Criminal - Bonus: The Liberal Arts Club

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Listen to the latest Criminal Plus bonus episode completely for free. Phoebe and Lauren hit record on the drive to visit a 100-year-old Liberal Arts Club in Tarboro, North Carolina. You’ll also hear Phoebe’s presentation to the club about the history of Criminal, and how she thinks about the stories we tell. If you’re not a Criminal Plus member and you like what you hear, become a member at thisiscriminal.com/plus or in your Apple Podcasts feed. You'll also get ad-free episodes! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alright, there we go. We're in business. Hi Phoebe. Please don't put that close. Welcome to Criminal Plus. I'm Phoebe Judge. I'm Lauren Spohr. You need to put it over there. I'm Lauren Spohr. And we are on 64 East in North Carolina.

We're actually passing the exit for the Nash Correctional Facility. Lauren and I were there, I don't know, about 10 months ago doing a story about Philip Smith, Phil Smith and his newspaper, the Nash News, which is a newspaper created in prison. And so we went to interview Phil Smith at the Nash Correctional Facility, and we're driving past it right now. And Phil just wrote me like a month ago to say that they finally were able to listen to the episode. They had to wait months and months and months before the prison administration played it for them. And he said something in an email like,

I hope I have the opportunity to hear it a second time. And I was really, I had never thought about that before, that maybe he would only get to hear it once. So here we are coming to you. We're doing this episode of Criminal Plus from the road. From my car. And to make it even more exciting, the tire pressure light is on on the

back right tire so uh but we don't really have time to stop and check it because we're on our way to an event and so there's no time so we're just hoping a prayer that this tire pressure gauge is just off for some reason. I mean, if we break down on the side of the road, that's the real behind-the-scenes content. It's funny. Lately, thinking about Phil Smith and not being able to listen to the Nash News episode,

it's funny to think about just how difficult it's been for us to share content with people who are incarcerated. Travell Coleman, who we did a two-part series on in September of last year, we were trying to talk to him, and he wanted to hear the episode that he was in. This is the man who's at Fishkill Correctional Institution who turned himself in after when he was 18. He shot a man and didn't know if the man had survived. And years later, he walked into a police station and said, I shot a man. I don't know if I killed him or not. But Travelle really wanted to hear that episode. And there was no way for him to hear the episode. We couldn't just send him a link so he could listen on his computer.

He couldn't just put it on his iPhone. And so Susanna Robertson, who produced that episode, called Travelle up and played him the episode that he was in in minute-long chunks over the phone so that he could hear the episode that he was in in minute-long chunks over the phone so that he could hear the episode. But that's really, we do these stories oftentimes, but people who are incarcerated, while they're still incarcerated. How do we share it? And how do we share it with them? We're in Nashville, North Carolina, which is in eastern North Carolina.

And this is a part of the state that grows a lot of sweet potatoes and a lot of soybeans and a lot of cotton still. We're going to Tarboro, North Carolina. And one of Tarboro's claims to fame is that, one, it has the second oldest town common in the United States, the first being Boston. What is a town common? A town common is this big area in the center of town where people, was public grazing grounds. So you could bring your pigs, your cows, and have fields and to graze right in the center of town. So you,

you know, you could live in town, not have to have lots of land, but your family had a cow or some pigs and you could take it out to the town common. That's one interesting tidbit about Tarboro. The second interesting fact about Tarboro is that George Washington actually stopped and spent the night in Tarboro. We're going to Tarboro because I've been invited to Wow. Every year, they pick a new topic, and the women who are in the club, they agree on the topic for the year, and then each individual member of the club. One would take Colosseum, one would take Bifle Tower. And everyone, you go off and you research it and you write a paper and then you come together and you present your paper and what you've learned. And there are refreshments. And so if you're presenting the paper, you are not hosting the event so we are going to Tarboro because this year

the topic has been crime I think there's going to be a spread of foods southern foods which I'm really looking forward to I was saying do you want to read that that's the history of the history of the liberal arts club well I my my eyesight is not what it used to be. Hold on. Are you still going to be able to take me seriously when I have glasses starting next week? Are they fake? No, I have to... Literally, my vision is actually failing. Can I have the microphone for a second?

