July 31, 2025 • 60 mins
We need to have a certain level of trust in our fellow man just for society to exist. We extend a deeper faith in our group of friends, but what happens when they don’t warrant that trust? A Killer Among Friends explores this and starts off with the tragic death of Trent DeGiuro.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back to Killer Fun, where we explore the intersection
of crime and entertainment every other week. I'm Christie and
I'm Jackie.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
One hair kept poking and I'm like, whye why I started?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And then you got this like panic.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Oh my god, I'm done.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm keep trying to do this to get it out
of my face and I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Okay, you breathe. Today, today we are talking about a
killer among Friends, Season one, episode one, Killer on Campus.
Trust is tricky. Oh, We're gonna talk a lot about trust,
Like yeah, because you know, we kind of need it
(00:54):
what we do, and yet it can be exploited.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, okay, Jennifer love you at a great statement, Okay,
And I think it sums it up in a way.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
You can trust your friends, but I won't.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And I kind of love that because I'm like, also,
we need the other people who don't have that trust
to help us kind of sort through.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Maybe a little right, you know what I mean, keep
our eyes open.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We need somebody to be distrustful of the people we
trust so that we can have an accurate view as
to whether they deserve our trust or not. Yes, I
loved it.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I thought it was like great.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Uh huh. Yeah, speaking of Jennifer love Hewitt, there's not
really a cast for this because it's the people who
were involved and like all the reenactments are, you can't
identify anybody, but Jennifer lovehught is a producer and she
does voiceover work. As far as part of this, it's
going to be six episodes to start. We'll see if
(01:53):
there are more.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I love this because I think it's like just the
bite size, it's perfect, right, Like you and I were chatting,
really happy. This is not a docuseries about one of
these stories. Yes, I need one, it's one episode and
that is sufficient efficient.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Uh huh, that's right. And there's been lots of episodes
about this story on other shows, lots of them. Yeah.
I mean, I mean it's thirty over thirty years old,
this case now, so and there's a lot to it,
but not so much that you really need six episodes
about it, or even three episodes about it. It's not
(02:33):
that twisty.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
It's not that twisty.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I mean, there are some twists that they could have covered,
but I don't think that they really are all that necessary.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
No, see my issue with some of those limited series
is that they they really exaggerate sort of like the
basic investigative process, like, oh, we're going to investigate and
ask a question, and is this is this the right weapon?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Uh huh?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Right, but they a docuseries might spend a whole episode
on this weapon just to give the like the drop
at the end, like and the results came back it
was the next episode, right, wasn't the gun? So I'm like, no,
you don't need to draw it out because I like
the fact that we actually just heard from the people
about their relationships and you know, how it affected them
(03:22):
and you know, like the human aspects for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yes, I agree. All right, let's briefly recap Okay athletes,
fraternity dudes, sorority gals, a few other summer school students
gathered to celebrate Trent de Jiro's upcoming twenty first birthday
the wee hours of July seventeenth, nineteen ninety four, Bring
Everything Butt Revelry. Trent, who had been sitting on the
(03:49):
front porch of his house near the University of Kentucky campus,
was shot. Even those sitting near him on the outdoor
area have no idea idea what happened. They don't even
know where the shot came from. The case goes unsolved
for years until someone claims that they heard a confession.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Nice, well done, thoughts, well done, thoughts hit me so.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Sean, the friend of Trent who was sitting right next
to him when he was shot, said he hadn't been
back to the house since it happened. But then he
talks about the blood being left on the porch after
the fact, and it initially made me suspicious, but then
I was like, really, what he means he hasn't been
back since like that summer.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Right, like since he actually just left, right.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, So okay, I will, I
will reign in my suspicion. But I go into this
like suspicious. I'm like, he's here talking, but that does
not necessarily mean he's not suspicious. Right, Everything is distrustful,
you are, at least the characters and the still in
(05:00):
show Sweet watch Antonio, another friend of Trent's and quarterback
for the football team. He flips through a scrap book
and there's just something really sweet about this, like burly
football player having made or at least kept yeah, and
occasionally flipping through a scrap book like that I don't know,
(05:23):
it was sweet, like it kind of made him feel
like sentimental in a way that you often don't associate
with somebody who's high level football player in college. Right,
Like it's a little like a little sweetness and nostalgic
that maybe I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have even if
(05:44):
he'd been that way, I wouldn't have really expected him
to pull it out and bring it on the show.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, right, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
It felt very It felt very nostalgic across the board,
because not only is he being nostalgic, but seeing that
kind of thing made.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Me nostyalidic because that's.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Like, oh, yeah, that's what we did. Huh yeah, well yeah,
early nineties, he made scamp books.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
You had to print out your pictures.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Uh huh, that's right, and you like wrote stuff down
so you would remember, right, right exactly. Yeah, My son
walked through the room pretty early on and they're like
talking about, you know, Trent was shot, and he said,
they don't sound like friends, like why. It was just
(06:38):
the part where it was at where everybody was like
nervous to be on campus and they weren't sure who
they could trust and all this stuff and it's like
they don't sound like friends, like well, yeah, I mean
for a.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Hot second they even said it, yeah, right right after
they kind of almost weren't because.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
They did have a lot of suspicion, you know, because
you're so confused.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So, man, summer campus does have a very different vibe.
I don't know if you ever took summer classes, Yeah,
I did too, And they're so right that summer classes are, like,
it's so different on campus.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
They're so dead.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
It's dead. There's not many people there. You can always
get a study room at the library, you know, I
mean there's like you don't really even need a study room.
There's not like a bunch of people around to come
and bother. You just sit down at the table and
do your work or your own place.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Is like it's not happened.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, yeah, Like so the summer I stayed, I was
in my apartment. Everybody else went homes, just me in
my apartment, so I could do my work and study
right at home.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
But during the year.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Sometimes you know, even in my door closed in my room,
at my desk.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
It was still like so much stuff going on, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And yeah, but summer that's probably that when I felt
actually the most at home though, because it really.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Was my place. It was calm.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
It was like huh yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And then when people came back, I was like.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Oh great, yeah, all these people in baiting my space,
you suddenly have this like ownership of it too, which
is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, but then you're like, oh yeah, okay, thanks, Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Oh this is the way it's supposed to be. I
just got used to it being a little quieter. Yes,
So the dude said they pregamed before going to a
quote unquote youth club.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I was like, I don't even know what a youth
club is.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
They meant I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Either, but it's like, I'm like, they serve alcohol at
a youth club. The I even I tried to look
it up. I tried to see, like when it's a
youth club.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
My guess was that it's a club that admits under
twenty one probably right, like.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Right, like they cater to the college crowd. They serve alcohol,
but there, but you can go if you're under twenty one.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Right, That's what I That's what I heard, Like, that's
what I assumed anywhere.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, yeah, but I guess that maybe that's a common
term on the University of Kentucky campus, but it's not
anything I've heard, and I tried to look it up
and it doesn't seem to be like common.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
No, I didn't think, so I kind of had to
just translate based on context.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, but yeah, I had not ever heard that term.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Okay, okay, yeah, So it's not just me, No, it's
not just there were a few guns on the chaotic scene,
and I'm like, maybe a little gun safety would have been, uh,
you know, help clear things up a little bit, because
you know, then they did have to take one of
these weapons away for forensic testing because it didn't it
(09:56):
was missing a bullet and nobody could say whether it
had been there or not. And I'm like, oh, it
makes it a little cloudier that they had weapons on
the scene, because you know, you want to Akham's razor
this thing. The most likely scenario is probably the one
(10:17):
that happened, but also that can keep people from following alternatives.
A couple of Trent's friends are kind of reminiscing about him,
and I really appreciated that they did not just focus
on the way he died. They have a lot of
good memories that are not tied to the way he died.
(10:41):
That's not the only way that they think of him,
which he is really sweet. A public tip line was
opened and they got comments that Trent's best friends since
first grade looked suspicious. Yeah, looks suspicious. And I'm like, okay, Well,
first of all, most frig guys look a little suspicious.
(11:02):
And photos, I mean, you know, you see they put
these photos out and they've been drinking, and you know,
they just get that look. And yeah, everybody looks suspicious
when they've been drinking. And then I was like, oh,
but Matt, this best friend hasn't been a talking head
(11:22):
on this yet, I know, I know. Then he comes
it's fine, But a woman Amy comes forward years after
the fact and says an old boyfriend confessed killing Trent.
First of all, do you believe that kind of story
is the girlfriend? Second of all, whether you believe that
(11:44):
he's telling the truth or not, this is a huge
red flag yes. And third, I was like, I can
only imagine what it took for her to hold things together. Oh,
I know when he says this, whether it's true or not,
like you have as a woman, you gotta hold it together.
You can't look like you're gonna rat him out or
(12:06):
be freaked out by this because you could be next. Yeah,
if it's true or if it's not true.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Uh huh, either way, red flag, red flag.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah. So this show shares a title with a made
for TV movie from nineteen ninety two, A Killer among Friends,
aired in December of nineteen ninety two. It starred Patty
Duke as the mother of Jenny Monroe played by Tiffany Ambertheeson.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
No, I think I saw this movie.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Oh really, I do. Okay, I feel like I watched
this movie. Okay, I don't think that I did. And
it looks like the story for that is gonna be
episode number three of this show, so I'll be interested
to see that. But that movie was based on the
death of Michelle Missy Avela her best friends Karen and Laura.
(13:10):
They'd all been friends since they were kids, and they
got jealous because Missy was popular and cute and she
was spending a little less time with her girlfriends a
little more time with boys because you know.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
She was boy crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, I mean, she was a teenager and that's what
you did in nineteen eighty five, and she went missing
in early October nineteen eighty five, she went said she
went out with her friend Laura, and then Laura called
her mom later asking for Missy and her mom's like,
(13:48):
I thought she was with you. They found her body
a few days later, and foul play was suspected. Karen
and Laura went to her funeral and gave Missy's mom
a card like a sympathy card, and played the whole part.
And Karen evidently moved in with Missy's mom for a
(14:13):
while and kind of helped her deal with the loss.
