To Die For - Inside To Die For

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Tenderfoot TV's Laura Benson takes you inside “To Die For” with host Neil Strauss. Go behind the scenes into the making of the podcast - from Neil’s first discovery of Aliia Roza's unfathomable story to the lengthy and emotional twists and turns that led both Neil and Aliia on a very different journey than either expected.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To have a murder as gruesome as Jade Beasley's doesn't happen very often down here. In Marion, Illinois, an 11-year-old girl brutally stabbed to death. Her father's longtime live-in girlfriend maintaining innocence, but charged with her murder. I am confident that Julie Beckley is guilty. They've never found a weapon. Never made sense. Still doesn't make sense. She found out she was pregnant in jail.

The person who did it is still out there. Listen to Murder on Songbird Road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He was a Boy Scout leader, a husband, a father. But he was leading a double life. He was a monster, hiding in plain sight. Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK, through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. All eight episodes of To Die For are available now to binge absolutely free.

But for ad-free listening and exclusive bonuses, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts. Hi everyone and welcome to Inside Tenderfoot TV. Today we're going inside to die for and I'm sitting down with award-winning author and journalist Neil Strauss, who's the creator and host of To Die For. I like I imagine many of you went on quite a journey with this show, and I'm really looking forward to sitting down with him, talking to him about some of the behind the scenes that might be a little unexpected for listeners, and hearing more about his process and journey in building this show and telling Aaliyah's story.

So without further ado, welcome, Neil, to Inside Tenderfoot TV, and let's dive into it. Awesome. Thanks for having me on, Laura. I didn't tell you before we talked, but I definitely have a lot of reluctance to do this interview, and I'm going to tell you why. Yeah. So I think when we create a podcast, we're almost trying to create this magic spell that when you listen to it, you're just drawn into the story through voice, through music, through the reporting. I'm not a fan of pulling back the curtain on that and breaking the spell. And it's not like it's magic, but there's something about the storytelling, I think, in this podcast and in so many Tenderfoot podcasts

that makes it work. And I just, I don't like demystifying it, but I'm going to do this and we'll see how it goes. No one has to listen. Stop now if you don't want to ruin it. Well, thank you for going out on a limb then. This is actually a great segue into your process working on this show in general. Can you talk a little bit about the production process itself and how you went about building To Die For? Yeah, it's sort of like, it's sort of a band. And the band is myself, Tristan Bankston, who worked on the second season of To Live and Die in L.A. with me, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay is the producers, and then makeup and vanity set, Mavs, who is the composer, and then there's Dayton Cole, who mixes it and makes it sound great.

It's really like a garage band that puts this together. And one of the reasons I do these with Tenderfoot is that there's a lot of creative freedom within it to tell the story in the way that the story wants to be told versus other podcast companies that seem to have a formula. And I hear so many frustrated creators where they are not able to share their experience because it has to be ground into the formula. Well, and with a story like Aaliyah's, I imagine there was so much discovery as you went through the process of talking to her that I couldn't even imagine trying to put her story into a formula. Can you share kind of what the journey was like for you from what you expected at the beginning when you first heard about Aaliyah, met her, and then just how things might have shifted over time in the process of interviewing her?

Yeah, I think from meeting Aaliyah and the way she showed up at that first meeting, I really just thought it was going to be like a spy movie, but real life. And instead, it was really about trauma and healing and her own experiences. The biggest danger wasn't the enemy, the foreign country. The biggest danger was being a woman in a military system run by these predatory men with no accountability or consequences. As a listener coming in with no

expectations and no background, I was really surprised by the shift, like from the first episode, kind of the expectations I had to then where you end up. I really appreciated, actually, that you talked about trauma-informed interviewing. And I'm very curious to learn more about that. Can you talk a little bit about the training that you did for this interview process and how that was different from other interviews you've conducted in the past? Sure. I think that the interview was also not what Aaliyah expected. I think she expected the sizzle glam stuff. And partly through studying trauma-informed interviewing, we were able to create a safe space for her to really share her story. And I think that so much of healing is through sharing and being

heard and being seen and being understood. And so as we started to realize that this was a story of not survival from people shooting at you, but survival from predatory, exploitative men in power, I realized I needed to really be thoughtful about the way I spoke to her and to be conscious of the experiences she's been through so I studied trauma-informed interviewing from a few places I got a certified in it uh there's something called the peace model for interviewing I looked into and there's a great book for the world health organization called psychological first aid that's great and the importance is creating a safe, supportive environment that at least prevents them from being traumatized further while really allowing them to tell their story

