June 27, 2025 • 44 mins
This past April, Josh sat down with Eva Pilgrim, the co-anchor of GMA3 and ABC’s senior national correspondent, to discuss her new investigative podcast What Happened to Holly Bobo. Listeners may recall that Holly Bobo’s name and image were found on Israel Keyes’s computer, as one of the NAMUS-45. So, Eva and Josh discussed the case, her investigation, Keyes, what the public got wrong, and the local impacts of this story.
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Book your tickets to the True Crime Podcast Festival in Boston (July 18-20) at www.truecrimepodcastfestival.com and use promo code: JOSH20
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is a studio both and production. Everyone. This past April,
I sat down with Eva Pilgrim, the co anchor of
Good Morning America three and ABC's senior national correspondent, to
discuss her new investigative podcast, What Happened to Holly Bobo.
(00:29):
I'm sure listeners recall that Holly Bobo's name and image
were found on Israel Keys's computer as part of the
name is forty five, And to be honest, I've always
been a bit skeptical about the boys who were allegedly
involved in her disappearance. In fact, for the longest time,
Shana and I have argued over whether Keys could be
responsible for Holly's disappearance. So Eva and I sat down
(00:52):
to discuss the case, her investigation Keys, what the public
got wrong, and the local impacts of this year's long case.
So check out our conversation now and then go subscribe
to What Happened to Holly Bobo, which just aired its
sixth episode, So it's totally bingeable today. But first next month,
(01:13):
I'll be at the True Crime Podcast Festival in Boston
July eighteenth to the twentieth, and listeners will get the
exclusive opportunity to join the studio both and research team
for an hour during our interactive research roundtable, where you,
the researchers and I will take a look at two
cases and use our tools and resources and group discussion
(01:35):
to deep dive them and theorize. But that's not all.
Whine and Crime will be there, Generation Why will be there,
Crime Lines will be there, and many many other true
crime podcasts. For twenty percent off tickets, go to Truecrime
Podcast Festival dot com and use promo code Josh twenty. Also,
we still have spots on our trip to Bali this September,
(01:57):
say goodbye to summer with Spring in Ba. You'll get
to be the first to hear the season seven premiere
of True Crime Bullshit and follow that with a group discussion.
Plus we'll tour night markets, walk the Sacred Monkey Forest
where there are tons of friendly and hungry monkeys. We'll
sit umbrella cocktails on the beach, visit a Balanese farm,
participate in a Balanese cooking class, and I'll take you
(02:19):
to my favorite restaurant on the island, and so much more.
So come with me to Bali, dive into the new
season of TCB before anyone else, and support our investigation
by taking yourself on a once in a lifetime vacation.
Check out the show notes for links to the Trova
site with a full itinerary, trip details and a link
(02:40):
to secure your spot. Now, okay, here's that interview. I
am here with reporter Eva Pilgrim, and you have just
launched What Happened to Holly Bobo as presented by ABC
News and that is of I think, great interest to
my audience because there are some at minimum loose ties
(03:02):
between the Keys investigation and Holly Bobo's disappearance. So thank
you for being here. Can you tell me a little
bit about how this podcast was conceived, how you got
involved in what your hopes and dreams for your work
with this had been.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I didn't actually start on the story. Someone else started
covering the story back when it first happened, and I
was sent to Tennessee to do a follow up on
the story because there had been this twist in the case.
The state's star witness recanted their testimony, recanted their confession,
(03:39):
and so that raised a lot of questions about, well,
what really happened in this case. And so when we
went to Tennessee and we started talking to investigators. I
felt like I left with more questions than I came with,
which that doesn't often happen. I feel like, usually, especially
(04:00):
in a case that has a conviction, you walk away
from it feeling pretty like, sure you understood what happened, and.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Correct me if I'm wrong. Holly disappeared in twenty eleven.
The only witness to her disappearance was her brother, Clint,
who heard voices talking, two voices, his sisters, and a
man whom he believed to be Holly's boyfriend. Then he
was alerted that Holly was actually being abducted, and when
he looked out the window, he saw a man who,
(04:28):
again he's still at that point believed to be Holly's boyfriend,
walking with her out into the woods. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
That is correct? And he gave a description of what
that man looked like and the sound of his voice.
So that was the first initial big piece of evidence
that they had in this case. The other bits of
evidence that they got right away, there was some blood
that was found in the carport right there at Holly's home.
There was a shoe print, and there was a handprint,
(04:58):
not a lot of physical evidence. Then there were all
of these people almost immediately that descended upon this very
rural home to help search for Holly. I've been out
to the house, like just to sort of put into
perspective for people, There's zero reason you would ever be
there unless you were planning to go there. It's literally
(05:20):
it's the middle of nowhere. There's like new street signs.
You wouldn't even know where you were going, right, Like
GPS doesn't work all the time. It's that kind of place.
And so everyone showed up in town, everyone who was
from the area showed up. The community really started looking.
All the police and investigators, both locally and even neighboring
counties and statewide came in and started helping. There were
(05:43):
helicopters right away, they were dogs right away. I mean
they really put pulled out all the stops to try
to find this girl. And the fact that they couldn't
find her with all of that effort, I mean, just
how how does that not happen?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Right?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, it's funny. You know you said something in the
podcast that I immediately wrote it down because it speaks to
some of the work we do, and it kind of,
you know, my opinion on this is I think quite
different than most people's. I don't think any of the
men who've been implicated were involved. Something you said really
supported that, which is where her house is located. You said,
(06:24):
I think specifically someone was either targeting that specific house
or Holly herself. And then for them to disappear in
this area so quickly, in an area where everybody knows
everybody is to me kind of the core mystery in
all of this is, you know, it was clearly someone
(06:45):
who knew her or who had staked out this location,
and yet they were able to disappear in a town
full of people who know everybody else.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But I think that's also what makes this story so
scary for people, Right, it's this idea that it's one
of us, Right, one of us did this, Someone in
that tiny, tight knit community is responsible for this. And
every suspect in this case was from this area. It
(07:15):
wasn't a person driving through town. It was someone that
these people have some sort of deep history with. Whether
or not they were close because they knew each other
well is not the point. It's that they know each
other's history. They know their mother or their father, their
grandparents or their cousins or they're you know, distantly related
(07:39):
that someone like that could have taken this girl and
murdered her. I think that's scarier than for a stranger
to do it for so many people.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, I agree, and it's something I always remind my listeners.
I think in true crime we kind of get into
this headspace that we should be afraid of everyone, and
I think the sad thing is we're most likely to
be harmed by the people who were already in our worlds.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, and I think that's what really shakes your sense
of safety, is it could be someone that you've let
into your world, right.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, So with that in mind, you know, tell me
how we get from Holly walking into the woods with
a stranger to six different men being implicated in her
abduction and murder.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So, you know, first you have to remember this was
the largest most expensive investigation in Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's history.
They threw everything at this the manpower, money to bring
in equipment and people and things. And they really wanted
(08:51):
to solve this case, There's no no question about that.
And so they did the thing that investigators do every
good investigator. They start to go through all of the
people close so Clint Bobo was the last one to
see her. They questioned Clint Bobo. They looked at the
list of all the possible sex offenders in the area,
(09:13):
dwindled down what those options were, and talked to all
of those people. One of those people became a question
mark for a while. And then they looked at these
four guys who were all friends and started questioning them
because people in town were bringing up their names for
different reasons. And so at some point those four guys
(09:37):
becomes the focus of this investigation. And then they get
a confession from one of the guys involved, and then
they get another confession, and now they have they have
three arrests. One of the four eventually committed suicide and
so he was never arrested for this case. But and
(10:00):
then we go to trial in the first case, the
case against Sack Adams, and they get a conviction. So
it just when you look at sort of how it happened,
that sounds very short. This was so many years, right,
It took them years to find Holly Bobo's body. By
the time they found her body, there wasn't a whole
(10:21):
lot of evidence left that gave them any answers as
to who did this, they could determine how she was killed.
