00:00:13
Speaker 1: Hi, you guys. Welcome back to Killer Thriller Docu Edition. So today we are diving into a true crime investigation, seriously unlike any other that I've seen, and one that started not in a police department, but inside a high school classroom. So when teacher Alex Campbell, my new hero, introduced his students to the decades-old redhead murders, it was supposed to be a lesson in sociology. Instead, his students began digging into the case themselves, uncovering leads, examining evidence, and ultimately developing a theory about who could be responsible for the murders. Their investigation became the subject of the documentary Murder 101, raising a fascinating question, can a group of high school students uncover something that investigators have missed for decades? Today, we are lucky enough to have Alex Campbell himself join us to talk about how his classroom investigation became a real-life cold case deep dive into and what his students discovered, and whether they may have actually identified a serial killer. Please welcome my hero, and soon to be yours, Alex Campbell.
00:01:18
Speaker 2: Hello.
00:01:20
Speaker 1: Hi, Mr. Campbell.
00:01:23
Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am.
00:01:24
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today.
00:01:26
Speaker 2: No problem. It's my pleasure. Sir, I was a couple minutes late.
00:01:29
Speaker 1: You don't have to apologize for anything. I was just recording and telling our audience, our listeners, that you are my hero. And I want to give you... the ultimate compliment. So I upgraded my Hulu account to no commercials because of you in this documentary.
00:01:50
Speaker 2: Oh, that's funny.
00:01:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's just, it's, it's so interesting for me because, you know, this is what we do. We do, we do true crime and this is, it didn't feel like a true crime documentary per se. There's certainly that element in it and the way that you all have made such a difference, you know, in the lives of, uh, well, you know, the redhead murders and their families and, and those victims, but also it just, it feels like a study.
00:02:19
Speaker 2: In, um, I.
00:02:22
Speaker 1: Don't know, high school kids, the beauty of that. You know, when I was in high school, I was awkward and insecure and I could see that in some of you know, your students. And I think most kids have that sort of started trying to figure themselves out and then watching them because of you and your class blossom into these little, besides being mini investigators, but just so much more mature and sure of themselves. It was really beautiful. I loved it.
00:02:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was neat. And you know, it's something that you kind of hope comes through. But, you know, you never know if it will. And we hope that people would see that aspect and enjoy it.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: That's the aspect I enjoyed the most. And not because it wasn't the redhead murders and what you all uncovered was unbelievable. It really was. But just, you know what? I'm a mother of not teenagers anymore, but they were once. They're, you know, 24 and 26 now. And just watching these great kids and watching the way that you mentored them and opened their eyes to, you know, empathy. And it was just really, it's just, it's absolutely beautiful. I love, love, loved it.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I appreciate all that. That was something that, you know, we talked about with the production team and we just hoped people would get it. You know, it's, it's a little different than your normal true crime.
00:03:49
Speaker 1: Well, only in, yes, in a lot of ways, but in the sense that we got to know these kids and, right? Separate from true crime. We got to know their lives. Sadly, a lot of their lives have been affected by crime. And that, you know, and watching their resilience is just so inspiring. You know, and watching the way they all were taking care of each other and becoming friends despite the obstacles. You know, watching Crimson get adopted. I was beside myself and I don't know, you know, watching Lacey just sort of figure out what she needed to know and the way she spoke of you. And when crimson birthday cake, I mean the whole thing, it's just amazing. Amazing. Really cool.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I love most about my job. And, uh, I'm glad people got a little glimpse of that.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:04:42
Speaker 2: It seems like they got to see why I love my job so much. And I'm glad, I'm glad that it's resonating with people.
00:04:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it certainly is with me. Um, So let's talk about the part of it that is also fascinating. Not my favorite part, but still really quite unbelievable. The redhead murders. And I, I want to know before we sort of dive in specifically. So is this, this what you've started now and what has now become a documentary that is going to blow up all around the world. I would think that this is such an untapped resource, right? Like high school kids looking for, purpose if they're interested in this type of investigation and actually being of service to the world of crime and investigation and all of that. I would think that this is, to me, this is just a brilliant idea.
00:05:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's what I thought. If we talk to investigators and they always had the same story, you know, they have so many cases and usually there's not a dedicated cold case anything. So they have all these current cases and they're trying to squeeze a little bit of work in on those if they ever get a chance. And there's just not enough time and not enough resources on their end. And then you have these students that need like authentic work where they can practice what they're learning. And I've got 30 of them in a class locked up down here. Like, let's turn these kids loose and look how much work they can get done. There's not one of them. You know, there's 30 of them per class. And if people would see them as that resource, you know, that was the big thing is they need to learn to understand, like, these students are a huge untapped resource. The stuff that usually takes law enforcement so long, just the getting documents, the going through documents, the putting cases together, putting together timelines, those take hundreds or thousands of hours. But I have students, we're down here 180 days a year for an hour a day, and I've got 30 kids per day. Think about the thousands of hours we can put into it. And it took a little while, but it seems like we've gotten through to a few agencies and we're actually, we've got a really powerful partnership this year with a police agency working in case in real time. So it's been good. And I hope other people in other schools and, and around the country and around the world, see what a like untapped potential is there. If they could just learn to see the kids that way. And, you know, you don't have to give them things. You're not comfortable giving them, just give them the parts that you, you could use their help on. Anything to them is better than a textbook, you know, and anything they can do to help you is something that you didn't have to do and saves you time. So anyway, it's, it's been good. Thank you for saying that. And I think people are beginning to kind of think about it that way. And I'm hearing it from people. So I hope to see that happening in other places.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: I think it's very easy to see. I was actually wondering, so you mentioned you can give them as much as you want to, but like, have you had any pushback from parents? Not pushback. I can't imagine there would be real pushback, but fear that like their kids would be a little traumatized by some of the stories, you know, by some of the details. No?
00:08:07
Speaker 2: Never.
00:08:08
Speaker 1: That's great.
00:08:09
Speaker 2: It's a very common question. And it just seems like they just get it. You know, it seems to me that the people who don't have kids or maybe they're older and haven't had kids at home in a long time, they tend to worry about that. But as you can see from that show, look how crime stories are affecting so many of my students to pretend like they don't know. about crime or incarcerated individuals or abuse or neglect or addiction or whatever, like, is just really not in reality with my students. And I think most people who have kids that age actually appreciate the fact that there's a class where they can learn about those things. And instead of, like, they're going to learn about it in movies, right? The kids are watching movies. They're listening to songs. They're on social media. So they hear about it. They see it all the time. But I think the reason it's better to learn about it in my class is that we learn about reality. You know, what you see on TV is probably not going to be real. The way the movie shows it is not going to be accurate. But when we have family members and victims and police officers and mental health counselors and all these people that we're working with, the kids really get a real kind of accurate understanding of these things. And it's not sensationalized. You know, it's, it's handled with respect. And I think that kids really, it really makes a lot of sense to them. And the parents who are living with it, right, they're trying to help their kids learn and figure these things out and deal with this. It seems to me that they just totally understand what's going on. They appreciate it. I've even had parents say that it leads to so many good conversations that they normally wouldn't get a chance to have with their student about you know what can you do to not be a victim this is why I don't let you do this or that now you're starting to understand why so it's it's really a it's it's been great for me to try to help my students process some of the things they're already living through And I think most parents really appreciate the fact that there's a class that deals with these things in reality and kind of gives the kids like a real look.
00:10:28
Speaker 1: Listen, yeah, sure. They're not babies. I mean, they are in high school. So that when you wrapped the doc, that was how long ago? A year ago?
00:10:36
Speaker 2: So it wasn't spring of 26. It was spring of 25. So there's been a school year and now we've started another school year since.
00:10:46
Speaker 1: All right. So where are we? What crimes have we solved in that year? Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker 2: So last, you kind of felt this at the end of Murder 101, like Jerry Johns is most likely a serial killer. We still need some work.
00:10:59
Speaker 1: To be done. How many does it take?
00:11:00
Speaker 2: Two, just two. Okay.
00:11:02
Speaker 1: Just two.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: I mean, thankfully, you know, Linda lived. If he had choked her five more seconds, she probably wouldn't have lived, and that would have been his second victim. But thankfully, she did live. But I think the cops feel like there's probably a couple more that they know of, and who knows how many more, but But we also felt like there were some other killers, right? We kind of got that. Jerry Johns cannot be responsible for all of these. So last year, my students actually wrote a book. They wanted to see how many serial killers there were in Tennessee in the 1980s. And our count was over 20, just in Tennessee in the 1980s. But there were nine that were highway serial killers. So they wrote a whole book about just the highway serial killers of Tennessee in the 1980s. And that was called Driven by Rage, Fueled by Diesel. And we got a real publisher.
00:11:56
Speaker 1: That's a good title.
