In The Static

EP.001 — Hannah Smith | Making It Before You Know What It Is

• Brandon Keith Osborn • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Episode Description:

Hannah Smith is a podcast producer and co-creator of The Knife on Exactly Right Media. Before that she was a producer and host on The Opportunist. She has spent her career inside the making process, building shows, finding stories, and figuring it out in real time.

In this conversation we talk about what it actually looks like to develop a show from nothing, how you know when something is working, and what keeps you moving when the picture hasn't come through yet.

This is In The Static. A podcast about the making process — before the finished thing exists.

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to the first ever show of In the Static. I am Brandon Keith Osborne. I'm gonna be your host, and I'm joined today with Hannah Smith, who is the co-creator of The Knife on Exactly Right Media, and she's also had some experience on The Opportunist. And welcome Hannah. How are you?

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02

I'm excited to have you. So In the Static is about creators, musicians, artists, journalists like yourself, and talking about, you know, the ideas and how they come together to form the thing that we love to make. So we'll be going over kind of your career and how you got there and maybe some hiccups along the way. But uh let's get to know you first. Uh tell me about Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_01

So I'm born and raised in Oklahoma in Tulsa. Um and yeah, I it was a great place to grow up. I kind of thought from a young age I wouldn't end up living there forever, but uh I really appreciate it. I I appreciate my childhood there um more and more as I as I get older. And there was something really nice about growing up in a smaller place where we were bored a lot and able to be creative. Um my parents really encouraged creativity growing up. And um yeah, I kind of it although it, you know, I I proudly wear the title of late bloomer. It took me kind of a long time to find out what I wanted to do with my career and my creativity. Um I always did really well in school and worked my way through academia, and then when I left, I kind of hit this roadblock of like, what now? Like, what is that? How do I translate this into something outside of the structure of school? So that was that was a whole journey.

SPEAKER_02

Um I think that's important because like one of my questions was gonna be asking, uh, did you know that you wanted to do something in journalism or something? Did you want to be a writer like from an early age? Because some kids are like, Oh, I wanted to play guitar all my life, you know, but some people don't have that all figured out, and so that's really cool. Um you said your parents really sponsored creativity. What did they do for a living here?

SPEAKER_01

Um, they were both educators in the beginning. So my mom uh and dad were both teachers, and then my mom became a librarian at a s at at an elementary school, and then my dad ended up getting a degree in electric engineering. So, um, but that that educational factor was there and really the fostering of um being curious, asking questions. We like, we spent so much time at the public library to the point where I think the librarians were a little scared when they saw us coming, because like we always had so many lost books. Um but it was uh yeah, it was a great resource because um, you know, didn't grow up super wealthy by any means, but if we were interested in something, my mom would say, let's go to the library and find a book about that and figure out, you know, how to learn more about it.

SPEAKER_02

So you got practice for research at an early age.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Great. And uh correct me if I'm wrong, I saw that you went to Valparaiso for I did, yeah. How was that?

SPEAKER_01

Indiana.

SPEAKER_02

All I know about that is they have a decent basketball team.

SPEAKER_01

Right. I don't think I went to one basketball game, to be honest. But um, so that was great. I I knew I wanted to go to school out of state, and so when I was in high school, I ended up getting really into studying foreign languages. I studied Spanish and then studied Mandarin, Chinese. Oh wow. Yeah, and it was just like one of those cool things that my high school happened to offer. I got to spend time, a little bit of time in China and in Mexico. And then when it came time to go to college, um just because Mandarin was more unique, not a lot of people were doing it, I got the opportunity to go out of state and get a partial scholarship. And so I was like, great, let's do it. I don't know that I thought deeply about why or how that would translate to a job um at all. I was just like, this is fun, I like this, let's go.

