The Cheat Sheet: Commutations and Commutes

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Content Warning, this episode contains discussion of murder, rape, violence, mental illness, including the murder of children. So this is, I believe, our last cheat sheet of 2024, right?

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I believe so.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Unless something really bizarre and unexpected happens.

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Go back in time. Yeah, this is a format we introduced to kind of be able to talk about different cases and headlines in crime.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Give credit where credit was due. It was your idea. As so many of the ideas that people love the most come entirely from your head, is it from the mind of Zeus?

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you. That's very sweet.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just along for the ride.

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_02]: No, you're not. You've got good ideas, too. But yeah, we're gonna do kind of a range of cases today, sort of focusing on the sort of the coasts, I guess, right now.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_02]: There's gonna be one case out of New York, specifically New York City, another case out of California.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I'm going to talk about a case that has nothing to do with murder that's also out of California.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we're also going to discuss United States President Joseph Biden, Joe Biden, just commuted the sentences of most of the inmates on the federal death row.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to talk about that in some of those cases. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00]: We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is The Cheat Sheet, commutations and commutes.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's start out with the commutations of the federal death row inmates.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_02]: My source for this was USA Today is sort of a baseline to get all the names of the inmates.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I went from there and sort of mostly looked up court documents pertaining to each of their cases.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Most of the coverage of this has focused on the fact that...

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is the commutations from President Biden?

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_02]: President Biden, as he's leaving, he's saying that I'm, you know, he's put a moratorium on those executions.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And so this ensures that these inmates will not be executed when Trump takes office.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like it's one of those things.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So the thing about this is everyone's been covering how some inmates like Dylann Roof and one of the Boston bombers have not been, not received this commutation.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_02]: They will, you know, they're on deck to be executed.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And what I wanted to do, just because this would be a bit different, is talk about the cases that these folks were involved in.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that would be interesting because I'm going to tell you, I think it kind of says something about how our how warped our coverage from the media of true crime is.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Because a lot of these cases are not very well known.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Some of them might be regionally known or locally known.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you as a person who's obviously a connoisseur of true crime because you're listening to us.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you're familiar with some of them, but most of them I was not familiar with at all.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And it just kind of shows you like if something says kind of a big deal enough to result in a federal death sentence, you know, that's not necessarily the thing that is considered sexy enough to engender a lot of, you know, constant national coverage.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It seems like we kind of all go back to the like the Scott Peterson case or, you know, like the same three cases again and again.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's just interesting.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Additionally, some other trends I noted.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of these had co-defendants.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So you'd have co-defendants both on death row.

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And let's go over the states these are from.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I found one from Oklahoma, seven from Texas, two from Louisiana, four from Missouri, one from Illinois, one from Michigan, one from Ohio, one from Pennsylvania, one from Tennessee, six from Virginia, three from North Carolina, three from South Carolina, two from Georgia, two from Florida, and then two from California.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Did that surprise you at all?

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It looks like the two biggest states were Virginia and Texas.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Doesn't surprise me at all.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's more support for the death penalty in the South typically.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's reflected here.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_02]: That being said, there's a showing from the Midwest where the death penalty has been maybe not as popular but at times.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, some kind of ones like California where it's kind of, you know, those are – that's actually the same case as just two different inmates.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's an awful, brutal case.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Can we just – before we get started on this, I wanted to clarify, what does this mean for people who are sentenced to death in different states?

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, President Biden has authority over federal matters, not state matters.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So if you were sentenced to death by a state, then this doesn't change that.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: So this – most people on death row are on a state-level death row.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So this really only affects people who were convicted in federal court of the – you know, something that engendered the death penalty.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of times the reason for that is in one case someone working in a post office was killed.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's a federal matter.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And another –

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's because a post office is a branch of the federal government.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're in a post office, you're on federal property.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_00]: So if a crime happens there, it falls under that particular jurisdiction.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: In a lot of case – in a lot of these cases, somebody was killed in a national park.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a federal matter because that's under the purview of the federal government.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So there would be little quirks like that where maybe if someone was killed in a different place, it would have been a state matter.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_02]: But because it's federal, this happened.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to go through these cases.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to spend too much time on each one, but one thing that just irks me is that when media outlets, when they're rushing to put something out there on stuff or they're writing something from the perspective of like, you know, appellate attorneys or defense attorneys and those seem to be the majority of sources in the article.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I feel like they actually don't talk a lot about the victims of the crimes.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Like you have a huge focus on why this inmate is so, you know, so sad and so much better than he was when he killed those people.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But you don't actually like hear the name of the victim or even like much information on what happened to them.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like that's kind of an appalling omission a lot of times.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It really bothers me when I read that, especially when there's like some sort of push for somebody to be granted clemency or some sort of like innocence narrative taking hold.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's important to focus on both.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: You want the full context.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't like to it feels manipulative in those situations and I don't like to feel manipulated.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Just like I wouldn't necessarily, you know, I'd want to hear if there was something that was more on the other side.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I would want to hear, well, are there questions about guilt or were there things in the process that were, you know, it just should be balanced.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And so what we're going to do is go through these, give you a sense of the kinds of crimes.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, I more find this regardless of how you feel about the death penalty.

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I know it's a fraud issue.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Some people are very much in favor of it.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Some people are very much against it.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Some people might be in the middle where they think it's OK sometimes, but not for everything.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_02]: These are the kinds of crimes that elicited a federal death penalty.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and I think that's.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_02]: That's worth talking about.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so excited to tell you about one of my favorite people and one of my favorite podcasts, Jason Blair and his show, The Silver Linings Handbook.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Listeners of ours know Jason already.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_00]: We've had him on to talk about ethics and true crime and media.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_00]: He always offers such thoughtful insights.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Plus, he's got all kinds of ideas on how to make true crime a more respectful and compassionate place.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_02]: We always want to hear more from him.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we're in luck.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And so are you.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Jason runs The Silver Linings Handbook, a terrific weekly podcast.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_00]: It's interview centric.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Each week, you get to hear Jason's in-depth conversations with inspiring people.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Jason has been so supportive of us throughout our journey as true crime podcasters.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's that kind of compassionate, resolute energy that he brings to his show.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Seriously, listening feels like getting to sit in on a dinner with some truly fascinating people.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: People who've survived the unimaginable.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Experts with a firm grasp on issues like mental health, crime, spirituality, and more.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Each episode always brings some surprises because Jason's thoughtful interview style always keeps things interesting.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_00]: We've so enjoyed going on The Silver Linings Handbook.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And we know that you're going to enjoy listening.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Jason's experience with his own mental health journey really bolsters his ability to empathize with so many people, no matter what they're going through.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Subscribe to The Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And I may be pronouncing some of these names wrong, and I'm sorry.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So one inmate was Shannon Wayne Agofsky.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_02]: He was initially convicted of brutally murdering a 51-year-old bank president named Dan Short.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd actually been familiar with that case.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_02]: He tied him to a chair and then dumped his body in a lake.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_02]: That's not what got him the death penalty, though.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So he later was convicted of murdering a man named Luther Plant, a Texas man who was a fellow inmate.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was a very brutal death.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Plant was trapped with him in an exercise cage as Agofsky essentially stomped him to death.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And correctional officers tried to get there, but they were too late and Plant was killed.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: The next one was Billy Jerome Allen and Norris G. Holder.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_02]: These two robbed a St. Louis bank in 1998.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_02]: On guard there was a 46-year-old man named Richard Heflin.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_02]: He was a Vietnam veteran and also a former member of the Caseyville Police Department.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_02]: He was shot and wounded during this.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And then Allen came up to him and shot him brutally execution style in the middle of that.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So why would Holder be also there?

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Because Allen's the one who did that.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, Holder, of course, you know, there's the felony murder element.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_02]: You're participating in a felony.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_02]: He's also shooting.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you kind of get pulled into that as well.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Akilah Barnett.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_02]: This one's awful.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_02]: He dated a woman named Robin Williams and he was incredibly abusive to her.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Tried to kill her at one point by throwing a Molotov cocktail in her apartment, causing a fire.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Then in 1996, he wanted to get to her.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So he laid in wait and carjacked a 22-year-old young man named Donald Lee Allen,

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_02]: forced him out of his car and then shot him with a shotgun multiple times.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Then he drove that car to Williams' house, chased her around.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_02]: This is in North Carolina.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Chased her around.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_02]: She's running in fear for her life.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: She's running towards – this is an awful detail.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_02]: She's running towards her mother and he shoots her dead.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And this coward – I'm sorry.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_02]: This coward was going to shoot himself, but he was so upset by seeing what the shotgun blast did to Miss Williams that he ended up not doing that.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And so just to clarify, I believe you did say this, but just to clarify, there's no question about the guilt of these people.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_00]: These commutations were more because the president did not believe in the death penalty.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: This – okay.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So I have not looked in depth enough to say if there's any reasonable questions of any guilt.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_02]: For some of these, maybe there are.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_02]: For that one, it seems like no.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he gunned her down in front of – I mean, like – but a lot of them, it seems like there's no doubt of their guilt.

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's not why the commutations were issued.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And also, these people are not going to get out of prison.

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_02]: They've just been – it's just reverted to, I guess, life without parole.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So it doesn't – it's not going to let them out.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just going to make it so they're not executed.

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And, yes, Biden in his statement said, basically, I don't believe in the death penalty and I don't want it to continue.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like a moral obligation to do this.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's – yeah.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But then again, it's possible some of these on the list have some questions about it.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Wrongful convictions do happen.