Lauren has been fake-wearing glasses for a number of years, and it started when she was in fourth grade when she cheated on her eye exam and pretended that pretended that she couldn't see so she'd get glasses but it's interesting that she so every time I see Lauren wearing glasses now she doesn't have a prescription I mean they're called reading glasses it's like a very normal thing that people do when they have trouble reading is purchase reading glasses that are not prescription so yes I've been wearing reading glasses which I not prescription so yes i've been wearing

reading glasses which i've now i think i've outgrown them but yeah in fourth grade i wanted glasses i wanted braces i wanted crutches i wanted everything i needed a lot i needed to feel special so okay this says on february 8 1921 a small group of ladies met at the home of Miss Cece Todd to form a literary club called the Tea and Topics Club, later to be known as the Liberal Arts Club. According to the minutes of the first meeting, the object of this club is for mental improvement of its members and social intercourse. Early meetings included musical entertainment, reading of poetry, I can read some of my poetry, as well as current events, programs, and refreshments as we enjoy today. Phoebe, are you nervous? I haven't. I mean, I grew up in Chicago. I have spent a number of years now in the South. There's no one as friendly as a Southern. There's nothing like Southern hospitality. That's what they say. And there's no one as friendly as kind of a Southern woman. I mean, that's what they say. And there's no one as friendly as kind of a southern woman.

I mean, that's what you think. That's what they want you to think. That's what you think. No, I'm not. We are in good hands. Have you ever been to a PowerPoint party? I don't know what that is. It's like you go, everyone prepares a PowerPoint presentation

about a subject that interests them, and then they present them to the group. So I went to one recently, and I did a presentation about fruit. And I just did a PowerPoint presentation with as many impressive PowerPoint transitions as I could work in, and you just sort of teach each other about something that you're interested in. It's kind of similar. So here we are. We're at Kingsborough Road, and we're about to get off the highway

and head to June Cherry's house, who's hosting us for liberal arts. Do you want to go see the Town Common? Yeah. Okay. And here it is. So you were wondering what a Town Commons is, Lauren. Here's the Town Commons. See? See And here it is. So you were wondering what a town commons is, Lauren. Here's the town commons. See?

See how big it is? There's this big open area. Washington Southern Tour. President Washington spent the night April 18, 1791 in the town of Tarborough. Town commons established by 1760. So this is Tarborough Town Commons, 1760. And here is downtown. It's not commons. Yeah, the the Commons. Or Common. I think you

could say either. So here it is. And now on our way to June Cherry's. You're getting nervous. Hello, I'm Phoebe. Ever since I was a little girl. Nice, Laura. That's an old house, huh? Seems like you would like a big old... Oh, absolutely. ...historic house to fix up. Or not even fix up. It could be falling down a little bit.

We're going to be six minutes early to June Cherry, so maybe we'll just... On average, how many minutes early are you? Like, I'm often seven or eight minutes early, and I have to park. Like, I don't want to, like, show up at someone's driveway yet, because that's, like, too much of an upset. So I have to, like, hide in a nearby parking lot or earlier on the street and just, like, read my emails for a few minutes

so I don't bother people by showing up too early yeah seven seven early yeah me too but sometimes if it's like sometimes something happens and it's like 17 minutes early and I I try to it's like I have to have a conversation myself about what's going on what's going what happened I know I feel like six is a comfortable zone of early. Oh, I don't think you can arrive at someone's home six minutes early. No, no, no, no. I'm saying arrive out front. Like, not even out front.

You can't be up front. You can't come. I know, but in a parking lot of some... Nearby. Nearby. I feel like six is like you can get yourself, and then you can be ready at... Will you walk up to someone's door on the dot, or do you... What's the threshold there?

I feel like on the dot is kind of aggressive. Totally dependent on situation, closeness of the person. If someone's arriving to your home, when do you look out the window? 55. Oh, that's interesting. I look out the window on the dot and if I see their car arriving on the dot, I if I see them if I see their car arriving on the dot I feel so pleased I really enjoy someone who arrives if if they've been invited for five someone who arrives at 503 you know I think that is a perfect at the door and the driveway

yeah in the door or drive 503 I'm like, oh, you've, you, that feels good. 503. Okay, I had a big heated conversation with someone about this recently. When, how many minutes do you send a text to say, I'm running late? Before you're even late. I totally agree. But if you have to answer the question philosophically, how many, he, my friend said 10. And I was like, oh my God, I was like, that's so late.

I don't even know. I can't even. I don't. Okay, so here we are. We're pulling in. Hello, I'm Phoebe. Enough of the impressions, please. All right.

