Questions and Answers to Close Out 2023

[00:00:00] Content Warning. This episode is going to be a question and answer recording. I don't know exactly what we will be discussing in the episode, but there's a good chance it's going to involve murder, including the murder of children and perhaps sexual abuse.

[00:00:17] Knowing Anya, there's a good chance there'll be some profanity. Hey everybody! It's currently December of 2023. It's the waning days of this brilliant year. So what we're going to do is close things out a little bit with a question and

[00:00:37] answers episode. We've gotten a lot of questions from our listeners, and we're going to pick some of them and answer them as best we can. So probably going to be talking about a range of different

[00:00:47] cases. Just know that we appreciate you for listening. We appreciate every listener who submitted a question, and we hope you're all having a nice holiday season and getting ready for a great 2024. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist, and I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney,

[00:01:06] 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 a question and answer session to close out 2023. So we posted a request for questions both in our

[00:02:10] Patreon group and in our Facebook group. And so I think Anya is going to start by reading a few questions. Absolutely. Here's one from Lydia. She asks, do we have any intelligence or opinions on what exactly precipitated Richard Allen's move from Westfield Prison to the Wabash Valley

[00:02:31] Prison? And of course, this refers to the defendant in the Delphi Murders has been moved from one prison way up at the northernmost part of Indiana to a prison to this western part,

[00:02:45] southern part sort of, I guess kind of in the middle. He's very far away now. It's still very far away from where he's from, but it's slightly closer to his former attorney Andrew Baldwin.

[00:02:58] So that's we kind of did the math and that's what we ended up figuring out. We don't know why exactly this happened. We can tell you that we've not heard about any sort of incident

[00:03:06] that caused this. And we will say that Wabash Valley has a better reputation amongst the people in the correctional space that we've spoken with. We also know that Westfield is an undergoing extensive renovation and I'm not that played a role in this, but it's quite possible

[00:03:22] that it did. Next question from Joseph. Any idea whether the Klein slash Anthony Schott's connection coincidence is still being actively investigated in the Allen case? What's a rumor? What's conjecture? What's solid? And you know, they note that there's just somebody

[00:03:43] bizarre ways that Klein sort of popped up in this case. Was it a coincidence? Was it something more? I don't know if we can really answer if we know if it's currently being investigated.

[00:03:53] I think the fact that nothing has ever been filed against Kagan Klein indicates that there's not probable cause there. And we know it was looked at very hard and very, very seriously. And so the fact that even after that level of investigation, they've still not found enough

[00:04:14] to file charges. I think that's worth noting. I wouldn't be surprised if some investigators might still be working on that particular lead, but we don't know that. I have no inside information on that. And I wouldn't be surprised if maybe the resources are being more devoted to

[00:04:30] the angle that they currently, you know, I think it's possible that there's mixed opinions. I think it's possible that it's been let go entirely. I think I don't, I don't believe the one angle I don't believe is that there's some sort of master plan where, you know,

[00:04:44] it's all going to come together and this can be a Perry Mason moment at trial where they say, now we're bringing in Kagan Klein. I don't, that's not typically how it works. Because, yeah, I mean with the kind of the coincidences that Joseph mentions,

[00:04:58] you know, did he plan to meet the victims? All we know is from the transcript of the interview with Kagan Klein and police where he said where the police accused him of saying that he was supposed to meet Libby that day. Is that true? We don't know. And

[00:05:16] his possible presence at the gas station, the marathon gas station. Yeah, we, I, we know that that was, that was evidence lost seemingly by the FBI. But lots of weird coincidences, I'm afraid we can't really like give a lot of solid answers at this point,

[00:05:33] because it just remains unclear. But hopefully after whatever happens with Alan is sort of resolved in some manner, there can be an opportunity for, there to be more openness with this. That would be great. Here's another question from Joseph.

[00:05:51] What are the obscure lesser known cases that are your own personal obsessions? Ooh, I like that. One case that's lesser known that I've always been very interested in. I don't know how you define lesser known, but this is a case involving the murder of a woman

[00:06:13] named Valerie Percy in Illinois in the mid sixties. Her father was a senator running for reelection and she's actually murdered in her home during the election campaign. And there's been no one charged in that crime. And there's all sorts of interesting details and

[00:06:35] speculation. And now that I mentioned it, I'm surprised we haven't covered it on the shut. We probably should. It's a case I've always found very, very interesting. Yeah. And that's a shocking one to me because I'd never heard of it before meeting Kevin. So

[00:06:49] I was like a politician, a high profile politician whose daughter ends up murdered. You would have thought that that would have been more in the culture. And I'm not saying that it's obscure because I'm sure a lot of people are listening and they might even know about it,

[00:07:04] but it's not the most high profile case. And another thing I think a lot of us by us, I'm including everybody in the audience, we consume so much true crime media, we hear

[00:07:19] about the same cases over and over again. So it is very interesting to come across cases that we haven't heard discussed endlessly. And one resource I've often turned to, to find cases that are new to me, and this is odd, I admit, but there was a true crime

