True Crime Conversations: Robin Warder, Nina Innsted and John Mattos (Bonus Episode!)

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To listen ad free visit simspod dot com slash subscribe
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starting at two ninety nine a month. You'll also get
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access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you joined
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through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show.
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Hello and happy holidays.
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We realize this isn't our normal release day, but this
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is the second in our two part series where John
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and I sat down with some friends from other podcasts.
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We're releasing this one on Christmas Eve, only a day
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after our Missing Out the Holidays episode, as a bonus
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for our listeners. In the first of these episodes, I
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talked with Javier from The Pretend Podcast and Kristen from
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Murder She Told and we had a great conversation, so
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make sure you go back and listen to that one
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if you missed it.
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In this true crime conversation, I got together with two
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longtime podcasters who are very well known in true crime,
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Nina Instead from Already Gone and Robin Wardour from The
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Trail Went Cold. We talked about our passion projects, how
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we got into podcasting, what we have in store for
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twenty twenty six, our favorite holiday traditions, and even shared
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some things that our listeners might.
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Not know about us.
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You'll definitely want to take notes on Robin and Nina's
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passion projects. I know I'll be going back and listening
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to them. They sounded really fascinating. You can listen to
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Robin's podcast The Trail Went Cold at sinspod dot co
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slash The Trail Went Cold, and you can find Nina's
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podcast Already Gone at sinspod dot co slash Already Gone.
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Once you're done here, head over there and give them
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a listen. I know you will love their work. So
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without any further delay, here's the conversation we had. Let
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us know what you think. Email me at John at
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Sinsonsurvivors dot com or Sean at Sean at Sinsonsurvivors dot
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com and we'll be back next week with another episode.
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Happy holidays, whatever you celebrate our awesome listeners, and as always,
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we remind you what happens here happens everywhere. Hello everyone,
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you're probably wondering who this is or whose voice is
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coming out of your podcast app. Well, my name is
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John and I am with a podcast called sins and Survivors.
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If you're not one of my listeners, welcome and I
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am here with two of my lovely co hosts and
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we're doing a podcast collaboration, so I will let them
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go ahead and introduce themselves. I guess let's go in
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reverse order by how long we've been podcasting. So I
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guess Nina you would go next.
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I'm Nina Instad. I'm host of the Already Gone podcast.
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I'm a Michigan based podcaster telling stories about Michigan and
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the Great Lakes region.
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I'm Robin Warder. I'm host of the Trail with Cold podcast.
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I cover cold cases and unsolved mysteries. At the time
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of this recording, I'm only two months away from my
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ten year anniversary of a podcast, and I'm based out
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of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
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And I'm like ten months away from two years. So
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that's not true. Actually we passed two years finally, but congratulations, congratulations. Yes,
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it's been a short but exciting road. So I guess
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you want to start up by talking about how we
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each got into podcasting. Like you said, Robin, you want
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to start us out since you are the senior podcaster here.
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Sure, I've told this story many times, but it bears repeating.
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I was originally hoping to start out as a YouTuber.
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Way back in twenty thirteen, when there were very few
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podcasts around, I pondered the idea of doing a YouTube
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series called the Unsolved Mysteries Fanatic because I was a
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huge fan of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, and I
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literally dressed up as Robert Stack in front of the
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camera wearing a trench coat, and I would talk about
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some of the cases that were featured on the show,
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and I would jump back and forth with original clips
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from the Unsolved Mystery segments where I would talk about
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the facts and analyze them, and we launched it. We
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released our first episode during the summer of twenty thirteen,
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and within about a half hour or so, we received
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a takedown notice from Cosbromere Productions for copyright infringement for
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using their footage there. That company is notoriously anal for
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not wanting people to use their footage, so we tried
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to explain that it fit under fair use because it
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wasn't just footage. There was footage of myself as well,
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but they still wouldn't let us do it, so we
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kind of had to abort the project for a few
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years figuring out how we're going to do it, and
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then in early twenty sixteen, it kind of hit me,
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why not do a podcast where I can save all
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the trouble of appearing in front of a camera and
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filming all this stuff and just sit in front of
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a mic and record. And of course, my good friend mcgilfoot,
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he was an editor by trade, so he had filmed
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the original YouTube series and he said he would edit
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the podcast together for me. And I didn't know if
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anyone would want to just sit listening to me ramble
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on for an hour about unsolved mysteries, but apparently they did,
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because we released it. Within a couple months. We started
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getting a ton of downloads because we were lucky enough
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to be featured in a BuzzFeed article about aspiring new
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true crime podcasters. And here I am, nearly ten years later,
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still going, that's.
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Amazing back when they were BuzzFeed articles about aspiring true
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crime podcast Yeah, I.
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Think a lot of the podcasts that started out back
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then got featured there and it turned out to be
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a big break. Nina, were you featured in that article?
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Do you remember?
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I do not remember? Maybe you should I've been to
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call them. I should, I.
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Should reach out to them and demand they feature you retroactively.
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Yes, exactly.
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If you do that, mention me too, I.
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Will, But no, I don't remember. I know I've been
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featured in a couple of articles over the years, but
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it's been, like you said, almost ten years. And I
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got my start not long after Robin did. And I
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actually Robin's podcast was one of the podcasts that I
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was listening to. My daughter developed a gooraphobia, which is
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a fear of leaving the house or a fear of
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wide open spaces, and she wouldn't leave the house and
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I had to quit work and stay home with her,
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and I was losing my mind being home. So I
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was listening to podcasts while I was taking care of her,
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and I after a couple of weeks of this, I
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was like, I have a nice voice, I can write
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a script.
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I can do this.
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It took me a week or two, but I mentioned
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it to my husband that Hey, I think I want
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to start at your crime podcast, and he literally came
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home from work that day he'd stopped at Best Buy
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and bought me a microphone.
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Oh that's nice.
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It was really nice. Yes, So that's how I got
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my start, recording in my dining room because I didn't
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know any better, editing using skull Candy headphones because I
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didn't know any better. And that was April of twenty sixteen.
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And that is an expression that all podcasters use. We
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didn't know any better when we were starting out. And
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I'm sure you'll probably say the same thing I do,
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is that when you go back and listen to your
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earliest episodes, you cringe some of the choices you mean,
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and some of the ways you talked.
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Yes, yeah, I know, I do. And mine was only
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a couple of years ago. So Sean and I Sean
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is my co host, and my wife we started a
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couple of years ago, and we went to the True
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Crime Podcast Festival Ladies Festival three years ago or something,
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just as attendees and interested parties, and we were talking
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to some of the podcasters there and as we listened
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to all the you know, all of the panels, we
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realized that little background. Our podcast focuses more on domestic
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violence based crimes here in the Las Vegas area, and
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my wife worked in domestic violence for has for many years.
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She did the fundraising for one of the local shelters.
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She wrote grant applications for them, very good at it,
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and what we realized was that all many of these
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cases had a domestic violence component, but there wasn't really
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any direct There wasn't much in the way of dealing
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with that topic directly. So by the end of that festival,
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I was like, I kind of had a moment like
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you did, where I was like, I feel like, these people,
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you know, maybe need an expert in this area, and
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you could be their expert. So I kind of She
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she likes to say that I bullied her into it,
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but I think she was on board. But yeah, So
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we It was October of twenty three, I guess, for
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Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and I think the podcast festival
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was like a month before that or something. It was
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like or maybe a couple months before. There was like July,
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I think. So we came home and we kind of
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kicked around and we were like, ah, maybe the beginning
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of the year, and then it got to be Domestic
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Violence Awareness Month and she was like, what if we
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did it this month? And I was like, ah, oh
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my gosh, that's really fast. So I had to go
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out and buy microphones and all that stuff, and we
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mostly do audio like we haven't been doing a lot
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of video. We do some of this, like with our
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our extra bonus content where we kind of talk about stuff,
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you know, the making of and whatnot. But yeah, we
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bought the stuff. We still we're not in the living
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room exactly. We're in one of our extra spare bedrooms,
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which is fine, and we you know whatever. We have
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double Paine glass, so it's not too bad. Occasionally, like
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a garbage truckle drive by and we'll have to pause.
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So professional, but I think we we have only been
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featured in one very obscure magazine and I can't even
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think of what it is yet, but it was it
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seemed very thrilling at the time. But yeah, so we
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only started a couple of years ago. It is really
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hard getting started in podcasting. And I know that I've
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heard many people say that if you're thinking about starting
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a podcast, my advice to you is do not start
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a podcast, which is not a real answer, but there's
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I guess the real answer is, like, if you think
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you're going to start a podcast for the like for
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the financial aspect, probably don't do that. Probably don't do that.
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Not now, if you have a time machine, maybe do
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it and like maybe go back fifteen years and do it,
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then you don't have a little more luck. But if
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you're passionate about a topic, like you know, I think
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we are all passionate about the particular areas we focus on,
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then yeah, why not Tory hat in the ring. It's
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hard to build an audience though, Man, even a couple
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of years in, it's very slow going. We got like,
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like new subscribers so slowly. But I'm like, well, directions
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going in the right and it's going in the right direction,
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so I guess that's good.
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You just never know when your big break is going
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to come. Because even Nina and I when we started
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in twenty sixteen, there were so few podcasts that we
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weren't sure anyone was going to listen to ours. But
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then it just a boom happened when there was a
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big audience for it, and they started to become very,
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very popular. And that's why a lot of the podcasts
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that started out in twenty sixteen are still around today
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and wound up finding a lot of success. But of
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course we didn't realize that at the time, and I
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think it was probably after that when podcasts started being
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successful that a lot of people started getting in thinking
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they could make instant money. But I think now, like
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in your situation, you know that, well, I'm not going
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to expect to see a lot of money starting out.
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So I want to do it because I love it,
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because it's a topic I'm passionate about.
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Absolutely.
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I did not know how to check downloads when I
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first started, so I had no idea how many people
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were listening. And that's probably a good thing, because I
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think if I'd known that like six people listened to
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my episodes, I would have been like, no, I'm done.
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But I'm very grateful that I've stuck with it, and
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I'm very proud of the work that I've done over
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the last ten years.
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That's awesome. And did you guys feel like your audience
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has exploded during the pandemic?
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Ironically, when was your growth explosion? Well, my growth explosion
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was a couple of years before the pandemic, and ironically enough,
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I think our downloads, my downloads at least went down
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a little bit surprisingly right after the pandemic started, and
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I think the explanation was people aren't commuting anymore, that
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they're not going to work, so I think people like
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stop listening to them, and some of the Some of
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these people, if they were trapped at home, weren't in
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the mood to listen to with the crime podcast. They
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wanted to listen to something more upbeat. So a lot
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of people were expecting that that the downloads would increase
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now that people didn't have as much to do, but
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I think they just were not in the mood for
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true crime at that point.
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Yeah, and I've seen a real shift from the episodic
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true crime that Robin and I do to an interest
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in long form true crime. I feel like the genre
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is evolving a little bit and you're seeing more people
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looking for those one story told over five or six
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episodes or stretched out to nine or ten episodes, as
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we've seen happen a lot. But I think there's more
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interest in long form, and I think we're seeing a
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little bit of a shift in the and what people
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are looking to listen to.