Okay, it's 334. What do we do? I can see the driveway. Do we pull over or do we approach? When did we say we would be here? 3.40. We said 3.40. Okay, we're just going to go. We're going to loop around. Should we start a liberal arts club in Durham? I think it's a good idea.

What would be your first topic? Season. What about, like, U.S. presidential history? I pretty much know it. Wow, look at that huge indoor pool. What do you think about an indoor pool? Don't like it. Don't like it, but you never have to scoop the leaves out.

But that's a Florida thing. That is a huge Florida thing. Because there's, like, frogs and snakes and alligators in your pool in Florida. But if you screen it in, you can enjoy it at all times. You know, maybe art history. Ooh, I love this idea. So everyone takes an artist and is able to show their work and talk about controversies, fame, you know.

Should we set this up? I love this idea. Who would be the members? Me, you, Nadia. set this up? I love this idea. Who would be the members? Me, you, Nadia. I think we've spent enough time together. Wow. Ouch. I mean, criminal's kind of like a liberal arts club.

But I wanna get to be in attendance. I don't always wanna be the one doing the research. Okay, so this second loop. This is... Wow, not a single car. I think... So I think on loop number three, we a single car. I think... So I think on loop number three we've got to go in, huh? Oh, wait, do we have... No, still no cars.

Oh, one car. Oh, someone's leaving. The only car that was there is driving away. We're going to spare you the next few laps we made around the neighborhood and our discussion of moleskin notebooks. So here we are, pulling up to June Cherry's house and getting out of our car along with a lot of other people, as if we've

just happened to arrive at that very moment. Hi! Hey, Lauren! Hey, babe! Okay! Hi! Hey Lauren! Hey babe! Okay, we're ready to go. There we go. This is Diane LaFalle, she's our first lady. Hello, I'm Phoebe. And there is Lauren.

And I'm Louise. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Phoebe. So we will go on in. Okay, great. So here we go. We just spun around. Lauren's never been to Tarboro before. Oh.

So we just spun around and went to the commons. Oh, okay. Yeah, so I gave the facts of, I think this is right, that Tarboro has the second oldest commons in America. But it's a common. Common. Oh my god, we were just talking about that. We were just, okay.

It is one of only two remaining. Remaining. In the United States. Boston. Boston. Boston and, the original, Boston and Tarboro. We were just talking about that. It is one of only two remaining in the United States. Boston and the original, Boston and Turbor. 1760. And some of those houses that still line the common, if you go in the backyard, they have the original stable back there where they have the horses for the horse and buggies.

Really? And they're still grandfathered in, so if they really want to keep a horse, they could. Really? Louise lived on the main street, and now she lives right beside the Well, thank you for having us. I'm Jane Sharon. Nice to meet you. Me too. Thank you for having us. I'm going to let you sit in the big chair over there, and you can sit next to her. Okay. It's like a Southern liberal room. Okay. I got to talk with some of the Liberal Arts Club members before everything got started and learned that most of them did not listen to podcasts, including Criminal.

I read a lot. I do. I'm a very avid reader, and I do read crime. I read a lot of Devil in the White City, and I mean, you know, all those kinds of things. Do you know what I, do you know my secret? I don't listen to podcasts. I don't.

Lauren, is that true? This is Lauren Spohr. She started Criminal with me. And this is what she does when I'm interviewing someone. She stays in the corner and pretends she's not there, but she's listening to everything. Do you have any more? Oh, I'm going to ask a couple more questions. Okay.

Would you just introduce yourself? Debbie Lamb. And what else would you like to know? Well, we were just talking about the Liberal Arts Club and what this club has meant to this group of women over 100 years. That's right, and when they talk about the origins of tea and topics, I mean, that's really what we're doing, but it's wine and topics. Lauren and I were driving up here, and we thought,

well, why can't we have a Liberal Arts Club? Oh, I think you should. and we thought, well, why can't we have a liberal arts club? Oh, I think you should. It'd be wonderful. You just start with a few friends and set a format and it grows from there. There was a very nice spread of food in the dining room, including a homemade looking chocolate cake. I'm pretty sure it absolutely was homemade. And then everyone moved into the living room and squeezed into the circle. People were spilling out into the hallways. Everyone was very dressed up. I was absolutely the least dressed up.

