The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - A Q&A with Smoke Screen host Alex Schuman

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Spectacle: True Crime host, Mariah Smith, sits down with Alex Schuman to chat all things about the newest season of Smoke Screen, Puppy Kingpin. She puts host Alex Schuman in the hot seat and they dig into true crime – how we report these stories, why we’re so fascinated with them and what this fascination says about us. Mariah gets juicy behind-the-scenes bits from Alex about reporting Smoke Screen: Fake Priest and Puppy Kingpin. Plus, Mariah tells Alex about the new season of Spectacle, which is a dissection of our messy obsession with true crime.  From Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment, listen to Spectacle: True Crime wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, Smokescreen listeners. I'm your host, Alex Schumann, and we have something a little different today, a special kind of behind-the-scenes episode of Smokescreen. I'm going to be chatting with Mariah Smith, host of the fantastic podcast spectacle True Crime. This is dissecting our kind of messy obsession with the genre and revealing what it says about us. And instead of me doing the interviewing, Mariah is going to be asking me questions today. So from Neon Hum Media and SOTY Music Entertainment,

this is Smokescreen Puppy Kingpin, a mini episode. Hi, Mariah. Hello, Alex. It's so nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. This is crazy. Yeah. I thank you for allowing me to come in your territory on your turf and sort of turn the tables on you. I love Smokescreen. I'm very excited to be chatting with you. And I think spectacle listeners of True Crime obviously will love this, but any spectacle season, because we're really diving into similar territory. You're doing a much deeper dive on a larger topic, and we're sort of going, you know, sort of like global idea by global idea. By now you've heard the first episode about In Cold Blood and the podcast Serial, but we have a lot to come. So I'm going to dive in.

Are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. All right. So what, tell me, I'm always fascinated. What sparked your interest in true crime and podcasting? What was that like first thing? The very first true crime series that got my attention was The Jinx because Robert Durst just, I mean, when the finale of that

aired, they arrested him. And it just like caught my attention. I started watching and then I progressively got more interested in true crime. And this was at this time I was a political reporter in DC. And so I was covering Congress and the White House. And I had made this documentary about gay marriage, but I was like, frustrated as a journalist, because I didn't think the stories I was able to tell in TV news had like enough nuance or were usually delivered, were like being delivered in this repetitive format. And so I started to see true crime stories as a way to tell stories that were still actually about politics and stories about the systems that run our society, at least the ones that I tell, but in like a longer format with more nuance, more empathy. And I also wanted a way to reach more people than traditional, like the almost sports style coverage of politics that we see on cable news. I thought that true crime gave an opportunity to tell similar stories and stories that were impacting people's lives. Like I think Fake Priest, the first season of Smokescreen is very political.

And then Puppy Kingpin also ends up becoming political where we get into the culture wars that cable news have really like infused into almost everything it seems like that we talk about when it comes to politics. One thing I want to ask you is, aside from delving into that political territory, what sort of commonalities took you by surprise from season one, Fake Priest, and season four, Puppy Kingpin? So I think this is less and less surprising as time goes on. But I think the biggest surprise and the biggest commonality for me is how little repercussions there are for people when you're talking, you know, specifically about scams. And I've seen this my entire career as a reporter where unless law enforcement catches these people in the act of scamming you, the chances of getting your money back or that person facing consequences is just very small. That is, that is so fascinating

because I was talking to friends about that and I'm like, there is, I get so stressed out of, like, anyone in my life getting scammed because I'm like, like you said, there's nothing you can do unless it's actively happening. And most times you don't know it's actively happening until after the fact. So it's just all – it's like that's just so stressful to me. And did anything – speaking of scammers, and that is the same thing as con artists – did any or either of these shows teach you anything about what makes a good con artist, if you were to get the job done yourself? I think what makes a very good con artist is someone who is still themselves, and there's a genuine aspect of it.

