WEBVTT
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Where are you located?
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I live in uh the Hudson Valley in uh in New York.
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So if you know where like um Woodstock and Kingston are, in I live about uh uh a hundred miles north of New York City, right on the road.
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Okay, yeah.
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But it's but you had family in Arkansas growing up, so that's kind of where the where that correlation came in from.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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Well, uh I you know, my my whole family many generations back is from Arkansas.
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Um and uh, you know, my my parents met when they were students at um uh the University of Arkansas in uh in the 70s, and then I grew up in Colorado because my family moved around a few times and eventually wound up in Colorado, which is where I grew up.
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But uh, you know, but the whole rest of the family was was and is still in uh in Arkansas.
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And so we would when I was growing up, we would uh visit Arkansas uh usually every Christmas and sometimes in the summers too.
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So I've spent a lot of time there, although I'm not from there.
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Yeah, yeah.
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No, well that's very cool, man.
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So I'll just kind of do the backstory, Benjamin, of how I even came across your book.
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So I obviously being from there, I follow uh a newsletter, Axios, Northwest Arkansas, and they had posted a story about your book in the newsletter, and I was like, holy cow, I've never heard of this case before.
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I'm I don't even know this story.
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They they had your book spotlighted, and I was like, man, I gotta I gotta reach out to Benjamin, see if I can get him on the the Books for Guys podcast and talk about this because I you know, just for me personally, I'm personally interested, and a lot of people in Arkansas that I'm friends with and just friends in general, I was like, they're gonna they're gonna love this story, you know, because I don't know if I don't know if they know about it.
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But as I was digging in, I didn't realize so your book's called Cave Mountain, and I didn't realize though that the ties you had, it was your cousin who went through this experience and then you got the story all put together.
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But man, just dive in a little bit because I don't want to say too much.
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I'd love for you to just share what the story is all about, you know, without giving away too much.
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I want people to to read your book, but but tell the story and just how it came about and then how you got it put together in this book.
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Sure, yeah.
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Well, the uh it starts out with um this thing that happened uh to my family about uh uh 25 years ago.
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This happened in uh April of uh 2001, where my cousin, Haley Zega, when she was six years old, she was on a hike with her uh grandparents, who were my aunt and uncle.
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And uh and she they were on uh a hike along with a few friends of theirs from the Sierra Club.
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There are about six people there, and uh and Haley got lost on the hike, and she was gone for three days.
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And uh, she was eventually found, and uh the story of how she got rescued is kind of crazy in its own right.
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But she was rescued, and then shortly after she was uh she was found a few days later, you know, where her parents took her home, and you know, it was like a crowd of reporters camped out on the lawn outside their their house in Fayetteville, and uh they just didn't like what this kind of psychological whiplash might be doing to their daughter, so they decided to just take her away for a few days, and they went on uh an impromptu family vacation up to St.
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Louis to see the Gateway Arch.
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And uh and when they were on the way up there, Haley told her parents about the imaginary friend that she'd had when she was lost in the woods.
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And uh she was very specific.
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She said that her imaginary friend was four years old, had long dark hair, she had pigtails, and had a red swe a red shirt and purple pants on and white sneakers, and she had a flashlight with her, and her name was Alicia.
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And uh she said that she was she had this imaginary friend from the moment that she realized she was lost until the moment that she was rescued.
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And she told the story and made her parents kind of, you know, hair stand on end.
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And then that story kind of made the rounds amongst all the adults who'd been involved in the search and rescue operation, including this guy, Tim Ernst, who is uh nature photographer and uh a kind of, you know, local sort of celebrity in, you know, Arkansas, who happened to live right near the place where Haley got lost, which is near he he used to have a house right on Hawksville Crag Trail uh in uh Newton County, where this happened on Cave Mountain.
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And uh and when she was lost, Tim opened up his his house to her parents and grandparents and their friends who were helping with the search.
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And um, you know, and after it was over, you know, Tim Ernst was a friend of the family.
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And uh in a a few months after this happened, uh Tim sent my aunt Joyce, who's Haley's grandmother, who was the last person to see her before she was uh she got lost, who was more, you know, racked with not only during that whole this whole ordeal, you know, not only was she terrified for her granddaughter, but she was also just racked with guilt over the feeling that it had been her fault, that she'd, you know, her granddaughter had gotten lost.
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And during those three days, she was increasingly concerned, possibly killed.
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And uh and Tim sent her an email saying, My wife, Pam, the other night we were talking about Haney's Alicia, and Pam asked me if there had ever been any little girls who died or got lost in those woods.
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And then I realized, yes, actually there had there there was this one case that happened in the 70s where there was a cult that murdered a little girl and buried her in a bucket on uh Cave Mount on the side of Cave Mountain, maybe about a mile and a half away as the crow flies from uh from where Haley got lost.
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And for some reason, they were taken to jail in Benton County, even though it happened over here.
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And uh that's all he knew or remembered.
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And then Joyce kind of went into detective mode and went to uh the Benton County Sheriff's Office and asked them if they had any records of this case.
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And they didn't, but there was someone there at the sheriff's office who remembered that Judge Tom Keith had been in involved in that case somehow.
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And Judge Tom Keith, he was a judge in uh in in Bentonville, and uh Jay and Joyce were friends with him, they were about the same age, and uh and they they knew him.
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So Joyce called up Tom Keith and asked if he was in had been involved in this case, and he said, Yes, I was the local newspapers for the last week of April 1978, and then come back to me.
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And she did.
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She filled herself in on what happened, and uh, and basically this was there was a very small cult that apparently the leader of this cult was a 17-year-old boy that they believed was a prophet, and uh and they had been in Baton Rouge for a while before they had moved to the northwest Arkansas area, and uh pardon me, and they um had gone to the middle of nowhere out in uh Newton County, um kind of near Jasper, maybe about 45 minutes away from Jasper, uh, and uh and they were camped out there because they believed that there was about to be uh a nuclear war that would wipe out human civilization, followed by the three and a half year period of apocalyptic chaos uh uh prophecy in the book of Revelation, followed by the second coming of Christ in the end of the world.
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And they had killed this little girl for some reason, and uh and the in Tom and there were five people who were arrested for uh who were arrested.
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Four of them were convicted of the murder, and of the four that were convicted of the murder, Tom Keith, it turns out, before he was a judge, he had been a lawyer.
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He was a criminal defense uh lawyer, and he'd been assigned to the public defense of the only defendant whose case went to trial, which was uh uh uh Lucy Clark, is what I call her in the book.
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That's a pseudonym.
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And uh and she was the mother of the girl who was killed, and she was a member of the cult and uh and she was only twenty two years old at the time this happened.
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And uh and the other three people who were convicted of the murder, it was the the 17-year-old prophet, his father, and his older half-brother, those three guys were all given very long prison sentences, and uh Lucy was only given five years and she only served half of that, and so she you know, she got out of prison at uh twenty five and she still had her life in front of her, and Tom had kept up with her.
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Tom Tom had an almost kind of like mentor sort of relationship with her, a kind of an avuncular relationship.
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He really liked her, and he thought it was an absolute miscarriage of justice that she had ever been convicted of the the murder.
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He thought that she was just as much a victim of the cult as her daughter had been, and that she never should have been convicted and never should have uh served prison time, and he was still mad about it, uh, you know, twenty-three years later.
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But, you know, he'd kept in touch with her that whole time.
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And uh uh in in Lucy's life, uh, you know, she she uh lives near Baton Rouge, where she's from, and uh and she got married to somebody else, had another family, had a career, had a whole life after that, and very few people in her daily social orbit know anything about what happened in her past.
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Uh her husband knows, and uh a couple of people very close to her know, but most people don't.
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And and Tom Keith knew.
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Tom Keith was one of the only people who wasn't her husband who knew about everything that happened that she kept regular touch with.
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And Tom said to Joyce, Would you like me to introduce her introduce her to you?
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And she said, Yes.
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And uh so Tom connected them.
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And um uh my aunt Joyce and Lucy uh started emailing each other and uh and talking on the phone and kind of they became friends.
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And they became friends kind of through this belief that uh uh that her daughter, who was murdered in 1978, was the you know, spirit or something that guided Haley to safety when she was lost in 2001.
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And in the case of and in Lucy's case, you know Joyce was racked with guilt, but the guilt that she felt was nowhere near the level of guilt that Lucy had to live with over the years.
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She said that believing uh believing this was the only thing that had kind of helped to close the psychological wound for her in all that time.
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And she wrote in an email that she started to believe that uh that maybe her daughter hadn't had a way completely wasted life after all, and that perhaps uh Bethany had to die in order to save Haley, and Haley had to live in order to save me in some way.