[00:07:39] magazine back in the 1930s that in the thirties actually did a great job covering cases that were very well known then, but have faded into obscurity now. And so I'll pick up an issue from like 1935 and there'd be like seven or eight really fascinating cases in it that

[00:08:01] I've never even heard of before. And I've also been considering maybe periodically I should just pull out an issue from my collection and do some cases from that issue that would be new to

[00:08:14] most people. What is the magazine called? Magazine is called True Detective. Time is a flat circle. It's not the TV show. And also if you've heard of True Detective Magazine, it ultimately became something very different from what it was in the 1930s. Which is like lurid pictures of

[00:08:35] lurid like drawings of women in distress on the cover, right? Yes. You're making yourself sound pretty bad in this episode. In the thirties it had like articles by like police detectives about cases they'd worked. Newspaper writers would write about cases they'd covered. Very,

[00:08:54] very interesting cases. Most of us totally knew to me. So if you ever come across Kevin reading a True Detective he'll say, it's just for the articles. No, yeah, I've you've shown me

[00:09:07] some of the early edition, the 1930s kind of and yeah it is good journalism back then. It's definitely lurid but there's some really interesting cases that were so big back then

[00:09:20] and are just not big at all now that I find fascinating. As far as my obscure case that I am obsessed with, I think I used to be more in that and I'm sure like in the past I could

[00:09:34] have thought of something where I was really into it. Honestly working in this space, it's become less of a hobby and more of like an all-consuming job. So I don't know if anything

[00:09:48] comes to mind right now because I feel like the answer would have been in the past been burger chef but of course that's not really that obscure. Certainly not in Indiana. Can I ask you about a case which I believe you have maintained an interest in?

[00:10:04] Yes please do. There was a bottle of poisoned Tylenol. Why don't you tell that? Okay, there's one case I'm interested in and this kind of gets into the Tylenol murders. There was a woman from Yonkers, New York who went to a I believe a grocery store,

[00:10:23] I think it was A&P in Bronxville, New York which is where I'm from and she bought the bottle, consumed it and died. People have wondered was that tied to the Tylenol murders or was that something completely different? So there was a suspect that came up.

[00:10:47] This was years after the Tylenol murders in Chicago. Yeah, I think it was still in the 80s. It was still in the 80s but it wasn't like the next day. It wasn't the next day. It's a very weird case and it just was one, it was just one.

[00:10:58] So I'm very interested in that case I would say. But I don't think that's something we could cover unless we found a lot more on it. Yeah, yeah that's it. It would be difficult to cover outside of the context of the Tylenol

[00:11:15] murders which has already been very well covered. Do you have another question? This is from SE. This is about the D.B. Cooper case that we recently interviewed investigator Eric Eulis on that. He's great, he's done a lot of research into the case

[00:11:32] and so we had that conversation. So SE wants to know was there not an appetite to solve this case? Could Boeing in the aerospace industry as a whole at the time have had enough juice to squash the investigation because maybe defense contractors, the Department of Defense

[00:11:47] or even national security just comes into play and they don't really want to bring like, oh we hired this guy and he robbed us to the front page. And so I think that's a good question and I think it's an interesting one and I like that

[00:12:04] I like that you're giving reasons about why something like a conspiracy like that could happen because it's not just like tin foil hat. Oh my god Boeing did it. It's like maybe they're like okay maybe do we want to really admit that we effed up this badly.

[00:12:17] So I really like the way you kind of thought that through. My personal opinion is if you're a big organization you don't really want somebody to get away with doing something like this because then it could inspire copycats and make you look like a mark.

[00:12:36] That's just from a PR perspective. I mean I've never worked for a massive aerospace industry company so perhaps there is more to it but that would be my instinct that they would

[00:12:48] not want somebody to get away with this even if it was a former employee because that would empower bad actors. What do you think, Kevin? Yeah I think you've answered the question brilliantly. I'm just that good. All right those are some of the questions that I think

[00:13:02] that- You're ready for some questions for me to fire up. Oh the Kevin questions. KQ's. So Danny has a question that's going to put you on the spot. Oh Jesus Danny why are you doing it?

[00:13:16] Not including the murder sheet. What is your favorite true crime podcast? Oh man. Probably The Prosecutors which is a boring answer because we've had them on our show and we love them you know that. So a non-boring answer would be I would say

[00:13:38] I really enjoyed The Spectator which is a podcast it's like a limited series it's about the disappearance of a newspaper woman in Illinois. Love that show. Thought it was great. Yeah there's a lot of great podcasts out there and we don't have as much time as we

[00:13:55] used to to listen to them because we're working in that space now but yeah just because we don't mention a podcast doesn't mean we don't like it. The Prosecutors is great. True Crime Garage has done some great research and a lot of cases they're always worth listening. Absolutely.