SPEAKER_02

As as so many young people do, right? It's like I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

I'm just gonna figure it out and which was great. And uh it was a small liberal arts college. Um, you know, as I sort of made my way through school, at some point I I think I started to look around and realize that most of the people in my program were a double major in business, you know, Mandarin and business made a lot of sense. That was something I really wasn't interested in. I ended up picking up a double major in um English literature uh because they didn't have a writing program. What I really wanted to do was write. Um and so as I sort of continued to go through school, it became more and more unclear to me what I would be doing with this when I graduated. I was like, I started a master's program actually with Chinese studies and then and then stopped because I I realized like I don't what am I doing? Like I don't know where I'm going, what am I gonna do with this afterward? I enjoyed studying in China, I didn't want to move there. Um so that was college was a great experience, but um I left a little bit unclear about where I was going with my life, I would say.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, so uh did podcast come into that or um was that something that came later? Did you have like what what are some kind of jobs that you had or yeah, I I moved around a bunch.

SPEAKER_01

I I had a lot of different jobs. I worked for a tech company that uh a Taiwanese tech qu company for a while and realized that that was like not really where I wanted to be. Worked in the food industry for years. Um I kind of I've been thinking back about this period of time in my life lately just because uh of some conversations I've had with friends and now, you know, I'm like 10 years into my career and feel more established. I mean, it's a creative industry, so you just never know. But uh that was really like uh it was a stressful time for me. I felt like really burdened by wanting to figure out what my career would be. And I knew that I wanted to do something in the creative industry, but I also felt really intimidated by that. I kept trying to write. Like I I rode for for this outlet in Tulsa for a little bit, but honestly, it was just I was really not good at it. Like I I I was not. I was trying to do print journalism and I was I was like bad. I didn't know what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02

Um by by your own standards, or people were telling you that you were not good.

SPEAKER_01

Both.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

This doesn't feel like a fit. I was trying to write creative stories, it just nothing was coming together, and I was also starting to build up this real like um kind of intimidation about it. You know, when you try something and try something and it's not working, and then it becomes like more intimidating and overwhelming.

SPEAKER_02

Um you start to question it, like, yeah. I I feel that a lot in my own work, and I feel like a lot of people can relate to that. And yeah, that uncertainty is kind of why what we're talking about is um that that space between like, I really want to make stuff, but I don't know if it's good enough. Yeah. And you know, and nobody's really telling me if I should keep going or not. Right. And how how do you know if you should keep going or if you should maybe quit and redirect? So is that where podcasting kind of landed for you? Did you want to just get into it or did it just kind of fall in your lap?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, I it was um I definitely resonate with what you're saying too. Also, like when you're first doing something, you're probably not good at it, right? Like you have that idea of what you want it to be, and then it's like it's not that because you're just a beginner, right? Um I ended up moving to LA. I was, I was, I got married, my ex-husband, who I'm still very good friends with, uh, is in the film industry. So we moved out to LA. I still didn't know what I was doing. I um I ended up working for as an assistant for someone, which was a cool way to be in LA because I would have to drive all over the city doing deliveries or picking up stuff, got to know the city, and then I was just listening to podcasts all the time.

SPEAKER_03

It was like in the car, you mean in the car.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I was just because I'd spend my whole day in the car driving from like the Pacific Palisades to Silver Lake and um It's easy to do in LA.