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And so that's the story in a in a not not an exactly a nutshell, more of a a coconut shell.
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Yeah.
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No, but that's just I mean, Benjamin, how if you don't mind me asking, how how old were you during the time when Haley went missing?
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I was 17.
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I was um I was about a month away from graduating high school when this happened.
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And so when like what was your experience, I guess, of knowing what was going on then?
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And then because I'm sitting here thinking, like, if you if you didn't go down the path you took of becoming a writer and putting stories together, like this may not be a a book like it is now that you've put out there, and and it's specifically it's even more incredible because it's your family that's involved.
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But I'm just thinking, like, what was it like for you then?
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And then what was the process of all these conversations?
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Because is the so the four people that were convicted, are they all still alive?
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Are they still incarcerated?
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Or no, pardon me.
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I mean, and and really that was you know one of the most incredible things that happened to me.
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So this I wrote this as it was an article in Harper's magazine that came out in the summer of 2023, and this book is kind of the expanded version of it, but it's a bit different from the article because there's some things that I know now that I didn't know when I wrote that article, and some people that I met after writing it, and one of those people, so okay, the the there were five people convicted of the murder, five people arrested, four people convicted, because one of them was given a plea deal uh for in exchange for she was given immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying as a witness.
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So that person got off, and then the other four arrested were Lucy, who served two and a half years, and then the teenage prophet and his father, they were both given uh life sentences.
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His father, uh Royal Harris, was uh in his 50s then, and he he died in in prison uh back in the 90s, and uh and then his older half-brother, um, who was also a member of the cult, he was 31 when he was arrested, and he took a uh uh took a plea deal that the prosecutor offered and pled guilty in exchange for um uh uh uh two sentences, one of 50 years and one of 15 years for possession for another uh uh a related crime.
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So he was effectively given 65 years.
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Um and he um uh he s ultimately served about 15 years of his sentence before he was released on uh on parole and then ultimately paroled out of the system a few years later.
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And then the teenage prophet, uh Mark Harris, he was also he he, like his father, pled no contest, and also like his father was given a life sentence.
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Um but uh and and he was uh he served 40 years in prison before in 2012 there was uh the Supreme Court ruled that you can't give someone uh a life sentence without possibility of parole for a crime that was committed when that person was a minor.
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And there were some people who were able to get part of their sentences retroactively paroled because that law now applied to them, and Mark was one of them.
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And so he was uh released on parole uh in 2018, and uh and he is the last, he and Lucy are the only ones left of the five who were initially arrested who are still alive, all the other people who died.
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I and uh uh uh I mean Royal died a long time ago, but two of the other people that I would have, you know, I wish that I had written started writing this book like five years earlier, because if I had, there were several key people who were still alive that I could have talked to that I I didn't get a chance to because they died right before I started working on this book.
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Winston Finn Harris died about six years ago, and so did uh Suzette uh Kleinpeter, who was who were the other people arrested.
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But Mark Harris, the guy who was the 17-year-old prophet, who was supposedly the leader of the cult back in 1978, and had apparently been the one to make the decision to murder the child, he was released about uh uh nine years ago, and uh and he's still alive.
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He's in his uh early 60s, and uh and meeting him was uh probably the most incredible thing that I did as uh research for this book.
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Yeah.
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Well what yeah, that that's what I'm really curious about is what was that like?
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Because I know obviously what he did and was a part of is just it's horrific.
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You know, you just I don't know the words to explain it, terrible, and it doesn't you know it didn't have a direct impact on what your cousin, you know, there wasn't anything bad, thankfully, that happened to your cousin, but just the the story of her and the imaginary friend.
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But what was it like s talking with and you said his name's Mark?
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Huh?
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What was it like sitting down and talking with him and just kind of what was that experience like?
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It was an incredible experience.
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It was definitely the most affecting and you know moving experience that I had writing the book.
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You know, Mark Harris was difficult to track down because one, his name is Mark Harris, which is almost like John Smith, you know, and uh and two, he didn't want to be found.
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And uh, but I was eventually able to uh locate him and uh and I contacted him via you know email and I called him on the phone.
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And at first he was extremely resistant to help with the project, but I kind of you know said that I I'm not interested in villainizing him or anything like that.
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I just want to get at the truth of what happened.
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And uh and ultimately he warned to me and and I talked with him on the phone a few times and had you know very some very long conversations with him.
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And then a few months later I had time to uh to go down and visit him in person.
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I had to physically go there because he can't travel because he's still on parole.
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He was paroled out of state to uh I say Georgia in the book.
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That's also a uh it's it's a southern state.
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Yeah.
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Georgia was a stand-in, but he can't leave this state.
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And uh and he'll probably he'll probably not be be able to for the rest of his life.
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I went down there and uh interviewed him in person and uh spent a long day with him and uh his wife, and and honestly, the experience was of all the people that I wound up uh needing to talk to for this book, Mark was the one who I found to be most on my own kind of philosophical wavelength, you know.
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He's a really smart guy and and really well read, you know, and um and he said that as soon as he was separated from his his father and brother when he was when he first went to prison uh in 1978, he said that there was a sudden mental clarity that he had that he'd never had before, that he grew up in a cult and uh, you know, and basically his his mother was really the the real founder and leader of this cult.
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And she she told everyone that she was a prophet, and then she told the whole cult that her son, Mark Harris, also had the power of prophecy.
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She said this when he was 12 years old, and then a couple of years later, when he was 15, she died of a heart attack and uh kind of left this 15-year-old boy at the center of this power vacuum in the in the middle of this cult, you know.
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But he said uh as soon as he went to prison, he had a new kind of newfound mental clarity for the first time in his life, and he started reading, and he read a lot, and he was, you know, uh is is he's basically an autodidact.
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He was a very well-educated person and really sm a really smart and interesting person and uh a really fascinating person to to to have a conversation with.
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Yeah.
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And uh and and and I the way that I used to tell this story before I wrote the book is that I I would end on the note of uh Joyce and Lucy becoming unlikely friends.
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But now when I tell the story, I say as a result of my having written this book, Mark Harris and I have kind of become friends, you know.
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Like we we still email each other, you know, fairly often.
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And uh and he's just like some of the conversations that I had with him about he really changed the direction that the book took in a few important ways, in that like, you know, that Mark is extremely knowledgeable about the history of of Protestant theology, you know, and had very uh uh smart and interesting opinions about the ways that uh the the the the the that uh Protestant theology kind of developed into fundamentalism in the 20th century, you know.
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And it's like those are some of my favorite parts of the book.
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I know it's not for everyone.
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Sometimes I look at the the Goodreads reviews and people say like it's it's supposed to be you know uh true crime, but then he like goes off for five pages about Martin Luther.
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Sorry, those are my favorite parts.
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Yeah, well it's interesting to me.
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I mean, you my wife and I are watching this big documentary on Netflix right now about the FLDS, you know, cult out in Utah, Arizona, and it's like we're just fascinated by how these things even come about and and just a way but you you hit on a good point.
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I mean, Mark's a young kid, and and you he doesn't know any better, you know.
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For again, no excuse for all the things that went on, but like they get brought up into these the this lifestyle, so yeah, they and again, kids don't know any better, they're easily influenced, and so you can kind of I'm sure you dug into this, and as he educated himself, he like you said, mental clarity, like wow, that was not probably the right thing to do.
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Or, you know, again, I it's just fascinating that his transformation and just the thoughts behind that.
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I can see why for you that's such an intriguing part of the story of just his progression over life and just from that moment till now and and just everything he's gone through.
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And yeah, he's there's uh yeah, he's someone I I would love to get inside his head and to think about you got to do that, which again you talk about just how incredible that was.
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Yeah.
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Was anyone able to verify?
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And I and I'm sorry, I don't remember the the young girl's name that was murdered.
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Was anyone able to verify what she was wearing based off what Haley had said she saw her wearing?
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You know, I I don't think so.
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Uh um, you know, uh I I also gave her a pseudonym in the book.
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In the book, she's um she's called Bethany Alana Clark.
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Not a real name, but it's it's similar.
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And uh and no, I mean she was wearing white sneakers.
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I I I didn't, you know, I I believe I I did ask that at some point.
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I don't think um I have I have pictures taken from the crime scene.
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I've got pictures of her.
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They're in black and white.
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Yeah.
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So the white thing is I can't think that Haley was so specific, you know, and if Lucy or Mark remembered that, just again, it seems to be very f verifiable, but to think like, wow, like that was her, you know it again, it probably is.