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I agree, I love listening to those we did, the
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longest one we've ever done. Do you guys do all
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episodic right? Have you ever done anything long form? Any
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like multi episode?
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I have, Yeah, I've only done like a couple two
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parters and three parters, but I genuinely do the format
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of one case per episode.
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Yeah.
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I did a long form series about the Oakland County
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child killer called Don't Talk to Strangers and John You
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and I talked a little bit about that before Robin
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joined us. I am re I've taken that series down,
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I have re edited. I'm going to re record, remaster
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and re release for the fiftieth anniversary of the Oakland
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County child Murders and that's in February of twenty six.
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That's a great idea because you'll also introduce it to
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a new audience who may not have heard it the
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first time around.
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Right right, I have a question.
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Do you guys go go back and do that a lot?
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Now?
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I'm just picking your brains, but it's fine, Like you
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do you go back and remaster your episodes? I am
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really obsessed with going back to my older episodes and
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like re editing, remastering, even sometimes re recording things that
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I don't like that we did. It's a long process
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because now we have I mean, it's this is the
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time to do it because we only have like one
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hundred and four episodes. But do you guys do that too?
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Do you go back to your old episodes and revisit them,
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re release them, maybe as like a flashback. Sometimes do
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you ever do anything like that?
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I should, but I haven't, I guess because I've got
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so much, don't have the time to do it, and
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I'm too busy working on new content. But sometimes I think, well,
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if someone goes back and listens to one of my
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earliest episodes, they're probably not going to get a favoral
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impression of the podcast and listen any further because my
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early episodes were rough. I know. I think my first
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two add a headset my very cheap one, so I
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think the audio quality wasn't that good and my delivery
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is bad. But that's a message I like to send
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to podcast listeners. If you're trying a new podcast, please
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try the most recent episodes because the earliest ones will
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not be an indicator of quality because we didn't know
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what we were doing, so they're gonna be a little rough.
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Yeah.
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I stuck my first probably sixty episodes, so about my
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first year of episodes over on Patreon, so that people
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who really love me will listen to them, and it's
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not the introduction that someone gets to the podcast. But
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I have selected a few unsolved cases from that first
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sixty that I have re recorded and re released because
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they're unsolved, they deserve to be in my active feed.
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Makes sense, all right. So we have been given a
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couple of prompts to talk through. So I guess so
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the first one we've been given is are there, Well,
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what is the case or cases that keep you up
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at night and or the one you want most to
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be solved, which I think is not really fair because
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I think we want all of our cases that we
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cover to be solved. If they're unsolved, we really want
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them solved, of course, but maybe it's better to say, like,
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what are the ones that keep you up at night?
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Well, I'm anxious to talk about my choice right now
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because it's currently in the news. It's the controversial conviction
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of a man named Tommy Ziegler, who is currently on
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death row in Florida for a quadruple homicide that took
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place fifty years ago in Christmas Eve in nineteen seventy five,
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where his wife Eunice Ziegler, his two in laws, Perry
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and Virginia Edwards, and a man named Charlie Mays were
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all murdered together at the WT Ziegler Furniture store and
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it was a massacre. There were twenty eight shots fired.
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There were four or five guns found at the scene
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that have been white clean, clean of fingerprints. And Tommy
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himself was inside the furniture store. He was the one
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who called police because he had a gunshot wound to
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his abdomen. He claimed that he had been attacked when
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he walked inside the store, but by multiple people, but
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it was so dark in there that he couldn't tell
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who it was, and also because his glasses were knocked out,
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and he claimed that he grabbed a gun from the
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desk because it was his family's furniture store, fired off
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a few shots before he was shot in the abdomen
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and then passed out. And he came to believe that
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Charlie Mays, one of the so called victims, was personally
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involved in the attack, was one of the people who
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murdered his wife and his in laws, and that when
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he fired off his gun a few times, one of
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the bullets hit mas and in self defense, and that
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his accomplices killed him and finished the job because they
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knew they wouldn't be able to take him to a hospital.
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But the police did not believe this story. They thought
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that Tommy committed the murders himself, self inflicted the gunshot
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wound on his abdomen and killed Charlie Mays in an
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attempt to frame him for the crime. So he was
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convicted a trial. He was senced to death for all
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four murders, but because there was so much controversy surrounding
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this case about whether he was wrongly convicted, the execution
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has never gone through. So he has officially set an
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American record for the longest amount of time spent on
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death row. He's been there forty nine and a half years.
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He's currently in eighty years old and very poor health.
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But they recently did around a DNA testing which seems
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to go in his favor, which seems to show that
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eden' hill his family, that Charlie Mays was probably involved
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in the murders of his family. So just this past week,
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right before we sat down to record this, they had
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a hearing where they presented the results of this new
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DNA testing and the evidence to a judge, And sometime
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within the next few months she is going to have
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to rule whether or not this is strong enough to
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overturn his conviction and give him a new trial. Or
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release him from prison. So I'm kind of on pins
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and needles right now, trying to wait how this is
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going to turn out, because this has been my biggest
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passion case. I covered on in episode's number fifteen and
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sixteen of the Trail When Cold and have been obsessively
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following it ever since. Wow.
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Wow, So you covered it like ten years ago.
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Yes, And I even consulted with his defense investigator who
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is trying to get his name cleared, and she loved
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the episodes, and I kind of felt that as a
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validation point that if the people who were personally involved
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in these cases are liking the episodes, then I'm probably
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doing something right. And it is such a convoluted case
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that it's very hard to tell the events that took
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place in a coherent fashion that makes sense. But everyone
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who listened to him just thought that my episodes were great.
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They found the story to be fascinating. And I don't
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know if Tommy himself has been able to listen to
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them on death Row, but I know that he's aware
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of these episodes and that his defense investigators sent him
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the transcripts, so he's very appreciative that I've been advocating
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for him all these years. And another crazy aspect of
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this story is that during the pandemic, he got COVID
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and was deathly ill on death row. He was hospitalized
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for a few weeks, but he's still hanging on. He's
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still alive, even though he's in a wheelchair and using oxygen.
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So I think a lot of his supporters have taken
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it as a sign that he will get out of
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prison alive at some point because he's held on this
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long And.
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How old is he now?
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Eighty years old?
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Oh my gosh.
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Have you corresponded with him at all?
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Not personally? No, I probably should, that should send him
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like a post guard. But I'm hoping though, that he'll
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be released and I can correspond with him outside of
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prison walls when he's a free man again. Because if
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he has released, just imagine how overwhelming that'll be when
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you're cooped up for fifty years and the world is
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just a much different place and you have to adjust
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to everything.
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Yeah. Absolutely so. My case, not surprisingly, is the Oakland
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County child killer. When I was a little girl, and
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again i'm showing my age. Nineteen seventy six nineteen seventy seven,
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four children were murdered in Oakland County, Michigan. One of
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the girls that was murdered was a named Christine Mahalic,
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and she lived in Berkeley. She attended Pattentill Elementary. I
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lived in Berkeley and I attended pattent Gill Elementary for kindergarten,
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well part of kindergarten. The case is not solved. They
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have never named a suspect, they have never named a
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person of interest. But it's one of those things where
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everybody knows who did it and they've been dead for decades.
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But Michigan State Police, Oakland County Sheriff, the FBI, the
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Oakland County Prosecutor, no one is talking and they are
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fighting releasing anything related to the case. So we're coming
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up on the fiftieth anniversary of four children being murdered
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and dozens of children were sexually assaulted by these people,
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and it's all unresolved. There's never been any official announcement
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of look, we know this person did it, that they're deceased,
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or even hey, we're pretty sure this person did it,
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but they're deceased. So I covered it as a long
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form series in twenty eighteen into twenty nineteen and I'm
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re releasing it starting at the end of January of
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twenty twenty six because February is the fiftieth anniversary of
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Mark Stebbens disappearance from Ferndale. There is not a lot
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of motivation on the parts of the Oakland County Prosecutor,
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the Michigan State Police, or the Oakland County Sheriff. They're
439
00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:23.640
not super motivated to do anything because it's a fifty
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00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:25.920
year old case. So they're like, we're busy, We've got
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these new cases to worry about, but we still have
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four dead kits. So it's there is potentially DNA to
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be worked, but no one is working the case. And
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you see these cases, we've all seen them. They come
445
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to close because of a DNA break because of genetic genealogy.
446
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You have to be doing that work for that work
447
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to be successful, and they're just not doing the work.
448
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And that's just incredibly frustrating because, like you said, we've
449
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seen so many cases get resolved in recent years, like
450
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the Austin yogurt chop murders a couple of months ago,
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where they linked DNA to a suspect who've been deceased
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for twenty five years, but were able to conclusively solve it,
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so they could do it here if they wanted to,
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if they wanted to.
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Yeah, super corsidable a lack of desire or a lack
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of funding or both, Like what's.
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They're not motivator. So the primary suspect that I'm not
458
00:23:22.519 --> 00:23:25.599
naming him, although I will name him in the series
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that I'm doing. His father was the chief financial officer
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of General Motors, and in the seventies, General Motors was
461
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like Google or Meta is today. You know, the biggest
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00:23:38.200 --> 00:23:41.880
company in the world, and you just don't go after
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00:23:43.079 --> 00:23:45.720
the son of the CFO of General Motors in nineteen
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seventy seven. You just don't. And there were also some
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political donations that were made that may have motivated people
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to be less interested in prosecuting him. So it's very
467
00:24:01.759 --> 00:24:05.039
there's a lot of corruption, there's a lot of backdoor dealing.
468
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It's just super frustrating. There's a blog on the case,
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00:24:09.839 --> 00:24:13.720
Catherine Broad, the sister of one of the victims. She
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00:24:14.119 --> 00:24:17.559
has all of the information, all of the details on
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her blog. If you're interested in the case, I suggest
472
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you take a look at that or listen to my
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coverage starting in January it's just it's shameful that we
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let these not just the four kids pass away, but
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what their parents and siblings have gone through is just awful.
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And their parents have got to be quite old at
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this point, I'm guessing, but siblings are probably like my age,
478
00:24:41.559 --> 00:24:44.640
your age around them, Yeah, you know, and they are
479
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.640
are any of them actively pressing for the case to be.
480
00:24:51.359 --> 00:24:56.160
Yeah, Kathy Catherine Broad, with her blog, is pressing. Her
481
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family fought the good fight for years with Michigan State
482
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and the Oakland County prosecutor and just got shoved back
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down every time. So it's you can't make you know,
484
00:25:08.440 --> 00:25:11.200
We've all seen this on various cases. You can't make
485
00:25:11.559 --> 00:25:13.920
people do a job they don't want to do. You
486
00:25:13.960 --> 00:25:15.480
can't physically make them do it.
487
00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:17.799
That's horrible.
488
00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:20.920
Yeah, so that's my case.
489
00:25:21.839 --> 00:25:25.559
I'm adding both of those to my list. I was
490
00:25:25.559 --> 00:25:27.359
furiously googling while you were talking.
491
00:25:27.319 --> 00:25:30.680
Like major rabbit holes both those. Yes, yeah, oh, I'm sure.