They know she was shot in the head, but you know,
there wasn't a whole lot left and she was found
not that far from her family's home. And without a
(10:42):
ton of physical evidence. In this case, all they have
is Clint's description of whoever it was that took her.
They have, they have her body that they found, that
little bit of physical evidence from the beginning, and the
word of other people, and that's what led them to
(11:03):
this conviction. And you have to remember this was a
community that really wanted an answer as to what was
going on here. The solving of this case became a
politically charged thing. You know, the sheriff was elected the
district attorney. They campaigned on solving the Holly Bobo case.
So this was not something that went away. Wasn't top
(11:28):
of mind for people, even after years of it passing.
And so you get a conviction, everyone thinks it's done.
And then the star witness were cants. What's interesting about
the two people who confess is one was Zach adams brother,
Dylan Adams. The other was his friend Jason Audrey Well.
(11:50):
Zach adams brother Dylan's confession and Jason Audry's confession, they
don't go together, right, They don't line up in a
way that makes them both make sense. And so Jason
Auntry was the one who ended up taking the stand.
His testimony lined up more with the evidence that they had,
(12:12):
and it wasn't for lack of trying to get more
evidence from these investigators in the work that they did.
They went to Zach adams house. They literally pulled up
the floor of his home. Right like we saw the floor.
There was like this giant piece of plywood that was
thrown over the floor because they took the floor out
to test it to see if there was any blood
(12:32):
or DNA evidence they could find. They took the couch,
they took all this evidence from the house. They weren't
able to find any DNA evidence to link these four
guys to this murder. So it's not for lack of trying, right,
But also time has passed at this point, so would
there have been evidence there. It's who knows, right, So
(12:55):
this is what they had to go with. And now
you have the star witness recanting the testimony. The question
is when was he telling the truth? Was he telling
the truth back then, or is he telling the truth now,
And I think that is the question that a lot
of people are going to have as they go forward.
The defense attorney for Zach Adams just recently filed a
(13:16):
big filing in court ahead of this hearing that's going
to determine if he gets a new trial, looking showing
kind of what they are planning to present surveillance video
of the guys that he will argue corroborates their alibi
for the day that they were buying drugs, which is
(13:36):
what they have said all along, that the three of
them at least were going to buy drugs that day
and that's where they were at the time that Holly
Bobo was taken and killed. Is that enough to get
a new trial? It's really hard to get a new trial,
and I think, you know, people think that it's not
that difficult. It's a much steeper mountain to climb than
(13:58):
not getting convicted in first place. So is it going
to be enough to sway I judge to start over.
I think that's going to be the question. We'll have
to wait and see you later this month.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, going back to you know, how we got here,
and it's two confessions that contradict one another, and then
a lot of like in my opinion, very flimsy, circumstantial
evidence going back to those confessions. So Zach's brother Dylan, who,
if I recall correctly, lives with intellectual disabilities, said that
(14:33):
he felt coerced into his confession, which then begs the
question was Jason also coerced if that's to be true?
And then it goes back to what you know, I
think of like the Lauren Spear case, where you've got
a bunch of kids who are known drug users, who
(14:53):
are not by any means criminal masterminds. How are they
able to conceal what should be a relatively brazen crime
for years.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well that's the thing that the investigators, who feel pretty
passionately about Zach Adams not being the right guy, have
said to us. They don't think that these guys were
smart enough to do this. But the prosecution feels very
strongly differently about that, that these guys were on drugs
(15:32):
and they didn't care and didn't know and weren't bothered
by it. I mean, you know, there's sort of two
sides to every coin with that. But Dylan Adams confession
that you just brought up, it's a really interesting, strange
story that at the very least I think you know
(15:54):
his mother, his grandfather, Zach was careful about trying to
to speak of his brother's intellectual abilities too much, but
they all admit like he couldn't tell time. But the
prosecution argued that he was able to drive and go
about his life pretty much as he without any chaperone
(16:16):
or babysitter, so he functioned just fine. His mother told
us that he's kind of a people pleaser type, so
he's prone to be agreeable. Is that why he confessed?
The circumstances of his confession are interesting because he was
living with a private citizen as the condition of his release.
(16:38):
That private citizen happened to be a former Memphis like
a retired investigator. And he's the one that called TBI
and said, Dylan Adams is going to confess in this case,
and so why was he living with that guy? We
don't know the details of that arrangement are under CE,
(17:00):
so we don't have access to that information. We've asked
that particular retired investigator. We haven't got a comment back
on it. But everyone I've talked to you is like
that I've never even heard of something like that happening before.
But that's one of the details of this case. It's like, wait, what, Like,
what's going on here? And he wasn't even really part
(17:22):
of this trial. He wasn't his testimony, his confection wasn't
brought in. They ended up going with Jason Auntry. But
the very fact that it happened makes you wonder what's
going on. And so it's the details like that that
really about this case that make you scratch your head
and feel unsure about what went on. And truthfully, you know,
(17:47):
that was part of what kind of got us sort
of sucked into it all and interested. One of those
kinds of details that you couldn't really find a good
answer to.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah. So you know, as I mentioned earlier, Holly's case
comes up in my investigation because her name was found
on Israel Keys's computer. He had at minimum gotten to
links leading to articles about her disappearance and read them.
We don't know whether he was actively searching them or not.
(18:17):
It's unlikely Keys was involved, but it does for me
beg the question, you know, circling back to the beginning
of our discussion where you said that with someone in
this town, who did that what has led you to that?
I guess opinion, Well.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I don't know that it was someone in this town, okay,
but I think that is the like fear that people have.
Right at one point, investigators straight up ask people like,
don't just look in your bushes and in your yards
and acres of land, but look amongst yourselves. Look in
with a skeptical eye, because how would someone have known
(18:53):
what to do and where to go? I mean, the
layout of her family's property, even of itself, the driveway
is like not on the road, you have to drive
up kind of up back onto the property. Then the
way that she would have been walking off to the side,
there's a logging road on the back side of that property.
But how would you know that there was a logging road.
(19:14):
You can't see it from the front street or any
of the main streets. Like you would have to know
that there was a logging road and the road to
take to get to it, and how to get around.
Like I said, we tried to drive around there. The
GVS wasn't working and so it was like an absolute
nightmare to get around because we weren't from there. Also,
(19:34):
the other thing that I think is, you know, significant
is like, right away, everyone knew we weren't from there
because they know everyone from there. Right we stood out
like sore thumbs. Like everywhere we went, people were like,
where are you from? Because they've known everyone that's lived
in that town. There are people who move there that
have retired there because it's right along the river and
it's absolutely beautiful land. They know that, oh, that person
(19:57):
just moved to that house, Like these are people who
get involved in their neighbor's business. They know who's there.
If someone had been coming through and had stopped or
had spent any amount of time there, they would have known,
They would have recognized them, someone would have saw something,
especially with how fast this happened and how how fast
(20:18):
the community response was on this.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Yeah, That's what I was struck by, is you know,
the way you tell it, I think is quite lovely
and really paints a picture. And that you have two
people in two different locations who are hearing about this
or witnessing it, and their responses are so wildly different.
