Inside Our True Crime Playbook: Respecting Victims Without Lying About the Facts

Most true crime podcasts lie politely. We don’t.
 So we decided to explain why.

After getting pushback for “disrespecting” a victim, Andrea and I laid out exactly how Things I Want to Know works. This episode is our playbook. How we research. Why we focus on underreported Arkansas cases. And why respecting victims does not mean turning them into saints or pretending uncomfortable facts don’t exist.

We start with primary sources. State missing-persons lists, archived newspapers, and public records. Wikipedia is never a single source. If we can’t double-check a claim, it doesn’t make the cut. FOIA requests help sometimes. Often they don’t. When information is thin, locked down, or too risky to publish responsibly, we shelve the case. That’s not fear. That’s restraint.

Victimology gets the hardest scrutiny. We don’t do saintly clichés and we don’t do cheap cruelty. Routine, relationships, place, and risk shape opportunity, but labels don’t define a person. When families or firsthand sources correct us, we update the record. And we don’t force famous killers into unrelated cases just to make a cleaner narrative. Method matters more than myth.

Along the way, we reference system failures that sharpen how we think. Hawaii’s false nuclear missile alert that sat unretracted for 38 minutes. The MOVE bombing in Philadelphia. Different stories, same lesson: small decisions spiral, and accuracy matters when real people are involved.

This episode is about balancing truth, empathy, and clarity without sanding off reality. If you’ve got documents, corrections, memories, or you just want to tell us why were wrong, email me, Paul G.
 paulg@paulgnewton.com

You can find the show, the merch, and everything else we’re building at paulgnewton.com.

Subscribe. Share it with someone who’s tired of copy-paste true crime. And if there’s a case you think deserves real attention, tell me about it.

 “Thank you for listening to Things I Want to Know.
You want these stories, and we want to bring them to you — so hit the support link and keep this circus, and the mics, alive.
Then do us a favor and rate and subscribe; it helps the show find more people like you — the ones who like their mysteries real and their storytellers unfiltered.
And if you want to wear a little of this madness, grab some Andrea-approved gear at paulgnewton.com.
We make t

Transcript

Banter And Theme Song Troubles

unknown 0:00

Well, there's no problem. If you had a gun, shoot him in the head.

Paul G 0:12

Hello. I'm here.

Andrea 0:15

Okay, so am I.

Paul G 0:17

Are you here?

Andrea 0:18

Yeah.

Paul G 0:19

I'm Paul G.

Andrea 0:21

I'm Andrea Newton.

Paul G 0:22

You don't have to give your last name. It's so formal.

Andrea 0:25

What do you want me to give my full name?

Paul G 0:28

Or you could just say Andrea.

Andrea 0:31

Okay, whatever, Paul.

Paul G 0:32

Exactly. See? That's what I'm saying. Right, right, right.

Andrea 0:36

So what are we talking about today?

Copyright Limits And Monetization

Paul G 0:38

Uh talk about their music for the moment. We had to drop the Curious George song.

Andrea 0:46

Yes, it's called the thing called copyright.

Paul G 0:48

Yeah. They keep dinging us, and if we ever wanted to make a um book off of this through commercials and whatnot, especially on YouTube, they won't let us do it because of the theme song. They said we can use it, but if there's any monetization, we won't see a single red cent.

Andrea 1:11

Which I get it. It's the singer who made this song and he should be.

Paul G 1:14

Yeah, but it's through Art List. It's a library that I can download and use on my monetized videos. But yet I can't.

Andrea 1:27

Obviously, someone's been using it besides us, and obviously it's gotten some attention, obviously.

Paul G 1:32

So I don't know if it's got any attention. I just maybe it could be the guy who owns the song is just, you know, clamping it down or something.

Andrea 1:40

Well, I don't blame him. It's his work. I mean he can't.

Paul G 1:42

Don't put it on a catalog where the subscription allows you to use it.

Andrea 1:46

Or then take it off at that point. But I don't know. I just I get his point. It's his work, it's it's his creativity. He should get cr credit for it.

Paul G 1:55

But my buddy Tim Gasway, who uh is the front man and ironically very close to looks in the cover band uh band of Who They Emulate, which is simply a Seager, which they are a Bob Seeger cover band. They make big money at that, believe it or not.

Andrea 2:16

That's good.

Paul G 2:16

They get like 20 grand.

Andrea 2:18

Oh wow.

Paul G 2:19

Yeah, well, I mean there's like 47 uh uh instruments, you know, people. I mean, you were in there that one time in the studio.

Andrea 2:27

Yeah, it's it's it's pretty cool.

Paul G 2:29

Crowded though.

Andrea 2:30

It's crowded, but it's it was pretty cool to go in there and see them sing and yeah.

Musicians, Cover Bands, And A New Theme

Paul G 2:34

He does an amazing ACDC.

Andrea 2:36

Oh yes, that was mind-blowing when he did that. I was like, whoa, it sounds just like the guy.

Paul G 2:41

Yeah, that's like if you do ACDC, you have to sound just like him or just don't do it.

Andrea 2:45

Oh yeah, for that that was a very distinct voice and sound.

Paul G 2:49

But he's supposed to be writing us a theme song.

Andrea 2:52

Okay.

Paul G 2:53

I'm not sure when he'll get around to it. He's had a lot going on, so yeah, they had a death in a family, and you know, he's you know, gotta get his naps in. He is like seventy-five.

Andrea 3:04

But but he's very creative for 75.

Paul G 3:07

He did our wedding, so he's actually quite spry for 75.

Andrea 3:10

Yeah, he does. He's very talented.

Paul G 3:12

And very talented. Jumps around and stuff.

Andrea 3:15

Yeah.

Paul G 3:16

So it's like he he he's amazing that he's still but anyhow.

Andrea 3:22

I don't know. I've taken care of some very spry 90-year-olds in my nursing career that you wouldn't think were 90. So I think it's just all about genetics, taking care of yourself and pure luck.

Paul G 3:32

And hard-headedness, I think.

Andrea 3:34

Well, that too. That has a lot to do with it too.

Paul G 3:38

So we've got fan mail, by the way.

Andrea 3:41

Which we've been saying, if we get fan mail, we're gonna like talk about it.

Paul G 3:44

Yeah, and we're doing a special episode today about this fan mail because it has um um interesting stuff on it.

