Offbeat: True Crime Story Time

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[00:02:47] This episode includes discussion of violence and murder. In journalism, your beat is the topic you cover. So that can be the sports beat, the business beat, the city hall beat. And of course, you used to cover the retail beat for Business Insider, which is now known as Insider Business. And naturally, the murder sheet's beat is the crime beat. Traditionally, reporters work their beat until they're experts.

[00:03:15] They know exactly who to talk to, where to get information, where to get documents, where to get new sources. And they bring you the news through their familiarity and just basically becoming a subject matter expert in whatever they're reporting on. Now, one thing that you and I have found, Kevin, is that when a reporter really gets into a beat, when they build up like that expertise, a natural byproduct of that is that they form opinions on that beat.

[00:03:42] Now, they're not usually putting those out there in their news reports. That's not really necessarily an appropriate way to let people know your opinion because the news should at least be fair and attempt to sort of be balanced and not necessarily be opinion driven in most cases. And another thing that happens is they begin to get an idea of the big picture. They have overview thoughts.

[00:04:10] But when they're writing stories about something that happened yesterday, they are focusing on the details of that particular incident. They don't really get into their big picture thoughts and views. Yeah. But when you get these reporters after hours, they might let you know what they really think. And so that is sort of the thought behind this segment that we're starting offbeat. This is going to be our opinion column, our editorial. These are not going to be weekly or scheduled.

[00:04:41] We don't have that many thoughts. And if we don't want to just weigh in on anything, we want to weigh in on things that we feel like we can really speak to and that we've really come to develop opinions on in our coverage of crime. So welcome to Offbeat, our audio opinion column. If you get very deeply offended by people who may disagree with you, skip these episodes.

[00:05:04] But if you're interested in hearing us talk about different issues in crime journalism, the true crime podcasting genre, crime nonfiction, and the criminal justice system in general, then this is the right place for you. Thank you so much for joining us. So for this inaugural episode, we're going to talk about a problem of bias in the genre of true crime. And this is a bias that most people have. In fact, I'd say Anya and I certainly have this bias.

[00:05:34] I think we have this to an extreme extent. And it's not a political bias. It's not even, I would say, a societal bias, a generational bias. All of those things can actually play into this bias. But at its heart, this is a truly personal bias. It's something that I think affects most human beings. And that is a bias for an intriguing story.

[00:05:58] That doesn't sound necessarily like a big deal, but we're going to get into this because when it comes to true crime, this can be a problem. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet. And this is Offbeat. True crime story time.

[00:07:11] Okay. So I'm going to begin with a bit of a non sequitur. There's a song that comes to my mind a lot when I'm reporting in the true crime genre. And I'm talking with people and the issue of storytelling and true crime comes up. It's not a song about murder. It's actually a song from season three of the musical comedy series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It's called The End of the Movie.

[00:07:36] And to give you some context that you don't need, spoiler alert, a character is having a crisis in the show. She's been trying to live her life according to romantic comedies and romantic comedy conventions. And this is leading her to absolute personal disaster. So at some point, the singer Josh Groban comes out and sings to her about how life is not like a movie. These specific lyrics resonate with me. If you saw a movie that was like real life, you'd be like, what the hell was that movie about?

[00:08:06] It was really all over the place. Life doesn't make narrative sense. And also, life is a gradual series of revelations that occur over a period of time. Some things might happen that seem connected, but there's not always a reason or rhyme. People aren't characters, they're complicated, and their choices don't always make sense. Okay, so why do I think about that when it comes to true crime?

[00:08:29] Well, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, Kevin, but I think that most functioning adults understand that life, real life, is not like a movie or a novel or a television series. I think they understand that life is significantly more complicated and not really bound by narrative conventions.

[00:08:50] But because so much of our opinions on crime are filtered through either a fictional lens or narrative non-fictional lens, meaning that we're picking up things from podcasts, books, television series, of the both, again, fictional and non-fictional varieties. I think we have a bit of a hard time accepting the precepts that life is not like a movie, life is not like fiction when it comes to the topic of crime.

[00:09:17] Yeah, I think that's certainly true. And one thing that I try to keep in mind is that true crime stories are not like murder mysteries, in that not every detail is a clue leading to the ultimate solution.

[00:09:37] You know, in a mystery story, if a man and a woman have a quarrel, and then the woman mysteriously disappears, then, of course, everybody thinks that quarrel was important, and it must lead to the ultimate solution in some way. But in real life, people have quarrels, and they often have nothing to do with the crime that follows.