Well, thank you very much for having us. When Faye asked a few months ago if we would do it, I said absolutely. And I think it was so wonderful when she said that this year the topic would be crime. I think the first thing is, you know, we are a podcast, and when I told my father that we were starting a podcast, he said, but Phoebe, how is anyone going to find it? What is a podcast? Because I had always been in public radio,

I'd always been on the radio, and I was kind of a producer and a guest host for a show called The Story with Dick Gordon, which was a national show, and that's where I met Lauren, who had been working at NPR in Washington, and Lauren was a producer and a director, and we started working closely together on that show. And when that show went off the air, I kind of thought that they might say, Phoebe, you're the new host. They didn't. They said, we're taking the time. And so that night, Lauren and I, who had started to work together, said, well, that's okay, because now we can start our own thing. And no one can tell us what to do. And we were sitting there thinking, what would we like to do? And we thought, well, and Lauren said, how about crime?

And I thought to myself, well, isn't that a good idea? We're never going to run out of stories. But it wasn't just that we wouldn't run out of stories, but I think that what both of us had seen in, first off to say, we aren't crime nuts. Crime's great. And like all of you probably hear, you read crime stories sometimes, and sometimes you read a historical fiction book about crime or true, but it's just part of you. It's not your whole life. And that's for us too. There are many things to be interested in. Crime is one of them. It's an interesting topic. But I think what we realized is that a lot of the crime reporting coverage that we were seeing in the media really was lacking in a couple of ways. One, it was

lacking in compassion to those who had been impacted by the crime. Crimes were thought to be just entertainment. And so you could imagine someone's mother, son, turning on the television or reading an article and seeing the worst moment of their lives splashed in the most dramatic, violent, sensationalized way because it was going to be good for ratings or it was going to make someone buy that People magazine, you know, let's talk about the gory details first. We thought, well, we don't want to do that. We always need to understand that someone who's been impacted by these crimes is potentially reading this piece of media, whatever that might be. The other thing we were going to try to do is create a show where we wouldn't necessarily judge those who had done

the bad thing, the crime. Not to just say you're evil, you're wrong, but rather try to figure out why someone does something horrible. What is it? Because we don't think, I don't think that people are intrinsically bad. I think that they get themselves in horrible situations and they do horrible things. And what pushes someone to that level of doing something terrible? So we were going to look at crime in this broader way with compassion, not to say that we were going to give a pass to people who've done terrible things or don't think that there should be consequences, but rather how do we understand this word crime.

Next thing we thought we'd do is we'd take this word crime and we'd blow apart what you might think a crime was. Crime can be funny. Crime can be sad. Crime can be educational. And so we would create a show that would push the boundaries of that word crime. We knew we were going to do that. And the other thing that we were going to do is we were going to create a show where you'd hear the subject's voice first. So in many of the episodes of Criminal, you never hear my voice first.

You always hear the person's voice first. And we always say the best episode of these podcasts are the ones where you hear me the least. Lauren knows that when we have these edits, I'm always saying, get me out of there, get me out of there. We don't need me to break in right now. Let the person just tell their story. So that's what we thought. Okay, we're going to make a show. We're going to call it Criminal. We're going to put it out there. Who knows if anyone will listen, but we know that we'll be making the best work that we can. At that time in 2014, there weren't that many podcasts.

No one was really making money at podcasts. So we didn't have to worry much. We just thought, well, people will listen, people won't listen. We'll do great work. We'll be happy. I was still on the radio every day. Lauren was teaching at Duke, writing. And we just started this podcast.

Then there was a Q&A, and a woman told us that she actually used to date Larry Pollard, the lawyer from our very first episode, who totally believed in the owl theory. And then someone else asked us what we've learned over these past 10 years of doing the show about the criminal mind. I just wonder what you might have learned over the years about the criminal mind. I just wonder what you might have learned over the years about the criminal mind.

You know, I'm more confused about the justice system and crime now than I think I was before. I don't... Lauren, you can answer that as well. I mean, Lauren and I started the show together, we added every episode. How do you answer that? I think that's right. I think I thought, I grew up in a family of lawyers and I think I thought I had some, I read a lot of true crime books, a lot of crime novels.

