December 16, 2025 • 48 mins
For the month of December, True Crime creators are getting together for conversations about podcasting, true crime, and the nexus between the two. We’ll discuss creating our shows, behind-the-scenes moments, fears and hopes, the cases that have gripped us, and more.
In this conversation we discuss: gay podcasting, advocacy and compassion in podcasting, dick pics, criticism, the genesis of our shows, our favorite podcasts of the year, and more.
Enjoy this conversation and be sure to check out the rest:
• Jessie (Love Murder), Bob (Buried), Joshua (Somewhere in the Pines)
• Javier (Pretend), Kristen (Murder, She Told), Shaun (Sins & Survivors)
• Patrick (True Crime Obsessed), Josh (True Crime Bullsh**), Eric (True Consequences)
• Gillian (True Crime Obsessed), Alvin (Affirmative Murder), Lanie (True Crime Cases with Lanie)
• Robin (The Trail Went Cold), Nina (Already Gone), John (Sins & Survivors)
• Aaron (Generation Why), Lucy (Wine & Crime), Kristen (Murder, She Told)
• Amanda (Wine & Crime), Josh (True Crime Bullsh**), Andie (Love Murder), Charlie (Crimelines)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-bullsh--3588169/support.
In this conversation we discuss: gay podcasting, advocacy and compassion in podcasting, dick pics, criticism, the genesis of our shows, our favorite podcasts of the year, and more.
Enjoy this conversation and be sure to check out the rest:
• Jessie (Love Murder), Bob (Buried), Joshua (Somewhere in the Pines)
• Javier (Pretend), Kristen (Murder, She Told), Shaun (Sins & Survivors)
• Patrick (True Crime Obsessed), Josh (True Crime Bullsh**), Eric (True Consequences)
• Gillian (True Crime Obsessed), Alvin (Affirmative Murder), Lanie (True Crime Cases with Lanie)
• Robin (The Trail Went Cold), Nina (Already Gone), John (Sins & Survivors)
• Aaron (Generation Why), Lucy (Wine & Crime), Kristen (Murder, She Told)
• Amanda (Wine & Crime), Josh (True Crime Bullsh**), Andie (Love Murder), Charlie (Crimelines)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-bullsh--3588169/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So for December, a bunch of podcasters are getting together
and having what we're calling True Crime Conversations. And I
am here today with Eric carter Landin from Advocacy con
and True Consequences and Patrick Hines from True Crime Obsessed.
Hey guys, Hi hi, And I am Josh Hallmark from
(00:23):
True Crime Bullshit and Unsafe Spaces. So before we kick off,
because I'm sure there are people who are listening to
this who have not met all of us, why don't
you share your origin stories? Why don't we start with Eric?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, well mine is a bummer, so it's good to
get that out of the way right away. My brother
was murdered thirty nine years ago, and I've been fighting
for justice for him ever since, and so everything I do,
everything I have done, has been in honor of him
and in memory of him. So I started True Consequences
in twenty nineteen. It's been a very long time since
(00:59):
my listeners have heard from me. This will actually be
the first episode in a long time, so I'm excited
to reintroduce myself to everybody. But from there, I started
a nonprofit called Angels' Voices Silence No More. We help
families of the missing and murdered through grants to help
them fund their advocacy efforts. And then I also founded
Advocacy con with a couple of really amazing advocate friends.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Of mine, Waitney and Melissa.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And yeah, so that's my really fast, really long winded
journey through true crime and into the world of advocacy
And Patrick, what about.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
You, Hi?
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Well, for me, you know, I fell in love with
podcasting as a consumer, you know, like in the twenty tens,
and wanted to make a podcast just as like a
creative outlet. So I started making theater podcasts back in
like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, met the incredible Jillian Pensivali,
who was making another theater podcast, and we became fast friends,
(01:58):
and you know, we both wanted to We had been
talking about making true crime podcast and sort of, long
story short, we sort of had a different idea for
the show than we make true crime obsess We covered
true crime documentaries, and I wanted to make something really nerdy.
I wanted to do something that was very like NPR
style three segments, like a news segment, and like a
(02:19):
segment where we talked about something that we had watched
or listened to and then an interview segment in the end,
and in the middle part we were sort of recapping
the documentary The Impostor, And when I went to edit
the episode, I was like, Wow, this is like really different,
you know than anything that's sort of out there, and
I like loved the tone. And I went to Jillian
(02:41):
and I was like, I think this is the show
and she's like, yeah, that's She was like, whatever you
want to do, Like, that's great, let's do that. And
we started True Crime Obsessed in twenty seventeen and we
have been going strong since.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Understatement of the Day, I'm Joshua Mark. I was living
in a van traveling the country with my partner in
twenty fifteen and got sick of music really quickly and
started listening to podcasts. And as a writer, I was
writing a book at the time. I fell in love
with it as a medium and as someone who has
(03:16):
a very fluid relationship with the term finished. I was like,
this seems like more my style than writing a book,
because I know if I write a book, it'll never
be done because it'll never be perfect enough. And with podcasting,
it has to be done because you're putting it out
into the world and then getting like immediate response, and
it's never perfect, and it's never perfect. So I started
(03:40):
podcasting about small town America, which was kind of what
my book was loosely about, and I fucking loved it,
but it wasn't picking up steam. We had just moved
to New York. I was trying to make podcasting a career,
and I knew that true crime was like the best
way to make it a career. And I had this
fascination with the Israel Keys, and I was shocked that
(04:02):
no one had covered it yet, and let alone done
a deep dive, and so I was like, well, I've
listened to Cereal, I can do this. And now it's
been almost a decade of doing the same long form
podcast and then yeah, I've started branching out a couple
of years ago doing other projects. None of them have
(04:22):
been like as commercially successful as True Crime Bullshit. So
it's kind of like my golden handcuffs. But it's also like,
even if True Crime Bullshit no longer exists, I will
still be investigating Keys, probably for the rest of my life.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
That is so fascinating and I love that, like you
and I have had conversations where it's like I can't
stop making it because people keep demanding it, so like, sorry, Joshi,
we just need more.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
It's like I feel like I'm living in like a
machine over here where people can't get it fast enough.
The episodes are too short, and I'm like, I like,
you have to understand every five minutes you listen to
is like two hours of my life.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Yes, yeah, well this is so amazing.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
I'm so excited to be doing this.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
I like it to point to one other time, three
gay men have been in a podcast episode talking about
advocacy and true crime. And this is as soon as Josh,
when you proposed this, and thank you for that. That's,
you know, community building, I think is everything. So thank
you for taking the charge. But this is I was like,
where's our true crime Gaze podcast?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
We need this true the Real Gaze crime exactly. Well,
so I kind of wanted to talk to you, Eric.
I think so for me, being in production is incredibly
stressful because you're like, it has to be perfect. People
are going to criticize me no matter what I do,
and once you start production, you're like, oh, this is
(05:46):
my life now, Like I go on hiatuses between seasons,
and I'm always terrified to start the first episode because
once you start it, you're like, I'm on the bus
and I can't get off now. So Eric, you're straddling
all of that. Also just your own experience of like
being an advocate, having not only reported on true crime,
but being a part of true crime because of your
(06:08):
brother's murder. What's it like navigating the stress of each
of those.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, it's really tough.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I have to work really hard to take care of
myself just with the advocacy work alone, like working in
my brother's case. It takes a lot out of me.
And that's frankly why I haven't produced an episode in
a long time, because the pressure of that on top
of everything else that is going on is really hard
to balance. So I definitely feel you, Josh, and I
definitely feel like when you're doing the research and you're
(06:38):
doing it the way that you're doing it, it takes
a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
So I think it's all about and this is.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So cliche and I'm sorry to say it, and I'm
going to sound really gay saying this, but.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
It's all about self care.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
It's all about self care, right, Like you have to rest,
and you have to take time to cleanse.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Your brain from all of this like.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Dark and heavy stuff that we talk about. And so
I've spent a year and a half doing that while
also trying to help other people, so that it kind
of takes that heaviness and it moves it in like
into something positive. I don't know if I answered your
question or if I just got really really.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Gay, but.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Two things canna be true at the same time. It's
so funny because it is so heavy, and I always
wish I could infuse more levity into that, but that's
also really tricky too. How have you navigated doing a
comedy true crime podcast? Patrick?
Speaker 5 (07:37):
You know, it's so interesting that question because we you know,
we no longer call it a true crime comedy podcast
because I think we never Julian and I never really
thought of ourselves as funny people. I think that we
think that our friends think we're funny, but we never
we were.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Not like comedians or anything like that, you know.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
And when we started True Crime Obsessed, you know, twenty
seventeen was the era of like my favorite murder, you know,
and and that was kind of the thing was like
not certainly certainly not laughing at true crime or laughing
at the content, but just sort of being silly and
in the way that we tell the stories, or at
least allowing for silliness to be a part of it.
(08:17):
And for Jillian and I, you know, that happened naturally.