492
00:25:30.559 --> 00:25:37.039
I'm sure. So I have one case. I have two cases.
493
00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:40.880
One is fairly recent, about fifteen years old. But the
494
00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:46.319
first one we actually covered twice once I think like
495
00:25:46.359 --> 00:25:49.640
in we only had three seasons, but once in like
496
00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:51.880
two twenty three we covered it and then on the
497
00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:54.359
thirtieth Anniverse Reached. About a year later, we actually covered
498
00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:59.480
it again, and it's the disappearance of Camille Dardaines Dotson.
499
00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:05.240
So she disappeared in September of nineteen ninety four. The
500
00:26:05.319 --> 00:26:09.599
reason that she came across our radar, speaking of DNA,
501
00:26:09.759 --> 00:26:13.640
she was originally married to a man named Gary Dotson,
502
00:26:13.720 --> 00:26:18.279
who was the first person ever exonerated by DNA evidence.
503
00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:20.519
Ever, that's why his name's familiar.
504
00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:21.720
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
505
00:26:21.799 --> 00:26:23.720
He was accused of a rape. The woman who accused
506
00:26:23.799 --> 00:26:27.160
him eventually recanted and that didn't get them to reopen
507
00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:30.119
the case. Another thing where the prosecutors don't want to
508
00:26:30.119 --> 00:26:32.759
reopen the case even though they have the person who
509
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:36.000
accused him originally admitted that it was all made up.
510
00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:40.359
Eventually via DNA, he was exonerated and then he met Camille.
511
00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:43.920
There is absolutely zero evidence that Gary Dotson had anything
512
00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:47.799
to do with Camille's disappearance none. They were long divorced
513
00:26:48.160 --> 00:26:51.759
and she was living in Las Vegas, so she moved
514
00:26:51.799 --> 00:26:55.720
here and she was involved with a fairly ced crowd.
515
00:26:55.920 --> 00:26:58.279
She worked at the Crazy Horse to Shrip Club as
516
00:26:58.279 --> 00:27:02.079
a cocktail waitress. At that time in the history, there
517
00:27:02.119 --> 00:27:04.720
was a lot of mob involvement, and she was in
518
00:27:04.759 --> 00:27:07.960
trouble with the law, and she was involved with a
519
00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:10.920
man who was abusing her. There's a lot of documented
520
00:27:11.039 --> 00:27:14.279
domestic abuse in their relationship. She was actually picked up
521
00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:17.400
and put into the Clark County Detention Center and she
522
00:27:17.559 --> 00:27:21.200
was released in September, and after that she was never
523
00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:25.039
seen again. Gary and Camille have a daughter named Ashley.
524
00:27:25.799 --> 00:27:28.799
Ashley has been looking for her mom for thirty years.
525
00:27:28.839 --> 00:27:31.799
She was young at the time, but she remembers growing
526
00:27:31.880 --> 00:27:35.920
up with her grandma coming to Las Vegas asking around
527
00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:42.079
where Camille lived in her circles, like does anyone see Camille?
528
00:27:42.079 --> 00:27:44.160
It's anyone, you know. So they searched for her for
529
00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:47.680
years and it's been thirty years now and there's never
530
00:27:47.799 --> 00:27:51.480
been any information on what happened to her. Interestingly, though,
531
00:27:51.480 --> 00:27:53.279
one of the things we have for this case is
532
00:27:53.319 --> 00:27:56.519
a phone list of phone numbers that Camille had, and
533
00:27:56.599 --> 00:27:59.599
one of the phone numbers is actually the local FBI
534
00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:03.000
field office. So the theory is that she might have
535
00:28:03.079 --> 00:28:07.480
been working with the FBI, and she was working for
536
00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:12.160
a mob controlled strip club. So there's some theory that
537
00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:15.599
the mob was involved. Her family has a website, Buyingcamille
538
00:28:15.599 --> 00:28:18.319
dot com. You can read more about the case there.
539
00:28:18.839 --> 00:28:22.640
We also covered the Gary Dotson case, and that case
540
00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:25.920
has become our most popular episode. At one point, we
541
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:29.480
had this alarming spike in downloads that we called the
542
00:28:29.559 --> 00:28:32.880
Witch's Hat that we've never seen again, and it was like,
543
00:28:34.039 --> 00:28:37.440
it's a mystery. We I thought, like some some bigger
544
00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:40.880
podcast like mentioned Gary Dotson, and people searched and they
545
00:28:40.920 --> 00:28:42.920
found us and they ended up listening. We have no
546
00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:45.680
idea if anybody out out there knows or has heard
547
00:28:45.720 --> 00:28:48.920
of that episode. I'm so curious. The other one that
548
00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:51.920
kind of sticks in my craw a little bit. Actually
549
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:55.039
you covered Robin in the early three hundred. It was
550
00:28:55.039 --> 00:28:59.519
the disappearance of Stephen Coacher. Stephen disappeared December thirteenth, two
551
00:28:59.519 --> 00:29:02.440
thousand and nine. He was a thirty year old young
552
00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:06.920
man from Utah, Mormon, young dude, just out there living
553
00:29:06.960 --> 00:29:09.799
his life. Apparently everyone who met him said he was
554
00:29:10.039 --> 00:29:12.759
just the nicest guy, super involved in his church, friendlies,
555
00:29:12.839 --> 00:29:15.359
can be always willing to help people. He had a
556
00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:18.519
roommate who was nothing like him. Quote at one point
557
00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:21.440
of saying we get along well, but we're not very similar.
558
00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:26.880
He's Mormon and I'm from Chicago, but they like at along. Well.
559
00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:31.240
They played softball together. In two thousand and nine, Stephen
560
00:29:31.720 --> 00:29:34.640
was having trouble keeping a job, got laid off from
561
00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:40.000
a software company, and he started driving around between Utah, Arizona,
562
00:29:40.039 --> 00:29:45.200
and Nevada. And in September, oh sorry, in December, December thirteenth,
563
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:48.839
he drove his car from Saint George, Utah, where he lived,
564
00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:51.880
to Henderson, where I live, only about twenty minutes from
565
00:29:51.880 --> 00:29:54.200
where I lived, and he parked in a neighborhood in
566
00:29:54.319 --> 00:29:56.519
kind of the far south end of the valley called
567
00:29:56.880 --> 00:30:01.160
Sun City, Anthem, typically a retirement community, but non retired
568
00:30:01.200 --> 00:30:03.880
people live there also. It's like a planned community here.
569
00:30:04.480 --> 00:30:07.720
And the last thing we saw of him was some grainy,
570
00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:11.160
vintage two thousand and nine security camera footage of him,
571
00:30:11.880 --> 00:30:14.519
presumably him getting out of his car. You can't really tell,
572
00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:17.200
but it looks like him. It matches his height, and
573
00:30:17.720 --> 00:30:19.200
you know, it looks like it could be him. His
574
00:30:19.319 --> 00:30:22.440
family believes it was him. And after that security footage,
575
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:26.839
he was never seen again. His cell phone pinged across Henderson,
576
00:30:26.920 --> 00:30:29.519
our town for a couple more days we're not sure
577
00:30:29.559 --> 00:30:32.480
what that's about. No one's sure what that's about. But
578
00:30:33.480 --> 00:30:36.319
his car was just left in that neighborhood where he
579
00:30:36.359 --> 00:30:40.160
had no ties, he didn't apparently know anyone. It contained
580
00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:42.680
a bunch of groceries and Christmas gifts for his family
581
00:30:42.680 --> 00:30:45.839
that were all labeled, and they never saw him again.
582
00:30:46.279 --> 00:30:48.720
There were extension searches in the area, and there was
583
00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:52.440
no evidence that he left voluntarily, and there are theories
584
00:30:52.480 --> 00:30:54.480
about what might have happened. People think he might have
585
00:30:54.519 --> 00:30:59.960
been delivering a package, possibly drugs to a house in Henderson,
586
00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:02.799
but there's really no proof of any of this. That's
587
00:31:02.839 --> 00:31:04.720
one of the ones that really like another one where
588
00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:08.119
you're thinking, where the hell is he? People just don't disappear.
589
00:31:08.200 --> 00:31:10.519
This man is somewhere. He didn't just walk into the desert,
590
00:31:10.559 --> 00:31:14.640
because that's not a thing that people do. He wasn't depressed. Also,
591
00:31:15.079 --> 00:31:17.240
he was in an area where like to get to
592
00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:20.559
the desert or really more accurately a hiking trail, because
593
00:31:20.559 --> 00:31:22.799
that's what there is down there. It was like a
594
00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:26.880
two mile walk. So I don't know. The theory is
595
00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:30.960
that he like possibly knocked on the wrong door. I
596
00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:34.359
don't know, some sort of delivery deal gone wrong. We
597
00:31:34.400 --> 00:31:35.759
don't know. It's very frustrating.
598
00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:38.640
I think the most baffling part about bath story when
599
00:31:38.680 --> 00:31:40.279
I covered it a few years ago is the fact
600
00:31:40.319 --> 00:31:42.839
that he went on some unexplained road trips the days
601
00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:45.759
before he went missing, where he was driving throughout the state,
602
00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:49.400
going to all these different locations and nobody knows why.
603
00:31:49.480 --> 00:31:52.599
And he was suffering from serious financial problems at that point,
604
00:31:52.720 --> 00:31:56.160
and buying all that gas would obviously cost money. So
605
00:31:56.200 --> 00:31:57.880
I think that has caused like a lot of this
606
00:31:57.960 --> 00:32:01.000
speculation that maybe he was delivering rugs or something he
607
00:32:01.079 --> 00:32:03.839
wasn't supposed to and making all these trips, because even
608
00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:07.000
though he was described as a very honest, law abiding person,
609
00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:09.480
you never would have broken the law. But he seemed
610
00:32:09.480 --> 00:32:11.640
also like a very proud guy who didn't want to
611
00:32:11.680 --> 00:32:14.880
ask his family for financial assistance. So could he have
612
00:32:14.920 --> 00:32:17.480
been roped into doing something you ordinarily wouldn't have done
613
00:32:17.559 --> 00:32:19.160
and it wound up costing him his life?
614
00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:22.720
Or was he doing some sort of a delivery job.
615
00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:25.799
Didn't know what he was delivering because he was just this,
616
00:32:26.359 --> 00:32:29.200
you know, wide eyed kid from Utah and then ended
617
00:32:29.279 --> 00:32:31.359
up knocking on this house and it all went wrong.
618
00:32:31.400 --> 00:32:33.240
But you're right, he like took this road trip. Like
619
00:32:33.240 --> 00:32:35.759
two days before he went and saw an ex girlfriend
620
00:32:35.960 --> 00:32:38.839
in like northern Arizona and stayed with them on their
621
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:41.440
their ranch and had dinner with them, and they was like, Oh,
622
00:32:41.519 --> 00:32:45.200
I'm going to Sacramento to meet some people. Didn't go
623
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:48.400
there Sacramento and he never went there. It's so weird.
624
00:32:49.559 --> 00:32:49.960
I don't know.