SPEAKER_02

You can go through many episodes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and so it's just like cool, let's just hit play on these podcasts. Serial had just come out, which was mind-blowing to me that that format could exist, that like an audio documentary. I'd never heard that before. I mean, I had been listening to this American Life for a long time and loved it. Um and so then it was actually my um my ex-husband and friend who suggested I start maybe just like looking into podcasting because I think because I was so miserable, I had really tried to pivot and go into different fields and I just was really unhappy everywhere that I went because I think really what I wanted to do was something with writing. And then when I tried to pursue different writing formats, I felt like I was failing. Um and so getting into podcasting was this really, it was a breath of fresh air for me. It was this totally different format that I didn't have like all of this emotional baggage with. And um I just was like, I mean, what's the worst that could happen? So I started taking, there was some classes I found in LA. Uh, I learned how to like record and edit and just started playing around. And I took a really cool class um that was writing for the year. Uh it was this organization, I think it was called Writing Pad. I don't know if they're still around. And that was, I loved it. It was like learning how to write uh in a way that someone will take in through listening versus reading. And it's actually like a really different way that you write. Oh, that's interesting. And it just made sense to me. And I was like, ah, yeah, this I really, I really like this, and I wanna I wanna keep doing it. And um and then it just like really came together. I mean, for me creatively, not for my career at that time yet, that took a while, but I started to it just like clicked with me, and I realized it it kind of tied in with the the foreign languages too. Like I didn't really know why I liked that or where I was going with it, but there's something about listening very literally to the human voice that I love. And so then it became through interviewing people and listening back to tape and then figuring out how to edit that and how to write and add my own voice to it to create a story. And that really opened the door for me for my creativity to um, I don't know, it just felt like it clicked with something and it was really exciting. I think that's like and and I know like it was still like many years until I I I had a career in it, but at least I felt like some internal validation that something was working, you know, and that I was like making stuff that I liked.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you felt like you had a direction. Yeah. Yeah, like a destination.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And it's funny you you bring up serial because I feel like so many people in the podcast world were like affected by that. Yeah. And I think a lot of people were like, I can do that. Yeah. And it seems like such a um for lack of a better term, like a democratic medium. Because it's like anybody can get a microphone and has something to say that's interesting. Um, and I think Serial did that very well. I remember listening to Serial with my family. Like we drove to Northern California and we listened to it binging it all the way, and we like missed our exit because we wanted to keep hearing the episodes. Yeah. So um, and I remember that going, Oh, documentaries can live in an audio space. Yeah. I think that's um not to jump ahead to the knife or anything, but I think that's what you guys are doing very well. I think I heard your interview with Karen and Georgia, and they're like, this is a hit. And it's because you guys are doing something I feel that's more story-driven. And it made me realize that um, you know, documentaries aren't retelling something that already happened. It's like finding the narratives that live within that space. And I think you guys are awesome at doing that. And um like the way that you choose your stories, um, the word that came to mind with me was like empathy. Like you really get into sort of that human condition, and it's like the almost the moral gray areas of sometimes doing the right thing is not good, you know. And um it it just really hit home for me because that's kind of the stuff that I write about with my movies and my films and my my books. It's all about like, you know, um emotional grief and loss, and how do we you know move past that? And I think you're doing an awesome job telling those stories. So tell me a little bit about how because uh you were with the opportunist, and then how did the knife kind of start to develop?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so the opportunist was um was great. This is the my my first time working in the true crime space, um, which is where I still work and and I love it. I think that uh there's a lot of different types of true crime, but you know, what you said is so right on in that um to me true crime is really at its best about people and their experiences, and it's often people thrust into these really extreme circumstances that maybe the rest of society as a whole doesn't really identify with because they haven't had that extreme thing happen to them. And then people are are forced to make decisions or to deal with loss or um to fight for justice, and there's a lot of complicated emotions in there. So um I I uh the opportunist was like boot camp in a way. We had a really extreme production schedule. So it was just like making things over and over and over, but I learned a lot through that. And when that ended and I left the show, one of the great things that came out of it is that I met um Pacia Eaton, who's my co-producer, co-host, co-creator of The Knife. She was a producer on The Opportunist.