I think what makes it is that there has to be something genuine in what they're telling you. Like with Fake Priest, something that we don't get into that much in the version of the series that's out, but I personally believe after meeting him is that I do think a part of him believes he's a priest. I think there is like this part of that guy that is a little bit into it and actually believes in a lot of those teachings. And I think that's what makes the scam work. Like the con artist has to in some way believe in the con. Like they have to in some way be able to leave reality and see themselves as the person they are pretending to be. It's like being a good actor. I mean, I think that one of the things that

you see in these con artists is that they could be a lot of other things other than con artists, but for whatever reason, they choose to go down this darker path. I think you can easily see, and I see this as a political reporter, I think you can see it in a lot of politicians. I think you can see it in actors, a lot of the same skills that con artists are using. I don't know if you've ever heard of the thing about Pam. It was, yeah, as I said, I'm like, I'm pretty sure you have. Pamela Hupp, who, you know, Renee Zellweger portrays her in the sort of dramatized version of, you know, her story. She allegedly murdered a woman named Betsy Freya her best

friend but I feel like that sort of con artist trait definitely is in a little bit uh of Pam who we do discuss in season three of Spectacle True Crime but I'm fascinated by Pamela Hupp because she even when I know she knows she's like being sinister and trying to cover her tracks, she really falls into character and into this woman she wants to portray, which makes her even scarier to me. So these people who have this sort of con artist trait or this method acting trait, I would say, is that they're sometimes the most dangerous and the most cunning and sinister. She is, in certain ways, she's very smart and others, obviously not so much. But what sort of, what progress, judicial progress has been made since Fake Priest aired? Are there any updates you can share or anything that you think the people should know? There's a little bit I can share. Back to just what you had just said, I saw that in Ryan Scott, the fake priest as well, where he would say, I'm a celibate priest, but not a celibate man, because priests are not supposed to have sex. But he would weirdly create this line. And he said that in the interview with me. And that's just another example of that game that you're talking about that can sometimes be played in people's head. But the update in terms of fake priest is I figured out that he was advertising for donations on this traditionalist Catholic

website on behalf of a church based in Portugal. But the address to mail donations to was in Missouri. And so I reached out to the church and they told me that they have nothing to do with him. And I did let the Illinois Attorney General know. But to my knowledge, like nothing has come of it. And he still posts on Facebook, still calls himself a priest, still sells himself that way. So for the most part, not a lot has changed. And law enforcement is still not interested, I guess, in taking action. Jesus, that is, oh my god, like you said, it's literally all these,

all these pieces can fit perfectly into the puzzle, and yet he's still able to do what he's doing. Like you said, just law enforcement can't take action, as you said earlier, because it's not, if they're not actively catching you in the act, it's wild I can't even believe that and that's the sort of things like even I you know have been an avid viewer and consumer of true crime and you know procedural shows and all these things but even taking a deeper look in spectacle it's like oh my gosh this is how all these this is how certain criminals can get to a certain point because so many things go unchecked simply because of little loopholes, like not being able to do anything until it's too late, essentially. handle the storytelling and the content matter with a delicacy, considering the nature of these serious situations, while towing the line between real life and also creating something to entertain people. Yeah, that you hit on like one of the hardest parts of doing true crime. And I think

you have to be empathetic and remind yourself constantly that this is like, not a story. It's someone's real life. And I try really hard to make sure that even the people listeners might consider the villains of a story come off as three dimensional people, or they are not, you know, like they are not exclusively sitting around doing whatever crime or scheme we're talking about. They have to shop for groceries. They lay around watching TV. And it's not like they are considered evil by everyone in their own lives. Father Ryan has a partner that he lives with, who I've also met. And Fake Priest dealt with allegations of sexual abuse. And Puppy Kingpin talks a lot about animal cruelty.

