Nobody Should Believe Me - True Story Media Presents: Dakota Spotlight

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

In this special crossover, Andrea talks with James Wolner, creator of Dakota Spotlight—another show in her True Story Media network—about how a rumor in a rural North Dakota bar led him to pick up a microphone in 2019 and start chasing the truth. Together, Andrea and James dig into what it means to practice ethical reporting in a medium with no rules. James shares a case from season three of Dakota Spotlight: The House on Sweet and Seventh. A story of teenagers with a “Manson-esque” circle of loyalty and the brutal murder of two parents by their adopted son and his friend.  *** https://dakotaspotlight.com/ Listen to Dakota Spotlight: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dakota-spotlight-true-crime-cold-case-investigations/id1451783176 Join Dakota Spotlight’s Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/DakotaSpotlight/ Order Andrea’s book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy.  Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show!   Subscribe on YouTube where we have full episodes and lots of bonus content.  Follow Andrea on Instagram: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here.  For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Story Media If you just can't get enough of me in your ears, first of all, thank you. I have a job because of you. And secondly, did you know that I have a new audiobook out this year? The Mother Next Door, which I co-authored with Detective Mike Weber, is available in all formats wherever books are sold. It's a deep dive into three of Mike's most impactful Munchausen by proxy cases. And I think you'll love it. Here's a sample.

When Susan logged in, what she discovered shocked her to the marrow of her bones. Though the recent insurance records contained pages and pages of information about Sophia, there was nothing about Hope. Susan dug deeper and looked back through years of records. There wasn't a single entry about Hope's cancer treatment. For eight years, the Pitcher family had lived with a devastating fear that their beloved daughter and sister was battling terminal cancer.

For months, they'd been preparing for her death. But in that moment, a new horror was dawning. For nearly a decade, hope had been lying. Hey, it's Andrea. It's come to my attention that some of you have been served programmatic ads for ICE on my show. Now, podcasters don't get a lot of control

over which individual ads play and for whom on our shows, but please know that we are trying everything we can to get rid of these by tightening our filters. And if you do continue to hear them, please do let us know. In the meantime, I want it to be known that I do not support ICE. I am the daughter of an immigrant. I stand with immigrants. Immigrants make this country great. Hello, it's Andrea. And today is the second in our True Story Media Presents series, where we are introducing you to the creators on my new network. Thank you so much for all of the wonderful

feedback on last week's episode with Alvin from Affirmative Murder. Some of you have been asking, what exactly does it mean to have a podcast network? And there are different types of networks, but at True Story Media, we are a network of independently produced shows. So this means that we exercise no control over the content outside of asking creators to abide our ethical guidelines. We also take no ownership of their IP. We help with monetization, marketing, promotion, and strategy, and we provide community. Basically, I created True Story. as the kind of network that I would actually want to join myself. If you're familiar with my backstory, you may recall that I originally sold my show

to a large corporate podcast network, and it did not go very well. I say all of this today because it's frankly a pretty scary time to be working in media. An independent podcasts are really special because they are incredibly hard to censor. And this is suddenly important for reasons that I had hoped would not come to pass. But here we are. So this is a reminder that is a consumer of any independent media, whether it's podcasts, substacks, video creators, your support of these folks, sorry, your support of the folks making that content goes a long way. The creators that I've brought onto this network are curious,

diligent seekers of the truth. And boy, do we need every one of them right now. So that's my speech. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support. And with that, here's the episode. Well, I am thrilled to have you, and we're so excited to have Dakota Spotlight as a new member of True Story Media. And I'm just so excited for our talk today. So, James, if you could just start off by introducing yourself, telling us who you are and what you do and why you're here. Sure. My name is James Walner.

I produce Dakota Spotlight. It's a podcast. I started, I think, in 2019, maybe late 2018, but my first season came out in February of 2019. I actually had to look that up before this interview because it's where are we now? 2025. It's been a while. I started Dakota Spotlight, as I said, in February of 2019 and living in Western North Dakota, a rural area of a rural state, really. I basically just decided one day I'm going to make a podcast that I would like to listen to, like in the way I would like it to be, right? And I tried not to overthink too much about what other people are doing.

Obviously, you know, cereal was big at the time and in the dark was an influence for sure because they do such stellar journalism, really. But I decided, you know, I got a microphone, I got a digital recorder. I'm just going to create something I would like to listen to. And I've always liked audio. Let's put it that way. I've liked listening to the radio. I used to listen to a prairie home companion.

I don't know if you're familiar with that or listeners. Of course. I'm iconic, yes. I grew up listening to that in my kitchen hall. My mom made dinner. Oh, fantastic. And the thing with audio is, not that I don't watch television or movies, and I have actually co-produced a documentary thing.

film as well. But it's that box in the corner of your room that has hijacked your eyesight, which, and because your eyeballs are in the front of your head, you have to sit there looking at this thing. And it completely hijacks everything else. And I've always enjoyed the aspect of using your own imagining, letting the receiver of the information use their imagination for the visuals and using sound to tell the story. I've just always been fascinated by And although I never worked as a journalist until a few years ago, I did study photojournalism in college. I went to Fresno State University in California. And I had big sites on become a journalist.

And this was back in the day when you had to know how to spell. Remember that? Before you didn't have to know how to spell. I actually didn't get into the journalism program at Fresno State because I am actually a really poor speller. And but I also, but I took photojournalism classes and back in the day when you develop your own film and I was going to go, you know, with my Manulta 35 millimeter cameras and get, you know, to the war zones. And I was going to get get there and get these great shots and kind of had a romanticized idea about at the time. But and then I went on in life and never worked as a journalist until after I started this podcast when a company in North Dakota hired me to bring the podcast to them, which, and that company I've since left, and I'm back to producing this independently. But that's kind of who I am. And as I said, I started there in, the first season came out in 2019 and in Western North Dakota.