[00:10:02] Right, and in fictional storytelling especially, but in nonfiction to a certain degree, certainly in fiction, an author, a talented author, is not going to waste any time on extraneous details. If they tell you that the uncle character, you know, is in the mix, and someone gets murdered, and, you know, the uncle's one of the suspects, but you don't really hear from him for a while, you can bet that he's probably going to come up later.

[00:10:31] Because why add that character otherwise? And I think this tends to make people feel that everything that comes up in the investigation into a murder is highly relevant and must be related. It also gives the feeling that twists are ahead. There's always a twist in a mystery novel. You know, you think it's the husband, actually it's the boyfriend. Or, you know, you think it's the boss, but actually maybe this jealous co-worker did something.

[00:11:00] Real life is obviously not like that, oftentimes. I mean, things happen, right? I mean, there's always an exception to the rule, but generally, life does not have that level of excitement and exciting twists that fiction authors dream up to make their stories more entertaining. There's nothing wrong with that. I think what's wrong with it is sometimes we as citizens then just sort of start applying fictional conventions to real-life events.

[00:11:27] And when it comes to true crime, when podcasters or documentary filmmakers or even authors of books tell the story, they're using some of the same storytelling conventions you see in fiction. And so the details that these creators pick to highlight can help lead to conclusions, and maybe those conclusions aren't always correct. Now, why exactly are stories and storytelling so central to true crime?

[00:11:57] I would argue that, you know, and this is not exactly a novel point, but human beings are storytelling creatures. We tell stories to ourselves and to each other to make sense of the world. So this is just at the heart of what it means to being a human being. And most of the time, that's fine. I would argue even that, you know, from what we've seen, we've covered a lot of in-person court events. The United States justice system actually does rely on storytelling to a certain extent.

[00:12:26] What do I mean by that? No, I don't mean that, like, the prosecutor is going to get up there and, you know, start reading from a picture book. I mean that any good prosecutor, any good defense attorney is not just going to be rattling off a list of facts to support their point without any sort of narrative through line or eye towards convincing the jury with a persuasive narrative. They're not just going to be doing that.

[00:12:50] A good attorney is going to be trying to tell a story that puts together the facts as they see it that benefits their side in order to have that story win over the jury. Not every attorney, but I think that's usually a pretty effective method because it speaks to the juries. Yes, I agree with all of that.

[00:13:11] And also, as we're talking about people who do podcasts or true crime stories in whatever format also tell stories. And other than trying to pick certain clues and details to highlight, when people see that a particular element of a story has worked well in other stories they or others have told, maybe they start highlighting those details because they know people will respond to that.

[00:13:41] And that might create some distorted impressions. Sometimes I wonder if an extraterrestrial came from outer space and just started consuming a bunch of true crime content, what must they think? Yeah. If they had to write a report to their supervisors, maybe their alien boss is like, these human beings seem to kill each other a lot. What are the risk factors of that? What goes into those killings?

[00:14:07] I feel like the alien would watch a lot of true, you know, sit down with the ID channel, sit down with oxygen, and they would come back with, here's what puts you at risk for homicide on Earth. You live in a town where no one locks their doors. You are an attractive woman, typically a white woman, who lights up a room. You have the, quote, perfect marriage, or do you? You're married to a man with secrets. Or you're minding your own business, and then you suddenly run into a predator or a serial killer.

[00:14:37] Because those are the stories, those are the storytelling cliches that are so prevalent in true crime media. Obviously, they're not risk factors. But they do tell you something about the types of stories that get selected. Typically, true crime stories focus on, quote, unquote, relatable victims. There's a preference for victims who, quote, unquote, weren't engaging in high-risk behavior.

[00:15:02] There's a real tendency in true crime to be very interested in intrigue, stormy relationships, weird sex stuff, and relationships that look good on the surface but were anything but. And oftentimes there's a huge focus on both white victims but also victims that happen to be affluent or middle class at the very least. Again, there's always exceptions to the rule. We're just talking in generalities here.

[00:15:28] But, of course, the realities of crime are far different from what the, quote, unquote, interesting stories tend to be. I was looking through the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Crime Data Explorer, which is super cool. We'll include a link in the show notes. And I selected 2021 for homicide. That was the most recent year that they had up there.

[00:15:49] And so I found that in 2021, the FBI listed 13,477 homicide incidents and 14,655 offenses in the United States. And this was from 11,794 law enforcement agencies. So that's not everybody. It's just the ones that are submitting the National Incident-Based Reporting System data. And so that's only about 69% of the U.S. population.

[00:16:18] But anyways, so in terms of gender breakdown, there were 11,696 male offenders and 1,690 female offenders. So one thing I notice in true crime media is that there's a real interest in female murderers. Murdresses, if you will. So there's like, you know, it's like, oh, she, you know, like there's a whole show snapped about it.