00:11:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, real publisher, not self-published, a real publisher that published it, put it out there. And this was the cool part. They had to help find victims that have not been related to these killers yet. And when they reached out to one law enforcement agency in Kentucky, they said that they didn't even know that they had any activity that related to a killer that was down here in Tennessee. So they have now reopened a case, which they did not even know about until my students told them. And that's the case we're working in real time with the police in Kentucky. There was a man who killed a woman here and was executed for it. But his wife, his first wife died suspiciously. The students did a lot of work and convinced the cops that they definitely needed to go back and look at this case again. It's a 46 year old case. It was ruled an accident at the time, but it is highly likely that this guy killed his first wife and got away with it. So we are working on that case this year. And but like real time, I mean, I get an email.
00:13:09
Speaker 1: He was he was executed because of the second murder.
00:13:12
Speaker 2: This one they declared an accidental death. And you know, when you file for divorce right before you die and you're 20 and you die in a bathtub and there's no water in the bathtub and there's no alcohol or drugs in your system. And the daughter says, I mean, what do they think she, she had thrown up and because she had some, of the contents in her throat, they ruled it as a choking. But why is a 20 year old girl laying on her back in the tub, throwing up when she just filed for divorce? The only other person in the house is her husband and her two tiny children. The whole thing seems suspicious, but once they ruled it accidental death, they just, that was that.
00:14:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:14:10
Speaker 2: And then they kept it for a while, but it's an accident, so they got rid of the case. And no law enforcement officer up there at the time had ever even heard of it.
00:14:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, then Mr. Campbell's kids came along.
00:14:22
Speaker 2: That's what we have time to do, right? We have time to go look at every single death in America that we can get our hands on and say, are these matching with any of these people? And that's just one. We know that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of more of those. That can be related to those nine killers that my students looked at. But we just got one law enforcement agency that was willing to listen. So that's our work this year. And we started timelines. We just had a wrapper. It's a very complicated case spanning several states. So we're just getting our mind kind of wrapped around that, teaching each other. And then we had to do a whole section on statement analysis because all these people are dead now. So all we have is what was put in these reports. So we had to learn how to analyze statements. And then the police are trusting us to create a timeline.
00:15:15
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:15:16
Speaker 2: So by next Thursday, we have to have a timeline as complete as possible. The police chief will be down here to check on our progress.
00:15:23
Speaker 1: Crazy.
00:15:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. She does. The woman, the first wife has one brother. That's all that's left. And he always felt that it was suspicious. Yeah. And our goal is, is to give him the truth.
00:15:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:15:40
Speaker 2: If it's true that it was an accident, then that, that that's that, but whatever the truth is, our goal is by the end of the year.
00:15:46
Speaker 1: I love that.
00:15:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:15:47
Speaker 1: I love that lesson that you all were teaching about evidence and not trying to like, you have to sort of, you have a piece, you don't try to make the other pieces fit into the piece you have to adjust. And that's, I think that's kind of a life lesson, right? Like, Not too corny, but like, you know, you can't, you can get stuck in something and you won't be able to see the forest or the trees or whatever that expression is.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: We have a great investigator that always comes and works with us at the beginning of the year. And I have him do just a lesson on what does it take to be a great investigator. And he always does such a great job because he says the same thing every year. He says, your job is not to solve cases. You know, that's the jury's job, if you think about it. the DA presents the cases, the jury listens to the cases and they will determine whether they feel the person is guilty or not. He said, an investigator just follows leads. Your job is to look at a case and be smart and think about what doesn't fit. What questions need to be asked next? Where do I go here? Where do I go there? And you just follow the leads. You cannot predetermine. You just follow the leads. And that's a great thing. We try to always do that. And it, um, That's a good life lesson, too. You know, you just look at whatever it is, whatever problem you have in life, look at it and try to figure out, OK, where's the problems? Where can I start? What can I do? How do I get it to the next step and just go from there?
00:17:16
Speaker 1: Journey, not the destination. I could think of like a million cliches for this. I have to ask you this because the kids in the doc, they all seemed just so motivated and just, they were just beautiful kids. So I don't know if you got lucky that you got those kids and then the doc started, if there were some that didn't even, but how do you grade these children? I mean, how do you, they're all to me watching, they were perfect students in your class.
00:17:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. I get a lot of questions about that and it can be hard, but for example, if you have a PowerPoint presentation, that you're presenting, then there will be some type of rubric. Your font has to be so big. It can't be tiny little font, no more than so many bullet points. Your pictures have to have good spacing. Every slide should be like the same thing. Those type things. When you're presenting, after we've done it a little while, are you looking at the audience? Are you not reading off the screen? Those are all things I grade them on, right? It just depends on what we're doing. Like this timeline, they have to learn how to put the date, put the person who's doing the action first. They have to say where they got it from. They have to use the right words. They can't say that she left at 8 o'clock. They have to say that the husband reported that she left at 8 o'clock, right? Just trying to be accurate, trying to figure out what's really being said. So, like, they have little activities like that all the time. And we do a few worksheets, by the way.
00:19:02
Speaker 1: There are tests and everything.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: We did five worksheets just last week trying to learn how to do statement analysis.
00:19:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:19:11
Speaker 2: So we are learning things. I don't have a textbook, obviously.
00:19:13
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that. I don't doubt for one second that you're learning things.
00:19:16
Speaker 2: So it depends what we're doing. So it could be a worksheet that I'm grading you. There's stuff you just have to be present for. Like, were you present when the investigator was here? Did you have three questions ready for him? And if you had time, did you ask those questions? Did you take some notes on what he said? So there's always ways I can assess them.
00:19:35
Speaker 1: I don't care if you don't give them a grade. To me, I mean, what they're learning is invaluable, but I'm just curious about it, because watching it, it didn't feel like school. It felt like a club, which I guess there are clubs in school. That makes sense, too. But it just seems it I just I've lost the whole part where they actually cared about the grade instead of what they were learning and what they were doing.
00:20:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is the assessments are nontraditional. You know, so we are learning all these things. Can you put this in order? I mean, even the murder board is a great, you know, you have this much space on the board. You need to fill it up with the most important things. You know, you have to create a name, pick a picture, have 10 documents that support, you know, telling her story. So that's all things. But like, it's really, so we're learning things, but it's the assessment, right? The assessment is the presentation to the victim's brother. The assessment is come up with some ideas, present them to the TBI.
00:20:36
Speaker 1: Well, do it and be disciplined. I mean, all of this requires discipline, right? It's not just you have to actually put these methods into practice. Okay, there are things I have to know. How did you get the money for the car wrap?
00:20:49
Speaker 2: So community, we got some community support for that.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: You got, how'd you get the money for the plane? How'd you get all this money?
00:20:56
Speaker 2: The plane is not as expensive as, actually a lot of those things are not as expensive as you would think. Plus, we raise money. So, like, not everything makes it into the documentary. Last year, we had to raise $ 2, 500 to get those books printed. And we had bake sales. We applied for grants. Some parents donated. We sold ads in the book. We just do whatever. And then what they did, for example, last year, was they set it up for all profits from the book go into an account that fund future projects for sociology. So we have some good community people who help us. I have $ 300 in classroom money. We apply for grants. We raise our own money, whatever we got to do.
00:21:39
Speaker 1: Like you said, that car, that costs thousands.
00:21:42
Speaker 2: That was a wrap. I think it was around $ 1, 200.
00:21:44
Speaker 1: Okay. Now I don't really care. I'm just saying it's, I'm just, I want to get to like how you got all this done. Cause just watching it's pretty amazing.
00:21:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we always just find a way and that's here. That's my job, right? The job of the students is to come up with all these great ideas. And my job is to support them.
00:22:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:22:00
Speaker 2: So I'm going to go find the money wherever I have to.
00:22:03
Speaker 1: That's cool.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: But I got to say something. You thought our school looked really nice. It looks good. But this is not a wealthy school. It's not a wealthy community. It looks good on camera. It does. We are not wealthy, but we have a very giving, caring, and supportive community. And it's like those shadow boxes. You know, I had those framed. Those shadow boxes aren't cheap. You know, $ 30, $ 60 for a nice glass. shadow box with all these things. I put in for a grant over here with the bank, a community serving community grant. They loved it. They helped us with it. So that's what we do. And sometimes the school helps out.
00:22:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't, getting to know your students and what they've been through and you showed a lot of their homes and these are not like, you know, ridiculously sprawling. They live, they're living pretty simply. And so I was, I guess I was just so impressed with, what you all have been able to do. And I don't know what kind of money is involved in making a school. And as you're saying, I guess not as much as I would have thought, but you just have, that's the kind of community that it is, which I think is so great.