625
00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:52.559
It reminds me a little bit of David Glenn Lewis
626
00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:54.720
I think that's his name, you know who I mean
627
00:32:54.759 --> 00:32:57.880
from Texas that ended up in Washington State getting hit
628
00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:03.039
by a car. Like you can't assign any logic to
629
00:33:03.079 --> 00:33:05.440
it because there's nothing logical about what happened.
630
00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:08.440
I remember learning about that case because someone made a
631
00:33:08.440 --> 00:33:10.759
Reddit post about it and then they tagged me saying,
632
00:33:10.839 --> 00:33:13.440
paging Robin Warder, this is the ideal case for you
633
00:33:13.519 --> 00:33:17.319
to cover, because it is. I'm really fascinated by cases
634
00:33:17.319 --> 00:33:20.079
where people travel to locations they have no reason to
635
00:33:20.119 --> 00:33:23.240
be at and they either die or they go missing.
636
00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:25.960
It's like that's the it's two mysteries rolled into one.
637
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:27.880
What happened to them and why did they travel there
638
00:33:27.880 --> 00:33:28.640
in the first place.
639
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:33.960
Yes, I was actually on a on a road trip
640
00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:38.359
with Sean one time, and we got to talking about
641
00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:41.720
like we were in like a really weird circumstance, Like
642
00:33:42.279 --> 00:33:45.920
I can't remember what it was, but like if people
643
00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:48.880
saw what was happening to us, it would be one
644
00:33:48.920 --> 00:33:50.920
of these mysteries like why were they in that location?
645
00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:51.880
What were they doing?
646
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:53.839
Why was there a cake in the car? Like it
647
00:33:53.880 --> 00:33:59.279
was like all this like strange set of circumstances that
648
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:01.720
we would definitely end up in some Reddit threads somewhere
649
00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:04.039
being like what happened to them? What? Oh my gosh,
650
00:34:04.039 --> 00:34:07.000
what happened? Did he just go did he just run away?
651
00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:11.159
And is he just living off the grid now? Who knows? Ah? Yeah,
652
00:34:11.280 --> 00:34:14.360
I often wonder that, Like now that I've experienced a
653
00:34:14.360 --> 00:34:17.159
few of these and learned about many of them, like
654
00:34:17.400 --> 00:34:20.599
I feel like everyone is just so one or two
655
00:34:20.639 --> 00:34:22.920
weird circumstances away from being a Reddit thread.
656
00:34:23.440 --> 00:34:26.599
Yes, I see stories like that where people go missing
657
00:34:26.639 --> 00:34:30.559
and details which might be completely innocuous suddenly become morominous.
658
00:34:30.639 --> 00:34:32.840
They'll say, ooh, a couple months beforehand, they read a
659
00:34:32.880 --> 00:34:35.599
story about a fictional character who disappeared to start a
660
00:34:35.639 --> 00:34:37.960
new life. Maybe they were getting ideas to do the
661
00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:40.440
same thing when it might just be a coincidence.
662
00:34:41.800 --> 00:34:45.239
Well, and if they look at any of our browser histories, yeah,
663
00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:48.559
they're gonna oof, yeah we are missing.
664
00:34:48.639 --> 00:34:52.320
Then they're going to make a lot of speculation about yes. Yeah, yes,
665
00:34:52.519 --> 00:34:55.960
for sure. So there were a couple of other prompts.
666
00:34:56.440 --> 00:34:58.559
Tell the people out there what you're looking forward to
667
00:34:58.599 --> 00:34:59.760
in twenty twenty six.
668
00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:03.559
Well, I'm really excited to share that my first book,
669
00:35:03.639 --> 00:35:05.840
Unsolved Michigan, releases.
670
00:35:05.800 --> 00:35:08.159
March Sixteenth's nice, amazing.
671
00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:11.280
I'm super excited. I'm working with the History Press and
672
00:35:11.360 --> 00:35:15.519
I was able to highlight some really important stories of
673
00:35:15.639 --> 00:35:19.000
unsolved murders and missing persons from all over the state
674
00:35:19.039 --> 00:35:22.159
of Michigan. So that's coming in March, and if you're interested,
675
00:35:22.199 --> 00:35:25.400
it's available for pre order at bookshop dot org or
676
00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:26.199
on Amazon.
677
00:35:28.079 --> 00:35:28.800
So cool.
678
00:35:31.119 --> 00:35:34.039
Well, I'm looking forward to my ten year anniversary in February,
679
00:35:34.199 --> 00:35:36.519
and I usually have made it a tradition when I
680
00:35:36.559 --> 00:35:39.119
do my anniversary shows that I like to do a
681
00:35:39.159 --> 00:35:42.639
famous historical case, usually a two or three parter, and
682
00:35:42.800 --> 00:35:47.360
this particular one, I'm going to finally tackle the Lindberg babykidnapping.
683
00:35:46.639 --> 00:35:49.760
Which, oh wow, a classic, yeah.
684
00:35:49.559 --> 00:35:52.079
Which I've always been fascinating, and it's unique in that
685
00:35:52.199 --> 00:35:56.679
it's officially considered to be solved because a suspect was tried, convicted,
686
00:35:56.719 --> 00:35:59.280
and executed. But a lot of people have figured there's
687
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:02.000
more to this story, that he could have been innocent,
688
00:36:02.360 --> 00:36:04.960
or he could have had accomplices who got away with it,
689
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:07.800
and there are even theories that maybe Lindbergh himself was
690
00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:10.400
more involved in the kidnapping than he was letting on.
691
00:36:10.719 --> 00:36:14.079
And this past summer, I took a trip to New Jersey.
692
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:15.800
This is kind of what a weird life I live.
693
00:36:15.840 --> 00:36:19.639
I went there to see WWE SummerSlam at Netlife Stadium,
694
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:22.440
but then decided to do a side trip to Hope
695
00:36:22.440 --> 00:36:25.000
Well to see the Lindbergh home and also a lot
696
00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:28.000
of the locations where the crime took place to kind
697
00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:30.880
of prepare myself to be working on this, And I'm
698
00:36:30.920 --> 00:36:34.199
looking forward to it because I really love digging into
699
00:36:34.239 --> 00:36:36.920
the historical mysteries that happened a long time ago and
700
00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:40.079
trying to look for fresh takes on it and find
701
00:36:40.119 --> 00:36:42.760
material that people haven't really talked about all that much
702
00:36:42.800 --> 00:36:43.599
on podcasts.
703
00:36:44.599 --> 00:36:46.519
You know, Robin, I have to say that's something I've
704
00:36:46.559 --> 00:36:49.519
always admired about you is when you travel, you don't
705
00:36:49.559 --> 00:36:52.079
just go to a location, You're like, what's here that
706
00:36:52.199 --> 00:36:55.800
I can learn about with regards to true crime. Like
707
00:36:55.840 --> 00:36:57.840
when we were in I think it was in Denver,
708
00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:01.280
you drove up to Janelle Matthew's house. Yes, and I
709
00:37:01.400 --> 00:37:05.159
was like, what, But that's wonderful and I've always loved
710
00:37:05.159 --> 00:37:07.039
that about you, So do not change.
711
00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:08.320
Oh, thank you very much.
712
00:37:08.400 --> 00:37:08.639
Yeah.
713
00:37:08.679 --> 00:37:10.800
I remember sending you a photo a few months ago
714
00:37:11.039 --> 00:37:14.239
when you watched the Austin Yogurt Shot murders documentary because
715
00:37:14.280 --> 00:37:16.840
we were at the True Crime Podcast Festival in Austin
716
00:37:16.920 --> 00:37:20.039
and the plaza where the yogurt shot was was only
717
00:37:20.079 --> 00:37:22.840
a couple miles away, so I decided to pay it
718
00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:26.119
a visit. And the yogurt shop was no longer there.
719
00:37:26.199 --> 00:37:28.320
I think it's a Tanning salon. But they did have
720
00:37:28.440 --> 00:37:32.199
a memorial for the four victims in the parking lot
721
00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:34.840
that I took a photo of. And it gives you
722
00:37:34.920 --> 00:37:37.400
just a weird feeling knowing that such a horrible event
723
00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:40.760
happened in this place that now seems completely normal. So
724
00:37:42.119 --> 00:37:44.639
just now that this case has been solved, it makes
725
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:46.559
the holes experience all the more poignant.
726
00:37:47.079 --> 00:37:53.480
Yes, wow. So for us, we are looking at and
727
00:37:53.599 --> 00:37:55.159
I don't know when we're going to be able to
728
00:37:55.199 --> 00:37:57.280
do this. Hopefully it's going to be in twenty twenty six,
729
00:37:57.320 --> 00:37:59.280
but for now, let's just assume it's going to happen
730
00:37:59.280 --> 00:38:03.559
in twenty twenty six. There are fifty one people on
731
00:38:03.920 --> 00:38:09.679
death row here in Nevada, and interestingly, right around fifty
732
00:38:09.719 --> 00:38:12.880
one weeks in the year. So our plan, yeah, you
733
00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:14.840
already figured it out. What we're planning to do is
734
00:38:14.960 --> 00:38:17.880
dig into each one of those death row cases and
735
00:38:18.280 --> 00:38:20.000
find out what we can. Some of them are very
736
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.599
old and there's very very little information about them, but
737
00:38:23.880 --> 00:38:26.440
the idea would be to go through and look at
738
00:38:26.440 --> 00:38:32.239
these death row cases and kind of cover them one
739
00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:36.559
by one. And I think we'll use it as also
740
00:38:36.599 --> 00:38:39.679
an excuse to talk about the death penalty in general
741
00:38:39.719 --> 00:38:42.320
and our sort of thoughts on the death penalty and
742
00:38:42.360 --> 00:38:48.599
how it's disproportionately applied and how it's you know, by
743
00:38:48.679 --> 00:38:52.880
race and socioeconomic status, et cetera, et cetera, which you
744
00:38:52.920 --> 00:38:57.119
both probably know. But yeah, so that's we're looking at
745
00:38:57.159 --> 00:39:00.440
doing a separate series. I'm not sure if how we'll
746
00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:02.719
release it. It might be a part of the normal podcast
747
00:39:03.119 --> 00:39:06.320
might be like a separate related podcast. I don't know,
748
00:39:06.800 --> 00:39:08.400
but both of us a full time job, so we'll
749
00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:10.719
figure it out somehow. But nothing we're trying to do anyway.
750
00:39:10.800 --> 00:39:12.079
In twenty twenty six.
751
00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:15.280
Maybe you'll find your own Tommy Ziegler, your own white
752
00:39:15.320 --> 00:39:17.519
Whale on death row and say, ooh, this case is
753
00:39:17.519 --> 00:39:19.360
a lot bigger than I expected. I'm going to need
754
00:39:19.400 --> 00:39:21.199
an entire year just to cover this one.
755
00:39:21.840 --> 00:39:24.559
That would be interesting. Yeah. Yeah, some of them are
756
00:39:24.599 --> 00:39:27.360
so old, they're like from the nineties eighties.
757
00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:29.079
That's not that long ago.
758
00:39:30.280 --> 00:39:32.320
That's true. That's true.