SPEAKER_02

And I sorry to interrupt, but I instantly connect with Pacia because she's from Washington and I'm from Washington. Uh so when you hear somebody who's grew up in the same area, you're immediately like, oh yeah, we're besties.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, totally. Yeah. And so that that has been fantastic. We're we're creative partners on the knife as well as other projects that we have in development. Um, and so yeah, we left and we we have been working together since we are in process of developing and pitching like longer format, more audio documentary type of uh content, but that has sort of become harder and harder to fund with where the industry is right now. And so we decided we wanted to do a weekly podcast because we love making podcasts. We don't want to pitch an idea and then wait a year to be able to start making it, which is kind of like how it goes sometimes. So we are still doing that, but in the meantime, we decided to launch a show where we can actually just make podcasts regularly, which is the knife. And so it's the same kind of storytelling elements from the opportunist, but just pared down so that one episode is one story, one person's story. Um and yeah, I don't remember the question. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I think how I can sort of grasp that is they're almost like mini documentaries. Yeah. Um and I think it it's what we're talking about as like in the static is the the idea and then trying to get funding and waiting an entire year for somebody to actually make that and they might not make it is just frustrating. So it's like, well, let's just go with what we got and let's start creating, because that's we have a voice and we want people to hear it, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's what you guys are kind of totally because I mean you like people in the film industry that I I hear about that a lot. You probably have that experience where when you're relying on like someone else to green light your creative thing.

SPEAKER_02

The yes, yeah. Like You're always chasing a yes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and then how long can that take? And that there's like a certain part of that that's just out of your control, right? Um, so it's nice to have projects that you can just you can be the one who's like, I'm just gonna do it. Like I have control over this, I can like like your show.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and would you say that's kind of what the knife is too? It's like let's just start making something. And did it happen pretty quickly? Um I know from my research you pitched to Karen in Georgia on exactly right, who I love by the way. Yeah, I for a long time I was like, Oh, I'm not I'm not a true crime person, but then I'm like, dude, I listened to Dateline and my favorite murder, and I you know I'm like, how much You are? Yeah, totally I'm not hiding it anymore. Like I I watched Law and Order when I was a kid with my mom. Like so, um, and I think it's because of the documentary style, the storytelling, you know, even in even in uh fictional stories that there's something that's attractive to me there. Yeah. Uh anyway, I went off on a tangent about Karen and Georgia. So you pitched to them.

SPEAKER_01

Right, yes. We did. And so we could yeah, like, I mean, people can do shows independently, obviously, but we're really lucky that we are working with exactly right media, Karen and Georgia's company. We pitched to them, they love the idea, they've been incredibly supportive of us. So they're our producing partners on the show.

SPEAKER_02

Did you have a relationship with them before, or did you kind of cold email?

SPEAKER_01

They had had me on their show one time before to interview me when I was the host of The Opportunist from I don't remember what what season, but it I think it had been like a couple years. They heard my show. They are, I can't say enough good things about them. They're so supportive of other creative people in podcasting and and in other industries. They're very much about like um, I don't know, just encouraging and supporting other younger, newer creative people. Um, and they do a lot of shout-outs on their show about content that they're watching and listening, and and that really helps. I mean, I saw the numbers when they would shout out the opportunist. Um Yeah. And and um so they had me on their show, and I was just like, this is I'm gonna I'm gonna do a good job with this. I'm gonna send them handwritten thank you notes. And then a couple years later, I reached back out and was like, hey, do you want to make a show together? And they were like, let's meet. So yeah, it was great.

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome. They they seem very approachable, but at the same time, like, I would want them to like me so much. They're they're like the cool girls in school that you hope like that you're on their good side.

SPEAKER_01

Totally. It was so nervous. Paige and I were both so nervous when they had us on their show to introduce the knife. We were like, stop sweating.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it didn't show. I want I watched that episode.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, thanks.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so you got on exactly right, and you've been doing the knife now for a year. Um so talk me through the process. Like, what are you just like buried in research all the time trying to find new stories, or have you had kind of like a backlog of stories and how do you how do you decide what you're gonna put out there?