00:23:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, last year we published the book. It costs 2,500 bucks. We just raised that money ourselves. I mean, I had kids in the class who had culinary that baked a bunch of cookies in culinary class and then sold them at lunch and made $ 500. They sold for three days and, But that's they care. You know, they wanted to see that. And really, that's my job. I think that is my job is to support the students. If I'm not setting up lecturing every day, like what am I doing? Well, my job is to create a learning experience for the students to just plug into. And if that means we've got to get a book published or a car wrapped, like that's what we have to do. So, you know, we figure out a way. We're resilient in Appalachia.
00:23:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could tell. So, all right. So you had a lot of kids, obviously, that were that we focused on, that you focused on. Were there kids that did not want to be part of this? Was it hard to get the kids involved?
00:24:05
Speaker 2: Yes, we had 13 students in the class and you probably saw them in various ways. They all agreed to be part of it. But we were that was just us production. You know, we talked about you can be in the class, but we don't have to be in your house, you know. some kids were like, Hey, that's fine. Come into class, video me, see my work. But they just, you know, they didn't want to have a camera.
00:24:26
Speaker 1: But nobody said, no, I'm not. Cause I would think there's going to be a certain level of, we'll call it fame or, you know, these kids, I'm walking down the street, you know, I'm, I'm recognizing Lacey. Crimson is not getting past me without me asking her for her autograph.
00:24:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, all 13. That was a very small class. It was really strange. I had, 28 year before I had 13 that year. I had 32 last year. I've got 32 this year. It was just a really small class, which was strange for some reason. And all of them were okay with it, but you can see that some of them, um, you know, we're a little bit more open to being filmed and stuff. And of course some of them were more open, but that stuff gets cut out too. You can only follow so many stories in three hours, but everything was open to it. Yeah.
00:25:12
Speaker 1: I want to know where they are now. Like now that it's, So some of them are still in school. I don't know if some of them are taking your class again. But how have they reacted to the documentary and seeing themselves up there? And like, I wish I would have loved to have just seen them see it.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: It's been unusual. The sophomores I had are still here. There's about four or five of those. Everybody else, you know, juniors and seniors have graduated. But I don't really get to see them that much. After they graduate, I see very little of them. There's maybe a couple that I kind of stay in contact with a little bit here and there. But we did all get together as a community. And we had like a public watch party on the day that it came out. Amazon gave us a copy. And so we used it. We played it in our local theater. And we had like a red carpet event, food, you know, tickets, like the whole thing. It was amazing. I got to see all my students again together. Who knows? That might be the last time we're all together. But we all got to watch episode one together with the community, with their parents, school teachers, you know, different people. And it was really powerful. I think they're really proud of what they did. But I'll just tell you that kids are different than us. They are literally videoing themselves, taking pictures of themselves almost continuously.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: Tell me about it.
00:26:38
Speaker 2: And they adapt to having a camera in their face very quickly.
00:26:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:26:43
Speaker 2: Within a week, they were just like, you know, the camera's right here and they're working and it doesn't even phase them. So they adapted really quickly. I think they're proud of what they did. Some of them didn't even watch the next two episodes for weeks because they're kids. They have busy lives. It blows me away, but it's true. One girl said, I hadn't even had a chance to watch the third episode yet. And it had been several weeks. That's crazy. But they're proud. I really do. That's something that you never know. Like when they're making a documentary, they just film for like 10 months. And you don't know what makes it in and what doesn't. What's the storyline going to be? If you think about true crime, normally they already have somebody in jail or somebody's already been convicted. And then you just go back and tell the story. So you know what the story is and you know where it ends. But we actually filmed this in real time. You know, and would we have somebody in jail? We didn't know.
00:27:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, but but you know what, Mr. Campbell, this is not this is it's not just and I know because I do a lot of this. This is not just a true crime story. This is a story about these amazing kids and this amazing teacher. And even if not, you're not a fan of true crime. You know, I think this is in my mind, this is more than that. I don't even know how it's being represented. It's just a true crime story. You know, that's how it feels to me.
00:28:06
Speaker 2: When we talked about it as a production team, you know, I told them that I wanted the teaching profession, school, our young people, all that to be represented, not just the true crime. And we had to be very victim forward. And they were totally on board. They got it. But when they got here and they met the students and lived here and got in the community, I think really the story that came out to them was that this is a coming of age story.
00:28:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:28:35
Speaker 2: It's just that students are learning about their world and the adult world through true crime in the classroom. So it really is following the students as they learn to kind of take their place in the adult world. And they learn that through true crime.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: It's also about relationships. It's also about you. It's also about teachers that actually give a shit. And, you know, it's that and what a difference that can make. What was what was the young kid? Man who said at graduation, he's like, Mr. Campbell's the reason I am who I am.
00:29:05
Speaker 2: As Andrew Barnett.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: He almost died. That was just so sweet.
00:29:11
Speaker 2: That's very powerful. That's why you're a teacher. Most people think I'm here just for the money.
00:29:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:29:18
Speaker 2: But, you know, having those relationships with students is amazing. And I see it every year. Yeah, I see it and I love it. And people say, gosh, I don't know how you do it. You lock yourself in a room with 900 teenagers. But I love my job. I really do. Yeah, there's bad parts to it, but I love it. And the part I love is the kids. And people never get to see it, but in this documentary, I hope that people did get to see that.
00:29:41
Speaker 1: I think there's a very fine line. And I don't, I'm not a teacher. You tell me if I'm wrong between though, being a teacher and being a friend, being a mentor, all those lines, you know, probably get crossed. I thought you did such a beautiful job of teaching these kids, but still being an authority figure and, making them laugh, being goofy, you know, making fun of them. They're making fun of you, but still knowing that you're in charge. And I think that's probably, maybe that's come from experience. I don't know. Maybe some people never learned that, but I thought that you were, you were really good at that.
00:30:17
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate it. They edited out when I yelled at the kids. I start off very strict. Every student will tell you because I, We have to have a structure within which to work because you can tell that a project like that could get out of control very quickly. So I start with a lot of structure and everybody knows I am in charge. But once they begin to show that they can do the work, that they can be mature, I begin to lighten the reins that I have. But they have to show me that first. And so they learn that trust is a two-way street. And I always tell them, I'll let you do a lot of crazy junk. You just have to show me that you can handle it and you can still learn and do what's expected of you. So it's hard to believe we've been here five weeks already. But my class, my sociology class is still learning that. I had to yell at them real bad today. They just weren't working up to the standard. But they will. You know, it was better at the end than it was at the beginning. We'll learn. They'll grow.
00:31:20
Speaker 1: Are you still doing this? Do you still tape? Are you still I mean, is it is there going to be maybe in 102?
00:31:27
Speaker 2: We haven't heard anything back from Amazon. But I will tell you, this thing that we're doing with the police in Kentucky is so awesome. It's three steps above what we did with the TBI. We weren't working an investigation with them. You know, they came and asked us for some help, and we helped them with something. But they weren't sharing information and us going back and forth. This is like on a whole other level. And I just felt it was so special that Andrew has actually gone into business as a filmographer. Really?
00:31:58
Speaker 1: Yes. He's the kid with the camera. Yes.
00:32:02
Speaker 2: And so he has come back and recorded a day. He's going to record like some big days this semester because he asked me what was in the class. And I told him and he said, I don't know. I just feel this is going to be awesome. By the end, it's going to be awesome. I mean, if this happens, my students will have found another serial killer that no one else knew existed. And for him to have a chance to be on the ground floor and kind of follow a little bit of that. So we're doing we're doing a little documentation. He said, if nobody wants it, I'll put it out on Facebook. You know, I'll do something with it. But I just wanted to have have it documented because here's the thing. Like, you never know what's going to happen with the project. So I just know it's cool. I know there's a real problem there. I know the kids kind of found this. I know the cops trust them and we're working together. And I just know there's a brother up there that needs to know something before he dies. And I'm just trusting that something big is going to happen. So we're filming it just in case something big does.
00:33:20
Speaker 1: I was wondering at one point whether the cops ever gave you, ever sort of pushed back, like, Listen, we'll play this game with you, but we're talking about kids. They can't really help it. Was there a learning curve there?
00:33:32
Speaker 2: That was an eight-year learning curve. What you saw in Murder 101 was them not wanting to engage with the students for eight years. And then finally, the production team helped me actually get a hold of the detective. The TBI, you cannot call any detectives. You can't email any detectives. You only get one number for the main office. You don't talk to anybody. So he really didn't know what we were doing. He had never heard. I mean, he saw like a news article, but he didn't really understand. But when I was finally able to speak with him, I said, all I want you to do is come in and listen to my students present. That's all I want. He listened to him present the first day and said, oh, my gosh, like you guys have done such good work and you're so invested. He said, I want to come tell you about a little bit more about a case. And I think you can help me. And that's all I wanted for eight years was for them to see the work of the kids. And they would understand we're not here to get headlines. We're not trying to sensationalize. We're not asking the TBI to give us like secret information. I just want you to see the kids can do amazing work, find out where you could use some help and like, let's give them something meaningful to do. And if they give you nothing, then who cares? The case is no worse off. And they hopefully learned a few skills that they give you something helpful and Look how much it can actually.