759
00:39:33.199 --> 00:39:35.760
Now Michigan doesn't have the death penalty, and the one
760
00:39:35.800 --> 00:39:38.840
person we did have on death row, Marvin Gabriel, was
761
00:39:38.880 --> 00:39:42.159
only on death row because he committed a murder in
762
00:39:42.239 --> 00:39:45.800
one of our parks, which was considered federal property. And
763
00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:48.840
we have a case blowing up in the news right now,
764
00:39:48.920 --> 00:39:52.880
the disappearance and murder of Rebecca Park from northern Michigan,
765
00:39:53.039 --> 00:39:56.400
and it appears that her body was found in a
766
00:39:56.440 --> 00:40:00.159
park on federal land. So there's lots of speculation and
767
00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:04.440
right now are her killers going to be tried? You know,
768
00:40:04.480 --> 00:40:06.199
will the death penalty be on the table?
769
00:40:08.559 --> 00:40:11.239
And I'm going to hear in Canada, yes, given the
770
00:40:11.239 --> 00:40:14.239
political political client. Yeah, you can see that they loved
771
00:40:14.239 --> 00:40:16.079
their death penalty at the federal level at this point
772
00:40:16.280 --> 00:40:16.719
before you.
773
00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:20.039
And here in Canada, we haven't had the death penalty
774
00:40:20.079 --> 00:40:22.400
in decades. And I covered a couple of years ago
775
00:40:22.519 --> 00:40:24.400
kind of the case that was the major turning point,
776
00:40:24.440 --> 00:40:26.679
and that's when a fourteen year old boy named Stephen
777
00:40:26.719 --> 00:40:29.760
Truscott was charged with the murder of a twelve year
778
00:40:29.760 --> 00:40:32.039
old girl named Lynn Harper, and they sensed him to
779
00:40:32.079 --> 00:40:34.920
hang and a lot of people thought it turned out
780
00:40:34.960 --> 00:40:37.679
he was probably innocent, but they're thinking, even if he's guilty,
781
00:40:37.679 --> 00:40:40.079
we should not be hanging fourteen year old boy. And
782
00:40:40.119 --> 00:40:41.920
that kind of played a role with his sense being
783
00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:44.639
commuted and the abolishing the death penalty here.
784
00:40:45.400 --> 00:40:49.599
Yeah, that's so civilized, it is, well they're Canadian.
785
00:40:49.679 --> 00:40:50.880
Yeah, very civilized.
786
00:40:52.360 --> 00:40:54.199
Yes, it's crazy to think they were still trying to
787
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:57.079
hang people in nineteen fifty nine, like that sounds like
788
00:40:57.119 --> 00:40:58.480
something from centuries ago.
789
00:40:59.079 --> 00:41:00.679
Yeah, that's crazy.
790
00:41:03.119 --> 00:41:04.320
And I don't know.
791
00:41:04.320 --> 00:41:05.719
I have so many thoughts on the death penalty. It's
792
00:41:05.719 --> 00:41:06.960
gonna be an interesting series.
793
00:41:07.440 --> 00:41:09.440
We can do a whole new we could do a
794
00:41:09.480 --> 00:41:11.719
whole episode just talking about the death penalty, the three
795
00:41:11.719 --> 00:41:12.360
of us.
796
00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:15.400
Yeah, especially when like so many of these cases get
797
00:41:15.440 --> 00:41:18.760
overturned in the future because of DNA evidence and uh,
798
00:41:19.599 --> 00:41:22.639
you know whatever, prosecutors not doing their jobs, et cetera,
799
00:41:22.679 --> 00:41:25.960
et cetera. Y Okay, So I have two more prompts.
800
00:41:26.039 --> 00:41:27.800
Let's start with the fun one. So, if you had
801
00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:31.360
to solve a mystery, and you could work with anyone
802
00:41:32.320 --> 00:41:35.480
alive or dead in real life or fictional, so that
803
00:41:35.559 --> 00:41:39.920
might include a prosecutor, forensic analyst, investigative, reporter, detective, what
804
00:41:40.039 --> 00:41:43.800
have you, who would be your dream team to investigate
805
00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:44.960
your case.
806
00:41:46.119 --> 00:41:48.199
Well, I have a fictional and a real life one.
807
00:41:48.760 --> 00:41:51.400
The fictional one, I'm gonna choose Ben wab Blanc from
808
00:41:51.400 --> 00:41:53.960
the Knives Out series because I saw Wake Up Dead
809
00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:55.920
Man just a few weeks a few days before we
810
00:41:56.039 --> 00:41:58.599
recorded this, and I kind of wish we had more
811
00:41:58.639 --> 00:42:01.639
inspectors like that in real life, where you could just
812
00:42:01.679 --> 00:42:03.920
bring them into a room of suspects, they go over
813
00:42:03.920 --> 00:42:05.320
the whole thing in their head and then they just
814
00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:08.519
figure it out and pick out the killer. Because unfortunately,
815
00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:11.119
real life murder cases do not work that way. But
816
00:42:11.159 --> 00:42:15.320
they're certainly fun to watch Daniel Craig when he's doing it,
817
00:42:15.400 --> 00:42:18.360
and a real life one is. One of the most
818
00:42:18.480 --> 00:42:21.920
unusual cases I covered on my podcast was the nineteen
819
00:42:22.039 --> 00:42:25.400
forty five disappearance of a woman named Mary Jane van Gilder,
820
00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:28.880
and surprisingly I did that right at the request of
821
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:32.000
her granddaughter who never got to meet her, but was
822
00:42:32.079 --> 00:42:35.519
asking podcasters and YouTubers if they would share her story
823
00:42:36.199 --> 00:42:38.719
to get word out because she had never been officially
824
00:42:38.719 --> 00:42:42.639
reported missing at the time, and actually got a police
825
00:42:42.639 --> 00:42:47.159
officer named Adam Turner who worked with the department in Shelby, Ohio,
826
00:42:47.199 --> 00:42:50.599
to take on the investigation, even though it was seventy
827
00:42:50.599 --> 00:42:53.119
five years old at that point and there was nothing
828
00:42:53.159 --> 00:42:55.920
to work with, and he wound up solving it. Believe
829
00:42:55.960 --> 00:42:58.519
it or not that he wound up just getting the
830
00:42:58.599 --> 00:43:02.679
right tip in where he'd discovered her. He looked on
831
00:43:02.719 --> 00:43:05.880
the Finding Grave website and found a woman that was
832
00:43:05.960 --> 00:43:10.639
named in Mary Jane's personnel file had a wife bury
833
00:43:10.679 --> 00:43:13.119
next to him who happened to be named Mary Jane
834
00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:16.360
and had the same birth date as Mary Jane van Gilder,
835
00:43:16.920 --> 00:43:19.639
and he tracked down their family used DNA evidence to
836
00:43:19.679 --> 00:43:22.719
figure out that this woman was Mary Jane van Guilder
837
00:43:22.800 --> 00:43:26.119
and that she had disappeared, voluntarily, started a new life
838
00:43:26.119 --> 00:43:29.039
with a new family, and then died of natural causes
839
00:43:29.079 --> 00:43:32.719
in nineteen ninety And even though she'd been dead, he
840
00:43:32.840 --> 00:43:35.280
used DNA testing to figure it out. And it's like, Wow,
841
00:43:35.880 --> 00:43:38.320
we cover so many cold cases where the police don't
842
00:43:38.360 --> 00:43:40.760
want to do anything, and here was a guy who
843
00:43:40.840 --> 00:43:43.760
salved a seventy five year old missing person's case with
844
00:43:43.800 --> 00:43:46.719
no evidence. And when they had the press conference to
845
00:43:46.760 --> 00:43:49.599
announce this, his captain said, if you're a criminal, do
846
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:53.480
not commit a crime in Shelby, Ohio, because Adam Turner
847
00:43:53.519 --> 00:43:56.480
will solve this case and catch you. So yeah, if
848
00:43:56.679 --> 00:43:58.159
you want to get anyone to work on a working
849
00:43:58.159 --> 00:44:00.599
person's case, he's a guy I would you to get
850
00:44:00.599 --> 00:44:02.440
in contact with for sure.
851
00:44:02.880 --> 00:44:08.440
Yeah, so, Robin, you will probably remember this gentleman's name
852
00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:11.800
because I think his name is Jim Smith. He was
853
00:44:12.079 --> 00:44:20.599
the Ontario Provincial Police officer that got Russell Wilson to confess.
854
00:44:21.079 --> 00:44:24.000
Okay, I'd forgotten his name, but yeah, that's a good think.
855
00:44:24.039 --> 00:44:27.880
It was Jim Smith, and he looked at Russell in
856
00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:30.880
the eye and got him to confess. To murdering those
857
00:44:30.920 --> 00:44:34.920
women and just you could watch the confession on YouTube.
858
00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:38.880
It is masterful. And he's one guy that like, if
859
00:44:38.920 --> 00:44:42.119
I could buy anybody a drink, it would be him
860
00:44:42.679 --> 00:44:46.199
for how great his work is. I'm also a big
861
00:44:46.239 --> 00:44:49.159
fan of Joe Kenda, so I would love to work
862
00:44:49.199 --> 00:44:53.639
with Joe Kenda on a case. And for my fictional person,
863
00:44:53.679 --> 00:44:57.440
it would be Quincy for medical examiner, because we all
864
00:44:57.440 --> 00:45:01.119
need a lot more Quincy in our life. Yeah, I've
865
00:45:01.159 --> 00:45:04.880
never watched that show unfortunately, it was a staple at
866
00:45:04.920 --> 00:45:06.599
my house as a child.
867
00:45:08.440 --> 00:45:13.679
Jack Klugman nice, I went all fictional on my list
868
00:45:13.920 --> 00:45:20.480
because I'm weird. So for an investigator, I chose Adrian Monk.
869
00:45:21.800 --> 00:45:22.320
He is.
870
00:45:23.280 --> 00:45:27.800
I love him, I think I just I love the show,
871
00:45:28.880 --> 00:45:32.440
I love the actor, So yeah, Monk was definitely and yeah,
872
00:45:32.440 --> 00:45:33.920
I think he thinks like I do a little bit,
873
00:45:34.800 --> 00:45:37.239
so definitely want to work with him. For prosecutor, I
874
00:45:37.360 --> 00:45:39.360
chose Ali McBeal because I feel like she would be
875
00:45:39.400 --> 00:45:47.280
fun to work with for forensics. Temperance Brennan from Bones
876
00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:51.400
because she seemed to always solve cases in under sixty minutes,
877
00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:54.679
which I love, so she could get through a great
878
00:45:54.719 --> 00:45:57.559
many cases and for a reporter, I mean, I think
879
00:45:57.599 --> 00:45:59.760
the obvious choice is Lois Lane.
880
00:46:00.599 --> 00:46:01.239
Oh I love it.
881
00:46:01.480 --> 00:46:07.360
Oh yeah, the award winning Lois Lane. Those are their choices. Yeah, yeah,
882
00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:10.280
totally and uh yeah, I don't have any real life people.
883
00:46:10.559 --> 00:46:13.159
I didn't want to, you know, I don't want to
884
00:46:13.159 --> 00:46:15.639
offend anybody with not choosing them. I'm sure.