[00:14:15] I haven't even heard an episode yet because it hasn't even made its appearance yet but I have high hopes for Jason Blair who's doing a true crime podcast this year and I'm going to let slip

[00:14:26] that someone is going to be doing a podcast just devoted to Burger Chef so Burger Chef case. So that is something that will probably be worth a listen. Yeah I felt at one point I was so burned

[00:14:41] out by true crime that I just wasn't listening and so we're kind of getting back I think into it more and there's some really good stuff out there so it's definitely an exciting time to be

[00:14:51] working in this space. And then I'm going to expand it a little bit and mention a couple of podcasts I like that are not at all true crime. I thought you were going to say a bunch of podcasts that I

[00:15:01] hate. We're putting people on blast today. It's no longer actively running for obvious reasons but Gilbert Gottfrey's amazing colossal podcast always would have great interviews with old-time show business people and that's something I always enjoy listening to.

[00:15:23] I also enjoy Never Not Funny which is a podcast done by the comedian Jimmy Pardo. Very funny man already. Andy has a question that's a little bit similar to something that was

[00:15:36] asked before it was a little bit of a twist. Ooh. Listening to the episode on DB Cooper made me wonder are there any cases you've been obsessed or interested with that remain unsolved that you

[00:15:47] believe could be solved? Oh I like this. What cases have hopes? And for our purposes let's define solve not as so much as getting a conviction in court but getting an answer that would satisfy

[00:16:02] most people as yes this is what happened. I have one answer and it's this huge caveat that goes along with it in my opinion but I think if they were able to find remains in the

[00:16:15] Lawrence Spear case that could be solved. That's a big if but I would love to see movement on that case. Her family her parents deserve answers. That seems solvable. Yes. I'm gonna have the

[00:16:30] boring answer. I believe the Berge-Shep murder case is solvable if enough resources would be put into it. Yeah I agree. Another big if. Stephen has less of a question and more of a fiery demand.

[00:16:47] Oh my gosh Stephen. I want more analogies involving Ania's hats. Oh my gosh. I got so nervous about your question that my hat just blew off. That sounds kind of weird. Is that even an analogy?

[00:17:00] No it's not. I'm sorry I'm so tired. You're letting Stephen down. Stephen's just turning off the podcast now he's done. Ania's answer was kind of like one of her hats when she gets caught out in

[00:17:14] the rain and that the hat becomes solid and just collapses in on that side. That's what that answer was like. Was that so hard? You know what it's so funny. I think Kevin you

[00:17:31] have you definitely love the idea of me wearing giant hats for some reason. I think it's and I get it because we both like watch a lot of old movies and people always running around in all

[00:17:41] these crazy hats but I think you would love it if I became like an old-timey newspaper woman who just had a giant hat on every day. Just a wild new hat like a head of hopper with less

[00:17:52] moral dubiousness. I think that's what you want from me and hopefully that doesn't give the listeners the idea that I'm sitting around wearing giant hats every day because I'm really not but more is the pity. Is that so much to ask?

[00:18:13] Oh man. If you could discover all the answers to any unsolved case and this question comes from Stephanie which case would you choose? Burger Chef. Burger Chef. That case is very important to us.

[00:18:29] It's the first case we really researched in depth and we've come to know a lot of the players in the case including investigators, possible persons of interest, family members, friends of

[00:18:45] the victims. Witnesses. There's and it's really I don't even know what the word is but to see how all of these people remain so deeply impacted and affected by a crime that occurred 45 years ago

[00:19:08] it's sobering. Also because there's so little like the crime scenes are wrecked that you know there's so many like turn off points in Forks in the Road where if this is true then this but if

[00:19:20] that is true then that and it's all depending on your interpretation so it'd be great to get everything evened out and in order to fully understand it because you would need all the

[00:19:31] information to fully understand it I feel. And it would mean so much to so many people. Yeah. Marissa has a question that I'm very very interested in how Anya will answer this. Oh my

[00:19:44] gosh. Where do you see the podcast in five years? Well that's a really good question. That's probably something we should be asking ourselves to frankly we're the worst business people. I would say I hope that we're continuing to do this I guess.

[00:20:01] I you know hopefully we have done some other new cases and made an impact in those cases a positive impact in terms of raising awareness and getting out new information but yeah I hope we

[00:20:16] just kind of continue to expand the audience and you know give people something that they feel is worthwhile listening and not a waste of their time. One thing I very much hope is that

[00:20:29] five years from now we will have done episodes covering a resolution in the Delphi case that satisfies everybody. Oh that's that caveat at the end there just throws the whole thing off.

[00:20:45] Yeah I do hope and we just want to say we appreciate everyone who listens and sticks around and maybe you listen to all the episodes maybe you just focus on Delphi, maybe you just focus

[00:20:55] on Idaho maybe maybe just do this or that either way we just appreciate you being here and listening. Danny has Danny's back with another question. Take two. Designed to put us on the hot seat.

[00:21:09] Jesus. Do you think the West Memphis three are guilty? Yes. Yes. Are we ready for the next question? Yes. My understanding is I believe the prosecutor is going to be doing an in-depth

[00:21:22] look at that case. Oh yes and we will certainly be checking that out. And we earlier did an episode in this case that was actually in an interview with Danny it's in our archives go back and check it out.