00:34:51
Speaker 1: Help the case. That is free labor right there.
00:34:54
Speaker 2: That's what I'm trying to tell them.
00:34:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:34:56
Speaker 2: You know, they had gotten very little information out about the Tracy Walker case. And 24 million people saw it or read it.
00:35:04
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe that.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: In three weeks. Like, why didn't you use these kids eight years ago?
00:35:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't get over that.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: They needed to learn that. And I've had other classes that could do equal work, you know.
00:35:15
Speaker 1: I bet.
00:35:16
Speaker 2: But they just weren't given the chance because– The police really didn't understand because I'll just say that different police agencies have different philosophies of how to work cases. And some are more community-oriented than others. And some are easier to get a hold of than others. But once we were able to get a hold of the right people, I think they really understood. And that was really great, what we did. We know that the cops are getting a lot of tips for the Tracy Walker case. Mm-hmm. And I'm still holding out hope that her brother can find out exactly who's responsible for her death.
00:35:49
Speaker 1: I am too.
00:35:49
Speaker 2: I am too. I believe, no, they don't tell me, but they're getting a lot of hints and tips. I know that, I know that is occurring. They got a bunch back in May of two years ago. And I know they've gotten a bunch since murder 101 came out. We just hope they're getting the right ones that can let them put it together as like a solid case. So they could present that as like a case closed and, I'm hoping that happens. I'm hoping it happens.
00:36:15
Speaker 1: So am I. I thought it was the most amazing thing to see her brother talking to your kids, their reaction. You know, I don't know that kids in high school get that chance that often to really be, not just like they're already in it, they're emotionally invested from what I've seen. And then to have this poor victim's brother whose life has been, you know, not easy losing a sister like that, but yeah. Talk about like, just, I don't know, real life lessons and empathy and all of it. I have questions for you. A couple of silly ones, but I have to know. So too bad. How's the log cabin?
00:36:56
Speaker 2: It's good. We finally got our gutters on a couple of months ago. When you build it yourself, you build it slow. You do what you can do.
00:37:05
Speaker 1: See, that was so, I don't know who your cinematographer was or who says, We're going to make him carry these big rocks that I don't even know. They don't seem like I would not want to lift those up and put them in a pile. And they showed you doing that, and I thought that was kind of fabulous.
00:37:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've got two teenage boys, and we lifted all those logs by ourselves. Some of them weighed over 1,000 pounds. And we literally cut down all the trees ourselves, moved everything ourselves. We got very little extra help from anybody. We didn't really have a lot of money.
00:37:37
Speaker 1: I don't think that also maybe you didn't want any help. Like I'm just guessing.
00:37:41
Speaker 2: I love history and I love to learn and I've tried to always continue to learn. It's, it's probably the greatest learning experience in my life was building a home, you know, took years and years of planning and work. So there is an enjoyment. I love to figure out problems. I'm a very physical kind of person. I did it with my family. It was, it was cool. So the cabin's great. Log cabin living is wonderful.
00:38:05
Speaker 1: Were those your two kids at the end of the documentary?
00:38:07
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:38:08
Speaker 1: Two young men, I think.
00:38:10
Speaker 2: They're now 18 and 20. Two boys. Yes. Yes. And so one of them graduated college in May, and he went back for one semester to get another degree. And then my 18-year-old graduates in December. Congratulations. I'll have them all the way through. We homeschooled them, actually, because I wanted to do crazy junk with them all the time. And we built a house. So they're getting through school pretty early. And but all that's been fun.
00:38:41
Speaker 1: How does your sweet wife feel about all this?
00:38:47
Speaker 2: At first, she didn't love the they follow her around for days and she did everything she does. I mean, she made the best homemade banana pudding and, you know, sweet tea, which, you know, next for the gods. Of course, she did all this stuff that she does. And she ended up like on the ride lawnmower and she didn't really like it, but I'm telling you, people have reacted so well to that.
00:39:12
Speaker 1: I thought it was so great.
00:39:13
Speaker 2: People love it. And people come up and say, I love that. I love the scene.
00:39:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. She's cool. I love it.
00:39:20
Speaker 2: And to put up with me and my crazy things, she has to be.
00:39:24
Speaker 1: Very, together since high school.
00:39:26
Speaker 2: Actually. Yes. We were prom king and queen. We were Mr. And Mrs. Of our high school. And so, yeah, she's put up with me a very, very long time.
00:39:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:37
Speaker 2: She's the unsung hero.
00:39:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, I love that.
00:39:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:39:41
Speaker 1: Well, you are the song hero. We really appreciate you a lot. And I love the documentary and I'm so happy for you for the school, for these kids. It's pretty incredible.
00:39:52
Speaker 2: It is. And the other thing we talked about was almost everybody that worked on the project, their family was in education.
00:40:00
Speaker 1: Really?
00:40:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Stacey Lee, she was a director. Her mom is a teacher. The videographer, his dad, he just retired as a principal. His mom is retiring soon as a teacher. Even the producers, like John Watts, his sister is a teacher. So they all wanted to show school for what it really is. They didn't want the campy, like kids hate school, kids cut school, they get in trouble all the time. They wanted to show up for what it really was. And I thought they did a great job of that. And what we always thought was, yes, we want tips. We want to help the Walker family and many others. But we hope it does something for education. We hope. that teachers, parents, students, lawmakers, whoever, says our students can do better than just like some worksheets and some bold words. We need to let them be part of the adult world, experience real trouble, real problems, real struggle to try to solve these things, make sense of and practice what they're learning in school. And so I'm hoping, I have heard from a lot of people, but I'm hoping like something very real comes out of this where I don't want my class to be special. I want every single kid in every single class to get some type of experience with applying what they're learning and helping others through that. That should happen in every classroom. That should be non-negotiable in my personal opinion. And I hope it's helping move the needle in that direction.
00:41:39
Speaker 1: Well, my daughter is getting her master's right now in early childhood education. Not the same thing exactly, but who knows? I'm going to have her watch and maybe she'll change her mind and decide she wants to teach high schoolers and actually show us that high schoolers are people too. Yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker 2: I even have a manuscript that I'm hopefully going to be published soon about using true crime in the classroom because I've had so many questions about how to do it. But like there's even, you just got to think about how you do it. There's stuff for middle school kids, elementary school kids, high school and college, you just got to think about the way you're doing it and the way they get kids involved. I mean, elementary school kids can do a, how to be safe online. You know, that, that's like a true crime project. If all they do is come up with 10 rules about how to be safe with strangers, they're actually thinking about those same things. They're trying to solve a problem. They're trying to help people. In this case, it might be them and their little fellow students. But I mean, I think anybody, and it doesn't have to be crime. Like a lot of my classes don't do crime. Um, But everybody should be allowed to do a project that has meaning and find, you know, what they're good at and how they can contribute. And I hope it leads that way. And I always leave every interview with this. When we started this, which will be now in the spring, nine years ago, so almost a decade, I asked the students what they wanted to get out of it. You know, do you think you're going to have all the redhead murders solved by the end of the semester? You know, what are we really trying to do? And the students, of course, understood that probably would not happen. And what they said they wanted was just one family to get the name back. Only one of the six had a name when we started.
00:43:23
Speaker 1: That's so crazy.
00:43:24
Speaker 2: So just to be identified, just to help them get a name back, much less figure out who did it and let them have that kind of closure. And they said, Mr. Campbell, we just got to make it aware to people. That's what we're going to hold ourselves accountable for. So I didn't grade them on if they solved it or identified anybody. It was, you know, are we going to create this profile of a killer? Are we going to have this big press conference and get the word out? Are we going to send stuff out to the media? That's what I graded them on. And that's all they wanted. They wanted the word to get out because you can't solve cold cases without keeping the attention on them. So you are actually the culmination of my students' dream. They wanted people to hear about it. and keep the word going. So thank you for wanting to hear about it. Thank you for honoring their wishes.
00:44:12
Speaker 1: It's my honor and pleasure, honestly. And I think you're going to be a very busy man. When did it drop?
00:44:19
Speaker 2: July the 10th, 13th, something like that.
00:44:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure you have been busy and you're going to be busy.
00:44:25
Speaker 2: It's been a little overwhelming, but I haven't had a call from the Secretary of Education or anything yet. I'm hoping for big That's what I want. So but thank you for keeping the word going and getting it out there. This is how the cases will get solved. So thank you. And holding up the good work of my students.
00:44:45
Speaker 1: Good for you. Really, really happy for you. Proud of all of you.
00:44:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's been a real pleasure getting to speak with you.
00:44:53
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Campbell.