And then evidently Karen and Laura had confessed to somebody
else who then came forward to the police. So it
was nineteen ninety before they were charged. Ridiculous five years,
four and a half years they were charged. They were
(14:34):
both found guilty not a first degree murder, which is
their initial charge, but second degree murder because the jury
said that they weren't convinced that when they took Missy
to the woods that they planned to kill her. They
think it just happened. But when Karen got out of prison,
(14:59):
she just I did. She was going to write a
memoir and try and get a film deal, and Missy's
family had to sue her in twenty fifteen to keep
her from doing this, but it got Missy's Law in
California past, so that if somebody is working with a
(15:22):
criminal about their story, victims families have to be notified. Yeah,
so you should not be able to make money off
of your crimes.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
No, you really should not know.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
You know a little resources. So traumatic grief is prolonged
severe grief symptoms. That's called complicated or traumatic grief. It's
a little more likely to happen in a very tragic
sort of circumstance because when you have a long illness
(16:01):
or you know you know something's going to happen, you
kind of have what's called anticipatory grief. You don't have
the chance to do any of that beforehand. There are
some things that people who have lost a family member
to homicide have to deal with that's a little unusual,
(16:22):
not only like a sudden passing, but they can feel isolated.
There might be some stigma attached to depending on how
the violent death occurred, and that can be isolating. Then
there's the you have to deal with the police, and
you know, the dealings with the coroner's office are going
(16:45):
to be more complicated. The media, you know, if it's
a high profile case, even just in your area, you
know that media can be pretty intense in wanting statements
from you. Not everybody has the resources in order to
be able to hire a pr to help with that
(17:05):
kind of stuff. And then you know, dealing with the
criminal justice system. All of these things are really challenging,
but you can get help. You can obviously tak to
a counselor one on one, but if you can't afford that,
or you need a less intense focus on yourself, you
(17:25):
need to maybe to hear about other people's things. There
are groups that you can join. Grief Share dot org
has a searchable database for both in person and online,
and they're for grief support groups that's primarily for people
who've lost a spouse or a parent. Compassionatefriends dot org
(17:47):
can help with the loss of a child or sibling
and they're mostly online moderated chat room meetups. There are
some in person in the Chicago area. They don't have
a lot of in person on outside of that area,
but the you know, griefshare dot org and Compassionatefriends dot
org or a couple places where you can get a
(18:08):
little help if you're struggling. I hope that nobody is.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
But you know, unfortunately, we know somebody is. Yeah that
grief Share is a good group. It's a good program.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Oh good.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
So here's how it works. Christie erects her search history.
Hey an essay.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
We promise it's nothing more nefarious than a podcast to
find out what's true some of the psychological motivations behind
the characters actions and real life applications that relate to
our topic. I have no idea what Christy decided to
look up could be the same thing that captured my
curiosity or something I never thought of.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Is it true? I mean, like we assume that people
are telling the truth.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Is the true story?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah? Yeah? Huh. But one of the girls, I think
Robin says that they were doing what college students do
and drinking, and I was, like, do college kids drink
at the same rate as they did? Then?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
I think that No. I think it's gone down.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It has. You're correct that in nineteen eighty ninety percent
over ninety percent of students said that they drank heavily
and regularly, and now it's about seventy six percent. Okay,
it's gone down quite a bit, and there's a lot
of different when you parse it out, it's like, what
(19:39):
is binge drinking? And binge drinking's gone down, but still
a lot of people do drink. And women are more
likely to have used alcohol in the past two weeks
but are less likely to have binge drink.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Right, So yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And I guess if you parse out like that also
the demographic, because you know, they were talking about sorority.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Like you know, fra tarnity parties like okay.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
But not everybody's in the Greek system right outside of
the Greek system.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
How often is it versus inside?
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Right? That kind of well, right, and like the Greeks,
you can be outside the Greek system but also participate
in the parties, parties or fundraisers, and so that's the
whole thing. And how much does it influence the culture?
And college students do tend to drink more than their
(20:34):
non college counterparts, right, so, but it's not a huge
difference statistically, but it is the difference. So I wanted
to know a little bit more about Trent. Okay, so
there is a foundation which we're going to talk about
more later, but they do have some information about him.
(20:56):
He was an offensive lineman for the University of Kentucky.
He played in the Beach Bowl. Uh huh. Good for him.
And he was a good student too. He was earned
a spot on the nineteen ninety three Southeastern Conference All
Academic Team, which requires you to have a GPA of
(21:19):
three point zero or better. So he was, you know,
doing football and working hard.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, he sounded like a good person.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah, so Trent was a walk on football player, which
I didn't know what that meant. I'm sure you know
what that meant. Okay, So if you don't know, to
your listener, it basically means that you finish up high
school and you don't have a college scholarship waiting for you,
(21:48):
and you go to college and try out for the team.
So you may play on a college team, but you're
not doing so because you have a scholarship.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
You weren't recruited, right.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yes, And there are reasons why you might not have
been recruited. If you go to a small school. You
might not get the kind of exposure that's needed to
be recruited, or you maybe developed physically, or you get
offers from schools but not the one you actually want
to go to, which happens, but that doesn't mean that
(22:24):
it's not something you can't do or couldn't do. Get there.
In a second, Coaches typically really like walk ons. They
tend to work really really hard, they prove themselves right,
they've proven themselves. They really want to be there. It
can be difficult to ever end up with a scholarship
position as a walk on, though, because coaches tend to
(22:50):
believe that they made a good choice offering scholarships to
people out of high school, and so they don't like
to be wrong saying I didn't recruit you. These people
are getting paid to be here and you're not. I'm
going to play them because they're getting paid. But you
can find a lot of community and stuff that way. However,
(23:13):
the NCUBA just in December of twenty twenty four changed
things up so there's revenue sharing and that CAP's football
rosters at one hundred and five players, and that means
all one hundred and five players are eligible for scholarships
instead of how it was previously, which was eighty five
(23:34):
players could receive scholarships. So they believe that it's going
to kind of end the walk on player options, which
is a little sad for kids who especially if you
went to a small school but you did a good job,
you're good enough to play, you'd like to play? Yeah,
(23:55):
I could, it could.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I mean there's maybe ways around that, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
But right, well, I've read you know, walk on players
often will get used as the practice team. Yeah, right,
so maybe those are positions they don't and.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
If somebody transfers, you know, somebody goes and puts themselves
in the portal, there might be an opening.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Right, No, and you know those kind of things might happen,
but it might be.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Less right, right, so we know. Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity
is real. How big is it? Is it big?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Fairly big? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, it is big. It is big. Sigma Alpha Epsilon
is one of the country's oldest and largest fraternities that
was founded in eighteen fifty six at the University of Alabama.
They have three hundred and fifty thousand brothers so past
and present members and over two hundred and twenty chapters.
(24:54):
They do focus on things like friendship, scholarship, leadership, and service.
They're really trying to help these young men be their
best selves, and to that end, they have eliminated most
of the pledging process, so where a lot of abuse
and things tended to be pretty rampant previously. They basically
(25:19):
ended that and they still have beer, but they banned
hard alcohol from all other events. So does football serve
the same function as a fraternity.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I mean in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, yes. And typically at particularly Division one schools, coaches
are going to say, you, we don't like you to
be involved in greek life because the team should be
your quote unquote fraternity, right, And that's just it, Like,
there is this whole idea there was I read reddit
(25:56):
posts about like how do we recruit more football players?
Are like, it's hard. It's hard to recruit football players
unless your fraternity is specifically geared towards athletes, right, then
it's not. Typically you don't have time for it.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
You don't have time for it.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
There are other organizations also that work around the sports,
you know, kind of space that would allow them to
have a membership in something but also play ball, right
you know, I think of like Fellowship of Christian Athletes
and things like.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
That, but that travels with them.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
You know, Greek life is on campus, you know, and
you can't do that when you're gone all the time.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Right, exactly, So, especially for the most competitive the Bowl,
the schools that are involved in Bowl games and things
like that, they really want the team to be that
close knit. Yes, that want you spreading that out anywhere.
So yes, it makes sense that Trent wouldn't have been that.
(27:01):
He was only kind of tertiarily involved in Greek life, right,
like his buddies who didn't play.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Ball were we're.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
In Greek life, but he was not. But he also
went to the parties because his bff was in SAE. Yeah. Yeah,
So Robin, Trent's friend said that the TV show Friends
was goals. How realistic is friendships as we see in Friends?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
I mean, is it hashtag goals? Sure?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Uh huh yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Does it happen that way?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Not usually, But people.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Do tend to have a small especially when you're younger,
A smaller a group a group, and if you can
stay in the same area and the same vicinity, you know,
you might continue to grow out of that.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
But you know, so Vox had an article Friends and
the illusion of the perfect dull friendships. Yeah, and they
call them adults, they call him well, right.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
I mean we have to remember, like we think of
them as being friends, like we think of them as
being these adults. They were so young, and they were.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Supposed to be like they were supposed to like be
just on their own, like right, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, they're like pretty newly out of college. They've been
out of college three to five years, probably Max Max, right, yeah,
I mean Ross at the beginning of the show would
have probably just barely been out of school because he
had his PhD. Yeah. Yes. This Vox article basically calls
(28:40):
that the cruel lie of friends and that friendships don't
operate like that at really ever hardly.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Okay, so what do they mean by operate Like.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Let's see, they're not just challenging to create and maintain.
Some evidence suggests that they're also in the decline line
that Americans today have increasingly busy live. As members of
our friend group grow into their careers and relationships, incomes
and schedules start to vary. People move away for new
(29:12):
jobs or to be closer to family. Distance and time
become barriers in a way that they weren't when everyone
was young, single and devoted to their found families. And
they like have other shows that they talk about how
they reinforce this fantasy that true friendships should be deeply
close but require no real effort to maintain.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Okay, I'm okay, I'm gonna be the I'm going to
be a troll.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I think that they're like there there, there's just stirring
up stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
It's clickbait. Oh okay, sorry to the author.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Clickbait because if you watched Friends, there's a fight between
them every time that it's not like it they are
just effortlessly friends. They fought, They literally got in physical fights.