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I would argue that wrongful convictions are significantly rarer than we've been led to believe by true crime coverage.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I think people tend to be very credulous about this kind of thing and start – when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Not everything is a wrongful conviction.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_02]: There can also be situations where someone is definitely guilty of a crime but perhaps the case wasn't handled well and their rights were violated and that's a separate conversation too where that should also be thrown out even if it's tragic and feels unfair to the victim.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, I don't know enough about any of these to say, like, yes, this is – but there are some ones like that where he shot her in front of people and, yeah.

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Next one is co-defendants.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Brandon Leon Basham and Chadrick Fulks.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_02]: They were incarcerated together and cellmates and they escaped.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And they went on a crime spree that actually was also led to – they were in Portage, Indiana at one point.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So they, you know, first kidnapped a man after talking their way into his house, left him tied to a tree.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_02]: He survived.

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_02]: They hooked up with one of their ex-girlfriends who was a correctional officer and then went on a crime spree from Ohio to West Virginia, South Carolina.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_02]: A young woman named – a 19-year-old Marshall University student named Samantha Burns disappeared from an area that they were known to be in.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Her car was found burning.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_02]: She called her mother that night to say she was going to be late.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's believed that they killed her.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_02]: They were found with her – you know, later testimony revealed that they had her identification and her ATM card.

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Later on in South Carolina, they carjacked 44-year-old Alice Donovan, also forced her to call her daughter to say she'd be home late.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Used her ATM card.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_02]: For a long time, she was missing, but her remains were later found in South Carolina.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: She'd been raped and murdered.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_02]: The next one, Anthony George Battle.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_02]: He was there for killing a prison guard.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And previously, he had killed his wife, who was a U.S. Marine Lance Corporal mini foreman at Camp Lejeune.

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_02]: She was murdered and raped.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_02]: She had been trying to divorce him.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But that's not why he was sentenced to death.

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_02]: He was sentenced to death for the 1994 murder of a federal prison guard, D'Antonio Washington.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Battle borrowed a hammer from another inmate who was, I guess, like a handyman at the prison.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And then used that hammer to strike Mr. Washington in the head multiple times, killing him.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't targeted.

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: He just wanted to kill the first correctional officer he encountered.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Meyer Jason Brown is the aforementioned case involving a postal worker.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_02]: A 48-year-old Sally Gaglia was a part-time postmistress in Fleming, Georgia.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_02]: In 2002, she's working there.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_02]: A guy matching Brown's description comes in and is acting pretty weird.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Then later on, people come in and find her stabbed to death on the ground.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And he confesses to he wanted to rob her and then claimed to trip and fall into her with his knife.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So Carlos David Caro, this is another situation where he killed a prisoner in a federal facility.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_02]: He was a leader of the Texas Syndicate Prison Gang.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And in 2003, another inmate named Roberto Sandoval was found strangled to death with a towel in the special housing unit at Penitentiary Lee in Virginia.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, as you can imagine, this was a pretty easy case to solve because they were locked in a cell together and Caro was the only one in there.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So Caro confessed to it and said that he did it because Sandoval called him a bad name.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Wesley Paul Koontz Jr. in Charles Hall, another case where they killed a fellow prisoner.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_02]: This was in the mental health facility of a federal prison, and this was in Springfield, Missouri.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Koontz was a convicted kidnapper and carjacker.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: A man named Castro was found in a cell bound with shoelaces and medical tape.

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_02]: He had been strangled and beaten, and they stood on his neck and killed him because they said he was a snitch.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Brandon Michael Koontz, during a bank robbery in 2017, encountered Donna Major, the only teller in the bank, shot and killed her.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_02]: She was 59.

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And in addition to that, killed Katie Skeen, who was hiding behind her desk at the time.

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Stole $15,000 and later claimed to believe everyone was demons, but the insanity, I guess, defense didn't work, and he was convicted.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Christopher Emery Kramer and Ricky Allen Fackrell.

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: They killed a fellow prisoner.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_02]: That was Leo Johns.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And they all belonged to a prison gang called the Soldiers of Aryan Culture.

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Strict rules.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_02]: You can't drink.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_02]: You can't gamble.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Johns violated that, and they showed up.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_02]: They said they only wanted to, I guess, scare him or intimidate him, but they ended up killing him with shanks.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, they were convicted on that.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, and by the way, the person Hall and Koontz killed was Victor Castro Rodriguez.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I only had Castro down there, but I wanted to add his name.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Next is a really disturbing case.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_02]: This is a police officer named Len Davis in Louisiana.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_02]: He was part of the New Orleans Police Department.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_02]: In 1994, he beat a young man who he wrongfully suspected was involved in a shooting of a police officer.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And 32-year-old mother of three, Kim Groves, saw this and filed a complaint.

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So the next day, he showed up after getting a tip from a fellow officer and shot her to death to cover that up.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So he had been known for being an incredibly aggressive police officer who was abusive towards people in the community.

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But, I mean, that's horrifying.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Joseph Ebron killed another prisoner at the penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas.

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_02]: A man named Keith Barnes who had testified against co-defendants in a murder trial in D.C.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And this got out to the prisoners, and Ebron was one of the people who showed up and stabbed him to death.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Edward Leon Fields stalked campers Charles and Shirley Chick at the Winding Stair campground in Oklahoma.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_02]: He was stalking them for like 20 minutes.

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Eventually shot into their tent, killing Charles, and then chased Shirley around and killed her.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Stole their money, claimed to a girlfriend that it was from a drug deal, but he was busted.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_02]: He claimed it was the fault of prescription drugs because he was misdiagnosed with depression when he really had bipolar disorder.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to quickly jump in with another question.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, listening to this, these are horrible crimes.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That these people are no longer going to be executed for.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm curious, you indicated there were some people who faced the federal death penalty who he didn't commit the sentence for, such as Dylan Ruff.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Was there any sort of an explanation for why, in his mind, their crimes warranted this penalty he says he doesn't believe in, while these other people's crimes, who also seem very horrible, don't deserve to die?

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So the reason the three men who were not commuted, Dylan Ruff, I'm going to say his name wrong, so I apologize.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's Jokar Tsarnev and Robert Bowers.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_02]: They were each convicted of hate-based and terrorist killings.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Ruff was, of course, responsible for murdering nine people at a church.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_02]: He was a white supremacist.

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_02]: All of his victims were black.

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_02]: It was very clear that he was racially motivated and his racism is what caused him to do that.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Tsarnev was one of the Boston Marathon bombers.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_02]: He and his brother carried that out.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_02]: They killed three people.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And I believe that was like a jihadist plot where it was a terrorist, terroristic.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And then Bowers is the man who was the Tree of Life synagogue shooter.

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_02]: He killed 11 people at that synagogue, and it was because of his hatred, his anti-Semitism.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So my understanding is that Biden did not commute the terrorism and hate-motivated cases.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But these ones are obviously not, from what we're seeing, not motivated by some sort of terrorism issue.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: But obviously the victims are just as terrorized and just as deceased.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It's – yeah, that's fair to say.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Isn't it?

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Go ahead.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to hop in with that.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I appreciate that.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It's good.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is a really disturbing one.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Marvin Charles Gabrian.

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_02]: This is from Michigan.

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And he kidnapped – so this young woman, Rachel Timmerman, the young mother, she is going to a card game with friends.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_02]: He's in the car.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_02]: He forces the other men out of the car and kidnaps her and rapes her.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So she reports that and is going to testify against him.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Instead, she disappears.

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Letters come out in her handwriting saying she made up the rape convictions and that those are sent to the prosecutor and the judge handling her case.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Then her body is found weighed down and bound in duct tape in a lake in a federal park.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And her 11-month-old daughter, Shannon, is never found but also disappears at this time.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And so Gabrian is arrested and sentenced to death.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_02]: He's believed to be a serial killer, although he has not been convicted in these other murders.

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_02]: His landlord, Robert Allen, disappeared.

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Gabrian was using his social security checks.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Wayne Davis, who's the man who invited Timmerman to the card game on the night of the rape, he disappeared before he could testify against him.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And Gabrian was found trying to pawn his stereo system that had been stolen.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Later on, his body was found in a national forest near where Rachel's was found.

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And then another witness named Weeks disappeared, has not been found, just like Allen.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's a case of an obvious serial killer who was trying to cover his tracks.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So John Weeks is the other one.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But this was around the Huron-Manistee National Forest.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_02]: First, a man named Thomas Morocco Hager, he was he shot two rival drug dealers.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_02]: He was in the gang life and sort of in Virginia.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Then he and some people went to the apartment of 19-year-old Barbara White, who had some gang connection.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_02]: She had dated a gang member.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_02]: He also knew she also was friends with Hager's girlfriend.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_02]: They forced her in the bathroom, bounding gagged her and stabbed her to death with knives.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Richard Allen Jackson was convicted of a horrible crime in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina.

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is a pretty disturbing case.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Let me find him.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to make sure I have the victim's name.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So Karen Stiles was just going for a walk on the trails that day.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_02]: She was kidnapped by him.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Her naked body was found duct taped to a tree.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_02]: She had been raped and sexually terrorized, zapped with a stun gun near her genitals.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And Jackson killed her when she screamed.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_02]: He was found because they traced the gun back to him.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_02]: These names I'm going to get wrong.