Speaker 1: Hi, you guys. Welcome back to Killer Thriller Docu Edition. So today we are diving into a true crime investigation, seriously unlike any other that I've seen, and one that started not in a police department, but inside a high school classroom. So when teacher Alex Campbell, my new hero, introduced his students to the decades-old redhead murders, it was supposed to be a lesson in sociology. Instead, his students began digging into the case themselves, uncovering leads, examining evidence, and ultimately developing a theory about who could be responsible for the murders. Their investigation became the subject of the documentary Murder 101, raising a fascinating question, can a group of high school students uncover something that investigators have missed for decades? Today, we are lucky enough to have Alex Campbell himself join us to talk about how his classroom investigation became a real-life cold case deep dive into and what his students discovered, and whether they may have actually identified a serial killer. Please welcome my hero, and soon to be yours, Alex Campbell.
00:01:18
Speaker 2: Hello.
00:01:20
Speaker 1: Hi, Mr. Campbell.
00:01:23
Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am.
00:01:24
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today.
00:01:26
Speaker 2: No problem. It's my pleasure. Sir, I was a couple minutes late.
00:01:29
Speaker 1: You don't have to apologize for anything. I was just recording and telling our audience, our listeners, that you are my hero. And I want to give you... the ultimate compliment. So I upgraded my Hulu account to no commercials because of you in this documentary.
00:01:50
Speaker 2: Oh, that's funny.
00:01:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's just, it's, it's so interesting for me because, you know, this is what we do. We do, we do true crime and this is, it didn't feel like a true crime documentary per se. There's certainly that element in it and the way that you all have made such a difference, you know, in the lives of, uh, well, you know, the redhead murders and their families and, and those victims, but also it just, it feels like a study.
00:02:19
Speaker 2: In, um, I.
00:02:22
Speaker 1: Don't know, high school kids, the beauty of that. You know, when I was in high school, I was awkward and insecure and I could see that in some of you know, your students. And I think most kids have that sort of started trying to figure themselves out and then watching them because of you and your class blossom into these little, besides being mini investigators, but just so much more mature and sure of themselves. It was really beautiful. I loved it.
00:02:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was neat. And you know, it's something that you kind of hope comes through. But, you know, you never know if it will. And we hope that people would see that aspect and enjoy it.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: That's the aspect I enjoyed the most. And not because it wasn't the redhead murders and what you all uncovered was unbelievable. It really was. But just, you know what? I'm a mother of not teenagers anymore, but they were once. They're, you know, 24 and 26 now. And just watching these great kids and watching the way that you mentored them and opened their eyes to, you know, empathy. And it was just really, it's just, it's absolutely beautiful. I love, love, loved it.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I appreciate all that. That was something that, you know, we talked about with the production team and we just hoped people would get it. You know, it's, it's a little different than your normal true crime.
00:03:49
Speaker 1: Well, only in, yes, in a lot of ways, but in the sense that we got to know these kids and, right? Separate from true crime. We got to know their lives. Sadly, a lot of their lives have been affected by crime. And that, you know, and watching their resilience is just so inspiring. You know, and watching the way they all were taking care of each other and becoming friends despite the obstacles. You know, watching Crimson get adopted. I was beside myself and I don't know, you know, watching Lacey just sort of figure out what she needed to know and the way she spoke of you. And when crimson birthday cake, I mean the whole thing, it's just amazing. Amazing. Really cool.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I love most about my job. And, uh, I'm glad people got a little glimpse of that.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:04:42
Speaker 2: It seems like they got to see why I love my job so much. And I'm glad, I'm glad that it's resonating with people.
00:04:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it certainly is with me. Um, So let's talk about the part of it that is also fascinating. Not my favorite part, but still really quite unbelievable. The redhead murders. And I, I want to know before we sort of dive in specifically. So is this, this what you've started now and what has now become a documentary that is going to blow up all around the world. I would think that this is such an untapped resource, right? Like high school kids looking for, purpose if they're interested in this type of investigation and actually being of service to the world of crime and investigation and all of that. I would think that this is, to me, this is just a brilliant idea.
00:05:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's what I thought. If we talk to investigators and they always had the same story, you know, they have so many cases and usually there's not a dedicated cold case anything. So they have all these current cases and they're trying to squeeze a little bit of work in on those if they ever get a chance. And there's just not enough time and not enough resources on their end. And then you have these students that need like authentic work where they can practice what they're learning. And I've got 30 of them in a class locked up down here. Like, let's turn these kids loose and look how much work they can get done. There's not one of them. You know, there's 30 of them per class. And if people would see them as that resource, you know, that was the big thing is they need to learn to understand, like, these students are a huge untapped resource. The stuff that usually takes law enforcement so long, just the getting documents, the going through documents, the putting cases together, putting together timelines, those take hundreds or thousands of hours. But I have students, we're down here 180 days a year for an hour a day, and I've got 30 kids per day. Think about the thousands of hours we can put into it. And it took a little while, but it seems like we've gotten through to a few agencies and we're actually, we've got a really powerful partnership this year with a police agency working in case in real time. So it's been good. And I hope other people in other schools and, and around the country and around the world, see what a like untapped potential is there. If they could just learn to see the kids that way. And, you know, you don't have to give them things. You're not comfortable giving them, just give them the parts that you, you could use their help on. Anything to them is better than a textbook, you know, and anything they can do to help you is something that you didn't have to do and saves you time. So anyway, it's, it's been good. Thank you for saying that. And I think people are beginning to kind of think about it that way. And I'm hearing it from people. So I hope to see that happening in other places.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: I think it's very easy to see. I was actually wondering, so you mentioned you can give them as much as you want to, but like, have you had any pushback from parents? Not pushback. I can't imagine there would be real pushback, but fear that like their kids would be a little traumatized by some of the stories, you know, by some of the details. No?
00:08:07
Speaker 2: Never.
00:08:08
Speaker 1: That's great.
00:08:09
Speaker 2: It's a very common question. And it just seems like they just get it. You know, it seems to me that the people who don't have kids or maybe they're older and haven't had kids at home in a long time, they tend to worry about that. But as you can see from that show, look how crime stories are affecting so many of my students to pretend like they don't know. about crime or incarcerated individuals or abuse or neglect or addiction or whatever, like, is just really not in reality with my students. And I think most people who have kids that age actually appreciate the fact that there's a class where they can learn about those things. And instead of, like, they're going to learn about it in movies, right? The kids are watching movies. They're listening to songs. They're on social media. So they hear about it. They see it all the time. But I think the reason it's better to learn about it in my class is that we learn about reality. You know, what you see on TV is probably not going to be real. The way the movie shows it is not going to be accurate. But when we have family members and victims and police officers and mental health counselors and all these people that we're working with, the kids really get a real kind of accurate understanding of these things. And it's not sensationalized. You know, it's, it's handled with respect. And I think that kids really, it really makes a lot of sense to them. And the parents who are living with it, right, they're trying to help their kids learn and figure these things out and deal with this. It seems to me that they just totally understand what's going on. They appreciate it. I've even had parents say that it leads to so many good conversations that they normally wouldn't get a chance to have with their student about you know what can you do to not be a victim this is why I don't let you do this or that now you're starting to understand why so it's it's really a it's it's been great for me to try to help my students process some of the things they're already living through And I think most parents really appreciate the fact that there's a class that deals with these things in reality and kind of gives the kids like a real look.
00:10:28
Speaker 1: Listen, yeah, sure. They're not babies. I mean, they are in high school. So that when you wrapped the doc, that was how long ago? A year ago?
00:10:36
Speaker 2: So it wasn't spring of 26. It was spring of 25. So there's been a school year and now we've started another school year since.
00:10:46
Speaker 1: All right. So where are we? What crimes have we solved in that year? Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker 2: So last, you kind of felt this at the end of Murder 101, like Jerry Johns is most likely a serial killer. We still need some work.
00:10:59
Speaker 1: To be done. How many does it take?
00:11:00
Speaker 2: Two, just two. Okay.
00:11:02
Speaker 1: Just two.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: I mean, thankfully, you know, Linda lived. If he had choked her five more seconds, she probably wouldn't have lived, and that would have been his second victim. But thankfully, she did live. But I think the cops feel like there's probably a couple more that they know of, and who knows how many more, but But we also felt like there were some other killers, right? We kind of got that. Jerry Johns cannot be responsible for all of these. So last year, my students actually wrote a book. They wanted to see how many serial killers there were in Tennessee in the 1980s. And our count was over 20, just in Tennessee in the 1980s. But there were nine that were highway serial killers. So they wrote a whole book about just the highway serial killers of Tennessee in the 1980s. And that was called Driven by Rage, Fueled by Diesel. And we got a real publisher.
00:11:56
Speaker 1: That's a good title.