885
00:46:19.440 --> 00:46:21.880
Well, and I have to say I got everything wrong.
886
00:46:21.960 --> 00:46:24.519
His name is Russell Williams, not Russell Wilson.
887
00:46:24.719 --> 00:46:26.360
Okay, yeah, I'd forgotten about that.
888
00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:28.239
Yeah, so sorry about that.
889
00:46:30.400 --> 00:46:35.000
Cool. So the last thing I have. The last question
890
00:46:35.159 --> 00:46:38.199
that we came up with was what's one thing that
891
00:46:39.599 --> 00:46:42.920
one thing about you that people might not know? Maybe
892
00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:47.119
not related to to to true crime, Like maybe Robin,
893
00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:49.079
I didn't know you were a WWE fan, but I
894
00:46:49.119 --> 00:46:50.039
love that I know that now.
895
00:46:51.280 --> 00:46:52.760
It's kind of funny. I've done a lot of Q
896
00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:55.639
and A episodes for my podcast, so there's a lot
897
00:46:55.679 --> 00:46:59.280
that my regular listeners probably already know. But I'll come
898
00:46:59.360 --> 00:47:02.039
up with one now that I'm not sure i've shared before.
899
00:47:02.599 --> 00:47:06.360
A lot of people know that before I became a
900
00:47:06.400 --> 00:47:10.480
podcast where I got a postgraduate degree in scriptwriting from
901
00:47:10.639 --> 00:47:14.320
Algonquin College in Ottawa, that was actually my goal, as
902
00:47:14.360 --> 00:47:16.800
I wanted to be a screenwriter and write for movies
903
00:47:16.920 --> 00:47:19.920
or television, and never thought I would be applying that
904
00:47:20.039 --> 00:47:22.840
to writing a podcast. And I always like to say,
905
00:47:22.880 --> 00:47:25.559
I don't want to call writing scripts for podcasts easy,
906
00:47:25.719 --> 00:47:28.159
but when you went through so many years of having
907
00:47:28.159 --> 00:47:32.079
to dream up fictional characters and fictional situations, that it
908
00:47:32.159 --> 00:47:34.239
kind of felt like a break to just write about
909
00:47:34.320 --> 00:47:36.920
events that actually happened, where you didn't have to create
910
00:47:36.960 --> 00:47:40.599
anything in your head. But I started scriptwriting when I
911
00:47:40.639 --> 00:47:43.920
was in high school and used to write like action movies,
912
00:47:43.960 --> 00:47:47.360
horror movies, and bik wrote about a dozen scripts, though
913
00:47:47.400 --> 00:47:50.280
none of them were ever published, and I sometimes get
914
00:47:50.280 --> 00:47:52.119
a laugh when I go through some of the ones
915
00:47:52.159 --> 00:47:54.000
I wrote in high school, just to see how bad
916
00:47:54.039 --> 00:47:56.440
they are. I think. Once I found one that I
917
00:47:56.440 --> 00:47:59.760
wrote in Grade eleven, an action movie, where I named
918
00:47:59.760 --> 00:48:02.599
one of the villain's mister Wheat, so that they could
919
00:48:02.639 --> 00:48:05.119
do a scene where the hero dropped them in like
920
00:48:05.159 --> 00:48:07.280
a giant band so that he was shredded and he
921
00:48:07.280 --> 00:48:10.679
could yell at the one liner shredded Wheat. So that
922
00:48:10.880 --> 00:48:13.320
was my screenwriting expertise back then, And I don't know
923
00:48:13.320 --> 00:48:14.760
why did make millions from that.
924
00:48:18.760 --> 00:48:22.079
So mine is that I have a degree in history,
925
00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:26.280
and in the early two thousands, I actually applied to
926
00:48:26.320 --> 00:48:31.719
Wayne State University to do doctoral work in modern Asian
927
00:48:31.840 --> 00:48:36.400
history and I submitted all of the paperwork and had
928
00:48:36.440 --> 00:48:41.599
plans to learn Mandarin, and Wayne State lost my paperwork
929
00:48:42.440 --> 00:48:45.039
and told me that I would have to reapply and
930
00:48:45.079 --> 00:48:50.039
resubmit everything. And I went not doing that, and I
931
00:48:50.119 --> 00:48:51.440
ended up being a school teacher.
932
00:48:53.000 --> 00:48:55.079
So oh, I talked the school teacher for.
933
00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:00.599
Off and on for about twelve years. Oh wow, Yeah,
934
00:49:00.800 --> 00:49:03.039
I was a middle school teacher, so you can't scare me.
935
00:49:03.079 --> 00:49:04.199
I was a middle school teacher.
936
00:49:05.400 --> 00:49:06.280
Yeah, that's terrifying.
937
00:49:06.559 --> 00:49:07.719
Yeah for a while.
938
00:49:08.679 --> 00:49:11.880
Yeah. She spent a couple of years teaching middle school
939
00:49:11.960 --> 00:49:17.199
and English in a middle school. He was very stressful. Wow,
940
00:49:17.320 --> 00:49:18.360
it's a lot of work.
941
00:49:18.800 --> 00:49:22.760
Yeah, my mother was a middle school teacher for thirty years. Joe,
942
00:49:22.920 --> 00:49:25.920
she identifies, and she retired in two thousand and one,
943
00:49:25.960 --> 00:49:28.360
and is said, I'm always so grateful I haven't had
944
00:49:28.400 --> 00:49:30.639
to do any teaching in the past twenty five years.
945
00:49:30.880 --> 00:49:32.159
I bet Yeah.
946
00:49:32.360 --> 00:49:34.840
Yeah, man, that toughens you up. I bet.
947
00:49:35.280 --> 00:49:38.280
M got in just before cell phones became a thing
948
00:49:38.320 --> 00:49:41.679
with kids, so right time, Yes, yeah, I have right now.
949
00:49:42.800 --> 00:49:45.119
And before I taught middle school, I was an admissions
950
00:49:45.159 --> 00:49:48.599
coordinator for an inpatient psychiatric unit. So again I worked
951
00:49:48.599 --> 00:49:53.199
in patient psych and then I taught middle school. I
952
00:49:53.239 --> 00:49:53.880
don't flinch.
953
00:49:54.639 --> 00:49:58.079
Yes, Wow, it's fine. Just sitting here writing about podcasts
954
00:49:58.079 --> 00:50:00.400
and speaking with law enforcement investigators. I got a lot
955
00:50:00.400 --> 00:50:01.599
of experience. It's ving you out.
956
00:50:02.519 --> 00:50:05.559
Yeah, and also you got out before AI took over
957
00:50:05.599 --> 00:50:08.199
the world, the best and worst thing that's ever opened
958
00:50:08.199 --> 00:50:11.800
to us as people. Yes, and I don't know how
959
00:50:11.840 --> 00:50:13.519
teachers do it now. I mean I guess they use
960
00:50:13.599 --> 00:50:14.360
AI detectors.
961
00:50:14.400 --> 00:50:18.320
But so, what's your little known fact about mine?
962
00:50:18.360 --> 00:50:22.039
Is? So I couldn't really think of something I I
963
00:50:22.119 --> 00:50:27.079
mine's pretty boring. Uh, just that two things. Number one,
964
00:50:27.320 --> 00:50:31.800
I'm a part time fitness instructor. Oh, I teach group
965
00:50:31.840 --> 00:50:34.840
fitness for fun. I teach body pump, which you may
966
00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:36.639
or may not have heard of. It's like group fitness
967
00:50:36.639 --> 00:50:39.960
with bars. So I love doing that, but it pays
968
00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:43.000
like nothing. So whatever. It's it's like my side passion project.
969
00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:44.599
It's like my other job side.
970
00:50:44.400 --> 00:50:46.360
My right, your third job, yeah right?
971
00:50:46.559 --> 00:50:49.880
And then my my most important part time job is pickleball.
972
00:50:50.239 --> 00:50:56.639
I play a lot of pickleball. It's it's it's alarming.
973
00:50:56.679 --> 00:51:02.119
Now I probably play about ten hours a week now. Wow. Yeah,
974
00:51:02.119 --> 00:51:02.920
it cut into.
975
00:51:04.400 --> 00:51:06.199
It does seriously.
976
00:51:06.519 --> 00:51:10.199
It seriously is kind of becoming a problem. And Sean
977
00:51:10.280 --> 00:51:12.679
is so she's like so super supportive about it. But
978
00:51:12.760 --> 00:51:15.559
I it's definitely cutting into it. I gotta I gotta
979
00:51:15.559 --> 00:51:18.920
rebalance things. But I don't. I don't really talked that
980
00:51:18.960 --> 00:51:20.679
much about it, but I'm obsessed with it. I'm always
981
00:51:20.679 --> 00:51:22.840
thinking about it.
982
00:51:22.920 --> 00:51:25.440
So a pickleball podcast coming up in the future for you.
983
00:51:26.440 --> 00:51:27.679
Oh my god, that would be amazing.
984
00:51:28.480 --> 00:51:28.679
Yeah.
985
00:51:28.679 --> 00:51:32.280
We went recently to the the the pp A Tour
986
00:51:32.920 --> 00:51:36.760
event here in Las Vegas and I got to see
987
00:51:36.800 --> 00:51:42.079
all the the pickleball superstars, all the pros. Yeah, it
988
00:51:42.159 --> 00:51:46.559
was really fun. And this is really fun too. Uh related.
989
00:51:46.599 --> 00:51:50.559
I was at Pickler the pickleball gym, and I met
990
00:51:50.679 --> 00:51:51.639
Andre Agassie.
991
00:51:52.159 --> 00:51:54.519
Oh wow, because they live in Vegas.
992
00:51:54.800 --> 00:51:59.159
Yeah, Stephanie live in Living They live in Henderson. They
993
00:51:59.159 --> 00:52:02.079
live like near me, like we see at the grocery store.
994
00:52:01.960 --> 00:52:03.079
In their neighbors.
995
00:52:03.400 --> 00:52:07.239
Yeah, so weird cool, Like he was he's so good.
996
00:52:07.519 --> 00:52:10.280
Oh my god, he's so good at obviously, he's so
997
00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:13.920
good to pick a bode his for. I don't even
998
00:52:13.960 --> 00:52:16.840
know forty years like ever since he was a young,
999
00:52:17.400 --> 00:52:20.639
tell ye youth. But he was like just playing with
1000
00:52:20.679 --> 00:52:23.599
a friend of his on uh whatever, on court number
1001
00:52:23.599 --> 00:52:26.760
one at Pilar and Henderson. It was awesome and I
1002
00:52:26.840 --> 00:52:28.840
like walked it to him. I was like a hello,
1003
00:52:29.800 --> 00:52:31.639
I get a photo and he signed my paddle and
1004
00:52:31.639 --> 00:52:33.480
then I immediately was like, ah, no, I have to
1005
00:52:33.480 --> 00:52:34.199
get a new paddle.
1006
00:52:36.199 --> 00:52:37.559
Yeah, I'm not gonna use that one again.
1007
00:52:37.760 --> 00:52:40.039
No, yeah, I'm not. I'm not using that at all.