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It's just those it's just crazy how again, how detailed Haley was in describing the imaginary friend, and then just being able to go back and be like, wow, that's if there's one person that could have been, it's it's it's yeah, it's her.
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Well, I mean, you know, I think like there are so many coincidences or near coincidences that kind of help to you know create this ghost story, you know.
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There was the fact that these two incidents happened uh uh pr not exactly in the same place, but about a mile and a half away from from uh the from each other.
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Um I I believe that uh Bethany Alana Clark was murdered on pardon me, April 25th, 1978, and Haley got lost on April 29th, 2001.
00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:27.519
So, you know, not the exact same day, but within five days of the, you know, the the same time of year or on the calendar.
00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:34.559
And the fact that, you know, Haley said her imaginary friend was four, Bethany was three, or like three and a half or so.
00:23:34.799 --> 00:24:01.680
Uh, and then there are also kind of like, you know, when when I read through the emails that Joyce and uh Lucy exchanged after they connected, part of me kind of thinks that I see people kind of like finding new breadcrumbs in a trail that they've already decided is there, you know, and that like Haley said that Alicia had a flashlight with her, which would have been extremely useful in those dark woods at night if she had actually had one.
00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:09.039
But she said she had a flashlight with her, and you know, and Lucy said there was this one time when Suzette took away Bethany's doll.
00:24:09.359 --> 00:24:17.680
I think she said she had a raggedy and doll, and took away the doll and threw it in a fire or something because it was like pagan idolatry or whatever.
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:34.079
But uh that Lucy best thing toy that she could replace the doll with was she gave Bethany a flashlight, and she slept with this flashlight like it was a stuffed animal, and that, you know, it turns out that a flashlight was one of Bethany's only possessions.
00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:46.000
All of these things are kind of like, you know, I I don't uh I definitely don't suggest that there was a ghost in the book myself because that's not my job, you know.
00:24:46.160 --> 00:24:50.960
I'm not I'm less interested in the ghost than in the fact that people believe in it, you know.
00:24:51.359 --> 00:24:51.599
Yeah.
00:24:51.920 --> 00:25:08.799
Well, just again, people hear this all the time too, like kids they're just more open than adults are, and just the experiences and this one, there's just a lot of correlation and just a lot of uniqueness to it, which is just which makes the story so fascinating.
00:25:09.839 --> 00:25:10.160
Thank you.
00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:11.519
What does you know?
00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:23.119
I'm sure you don't have to speak for her, but just from your experience of of Haley reading your book and kind of revisiting and in these conversations, what's that been like?
00:25:23.359 --> 00:25:27.759
I guess what what does that look like to you that she's been able to experience through all this?
00:25:28.160 --> 00:25:34.799
You know, I think it's pr it's uh uh mostly been uh a a positive uh experience for her, you know.
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:47.119
I mean, she I I did a reading in Fayetteville about a month ago, and uh and she, you know, after I did the the the reading, I just said, uh you know, please everyone welcome uh you know Haley Zega.
00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:48.640
And she came out on stage with me.
00:25:49.039 --> 00:25:55.920
And yeah, and she did, you know, and we both did a you know kind of uh Q ⁇ A session with the audience, and it was really it was a lot of fun.
00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:56.960
It was really trippy.
00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:15.119
I mean, it was in Fayetteville, so like, you know, our whole family showed up and uh and so did lots of people who were involved in the story, you know, like Tim Ernst was there, and you know, a lot of the people who helped with the search and rescue operation were there, and it was just kind of like it was it was it was an odd event.
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:23.599
It was really kind of like rewarding, and uh, you know, it felt great to to do this reading with all of these people who were there, including Haley, you know.
00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:29.119
And uh, and so yeah, I mean, you know, Haley is I say that she's my cousin.
00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:35.200
She's actually my first cousin once removed, because Haley's mother is my actual first cousin.
00:26:35.279 --> 00:26:54.640
It's just that because Haley's father, my dad's older brother, was 20 years older than him, the age gap makes it so that it feels more like Haley and I are kind of more of the same generation than, you know, think I think of her mother as more like my dad's generation than the because of because of her age.
00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:57.759
So Haley's 11 years younger than I am.
00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:07.839
And uh and she's naturally just kind of one of my best friends in my among my uh extended family in Arkansas anyway.
00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:10.640
She's also a really smart, interesting person.
00:27:11.039 --> 00:27:24.319
We we've always had this kind of like, I feel like we've had always had a bit of a connection in that like, you know, whenever we happen to see each other at, you know, family gatherings, it's like, you know, we we we love a lot of the same books and movies and music.
00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:31.519
And like, you know, I think that she, if we had met some other way and didn't happen to be related and we would have become friends anyway.
00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:34.240
So it's always been very easy to talk with her, you know.
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:46.160
I mean, like, and and so and he even when I was writing the book, there would be things like I was trying to get um, I was trying to file a records request with the the the county sheriff's office.
00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:50.319
And I was emailing with some people, and you know, I wasn't in Arkansas at this point.
00:27:50.400 --> 00:28:09.039
I was trying to do this, you know, from my home here in upstate New York, and and I was on the phone with somebody at the the Benton County Sheriff, and uh they realized when they realized that I wasn't an Arkansas resident, they said, Oh, you have to be an Arkansas resident to to apply for this request and you know fill out this uh this piece of paper.
00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:10.559
And so I was like, all right.
00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:14.799
And so I was I called up Haley and said, This is a big favor.
00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:18.960
Sometime we'll go on a day when you don't happen to have anything to do.
00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:26.640
Would you mind going up to the Bitton County Sheriff and filling out this paperwork for this uh records request because you're an Arkansas resident?
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:33.519
And she did, like, so she actually helped me as like almost like a research assistant, like once or twice in this book, you know?
00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:34.400
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:34.559 --> 00:28:41.039
And I was gonna ask, just because again, Benjamin, this is unique because it's your family and there's a lot of that involved.
00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:46.720
But has this been, you've written other books, like I mentioned, to to start this podcast.
00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:56.799
Now that you've written this, I guess a two-part question, has this been the most uh challenging and most rewarding work that you've put out there?
00:28:56.880 --> 00:29:05.440
And now that you've gone, like now that you've written this story, what's your future work going to look like in your opinion?
00:29:05.519 --> 00:29:10.160
Because what you've written has been different in your style of books.
00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:16.799
And so I'm just curious like what your future projects may look like and what do you think that's going to be?
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:25.599
I don't know yet because I, you know, have been kind of uh poking around at the edges of a few projects that I'm thinking about starting.
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:35.839
And one of them is another nonfiction book that would be kind of a uh spiritual sequel to this book, which is that, you know, like uh about the rewardingness.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:37.839
My my two other books are fiction.
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:41.920
It's a novel, my first book was a novel, and my second book was a collection of short stories.
00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:47.440
And, you know, like when you're writing fiction, it's a very lonely process.
00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:53.839
You know, doing the research is often just like reading a ton of books about the subjects that you're thinking about writing about.
00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:05.680
And then the work is in it involves a lot of like pacing around alone in, you know, the room that you write in, trying to like put together this fictional universe in the book.
00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:23.839
And it's like when you write fiction, it's you know almost most fiction writers kind of get into this mode where they're like a crazy person with a conspiracy theory in a movie with like, you know, stuff tacked to the wall and strings linking all the things, you know, like that's kind of what it what the the what it's what it feels like to write a novel.
00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:44.240
Whereas writing nonfiction is a lot more fun in a way because it's like much of it just involves getting out into the world and talking to people, you know, and like the process of tracking people down and then introducing myself to them, trying to win their trust so that they'll talk to me and then talking with the person, that's always so much fun, you know.
00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:45.279
I love doing it.
00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:52.799
And like a funny anecdote I tell about doing research for this book is that like with in what part of Arkansas do you live in?
00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:57.839
So I I'm in Tennessee now, but I'm from Springdale, Fayetteville area is where I grew up.
00:30:58.079 --> 00:30:58.240
Yeah.
00:30:58.319 --> 00:30:58.480
Yeah.
00:30:58.720 --> 00:31:07.839
So so I had to do a lot of uh a lot of research in Jasper, which is this tiny little town in the middle of Newton County, you know, way out in the middle of the Ozarks.
00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:17.119
And uh at some point I had gone to the uh the Newton County Sheriff's Office in Jasper, and uh I asked if they had records of this case from 1978.
00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:27.200
And I was in you know, the uh back room of the sheriff's office looking through all these handwritten police records from the 70s, and uh, you know, there was nothing in there about this case.
00:31:27.279 --> 00:31:40.319
And uh and the guy that I was talking to said, Well, you know, the uh uh the a guy who used to be sheriff's here sheriff here, uh Ray Watkins, he was a sheriff for a while in the 70s and 80s, and um and he works at the hardware store now.