Andrea 3:59

Well, the fan mail made me think that maybe we need to talk about how we go about how we do our research for some of the podcasts that we picked.

Why We Avoid Famous True Crime Cases

Paul G 4:08

Or why our not go about, but tell people how we do what we do.

Andrea 4:14

Which is a little unique, I think, compared maybe to most. I could be wrong in that, but I'm pretty confident in that statement.

Paul G 4:20

I agree with that. Um, most podcasts and true com true crime folks, they cover all the big stuff.

Andrea 4:30

Which we don't want to.

Paul G 4:32

No. And in and you'll never hear of West Memphis 3 or Morgan Nick won't come out of this.

Andrea 4:39

Though West Memphis 3 is known throughout the U.S., I don't know how well Morgan Nick is what pretty well known. Is it pretty well known outside of Arkansas?

Paul G 4:47

Yeah, because uh true crime garage guys do it.

Andrea 4:49

Oh, yeah, that's true. But we won't cover those because there's nothing else that you can remotely glean from it other than our own opinions on it, which it's probably opinions, call me. It's been covered, highly covered, and you know, those cases are very well known. It's put help put Arkansas on a map in a good and negative way, yeah. Depending upon which case you want to talk about. But uh no, we we don't like to cover cases.

Paul G 5:12

Not gonna do BTK stuff.

Andrea 5:13

No, we're not gonna do BTK, we're not gonna do Dahmer, we're not gonna do Bundy. We feel like those things have been covered so much that there's nothing new you can remotely get out of it or gleam from it.

Paul G 5:23

If I got a stash of unreleased emails from Dahmer to Dahmer, for example, then maybe if no one else had it, we would.

Andrea 5:36

Yeah, because that would be something different and new.

Paul G 5:39

But those things have been done to death.

Andrea 5:42

Yeah, and I'll listen. Like if I'm trying to find a podcast to listen to, I listen to TrueCon podcasts just for my own. But if I'm gonna listen, I'm not going to listen to a podcast about a case we've covered. And I'm very adamant about that. And I know a lot of people do the research by listening to what everyone else has, yeah, and what everyone else has gathered. But I feel like to me, I'm already front loading my own opinion based upon someone else's.

Paul G 6:08

And front loading is very important for us because uh front loading is something that people do constantly and they don't even know.

Neutrality, Research Methods, And Bias

Andrea 6:17

It's true. But I just don't want to like take someone else's hard work and research and just regurgitate in my own voice. Yeah. I don't feel like that's a very fair thing to do. Though some of the tools that we use in newspaper archives is kind of in a way regurgitating information. I feel like it's no different than us reading like a newspaper article on it, but we kind of put our own spin on it because we're both people that like to give the positive and negative and all potential options of what could happen in a particular case. I always joke to him, we're Switzerland, we have to remain neutral.

Paul G 6:52

Well, since Switzerland wasn't really all that neutral, but well, uh, it's a joke, but you know what I'm trying to say. I get it. Um you know, one of the things um that I hate about podcasts is they don't do the victimology correct. They don't do the victimology at all, usually.

Andrea 7:11

We have a hard time getting victim. Well, we do victimology just based upon like, you know, what we can get from wrestler and all that stuff is highly published, and anybody can get a hold of that.

Paul G 7:21

Well, victimology too is is how was this person a prostitute? If they were a prostitute, well, that's a high risk lifestyle.

Andrea 7:28

Yes.

Victimology Done Right And Risk Context

Paul G 7:29

You're you're you're putting yourself in position of strange man, you don't know who he is, he's obviously going to pay you for sex, you're going to take the money for sex. That is high risk because that's where the predators hang out.

Andrea 7:48

True. But also some of our definitions of high risk. So we've talked about a couple cases where we're like, why would somebody go in somebody's house and work? This was then blah, blah, blah. Nowadays that would be like, oh my god, that's high risk.

Paul G 8:00

It just, you know, it it's hitchhiking back in the 70s wasn't high risk, but it was.

Andrea 8:05

It was. Everybody did it in the 70s.

Paul G 8:07

Yeah, and that's how so many girls got killed on I on I-70 or whatever it was.

Andrea 8:10

Well, like everybody was hitchhiking, and hitchhiking had to do with a lot of the cases back then. But as we've covered a couple cases, like the railroad killer, um, um, the guy from um, I don't want to say stock art because he's not from Stock Art, but you know what I'm saying, like but um he was the one hitchhiking and he killed that guy. Yeah, I'm just like like we're like and hitchhiking was like a big it was like a commonplace back then, but um we just how do I put this? We try to completely 100% bring out all sides of a potential option because none of us truly know, unless we're family, what that victim was like, and even then probably family doesn't know who that person is.

Paul G 8:52

Usually family's the last to know about the bad stuff.

Andrea 8:55

Well, yeah, because it's your friend who wants to admit that their mother or their brother or whoever is like a prostitute, or heavy into drugs, but this doesn't do it around mom.

Paul G 9:04

Or heavy alcoholic, yeah, or a pervert.

Andrea 9:08

Or a beats or family.

Paul G 9:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so but when you're investigating a crime as a as a um investigator, if I was if we were cops, we would need to know the victimology, which is the lifestyle, the habits of the person that's dead, especially if we didn't have a clue who did it. Because that's the only way we're gonna be able to backtrack their where they're at, where they're going, what they've done, and find out who may be the next in line to kill them. Where do we need to look? Well, you don't have anything but the person that's laying in front of you, and they're not gonna talk to you. No, so you have to dig into what you can see, and that's them and their family and their habits, right?

FOIA Roadblocks And Public Records

Andrea 9:52

Yeah, and I think we have a hard time accessing the complete story of that. Yes, which we FOIA in FOIA in Arkansas.

Paul G 10:00

You can't do it. It's hard, it's about the people who haven't gotten anything back from uh the ATF, and they have the records, and they say they don't. They said they never investigated it. Oh, yes, they did, because the ATF, it's on I've got FOIA from Springdale.

Andrea 10:15

Yeah, I remember that. And you even sent them that saying that that they they were in the they're on the case.

Paul G 10:20

And I got a piece of uh paperwork signed by a police sergeant at Springdale Police Department saying that the people in the room were such and such, such and such, and ATF agents such and such. And it says that on the paper. And they still they still say, oh no, we didn't investigate that. The ATF is just either they're just absolutely lying, they don't care.