00:11:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, real publisher, not self-published, a real publisher that published it, put it out there. And this was the cool part. They had to help find victims that have not been related to these killers yet. And when they reached out to one law enforcement agency in Kentucky, they said that they didn't even know that they had any activity that related to a killer that was down here in Tennessee. So they have now reopened a case, which they did not even know about until my students told them. And that's the case we're working in real time with the police in Kentucky. There was a man who killed a woman here and was executed for it. But his wife, his first wife died suspiciously. The students did a lot of work and convinced the cops that they definitely needed to go back and look at this case again. It's a 46 year old case. It was ruled an accident at the time, but it is highly likely that this guy killed his first wife and got away with it. So we are working on that case this year. And but like real time, I mean, I get an email.
00:13:09
Speaker 1: He was he was executed because of the second murder.
00:13:12
Speaker 2: This one they declared an accidental death. And you know, when you file for divorce right before you die and you're 20 and you die in a bathtub and there's no water in the bathtub and there's no alcohol or drugs in your system. And the daughter says, I mean, what do they think she, she had thrown up and because she had some, of the contents in her throat, they ruled it as a choking. But why is a 20 year old girl laying on her back in the tub, throwing up when she just filed for divorce? The only other person in the house is her husband and her two tiny children. The whole thing seems suspicious, but once they ruled it accidental death, they just, that was that.
00:14:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:14:10
Speaker 2: And then they kept it for a while, but it's an accident, so they got rid of the case. And no law enforcement officer up there at the time had ever even heard of it.
00:14:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, then Mr. Campbell's kids came along.
00:14:22
Speaker 2: That's what we have time to do, right? We have time to go look at every single death in America that we can get our hands on and say, are these matching with any of these people? And that's just one. We know that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of more of those. That can be related to those nine killers that my students looked at. But we just got one law enforcement agency that was willing to listen. So that's our work this year. And we started timelines. We just had a wrapper. It's a very complicated case spanning several states. So we're just getting our mind kind of wrapped around that, teaching each other. And then we had to do a whole section on statement analysis because all these people are dead now. So all we have is what was put in these reports. So we had to learn how to analyze statements. And then the police are trusting us to create a timeline.
00:15:15
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:15:16
Speaker 2: So by next Thursday, we have to have a timeline as complete as possible. The police chief will be down here to check on our progress.
00:15:23
Speaker 1: Crazy.
00:15:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. She does. The woman, the first wife has one brother. That's all that's left. And he always felt that it was suspicious. Yeah. And our goal is, is to give him the truth.
00:15:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:15:40
Speaker 2: If it's true that it was an accident, then that, that that's that, but whatever the truth is, our goal is by the end of the year.
00:15:46
Speaker 1: I love that.
00:15:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:15:47
Speaker 1: I love that lesson that you all were teaching about evidence and not trying to like, you have to sort of, you have a piece, you don't try to make the other pieces fit into the piece you have to adjust. And that's, I think that's kind of a life lesson, right? Like, Not too corny, but like, you know, you can't, you can get stuck in something and you won't be able to see the forest or the trees or whatever that expression is.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: We have a great investigator that always comes and works with us at the beginning of the year. And I have him do just a lesson on what does it take to be a great investigator. And he always does such a great job because he says the same thing every year. He says, your job is not to solve cases. You know, that's the jury's job, if you think about it. the DA presents the cases, the jury listens to the cases and they will determine whether they feel the person is guilty or not. He said, an investigator just follows leads. Your job is to look at a case and be smart and think about what doesn't fit. What questions need to be asked next? Where do I go here? Where do I go there? And you just follow the leads. You cannot predetermine. You just follow the leads. And that's a great thing. We try to always do that. And it, um, That's a good life lesson, too. You know, you just look at whatever it is, whatever problem you have in life, look at it and try to figure out, OK, where's the problems? Where can I start? What can I do? How do I get it to the next step and just go from there?
00:17:16
Speaker 1: Journey, not the destination. I could think of like a million cliches for this. I have to ask you this because the kids in the doc, they all seemed just so motivated and just, they were just beautiful kids. So I don't know if you got lucky that you got those kids and then the doc started, if there were some that didn't even, but how do you grade these children? I mean, how do you, they're all to me watching, they were perfect students in your class.
00:17:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. I get a lot of questions about that and it can be hard, but for example, if you have a PowerPoint presentation, that you're presenting, then there will be some type of rubric. Your font has to be so big. It can't be tiny little font, no more than so many bullet points. Your pictures have to have good spacing. Every slide should be like the same thing. Those type things. When you're presenting, after we've done it a little while, are you looking at the audience? Are you not reading off the screen? Those are all things I grade them on, right? It just depends on what we're doing. Like this timeline, they have to learn how to put the date, put the person who's doing the action first. They have to say where they got it from. They have to use the right words. They can't say that she left at 8 o'clock. They have to say that the husband reported that she left at 8 o'clock, right? Just trying to be accurate, trying to figure out what's really being said. So, like, they have little activities like that all the time. And we do a few worksheets, by the way.
00:19:02
Speaker 1: There are tests and everything.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: We did five worksheets just last week trying to learn how to do statement analysis.
00:19:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:19:11
Speaker 2: So we are learning things. I don't have a textbook, obviously.
00:19:13
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that. I don't doubt for one second that you're learning things.
00:19:16
Speaker 2: So it depends what we're doing. So it could be a worksheet that I'm grading you. There's stuff you just have to be present for. Like, were you present when the investigator was here? Did you have three questions ready for him? And if you had time, did you ask those questions? Did you take some notes on what he said? So there's always ways I can assess them.
00:19:35
Speaker 1: I don't care if you don't give them a grade. To me, I mean, what they're learning is invaluable, but I'm just curious about it, because watching it, it didn't feel like school. It felt like a club, which I guess there are clubs in school. That makes sense, too. But it just seems it I just I've lost the whole part where they actually cared about the grade instead of what they were learning and what they were doing.
00:20:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is the assessments are nontraditional. You know, so we are learning all these things. Can you put this in order? I mean, even the murder board is a great, you know, you have this much space on the board. You need to fill it up with the most important things. You know, you have to create a name, pick a picture, have 10 documents that support, you know, telling her story. So that's all things. But like, it's really, so we're learning things, but it's the assessment, right? The assessment is the presentation to the victim's brother. The assessment is come up with some ideas, present them to the TBI.
00:20:36
Speaker 1: Well, do it and be disciplined. I mean, all of this requires discipline, right? It's not just you have to actually put these methods into practice. Okay, there are things I have to know. How did you get the money for the car wrap?
00:20:49
Speaker 2: So community, we got some community support for that.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: You got, how'd you get the money for the plane? How'd you get all this money?
00:20:56
Speaker 2: The plane is not as expensive as, actually a lot of those things are not as expensive as you would think. Plus, we raise money. So, like, not everything makes it into the documentary. Last year, we had to raise $ 2, 500 to get those books printed. And we had bake sales. We applied for grants. Some parents donated. We sold ads in the book. We just do whatever. And then what they did, for example, last year, was they set it up for all profits from the book go into an account that fund future projects for sociology. So we have some good community people who help us. I have $ 300 in classroom money. We apply for grants. We raise our own money, whatever we got to do.
00:21:39
Speaker 1: Like you said, that car, that costs thousands.
00:21:42
Speaker 2: That was a wrap. I think it was around $ 1, 200.
00:21:44
Speaker 1: Okay. Now I don't really care. I'm just saying it's, I'm just, I want to get to like how you got all this done. Cause just watching it's pretty amazing.
00:21:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we always just find a way and that's here. That's my job, right? The job of the students is to come up with all these great ideas. And my job is to support them.
00:22:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:22:00
Speaker 2: So I'm going to go find the money wherever I have to.
00:22:03
Speaker 1: That's cool.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: But I got to say something. You thought our school looked really nice. It looks good. But this is not a wealthy school. It's not a wealthy community. It looks good on camera. It does. We are not wealthy, but we have a very giving, caring, and supportive community. And it's like those shadow boxes. You know, I had those framed. Those shadow boxes aren't cheap. You know, $ 30, $ 60 for a nice glass. shadow box with all these things. I put in for a grant over here with the bank, a community serving community grant. They loved it. They helped us with it. So that's what we do. And sometimes the school helps out.
00:22:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't, getting to know your students and what they've been through and you showed a lot of their homes and these are not like, you know, ridiculously sprawling. They live, they're living pretty simply. And so I was, I guess I was just so impressed with, what you all have been able to do. And I don't know what kind of money is involved in making a school. And as you're saying, I guess not as much as I would have thought, but you just have, that's the kind of community that it is, which I think is so great.