So interesting. You know, one of the things I love about podcasting is just the diversity in backgrounds and diversity in professions that people had before they came to podcast. because podcasting has not been around long enough as a profession for anybody to have gone to school for it or trained in it. Certainly people train in analogous fields or work in analogous fields like, you know, journalism, radio, entertainment. I think there's a fair amount of fellow authors kicking around in podcasting now. But it's, you know, and then a lot of like celebrities who are famous for other things are getting into podcasting with extremely mixed results. I'm sure we could spend a lot of time going on about that phenomenon.

but it's i i think that's so interesting and it's interesting that you sort of the way that you um quantify or qualify rather journalism um and saying like i wasn't a journalist when i got into this but then i was when i started doing it for the radio show but then you know because it kind of points to this question that actually has been very much front of mind for me especially in the last two years that i've been working on this project of who is and who is and who is not a journalist and what qualifies us to be a journalist. And I did not start off as one. I did not have training as one. You know, I had training as a storyteller because I'd written a bunch of novels and I'd been in book publishing the whole time. So I sort of had this kind of adjacent

experience. But, you know, I was writing fiction. So very different than doing, you know, than doing journalism, doing nonfiction projects. And I really, you know, I have been fortunate to work with some people that did have a lot of experience. And, you know, my current producer has that background. And so, you know, I learned to be a journalist on the fly. I certainly consider myself one now. And I think, but that took me a little coming around. So can you talk us a little bit through that process? And I think especially, you know, if you are, you know, on the older side of being a millennial as I am, or if you're a Gen X person or a boomer, you know, we have like a very, we grew up in a very different media environment and a very different idea.

of like what sort of who is and is not a journalist. And that's changed so much as the media has changed. And now I think there is, you know, so much is happening in new media. And I think people, especially in the wake of, you know, the last election, like cannot stop talking about the influence of podcasts. And so I think that's a, it's a medium that's being taken much more seriously, I think, than it was even a few years ago. And I think people outside the industry will probably not appreciate.

how much it has changed in the, you know, seven years that you've been in it. It's even changed in the three years that I've been in it. So can you talk us through a little bit of that process of like, what was the day that you were like, I, James, am a journalist? Because I certainly consider what you do on the show, journalism. And I had a friend V. Spear, who is a very well-respected new media journalist who said, you know, like really gave me this framing of, well, like, journalism is an act, right? If you're doing it, then you are one.

You don't get a stamp. You don't get a license. you don't get, you know, it's not a matter of, obviously people do get training and go through, you know, this sort of more set path that goes through legacy media that's increasingly disappearing, right? So I think it's a very much an open question. So for you, like, what was that moment where you're like, oh, I'm doing the thing? Like I'm doing field reporting and fact checking and, you know, source reporting and due diligence and all this stuff of like, oh, I'm doing journalism. Sure. I actually kind of have a story about that. So great question. But

Just my background, I'm actually between the two generations, exactly. I was born in 1964, so I'm supposed to be part of which generations are those, you know, both, I guess. A boomer X, you're on the cusp of the boomer X. I'm right on the cusp of X and millennial, or whatever dumb thing they call us. And it's interesting, because in some ways I identify with the older generation, and a lot of ways I identify more with the younger. So, but here's a couple tidbits. I remember my parents saying, being a kid, and we'd have to look this up, but if I was born in 64, the night Nixon resigned, my parents saying, come and watch this, you're going

to remember this for the rest of your life. And I'm like, why? I'm a kid. Why would I do there? What's going on? You know, the president of the United States is going to resign tonight. And I remember sitting down. I even remember my little sister who was probably.

probably only like three or four, you know, crying because she felt so sorry for this man who she didn't because he had to like leave the club, you know, she didn't understand what was going on. But she felt sorry for him, you know, but she was a baby, you know. And obviously I do remember it because we're talking about it now. And then I went on to read Woodward and Bernstein's books, you know, Watergate. And I've seen the movie. And so fast forward to me starting this podcast in 2019. The reason I started this podcast was because of the things that are happening. You know, this was 2018. When I started hearing people say things like, your facts aren't my facts. Or, but just realizing, starting to witness. And if I knew how bad it was going to get by today,

I might not even have started this podcast because I would have been just like, it's a lost cause. Like, what happened to truth? It is so upsetting today, but if we go back to 2019 when I started this podcast, it was in an effort to demonstrate to locals in the little town I lived in that you can get the truth. If you get off of the bar stool, I've told this story a few times, if you get off the bar stool and stop gossiping about this story, maybe ask questions, there is a truth somewhere. And you can get to it.

And the context of this is, I was living in a small town, 700 people, western North Dakota. And a man was found deceased, one town over, as we say out west, one town over, same county, one town over. And he was found deceased in the winter, laying next to his running vehicle in the morning. And it was winter. So it was very cold out. So he was, someone drove by out this dirt road. found Victor Newberry, who lived in this town, Glennell in North Dakota, dead. And his truck is running.

He's just laying there on the ground. And I'm sitting in a bar, one town over, and I start hearing these rumors. And everyone said, he was killed by the Boston Mafia. And I'm like, we're in Western North Dakota. What the hell is the Boston mob doing in North Dakota? And I felt a frustration that I, you know, that I could not, you know, I said, well, have you, I asked people, have you, who's anyone asked the cops what happened? They won't tell you anything. And so, well, another part of it is I want to add is I was so frustrated by what was, what was and is going on in the U.S. with this erosion of the truth that I had to actually stop watching the news. I mean, I know a lot of people are doing that. I actually had to like step away from. for a while. And I thought, I think I say this in season one, maybe if I just focus on one thing, it'll do me good. And my one thing was, I wanted to find out what happened to Victor

Newberry, found dead next to his running pickup, one town over from where I live. And I did find out what happened. And ironically, the beginning of this arc of this whole investigation, I kind of realized why people did think the Boston Mafia was involved. I want to spoil the story, but it was like a almost out of just like the principle of the thing. I'm like, I'm going to show you 700 people in this one town or, you know, this little rural county. You can find answers. Like I was triggered or almost challenged by a guy who was probably drunk on a bar stool, literally, is how this whole podcast started. And like, you don't think I can find the truth.

I love that. I'm going to go find the truth. You don't think I can find the truth? I'll show you how I'll love a challenge, right? And it turned out to be, to my surprise, a really interesting story. Like I got a little spooked a couple weeks in, like, oh, this is not what I was expecting exactly. And ultimately, I did find out, through records requests to the police, video of a couple of DUIs that night, people involved, I found out what happened to Victor Newberry. I mean, there's still some unanswered questions because it comes down to the people who were there.

But it was Dakota Spotlight was born out of my frustration of seeing, I guess, facts getting eradicated or the belief in them. And then that's this bashing of journalism. I mean, you know, that people just are going to decide what they believe in despite what facts are in front of them. So. Yeah. No, there's so much there that resonates with me. And I think, you know, I similarly started my podcast out of spite. Yeah. I was going to use the worst part. I mean, like, not really, but kind of.

