert like that, you know. So we're actually seeing
some departments actually under the pressure puttingthe word out and then boom, you
start to see things happening in thecase. So it's pushing the case forward,

(19:53):
which is a crazy system because youlook at this citizen sleuting type angle
and long enforcement and you see themkind of come together, which you normally
wouldn't see too much of in thepast, but now it's actually pushing cases
forward. So it's very interesting dynamicto see. But it is a slipper,
very slippery slope, because you know, you can't expect that kind of

(20:14):
solution from a citizen side to justsay, hey, if we put enough
pressure on the police department, thingsare going to happen, because the enforcement
does have a level that they haveto meet in order to issue these alerts,
and it's methodical. As Josh hasmentioned, these online communities. I
think that they're so powerful and they'vedone some amazing things. But at the
same time, you know, youdo get people who get frustrated and want

(20:36):
to answer so quickly, and sothen they start jumping to conclusions as you
know, we've kind of mentioned rightand naming quote in their mind, who
are suspects and really going after peopleand then attacking the police department too.
But we have to think resources canbe low sometimes sometimes there's things going on
that we don't know about behind thescenes and that we aren't meant to know
about. And that's where people needto be patient as well, because let

(21:00):
law enforcement do their job. Butyou know what, a case has been
going on for twenty years and nothing'shappening. I think you have a right
to put a little more pressure.One thing that a person who works a
lot with genetic genealogy was telling meto really emphasize that they run into from
time to time is a lot offamilies don't know that they should be uploading.
Try to have their families DNA andinformation loaded uploaded to namas and maybe

(21:22):
Jay can address them. But whyit's really possible. So in the event
you do have unidentified remains cross country, what if it is your loved one
and they can't make that match withouthaving that kind of information. Jee back,
what I just wanted to touch baseon Amber alert. The Department of
Justice puts out oh criteria recommend itcriteria for law enforcement to follow. And

(21:42):
first thing, the listeners need tounderstand that Amber alert is for children under
the seventeen years or younger, soit's not for adults. And law enforcement
has to believe that an abduction hasoccurred. They have to also believe that
the childs and immediate danger or seriousbodily harm or death. And there's got

(22:03):
to be enough descriptive information out thereabout the victim, about the abductor for
law enforcement to issue the Amber alert, and they also have to the law
enforcement agency issues of the Amber alerthas to have entered the child's information into
the call in CiCe, the NationalCrime Information Center System. So there's a

(22:25):
criteria that's recommended the law enforcement hasto fall. And Amber alerts are for
children seventeen and younger, so itdoesn't apply to any adults. And like
you see them on the billboards asyou're traveling the highways, Amber alert they
give a license plate of a vehiclethey're looking for this vehicle, so they've
got to have enough information to putit out there, and that's generally then

(22:47):
media gets that information also and they'llcover that pretty widely. See I want
to ask you that what you justsaid is recommended. So police department from
state to state, is it arecommendation or is it a mandatory level?
Have to meet state to state,you know that before they can put out
an alert like that. Yeah,it's a little different from state to state.
But this is the Department of Justice. Is it's the recommended criteria,

(23:11):
and generally the states are going tofollow the recommendation as the Department of Justice.
All Right, you got to havesome pretty good details to put out
the ambler alerts because it's like anews story. If if we were to
go and put everybody's face on theair who called our station, then everybody
would expect that if they made aphone call, we would cover their story
and you could be sued constantly.Some of these people you don't know the

(23:33):
motivations. So the same with thepolice department. If it's a recommendation,
they're going to follow it. Butyou know, if you start issuing ambler
alerts left and right, and it'sa runaway or if it's something that resolves
itself, I mean, then youlose the strength of the system. Yeah,
people are going to ignore it.Credibility can come into question alsole Jay,
did you want to talk at allabout familial DNA technological advancements there into

(23:56):
Caroline's point. Great point to makesure than a missing person, especially long
term missing person's DNA is uploaded sothat if someone is found, they can
be identified. Absolutely the law enforcementthey need to do that any long term
cases or really just you got toget some DNA entered in the database and
the event that there's remains that arefound years later. There's these cases happen

(24:22):
all the time and you see allthe databases, the DNA databases out there
and people are identified through that.So, watching the Gabby Potito case,
which was one of those couple ofcases a year that just engrossed the nation,
one of the pieces of feedback Igot in my various projects on Gabby's
case was her victimology. It's somethingI want to throw out to everybody,

(24:48):
especially on the media side. Thereis sometimes a criticism of the media,
less so now, but definitely inyears past of highlighting certain victims over others,
or certain lifestyles victim people who gomissing, who might be involved in
risky behavior, less so than whatlaw enforcement way back used to call like
a true victim, quote unquote.Police won't talk like that anymore for a
good reason. But is that somethinganyone wants to talk about, Josh Tera

(25:12):
Caroline, Yeah, Well, it'sthey call it missing white woman's syndrome,
and it's a situation where you know, in Gabby Petito's case, it was
brought back to the forefront, andyou know, look at Jody's case.
I mean, missing white woman's syndrome. I mean, we're focused so heavily
on Jody's case and have for somany years, and we've had that.