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Jurijus Kadamovas and Yori Mikkel, they were from Russia and Georgia.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry, no, they were from, I think, Lithuania and Russia.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And they targeted the Russian and Georgian communities in California.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They were serial killers.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_02]: They would kidnap people, sometimes hold them in terror for days, get ransom, and then kill them anyway.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So their victims were Meyer Muscatel, Rita Peckler, who was pregnant at the time, Alexander Umansky, Nick Karabadzy, and George Safiev.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And they would strangle and suffocate them to death and dump their bodies.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It's awful.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_02]: That was the California case I mentioned.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Daryl Lawrence shot and killed Officer Brian Hurst in a bank robbery in Columbus, Ohio.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Hurst fired back and hit him.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_02]: But Hurst was only there, sadly, because his wife had just had a baby.

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_02]: She was with the Delaware County Sheriff's Office, but was fired because she couldn't return to work after just having a baby.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And the sheriff would not give her light duty.

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And so he had to work, you know, as a special duty police officer to earn some extra money for his young family.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And he was killed as a result of that.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Rinaldo Micos was a Chicago podiatrist.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a foot doctor.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And he had a patient, 54-year-old Joyce Brannon.

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Unbeknownst to anyone, well, this is what the federal government was looking into.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_02]: He was running massive Medicare fraud where he was getting millions.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_02]: He was billing Medicare for millions over surgeries he never performed.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So Brannon was set to testify against him.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_02]: She was a church caretaker.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_02]: He called her up a bunch of times begging her not to testify.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And then when she refused, he showed up and shot her to death in a church basement.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_02]: James Rohn, Jr., Corey Johnson, and Richard Tipton were each people involved in a series of brutal drug-related killings.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Ten in total, maybe 11.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_02]: They killed a man named Peyton Johnson at a tavern.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_02]: They killed Louis Johnson in an alley.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Torek Brown was killed for being a rival of theirs.

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_02]: A triple murder involving drug associate Bobby Long, who owed a debt.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And also two people who were not involved in the drug trade, Dorothy Armstrong, Long's sister, and their friend Anthony Carter.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_02]: They were all killed.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Linwood Childs was killed due to worries about him snitching to police.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Sisters Priscilla and Gwen Green, as well as Curtis Thorne, were killed in one meeting.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Douglas Talley was killed because he botched a drug deal.

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And then another rival, Douglas Moody, was shot and killed and then stabbed after he was trying to run away after being shot.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, kind of like a killing spree to consolidate power in the Richmond, Virginia drug trade.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Julius Omar Robinson was sentenced.

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_02]: He killed Juan Reyes, shooting him in his driveway and then murdering Johnny Lee Shelton, which was a case of mistaken identity.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_02]: He wasn't involved in the drug trade, but they thought he was someone else.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_02]: David Anthony Runyon was part of a plot to kill Naval Officer Corey Allen in Newport News.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_02]: He was acting on behalf of Voss's wife, Katarina or Kat, who was a fake Ukrainian woman.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_02]: She wasn't really from the Ukraine.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_02]: She was from the United States, but she had a fake accident and everything and then plotted to kill her husband because she wanted to keep cheating with other men, basically.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Thomas Stephen Sanders basically got into a relationship with a woman named Sue Ellen and tricked her into going on a long trip with him with her 12-year-old daughter, Alexis Roberts.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_02]: During the trip, he fatally shot Sue Ellen in the head, then held Alexis as a prisoner for several days before murdering her, shooting her four times and cutting this 12-year-old girl's throat.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Caboni Savage was another drug sort of organized crime leader.

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And he, after somebody named Eugene Coleman was set to testify against him, he decided to retaliate.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Coleman's mother was a prison guard named Marcella Coleman.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So he bombed the row house where she lived.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_02]: He had it firebombed.

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So Marcella Coleman, Eugene Coleman's baby son, Demir Jenkins, 10-year-old Kaja Nash, 12-year-old Taj Porchea, and 15-year-old Sean Rodriguez, and 34-year-old Tamika Nash, the cousin of them, and a dog were all killed in that.

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Mark Isaac Snarr and Edward Garcia, they stabbed a bunch of correctional officers and then broke – one of them wouldn't give them the keys, but they stabbed him and took it.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And I believe those correctional officers did survive, but then they got into the cell of another inmate, Gabriel Roan, and stabbed him to death before other guards could respond.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Rayjean Taylor was one of the people involved in the kidnapping and murder of restaurant owner Guy Luck.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_02]: He was kidnapped, transported across state lines, and driven to Tennessee and shot to death in the van.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Jorge Avila Torres was a former Marine.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_02]: He is believed to be a serial killer now.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_02]: He, as a young man, as a teenager, killed 8-year-old Laura Hobbs and 9-year-old Crystal Tobias on Mother's Day in 2005.

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Laura's father, Jerry, was scrutinized for a long time because he was an ex-convict, but DNA acquitted him.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I believe – I don't think it went to trial.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I think they just – they let him go.

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And then Avila Torres joined the Marines.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_02]: In 2009, he attacked 20-year-old Navy petty officer second class Amanda Jean Snell, strangling her to death, and then tried to kill two additional women.

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Daniel Troia and Ricardo Sanchez Jr. in 2006 stopped a jeep carrying a family.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_02]: The father was Jose Luis Escobedo, as well as two small children of his Luis Damien Escobedo and Luis Julián Escobedo.

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the wife was Jessica Guero Escobedo.

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_02]: They were all shot.

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Turns out the father was involved in cocaine trafficking, and there was retaliation for something around that.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the final case, Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Humana.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_02]: He – this is a restaurant homicide, actually.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So North Carolina restaurant called Las – sorry, I'm so bad at pronunciation – Las Orojitas is in Greensboro, North Carolina.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Two brothers, Ruben Garcia Salinas and Manuel Garcia Salinas, they're in there.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And apparently they called Humana's gang signs fake, and for that he shot and killed them.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_02]: He was associated with the MS-13 gang.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So kind of just an interesting run of crime.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Some seem like they would be super notorious.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Others are just bafflingly stupid, like killing someone over gang signs or killing someone because they called you a bad name.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Common themes are people killed in national parks and people killed in federal penitentiaries.

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's the kind of run of them.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_00]: What do you take away from all of that?

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_02]: People are horrible.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Merry Christmas.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Merry Christmas.

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Merry Boxing Day.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_02]: We're past both of those things.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Happy New Year.

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean, it's just depressing.

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, basically.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Some people are happy affiliated with these cases that these people are getting commutations.

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_02]: They don't believe in the death penalty.

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Even some victims, family members.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Others are really upset and angry that these people are not going to be executed.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're associated with any of these cases, have some background, want to talk about it, whether you're pro or anti this decision by Biden, we want to hear from you.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Let us know.

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we respect all points of view on this.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm guessing even our points of view are a little bit different.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So we respect all points of views on this very sensitive matter.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to move on and talk about a case that's gotten a lot of attention lately.

[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_00]: My source for this was CNN.

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is a case out of New York.

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_00]: This happened on a subway last Sunday.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_00]: A 33-year-old man named Sebastian Zabata Khalil.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm probably mispronouncing that name.

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_00]: He actually set fire to a woman in a subway car who was asleep.

[00:34:54] [SPEAKER_00]: There seems to be no motive for this.

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_00]: They hadn't been interacting.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_00]: As I said, the woman was asleep.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_00]: She died from this.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And Zabata Khalil is an undocumented immigrant.

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_00]: He'd previously been deported, but he returned to this country illegally.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And his victim for this random, motorless crime is, as far as I know, unidentified.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Also, over last weekend, there was another violent incident on a subway.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's just a general sense that the statistics seem to suggest that the subways are getting safer.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think there is a general sense that the quality of life and security in New York City may not be what it once was.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Humans were emotional, right?

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if you tell me, Anya, the subways are safer now than ever, that's wonderful.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But if I have an incident where someone's threatened to push me in front of a train, then that's what I'm going to remember.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not the numbers.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the experience.

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And it may be worth noting, first of all, obviously, New York City is an amazing place.

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the great cities of the world.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Very vibrant cultural life.

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a big musical theater guy, so obviously, I have a lot of reverence for the New York City theater scene.

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_00]: When Anya and I lived together in Brooklyn, we obviously didn't have much money.

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It was an expensive place.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not living in a super nice place.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_00]: But when we lived there, we were never the victims of a crime.

[00:36:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So we would never show up on any statistics.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_00]: But I have to tell you, there was a lot of just day-to-day quality of life stuff that was unpleasant.

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of it involved obviously mentally ill people walking around on the streets and being verbally and sometimes physically abusive or threatening.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a huge problem.

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And I came there from Indiana, and I was surprised by this at first.

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And you said, ah, you get used to it.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_02]: You do.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of start ignoring it, honestly.

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really bad.

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and it's not just bad for people who are just everyday civilians trying to go about their lives and being harassed, frankly.

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's also bad for the people who are doing it because they're obviously struggling.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_02]: There's obviously a lot of mental illness, and there's also a lot of drug issues there.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't feel like – I mean, it's kind of like – it's kind of like, wow, they're having the freedom to, you know, die on the street.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Isn't that nice for them?

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really – it's bad for everybody.

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like we've kind of, as a society, almost like discarded people who are struggling like that and saying, well, it's expensive to care for them.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's legal issues around holding people against their will to a certain extent.

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And I –

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's just –

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's just let them die on the street.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's just get used to it and let them fade into the background.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember once early on, I'm walking one of the streets, and I'm on the phone with somebody back in Indiana, and there is someone like following me and yelling loudly about how he would never be forced to perform oral sex on a dog.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And he used more colorful terms than that, and he was doing it very, very loudly.