I mean, I think, like, there was a lot coalescing for me because I had learned, you know, so much about this form of abuse that had been, you know, really impacted my family. And then, you know, there was a particular journalist, Mike Kixenbog, who I will always take time to name, who had. covered my sister story and brought it to a national audience and really not done a thorough or responsible or ethical job. And I opened up my podcast app one day and saw that he had a podcast. And so I was like, well, you know what? He's going to do a podcast. So am I. And I did not anticipate that being a massive career pivot for me. But in fact, it was. I think that's what's so exciting about the medium is there is obviously a corporate side to podcasting and there are projects that sort of get money for development and get you know usually honestly those are projects with

celebrities attached but like there there is like a sort of corporate side but so much of it still and certainly in you know 2018 is just like a person who goes and gets a mic and is just like I have something that I need to talk about and I have a story I need to tell and the story I need to pursue and sort of I think especially for true crime podcasters just this real sense of like insatiable curiosity and really wanting to get to the bottom of things. And like we are the weirdos that get excited if we put in a FOIA request and get a thousand pages back. You know, that's like a real common thread. You're just like, woo, you know, when that, when that document dump comes through. And I think that's, and that to me, that just makes the medium so exciting.

And I think that's like what's so interesting about true crime is it sort of is an entry point into all things, you know, that happen in a community. And I agree with you that I think like, And when I talk to, you know, my younger friends and colleagues who are in their, you know, 20s, they don't even, they don't have a memory of when things weren't like this. And in terms of just like where like people were, people sort of agreed on the basic facts of reality, which obviously has been steadily declining and then really was, I think, so exacerbated by 2020 on words because of the COVID pandemic. because of, you know, our attempt at a racial reckoning, you know, all those things that really just sort of spurred the moment that we're in. And so I think like they don't even know a sort of version of where like, yeah, people agree, people disagreed on what we should do about it, but they agreed on what happened. And now we're just so far away from that. But I think it's

also like the thing that sort of keeps me out of because it is easy to despair when you're a person who cares about the truth and is trying to tell it in putting this information out into an ecosystem where there will be just people be like, oh, fake news, you know, and be like, but I have records and due diligence and all the things, like, I can prove my case and they're just like, but, you know, but I also find that, and I wonder if you do, that, like, people are really craving that. They're craving something that they can actually, you know, like, verify, right? That sort of sense of like being able to really anchor people by doing thorough reporting. that's not just opinion, that's not, you know, that is open to just finding the truth where that's the only aim where, like, you're open to being challenged, you're open to disagreement, you're open to things that do not confirm your original hypothesis.

Between making this show and parenting two little kids and dealing with the state of everything, I've got a lot on my plate, and I'm sure you do too. And if you're like me, you are not great about taking care of necessary adult administrative tasks. tasks such as buying a life insurance policy. But you know it's important, especially if you have kids. So you want a company that is time-tested, trustworthy, and who makes the process easy. And our sponsor, SelectQuote, is all of those things. And you don't need to take my word for it. They have more than 10,000 positive reviews on Trust Pilot, earning them an excellent rating. Select quotes agents can take the legwork and the guesswork out of buying a life insurance policy by helping you find the right option for your family and your budget in minutes from trusted, top-rated

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follow true crime stories. Well, I guess because it is so rural and, you know, Western North Dakota is considered to be this sort of, you know, very heartland, all-American. And it's become a cliche now in podcasts almost that like, you know, we never thought it would happen here or everyone knows one another, you know, a small town, everybody knows everybody. And all that, it seems like almost all podcasts. Anytime it's outside of a, you know, larger city. You hear that. But it is really true in North Dakota. Like North Dakota is, you feel like you have a three degrees of separation from everyone in the state. If you don't know, someone starts talking about someone. If you don't know them, someone you know in North Dakota knows them, right? And for the story I want to tell you

about today, this season three of my podcast, one of the detectives I talked to, who basically said this, this is when Bismarck, North Dakota, the capital of North Dakota, lost some of its innocence. Because it was a, you know, we talk about a horrible double homicide. And I think it is this sort of sense of innocence and goodness that we believe this, you know, this rural, all-American country is all about. But it turns out evil and bad people show up every, I mean, it's no surprise people, right? but shows up everywhere.

And then when it hits a place like this, it sort of has a larger impact in a way because it's so much more noticeable and or not noticeable, but it's just a bigger impact, I guess. Yeah, well, it's interesting to think about, you know, and we've, our show has gone to, increasingly, has gone to where we've covered, you know, we covered a case here in Seattle area. We've covered a bunch of cases in the Fort Worth area to begin with, which is kind of like an interesting mix between the two because there are like a lot of disparate towns around the Fort Worth area, but it's obviously sort of concentrated. You know, and some of the cases, like the case we cover this is, is in rural southeast Georgia. And so it is interesting with that

sort of small town. And I think it's sort of, you know, it has like the people who are personally impacted are also like geographically close to each other. And for me, it's been very interesting. As a person who's always lived in big cities, it's been really interesting to go and spend time in these small towns and has been, you know, really kind of illuminating. And I think whether you're doing so, you know, in real life or just listening to media that takes place in those places, I think that's really important because there's two things that have maybe, I think it's challenged a lot of my notions about what people in, you know, what goes on in small towns. And also like kind of the red state, blue state thing, right? I'm just like, I think

it's like it's illuminated in two ways of just like, oh, like life, life is sort of different, in some ways that were hard for me to understand, you know, as an outsider. And then also, like, that people are, it's been very encouraging as a reminder that actually, like, people do have way more in common than they remember. And it's not, you know, in our current media climate, we've been so conditioned to see, to see what people on the opposite side is this other. And then, like, when you're actually in a room with someone, you know, doing field reporting is so, it's such an impactful experience.

When you're in a room with someone and, you know, obviously everything in my show is like sort of we all have this shared experience, but it's been really extraordinary to just be like, oh, like I really, it's made me realize the extent to which I've fallen into that trap and just been like, and it's when you're actually sitting with someone in real life, it's much harder to hold on to sort of all those ideas about how they are different than you. And I think like I've been also impacted or it's also really, you know, been. And it's both ways, right? It's like these people are also trusting me, you know, a very, like, lefty, you know, liberal person from Seattle, right, to tell their story. So it sort of goes both ways. So it's been a small, nice, hopeful thing to hold on to in this climate. It's been entertaining, too, but in your latest season, I mean, the small nuances when I don't remember the name of the town, but what was it? You'd never heard of a waffle house?

Oh, I never heard of, I'd never been to a Waffle House and I'd never heard of a huddle house. Or maybe I'd never heard of Waffle House. It seems like such a part of my experience. And that was like such a great thing to add to your show because it's subtle. It's a little comical and gives you some breathing room as a listener for this very serious topic. But also it does say something. Like it points out that you are sort of an outsider and you're willing to go into this place to, again, to find the truth. So I thought that was well done.