1008
00:52:40.079 --> 00:52:41.559
And the funny thing is he does have his own
1009
00:52:41.880 --> 00:52:45.760
brand paddle. He has, like a Ula has an underagacy paddle.
1010
00:52:45.800 --> 00:52:47.800
He was like, it's not on a you don't have
1011
00:52:47.840 --> 00:52:50.119
an agacy paddle, hunh. And I was like, it's on
1012
00:52:50.159 --> 00:52:52.760
my list, it's on my list. But he gave me
1013
00:52:52.800 --> 00:52:53.559
a hard time about it.
1014
00:52:53.920 --> 00:52:57.119
Oh that's awesome though, how fun so cool?
1015
00:52:57.679 --> 00:52:58.760
Yeah, he was super nice.
1016
00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:02.480
Weird holiday prompt, Oh oh.
1017
00:53:02.320 --> 00:53:04.719
There was another prompt, right, do you have a favorite
1018
00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:08.760
holiday tradition bonus points for weird that you would like
1019
00:53:08.840 --> 00:53:09.519
to share?
1020
00:53:11.480 --> 00:53:14.360
This isn't really weird, but I always visit my family.
1021
00:53:14.639 --> 00:53:16.920
We used to live in the town of Orangeville, Ontario,
1022
00:53:16.960 --> 00:53:20.000
but now my parents are living in a condo in Waterloo,
1023
00:53:20.159 --> 00:53:24.159
where my brother Phil and my niece live. And we
1024
00:53:24.199 --> 00:53:26.599
actually just did this tradition right before I sat down
1025
00:53:26.639 --> 00:53:28.760
to record this. But since I often can't be at
1026
00:53:28.760 --> 00:53:31.960
home at Christmas while they're decorating the tree, we will
1027
00:53:31.960 --> 00:53:34.920
do a FaceTime. Well, they'll call me and then show
1028
00:53:34.960 --> 00:53:37.440
me the footage, and my niece will be over there
1029
00:53:37.480 --> 00:53:40.159
like helping decrate because we used to decorate the tree
1030
00:53:40.159 --> 00:53:42.480
together all the time before I moved away. But this
1031
00:53:42.599 --> 00:53:45.719
is a way to keep the tradition alive and every
1032
00:53:45.800 --> 00:53:48.519
year when I visit my mother, the two holiday classics
1033
00:53:48.519 --> 00:53:51.920
that we always watch are The Mister Being Christmas Special
1034
00:53:52.199 --> 00:53:56.639
and our Favorite Christmas Movie. Is not often ranked on
1035
00:53:56.719 --> 00:53:59.480
the all time Greatest Christmas Movies, but it's considered to
1036
00:53:59.480 --> 00:54:01.360
be one of our favorites. Have either of you ever
1037
00:54:01.400 --> 00:54:02.840
seen Ernest says Christmas?
1038
00:54:04.519 --> 00:54:05.280
I don't think I have.
1039
00:54:05.840 --> 00:54:10.239
Do you remember Ernest the Burney? Yes? Yeah, Jim Varney yeah,
1040
00:54:10.280 --> 00:54:12.840
And my mother and I watched it in the theater.
1041
00:54:12.960 --> 00:54:15.320
It came out in nineteen eighty eight, which, believe it
1042
00:54:15.400 --> 00:54:17.480
or not, was thirty seven years ago. Way to make
1043
00:54:17.480 --> 00:54:20.480
me feel old, But it evolves. Santa Claus travels for
1044
00:54:20.599 --> 00:54:23.159
Orlando to find a successor to take his place, and
1045
00:54:23.199 --> 00:54:25.599
he gets into some trouble and Ernest has to save
1046
00:54:25.719 --> 00:54:28.920
him and single handedly saved Christmas. It's very stupid, but
1047
00:54:29.039 --> 00:54:32.159
I love watching it at Christmas. And uh, I don't
1048
00:54:32.159 --> 00:54:35.320
see it ranked alongside the classics like Christmas Vacation and
1049
00:54:35.360 --> 00:54:37.360
it's a wonderful life and stuff, but it's one of
1050
00:54:37.360 --> 00:54:39.280
my favorites to watch every year with my family.
1051
00:54:39.920 --> 00:54:43.199
Wow, let's add that. What is it? What is your
1052
00:54:43.199 --> 00:54:47.920
favorite Christmas special or Christmas like television or movie thing
1053
00:54:48.000 --> 00:54:50.000
that you that you they all love the most. I
1054
00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:53.159
think i'd die Hard. That's a worthy Oh yeah, oh god, yes, Diehard.
1055
00:54:53.199 --> 00:54:55.320
I heard of the Christmas Movie. It's probably my all
1056
00:54:55.360 --> 00:54:58.119
time favorite movie, not just Christmas movie. So I watched
1057
00:54:58.159 --> 00:54:59.119
that every year as well.
1058
00:54:59.360 --> 00:55:06.880
Yeah, thanks of Diehard. They can. Yeah. So my holiday tradition,
1059
00:55:06.960 --> 00:55:09.119
that's kind of weird. We actually haven't done this in
1060
00:55:09.159 --> 00:55:11.360
a few years, but when my kids were younger, we
1061
00:55:11.440 --> 00:55:14.480
belonged to a swim club and every year they would
1062
00:55:14.519 --> 00:55:17.679
do a Fourth of July potluck and we thought that
1063
00:55:17.840 --> 00:55:23.239
was boring and lame, so we volunteered to purchase, smoke
1064
00:55:23.519 --> 00:55:28.280
and pull forty pounds of pork every Fourth of July
1065
00:55:29.480 --> 00:55:32.239
and we did this for years that they changed the
1066
00:55:32.320 --> 00:55:35.400
name of the event from the Fourth of July Potluck
1067
00:55:35.679 --> 00:55:39.639
to the Pork of July Potluck. So we would provide
1068
00:55:39.800 --> 00:55:44.880
all of the protein and the other families would provide,
1069
00:55:44.920 --> 00:55:47.480
you know, side dishes and desserts and beverages and stuff,
1070
00:55:47.480 --> 00:55:50.559
but we would. We really got excited about smoking all
1071
00:55:50.599 --> 00:55:54.719
of this pork pork butt for the holiday event. And
1072
00:55:54.760 --> 00:55:57.039
it was just great to feed everybody and have everybody
1073
00:55:57.079 --> 00:55:59.840
be happy and eating and a little greasy, and it
1074
00:55:59.880 --> 00:56:01.840
was It's just good fun nice.
1075
00:56:01.960 --> 00:56:07.199
I love it. Are there any other shows or movies
1076
00:56:07.239 --> 00:56:09.639
that you must see?
1077
00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:12.119
Big fan of Diehard?
1078
00:56:12.239 --> 00:56:12.679
I am not.
1079
00:56:14.760 --> 00:56:19.440
There's nothing particularly like. I don't have any real Christmas routines.
1080
00:56:19.480 --> 00:56:21.880
We usually go to Florida for the holidays. I don't
1081
00:56:21.880 --> 00:56:23.719
know if we're going this year. We haven't decided yet,
1082
00:56:23.719 --> 00:56:27.199
but it's what the sixth, so we need to make
1083
00:56:27.239 --> 00:56:29.920
up our minds because we usually rent a house down
1084
00:56:29.920 --> 00:56:32.320
in the Florida Keys for a week and that's our
1085
00:56:32.599 --> 00:56:33.320
yearly vacation.
1086
00:56:33.559 --> 00:56:33.840
Nice.
1087
00:56:34.039 --> 00:56:36.840
Oh it's really fun. But I don't know if we're
1088
00:56:36.880 --> 00:56:41.920
doing that this year. So yeah, I just I work
1089
00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:44.039
really hard to make sure my kids have like a
1090
00:56:44.119 --> 00:56:48.360
really wholesome traditional Christmas with the tree and the trimmings
1091
00:56:48.400 --> 00:56:53.079
and you know, the nice, normal, normal normal stuff.
1092
00:56:54.400 --> 00:56:54.679
Nice.
1093
00:56:54.760 --> 00:56:56.480
Oh and Robin, how old is your niece? Do you
1094
00:56:56.559 --> 00:56:57.280
mind me asking?
1095
00:56:57.679 --> 00:56:58.199
Seventeen?
1096
00:56:58.760 --> 00:57:01.119
Oh wow, so she's she's getting big.
1097
00:57:01.360 --> 00:57:04.639
She is. Yeah, like you've probably seen me post photos
1098
00:57:04.639 --> 00:57:06.840
of us together on Facebook years ago when she was
1099
00:57:06.880 --> 00:57:09.239
just a little girl. But it's blowing my mind that
1100
00:57:09.280 --> 00:57:12.000
she will be leading to attend college like just over
1101
00:57:12.039 --> 00:57:14.480
a year from now, so she grows up so exciting.
1102
00:57:14.719 --> 00:57:19.199
Yes, that is crazy. That's the same age as our
1103
00:57:19.239 --> 00:57:23.440
son is. He applying to colleges right now, same thing.
1104
00:57:23.639 --> 00:57:25.599
And he's like six foot two. I have no idea
1105
00:57:25.639 --> 00:57:29.800
how that happened. Oh wow, it's I come up to
1106
00:57:29.880 --> 00:57:36.840
like here on him. I am not a tall man,
1107
00:57:37.519 --> 00:57:42.320
but that's all right, Okay, So I guess my tradition
1108
00:57:42.840 --> 00:57:46.719
are traditions here in this house as far as I'll
1109
00:57:46.760 --> 00:57:49.679
leave entertainment for a last But we have several trees.
1110
00:57:49.840 --> 00:57:54.119
We have we have four, but really three main Christmas trees.
1111
00:57:54.159 --> 00:57:57.599
The first is our standard tree with you know, the
1112
00:57:57.639 --> 00:58:02.400
standard decorations whatnot from vacations and all that sort of thing.
1113
00:58:02.679 --> 00:58:05.840
Our second tree is it's a black tree. It's sure,
1114
00:58:05.880 --> 00:58:09.239
it's probably only four feet tall, and it's decorated. It's
1115
00:58:09.239 --> 00:58:12.159
been decorated for the past few years with Las Vegas
1116
00:58:12.199 --> 00:58:17.760
Aces ornaments. So every year we we create these Las
1117
00:58:17.840 --> 00:58:21.039
Vegas Aces ornaments. These are the ones that I'm replacing
1118
00:58:21.039 --> 00:58:24.119
for this year. People that have left the team. Sidney Colson,
1119
00:58:24.199 --> 00:58:29.119
we love you, but you left the team. So Kelsey
1120
00:58:29.159 --> 00:58:33.159
Plum who I met at who I met at Target
1121
00:58:33.159 --> 00:58:36.159
one day, nice lady. Ah. So the players that have
1122
00:58:36.199 --> 00:58:38.000
left the team this year anyway, So I'm replacing those
1123
00:58:38.039 --> 00:58:40.159
this weekend and we'll put them on the Aces tree.
1124
00:58:40.639 --> 00:58:43.920
So we have that tree, and then we have a
1125
00:58:44.039 --> 00:58:47.639
Humanist tree that one. We also make the ornaments for that.