with their truth. Even throughout this, I went beyond the process and making sure that she's getting support throughout the process she needed. And I think she always said her memories were locked in Pandora's box. I think she even says it on the podcast. There's a saying, what we repress controls us. Right? If we further repress it, it's like pushing back on a spring that eventually that's just going to snap. And so whatever we're repressing eventually takes over because that's how force works. But however, if we can set them free, in a sense, to let them out in a way while we're getting healing, while we're getting support at the same time and integrate them, I guess integration is the word, we can lessen the charge and the power they have over her. And unexpectedly, that's part of what the process created for Aaliyah. That's really awesome. Is there anything that you've taken from that training that you've actually incorporated into your day-to-day life, not just in an interview setting? For sure.

For sure. I mean, think about it for being a parent, right? As a parent. Yeah. Active, empathic listening, valuing someone's feelings and experiences, not being judgmental. All those things make you a great parent or a great partner that allow you to be really present for someone else's reality. There's a quote I love that says, listening is so close to being loved that some people can't tell the difference. Oh, I love that. I thought maybe at the beginning that was a possibility, but by the end, it really felt that that's not the job of this podcast. It's to really give someone the space to ask you about, because you talk in the beginning about this dynamic of, you know, her using like certain tactics that pickup artists had used and that you had this kind the tone of the podcast and from the tone of her telling her

story. And I would love to know if there was a moment that you shifted over from what's going on, is she for real, into this is definitely real. That was a very leading question. So I was curious about that question. So I called, it's on the podcast, I called Chris Voss, who's a good friend, has helped with the other podcasts, who is the famous FBI negotiator. And he wrote the book, Never Split the Difference. And Chris, I said, how many times have people asked you to prove whether you were really in the FBI or not? You just say it. Who knows? And he goes, never. Maybe once someone jokingly at a bar, but that's about, that's it. I'm like, well, how interesting is this that here's a woman saying this

and presenting herself in a glamorous way on Instagram and all of a sudden everyone's prove it, you're lying, you're fake. And would it be the same if it was a male in a suit who presented another way? And I don't think it would be. And so I thought, I don't want to be part of that,

part of the culture. And this speaks to creating a safe space. We got to know who she really is. And at the end, she literally says, like, I create this fake world and this fake life on Instagram because A, I want to please my father and show him that I was a success in life.

And so there's still that child trying to please the parents. So many of us have this on some degree, right? Our family message becomes what we think our life purpose is. The second thing also is just feeling like she won. When you go through these really disempowering experiences, there's a need to empower yourself and to feel empowered because so often in these stories, there isn't a happy ending. And so maybe we make one or create one or do something that allows us to go on living. really appreciated in the, I think it was the final episode, you brought her therapist back in, and she talked about that. She talked about the aspirational element of social media, which, to be honest, as a listener, kind of blew my mind open. Because we do employ all these judgments and all this kind of criticism to how people present online. And it was really

interesting to have that perspective brought in of look at this through a trauma lens. So yeah, I just wanted to call that out and give you kudos and give the whole team kudos because it was really cool to have a perspective shift. I also think in terms of narratives, it's interesting to read the reviews. For example, I really love reading the reviews, positive or negative. They give me really valuable data. I really look at reviews as a valuable source of feedback about what's working and what's not working. And I thought a lot about narrative during the telling of this. And I think everybody has three forms of narrative they're telling, or there's three forms of truth in any story. One layer is what really happened, what a camera would have recorded if a camera was there.

And the second layer is what we remember happening. Some people are really extreme in the stories they tell themselves. Other people are semi-close to the truth. Other people are always the hero in their own story. Other people are always the victim in their own story. Other people are always the one who's forgotten about, always the one who led the group. People have their own way of their own filter through which they see themselves or almost need to see themselves to prop their ego up. So there's what really happened objectively, what we remember happening.