Andrea 10:47

Or this is the way I think about it. And I guess that we've talked to someone that also does another podcast about another case of ours, but maybe and I'm just playing devil's advocate here, maybe those poor people that have to sit in those FOIA request rooms or whatever, I'm thinking that they're like the medical records people of the hospital. They get bombarded on a daily basis by not only us as podcasts, but everybody else. Yeah. And they must be overwhelmed.

Paul G 11:15

Well, that's why they have those cases. Some of these FOIA requests, like the West Memphis 3 for the federal stuff, um, it's actually on the you I have a link. You just go that and they put the FOIA request, they just put it up there. They don't even anybody can access it now.

Andrea 11:31

They must have gotten like a ton of people wanting that because that's like a well-known case.

Paul G 11:36

That's what they should do. Whenever you FOIA something, they should just post it to the web and say it's posted to the web here. And that's enough.

Andrea 11:42

Well, they probably did it with that case because everybody and their dog wants is done that.

Paul G 11:48

Everything is FOIA should be. But I think there's a public and release public release of information, is what that is.

Andrea 11:54

But uh some of our cases we've done that are unsolved. I just think Arkansas just does on sicky barriers. But they're not gonna talk to you. Which, you know, I'm kind of glad they're that way. Well in a way, I mean if it was you that you wanted your family member to be uh, you know, they died or was murdered.

Paul G 12:09

I don't know. I'd want them to talk. After if after 30 years, I'd be like, spill the beans. But you also want it to be solved. So you don't But after 30 years, it's not I mean, any lead is gonna be that. You might as well just make it all public. This is where we're at.

Andrea 12:23

I don't think uh two weeks in, no. Murder, there's no stat statute limitations on murder. So that's why they're that way.

Paul G 12:30

But 30 years in, I mean, it's not gonna matter. I mean, you haven't found anything. Let the sluice in on it.

Andrea 12:36

But here's another thing though. Uh what if they mess something up and something gets posted and it goes in front of a a court or jail and it gets thrown out, and here's your one opportunity to like put somebody in jail.

Paul G 12:47

You gotta prove it at that point, don't you?

Andrea 12:48

You know what I'm saying?

Paul G 12:48

You gotta It's a catch-22, isn't it?

Andrea 12:50

You gotta be super careful and also think about it from their perspective. If they mess up, either put the wrong person convicted or put you know, that kind of anything that they can remotely get a lawsuit on, police department's gotta be careful.

Speaker 2 13:03

Yeah.

Andrea 13:04

I mean, because of the 70s, how many episodes have we covered? Even in the 90s, where like they didn't do anything with DNA. I mean, you know what I'm saying?

Paul G 13:11

They they didn't even collect it. You know, for that one case we're listening to where they just walked over the woman's body.

Caution, Evidence, And Past Police Errors

Andrea 13:17

I know, and that was what was in the night.

Paul G 13:20

No, that was not in 2000.

Andrea 13:22

2000, yeah. I'm trying to remember that.

Paul G 13:24

Might have been 15. I mean, it's like they just walked over her body. They thought, oh well, the blood is dried enough. We shouldn't. No, stop. But I mean, I understand they had to get the kids out of the house because the kids were still in the house, but they're stepping over the woman's body with the kids in their arms. That's insane. And that actually happened.

Andrea 13:44

Yeah, I don't I forget what the case we're listening to, but you know, the thing that gets me is there's so people are such so happy that we have to just people are have to be cautious.

Paul G 13:56

Or caution. Hot coffee is hot.

Speaker 14:00

I know the McDonald's thing.

Andrea 14:02

I guess I've I've read somewhere that that lady it was a lot more than just like a yeah, it was overly hot. Like a almost like a second degree burn.

Paul G 14:10

Yeah, and I get third degree, I think it was bad. But anyways, I'm just her skin was paper thin, she was like a hundred.

Andrea 14:16

Well, yeah. I mean, the older you get, the thinner your skin gets. I mean, that's just let's just be let's resist it.

Paul G 14:22

But so uh, you know, what we're what we're trying to do here uh is helps the help find another avenue on the case. Look at it differently because Andrea and I are very different folks than normal normal people, unfortunately.

Andrea 14:40

Yeah, I'd say that's probably why it's hard for us to make friends.

Paul G 14:44

No, it's hard for me to make friends because I'm just so cool.

Andrea 14:48

So cool. Yes. I can't say that for myself.

Paul G 14:51

And so they're intimidated by my coolness.

Andrea 14:55

You say either they love you or they hate you.

Paul G 14:56

It's true. They either people love me or hate me. There's no in between.

Andrea 15:00

I'm just weird.

Paul G 15:01

You've seen it.

Andrea 15:01

I have seen it firsthand. I used to think, oh come on, Paul, you're so full of poo. But no, you're serious. He's right.

Paul G 15:07

I mean You love me or hate me.

Andrea 15:09

And I'm like, I don't get it.

Paul G 15:10

I I used to fret over that so long. And then I decided one day, I said, this can be me. That can piss off.

Andrea 15:18

I'm just weird. I've come to that conclusion a long time.

Paul G 15:21

You and I are very similar, though.

Andrea 15:23

I I can't I like doing true crime and finding cool stories because of course you do.

Paul G 15:28

You're a middle-aged woman.

Andrea 15:30

Uh-huh. I have cats, so that makes it even worse.

Paul G 15:32

That's the that's the demo, man. That's why I'm here, because you know, I was single and was looking for middle-aged women.

Andrea 15:38

With cats.

Paul G 15:39

I I don't even care about the cats. With or without, it doesn't matter.

Andrea 15:42

Yeah.

Paul G 15:42

Yeah, but you know, just you have to be under the ton limit, that's all.

Andrea 15:46

The ton limit. Yes. I don't want to know.

Paul G 15:49

I'm the terrible person. Yes, I know. Remember, folks, I've said this before. I'm an ass.

Andrea 15:54

Not an asshole.

Paul G 15:55

Yes, and there is a difference.

Andrea 15:57

It's a very fine-line difference, but yes, it is.

Paul G 16:00

But I mean I'm proud of it, sir.