Yeah, thank you. And I mean, it was so fun. I think both, you know, two of the seasons where we've been on the road with someone that also I had like an existing relationship with and was close with, you know, both in season four and in season six. So they felt perfectly at ease to make fun of me also. So it was also very cute to like have them be like, wait, how did you just pronounce that? Or like, what are you saying? Like, you know, and just be like, wait, is that wrong? And yeah, I mean, first of all, in my show, we always need any moment of levity that we can find. So those are really. fun. But yeah, I mean, it's like, it's such a delight, you know, to be able to go out and just to have, I mean, I'm so grateful that the show, um, has enabled me to sort of go on these interesting journeys to just places like I don't know that my life would ever take me there, but it's such a valuable experience to see and really get to see, you know, I got to, I got to go to a Buckees for the first time, which like in the, you know, is like such a whole cultural experience. I'm obsessed with it now. We have to stop every time I go to Georgia. And like, You know, as a listener, when I'm listening to, it's like, I love that, right?

Like, I love to be like, like, that sense of like, oh, I'm going somewhere. Like, I'm in the car with someone. I'm going on a journey. I'm walking up to someone's door. Like, that just is so thrilling as listener. I was going to, I was just going to add that if you have any doubt, I don't think you should, but you are definitely a journalist. You're doing amazing work.

And I have my own listeners who love my show who have, like, recommended your show to me. Like, James, have you heard this show? She's an amazing, amazing podcast. So you're doing great, great work. And my listeners, some of my listeners already know about your work. Oh, I'm so appreciate that. Thank you. I was going to round off the question you had, like, when did I realize it was a journalist?

Actually, when this company forum communications approached me to join them and continue to produce my podcast, they're in Fargo, they're like, basically, you already know what you're doing, come do this for us for, and I did that for a few years. I left in about two years ago, a year and a half ago. But as editor there, shout out to Matt Von Panon in Fargo, who had heard my podcast, and he actually said, James, what you're doing in this first season I did, right? I hope I'm not throwing people under the bus here, but he said, I have a hard time teaching this to some of my reporters.

So some of this journalism stuff is, I don't know if it's an, if it's a, I don't want to say it's an instinct or something like that, but maybe you just need to watch all the president's men like a thousand times. And you're like, you just don't give up. You don't, so you got a denial of a request. Try it another way. Try, think, think in another, maybe you can get, you know, you know, there's all kinds of records out there. There's all kinds of ways to get information. So, but anyway, my story was, the editor. editor in Fargo there said, told me that. And I thought, oh, I already, I mean, the editor of the

newspaper is telling me this. I guess I am a journalist already. I just didn't know it. Yeah. I mean, I really basically had the same experience. And I, you know, I unfortunately started off with a producer who was very talented. I learned a lot from. But unfortunately, the relationship went a bit south. And she was very adamant about telling me that I was not a journalist. So I think that was partly what stuck. And I mean, fair enough, like in the beginning, I, I wasn't necessarily, right? I was an expert in Munchaus and stuff, which like, I had a similar journey with that, right? Where I'm like, well, I can't just like walk in here and call myself an expert. And then after, you know, several years of reading every available thing

and interviewing a bunch of experts. And it's like, you know, it was really Dr. Mark Feldman, who's probably the permanent expert and like one of, easily one of the most well known, you know, who's been a friend for years. And he was like, you know, you're more of an expert than most people who call themselves experts. And I was like, all right, well, you know what, that's good enough for me. And I'm just, I'm, I'm going to run with that. But, you know, I think it's like, on some level, it's good to have that humility, right? Because you don't want to just, like, say that, like, it means nothing.

But, yeah, once you are doing all of that work and you really have to back it up. And I think for me, you know, where my work got a lot more journalistic was in our third season, where I was tracking this Kowalski case and I was, you know, yeah, doing originally report original reporting that no one else was doing i was reading through every i watched every second of the trial it's just like yeah if this is not journalism then i don't know what it is um yeah and i mean i think i think to your point like and i think this about podcasting as well as with journalism and obviously podcasting is not always journalism right it's like certainly the podcasting is just the own thing not everyone is trying to do journalism with their podcast some of its entertainment some of it's

you know talk radio some of it's sheer propaganda but you know what have you it's like there's there's a lot going on within the medium of podcasting um But I do think when it comes to like what makes someone a good true crime podcaster, I do think it's sort of more of a set of traits than anything. I think it's like number one, I think just like loving the audio medium itself, but also like just being like the kind of obsessive weirdo that cannot let things go. Like really does like you have to be so obsessed with things to be doing it so regularly and sort of keeping that content going. So I think that is very much a shared trait. And so, you know, one of the things that our shows have in common is that we do so much original reporting. And I think, you know, that type of podcast can be very high stakes.

And, you know, the whole thing that we're doing here at True Story Media is that we are an ethical true crime network. And so we have a lot of considerations about what that means and have had, you know, really thought hard. My partner and I, when we're putting this together, you know, about what do we consider ethical, you know, an ethical true crime podcast? And, you know, we have different formats of shows. Ours, both, you know, some of them are not, don't do original reporting. They're more commentary. And those, that can be very ethical and very valuable and helpful, too. But I think it's especially high stakes when you are doing original reporting because you really have to consider, like, if I'm the person that's bringing this story out there and I'm the person that's making this public, you know, you have to have a lot of sensitivity around, you know, where you're necessarily talking about traumatic things that happen.

to real people, usually some of whom, you know, it's like we're not covering historical cases, so it's like who are still alive. You know, what kind of considerations do you take to make sure that your coverage, you know, really basically like you're doing all you can to have it have a net positive effect. Right. Yeah. I mean, sometimes I feel like that's just in a way, like to get a little wishy-washy here from the beginning right away is sometimes it's just like it's a feeling right you know you know if you're crossing the line at least i feel that way in one way i feel that way i know that's not a good enough answer right now but like i i would know if i was crossing a line from something ethical to unethical and and you know some of the examples are like you know you uncover

a story this happened to me i walked away from a story once for this reason um it was a murder case near Aberdeen, South Dakota, I think in the 80s, and I started getting into it, and it was solved, and I was reaching out to the inmate, and then I found the family, and, you know, I thought it was a very fascinating story. I did some document, got some documents from the local sheriff, and I thought this is going to be good, you know, and then I got to the family of the murder victim, and they were kind of, well, one member was on board at first and they kind of had a powwow there and I was ready to move forward and they said, you know, we just don't want to do, we just don't want this to come out. We don't see any reason. And in that case, it was solved. So, you know, what was

the, I didn't necessarily have a great answer. Like, what is, does the public need to know? You know, what's the benefit to the public? It would have been, it would have been a great story, a true crime story, but I walked away from it and just said, basically, hey, I respect your guys. I don't want to do this to you. You know, they felt it would be too, they didn't use the word traumatic, right? But it would just be too tough for them to relive. So, I mean, that seems maybe a kind of obvious example, but not everyone. As we, I was going to say, and yet, many of our colleagues in the space, unfortunately, do completely ignore that if they have a story that they know is going to be compelling and entertaining as the story.