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And the person I was on the phone with was, are you okay?

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you okay?

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And by that time, I'd gotten used to it and said, yeah, this is just life.

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And most of the time, it's just going to be that.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just going to be like some kind of weird, disturbing thing that doesn't go anywhere.

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But in other instances, you have people who are unhoused or mentally ill being the victims of crimes.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_02]: In this case, the woman was unhoused, I believe, right?

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_02]: She was homeless.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And in other cases, you're going to be having them perpetrating crimes against each other or against other people who are just walking by.

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a mess.

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a mess.

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, I feel like as a society, we've washed our hands of this, and it's not fair to anybody.

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_02]: It affects everybody's quality of life.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's doing a disservice to these people who are obviously vulnerable.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_02]: In many cases, they're not going to be violent.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But they're living in misery on the street and could be subjected to violence or issues at any time or death because of drugs or anything else.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just – I don't know.

[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And frankly, New York gets a bad rap with this.

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I think deservedly so to a certain extent because it's very overt and noticeable.

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, we were – I remember we were out in Indianapolis one night and there was a guy trying to start a fight with another homeless man screaming about how he was going to kill the devil.

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, like it's kind of everywhere to a certain extent and it's like we need to not abdicate responsibility.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_02]: People like that need help.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And if they're not able to live on their own by being – like a lot of homeless people are not mentally ill and not necessarily addicted to drugs.

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And perhaps giving them resources to get back on their feet is wonderful.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_02]: In other cases, I think essentially not having – if you're not able to sort of take your meds and, you know, live in society, perhaps some sort of living solution, some sort of residential treatment where they cannot leave is probably better.

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think a lot of those facilities were shut down because of cost saving and civil rights issues.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And I understand all of that.

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_02]: But, like, I think we should have better facilities rather than no facilities because, you know, community care does not work for everybody.

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_02]: If the community care leads to someone being on the street and endangered and possibly endangering others, then that has failed.

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_02]: That – we need a better solution.

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I think we need a moonshot with mental health in general in this country.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think that needs to be part of it for some people because –

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when you look at true crime and you look at crime throughout this country, it is really just astonishing and depressing how much mental health is a factor.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And also – but it's not – it's important to note.

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not really only or even mostly the mentally ill doing crimes.

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_02]: It's actually the mentally ill being victims of crimes, you know, because you're put in a vulnerable situation when you're like that, when you're marginalized and you're not able to get help and you're out there.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And then that's where people – like whatever the heck happened here in the subway in New York, this woman is seemingly sleeping there.

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_02]: She's obviously on the margins.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_02]: She's obviously struggling.

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But she's minding her own business.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_02]: She's not bothering anyone.

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_02]: She's just there.

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And this guy comes up and burns her to death.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_02]: That is horrifying.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like that – she was put in a situation by society where she's just kind of forgotten and not getting the help she needs.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Whether that's – maybe the help is offered to her but she's not in a place where she's taking it or maybe it's not offered to her.

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's something needs to give.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really – it's appalling.

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just feel like it says something really bad about our country where we're not able to help the people most struggling and the most vulnerable amongst us.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it represents a pretty significant failure.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I also want to talk about a case out of Orange County, California.

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_00]: My source for this was the Orange County Register.

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I always am interested to see cases where someone gets charged with murder when they didn't wake up that morning and say, I'm going to go and kill somebody.

[00:43:06] [SPEAKER_00]: When things just happened in a way they didn't expect, yet they are still ultimately found to be criminally liable for the wrongful death of another.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is a case involving a man named John Murray III who lived in Huntington Beach, California.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And Mr. Murray apparently had a propensity for driving his motorcycle in incredibly reckless ways.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_00]: He was said to enjoy performing, quote, dangerous stunts, riding recklessly and excessively speeding, unquote.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, he had been cited for this repeatedly over the course of time.

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And ultimately, it led to tragedy.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_00]: He was speeding and performing some of these stunts.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And he ended up going right into the rear of a sports utility vehicle that was doing nothing wrong,

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_00]: was following all traffic laws.

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And he just rams into the rear of it.

[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And not only is Mr. Murray himself significantly injured, but a friend of his named Megan Watlett is actually killed.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And so the police ended up charging Murray with basically murder.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And he is sentenced to 15 years to life.

[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_02]: What do you think about that?

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that's fair?

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, he was warned multiple times about this recklessness.

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_00]: He had been arrested or cited, they say, about five times previously in just the last few months before the crash.

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And he had also been in other accidents where he was at fault.

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And when you are operating something that can cause death, whether that is a motorcycle or a car or a gun,

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_00]: then ultimately you're going to be found liable for the misuse of it.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think?

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Does it make you uncomfortable at all?

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Or are you okay with it?

[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it makes me a little bit uncomfortable.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But at the same time, the man sounds like he was a complete menace on the roads.

[00:45:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And at a certain point, you know, it's not a one-time thing.

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, even his family and friends were telling him,

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_00]: this is dangerous, you shouldn't be doing this.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I guess it makes me a little uncomfortable because he didn't intend to kill anyone.

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_02]: But at a certain point, what are you intending to do when this keeps happening

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_02]: and people keep on trying to intervene with no success?

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So I guess it makes me uncomfortable, but it also kind of is understandable in my view.

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just really sad that this young woman lost her life.

[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And a young man has kind of had his life wrecked, but by his own choices.

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about another California case.

[00:46:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is one that doesn't involve anyone dying.

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_02]: No one died.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Some disturbing sexual harassment allegations, but...

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So just popping in here really quick to note a mistake that I made in discussion of this case.

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I believe I referred to Ms. Lively's case as a lawsuit.

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It's in fact a complaint with the California Civil Rights Commission.

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Essentially, it could lead to a lawsuit.

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a lawsuit yet, though.

[00:46:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So I do apologize for the error.

[00:46:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just figured I'd pop in here to note and correct.

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks very much.

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_02]: My source for this was a legal filing that was published by the New York Times.

[00:47:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So this is not a murder.

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_02]: This is a civil lawsuit.

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But I feel like it's a really helpful lesson for all of us, including myself and you, Kevin, and just all of us.

[00:47:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Because we're all people who are immersed in media.

[00:47:15] [SPEAKER_02]: We're immersed in social media.

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER_02]: We're immersed in traditional media to a certain extent.

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And all that media we consume forms us.

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_02]: It forms our opinions, informs how we think about things, informs how we regard each other, how we regard other people.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It's incredibly powerful and potent.

[00:47:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think a lot of us sometimes are guilty of not appreciating how the sausage is made when it comes to media.

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_00]: We just assume that, oh, here is a article.

[00:47:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Here is a piece of media about an event, even a controversial event.

[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I can feel comfortable that I'm going to get an unbiased account of it.

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But the fact of the matter is if there are stakeholders in how an event is covered, they will often try behind the scenes to manipulate how that event is written about and discussed.

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And that manipulation can reach some pretty extreme levels to the point that would shock even me, who's very cynical about this sort of thing.

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'll tell you, like, I'm the kind of person where I can tell myself, Anya, you're a smart and savvy lady.

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_02]: You're not going to fall for anything.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But I am totally guilty of immersing myself in a social media environment and then having that shape my opinions without even me really realizing it and just having that kind of like we're human.

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what we do.

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_02]: We're like sponges where you are what you eat when you soak up different the different opinions and sort of how facts are presented and narratives in different spaces.

[00:48:51] [SPEAKER_02]: That is going to affect you one way or another.

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_02]: We can't really help it.

[00:48:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And so folks like me where I'm like, I can't no one can get me.

[00:48:59] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I can be got.

[00:49:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Kevin can be got.

[00:49:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyone can be got.

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_02]: None of us are above this.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So this is something that's also interesting because I really I don't know about you.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't care about celebrity stuff.

[00:49:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I really don't.

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I enjoy like movies and shows and I'm like, oh, that person's from that.

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_02]: They seem cool.

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_00]: But like celebrity news, I love celebrities, but it's mostly like celebrities from the 40s and 50s.

[00:49:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, your celebrities are all dead.

[00:49:24] [SPEAKER_02]: You like vaudeville celebrities.

[00:49:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Give me the latest news on Shemp Howard.

[00:49:29] [SPEAKER_02]: He literally bought a book on Shemp Howard recently.

[00:49:33] [SPEAKER_02]: You're obsessed with Shemp.

[00:49:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I think he's your favorite stooge, right?

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_00]: He's a pretty remarkable stooge.

[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But we digress.

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, well, I don't care about modern day celebrity news.

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_02]: It just really bores me.

[00:49:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I just I'm like, OK, these people are cool.

[00:49:49] [SPEAKER_02]: They're in a movie, but like good for them.

[00:49:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't really need to like know about their lives.

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_02]: But this this celebrity lawsuit is actually different.

[00:49:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's Blake Lively versus Wayfair Studios LLC at all.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I always like shouting out the attorneys in this case.

[00:50:02] [SPEAKER_02]: The attorneys for the plaintiff, of course, is a famous actress.

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Blake Lively are with Manat Phelps and Phillips.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_02]: That's Ezra Hudson, Stephanie Roser, Catherine Rose Noble.

[00:50:12] [SPEAKER_02]: These are out of Los Angeles, California.

[00:50:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the ones in Washington, D.C. are with Wilkie, Farr and Gallagher.

[00:50:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's Michael Gottlieb and Kristen Bender.

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So the plaintiffs are the aforementioned Wayfarer Studios.