00:31:40.480 --> 00:31:47.119
So if you go if you go there, neither they're about to close, you go over there now, you might still catch him, and uh he might know something about this.
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:55.039
And I was like, all right, so I, you know, high-tailed it over to do it best hardware and lumber, uh, right outside of Jasper, Arkansas.
00:31:55.119 --> 00:32:02.960
And I went in there and found uh an almost 90-year-old man sitting at the counter in front of the cash register.
00:32:03.119 --> 00:32:07.519
And I asked him, Are you Ray Watkins, uh former sheriff of Newton County?
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:08.880
And he was like, Yes, sir.
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:21.039
And I said, Okay, do you know anything about this crazy thing that happened in 1978 where there were some cult members who murdered a three-year-old girl and buried her in a bucket on Cade Mountain?
00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:24.000
And he said, Yeah, I was the one who arrested him.
00:32:24.160 --> 00:32:29.680
And then what proceeded was one of the most incredible interviews that I recorded for the book.
00:32:29.759 --> 00:32:32.720
You know, it was kind of the the first interview that I recorded with him.
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:45.200
There are these silences that happen in the on the tape periodically because that was those were the times when somebody, the interview was it had to be interrupted because somebody needed to buy something at the hardware store and he had to ring them up.
00:32:45.359 --> 00:33:01.839
And it was just like oftentimes I would find people that I needed to talk to just by driving around in Newton County in the general area that I knew a certain person lived, and just popping into a gas station and asking someone, you know, the person behind the counter, do you know this person?
00:33:02.079 --> 00:33:12.000
And often they would say, Oh yeah, you gotta, you know, they were like giving directions to the person's house, and I would knock on the door, and that's how I found a few people here in when I was doing research.
00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:23.519
So yeah, just I love writing fiction, but the process of writing nonfiction is just so much more fun that, you know, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do next.
00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:47.119
But uh but the the the project that I'm kind of poking around at thinking about starting would be kind of kind of a sequel to this book in that it would have to do with uh the fact that there was a lot of illegal pot farming that happened in the Ozarks in the 70s and 80s and 90s, and probably still, but I think it's you know less profitable now because it's legal in half the country.
00:33:47.279 --> 00:34:05.200
But there was there was a lot of local police corruption having to do with all this pot farming, because often in these tiny rural, rural counties with very low populations, like in Newton County, sometimes the only cop in the whole county is the sheriff himself, and it's an elected position.
00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:15.119
And if there's only one person in the sheriff's department, it's uh it's just a a uh a ripe situation for corruption because you only have to pay off one person.
00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:27.599
And so there was a lot of kind of like mafia style, you know, collusion between uh organized crime and law enforcement that happened in the Ozarks in the 70s and 80s, and it's just kind of a you know, it's a cool story.
00:34:28.880 --> 00:34:31.199
And so that's what I'm thinking about writing next.
00:34:31.360 --> 00:34:31.519
Yeah.
00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:34.639
But that sounds absolutely fascinating.
00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:41.039
I think you definitely should write that, and then we should definitely have another conversation when you publish that.
00:34:42.239 --> 00:34:43.440
I hope so, yeah.
00:34:43.679 --> 00:34:52.719
Now that's another topic and story that I don't know a lot about, but I know a lot of people would find very interesting uh to learn more about.
00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:56.079
And yeah, I'm glad you answered my last question because I was that's what I was thinking.
00:34:56.159 --> 00:35:11.840
I was like, okay, so fiction to nonfiction, and just wondering if like you got the itch to go hunt and have those conversations and put the pieces together and have the and it sounds like that was such a a rush and a joy for you to be able to do that.
00:35:12.079 --> 00:35:12.480
Yeah.
00:35:12.800 --> 00:35:16.320
Sounds like that's probably leading into the next project, which is really cool.
00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:17.679
Yeah, I hope so.
00:35:17.760 --> 00:35:28.480
You know, I I don't know yet because I've got, you know, I have a lot of things kind of like projects that are just, you know, in their very early stages that I I might pursue pretty soon.
00:35:28.719 --> 00:35:37.039
But the one about the, you know, pot farming and police corruption in the Ozarks in the 70s and 80s is the one that I'm hoping to pursue.
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:47.840
You know, it's again, it's it's another kind of project that like I better hurry up and start doing the research for it because a lot of the people that I want to talk to are are dead or, you know, dying.
00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:48.320
Yeah.
00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:48.800
Yeah.
00:35:49.039 --> 00:35:49.360
Yeah.
00:35:49.519 --> 00:35:49.760
No.
00:35:49.920 --> 00:35:53.519
Well, Benjamin, this is uh man, thank you again for for doing this.
00:35:54.559 --> 00:36:01.039
And I'm so glad I I followed that newsletter and saw that story pop up, and I'm so glad I reached out to you because you're gonna laugh.
00:36:01.119 --> 00:36:02.800
Like I was reading it early in the morning.
00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:06.400
My wife comes downstairs before coffee, and I was like, You're not gonna believe this.
00:36:06.559 --> 00:36:08.480
Like, I this story is insane.
00:36:08.559 --> 00:36:10.239
I've gotta I've gotta talk to this guy.
00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:13.039
This is just and she was like, that is wild.
00:36:13.119 --> 00:36:14.960
And I was like, I'm emailing Benjamin right now.
00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:16.320
I gotta, I gotta talk to him.
00:36:16.559 --> 00:36:17.119
Fantastic.
00:36:17.440 --> 00:36:19.280
So it's been a it's been a lot of fun.
00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:20.400
Thank you for asking me.
00:36:20.639 --> 00:36:21.920
Yeah, absolutely, man.
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:23.199
I thank you for sharing.
00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:28.559
We've got your book on the Books for Guys website, and so proud to spotlight it and hope lots of people read it.
00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:41.199
It sounds like you've been very busy with the book coming out recently with conversations and all of that, and can't wait to see what else you work on, as we will certainly love to have you back on and talk more about your future work.
00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:43.039
But no, Benjamin, this has been great.
00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:43.840
I appreciate it.
00:36:44.079 --> 00:36:44.639
Absolutely.
00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:46.719
And you know, please uh keep in touch.
00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:53.360
You know, it'll probably be at least a few years before I publish another book, but I'm always ready, willing, and able to talk about it.
00:36:53.599 --> 00:36:54.480
Yeah, absolutely.
00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:56.000
Well appreciate it, Benjamin.
00:36:56.159 --> 00:36:56.880
Thank you so much.
00:36:57.119 --> 00:36:58.320
Have a great day.
00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:16.960
Where are you located?
00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:20.879
I live in uh the Hudson Valley in uh in New York.
00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:29.679
So if you know where like um Woodstock and Kingston are, in I live about uh uh a hundred miles north of New York City, right on the road.
00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:30.800
Okay, yeah.
00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:39.039
But it's but you had family in Arkansas growing up, so that's kind of where the where that correlation came in from.
00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:39.679
Right.
00:00:39.759 --> 00:00:40.000
Yeah.
00:00:40.159 --> 00:00:45.359
Well, uh I you know, my my whole family many generations back is from Arkansas.
00:00:45.520 --> 00:01:01.439
Um and uh, you know, my my parents met when they were students at um uh the University of Arkansas in uh in the 70s, and then I grew up in Colorado because my family moved around a few times and eventually wound up in Colorado, which is where I grew up.
00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:07.519
But uh, you know, but the whole rest of the family was was and is still in uh in Arkansas.
00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:14.400
And so we would when I was growing up, we would uh visit Arkansas uh usually every Christmas and sometimes in the summers too.
00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:17.840
So I've spent a lot of time there, although I'm not from there.
00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:18.879
Yeah, yeah.
00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:20.799
No, well that's very cool, man.
00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:25.359
So I'll just kind of do the backstory, Benjamin, of how I even came across your book.
00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:43.519
So I obviously being from there, I follow uh a newsletter, Axios, Northwest Arkansas, and they had posted a story about your book in the newsletter, and I was like, holy cow, I've never heard of this case before.
00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:45.920
I'm I don't even know this story.
00:01:46.799 --> 00:02:09.039
They they had your book spotlighted, and I was like, man, I gotta I gotta reach out to Benjamin, see if I can get him on the the Books for Guys podcast and talk about this because I you know, just for me personally, I'm personally interested, and a lot of people in Arkansas that I'm friends with and just friends in general, I was like, they're gonna they're gonna love this story, you know, because I don't know if I don't know if they know about it.