Phoebe had to break up Rachel, like, you know, they
like had serious problems sometimes.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
So I don't know that I would call it effortless, Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I think that what they mean more is the proximity
that we see is seems effortless because like there's a
lot of like mornings when like people are just in
Monica's apartment before work, but you know, they just show
up there like it's no big deal, right, But to
actually get to get up, get ready for work, go
(30:37):
to somebody else's apartment before you go to work, that's
a lot more effort than it's portrayed on the show.
All Right, So all.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Right, here's my here's my thought about that. I hear you,
I hear you. I'm going to be I'm going to be.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
I don't know what do you call this? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, yeah, the devil's advocate, our contrary or your skeptically
in contrarian.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Opposition all today. Okay, So here's my thought. They're not wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So if I'm thinking about it really based on research
and what we know, we know we're in an epidemic
of loneliness, uh huh.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
We know that people are moving away, right.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
We also know that, like in this case, they were
super young, right, and at the end of the show
they did that.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, so like it wasn't that unusual.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But the people in her apartment, Ross was the only
one that lived didn't live right there, but he lived
across the street.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Eventually, yeah, but like within like within time, you know.
But then also.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Chandler and jo Joey across the hall, right, Phoebe doesn't
really have a job, yeah, and Rachel lives there. So
I'm like, I'm thinking, also, it used to be a
nine to five. That's also fair, and it's not anymore.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah. Now now it's all the time.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
It's all the time.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
But also, like Chandler and Ross were the only ones
that had normal, like nine to five jobs.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Right, I mean Rachel did eventually, she.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Did, eventually, she did eventually, but she also lived there
and lived across the hall or.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Also worked on the first floor of their apartment basically
like they basically lived above Central per.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Exactly, some kind of like they're not wrong about the proximity,
but I almost think that the issue is that they
are not taking into account the difference between urban life.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And suburban life.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
That's fair, and I'm like, if you're an urban life,
it's a little different, right, I don't know, Yeah, but that.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Does mean but they're not wrong.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I think that, like, especially as we became more suburban,
that did become harder, right right.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Well, I mean friends couldn't have worked really in any
other city other than New York, right, maybe London, Boston,
maybe Atlanta, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I mean anywhere that had good mass trands, right and
was walkable.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Sure, so maybe a handful of cities, right yeah, maybe.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right, but definitely definitely the best. Yeah, New York the best.
Definitely not Los Angeles, No, No, it's a lot more effort,
right yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Right, Well, they're not wrong about New York City.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Also like that point, the rent control made it possible
to be living in a place that they were able
to be so proximity, because otherwise they wouldn't have been afforded.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Right, So the commute to work would have been.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yes, right, or it could have been or right like
Monica's rent control department can have been centrally enough located
to be on the way to work.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Right exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
So, Yeah, New York makes it much easier, right, I
think urban life makes it easier. But the pandemic of
loneliness right now, because of everything they mentioned, the schedules
that we have the need to move away for jobs
has broken families, not just found families, but like families.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Right, The idea that you you have to cast a
net outside of your own hometown right in order to
have a job is harder now.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, I know it's hard to begin with to have
friends as adults.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah. They did say that dramas like Scandal, How to
Get Away with Murder Being Mary Jane, that people complain
that some of these characters have no friends at all,
But that's maybe a little like actually more reflective of
the way people are living. Those are also all newer
(34:36):
shows too, and that makes a difference, I think. But
they did point out that friends was sort of the
impetus to look at female friendships in a different way.
You know, they're really they were girls girls, right, Yeah.
They weren't cat fighting, they weren't arguing over the same dude.
Mostly there was occasionally like really, yeah, like the guy
(35:00):
they got hit on the subway, yeah while you were
sleeping dude. Yes, yeah, And they tend to be really
supportive and you know so, but it's not realistic for
most people. Though. If that's your goal and what you
(35:21):
work towards, maybe you'll work towards having those kinds of
relationships a little better. Well.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
And it's interesting because I guess my last my last
contrarian thoughts about it is those actors were absolutely those friends, sure,
and they developed and chose those friendships after they began
the show, and they have retained those.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Friendships for yeah, thirty years.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Right, And I'm like, so maybe hashtag goals, Yeah yeah, Okay,
I don't know, poor Chandler.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Poor I know, I know Matthew Perry. Was it just
a gym? Yeah? All right, So the dudes were questioned
by police, which I was like, this suth I forgot
to put in thoughts. I skipped right over it. But
I was like, they were all questioned on the scene,
which makes sense, and then they took some of them
(36:18):
down to the station and I'm like, this shore probably
should have gotten attorneys.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Because holy crappy.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I mean yes.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
But also they said that there was an interrogation technique
where they asked them the same questions over. Is that common? Yeah, yeah,
it is. So it's typically associated with what's called the
read technique, where basically they have nine steps that are
(36:49):
designed to elicit confessions, and most of the steps involve
different ways of present and asking information. You do it
over and over and over to see if their story changes. Yeah.
There are some critics of this particular technique because it
(37:10):
requires the officers to discern when someone's lying, but it
doesn't really offer any kind of training to help anybody
determine what if it's lying or not. There's not. The
read technique teaches this technique about how to question people
(37:32):
and says you should discern when they're lying, but doesn't
tell you oh, here are the yeah, the body language
or red flags or you know, things that might And
this could be because they're lying, or it could be
because they're nervous.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Well, and that's I think that's probably another curtesique of
it is that like memory is malleable, and they start
this so quickly after everything's happened, that the person is
still actually processing the memory itself. Uh huh, So it's
easy to actually then influence.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yes, and the read technique tends to end up with
a lot of false confessions. So yeah, yeah, there we go. Thankfully,
these young men, despite the fact that it was very
late and they've been drinking. Uh, nobody falsely confessed.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yes, thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I think in their case, sadly, they were so confused, yeah,
that it was clear.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
They yeah, that they didn't know what was They don't
know what happened. They didn't do it there, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
And they're scared.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Uh huh right, like yeah right. All the sources that
we use to inform our discussion here on Killer Fun
Podcast can be found on our social media. Join us
on Facebook at Killer Fun Podcast, exploring the inner section
of crime and entertainment. You can find us on Twitter
at killer Funpod, or you can send us an email
(39:06):
at Killerfunpodcast at gmail dot com and I'd be happy
to share a link to whatever information you're looking for.
We love to hear from you. You might learn a
little something too, psychology break all right, So I said
we were going to talk about trust. Yeah, okay, trust
We need it. We need trust. It lays the groundwork
(39:28):
for all of our social interactions. It's the cornerstone of
any social relationship, not just romantic but every friend group,
every work relationship you have. There's a certain amount of trust.
It requires a degree of vulnerability, and it takes a discernment,
(39:48):
Like you will trust people, but you have to discern
whether they're worthy of your trust. But there's a certain
amount of trust that's kind of inherent in just having society.
You have to trust that you're going to walk down
the street and somebody's not going to attack you with
a hammer. Right. You have to assume that the barista
(40:09):
is not poisoning your coffee. Right. There's a certain level
of trust, so much so that we're hardwired for it.
We are.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
We're absolutely hard.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah that Psychology today has an article are we hardwired
for trust? And we are because before there was you know, cities, governments,
even language, We had to rely on one another, right,
and that if you were too suspicious, it left you
(40:39):
isolated and vulnerable. But and we actually have evolutionarily a
decent radar for this kind of stuff. Who's trustworthy? That's
why you get the ick, right, you know, if somebody
is not trustworthy, you kind of get the ick. And
but as our societies grew, we did have to extend
(41:04):
that trust out a little bit. Yeah, we had to
trust that traders were going to not you know, cause
damage er, that the goods that they brought were what
they said they were. And unfortunately, you know, that means
some people are going to manipulate it, which is unfortunate.
So the ambulance got to the house pretty quickly, within
(41:27):
ten minutes. Yeah, maybe less. They were so unsure of
the time, but they called nine to one one pretty
much right away. They were there pretty quickly, and they
even said, we know they got there fast, but it
felt like a long time. Oh yeah. So Scientific American
has an article by Steve Taylor why time slows when
(41:50):
You're in danger, And I thought this was just so
interesting because we don't actually know why. He calls them
time expansive time expansion experiences. It's a little bit of
a mystery there are some theories. This guy, Steve thinks
(42:10):
that it's variations in our information processing, right that the
more information you have to process, the slower time seems
to pass. So that's why people will say, oh, they
felt like they had a lot of time to react
(42:30):
in certain situations that were life threatening. They felt like
they had more time to think about it, even though
the same amount of time was passing and the newness
of a situation. That's why time passes really slowly for kids,
because everything's new, and so they're processing a lot of
stuff all the time. And as we get older, we're
(42:51):
processing things that we already understand.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Yeah, we're chunking a little bit more, right.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
He also mentions that it's common in sports that these
kinds of you know, they're aggressive or highly unique experiences,
so you feel like you have a little more time
to Yeah, so these guys necessarily, like this would have
been an acute experience, but not necessarily something they'd never
(43:21):
experienced before, right, Like, we're all football players, so they
might have experienced this in a sort of these time
expansion experiences previously, but not to maybe this degree. Yeah,
there is a theory that nor adrenaline can help us
(43:44):
process these emergency situations. But a lot of people tend
to feel calm, which would be uh not really congruent
with that.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
So well, So, like I mean, the mechanism here is
fiderflight okay, right, your sympathetic nervous system, it goes into effects. Right,
So like you talk about the nor adrenaline, right, do
you have adrenaline and cortisol and all of those things,
And lots of things happen when we go into fight
or flight.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
One of the things that happens is, for instance.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Our our vision becomes weirdly more focused and broader. Okay, okay,
So like you, your pupils dilate. You end up being
able to see a lot more, but your attention narrows
so that your information processing is processing more of your
(44:37):
peripheral while you are also attending your attention to the
threat the issue in.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Front of you.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Your heart is beating a lot faster, and your breath
is different, and the coursing hormones and neurotransmitters that are
happening allow your brain to.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Focus on information.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
In a different way.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
This, I think that's the mechanism for this. Time slows
down because you really are time slows down because you
are processing more information in a time frame that would
take you typically longer, okay, right, And so that's why
it feels like it's forever. Also, fear, fear is so paralyzing,
they're they're scared for their friend, and you're just like
(45:21):
get there, get there, get there, get there.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
It feels like forever because it's just not fast enough
for what you need. Right, And so there's there's a
little bit of it that's like that.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
So like in a sports scenario, right where.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
You're focused and all that you're it's not it is
a type of fight or flight because you're attending to it.