[00:16:43] And it's like the interest is very outsized compared to what the reality is, which is that men make up the vast majority of offenders. And I know the reason for the interest in female offenders. It is because that's unusual. That's more of a rarity. So when you get a female killer, immediately true crime media is like, oh, that's interesting. Tell us more because it because it is unusual.

[00:17:10] Additionally, one thing I noticed is that in terms of the victims, there were 11,440 male victims and 3,115 female victims and 65 of unknown sex or gender. So that also interested me because we tend to, in my kind of anecdotal view, there is a bit more of a focus on cases with female victims.

[00:17:40] But men, as you can see, are much, much more likely to be the victims of homicide. So you're not really getting a full picture of crime in this country and the realities of crime from true crime media. You're really getting what people in the media think will be an interesting story for you. I will I will kind of rattle off a quick example and you tell me what you think about this, Kevin.

[00:18:03] But like I feel that if you had two situations, an adult male who grew up poor, who was heavily involved in the drug trade and he got shot on the street amidst maybe a rising gang war versus the male heir of a wealthy, influential family who had no problems with the law, no obvious enemies. He got shot in his lavish home. Which one's going to receive national attention? The wealthy man, the wealthy man, obviously.

[00:18:31] And that's I mean, it's like not great because I think the first guy is more indicative of problems with poverty, with the drug trade, with things going on, with violence, gun violence. But, you know, there's not really a problem of people going around murdering wealthy heirs in their lavish mansions. But that's just the more interesting story for the media to cover. So they're going to go with that.

[00:18:57] They're going to go with the novel, with the something where there's a twist, there's a mystery. It's more akin to fiction. You know, people can almost treat it like a fictional mystery than something that's more of like this is a severe problem. I certainly meant I'd be more likely to read stories about the wealthy person than the person who grew up poor. I would, too. I mean, we're it's not even shaming anybody. It's just what our human brains crave.

[00:19:24] It's just I think we have to, as true crime consumers, as true crime consumers who want to perhaps, you know, not just have it be something where we're gawking at tragedy. I think we have to at least acknowledge this about ourselves and think about maybe I should be paying a little bit more attention to victims in different situations and to what really speaks to a societal ill. We like to automate things here at the Murder Sheet. We get all kinds of alerts about our episodes.

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[00:21:18] Here's another example. If there's a man who is a serial killer and going around killing women who don't know him and, you know, is doing all these things and taunting the media, taunting the police, that is going to be a big story.

[00:21:33] Whereas if a serial domestic abuser finally kills his victim, you know, after years of abuse, that's not considered – that's considered tragic, but it's just not going to pick up the same level of media interest typically. But I would argue that serial killers are relatively rare, fortunately, and domestic abuse is prevalent.

[00:21:56] So one is actually perhaps more important to address and think about, but most of us are going to be like, wow, a serial killer. Yeah, because it's more interesting. And certainly people who are listening to this today are more likely to either be currently being abused by someone or who – or will be abused by someone in their life rather than people who have become – Victims of a serial killer.

[00:22:29] Yeah. It's going to be – it's going to take a long while.

[00:22:56] But I think by at least acknowledging some of these issues, we can be a bit more cognizant of how – of the influence that media has on us.

[00:23:06] Even after people pick a case to cover, there are issues that arise because in like television news, for instance, journalists only have a couple of minutes literally to give you the story of what's going on in a case. And you really can only give like the biggest details in that time.

[00:23:30] One benefit of us doing a podcast, I've often said, Kevin, behind the scenes, is that we are allowed a level of granularity in our coverage and a level of freedom in our coverage because we are not bound by space, which a print reporter would be. Or like a print reporter, their editor is not going to be like, oh, go do like 10,000 words. Like they have a certain word count typically. Even if they're digital, there's usually like we don't want to read a billion-page essay on this situation. Don't write a novel.

[00:24:00] Just turn in your copy or time, which of course is the burden of a television reporter. You know, you have two minutes. Go. You know, that's how long your package can be, your news package that you put together. So we can kind of, because we're our own bosses and because we are working in an audio medium that, you know, is not radio, so we're not like being interrupted by commercial breaks in the traditional sense.

[00:24:28] We can do whatever we want, which is nice. But we, that also allows us to cover some of these cases closer. Some of the details that we report are not of interest to other mediums because they either can't capture it visually or they just don't have the time or space to deal with it.

[00:24:47] And even a case like Delphi, just as a quick example, when Kagan Klein was sentenced in the case at the end of July 2023, there was a lot of media there to cover it because it was a big story. I believe our episode on that hearing was probably an hour, hour and a half. Something like that, yeah. And of course, most media can't give the story that much time.