Our Goal: Fresh Angles And Honesty

Andrea 16:02

Like true crime. I like to pick cases, A, from Arkansas. Not saying that Oklahoma or Missouri, either state, the couple of the Oklahoma ones. That are like, you know, are not as important as Arkansas. I just feel like Arkansas gets ignored a lot. A, I understand why. It's hard for someone a podcaster to foyer. You can't foyer, so you have very limited ability. Yeah. We're not covered very often.

Paul G 16:23

We don't get paid for this, so we're not doing this full-time.

Andrea 16:25

We're doing this for fun, and we're also doing this because some of these cases that we've read just break my heart because I feel like they've died in the water, and there's like not like there's it's not moving. And this is a family member, a mother, a sister, a father, somebody out there whose family member past, and they're getting a you know, sense of resolution. I just hate that.

Paul G 16:50

Well, remember, it's just like that one case where the girl, they they they buried the woman.

Andrea 16:55

I can't get over that one.

Paul G 16:56

And then they find out 30 years later that that wasn't her. We found that woman in Florida. Yeah, and we're not and I don't like the Then they had to dig up the woman that they buried and rebury this new woman. What happened to the other woman? No one even knows who she is.

Andrea 17:15

Or what happened to her, or her name. I mean, she has a name, she has a voice.

Paul G 17:20

It's not like a minority. This is a white girl, so it's I don't know. I know it's just you can't blame it on being a minority in Little Rock in the 70s and 80s. You can't blame it on that because it was a white girl, that's what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to Yeah.

Andrea 17:35

But that and also it's made us very eye-opening and also eye-opening other people that small town cops only have so much resources and abilities.

Paul G 17:45

Well, they don't have that much training either. Training, too. They go to school to be a cop now, but back then they did not have to be a school with a degree, and especially in the 70s and 80s. Now you have to have you're supposed to have a degree because of the way the state laws are for who can who you can hire as a municipality.

Andrea 18:07

I knew that criminal justice wasn't as a typical degree for cops, but I know that wasn't around. But technically, I think you don't have to have criminal justice to try to apply for law enforcement.

Paul G 18:16

No, you no, but they you'll get picked faster if you have one.

Andrea 18:19

Yeah. I almost minored in that. I'm like six hours away from finishing that. I never finished.

Paul G 18:25

Just take the six hours. What's it, 1200 bucks?

Andrea 18:28

Ah, nursing school got too much.

Paul G 18:30

Just do the six hours, man. You can have a criminal justice, paralegal, and a master's in business nursing. Nursing business or whatever.

Andrea 18:37

Or masters in nursing, yeah.

Paul G 18:39

Whatever your version of masters is.

Andrea 18:41

A master's in nursing masters of science of nursing with a administrative component to it.

Paul G 18:49

I have a master of the universe.

Andrea 18:51

Okay, he-man. I had to say that.

Paul G 18:58

Where's my giant sword? Should I wear the loincloth?

Andrea 19:01

No.

Paul G 19:01

Oh, come on. Always breaking my dreams.

Arkansas Focus And Underreported Cases

Andrea 19:06

I still think you should. This is totally off topic. But speaking of interesting clothes, I still think that with this podcast, you should post your uh uh Christmas uh oh man, me and my leotard. It was this, you know, everybody on the internet was getting into this posting next to candy canes and glittery jumping.

Paul G 19:22

Yeah, all the girls, all the women had their little sequence outfit that's all you know, more like a jumper.

Andrea 19:28

And I have mine on Facebook said Mark safe from that.

Paul G 19:32

I was not, I it got me.

Andrea 19:34

I was thinking that you you should post that to this.

Paul G 19:36

I put myself in the female version of that in Chat GPT because it's where they like it. Yes, hey man, you know, I embrace my sexuality.

Andrea 19:50

I kept saying, Okay, Rocket Man. Anyways, so some people have been kind of making we love your feedback and comments, but something was said that I think I Upset somebody saying that we were being kind of rude towards the victim. The victim. And I want everyone to make this perfectly clear that we're not doing that intentionally or on purpose or by any sort of malice. We're playing the person that's pretty much neutral and bringing up all sides of all possibilities of what could possibly be. Now, if somebody out there listening is a family member or knows the victim we're speaking of, and we have made a gross error, then by God, tell us.

Paul G 20:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We want to set it straight.

Andrea 20:32

Set us straight. We want it to be accurate. We want it to be correct. We want it to be known. We are only going by what information we have, and that's very limited in a lot of aspects. But if you have something else, then by God, we'd love to have you on and tell us.

Paul G 20:45

Yeah. Tell us. And also, too, if I'm sitting there talking, because I talk out of the side of my head sometimes, if I'm sitting there talking and I'm saying, well, maybe they lived in a in a in a trash trailer, or maybe they lived in an apartment that had broaches. Maybe, you know, we don't know. You gotta understand that when I say we don't know, means that they could also be living in the Taj Ma freaking hall. You know what I mean? It means we don't know.

Andrea 21:12

We're trying to make everyone think and realize that there's two sides to every story and two sides as a situation. There's a positive and a negative.

Paul G 21:19

And not all victims are this beautiful person. I'm not talking about anybody specific here. I'm just saying in general.

Andrea 21:26

We noticed something on podcasts that makes Paul or any forensic shows or any type of thing where I'll let Paul say the line because it's beautiful.

Paul G 21:35

I can't remember it. Whatever.

Andrea 21:36

It's like that they're supposed to say like they're this beautiful, wonderful person, and everybody they were they were a wonderfully kind person who always had a smile on their face.

Paul G 21:44

And everywhere they went, the the sun shone and and the horses trolloped and the frogs croaked and and the bees bead.

Andrea 21:53

I don't know. If something happened to me and someone say that, I'm gonna be sitting up in heaven going, What the blank?

Paul G 21:58

Well, if they they know me, they're gonna I'm gonna be, I'd be like, Andrea, if something happened to me and somebody said that in front of Andrea, she would be like, Did you ever even meet that guy?

Andrea 22:08

Exactly. I mean, because there's positives and negatives to all of us.

Paul G 22:12

Yeah.

Andrea 22:12

And I know that if something happened to me, I'm I'm gonna have positives and negatives remembered by people, and that's okay because I'm a human being and I make mistakes.