You're because you actually trained yourself for that moment, right.
So you you do, you end up seeing more and
hearing more and focusing more, and so it can feel
like a long time.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
But in a fear situation, there's that double thing going on.
Not only are you laser focused, but also more broadly focused,
processing in for me differently and moving fast.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Okay, So you might still actually be afraid, but you
might be able to handle it better because of right,
it's increased.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
It depends on your reception, okay, right, because yeah, if
you fight or you flight, right, like the idea, And
so you might be calm because you're attending.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
To the threat, right, so you're afraid for your friend.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
But in that case, nothing is ever going to be
fast enough. So it's going to feel like they were forever,
right even though they got there pretty quickly, what you
needed was five minutes ago, right, So that there's that
kind of ideal. But then, yeah, so fight or flight,
these hormones can make you calmer. It's not necessarily that
(46:45):
you're calmer, it's that you're focused and so.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
You can deal with it.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Yeah, And he mentions that too, that it's aid an
altered state of consciousness. It's so disruptive from our typical
brain process ease that he calls it super absorption. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah, I mean it's like when we dream, you know, Okay,
like oh my gosh, an inception right where they're talking
about the fact that in the dream, like you can
a year is only a minute or whatever, like I
don't know where, but anyways, the point is we do
actually dream entire entire like time sequences in.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
A matter of seconds.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Right right in that situation, the same thing is happening,
So it's going to feel like time expansion, because in
a regular state of consciousness, it would take twice as
long for all that to happen for you to process
that amount of information, right.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah, Yeah, it's interesting though. Our brains are like, it's
so interesting when it's so different, you know, we have
a one way that we experience the world. Yeah, and
then in these times of crisis often we experience it
in a completely different way. I think the Friend group
(47:59):
maybe romantics sized trans memory just a little bit. They
did even say, right like, I think it was friend
Peyton who said, I'm trying to remember if we're romanticize
or if we're putting him on a pedestal. And you know,
I don't think we are. I think he was really great.
(48:19):
I'm like, well, he might have really been a great person. Yeah,
you're also putting him on a postal a little bit.
And this is a thing we tend to do. Open
to Hope dot Com as an article, don't turn the
deceased person into a perfect person. That and it can
be really hard for us because we remember only the
(48:42):
good parts. So, particularly if you've lost a spouse, if
they suddenly become the perfect spouse, you may never be
able to move on, because all you think about is
the all the good times, and nobody can ever live
up to that, and it can be hard for children
and if they are if they've lost a sibling, and
(49:03):
the parents only remember all of the good things and
don't remember any of the harder times, then it can
be hard for the surviving children to live up to
an unrealistic expectation of perfection which their sibling was only
able to attain after their death.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
There's a Golden Girls episode.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah, is so Rose was dating Miles, right, and she
had gotten bored, and so she was romanticizing Charlie, her
husband who had passed, and how awesome he was and
there was always this adventure in all these great times.
And then because of that, she gets Miles into the
(49:47):
skydiving situation, and then right at the last moment, she admits, well,
he never really actually jumped what And so Miles had
to say, don't you see, you're comparing me to somebody
who is who is perfect and also much younger. It
doesn't even exist though, yeah, he never even exists, and
(50:10):
he was much younger, So like, yeah, the whole I
have the whole episode about that.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
That's very fun and they suggest in this article to
remember their flaws in a humorous way, like, you know, oh,
this is what made them quirky, this is what made them,
you know, recognize that it's there. But also you don't
have to do it in a way that's degrading, because
that's why a lot of people don't want to like
(50:37):
remember anything bad. They don't want to put down the deceased.
They don't want to speak ill of the dead. It's
not speaking ill of the dead, it's speaking honestly about them, right,
And you know that's fine. You're allowed to do that,
all right, real life. Oh all right, we're going to
talk about the end of the show. Okay, so how
(50:58):
things turn out. So if you I mean, it's a
forty five minute show, it's fine, just watch it. But also, yeah,
Amy Lloyd came forward saying that an ex had confessed
to her, so she I get it was about a
year after Trent was murdered that she heard this confession.
(51:22):
She was dating this man, Shane Ragland, and didn't want
to believe it. Yeah, and you know, was kind of like, oh,
he's just trying to do this to impress me. Whatever.
It's a big red flag on the fifth anniversary of
Trent's death, she reads an article that quotes Trent's father,
(51:43):
Mike Deguiro, and where he says, to anybody who knows anything,
please come forward. Somebody knows something. She reads the article
is reminded that she'd heard about this. This is all
these things match up to what he said. Maybe she
should tell somebody good for her? Yes, yeah, I mean
(52:06):
she'd moved away, but had you can tell this is
pre nine to eleven because he met her at an
airport bar right like, she was like, I have a
layover in Lexington, come meet me, and wore a wire
and sort of got him to confess. Yeah, Like he
didn't exactly say it, but this is what they a
(52:30):
lot of what they were able to use a trial.
It was enough what he said was damning enough to
be able to get a warrant and they found what
they believed to be the murder weapon. Now, Amy was
so afraid that she completely changed her identity and that
(52:50):
is why when they had an appeal later she did
not appear. So she had appeared at the first trial,
but she was very, very afraid. Shane's dad was rich,
he had a lot of money, and she was very
afraid that he was going to come back and harm her,
so she completely changed her identity, and so he ended
(53:11):
up being released on time served for a lesser charge
later on, which was like, yeah, it's really lighting.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
We'll get there, good, good, good good.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
So his appeal was had a lot to do with
a particular firearms and ballistics expert called Arthur p Alpin.
He does have some points I did, I'll okay he uh.
He said that the so called ballistics fingerprinting of the
(53:47):
death bullet against six fired bullets from the alleged death
rifle was only a partial match in a single groove
of all six bullets fired, okay. And he found that
the lab technician for the prosecution who had done this
testing didn't have a degree or any formal training. The
(54:10):
judge was a booster of the football team for the
University of Kentucky and didn't recuse himself. So there was
a few little like things and a lot of this
guy Arthur's conclusions were excluded by the judge in the
first trial, and so that's how when they came around
(54:31):
to the second trial without Amy there to testify, that's
how all this ended up. He writes, this whole thing
on his own website where he's talking about this case,
and like, basically I don't think it was like whatever,
this guy will get there, But I thought it was
really funny because he ends this whole article, this whole
(54:54):
diatribe two pages of stuff about how like basically the
forensics were botched to the original trial and all this stuff,
and he ends it with mister Ragland's father has yet
to pay my invoice.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
I'm like, okay, I don't know why I found that
really funny. I'm like, oh, you're like defending this guy
and yet you have not been paid for your testimony.
I mean, okay, Okay. Anyway, I got to that part
of it and I laughed out loud. Shane's release from
(55:34):
prison and his violent run ins though, Oh no, I
guess I know. So in twenty fourteen, actually, in twenty twelve,
Shane moved in with a girlfriend named Christy after an
automobile accident where he was driving too late and perhaps
(55:55):
inebriated and had a car accident, ended up in a wheelchair, right,
so he moved in with her. Well. In twenty fourteen,
police respond to a disturbance at their house because Christy
had asked Shane to move out and he got violent,
and so they issued a protective order for her to
(56:18):
get him out of the house that he had been
physically and verbally abusing her since February. This was in
December when this happened, so he'd been nasty to her
for months and months. And then they basically dropped it
because Christie said, I didn't mean for them to do
(56:41):
a protective order. I want him to move back in
with me, because this is what abused people do, yep, right,
is they go back and forth. So evidently they broke
up at some point because then Shane was no longer
living with Christy. He's living with his mom, and in
(57:07):
twenty twenty four he's charged with terroristic threats and assault
because he's been hitting his mom and threatening to run
her over with his wheelchair. Oh my god, and then
he actually does, and so she calls police and that
(57:30):
she's been She says that he's been threatening to murder
her for months, and they show up. The police show
up and find her with bruising consistent with being run
over by his wheelchair. She calls a friend to help
her get in the house. He does the same thing
to this friend, and he finally there's video of him
(57:53):
yelling that if he could get to his gun, he'd
shoot this friend, his mom's friend, in the head. He's
not a good dude. And they did end up releasing
him after his dad paid his bond, but he couldn't
go back to his mom's house. I don't know what
happened with that, so I've been trying to find like,
(58:15):
did he was he charged? Like, I mean, he was
like charged with this stuff, but that doesn't necessarily mean
that you're going to trial. I don't know what happened
to him, but yeah, goodness, he's not a great guy.
And Mike Degiro. Every time Old Shane ends up in
(58:35):
the spotlight, he gets called what do you think? And
I was really proud of him. He is like, this
is no surprise to me. He perpetuates these kinds of crimes,
but he uses every opportunity to promote donations to the
foundation for his son. So they have a annual like
(58:59):
a raffle where they raffle off whiskey. It's cute Kentucky bourbon.
Yeah right, it's sweet. They do the and they give
a lot of scholarships, so they do a scholarship awarded
to a University of Kentucky walk on football player so
that other walk on football players can get a scholarship.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
Yep. And they also help the students from the little
county Oldham County in Kentucky where Trent played football because
he wasn't recruited. They give a scholarship to a senior
who's graduating from there to go and pursue their dreams.
So yeah, nice. So I was like, oh, that's a
(59:43):
good way to like, you're getting asked about this, Yes,
why not promote promote the thing that you know. It's
a shame that he is troubled. We're sorry to hear it,
we are not surprised to hear it. And by the way,
his victim was our son, and you can actually help somebody.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Yeah, I love it too. It's good approach. Next time,
next time. So. Eric Banna is a National Park Service
investigator in Yosemite. In the Netflix limited series Untamed, there's
a murder in the park and I don't think it's
a bear and.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
It doesn't have to do with cocaine, No, not that
I know of.
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Who knows.
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Thank you so much for listening. We know you make
a choice when you listen to this. We don't just
come on the radio. You make a choice to download
us and put us in your ear. Please rate and
review wherever you get podcasts, and tell a friend it's
a lot more fun and you can listen with a friend
until next time. Be safe, be kind, and wash your hands.