(25:33):
Our reasons probably different because of theconnection. Sure, I mean the connection
began the fact, you know,we worked in the same market. It
was a regional thing. It wasa big story for the Midwest. Continues
to be. We're all from theMidwest except for Tera, but we are
from that area token Canadian, Yeahexactly, So you know, we had
a somewhat of a tie to it. But it is something that you know,

(25:53):
social scientists, essentially in media commentatorshave come to bring to the forefront
that this is this is a syndrome. It can be proven because you're just
not seeing other cultures being represented thesame way, whether it be you know,
Native Americans, women of color,and any type men as well.
And one of the sisters of GraceEscaville I mentioned from Latino woman from Mason

(26:17):
City posted about a month year agothat you know, I feel really bad
about Jody, but my sister nevergot a billboard. We never got this
and that, and that just reallystayed with me. And I think part
of it is that they didn't havea group like us, you know,
maybe didn't have somebody that knew thatperhaps they could reach out to a local
billboard company and ask them if theyhave a nonprofit rate or do something like

(26:37):
that. I think a lot ofpeople don't know they're things they can do.
Why the national media picks up ona Jody story versus something else is
I think it's because it has alot of elements. She was on her
way to work a lot of thingslike that the mystery, But I do
think it's legitimate criticism. I dothink too, like with Gabby Petito,
as Scott mentioned, is that shehad documented her entire life online, right,

(26:59):
So there wasn't just one or twopictures of that family had sent in.
There were video diaries of everything shehad done up until the point she
disappeared, so you could track thisis what she did, you know,
August first, July twenty second,every single day it was out there.
It was easy for the media todo it because it was handed to us.

(27:21):
I mean, there was video,there was her own voice being used,
and that just adds to a story. And you know, for families
out there who might be listening,who are trying to get attention for the
case. Nowadays we all have ourcell phones, we have all these videos
of our loved ones. That's thekind of stuff that you can pass on
to reporters in the media and givethe victim of voice, give the victim
and identity so that they know whothis person. That people at home start

(27:45):
to really connect and then hopefully theyyou know, hitch their wagon to it
and they see something and say something, maybe you get some answered. And
I also think it can be aunique identifier to a case. And my
perfect example is this Harmony case thatwe're following right now. She hasn't been
seen in two years. I mean, think of another case like that where
you haven't heard of a child that'sbeen missing for two years and all of

(28:07):
a sudden, all of a sudden, it's on the radar everywhere. That's
a unique identifier that I think pushedthis to the forefront. And even through
the coverage of this case and throughothers, I've asked myself on Twitter,
like I actually sat myself down andthought, what cases am I going to
focus on? Because there's so many. Because when I do these spaces every
day at one thirty on Twitter,what case am I going to cover?

(28:29):
I got fifty I could choose from, and then I was reminded from people,
don't forget about Oakley Carlson. She'sa five year old who disappeared in
Oakville, Washington, same scenario,but not getting nearly the coverage now that
Harmony is getting. So it's likeyou can't cover them all, but you
really want to be able to keepthem all on the forefront. So you
know, I think, I think, like Tara said, with Gabby Potito's

(28:49):
case, there was so much materialthere. It was such a this van
life perspective. It was something thatyou know, social media was so popular
with things of that nature, thatpeople started talking about it and it started
to just it starts to generate itsown wave, so to speak. To
where it comes to the forefront,people start to attach. And then once
the media grabs onto it, it'seasy for the public to say, you

(29:11):
know, let's focus in on thiscase because now I'm fascinated by it.
Well, they can watch her,they can watch the way she moved,
the way she spoke. Well,and then that that officer bodycamp video that
came out of the fight from thetwo Brian Laundry and Gabby Petito. I
mean that that's really what sent thisto the next level because now we saw
firsthand, you know, what happenedbetween these two and what appeared to be

(29:32):
a domestic violence situation that went totallysideways with how police responded with. You
know, there's an investigation in thepolice department. Now, just when that
went over the air and the mediacovered every angle of that, well,
now that sent this thing to thestratosphere, and now everybody was involved in
watching what happens next in that case. I think we also felt we were
almost engaged in real time on herjourney from the earlier blogging to them this