SPEAKER_01

We uh we do try to get ahead of our production schedule, but uh finding stories is a it it takes a lot of work. Um Pesha's really good at story research. We um are constantly looking for stories, we'll send each other news articles, um it'll be like one paragraph and and we'll be like who can we reach out to? There could be a bigger story here. So that process does take a lot of time. Um it's mostly just patient and I that do that. Um and then it's a bunch of cold cold calling, cold emailing, you know, for every ten stories that we reach out about, we might hear back about one. Right. So yeah, but then um, you know, once we once we have like a backlog of episodes to be able to send people, it gets easier for people to understand what we're doing and and come on board. The hardest ones are like in the beginning when you don't have a lot of episodes, people are like, what am I signing up for here? Right. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You have to establish kind of where that you're going with it and people. Uh one of the things that I listened to was your story of uh Lee Barnett. And I was listening to her episode and she heard on 60 minutes that MacArthur Park, you could get like anything illegal, and she flies across the country and goes to MacArthur Park. And I'm like mind-blown by this. I'm like, she's such a badass. Truly. And it works. The the the strange thing to me was that it it worked because it's like if if I went down to MacArthur Park and said like I need something illegal, they'd be like, Narc, you know? Yeah. Uh so I just thought that was so cool, and and how you told her story was uh just so elegant, and that's where I came through with the empathy through line, because I think that you really got into the bones of this woman and what happened to her. And um, I think that's what people can relate to the most. And so tell me a little bit about some of your favorite stories that you've covered in the knife, or or have you have you been like personally attached to one that more than the other, or yeah, that's a great one.

SPEAKER_01

I can just talk about that one. That was a two-parter we did, which was fun. We didn't start off with it being a two-parter in mind, but then when we interviewed Lee, it just became clear that there was so much to the story. Um, so you know, she one of the things I I love about her story, and this is when you ask, like, what kind of um stories are you looking for? Um Lee's is perfect because it's so complicated. Like, and she is such a complicated person to talk about. Um, you know, she was a um she was on the most wanted list for the FBI for 20 years for fleeing the country and kidnapping her own child. Um and that was the story that was told about her widely in the US for those 20 years that she was gone. That that was the headline. Yeah. So nobody knew what wanted me. And and just on the surface, that sounds like something so terrible. Like what kind of person would do that, you know? Um and then when you really start to dig into her story, it's so complex. She was in this sort of abusive relationship, very controlling. Her the way she described her ex-husband was very was highly controlling. They were in the South, this was the 90s, um, and he was way more resourced than she was, had a lot of power and standing in the community, and didn't want her to get pregnant. When she got pregnant, he pressured her to have an abortion, she refused. And then they went through this really nasty custody battle. He ended up fighting for custody, which like doesn't really make sense, except that, you know, the details of getting into the mind of someone who's highly controlling and vindictive against her and knew that the thing she wanted most was her child.

SPEAKER_02

Um and he was a narcissist trying to save face, too. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So he ends up winning that custody battle. And and it is from there when she feels like she has no legal path forward to help her daughter and feels that her daughter is being now now is in physical danger, that she made this extreme choice to flee the country with her daughter and run away and totally disappear. And that's when she like finds out about MacArthur Park and literally gets fake birth certificates at MacArthur Park.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and if you don't live in Los Angeles, like everybody who lives in LA knows MacArthur Park, and it's it's a lot different now than it was in the 90s. But you know, uh, like I think everybody growing up has the bad spot of town. Uh, but you have to be a different kind of desperate to like actually do that. And the I just think it's so interesting. She heard it on 60 Minutes in all places, and she's like, Oh, I'll just go there and ask somebody. It's just uh it speaks to how desperate she was, you know, and what's happening to her. And um a lot of the stories that I hear, especially around people who might get scammed or something, or um your latest episode with Dusty Turner, and you know, it seems like they're in situations where like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. And it's just so unfair in some ways. But then you're wrestling with the morality of it yourself and the ethics, and you're like, wow, but they they did do this, you know. And so I think I think that sort of tightrope that you and Pesha are walking with the knife is something really powerful. Um you know, I when we make movies, we want people to talk about them in the parking lot after it's over, and I think you guys have accomplished that with this show because you know, I went to my wife, I was like, you gotta start listening. So you got another fan of my life. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01