[00:25:16] I think most media probably gave it like three or four minutes. And I'm of the firm belief that different media does different things better. You know, I don't, we're not saying this to be like, oh, you should only listen to the murder sheet. We would strongly encourage everybody to have a diverse and robust and balanced media diet. And when you're talking about local TV reports, that's going to be giving you a visual angle that you may not be getting anywhere else. And that's very valuable.

[00:25:44] If you're talking about local print reports, again, perhaps they've been in the community a long time. They have the trust of the community. They can get sources that, you know, maybe others can't. So all of these different outlets are probably going to be bringing something great to the table. But so it's not us saying, oh, you know, podcasting is the ultimate form of true crime reporting. We're just highlighting an issue that we see where people have to make choices. And that strips nuance sometimes.

[00:26:14] Because if you have like two minutes to talk about something on the TV news, you can't necessarily get into the perpetrator's tragic childhood past that may have influenced what happened. You can't get into, you know, this other suspect who maybe struck a plea deal. It's just you have to boil it down. So you do lose nuance. And then, of course, some storytellers are biased towards stories to their advantage.

[00:26:44] And they try to act as if they are not just a storyteller, but they're an active part of the story. I think we've all heard podcasts where the hosts act as if they've actually solved crimes. I hate that. That's like my pet peeve about true crime podcasting. It's so gross to me. And it's just for marketing. Like, I see what they're doing and it's marketing, you know. And it's trying to get their audience like, hey, keep supporting me and listening to my ads and giving me ad dollars.

[00:27:13] So, you know, I can keep solving crimes. It's like you're not solving crime. Journalists and podcasters have, I'm sure, assisted with some crimes. Maybe even you can credit a solve or two here or there. That is very rare. Very rare and a stupid thing to market based on. Because you're just lying to your audience. In my view. Cases aren't solved by the media.

[00:27:43] You know, you cannot be tried and thrown into jail based on a conviction in the media. You have to be. It has to be court. And it's not exactly a crime in the normal sense of the word. But I think for a lot of people, the gold standard of investigative reporting would be Woodward and Bernstein with the Watergate case. But they were not really going out. And yeah, people have the wrong idea about that.

[00:28:12] Basically, they were getting leaks and getting information about ongoing governmental investigations. Yes. And what they did was incredible and highly valuable and excellent reporting because Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were educating the public. What's happening with Watergate? What's going on? And they're basically like, here's what's going on. Here's what the investigation is doing. Here's who they're looking at next. Here's how this whole thing is sprawling out.

[00:28:41] And people think, oh, they solved the mystery of Watergate. That's actually not true. The government was investigating itself with Watergate. And they were just through their leaks, you know, through leaks, through sources, through a lot of shoe leather reporting. They were being they were investigating the investigation and showing, hey, everyone, this is happening. And so a good journalist, especially in a crime beat, is typically doing work more kin to that.

[00:29:10] They're saying this murder happened. Here's what everybody's saying. Here's what the investigation is looking at. You know, occasionally in the case where maybe a journalist or a podcaster feels there's been a wrongful conviction or where it's unsolved, there can be opportunities for more investigative kind of close to the case. Like, oh, let's talk to the witnesses. That does happen, too. We've done that. But typically that's not going to be enough to, like, cinch a case.

[00:29:41] And I just I don't know. I mean, like, I'm reading I'm not going to say the title. I'm reading a very mediocre novel right now about a true crime podcaster. And it's talking about all these cases they solved. And I'm just like. It's really hard to. It's just like I just stop. Like, you know what I mean? Like, let's let's get rid of the narrative that we're all. I mean, people come up and say things to us that are very nice and they're like, you know, you guys did a great job. You've you've helped this or that.

[00:30:09] And I'm not saying like, I think I'm proud of the work we've done. I'm proud of the investigative journalism we've done. But you should not be crediting us with anything as far as, you know, solving cases because we just haven't done that. Anyone who claims to be doing that, whether they're a private investigator or a media figure, a podcaster, a journalist, you know, ask them what the case was. And then, like, if you want to be really nosy, like email whoever the lead detective was. And you might get a different response.

[00:30:40] If you want if you want to do a deep dive. I can't believe you're making fun of my novel. Cut that part out, obviously. I'm sorry, Kevin. I didn't mean to give you such pointed feedback in such a public setting. And also, like, just on a side note, you know how like podcasters do that thing on like they like do a photo shoot where they're both wearing like dark clothes and like looking really serious. So looking off into the distance.

[00:31:08] If Kevin and I ever do anything like that, please roast us like that. You have absolute carte blanche as far as I'm concerned. That is the most embarrassing thing that I see. Well, how does this sort of thing influence how we think about crime?