(29:56):
discovery, it's just like we werealong, we were part of it.
We are watching it unfold in realtime, and then we just watched an
end. But to Tara's point,somebody in the middle of Nebraska has a
family member disappear, and they don'thave much of a social footprint, or
they don't really have much online,or there's really nothing really known about the

(30:17):
family. How do you make adent in that with the media. How
do you make a dent to say, you know, my family member means
something that matters too. It's awfulfor families because everybody should have a level
playing field. It's just not thatway. I'd say from my personal experience,
if you contact that reporter, youget to know someone locally and you
just stay on it that you haveinformation, you have good photos. One

(30:40):
of the things that Ed Denzel mentionson his Unfound podcasts is give facts,
don't give theories. Get the facts. Be accessible, also be accessible if
there's a development. But I thinkyou have to be that persistence, And
as you said earlier, a lotof people don't have that energy. And
maybe if you don't have it,maybe someone from your family can be a
spokesperson who will do that for you. But be the persistent and maybe on

(31:00):
a slow day a reporter might pickup on it when they're looking for news
that table. Don't give up.The newsrooms need content that could be content
for that day. And like Carolinesaid, be accessible because sometimes these reporters,
they're one story may die and theyneed to flip the switch and have
a story by four o'clock edited,shot on the air. They may call

(31:21):
you at two o'clock and say,hey, I have to get something on
the air. I can actually coveryour story today. Don't need you don't
need your makeup done, you don'tneed your hair done right, put on
a baseball hat and be there foryour family. Just get out there.
No one cares what you look like. And it's I think a lot of
families I've dealt with this a lot, they say, well I'm not ready,
you are ready? Just say whatdo you care if your family members?

(31:42):
But people you know, and Iget this, people think when they
go on TV they have to looka certain way. But when this kind
of tabe's not glamorous, let's right, And I feel like, you know,
if you can't be there, youcan't leave work, get on a
zoom, use FaceTime. Take thatopportunity when the reporter gives it to you
to run with it, because thatcould be the only time that you get
that from And it sounds awful asthough it's a commodity, but for the

(32:05):
TV business, it is like wehave to fill a certain length of time
to cover the news, and wewould love to cover everybody's story, and
it's just that it's not going tohappen. You don't know that the next
day there's not going to be amajor tragedy where like Stu Side Florida happens.
Then the news coverage for an entiremonth, a news cycle for an
entire month, is dedicated to onestory and then unfortunately, your family member

(32:27):
or your story doesn't see the lightof day down here in Florida. Last
week, actually this week, inpart of last week, you know,
Pinellas County, Pasco County, theyall issued missing person alerts and I put
it out on my Twitter account justto like get the you know, the
community out there notified to say,hey this locally, these are cases of
missing persons. The community themselves kickedit back to me and let me know

(32:49):
that, oh this person's been foundbefore I could even get an update from
the police department. So that justtells you how fast these things can start
and end. Like Caroline, youmentioned a lot of them. You go
back to this family and say,hey, you know, chances are this
is going to resolve just fine,and a lot of cases do. And
I think I had probably four tofive, maybe six in the last seven
to eight days where that was thecase. And one of the things that

(33:12):
Jacob Wetterling, the Minnesota boy whowas kidnapped and was disappeared for gone for
twenty seven years before his body wasfound. His mom, Patti Weterling,
is a big child advocate, andshe says, keep pressuring the police so
your file gets moved up to thetop. And maybe Jay can address that
the balance of how to pressure,how to stay in touch with the police,
but to make sure that somebody iscontinuing in their department to maybe checking

(33:35):
on it, checking with a differentdatabases to see if there's anything. Again,
this is more long term, notjust something that's three or four days.
Maybe Jay, you can talk abouteffective ways to work with police to
keep the case on their radar.Josh, you've touched base on that there's
there's hundreds of these missing persons cases, hundreds and not thousands, and what
does the media cover. I don'tthink the family and friends can rely on

(34:00):
the media picking up their case,and I think that's where it comes in
the use of social media. Familiesand friends got to get active and got
to get out there and use thesocial media to get their cases out there,
and sometimes the media will pick thatup. But there's just too many
these cases for the media to cover. So social media, I think is
a great outlet. There's got tobe somebody from the police department that's constantly

(34:23):
in contact. Got to have onemain point of contact for that family member
to go to for updates and information. Since we talked about the media side
of that, how to engage reportersand Jay, I think your outline of
how investigators should approach disappearance call thatcomes in in terms of this could be
nothing, but this could be something. Don't prejudge things too quickly. But