And when we would try to explain ourselves about like
what we meant by saying that we were a true
crime comedy podcast, we would always say, what we're when
we're laughing, we're laughing at, you know, how angry we're
getting about this, or we're laughing at like how dumb
the idiot prosecutor was, or it's really just us sort
(08:39):
of like laughing through our rage at how common this is,
how how badly it can go. But also like part
of our commentary is also on the documentary itself, and
like they can be horrendously made, you know. So that
was what we were always sort of like laughing, that
was the comedy part. And I think as you know,
we were we always really want to be more involved
(09:00):
with the true crime community and the true crime podcasting community,
and as we were really like meeting people and getting feedback,
we really decided that we needed to take the word
comedy out of our out of sort of what we
said that we were doing, because not only was it
not accurate in the sense that like, we're not making jokes,
you know, we're trying to find levity where we can,
(09:21):
it was, I don't know, we felt it was kind
of disrespectful, it was disingenuous to what we were actually
trying to do. And so, you know, Juliane and I,
for being the people who we are, we always allow
for lightness. We want the conversation to be authentic. We
want to like bring the people that we are into
talking about these cases, and so there is humor there,
(09:43):
you know, and some of the some of the feedback
that we would get from people would be like, you know,
some of the levity makes it a little bit easier
to listen or to learn about these cases. And so
we also thought that that was important that, you know,
if the mission is to keep telling the stories and
to keep getting the stories out there, if we were
providing an alternate way for people to sort of digest
this information, we thought that was valuable too. But we
(10:06):
were always so the most important thing to us was
to honor the victims of the storytelling, you know, and
that was why that was really why we got into
why we were drawn to True Brian, because we wanted
to talk about these cases. We wanted to engage in
the big feelings people have when, you know, when when
(10:27):
discussing these which is why we never wanted to do
a straightforward here's what happened. It was always a commentary
podcast because we wanted to be able to like investigate
how we felt about these things. So that's another long
we did very gay answers. So I feel like I'm
a good company.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I feel like we're going to be full of those
I know who doesn't get enough credit because it's such
a hard line to toe as Wine and Crime, Like,
they do such a huge job of like being advocates
being hilarious without ever like making the hilarity at the
expense of the victims or their families, And I think
that is so hard and take so much mental space
(11:05):
to create a show like that, And I don't think
people really consider how much work they put into being
funny and respectful at the same time.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
They're also just so damn smart.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
I've been on their show a couple of times, and
every time I do it, I'm like, I'm not ready.
I'm not like they're so smart that I'm like, I can't,
I can't keep up with this.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
It's the level of intelligence is so high.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Oh yeah, I mean, like you have to be smart
to be that successful doing a comedy true crime show.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Yeah. And they're also just like so normal, you know
what I mean, Like, I just love them so much.
They're just like so down to earth normal gals. They're
just they're the best when they're Mennesota I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
And not to turn this into like a fangirl moment
of them, but they do, like beyond what they do
on the show, they really reach out and help people
in the community, people that need help, and like make
Christmas happen for families that can't afford Just amazing women.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Amazing women, you know.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
I gotta say it's like I think it's the responsibility
of those of us who make podcasts like that to
sort of be like one of the things Jillian and
I started doing years ago was we would do an
episode and then you know, we would try to find
somebody from the episode to do an interview with outside
so that we could also get a deeper perspective on
their experience, not just of their story, but also you know,
(12:23):
making being in a documentary, being in a documentary about it.
I think one of the turns that we're seeing in
the industry that I think is so amazing is the
the need for like mental health services for people who
participate in these kinds of documentaries. And you know, I
think we're starting to see like mental health professionals being
on set to be available to the you know, to
(12:44):
people who participate, and it really is inspiring. There was
definitely a time where I was like, there's something about
all of this that.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Feels off, you know, and I think now.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
We're starting to really understand and take care of the
people who participate and tell their stories, which is crucial.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I which I still need to edit, but like six
months ago for Patreon, I did an interview with Tara
Newell about exactly that, like her experience of having her
story turned into a podcast and then a docuseries and
then a almost satirical like drama series, and yeah, it's
really heartbreaking to hear how used she was. I don't
(13:25):
think she would use that terminology, but I certainly would
like just used and abused by them and then kind
of like set off on her own and there was
no real concern about how their storytelling of her story
might traumatize her.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
I mean, like one of the one of the shows
that we cover is a Robin Roberts show from Luis
called Murder Has Two Faces. Yeah, And the way that
Robin Roberts takes care with her guests, you know, the
people that are there to tell the stories about their
murdered loved ones, it is so strikingly different from the
other things that we cover. That is always a mad're
part of the conversation, you know, and it's you know,
(14:02):
the reminding of the interviewee that you're here to tell
their story and honor them and share, you know.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
And it's I can't think of her.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Name but Joey, but if you Goo's daughter is now
an advocate and she's working with companies, like with documentary
companies and podcast companies to have mental health professionals on
set to take care of the interviewees, which I just
think is has been overlooked for far too long.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah. I it's I struggle between wanting to be a
quote unquote real journalist and also just being so concerned
about the impact of my work, where like there are
people I want to call and should have called years ago,
but I'm like, I don't want to traumatize them by calling. Yeah,
And like, if I am a true journalist, I'd be like,
fuck it, this is the story. But I just don't
(14:48):
have that in me, and it takes sometimes years for
me to like build up the confidence to reach out
to someone.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
Which is like you're like the gentlest boy on earth,
you know what I mean, like if anyone's going to
be interviewed by anybody.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
But it is funny because I've become pretty good friends
with doctor Chris Kunkle, who's a forensic psychologist, and the
one thing we talk about all the time is like
to do this work and like him way more than us.
But even in the world we're living in, like you
have to be able to laugh at some of this
stuff otherwise like you'll go fucking crazy. So I think
(15:23):
that's the one thing people probably don't realize is like
most of us are have really dark senses of humor,
and like, while we are ethical and advocates or hopefully
most of us and have the respect to do what
we're doing, we also like like to get drunken, talk
shit and make fun of them laugh at how inhumanely
dark all of this is, because that's what gets us through.
(15:45):
Like if I couldn't lie.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Barely drink joshy, how dare.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
You?
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I always feel funny when we're at like events and conventions,
and I'm like, oh, now people are going to see
like drunk Josh at eleven pm at the bar.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Drunk Josh is a fun Josh though, I can say,
and drunk Eric is really inappropriate, So like, hr, stay
away from me.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I gotta hang out with drunk Josh and drunk Eric more.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Speaking of which, listener interactions have been like very formative
for me in good ways and bad ways, Like how
has interfacing with listeners impacted your work?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I guess I'll go first. So it's it's amazing. I
love I love talking to my listeners. I've had some
moments that have been shocking. One was this guy in
Italy who sent me this like really long message like,
oh you know I've heard about your story, Like I'm
so sorry what happened to your brother? And then like,
(16:50):
by the way, here's a picture of my dick.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, not joking, funny. The first question that came to
mind was inappropriate.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
That has never happened to me.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
That has never in all of the years and all
of the social media that I do, that has never happened.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
I'm so sorry that that happened. Eric. That's a I mean,
unless you were into it.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
That was all well, it was hilarious.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean like at first I was like wow, and
you know, I think you could get mad or you
could laugh at it, and so I decided to laugh
at it because it's just absolutely absurd that anybody would
think in any kind of realm that that would be okay.
But it's it was still hilarious, and if it would
have happened to somebody else, I probably.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Would have also laughed about it. It's like I laughed
at it about it at myself. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
But for the most part, my listeners have been incredible, gracious, empathetic, love,
being kind. And then we have a couple of random
crves and conspiracy nuts. But you know, I'm sure Josh
has lots of conspiracy nuts too.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I feel like the grass is always greener because I
was just in Palm Springs with a bunch of content creators,
most of them women, and one of them was like, oh,
I get dick pics all the time, and I was like, yeah,
no one sends me dick pics. But then I also
feel like I would be disgusted if someone did. I
don't know. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
I will say it did happen to me once, now
that i'm remembering it. It was a listener who I
like interacted with a bit on social media, like I'm
pretty active, I like to like be in touch with people,
and it was this guy and he sent me it
wasn't a dick pic, but it was a picture of
him and his underwear and I and I commented back
like hey, not cool, like please would But I was
(18:27):
going to comment that back, but what I was trying
to do was open the picture so I could take
a screenshot of it so I had it if I
needed it for evidence or whatever. So I'm tapping on
the picture and I tapped it too many times and
it hearted it, so then I so then I had
to write it back and be like not cool man,
and then I blocked him.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Not cool heart reacta really cool We've all been in
relationships for over a decade, but like that's basically just
a grinder.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
Hello, well, and you know, yeah, I would say that
I was probably more prudish about things like that, like
back in the day, like I'm not welcoming your dick pics,
but like my tms are open, you.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Know, same, same, yeah, Like, yeah, if you accidentally send
me one, I'm probably not gonna be upset about it,
exactly like.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
I'm I'm I'm I'm acting a little bit more scandalized
than I would probably actually be. But like my husband
gets unsolicited dick pics all the time, and I like,
I never do.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
I never do.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
He said to me, all my friends are going to
see it and they're gonna laugh at it. So that's
what's going to happen on my side.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Of the world.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
That's a weird thing with being gay. Like I was
bitching about this wasted in a hot tip the other night,
where I was like, everyone's always like your boyfriend's so hot,
your boyfriend's so hot, and I'm like, what about me?
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Like that is that is rude? You know what I mean?
That is rude?
Speaker 5 (19:54):
No, I I mean you guys know me, Like I
love like listener interactions, you know, when I go on tour,
I always say, like doors open at five point thirty
dot dot dot buy me.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Like I open the doors. I'm the like I'm there for.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
The whole pre show, just walking around, meeting everybody, talking
to everybody. I do this show, and then I stay
after and talk to anybody who wants to stick around
and hang out like it is.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
It really is. My favorite part of this whole thing
is meeting people.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
And you know, and I was saying to somebody the
other day, like I'm always open to any feedback, positive
or negative, as long as it is respectful, as long
as it's meant to be a conversation, you know, as
opposed to like people just being hateful, of which I've
gotten plenty.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
But you know, I'm always open to like learning a lesson.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
I'm always open, like I you know, very early on
in one of our Patreon episodes, I said something super
ignorant about suicide. Uh, and we got I got a
lot of feedback about it. And I remember like getting
onto the platform and being like, hey, I'm gonna like
find a mental health professional and like sit down, do
(21:00):
like a long call and get educated.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
And I did, and I you know, and this woman
was absolutely incredible.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
And her sister is Lizzie Kaplan from me and girls
I know, and she's a listener and she's like, call me,
I'm a I'm a psychiatrist. I was like, great, and
I did, and I got educated, you know, and so
like I'm and I'm you know, and I actually it
was really grateful for it, because I you know, I've
always said, I the only privilege I was born with
(21:26):
was mental health privilege.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
I've never suffered from depression.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
I've never you know, so so that that world is
hard for me to understand sometimes and so I was
very glad to be educated in that space and I
learned better and now we do better.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
So I'm always open to it, and that's been I
think one of the.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Reasons why TCO has been successful is because we are
We want to grow and change and evolve as humanity does,
as true crime podcasting does.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Like we we always want to do better.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, I think that's such an important point because like I,
I hear a lot that I'm not open to feedback,
and I'm like, no, i am, as long as it's respectful,
and like, yeah, I want to have a conversation with you,
because I truly believe in the dunning Kruger principle of
like you don't know what you don't know, So it's like, yes,
there might be like a hundred reasons why I made
that decision you don't like, and rather than attacking me
(22:18):
for it, like why don't we have a conversation about
why I made that choice, or like why I didn't
share this or like why I you know whatever, Like
and I just think if you want to have a
meaningful conversation, you can't come in hot. You can't come
in with, you know, criticizing someone. You can't come in
with name calling it. You can't come in with like piety.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
And sometimes like when we get comments on our Patreon episodes,
you know where I'm trying to remember and we were
covering the Amy Bradley documentary on Netflix, and I don't
remember what we said that really upset people, but there
was like a really strong reaction to it. And I
was reading through the comments and some of them were
just so nasty, and I was like, and I would
look and be like, you guys have but you've been
(22:58):
a Patreon member for eight years, like you know me,
you know, and and like I've probably met you in
real life and maybe you read my book even you know,
but like a lot of that goes up the window,
and then I have to remember that, like as a
gay man, there was one podcast in particular that I
that I used to listen to a lot. I won't
name it here, but I felt like I knew these people.