Accuracy, Sensitivity, And Listener Corrections

Paul G 22:21

I get it. I understand the proclivity to not speak ill of the dead. We don't want to talk bad about somebody, but at the same time, if this guy's a drug dealer, and I'm I mean if there's a girl drug dealer, I'm talking in general. I'm not talking about anybody, I'm not talking about anybody. This is a made-up person that died on the corner of Broadway and 5th in Podunk, Ohio. Okay, and we're wondering why he's dead, who killed him? We can't figure it out. It's just all of a sudden he was stabbed 72 times in the foot and he bled to death. Okay. Yes, that couldn't, I guess that could happen actually. You hit an artery, you might. I don't know. Anyhow, so we could be, you know, I we can't say that guy was a perfect person because we don't know why was he standing on this corner? Where is this corner in this city? Is is this corner a a uh Sax Fifth Avenue corner, or is it a drug mule corner, right?

Speaker 2 23:20

Yeah.

Paul G 23:21

So here's the problem. We have to we have to be able to consider both. Most of the time, though, the general gener generic things work. If somebody dies in a crack house, there's probably a crack head. I mean, you got a 90% chance of that happening.

Andrea 23:38

Yeah, it's pretty pretty plausible.

Paul G 23:39

If somebody dies at a police station that's not a cop, more than likely the cops did it. Or the cops weren't watching them, Epstein, for example, and they hung themselves. And it's still co the cops are still partially culpable for that suicide because they should have known. Yeah, they weren't watching. That's their job. So we don't know what we don't know. And all we can do is go by all the different areas, all the different avenues, all the different places that logic takes us. So if we're wrong about something, if our assumption is incorrect and somebody knows better, I would rather them email me and say, Hey, you dummy, look here. This is not what this is not the way this person lived.

Andrea 24:35

And we'll redact it.

Paul G 24:36

Yeah. Now, I'm also not gonna take somebody who doesn't know firsthand and is saying that this person was a great person. I promise you this person was a great person. Their mama told me so. I'm not gonna take that.

Andrea 24:49

That's hearsay.

Paul G 24:50

It's not even just that's not even just hearsay. That's just mama. Mom's never gonna talk bad about her kid 90% of the time.

Speaker 24:58

Yeah.

Paul G 24:59

I mean, you know, I mean, yeah, very rare that a mom would say, That guy sucks.

Andrea 25:04

Yeah, mothers won't.

Paul G 25:05

Dad's mine. I don't know. It might. I would say it's a twenty twenty percent chance that a dad may say, my kid just sucks.

Andrea 25:13

We're not trying to speak ill the dead in these conversations. We're just trying to bring up all real realms of possibility.

Paul G 25:20

How else are we gonna solve this if we don't have a good rounded perception of what happened?

Andrea 25:28

And we don't like to take other people's podcasts of what their perception is of the victim or the situation and regurgitate that information too, because they could be completely wrong.

Paul G 25:41

They could be making it up. Yeah, I I we gotta fact check the fact the fact people.

Andrea 25:46

And I I don't I feel like I'm stealing someone else's work. And is that what other podcasts do? I have no idea. But that's not what we do.

Paul G 25:53

Yeah. If you're gonna do that, we you know, if we ever do that, we'll we'll cite it. Like I've already cited true crime garage here once.

Andrea 25:59

And the real uh the West Memphis three people? No, the railway uh railroad, if I can talk here.

Avoiding Saint Narratives Of Victims

Paul G 26:07

She she, when we did the episode on on that one, she plugged the book.

Andrea 26:11

Because honestly, that was the only reference next to a couple newspaper articles I could find on the thing.

Paul G 26:16

Yeah, and that's the other thing we're doing. We're hunting down the newspaper articles.

Andrea 26:20

Yeah, we actively hunt these things down.

Paul G 26:22

Here's the really interesting thing, though. Uh, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and the Northwest and the Arkansas Democrat Gazette from about 90, 89, 90 until about 2015 are not online anywhere. You can't go read them.

Andrea 26:41

Yeah, and it's hard to find a library where we can sometimes get in there and find those.

Paul G 26:45

Yeah, I went and did that on the uh I tried to find where the woman was killed. I was trying to do research for the haul for Halloween for the Oh, the lady that got shot on Halloween.

Andrea 26:54

No, stabbed. Stabbed, stabbed stabbed in her house.

Paul G 26:57

She her son left, and then the next thing he came back and she's dead.

Andrea 27:00

Yeah, she's just passing out candy.

Paul G 27:02

Yeah, she's passing out candy and she's dead. And so I went and I hunted and hunted on microfish at the uh Bentonville library.

Andrea 27:10

Yeah.

Paul G 27:10

I took, I did that, what was it four and a half hours? Yeah, you were there. Found nothing.

Andrea 27:15

Yeah, zero.

Paul G 27:17

They just didn't even report it.

Andrea 27:19

Which I find odd. It is odd. I still find that odd.

Paul G 27:22

It's very strange, isn't it?

Andrea 27:24

But you know, uh they say the whole it bleeds, it leads, and that's been around for forever. I sometimes wonder, you know, this is in the what '96, '95? Something like that. I would think that that would be more of a ooh, sensational thing for the area.

Paul G 27:38

It happened on Halloween. Oh my gosh. Or we have a Halloween killer.

Andrea 27:40

But compared to now where we're bombarded with so much social media and so much stuff from news all over the world.

Paul G 27:47

It's garbage.

unknown 27:48

Yeah.

Paul G 27:48

Now you got I see these science things on Facebook all the time. Sciences come up with this and this and this, and I'm like, and I say, okay, fine. Let me look at this. And I go and research it, it doesn't exist. They just made it up.

Andrea 27:59

Yeah, so research for us is we're doing our best.

Paul G 28:03

So we can only go by what we know.

Andrea 28:05

You can't trust Wikipedia.

Paul G 28:07

No, Wikipedia, if you didn't know, Wikipedia is a user-generated information source. Anyone who has the credentials on Wikipedia can go and change it. That's what happened when Donald Trump was running from 2016. They finally had to lock the page down. It's like only two or three people in the entire world could now manipulate Donald Trump's page on Wikipedia. Because they would go in there and change it and call him a pedophile and a rapist. And it doesn't matter if you believe that or not, it's not been proven. So it can't be in the Wikipedia.

Andrea 28:38

Yeah, and even like stuff that I've learned through getting my master's degree, you have to like look at is it ORG at the end of it versus a dot-com versus a well that doesn't count anymore.