To the point that they get in arguments on social media with family members of the victims and so you don't get a right to tell me what I can report and not like, holy cow. Yeah, that's, that's hard to defend. And I think, you know, we, we on the story have mostly told stories, and it's certainly my strong preference to tell stories with the people who were the most. most impacted so either survivors or family members or um but certainly there are people that impacted that are not happy about our coverage um sometimes because they're the perpetrator often um but also you know because not everyone wants to deal with that becoming public and we had um you know we had a

really we had a really tough uh which i which i talk about in the show but like you know we had a really tough ethical quandary with this last one because of the two surviving siblings, you know, for reasons that we get into in the show, one of them felt very strongly about, you know, these people I've known for years and I'm close with, like, one of them felt very strongly about wanting to make the story public and the other one did not want to, didn't expressly say that, but also like we didn't tell the story with them and part of the story was really about them. And that was a very complicated sort of ethical calculus.

And I think because this is a story that involves a possible murder that needs to be investigated, and that's very important. And a person who is still completely at large and also is now living with two vulnerable children, like that just sort of trumped everything else. And obviously the fact that we were telling it with two family members. So the fact that there's a split in that family is very difficult for those people and very complicated. but was sort of a, I was like, oh, I'm glad this is not the first season I'm making. There's no way I would have sort of been equipped to make all these decisions. But it is, it is something you have to be really thoughtful about. And I am appalled at some of the behavior I see from other shows in the space where you just see, like, you know, people saying, I didn't, you know, were the surviving family members, I did not want them covering it.

They got it wrong. They got a bunch of the details wrong. I mean, it's just, and I think people don't realize that, like, four. better or worse. There are no rules in podcasting. So it's like, yes, someone can sue you for defamation if you get a bunch of things wrong. But like that is, number one, that is a very high bar, as it should be, as it should be. Pre-speech is very important. Let's hang on to that. Hopefully I'm going to just ride that horse as long as we've still got it. Um, it's while we have it. Well, we have it. Um, and, uh, but, you know, it's like, if you feel like a journalist, I've been in that position, if you feel like a

journalists get something wrong. It's really not a lot of recourse. You can start your own podcast, which is how I decided to handle it. But, you know, there's not like the standard for defamation, again, is very high. In most cases, you have to prove intentional malice, not just sloppy journalism. You can't sue someone for that. But it's very, you know, like there's not a lot you can do if your story is being exploited. Yeah, exactly. There's a difference between a story. If there's a serial killer running around and could still kill more people, too bad you don't want me talking about it. We got to catch this guy. If someone would, you know, a victim, a family was like, we don't want it. It's too traumatic. We got to stop this guy first and then we'll stop talking about it.

But if it's another kind of story where, again, they're like, what is the actual, in fact, one of the most satisfying things I've had from starting this show was once I'd been doing this for a while and I got to season nine, I felt, you know, I was getting very very, I was getting very by some of these victims' families. And I got great access to, there was a terrible quadruple homicide in Mandan, North Dakota a few years ago. And I was the first one,

I didn't jump on it, but I was the first one to do a podcast on it, to my knowledge. And these four people were killed at a business that some of them partially owned, a small family-run business. And so all the people that work there are sort of family members of the victims.

And you could say, and the reason I got such great access to them for that season nine was because of my proven track record of doing this. And that, that felt amazing. Like, we know who you are. We know you're going to do a good, you know, we trust you with this story. And I even got, in that case, I got access to the killers family as well and interviewed them. Wow. Yeah. That is, that's sort of the strongest seal of approval you could get, I think.

Yeah. You know, it's just like people know you'll take care with their story, and that's, that's really meaningful. Do you remember the first thing you ever got paid to do as a kid, your first job? Mine was weeding for my neighbors, for which I got paid $5 and a package of Oreos. I was thrilled. Now I weed my garden to relax, so times change. With my daughter heading into first grade and growing up so fast that if I keep talking about this, I'm going to cry, we want to make sure that she's learning life skills in addition to what she's learning at school.

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i considered your your fantastic show and your listeners and i thought season three which is an older season of my podcast would be something your listeners might be would be interested in um and And the title of it is The House on Sweet and Seventh. Basically, the season is about a terrible double homicide in Bismarck, North Dakota. Barbara and Gordon Erickstad were killed by their own son, who was adopted. He was an adopted son. And by all accounts, Barbara and Gordon were wonderful people. They were not, there's been no reporting of them being, you know, anything other than good,

parents responsible. They adopted this kid, Brian, and when he was 18, he murdered them with a friend who was 27. They went in there and stabbed them with kitchen knives while their friend, 16-year-old Misty, waited out in the garage and smoked a cigarette while sitting on the freezer or the whatever in the garage. I could talk about this forever and just keep using the word weird strange but the house on Sweet and Seventh is not the house where these people died. Rather

you have to imagine a little house on a corner in the capital city of Bismarck next to A and B pizza. It's kind of like a little weird spot for a house because there's like a major seventh is kind of a big thoroughfare headed down so a lot of traffic

and there's this house on the corner and there's a little door in the basement that opens up right onto 7th Street, two-story building. And in that house lived, well, a family, the Werner family. So there was Michelle, who was, I think, 18, and Amy, who was 16. And then their mother, Pam Werner,

and her boyfriend, whose name or nickname. Everyone's got nicknames in this story. His name was Weasel, of course, because what else would the mother's boyfriend's name be in this story when you listen to it? So Weasel and Pam lived upstairs, and I think there was a younger sibling as well. But the basement was basically free reign. Oh, there was a son, Ryan, 17 years old as well.