(23:21):
And but I would always listen with a quid that
was a bunch of straight people, and I would listen
with a critical ear, because you know, even well meaning,
you know, allies can say ignorant things.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Sometimes.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
Remember one time they said something that I thought was ignorant,
and I mean I I lit up, and then you know,
and they responded and we worked it out and whatever.
And but like now I have to remind myself that
like I did that too.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
I've been listening to that podcast rears.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I felt like I knew them, and I still sometimes
people feel more almost like like some Sometimes people who
have been listening the longest feel like the most agreeved
when you do something.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
That bothers them.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And I have to put myself in a mindset of
being able to understand that they feel like we're French
and they feel like they're owed something for their loyalty
and they are, you know, but but like kindness goes
a long way, that's all.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Well, I think also like that's the thing that's made
Criticism never gets it gets easier, but it never like
doesn't hurt as much. And I more, I always remind
myself like, these are in many ways parasocial relationships, and
like they think they know you, they think that you
(24:30):
have a shorthand that doesn't exist, or they feel that way.
I don't want to say think, because that I think
is like insulting and also a lot in a lot
of cases they're projecting their shit onto you because they
don't actually know who you are. Like I've read things
not so much about you, Eric, but about me and
Patrick online that are just like not true. And I'm like,
(24:52):
but like, you don't know this person who you're talking about,
and I do, and it's it's just wild. I just
listen to Beth's Dead. Have either of you listened to this?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
No?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
It's an incredible true crime adjacent podcast about podcasters who
like are dealing with a parasocial situation. Over the course
of like years of this listener of theirs who's like
texting very personal or emailing very personal things and it
starts off as like, oh, we're like a new up
and coming show and we want to like talk to
everyone who's listening, and like, over the course of time,
(25:26):
it gets like quite dangerous and it's so weird to think,
like I'm here in my office all among myself, like
telling a story and it's reaching one hundred thousand people
and they are all having wildly different experiences of which
I am a part of. It's so bizarre.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Yeah, I mean, you know, for me, like I how
do I say this? Like even like saying like it's
a parasocial relationship to me makes it makes it feel
like I think I'm fancier than I am, you know
what I mean. Like I'm not a famous person, you know,
I'm just a guy who makes the podcast that some
people listen to.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
And I really do want to meet everybody.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
I love the idea that like this all brings you know,
that that this brings some people together, you know, you
guys know.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Like I'm a big component proponent of community.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
I love people gathering in one place, Like that's my
favorite thing to do. It's it's a tough thing to
navigate because I'm just like that, you know, like I
am just like them. They think I'm just like them,
and I am, you know well, and.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I think like it's important to note parasocial goes both ways,
like I have parasocial relationships with listeners and other podcasts.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, totally totally.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
And so it is a thing where like you, you
want to connect, you know, but you just want everyone
to We just all want everyone. They want me to
behave respectfully. I want them to behave respectfully and kindly,
and you know, and but then at the same time,
like that kind of understanding, like it doesn't translate. My
husband doesn't understand why I want to like stay after
(26:54):
the show, I went talk for another two hours, you know,
and I'm just like I'm fed by it, you know,
like I love meeting people and exchanging ideas.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
You know, I'll say you, Amanda and Charlie, I've never
seen anything like it. You guys go out and immerse
yourselves in ways that like as an introvert, like I
need to have like a gallon of wine to do,
but like you, like like I at an event we
were at together, like you would show up early, you
would stay. I can say it, Josh, you can say
(27:23):
it at Obsessed Fest, you were like at the bar.
Anytime you had downtime or free time, you were at
the bar talking to people. It was so important to
you to engage with listeners in a way that I
just have so much respect for and like I do
it on the Trova trips. But I think because you're
just like running on adrenaline and it's like a compressed
amount of time. But you, Charlie and Amanda like really
(27:44):
make sure to take care of all your listeners in
a way that I am so humbled by.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
Wait, can I ask you about I'm doing a trip
to Greece this summer and I'm very excited. Are they
fun is? Are we gonna have a good time?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I so I've done two the third ones coming up.
I A lot of people have this misconception that they're
like murder trips, like we're not even talking about Israel
keys Really like I will like benchmark an hour to
talk about the podcast.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
And the restaurant. Like I've made lifelong friends with people
who've been on these trips with me.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
That's what I'm talking about. I cannot I'm so excited.
I cannot wait to go to Greece this summer.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Eric, I feel like because of the nature of you
reporting on your own brother, you probably have a lot
of similar like people with like very strong emotional connections
to you. Like what is that like? Because for Patrick
and I, like we've been talking about, like the one
thing that makes it okay is it's not personal, but
for you it is personal.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I think there's so many sights to that part of it.
Like there's the internet troll that's going to come in
and say something really awful to you, Like one of
the worst ones was he just wants to get rich
off his dumb dead brother. Oh oh, So you get that,
But you also get people that are super invested in
the case and like feel like they are in on
(29:02):
what's going on behind the scenes, and they are to
a certain extent, but there's a lot that's held back,
and so you get a lot of helpful you know,
advice and people trying to you know, offer to assist.
It's that's been amazing just to get people talking about Jacob.
It doesn't matter to me, like if it's an internet
(29:23):
troll or if it's somebody that's highly invested, or you know,
any of those things. The fact that people are even
thinking about Jacob is amazing because when he died, there
was no story, There was no news, there was no newspaper,
there was nothing. So the fact that he gets to continue,
you know, beyond anything that happened to him and really
(29:46):
become the face of this movement to change things for
families of the missing and murdered is really awesome. But
you know, I appreciate every listener and every person that
shared Jacob's story, that signed the petition. It's done anything,
even the ones that don't like me, even the ones
that talk shit about me, Like that's fine, who.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Does not like you? I'm in love with you and
I've known you for thirty five minutes. That's insane. What's
wrong with everybody?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I mean, I'm not the easiest person to get along
with sometimes maybe what that makes no sense to me?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I mean, I think much like me. When you put
a little booze in Eric, we become like bitchy mean
gays my favorite kind. I know they're the best. You've
I think, done a lot of work to move that
case forward. Can you tell other people about that? I
(30:43):
know all about it, but tell the listeners you know
how your podcast has made change in Jacob's case.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I don't know about the case.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
Will you can, I will you tell me a little
bit about it, Actually tell me and tell the true
grim obsessed listeners about it, and we'll all go listen
to your podcast.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
It is really hard to hear, so I'm going to
try to keep it not as heavy as it as
it is. But Jacob was a baby when he was killed.
He was only nine months old. The only person in
the room with him when he he suffered blunt force
head trauma was my mom's boyfriend at the time, a
(31:20):
man who confessed twice to killing Jacob but was not prosecuted,
was never charged, and.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Failed a polygraph.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Failed two very important questions like did you strike Jacob
intentionally in the head area?
Speaker 3 (31:40):
And did you hit Jacob.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
I know that those aren't really admissible or anything, but
I think when you look at everything together, it's pretty compelling.
So there's a problem because in New Mexico, for first
degree murder, you have to truly prove intent.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
And it's really hard. It's really hard to prove that.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
So the only charge they could do would be second
degree murder, and then they were probably going to go
negligently caused because it would be easier. But because of
that's because that's how they classified it. The DA classified
it that way. There was a second degree murder statute
(32:28):
of limitations in New Mexico back then, and so that
had lapsed and my mom and I had given up hope.
We still kept trying every time there was a new
DA every time, you know, we went to the state
police asked them to use their cold case homicide.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
In it to investigate it.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
The podcast, I didn't really start it to tell Jacob's story.
I was just trying to help other people like my
family be able to get their stories out there. And eventually,
when I learned that the statute of limitations had been overturned,
my mom and I decided to talk about the case.
And that was the first time we had ever talked
(33:11):
about it together in thirty something years. And the audio
quality is awful, so I'll apologize in advance if you
listened to it. We were in my mom's mobile home
and she kept moving her legs and so the mic
stand was going everywhere, and I'm like, Mom, stopped moving.
But there's a real authentic conversation there, and some healing.
(33:31):
That happens that people get to hear her, they get
to hear that first conversation, and what happened with that
was people cared and people started to ask what they
could do. So we created this ten Days of Jacob
campaign where we had people emailing, writing, calling in the
DA and it was so much. I mean it was
from all over the world, Australia, the UK, everywhere. And
(33:56):
he emailed me two days into the Ten Days of
Jacob saying can you please make this stop? Like this
is too much? And he turned the case over to
the Attorney General, which was wow.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Huge.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
The Attorney General had it for three years. I'm gonna
turn my bitchy gay on now.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
They had it for three years and they talked to
one person and then they said, oh job, well done, guys,
we're going to close this case. We did our best
to investigate it. There's nothing we can do. Have a
good life. Oh, by the way, do you and my
mom want to put your handprints in some plaster and
put Jacob's name on it and hang it on our
community tree so we could show people we care?
