Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: Open Water

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Blayne Alexander sits down with Josh Mankiewicz and Dateline producer Michelle Madigan to discuss their episode, “Open Water.”  When Micki Kanesaki’s ex-husband Lonnie Kocontes invited her on a European cruise in 2006, she thought it would be a chance to rekindle their relationship. But a few days into the trip, Lonnie awoke to find Micki missing from their stateroom. After a boat captain found her body floating in the Mediterranean, both Italian and American authorities zeroed in on Lonnie as a possible suspect in her death. Two of his friends stepped in to prove his innocence – but soon came to an entirely different conclusion. Josh and Michelle share what it was like working on this episode during the pandemic in 2020. Blayne reveals her secret feelings about the open seas and Josh shares his not-so-secret feelings about cruises. Plus, Josh and Michelle answer viewer and listener questions from social media.   If you have a question for Talking Dateline, send us a video message on social @datelinenbc or leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252. Listen to the full episode “Open Water” on Apple: https://apple.co/4ltM66b Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6sbElILJRgm55N0aXQ9MKR?si=52f894b4cf764f8c To learn more about Dateline LIVE in Nashville on Sept. 28, and to get tickets, go here: https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline-event To make Keith or Josh your voicemail voice, go here: https://soundcloud.com/datelinenbc/sets/keith-and-josh-voicemails-1

Hi, everyone. I'm Blaine Alexander, and today we are talking Dateline. And today's a special edition of Talking Dateline because we have not one, but two guests here. Of course, the one and only Josh Mankowitz. Hi, Josh. Hello. And we are also joined by Dateline producer Michelle Madigan to talk about their episode, Open Water. Michelle, thank you for joining us. Hi, Blaine. It's great to be here. So good to have you. Okay, before we jump into the conversation, if you haven't, seen this episode yet, you can go find it on the Dateline podcast feed, so go there, listen to it, and then come right back here. Now to recap, when Lonnie Cacontas invited his wife, Mickey Kanasaki, on a European cruise, she thought it would be a great opportunity to rekindle their relationship. But Mickey never got that opportunity. A few days into the cruise, Lonnie woke up to find her missing. Had she jumped overboard or been pushed off? As police looked into Lonnie as a possible

suspect, his friends took the investigation into their own hands to try and prove his innocence and what they found changed the course of the case and their lives forever. For this talking Dateline, we've got an extra clip from Lonnie's friend Bill about an interesting hobby of his. But first, let's talk Dateline. Let's do it. Yeah. Because Lonnie, you guys took me on an emotional roller coaster with Lonnie. I have to say, I mean, about 18 minutes in, I said, okay, this man clearly did it. And then 22 minutes in. I said, no. And then halfway through, I just had no idea. So, I mean, that's the mark of a good Dateline episode, obviously. But, I mean, let's talk about this guy because he is

somebody who, obviously he's a lawyer. He's intelligent. He did well in law school. It kind of knows a lot here. He was a very smart guy and a very good lawyer. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I, one of the things I kind of wondered about was what drew Mickey to him? Because the thing that was missing from him was some sort of winning personality. Like he made a lot of money and he was a senior partner.

And so, you know, his prestige through his job probably, you know, was part of the draw, part of what made him more charismatic. He certainly knew his way around the legal profession and a courtroom. Exactly what made him so attractive to Mickey, I'm not sure. But she, like,

really was taken with him and believed in him and thought, this can, you know, this, this, this, this affair and, and marriage can sort of come back from the dead. And I, I think that's what motivated her was like, this can still work and it'll make me happy and they'll make him happy. It'll be great. Which is sort of partly, you know, one more reason why this is so incredibly diabolical and awful because it was not just killing someone. It was killing someone who up until the last second thought, he loves me and he's trying to make this work like with me. And then suddenly she had to realize in the last seconds, wait, this is all about getting me onto this ship, this particular ship with this particular drop straight into the ocean.