I think I thought I knew something about something and after doing this for 10 years we don't know anything. It's very humbling, honestly. You know, that's what we think to ourselves. Why are we telling this story? You know, what is our listener going to get? What are they going to learn? Learn about the world, learn about human experience by this story. And if it doesn't, if it's just sadness, if it's just worry, or we just say, I think we'll skip it. And we'll let someone else, we'll let someone else cover that, you know, and... What do you want your listeners, especially regular listeners, what do you think they,

what would you like them to have come away with in general? I think we want someone to have a greater depth of understanding of someone or a topic. So every episode, I want a listener to come away with curiosity, a deeper curiosity about something, or maybe empathy, maybe some empathy towards someone who they have no connection with, no seemingly shared life experience. You know, I think I say this line a lot, but Criminal is a show about crime, but for someone who is a real true crime nut, who really, they might listen to Criminal and be a little disappointed because I think it's much more a show about the human experience. We say all the time, why are we putting in that detail?

Do we need to say the extent of how many times a woman was stabbed? You know, I don't think we need to say that she was stabbed 47 times over a period of two hours. It's horrible enough, you know, and so we're trying to toe that line of when are we just putting in a detail to shock you more, you know, and so we're all, we're trying to tow that line of when are we just putting in a detail to shock you more, you know, that's, we think about that a lot. You're wonderful. You can stay another hour.

You're welcome to stay for refreshments. No, Lauren, Lauren might come be a member. Okay, do you, and this is probably like asking someone with children who's your favorite child, but do you and Lauren have a favorite criminal force? We both have different answers. I will say I can't, I will say I have three favorite episodes. Do you know what I mean? No, I don't know. My first favorite episode is the third episode we ever did. It's called Call Your Mom.

It's about a mother-daughter coroner team in Wyoming. And she taught her daughter, piqued her daughter's interest in becoming a coroner by putting a dead bird in a box and watching it decay and seeing just how decomposition happens. The second favorite episode is episode 23. It's an episode called Triassic Park. It's about petrified wood theft in Arizona.

It's a very funny episode. It's how you stop someone from stealing something even if you have signs posted all over and you guilt them, you make them feel bad, like they might be cursed. That's how you actually stop them. So that's a good one. And then my other favorite is an episode called Off Leash, which is a, I love this episode because I love the woman so much, Toby. She was a woman like any one of us in this room, I promise you. She was just a woman who liked dogs and was working in the prisons with dog training. She would bring dogs into the prisons, and inmates would help train dogs.

This is a common thing that happens around the country. And she was in an unhappy marriage, and there was an inmate who was a really good dog trainer and she got herself, she fell in love with him. And he said, well, I'm in love with you too. If you help me get out of here, we can, and this woman who'd had this life with no, no criminal history, nothing helped this man escape out of prison in a dog crate. And she, and he clearly was just trying to get, but I talked to her as one of my favorite times ever. This woman, I said, Toby, and she said, you know, Phoebe, I can't tell you what happened to me. I don't know how I could have done this. But the way that she was able to talk about this, you know, like, I know it sounds crazy. I know,

you know, I lost my mind for a second. She was just such a human about it. This wasn't a terrible person. This is a woman who got over her skis, you know, and lonely. I love that episode. Just because I love Toby. She's self-deprecating in a way. Those are my three.

Yeah, I'll go off leash. Yeah, I'll take that as my favorite too. That's your favorite? I mean, just listening to you talk about it, me i was like yeah wow like any who among us like there but for the grace of god like i just was like wow like well how many times do you hear lawyers defense lawyers say yes they did it but it was a momentary i mean i think kobe could be sitting here in this room with us, and you would just say, gosh, Toby, I get it.

I get it. She's not in prison. She's just out in the world working. I think she's remarried now. So, yeah, I mean, that's the wonderful thing is that we're working on four or five different fascinating stories right now that are all from different parts of the world. Lauren, on our drive here, was on the phone with a reporter in Zambia. It's never dull. Every day is different, you know, and we don't know what we're working on.

You wake up and you think, well, who are we talking to today? You know, it always changes. Well, we are thankful. Thank you. Thank you. Y'all be careful and drive safely in the bad traffic. Oh, my God. Thank you for having us.

Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thank you. Did you get any pictures? Yeah, just of the cake. That was our most recent episode of Criminal Plus. Usually, Criminal Plus members get two bonus episodes per month dropped into their podcast feeds.

Conversations between me and Lauren, and sometimes other special guests too, like other producers, our illustrator Julian Alexander, even my father. This month, while we're on tour, we're going to be putting out a bonus episode every week, recorded from cars and backstage and wherever else we can fit it in.

Look out for the first one this Friday. You can sign up for Criminal Plus at thisiscriminal.com slash plus or write in your criminal feed in Apple Podcasts. Thanks very much for your support.