00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:24.879
But as I was digging in, I didn't realize so your book's called Cave Mountain, and I didn't realize though that the ties you had, it was your cousin who went through this experience and then you got the story all put together.
00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:28.080
But man, just dive in a little bit because I don't want to say too much.
00:02:28.159 --> 00:02:32.879
I'd love for you to just share what the story is all about, you know, without giving away too much.
00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:41.840
I want people to to read your book, but but tell the story and just how it came about and then how you got it put together in this book.
00:02:42.159 --> 00:02:43.039
Sure, yeah.
00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:52.479
Well, the uh it starts out with um this thing that happened uh to my family about uh uh 25 years ago.
00:02:52.639 --> 00:03:04.240
This happened in uh April of uh 2001, where my cousin, Haley Zega, when she was six years old, she was on a hike with her uh grandparents, who were my aunt and uncle.
00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:10.719
And uh and she they were on uh a hike along with a few friends of theirs from the Sierra Club.
00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:16.400
There are about six people there, and uh and Haley got lost on the hike, and she was gone for three days.
00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:22.960
And uh, she was eventually found, and uh the story of how she got rescued is kind of crazy in its own right.
00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:49.280
But she was rescued, and then shortly after she was uh she was found a few days later, you know, where her parents took her home, and you know, it was like a crowd of reporters camped out on the lawn outside their their house in Fayetteville, and uh they just didn't like what this kind of psychological whiplash might be doing to their daughter, so they decided to just take her away for a few days, and they went on uh an impromptu family vacation up to St.
00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:51.759
Louis to see the Gateway Arch.
00:03:51.840 --> 00:04:00.000
And uh and when they were on the way up there, Haley told her parents about the imaginary friend that she'd had when she was lost in the woods.
00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:02.240
And uh she was very specific.
00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:15.039
She said that her imaginary friend was four years old, had long dark hair, she had pigtails, and had a red swe a red shirt and purple pants on and white sneakers, and she had a flashlight with her, and her name was Alicia.
00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:22.000
And uh she said that she was she had this imaginary friend from the moment that she realized she was lost until the moment that she was rescued.
00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:26.480
And she told the story and made her parents kind of, you know, hair stand on end.
00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:53.120
And then that story kind of made the rounds amongst all the adults who'd been involved in the search and rescue operation, including this guy, Tim Ernst, who is uh nature photographer and uh a kind of, you know, local sort of celebrity in, you know, Arkansas, who happened to live right near the place where Haley got lost, which is near he he used to have a house right on Hawksville Crag Trail uh in uh Newton County, where this happened on Cave Mountain.
00:04:53.279 --> 00:05:00.879
And uh and when she was lost, Tim opened up his his house to her parents and grandparents and their friends who were helping with the search.
00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:05.439
And um, you know, and after it was over, you know, Tim Ernst was a friend of the family.
00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:31.519
And uh in a a few months after this happened, uh Tim sent my aunt Joyce, who's Haley's grandmother, who was the last person to see her before she was uh she got lost, who was more, you know, racked with not only during that whole this whole ordeal, you know, not only was she terrified for her granddaughter, but she was also just racked with guilt over the feeling that it had been her fault, that she'd, you know, her granddaughter had gotten lost.
00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:35.839
And during those three days, she was increasingly concerned, possibly killed.
00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:47.040
And uh and Tim sent her an email saying, My wife, Pam, the other night we were talking about Haney's Alicia, and Pam asked me if there had ever been any little girls who died or got lost in those woods.
00:05:47.120 --> 00:06:06.160
And then I realized, yes, actually there had there there was this one case that happened in the 70s where there was a cult that murdered a little girl and buried her in a bucket on uh Cave Mount on the side of Cave Mountain, maybe about a mile and a half away as the crow flies from uh from where Haley got lost.
00:06:06.319 --> 00:06:11.040
And for some reason, they were taken to jail in Benton County, even though it happened over here.
00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:13.360
And uh that's all he knew or remembered.
00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:21.439
And then Joyce kind of went into detective mode and went to uh the Benton County Sheriff's Office and asked them if they had any records of this case.
00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:28.319
And they didn't, but there was someone there at the sheriff's office who remembered that Judge Tom Keith had been in involved in that case somehow.
00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:37.199
And Judge Tom Keith, he was a judge in uh in in Bentonville, and uh Jay and Joyce were friends with him, they were about the same age, and uh and they they knew him.
00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:48.800
So Joyce called up Tom Keith and asked if he was in had been involved in this case, and he said, Yes, I was the local newspapers for the last week of April 1978, and then come back to me.
00:06:48.959 --> 00:06:49.519
And she did.
00:06:49.680 --> 00:07:41.839
She filled herself in on what happened, and uh, and basically this was there was a very small cult that apparently the leader of this cult was a 17-year-old boy that they believed was a prophet, and uh and they had been in Baton Rouge for a while before they had moved to the northwest Arkansas area, and uh pardon me, and they um had gone to the middle of nowhere out in uh Newton County, um kind of near Jasper, maybe about 45 minutes away from Jasper, uh, and uh and they were camped out there because they believed that there was about to be uh a nuclear war that would wipe out human civilization, followed by the three and a half year period of apocalyptic chaos uh uh prophecy in the book of Revelation, followed by the second coming of Christ in the end of the world.
00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:51.439
And they had killed this little girl for some reason, and uh and the in Tom and there were five people who were arrested for uh who were arrested.
00:07:51.600 --> 00:08:00.800
Four of them were convicted of the murder, and of the four that were convicted of the murder, Tom Keith, it turns out, before he was a judge, he had been a lawyer.
00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:13.600
He was a criminal defense uh lawyer, and he'd been assigned to the public defense of the only defendant whose case went to trial, which was uh uh uh Lucy Clark, is what I call her in the book.
00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:14.639
That's a pseudonym.
00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:25.040
And uh and she was the mother of the girl who was killed, and she was a member of the cult and uh and she was only twenty two years old at the time this happened.
00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:49.600
And uh and the other three people who were convicted of the murder, it was the the 17-year-old prophet, his father, and his older half-brother, those three guys were all given very long prison sentences, and uh Lucy was only given five years and she only served half of that, and so she you know, she got out of prison at uh twenty five and she still had her life in front of her, and Tom had kept up with her.
00:08:49.759 --> 00:08:56.879
Tom Tom had an almost kind of like mentor sort of relationship with her, a kind of an avuncular relationship.
00:08:57.039 --> 00:09:03.919
He really liked her, and he thought it was an absolute miscarriage of justice that she had ever been convicted of the the murder.
00:09:04.080 --> 00:09:16.000
He thought that she was just as much a victim of the cult as her daughter had been, and that she never should have been convicted and never should have uh served prison time, and he was still mad about it, uh, you know, twenty-three years later.
00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:18.879
But, you know, he'd kept in touch with her that whole time.
00:09:19.039 --> 00:09:39.919
And uh uh in in Lucy's life, uh, you know, she she uh lives near Baton Rouge, where she's from, and uh and she got married to somebody else, had another family, had a career, had a whole life after that, and very few people in her daily social orbit know anything about what happened in her past.
00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:45.200
Uh her husband knows, and uh a couple of people very close to her know, but most people don't.
00:09:45.279 --> 00:09:46.720
And and Tom Keith knew.
00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:52.879
Tom Keith was one of the only people who wasn't her husband who knew about everything that happened that she kept regular touch with.
00:09:53.039 --> 00:09:57.200
And Tom said to Joyce, Would you like me to introduce her introduce her to you?
00:09:57.440 --> 00:09:58.320
And she said, Yes.
00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:00.080
And uh so Tom connected them.
00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:10.080
And um uh my aunt Joyce and Lucy uh started emailing each other and uh and talking on the phone and kind of they became friends.
00:10:10.320 --> 00:10:26.159
And they became friends kind of through this belief that uh uh that her daughter, who was murdered in 1978, was the you know, spirit or something that guided Haley to safety when she was lost in 2001.
00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:38.240
And in the case of and in Lucy's case, you know Joyce was racked with guilt, but the guilt that she felt was nowhere near the level of guilt that Lucy had to live with over the years.
00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:47.600
She said that believing uh believing this was the only thing that had kind of helped to close the psychological wound for her in all that time.
00:10:47.759 --> 00:11:05.840
And she wrote in an email that she started to believe that uh that maybe her daughter hadn't had a way completely wasted life after all, and that perhaps uh Bethany had to die in order to save Haley, and Haley had to live in order to save me in some way.
00:11:06.639 --> 00:11:14.960
And so that's the story in a in a not not an exactly a nutshell, more of a a coconut shell.
00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:16.000
Yeah.