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Oh my god, yeah, oh my god. Oh.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
And also, by the way, the reason we can't go
forward is because your mom gave him an alibi, which
she didn't by the way, spoiler alert, she did not
give him an alibi. Nobody could alibi somebody who was alone.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
With the victim admitted to it twice.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yep, there's no recording, there's no transcript, there's no signed
affi David that, there's nothing that in the Kate's what
he said, what conditions those confessions were given under. There's
only one little note in the investigative file that says
there's no need to administer a polygraph because the suspect confessed.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Nothing brings out my bitchy gay more than DA's interrogators
and lazy FBI agents.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
I mean, so where does the case stand now?
Speaker 3 (35:23):
It's closed?
Speaker 4 (35:24):
And is he he's just out there.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
He's been free for thirty nine years. He's a very
abusive person, you know, towards my mom, towards me, towards
my brother. There's a lot more to the story that
is in that episode with my mom. Yeah, it's heavy stuff,
but yeah, he's been free to hurt whoever he wants,
and it seems like nobody really cares about Like in
(35:48):
government anyway.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, the true crime I love the most is where
it's not just true crime, like it's you know, it's
storytelling that includes crime. And I think the conversation with
your mom is like the pinnacle of that. It was
it's such a wonderful seems like a pour choice of.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Word, but like it's such a.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Rich listen, and I think there's a lot there. It's
super nuanced, and I think that's those are the true
crime stories I love the most, where it's more than
just the crime, it's about anthropology or culture, personal relationships,
and I think that's what yours was.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Can I ask Eric, will you tell the TCO listeners
about Advocacy con.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, well I'm excited because we have a special guest
attending Advocacy Con.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Can I say that yet?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Who?
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Who? Oh me?
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yourself?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I know.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
I was like, wait, who's going a lot coming? I'm coming.
I can't wait.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
I'm I mean, you know, we are so invested and
we just love it.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
We're we just we're so happy that it exists. So yeah,
I can't wait. I'm very excited.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, Advocacy CON.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
So everything I said earlier, everything I do is with
the idea of how can I make families like mine
not feel like my family has felt for the last
almost four decades.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And so advocacy.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Con was really an idea I had. I've attended a
lot of true crime conferences. I think they definitely are
valuable for families of the missing and murdered because you
get to expose your case to a lot of people
that may not see that case normally. But there was
a lot missing in my opinion, for the families.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
And so.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
One of the things that I think is as a
listener and maybe even as a creator, people may not
consider is when you're put into this situation, you're not
necessarily a pr person and you're not necessarily somebody who
knows how to you know, talk to police, to talk
to medical investigators, to organize the community, to get people
(37:52):
on your side, like some people are just regular people
who happen to have, you know, a tragedy that happens.
And so advocacy CON really exists to create a place
where families can learn from experts, from people that understand
what they're going through because they've been through it, from
each other, and to interface with resources and organizations that
(38:16):
can help them move their cases forward or at least
give them some relief. It's trauma informed. We are going
to have a therapist on site to triage. We're going
to have an art healing room. We have meditation, yoga,
all kinds of stuff to just really take care of
the family, wrap them up in love and you know,
(38:36):
trying not to trigger them, but if they are triggered,
make sure that there's resources available to help them get
through that.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
That's incredible. Where has this been where has this beIN
for the last twenty right?
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I just I realized that there was a big space,
like a big hole in this in this arena, and
so I feel like advocacy gon feels that hole.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
That's sounded.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Really have you ever seen a Mexican turn red from?
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Oh, this gay true crime podcast is going great, you guys.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
I know, it's really hot.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Hot, It's really hot.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
They say the first step to success is finding a
hole and filling it. I mean, I don't know how
transition out of that.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
There is no way to do that.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
Live here.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Now, let's talk about cases. So I don't really immerse
myself in true crime anymore because it's just like I
live in it. I come into this office and it's
just crime, crime all the time. But I did this year,
(39:53):
for whatever reason, start listening to serialized podcasts again, like
are there?
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Yeah. I don't know what it was.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I think maybe just the political environment we're in.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
I just needed to Yes, yes, I honestly I turned
off all my politics podcasts. It's the one that I
listened to this year that I loved so much was
Who Took Misty Copsey? But yeah, that was like that
was because that was the Pacific Northwest. And I do
think that Israel keys is mentioned briefly as a possibility
for that one, but it was so so good. I also,
(40:26):
did you guys listen to that Tealina Czar podcast? It
was like a woman who went missing during COVID and
all of her friends like wanted it investigated. She's like
an older woman, and then it turned out that she
was like a member. She was like in this like
crazy relationship with a man where it was like this
(40:46):
sort of.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Like patriarchal cult. It was wild.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
That's all.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
That's all the information I have.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I all mine are like true crime adjacent. But blink,
have you guys heard that?
Speaker 4 (40:59):
No?
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Oh my god, it's about this guy who uh finds
out he has this terminal disease and ends up in
a what's an awake coma where like he's in a
like oh months, but he can hear and feel everything,
and like while he's in the coma, his girlfriend is
(41:23):
talking to him and she starts like telling him crazy shit,
where he suddenly is like, oh, I think she actually
tried to kill me. And he's the only person to
ever survive stage four of this disease. It's wild.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (41:39):
Meanwhile, tut to me, I would totally be the boyfriend
admitting to the attempted murder.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
I would just be sitting there talking. That would definitely
be MA.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And then Wild Boys, which is about the small town
in Canada where these two teenage boys from the woods.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
Yes, yes, that's a couple of years ago. I think
that was so good.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah. And then who does pretend? His thing on LaDonna
Humphrey was like rivet. I text him all the time,
like what's going on? What's going on?
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Wait, who's LaDonna Humphrey?
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Oh my god, you are going You're going down a wormhole.
And I'm so excited to.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Free and I do believe you covered her documentaries, but.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
I was gonna say that name sounds so familiar.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
She was in the true crime space and basically, allegedly
it turned out she was like conning everybody and like
bullying people behind the scenes and doing really really dark,
fucked up shit.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
What was the documentary?
Speaker 1 (42:33):
I don't know what hers is called, but the podcast, yeah,
oh yes, but the podcast is called Who's Afraid of
La Donna Humphrey? And it is riveting. Oh my god, really,
and it's wild to hear like a podcast about someone
we all know or like have talked to.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Oh my god, I remember when we said that we
were doing that. We got a lot of feedback about it.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
If Javier was like, I don't know if you should
line me up with Patrick because I did send him
some tweets about LaDonna Humphrey, I was like, oh, I
don't think he would care at all.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
No, not at all.
Speaker 5 (43:10):
In fact, we were we didn't respond to him because
we didn't know if he was like a nice person
or not. But it was because of him that we
I think we deleted the.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
Episode really, okay, I think so, but no, like that's
an example of like we were grateful for his feedback
why connect me? Hi? Hobby are besties?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
What about you?
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Eric? Oh?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Well, so I'm trying to remember this podcast, so I
can't remember. I was looking to my phone furiously trying
to find it. It's a story similar to Jacob's. But
since I can't remember it, I'm not going to be.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Able to tell you.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
So I will say that a case that I followed
very closely that I've been working on with the mom,
I haven't done as much as she's done by all means,
but I had her on the show on True Consequences.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
It really touched me.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
His name was Zachariah Juwan Shorty and he was an
up and co iman rapper from the Navajo Nation. He
was brutally killed and they just announced charges on his
case last week. So I'm super excited that case has
been solved. It's been five years that Vanjie has been
out there fighting for justice. She's going to be an advocacy
(44:15):
con talking about that journey to justice. So that's super exciting.
But that's one case that if you get a chance
to listen to, it's a really tragic story. But I
did include a lot of his music in my episode,
and it was really an honored to be able to
tell his story. And I'm so excited is not the
right word, but I'm so happy that Vanjie is getting
(44:36):
closer to getting justice for her baby boy.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Incredible. I couldn't go last year, but I want to
go this year because I just I always think of, like,
the best session I've ever seen at a conference was
you and Julie Murrie talking about the impact of true
crime commercializing her case, and I like, she's such a
great speaker and you are such a great interviewer, and
(45:00):
it was just my favorite session I've ever seen. It
was so good.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
Can we talk about media pressure for a minute, because,
oh my god, like the podcast Media Pressure, I was
on pins and needles and I was I would I
would talk to Julie a little bit about it because
she was really nervous about like going into podcasting and
she didn't know if she'd be good at it or not.
And I would every week I would message her and
be like, this is so last week's episode was the
(45:26):
best episode of any podcast I ever heard.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
This means is better than that.
Speaker 5 (45:29):
And it like I couldn't believe the writing of it, Like,
I mean, it was so beautifully written. It was obviously
produced by Sarah Turney, you know, and I just both
of them. I couldn't I need another season. Sarah promises
they're going to make another one. But like it was
not only was there like new information which is obviously
(45:51):
interesting for anybody who cares about that case, which everybody
should care about that case, everybody should care about every case,
but it was it was just so beautifully written from
the heart from the family.
Speaker 4 (46:02):
It was like rip your heart out.
Speaker 5 (46:04):
Honestly, I'm like, you know, talking about the family dealing
with what it's been like to be probably one of
the highest profile true crime cases. And I know Julie
gave so much of herself, like it was emotionally exhausting
for her to do that.
Speaker 4 (46:20):
And she's such an incredible woman.
Speaker 5 (46:21):
And every now and then she will fire emoji one
of my workout pictures because she is the original beast.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
She is the original CrossFit beast.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yeah, I remember in credible first time I met her,
being like I would never want to be on her
bad side because she could annihilate me.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
I was on her bad side for five minutes and
I righted that wrong right quick.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
The other one is the curse of America's Next Top
Model anyone. Oh my god, it's an investigative podcast looking
at America's next Top Model. And how like horrible and
problematic it was?