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath.

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Aren't the plaintiffs?

[00:50:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm sorry.

[00:50:28] [SPEAKER_00]: The defendants.

[00:50:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm forgetting my words.

[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry.

[00:50:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for correcting me.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So defendants are Wayfarer.

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath, Steve Sarowitz, Melissa Nathan, Agency Group PR, Jennifer Abel, RWA Communications, Jed Wallace, Street Relations and Doe's 1 through 100.

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into the meat of this lawsuit, I want to say quickly that I think Ms. Lively, I'm going to admit I'm not terribly familiar with her work, but I think she deserves some praise and courage for filing it.

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I think often when a person files a suit against someone they've worked with or often when a woman files a suit, they face criticism and a lot of blowback.

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So just the act of filing this suit, I think, took some courage on her part.

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And I applaud her for that.

[00:51:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's it's it's especially in Hollywood.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It's all about relationships.

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, you know, you do something, you say something, you complain and then you're hard to work with.

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_02]: This is what her suits about.

[00:51:38] [SPEAKER_02]: This is the these are the complaints for damages, sexual harassment, retaliation, failure to investigate, prevent or remedy harassment, aiding or abetting harassment and retaliation, breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent, false light invasion of privacy.

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And interference with prospective economic advantage.

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So what is all of this about?

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It's all about a film that came out called It Ends With Us.

[00:52:08] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a controversial romantic drama based on the 2016 novel of the same name by an author named Colleen Hoover.

[00:52:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I've never read it.

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_02]: It's all about domestic violence.

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It's controversial because of the way domestic violence is portrayed in it.

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_02]: People who are survivors of domestic violence say it's it's not it, basically.

[00:52:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't I I've never seen the movie.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_00]: But we haven't read the movie or read the book.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're not really qualified to make that call.

[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I can tell you domestic violence is a very serious subject should be treated with seriousness.

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So if people have concerns who are speaking out about that, then I think those concerns could be valid.

[00:52:45] [SPEAKER_00]: But that's not what this suit's about.

[00:52:46] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Lively starred in it.

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And so did Baldoni, who is also the executive producer and director.

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So he's an actor, but he's also obviously instrumental behind the scenes.

[00:52:57] [SPEAKER_02]: The film was released to the general audience August 9th of this past year, 2004.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And it did really well.

[00:53:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It made back its budget and then multiple times over.

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a big hit, even though I think critics were a little bit more mixed on it.

[00:53:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But now the thing is, despite this success during the promotion of the film throughout the summer of 2024, lively found herself roundly criticized.

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_02]: People on social media and I remember this when it was happening because I like you you're on social media and people like you always feel like social media overlords are kind of trying to force on you news that they think you're going to be interested in.

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's never what you actually want.

[00:53:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So in this case, you know, people felt that lively was too glib.

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_02]: She's like having all these happy little interviews and kind of joking around and talking about a film that's about domestic violence.

[00:53:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So people are like, what the heck?

[00:53:53] [SPEAKER_02]: That seems inappropriate.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Meanwhile, Baldoni got a lot of praise because he was out there talking about the sensitivity of the topic and how seriously as a creator, he takes something as serious as domestic violence.

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_02]: We have to support the survivors.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_02]: He's saying all the right things.

[00:54:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It seems like she's saying all the wrong things, at least as far as the public is concerned.

[00:54:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And even when it was pointed out that lively and others in the cast seem to be avoiding him, seem to be unfollowing him.

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_02]: He still kind of came off well because it's like he's actually taking this seriously.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_02]: None of them are.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And lively in the meantime becomes a villain.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_02]: She is cast in social media as this out of touch, wealthy actress.

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_02]: She's got a famous husband, Ryan Reynolds, the actor.

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_02]: She's got a famous best friend, Taylor Swift.

[00:54:41] [SPEAKER_02]: She's all you know, she's this powerful person in Hollywood who doesn't get it and is just going around embarrassing herself saying offensive stuff.

[00:54:49] [SPEAKER_02]: At that point, there's blood in the water.

[00:54:53] [SPEAKER_02]: People pounce on lively online.

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_02]: They brought up all these controversies.

[00:54:57] [SPEAKER_02]: She had a wedding at a plantation that's seen in very poor taste at best.

[00:55:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Interviews where she was hostile to the interviewer were brought up and disgust in how she's a mean girl.

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_00]: So, Anya, did all of these criticisms of Miss Lively just come up spontaneously and organically as they happen to occur to the reporters covering the story?

[00:55:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, no.

[00:55:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Or at least that's what Lively's alleging.

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_02]: The Baldoni camp at this point is still saying yes, but let's look at what was brought up in her suit and talk about it.

[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, she's saying basically it was all orchestrated.

[00:55:35] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a hit job.

[00:55:36] [SPEAKER_02]: It was not just a hit piece.

[00:55:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a hit social media campaign.

[00:55:40] [SPEAKER_00]: What was the motive?

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_02]: The motive was Baldoni was sexually harassing and just being really creepy with Lively throughout the shoot.

[00:55:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And his team became increasingly paranoid that she was going to take her grievances public at worst or at best that his reputation would be harmed by the fact that she was like unfollowing him and not doing press with him.

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So, it was a defensive measure, what Lively alleges, by Baldoni's camp to get ahead of that by making her look bad for the prongs of that seem to be he.

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_02]: They all agreed to this marketing plan for the film.

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_02]: They all agreed that the film should be portrayed as an uplifting story of one woman overcoming obstacles, which some would argue and I would actually argue is kind of offensive when you're dealing with domestic violence.

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_02]: That seems kind of overly chipper.

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But Baldoni signed off on that, too.

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_02]: He was supposed to do that.

[00:56:44] [SPEAKER_02]: He pivoted not out of any sort of sincere wish to be respectful, but because he knew by doing that it would leave her holding the bag and make her look really bad.

[00:56:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So, that was to cut her off.

[00:56:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And in addition to that, and we're going to get into this, but there were also social media astroturfing campaigns that Lively alleges were used to hurt her as well.

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So, what's interesting about this case to me, I mean, it's obviously very disturbing, allegations about a woman being sexually harassed.

[00:57:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to get as much into that, but, you know, what she alleges with Baldoni and there was even apparently a documented meeting on January 4th, 2024, where, you know, she confronted the hostile work environment.

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_02]: There was a meeting with all of these different players and they like made lists of like things that weren't supposed to happen anymore, like people going into her trailer when she was naked and changing and just like things that should not have been happening on set.

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But for me, what's actually interesting about this is the amount of media manipulation that is alleged here.

[00:57:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think we can actually talk about some of our experiences with that.

[00:57:53] [SPEAKER_00]: It's really interesting for the public to get a behind-the-scenes look at how the sausage is made.

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And to realize the extent that when you are reading stories, it is entirely possible that the reporters doing those stories have either knowingly or unknowingly been spun in a certain direction in order to produce their content in a way to make the audience feel a certain way.

[00:58:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think what you were alluding to, and I honestly don't even remember if we've mentioned this.

[00:58:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I think we've alluded to it.

[00:58:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Should we save that for the end or should we talk about it now?

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Up to you.

[00:58:33] [SPEAKER_00]: This is your case.

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It's my case.

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_02]: We can talk about it now if you feel like it's now a good time because I think this is why we're talking about it.

[00:58:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're talking about this because this is not something that just happens in Hollywood.

[00:58:46] [SPEAKER_00]: This happens in political journalism.

[00:58:49] [SPEAKER_00]: This happens in coverage of criminal cases and true crime cases.

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And one reason we know this is because we've seen things like this happen in the coverage of the Delphi case.

[00:58:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So very, very early on, I'm going to choose my words carefully here, but very early on in our coverage of the Delphi case.

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_00]: This is after Richard Allen has been arrested, after he has received court appointed attorneys, namely Brad Rosey and Andrew Baldwin.

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_00]: But before there has been any sign of trouble or distress or issues between those two attorneys and Judge Gull.

[00:59:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think you noted she had we've since learned.

[00:59:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:59:37] [SPEAKER_02]: That privately at this point, she had remonstrated with them for violating what was a gentleman's agreement behind the scene about not trying the case in the public eye.

[00:59:48] [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, there was a little public sphere.

[00:59:50] [SPEAKER_00]: But it hadn't reached the public.

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_00]: The attorneys had kind of received a private spanking.

[00:59:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Judge Gull on this.

[00:59:59] [SPEAKER_02]: What an image.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So during this point, at one point we had a communication from someone who showed, should I say it's someone close to the defense team?

[01:00:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Is that fair to say?

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that's fair to say.

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Someone close to the defense team, choosing my words carefully.

[01:00:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And this person indicated that if we wanted to do something really interesting, we should write and cover a case that Judge Gull had where the higher court indicated they believe that she had made a mistake and a mistake that favored the prosecution over the defense.

[01:00:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And we looked into it and found that that was a case that didn't really have any relevance to Delphi.

[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And it didn't seem to be.

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, let's be honest.

[01:00:53] [SPEAKER_00]: All judges make mistakes.

[01:00:55] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why we have higher courts.

[01:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Judges make honest mistakes for one reason or another.

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why we have higher courts review those decisions.

[01:01:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And when we looked at times that Judge Gull's cases had been reviewed by higher courts, we did not see a pattern where she consistently made mistakes to favor one side or the other.

[01:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: That's where the problem would come in.

[01:01:22] [SPEAKER_00]: If you had a judge who was consistently making mistakes to favor one side or the other.