The kids lived downstairs, and also anyone who wanted to come and party there. And the adults upstairs also had troubles with addiction and substance abuse. But Pam, the mother, you know, when she dealt with police, she did that. the part of being a very responsible mother. And in the end, she sort of narked on her own kids. We'll get to that in a little bit. But she kind of played both sides, I guess you would say. But they knew, they definitely knew the kids downstairs were partying. And runaways would come there and stay there. And their friends would stay there. And people, it was just always sort of a party house. Well, what ends up happening is this 26-year-old guy, Robert Lawrence, shows up

town from Texas. I don't know. I think he had relatives there. And he starts hanging out with these people. And he becomes the boyfriend of the older daughter, Michelle, I think I got this name right. It's been a few years. And Amy is the younger daughter, is a girlfriend of this Brian Erickstead who ends up killing his parents. So they get this little clan. And I've interviewed detectives who work this case. And there's so much headshaking going on when you talk to these cops. They're just like, you would not, like, I still don't get it. Well, one of the detectives, Bob Haas, says in the podcast, it was very Manson-esque, like a cult in a way, in a clan. And after these murders took place, like 12, 15 people knew about this murder for, you know,

at least 48 hours, and no one goes to the cops. And that's kind of, you know, that sort of cult mentality. When I started read, I had the trial transcript next to my bed for like over a year and I would just like read it over and over. And in the end, some of these these teenagers reluctantly testified against their friends, Brian and Robert, the two perpetrators, to sort of stay out, you know, because they had to. I get, you know, they cut a deal with, because they were afraid of, I mean, but they did it so reluctantly that the journalist who wrote, journalists who wrote, about them, just like these kids get up on the stand with these smirks on their faces and attitude, like, um, so let me back up a little bit here. So, um, I'll go back to the actual

murder, right? So these kids are all partying. I mean, these are shoplifters. That night, before the murder happens, they go to an AA meeting because Misty, who's 16, has to go. And they go in there drunk just and disturb the whole thing. And they go shoplifters. And they go shoplifting, and then they kind of all congregate there at the house on Sweet and 7th, and they start partying, someone gets some pot, there's kids, you know, there's runaways and the parents upstairs, and exactly where the idea to kill Brian's parents came from, I'm not really sure, but ultimately they find out that Misty, this 16-year-old girl, who I also interview in the podcast as an adult now. She did not go to prison.

She testified also against the two guys. A lot of people seem, including one of the cops I interviewed, says she was just as culpable, but I've interviewed her. She's, so yeah, so let me just quickly sort of go through the timeline of the actual murder. So these two guys decide they're going to kill Brian's parents for whatever reason. He thought he was going to inherit a lot of money, maybe. so Misty who's 16 and you know she came from a home where I mean she'd been introduced to alcohols and she was 12 she was homeschooled but she found the the answer books so she just

did it all and then she was done and just you know kind of her mom obviously knew her daughter wasn't home studying she was just just sort of didn't have a lot of great a lot of great role models. She drives the two boys down there. They go into the garage. Misty lights a cigarette, sits in the garage while the two guys go in. Well, let's take it from Misty's perspective. She hears someone scream, what the fuck? And then the boys come back in the garage with blood on them. And she's told me in the interview, I thought, for some reason, I thought they killed a cat in front of their parents to scare them. So she goes in and their parents are still alive. But they've been stabbed, right?

And the guys come back in, the mother's still breathing. I think Misty says, I'm sorry this happened to you. And Brian yells at her, fuck. She's a bitch and she deserves to die. And she cuts her throat. He cuts her throat right there on them. Very graphic. Sorry.

And then Misty leaves. The two guys, meanwhile, while Misty's gone, they're loading these two bodies into the victim's pickup truck that has like a cover on it in the back in the garage. Misty goes back to the house on Sweet and Seventh, that little party house I was telling you about, wakes up 17-year-old Ryan Werner and says they killed Brian's parents.

He's like, what? And they get up, they drive back to the crime scene. By this time, the two perpetrators have put the bodies in the back of the truck, put the cover over it, and they went to a gas station to buy cigarettes and beer. So when Misty and Ryan come back, they're gone. But they look through the window and Ryan sees blood in the, like the lights on. You can see through a window that there's blood in the living room on the floor and stuff.

So they leave. They go back to the house on Sweet and 7th. Ultimately, the guys show up at the house on Sweet and 7th, wake up Ryan again. And they said, hey, you got to come help us dump a couple of bodies. This is a 17-year-old kid who's going to go to school the next day, right? And which gets me to this, this one part of this story, I just always shake my head. Ryan says, thankfully for him, no, I can't help you go dump two dead bodies. You know why?

I mean, I mean, he was trying to get out of it, obviously. But he said, I got to go to school in the morning. And the guys are like, oh, yeah, you got to go to school. And that part of this story, like, when I read that, I was just like, I mean, I realized Ryan was coming up with an excuse. There's a lot of, like a cult, right? There was a lot of loyalty-based relationships. It was very, very important that you never gnarc on one another. And this goes on for a long time to the point.

Well, I'll get to that. But so then Misty goes with them, and they drive out, you know, 30 miles south of Bismarck, dump these bodies. And then three of them go back to the House on Swedens, and they all go to bed and go to sleep. It's just so surreal to me. The next morning, Ryan goes to school, his sister, one of his sister goes to school, the other sister, they're driving around in this pickup truck that obviously still has blood in the back.

They go to see some friend who's in jail, and then the guys realize they got to leave town, they got to go on the run, and they want the girls to go with them. They're like, yes, we'll go with you. Ryan wants to go. Two days later, Amy Werner, thankfully, went to her, like, parole officer or juvenile, I don't remember, and says, I think something might have happened to, you know, I think something might have happened to Brian's parents, and tips off the police who finally get involved, they go to the house, they find the blood, and they start trying to talk to all these teenagers who just go down kicking and screaming before. they give up their two friends who just heinously murdered these two people. I interviewed three detectives, and, you know, they just, again, they just shake their heads about how frustrating it was for them. Really, like, I mean, I guess that's a question I'd

have for you. Like, you know, when you're, and you're reporting was, I know, I know there's a lot of family members who refuse to believe this abuse is going on, and they just can't go there. like these kids also just, in fact, when one of the cops says to her in interrogation, Misty again, there's two people we got to find. And he's talking about the victims, right? But Misty's, this is after the guy's split. He's like, oh, yeah, Brian and Robert. And they're like, no, not them, the body. Like, they just, like, their brains couldn't go there. Does any of this resonate with you? Andrew? Oh, yeah. A lot of it does. I mean, I think there's so many complicated elements to this, and, you know, it really brings to mind, you know, so much of what we talk about on the show, because when you're talking about a children who are offenders, you know, and that's still like, yes, they're teenagers, so it gets a little bit more complicated, but, you know, these are still humans without fully formed, you know, prefrontal cortex is importantly, right?