[00:31:26] So I tend to think that the way that crime is covered in both fiction and nonfiction mediums encourages us all to have a extreme bias towards the most interesting version of the story. This is based on conversations we've had with people, you know, through our work. We found that people absolutely love conspiracies. They love them. And these are mostly very smart people.

[00:31:55] They're not conspiracy nuts. It's just and frankly, I think Kevin and I are part of this group. If you tell us, hey, there's a conspiracy, there's a cover up, there's this. We're like, oh, that's interesting. Tell us more. And then like invariably, we're never able to find any evidence for it. Nobody has any evidence. It's just more like, well, I feel it's a conspiracy because that sounds cool. And you're like, OK.

[00:32:18] We often say the more the most boring possible explanation usually turns out to be true. And that's not because that's how our mind works. Our mind, both of you and I want there to be a conspiracy on some level because that's interesting. I very much would like there to be a conspiracy in the JFK case. I don't believe there was one. But if there was, it would be like, oh, wow, what a story. And journalists, again, were biased towards oftentimes the most interesting story.

[00:32:49] If you are forgetting to add the skepticism that should be included in any good journalist sort of mental toolkit, then you might just start kind of running after conspiracies and seeing them everywhere, even if there's no evidence. But, you know, if something goes wrong, conspiracy. If the police didn't solve a case immediately, conspiracy. If they never solved the case, conspiracy.

[00:33:14] Not just with police, but with, you know, local townspeople, with wider governmental agencies. I mean, it's not good. It's not a good place to jump because at a certain level it becomes very incurious. It becomes very like, well, what does the evidence say? Is there anything pointing to a conspiracy or are you just saying that because it's an outcome that we don't want?

[00:33:45] So that's one favorite of people. And again, that's not dumb people because I really I'm the same way. Sometimes like I have to stop myself from being like, oh, what if they're covering it up? You know, you have you have to go where the evidence is. Another angle of this is people really always want there to be a serial killer angle in different crimes.

[00:34:07] If there seems to be a one off crime, people are always asking, well, you know, somebody got stabbed in the state over. So maybe that's connected. And it's like investigators typically in homicides have a way of looking at if there are crimes that closely match the MO demonstrated in the crime. So they have the ability to look at that and also the ability to test DNA if that's available in the case.

[00:34:34] So we don't really see a huge value typically in civilians putting together possible serial killer lists. I say typically I'm sure this case is where it is warranted and perhaps the police didn't do their due diligence with this. And perhaps civilians do need to speak out and say, hey, have you looked if these are linked? Now, one exception to that. We've talked with Michael Arnfield, the author and investigator.

[00:35:04] Michael Arnfield and his group, the Murder Accountability Project. Now, that actually maps out unsolved killings across the United States. And it also has kind of picked out some serial homicide patterns in different areas. So that's a situation where they're actually relying on data and getting really into the weeds with that and looking for patterns.

[00:35:29] So that's a situation where I think that's totally fine and great because you can actually be starting like using math, using data to kind of figure out is something bad happening here? Should we be on alert for a serial killer in this area?

[00:35:42] I'm more talking about when people are kind of just doing it casually based on very, very broad parameters that, you know, a knife was used in both crimes or both victims were approximately the same age and from very limited information across a very wide geographic area. Jumping to conclusions or just trying to fit perpetrators into the serial killer box because we watch shows about serial killers.

[00:36:09] We hear the fictional detectives say, he's done this before or, you know, someone like this can never stop. And then we think this crime is really horrible and heinous. So this guy must have done it before. And I think I think real life is more complicated. It reminds me of the show Law and Order, which I think most of us have probably watched at least some episodes of. And one of the hallmarks of that show is that there was always a twist.

[00:36:39] It was never quite what the most obvious explanation was, even though real life, it usually is the most obvious explanation. Like there'd be a violent ex-con who's photographed driving the victim's car away and his prints were all over the scene. But it was actually the wealthy boyfriend who did it.

[00:36:58] And so when people look at cases, sometimes they're expecting to see some sort of twist that ends up exonerating the person the whole world thinks is guilty. I think we were talking with someone about the Jeffrey McDonald case recently. This is, of course, the Green Beret physician who murdered his family, murdered his two young daughters and wife. I believe strongly that he is guilty. I believe the evidence points to that.

[00:37:28] And the jury agreed. And the jury agreed with me and he's been in prison. There's been a lot of work trying to make in what I consider fraudulent innocence claims about him over the years. And I think we're I mean, I'm going to get into why I think that is in a moment. But I was talking with a loved one who also is interested in that case. And we were talking about like the evidence strongly points to this man having annihilated his family.