00:23:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, last year we published the book. It costs 2,500 bucks. We just raised that money ourselves. I mean, I had kids in the class who had culinary that baked a bunch of cookies in culinary class and then sold them at lunch and made $ 500. They sold for three days and, But that's they care. You know, they wanted to see that. And really, that's my job. I think that is my job is to support the students. If I'm not setting up lecturing every day, like what am I doing? Well, my job is to create a learning experience for the students to just plug into. And if that means we've got to get a book published or a car wrapped, like that's what we have to do. So, you know, we figure out a way. We're resilient in Appalachia.
00:23:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could tell. So, all right. So you had a lot of kids, obviously, that were that we focused on, that you focused on. Were there kids that did not want to be part of this? Was it hard to get the kids involved?
00:24:05
Speaker 2: Yes, we had 13 students in the class and you probably saw them in various ways. They all agreed to be part of it. But we were that was just us production. You know, we talked about you can be in the class, but we don't have to be in your house, you know. some kids were like, Hey, that's fine. Come into class, video me, see my work. But they just, you know, they didn't want to have a camera.
00:24:26
Speaker 1: But nobody said, no, I'm not. Cause I would think there's going to be a certain level of, we'll call it fame or, you know, these kids, I'm walking down the street, you know, I'm, I'm recognizing Lacey. Crimson is not getting past me without me asking her for her autograph.
00:24:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, all 13. That was a very small class. It was really strange. I had, 28 year before I had 13 that year. I had 32 last year. I've got 32 this year. It was just a really small class, which was strange for some reason. And all of them were okay with it, but you can see that some of them, um, you know, we're a little bit more open to being filmed and stuff. And of course some of them were more open, but that stuff gets cut out too. You can only follow so many stories in three hours, but everything was open to it. Yeah.
00:25:12
Speaker 1: I want to know where they are now. Like now that it's, So some of them are still in school. I don't know if some of them are taking your class again. But how have they reacted to the documentary and seeing themselves up there? And like, I wish I would have loved to have just seen them see it.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: It's been unusual. The sophomores I had are still here. There's about four or five of those. Everybody else, you know, juniors and seniors have graduated. But I don't really get to see them that much. After they graduate, I see very little of them. There's maybe a couple that I kind of stay in contact with a little bit here and there. But we did all get together as a community. And we had like a public watch party on the day that it came out. Amazon gave us a copy. And so we used it. We played it in our local theater. And we had like a red carpet event, food, you know, tickets, like the whole thing. It was amazing. I got to see all my students again together. Who knows? That might be the last time we're all together. But we all got to watch episode one together with the community, with their parents, school teachers, you know, different people. And it was really powerful. I think they're really proud of what they did. But I'll just tell you that kids are different than us. They are literally videoing themselves, taking pictures of themselves almost continuously.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: Tell me about it.
00:26:38
Speaker 2: And they adapt to having a camera in their face very quickly.
00:26:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:26:43
Speaker 2: Within a week, they were just like, you know, the camera's right here and they're working and it doesn't even phase them. So they adapted really quickly. I think they're proud of what they did. Some of them didn't even watch the next two episodes for weeks because they're kids. They have busy lives. It blows me away, but it's true. One girl said, I hadn't even had a chance to watch the third episode yet. And it had been several weeks. That's crazy. But they're proud. I really do. That's something that you never know. Like when they're making a documentary, they just film for like 10 months. And you don't know what makes it in and what doesn't. What's the storyline going to be? If you think about true crime, normally they already have somebody in jail or somebody's already been convicted. And then you just go back and tell the story. So you know what the story is and you know where it ends. But we actually filmed this in real time. You know, and would we have somebody in jail? We didn't know.
00:27:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, but but you know what, Mr. Campbell, this is not this is it's not just and I know because I do a lot of this. This is not just a true crime story. This is a story about these amazing kids and this amazing teacher. And even if not, you're not a fan of true crime. You know, I think this is in my mind, this is more than that. I don't even know how it's being represented. It's just a true crime story. You know, that's how it feels to me.
00:28:06
Speaker 2: When we talked about it as a production team, you know, I told them that I wanted the teaching profession, school, our young people, all that to be represented, not just the true crime. And we had to be very victim forward. And they were totally on board. They got it. But when they got here and they met the students and lived here and got in the community, I think really the story that came out to them was that this is a coming of age story.
00:28:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:28:35
Speaker 2: It's just that students are learning about their world and the adult world through true crime in the classroom. So it really is following the students as they learn to kind of take their place in the adult world. And they learn that through true crime.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: It's also about relationships. It's also about you. It's also about teachers that actually give a shit. And, you know, it's that and what a difference that can make. What was what was the young kid? Man who said at graduation, he's like, Mr. Campbell's the reason I am who I am.
00:29:05
Speaker 2: As Andrew Barnett.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: He almost died. That was just so sweet.
00:29:11
Speaker 2: That's very powerful. That's why you're a teacher. Most people think I'm here just for the money.
00:29:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:29:18
Speaker 2: But, you know, having those relationships with students is amazing. And I see it every year. Yeah, I see it and I love it. And people say, gosh, I don't know how you do it. You lock yourself in a room with 900 teenagers. But I love my job. I really do. Yeah, there's bad parts to it, but I love it. And the part I love is the kids. And people never get to see it, but in this documentary, I hope that people did get to see that.
00:29:41
Speaker 1: I think there's a very fine line. And I don't, I'm not a teacher. You tell me if I'm wrong between though, being a teacher and being a friend, being a mentor, all those lines, you know, probably get crossed. I thought you did such a beautiful job of teaching these kids, but still being an authority figure and, making them laugh, being goofy, you know, making fun of them. They're making fun of you, but still knowing that you're in charge. And I think that's probably, maybe that's come from experience. I don't know. Maybe some people never learned that, but I thought that you were, you were really good at that.
00:30:17
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate it. They edited out when I yelled at the kids. I start off very strict. Every student will tell you because I, We have to have a structure within which to work because you can tell that a project like that could get out of control very quickly. So I start with a lot of structure and everybody knows I am in charge. But once they begin to show that they can do the work, that they can be mature, I begin to lighten the reins that I have. But they have to show me that first. And so they learn that trust is a two-way street. And I always tell them, I'll let you do a lot of crazy junk. You just have to show me that you can handle it and you can still learn and do what's expected of you. So it's hard to believe we've been here five weeks already. But my class, my sociology class is still learning that. I had to yell at them real bad today. They just weren't working up to the standard. But they will. You know, it was better at the end than it was at the beginning. We'll learn. They'll grow.
00:31:20
Speaker 1: Are you still doing this? Do you still tape? Are you still I mean, is it is there going to be maybe in 102?
00:31:27
Speaker 2: We haven't heard anything back from Amazon. But I will tell you, this thing that we're doing with the police in Kentucky is so awesome. It's three steps above what we did with the TBI. We weren't working an investigation with them. You know, they came and asked us for some help, and we helped them with something. But they weren't sharing information and us going back and forth. This is like on a whole other level. And I just felt it was so special that Andrew has actually gone into business as a filmographer. Really?
00:31:58
Speaker 1: Yes. He's the kid with the camera. Yes.
00:32:02
Speaker 2: And so he has come back and recorded a day. He's going to record like some big days this semester because he asked me what was in the class. And I told him and he said, I don't know. I just feel this is going to be awesome. By the end, it's going to be awesome. I mean, if this happens, my students will have found another serial killer that no one else knew existed. And for him to have a chance to be on the ground floor and kind of follow a little bit of that. So we're doing we're doing a little documentation. He said, if nobody wants it, I'll put it out on Facebook. You know, I'll do something with it. But I just wanted to have have it documented because here's the thing. Like, you never know what's going to happen with the project. So I just know it's cool. I know there's a real problem there. I know the kids kind of found this. I know the cops trust them and we're working together. And I just know there's a brother up there that needs to know something before he dies. And I'm just trusting that something big is going to happen. So we're filming it just in case something big does.
00:33:20
Speaker 1: I was wondering at one point whether the cops ever gave you, ever sort of pushed back, like, Listen, we'll play this game with you, but we're talking about kids. They can't really help it. Was there a learning curve there?
00:33:32
Speaker 2: That was an eight-year learning curve. What you saw in Murder 101 was them not wanting to engage with the students for eight years. And then finally, the production team helped me actually get a hold of the detective. The TBI, you cannot call any detectives. You can't email any detectives. You only get one number for the main office. You don't talk to anybody. So he really didn't know what we were doing. He had never heard. I mean, he saw like a news article, but he didn't really understand. But when I was finally able to speak with him, I said, all I want you to do is come in and listen to my students present. That's all I want. He listened to him present the first day and said, oh, my gosh, like you guys have done such good work and you're so invested. He said, I want to come tell you about a little bit more about a case. And I think you can help me. And that's all I wanted for eight years was for them to see the work of the kids. And they would understand we're not here to get headlines. We're not trying to sensationalize. We're not asking the TBI to give us like secret information. I just want you to see the kids can do amazing work, find out where you could use some help and like, let's give them something meaningful to do. And if they give you nothing, then who cares? The case is no worse off. And they hopefully learned a few skills that they give you something helpful and Look how much it can actually.