[00:21:35] Yeah definitely. Danny is great. Danny is amazing. Tell us about how you met this Christina. Aw thanks Christina that's like a nice little question. We met because of Burger Chef kind

[00:21:48] of tell this story to the press a lot but we'll tell you guys the inside edition. No I'm just kidding there's no additional details basically I was looking into Burger Chef I wanted to do a crime

[00:22:01] story I was you know trying to expand I really I'm just so interested in crime that I just wanted to do like a big splashy feature and I was clipping all these articles about Burger

[00:22:13] Chef on newspapers.com then suddenly I got an email from this random dude who's like oh I see you're interested in Burger Chef oh you know and I was like and at the time like I mean this is

[00:22:25] kind of funny and sad but at the time I was starting to really struggle with a drinking problem so my first instinct was like what did I do? Like did I drink too much wine and like

[00:22:37] file some like completely incoherent foyer request but it turned out Kevin had seen me on newspapers.com clipping all these articles and reached out so we started chatting he kindly provided me with contacts for an article wrote the article and then I provided you with contacts

[00:22:55] for the article I did not write the article no I wrote plagiarism scandal no yeah I wrote the article but then afterwards we kind of just kept talking and then we were sort of like

[00:23:09] oh we're in love and then we were like okay let's let's do something about it and yeah and here we are that's how we met it's very weird I remember I was like I was telling my friends about Kevin I was like yeah I met a guy

[00:23:27] we're looking into a murder and they were like yeah that makes sense Stacey how does it feel to be suddenly podcast famous you guys have blown up this past year is anything changed for you guys are you just too busy working?

[00:23:44] Oh that's a really kind assessment I don't really think we're famous in podcasting even we get recognized sometimes we do get recognized sometimes and we always appreciate people who who are nice get out of here the murder sheets no it's it's but you know it's really

[00:24:06] nice to interact with people who have listened to the show and engaged with it so that's been nice it's strange because it's a constant struggle for me to remember that uh because basically

[00:24:21] so Ani and I go and we sit in a room and we talk and then we leave the room suddenly a bunch of people hear what we said yeah so that's I'm like an old man like what kind of

[00:24:34] wizardry is this so it Kevin doesn't really know what a podcast is it surprises me sometimes that people are kind enough to listen and I think if it was in the front of my mind as

[00:24:47] I was talking like right now all the people who are listening I would I would freak out no let's get out of here burn down the podcast equipment and I know sometimes people come on

[00:24:57] the show and they say oh I'm nervous and it's like why would you be nervous it's just you're talking to us it's just not yet us you could kick our asses verbally and physically but other

[00:25:07] than I think we do spend most of our time working yeah I don't think it's uh has really changed us that much one thing we've tried and I don't know succeeded failed somewhere in between

[00:25:21] is we don't want you know we want the story to focus on whatever whatever case we're talking about or whatever information or whatever guest we're providing to you so we've we've made a decision

[00:25:34] to let more of our personalities on the show recently within reason yes we've made a calculated decision to be spontaneous that's how that's how you sound I can't she's so silly today that's what you were saying

[00:25:55] our shareholders thought that the stock would go up if we were to be charming no I mean but oh I mean we kind of we used to be like we can't show any personality

[00:26:06] or we'll die so we're loosening up and that's sometimes an adjustment to not too long ago we we were having a chat with somebody who listens to the show and we're like in a restaurant and I make

[00:26:22] a comment oh I can't I don't want to eat chocolate because I don't like chocolate and this person said well yeah I know that because you mentioned it on the show and it's like why did I do that

[00:26:31] I don't even remember half the things I say on the show apparently oh Jesus that's not good it's it's yeah but it's it's been it's been nice and it's been really gratifying to just

[00:26:41] meet audience members but also just like you know like thank you for listening I mean that that makes it possible for us to do this work and we're very grateful to you all and we feel we're very

[00:26:51] lucky to have such an intelligent audience and we are extraordinarily grateful for you all I think the most valuable resource any person has in their life is their time because if you if you

[00:27:05] like if you have a little bit of money and you spend it and it's gone but maybe you can get more money if you whatever go grab a bank or something but your time once once you give your time to

[00:27:19] something it's gone yes it's gone forever and so the fact that you all are willing to give us your time is something we really really deeply appreciate we're not perfect we don't get everything

[00:27:32] right and so thanks for bearing with us for being human but also thanks for trusting us with your time and and interacting with us and it really means a lot because we always try and strive to

[00:27:45] respect that time and use it wisely I would say that in addition to that it's been nice to meet other people in the podcasting space and kind of build a little community there we've been very gratified by that experience as well recently that's that's been something that's

[00:28:01] happened over this year that frankly I never thought would happen after some of our experiences I wanted to be the hermit in the desert but some very nice people have forced us not to