And this is about killing me. Let's talk about this cruise ship. In fact, Let's just talk about water in general. When the story started for me, you know, we always talk about the fact that the setting is often its own character in Dateline, right? Whether it's like a lonely, dark road or whether it's a small town where everyone knows each other or a hiking trail. And doesn't lock their doors. And doesn't lock their doors. Don't leave that out. Nobody never needs to lock their doors or a hiking trail, right, or whatever it may be.

There's always a character. The beauty of nature, right? Also, savage and dangerous. All right, go ahead. You got it. It's like you wrote the book on this, Josh. Water, I cannot, for me personally, I cannot imagine a more terrifying place than water. I'm personally scared of water.

I can't swim. So, you know, fun blaine fact in there. You can't swim? I am unable to swim. Fun fact, I'm actually taking swimming lessons, starting. here very soon. So if any of our listeners or viewers know how to help an adult overcome a fear of water, please reach out because I'm looking for tips. Look, swimming lessons is a great idea. Weren't you an athlete like in high school? That was a runner. I ran track. I stayed completely dry.

I didn't even do the steeple chase where you had to jump in that little pool of water. I stay on land, my friend. Which is, ironically, I just shot a story on a boat. Look totally fine on air. It was good, but anyway. But behind the scenes, you were, you were nervous. It was the getting on and getting off part when you have to go down that little, anyway. This is a fun, along the lines of you not knowing how to swim. My mom never learned how to swim because when she was a kid, some male relative, I think not her father, maybe like her uncle, took her to the ocean and threw her in. And, you know, and my mom's telling, she, you know, nearly drowned, you know.

I'm sure. You know, and like that made her terrified of water. And she never learned to swim. She would go to the beach with us. She would go to the pool with us, but she would not get in the water ever. There's a big difference between a swimming pool, which is contained. And if you go to the bottom, you can, like, push yourself up and still live. And the ocean, which is a living body of water that will swallow you up.

and never spit you back out, which is why I was so very surprised that the body was ultimately found here, and obviously Lonnie was too. But that, I mean, that never happens, right? I mean, look, I mean, I mean, the worst luck ever if you're Lonnie Kakadas. I mean, you know, if she sinks and she isn't found, he gets away with it. He's probably walking around today. And there might be suspicions, but there's nothing, I mean, without the. body, there isn't a case against him. And Michelle, I want to ask you about this. I loved hearing from the boat captain who, mind you, wasn't a member of the Coast Guard,

wasn't looking for her, wasn't part of the search party. I just kind of heard an alert, hey, we're looking for someone who went over, overboard and lost at sea. And against all odds, spotted her out in the Mediterranean and open water. Yeah. I mean, he said she wanted to be found. I mean, he had no business finding her, but she was right in his path. And hadn't been in the water so long that all kinds of forensic things weren't possible.

They were like they knew. Like she had been, she was hit on the head before she went in the water. She did not die of drowning. I mean, for Lonnie, it was the worst possible luck. Yeah. The revelation that you gave us later on as to why he chose that cruise ship. I loved that. First, I love that she said, first off, this isn't, when people think of a Mediterranean cruise,

you're like, oh, this is nice, good food. It's going to be great, you know, accommodations. Not the case here. This is kind of like an old kind of Shenzoo. A ferry. Yeah. It was a car ferry, right? Right.

Which had been converted into a cruise ship. And by the time we were on the story, it had been scrapped. It was no longer seaworthy at the end. I think, you know, in addition, you pointing up the thing about, you know, being afraid of the water plane. I think what this says is. And I think that any dateline viewer is going to understand. understand this. I'm not saying you'll all agree with it, but I think you'll understand. Stay off the cruises. I mean, just stay off the cruises because terrible things happen on cruise ships.