[01:01:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Same mistakes, too.

[01:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[01:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So we looked at it and said, oh, well, even though the defense has basically strongly urged us to cover this particular case, there doesn't seem to really be a reason to.

[01:01:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And so we never covered it.

[01:01:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And frankly, I was off put.

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I found it off putting and engendering of skepticism on my part that we were essentially being pitched the opportunity to become like oppo researchers for one side.

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'll tell you, frankly, that no one affiliated with law enforcement or the prosecution side ever tried to pitch us a negative story on the defense team.

[01:02:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So we didn't do that story.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: But subsequently, we saw other people in the new media sphere who we believe likely had similar contact with the defense team.

[01:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: They covered that story.

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_02]: It was it was bizarre.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, I want to stress this is not after they were kicked off.

[01:02:28] [SPEAKER_02]: This is not after any sort of public.

[01:02:31] [SPEAKER_02]: This was when on the surface, the water was very calm.

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So it kind of also raises questions for me.

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Did this defense team always intend to have it out with goal on some level?

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what is the very least they thought it would be in their interest if people did not look at goal is a fair and unbiased arbiter?

[01:02:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, goal is a former prosecutor.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, attorneys and judges are shaped by their experience.

[01:02:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's fair to if someone's a prosecutor, they're probably going to empathize with the prosecution more.

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Someone's a former defense attorney.

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_02]: They might empathize with the defense attorneys more.

[01:03:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think what you want is is for them to still be fair.

[01:03:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And if there's a pattern of unfairness, I think that's fair to look into it.

[01:03:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But I reviewed cases where Gull threw out charges of the prosecution in a case involving a murdered correctional officer because the prosecution had all these discovery issues.

[01:03:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, that seems like someone who's at least not afraid to make a splash, even though she was roundly criticized for it by the at the time.

[01:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: It turned out later on another man was arrested, a different man.

[01:03:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that that's kind of a big deal.

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But also it shows that she's not willing to stand up to the prosecutors.

[01:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And there was nothing in that case that had any issue relevant to Delphi.

[01:03:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah.

[01:03:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So someone wanted us to smear her to benefit the defense and to make her look bad in public.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's the job of a journalist if you're being pitched a story like that to assess who benefits.

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Is this someone trying to sort of sow the seeds of poison against someone else?

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And if that's the case, should I be participating in that or should I use my brain?

[01:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what this Blake Lively thing is about.

[01:04:16] [SPEAKER_02]: That is what this Blake Lively thing is about.

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I wanted to talk about it because it happened to us.

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, it's happened in other true crime cases.

[01:04:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a message to everyone, ourselves, other creators, audience members to be vigilant.

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_02]: This happens and we need to be media savvy enough to be able to review and set aside judgment sometimes.

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So talk a little bit about how these PR teams or what have you were planting stories against her.

[01:04:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, what's so wild about this is a lot of it's actually been left in writing.

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was then obtained by Lively's legal team and published here.

[01:04:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And so let's let's look at this first thing.

[01:04:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It's from between Justin Baldoni and Jamie Heath, who's a producer on the film, who is also accused of sexually harassing Lively.

[01:05:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is after they've essentially courted these this crisis PR team to work for them and help them shape the narrative.

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is what why don't you be Baldoni and read the sort of black text and I'll be Heath and read the blue text in this exchange.

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Morning. Not in love with the document they sent.

[01:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Not sure I'm feeling the protection I felt on the call.

[01:05:24] [SPEAKER_02]: This is the first time I've personally gone through scenario planning with them.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think let's let them discuss the thinking behind the document and the actual process and protocol of how these how they implement these things.

[01:05:35] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the most important part of this is how quickly they can shut things down and place stories in your favor.

[01:05:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Be honest on this call and let's give real feedback to each point.

[01:05:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it just feels very much like there is not much defense and also them feeling strong like she's going to do something just a bit concerning what everyone had originally thought.

[01:05:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So unquote.

[01:05:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Unquote.

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So obviously that has he's talking about planting stories, placing stories, talking about an aggressive response.

[01:06:05] [SPEAKER_02]: One thing that came out throughout all of this that kind of fascinates me is that one of the publicists were, I guess, PR professionals, Melissa Nathan.

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Her sister, Sarah Nathan, works for Page Six at the New York Post.

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: That's kind of the, I guess, kind of gossip celebrity news sort of situation.

[01:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I go there sometimes.

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_02]: You go there sometimes.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And like I mean, it's some of the decisions around that is pretty shocking.

[01:06:36] [SPEAKER_02]: In August, there was apparently discussions about Nathan saying she's on the phone with her sister spinning her.

[01:06:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And like Nathan was sending them drafts of a story to, I guess, I don't know, approve about that was negative on lively sort of making her seem like she was she was demanding cuts and things like that.

[01:06:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And control of the film and kind of pushing out Baldoni.

[01:07:01] [SPEAKER_02]: He's the victim.

[01:07:02] [SPEAKER_02]: That's shocking for a journalist to do, in my opinion.

[01:07:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And and shocking that the I don't know, like I for me, if my siblings were involved in anything, I would really try to just distance myself as a journalist and be like, I can't cover that.

[01:07:17] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a conflict of interest.

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Somebody else in the newsroom cover that.

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know for a fact there are times you've done that.

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: That is actually true.

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, because you don't want to be caught up in anything like that.

[01:07:25] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't want to have even a whiff of impropriety, in my opinion.

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Journalism is not as like highly regulated as something like law.

[01:07:34] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, journalists can probably get away with a little bit more, maybe a lot more.

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But there was a time when the publication used to work for Business Insider or Insider did a story about your sister.

[01:07:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know you and your editors made sure that you were completely walled off from that.

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It had nothing to do with it.

[01:07:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want anything to do with this.

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to talk to anyone.

[01:07:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd like just leave me out of this in every respect.

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Which was appropriate.

[01:07:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I don't.

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_02]: That's not.

[01:08:01] [SPEAKER_02]: That would ruin my reputation.

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just not OK.

[01:08:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is exactly why.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's do the back and forth between two of these PR professionals, Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan.

[01:08:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess.

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Who do you want to be?

[01:08:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I can be Melissa Nathan, I guess.

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: OK, which is?

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Green is Abel.

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Blue is Nathan.

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[01:08:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So this is when they're talking about.

[01:08:31] [SPEAKER_02]: This is where they're talking about, like how they can make Baldoni feel supported, seemingly.

[01:08:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And also and Nathan responding, essentially saying, here's why we can't make him feel so supported at this time.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll be Abel.

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Quote.

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You can, of course, do that.

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But I do think he needs to know.

[01:09:19] [SPEAKER_02]: We can't write.

[01:09:21] [SPEAKER_02]: We can't write.

[01:09:21] [SPEAKER_02]: We will destroy her.

[01:09:22] [SPEAKER_02]: We will go do this.

[01:09:23] [SPEAKER_02]: We will go do this.

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_02]: We will do this.

[01:09:26] [SPEAKER_02]: We will do this.

[01:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: He has to look at it as an information document for us to be armed with.

[01:09:31] [SPEAKER_02]: That's all.

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Imagine if a document saying all the things he wants ends up in the wrong hands.

[01:09:36] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you know, you know, we can bury anyone.

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But I can't write that to him.

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I will.

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll be very tough.

[01:09:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[01:09:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So what are they talking about there?

[01:09:46] [SPEAKER_02]: They seem to be talking.

[01:09:48] [SPEAKER_00]: They're saying, boy, it'd be really dumb if we wrote this down and then they write it down.

[01:09:52] [SPEAKER_02]: It would be really dumb if we wrote, like, we can destroy anyone and then send it in a text.

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, well, they did.

[01:09:58] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the mysteries of this is how exactly all of this got to Lively's team.

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_02]: People commented that you think this would take years of discovery and whatnot.

[01:10:07] [SPEAKER_02]: There's been an indication maybe a subpoena was served.

[01:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's also I saw actually my old outlet Insider.

[01:10:13] [SPEAKER_02]: There was a piece that I'll link to where they talked about how there's been tension between some of these PR professionals, maybe allegations of one of them trying to steal the other's clients.

[01:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's possible one kind of turned on.

[01:10:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Who knows?

[01:10:26] [SPEAKER_02]: But either way, it's obviously very bad to have this stuff in writing.

[01:10:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Then there's a I'll just say this.

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a there's a text with Justin Baldoni texting a screenshot of a negative article about how like Haley Bieber, Justin Bieber's wife, doesn't support women and saying this is what we would need.

[01:10:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the response is, yes, I literally just spoke to Melissa about this on the break, about what we discussed last night for social and digital focus on Reddit, TikTok, Instagram.

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So.

[01:10:59] [SPEAKER_02]: You're seeing the beginnings of a social media and traditional media manipulation tactic.

[01:11:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like we place articles and then we kind of get Reddit and Instagram and TikTok riled up.

[01:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's how it works, folks.

[01:11:14] [SPEAKER_00]: That's how it works in Hollywood.

[01:11:16] [SPEAKER_00]: That's how it works in Washington.

[01:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: That's how it works in true crime.

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know this.

[01:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: You should read.

[01:11:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody should go and read this lawsuit.

[01:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how much of it you wanted to go into, but there's certainly a wealth of material in this lawsuit.

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's read a few more texts.

[01:11:35] [SPEAKER_02]: That's OK.

[01:11:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, Abel talks about limited pickup on Daily Mail or page six.