[00:28:13] do that so thanks to them Kelly has a case suggestions I mean we should write this down Kelly it says have you either of you heard of David Hendricks and the murder of his family in

[00:28:27] Bloomington Illinois back in the early 80s I've not I've not heard of that case we will we will do some digging into that but no thank you always feel free to send us case suggestions

[00:28:40] we have a massive list and we'll we try to get to stuff if we can yes especially cases that are not necessarily super high profile yes amber asks if you were an ingredient on the hamburger what would

[00:28:56] you be and why oh man what's the what's everybody's least favorite part of a hamburger the lettuce what about you Kevin I'm the guy that just goes in and gets hamburgers playing or just with

[00:29:17] ketchup yes no usually he doesn't even eat the buns you just he'll he'll get they'll get the plate afterwards and the hamburger is gone I've been to restaurants sit down restaurants where I order a

[00:29:30] hamburger and say I just want to play and the waiter is like what are you sure they're they're shocked they're stunned they're getting like a thermometer to test your temperature yeah that is funny a very simple taste maybe I'm the mustard when I'm getting a little bit spicy

[00:29:48] no that's stupid ignore that just falling apart over here you're what are you looking at I'm I miss what do you go I'm gonna step back on this one Kate asks who is your favorite mystery

[00:30:04] novelist oh oh that's such a good question I gotta I'm I'm gonna embarrass myself I'm gonna friggin humiliate myself in this episode I don't know how to say her first name but I'm gonna do it

[00:30:21] and she's Irish so I have no excuse ton of French I really enjoy her um Dublin murder squad series and some of her standalone books have been very good so she's probably one of my favorites

[00:30:34] that's writing right now I really enjoy her but as for past ones definitely Margaret Millar she is a beautiful writer her plots are wild and she's got a very biting sensibility about being a woman about like suburban life about all these interesting little themes that

[00:30:55] she has going through I would recommend um beast in view how like an angel and the fiend are some really good starts for her but she's she should be mentioned in the same breath as like Raymond

[00:31:12] Chandler and Agatha Christian stuff but she's not her husband Ross McDonald is also very good he's he's he does more of the private detective sort of thing and I really enjoy him too some of his

[00:31:26] works are great but if you read too many of them all at once just know that they're all basically the same plot it's basically I'm a detective I'm gonna come into town oh something bad happened

[00:31:36] but what if the really bad thing was 20 years ago yeah we get it generational trauma whatever but I love him too but I would say Millar's far superior I like Scott Tarrell quite a bit

[00:31:50] crying about it he does great legal thrillers with very human characters that are very well constructed I enjoy Margaret Millar I really like John D. McDonald particularly his non-series books from the 1950s the best known of witches probably Cape Fear I enjoy a lot of paperback

[00:32:13] writers from the 50s whose works may not be easy to get Liss dem Liss dem uh Ed Lacey Wade Millar people of that nature Thomas Dooley uh of course the boring answers dashel Hammett

[00:32:32] Raymond Chandler oh I love dashel Hammett and and Raymond Chandler Chandler is his writing is so awesome but his plots are just wait what uh Clifton Adams he's mainly known for his westerns

[00:32:47] but he did a couple of crime stories that are really uh effective Jim Thompson I grew on it on Kevin's very very very smart about books I thought I read a lot and then I met him and I was

[00:33:00] like oh my gosh I'm basically illiterate this one is from Brandy what is the case that has disturbed you the most that you've reported on oh geez that's a really good question there's something about the Wendy's massacre that just messes me up it was so brutal and

[00:33:26] and just I mean all murders are needless and awful but there's something about that case I think because I read about it as a kid I was the kid reading like the New York Post in the New York

[00:33:41] Daily News at my grandparents house because they got the tabloids and I'd be like what's going on and then I'd be like massacre of Wendy's employees in a basement and I was like yeah that one

[00:33:53] that one really disturbs me I don't know it must be just it must be because of that and and just the brutality we haven't reported on it but one case that really disturbed me as a child

[00:34:10] and still to some extent haunts me is a family murder in Fort Wayne where uh the child of the family I believe is about 10 years old was zipped into a sleeping bag and beaten to death

[00:34:25] oh my god and I always just felt that would sounded really a horrifying way to be killed to be that helpless emotionally the case we've covered that impacted I think both of us more than we

[00:34:41] expected was we did an interview with the family of Michael Bryson oh my this is a young man who went missing while camping and the details of the case are necessarily what got to us but just

[00:34:56] listening to his parents these two very good people who obviously love their son very very much and who still seek to honor him just hearing how much his loss impacted them and how it changed

[00:35:13] them that was incredibly moving and disturbing and upsetting and in terms of disturbing another thing that comes to mind is an element of the Delphi case we went to the Kagan Klein sentence

[00:35:26] and hearing and when it was laid out the the details of his some of his crimes crimes involving child sexual abuse materials we say child sexual abuse materials a lot and we don't always

[00:35:41] recognize what it means and in the sentencing hearing it was laid out in detail this is what is in these materials and that was very very disturbing and upsetting some of that is some