and lower impulse control than full adults, and as you alluded to, probably the majority of those kids that were in this little cult, you know, in this little family, so to speak, and I think family is the right word for it, are coming from situations where they are either abused or neglected or both. And, you know, it really gets very complicated when you're talking about people that commit heinous violent crimes because each of them really needs to be seen, I think, in this situation, especially as an individual, right? Because, you know, it's possible, it sounds like it could be one of many things. I mean, it certainly sounds like the person who really committed with Brian, you know, the main perpetrator, was extremely

disturbed. And I think we always have to be careful about not having that knee-jerk reaction, oh, if someone does something terrible, they must have a history of abuse. They must have done something, you know, they must have had something done to them to make them that way. That's not the case. There isn't data to support that. There are some people that just commit horrific acts of violence that had perfectly nice, stable, you know, uneventful childhoods. And certainly, like, it gets very complicated when you're talking about adoption. What were the circumstances of that? There's a lot of interesting literature about sort of how that can affect someone's mental health. Obviously, most adoptees don't go and do something like horribly violent. You know, there's a lot

sort of at play with that particular perpetrator. But when you talk about sort of like, and obviously I don't know all the details of the case, but like when you talk about the dynamics of, you know, why would these kids band together? Why would they protect each other? And it's because I think like one thing that my work has really illustrated for me, because a lot of times you see, you know, one of the really sad and obviously a lot more sympathetic dynamic, but like one thing that you see that it's so sad is that abused children will often lie on behalf of their parents. they will, because they don't want to be separated from them, because they don't want them taken away. That's the person that, you know, human beings need and children need, even teenagers, you know, like children need to have a connection to their, they need to feel a connection to their parent or someone sort of in place of that, right?

And so, like, because they need that for survival. And so the brain will do very strange things to sort of like, you know, like dissociation is extremely common for survivors of. of, you know, and dissociative identity disorder is directly tied, which is sort of the most extreme version of that, is very tied to extreme childhood trauma, right? And so the brain does very, I mean, sort of fascinating things in order to protect someone's ability to survive. Because if if a memory or an experience is so intolerable, especially if it happens to you when your child, your brain will protect you from it by not allowing you now. It still impacts you could come up later, et cetera. But like, it is really fascinating the ways that

childhood trauma can affect the brains. And so I think we pretty, pretty, can pretty easily assume that the children that are ending up in, you know, Pam and Weasel's basement, you know, and like childhood offenders, I mean, the vast majority of them are coming from situations of abuse and neglect, right? It's very, like, we should, we should absolutely see child offenders in a very different light than we see 30-year-olds. or 27-year-old even committing those same crimes, right? I think that's, I think that is important. And not that they shouldn't be held accountable, but that's a very complicated thing.

And it's not, that's not something I, you know, dealing with child offenders is not something that I know a lot about. So I don't, I won't get too far out of my lane here. But I do think sort of the, the complicated dynamics of sort of like loyalty and attachment and the ways that, you know, that like they probably had a lot of trauma bonding going on. I think people also kind of don't recognize. And, you know, some people are, this might be the case with Brian, you know, if someone is just a person that utterly lacks empathy, if they are, you know, a psychopath, which is

not a clinical term, but, you know, anecdotally what we understand is a psychopath. They have antisocial personality disorder. They have that sort of dark triad of traits. Like someone like that, you know, that's kind of in a different category. But for the other people, you know, who are involved in this, there's also trauma bonding that happens. And it's very traumatic to a person. it does a lot of harm to a person and their psyche to commit a horrific act.

And so, you know, that could also be something that's really bonding them together on a level that can be sort of hard to understand from the outside or like if you're a person talk to them and, you know, like, oh, these teenagers are just a bunch of little psychos and they don't care about this happening. It could be quite a lot more layered than that. And I do think that like our brain, you know, I have had, as you alluded to, a lot of experience with people just being in denial that makes no logical sense, but I think what it makes is emotional sense, right?

Where it's, if it's just so, if it's going to be so threatening to your world and your life to accept that a person has done this or that they didn't have a good reason or that whatever it is, you can build an entire sort of justification. And I mean, back to sort of our conversation about everyone losing their collective grip on reality. You know, that's why conspiracy theories are appealing. It's not because they make logical sense. It's because they're anchored in enough truth and they make emotional sense. And that's what gets people into this, these absolute, you know, adult, otherwise smart, otherwise functional people, that's why they fall for it. And I think people also, in my experience, completely underestimate

their own susceptibility to this kind of thing. I absolutely agree. Absolutely. When you said that, you know, it makes more emotional sense than logical sense. I kind of feel like, I was almost like, you know, there's a lot of things, not just this kind of stuff. That explains a lot of human behavior right there. I myself have done things like, I'm like, this doesn't make a lot of logical sense. Why am I doing that?

It could be like a relationship. Why am I still in this relationship? It's emotional, not logical. At this point, you have enough, you know, truth, facts in front of you that this is maybe not the best thing. But yet, here I'm going to make this work. Yeah. And I think, like, I think about this a lot with sort of like, I think we all, we all are capable of getting on to the delusion highway and staying there for longer than we would think, right? and in my experience there's like when you're in that because I've been in that experience right

I justified a lot of my sister's behavior that I look back on and I'm like yeah that didn't make any sense but it's because I didn't want her to be that person because I loved her and it was very threatening to my family if I accepted that what she was doing really just was what it was right that she was really just like lying to us and it you know none of this was true and that she had done all these sort of harmful hurtful things that she was you know harming her children and so like It, you know, once, for me, for me, the off ramp was once she had a kid. That was the place where I was like, I can't keep going on this highway because now there's this other, you know, little being that I love and care about.

And like the cost of not accepting the truth got so much higher that like for me and my parents both, that was the off ramp. There's other people that I know who are in her life where the off ramp was a little bit later. And a lot of it was based on sort of what they saw and how much they saw with their own eyes and sort of like, you know, it was when she did this thing or this other. thing, or it was when there was the second investigation, or it was when, you know, the sort of like 15th crazy story she told them where then that was their off ramp. And when I look at the people

who are the closest to her, her husband in particular, I'm like, I watched him almost taken off ramp when he had all these discoveries about her on his own. And I was like, oh, now he's seen it with his own eyes. Okay, he's going to get off the delusion highway. And then he like, put his turn signal on and then he was like nope and then he just got back on it and I was like I think that was the last off ramp for him because at some point you're just like you're all the way over in the left lane I'm really working this metaphor now but like you're all the way over in the left lane you're not getting you're not getting back to the exits you're not going to take one it's sort of that lot you know that um that sunk cost fallacy kicks in and like it becomes you more

and more horrible because the longer you've been enmesh with that person the the more that you have to accept a personal culpability, especially if that's person's been abusing, you know, your children that you have with them, then you are responsible for that harm that has happened. You have been enabling it, supporting it for all those years. So like, you're going to, you're going down with the ship at that point. Um, and I've, you know, I've watched like many dads and talk to many dads who did take an off ramp and sort of, it's so interesting to talk to them about like, they usually put up with a bunch of stuff before that happened. And then they sort of look back and they're like, how could I not have seen this?