Sometimes they lose power. They're stuck in the middle of the ocean for a bunch of days. We don't do those stories, right? But there's all kinds of like it. Then there's like the whole kind of like neurovirus, foodborne illness thing. That's terrible. But then, then there is the component of cruising that is featured so often on dayline, which is people go out on cruises, and they do not come back. And given the fact that you can just find like an Airbnb with a view of the ocean, that to me is better than going on a cruise. So in the answer to the question you have not asked,

Josh, would you ever go on a cruise? The answer is absolutely not. Hard pass. Josh has thoughts about this, I see. It's never easy setting up a dateline story. There are always a million moving pieces. But this had to have made it all the more difficult to try and do this during a pandemic. and not even be there. It really did. I mean, we, this story was unique because we started it before the

pandemic. In fact, a lot of the witnesses who testified came from Italy and had already testified in like February of 2020. And then they all had to obviously get back. And, you know, and again, Italy was the first to shut down. And they put the trial on pause and we kind of waited. And it was right at the point of the trial that the prosecution had rested. The defendant was going to take the stand. They didn't want to declare a mistrial and have to redo it all over again. So they just patiently kept in touch with us, kept in touch with the jurors, and eventually they were able to resume it in May. But again, we were all, we were stuck at home.

We couldn't go. Very few things would have made me happier than if Michelle and I had been able to go there, which was originally the plan. I thought this can be great. We're going to be off the coast of Naples, Italy for a week. I was going to bring my wife over, probably take another week. and then COVID happened. And first Italy shut down, and then we did too.

And so we ended up not being able to go do this story. So the interviews that were done in Italy were done with producers, local producers that Michelle hired there. And they did a great job, and I don't think the story suffered. I think I suffered. I think I continue to suffer. But I think the story came out fine. But that was originally behind it was we were going to go shoot this thing. And then because of COVID, we were unable to.

Here's what I can tell you. As I was watching this episode, I could immediately tell. And I was thinking to myself this had to have been during COVID. Because one, Josh, if you had been there in Italy, I would have known it. The viewer would have known it. We would have seen you in, you know, Italian settings. We would have seen you there and really kind of making the most of this trip, you know, woven throughout the story. You would have noticed that my wardrobe change.

from the early interviews to the later interviews. That's what you were. Because I would have bought everything I saw. But, yeah, no, that did not happen. I can't think of a more fascinating set of characters than Bill and Susan. I mean, aside from people who've been directly involved in the crime. But, like, when you started going through their background, Josh, I mean, just former law enforcement. Investigators, she randomly speaks Italian, which came significantly in handy.

I mean, these are the types of people that I certainly would want on my side if I were to ever go missing. I would want these friends. These are exactly the kind of people that you would want defending you if you were wrongly accused of something, which was what Lonnie certainly appeared to be at the beginning that he was kind of getting railroaded by these Italian authorities who were kind of looking for anybody and settled on him. Bill and Susan are exactly who you want in your corner a situation like that, seasoned investigators, she speaks the language,

and they believe in your innocence. And then the more they dug, I mean, it really, the story, you know, was not just Mickey and Lonnie's story, but it was also the story

of Bill and Susan and their quest and how they sort of, you know, did everything that they know how to do, and it kept coming up, the arrow kept pointing toward Lonnie and not away from him. And,

and, And that's partly what made this a great story is this double story. I'm curious, watching them, watching the interview that you did, especially with Bill, it's kind of like watching his mind kind of cycle through this, right? At first, just so they're in defense of his friend. And then around the polyg-you know, when he comes back and he goes back to his ex-wife that nobody knew about, you know, Bill is like, what in the world is wrong with you? you're smarter than this, you know this, and then the polygraph and just kind of watching the wheels

turn in his mind as he comes to the realization of what happened here. I'm curious, did they start to suspect Lonnie before that polygraph, or were they just thinking, okay, that was a dumb idea, that was a bad mistake? I think what they were hoping was that the polygraph would put any questions about Lonnie's guilt to rest. And in this case, Bill and Susan were sort of in the same, you know, they had the sort of of the same ethos as law enforcement. They're thinking like, you know, what's he going to say?