[00:35:54] of what was discussed there is seared on my brain forever and just Delphi in general with those two girls what happened to them what their families have been through since really disturbs

[00:36:04] me one I would just add to with me personally is a Kirsten Brosman a young woman who went missing in Indianapolis a few years ago she was dealing with drink a drinking problem alcoholism potentially

[00:36:18] certainly problematic alcoholic alcohol use and we talked to her family with you know that that case is still unsolved and I remember that week when I was I was I was producing that episode

[00:36:32] I remember Kevin's like you've kind of been in a bad mood all week like what's going on and I realized that it was really affecting me because I just felt like I related to what she was dealing

[00:36:42] with on a certain level and to have that happen to her before she could have a chance to even try to get better is really devastating Christina has a question have you looked into the missing

[00:37:02] person's case of six year old Shannon Cheryl from 1986 I remember this and how sad it was we have not we have not I remember the case too and we should cover it and we should add that to

[00:37:16] the list she's never found I remember it also because there was I believe it was in the early part of this century maybe 2003 2004 where a woman falsely falsely claimed to be Shannon oh

[00:37:35] geez and that was really a stunning act of cruelty to the family uh Brian asks a record request which agencies are the easiest and toughest to obtain records from what do you

[00:37:53] think this is and what do you feel needs to change to make it different oh man that is such a good question love that question in Indiana it's tricky in general because there's a lot of leeway

[00:38:02] that law enforcement has with unresolved cases one thing that would be really helpful is if on a national level or on a statewide level or or some level there was some legislation that made it so

[00:38:14] that after a certain amount of years things have to be public I think that would be good maybe with some few a few specific carve outs or or exceptions to that I think that with the advent of DNA technology there are older cases getting solved and so I

[00:38:34] wouldn't want anything to disrupt that but I also think that like if you're sitting on a case from the 20s you know like you're probably not going to get it like you probably should just

[00:38:44] let it out to the public as far as best and worst I mean I don't want to get salty on here in our experience Indiana State police is by far the worst right by far by far like as in letting

[00:38:59] other podcasters in to see a bunch of stuff they shouldn't and then being like oh well we didn't really mean to do that so it doesn't count doesn't count oopsies you know so definitely ISP because that's just ridiculous best who would you say is the best Kevin

[00:39:18] there were a couple of times we got just extraordinary responses to records requests oh FBI second worst three years for the burger chef but they did get us that so I'll they're not the worst I remember when we were doing our episodes on the donut shop killers

[00:39:38] on him more or less on a whim said I'm going to see if this particular police department has records on this case and they did they send them relatively quickly it wasn't hundreds and hundreds

[00:39:49] of pages yeah I love them that was totally unexpected oh wait who were they though were they in California yes yes so California you guys are the best Florida tends to be very good too

[00:40:03] why is that sunshine laws they have very strong sunshine laws also just ensuring that people are not like trampling all over the spirit of the law unfortunately foyer can be pretty toothless

[00:40:15] and the state equivalents can be pretty toothless so when they're not enforced it just kind of goes against everything Debbie ass is a hot dog a sandwich no you care to elaborate no

[00:40:31] no what do you think I think no again I'm the wrong guy to ask I don't really you talked earlier about how I don't always eat hamburger buns I also don't often eat hot dog buns

[00:40:44] and that is because you get a bun and it's so big and fluffy it totally overwhelms burger or the hot dog what you have so many specific little food things you know like you can found waiters I'm sure and wait staff because they're probably coming back

[00:41:08] and like wow this guy must really hated this bun like they're not thinking he always does this this is what he always does they think geez wow this man's a hater yeah I it just doesn't

[00:41:27] the vibe isn't sandwich I think I think of like a sandwich like it's a specific thing Sarah asked what type of law I have practiced the area of law I did most of my work in was intellectual property law which like copyright trademarks contracts things of that nature

[00:41:44] you worked with artists to negotiate contracts with companies things like publishers yeah licensees yeah neither of us had a background in criminal reporting or law before we got into this right so

[00:41:58] oh just very interested uh you know enthusiasts the way you do retail reporting you can take that and you can apply it to criminal reporting and the way you do intellectual property law you can

[00:42:13] take so that set of thinking and that approach to things and you could apply it to talking about criminal law yeah yeah I mean the research fundamentals remain pretty similar so we always want to be upfront about our backgrounds because we don't want you to be like

[00:42:32] sometimes I'm not going to name names but sometimes in the podcasting world people can get a little bit like I'm an investigative reporter and then you look back and you're like what have you investigated

[00:42:45] I did some investigative pieces for my previous outlet and I was very proud of those and I would say that they were investigative journalism and I you know I did that with some frequency but I would

[00:42:58] never have called myself an investigative reporter because I also just did a lot of random beat reporting and it'd be like oh let's listen to Walmart's earnings call you know so it because