Welcome back to Killer Fun, where we explore the intersection
of crime and entertainment every other week. I'm Christie and
I'm Jackie.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
One hair kept poking and I'm like, whye why I started?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And then you got this like panic.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Oh my god, I'm done.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm keep trying to do this to get it out
of my face and I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Okay, you breathe. Today, today we are talking about a
killer among Friends, Season one, episode one, Killer on Campus.
Trust is tricky. Oh, We're gonna talk a lot about trust,
Like yeah, because you know, we kind of need it
(00:54):
what we do, and yet it can be exploited.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, okay, Jennifer love you at a great statement, Okay,
And I think it sums it up in a way.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
You can trust your friends, but I won't.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And I kind of love that because I'm like, also,
we need the other people who don't have that trust
to help us kind of sort through.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Maybe a little right, you know what I mean, keep
our eyes open.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We need somebody to be distrustful of the people we
trust so that we can have an accurate view as
to whether they deserve our trust or not. Yes, I
loved it.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I thought it was like great.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Uh huh. Yeah, speaking of Jennifer love Hewitt, there's not
really a cast for this because it's the people who
were involved and like all the reenactments are, you can't
identify anybody, but Jennifer lovehught is a producer and she
does voiceover work. As far as part of this, it's
going to be six episodes to start. We'll see if
(01:53):
there are more.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I love this because I think it's like just the
bite size, it's perfect, right, Like you and I were chatting,
really happy. This is not a docuseries about one of
these stories. Yes, I need one, it's one episode and
that is sufficient efficient.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Uh huh, that's right. And there's been lots of episodes
about this story on other shows, lots of them. Yeah.
I mean, I mean it's thirty over thirty years old,
this case now, so and there's a lot to it,
but not so much that you really need six episodes
about it, or even three episodes about it. It's not
(02:33):
that twisty.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
It's not that twisty.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I mean, there are some twists that they could have covered,
but I don't think that they really are all that necessary.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
No, see my issue with some of those limited series
is that they they really exaggerate sort of like the
basic investigative process, like, oh, we're going to investigate and
ask a question, and is this is this the right weapon?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Uh huh?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Right, but they a docuseries might spend a whole episode
on this weapon just to give the like the drop
at the end, like and the results came back it
was the next episode, right, wasn't the gun? So I'm like, no,
you don't need to draw it out because I like
the fact that we actually just heard from the people
about their relationships and you know, how it affected them
(03:22):
and you know, like the human aspects for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yes, I agree. All right, let's briefly recap Okay athletes,
fraternity dudes, sorority gals, a few other summer school students
gathered to celebrate Trent de Jiro's upcoming twenty first birthday
the wee hours of July seventeenth, nineteen ninety four, Bring
Everything Butt Revelry. Trent, who had been sitting on the
(03:49):
front porch of his house near the University of Kentucky campus,
was shot. Even those sitting near him on the outdoor
area have no idea idea what happened. They don't even
know where the shot came from. The case goes unsolved
for years until someone claims that they heard a confession.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Nice, well done, thoughts, well done, thoughts hit me so.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Sean, the friend of Trent who was sitting right next
to him when he was shot, said he hadn't been
back to the house since it happened. But then he
talks about the blood being left on the porch after
the fact, and it initially made me suspicious, but then
I was like, really, what he means he hasn't been
back since like that summer.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Right, like since he actually just left, right.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, So okay, I will, I
will reign in my suspicion. But I go into this
like suspicious. I'm like, he's here talking, but that does
not necessarily mean he's not suspicious. Right, Everything is distrustful,
you are, at least the characters and the still in
(05:00):
show Sweet watch Antonio, another friend of Trent's and quarterback
for the football team. He flips through a scrap book
and there's just something really sweet about this, like burly
football player having made or at least kept yeah, and
occasionally flipping through a scrap book like that I don't know,
(05:23):
it was sweet, like it kind of made him feel
like sentimental in a way that you often don't associate
with somebody who's high level football player in college. Right,
Like it's a little like a little sweetness and nostalgic
that maybe I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have even if
(05:44):
he'd been that way, I wouldn't have really expected him
to pull it out and bring it on the show.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, right, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
It felt very It felt very nostalgic across the board,
because not only is he being nostalgic, but seeing that
kind of thing made.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Me nostyalidic because that's.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Like, oh, yeah, that's what we did. Huh yeah, well yeah,
early nineties, he made scamp books.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
You had to print out your pictures.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Uh huh, that's right, and you like wrote stuff down
so you would remember, right, right exactly. Yeah, My son
walked through the room pretty early on and they're like
talking about, you know, Trent was shot, and he said,
they don't sound like friends, like why. It was just
(06:38):
the part where it was at where everybody was like
nervous to be on campus and they weren't sure who
they could trust and all this stuff and it's like
they don't sound like friends, like well, yeah, I mean
for a.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Hot second they even said it, yeah, right right after
they kind of almost weren't because.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
They did have a lot of suspicion, you know, because
you're so confused.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So, man, summer campus does have a very different vibe.
I don't know if you ever took summer classes, Yeah,
I did too, And they're so right that summer classes are, like,
it's so different on campus.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
They're so dead.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
It's dead. There's not many people there. You can always
get a study room at the library, you know, I
mean there's like you don't really even need a study room.
There's not like a bunch of people around to come
and bother. You just sit down at the table and
do your work or your own place.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Is like it's not happened.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, yeah, Like so the summer I stayed, I was
in my apartment. Everybody else went homes, just me in
my apartment, so I could do my work and study
right at home.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
But during the year.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Sometimes you know, even in my door closed in my room,
at my desk.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
It was still like so much stuff going on, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And yeah, but summer that's probably that when I felt
actually the most at home though, because it really.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Was my place. It was calm.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
It was like huh yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And then when people came back, I was like.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Oh great, yeah, all these people in baiting my space,
you suddenly have this like ownership of it too, which
is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, but then you're like, oh yeah, okay, thanks, Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Oh this is the way it's supposed to be. I
just got used to it being a little quieter. Yes,
So the dude said they pregamed before going to a
quote unquote youth club.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I was like, I don't even know what a youth
club is.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
They meant I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Either, but it's like, I'm like, they serve alcohol at
a youth club. The I even I tried to look
it up. I tried to see, like when it's a
youth club.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
My guess was that it's a club that admits under
twenty one probably right, like.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Right, like they cater to the college crowd. They serve alcohol,
but there, but you can go if you're under twenty one.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Right, That's what I That's what I heard, Like, that's
what I assumed anywhere.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, yeah, but I guess that maybe that's a common
term on the University of Kentucky campus, but it's not
anything I've heard, and I tried to look it up
and it doesn't seem to be like common.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
No, I didn't think, so I kind of had to
just translate based on context.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, but yeah, I had not ever heard that term.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Okay, okay, yeah, So it's not just me, No, it's
not just there were a few guns on the chaotic scene,
and I'm like, maybe a little gun safety would have been, uh,
you know, help clear things up a little bit, because
you know, then they did have to take one of
these weapons away for forensic testing because it didn't it
(09:56):
was missing a bullet and nobody could say whether it
had been there or not. And I'm like, oh, it
makes it a little cloudier that they had weapons on
the scene, because you know, you want to Akham's razor
this thing. The most likely scenario is probably the one
(10:17):
that happened, but also that can keep people from following alternatives.
A couple of Trent's friends are kind of reminiscing about him,
and I really appreciated that they did not just focus
on the way he died. They have a lot of
good memories that are not tied to the way he died.
(10:41):
That's not the only way that they think of him,
which he is really sweet. A public tip line was
opened and they got comments that Trent's best friends since
first grade looked suspicious. Yeah, looks suspicious. And I'm like, okay, Well,
first of all, most frig guys look a little suspicious.
(11:02):
And photos, I mean, you know, you see they put
these photos out and they've been drinking, and you know,
they just get that look. And yeah, everybody looks suspicious
when they've been drinking. And then I was like, oh,
but Matt, this best friend hasn't been a talking head
(11:22):
on this yet, I know, I know. Then he comes
it's fine, But a woman Amy comes forward years after
the fact and says an old boyfriend confessed killing Trent.
First of all, do you believe that kind of story
is the girlfriend? Second of all, whether you believe that
(11:44):
he's telling the truth or not, this is a huge
red flag yes. And third, I was like, I can
only imagine what it took for her to hold things together. Oh,
I know when he says this, whether it's true or not,
like you have as a woman, you gotta hold it together.
You can't look like you're gonna rat him out or
(12:06):
be freaked out by this because you could be next. Yeah,
if it's true or if it's not true.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Uh huh, either way, red flag, red flag.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah. So this show shares a title with a made
for TV movie from nineteen ninety two, A Killer among Friends,
aired in December of nineteen ninety two. It starred Patty
Duke as the mother of Jenny Monroe played by Tiffany Ambertheeson.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
No, I think I saw this movie.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Oh really, I do. Okay, I feel like I watched
this movie. Okay, I don't think that I did. And
it looks like the story for that is gonna be
episode number three of this show, so I'll be interested
to see that. But that movie was based on the
death of Michelle Missy Avela her best friends Karen and Laura.
(13:10):
They'd all been friends since they were kids, and they
got jealous because Missy was popular and cute and she
was spending a little less time with her girlfriends a
little more time with boys because you know.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
She was boy crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, I mean, she was a teenager and that's what
you did in nineteen eighty five, and she went missing
in early October nineteen eighty five, she went said she
went out with her friend Laura, and then Laura called
her mom later asking for Missy and her mom's like,
(13:48):
I thought she was with you. They found her body
a few days later, and foul play was suspected. Karen
and Laura went to her funeral and gave Missy's mom
a card like a sympathy card, and played the whole part.
And Karen evidently moved in with Missy's mom for a
(14:13):
while and kind of helped her deal with the loss.