What's he going to do? And if he's willing to take it and he passes it and he's forthright, then I think, you know, they're in a different place. But, you know, he couldn't do it. And, you know, Bill and Susan have too much integrity to cover for anybody, including a friend of theirs. When Lonnie took the polygraph, I was almost wondering which way it would go. Whether Bill, you know, obviously they were so very close, like, you know,

Would they try and side with them? Obviously, the fact that they were talking to you lets you know that they kind of stayed on the right side of this whole thing. But, you know, you wondered for a second. And it was very clear the moment they realized, no, this man is guilty, this is going straight to the FBI. I also love that Bill confronted him. Called him over and said, hey, you need to tell me to my face. And now I'm sending this to the FBI. Strong move.

Yep. Yep. Yeah. I mean, he's an honorable guy. So we also learned something interesting about Bill and Susan. They love dogs. When you came back at the top of the act, I don't remember which one at one. was. But the first shot that we saw were just well-groomed dogs. I said, oh, where are we going with this?

This is a, this is another twisted turn here. And it was so funny. As soon as we got, as soon as the dog show footage was over, I immediately noticed the gold dog necklaces that each of them had on. Like, okay, this is, you know, now I get a little bit about them. Oh, yeah. I mean, the dog, they are both, it's how I kind of found them. I mean, I found their names through this kennel club that they run. and it was how I reached out. And then that continued to be something we would talk a lot about. We had to work around their schedules because they were doing dog shows. She was showing dogs.

And, you know, I think also when I said, can we come to a dog show? Can we film you there? They were like, absolutely. You know, he was very proud of that part of his life. And I was glad that we could feature it on a little bit on the show. And then, yeah, take it if you want to hear. Of course. Let's listen.

Yeah, let's listen to that sound. My name's Bill Price. I currently am an AKC delegate with the American Kennel Club. The American Kennel Club has numerous dog shows across the United States. Right now, we're in Tampa. We are a five-day show. We're abysion 2,400 dogs each day. I've never owned a dog myself until about the 1990s.

I found this little puppy. It was this a cutest little thing you've ever seen. And I noticed this puppy started putting on approximately a half a pound a week. Kept getting bigger. And the paws were enormous. And then one day somebody says, well, you have a mastiff. It's one of the largest breeds out here. A mastiff is known for its drool.

It's known for taking a tail and clearing a whole coffee table. And they go up to 250, 300 pounds. A lot of people are afraid of them because of their size. But they also have been nicknamed the gentle giant. People that own dogs, people that come to these dog shows, would step in front of a truck for their dogs. You can leave for an hour and come back in their wagon and jumping like you left for months. It's unconditional love. That is, you know.

I mean, like, you know, like, there isn't a tougher guy out there than no prize. And look how sort of soft and squishy he gets when he's talking about his dog. I mean, he's like, you know. That's people with their dogs and their kids. I mean, it brings out a whole different side, right? Do either of you have dogs? I have two. Okay.

Yeah. So, yes. And I understand that love. I understand that love. Got it. Yeah. Okay, after the break, Josh and Michelle are going to answer your questions and your many comments about this case from social media. Well, as you may imagine, we had a lot of social media comments and questions about this.

So let's fire through a few of these. Sharon Champagne, talking about cruises, Josh. Sharon says, so many horrible cruise ship stories. I would, however, go to Italy in a New York minute. Well, Sharon Champagne is somebody I know from social media. Sharon, I completely agree with you. Yes, cruise ships, no, Italy. Yes. Do it. Do it. You'll love it.

That's the moral of this entire story, right there. Tracy Trace, I'm 411, which means I will never fall off of a cruise ship. Fingers crossed, emojis. Perks of being vertically challenged. Never say never. Yeah, but, you know, that's a compelling argument. That still doesn't mean you should go on a cruise. You shouldn't. This one, I believe, is a little tongue-in-cheek. Southern Beach Girl writes, what a romantic cruise, a state room with two twin beds.