[00:37:56] And she was my loved one was like, I totally agree. He's guilty. But part of me almost wants it to be that he's not guilty. And we were talking about that. And his scenario of the crime was very implausible. He essentially there's evidence that he read an article in a magazine about the Manson murders, about Charles Manson and his followers killing Sharon Tate.

[00:38:20] And so he claims that on the night of the murders, he was sleeping on the couch. He wakes up. There's a group of evil hippies in his house. I believe two white guys, a black guy and a white lady wearing a big floppy hat, boots, holding a candle saying acid is groovy. Kill the pigs. Kill the pigs.

[00:39:14] So, yeah. Young daughters and wife. That's his story. And the reason I think that resonates with people. I mean, the evidence doesn't indicate that at all. The forensic evidence that they were able to find does not support that conclusion. The people, they looked at him, they looked at Jeffrey McDonald and they saw a patriotic, young, talented, intelligent and handsome physician who was a patriot because he was serving in the Green Berets.

[00:39:42] He was supporting our country during a time of war. This was during the Vietnam War, I believe. He was clean cut. He was good looking. He was handsome. He was he was an intelligent man. He was a physician. And he told this horrible story about these evil, dirty hippies murdering his young, beautiful family. And I think that resonated with people. People were reeling from Manson. That was a horrible case. And that was a situation where hippies were doing something really bad.

[00:40:09] And there were tensions politically going on. And in Jeffrey McDonald, people saw a victim that they could root for, even if the evidence didn't indicate that he was actually a victim, even if it indicated that all of those positive trappings were a mask that he was hiding behind. And eventually a jury saw through that because that's where the evidence took them.

[00:40:37] But people still, I think, like the idea of him being a wronged man who was robbed of everything. And, you know, how could a guy who had it all do that to his family? How could a guy who had so much going for him lash out in such a violent and horrible way? It had to be, you know, drug addled hippies who wanted to just, quote unquote, kill the pigs because, quote unquote, acid is groovy.

[00:41:03] So that is a situation where I think people's internal biases come into play. It's it's less interesting to people that a man would lash out angrily, violently and annihilate his family, which is something that is relatively rare, but does happen versus an evil kind of East Coast branch of the Manson family acting out.

[00:41:33] And, you know, I mean, even just even just like, you know, the fact that that is a thing and people can basically say. Yeah, I know he's guilty, but part of me wishes. I think people who are less self-aware, they just go with their wishes. They don't even think, OK, intellectually, I know he's guilty, but emotionally, it'd be cool if he wasn't, because that fits my biases. I think a lot of people don't even get to that point. They just go with their emotions.

[00:42:01] And we may at some point talk more extensively about the McDonald case or other cases like that, because one of the hallmarks of those cases is that a family member is violently killed and mutilated. And the man in the family who poses the greater threat to a potential killer or theoretical killer is only wounded slightly.

[00:42:29] And you would think if you were a killer breaking into your someone else's home, you would concentrate your rage on neutralizing the person who poses the biggest physical threat, which would be to the man. Yes. And in these cases like McDonald or Sam Shepard, the man usually is not wounded too severely. No. And obviously, in some instances, things happen.

[00:42:55] And if the, you know, the one thing that comes to mind and also oddly involves a physician is the awful, awful murder in Cheshire, Connecticut of the Pettit family. And the father in that case escaped, but he was badly injured. And the evidence pointed to two absolute lowlifes doing it. So in that case, we're not saying, you know, be suspicious every time a man escapes death when his family doesn't.

[00:43:22] But we are saying that the evidence in the Shepard and McDonald cases points to the father of the family, the husband of the family being the perpetrators. And people look at them, though, and they see like a respectable doctor or respectable man, and they don't want them to be guilty. They want it to be some mysterious situation that is full of intrigue.

[00:43:49] And frankly, McDonald seems savvy enough to give that to people with the hippies, you know, and then basically the defense investigator went running around. They found some woman who was addicted to drugs locally and basically got her to say whatever. So like, hey, you know, you were really high on drugs that night. Could you have gone over to his house? I don't know. And then that becomes yes.

[00:44:08] And also the bias for a story can also lead people to just like if you're reading a mystery novel, sometimes you're reading chapter one, you think, oh, I bet the butler did it. Sometimes in true crime, as soon as a story breaks, people start jumping to conclusions. And there was a recent example of this in the Rachel Morin case.

[00:44:31] This is a woman who was murdered while she was out hiking by herself on a trail. And it was reported fairly soon after that that she had recently gotten involved with a man who had some sort of criminal record. And so people were just jumping to the conclusion that this man had to be the killer.