[00:43:06] it wasn't what I fundamentally always did I wouldn't call myself that but I still learned those skills doing that work. Brian asks what has been your most memorable moments this past year personally and professionally? Oh man just crisis after crisis I feel like I'm having a hard time

[00:43:29] remembering anything because it's just been so much uh it was memorable but not in a good way to have you know leaked photos sent our way from the Delphi case that was that was horrible you know

[00:43:42] that's another thing that's burned in my mind forever I think and I don't I wish it wasn't and that yeah that that was memorable that's I never I never I just just I guess naively didn't think

[00:43:54] like anything like that would happen. Another moment that stands out to me is that for a while we had been covering Kagan Klein's legal situation for lack of a better word in Miami County in Peru

[00:44:11] Indiana and during that time we like all of you had a lot of questions about what was going on and we weren't able to get all those answers when it was happening but this year after the sentencing

[00:44:28] the prosecutor who handled the case Courtney Alwein was kind enough to sit down with us and answer all of our questions I think she spent a few hours with us answering our questions

[00:44:41] and I thought that was very gracious and kind of her yeah that was a great interview that stands out in my mind yeah she did a really powerful job on that case along with her co-counsel Jen Kiefer

[00:44:52] and of course it was all under the supervision of prosecutor Jeffrey Cicavix yeah so power squad in Miami County and I would add to that one moment that was just a happy moment and we

[00:45:04] really didn't have any impact on it it was just more of like yes was hearing that there had been an arrest in Laurel Jean Mitchell's case up in North Webster Indiana that morning people were

[00:45:16] in the inbox did you hear about this wow and people were excited and I was just so happy for that family and people were like wow the murder she really was on this they knew this

[00:45:26] was about to break no we didn't thanks for thinking that but no and that was a great day adria asks if you had a personal chef and didn't have to worry about cooking what comfort meal would

[00:45:41] you want made for you oh that's such a good question and wow what a delicious fantasy that would be um I well like I might I think this is I'm gonna sound like a freaking like

[00:45:54] loser in terms of I guess grilled cheese slash mac and cheese like a fancy little mac and cheese I could do that I thought my answer was going to be embarrassing oh I'm a simple woman Kevin

[00:46:07] I don't know you call me sophisticated you're hiring a personal chef maybe like an elevated mac and cheese well I'm gonna give you a little glimpse into our home life is right before right before we

[00:46:23] god we started recording this episode Ania said I'm gonna make myself a grilled cheese sandwich and I said do you need any help with that she said no I've got it it was a disaster it

[00:46:31] came out burned to a crisp and also the cheese ones are melted inside I don't know how I did it I don't know how I don't know how I messed it up that badly but it was a disaster and I ended

[00:46:41] up giving it you know a lot of it to my dog it was just yeah that was humiliating you know I'm not good at making food I've never claimed to be I have the diet of like a 10 year old

[00:46:57] child I eat lots of parents don't care about feeding him in a healthy way I neglected 10 year old child I love hamburgers pizza soda drink a lot of soda soda drink a lot of soda many a time when

[00:47:14] I'm going to a doctor's office and they ask me what my diet is they burst out laughing or they put their head down in their hands and weep I love candy he loves long as it's not chocolate

[00:47:26] yeah so that also can't have a red dye but what would you have your chef do that's the question just put a bunch of candy in a bowl and leave it on the floor sounds pretty good

[00:47:43] Michelle asked do you guys stand by your opinion of the west Memphis threes guilt are you open to reconsidering the case with a deeper dive into contradictions and retractions of key witnesses so I'll admit to you I've not kept up with everything about so-called retractions or what

[00:48:02] have you I would be interesting if you or anyone else has information that you think would change our minds we were always interested in looking at it I I admit the ones I think okay

[00:48:17] this is what happened I then don't spend a lot of time on the case and based on what I've heard about the case and my knowledge of the case it was pretty clear that they're guilty but I'm

[00:48:29] certainly capable of being wrong and so if people have information that would tend to cast doubt on the conclusions I've made or the audience made I think we'd be interested in seeing

[00:48:41] it yeah I mean it's like in some of these cases you do come out with an opinion and you're kind of like all right you know pretty much heard what I need to but that doesn't mean that you're not

[00:48:51] open-minded if you get something that completely shatters everything there's been cases that I've changed my mind on you know over you know in in reaction to okay now we have something

[00:49:03] new here yes right and that case no different you can have a hard opinion but still at least leave room for you could be wrong I think it's fair to say we've changed our opinions on the

[00:49:15] Delphi case a whole bunch of times oh my god every friggin day and I'm sure we will change it many more times before we're done yep like a we're like one of those uh are they called whether veins top of the house spinning around that's how it feels

[00:49:34] Jessica has two questions the first one what's your favorite music bands artists and songs individually wow that's that's a that's a fun question I love music I actually kind of I'm weird because I when I'm writing whether it's writing a script or whatever I really like to

[00:49:54] listen to music while I'm doing that because otherwise I kind of feel like I'm not in the writing mode and I know sometimes people find that distracting but that's just me I like all