1126
00:58:47.639 --> 00:58:52.039
They're legal stars, so people who are humanists who have
1127
00:58:52.079 --> 00:58:54.440
you know, positive impact on the world, living or dead,
1128
00:58:54.480 --> 00:58:59.400
doesn't matter. So we have ornaments for John Cena, who's
1129
00:58:59.440 --> 00:59:06.400
parently yeah, wonderful, wonderful guy, Chadwick Boseman, Kristen Bell, Isaac Asimov,
1130
00:59:06.639 --> 00:59:11.960
Rosa Parks, like people through history who have a sort
1131
00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:15.360
of humanist ideals. So we have a humanist tree. So
1132
00:59:15.760 --> 00:59:17.880
that that was a six foot tree that one used
1133
00:59:17.920 --> 00:59:19.559
to be like just a little tiny tree. And we
1134
00:59:19.599 --> 00:59:22.519
were like, we gott upgrade this. There's that, and then
1135
00:59:22.559 --> 00:59:25.840
the other thing that is I don't think it's weird,
1136
00:59:26.360 --> 00:59:29.159
but when I tell people about it, they're like, that's weird.
1137
00:59:29.320 --> 00:59:31.079
Robin and I will decide if this is weird.
1138
00:59:31.719 --> 00:59:36.360
We also celebrate Festivus every year, oh okay, on the
1139
00:59:36.360 --> 00:59:39.880
twenty fourth the and if you don't know what Festivus is,
1140
00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:43.119
it's the holiday from Seinfeld. There's an episode of Seinfeld
1141
00:59:43.199 --> 00:59:47.960
where they sort of reveal that George's family used to
1142
00:59:48.000 --> 00:59:52.320
celebrate this holiday Festivus. Right, So we have a six
1143
00:59:52.360 --> 00:59:55.840
foot extruded aluminum pole that we have in our living room.
1144
00:59:55.920 --> 00:59:58.320
So we have a Festivus poll and we actually put
1145
00:59:58.360 --> 01:00:03.920
our presence not around the tree, but around the Festivus pole. So, yes,
1146
01:00:04.119 --> 01:00:07.679
we have a Festivus pole and might be a little weird.
1147
01:00:08.440 --> 01:00:10.119
As long as you don't yell at each other like
1148
01:00:10.159 --> 01:00:11.760
George and his family did.
1149
01:00:12.079 --> 01:00:14.559
No, no, no, but we do. So some of the
1150
01:00:14.559 --> 01:00:20.239
Festivus traditions were having red foods, so I make on Festivus,
1151
01:00:20.280 --> 01:00:23.280
I make my lasagna with the sauce. I make the
1152
01:00:23.280 --> 01:00:25.360
sauce and I make lasagna. That's kind of thing we do.
1153
01:00:26.599 --> 01:00:28.480
But we don't do feats of strength like they did
1154
01:00:28.519 --> 01:00:32.119
on the episode. It's probably better now that Nate's huge.
1155
01:00:32.119 --> 01:00:36.639
It probably wouldn't for me, but we definitely watched the
1156
01:00:36.719 --> 01:00:39.599
Festivus episode every year. That's one of the things we
1157
01:00:39.679 --> 01:00:43.440
definitely can't miss, along with the the Shit's Creek episode,
1158
01:00:43.480 --> 01:00:45.119
the Christmas episode of Ship's Creek. I don't know you
1159
01:00:45.119 --> 01:00:48.840
guys watch Shit's Creek. Lovely show, Yeah, but the Christmas
1160
01:00:48.880 --> 01:00:51.599
episode is nice.
1161
01:00:51.280 --> 01:00:53.079
To say that. I haven't watched it as a cannie.
1162
01:00:53.280 --> 01:00:56.199
I think my citizenship should probably be revoked.
1163
01:00:55.519 --> 01:00:57.320
I think that too loud.
1164
01:00:57.400 --> 01:00:59.639
Yeah, you get in trouble, you're probably gonna get a
1165
01:00:59.719 --> 01:01:02.320
knockof the door. I definitely recommend it if you're looking
1166
01:01:02.320 --> 01:01:08.800
for for some good, wholesome entertainment, but I think I
1167
01:01:08.800 --> 01:01:10.400
think that's it. Oh oh, and the other thing is
1168
01:01:10.760 --> 01:01:13.280
on Christmas Day, normally what we do is we will
1169
01:01:13.559 --> 01:01:16.679
see a movie and eat Chinese food, vegan Chinese food
1170
01:01:16.719 --> 01:01:22.480
weirdly Oh okay, Yeah, we're vegetarian, but vegan's close enough,
1171
01:01:22.480 --> 01:01:25.480
so yeah, we'll talk vegan Chinese food. Kind of a tradition.
1172
01:01:26.800 --> 01:01:28.599
And you know, it must be weird for you from
1173
01:01:28.639 --> 01:01:31.599
our perspective that you have to spend Christmas every year
1174
01:01:31.639 --> 01:01:35.239
in the hot Las Vegas without a Yeah, because we're
1175
01:01:35.280 --> 01:01:37.440
from Michigan and from Ontario, so we're used to the
1176
01:01:37.440 --> 01:01:38.440
wintry Christmases.
1177
01:01:38.800 --> 01:01:43.559
Yeah, yes, but it's it definitely gets cold here. It's
1178
01:01:43.599 --> 01:01:49.920
like sixty's here today. Oh I'm not sure it's get
1179
01:01:49.920 --> 01:01:54.239
into the thirties this week. And it like made the news. Wow,
1180
01:01:54.760 --> 01:01:59.559
they're like, I think we have a high the water freezes. Yes, yeah,
1181
01:01:59.639 --> 01:02:02.639
they have to remind people that eventually the water will
1182
01:02:02.679 --> 01:02:05.000
freeze and you should be aware of this. Yes, this
1183
01:02:05.079 --> 01:02:08.000
is called ice. Yes, this is what happens to water
1184
01:02:08.000 --> 01:02:12.760
when it gets too cold. Yeah, but we never like
1185
01:02:12.840 --> 01:02:15.960
drain our pools or anything like just lave it. It's fine.
1186
01:02:16.159 --> 01:02:17.920
It's never you even close your pool.
1187
01:02:18.639 --> 01:02:22.559
No, we like we'll go in the hot tub, Like
1188
01:02:22.920 --> 01:02:25.079
I'll fire up the hot tub and actually go in it.
1189
01:02:28.000 --> 01:02:30.400
Nice. We had a workman at our house who walked
1190
01:02:30.440 --> 01:02:33.559
out of the utility room and looked at me and
1191
01:02:33.599 --> 01:02:39.280
went where's your hot tub? Don't have one because apparently
1192
01:02:39.440 --> 01:02:41.440
the previous owners had a hot tub and there's a
1193
01:02:41.480 --> 01:02:43.920
switch in the utility room labeled hot tub.
1194
01:02:44.360 --> 01:02:44.519
Oh.
1195
01:02:44.599 --> 01:02:47.719
I was like, no, no hot tub here. I have
1196
01:02:47.719 --> 01:02:49.119
a crazy idea, get one.
1197
01:02:49.519 --> 01:02:50.400
Get a hot tub.
1198
01:02:50.559 --> 01:02:53.960
Yeah, the deer would love it. Yeah.
1199
01:02:54.239 --> 01:02:57.239
Yes, Can you see the Northern lights from where you
1200
01:02:57.280 --> 01:02:59.519
are in Michigan? I have a friend who has an
1201
01:02:59.559 --> 01:03:02.000
airbn be in Michigan, and she sent me a picture
1202
01:03:02.119 --> 01:03:05.440
last night of not from like several weeks ago. I
1203
01:03:05.440 --> 01:03:07.360
guess they could see the Northern lights a few weeks ago.
1204
01:03:07.840 --> 01:03:10.480
So just recently we've started to be able to see
1205
01:03:10.480 --> 01:03:13.000
the Northern Lights. I actually saw them for the first
1206
01:03:13.079 --> 01:03:15.559
time last winter. I had never seen them before, and
1207
01:03:15.639 --> 01:03:18.360
it was one of those bucket little things. Robin, you're
1208
01:03:18.440 --> 01:03:21.639
further north and east. Do you see the northern lights?
1209
01:03:22.039 --> 01:03:24.360
I don't think so. No, I can't recall ever having
1210
01:03:24.400 --> 01:03:25.000
seen them.
1211
01:03:25.199 --> 01:03:27.079
Okay, cool, if you get the chance.
1212
01:03:27.079 --> 01:03:29.280
Okay, I totally want to see them now.
1213
01:03:29.719 --> 01:03:30.800
Yeah they were really cool.
1214
01:03:30.880 --> 01:03:35.880
Those were awesome. Yeah, anyway, that's random, not true crime related.
1215
01:03:38.679 --> 01:03:41.079
Well, thank you for hosting us, yes.
1216
01:03:41.159 --> 01:03:45.159
Of course, yeah, thank you for being willing to chat
1217
01:03:45.199 --> 01:03:49.639
with the new podcast Guy, the podcast, the Baby podcast.
1218
01:03:50.440 --> 01:03:52.840
That's what's great about these is talking with the veterans
1219
01:03:52.880 --> 01:03:56.360
and the newbies just to share our experiences. And we've
1220
01:03:56.400 --> 01:03:58.880
talked about podcasting. Then it turns into stuff like Christmas
1221
01:03:58.880 --> 01:04:01.280
tradition and pickleball, so you just never know how these
1222
01:04:01.280 --> 01:04:02.519
conversations are going to lead.
1223
01:04:03.519 --> 01:04:04.719
Everything turns into pickleball.
1224
01:04:04.719 --> 01:04:07.760
When I'm here, Andre Agacy shows up and you know
1225
01:04:07.800 --> 01:04:10.199
he's going to listen to this and be like, holy shit.
1226
01:04:11.039 --> 01:04:13.039
Yeah, we'll find out Andre is a fan of the
1227
01:04:13.039 --> 01:04:15.800
Trail when cold we're already gone, or maybe sins in survivors.
1228
01:04:15.800 --> 01:04:19.079
Maybe he didn't know who you were, right, that would
1229
01:04:19.079 --> 01:04:20.199
be amazing.
1230
01:04:20.159 --> 01:04:24.199
That would legitimately blow my mind. And oh my gosh,
1231
01:04:24.239 --> 01:04:26.800
he could join my local pickleball meet up too, I know,
1232
01:04:27.199 --> 01:04:29.400
I know he joins one of the other local pickleball
1233
01:04:29.440 --> 01:04:31.119
meetups sometimes too, because they have a photo with it
1234
01:04:31.239 --> 01:04:36.519
to join yours. Yes he really does. All right, Well,
1235
01:04:36.719 --> 01:04:40.280
thank you guys for your time today, and happy holidays
1236
01:04:40.960 --> 01:04:45.480
however you celebrate, happy holiday, and yeah, I'm sure we'll
1237
01:04:45.519 --> 01:04:47.920
talk soon, all right, Stay warm, all
1238
01:04:49.880 --> 01:04:50.000
Right,