And then evidently Karen and Laura had confessed to somebody
else who then came forward to the police. So it
was nineteen ninety before they were charged. Ridiculous five years,
four and a half years they were charged. They were
(14:34):
both found guilty not a first degree murder, which is
their initial charge, but second degree murder because the jury
said that they weren't convinced that when they took Missy
to the woods that they planned to kill her. They
think it just happened. But when Karen got out of prison,
(14:59):
she just I did. She was going to write a
memoir and try and get a film deal, and Missy's
family had to sue her in twenty fifteen to keep
her from doing this, but it got Missy's Law in
California past, so that if somebody is working with a
(15:22):
criminal about their story, victims families have to be notified. Yeah,
so you should not be able to make money off
of your crimes.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
No, you really should not know.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
You know a little resources. So traumatic grief is prolonged
severe grief symptoms. That's called complicated or traumatic grief. It's
a little more likely to happen in a very tragic
sort of circumstance because when you have a long illness
(16:01):
or you know you know something's going to happen, you
kind of have what's called anticipatory grief. You don't have
the chance to do any of that beforehand. There are
some things that people who have lost a family member
to homicide have to deal with that's a little unusual,
(16:22):
not only like a sudden passing, but they can feel isolated.
There might be some stigma attached to depending on how
the violent death occurred, and that can be isolating. Then
there's the you have to deal with the police, and
you know, the dealings with the coroner's office are going
(16:45):
to be more complicated. The media, you know, if it's
a high profile case, even just in your area, you
know that media can be pretty intense in wanting statements
from you. Not everybody has the resources in order to
be able to hire a pr to help with that
(17:05):
kind of stuff. And then you know, dealing with the
criminal justice system. All of these things are really challenging,
but you can get help. You can obviously tak to
a counselor one on one, but if you can't afford that,
or you need a less intense focus on yourself, you
(17:25):
need to maybe to hear about other people's things. There
are groups that you can join. Grief Share dot org
has a searchable database for both in person and online,
and they're for grief support groups that's primarily for people
who've lost a spouse or a parent. Compassionatefriends dot org
(17:47):
can help with the loss of a child or sibling
and they're mostly online moderated chat room meetups. There are
some in person in the Chicago area. They don't have
a lot of in person on outside of that area,
but the you know, griefshare dot org and Compassionatefriends dot
org or a couple places where you can get a
(18:08):
little help if you're struggling. I hope that nobody is.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
But you know, unfortunately, we know somebody is. Yeah that
grief Share is a good group. It's a good program.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Oh good.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
So here's how it works. Christie erects her search history.
Hey an essay.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
We promise it's nothing more nefarious than a podcast to
find out what's true some of the psychological motivations behind
the characters actions and real life applications that relate to
our topic. I have no idea what Christy decided to
look up could be the same thing that captured my
curiosity or something I never thought of.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Is it true? I mean, like we assume that people
are telling the truth.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Is the true story?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah? Yeah? Huh. But one of the girls, I think
Robin says that they were doing what college students do
and drinking, and I was, like, do college kids drink
at the same rate as they did? Then?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
I think that No. I think it's gone down.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It has. You're correct that in nineteen eighty ninety percent
over ninety percent of students said that they drank heavily
and regularly, and now it's about seventy six percent. Okay,
it's gone down quite a bit, and there's a lot
of different when you parse it out, it's like, what
(19:39):
is binge drinking? And binge drinking's gone down, but still
a lot of people do drink. And women are more
likely to have used alcohol in the past two weeks
but are less likely to have binge drink.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Right, So yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And I guess if you parse out like that also
the demographic, because you know, they were talking about sorority.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Like you know, fra tarnity parties like okay.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
But not everybody's in the Greek system right outside of
the Greek system.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
How often is it versus inside?
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Right? That kind of well, right, and like the Greeks,
you can be outside the Greek system but also participate
in the parties, parties or fundraisers, and so that's the
whole thing. And how much does it influence the culture?
And college students do tend to drink more than their
(20:34):
non college counterparts, right, so, but it's not a huge
difference statistically, but it is the difference. So I wanted
to know a little bit more about Trent. Okay, so
there is a foundation which we're going to talk about
more later, but they do have some information about him.
(20:56):
He was an offensive lineman for the University of Kentucky.
He played in the Beach Bowl. Uh huh. Good for him.
And he was a good student too. He was earned
a spot on the nineteen ninety three Southeastern Conference All
Academic Team, which requires you to have a GPA of
(21:19):
three point zero or better. So he was, you know,
doing football and working hard.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, he sounded like a good person.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah, so Trent was a walk on football player, which
I didn't know what that meant. I'm sure you know
what that meant. Okay, So if you don't know, to
your listener, it basically means that you finish up high
school and you don't have a college scholarship waiting for you,
(21:48):
and you go to college and try out for the team.
So you may play on a college team, but you're
not doing so because you have a scholarship.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
You weren't recruited, right.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yes, And there are reasons why you might not have
been recruited. If you go to a small school. You
might not get the kind of exposure that's needed to
be recruited, or you maybe developed physically, or you get
offers from schools but not the one you actually want
to go to, which happens, but that doesn't mean that
(22:24):
it's not something you can't do or couldn't do. Get there.
In a second, Coaches typically really like walk ons. They
tend to work really really hard, they prove themselves right,
they've proven themselves. They really want to be there. It
can be difficult to ever end up with a scholarship
position as a walk on, though, because coaches tend to
(22:50):
believe that they made a good choice offering scholarships to
people out of high school, and so they don't like
to be wrong saying I didn't recruit you. These people
are getting paid to be here and you're not. I'm
going to play them because they're getting paid. But you
can find a lot of community and stuff that way. However,
(23:13):
the NCUBA just in December of twenty twenty four changed
things up so there's revenue sharing and that CAP's football
rosters at one hundred and five players, and that means
all one hundred and five players are eligible for scholarships
instead of how it was previously, which was eighty five
(23:34):
players could receive scholarships. So they believe that it's going
to kind of end the walk on player options, which
is a little sad for kids who especially if you
went to a small school but you did a good job,
you're good enough to play, you'd like to play? Yeah,
(23:55):
I could, it could.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I mean there's maybe ways around that, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
But right, well, I've read you know, walk on players
often will get used as the practice team. Yeah, right,
so maybe those are positions they don't and.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
If somebody transfers, you know, somebody goes and puts themselves
in the portal, there might be an opening.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Right, No, and you know those kind of things might happen,
but it might be.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Less right, right, so we know. Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity
is real. How big is it? Is it big?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Fairly big? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, it is big. It is big. Sigma Alpha Epsilon
is one of the country's oldest and largest fraternities that
was founded in eighteen fifty six at the University of Alabama.
They have three hundred and fifty thousand brothers so past
and present members and over two hundred and twenty chapters.
(24:54):
They do focus on things like friendship, scholarship, leadership, and service.
They're really trying to help these young men be their
best selves, and to that end, they have eliminated most
of the pledging process, so where a lot of abuse
and things tended to be pretty rampant previously. They basically
(25:19):
ended that and they still have beer, but they banned
hard alcohol from all other events. So does football serve
the same function as a fraternity.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I mean in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, yes. And typically at particularly Division one schools, coaches
are going to say, you, we don't like you to
be involved in greek life because the team should be
your quote unquote fraternity, right, And that's just it, Like,
there is this whole idea there was I read reddit
(25:56):
posts about like how do we recruit more football players?
Are like, it's hard. It's hard to recruit football players
unless your fraternity is specifically geared towards athletes, right, then
it's not. Typically you don't have time for it.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
You don't have time for it.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
There are other organizations also that work around the sports,
you know, kind of space that would allow them to
have a membership in something but also play ball, right
you know, I think of like Fellowship of Christian Athletes
and things like.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
That, but that travels with them.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
You know, Greek life is on campus, you know, and
you can't do that when you're gone all the time.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Right, exactly, So, especially for the most competitive the Bowl,
the schools that are involved in Bowl games and things
like that, they really want the team to be that
close knit. Yes, that want you spreading that out anywhere.
So yes, it makes sense that Trent wouldn't have been that.
(27:01):
He was only kind of tertiarily involved in Greek life, right,
like his buddies who didn't play.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Ball were we're.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
In Greek life, but he was not. But he also
went to the parties because his bff was in SAE. Yeah. Yeah,
So Robin, Trent's friend said that the TV show Friends
was goals. How realistic is friendships as we see in Friends?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
I mean, is it hashtag goals? Sure?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Uh huh yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Does it happen that way?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Not usually, But people.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Do tend to have a small especially when you're younger,
A smaller a group a group, and if you can
stay in the same area and the same vicinity, you know,
you might continue to grow out of that.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
But you know, so Vox had an article Friends and
the illusion of the perfect dull friendships. Yeah, and they
call them adults, they call him well, right.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
I mean we have to remember, like we think of
them as being friends, like we think of them as
being these adults. They were so young, and they were.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Supposed to be like they were supposed to like be
just on their own, like right, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, they're like pretty newly out of college. They've been
out of college three to five years, probably Max Max, right, yeah,
I mean Ross at the beginning of the show would
have probably just barely been out of school because he
had his PhD. Yeah. Yes. This Vox article basically calls
(28:40):
that the cruel lie of friends and that friendships don't
operate like that at really ever hardly.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Okay, so what do they mean by operate Like.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Let's see, they're not just challenging to create and maintain.
Some evidence suggests that they're also in the decline line
that Americans today have increasingly busy live. As members of
our friend group grow into their careers and relationships, incomes
and schedules start to vary. People move away for new
(29:12):
jobs or to be closer to family. Distance and time
become barriers in a way that they weren't when everyone
was young, single and devoted to their found families. And
they like have other shows that they talk about how
they reinforce this fantasy that true friendships should be deeply
close but require no real effort to maintain.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Okay, I'm okay, I'm gonna be the I'm going to
be a troll.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I think that they're like there there, there's just stirring
up stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
It's clickbait. Oh okay, sorry to the author.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Clickbait because if you watched Friends, there's a fight between
them every time that it's not like it they are
just effortlessly friends. They fought, They literally got in physical fights.
Phoebe had to break up Rachel, like, you know, they
like had serious problems sometimes.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
So I don't know that I would call it effortless, Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I think that what they mean more is the proximity
that we see is seems effortless because like there's a
lot of like mornings when like people are just in
Monica's apartment before work, but you know, they just show
up there like it's no big deal, right, But to
actually get to get up, get ready for work, go
(30:37):
to somebody else's apartment before you go to work, that's
a lot more effort than it's portrayed on the show.