(34:45):
there are thousands of jurisdictions across thecountry. Some departments are going to handle
things differently. How do we makethis whole system better? How do we
I'm not sure if we can havepeople go missing less, But how can
these cases be resolved more quickly?Is there anything that can be done?
Jay from the law enforcement side,First, my experience over the twenty seven

(35:07):
years of being law enforcement, youknow, you think these calls, you
go there and it's like, yeah, you don't take them serious? You
really? I think that what lawenforcement has to do that first responding officer's
got to take every case serious,that this is a potential involuntary disappearance and
you gotta dig into it. Youknow, I have a personal case hit

(35:29):
really close to home. Well,my wife's best friend, her daughter went
missing. Her background wasn't the best, and unfortunately it turned out her body
was found. It was two orthree days later. In that short period
of time, there wasn't a wholelot done because she's an adult, but
she had a young child at home. I'm trying to get at, is

(35:50):
there may the law enforcement needs toput more resources on the front end of
missing person's report And nowadays it's alot different year's all as social media,
the cell phones, Facebook, youknow, there's a lot more things that
people kids start digging into the familythat's reporting the missing person. When they
report the law enforcement, they shouldhave as much information up front ready to

(36:13):
give that officer to take back tothe department to make that report and start
going all out at this. Ithink a lot of victims family they feel
like law enforcement lets them down becausethere was that scene process. I think
we need to do a little bitbetter in law enforcement at processing items upfront

(36:34):
right away. And again, yougot to take the whole situation into consideration.
Is there suspicious circumstances around There hasn'tbeen any threats, Is there anything
out of place, anything missing?That person left, but these things are
still there. Personal items will dictatethe mount of resources I gues should put
in here. But I guess whatI'm trying to say is that we need
to do a better job on theinitial taking that initial report and getting more

(36:58):
information in processing items and Jay,isn't that so key down the road when
if it turns out to be ahomicide or something else that that scene those
first we often hear about the firstforty eight that those initial hours that all
of that stuff, the crimes see, all of that is handled as if
it's a more serious crime, becauseit could be. Oh absolutely, those
first forty eight hours are going tobe crucial to your investigation, and it's

(37:21):
hard to go back to get items, process items later. I mean you're
there now at the time. Takethose items. You can always bag it
up, put it into evidence roomand it finds out later. They find
out later that it could be apiece of evidence. It can be sent
in and process because you got oneshot a lot of one shot, Josh,
and tear out the systems that wehave in place keep getting better.

(37:44):
I'd say Amber Alerts a great development, but Josh was making the point,
I believe on one of Josh's spaces. I think the example you used was
Silver Alerts and a way to improvethat specific system. So how can these
systems from I guess the outside themedia side, how can we improve what
we already have in place for thesecases? Well? And I think that's

(38:06):
what the journey is right now fora lot of people is trying to see
if they can apply the pressure toget the information and education out there,
to see if state by state theycan improve the system as a whole.
Because I think, you know,the ambler is effective, and it's it's
proven to show that if it goesinto effect, the chances of finding that
person you know are much higher thanif there wasn't one, So everybody's hoping

(38:29):
for an ambreller to be issued whenthe circumstances are correct. Silver alerts obviously
are different. They deal with olderadults actually, and they can well it's
for the most part we see themissued for older adults that disappear, but
yes, you're right, they canbe issued for younger as well. But
I think the problem arrives with thefact that state to state things are so

(38:49):
different, right, and I thinkthat if there was a uniform national program
that the state's going abide by,and that's gonna be hard to pass.
But if that was the case,then you could really ramp this up to
make the alerts much more effective.And then I think on top of that,
if there was an alert system forrunaways, or if we're situations where
the police may not jump on acase because of the fact that there's a

(39:09):
runaway or you know, it wasn'tan abduction per se. You know,
there are a lot of those cases. Just because it's a runaway doesn't mean
that it's not an important case.If a runaway happens where somebody comes in
and says, you know, mydaughter was on her cell phone with somebody
on a chat room, and shewent to meet him, and now all
of a sudden, this guy hasher held captive somewhere, and it was

(39:31):
almost like a yeah, a groomingsituation. I mean, we see this
way too often. Well, there'sa situation where the young girl voluntarily left,
but all of a sudden found herselfin some serious trouble that she did
not know. That she did notknow because maybe she was too young,
she was too naive, she didn'tunderstand the situation. She thought, Oh,
this guy's showing me attention, heloves me, or you know,

(39:52):
I want to go. My parentsaren't making me real happy. I want
to go see what this guy's allabout. That happens far too often.
Really, isn't an alert system fora scenario like that? You know?
I think we can branch off theamount of alerts that we do have.
We can we can improve them stateto state, we can improve them to
a national scale, And I thinkthat's where you're going to start seeing the