The person who's not even on site seems to have
a lot more fear and urgency than her brother who
(20:43):
witnessed the whole thing. And I think that speaks to
how close knit this community is. That it spread so
quickly that you know, before Holly was even off the property,
her mother was able to call Clint.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, because the neighbor heard a scream.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah. And the fact that the neighbor would I mean
that detail in of itself, that the neighbor would have
the cell phone number for the neighbor to call. That's
the kind of place this is that people would call
and say, hey, something's wrong at your house. I heard
a scream over there, And that her friend and coworker
was the one who drove her home. You know, it
(21:23):
just that's I think that's the part that I have
the hardest time wrapping my brain around. Is they were
there so fast. This person couldn't have gotten very far.
Did someone pass them on the road nobody, you know
what I mean? And how did they get away? You know,
they were looking pretty quickly, so tire marks, that kind
(21:46):
of stuff. They didn't see anything that gave them any
other clues as to where they went or how they left,
or any of those details. That's the question. What happened?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, It sounds like it was only a matter of
minutes between Clint seeing them the phone call, grabbing the
gun and running back out right.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And Holly's mom knew that it wasn't the boyfriend because
she had talked to the boyfriend early that morning. She
knew where he was. He was hunting on this other
family property, so she was aware. Clint was not aware
at the time, but it made sense to him that
the guy wearing camo would be her boyfriend or maybe
a cousin. He didn't want to shoot at somebody that
(22:25):
he knew, right, like that seems like a reasonable response.
And the other thing I think, you know, you have
to keep in mind is this guy had just woken up,
so he wasn't fully processing everything that was all this
information that was being very quickly thrown at him. As
he's like the dog waking him up from his deep sleep,
you know, he's like looking out the window and trying
(22:47):
to figure out why the panic. So, yeah, even at
what he at one point even says, my mom panics
more than me. I'm a calmer kind of person. He
sort of says something along those lines, And so I
think he was trying to figure out, like if her
panic was something he needed to be worried about.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And I also just think like, we tend to fill
in the blanks with the information that makes the most sense.
So you know, you see your sister walking with someone
and you just start going to assume it's her boyfriend.
I think it's just natural response to things.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Well, and the idea that she was walking right like, Yeah,
I think that makes that was probably confusing for him
to see. He didn't know what he was looking at.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, So tell me, you know what it was like
being on the ground out there talking to people and
investigating and exploring this case.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
You know what was the most striking about it is
it's been so many years, and yet I think the
hurt from this that still exists quite deeply amongst a
lot of people. Many families have been destroyed in this story,
(24:02):
and a lot of people still have questions about what
went on. And then at the same time, you have
Holly's family, who they believe they have justice and they
want to heal and put this behind them. And yet
in this moment, because all of this is now being challenged,
they can't. It's a wound that's being reopened for them,
(24:25):
and you can only imagine that's incredibly difficult. So you
have all of this that coexists in a place where
everyone knows everyone, and all of this is sort of
there on under the surface, I would say, as people
try to continue to go about their lives, but then
this thing is still there that they can't quite get past.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I think a lot about how a crime, particularly in
a small town, can create or shift the anthropology of
that place. I think about like Moram Maury's disappearance, and
how that town is now no longer a town, but
it is the place that Moramurray disappeared. And I imagine
it's quite the same here where it's been over a decade,
(25:16):
and this small town that was barely a blip on
the map. I think there's like, is there even a
stop light?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
There was definitely a stoplight in.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
But yeah, like this, you know, they have become the
worst thing that's ever happened there. And I imagine, you know,
notwithstanding all the personal connections, even just that existing in
this place that is now famous for a tragedy, and
then you are, of course there a stranger investigating it.
That must have been challenging and conflicting for you.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I grew up in a small town. I think I
probably feel more comfortable in a small town than I
do a big city, and so I find something even
when people don't want to talk to us, I find
something weirdly comforting about that because at least I know
where it comes from, whether it's a place of respect
for other people or privacy or uncertainty sometimes you know, pain,
(26:19):
People talk both because they have pain and don't talk
because they have pain. And so there's a realness that
I think exists in a small town because so much
of what happens is about survival, and there's a dependency
on each other that often is there because you can't
(26:40):
escape the other people that you've known for like your
whole life, right, So and so I find it very
refreshing no matter how positive or negative the interactions are.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, I live in a small town which is relatively
new for me, and even the people you don't like
become family. You know them, yeah, and you look out
for them. They're like you know, they're part of your life,
whether you want them to be or not. And yeah,
I think, like I said, going back to just like
how a crime affects its communities, I think it must
(27:17):
be very challenging to be looking around wondering how did
this happen, Who did this? Who's responsible? Can I trust
the people I've leaned on for my entire life?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I think it makes people question all the relationships around them, right.
And you would think, because you know, in a big,
bigger city, the sort of the eyes on it would
feel like a lot. But I think in a small
town it feels more like you're under a microscope because
the eyes that are looking at you and questioning what
(27:52):
happened were talking about you. There are people that you know,
and that feels different. I think that for some of
the people that we spoke to on this case, I
think that's been one of the harder parts of it
is they want the truth because and they don't necessarily
(28:14):
know what the truth is, Like some of the ones
that we spoke to, they don't know what the truth is,
but they want the truth because they need the whispering
to stop. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, I know there's been some conflict, which you talked
about earlier on just politically between law enforcement between prosecution.
Can you go a little into that. I was catching
up on this before our chat and kind of got
the cliffs notes version on Wikipedia. But it seems like
there's been some major issues with the public's perception and
(28:49):
the defensive perception of how the prosecution led this investigation.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I think the prosecutors would say they had an airtight case,
and you know, even with the current recantation of the
confession from their star witness, they would argue that he
told the truth during the trial and he was a
credible witness. I think the judge, one of the judges
along the lines, found him to be a credible witness
(29:17):
at the trial and made that point. The sort of
controversy of it all comes in that there was an investigator,
the lead investigator in this case was eventually taken off
the case. His boss basically said, you've got tunnel vision,
you're not solving it. We need you to go so
that we can find someone who doesn't have tunnel vision,
(29:38):
who can find the answer to what happened here and
solved this case. And so they took him off the case.
He eventually left TBI and another investigator was put in charge.
That didn't lead to an answer right away, but they
did eventually get an arrest and they did get a conviction.
I mean, someone was convicted of killing Holly Bobo, and
(30:01):
in most people's minds, I think you hear. Oh, so
you know Zach Adams was convicted of killing Holly Bobo.
That's the end. And now all of a sudden years later,
it's been opened all back up again because of the recantation.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Where does the leave you in the work you've done
and the inciting incidents that led you there? I guess,
without spoiling the podcast, how do you feel about what
has happened and the outcomes and what is happening.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I think what we were hoping to do with this
podcast is explain why people feel the way that they do,
or at least present how it came about. Right, if
you understand the timeline, if you understand the pressure that
(30:58):
hung over people for ext an amount of times, you
might understand why they feel a certain way and how
then things shifted and then people feel a certain way. There.
You know these investigators who feel very strongly that the
wrong person was convicted. We spoke to them, they were
taking off the case. They don't know what happened after
(31:18):
they left, right, but they feel very strongly about one thing.
And so you have to take every part of that
for the piece of the picture that someone provides, and
then try to put all of those pieces together to
allow the listener to determine for themselves where they think
the truth is. And I don't proclaim to know the answer.
(31:42):
We had access to a lot of information, and I
thought it was appropriate in this story to give people
that same information that we have as much of it
as we could put into six podcast episodes. To being
perfectly truthful, we still are not using everything that's in
(32:04):
the case file because the case file is so huge.