00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:24.799
No, but that's just I mean, Benjamin, how if you don't mind me asking, how how old were you during the time when Haley went missing?
00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:26.639
I was 17.
00:11:26.799 --> 00:11:31.120
I was um I was about a month away from graduating high school when this happened.
00:11:32.159 --> 00:11:37.759
And so when like what was your experience, I guess, of knowing what was going on then?
00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:56.240
And then because I'm sitting here thinking, like, if you if you didn't go down the path you took of becoming a writer and putting stories together, like this may not be a a book like it is now that you've put out there, and and it's specifically it's even more incredible because it's your family that's involved.
00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:59.120
But I'm just thinking, like, what was it like for you then?
00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:03.600
And then what was the process of all these conversations?
00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:08.480
Because is the so the four people that were convicted, are they all still alive?
00:12:08.639 --> 00:12:10.559
Are they still incarcerated?
00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:12.240
Or no, pardon me.
00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:17.200
I mean, and and really that was you know one of the most incredible things that happened to me.
00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:51.919
So this I wrote this as it was an article in Harper's magazine that came out in the summer of 2023, and this book is kind of the expanded version of it, but it's a bit different from the article because there's some things that I know now that I didn't know when I wrote that article, and some people that I met after writing it, and one of those people, so okay, the the there were five people convicted of the murder, five people arrested, four people convicted, because one of them was given a plea deal uh for in exchange for she was given immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying as a witness.
00:12:52.080 --> 00:13:03.600
So that person got off, and then the other four arrested were Lucy, who served two and a half years, and then the teenage prophet and his father, they were both given uh life sentences.
00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:39.600
His father, uh Royal Harris, was uh in his 50s then, and he he died in in prison uh back in the 90s, and uh and then his older half-brother, um, who was also a member of the cult, he was 31 when he was arrested, and he took a uh uh took a plea deal that the prosecutor offered and pled guilty in exchange for um uh uh uh two sentences, one of 50 years and one of 15 years for possession for another uh uh a related crime.
00:13:39.759 --> 00:13:42.720
So he was effectively given 65 years.
00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:56.879
Um and he um uh he s ultimately served about 15 years of his sentence before he was released on uh on parole and then ultimately paroled out of the system a few years later.
00:13:57.039 --> 00:14:06.720
And then the teenage prophet, uh Mark Harris, he was also he he, like his father, pled no contest, and also like his father was given a life sentence.
00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:25.679
Um but uh and and he was uh he served 40 years in prison before in 2012 there was uh the Supreme Court ruled that you can't give someone uh a life sentence without possibility of parole for a crime that was committed when that person was a minor.
00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:33.440
And there were some people who were able to get part of their sentences retroactively paroled because that law now applied to them, and Mark was one of them.
00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:47.360
And so he was uh released on parole uh in 2018, and uh and he is the last, he and Lucy are the only ones left of the five who were initially arrested who are still alive, all the other people who died.
00:14:47.440 --> 00:15:06.240
I and uh uh uh I mean Royal died a long time ago, but two of the other people that I would have, you know, I wish that I had written started writing this book like five years earlier, because if I had, there were several key people who were still alive that I could have talked to that I I didn't get a chance to because they died right before I started working on this book.
00:15:06.399 --> 00:15:13.440
Winston Finn Harris died about six years ago, and so did uh Suzette uh Kleinpeter, who was who were the other people arrested.
00:15:13.519 --> 00:15:28.879
But Mark Harris, the guy who was the 17-year-old prophet, who was supposedly the leader of the cult back in 1978, and had apparently been the one to make the decision to murder the child, he was released about uh uh nine years ago, and uh and he's still alive.
00:15:29.039 --> 00:15:36.799
He's in his uh early 60s, and uh and meeting him was uh probably the most incredible thing that I did as uh research for this book.
00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:37.440
Yeah.
00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:41.600
Well what yeah, that that's what I'm really curious about is what was that like?
00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:48.639
Because I know obviously what he did and was a part of is just it's horrific.
00:15:48.879 --> 00:16:04.000
You know, you just I don't know the words to explain it, terrible, and it doesn't you know it didn't have a direct impact on what your cousin, you know, there wasn't anything bad, thankfully, that happened to your cousin, but just the the story of her and the imaginary friend.
00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:08.399
But what was it like s talking with and you said his name's Mark?
00:16:08.559 --> 00:16:08.879
Huh?
00:16:09.279 --> 00:16:14.320
What was it like sitting down and talking with him and just kind of what was that experience like?
00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:16.159
It was an incredible experience.
00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:21.840
It was definitely the most affecting and you know moving experience that I had writing the book.
00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:32.080
You know, Mark Harris was difficult to track down because one, his name is Mark Harris, which is almost like John Smith, you know, and uh and two, he didn't want to be found.
00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:40.240
And uh, but I was eventually able to uh locate him and uh and I contacted him via you know email and I called him on the phone.
00:16:40.399 --> 00:16:49.600
And at first he was extremely resistant to help with the project, but I kind of you know said that I I'm not interested in villainizing him or anything like that.
00:16:49.759 --> 00:16:52.000
I just want to get at the truth of what happened.
00:16:52.159 --> 00:17:00.799
And uh and ultimately he warned to me and and I talked with him on the phone a few times and had you know very some very long conversations with him.
00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:06.079
And then a few months later I had time to uh to go down and visit him in person.
00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:11.200
I had to physically go there because he can't travel because he's still on parole.
00:17:11.279 --> 00:17:14.240
He was paroled out of state to uh I say Georgia in the book.
00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:18.319
That's also a uh it's it's a southern state.
00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:19.200
Yeah.
00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:22.559
Georgia was a stand-in, but he can't leave this state.
00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:26.400
And uh and he'll probably he'll probably not be be able to for the rest of his life.
00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:47.279
I went down there and uh interviewed him in person and uh spent a long day with him and uh his wife, and and honestly, the experience was of all the people that I wound up uh needing to talk to for this book, Mark was the one who I found to be most on my own kind of philosophical wavelength, you know.
00:17:47.440 --> 00:18:13.599
He's a really smart guy and and really well read, you know, and um and he said that as soon as he was separated from his his father and brother when he was when he first went to prison uh in 1978, he said that there was a sudden mental clarity that he had that he'd never had before, that he grew up in a cult and uh, you know, and basically his his mother was really the the real founder and leader of this cult.
00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:22.000
And she she told everyone that she was a prophet, and then she told the whole cult that her son, Mark Harris, also had the power of prophecy.
00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:36.880
She said this when he was 12 years old, and then a couple of years later, when he was 15, she died of a heart attack and uh kind of left this 15-year-old boy at the center of this power vacuum in the in the middle of this cult, you know.
00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:50.799
But he said uh as soon as he went to prison, he had a new kind of newfound mental clarity for the first time in his life, and he started reading, and he read a lot, and he was, you know, uh is is he's basically an autodidact.
00:18:50.960 --> 00:19:00.480
He was a very well-educated person and really sm a really smart and interesting person and uh a really fascinating person to to to have a conversation with.
00:19:00.640 --> 00:19:01.200
Yeah.
00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:12.079
And uh and and and I the way that I used to tell this story before I wrote the book is that I I would end on the note of uh Joyce and Lucy becoming unlikely friends.
00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:20.640
But now when I tell the story, I say as a result of my having written this book, Mark Harris and I have kind of become friends, you know.
00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:24.720
Like we we still email each other, you know, fairly often.
00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:59.599
And uh and he's just like some of the conversations that I had with him about he really changed the direction that the book took in a few important ways, in that like, you know, that Mark is extremely knowledgeable about the history of of Protestant theology, you know, and had very uh uh smart and interesting opinions about the ways that uh the the the the the that uh Protestant theology kind of developed into fundamentalism in the 20th century, you know.
00:19:59.759 --> 00:20:02.160
And it's like those are some of my favorite parts of the book.
00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:03.680
I know it's not for everyone.
00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:14.160
Sometimes I look at the the Goodreads reviews and people say like it's it's supposed to be you know uh true crime, but then he like goes off for five pages about Martin Luther.
00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:16.799
Sorry, those are my favorite parts.
00:20:17.039 --> 00:20:18.240
Yeah, well it's interesting to me.
00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:34.319
I mean, you my wife and I are watching this big documentary on Netflix right now about the FLDS, you know, cult out in Utah, Arizona, and it's like we're just fascinated by how these things even come about and and just a way but you you hit on a good point.
00:20:34.400 --> 00:20:38.880
I mean, Mark's a young kid, and and you he doesn't know any better, you know.