[00:44:55] And as it turned out, there was DNA evidence that exonerates him and implicates a random stranger. Yeah. You got to go where the evidence is. And don't be too quick to publicly accuse someone. Also, here's the thing. When it comes to police investigations, police make mistakes. Police get it wrong.

[00:45:21] That's that's not I don't take what I'm about to say is basically listen to the police above all else and don't question it. It's just more of like typically the police have significantly more information than we, the public or we, the journalists or anyone else does. And they're making decisions based on that because they have to they're bound by following the evidence. And when we're sitting here being like, you know, on day two of the murder investigation, being like the boyfriend must have done it.

[00:45:50] Why don't we just wait and see what happens? What's the problem with waiting? Because if they have DNA, then they can pretty quickly either rule out the boyfriend or rule him in and investigate it. When cases drag on longer and we're kind of going a while without any answers, I think then I can totally understand speculation. Perhaps you're even asking questions. That's fine. I think that's actually healthy and perhaps gets people to focus on the case and saying, what is going on here?

[00:46:20] But like people just jump in like day two being like, you know, it must be the boyfriend when it's like we don't have that level of information at this time. What's the point in guessing so early on? And rarely are the people who are doing this doing like a lot of extensive background research where they're really bringing something to the table, I would say. It's not like you have people who are like really getting sources and, okay, I talked with, you know, two people who said that they had a volatile relationship.

[00:46:50] It's like people just basically saying whatever and then forgetting about it. And then in other cases, like with the McDonald case, you just have people who want it to be the more out there theory. They want it to be the more interesting theory. And to use a very silly example, and I apologize, this is just what comes to mind for me.

[00:47:14] You know, if you've ever been driving around with your family, whether you're the parents or the kids in this situation or you've been in both roles at different times, you've probably seen this. I remember growing up when my sisters and I, you know, if we were driving around with our parents, we would kind of sometimes get annoying. We'd be like, you know, we'd be into this road trip and we'd be like, can we get fast food? Insert whatever your favorite fast food chain is. Can we get fast food?

[00:47:42] And my parents would sometimes cave like, okay, let's, let's go, go to the drive-in. Other times my dad especially would be like, we have food in the fridge, you know, like stop. And let's be honest, if we're thinking about this, fast food is not very healthy. Also, when you're buying fast food for the whole family, that's not really a great personal financial decision because if you have good food at home, then that's going to waste and you're spending money that, you know, like just have the food at home.

[00:48:12] That's probably the better choice. But fast food is easy on the parents because they don't have to prepare anything. It is fast. It is yummy. Sometimes it has a cool toy that can shut your kids up for the drive. So there is an allure of fast food.

[00:48:31] And I feel, I feel like when we're looking at a case and the evidence points to one person or the evidence points to a perpetrator or there's been a conviction or there's been, you know, a good, you know, like a pile of evidence that basically says this guy did it. That is to me oftentimes the food in the fridge. And we hear from so many people who want to get fast food instead.

[00:48:59] They want to go to McDonald's and you want to, you do want like, sometimes you want to be like, we have a perfectly good explanation at home in the fridge. Like it's, it's like people want the novelty or they want to be smarter than everyone else. See, I put it together. It's this absolutely nuts solution. And that can lead to people being just too confident.

[00:49:19] And we've certainly seen instances where a relatively small group of people come to a conclusion that they think is absolutely correct. And then they tie their ego to that. And they tie their ego to that solution. It becomes very important for them to be absolutely correct.

[00:49:40] Because if you believe in their theory, you're validating their views of themselves as being smart and perceptive. While being wrong is giving them some kind of an ego death. And they will begin to weave complicated narratives to ensure that they can continue being right.

[00:50:07] But first of all, I just want to stress, you shouldn't tie your self-identity or self-worth into a particular solution to any crime. And in the true crime arena in particular, you should always be aware that whatever information about a case that we see is like an iceberg. We're only seeing the tip of all the information about a case.

[00:50:34] And in so many instances, the police and investigators know about a lot more than we do. And I'm aware of instances in Delphi and in other cases where a little bit of information comes out. Oh, this person may have said this and that sounds incriminating. And so people latch on to that and they're not aware that those theories and leads have already been thoroughly investigated and debunked by law enforcement.

[00:51:03] I think all of us have had an experience, whatever your career is. You've probably talked with some know-it-all who comes in and starts telling you how to do your job or talking to you like they know your job better than you do. And you're probably listening to them and you're, you know, you're probably a nice impatient person. So you're kind of nodding like, OK. But you're thinking like this guy does not know what he's talking about or this lady doesn't know what she's talking about. They are just filling in gaps. They know a little bit.