We wanted to give people a bigger, better picture of
the stuff that was happening. I think when you hear
people's voices, those interviews with people, a polygraph examiner talking
with a person being undergoing a test, you hear the
(32:25):
interrogation audio between investigators and possible suspects, You hear little
bits of pieces of people that you can then form
your own opinion about if you think they are innocent
or guilty, or a good guy or a bad guy.
I don't think that's our job, my job as a
(32:48):
journalist just make that determination. But I hope that we
paint a good picture of how we got to this moment,
which is leading into this hearing that's going to happen
later this month, and explain why people feel the way.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
They do about it having seen the case files, and again,
I have no expectation that you'll share anything earth shattering
that we should be listening to on the podcast. But
what do you think are some of the greater misconceptions
about this case?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I feel like I could say this look over by
producer Nora. You know, there was a lot of speculation
around Clint Bobo for a very long time. Multiple times,
every investigator we spoke to told us they believed him,
which I think is interesting. And you'll hear Clint's polygraph.
(33:42):
What he chooses to bring up on his own, completely unprovoked,
I actually think tells you a lot about what he
was grappling with in those days after his sister disappeared.
I think it'll make people feel differently about him, maybe
have a little bit more compassion for him. I can't
(34:03):
imagine what he was going through, having been the person
who saw his sister walk into the woods. But I
think it's so significant that every investigator told us they
believed him. They think he's telling the truth.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, well that also goes back to you know, and
I don't recall Jason Autrey's confession, but I know in
Dylan Adams. He places two people on the scene, and
then you go back to Clint saying he only ever
heard one other voice and saw one other person with
his sister that day.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Right, Clint's very clear that he heard a man with
a gravelly voice, wearing camo. He gives a description about
the size, and he had dark hair, it was pulled back.
It looked like a man who used to work out,
but now does it. That was kind of the description
that he gave walking his sister into the woods. And
(35:02):
so there was a rough estimate of a height and
a weight. Do any of the suspects match that description
if the investigators believe Climpobo, Yeah, something to think about.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, do you want to talk about any other recent updates?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
The hearing is happening later this month. Doug Bates, who
is zach Adam's attorney, just filed a bunch of a
very big filing on this case about the possible evidence
that's coming. So there's they have surveillance pictures of I
(35:51):
think it's a convenience store, possibly a ATM with timestamps
is sort of they'll argue, I think solidifies the alibi
that those four guys originally gave. They're clearly going to
argue about ineffective counsel. That's a part of the filing
(36:11):
that he just put into court. We have an idea
of kind of what to expect, but the judge has
marked off five days. That's a lot of time. So
I'm curious to see how long it actually takes. And
then these kinds of situations they don't make that they
don't do five days of hearings and the judge at
the very end gives you a decision. Usually the judge says, Okay,
(36:34):
I'm going to take all of this evidence and go
back to my chambers, and weeks, maybe even months later,
writes a decision and submits it. And that's how we
find out what's going to happen next in this case.
And that's where it stands. That's the latest, that's the
newest stuff that's come in.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
With that in mind, so I know the premiere launched
last week. Is your hope to do your did you say?
Six episodes and then hopefully do an update hopefully god willing,
around that time.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
The last episode should coincide with the hearing, and so
it our hope is that it folds in if it's
too much to fold in, you know, we'll see what
we do with that. But the plan is for it
to fold in and then see where it goes from there.
We don't have any expectations of what judges will do,
and it could take weeks or months to know, so
(37:32):
we'll see. But it was a story that we just
did the twenty twenty not that many months ago, and
so it felt like it made sense to do this
now to sort of explain how we got here. And
I've seen a lot, you know, in doing that twenty twenty,
there were a lot of comments and messages sent to
(37:53):
us with people with wild theories that I'm not really
sure where they came from. I do think what's howful
about the podcast that we've been able to do is
we give people the information, this is the evidence that
they had, this is the evidence that they took and
they tested and what they found, and trying to map
it out for them exactly where these different leads because
(38:17):
you know, these investigators exhausted all the leads. They were
really doing everything they could to solve this case.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
So what should listeners expect in terms of format? And
you mentioned you talk to people, you'll be playing audio.
I guess give people like me who want to know
what they're in for an idea of what the podcast
will sound like and present.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
So we talked to some of the old investigators. That
was part of our work that we've been doing. We've
been interviewing people. You'll hear from the Bobo family, Clint
and Holly, Bobo's parents as well. We interviewed them back
in twenty seventeen, so they really walk you through the
day and what happened early in that case. And then
(39:07):
we lean into the case file. So you're going to
hear the polygraph test and the examiner. You hear the
questions that she asks and the responses that are given.
There's also audio of some of the interrogations, so you'll
hear people's responses. We did a phone call with Zach
(39:28):
Adams from jail. He spoke with us what he thinks
of all of this. We were given access to Jason
Autry's recantation. He explains what he says happened that day,
why he made the story he made, and how he
(39:49):
did it. Putting all of those pieces together, we did
reach out to everyone. We reached out to TBI, we
reached out to the prosecutor's office. We've reached out to
everyone involved in the story for responses, and so it's
all there, everyone who responded, and all the parts of
the case file that we felt like we could use
(40:10):
in a fair smart way.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I get attached to the cases I cover, which I'm
told is amateurish. When this is all said and done,
what part of this do you think you'll take with you, like,
what will stick with you the most or resonate the most?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
I think I think the part of the story that
I find to be most unsettling is and I think
I find this in a lot of stories that become
big stories that involve crimes where the answer is not
there right away, is just how damaging rumors can be.
(40:53):
It doesn't matter if you live in a small town
or a big city. How that affects justice. What is justice?
You know what I mean? Is it just finding out
who committed the murder? What's the damage on the flip
side of all of this to a place and two
people in the pursuit of that. And so we've been
(41:16):
really careful. We've tried to be really careful and respectful
of everyone involved. We always are because the fallout on
the other side of these kinds of stories is often
much more long lasting than six episodes of a podcast.
But you hope that you can give people facts and
truth and help them just determine what it is that
(41:41):
they think and believe with some supporting evidence and maybe
quiet some of that rumor mill a bit, so that
people can live their lives.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Well, I think, and you've said it a few times,
but it is in the how we got here that
I think leaves the most lasting impression. I think as
reporters or storytellers, people often presume our job is to
tell you what happened. But I think our job is
to tell you how it happened, and then what happened
(42:15):
once it was over. And so I think what you
just said speaks to that so eloquently.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
No, that's exactly the point, right, It's this stuff is messy.
It's messy, and so many people get caught in the
mess of it all in the middle as they're trying
to find the answers. The number of people who were
suspects in this case who were never charged, and people
still have questions about those people. And when you look
(42:42):
at the speculation about what happened, those people's names are
still brought up. Well, what's the truth? It's not for
me or me to determine. Is there justice in that
in the end, when people can't escape the cloud of speculation,
even when the justice system has done their thing. It's
(43:03):
something to think about. I think that's the stuff that
sort of stays with you for well, beyond the story
and the people you know, you can't help but feel
for all the families involved, no matter if you think
they're good or bad. There's a lot of pain that
goes around in this story, for sure.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Yeah. I often challenge myself and the listeners to like
consider how we engage with true crime in the age
of the Internet. And I think anyone can say anything
on Reddit or on Facebook or wherever, and very quickly
that opinion or that gossip becomes part of a greater mythology,
(43:41):
and then it just exists on the Internet forever, no
matter what the truth ends up being. I think the
more you think about something, the more prone you are
to doubt it. And so no matter what happens, we
could prove without a shadow of doubt that one person
and one person only act alone, but every other name
that's been brought up is going to have to live
(44:03):
with that implication for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yep, that's what happens generally with these types of things.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Well, on that high note, i'm going to let you go,
but it was really lovely chatting with you, and I
am very eager to hear what you guys uncovered.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, of course, thank you, all right,
This is a studio both and production. Everyone. This past April,
I sat down with Eva Pilgrim, the co anchor of
Good Morning America three and ABC's senior national correspondent, to
discuss her new investigative podcast, What Happened to Holly Bobo.