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Are we both Eric? Are we both going to subscribe
right now?
Speaker 2 (47:02):
We're back?
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Say less, say less, say less? Josh, shut up.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
I could not listen to it fast enough. They interview,
uh contestants. Uh, we're and we're actually good friends with
a contestant who lives here in the Berkshires, and like
the few bits of pieces like he's told us while
Hammered are shocking.
Speaker 4 (47:21):
Old Wallhammered the Patrick Kines story. Oh my god. Oh
I'm so excited.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
And it just finished, so you can like binge the
whole series now.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
Oh I mean, oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Well, on that note, I think our hours up. But
this has been so fun. This is why I love
doing these, because it really does create community and we
get to have conversations we couldn't otherwise online.
Speaker 5 (47:49):
Yes, you guys, we need to hang out, Josh, you
got to come to we can all hang out together.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah I will.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
This was so fun. Thank you for including me. This
was incredible.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Yeah, of course, thanks for joining us and have a
great holiday you guys.
Speaker 4 (48:05):
Yeah, same to you. Bye bye bye
So for December, a bunch of podcasters are getting together
and having what we're calling True Crime Conversations. And I
am here today with Eric carter Landin from Advocacy con
and True Consequences and Patrick Hines from True Crime Obsessed.
Hey guys, Hi hi, And I am Josh Hallmark from
(00:23):
True Crime Bullshit and Unsafe Spaces. So before we kick off,
because I'm sure there are people who are listening to
this who have not met all of us, why don't
you share your origin stories? Why don't we start with Eric?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, well mine is a bummer, so it's good to
get that out of the way right away. My brother
was murdered thirty nine years ago, and I've been fighting
for justice for him ever since, and so everything I do,
everything I have done, has been in honor of him
and in memory of him. So I started True Consequences
in twenty nineteen. It's been a very long time since
(00:59):
my listeners have heard from me. This will actually be
the first episode in a long time, so I'm excited
to reintroduce myself to everybody. But from there, I started
a nonprofit called Angels' Voices Silence No More. We help
families of the missing and murdered through grants to help
them fund their advocacy efforts. And then I also founded
Advocacy con with a couple of really amazing advocate friends.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Of mine, Waitney and Melissa.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And yeah, so that's my really fast, really long winded
journey through true crime and into the world of advocacy
And Patrick, what about.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
You, Hi?
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Well, for me, you know, I fell in love with
podcasting as a consumer, you know, like in the twenty tens,
and wanted to make a podcast just as like a
creative outlet. So I started making theater podcasts back in
like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, met the incredible Jillian Pensivali,
who was making another theater podcast, and we became fast friends,
(01:58):
and you know, we both wanted to We had been
talking about making true crime podcast and sort of, long
story short, we sort of had a different idea for
the show than we make true crime obsess We covered
true crime documentaries, and I wanted to make something really nerdy.
I wanted to do something that was very like NPR
style three segments, like a news segment, and like a
(02:19):
segment where we talked about something that we had watched
or listened to and then an interview segment in the end,
and in the middle part we were sort of recapping
the documentary The Impostor, And when I went to edit
the episode, I was like, Wow, this is like really different,
you know than anything that's sort of out there, and
I like loved the tone. And I went to Jillian
(02:41):
and I was like, I think this is the show
and she's like, yeah, that's She was like, whatever you
want to do, Like, that's great, let's do that. And
we started True Crime Obsessed in twenty seventeen and we
have been going strong since.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Understatement of the Day, I'm Joshua Mark. I was living
in a van traveling the country with my partner in
twenty fifteen and got sick of music really quickly and
started listening to podcasts. And as a writer, I was
writing a book at the time. I fell in love
with it as a medium and as someone who has
(03:16):
a very fluid relationship with the term finished. I was like,
this seems like more my style than writing a book,
because I know if I write a book, it'll never
be done because it'll never be perfect enough. And with podcasting,
it has to be done because you're putting it out
into the world and then getting like immediate response, and
it's never perfect, and it's never perfect. So I started
(03:40):
podcasting about small town America, which was kind of what
my book was loosely about, and I fucking loved it,
but it wasn't picking up steam. We had just moved
to New York. I was trying to make podcasting a career,
and I knew that true crime was like the best
way to make it a career. And I had this
fascination with the Israel Keys, and I was shocked that
(04:02):
no one had covered it yet, and let alone done
a deep dive, and so I was like, well, I've
listened to Cereal, I can do this. And now it's
been almost a decade of doing the same long form
podcast and then yeah, I've started branching out a couple
of years ago doing other projects. None of them have
(04:22):
been like as commercially successful as True Crime Bullshit. So
it's kind of like my golden handcuffs. But it's also like,
even if True Crime Bullshit no longer exists, I will
still be investigating Keys, probably for the rest of my life.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
That is so fascinating and I love that, like you
and I have had conversations where it's like I can't
stop making it because people keep demanding it, so like, sorry, Joshi,
we just need more.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
It's like I feel like I'm living in like a
machine over here where people can't get it fast enough.
The episodes are too short, and I'm like, I like,
you have to understand every five minutes you listen to
is like two hours of my life.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Yes, yeah, well this is so amazing.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
I'm so excited to be doing this.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
I like it to point to one other time, three
gay men have been in a podcast episode talking about
advocacy and true crime. And this is as soon as Josh,
when you proposed this, and thank you for that. That's,
you know, community building, I think is everything. So thank
you for taking the charge. But this is I was like,
where's our true crime Gaze podcast?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
We need this true the Real Gaze crime exactly. Well,
so I kind of wanted to talk to you, Eric.
I think so for me, being in production is incredibly
stressful because you're like, it has to be perfect. People
are going to criticize me no matter what I do,
and once you start production, you're like, oh, this is
(05:46):
my life now, Like I go on hiatuses between seasons,
and I'm always terrified to start the first episode because
once you start it, you're like, I'm on the bus
and I can't get off now. So Eric, you're straddling
all of that. Also just your own experience of like
being an advocate, having not only reported on true crime,
but being a part of true crime because of your
(06:08):
brother's murder. What's it like navigating the stress of each
of those.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, it's really tough.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I have to work really hard to take care of
myself just with the advocacy work alone, like working in
my brother's case. It takes a lot out of me.
And that's frankly why I haven't produced an episode in
a long time, because the pressure of that on top
of everything else that is going on is really hard
to balance. So I definitely feel you, Josh, and I
definitely feel like when you're doing the research and you're
(06:38):
doing it the way that you're doing it, it takes
a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
So I think it's all about and this is.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So cliche and I'm sorry to say it, and I'm
going to sound really gay saying this, but.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
It's all about self care.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
It's all about self care, right, Like you have to rest,
and you have to take time to cleanse.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Your brain from all of this like.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Dark and heavy stuff that we talk about. And so
I've spent a year and a half doing that while
also trying to help other people, so that it kind
of takes that heaviness and it moves it in like
into something positive. I don't know if I answered your
question or if I just got really really.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Gay, but.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Two things canna be true at the same time. It's
so funny because it is so heavy, and I always
wish I could infuse more levity into that, but that's
also really tricky too. How have you navigated doing a
comedy true crime podcast? Patrick?
Speaker 5 (07:37):
You know, it's so interesting that question because we you know,
we no longer call it a true crime comedy podcast
because I think we never Julian and I never really
thought of ourselves as funny people. I think that we
think that our friends think we're funny, but we never
we were.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Not like comedians or anything like that, you know.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
And when we started True Crime Obsessed, you know, twenty
seventeen was the era of like my favorite murder, you know,
and and that was kind of the thing was like
not certainly certainly not laughing at true crime or laughing
at the content, but just sort of being silly and
in the way that we tell the stories, or at
least allowing for silliness to be a part of it.
(08:17):
And for Jillian and I, you know, that happened naturally.
And when we would try to explain ourselves about like
what we meant by saying that we were a true
crime comedy podcast, we would always say, what we're when
we're laughing, we're laughing at, you know, how angry we're
getting about this, or we're laughing at like how dumb
the idiot prosecutor was, or it's really just us sort
(08:39):
of like laughing through our rage at how common this is,
how how badly it can go. But also like part
of our commentary is also on the documentary itself, and
like they can be horrendously made, you know. So that
was what we were always sort of like laughing, that
was the comedy part. And I think as you know,
we were we always really want to be more involved
(09:00):
with the true crime community and the true crime podcasting community,
and as we were really like meeting people and getting feedback,
we really decided that we needed to take the word
comedy out of our out of sort of what we
said that we were doing, because not only was it
not accurate in the sense that like, we're not making jokes,
you know, we're trying to find levity where we can,
(09:21):
it was, I don't know, we felt it was kind
of disrespectful, it was disingenuous to what we were actually
trying to do. And so, you know, Juliane and I,
for being the people who we are, we always allow
for lightness. We want the conversation to be authentic. We
want to like bring the people that we are into
talking about these cases, and so there is humor there,
(09:43):
you know, and some of the some of the feedback
that we would get from people would be like, you know,
some of the levity makes it a little bit easier
to listen or to learn about these cases. And so
we also thought that that was important that, you know,
if the mission is to keep telling the stories and
to keep getting the stories out there, if we were
providing an alternate way for people to sort of digest
this information, we thought that was valuable too. But we
(10:06):
were always so the most important thing to us was
to honor the victims of the storytelling, you know, and
that was why that was really why we got into
why we were drawn to True Brian, because we wanted
to talk about these cases. We wanted to engage in
the big feelings people have when, you know, when when
(10:27):
discussing these which is why we never wanted to do
a straightforward here's what happened. It was always a commentary
podcast because we wanted to be able to like investigate
how we felt about these things. So that's another long
we did very gay answers. So I feel like I'm
a good company.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I feel like we're going to be full of those
I know who doesn't get enough credit because it's such
a hard line to toe as Wine and Crime, Like,
they do such a huge job of like being advocates
being hilarious without ever like making the hilarity at the
expense of the victims or their families, And I think
that is so hard and take so much mental space
(11:05):
to create a show like that, And I don't think
people really consider how much work they put into being
funny and respectful at the same time.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
They're also just so damn smart.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
I've been on their show a couple of times, and
every time I do it, I'm like, I'm not ready.