And then the third layer is then what we tell other people. And that layer is that mask we wear for social acceptance. And some people, that second and third layer are close. Some people, they're more distant. So every story has those three layers no matter what. Right. Right. And the question is, what is the gulf of separation between those three layers? And maybe when we're doing an investigation or something, we're trying to

figure that out, right? So a witness may have a false memory and the perpetrator may straight up be putting on the mask. So I find memory, story, narrative really fascinating. And Aaliyah is sort of like a very lightning rod for this in some ways because she shows on Instagram things that really aren't real. Right. Right. Oh, that's so interesting. And those are all the things that kind of went on in my head through this, just trying to see the humanity in people instead of objectifying them. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And especially when you're talking to somebody who's

so much of their experience has been acting as an object, right? Being objectified. And yeah, I just, I don't even know what to say. What were you about to say? that nuance and I appreciate you know pointing out compassion as the first lens that you look at anyone through I think is it's so important and like you're saying we live in a very judgmental world and definitely for me as a listener like there is this tension between that presentational element and then the vulnerability of her story and like I said I'm really glad you took a full 16 episodes and the story shifted as much as it did because it felt like these layers. And I definitely had doubts that I think a lot of people shared in the beginning because it's natural to be a little bit uncertain. And then And by the time Aaliyah's like, really, she gets very emotional, you know, and I was amazed at the journey that she took that I felt like I could follow along with her as she opened up. And it was just really powerful.

To have a murder as gruesome as Jade Beasley's doesn't happen very often down here. In Marion, Illinois, an 11-year-old girl brutally stabbed to death. Her father's longtime live-in girlfriend maintaining innocence, but charged with her murder. I am confident that Julie Beth Lee is guilty. This case, the more I learned about it,

the more I'm scratching my head. Something's not right. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Murder on Songbird Road dives into the conviction of a mother of four who remains behind bars and the investigation that put her there. I have not seen this level of corruption anywhere. It's sickening. If you step so many, that many times, you have blood splatter.

Where's the change? Clothes. She found out she was pregnant in jail. She wasn't treated like she was an innocent human being at all. Which is just horrific. Nobody has gotten justice yet. And that's what I wish people would understand. Listen to Murder on Songbird Road on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father. He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with us. He was the guy next door. But he was leading a double life. He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking through the windows, looking at people, fantasizing about what he could do. He then began entering the houses.

He could get into their home, take something, and get out and not be caught. He felt very powerful. He was a monster, hiding in plain sight. Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen here. Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK, through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. So what was the timeline of recording? And you said you had about 30 or 40 hours of raw interview? Maybe more.

Wow. Maybe more. Wow. Yeah, I'm a super thorough interviewer in the sense that I really do, because I care. I really want to know everything, whether we use it or not. And so a year and a half ago, I think it was January, it was when I first met her. And then we got together, we discussed doing the podcast. I talked to Donald at Tenderfoot about it. And then we just started recording just her story and sitting down day after day and time and time again. And sometimes when she'd share these stories, it got so quiet, you could hear like a pin dropping. And that's why I tried this experiment

on episode 15. I don't know if you noticed when you're listening. I'm curious if you did. On episode 15, I did no voiceover. I just let her tell her story without any interruption. And only at the end did I say, you've been listening to chapter this, episode this. And so I wanted just to hear her voice, let her speak and just stay out of it. And I think most people listening may not have missed me. I didn't consciously notice that, but I'm sure that I noticed it in part of observing this shift. You know, like that's definitely a deepening of her presence, I guess, which is an odd word to use, but it felt like she got more and more present. Yeah. And I felt like I really, when I do these as a storyteller,

I try to think what hasn't been done and I've never heard. So for Tristan and I, it was like a really exciting experiment. I think on a deeper level, discussing trauma-informed interviewing and everything we said, just allowing someone to tell their story without jumping in and explaining. So you started a year and a half ago, you said. So was the interview process over three months, six months, longer? You talked about taking a break for a while when she was going through a really intense moment in therapy. Yeah, the interview process probably went on the whole time. So whatever you heard in the last episode was recorded in the week or two before the last episode dropped. Oh, wow. And that's the other thing I love about the podcast I've done with Tenderfoot is

they're all very live and in the moment. Like with the first season of To Live and Die in LA, that investigation was ongoing, even with the police, as each episode is coming out. Right. There were parts, I don't want to say anything, people haven't listened, but there were parts where very intense things happened, and those literally happened between one week of the podcast and the next week. I mean, it feels very alive. So it translates to the storytelling component of it as a recorded piece as well. Exactly. And I think there's an element of that that just, that transfers into it, of it being very alive and being very present. I used to be a music critic in the New York Times, so I'd see bands play. And when the band stopped getting along and still played this music, it didn't sound as good anymore. It's the same songs, the same notes, the same lyrics,

and yet because it's not alive in them, it ends up sounding lifeless. Given the kind of top secret nature of a lot of what she's talking about, I know that Aliyah changes the names of people and doesn't really disclose exact people, places, things in a way that I guess would be incriminating. But she is speaking out about the system that is very corrupt at a time that political tensions are very high. I'm curious to hear, you know, if she expressed any concerns about her safety as she was going deeper into this story and kind of unveiling more? And also, if you experienced any internal concerns around being present within this

kind of espionage world that she's talking about, that's also very alive. Very much true. So I definitely think that, I don't know why I do this, but I think everything I do, a lot of what I've done in the past, there's a danger element. If you're outing a murderer or someone who conspired with a murderer, there's a danger. Absolutely. I've done books with really dangerous people, projects on really dangerous things that I absolutely should not be doing. And so for sure, while I was doing this, especially at the beginning, I had a lot of nervousness. She had some nervousness. And however, I think it's interesting, like, especially with this podcast, seeing the narratives people tell versus the truth.