(00:29):
I'm sure listeners recall that Holly Bobo's name and image
were found on Israel Keys's computer as part of the
name is forty five, And to be honest, I've always
been a bit skeptical about the boys who were allegedly
involved in her disappearance. In fact, for the longest time,
Shana and I have argued over whether Keys could be
responsible for Holly's disappearance. So Eva and I sat down
(00:52):
to discuss the case, her investigation Keys, what the public
got wrong, and the local impacts of this year's long case.
So check out our conversation now and then go subscribe
to What Happened to Holly Bobo, which just aired its
sixth episode, So it's totally bingeable today. But first next month,
(01:13):
I'll be at the True Crime Podcast Festival in Boston
July eighteenth to the twentieth, and listeners will get the
exclusive opportunity to join the studio both and research team
for an hour during our interactive research roundtable, where you,
the researchers and I will take a look at two
cases and use our tools and resources and group discussion
(01:35):
to deep dive them and theorize. But that's not all.
Whine and Crime will be there, Generation Why will be there,
Crime Lines will be there, and many many other true
crime podcasts. For twenty percent off tickets, go to Truecrime
Podcast Festival dot com and use promo code Josh twenty. Also,
we still have spots on our trip to Bali this September,
(01:57):
say goodbye to summer with Spring in Ba. You'll get
to be the first to hear the season seven premiere
of True Crime Bullshit and follow that with a group discussion.
Plus we'll tour night markets, walk the Sacred Monkey Forest
where there are tons of friendly and hungry monkeys. We'll
sit umbrella cocktails on the beach, visit a Balanese farm,
participate in a Balanese cooking class, and I'll take you
(02:19):
to my favorite restaurant on the island, and so much more.
So come with me to Bali, dive into the new
season of TCB before anyone else, and support our investigation
by taking yourself on a once in a lifetime vacation.
Check out the show notes for links to the Trova
site with a full itinerary, trip details and a link
(02:40):
to secure your spot. Now, okay, here's that interview. I
am here with reporter Eva Pilgrim, and you have just
launched What Happened to Holly Bobo as presented by ABC
News and that is of I think, great interest to
my audience because there are some at minimum loose ties
(03:02):
between the Keys investigation and Holly Bobo's disappearance. So thank
you for being here. Can you tell me a little
bit about how this podcast was conceived, how you got
involved in what your hopes and dreams for your work
with this had been.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I didn't actually start on the story. Someone else started
covering the story back when it first happened, and I
was sent to Tennessee to do a follow up on
the story because there had been this twist in the case.
The state's star witness recanted their testimony, recanted their confession,
(03:39):
and so that raised a lot of questions about, well,
what really happened in this case. And so when we
went to Tennessee and we started talking to investigators. I
felt like I left with more questions than I came with,
which that doesn't often happen. I feel like, usually, especially
(04:00):
in a case that has a conviction, you walk away
from it feeling pretty like, sure you understood what happened, and.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Correct me if I'm wrong. Holly disappeared in twenty eleven.
The only witness to her disappearance was her brother, Clint,
who heard voices talking, two voices, his sisters, and a
man whom he believed to be Holly's boyfriend. Then he
was alerted that Holly was actually being abducted, and when
he looked out the window, he saw a man who,
(04:28):
again he's still at that point believed to be Holly's boyfriend,
walking with her out into the woods. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
That is correct? And he gave a description of what
that man looked like and the sound of his voice.
So that was the first initial big piece of evidence
that they had in this case. The other bits of
evidence that they got right away, there was some blood
that was found in the carport right there at Holly's home.
There was a shoe print, and there was a handprint,
(04:58):
not a lot of physical evidence. Then there were all
of these people almost immediately that descended upon this very
rural home to help search for Holly. I've been out
to the house, like just to sort of put into
perspective for people, There's zero reason you would ever be
there unless you were planning to go there. It's literally
(05:20):
it's the middle of nowhere. There's like new street signs.
You wouldn't even know where you were going, right, Like
GPS doesn't work all the time. It's that kind of place.
And so everyone showed up in town, everyone who was
from the area showed up. The community really started looking.
All the police and investigators, both locally and even neighboring
counties and statewide came in and started helping. There were
(05:43):
helicopters right away, they were dogs right away. I mean
they really put pulled out all the stops to try
to find this girl. And the fact that they couldn't
find her with all of that effort, I mean, just
how how does that not happen?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Right?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, it's funny. You know you said something in the
podcast that I immediately wrote it down because it speaks to
some of the work we do, and it kind of,
you know, my opinion on this is I think quite
different than most people's. I don't think any of the
men who've been implicated were involved. Something you said really
supported that, which is where her house is located. You said,
(06:24):
I think specifically someone was either targeting that specific house
or Holly herself. And then for them to disappear in
this area so quickly, in an area where everybody knows
everybody is to me kind of the core mystery in
all of this is, you know, it was clearly someone
(06:45):
who knew her or who had staked out this location,
and yet they were able to disappear in a town
full of people who know everybody else.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But I think that's also what makes this story so
scary for people, Right, it's this idea that it's one
of us, Right, one of us did this, Someone in
that tiny, tight knit community is responsible for this. And
every suspect in this case was from this area. It
(07:15):
wasn't a person driving through town. It was someone that
these people have some sort of deep history with. Whether
or not they were close because they knew each other
well is not the point. It's that they know each
other's history. They know their mother or their father, their
grandparents or their cousins or they're you know, distantly related
(07:39):
that someone like that could have taken this girl and
murdered her. I think that's scarier than for a stranger
to do it for so many people.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, I agree, and it's something I always remind my listeners.
I think in true crime we kind of get into
this headspace that we should be afraid of everyone, and
I think the sad thing is we're most likely to
be harmed by the people who were already in our worlds.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, and I think that's what really shakes your sense
of safety, is it could be someone that you've let
into your world, right.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, So with that in mind, you know, tell me
how we get from Holly walking into the woods with
a stranger to six different men being implicated in her
abduction and murder.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So, you know, first you have to remember this was
the largest most expensive investigation in Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's history.
They threw everything at this the manpower, money to bring
in equipment and people and things. And they really wanted
(08:51):
to solve this case, There's no no question about that.
And so they did the thing that investigators do every
good investigator. They start to go through all of the
people close so Clint Bobo was the last one to
see her. They questioned Clint Bobo. They looked at the
list of all the possible sex offenders in the area,
(09:13):
dwindled down what those options were, and talked to all
of those people. One of those people became a question
mark for a while. And then they looked at these
four guys who were all friends and started questioning them
because people in town were bringing up their names for
different reasons. And so at some point those four guys
(09:37):
becomes the focus of this investigation. And then they get
a confession from one of the guys involved, and then
they get another confession, and now they have they have
three arrests. One of the four eventually committed suicide and
so he was never arrested for this case. But and
(10:00):
then we go to trial in the first case, the
case against Sack Adams, and they get a conviction. So
it just when you look at sort of how it happened,
that sounds very short. This was so many years, right,
It took them years to find Holly Bobo's body. By
the time they found her body, there wasn't a whole
(10:21):
lot of evidence left that gave them any answers as
to who did this, they could determine how she was killed.