00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:58.000
For again, no excuse for all the things that went on, but like they get brought up into these the this lifestyle, so yeah, they and again, kids don't know any better, they're easily influenced, and so you can kind of I'm sure you dug into this, and as he educated himself, he like you said, mental clarity, like wow, that was not probably the right thing to do.
00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:03.920
Or, you know, again, I it's just fascinating that his transformation and just the thoughts behind that.
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:13.359
I can see why for you that's such an intriguing part of the story of just his progression over life and just from that moment till now and and just everything he's gone through.
00:21:13.440 --> 00:21:24.720
And yeah, he's there's uh yeah, he's someone I I would love to get inside his head and to think about you got to do that, which again you talk about just how incredible that was.
00:21:24.960 --> 00:21:25.599
Yeah.
00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:28.799
Was anyone able to verify?
00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:32.960
And I and I'm sorry, I don't remember the the young girl's name that was murdered.
00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:40.079
Was anyone able to verify what she was wearing based off what Haley had said she saw her wearing?
00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:42.640
You know, I I don't think so.
00:21:42.880 --> 00:21:47.680
Uh um, you know, uh I I also gave her a pseudonym in the book.
00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:51.200
In the book, she's um she's called Bethany Alana Clark.
00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:53.279
Not a real name, but it's it's similar.
00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:56.720
And uh and no, I mean she was wearing white sneakers.
00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:01.599
I I I didn't, you know, I I believe I I did ask that at some point.
00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:06.960
I don't think um I have I have pictures taken from the crime scene.
00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:08.559
I've got pictures of her.
00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:10.000
They're in black and white.
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:10.880
Yeah.
00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:26.480
So the white thing is I can't think that Haley was so specific, you know, and if Lucy or Mark remembered that, just again, it seems to be very f verifiable, but to think like, wow, like that was her, you know it again, it probably is.
00:22:26.559 --> 00:22:40.480
It's just those it's just crazy how again, how detailed Haley was in describing the imaginary friend, and then just being able to go back and be like, wow, that's if there's one person that could have been, it's it's it's yeah, it's her.
00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:53.839
Well, I mean, you know, I think like there are so many coincidences or near coincidences that kind of help to you know create this ghost story, you know.
00:22:54.079 --> 00:23:04.079
There was the fact that these two incidents happened uh uh pr not exactly in the same place, but about a mile and a half away from from uh the from each other.
00:23:04.319 --> 00:23:19.359
Um I I believe that uh Bethany Alana Clark was murdered on pardon me, April 25th, 1978, and Haley got lost on April 29th, 2001.
00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:27.519
So, you know, not the exact same day, but within five days of the, you know, the the same time of year or on the calendar.
00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:34.559
And the fact that, you know, Haley said her imaginary friend was four, Bethany was three, or like three and a half or so.
00:23:34.799 --> 00:24:01.680
Uh, and then there are also kind of like, you know, when when I read through the emails that Joyce and uh Lucy exchanged after they connected, part of me kind of thinks that I see people kind of like finding new breadcrumbs in a trail that they've already decided is there, you know, and that like Haley said that Alicia had a flashlight with her, which would have been extremely useful in those dark woods at night if she had actually had one.
00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:09.039
But she said she had a flashlight with her, and you know, and Lucy said there was this one time when Suzette took away Bethany's doll.
00:24:09.359 --> 00:24:17.680
I think she said she had a raggedy and doll, and took away the doll and threw it in a fire or something because it was like pagan idolatry or whatever.
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:34.079
But uh that Lucy best thing toy that she could replace the doll with was she gave Bethany a flashlight, and she slept with this flashlight like it was a stuffed animal, and that, you know, it turns out that a flashlight was one of Bethany's only possessions.
00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:46.000
All of these things are kind of like, you know, I I don't uh I definitely don't suggest that there was a ghost in the book myself because that's not my job, you know.
00:24:46.160 --> 00:24:50.960
I'm not I'm less interested in the ghost than in the fact that people believe in it, you know.
00:24:51.359 --> 00:24:51.599
Yeah.
00:24:51.920 --> 00:25:08.799
Well, just again, people hear this all the time too, like kids they're just more open than adults are, and just the experiences and this one, there's just a lot of correlation and just a lot of uniqueness to it, which is just which makes the story so fascinating.
00:25:09.839 --> 00:25:10.160
Thank you.
00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:11.519
What does you know?
00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:23.119
I'm sure you don't have to speak for her, but just from your experience of of Haley reading your book and kind of revisiting and in these conversations, what's that been like?
00:25:23.359 --> 00:25:27.759
I guess what what does that look like to you that she's been able to experience through all this?
00:25:28.160 --> 00:25:34.799
You know, I think it's pr it's uh uh mostly been uh a a positive uh experience for her, you know.
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:47.119
I mean, she I I did a reading in Fayetteville about a month ago, and uh and she, you know, after I did the the the reading, I just said, uh you know, please everyone welcome uh you know Haley Zega.
00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:48.640
And she came out on stage with me.
00:25:49.039 --> 00:25:55.920
And yeah, and she did, you know, and we both did a you know kind of uh Q ⁇ A session with the audience, and it was really it was a lot of fun.
00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:56.960
It was really trippy.
00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:15.119
I mean, it was in Fayetteville, so like, you know, our whole family showed up and uh and so did lots of people who were involved in the story, you know, like Tim Ernst was there, and you know, a lot of the people who helped with the search and rescue operation were there, and it was just kind of like it was it was it was an odd event.
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:23.599
It was really kind of like rewarding, and uh, you know, it felt great to to do this reading with all of these people who were there, including Haley, you know.
00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:29.119
And uh, and so yeah, I mean, you know, Haley is I say that she's my cousin.
00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:35.200
She's actually my first cousin once removed, because Haley's mother is my actual first cousin.
00:26:35.279 --> 00:26:54.640
It's just that because Haley's father, my dad's older brother, was 20 years older than him, the age gap makes it so that it feels more like Haley and I are kind of more of the same generation than, you know, think I think of her mother as more like my dad's generation than the because of because of her age.
00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:57.759
So Haley's 11 years younger than I am.
00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:07.839
And uh and she's naturally just kind of one of my best friends in my among my uh extended family in Arkansas anyway.
00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:10.640
She's also a really smart, interesting person.
00:27:11.039 --> 00:27:24.319
We we've always had this kind of like, I feel like we've had always had a bit of a connection in that like, you know, whenever we happen to see each other at, you know, family gatherings, it's like, you know, we we we love a lot of the same books and movies and music.
00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:31.519
And like, you know, I think that she, if we had met some other way and didn't happen to be related and we would have become friends anyway.
00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:34.240
So it's always been very easy to talk with her, you know.
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:46.160
I mean, like, and and so and he even when I was writing the book, there would be things like I was trying to get um, I was trying to file a records request with the the the county sheriff's office.
00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:50.319
And I was emailing with some people, and you know, I wasn't in Arkansas at this point.
00:27:50.400 --> 00:28:09.039
I was trying to do this, you know, from my home here in upstate New York, and and I was on the phone with somebody at the the Benton County Sheriff, and uh they realized when they realized that I wasn't an Arkansas resident, they said, Oh, you have to be an Arkansas resident to to apply for this request and you know fill out this uh this piece of paper.
00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:10.559
And so I was like, all right.
00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:14.799
And so I was I called up Haley and said, This is a big favor.
00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:18.960
Sometime we'll go on a day when you don't happen to have anything to do.
00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:26.640
Would you mind going up to the Bitton County Sheriff and filling out this paperwork for this uh records request because you're an Arkansas resident?
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:33.519
And she did, like, so she actually helped me as like almost like a research assistant, like once or twice in this book, you know?
00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:34.400
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:34.559 --> 00:28:41.039
And I was gonna ask, just because again, Benjamin, this is unique because it's your family and there's a lot of that involved.
00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:46.720
But has this been, you've written other books, like I mentioned, to to start this podcast.
00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:56.799
Now that you've written this, I guess a two-part question, has this been the most uh challenging and most rewarding work that you've put out there?
00:28:56.880 --> 00:29:05.440
And now that you've gone, like now that you've written this story, what's your future work going to look like in your opinion?
00:29:05.519 --> 00:29:10.160
Because what you've written has been different in your style of books.
00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:16.799
And so I'm just curious like what your future projects may look like and what do you think that's going to be?
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:25.599
I don't know yet because I, you know, have been kind of uh poking around at the edges of a few projects that I'm thinking about starting.
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:35.839
And one of them is another nonfiction book that would be kind of a uh spiritual sequel to this book, which is that, you know, like uh about the rewardingness.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:37.839
My my two other books are fiction.