You just need to be really empathetic when talking about issues where people can have a lot of trauma surrounding them. And I think it's trauma for victims. It's trauma for listeners. It's also the people that are in the story as the alleged villains. Like, I think you just need to be empathetic to all of them. That is so key. And I think one thing that I always remind myself and remind people is that it is so important to hold on to the fact that these are real people. Every single person involved in this, at least every, from the most innocent to the most guilty are living their day-to-day lives as whole people outside of whatever happened to them or whatever they are

convicted or accused of. So it's so layered and complicated and something that you have to keep in mind. Now, sort of jumping around for a second, what is, through all of your reporting, what's been the scariest encounter you've had with any stories or investigations? I would say the scariest thing was going to Ryan Scott or Father Ryan's from Fake Priest's actual house. It was pretty weird, and I had never done anything like that before, because normally I meet with someone who's like accused of a serious crime, it's in a neutral location like a law office with their attorney present. And it wasn't insanely scary to be at his home because I brought my brother who is a Marine. But you also had like no idea what was going to happen. And it was an environment where he had total control, and he was so tense the whole time.

There was like a big dog barking when we pulled up. It was just very overdramatic. So that made the whole experience a little scarier than what I was normally used to. I am quite impressed that you would do that. You are stronger than I. What about Puppy Kingpin? So did you have any encounters like that while working on this season or was reporting it sort of hard in different ways? I think reporting this was harder in other ways because Jolynn Nothi, the subject of the Puppy Kingpin, she runs her business and her

business partially thrives off of secrecy. So she relies on you not knowing that her business even exists. So she wants you to think that your dog came straight from a great breeder to the pet store and not think about like this brokering middle person at all. And up until she started creating these supposed fake rescues, she was pretty much unknown. Most people didn't know that her business existed, but she's making between 10 and 15 million dollars a year just acting as this middle person for selling puppies. And that's such an incredible business. So to me, the challenge here was just trying to get even basic details about Joe Lynn Nothi. While Father Ryan and fake priest, he would loudly tell people, anyone who would listen about

how he was a priest and how he was opening a church. And he would go and speak with local reporters, introduce himself to like mayors. But JoLynn doesn't want you to hear her voice anywhere. Like I would, one of the things we talk about in the first episode is how a lot of people who had spent years investigating her didn't even know how to say her last name, because people just don't say it out loud. No one had ever heard her talk. No one had met her. And even people in the town would tell us that she would just go to work at night or they would only see her going into the building at night. So there was just a level of secrecy with Puppy Kingpin that made it really challenging. Like

you couldn't even confront them because you didn't know where they were. And, and that was a different, we took a different approach with Puppy Kingpin because of that, because so much of the dog breeding industry is already faced with like confrontations with animal rights groups and they have cameras being thrown in their face. We wanted to take a more respectful approach because we wanted to actually hear what they had to say. And in some cases, we get some answers. And in other cases, they're just, I think, too scared to talk to us. Oh, my goodness. That, yeah, I've, in my histories reporting, the people who are sort of cagey and secretive about what they do and their names, it is so frustrating because it's so hard to get the job done, but it also makes it a little bit more exciting, in my opinion,

because you're like, I will crack this code. Speaking of Puppy Kingpin, we're three episodes into it now. So without any spoilers or giving too much away, can you give us a hint of what's to come? Lots of lawsuits. Lots of lawsuits. Lots of lawsuits. So even though JoLynn is very secretive, we will make contact and we will be able to get a lot of details about her business and how it operates. And we'll be sharing all of that as the season goes on. Well, count me in. I'm so excited to see how this progresses, as I know your

listeners are. And before I let you go, I'll let you do your thing. But I just want to let your listeners know that Spectacle season three, True Crime, we're live right now. As of now, episode one has dropped. But later in the season, we're going to have, you know, Keith Morrison on. He talks to us about Dateline, their formula. Sarah Marshall gave us all of her O.J. Simpson trial insight. And we get into the disturbing phenomenon that is hot Ted Bundy and all things serial killer nonsense. It's a lot. But we'll be having more of these types of discussions on my new podcast, Spectacle True Crime. Episodes are airing now.

As I said, episode one is live wherever you get your podcasts. You can find it on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else. Thank you so much, Alex. Anything you want to say before I let you get back to doing your great work? No, thank you very much. I had fun. Thank you so much. I hope to chat with you soon.