[00:51:33] They know enough to not sound completely ridiculous at the forefront. But as they go on, they're missing this. They're missing that. They're erasing nuance. They're missing the context. And you probably come away thinking that that person is pretty arrogant to be kind of going around acting like an expert. And I think true crime, you know, a lot of creators suffer from this problem. But they basically like, well, I've done, you know, 200 episodes on murder.

[00:52:00] So I definitely know everything there is to know. And they don't really have sources in the legal field. They don't have sources in law enforcement. They don't have sources on the defense and the prosecution. They don't have different types of sources who can kind of be like, here's my experience with the case or here's my experience with cases like this. So they're really just basing it more on their own outside view of things. And that's where you can get tripped up.

[00:52:28] I just really don't think it's a great idea for people to tie their self-worth to true crime cases because I think we should just all try to be a little bit open minded. I think it's OK. I mean, like I told you, I think Jeffrey McDonald is completely guilty. But, you know, I'm not going to if somebody came out tomorrow and said, here's video footage of the hippies going into his house. OK, I was wrong. It was the hippies like right. Like that's I don't have a problem with being wrong in that situation.

[00:52:56] You know, it's like, OK, well, now evidence has convinced me, swayed me over to the hippie angle. And I'm open to that. It's it's it's OK to be wrong sometimes. It's it's OK to change your opinion. It's it's just all that's OK. It doesn't need to be a big war. Ultimately, investigators, police and the prosecution have to go where the evidence takes them. And here's what I mean by that.

[00:53:25] In the case that we covered not so long ago, the murder of 17 year old Laurel Jean Mitchell. She was abducted from North Webster, Indiana and raped and murdered. We talked with people and there was, you know, a possible connection between her murder and the activities of a religious cult popularly called the Glory Barners. And they. There was a guy who killed his baby by withholding medicine from the baby. You know, he was in the area.

[00:53:53] He was doing sexual assaults and just being an awful person that caught my attention. And I was like, wow, if there's a cult angle here, that's really intriguing and scary and upsetting. But police weren't going about like, oh, that sounds really interesting. Police went with the DNA. And that ended up getting Fred Bandy and John Wayne Lehman caught, along with incriminating statements they made to people over the years to witnesses. So.

[00:54:23] Even though my interest was most intrigued by the Glory Barn angle. Ultimately, investigators can't just go with whatever is most interesting or like this guy seems like a really bad guy, so we have to go with him. They have to say, what does the DNA tell us? What do the witnesses tell us? You know, what? How can we get probable cause?

[00:54:46] Ultimately, we all have to be influenced by that evidence and not by what the most intriguing possibility is. It's not about what could have possibly happened. It's about what does the evidence say happened. And if we don't know enough information about the evidence because a trial is pending or because the case has not been solved, I think we all need to not jump to conclusions. It's hard to do that.

[00:55:13] I know Kevin and I often find ourselves jumping to conclusions in the Burger Chef case and then we have to walk it back and say, OK, wait, maybe this isn't true. Maybe this maybe this isn't because we don't have the case file in front of us and it's never been adjudicated. Yeah, I think in the Burger Chef case, there have been many instances over the years where you or I have thought, oh, this is it. Yeah, we're like, we got it. We figured it out. And then we're like, wait, we don't know this. So that kind of makes it so we can't really conclude anything.

[00:55:41] So when we're saying, you know, don't jump to conclusions, everyone does that. We do it. I mean, just everyone is capable of doing that. We just mean that, like, be prepared to walk back real fast. Walk back from where you jumped from. And I often hear you comment when you read some theories online, some detailed theories about Delphi or about other cases. You say this. These people should be writing fiction. Yes. Yeah.

[00:56:10] I think that in many cases, people are putting a lot of creativity and thought into. Things that they are not equipped to understand. And by not equipped to understand, I mean, like, they don't have sources close to an investigation. So they're just speculating. They don't know anyone in the area. So they're just making up details about the geography. They don't. You know, all they're doing is basically messing around online.

[00:56:34] And I think in those instances, maybe they're coming up with some cool theories or some cool, interesting ideas. I don't think it's appropriate to be rolling with them in a true crime setting where real people were murdered. I think it's better to channel that into some interesting fiction. We I mean, a lot of us who are probably listening to this enjoy detective fiction, crime fiction, thrillers.

[00:56:57] So I think if you want to just think about I mean, like we've heard people I've heard people say to me, well, I'm a storyteller. So I think it would be the more interesting thing. And it's like, maybe you should stick to storytelling. Maybe instead of trying to squeeze real life events into a the mold of a story. Why don't you take your creative talents and go into fiction? Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet.

[00:57:27] If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities. If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet.

[00:57:54] If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support. Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the murder sheet and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[00:58:18] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the murder sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.

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