[00:50:05] kinds of music I was raised on my parents had all those best of the 80s CDs best of the 70s I had a really strong Beatles phase in high school where like I could tell you

[00:50:21] I mean I actually still know that um their manager their first manager Brian Epstein died on August 27th 1967 I'm gonna look up that date so I don't embarrass myself but like I was into this

[00:50:34] community yeah I used to be a real snob about music I was like everything outside of the 1960s sucks and then that kind of softened to the point that I will just listen to literally anything

[00:50:46] and have the most basic tastes in the world but nowadays I just kind of I'm kind of open I've I've mellowed actually on country music the one thing I really didn't like was country and then

[00:50:56] moving to Indiana and Kevin introducing me to some some really good country songs I've I've mellowed on that I'll kind of listen to anything but my favorites Fleetwood Mac yeah it would probably be Fleetwood Mac I enjoy Taylor Swift I enjoy um one band that's not as prominent

[00:51:16] that I really like is Future Islands in terms of contemporary performers the performer that is by far my favorite would be Jason Isbell oh we love Jason Isbell in this household he's done a lot of

[00:51:31] great songs uh a couple that stand out would be Alabama Pines he's so good live my favorite is 24 frames uh if if we were vampires these are these are great songs song makes me cry generally I like

[00:51:48] I'm one of those guys that likes old Broadway show tunes I love Sondheim I love Gershwin Cole Porter huge fan of Cole Porter I was really happy recently I was in a bookstore they had a

[00:52:01] big thick collection of the letters of Cole Porter I was so excited it was very cute uh and my all-time favorite singer of course is uh Francis Albert Sinatra Jessica's second question how do you

[00:52:15] decompress and disconnect after investigation or discussion of sensitive cases we don't hot no I'm just kidding you know something we struggle with we really have a hard time with that it's

[00:52:24] very difficult I don't know I don't think we do a very good job of it to be perfectly blunt it we there's been times where stuff has happened and it's like wrecked our week

[00:52:33] you know um emotionally and you you want to I think we kind of it's I mean one of it's delightful working with this man right here Kevin Greenlee I love I love it but I think we both because we

[00:52:43] are spouses and also work together then we can't escape it because it's like oh this happened and then like let's make dinner we try sometimes we're thinking about implementing some measures maybe that could make our

[00:53:03] separate our work in life a little bit better but achieving that work-life balance has been difficult things that help are just watching a silly funny movie going for a walk playing with the dog

[00:53:15] just basic stuff but it's very easy for us to say we should do that but when you're feeling really depressed or like overwhelmed by something it can be difficult to implement that is what we found

[00:53:28] Rob asks is Kevin still a stickler for fresh produce yes I'm very specific as you heard me discourse on uh hamburger and hotdog buns yeah you're always excited when like the specific farmers markets are these guys are the best oranges

[00:53:47] or you know there's a lot of very specific produce dreams that Kevin had one my Christmas present for him last year can I tell them that oh yes yes I got him he's always was he's always

[00:54:00] going around you know that song well I'm most you probably don't know that song but there's a song called yes we have no bananas and that was written back in the day there was a banana

[00:54:11] shortage of a specific type of banana it gross Michael or gross Michelle or something like that and that was the predominant banana type at the time the type we have now is different

[00:54:22] but so that that kind of there's a blight those bananas went out of favor I'm really boiling down an important moment in agricultural history so I'm getting anything wrong I apologize but

[00:54:32] they they now we have a new banana but there's this whole thing and Kevin's always been like I really want to try the old time bananas those bananas apparently taste more like banana candy

[00:54:43] that's what they're based on and the amount of times I have a guy who likes candy the amount of times I had to hear this the amount of times there was the speculation about the banana

[00:54:51] candies and the banana the the old bananas of yore and the ancient bananas and I was just like oh my god we used to live in Brooklyn Brooklyn New York and I saw online that someone

[00:55:01] said oh you could buy this other type of bananas sometimes in certain stands and farm markets under the table in a Brooklyn paper bag I looked Kevin looked he's been searching for these bananas forever

[00:55:16] and I'm like you're not going to find them so I ordered um them special for him and they tasted like bananas they tasted better than bananas they were slightly better than bananas I'm not a huge

[00:55:29] banana fan to be honest and they're okay I'm not like fighting with them but I'm not a fan and I think they weren't they didn't blow my mind but they were they were cool and it was cool to

[00:55:40] have old-time bananas in fairness so yes we had old bananas my granddad always used to sing that song for some reason why don't we stop for there and uh there's still more questions and I

[00:55:55] think we'll probably pick up with those later Rob's banana question brought us to a screeching haul we slipped on that banana peel all right you guys have a great night bye

[00:56:05] if you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover please email us at murder sheet 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

[00:56:27] www.patreon.com slash murder sheet if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murder sheet we very much appreciate any support special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee who composed the music for the murder sheet

[00:56:51] and who you can find on the web at kevin tg.com 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

[00:57:04] 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