(40:13):
pressure on a lot of these alertsystems. I agree with you, Josh,
especially with the runaways, because runawayscan be in danger. It maybe
at first a few first few daysor weeks or not, but it becomes
a dangerous situation for him, andthere isn't a good system out there to
get that information out, and lawenforcement generally they don't put a lot of

(40:34):
resources into investigating a runaway. You'reabsolutely right, Jay, because these a
lot of these kids, they youknow, they don't know what they're looking
for, they don't know where they'regoing. They don't leave with the plan,
they don't have the money to sustain, you know, living alone by
any means, they end up homeless, they end up on the streets,
and they end up in trouble.It's a really slippery slope and it happens
fast. Took hundreds of runaway reportsthroughout my career. You know, we

(40:58):
had the form. You fell's arunaway report, You fill it out,
you attach it to your incident report, and it goes into the clerical and
they're entered into the system. That'sonly if their name, if another law
enforcement agency comes across that runaway andthey run their name through the NCICE and
it comes back as it hit,oh, you're a runaway from Woodbury.

(41:20):
That anything's done. Other than that, there's not a lot that was done
for runaways. Jay, I hada question for you, and I think
this is a big frustration for justcitizens in general. After watching a lot
of these missing person cases and seeing, you know, the information moves slower
than it could move. Do younotice the communication between agencies across different states

(41:43):
to be not as good as itcould be. I think police departments in
communication has gotten a lot better,but in the past, that has been
a big barrier for communication between youmulti agencies. From when a situation starts
maybe in Boston and it moves upto Iowa, and that it ends in
California, that information shared from agencyto agency isn't always as smooth as it

(42:05):
could be. Correct. You're correct, Josh, that information from state to
state there's not a good flow toit in a larger metropolitan area. From
agency to agency there's a lot bettercommunication. From state to state, there's
not a lot of communications unless youknow that this particular person has crossed into
another state. But I think that'simproving. Technology is getting better. I

(42:28):
think it's easier to share information asit ever has been, So that's promising
and the fact that technology helps,and I think it's all improving from the
law enforcement side. If you getto a case of a certain vintage.
You know, there was a daywhere police wouldn't take that report, that
runaway report, that's a Jay's describing. That doesn't happen nearly as much as

(42:50):
it used to. It's just theglacial pace of these changes, and I
think maybe that's the way change hasto happen when you have jurisdictions all over
the country. We are getting better. I think the frustration sometimes is how
long it takes. And then trytelling that to a family member of a
victim who is still missing. Yeah. A perfect example I wanted to bring
up was the clairecase. This isone that we covered extensively. There was

(43:14):
a little boy named Noah Claire.His father, Jacob Claire, essentially abducted
him. He was a three yearold, and not essentially he did well,
yeah he did, because he's arrestednow he's in prison. But this
was out of Tennessee, Okay.So it started in Tennessee. He took
him, he had visitation, buttook him past the deadline. And then

(43:34):
he also took off with Amber,which was as a niece. I believe
in the middle of the night.They disappeared from Tennessee, Okay. So
the search was on where did thesethree go? I mean, he's like
six eight or six nine, he'sa really tall guy. That the dad,
and then the little boy and thenAmber as a teenager. So they
disappeared and for days no one knewwhere they were. So this became a
story and became it started to leakout in the media. But now it

(43:58):
was one of those complicated situations becauseit was a visitation situation. Did he
have visitation rights? You know,was his what was his rights in this
scenario? Did he actually abduct themdanger Well, then we learned that there
was there was inappropriate things happening betweenthe dad and the nice So that started
to become really strange. So,you know, was she kind of mindwashed

(44:22):
to go along with him? Well, all of a sudden, there was
no Amber alert that was reported outof Tennessee, and I think that was
the frustration from people, Why isan ambrelert issued for him? He's gone?
So Tennessee was getting a lot ofpressure and especially the law enforcement agencies
there. Well, then all ofa sudden, the vehicle was reported and
they popped up in Arizona, andso a picture came out from Arizona now
Allison, Arizona instantly puts out anambre alert. So now Tennessee's talking with

(44:45):
Arizona, and you know, theypassed through Arizona, and so now this
was a huge story in Arizona.So now Arizona media is picking up on
it. Well, then all ofa sudden pops up in California. So
it's almost like you're following the paththat they're taking. And there was rumors
that, oh no, they're goingto go into Mexico now, So this
was always a story that they reallyfollowed closely, like where were they going
to go next? Well, thenin California, one mom was sitting at