All Right, So all.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Right, here's my here's my thought about that. I hear you,
I hear you. I'm going to be I'm going to be.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
I don't know what do you call this? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, yeah, the devil's advocate, our contrary or your skeptically
in contrarian.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Opposition all today. Okay, So here's my thought. They're not wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So if I'm thinking about it really based on research
and what we know, we know we're in an epidemic
of loneliness, uh huh.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
We know that people are moving away, right.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
We also know that, like in this case, they were
super young, right, and at the end of the show
they did that.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, so like it wasn't that unusual.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But the people in her apartment, Ross was the only
one that lived didn't live right there, but he lived
across the street.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Eventually, yeah, but like within like within time, you know.
But then also.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Chandler and jo Joey across the hall, right, Phoebe doesn't
really have a job, yeah, and Rachel lives there. So
I'm like, I'm thinking, also, it used to be a
nine to five. That's also fair, and it's not anymore.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah. Now now it's all the time.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
It's all the time.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
But also, like Chandler and Ross were the only ones
that had normal, like nine to five jobs.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Right, I mean Rachel did eventually, she.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Did, eventually, she did eventually, but she also lived there
and lived across the hall or.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Also worked on the first floor of their apartment basically
like they basically lived above Central per.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Exactly, some kind of like they're not wrong about the proximity,
but I almost think that the issue is that they
are not taking into account the difference between urban life.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And suburban life.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
That's fair, and I'm like, if you're an urban life,
it's a little different, right, I don't know, Yeah, but that.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Does mean but they're not wrong.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I think that, like, especially as we became more suburban,
that did become harder, right right.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Well, I mean friends couldn't have worked really in any
other city other than New York, right, maybe London, Boston,
maybe Atlanta, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I mean anywhere that had good mass trands, right and
was walkable.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Sure, so maybe a handful of cities, right yeah, maybe.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right, but definitely definitely the best. Yeah, New York the best.
Definitely not Los Angeles, No, No, it's a lot more effort,
right yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Right, Well, they're not wrong about New York City.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Also like that point, the rent control made it possible
to be living in a place that they were able
to be so proximity, because otherwise they wouldn't have been afforded.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Right, So the commute to work would have been.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yes, right, or it could have been or right like
Monica's rent control department can have been centrally enough located
to be on the way to work.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Right exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
So, Yeah, New York makes it much easier, right, I
think urban life makes it easier. But the pandemic of
loneliness right now, because of everything they mentioned, the schedules
that we have the need to move away for jobs
has broken families, not just found families, but like families.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Right, The idea that you you have to cast a
net outside of your own hometown right in order to
have a job is harder now.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, I know it's hard to begin with to have
friends as adults.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah. They did say that dramas like Scandal, How to
Get Away with Murder Being Mary Jane, that people complain
that some of these characters have no friends at all,
But that's maybe a little like actually more reflective of
the way people are living. Those are also all newer
(34:36):
shows too, and that makes a difference, I think. But
they did point out that friends was sort of the
impetus to look at female friendships in a different way.
You know, they're really they were girls girls, right, Yeah.
They weren't cat fighting, they weren't arguing over the same dude.
Mostly there was occasionally like really, yeah, like the guy
(35:00):
they got hit on the subway, yeah while you were
sleeping dude. Yes, yeah, And they tend to be really
supportive and you know so, but it's not realistic for
most people. Though. If that's your goal and what you
(35:21):
work towards, maybe you'll work towards having those kinds of
relationships a little better. Well.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
And it's interesting because I guess my last my last
contrarian thoughts about it is those actors were absolutely those friends, sure,
and they developed and chose those friendships after they began
the show, and they have retained those.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Friendships for yeah, thirty years.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Right, And I'm like, so maybe hashtag goals, Yeah yeah, Okay,
I don't know, poor Chandler.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Poor I know, I know Matthew Perry. Was it just
a gym? Yeah? All right, So the dudes were questioned
by police, which I was like, this suth I forgot
to put in thoughts. I skipped right over it. But
I was like, they were all questioned on the scene,
which makes sense, and then they took some of them
(36:18):
down to the station and I'm like, this shore probably
should have gotten attorneys.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Because holy crappy.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I mean yes.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
But also they said that there was an interrogation technique
where they asked them the same questions over. Is that common? Yeah, yeah,
it is. So it's typically associated with what's called the
read technique, where basically they have nine steps that are
(36:49):
designed to elicit confessions, and most of the steps involve
different ways of present and asking information. You do it
over and over and over to see if their story changes. Yeah.
There are some critics of this particular technique because it
(37:10):
requires the officers to discern when someone's lying, but it
doesn't really offer any kind of training to help anybody
determine what if it's lying or not. There's not. The
read technique teaches this technique about how to question people
(37:32):
and says you should discern when they're lying, but doesn't
tell you oh, here are the yeah, the body language
or red flags or you know, things that might And
this could be because they're lying, or it could be
because they're nervous.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Well, and that's I think that's probably another curtesique of
it is that like memory is malleable, and they start
this so quickly after everything's happened, that the person is
still actually processing the memory itself. Uh huh, So it's
easy to actually then influence.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yes, and the read technique tends to end up with
a lot of false confessions. So yeah, yeah, there we go. Thankfully,
these young men, despite the fact that it was very
late and they've been drinking. Uh, nobody falsely confessed.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yes, thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I think in their case, sadly, they were so confused, yeah,
that it was clear.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
They yeah, that they didn't know what was They don't
know what happened. They didn't do it there, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
And they're scared.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Uh huh right, like yeah right. All the sources that
we use to inform our discussion here on Killer Fun
Podcast can be found on our social media. Join us
on Facebook at Killer Fun Podcast, exploring the inner section
of crime and entertainment. You can find us on Twitter
at killer Funpod, or you can send us an email
(39:06):
at Killerfunpodcast at gmail dot com and I'd be happy
to share a link to whatever information you're looking for.
We love to hear from you. You might learn a
little something too, psychology break all right, So I said
we were going to talk about trust. Yeah, okay, trust
We need it. We need trust. It lays the groundwork
(39:28):
for all of our social interactions. It's the cornerstone of
any social relationship, not just romantic but every friend group,
every work relationship you have. There's a certain amount of trust.
It requires a degree of vulnerability, and it takes a discernment,
(39:48):
Like you will trust people, but you have to discern
whether they're worthy of your trust. But there's a certain
amount of trust that's kind of inherent in just having society.
You have to trust that you're going to walk down
the street and somebody's not going to attack you with
a hammer. Right. You have to assume that the barista
(40:09):
is not poisoning your coffee. Right. There's a certain level
of trust, so much so that we're hardwired for it.
We are.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
We're absolutely hard.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah that Psychology today has an article are we hardwired
for trust? And we are because before there was you know, cities, governments,
even language, We had to rely on one another, right,
and that if you were too suspicious, it left you
(40:39):
isolated and vulnerable. But and we actually have evolutionarily a
decent radar for this kind of stuff. Who's trustworthy? That's
why you get the ick, right, you know, if somebody
is not trustworthy, you kind of get the ick. And
but as our societies grew, we did have to extend
(41:04):
that trust out a little bit. Yeah, we had to
trust that traders were going to not you know, cause
damage er, that the goods that they brought were what
they said they were. And unfortunately, you know, that means
some people are going to manipulate it, which is unfortunate.
So the ambulance got to the house pretty quickly, within
(41:27):
ten minutes. Yeah, maybe less. They were so unsure of
the time, but they called nine to one one pretty
much right away. They were there pretty quickly, and they
even said, we know they got there fast, but it
felt like a long time. Oh yeah. So Scientific American
has an article by Steve Taylor why time slows when
(41:50):
You're in danger, And I thought this was just so
interesting because we don't actually know why. He calls them
time expansive time expansion experiences. It's a little bit of
a mystery there are some theories. This guy, Steve thinks
(42:10):
that it's variations in our information processing, right that the
more information you have to process, the slower time seems
to pass. So that's why people will say, oh, they
felt like they had a lot of time to react
(42:30):
in certain situations that were life threatening. They felt like
they had more time to think about it, even though
the same amount of time was passing and the newness
of a situation. That's why time passes really slowly for kids,
because everything's new, and so they're processing a lot of
stuff all the time. And as we get older, we're
(42:51):
processing things that we already understand.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Yeah, we're chunking a little bit more, right.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
He also mentions that it's common in sports that these
kinds of you know, they're aggressive or highly unique experiences,
so you feel like you have a little more time
to Yeah, so these guys necessarily, like this would have
been an acute experience, but not necessarily something they'd never
(43:21):
experienced before, right, Like, we're all football players, so they
might have experienced this in a sort of these time
expansion experiences previously, but not to maybe this degree. Yeah,
there is a theory that nor adrenaline can help us
(43:44):
process these emergency situations. But a lot of people tend
to feel calm, which would be uh not really congruent
with that.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
So well, So, like I mean, the mechanism here is
fiderflight okay, right, your sympathetic nervous system, it goes into effects. Right,
So like you talk about the nor adrenaline, right, do
you have adrenaline and cortisol and all of those things,
And lots of things happen when we go into fight
or flight.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
One of the things that happens is, for instance.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Our our vision becomes weirdly more focused and broader. Okay, okay,
So like you, your pupils dilate. You end up being
able to see a lot more, but your attention narrows
so that your information processing is processing more of your
(44:37):
peripheral while you are also attending your attention to the
threat the issue in.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Front of you.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Your heart is beating a lot faster, and your breath
is different, and the coursing hormones and neurotransmitters that are
happening allow your brain to.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Focus on information.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
In a different way.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
This, I think that's the mechanism for this. Time slows
down because you really are time slows down because you
are processing more information in a time frame that would
take you typically longer, okay, right, And so that's why
it feels like it's forever. Also, fear, fear is so paralyzing,
they're they're scared for their friend, and you're just like
(45:21):
get there, get there, get there, get there.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
It feels like forever because it's just not fast enough
for what you need. Right, And so there's there's a
little bit of it that's like that.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
So like in a sports scenario, right where.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
You're focused and all that you're it's not it is
a type of fight or flight because you're attending to it.