I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. What I mean, how does that resonate with you as far as like in your work where you are exploring examples of like, I don't know if it's like moral ambiguity or just gray area. Yeah, I mean, I love that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and you know, I I'm gonna have to start a fact check now because I heard somewhere uh, you know, I think it was a sci-fi novel. If I'm not, I'm it's gonna drive me nuts, but I think it's Pierce Brown. He wrote a sci-fi novel called Red Rising, and he's got a character in there who he's like, sometimes doing the right thing, you gotta do bad things, you know. And um and that's interesting to me because sometimes the system isn't set up to reward fairness, you know. Um and in the interview with Dusty, you're talking about, and he's like, it's a game to them, you know, it's it's we've decided that this is our goal, and we're gonna do anything it takes to get to that goal, regardless of it if it affects another human being. Um, and those kinds of situations are really heavy for me. And I think you know, through life experiences and a bit of a troublemaker when I grew up, and um when you carry that stereotype of being a troublemaker, you often get falsely accused. And that's something that's kind of I've held on to for a long time. It's like that false accusation of you must have done this because you've done this, and it's uh it's such an ugly feeling, and and you want to defend yourself so badly, which what makes you look more guilty? Totally.

SPEAKER_01

So did that happen to you on just like a personal level, or did you have a a brush with the criminal justice system?

SPEAKER_02

Y yes, I've been arrested. Um I I struggled with substance abuse growing up um and all sorts of like uh in and out of sort of like rehabilitation programs, and I ended up getting arrested in my early 20s and never um I sort of cleaned up and got my act together, but not perfectly, you know, nobody's perfect. Um but I think that you know, I had some instances where I was working at a ski resort as a lift operator, and on my break I went into the shop and because I was trying on new coats because I wanted to buy a new coat. And at the end of my shift, there was a sheriff there going through my locker, and the shop uh worker, who's just minimum wage shop worker, was like, he did it. I saw him steal the coat. I was like, I didn't steal anything, I was trying on coats, sure. Um, and I desperately I was like, show me the security footage. And and like, so I looked so guilty because I'm like, You have to show me the evidence. Like, I promise you, I didn't do this. And the shop guy was like, he must have handed it off to a friend or something like that. And they fired me.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02

And I was on the mountain and I had ridden up there on the employee bus. And once you get fired, you can't ride the employee bus, so I had to like hitchhike back down, and I was like devastated because I didn't do it. But you know, I had been in trouble at work before, and they're like, He must have done it, you know, and so I can I can empathize with these people. There's that word again, empathy. Yeah. Where sometimes you're you're trying to do the right thing, and people are like, No.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And people make mistakes, right? And and sometimes you're that that journey from trying to turn things around is not just like this really smooth road, right? It could be bumpy, but doesn't mean that you're not making the right choices and trying. And yeah, it's something that w comes up in our show a lot. And we actually we interviewed um a defense attorney, and this episode will come out soon, and it it just, I loved it. She she went to Stanford and then she ended up working um for the Los Angeles um public defender's office. And that was just, you know, she talked about a lot of her clients who got um had records uh from an early age, like as early as seven, like elementary school, middle school, because they went to schools that had a a strong police presence versus in some of those schools, there wasn't a nurse, you know, there wasn't like a school counselor, but there's police. So if you get into a scuffle in the hallway um and you're in that kind of school versus a, you know, a school that doesn't have that, that could change the course of your life.

SPEAKER_02

Instead of like a a counselor who can talk to you about what's going on, yeah. It's like immediately you're put in the system. And the system is not designed to get you out. No, you know. Um unfortunately, it's set up to where you violate, you know, even for simple things like not showing up on time.

SPEAKER_01

Totally.