(45:08):
home who had happened to be likepaying attention to the news and like paying
attention to social media. She lookedout her window and she saw this really
tall guy walking with a little boyand a teenager and called it in and
boom they were He was arrested,the two were rescued, and this was
a very happy ending. But therewas a situation where it took three different

(45:29):
states and multiple agencies trying to communicatewith each other. Some states are issuing
amber alerts, others are not.I think there might have been an ambrelert
out of California at one point.But here's a scenario where so many elements
are coming together and the communication isn'tthe greatest, but the power of social
media stepped down. Yes, andthat's where she saw and it was to
see something, say something, situationand it had a happy ending. So

(45:51):
that was just one example that's happenedliterally in the last couple of months.
In my opinion, if you getan amber alert issued in Minnesota and you
got information that they're going to begoing to Iowa state, I wish you
take that amber alert, issue itstatewide. It should go from state to
state follow it. And why doesone state do it and the other doesn't.
I mean, I agree, Josh, the communication has improved going across
state, but you still got tohave that social media out there. Yeah.

(46:15):
I'm just looking now at Facebook.I'm missing missing persons in Minnesota,
just cases that I'm like, Ihaven't heard about this sixteen year old kid
out of Wilmer, Minnesota since Octobersixteenth, missing, and you don't see
that in the media. If itdid, maybe it's a short blurt.
Let's followed up on that. Maybethe citizens don't need to get the Amber

(46:36):
alert to everyone's phone in the middleof the night, waking them up.
But it would be nice if lawenforcement agencies were able to get those notifications
on a more regular basis, soit's on their their radar at least put
on a news release to the mediatime that it's gonna work. Yeah,
whether they put it on TV ornot, they're likely to put it on
their website, put it on theirsocial media, and then that gets replayed

(46:58):
throughout. I'd like to ask Jay, question, Jay, at one point,
do citizen journalists step, you know, cross the line where it becomes
troublesome for law enforcement to do theirjob? Good question, you know,
and not asking you know, basedon what we're doing. I feel like
we're very respectful to law enforcement.But I think that a lot of these
groups, you know, these independentthey aren't journalists. Yeah, and we

(47:20):
as fine Jody's team have gotten heatfor that in the past too, even
though you know, we're journalists andwe kind of try to abide by all
the journalistic integrity when we do thatevery every time we have a lead.
But right, But I mean,there are these people who don't know journalistic
standards. Obviously, they don't haveany law enforcement experience. At what point
could they be hindering an investigation insteadof helping it. Well, I think

(47:43):
they're hindering the investigation is when you'reputting speculation out there, you're not basing
the information on factual facts. You'vegotta the information has got to be factual.
And I think that's one thing we'vedone is we're clearing up information.
We're going back to make sure factchecking. Is this information based on true
facts? Speculation, Yeah, that'swhere it's going to hinder law enforcement.

(48:07):
You speculate, oh, so andso was involved, but there's nothing to
back that statement up. So thenyou're chasing. You're chasing your tail trying
to go around circles and figure thisout. That's a hindrance to law enforcement,
potentially ruining people's reputations just throwing namesout there. Yeah. Absolutely,

(48:28):
That's one thing I found a lotright now on Twitter. It's very difficult
because people want that instant gratification soso much that they want the answers so
fast, and it as we knowas a team all too well, it
can it can take decades and youmight not, unfortunately, have an answer.
And a perfect example right now isthat Harmony Montgomery story. And there's

(48:52):
two two days, two people havebeen arrested, and everybody, a lot
of people on Twitter want to pointthe finger and say these people are guilty,
and they don't look good right now. I'll be honest, it does
not look good for them, butyou don't know the facts. They're innocent
yet there they've been they've been arrested, but everything is alleged. And you
know, until we know the facts, you just cannot go with your gut

(49:14):
and say this person's guilty, thisperson did it. I think we know
what happened here, and they're attackinglaw enforcement. Law enforcement didn't even know
she was missing. People start toattack, you know, in a lot
of these cases, emotions get heightenedand we want to point fingers and we
want to find someone to blame.Well, let me let me ask you
this, as journalist son here onthis call, how many times have you
thought this is the person and yousaw it by a thousand percent, this

(49:37):
is the person, this person didit? Boom at the end of the
story, you're wrong and you're like, oh my pretty wrong or did the
jury get it wrong in particular?And I know I'm right, and I
know the jury was wrong. I'mnot talking jury trials. I'm just talking
in general, and I'm not makinglight of it because we laugh about it
now because there's nothing else to do. Right, and we've had really really