00:34:51
Speaker 1: Help the case. That is free labor right there.
00:34:54
Speaker 2: That's what I'm trying to tell them.
00:34:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:34:56
Speaker 2: You know, they had gotten very little information out about the Tracy Walker case. And 24 million people saw it or read it.
00:35:04
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe that.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: In three weeks. Like, why didn't you use these kids eight years ago?
00:35:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't get over that.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: They needed to learn that. And I've had other classes that could do equal work, you know.
00:35:15
Speaker 1: I bet.
00:35:16
Speaker 2: But they just weren't given the chance because– The police really didn't understand because I'll just say that different police agencies have different philosophies of how to work cases. And some are more community-oriented than others. And some are easier to get a hold of than others. But once we were able to get a hold of the right people, I think they really understood. And that was really great, what we did. We know that the cops are getting a lot of tips for the Tracy Walker case. Mm-hmm. And I'm still holding out hope that her brother can find out exactly who's responsible for her death.
00:35:49
Speaker 1: I am too.
00:35:49
Speaker 2: I am too. I believe, no, they don't tell me, but they're getting a lot of hints and tips. I know that, I know that is occurring. They got a bunch back in May of two years ago. And I know they've gotten a bunch since murder 101 came out. We just hope they're getting the right ones that can let them put it together as like a solid case. So they could present that as like a case closed and, I'm hoping that happens. I'm hoping it happens.
00:36:15
Speaker 1: So am I. I thought it was the most amazing thing to see her brother talking to your kids, their reaction. You know, I don't know that kids in high school get that chance that often to really be, not just like they're already in it, they're emotionally invested from what I've seen. And then to have this poor victim's brother whose life has been, you know, not easy losing a sister like that, but yeah. Talk about like, just, I don't know, real life lessons and empathy and all of it. I have questions for you. A couple of silly ones, but I have to know. So too bad. How's the log cabin?
00:36:56
Speaker 2: It's good. We finally got our gutters on a couple of months ago. When you build it yourself, you build it slow. You do what you can do.
00:37:05
Speaker 1: See, that was so, I don't know who your cinematographer was or who says, We're going to make him carry these big rocks that I don't even know. They don't seem like I would not want to lift those up and put them in a pile. And they showed you doing that, and I thought that was kind of fabulous.
00:37:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've got two teenage boys, and we lifted all those logs by ourselves. Some of them weighed over 1,000 pounds. And we literally cut down all the trees ourselves, moved everything ourselves. We got very little extra help from anybody. We didn't really have a lot of money.
00:37:37
Speaker 1: I don't think that also maybe you didn't want any help. Like I'm just guessing.
00:37:41
Speaker 2: I love history and I love to learn and I've tried to always continue to learn. It's, it's probably the greatest learning experience in my life was building a home, you know, took years and years of planning and work. So there is an enjoyment. I love to figure out problems. I'm a very physical kind of person. I did it with my family. It was, it was cool. So the cabin's great. Log cabin living is wonderful.
00:38:05
Speaker 1: Were those your two kids at the end of the documentary?
00:38:07
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:38:08
Speaker 1: Two young men, I think.
00:38:10
Speaker 2: They're now 18 and 20. Two boys. Yes. Yes. And so one of them graduated college in May, and he went back for one semester to get another degree. And then my 18-year-old graduates in December. Congratulations. I'll have them all the way through. We homeschooled them, actually, because I wanted to do crazy junk with them all the time. And we built a house. So they're getting through school pretty early. And but all that's been fun.
00:38:41
Speaker 1: How does your sweet wife feel about all this?
00:38:47
Speaker 2: At first, she didn't love the they follow her around for days and she did everything she does. I mean, she made the best homemade banana pudding and, you know, sweet tea, which, you know, next for the gods. Of course, she did all this stuff that she does. And she ended up like on the ride lawnmower and she didn't really like it, but I'm telling you, people have reacted so well to that.
00:39:12
Speaker 1: I thought it was so great.
00:39:13
Speaker 2: People love it. And people come up and say, I love that. I love the scene.
00:39:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. She's cool. I love it.
00:39:20
Speaker 2: And to put up with me and my crazy things, she has to be.
00:39:24
Speaker 1: Very, together since high school.
00:39:26
Speaker 2: Actually. Yes. We were prom king and queen. We were Mr. And Mrs. Of our high school. And so, yeah, she's put up with me a very, very long time.
00:39:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:37
Speaker 2: She's the unsung hero.
00:39:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, I love that.
00:39:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:39:41
Speaker 1: Well, you are the song hero. We really appreciate you a lot. And I love the documentary and I'm so happy for you for the school, for these kids. It's pretty incredible.
00:39:52
Speaker 2: It is. And the other thing we talked about was almost everybody that worked on the project, their family was in education.
00:40:00
Speaker 1: Really?
00:40:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Stacey Lee, she was a director. Her mom is a teacher. The videographer, his dad, he just retired as a principal. His mom is retiring soon as a teacher. Even the producers, like John Watts, his sister is a teacher. So they all wanted to show school for what it really is. They didn't want the campy, like kids hate school, kids cut school, they get in trouble all the time. They wanted to show up for what it really was. And I thought they did a great job of that. And what we always thought was, yes, we want tips. We want to help the Walker family and many others. But we hope it does something for education. We hope. that teachers, parents, students, lawmakers, whoever, says our students can do better than just like some worksheets and some bold words. We need to let them be part of the adult world, experience real trouble, real problems, real struggle to try to solve these things, make sense of and practice what they're learning in school. And so I'm hoping, I have heard from a lot of people, but I'm hoping like something very real comes out of this where I don't want my class to be special. I want every single kid in every single class to get some type of experience with applying what they're learning and helping others through that. That should happen in every classroom. That should be non-negotiable in my personal opinion. And I hope it's helping move the needle in that direction.
00:41:39
Speaker 1: Well, my daughter is getting her master's right now in early childhood education. Not the same thing exactly, but who knows? I'm going to have her watch and maybe she'll change her mind and decide she wants to teach high schoolers and actually show us that high schoolers are people too. Yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker 2: I even have a manuscript that I'm hopefully going to be published soon about using true crime in the classroom because I've had so many questions about how to do it. But like there's even, you just got to think about how you do it. There's stuff for middle school kids, elementary school kids, high school and college, you just got to think about the way you're doing it and the way they get kids involved. I mean, elementary school kids can do a, how to be safe online. You know, that, that's like a true crime project. If all they do is come up with 10 rules about how to be safe with strangers, they're actually thinking about those same things. They're trying to solve a problem. They're trying to help people. In this case, it might be them and their little fellow students. But I mean, I think anybody, and it doesn't have to be crime. Like a lot of my classes don't do crime. Um, But everybody should be allowed to do a project that has meaning and find, you know, what they're good at and how they can contribute. And I hope it leads that way. And I always leave every interview with this. When we started this, which will be now in the spring, nine years ago, so almost a decade, I asked the students what they wanted to get out of it. You know, do you think you're going to have all the redhead murders solved by the end of the semester? You know, what are we really trying to do? And the students, of course, understood that probably would not happen. And what they said they wanted was just one family to get the name back. Only one of the six had a name when we started.
00:43:23
Speaker 1: That's so crazy.
00:43:24
Speaker 2: So just to be identified, just to help them get a name back, much less figure out who did it and let them have that kind of closure. And they said, Mr. Campbell, we just got to make it aware to people. That's what we're going to hold ourselves accountable for. So I didn't grade them on if they solved it or identified anybody. It was, you know, are we going to create this profile of a killer? Are we going to have this big press conference and get the word out? Are we going to send stuff out to the media? That's what I graded them on. And that's all they wanted. They wanted the word to get out because you can't solve cold cases without keeping the attention on them. So you are actually the culmination of my students' dream. They wanted people to hear about it. and keep the word going. So thank you for wanting to hear about it. Thank you for honoring their wishes.
00:44:12
Speaker 1: It's my honor and pleasure, honestly. And I think you're going to be a very busy man. When did it drop?
00:44:19
Speaker 2: July the 10th, 13th, something like that.
00:44:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure you have been busy and you're going to be busy.
00:44:25
Speaker 2: It's been a little overwhelming, but I haven't had a call from the Secretary of Education or anything yet. I'm hoping for big That's what I want. So but thank you for keeping the word going and getting it out there. This is how the cases will get solved. So thank you. And holding up the good work of my students.
00:44:45
Speaker 1: Good for you. Really, really happy for you. Proud of all of you.
00:44:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's been a real pleasure getting to speak with you.
00:44:53
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Campbell.