Paul G 28:49

No, because now I can buy an ORG right now.

Andrea 28:52

Yeah, it's true. You have to like look at something, find something, and then you have to fact check it again and make sure that it's been at least reported a couple more times.

Paul G 28:59

Yeah. Double double source it and don't go off Wikipedia. When I'm whenever I'm doing research, if I'm using AI to do research, because I do, uh, I tell it, if you find it on Wikipedia, you have to find it somewhere else. And if you can't back Wikipedia up, it doesn't exist.

Sourcing, Fact-Checking, And Wikipedia Limits

Andrea 29:15

Yeah, but for some of our cases, though, we've even had to like double check to make sure is this person on a dough network? Are they on um I can't even remember the name off the top of my head? There's another website for like missing persons out there that um is it are they on that network?

Paul G 29:31

And then you can check the state too, because the state publishes those publishes those names on their state sites on that. Yeah, which Arkansas State Police has a page just for unsolved crimes and missing people.

Andrea 29:41

Yeah, and then and it's so sad when you go on there sometimes.

Paul G 29:44

There's no information.

Andrea 29:44

Some yeah, there's very limited information, but even like sometimes they're they have people with no name, just where they were found, which is so sad. But um, so we have to like we at least fact-check it. I fact-check it twice.

Paul G 29:56

There have been a few cases that I like the one woman with the Halloween I was talking about. The reason we didn't cover it, I couldn't find any m any credible information off of it.

Andrea 30:05

Yeah, which is mind-blowing to me.

Paul G 30:07

And my suspect in the killing person who I thought had the most to had the most access to kill this person still lives in the area. And I thought, you know what? And I'm not gonna I'm gonna chance it. Yeah, because I don't want that dude coming over here.

Andrea 30:22

Yeah, because I hold a nursing license, I'm sure I can be found.

Paul G 30:26

Yeah, and I can be found. I mean my website.

Andrea 30:29

So we also have to consider that. But I like like I was said, we like to pick cases that you know uh yes, they're very limited in their information, and we pick those, I guess, because they don't have a voice.

Paul G 30:41

Yeah. You know, nobody's done anything on them and they've been quiet for 30 years. What uh what what where's the coverage on this? Now, one thing that I do know about podcast other podcasts that drives me absolutely insane is like this guy with the Arkansas Democrat gazette, he does a podcast.

Andrea 30:56

Which we mentioned this, yeah.

Paul G 30:58

Oh my god. Every time I listen to him, he tries to tie anything that happened within uh 500 miles of Wichita, Kansas. He tries to tie everything into BTK.

Andrea 31:09

Yeah.

Paul G 31:10

And it doesn't matter the MO. He's like, oh, did BK BTK do this? Absolutely not. It's not even the same thing.

Andrea 31:17

Yeah, we try not to do that either.

Paul G 31:19

I mean he does it constantly. It's he's as bad as the cops in West Memphis 3. Because he's trying to make the narrative fit BTK every time.

Speaker 31:32

We try not to do that. That's wrong. I know, I agree.

Paul G 31:36

When I went to school, I went to school to be a journalist and a psychologist. That was my those are the two class courses. Course, course, what does it call it? Class courses.

Andrea 31:45

No, the core classes.

Paul G 31:47

No, not core classes. The the the road to getting a degree. Uh curricula, the core curricula.

Andrea 31:53

Core curriculum.

Paul G 31:54

I don't know, whatever. Anyway, so that's I was gonna be a journalist, so I took journalism, I was on the paper in uh college. I drew the comic political cartoons for the for the college. And I drew uh and then I did political stories and things like that, and you know, covered things. I worked for the Benton County Daily Record, I wrote stories about sports. Yay me. And uh uh the psychology, you know, I enjoy that. It's kind of my hobby. But so journalism is my background as long as as well as insurance selling.

Andrea 32:31

Two opposite ends of the spectrum, but you know, hey.

Verifying Missing Persons And State Lists

Paul G 32:33

Yeah. But in in journalism, if you can't double source it, if you can't uh make if you can't prove it, it didn't happen.

Andrea 32:45

I mean, it's kind of like in nursing, if you it didn't document it, it didn't happen.

Paul G 32:49

Yeah. Exactly. Same thing. And hers is more important than journalism. Journalism is all a bunch of hearsay anyway.

Andrea 32:57

Yeah, for us, if you didn't document it, then it didn't take place and you can't go back and fix that. If it's something important, you need to put it in in the writing. We used to say if you think it, you ink it, but now it's on the computer now. If you think it, you type it.

Paul G 33:09

But um you can dictate some of those doctors do that.

Andrea 33:13

Uh nah.

Paul G 33:15

Make their nerves listen to it and type it out.

Andrea 33:17

I don't know. Now they got scribes where they have somebody follow around and the doctor just talks and that person's all in there typing. I need one of those. A scribe.

Paul G 33:25

Follow me around and listen. Can we get a blonde?

Andrea 33:28

No. I knew that was going.

Paul G 33:34

I didn't my luck could show up and just said blonde dude.

Andrea 33:37

Dang it. I'd laugh. Like you said, blonde. You didn't say specifically what type of blonde.

Paul G 33:47

But no, when we're when we're doing a case, the the things we're looking for is what can we prove? Right? And where did this happen? You know, we can we do we we go through so many newspaper clippings.

Andrea 34:05

And we also find cases that we find interesting, and then we found out that it we can't find anything on them or the case doesn't exist.

Paul G 34:12

Yeah. Well, ChatGPT makes stuff up sometimes.

Andrea 34:16

Yeah, you gotta be careful of that.

Paul G 34:18

Yeah.

Andrea 34:19

But you know, I mean, it to us it's just and then also Paul's cases that cases, but um stories are picks or actual factual. You look them up, yeah, you get information on them.

Paul G 34:28

Or the Paul G's pod Paul G's corner.

Andrea 34:30

Well, the last one we covered on the water.

Paul G 34:32

Yeah.

Andrea 34:32

I mean Who knew you know stuff like that, you know?

Paul G 34:36

They happen like twelve times in the past ten years.

Andrea 34:40

Oh god, I still check the tap water every time I Yeah, exactly.