And the idea is, well, if she's talking about this, she'd be killed. And I think her thought was all this stuff happened around the year 2000. I'm not mentioning names. I'm not revealing state secrets. I'm not saying anti-Putin, anti-Ukraine war things. Maybe a touch, but nothing more than everyone else is saying. And so I'm not a threat to power. It's different than other people who are speaking out with the intent to overthrow Putin or overthrow the regime or create systemic change there.

So I think her thought was, because I'm not revealing sensitive information, because I'm not a threat to what's happening, it's okay. And there are other former KGB agents who speak out, who've written books. Jack Barsky is one of them who's out here and doing podcasts. And that's okay. So I think her thought was,

I'm just talking about stuff that people don't talk about, but I'm not sharing something that's a threat to those currently in power. I think if anything, everyone else on the podcast who I interviewed as guests was more negative about things and revealed more. And through all these voices and experts, I really feel like the listener and myself learned so much about Russia and the Russian mafia and the Russian military and the way of thinking Putin has. So I feel like it was such an education for me researching all the context. I probably consumed at least 10, 20 history books along the way.

Yeah, absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about how you found the people that you brought onto the show? Because I loved having all of these experts pop in and I felt like you did a great job of whenever Aaliyah would say something that was kind of hard to believe at first, you know, like you would immediately bring in somebody who would back that up and be like, yes, these actually structures do exist, or this is something that we know happens. How did you find the people that you ended up bringing in as these experts? First of all, thanks for saying that. I really did feel that there were, each episode ended up having a theme, and then I wanted a deeper understanding of that theme. So whether it was bringing in Holly McKay, a war reporter, to talk about women's treatment in the Russian military, or bringing in the different Russian mafia experts to talk about that funny because when it sounded incredible that the Russian is

training these seducers, I realized that having written that book, The Game, many years ago that I forgot or didn't make the connection till I started thinking about it that the FBI had brought me in many years ago to train them in seduction. And that could sound preposterous. However, I called someone who was there at that training, Robin Dreek, and just had him confirm I was there because that's a hard one to swallow. And you didn't trust your memory because it might have been changed over time. Exactly. So I had him confirm it and then he became such a great expert to call on throughout the podcast. So while you're working on a project or while I'm working on a project, I try to talk about it everywhere I go with everyone I meet,

because you never know when a resource is going to pop up. And so I'd be out at a conference and meet somebody who used to be in the CIA and I'd say, what do you know about these Russian swallows? And he'd tell me something and it'd be great. Can I call you back about that? I mean, my transcriber who was transcribing the audio said, oh my God, I used to work for a secret aerospace program where they trained us and warned us about these type of women. So I think by just putting your antenna out there there all of a sudden the information starts coming to you and sometimes of course if I couldn't find someone say an expert on poisonings I just research online and try to find some great people to interview but I was so grateful for those people those speakers because they brought such important context to it and I think that was part of the

narrative is is just uh you're learning so much and not even realizing you're learning it. Absolutely. Are you allowed to share anything about your training with the FBI in seduction? Or is that off limits? Yeah, I think I can share that. No, I asked them. I asked them and they said I can share it. I just can't share where I went to do the training. All right. So basically what they do is the same as seduction, but just the outcome is different. So the outcome is not a relationship or a romantic experience or a physical experience. Their outcome is, how do I get this person to be an informant on their boss? Ah, okay.

How do I get this person to work for our government instead of that? But the process is the same, which is you're meeting someone, you're building trust, you're trying to understand what their value system is so you can speak to them in terms of what their values are. And then when you've built enough trust and rapport and connection, you're starting to plant the seed for the offer you're making. So what I've discovered was there's really very little difference. And these pickup artists who I wrote about in the game, because they did it so much, had as sophisticated knowledge of human behavior as the FBI's behavioral analysis units.