I'm not like they're so smart that I'm like, I can't,
I can't keep up with this.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
It's the level of intelligence is so high.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Oh yeah, I mean, like you have to be smart
to be that successful doing a comedy true crime show.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Yeah. And they're also just like so normal, you know
what I mean, Like, I just love them so much.
They're just like so down to earth normal gals. They're
just they're the best when they're Mennesota I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
And not to turn this into like a fangirl moment
of them, but they do, like beyond what they do
on the show, they really reach out and help people
in the community, people that need help, and like make
Christmas happen for families that can't afford Just amazing women.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Amazing women, you know.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
I gotta say it's like I think it's the responsibility
of those of us who make podcasts like that to
sort of be like one of the things Jillian and
I started doing years ago was we would do an
episode and then you know, we would try to find
somebody from the episode to do an interview with outside
so that we could also get a deeper perspective on
their experience, not just of their story, but also you know,
(12:23):
making being in a documentary, being in a documentary about it.
I think one of the turns that we're seeing in
the industry that I think is so amazing is the
the need for like mental health services for people who
participate in these kinds of documentaries. And you know, I
think we're starting to see like mental health professionals being
on set to be available to the you know, to
(12:44):
people who participate, and it really is inspiring. There was
definitely a time where I was like, there's something about
all of this that.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Feels off, you know, and I think now.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
We're starting to really understand and take care of the
people who participate and tell their stories, which is crucial.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I which I still need to edit, but like six
months ago for Patreon, I did an interview with Tara
Newell about exactly that, like her experience of having her
story turned into a podcast and then a docuseries and
then a almost satirical like drama series, and yeah, it's
really heartbreaking to hear how used she was. I don't
(13:25):
think she would use that terminology, but I certainly would
like just used and abused by them and then kind
of like set off on her own and there was
no real concern about how their storytelling of her story
might traumatize her.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
I mean, like one of the one of the shows
that we cover is a Robin Roberts show from Luis
called Murder Has Two Faces. Yeah, And the way that
Robin Roberts takes care with her guests, you know, the
people that are there to tell the stories about their
murdered loved ones, it is so strikingly different from the
other things that we cover. That is always a mad're
part of the conversation, you know, and it's you know,
(14:02):
the reminding of the interviewee that you're here to tell
their story and honor them and share, you know.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
And it's I can't think of her.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Name but Joey, but if you Goo's daughter is now
an advocate and she's working with companies, like with documentary
companies and podcast companies to have mental health professionals on
set to take care of the interviewees, which I just
think is has been overlooked for far too long.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah. I it's I struggle between wanting to be a
quote unquote real journalist and also just being so concerned
about the impact of my work, where like there are
people I want to call and should have called years ago,
but I'm like, I don't want to traumatize them by calling. Yeah,
And like, if I am a true journalist, I'd be like,
fuck it, this is the story. But I just don't
(14:48):
have that in me, and it takes sometimes years for
me to like build up the confidence to reach out
to someone.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
Which is like you're like the gentlest boy on earth,
you know what I mean, like if anyone's going to
be interviewed by anybody.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
But it is funny because I've become pretty good friends
with doctor Chris Kunkle, who's a forensic psychologist, and the
one thing we talk about all the time is like
to do this work and like him way more than us.
But even in the world we're living in, like you
have to be able to laugh at some of this
stuff otherwise like you'll go fucking crazy. So I think
(15:23):
that's the one thing people probably don't realize is like
most of us are have really dark senses of humor,
and like, while we are ethical and advocates or hopefully
most of us and have the respect to do what
we're doing, we also like like to get drunken, talk
shit and make fun of them laugh at how inhumanely
dark all of this is, because that's what gets us through.
(15:45):
Like if I couldn't lie.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Barely drink joshy, how dare.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
You?
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I always feel funny when we're at like events and conventions,
and I'm like, oh, now people are going to see
like drunk Josh at eleven pm at the bar.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Drunk Josh is a fun Josh though, I can say,
and drunk Eric is really inappropriate, So like, hr, stay
away from me.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I gotta hang out with drunk Josh and drunk Eric more.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Speaking of which, listener interactions have been like very formative
for me in good ways and bad ways, Like how
has interfacing with listeners impacted your work?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I guess I'll go first. So it's it's amazing. I
love I love talking to my listeners. I've had some
moments that have been shocking. One was this guy in
Italy who sent me this like really long message like,
oh you know I've heard about your story, Like I'm
so sorry what happened to your brother? And then like,
(16:50):
by the way, here's a picture of my dick.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, not joking, funny. The first question that came to
mind was inappropriate.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
That has never happened to me.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
That has never in all of the years and all
of the social media that I do, that has never happened.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
I'm so sorry that that happened. Eric. That's a I mean,
unless you were into it.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
That was all well, it was hilarious.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean like at first I was like wow, and
you know, I think you could get mad or you
could laugh at it, and so I decided to laugh
at it because it's just absolutely absurd that anybody would
think in any kind of realm that that would be okay.
But it's it was still hilarious, and if it would
have happened to somebody else, I probably.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Would have also laughed about it. It's like I laughed
at it about it at myself. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
But for the most part, my listeners have been incredible, gracious, empathetic, love,
being kind. And then we have a couple of random
crves and conspiracy nuts. But you know, I'm sure Josh
has lots of conspiracy nuts too.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I feel like the grass is always greener because I
was just in Palm Springs with a bunch of content creators,
most of them women, and one of them was like, oh,
I get dick pics all the time, and I was like, yeah,
no one sends me dick pics. But then I also
feel like I would be disgusted if someone did. I
don't know. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
I will say it did happen to me once, now
that i'm remembering it. It was a listener who I
like interacted with a bit on social media, like I'm
pretty active, I like to like be in touch with people,
and it was this guy and he sent me it
wasn't a dick pic, but it was a picture of
him and his underwear and I and I commented back
like hey, not cool, like please would But I was
(18:27):
going to comment that back, but what I was trying
to do was open the picture so I could take
a screenshot of it so I had it if I
needed it for evidence or whatever. So I'm tapping on
the picture and I tapped it too many times and
it hearted it, so then I so then I had
to write it back and be like not cool man,
and then I blocked him.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Not cool heart reacta really cool We've all been in
relationships for over a decade, but like that's basically just
a grinder.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
Hello, well, and you know, yeah, I would say that
I was probably more prudish about things like that, like
back in the day, like I'm not welcoming your dick pics,
but like my tms are open, you.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Know, same, same, yeah, Like, yeah, if you accidentally send
me one, I'm probably not gonna be upset about it,
exactly like.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
I'm I'm I'm I'm acting a little bit more scandalized
than I would probably actually be. But like my husband
gets unsolicited dick pics all the time, and I like,
I never do.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
I never do.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
He said to me, all my friends are going to
see it and they're gonna laugh at it. So that's
what's going to happen on my side.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Of the world.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
That's a weird thing with being gay. Like I was
bitching about this wasted in a hot tip the other night,
where I was like, everyone's always like your boyfriend's so hot,
your boyfriend's so hot, and I'm like, what about me?
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Like that is that is rude? You know what I mean?
That is rude?
Speaker 5 (19:54):
No, I I mean you guys know me, Like I
love like listener interactions, you know, when I go on tour,
I always say, like doors open at five point thirty
dot dot dot buy me.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Like I open the doors. I'm the like I'm there for.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
The whole pre show, just walking around, meeting everybody, talking
to everybody. I do this show, and then I stay
after and talk to anybody who wants to stick around
and hang out like it is.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
It really is. My favorite part of this whole thing
is meeting people.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
And you know, and I was saying to somebody the
other day, like I'm always open to any feedback, positive
or negative, as long as it is respectful, as long
as it's meant to be a conversation, you know, as
opposed to like people just being hateful, of which I've
gotten plenty.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
But you know, I'm always open to like learning a lesson.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
I'm always open, like I you know, very early on
in one of our Patreon episodes, I said something super
ignorant about suicide. Uh, and we got I got a
lot of feedback about it. And I remember like getting
onto the platform and being like, hey, I'm gonna like
find a mental health professional and like sit down, do
(21:00):
like a long call and get educated.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
And I did, and I you know, and this woman
was absolutely incredible.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
And her sister is Lizzie Kaplan from me and girls
I know, and she's a listener and she's like, call me,
I'm a I'm a psychiatrist. I was like, great, and
I did, and I got educated, you know, and so
like I'm and I'm you know, and I actually it
was really grateful for it, because I you know, I've
always said, I the only privilege I was born with
(21:26):
was mental health privilege.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
I've never suffered from depression.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
I've never you know, so so that that world is
hard for me to understand sometimes and so I was
very glad to be educated in that space and I
learned better and now we do better.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
So I'm always open to it, and that's been I
think one of the.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Reasons why TCO has been successful is because we are
We want to grow and change and evolve as humanity does,
as true crime podcasting does.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Like we we always want to do better.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, I think that's such an important point because like I,
I hear a lot that I'm not open to feedback,
and I'm like, no, i am, as long as it's respectful,
and like, yeah, I want to have a conversation with you,
because I truly believe in the dunning Kruger principle of
like you don't know what you don't know, So it's like, yes,
there might be like a hundred reasons why I made
that decision you don't like, and rather than attacking me
(22:18):
for it, like why don't we have a conversation about
why I made that choice, or like why I didn't
share this or like why I you know whatever, Like
and I just think if you want to have a
meaningful conversation, you can't come in hot. You can't come
in with, you know, criticizing someone. You can't come in
with name calling it. You can't come in with like piety.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
And sometimes like when we get comments on our Patreon episodes,
you know where I'm trying to remember and we were
covering the Amy Bradley documentary on Netflix, and I don't
remember what we said that really upset people, but there
was like a really strong reaction to it. And I
was reading through the comments and some of them were
just so nasty, and I was like, and I would
look and be like, you guys have but you've been
(22:58):
a Patreon member for eight years, like you know me,
you know, and and like I've probably met you in
real life and maybe you read my book even you know,
but like a lot of that goes up the window,
and then I have to remember that, like as a
gay man, there was one podcast in particular that I
that I used to listen to a lot. I won't
name it here, but I felt like I knew these people.