SPEAKER_02

And you can go back to jail because you are late to a meeting, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Uh and that's not I'm not trying to be defensible to people who've done bad things. You know, oh for sure. Um but I think what we're what we're getting at is uh those stories of like, oh man, you you screwed up, and I can see that you're sorry, but nobody believes you. And it's it's just heartbreaking, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah, and and we actually we do sometimes get pushback on the show, or we have people say things like, Well, why would you defend someone who has been convicted of a crime? Um and I understand that question. It's a good question. I think that um the answer is like looking at our justice system, and if you believe that it's really fair, then it wouldn't make sense to ever examine someone and think, were they wrongfully convicted? I've learned so much about our justice system through this work and and how unfair it often is. And it's always important, it's always my priority and our priority on the show to um defend victims. We're like, we're a victim for show. Most of our interviews are with people who have been victims of crime who get to come on the show and have a space where they can just tell their story and talk as long as they want, and we're gonna listen to them and hear them and understand them as best we can. Um but like victimhood is complicated, and sometimes um a victim means someone um a vic who is a victim of the system. And you know, we talk a lot about how important it is to be able to go into those gray areas and talk about them and explore them without feeling afraid of um it I don't know, there's some people that just like they don't even want to talk about it because it's so taboo, and it also then suddenly it might sound like you're defending a murderer, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Sure. And um that made me think of April Scales, the episode that you have. And when you're listening to her story, you're like, gee, she was a baby, yeah. But like you said about Lee Barnett, it's like the headline says Mother Kidnaps daughter, you know. With April, it's like woman burns down home, kills two people. And but when you get into it, it's like, man, she was 14, 15 years old uh in love with a 29-year-old man, and it's like what? Like, you know, parts of the world we don't understand that. Yeah. So I think how you guys approached that and really gave her a voice to speak about it, you know, um, was really powerful to me. Can you tell me a little bit about that episode?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, so she and and she did uh go to prison and and serve her time. Um she was uh 14, I think, when she met her the father of her child who was 29. And um, you know, this was I can't remember the year now, but uh in the South years ago, I think it was in the 90s, maybe early 80s.

SPEAKER_02

Feels like everything's in the 90s.

SPEAKER_01

And so obviously you have this this relationship where there's this huge power imbalance and and technically it's criminal, right? Because they're having sex and he and she's a minor and he's an adult. Um and her p her grandparents who are her have adopted, who are her legal guardians, her parents find out about this and are threatening to uh because sorry, because she gets pregnant. And they're threatening to um they want her to have an abortion, and they also are threatening to have um the father of the child arrested. And um there's a plan to that that comes about to burn down her or to start a fire in her grandparents' house, which is also her house where she lives. This is a plan that um her 29-year-old boyfriend came up with, and you know, but he brought over the gasoline, but you know, she's the one that starts the fire. Um so there's a lot to dig in there about coercion and things like that. He's the one that has the most to lose, really, in this scenario, because he's looking at being arrested.

SPEAKER_02

And what struck me was her description of like, I didn't think like I thought it was just gonna be like a little fire and everybody would be like, no big deal.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I instantly related to that because when I I was a child, like maybe four years old, and I took a baseball and I threw it through like a bay window at my grandpa's house, and it shattered, and everybody ran upstairs, and they're like, What did you do? you know, and I remember thinking like I didn't think it was gonna break. Yeah, like so. When you're when you're young like that, you have no idea of consequences. And so she was very, I think you used the word, you know, coerced into thinking like this is not a big deal at all. Yeah until it's a really big deal.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and her 14, I think she might have been 15 at this point, brain, she thought there might be a little bit of smoke. This might scare my grandparents a little bit. They'll run out onto the lawn, we'll have this like tearfelt reunion where everyone's so happy that the house didn't burn down, and they'll change their mind and let me keep this baby and then be in a relationship with this 29-year-old.

SPEAKER_02

And I can have the white picket fence.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Which is just like there's no world in which that would ever happen. But in in her teenage brain, that's what she really thought was gonna happen. And obviously that's not what happened. The house burned down and both of her grandparents died.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's tragic.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, tell me a little bit about some stuff that you have on the horizon, some things that you're excited about. Um, do you have any like because the show is called In the Static, it's where things are sort of in development. Can you share any like, you know, passion projects you got going on?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um we have Paysha and I have been working on two different like investigative longer form podcast projects that we've been reporting on for like two years. Um trying to get them made. One of them, we're gonna actually release it on the knife, hopefully this summer or this fall. Um, it'll be a shortened, excuse me.