(49:59):
good law enforcement sources give us somereally good tips that didn't pan out.
It just all seemed to add upand then it wasn't what it looked like.
But to TERA's point, Twitter isan instant medium. Social media is
an instant gratification platform, just generallylaw enforcement. Meanwhile, you know this
case you're mentioning, Josh, policeare just now aware of this. They
made an arrest, which is prettyquick, and now they have to build

(50:22):
a prosecutable case against these two,you know, along with a DA against
these two individuals. If they wantto bring them to trial, that's going
to take some time. That doesn'tjive well with the instant gratification of social
media. Sometimes with these arrests,they are able to bring them in on
an outstanding warrant or something else,just get them in. And it turns
out they may have them on thatthey don't look good, but they don't

(50:43):
have what it's going to take toget them in connections, say with a
child, So you have to keepa close look at what they actually have.
That lesser charge will bring them inand then they can question them under
oath and it can lead to otherthings and hopefully get some answers, you
know, in some justice for andit may eliminate them if they may not
be convicted as bad as they look. Caroline, you had that case with

(51:06):
Jacob Wetterling, right, everybody thoughtit was one suspect, one person,
and it totally turned the table.Right. It is saved with me for
years because I stood at the endof the driveway when the FBI and the
local law enforcement dug up the neighborof Jacob Wetterling's property for two days.
I thought, you know, forthem to be able to get a search
warrant Jake and address this to convincea judge. This wasn't the first time

(51:27):
they'd had warrants to go in there, I said, has to be this
guy. And for years it pointedat the guy who later on turned out
to be had nothing to do withjacobowbody else. Yeah, but he was
convicted in the media. And Imean in the sense that the law enforcement
we could say they're on his property. It's a reminder. Most of the
time the persons you hear in thenews turned out to be the one.
But this was a good reminder that'snot always a case. And to keep

(51:50):
an open mind now with decades ago, Caroline and before social media, so
think of how that's ramped up now. It's it's that instant gratification. Guilty
by social media now is so rampant. Watching say the Gabby Potito case all
summer long, everybody is jumping toconclusions, and sometimes those conclusions are right,
sometimes are not. But we don'tknow what law enforcement knows. What
is the harm in just waiting becausethat investigation was progressing pretty nicely. There's

(52:15):
a case I was following, SusanneMoorephew in Colorado who went missing her husband
since been charged, that whole thingand now into a prosecution was wrapped up
in a year, and a year'sa long time, but in a murder
case, a year is kind ofto be expected. The Potito case is
a strong one. I mean there'sa situation where you know, people from

(52:37):
the outside looking and say, thisis clear cut, this is obvious.
What happened. We see the video, we see what happened. We can
take a look at it, wecan solve it for ourselves, but we
really don't have the facts. Andthe FBI has more information than we'll all
know. And when the FBI isready, they're going to come out with
it. Maybe they'll come out witha news conference and say this is what
we know. I mean right now, Look, the boyfriend or fiance rather,

(53:00):
you know, he killed himself.He had a he had a notebook
with him at the time he shothimself in the Carlton Reserve. And this
was after her body was found.So a lot of people are connecting the
dots saying he was the one whodid it. And is there a suicide
note in the notebook. We don'tknow what's in the notebook. We don't
know where the gun is, wedon't know what the FBI knows. And

(53:20):
while everybody wants to have this solvedand buttoned up, and I'm sure,
I'm sure the family wants this resolvedbecause they're sitting there with no answers.
Gabby's gone, you know, anotherfamily lost their son. It's just it's
a mess, no win situation.But yet the FBI is going to take
their time, and we have studiedthis over and over and over again.
The FBI is going to take aslong as it takes for them to build

(53:44):
the case and figure out what happened, and only then we'll know by a
news conference what happened if we canget some closure. And our team several
months ago made the very difficult decisionto turn off our comments on a lot
of our web posts because we sawa trend, an increase trend of people
throwing names out there, speculating,putting things together, and really very very

(54:05):
harmful stuff towards some people we knowgood reasonably we've had nothing to do with
Jody's abduction, but that didn't stopa lot of people. And so that's
I think that's the real danger ofhaving sort of a wide open, wild
wild West of social media. AndI think if we had a group of
twenty five people, Caroline, wecould moderate that and we could sit there
and spend a lot more time goingthrough that and adding, you know,

(54:25):
things in place that could keep thosecomments open. But we're a small team
and that's just not realistic. Andwhen you have that kind of back and
forth sensationalist you know, blaming people, the slander this and that, and
we just can't. We can't dealwith that. And at the same time,
we obviously wanted people to come tous if they have information, so
we are still very accessible. Wedon't want to miss something and that's part