They know she was shot in the head, but you know,
there wasn't a whole lot left and she was found
not that far from her family's home. And without a
(10:42):
ton of physical evidence. In this case, all they have
is Clint's description of whoever it was that took her.
They have, they have her body that they found, that
little bit of physical evidence from the beginning, and the
word of other people, and that's what led them to
(11:03):
this conviction. And you have to remember this was a
community that really wanted an answer as to what was
going on here. The solving of this case became a
politically charged thing. You know, the sheriff was elected the
district attorney. They campaigned on solving the Holly Bobo case.
So this was not something that went away. Wasn't top
(11:28):
of mind for people, even after years of it passing.
And so you get a conviction, everyone thinks it's done.
And then the star witness were cants. What's interesting about
the two people who confess is one was Zach adams brother,
Dylan Adams. The other was his friend Jason Audrey Well.
(11:50):
Zach adams brother Dylan's confession and Jason Audry's confession, they
don't go together, right, They don't line up in a
way that makes them both make sense. And so Jason
Auntry was the one who ended up taking the stand.
His testimony lined up more with the evidence that they had,
(12:12):
and it wasn't for lack of trying to get more
evidence from these investigators in the work that they did.
They went to Zach adams house. They literally pulled up
the floor of his home. Right like we saw the floor.
There was like this giant piece of plywood that was
thrown over the floor because they took the floor out
to test it to see if there was any blood
(12:32):
or DNA evidence they could find. They took the couch,
they took all this evidence from the house. They weren't
able to find any DNA evidence to link these four
guys to this murder. So it's not for lack of trying, right,
But also time has passed at this point, so would
there have been evidence there. It's who knows, right, So
(12:55):
this is what they had to go with. And now
you have the star witness recanting the testimony. The question
is when was he telling the truth? Was he telling
the truth back then, or is he telling the truth now,
And I think that is the question that a lot
of people are going to have as they go forward.
The defense attorney for Zach Adams just recently filed a
(13:16):
big filing in court ahead of this hearing that's going
to determine if he gets a new trial, looking showing
kind of what they are planning to present surveillance video
of the guys that he will argue corroborates their alibi
for the day that they were buying drugs, which is
(13:36):
what they have said all along, that the three of
them at least were going to buy drugs that day
and that's where they were at the time that Holly
Bobo was taken and killed. Is that enough to get
a new trial? It's really hard to get a new trial,
and I think, you know, people think that it's not
that difficult. It's a much steeper mountain to climb than
(13:58):
not getting convicted in first place. So is it going
to be enough to sway I judge to start over.
I think that's going to be the question. We'll have
to wait and see you later this month.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, going back to you know, how we got here,
and it's two confessions that contradict one another, and then
a lot of like in my opinion, very flimsy, circumstantial
evidence going back to those confessions. So Zach's brother Dylan, who,
if I recall correctly, lives with intellectual disabilities, said that
(14:33):
he felt coerced into his confession, which then begs the
question was Jason also coerced if that's to be true?
And then it goes back to what you know, I
think of like the Lauren Spear case, where you've got
a bunch of kids who are known drug users, who
(14:53):
are not by any means criminal masterminds. How are they
able to conceal what should be a relatively brazen crime
for years.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well that's the thing that the investigators, who feel pretty
passionately about Zach Adams not being the right guy, have
said to us. They don't think that these guys were
smart enough to do this. But the prosecution feels very
strongly differently about that, that these guys were on drugs
(15:32):
and they didn't care and didn't know and weren't bothered
by it. I mean, you know, there's sort of two
sides to every coin with that. But Dylan Adams confession
that you just brought up, it's a really interesting, strange
story that at the very least I think you know
(15:54):
his mother, his grandfather, Zach was careful about trying to
to speak of his brother's intellectual abilities too much, but
they all admit like he couldn't tell time. But the
prosecution argued that he was able to drive and go
about his life pretty much as he without any chaperone
(16:16):
or babysitter, so he functioned just fine. His mother told
us that he's kind of a people pleaser type, so
he's prone to be agreeable. Is that why he confessed?
The circumstances of his confession are interesting because he was
living with a private citizen as the condition of his release.
(16:38):
That private citizen happened to be a former Memphis like
a retired investigator. And he's the one that called TBI
and said, Dylan Adams is going to confess in this case,
and so why was he living with that guy? We
don't know the details of that arrangement are under CE,
(17:00):
so we don't have access to that information. We've asked
that particular retired investigator. We haven't got a comment back
on it. But everyone I've talked to you is like
that I've never even heard of something like that happening before.
But that's one of the details of this case. It's like, wait, what, Like,
what's going on here? And he wasn't even really part
(17:22):
of this trial. He wasn't his testimony, his confection wasn't
brought in. They ended up going with Jason Auntry. But
the very fact that it happened makes you wonder what's
going on. And so it's the details like that that
really about this case that make you scratch your head
and feel unsure about what went on. And truthfully, you know,
(17:47):
that was part of what kind of got us sort
of sucked into it all and interested. One of those
kinds of details that you couldn't really find a good
answer to.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah. So you know, as I mentioned earlier, Holly's case
comes up in my investigation because her name was found
on Israel Keys's computer. He had at minimum gotten to
links leading to articles about her disappearance and read them.
We don't know whether he was actively searching them or not.
(18:17):
It's unlikely Keys was involved, but it does for me
beg the question, you know, circling back to the beginning
of our discussion where you said that with someone in
this town, who did that what has led you to that?
I guess opinion, Well.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I don't know that it was someone in this town, okay,
but I think that is the like fear that people have.
Right at one point, investigators straight up ask people like,
don't just look in your bushes and in your yards
and acres of land, but look amongst yourselves. Look in
with a skeptical eye, because how would someone have known
(18:53):
what to do and where to go? I mean, the
layout of her family's property, even of itself, the driveway
is like not on the road, you have to drive
up kind of up back onto the property. Then the
way that she would have been walking off to the side,
there's a logging road on the back side of that property.
But how would you know that there was a logging road.
(19:14):
You can't see it from the front street or any
of the main streets. Like you would have to know
that there was a logging road and the road to
take to get to it, and how to get around.
Like I said, we tried to drive around there. The
GVS wasn't working and so it was like an absolute
nightmare to get around because we weren't from there. Also,
(19:34):
the other thing that I think is, you know, significant
is like, right away, everyone knew we weren't from there
because they know everyone from there. Right we stood out
like sore thumbs. Like everywhere we went, people were like,
where are you from? Because they've known everyone that's lived
in that town. There are people who move there that
have retired there because it's right along the river and
it's absolutely beautiful land. They know that, oh, that person
(19:57):
just moved to that house, Like these are people who
get involved in their neighbor's business. They know who's there.
If someone had been coming through and had stopped or
had spent any amount of time there, they would have known,
They would have recognized them, someone would have saw something,
especially with how fast this happened and how how fast
(20:18):
the community response was on this.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Yeah, That's what I was struck by, is you know,
the way you tell it, I think is quite lovely
and really paints a picture. And that you have two
people in two different locations who are hearing about this
or witnessing it, and their responses are so wildly different.
The person who's not even on site seems to have
a lot more fear and urgency than her brother who
(20:43):
witnessed the whole thing. And I think that speaks to
how close knit this community is. That it spread so
quickly that you know, before Holly was even off the property,
her mother was able to call Clint.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, because the neighbor heard a scream.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah. And the fact that the neighbor would I mean
that detail in of itself, that the neighbor would have
the cell phone number for the neighbor to call. That's
the kind of place this is that people would call
and say, hey, something's wrong at your house. I heard
a scream over there, And that her friend and coworker
was the one who drove her home. You know, it
(21:23):
just that's I think that's the part that I have
the hardest time wrapping my brain around. Is they were
there so fast. This person couldn't have gotten very far.