SPEAKER_02

Editing.

SPEAKER_01

Edit. Uh one of them, we are planning to release a shortened version of it on the knife this fall. Um it'll be four or five episodes, but it is a um about a a serial scammer uh who we've been following and interviewing his victims for a couple of years now. He has never been caught. He is still out and about in California. Um and so we uh yeah, we're gonna we're gonna just release that on our feed, um, you know, it's in the static. That's a product project that we uh attempted to shop around and get funding for and get made and um kept hitting closed doors. And so now we are just gonna put it out on our feed um and excited about it.

SPEAKER_02

Is is something a little bit exciting that he hasn't been caught? Like maybe we could help catch him.

SPEAKER_01

Maybe. I I think that's also been some of the roadblocks that to getting it made because open investigation. Yeah. But um but it feels meaningful to me because I've we've now interviewed multiple of his victims, and it's not just the scamming, it's romance fraud. Um there's also abuse in there. And it feels obvious to me that this is a pattern that is very likely ongoing, and so um it feels important to try to like get that out there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, maybe bring awareness so that people can spot the red flags because uh you hear so many people who have fallen victim to scams and they're just like, I had no clue. Yeah. And you almost tell yourself a story like this can't be what I think it is. Even when it's clear that you're um going through some sort of scam. Um I'm sure everybody's got their own little story of like, oh, I shouldn't have, you know, bought that ticket or whatever. But um to for the scale that you guys are telling these stories, it's uh it's it's pretty heartbreaking, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's a really good book called Anatomy of a Con Artist by I believe Jonathan Walton. We had him on the show, and he has a podcast, um, Queen of the Con. And it's such a good book. I I love that book because it really breaks down psychologically what's happening when you get scammed and how your brain is reacting to things and the tactics that scammers use to build trust. Um, it's really great. I recommend it. And it's also like a fun read because he talks about, like he uses stories that he's reported on, so it's not a boring read. Um, but I love that book because he he kind of preaches something that I've Pesha and I have been trying to talk about and always talk about on the show. Um a lot of people feel really dumb when they're the victim of a scam. Almost I think everybody, literally every person I've interviewed who's been the victim of a scam, um, and I've interviewed a lot of people in that situation, and they all feel really dumb. Like they feel like it's a personal failure.

SPEAKER_02

And um lots of shame, right?

SPEAKER_01

Totally. Uh like how could I fall for this?

SPEAKER_02

But really it's Unfortunately, that's what keeps them in the scam too, right? Because they're like, Yeah, I don't want to know that I fell for it.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And if I like face this reality, then I have to face this horrible reality that I've been lied to, that I've gone along with this, that I've given someone money or access to my life, my house.

SPEAKER_02

Judge you, like how could you fall for that?

SPEAKER_01

It's heartbreaking and like destroys people's trust and humanity. Um but it's like the very thing that makes them human, being able to connect with other people, being able to trust other people, which is like a good thing to be able to do, that also makes them, you know, potentially a victim of a scam. So it really c it really happens to a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02

So listeners can be expecting that coming out soon and

SPEAKER_01

Uh this this the scam story. Yeah, that that should come out um this fall at some point on the knife feed.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you for coming and sharing with us about the knife and your sort of journey in the podcasting environment. And um it's been such a pleasure learning from you and how you go about creating your stories. Um I think that I've been changed in that uh there's so many different narratives that you can pull from a single story, and that you and Pesha are very good at telling those stories, and it's very enjoyable, and I've enjoyed talking to you. So thank you so much for being on In the Static.

SPEAKER_01

It's been really fun. Thanks for inviting me on here and having this conversation. I've loved it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, how'd I do?

SPEAKER_01

You did great. It's a great show.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. That's in the static. If this conversation meant something to you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe wherever you listen. New episodes whenever the signal comes through.