These guys are talking to whatever, five, 10, 15 people a night versus you have one target and that's a one-year project or something or a three-year project. So it was very surreal. It was very surreal. It's definitely the last thing I expected when I wrote that book. But then it made me realize it's not ludicrous. A government will do any means necessary that they can get away with to accomplish their objective. Right, right. Like you said, it's studying human behavior more than seducing almost. Seducing is the word, but... Yeah. And at the same time, in the past for other projects, I've interviewed government psychics who were trained by the government to do spying as psychic spies. Literally, that's a real thing.

It's not a conspiracy theory. It's called remote viewing. Remote viewing, yeah. I remember reading about that and thinking it was just so interesting. Yeah. I went and got trained by the guys to learn how to remote view. Cool. Yeah. That should be another podcast. That should be another podcast.

It was awesome. So the point being is any government will try anything to see what works. Right. Whether it's seduction or ESP. To have a murder as gruesome as Jade Beasley's doesn't happen very often down here. In Marion, Illinois, an 11-year-old girl brutally stabbed to death.

Her father's longtime live-in girlfriend maintaining innocence, but charged with her murder. I am confident that Julie Beth Lee is guilty. This case, the more I learned about it, the more I'm scratching my head. Something's not right. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Murder on Songbird Road dives into the conviction of a mother of four

who remains behind bars and the investigation that put her there. I have not seen this level of corruption anywhere. It's sickening. If you stab somebody that many times, you have blood splatter. Where's the change of clothes? She found out she was pregnant in jail. She wasn't treated like she was an innocent human being at all, which is just horrific. Nobody has gotten justice yet, and that's what I wish people would understand. Listen to Murder on Songbird Road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father. He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with us. He was the guy next

door. But he was leading a double life. He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking through the windows, looking at people, fantasizing about what he could do. He then began entering the houses. He could get into their home, take something, and get out and not be caught. He felt very powerful. He was a monster, hiding in plain sight. Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen here. Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK, through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. So with Aaliyah and with the pickup artists that you'd, you know, worked with and interviewed, were there any times when she talked about these tactics that were either really similar or really different from the pickup artist tactics that you'd been familiar with before? Yeah, it was super weird because she'd be talking about things that she was doing as seduction techniques. And I was like, oh, wow, this was exactly what the pickup artists were doing. It was the exact same period of time, the early 2000s. Wow. Interesting. We were talking off mic for a second, and I was mentioning to Neil that there was actually a question that has been on my mind

that I didn't want to put him on the spot about, and he said, put me on the spot. So one thing that came up for me a lot in listening to this podcast and learning about the way that information has been used by Russia to essentially, you know, brainwash and radicalize people, I was really reflecting a lot on what I've been seeing happening in the U.S. And I was hesitant to ask this question because I don't want it to be a divisive or super politicized question. But I'm curious if you, in the process of learning about how Russia's government works and how information can be used to kind of weaponize people against one another, if you reflected on that in the U.S. and have any observations about that kind of radicalized thinking that Aliyah talked so much

about? For sure. There's a fault line in our society. And I think everyone can agree on that. And that is for a government that wants to take down the U.S., the best way to do it is from the inside. And again, there's interviews with Russian defectors who've been saying this for years, going back to, and again, haven't been killed. It's so much easier to destroy a country from the inside and everybody fighting each other and not focusing on the external. So it's 100% happening. And even Aaliyah said, and also someone I talked to from the CIA said as well, that there are so many people over here and that's their job is to do this sort of, there's even a name for it, but to do this kind of sabotage from the inside. And so I think I really learned that A, there are a lot of people we meet who are just ordinary

people living here who are just ordinary people living here who report back to handlers and talk about what they're hearing. They're called eyes and ears. Then there are people here who are actively creating relationships with other people and in power and putting these ideas in their head and fanning the flames of division and discontent. And then absolutely, there are softwares and armies of individuals who are creating this on social media. It's such an effective way to hurt a country from the inside. And no one checks. You see these news reports that are covering an issue, and they just quote Twitter accounts, not even knowing that these are real people or what's called sock puppet accounts. Right. Especially with, you know, our election cycle. What do you recommend for people to, I guess, be aware, but not necessarily be completely afraid of what you just said?