Did someone pass them on the road nobody, you know
what I mean? And how did they get away? You know,
they were looking pretty quickly, so tire marks, that kind
(21:46):
of stuff. They didn't see anything that gave them any
other clues as to where they went or how they left,
or any of those details. That's the question. What happened?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, It sounds like it was only a matter of
minutes between Clint seeing them the phone call, grabbing the
gun and running back out right.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And Holly's mom knew that it wasn't the boyfriend because
she had talked to the boyfriend early that morning. She
knew where he was. He was hunting on this other
family property, so she was aware. Clint was not aware
at the time, but it made sense to him that
the guy wearing camo would be her boyfriend or maybe
a cousin. He didn't want to shoot at somebody that
(22:25):
he knew, right, like that seems like a reasonable response.
And the other thing I think, you know, you have
to keep in mind is this guy had just woken up,
so he wasn't fully processing everything that was all this
information that was being very quickly thrown at him. As
he's like the dog waking him up from his deep sleep,
you know, he's like looking out the window and trying
(22:47):
to figure out why the panic. So, yeah, even at
what he at one point even says, my mom panics
more than me. I'm a calmer kind of person. He
sort of says something along those lines, And so I
think he was trying to figure out, like if her
panic was something he needed to be worried about.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And I also just think like, we tend to fill
in the blanks with the information that makes the most sense.
So you know, you see your sister walking with someone
and you just start going to assume it's her boyfriend.
I think it's just natural response to things.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Well, and the idea that she was walking right like, Yeah,
I think that makes that was probably confusing for him
to see. He didn't know what he was looking at.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, So tell me, you know what it was like
being on the ground out there talking to people and
investigating and exploring this case.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
You know what was the most striking about it is
it's been so many years, and yet I think the
hurt from this that still exists quite deeply amongst a
lot of people. Many families have been destroyed in this story,
(24:02):
and a lot of people still have questions about what
went on. And then at the same time, you have
Holly's family, who they believe they have justice and they
want to heal and put this behind them. And yet
in this moment, because all of this is now being challenged,
they can't. It's a wound that's being reopened for them,
(24:25):
and you can only imagine that's incredibly difficult. So you
have all of this that coexists in a place where
everyone knows everyone, and all of this is sort of
there on under the surface, I would say, as people
try to continue to go about their lives, but then
this thing is still there that they can't quite get past.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I think a lot about how a crime, particularly in
a small town, can create or shift the anthropology of
that place. I think about like Moram Maury's disappearance, and
how that town is now no longer a town, but
it is the place that Moramurray disappeared. And I imagine
it's quite the same here where it's been over a decade,
(25:16):
and this small town that was barely a blip on
the map. I think there's like, is there even a
stop light?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
There was definitely a stoplight in.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
But yeah, like this, you know, they have become the
worst thing that's ever happened there. And I imagine, you know,
notwithstanding all the personal connections, even just that existing in
this place that is now famous for a tragedy, and
then you are, of course there a stranger investigating it.
That must have been challenging and conflicting for you.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I grew up in a small town. I think I
probably feel more comfortable in a small town than I
do a big city, and so I find something even
when people don't want to talk to us, I find
something weirdly comforting about that because at least I know
where it comes from, whether it's a place of respect
for other people or privacy or uncertainty sometimes you know, pain,
(26:19):
People talk both because they have pain and don't talk
because they have pain. And so there's a realness that
I think exists in a small town because so much
of what happens is about survival, and there's a dependency
on each other that often is there because you can't
(26:40):
escape the other people that you've known for like your
whole life, right, So and so I find it very
refreshing no matter how positive or negative the interactions are.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, I live in a small town which is relatively
new for me, and even the people you don't like
become family. You know them, yeah, and you look out
for them. They're like you know, they're part of your life,
whether you want them to be or not. And yeah,
I think, like I said, going back to just like
how a crime affects its communities, I think it must
(27:17):
be very challenging to be looking around wondering how did
this happen, Who did this? Who's responsible? Can I trust
the people I've leaned on for my entire life?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I think it makes people question all the relationships around them, right.
And you would think, because you know, in a big,
bigger city, the sort of the eyes on it would
feel like a lot. But I think in a small
town it feels more like you're under a microscope because
the eyes that are looking at you and questioning what
(27:52):
happened were talking about you. There are people that you know,
and that feels different. I think that for some of
the people that we spoke to on this case, I
think that's been one of the harder parts of it
is they want the truth because and they don't necessarily
(28:14):
know what the truth is, Like some of the ones
that we spoke to, they don't know what the truth is,
but they want the truth because they need the whispering
to stop. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, I know there's been some conflict, which you talked
about earlier on just politically between law enforcement between prosecution.
Can you go a little into that. I was catching
up on this before our chat and kind of got
the cliffs notes version on Wikipedia. But it seems like
there's been some major issues with the public's perception and
(28:49):
the defensive perception of how the prosecution led this investigation.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I think the prosecutors would say they had an airtight case,
and you know, even with the current recantation of the
confession from their star witness, they would argue that he
told the truth during the trial and he was a
credible witness. I think the judge, one of the judges
along the lines, found him to be a credible witness
(29:17):
at the trial and made that point. The sort of
controversy of it all comes in that there was an investigator,
the lead investigator in this case was eventually taken off
the case. His boss basically said, you've got tunnel vision,
you're not solving it. We need you to go so
that we can find someone who doesn't have tunnel vision,
(29:38):
who can find the answer to what happened here and
solved this case. And so they took him off the case.
He eventually left TBI and another investigator was put in charge.
That didn't lead to an answer right away, but they
did eventually get an arrest and they did get a conviction.
I mean, someone was convicted of killing Holly Bobo, and
(30:01):
in most people's minds, I think you hear. Oh, so
you know Zach Adams was convicted of killing Holly Bobo.
That's the end. And now all of a sudden years later,
it's been opened all back up again because of the recantation.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Where does the leave you in the work you've done
and the inciting incidents that led you there? I guess,
without spoiling the podcast, how do you feel about what
has happened and the outcomes and what is happening.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I think what we were hoping to do with this
podcast is explain why people feel the way that they do,
or at least present how it came about. Right, if
you understand the timeline, if you understand the pressure that
(30:58):
hung over people for ext an amount of times, you
might understand why they feel a certain way and how
then things shifted and then people feel a certain way. There.
You know these investigators who feel very strongly that the
wrong person was convicted. We spoke to them, they were
taking off the case. They don't know what happened after
(31:18):
they left, right, but they feel very strongly about one thing.
And so you have to take every part of that
for the piece of the picture that someone provides, and
then try to put all of those pieces together to
allow the listener to determine for themselves where they think
the truth is. And I don't proclaim to know the answer.
(31:42):
We had access to a lot of information, and I
thought it was appropriate in this story to give people
that same information that we have as much of it
as we could put into six podcast episodes. To being
perfectly truthful, we still are not using everything that's in
(32:04):
the case file because the case file is so huge.
We wanted to give people a bigger, better picture of
the stuff that was happening. I think when you hear
people's voices, those interviews with people, a polygraph examiner talking
with a person being undergoing a test, you hear the
(32:25):
interrogation audio between investigators and possible suspects, You hear little
bits of pieces of people that you can then form
your own opinion about if you think they are innocent
or guilty, or a good guy or a bad guy.