Paul G 34:44

Well, it's like this like this one I'm covering now from the 80s, where in Philadelphia they burned down an entire block trying to trying to get rid of one group of people in one townhome, yet they burned down 62 blocks.

Andrea 34:59

Yeah, but you researched that heavily before you actually like talk.

Paul G 35:03

Absolutely.

Andrea 35:04

Because I mean, I was like, no way. That's like not that long ago. Why why would you do that? This innocent people.

Paul G 35:10

Yeah, and that was you know, it was the turn. We we don't do things like that anymore. They dropped a satchel bomb on this townhome to burn it down to kill the people inside of it. The cops did this. The mayor told them to do it.

Andrea 35:27

And you wonder why people have such issues with cops now.

Why Some Cases Don’t Make The Show

Paul G 35:30

And it wasn't a white cop against black people, it was a black or white mayor against the black people. It was a black mayor in Philadelphia who bombed a black radicals in Philadelphia. And the white guy in the middle is going, you know, it's probably not right. Maybe not, and it's like no, we're doing it. Okay.

Andrea 35:52

That's such mind-blowing that is. And you wonder why people have such issues now. I mean, really.

Paul G 35:58

Exactly. You know, but I wouldn't trust a police officer ever in Philadelphia. Not after knowing that. I mean they killed they killed, what, eleven people? Three children.

Andrea 36:12

Yeah, that's totally senseless.

Paul G 36:14

Yeah. And if you want to hear that story in depth, it's on Paul G's corner. It's already out, sitting out in the air, waiting for you to listen.

Andrea 36:22

So before I forget, what was our positive feedback we got?

Paul G 36:27

Oh, uh the lady from Hawaii, she said she liked the way we researched and everything was good and how we focused on things people forgot.

Andrea 36:37

Yeah, that made us feel good. And that was your story. And that was that story, but that was what you covered, and that was when I'm like, still like, no way did this happen. And how long was it? Like what 60 seconds, 90 seconds, or something before they can redact it or something stupid? And they cut it 38 minutes. 38 minutes, okay.

Paul G 36:54

And so Hawaii had a it's for everybody listening, so you're not going, what the hell are you talking about? Hawaii set let loose of uh uh an alert on the emergency broadcast to everybody's cell phone. It's not too long ago, that a nuclear ballistic missile was incoming, and we were gonna all gonna die from a nuke. And they let that sit there for 38 minutes, didn't say anything to anybody to retract it because the governor was supposed to come out and say it's just a test. Don't worry, this is a mess up. And he was gonna use Twitter to do it, but he couldn't find his Twitter password, so it took him 38 minutes to figure to get his Twitter account unlocked so he could post it. I'm like, just go on the emergency broadcast and send out another one that says previous alert was false.

Andrea 37:44

Can't do that br on the radio. This is not a test.

Paul G 37:49

He sent it out everywhere. But you went on the radios, it went on the TV, it went on your phones, everything.

Andrea 37:55

So you picked Twitter to retract that. Yeah, nobody I'm not nobody's on Twitter. I wasn't I'm not on Twitter. I never really was on Twitter, but uh why can't you just the emergency broadcast system? Isn't that what we have that for?

Paul G 38:07

That's what it's tied to. That's what he that's what went out was the emergency broadcast system.

Andrea 38:11

Then just fix it and put another one on there.

Paul G 38:13

Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, I gotta do it on Twitter.

Paul G’s Corner And Deep Dives

Andrea 38:16

It's gonna take you 38 minutes to no I imagine like the people sitting there, you're you're embracing it's going to be your doom, okay? And then all of a sudden you'll welcome the clock going, was this thing coming or not?

Paul G 38:28

Is it just been 15 minutes?

Andrea 38:30

I don't think it's coming.

Paul G 38:32

Exactly. And and she's from Hawaii, she does Asia uh Asia stories.

Andrea 38:39

Yeah, that made us feel good because I thought that was sweet because I laughed when I'm like a Twitter password. Yeah. But you know, it's stuff like that that we like to cover and find interesting because I didn't even know that happened.

Paul G 38:51

Yeah.

Andrea 38:52

You know, and it's funny because it I remember it when it happened.

Paul G 38:55

I remember watching the news going, oh my God, that's so stupid.

Andrea 38:59

Yeah. I just it makes me laugh.

Paul G 39:00

Because I watched I'm a habitual news watcher, and she is not.

Andrea 39:04

I am not. I'm not just saying the situation was like funny, but the fact that the Twitter password is what it took, I find it funny.

Paul G 39:09

Well, just yeah, just release another communique, you know, whatever.

unknown 39:13

Anyhow.

Andrea 39:14

There needs to be like one of his he or she's advisors running around with a giant notebook with all the passwords in it.

Paul G 39:21

He's just sitting on his, you know, sitting on his porch drinking some mimosas, having a good time. It's Hawaii.

Andrea 39:26

I think if at the end is near, I'd probably be doing the same thing.

Paul G 39:30

Uh there's a lot of things I'd be doing.

Andrea 39:33

But we do appreciate the feedback.

Paul G 39:36

And we do take it constructively. I mean, even though the one email may have come off as kind of a jerk to us, but you did initially you did reply back and ask, hey, yeah if we've messed something up.

Andrea 39:51

We'd love to set the record straight. Please tell us.

Paul G 39:54

And uh they have not. And then it it calmed down. They said, Oh they said they'll have their family reach out to us. And I she can tell me what she has to say all she wants, but if she didn't know the guy.

Andrea 40:07

We can't redo it.

Paul G 40:08

I I can't, you know, I I need somebody. I mean, I'd I'd love to go on and say this is not correct, but uh she didn't did she go there? I don't know. It sounds like she just was told that this guy does this. And now there was another case that we had where we were actually talking to the investigator that someone hired to investigate it. And that uh we're s we gonna figure her out because she's supposed to contact us back. And she works for a private detective agency, but she also works for a very highly recognizable podcast, which I'm not gonna say right now.

Andrea 40:49

Yeah.

Paul G 40:50

Um because we don't our relationship isn't solidified with these folks.

Andrea 40:55

Yeah, it's just we had a one-time conversation.

Paul G 40:58

And ironically enough, she has a connection to one of our other cases.

Hawaii Missile Alert And Accountability

Andrea 41:04

Oh, yeah. And she did give us some information about that, and we kept saying, Well, well, let's have you on, let's let's let's get started.