You're because you actually trained yourself for that moment, right.
So you you do, you end up seeing more and
hearing more and focusing more, and so it can feel
like a long time.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
But in a fear situation, there's that double thing going on.
Not only are you laser focused, but also more broadly focused,
processing in for me differently and moving fast.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Okay, So you might still actually be afraid, but you
might be able to handle it better because of right,
it's increased.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
It depends on your reception, okay, right, because yeah, if
you fight or you flight, right, like the idea, And
so you might be calm because you're attending.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
To the threat, right, so you're afraid for your friend.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
But in that case, nothing is ever going to be
fast enough. So it's going to feel like they were forever,
right even though they got there pretty quickly, what you
needed was five minutes ago, right, So that there's that
kind of ideal. But then, yeah, so fight or flight,
these hormones can make you calmer. It's not necessarily that
(46:45):
you're calmer, it's that you're focused and so.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
You can deal with it.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Yeah, And he mentions that too, that it's aid an
altered state of consciousness. It's so disruptive from our typical
brain process ease that he calls it super absorption. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah, I mean it's like when we dream, you know, Okay,
like oh my gosh, an inception right where they're talking
about the fact that in the dream, like you can
a year is only a minute or whatever, like I
don't know where, but anyways, the point is we do
actually dream entire entire like time sequences in.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
A matter of seconds.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Right right in that situation, the same thing is happening,
So it's going to feel like time expansion, because in
a regular state of consciousness, it would take twice as
long for all that to happen for you to process
that amount of information, right.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah, Yeah, it's interesting though. Our brains are like, it's
so interesting when it's so different, you know, we have
a one way that we experience the world. Yeah, and
then in these times of crisis often we experience it
in a completely different way. I think the Friend group
(47:59):
maybe romantics sized trans memory just a little bit. They
did even say, right like, I think it was friend
Peyton who said, I'm trying to remember if we're romanticize
or if we're putting him on a pedestal. And you know,
I don't think we are. I think he was really great.
(48:19):
I'm like, well, he might have really been a great person. Yeah,
you're also putting him on a postal a little bit.
And this is a thing we tend to do. Open
to Hope dot Com as an article, don't turn the
deceased person into a perfect person. That and it can
be really hard for us because we remember only the
(48:42):
good parts. So, particularly if you've lost a spouse, if
they suddenly become the perfect spouse, you may never be
able to move on, because all you think about is
the all the good times, and nobody can ever live
up to that, and it can be hard for children
and if they are if they've lost a sibling, and
(49:03):
the parents only remember all of the good things and
don't remember any of the harder times, then it can
be hard for the surviving children to live up to
an unrealistic expectation of perfection which their sibling was only
able to attain after their death.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
There's a Golden Girls episode.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah, is so Rose was dating Miles, right, and she
had gotten bored, and so she was romanticizing Charlie, her
husband who had passed, and how awesome he was and
there was always this adventure in all these great times.
And then because of that, she gets Miles into the
(49:47):
skydiving situation, and then right at the last moment, she admits, well,
he never really actually jumped what And so Miles had
to say, don't you see, you're comparing me to somebody
who is who is perfect and also much younger. It
doesn't even exist though, yeah, he never even exists, and
(50:10):
he was much younger, So like, yeah, the whole I
have the whole episode about that.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
That's very fun and they suggest in this article to
remember their flaws in a humorous way, like, you know, oh,
this is what made them quirky, this is what made them,
you know, recognize that it's there. But also you don't
have to do it in a way that's degrading, because
that's why a lot of people don't want to like
(50:37):
remember anything bad. They don't want to put down the deceased.
They don't want to speak ill of the dead. It's
not speaking ill of the dead, it's speaking honestly about them, right,
And you know that's fine. You're allowed to do that,
all right, real life. Oh all right, we're going to
talk about the end of the show. Okay, so how
(50:58):
things turn out. So if you I mean, it's a
forty five minute show, it's fine, just watch it. But also, yeah,
Amy Lloyd came forward saying that an ex had confessed
to her, so she I get it was about a
year after Trent was murdered that she heard this confession.
(51:22):
She was dating this man, Shane Ragland, and didn't want
to believe it. Yeah, and you know, was kind of like, oh,
he's just trying to do this to impress me. Whatever.
It's a big red flag on the fifth anniversary of
Trent's death, she reads an article that quotes Trent's father,
(51:43):
Mike Deguiro, and where he says, to anybody who knows anything,
please come forward. Somebody knows something. She reads the article
is reminded that she'd heard about this. This is all
these things match up to what he said. Maybe she
should tell somebody good for her? Yes, yeah, I mean
(52:06):
she'd moved away, but had you can tell this is
pre nine to eleven because he met her at an
airport bar right like, she was like, I have a
layover in Lexington, come meet me, and wore a wire
and sort of got him to confess. Yeah, Like he
didn't exactly say it, but this is what they a
(52:30):
lot of what they were able to use a trial.
It was enough what he said was damning enough to
be able to get a warrant and they found what
they believed to be the murder weapon. Now, Amy was
so afraid that she completely changed her identity and that
(52:50):
is why when they had an appeal later she did
not appear. So she had appeared at the first trial,
but she was very, very afraid. Shane's dad was rich,
he had a lot of money, and she was very
afraid that he was going to come back and harm her,
so she completely changed her identity, and so he ended
(53:11):
up being released on time served for a lesser charge
later on, which was like, yeah, it's really lighting.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
We'll get there, good, good, good good.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
So his appeal was had a lot to do with
a particular firearms and ballistics expert called Arthur p Alpin.
He does have some points I did, I'll okay he uh.
He said that the so called ballistics fingerprinting of the
(53:47):
death bullet against six fired bullets from the alleged death
rifle was only a partial match in a single groove
of all six bullets fired, okay. And he found that
the lab technician for the prosecution who had done this
testing didn't have a degree or any formal training. The
(54:10):
judge was a booster of the football team for the
University of Kentucky and didn't recuse himself. So there was
a few little like things and a lot of this
guy Arthur's conclusions were excluded by the judge in the
first trial, and so that's how when they came around
(54:31):
to the second trial without Amy there to testify, that's
how all this ended up. He writes, this whole thing
on his own website where he's talking about this case,
and like, basically I don't think it was like whatever,
this guy will get there, But I thought it was
really funny because he ends this whole article, this whole
(54:54):
diatribe two pages of stuff about how like basically the
forensics were botched to the original trial and all this stuff,
and he ends it with mister Ragland's father has yet
to pay my invoice.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
I'm like, okay, I don't know why I found that
really funny. I'm like, oh, you're like defending this guy
and yet you have not been paid for your testimony.
I mean, okay, Okay. Anyway, I got to that part
of it and I laughed out loud. Shane's release from
(55:34):
prison and his violent run ins though, Oh no, I
guess I know. So in twenty fourteen, actually, in twenty twelve,
Shane moved in with a girlfriend named Christy after an
automobile accident where he was driving too late and perhaps
(55:55):
inebriated and had a car accident, ended up in a wheelchair, right,
so he moved in with her. Well. In twenty fourteen,
police respond to a disturbance at their house because Christy
had asked Shane to move out and he got violent,
and so they issued a protective order for her to
(56:18):
get him out of the house that he had been
physically and verbally abusing her since February. This was in
December when this happened, so he'd been nasty to her
for months and months. And then they basically dropped it
because Christie said, I didn't mean for them to do
(56:41):
a protective order. I want him to move back in
with me, because this is what abused people do, yep, right,
is they go back and forth. So evidently they broke
up at some point because then Shane was no longer
living with Christy. He's living with his mom, and in
(57:07):
twenty twenty four he's charged with terroristic threats and assault
because he's been hitting his mom and threatening to run
her over with his wheelchair. Oh my god, and then
he actually does, and so she calls police and that
(57:30):
she's been She says that he's been threatening to murder
her for months, and they show up. The police show
up and find her with bruising consistent with being run
over by his wheelchair. She calls a friend to help
her get in the house. He does the same thing
to this friend, and he finally there's video of him
(57:53):
yelling that if he could get to his gun, he'd
shoot this friend, his mom's friend, in the head. He's
not a good dude. And they did end up releasing
him after his dad paid his bond, but he couldn't
go back to his mom's house. I don't know what
happened with that, so I've been trying to find like,
(58:15):
did he was he charged? Like, I mean, he was
like charged with this stuff, but that doesn't necessarily mean
that you're going to trial. I don't know what happened
to him, but yeah, goodness, he's not a great guy.
And Mike Degiro. Every time Old Shane ends up in
(58:35):
the spotlight, he gets called what do you think? And
I was really proud of him. He is like, this
is no surprise to me. He perpetuates these kinds of crimes,
but he uses every opportunity to promote donations to the
foundation for his son. So they have a annual like
(58:59):
a raffle where they raffle off whiskey. It's cute Kentucky bourbon.
Yeah right, it's sweet. They do the and they give
a lot of scholarships, so they do a scholarship awarded
to a University of Kentucky walk on football player so
that other walk on football players can get a scholarship.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
Yep. And they also help the students from the little
county Oldham County in Kentucky where Trent played football because
he wasn't recruited. They give a scholarship to a senior
who's graduating from there to go and pursue their dreams.
So yeah, nice. So I was like, oh, that's a
(59:43):
good way to like, you're getting asked about this, Yes,
why not promote promote the thing that you know. It's
a shame that he is troubled. We're sorry to hear it,
we are not surprised to hear it. And by the way,
his victim was our son, and you can actually help somebody.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Yeah, I love it too. It's good approach. Next time,
next time. So. Eric Banna is a National Park Service
investigator in Yosemite. In the Netflix limited series Untamed, there's
a murder in the park and I don't think it's
a bear and.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
It doesn't have to do with cocaine, No, not that
I know of.
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Who knows.
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Thank you so much for listening. We know you make
a choice when you listen to this. We don't just
come on the radio. You make a choice to download
us and put us in your ear. Please rate and
review wherever you get podcasts, and tell a friend it's
a lot more fun and you can listen with a friend
until next time. Be safe, be kind, and wash your hands.
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