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:41.920
It's a novel, my first book was a novel, and my second book was a collection of short stories.
00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:47.440
And, you know, like when you're writing fiction, it's a very lonely process.
00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:53.839
You know, doing the research is often just like reading a ton of books about the subjects that you're thinking about writing about.
00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:05.680
And then the work is in it involves a lot of like pacing around alone in, you know, the room that you write in, trying to like put together this fictional universe in the book.
00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:23.839
And it's like when you write fiction, it's you know almost most fiction writers kind of get into this mode where they're like a crazy person with a conspiracy theory in a movie with like, you know, stuff tacked to the wall and strings linking all the things, you know, like that's kind of what it what the the what it's what it feels like to write a novel.
00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:44.240
Whereas writing nonfiction is a lot more fun in a way because it's like much of it just involves getting out into the world and talking to people, you know, and like the process of tracking people down and then introducing myself to them, trying to win their trust so that they'll talk to me and then talking with the person, that's always so much fun, you know.
00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:45.279
I love doing it.
00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:52.799
And like a funny anecdote I tell about doing research for this book is that like with in what part of Arkansas do you live in?
00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:57.839
So I I'm in Tennessee now, but I'm from Springdale, Fayetteville area is where I grew up.
00:30:58.079 --> 00:30:58.240
Yeah.
00:30:58.319 --> 00:30:58.480
Yeah.
00:30:58.720 --> 00:31:07.839
So so I had to do a lot of uh a lot of research in Jasper, which is this tiny little town in the middle of Newton County, you know, way out in the middle of the Ozarks.
00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:17.119
And uh at some point I had gone to the uh the Newton County Sheriff's Office in Jasper, and uh I asked if they had records of this case from 1978.
00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:27.200
And I was in you know, the uh back room of the sheriff's office looking through all these handwritten police records from the 70s, and uh, you know, there was nothing in there about this case.
00:31:27.279 --> 00:31:40.319
And uh and the guy that I was talking to said, Well, you know, the uh uh the a guy who used to be sheriff's here sheriff here, uh Ray Watkins, he was a sheriff for a while in the 70s and 80s, and um and he works at the hardware store now.
00:31:40.480 --> 00:31:47.119
So if you go if you go there, neither they're about to close, you go over there now, you might still catch him, and uh he might know something about this.
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:55.039
And I was like, all right, so I, you know, high-tailed it over to do it best hardware and lumber, uh, right outside of Jasper, Arkansas.
00:31:55.119 --> 00:32:02.960
And I went in there and found uh an almost 90-year-old man sitting at the counter in front of the cash register.
00:32:03.119 --> 00:32:07.519
And I asked him, Are you Ray Watkins, uh former sheriff of Newton County?
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And he was like, Yes, sir.
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:21.039
And I said, Okay, do you know anything about this crazy thing that happened in 1978 where there were some cult members who murdered a three-year-old girl and buried her in a bucket on Cade Mountain?
00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:24.000
And he said, Yeah, I was the one who arrested him.
00:32:24.160 --> 00:32:29.680
And then what proceeded was one of the most incredible interviews that I recorded for the book.
00:32:29.759 --> 00:32:32.720
You know, it was kind of the the first interview that I recorded with him.
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:45.200
There are these silences that happen in the on the tape periodically because that was those were the times when somebody, the interview was it had to be interrupted because somebody needed to buy something at the hardware store and he had to ring them up.
00:32:45.359 --> 00:33:01.839
And it was just like oftentimes I would find people that I needed to talk to just by driving around in Newton County in the general area that I knew a certain person lived, and just popping into a gas station and asking someone, you know, the person behind the counter, do you know this person?
00:33:02.079 --> 00:33:12.000
And often they would say, Oh yeah, you gotta, you know, they were like giving directions to the person's house, and I would knock on the door, and that's how I found a few people here in when I was doing research.
00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:23.519
So yeah, just I love writing fiction, but the process of writing nonfiction is just so much more fun that, you know, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do next.
00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:47.119
But uh but the the the project that I'm kind of poking around at thinking about starting would be kind of kind of a sequel to this book in that it would have to do with uh the fact that there was a lot of illegal pot farming that happened in the Ozarks in the 70s and 80s and 90s, and probably still, but I think it's you know less profitable now because it's legal in half the country.
00:33:47.279 --> 00:34:05.200
But there was there was a lot of local police corruption having to do with all this pot farming, because often in these tiny rural, rural counties with very low populations, like in Newton County, sometimes the only cop in the whole county is the sheriff himself, and it's an elected position.
00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:15.119
And if there's only one person in the sheriff's department, it's uh it's just a a uh a ripe situation for corruption because you only have to pay off one person.
00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:27.599
And so there was a lot of kind of like mafia style, you know, collusion between uh organized crime and law enforcement that happened in the Ozarks in the 70s and 80s, and it's just kind of a you know, it's a cool story.
00:34:28.880 --> 00:34:31.199
And so that's what I'm thinking about writing next.
00:34:31.360 --> 00:34:31.519
Yeah.
00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:34.639
But that sounds absolutely fascinating.
00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:41.039
I think you definitely should write that, and then we should definitely have another conversation when you publish that.
00:34:42.239 --> 00:34:43.440
I hope so, yeah.
00:34:43.679 --> 00:34:52.719
Now that's another topic and story that I don't know a lot about, but I know a lot of people would find very interesting uh to learn more about.
00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:56.079
And yeah, I'm glad you answered my last question because I was that's what I was thinking.
00:34:56.159 --> 00:35:11.840
I was like, okay, so fiction to nonfiction, and just wondering if like you got the itch to go hunt and have those conversations and put the pieces together and have the and it sounds like that was such a a rush and a joy for you to be able to do that.
00:35:12.079 --> 00:35:12.480
Yeah.
00:35:12.800 --> 00:35:16.320
Sounds like that's probably leading into the next project, which is really cool.
00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:17.679
Yeah, I hope so.
00:35:17.760 --> 00:35:28.480
You know, I I don't know yet because I've got, you know, I have a lot of things kind of like projects that are just, you know, in their very early stages that I I might pursue pretty soon.
00:35:28.719 --> 00:35:37.039
But the one about the, you know, pot farming and police corruption in the Ozarks in the 70s and 80s is the one that I'm hoping to pursue.
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:47.840
You know, it's again, it's it's another kind of project that like I better hurry up and start doing the research for it because a lot of the people that I want to talk to are are dead or, you know, dying.
00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:48.320
Yeah.
00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:48.800
Yeah.
00:35:49.039 --> 00:35:49.360
Yeah.
00:35:49.519 --> 00:35:49.760
No.
00:35:49.920 --> 00:35:53.519
Well, Benjamin, this is uh man, thank you again for for doing this.
00:35:54.559 --> 00:36:01.039
And I'm so glad I I followed that newsletter and saw that story pop up, and I'm so glad I reached out to you because you're gonna laugh.
00:36:01.119 --> 00:36:02.800
Like I was reading it early in the morning.
00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:06.400
My wife comes downstairs before coffee, and I was like, You're not gonna believe this.
00:36:06.559 --> 00:36:08.480
Like, I this story is insane.
00:36:08.559 --> 00:36:10.239
I've gotta I've gotta talk to this guy.
00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:13.039
This is just and she was like, that is wild.
00:36:13.119 --> 00:36:14.960
And I was like, I'm emailing Benjamin right now.
00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:16.320
I gotta, I gotta talk to him.
00:36:16.559 --> 00:36:17.119
Fantastic.
00:36:17.440 --> 00:36:19.280
So it's been a it's been a lot of fun.
00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:20.400
Thank you for asking me.
00:36:20.639 --> 00:36:21.920
Yeah, absolutely, man.
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:23.199
I thank you for sharing.
00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:28.559
We've got your book on the Books for Guys website, and so proud to spotlight it and hope lots of people read it.
00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:41.199
It sounds like you've been very busy with the book coming out recently with conversations and all of that, and can't wait to see what else you work on, as we will certainly love to have you back on and talk more about your future work.
00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:43.039
But no, Benjamin, this has been great.
00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:43.840
I appreciate it.
00:36:44.079 --> 00:36:44.639
Absolutely.
00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:46.719
And you know, please uh keep in touch.
00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:53.360
You know, it'll probably be at least a few years before I publish another book, but I'm always ready, willing, and able to talk about it.
00:36:53.599 --> 00:36:54.480
Yeah, absolutely.
00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:56.000
Well appreciate it, Benjamin.
00:36:56.159 --> 00:36:56.880
Thank you so much.
00:36:57.119 --> 00:36:58.320
Have a great day.