I asked someone who runs a social media company, what countries were responsible for the most fake propaganda accounts and fake sabotage accounts. And the three were, not surprisingly, China, Iran, and Russia. But even if they're real people, it's only a specific kind of person who posts a lot of negativity on social media. I haven't met you, Laura, but I know you don't. And so what you're hearing is, A, people who are working out their trauma through social media, or B, countries that are working out their domination plan through social media. And my advice as the antidote is expand your peer group. Talk to more people who you disagree with to understand and empathize with other perspectives

and get your information from the streets, not from a place where anyone can create an account and post anything provocative. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. That's good advice. I have a couple kind of wrap-up questions. Sure. So what do you hope will be the lasting outcome of this show? I think that the intention, the goal is a deeper understanding of Russia, a deeper empathy for trauma and a woman's experience there, and hopefully just really just caring about other people through their stories. I think the third thing is just there's something about telling a compelling story

that takes place in a world that no one else has been to that enriches us all and gives us greater empathy. So maybe that's the point. That's really beautiful. Is there anything that you've noticed that feels like a lasting impact of working on this show for you? Like, did this change you in any way that you've been able to put your finger on yet? I think exactly what I just said is what it did for me, that I see, I understand history in a way I never did before. I understand government intelligence

in a way I never did before. I understand that these, that, let me try to say this, because I haven't voiced this, but that sex espionage is not sexy, that we want to make things sexy that are actually almost always traumatic for those experiencing them. And so I think that was another big takeaway that we want to glamorize some of these things that, and to live them, it's not very glamorous. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anyone that you think really needs to hear this podcast?

Or a specific listener you kind of had in mind while you were sculpting it? I mean, I think Aaliyah's father needs to hear it. So he can see the damage he's done. And so many parents do this. There's something I said at the very end, and it was that these are the results of growing up in a totalitarian system, whether it's a country or a family. Because many people living in so-called free countries grew up in a totalitarian system, which was a parent or parents whose word was the law, who didn't respect your needs, who wanted it their way or no way, who always had to be right. And so understanding that some of us have grown up in not just countries like this, but families like this can help us better understand ourselves. So I sort of put that in the end because I think the damage came not just from the country, but from a father who's, it doesn't matter what you want to be, you're going to be what I want you to be. And that is so repressive of the spirit of an individual. It's like stepping on a plant and saying you're not going to grow. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that's really valuable. And there's so many,

something that I've learned working at Tenderfoot and being adjacent to a lot of the shows that we put out there is exactly what you're saying is you never know where someone has come from and what kind of environment they grew up in or what kinds of stories they have just behind the masks that we put on every day. Yeah, and I think that's the hardest thing as a creator of any of these shows

is that people have a filter through which they see the world and it's like this or it's not like that. And they're convinced of it a hundred percent and nothing you could say, do, no story you can tell will change their mind. That's just the way it is. That's how people are. That's how that person is. And I think it's not just a sad way to live, but a dangerous way to live. And I think that it's a slippery slope from that to war or genocide when we start to feel like we're right and other groups of people are wrong. And so I think somehow my next Tenderfoot podcast to close on, I think a lot of these podcasts are about one person did something to another person or one person did something

to 10 or 20 people. But what happens when you have 100,000 people doing something to a million people? Right. So that, to me, is the next, quote-unquote, true crime podcast I want to do.

And then instead of maybe rescuing one person or giving one family closure, is there some way we can do this on a broader scale? That's really beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that vision with us and just so much about the show and about Aaliyah and your journey with it. And I could pick your brain for 30 more hours, I'm sure. But we'll go ahead and wrap up. Is there anything else you'd like to share with everybody before we go? No, I just, if you're listening to this episode,

that probably means you listen to all the rest of the episodes. So I want to just thank you for listening. Feel free to contact me on social media or through Tenderfoot. I'd love to hear your thoughts overall. And also, I really want to know, did this episode ruin the podcast for you or did it support and help your listening and understanding of the podcast? I truly mean that because that'll allow me to do less or more of these in the future. Awesome. And you heard it from him. He reads the comments. He takes them to heart. He collects the data. It will definitely be taken to heart. Yeah. So thank you, Laura,

for a great interview and for listening and asking great questions. Yeah. Thank you for doing this, especially because it was something that you were resistant to. And I really loved it. To have a murder as gruesome as Jade Beasley's doesn't happen very often down here. In Marion, Illinois, an 11-year-old girl brutally stabbed to death. Her father's longtime live-in girlfriend maintaining innocence but charged with her murder. I am confident that Julie Beckley is guilty. They've never found a weapon.

Never made sense. Still doesn't make sense. She found out she was pregnant in jail. The person who did it is still out there. Listen to Murder on Songbird Road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He was a Boy Scout leader, a husband, a father. But he was leading a double life. He was a monster, hiding in plain sight.

Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK, through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.