And I was like, well, I think most people actually, you know, and there's plenty of people that just never do. So I think that that's so fascinating to me to think about. And I think, you know, it's just especially complicated when you're talking about kids, right, who don't have all of the emotional grounding, the life experience, the they don't have support, they don't have strong support systems. I mean, I think, like, it's worth saying that, like, yes, abused children are more, you know, abuse and neglected children are more likely to commit crimes. they're also way, way more likely to be the victims of crimes. And so there's just a lot of vulnerability there. And I think I'm always trying to get people to understand that, you know, abuse and neglect of children is not,

it is a personal, intimate issue within a family, but it's also a hugely a community issue because you are then like it is a threat to the community to have children who are not, you know, able to sort of enter the community and be safe people, be healthy people, that that has very real, you know, we should care about children because we should care about children. I hate that I have to talk people into that. But it's like if the rest of it doesn't convince you, if you need to be extra convinced, you know,

like the cost to society of not making sure that children are raised in places where they are safe and cared for is immense. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I can let people know how Misty Jones, the 16-year-old who sat out in the garage, smoked a cigarette while these two guys went in and killed and helped them dump the bodies. And then she, while they were awaiting trial, speaking of, you know, trauma bonding, there are letters in the public record, in the police record, at least, that I read that she wrote to them while they were in jail waiting trial, a waiting trial. And she told them at that time, So this has only been like a year. If she had two sons, she was going to name them Brian and Robert, right? So at that point, she's like, you know, she knows they killed them. There's no, no, there's no.

So, but she's obviously still bonded with them. I do this podcast. I didn't even know if I'd find her alive, to be honest. Like, what happened to Misty? That was a big thing when I started, and I interviewed her. And a lot of people have commented on the podcast, it doesn't sound like she quite gets it yet. And she reveals to me in the podcast, I just talked to Brian last week in jail.

And that was like, it'd been a couple, a few years, I think. And she said he, and she's trying to get him to talk to me, basically. And, you know, the gist kind of was when I interviewed her was like, you know, she's done well for herself. She's been in plenty of trouble, you know, but at the time, doing well. But interestingly, I got a lot of comments on the podcast. It doesn't sound right. She's quite really done.

I end the season with, when these murders came out, that movie, the Titanic was just out on videos, a lot of people watching it. And I think there's this lines, I don't know, line in the movie, don't let go of my hand. And then he says, I'll never let go, or is it the other way around, right? No, you've got it right. This is a deeply formative, I'll never let go. Yeah, I don't, I mean, deeply formative for, I was 14 when that movie came out, just peak Leonardo DiCaprio, impressionable.

It used that kind of as a theme in this because the night, the month that's murder happened was when everyone was rented. It just came out on video. And, and then Misty. We're like going to have to explain what videos are and that you used to have to go to a place to rent them to like, you know, there's a place called Blockbuster. Sometimes they would run out of the movie you wanted to see. Actually, I explained it in episode one of the podcast.

I explained that very thing. And then I end it with, you know, like this, that sort of that, those lines for them, Titanic, because, you know, I interview her, and, you know, she's doing well, but she was still talking to the guy, still, there's this bond somehow. And I think I say in the podcast, I feel like they're going to forever be tethered. Now, fast forward a couple more years. I heard from Misty about a year ago, and it just feels, sounds like she's gotten further help. Like, it's almost like since the podcast came out, she's saying, oh, two people really die. Like she said in the podcast, it took me years to reel it, but now it feels like

something's, you know, kicked in. I don't know. And maybe that'll happen again in five years, but this trauma bonding you're talking about. Talk about bonding over trauma. You're a 16-year-old girl or boy, you know, and your two friends walk in that door and kill two people and come out, and then you help them, you know, dump the bodies. I just got to tell you, you know, one last thing about this story I just want to share is that brings it back to this sort of cult Manson-esque vibe. So months, two or three months after the murders, a group of these kids, and Weasel, by the way, who's an adult, they go down to the house where the Ericksteads were murdered. No one's living there. There's still a crime scene with tape around it. And they

break into the house because Michelle, the daughter, wants some of Brian's stuff. I mean, that's Manson family shit right that's like you guys go down there and i don't know who is behind it but and they all got arrested and because they had the cops had set up an alarm and they got busted and spent the night in jail or the the um teenagers went to juvie or whatever it's called but the adults i mean that stuff just i don't know if i'm a naive person but that just shaking my head like you broke in weeks later i just and again these are young kids without a lot of great role models, but that's kind of the gist of season three of Dakota Spotlight. Wow. Well, that sounds like an extraordinary case, and I'm sure that my listeners will be fascinated

by it and also have probably a lot of the same thoughts that I'm having as we're talking about these issues. So I think that that sounds great. And we're going to drop the first episode here on the feed tomorrow. And yeah, thank you so much for sharing that story with us. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a part of True Story Media. We're so happy to have you on board. And is there anything else you want to say? Anything else you want to plug? Where can everyone find you? We will, of course, include all the relevant links in the show notes. Yeah, of course. And first of all, just I want to say how happy I am to be here. And with True Story Media, we're just so excited about this. And it's an honor to work with you. And when you approached me about and under the

sort of the context of ethical, I mean, you got my attention right away because I've been thinking for a long while, like how could, you know, what could we do in the podcast community to come up with some kind of, I don't even know, you don't want to use the word rule book, but, you know. Standards, right? Standards. Standards. There you go. Standards. Yeah. So there you go. So there you go. So there you go. So thank you so much. It's, it's really an honor. And I want to tell your listeners, too. So we're going to be dropping season three again. So if you go over Dakota Spotlight after you listen to episode one here on Andrea's feed,

and you find Dakota Spotlight anywhere you get your podcasts, obviously, and at dakotaspotlight.com, you'll find this season three at the top of our feed. It's an older season, but we're going to rerun it for all of you of Andrea's listeners. So you can find it right away when you get there. So, and I do have a Facebook group for Dakota Spotlight as well. Happy to have more members over there. But, and season 12 is coming hopefully in September. And I'm really excited about this season.

Can't really share too much, but had a lot of ethical decisions there as well. And I was just such a pleasure to be on your show, Andrea. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, well, thank you, James. Nobody should believe Meek is produced and host by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our editor is Greta Stromquist, and our senior producer is Mariah Gossett. Administrative support from Nola Karmouche.