Yeah. I love that people notice that detail. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And I mean, I just sort of, I keep coming back to how Mickey felt about this. You know, she was so looking forward to when she bought all this stuff for the cruise, you know. And then, because she gets there and it turns out, like, it's not what she thought.

It's not this fabulous luxury cruise. Lonnie is not breaking with character. he's being his old cheap, devious self. This is a great question from Patricia D. Who writes, These days with AI, how do they tell the difference between a genuine recording and an AI one?

Well, I mean, you know, first of all, there was no AI when this happened. But I would imagine that going forward, deep fake videos and deep fake audio is going to figure in a lot of investigations and probably in cases that we end up doing on dayline in which somebody appears to be, you know, confessing to a crime or saying something that implicates them in a crime,

and then it turns out it wasn't them at all. I absolutely predict that happening. I mean, it's sort of like, you know, it's sort of like, you know, tracking devices like the Apple Air Tag. I mean, they're already turning up in all kinds of stories. Yeah. Okay. I love it when our viewers pay attention to the writing. This is always so rewarding as a course, and writer. Okay. Dogged and Determined Investigator, and they show dogs. That's from Meredith. That is a great line. Yes. Yes. I'm putting it for show here. Josh's line. I'm pointing at you, Josh. I think that was you. I think that was you. I don't remember. This is 2020. There's a lot that I don't remember from 2020. And of good teamwork. Sign of good teamwork. That's true. That's true.

No, that one stood out immediately when I saw it. I said, ah, I love it. Okay. Somebody said, Helene said, Lonnie, throwing people off of ships and under the bus. Okay, that's a line we should have used. We should have. We definitely missed opportunity there. Come on. We need Helene. Yeah. I love it. Well, we have, and this is a good one to end on. Okay.

This is pure honesty for you. Great handle, by the way. If I truly believed my friend was innocent, I would do everything I could to make sure my friend isn't found guilty of something they did not. do. But once that doubt starts to hit, I'm singing like a canary. And that was Bill and Susan. I mean, in a nutshell, was Bill and Susan. Like, they, there is no question. They really wanted Lonnie to be innocent. They joined this because they thought Lonnie was going to get railroaded. And then once they realized they were wrong and Lonnie did do it, they completely gave up on that and changed sides. Yeah. And good for them. And good for them. This was a fascinating episode. And I loved having both of you on to talk about it. Josh, Michelle. Michelle, you should always come on.

I don't know about that. Thanks, Josh. You are welcome anytime and every time. Thank you guys. Thank you. And that's it for talking Dateline this week. Remember if you have any questions for us about stories or about Dateline, you can always reach us 24-7 on social media at Dateline NBC. And if you have a question for talking Dateline, you can leave it for us in a voicemail at 212-413-5-5-5.000. two, five, two. I think Michelle gets those calls correctly. I do. Do you know? That goes right to Keith. Or will they? He answers all the calls. That's what we always call viewers. Yes. Okay. I hope our viewers call because you never know what treat you'll get on the other end, but it will give you a chance to be featured on a future episode. And one more thing before we go,

and this is a very important thing. Remember, Dateline is hitting the road. Josh, you and I are taking a trip. Yes, we are. And we want you to join us on Sunday, September 28th, the entire team. That's Lester, Keith, Josh, Andrea, Dennis, and I will all be in the beautiful city of Nashville for Dateline Live. It's a first of its kind event featuring onstage panels, audience Q&As, and a VIP reception. And let me tell you, if you think that we're fun and all over the place on these talking date lines, you ought to see us in person. It's not to be missed.

Tickets are on sale right now at datelinenbc.com slash event. You can also find a link in the description of this very episode. And of course, as always, we will see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Thanks so much for listening.