[01:11:40] [SPEAKER_02]: They're keeping an eye out.

[01:11:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, they're seeing a shift on social.

[01:11:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Quote, at one point, Nathan says, quote, the majority of socials are so pro-Justin and I don't even agree with half of them.

[01:11:51] [SPEAKER_02]: LOL.

[01:11:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, at one point, Nathan says he doesn't realize how lucky he is right now.

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_02]: We need to press on him just how effing lucky.

[01:12:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, the whispering in the ear of sexual connotations like Jesus effing Christ.

[01:12:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Other members feeling uncomfortable watching it.

[01:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's just so much.

[01:12:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So, um, they talked about how they kind of forced the four majors standing down on some report on an HR complaint against Baldoni.

[01:12:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so that's like applying, uh, pressure to major media outlets.

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And at one point, they talk about a trick where what you do is if you want to plant a story with some, uh, allegations, you find a small outlet that doesn't have big or strong editorial standards.

[01:12:42] [SPEAKER_00]: You get them to run the story.

[01:12:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And then once one person has run the story, even if it's a small outlet, then bigger outlets will frequently say, well, as the small outlet reported, blah, blah, blah.

[01:12:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's a way you can get things into the mainstream that would not have met the editorial standards of the bigger publications.

[01:13:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[01:13:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And, and then, and then reporters of the bigger publications and say, well, everyone's talking about it on social media.

[01:13:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a story.

[01:13:11] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a cop out.

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a cop out.

[01:13:13] [SPEAKER_02]: That's not what journalism should be.

[01:13:16] [SPEAKER_02]: You like, if you're going to do that, if you're saying, well, we have to talk about it, then investigate it and do something really in depth.

[01:13:22] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't just say, well, people on Twitter are saying like that.

[01:13:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, listen, I've been assigned those stories.

[01:13:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I've written those stories.

[01:13:28] [SPEAKER_02]: It's embarrassing looking back because it's like people are canceling Home Depot for that.

[01:13:33] [SPEAKER_02]: That's not a story.

[01:13:34] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[01:13:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's, it's just, it's a, it's basically a way to like capitalize on people talking about something, but it's, it's not, it's not good journalism.

[01:13:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Like looking back.

[01:13:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, I've been part of that, you know, I've, I've worked at these places and it's not like malicious.

[01:13:48] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not like someone's like, oh, let's just do bad journalism.

[01:13:51] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like, we should, we should do something because people are talking about this.

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_02]: We have to get on this.

[01:13:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like a rush to get in there.

[01:13:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not, it's not good.

[01:13:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Can we, can we do the back and forth about the Daily Mail article and just know it's like two pages.

[01:14:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So like you're gonna have to scroll down in a minute.

[01:14:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so that one, I'm going to read the headline.

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll be Melissa Nathan in blue.

[01:14:11] [SPEAKER_02]: You'll be Jennifer Abel in green.

[01:14:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[01:14:14] [SPEAKER_02]: This is the Daily Mail headline by Alana Colosa and Joe Tweedy.

[01:14:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And this came out, um, August 16th, 2024.

[01:14:22] [SPEAKER_02]: This is the headline.

[01:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Is Blake Lively set to be canceled?

[01:14:26] [SPEAKER_02]: String of hard to watch videos that have surfaced following tone deaf Q and a to promote.

[01:14:32] [SPEAKER_02]: It ends with us could tarnish 36 year old stars.

[01:14:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Golden Hollywood image for good.

[01:14:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So Melissa Nathan sends that link.

[01:14:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, Jennifer Abel responds.

[01:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[01:14:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You really outdid yourself with this piece.

[01:14:48] [SPEAKER_02]: That's why you hired me, right?

[01:14:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm the best.

[01:14:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So sounds like.

[01:14:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Talking about planning stories.

[01:14:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Talking about planning stories.

[01:14:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, you know, if, if also it's one trick that you mentioned or another trick is someone,

[01:15:02] [SPEAKER_02]: if a journalist reaches out to you and says, ah, I'm hearing all this stuff about this HR complaint.

[01:15:06] [SPEAKER_02]: One thing you can do is offer them a different story that they can use instead.

[01:15:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Which is actually.

[01:15:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Blake Lively is bad in this case.

[01:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, this is all a mess.

[01:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, Baldoni's camp has pushed back against the allegations in here.

[01:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: They say the texts were cherry picked.

[01:15:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And frankly, they didn't really have to do anything.

[01:15:29] [SPEAKER_02]: They just relied on organic public backlash against Lively.

[01:15:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what carried the day, not their machinations.

[01:15:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is what they said.

[01:15:40] [SPEAKER_02]: This is what the attorney.

[01:15:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, this is actually what the publicist.

[01:15:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I'm sorry.

[01:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: There was an attorney representing, uh, a bunch of these people.

[01:15:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And they said, um, basically that they were, they were up against powerful people with unlimited

[01:15:56] [SPEAKER_02]: resources, i.e.

[01:15:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.

[01:15:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, quote, the standard scenario planning TAG PR drafted proved unnecessary as audiences

[01:16:05] [SPEAKER_02]: found Lively's own actions.

[01:16:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Interviews and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful and responded organically to

[01:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: that which the media themselves picked up on.

[01:16:14] [SPEAKER_02]: End quote.

[01:16:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So they're saying we didn't even do anything to me.

[01:16:17] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a little bit like having a bunch of tech saying, I'm going to shoot this guy in

[01:16:21] [SPEAKER_02]: the head.

[01:16:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I want it.

[01:16:22] [SPEAKER_02]: This is what we're going to do.

[01:16:23] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to shoot him in the head.

[01:16:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the guy has found shot in the head.

[01:16:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, I didn't do that.

[01:16:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Someone else must.

[01:16:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It worked out for me, but, uh, I was just talking about doing it.

[01:16:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think it's certainly possible given how these things work, that text could

[01:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: be cherry picked.

[01:16:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe there's other things that add some nuance at this point.

[01:16:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not really saying we should necessarily jump fully on one side or another, but I think

[01:16:47] [SPEAKER_02]: some of this stuff is pretty damning and hard to explain.

[01:16:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:16:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I might say let's jump on one side.

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_02]: You're jumping on the bandwagon.

[01:16:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what kind of context would you want for these texts?

[01:16:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Like after they say we will bury her, then another text saying, but that would be wrong.

[01:17:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't see that happening.

[01:17:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So, uh, that's fair.

[01:17:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just telling you, I'm not, uh, I'm not an expert on this case.

[01:17:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just telling you that's my opinion.

[01:17:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to tell you what's the most damning for me is not the bury her thing, because you

[01:17:20] [SPEAKER_02]: can interpret that as, as someone saying, well, she's really bad and we're going to

[01:17:25] [SPEAKER_02]: expose that.

[01:17:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Or we're going to like, you know, she like, she's going to bury herself almost.

[01:17:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But for me, what's so damning is talking about planting stories and planting social

[01:17:32] [SPEAKER_02]: media reactions, talking about whipping up Reddit and TikTok and Instagram.

[01:17:36] [SPEAKER_02]: That's damning because that is manipulation.

[01:17:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And correct me if I'm wrong.

[01:17:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Didn't say somewhere in here that some of these people worked for Johnny Depp in the

[01:17:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Amber Heard thing.

[01:17:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:17:46] [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah.

[01:17:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.

[01:17:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And, and that's, and that like this happens in Hollywood, but as we said, it can happen

[01:17:52] [SPEAKER_02]: anywhere.

[01:17:52] [SPEAKER_02]: It's probably most potent in Hollywood because Hollywood is a wash in money and reputations

[01:17:59] [SPEAKER_02]: are so important.

[01:18:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And there, that's what, you know, the, this crisis PR would be certainly important in that.

[01:18:08] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, I mean, I worked for a public affairs firm for a summer.

[01:18:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I interned there.

[01:18:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't really work there.

[01:18:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess I interned there and I wasn't working on anything evil.

[01:18:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But like, certainly you, you, I was working on things.

[01:18:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think like my thing where like, let's make this country look good in the press

[01:18:25] [SPEAKER_02]: or something, or let's track how this country's reputation is going.

[01:18:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And, and, and so like it would be, or like, oh, let's make sure this tech company, like

[01:18:33] [SPEAKER_02]: let's compile clippings of how they're being reported on and see how they're doing.

[01:18:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's very easy to manipulate the media.

[01:18:41] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very easy to manipulate social media.

[01:18:44] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, people say, I don't trust the traditional media.

[01:18:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know what?

[01:18:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Social media is, is worse in many respects because all you have to do is get a bunch of

[01:18:52] [SPEAKER_02]: bots on Reddit or Twitter or wherever and get them saying the same thing.

[01:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And people are going to be like, wow, a lot of people hate Blake Lively where there's smoke,

[01:19:01] [SPEAKER_02]: there's fire.

[01:19:02] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like it, all of it's bad.

[01:19:05] [SPEAKER_02]: All of it's easy to manipulate if you know what you're doing and you have a lot of money

[01:19:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and it's, it's certainly possible in true crime.

[01:19:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It's certainly possible in any realm.

[01:19:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And it really, what we can do, we cannot join online dog piles with limited information.

[01:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: That just feeds into it.

[01:19:20] [SPEAKER_02]: We can reserve judgment until more facts are known.

[01:19:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And we can refuse to put our trust in the sleazy tabloid style of journalism.