(54:49):
of why we took our time doingthat. But we're hoping still that somebody
will come forward with the accurate informationwe need to help get answers. And
I hope that you know families whoare who may listen to this and who
have a loved one who is missing, don't feel hindered by what we're saying.
I think that the thing is toempower you to know that there are
tools, there are resources, andthere's people like us out there, but

(55:13):
you just have to be persistent.Come with facts, as Jay said,
come with facts, Come with youknow media, come with video, come
with pictures, Tell the story ofyour loved one, and really paint the
picture for literally hand. The journalistsI always say, when someone asked me
how to get their story on thenews, I say, well, I
need it in three bullet points becausepeople have no time. We tell a

(55:37):
story in twenty seconds called a vowhich is a voiceover that the anchor will
read in that twenty seconds we packa lot of information. So if you
come with you know, three bigbullet points, not too big, but
three bullet points, and then attacha video and give give me that victim's
voice, attach some pictures, andthen tell us you know why we why

(55:58):
we should care. I know itsounds a little well harsh, but that's
going to be the ticket twokets likeexplaining it to a seven year old.
Josh and Tara and I and someothers put together an article and Unsolved magazine
a couple of years ago with tips. So if there's any family out there
listening who's frustrated doesn't know where toget started, you can download our link
and maybe that'll give you some ideason what you can do if you are

(56:21):
one of your family members somebody disappears. There are resources out there. And
I would love to have a followup to this podcast on a Twitter space
because we could do an nighttime Twitterspace like we're doing with this podcast,
and just do follow ups for peoplewho have questions who want to ask.
You know what our journey has beenlike with the Jody case, and you
know what it's been through TV media, through law enforcement. You know,

(56:43):
we come from a lot of walksof life, so hopefully we can give
you some information that's going to help. I think I hope that you heard
tonight. As we all feel apassion for missing persons. Jody is obviously
who brought us together, but weall have covered them, We've known people,
we've felt the pain of their lovedones, and we hope through doing
this kind of podcast in our website, we can help others get answers and

(57:04):
get what they need to get someresolution in their lives. I think I've
had this discussion with you guys.I've thought about it on my own.
As you go through life, youkind of think about what your legacy is
going to be, you know,and I see other people who have done
great things in their life. Theyleave a legacy behind that's outstanding and it's
something that's put together well, thatwill be remembered forever. And you know,

(57:25):
as I go through life, Iwork a lot. I've spent a
lot of time hustling I do.I do a lot of work, and
I think about what's a legacy andwhat do you leave behind. I have
two amazing kids. I have twodaughters, and right there, I think
that's that's going to be a legacyof mine. I'm going to spend a
lot of time trying to make themthe best girls that they can be and

(57:45):
best women they can be. Youknow, Tera and I have worked very
hard to try to make sure theyhave a great future. But you also
look back to see what are yougoing to leave behind from the effort that
you put in to try to makethe world a better place. And I
look at a situation like this team. You know, we have a team
where we came together because of amissing person, Jody, who's in true

(58:06):
we look at her family and Idevastated they are because of the fact that
they have zero answers on what happenedto their daughter and sister and friend,
and there's just really no answers outthere. So we've spent years, almost
two decades, I mean, theyears just fly by. So when you
look back, I think you canbe confident in saying that part of the

(58:28):
legacy leaving behind is that you tryto help other people who you know had
misfortune in their lives, try tomake it a better place for them,
try to make sense of the worldthat they're living in by helping them,
try to find the solution to theirbig problem, and that their big problem
is trying to find their missing person, And so that's kind of what we've
dedicated our time to do. Whatcould be worse than not having an answer

(58:49):
when you go to bed at night, when you wake up in the morning,
you want to believe it's a baddream, But sadly for these people,
that's the reality, right And ifwe can do anything to make them
sleep a little easier at night.I think that that and that's why we
haven't given it up. You know, there's been years where it's like,
how can we possibly keep going?There's so much else to do. But
I know why because people like Caroline, Scott and Jay have come. You

(59:09):
three have really lifted this up andgiven it new life. I think that
you should all be applauded for that. I don't think there's anything that feels
more meaningful than when we're digging onthis journey, whether it's tagging for Jody
or working on this tonight. Imean, I think we all really wanted
to do this podcast to use whatwe learned to help others, and I

(59:30):
think it keeps us going. FindJody is a nonprofit run by volunteers with
a mission of keeping Jody's unsolved casein the spotlight. Anyone with information about
Jody's case can reach out to theMason City Police Departments. Information can also

(59:52):
be provided to the Iowa Department ofCriminal Investigations. You can also contact find
Jody anonymously if you prefer don't sitin silence. The time to talk is
now for the entire Finds Jodi team. I'm Scott Fuller. Thank you for listening.