Paul G 41:10

I want to know about that. Let's talk about that, let's find the other side of it.

Andrea 41:13

You know, and we haven't heard anything, but we're open. It like if we'd love, I would love to have someone that knows the victim come on and and tell us about the victim.

Paul G 41:23

Yeah, and then we can let's do our victimology the correct way and actually learn.

Andrea 41:27

But it's very hard, A. We don't want to probe every family member that of a victim because they may not want to talk, and we respect that.

Paul G 41:34

I don't want anybody probing me.

Andrea 41:36

Well, yeah. No aliens for you, no aliens.

Paul G 41:40

I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's aliens.

Andrea 41:43

Well, your hair's not fitting the statement, so it was earlier.

Paul G 41:46

I combed it.

Andrea 41:47

But you know, we we we would love to do that, but it's we don't want to intrude in the family's lives unless this is not an official investigation, it's us screwing around. So if they hear us and want to come on and tell us Yeah, no, absolutely heck yeah. If you feel comfortable doing that, we'd love to.

Paul G 42:06

And I cannot promise we won't ask hard questions.

Andrea 42:09

That's true. We cannot promise that.

Paul G 42:11

Because she and I are we have no filter.

Andrea 42:14

But we would we will be have a tackful filter. Respectful filter.

Paul G 42:18

She would. I don't know about me or not.

Andrea 42:21

You do to a point.

Paul G 42:22

That's what I mean. What's that l where's the line? Well some people's lines are much further close in thanks.

Andrea 42:31

We don't want to scare anybody if you want to come on and talk to us.

Paul G 42:33

Well, I mean, just prepared, because I do have a journalist streak in me, and I'm gonna ask a hard question if it needs to be asked.

Speaker 42:39

Yeah.

Paul G 42:40

I I'm not afraid of anything. And Andrew can attest to that.

Andrea 42:44

That's true, you're not afraid of anything.

Paul G 42:46

Stupidly not afraid of anything. Like today there was a guy, you were totally afraid of him.

Andrea 42:51

He wouldn't okay, we're sitting there, and I would like to understand people in in uh parking lots, why there's no uh etiquette or kindness anymore.

Paul G 43:02

Or we're on the roads.

Andrea 43:03

Yeah, Paul stops. This guy's bringing this cart across. We're waiting for him to let him cross.

Paul G 43:07

So he can go back.

Andrea 43:08

And so he can go back. You know, we're just being super nice. And he's looking at us, he's I guess he's a kid. Like bowing up and looking at us, like, what's what are you? What are you doing, man? What are you staring at me for? And I'm thinking, so we don't run your butt over?

Paul G 43:23

Yeah. Next time I'll just run you over, dude.

Andrea 43:26

I mean and then he like watches us park, and I'm like, what has gotten into people?

Paul G 43:30

I don't, you know, I get out of the car and she's like, oh no, watch out. And I'm like, he ain't gonna do nothing to us. And if he does, I'll just, you know, I'll just he won't last long because he was a skinny little twig kid. I just don't want to end up a I'm a 280-pound, five foot ten giant man, and here's this kid that the wind blows too hard, he's gonna fall over. I don't think it's I'm not worried about that.

Andrea 43:53

A, I'm worried about you going to jail, and B, I don't want to be a TikTok meme or some ticket.

Paul G 43:57

Yeah, I ain't going to jail. He's gonna have to hit me first.

Andrea 44:01

You can just become a TikTok thing just walking into Walmart. I mean, you just these days.

Paul G 44:05

I took a card of the body and didn't pass out, so I think I'll be okay.

Speaker 44:08

Oh, true.

Paul G 44:16

I'm not I'm not I'm the nicest guy on the planet until you fuck her. What was that? Yeah, tattoo.

Andrea 44:22

Yeah.

Paul G 44:24

Yeah. Don't don't make me mad because it is not good. I try not to get mad though. I work really hard on that, don't I?

Andrea 44:30

You do. You do a good job.

Paul G 44:31

Unless it's a computer. Yeah. And then it's on.

Andrea 44:36

Yeah, I'll hear you screaming at your computer while I'm working.

Speaker 44:40

Yeah. I'm like, well, the computer's giving him feds.

Paul G 44:43

So yeah, anyway, so what else have we got going on? Anything? It's a new year.

Andrea 44:48

It's a new year.

Paul G 44:49

It's I don't care if it's a new year or not. It's just a calendar. The Georgian calendar. It might as well be called the billion calendar, for all I care. I mean, it's just another day.

Andrea 44:58

Yeah, the older we get, the more New Year's Eve's like, whatever.

Paul G 45:01

It was always that way for me, though.

Andrea 45:02

Me too. I was like, eh.

Paul G 45:04

I don't care. You know.

Andrea 45:06

I never was.

Paul G 45:07

I'm down to party in time. Doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be just once a year.

Andrea 45:11

I used to work a lot of New Year's days and in New Year's Eve as a nurse, so I I got to see stuff that just makes me like, uh, all the crazy, stupid people are coming out.

Paul G 45:21

No, you should not put that in your butthole.

Andrea 45:24

I've thought that in my head before. I'm not gonna lie. Or I'm like, why did you decide to hold the firecracker in a closed fist?

Paul G 45:34

Yeah, that's not a good idea. Please don't do that.

Andrea 45:36

Or why did you decide to drink and drive? Yeah. Yeah, so.

Paul G 45:41

So if you want to email us and talk to us and yell and complain at us, you can do that. Just uh write your email to Paul at Paul G. God, I can't do it. Paul G at Paulgnewton.com. Paul G at Paul G Newton.com. If you can't remember that, just Google Paul G Newton.com and you can find my website where you can also buy merch. You can buy a really cool shirt about the Squid Wars of 2175.

Andrea 46:09

Yes, with the cats.

Paul G 46:11

Or you can get a murder shirt or ask me about donuts or murder. Either way, it's the same. It's on there. Yeah, it's got there. Anyhow, and if you have any questions or comments, please email us. Don't call us. I had a guy call me once. It was very creepy. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He looked me up on the whois on the internet. Oh. Yeah. Because it's, you know, you gotta register your website. Anyway. Okay. I guess that's all we're gonna talk about.

Andrea 46:40

Sounds good.

Paul G 46:41

Okay.

Andrea 46:42

Bye.