I don't think that's our job, my job as a
(32:48):
journalist just make that determination. But I hope that we
paint a good picture of how we got to this moment,
which is leading into this hearing that's going to happen
later this month, and explain why people feel the way.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
They do about it having seen the case files, and again,
I have no expectation that you'll share anything earth shattering
that we should be listening to on the podcast. But
what do you think are some of the greater misconceptions
about this case?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I feel like I could say this look over by
producer Nora. You know, there was a lot of speculation
around Clint Bobo for a very long time. Multiple times,
every investigator we spoke to told us they believed him,
which I think is interesting. And you'll hear Clint's polygraph.
(33:42):
What he chooses to bring up on his own, completely unprovoked,
I actually think tells you a lot about what he
was grappling with in those days after his sister disappeared.
I think it'll make people feel differently about him, maybe
have a little bit more compassion for him. I can't
(34:03):
imagine what he was going through, having been the person
who saw his sister walk into the woods. But I
think it's so significant that every investigator told us they
believed him. They think he's telling the truth.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, well that also goes back to you know, and
I don't recall Jason Autrey's confession, but I know in
Dylan Adams. He places two people on the scene, and
then you go back to Clint saying he only ever
heard one other voice and saw one other person with
his sister that day.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Right, Clint's very clear that he heard a man with
a gravelly voice, wearing camo. He gives a description about
the size, and he had dark hair, it was pulled back.
It looked like a man who used to work out,
but now does it. That was kind of the description
that he gave walking his sister into the woods. And
(35:02):
so there was a rough estimate of a height and
a weight. Do any of the suspects match that description
if the investigators believe Climpobo, Yeah, something to think about.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, do you want to talk about any other recent updates?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
The hearing is happening later this month. Doug Bates, who
is zach Adam's attorney, just filed a bunch of a
very big filing on this case about the possible evidence
that's coming. So there's they have surveillance pictures of I
(35:51):
think it's a convenience store, possibly a ATM with timestamps
is sort of they'll argue, I think solidifies the alibi
that those four guys originally gave. They're clearly going to
argue about ineffective counsel. That's a part of the filing
(36:11):
that he just put into court. We have an idea
of kind of what to expect, but the judge has
marked off five days. That's a lot of time. So
I'm curious to see how long it actually takes. And
then these kinds of situations they don't make that they
don't do five days of hearings and the judge at
the very end gives you a decision. Usually the judge says, Okay,
(36:34):
I'm going to take all of this evidence and go
back to my chambers, and weeks, maybe even months later,
writes a decision and submits it. And that's how we
find out what's going to happen next in this case.
And that's where it stands. That's the latest, that's the
newest stuff that's come in.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
With that in mind, so I know the premiere launched
last week. Is your hope to do your did you say?
Six episodes and then hopefully do an update hopefully god willing,
around that time.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
The last episode should coincide with the hearing, and so
it our hope is that it folds in if it's
too much to fold in, you know, we'll see what
we do with that. But the plan is for it
to fold in and then see where it goes from there.
We don't have any expectations of what judges will do,
and it could take weeks or months to know, so
(37:32):
we'll see. But it was a story that we just
did the twenty twenty not that many months ago, and
so it felt like it made sense to do this
now to sort of explain how we got here. And
I've seen a lot, you know, in doing that twenty twenty,
there were a lot of comments and messages sent to
(37:53):
us with people with wild theories that I'm not really
sure where they came from. I do think what's howful
about the podcast that we've been able to do is
we give people the information, this is the evidence that
they had, this is the evidence that they took and
they tested and what they found, and trying to map
it out for them exactly where these different leads because
(38:17):
you know, these investigators exhausted all the leads. They were
really doing everything they could to solve this case.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
So what should listeners expect in terms of format? And
you mentioned you talk to people, you'll be playing audio.
I guess give people like me who want to know
what they're in for an idea of what the podcast
will sound like and present.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
So we talked to some of the old investigators. That
was part of our work that we've been doing. We've
been interviewing people. You'll hear from the Bobo family, Clint
and Holly, Bobo's parents as well. We interviewed them back
in twenty seventeen, so they really walk you through the
day and what happened early in that case. And then
(39:07):
we lean into the case file. So you're going to
hear the polygraph test and the examiner. You hear the
questions that she asks and the responses that are given.
There's also audio of some of the interrogations, so you'll
hear people's responses. We did a phone call with Zach
(39:28):
Adams from jail. He spoke with us what he thinks
of all of this. We were given access to Jason
Autry's recantation. He explains what he says happened that day,
why he made the story he made, and how he
(39:49):
did it. Putting all of those pieces together, we did
reach out to everyone. We reached out to TBI, we
reached out to the prosecutor's office. We've reached out to
everyone involved in the story for responses, and so it's
all there, everyone who responded, and all the parts of
the case file that we felt like we could use
(40:10):
in a fair smart way.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I get attached to the cases I cover, which I'm
told is amateurish. When this is all said and done,
what part of this do you think you'll take with you, like,
what will stick with you the most or resonate the most?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
I think I think the part of the story that
I find to be most unsettling is and I think
I find this in a lot of stories that become
big stories that involve crimes where the answer is not
there right away, is just how damaging rumors can be.
(40:53):
It doesn't matter if you live in a small town
or a big city. How that affects justice. What is justice?
You know what I mean? Is it just finding out
who committed the murder? What's the damage on the flip
side of all of this to a place and two
people in the pursuit of that. And so we've been
(41:16):
really careful. We've tried to be really careful and respectful
of everyone involved. We always are because the fallout on
the other side of these kinds of stories is often
much more long lasting than six episodes of a podcast.
But you hope that you can give people facts and
truth and help them just determine what it is that
(41:41):
they think and believe with some supporting evidence and maybe
quiet some of that rumor mill a bit, so that
people can live their lives.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Well, I think, and you've said it a few times,
but it is in the how we got here that
I think leaves the most lasting impression. I think as
reporters or storytellers, people often presume our job is to
tell you what happened. But I think our job is
to tell you how it happened, and then what happened
(42:15):
once it was over. And so I think what you
just said speaks to that so eloquently.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
No, that's exactly the point, right, It's this stuff is messy.
It's messy, and so many people get caught in the
mess of it all in the middle as they're trying
to find the answers. The number of people who were
suspects in this case who were never charged, and people
still have questions about those people. And when you look
(42:42):
at the speculation about what happened, those people's names are
still brought up. Well, what's the truth? It's not for
me or me to determine. Is there justice in that
in the end, when people can't escape the cloud of speculation,
even when the justice system has done their thing. It's
(43:03):
something to think about. I think that's the stuff that
sort of stays with you for well, beyond the story
and the people you know, you can't help but feel
for all the families involved, no matter if you think
they're good or bad. There's a lot of pain that
goes around in this story, for sure.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Yeah. I often challenge myself and the listeners to like
consider how we engage with true crime in the age
of the Internet. And I think anyone can say anything
on Reddit or on Facebook or wherever, and very quickly
that opinion or that gossip becomes part of a greater mythology,
(43:41):
and then it just exists on the Internet forever, no
matter what the truth ends up being. I think the
more you think about something, the more prone you are
to doubt it. And so no matter what happens, we
could prove without a shadow of doubt that one person
and one person only act alone, but every other name
that's been brought up is going to have to live
(44:03):
with that implication for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yep, that's what happens generally with these types of things.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Well, on that high note, i'm going to let you go,
but it was really lovely chatting with you, and I
am very eager to hear what you guys uncovered.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, of course, thank you, all right,
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