(23:21):
And but I would always listen with a quid that
was a bunch of straight people, and I would listen
with a critical ear, because you know, even well meaning,
you know, allies can say ignorant things.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Sometimes.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
Remember one time they said something that I thought was ignorant,
and I mean I I lit up, and then you know,
and they responded and we worked it out and whatever.
And but like now I have to remind myself that
like I did that too.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
I've been listening to that podcast rears.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I felt like I knew them, and I still sometimes
people feel more almost like like some Sometimes people who
have been listening the longest feel like the most agreeved
when you do something.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
That bothers them.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And I have to put myself in a mindset of
being able to understand that they feel like we're French
and they feel like they're owed something for their loyalty
and they are, you know, but but like kindness goes
a long way, that's all.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Well, I think also like that's the thing that's made
Criticism never gets it gets easier, but it never like
doesn't hurt as much. And I more, I always remind
myself like, these are in many ways parasocial relationships, and
like they think they know you, they think that you
(24:30):
have a shorthand that doesn't exist, or they feel that way.
I don't want to say think, because that I think
is like insulting and also a lot in a lot
of cases they're projecting their shit onto you because they
don't actually know who you are. Like I've read things
not so much about you, Eric, but about me and
Patrick online that are just like not true. And I'm like,
(24:52):
but like, you don't know this person who you're talking about,
and I do, and it's it's just wild. I just
listen to Beth's Dead. Have either of you listened to this?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
No?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
It's an incredible true crime adjacent podcast about podcasters who
like are dealing with a parasocial situation. Over the course
of like years of this listener of theirs who's like
texting very personal or emailing very personal things and it
starts off as like, oh, we're like a new up
and coming show and we want to like talk to
everyone who's listening, and like, over the course of time,
(25:26):
it gets like quite dangerous and it's so weird to think,
like I'm here in my office all among myself, like
telling a story and it's reaching one hundred thousand people
and they are all having wildly different experiences of which
I am a part of. It's so bizarre.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Yeah, I mean, you know, for me, like I how
do I say this? Like even like saying like it's
a parasocial relationship to me makes it makes it feel
like I think I'm fancier than I am, you know
what I mean. Like I'm not a famous person, you know,
I'm just a guy who makes the podcast that some
people listen to.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
And I really do want to meet everybody.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
I love the idea that like this all brings you know,
that that this brings some people together, you know, you
guys know.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Like I'm a big component proponent of community.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
I love people gathering in one place, Like that's my
favorite thing to do. It's it's a tough thing to
navigate because I'm just like that, you know, like I
am just like them. They think I'm just like them,
and I am, you know well, and.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I think like it's important to note parasocial goes both ways,
like I have parasocial relationships with listeners and other podcasts.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, totally totally.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
And so it is a thing where like you, you
want to connect, you know, but you just want everyone
to We just all want everyone. They want me to
behave respectfully. I want them to behave respectfully and kindly,
and you know, and but then at the same time,
like that kind of understanding, like it doesn't translate. My
husband doesn't understand why I want to like stay after
(26:54):
the show, I went talk for another two hours, you know,
and I'm just like I'm fed by it, you know,
like I love meeting people and exchanging ideas.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
You know, I'll say you, Amanda and Charlie, I've never
seen anything like it. You guys go out and immerse
yourselves in ways that like as an introvert, like I
need to have like a gallon of wine to do,
but like you, like like I at an event we
were at together, like you would show up early, you
would stay. I can say it, Josh, you can say
(27:23):
it at Obsessed Fest, you were like at the bar.
Anytime you had downtime or free time, you were at
the bar talking to people. It was so important to
you to engage with listeners in a way that I
just have so much respect for and like I do
it on the Trova trips. But I think because you're
just like running on adrenaline and it's like a compressed
amount of time. But you, Charlie and Amanda like really
(27:44):
make sure to take care of all your listeners in
a way that I am so humbled by.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
Wait, can I ask you about I'm doing a trip
to Greece this summer and I'm very excited. Are they
fun is? Are we gonna have a good time?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I so I've done two the third ones coming up.
I A lot of people have this misconception that they're
like murder trips, like we're not even talking about Israel
keys Really like I will like benchmark an hour to
talk about the podcast.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
And the restaurant. Like I've made lifelong friends with people
who've been on these trips with me.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
That's what I'm talking about. I cannot I'm so excited.
I cannot wait to go to Greece this summer.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Eric, I feel like because of the nature of you
reporting on your own brother, you probably have a lot
of similar like people with like very strong emotional connections
to you. Like what is that like? Because for Patrick
and I, like we've been talking about, like the one
thing that makes it okay is it's not personal, but
for you it is personal.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I think there's so many sights to that part of it.
Like there's the internet troll that's going to come in
and say something really awful to you, Like one of
the worst ones was he just wants to get rich
off his dumb dead brother. Oh oh, So you get that,
But you also get people that are super invested in
the case and like feel like they are in on
(29:02):
what's going on behind the scenes, and they are to
a certain extent, but there's a lot that's held back,
and so you get a lot of helpful you know,
advice and people trying to you know, offer to assist.
It's that's been amazing just to get people talking about Jacob.
It doesn't matter to me, like if it's an internet
(29:23):
troll or if it's somebody that's highly invested, or you know,
any of those things. The fact that people are even
thinking about Jacob is amazing because when he died, there
was no story, There was no news, there was no newspaper,
there was nothing. So the fact that he gets to continue,
you know, beyond anything that happened to him and really
(29:46):
become the face of this movement to change things for
families of the missing and murdered is really awesome. But
you know, I appreciate every listener and every person that
shared Jacob's story, that signed the petition. It's done anything,
even the ones that don't like me, even the ones
that talk shit about me, Like that's fine, who.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Does not like you? I'm in love with you and
I've known you for thirty five minutes. That's insane. What's
wrong with everybody?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I mean, I'm not the easiest person to get along
with sometimes maybe what that makes no sense to me?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I mean, I think much like me. When you put
a little booze in Eric, we become like bitchy mean
gays my favorite kind. I know they're the best. You've
I think, done a lot of work to move that
case forward. Can you tell other people about that? I
(30:43):
know all about it, but tell the listeners you know
how your podcast has made change in Jacob's case.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I don't know about the case.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
Will you can, I will you tell me a little
bit about it, Actually tell me and tell the true
grim obsessed listeners about it, and we'll all go listen
to your podcast.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
It is really hard to hear, so I'm going to
try to keep it not as heavy as it as
it is. But Jacob was a baby when he was killed.
He was only nine months old. The only person in
the room with him when he he suffered blunt force
head trauma was my mom's boyfriend at the time, a
(31:20):
man who confessed twice to killing Jacob but was not prosecuted,
was never charged, and.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Failed a polygraph.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Failed two very important questions like did you strike Jacob
intentionally in the head area?
Speaker 3 (31:40):
And did you hit Jacob.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
I know that those aren't really admissible or anything, but
I think when you look at everything together, it's pretty compelling.
So there's a problem because in New Mexico, for first
degree murder, you have to truly prove intent.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
And it's really hard. It's really hard to prove that.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
So the only charge they could do would be second
degree murder, and then they were probably going to go
negligently caused because it would be easier. But because of
that's because that's how they classified it. The DA classified
it that way. There was a second degree murder statute
(32:28):
of limitations in New Mexico back then, and so that
had lapsed and my mom and I had given up hope.
We still kept trying every time there was a new
DA every time, you know, we went to the state
police asked them to use their cold case homicide.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
In it to investigate it.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
The podcast, I didn't really start it to tell Jacob's story.
I was just trying to help other people like my
family be able to get their stories out there. And eventually,
when I learned that the statute of limitations had been overturned,
my mom and I decided to talk about the case.
And that was the first time we had ever talked
(33:11):
about it together in thirty something years. And the audio
quality is awful, so I'll apologize in advance if you
listened to it. We were in my mom's mobile home
and she kept moving her legs and so the mic
stand was going everywhere, and I'm like, Mom, stopped moving.
But there's a real authentic conversation there, and some healing.
(33:31):
That happens that people get to hear her, they get
to hear that first conversation, and what happened with that
was people cared and people started to ask what they
could do. So we created this ten Days of Jacob
campaign where we had people emailing, writing, calling in the
DA and it was so much. I mean it was
from all over the world, Australia, the UK, everywhere. And
(33:56):
he emailed me two days into the Ten Days of
Jacob saying can you please make this stop? Like this
is too much? And he turned the case over to
the Attorney General, which was wow.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Huge.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
The Attorney General had it for three years. I'm gonna
turn my bitchy gay on now.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
They had it for three years and they talked to
one person and then they said, oh job, well done, guys,
we're going to close this case. We did our best
to investigate it. There's nothing we can do. Have a
good life. Oh, by the way, do you and my
mom want to put your handprints in some plaster and
put Jacob's name on it and hang it on our
community tree so we could show people we care?
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Oh my god, yeah, oh my god. Oh.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
And also, by the way, the reason we can't go
forward is because your mom gave him an alibi, which
she didn't by the way, spoiler alert, she did not
give him an alibi. Nobody could alibi somebody who was alone.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
With the victim admitted to it twice.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yep, there's no recording, there's no transcript, there's no signed
affi David that, there's nothing that in the Kate's what
he said, what conditions those confessions were given under. There's
only one little note in the investigative file that says
there's no need to administer a polygraph because the suspect confessed.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Nothing brings out my bitchy gay more than DA's interrogators
and lazy FBI agents.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
I mean, so where does the case stand now?
Speaker 3 (35:23):
It's closed?