[01:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's like traditional or new media or social media, we can just say, I'm not going

[01:19:36] [SPEAKER_02]: to give this any air and I'm certainly not going to make up my mind because, you know,

[01:19:40] [SPEAKER_02]: some of these outlets that engage in these practices are doing it.

[01:19:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Very well said.

[01:19:46] [SPEAKER_00]: So is it time for me to seamlessly segue into something else?

[01:19:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[01:19:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to do this seamlessly because you've just been talking about media manipulation

[01:19:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and how it seems very easy for people to invisibly get the media to spin things a certain way

[01:20:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and to spin public sentiment in certain directions.

[01:20:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And so my question to you is the obvious one.

[01:20:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Why haven't we ever hired one of these teams to help us with the shirts?

[01:20:16] [SPEAKER_02]: We will bury them in shirts.

[01:20:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the shirts are doing fine, but it's a great product.

[01:20:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody needs to be clothed.

[01:20:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Aren't you kind of manipulating the media about the shirts right now?

[01:20:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not getting any stories out there.

[01:20:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody needs to be clothed.

[01:20:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a great product, attractive, well-made.

[01:20:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody needs a shirt to wear.

[01:20:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, can you imagine what the world would be like if people walked around without shirts?

[01:20:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Can you agree with me that everybody needs a shirt?

[01:20:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, everyone needs a shirt.

[01:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So what can we do to hire one of these firms, maybe mortgage the house,

[01:20:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and hire one of these firms to start planning stories in the Daily Mail about our T-shirts?

[01:20:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, Kevin.

[01:20:55] [SPEAKER_00]: What would be a good angle?

[01:20:58] [SPEAKER_00]: What headline would you like to see in the Daily Mail about our T-shirts?

[01:21:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[01:21:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the thing is all of this stuff that's awful is like attacking other people.

[01:21:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But our shirts are supposed to be an emblem of positivity.

[01:21:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know that we'd want to hire some sharks from Hollywood to come out and do stuff

[01:21:15] [SPEAKER_02]: because they might end up using it to malign people.

[01:21:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, this actress is canceled because she didn't buy a Murder Sheet T-shirt.

[01:21:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to be part of that.

[01:21:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Couldn't you live with that?

[01:21:24] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I could not.

[01:21:25] [SPEAKER_02]: No, Kevin.

[01:21:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I could not live with that.

[01:21:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Jeez.

[01:21:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Is there a positive spin to get the shirts in the Daily Mail?

[01:21:33] [SPEAKER_02]: You PR person.

[01:21:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I want the shirts anywhere near the Daily Mail.

[01:21:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want our shirts stained that way.

[01:21:39] [SPEAKER_02]: That's my take.

[01:21:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the thing.

[01:21:41] [SPEAKER_00]: These shirts are well made if they are stained, easily washed.

[01:21:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Both of us, very sloppy eaters, always spilling stuff all over ourselves.

[01:21:54] [SPEAKER_02]: You're making us and the shirts sound so appealing right now, Kevin.

[01:21:57] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm saying we spill stuff on the shirts, we throw it in the wash.

[01:22:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It's fine.

[01:22:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's a new shirt.

[01:22:03] [SPEAKER_02]: You're making us sound like a bunch of slobs.

[01:22:05] [SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing?

[01:22:05] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to need like a PR firm to help our reputations after this ad.

[01:22:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Sloppy weirdos who are making a strange joke about PR firms and crisis PR.

[01:22:18] [SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing, sir?

[01:22:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Isn't it a crisis that more people aren't buying these shirts?

[01:22:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess so.

[01:22:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess it is.

[01:22:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you with me on that?

[01:22:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess you nailed it there.

[01:22:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Buy the shirts, folks.

[01:22:33] [SPEAKER_02]: They're beautiful and fulfilling.

[01:22:35] [SPEAKER_02]: For your lives.

[01:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Get it on Drudge.

[01:22:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Something about the shirts.

[01:22:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Get it on Drudge.

[01:22:39] [SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing?

[01:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: What on earth?

[01:22:43] [SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing?

[01:22:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Get it on everywhere.

[01:22:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Get it everywhere.

[01:22:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Get it on Reddit.

[01:22:49] [SPEAKER_02]: No, don't.

[01:22:50] [SPEAKER_02]: They'll be mean.

[01:22:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if someone wanted to buy one of these reasonably priced attractive shirts, which you do need in life.

[01:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: You need a shirt.

[01:23:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Where would they go?

[01:23:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Murdersheetshop.com.

[01:23:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Lovely shirts.

[01:23:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Beautiful.

[01:23:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Make you cry.

[01:23:10] [SPEAKER_02]: In a good way.

[01:23:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Out of the beauty.

[01:23:12] [SPEAKER_00]: You could wear one of these shirts in a restaurant.

[01:23:16] [SPEAKER_02]: You could.

[01:23:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And you'd be confident that if you spilled something, you can wash it right out.

[01:23:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, God.

[01:23:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Would you?

[01:23:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Stop.

[01:23:23] [SPEAKER_02]: That's so unappealing.

[01:23:25] [SPEAKER_02]: This isn't a detergent ad.

[01:23:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Making people think of, like, sturdy, stained T-shirts isn't going to make them want to buy our T-shirts.

[01:23:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:23:36] [SPEAKER_02]: You mad man.

[01:23:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Hit the button.

[01:23:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Fine.

[01:23:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Bye, everyone.

[01:23:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And, uh.

[01:23:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Bye the shirts.

[01:23:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And happy New Year.

[01:23:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet.

[01:23:47] [SPEAKER_00]: If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com.

[01:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[01:24:03] [SPEAKER_02]: If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet.

[01:24:14] [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet.

[01:24:24] [SPEAKER_02]: We very much appreciate any support.

[01:24:28] [SPEAKER_00]: 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.

[01:24:37] [SPEAKER_02]: 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.

[01:24:46] [SPEAKER_02]: We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much.

[01:24:51] [SPEAKER_02]: We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience, as we often receive a lot of messages.

[01:24:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks again for listening.

[01:25:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this Murder Sheet episode.

[01:25:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Just as a quick post-roll ad, we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings Handbook.

[01:25:13] [SPEAKER_02]: This show is phenomenal.

[01:25:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Whether you are interested in true crime, the criminal justice system, law, mental health, stories of marginalized people, overcoming tragedy, well-being, like he does it all.

[01:25:27] [SPEAKER_02]: This is a show for you.

[01:25:28] [SPEAKER_02]: He has so many different conversations with interesting people, people whose loved ones have gone missing, other podcasters in the true crime space, just interesting people with interesting life experiences.

[01:25:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And Jason's gift, I think, is just being an incredibly empathetic and compassionate interviewer, where he's really letting his guests tell their stories and asking really interesting questions along the way, guiding those conversations forward.

[01:25:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I would liken it to like you're kind of almost sitting down with friends and sort of just hearing these fascinating tales that you wouldn't get otherwise.

[01:26:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Because he just has that ability as an interviewer to tease it out and really make it interesting for his audience.

[01:26:11] [SPEAKER_00]: On a personal level, Jason is frankly a great guy.

[01:26:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[01:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: He's been a really good friend to us.

[01:26:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's fun to be able to hit a button on my phone and get a little dose of Jason talking to people whenever I want.

[01:26:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a really terrific show.

[01:26:27] [SPEAKER_00]: We really recommend it highly.

[01:26:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:26:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I think our audience will like it.

[01:26:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And you've already met Jason if you listen consistently to our show.

[01:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: He's been on our show a couple times.

[01:26:35] [SPEAKER_02]: We've been on his show.

[01:26:36] [SPEAKER_02]: He's a terrific guest.

[01:26:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always – I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this.

[01:26:43] [SPEAKER_02]: That really resonated.

[01:26:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I do quote him in conversations sometimes because he really has a good grasp of different complicated issues.

[01:26:50] [SPEAKER_00]: She quotes him to me all the time.

[01:26:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I do – I'm like, I remember when Jason said this.

[01:26:53] [SPEAKER_02]: That was so right.

[01:26:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, I think if we're doing that, I think – and you like us, I think you should give it a shot.

[01:26:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Give it a try.

[01:26:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I think you'll really enjoy it.

[01:27:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And, again, he does a range of different topics, but they all kind of have the similar theme of compassion, of overcoming suffering, of dealing with suffering, of mental health, wellness, things like that.

[01:27:11] [SPEAKER_02]: There's kind of a common through line of compassion and empathy there that I think we find very nice.

[01:27:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough, and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it.

[01:27:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But this is something that almost can be like if you're kind of feeling a little burned out by true crime, I think this is kind of the life-affirming stuff that can be nice to listen to in a podcast.

[01:27:33] [SPEAKER_00]: It's compassionate.

[01:27:35] [SPEAKER_00]: It's affirming.

[01:27:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But I also want to emphasize it's smart.

[01:27:40] [SPEAKER_00]: People – Jason is a very intelligent, articulate person.

[01:27:45] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a smart show, but it's an accessible show.

[01:27:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I think you'll all really enjoy it.

[01:27:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and he's got a great community that he's building.

[01:27:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're really excited to be a part of that.

[01:27:54] [SPEAKER_02]: We're fans of the show.

[01:27:55] [SPEAKER_02]: We love it.

[01:27:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And we would strongly encourage you all to check it out.

[01:27:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Download some episodes.

[01:28:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Listen.

[01:28:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I think you'll understand what we're talking about once you do.

[01:28:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyways, you can listen to The Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.

[01:28:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[01:28:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Very easy to find.

[01:28:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.