Speaker 4 (35:24):
And is he he's just out there.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
He's been free for thirty nine years. He's a very
abusive person, you know, towards my mom, towards me, towards
my brother. There's a lot more to the story that
is in that episode with my mom. Yeah, it's heavy stuff,
but yeah, he's been free to hurt whoever he wants,
and it seems like nobody really cares about Like in
(35:48):
government anyway.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, the true crime I love the most is where
it's not just true crime, like it's you know, it's
storytelling that includes crime. And I think the conversation with
your mom is like the pinnacle of that. It was
it's such a wonderful seems like a pour choice of.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Word, but like it's such a.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Rich listen, and I think there's a lot there. It's
super nuanced, and I think that's those are the true
crime stories I love the most, where it's more than
just the crime, it's about anthropology or culture, personal relationships,
and I think that's what yours was.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Can I ask Eric, will you tell the TCO listeners
about Advocacy con.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, well I'm excited because we have a special guest
attending Advocacy Con.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Can I say that yet?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Who?
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Who? Oh me?
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yourself?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I know.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
I was like, wait, who's going a lot coming? I'm coming.
I can't wait.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
I'm I mean, you know, we are so invested and
we just love it.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
We're we just we're so happy that it exists. So yeah,
I can't wait. I'm very excited.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, Advocacy CON.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
So everything I said earlier, everything I do is with
the idea of how can I make families like mine
not feel like my family has felt for the last
almost four decades.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And so advocacy.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Con was really an idea I had. I've attended a
lot of true crime conferences. I think they definitely are
valuable for families of the missing and murdered because you
get to expose your case to a lot of people
that may not see that case normally. But there was
a lot missing in my opinion, for the families.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
And so.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
One of the things that I think is as a
listener and maybe even as a creator, people may not
consider is when you're put into this situation, you're not
necessarily a pr person and you're not necessarily somebody who
knows how to you know, talk to police, to talk
to medical investigators, to organize the community, to get people
(37:52):
on your side, like some people are just regular people
who happen to have, you know, a tragedy that happens.
And so advocacy CON really exists to create a place
where families can learn from experts, from people that understand
what they're going through because they've been through it, from
each other, and to interface with resources and organizations that
(38:16):
can help them move their cases forward or at least
give them some relief. It's trauma informed. We are going
to have a therapist on site to triage. We're going
to have an art healing room. We have meditation, yoga,
all kinds of stuff to just really take care of
the family, wrap them up in love and you know,
(38:36):
trying not to trigger them, but if they are triggered,
make sure that there's resources available to help them get
through that.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
That's incredible. Where has this been where has this beIN
for the last twenty right?
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I just I realized that there was a big space,
like a big hole in this in this arena, and
so I feel like advocacy gon feels that hole.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
That's sounded.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Really have you ever seen a Mexican turn red from?
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Oh, this gay true crime podcast is going great, you guys.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
I know, it's really hot.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Hot, It's really hot.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
They say the first step to success is finding a
hole and filling it. I mean, I don't know how
transition out of that.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
There is no way to do that.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
Live here.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Now, let's talk about cases. So I don't really immerse
myself in true crime anymore because it's just like I
live in it. I come into this office and it's
just crime, crime all the time. But I did this year,
(39:53):
for whatever reason, start listening to serialized podcasts again, like
are there?
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Yeah. I don't know what it was.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I think maybe just the political environment we're in.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
I just needed to Yes, yes, I honestly I turned
off all my politics podcasts. It's the one that I
listened to this year that I loved so much was
Who Took Misty Copsey? But yeah, that was like that
was because that was the Pacific Northwest. And I do
think that Israel keys is mentioned briefly as a possibility
for that one, but it was so so good. I also,
(40:26):
did you guys listen to that Tealina Czar podcast? It
was like a woman who went missing during COVID and
all of her friends like wanted it investigated. She's like
an older woman, and then it turned out that she
was like a member. She was like in this like
crazy relationship with a man where it was like this
(40:46):
sort of.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Like patriarchal cult. It was wild.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
That's all.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
That's all the information I have.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I all mine are like true crime adjacent. But blink,
have you guys heard that?
Speaker 4 (40:59):
No?
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Oh my god, it's about this guy who uh finds
out he has this terminal disease and ends up in
a what's an awake coma where like he's in a
like oh months, but he can hear and feel everything,
and like while he's in the coma, his girlfriend is
(41:23):
talking to him and she starts like telling him crazy shit,
where he suddenly is like, oh, I think she actually
tried to kill me. And he's the only person to
ever survive stage four of this disease. It's wild.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (41:39):
Meanwhile, tut to me, I would totally be the boyfriend
admitting to the attempted murder.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
I would just be sitting there talking. That would definitely
be MA.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And then Wild Boys, which is about the small town
in Canada where these two teenage boys from the woods.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
Yes, yes, that's a couple of years ago. I think
that was so good.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah. And then who does pretend? His thing on LaDonna
Humphrey was like rivet. I text him all the time,
like what's going on? What's going on?
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Wait, who's LaDonna Humphrey?
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Oh my god, you are going You're going down a wormhole.
And I'm so excited to.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Free and I do believe you covered her documentaries, but.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
I was gonna say that name sounds so familiar.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
She was in the true crime space and basically, allegedly
it turned out she was like conning everybody and like
bullying people behind the scenes and doing really really dark,
fucked up shit.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
What was the documentary?
Speaker 1 (42:33):
I don't know what hers is called, but the podcast, yeah,
oh yes, but the podcast is called Who's Afraid of
La Donna Humphrey? And it is riveting. Oh my god, really,
and it's wild to hear like a podcast about someone
we all know or like have talked to.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Oh my god, I remember when we said that we
were doing that. We got a lot of feedback about it.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
If Javier was like, I don't know if you should
line me up with Patrick because I did send him
some tweets about LaDonna Humphrey, I was like, oh, I
don't think he would care at all.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
No, not at all.
Speaker 5 (43:10):
In fact, we were we didn't respond to him because
we didn't know if he was like a nice person
or not. But it was because of him that we
I think we deleted the.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
Episode really, okay, I think so, but no, like that's
an example of like we were grateful for his feedback
why connect me? Hi? Hobby are besties?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
What about you?
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Eric? Oh?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Well, so I'm trying to remember this podcast, so I
can't remember. I was looking to my phone furiously trying
to find it. It's a story similar to Jacob's. But
since I can't remember it, I'm not going to be.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Able to tell you.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
So I will say that a case that I followed
very closely that I've been working on with the mom,
I haven't done as much as she's done by all means,
but I had her on the show on True Consequences.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
It really touched me.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
His name was Zachariah Juwan Shorty and he was an
up and co iman rapper from the Navajo Nation. He
was brutally killed and they just announced charges on his
case last week. So I'm super excited that case has
been solved. It's been five years that Vanjie has been
out there fighting for justice. She's going to be an advocacy
(44:15):
con talking about that journey to justice. So that's super exciting.
But that's one case that if you get a chance
to listen to, it's a really tragic story. But I
did include a lot of his music in my episode,
and it was really an honored to be able to
tell his story. And I'm so excited is not the
right word, but I'm so happy that Vanjie is getting
(44:36):
closer to getting justice for her baby boy.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Incredible. I couldn't go last year, but I want to
go this year because I just I always think of, like,
the best session I've ever seen at a conference was
you and Julie Murrie talking about the impact of true
crime commercializing her case, and I like, she's such a
great speaker and you are such a great interviewer, and
(45:00):
it was just my favorite session I've ever seen. It
was so good.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
Can we talk about media pressure for a minute, because,
oh my god, like the podcast Media Pressure, I was
on pins and needles and I was I would I
would talk to Julie a little bit about it because
she was really nervous about like going into podcasting and
she didn't know if she'd be good at it or not.
And I would every week I would message her and
be like, this is so last week's episode was the
(45:26):
best episode of any podcast I ever heard.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
This means is better than that.
Speaker 5 (45:29):
And it like I couldn't believe the writing of it, Like,
I mean, it was so beautifully written. It was obviously
produced by Sarah Turney, you know, and I just both
of them. I couldn't I need another season. Sarah promises
they're going to make another one. But like it was
not only was there like new information which is obviously
(45:51):
interesting for anybody who cares about that case, which everybody
should care about that case, everybody should care about every case,
but it was it was just so beautifully written from
the heart from the family.
Speaker 4 (46:02):
It was like rip your heart out.
Speaker 5 (46:04):
Honestly, I'm like, you know, talking about the family dealing
with what it's been like to be probably one of
the highest profile true crime cases. And I know Julie
gave so much of herself, like it was emotionally exhausting
for her to do that.
Speaker 4 (46:20):
And she's such an incredible woman.
Speaker 5 (46:21):
And every now and then she will fire emoji one
of my workout pictures because she is the original beast.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
She is the original CrossFit beast.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yeah, I remember in credible first time I met her,
being like I would never want to be on her
bad side because she could annihilate me.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
I was on her bad side for five minutes and
I righted that wrong right quick.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
The other one is the curse of America's Next Top
Model anyone. Oh my god, it's an investigative podcast looking
at America's next Top Model. And how like horrible and
problematic it was?
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Are we both Eric? Are we both going to subscribe
right now?
Speaker 2 (47:02):
We're back?
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Say less, say less, say less? Josh, shut up.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
I could not listen to it fast enough. They interview,
uh contestants. Uh, we're and we're actually good friends with
a contestant who lives here in the Berkshires, and like
the few bits of pieces like he's told us while
Hammered are shocking.
Speaker 4 (47:21):
Old Wallhammered the Patrick Kines story. Oh my god. Oh
I'm so excited.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
And it just finished, so you can like binge the
whole series now.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
Oh I mean, oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Well, on that note, I think our hours up. But
this has been so fun. This is why I love
doing these, because it really does create community and we
get to have conversations we couldn't otherwise online.
Speaker 5 (47:49):
Yes, you guys, we need to hang out, Josh, you
got to come to we can all hang out together.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah I will.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
This was so fun. Thank you for including me. This
was incredible.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Yeah, of course, thanks for joining us and have a
great holiday you guys.
Speaker 4 (48:05):
Yeah, same to you. Bye bye bye
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