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Hey guys, as most of you know, this is my very first podcast. It's also my very first investigation, if you will. Like I said in the first episode, one of my first inspirations to do this was Serial. Podcasts
Podcasting is its own creative medium, with no real rules or guidelines yet. Since Serial's success, there's been a multitude of other true crime podcasts out there, before Up and Vanished. Mostly from talented and experienced reporters, with years of investigative journalism under their belt. My background is in filmmaking, and telling stories. I'm not a reporter, nor do I work for a news outlet. I've tried to keep an open mind with this thing, and to continually learn and get better at what I'm doing. This is my first time doing this.
This means that, in a way, I'm sort of learning the ropes as I go. I've never known anyone else who's done this. On today's episode, I'm going to speak with Amanda Rossman and Amber Hunt, two journalists from the Cincinnati Inquirer who have done this before. They have their own investigative podcast on iTunes called Accused. Today, we'll discuss with them what they've learned from their experience and how it applies to what I'm doing now. This is Case Evidence. ♪
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In 1978, a woman named Elizabeth Andes was found dead in her apartment near Oxford, Ohio, which is near the Miami University campus. Her boyfriend found her body, and so it made sense that police looked at the boyfriend first. It's very often somebody who knows the victim. So they looked at the boyfriend, decided that it was him,
They arrested him and charged him. And he did end up, after 15 hours of interrogating, he ended up confessing. But he immediately recanted, and he's maintained ever since that he didn't do it. And two juries believed him. One was criminal and one was civil. So he was acquitted and found not liable in those trials.
And the police and prosecutors said, well, yeah, but we think this is who did it. So the case is closed, even though there's been an acquittal. So the family fought for years to get it looked at again. And so we got involved in September 2015. There was a lawyer who started working with the Andes family on a pro bono basis, just trying to see what they could do.
do, they reached out and said, you know, this case might be worth some coverage. So we started investigating it. And at first we thought it might be, you know, a story that we would dig into. But the more we got to digging, the bigger it grew. And eventually it became a full podcast.
Have you guys ever made a podcast before? No, not at all. So what made you say, hey, let's make a podcast? Well, we know that it works in this format, telling this type of story. We all have seen that with Serial, for sure. So we know there was an audience for it. But even when we were weighing it early on, I mean, in newsrooms nationwide, you're constantly being told you need to learn new skills, you
You know, when I started, I took photos, but I was a rarity. I just happened to like photos. Now, if you're hired to report stories, you're required to take your own photos and you're required to do live stream video and all this. So we started to play with the idea of having an audio component
but it didn't become a full-fledged podcast until we reached enough people and so that the story started to come alive through the sound clips because if it hadn't worked that way, we wouldn't have forced it into this format. It just so happened that this story was right for the format. Yeah, hearing these people's voices and the passion
and their voice, and the way they say things really adds to the story that reading it yourself, you just wouldn't get the same effect. On that line, it's kind of funny what it does for you as a reporter to come back and listen to your own interviews. I didn't make a habit of recording my interviews regularly.
Beforehand, somebody along the way had told me it was kind of a crutch and you should always take notes. So usually I would only audio record for backup reasons. So when I went back and listened to some of the interviews that I had done, it was really interesting because some of the answers were, they made sense.
the hair on my neck stand up more listening to it later than it did during the time. So it really was kind of interesting. Plus, it lets you, like, you know, if you uncover something and you kind of get the heebie-jeebies at the moment, being able to come back and listen and be like, no, that tone of voice really did warrant me to feel a little funny about that interview. So it's been eye-opening on a lot of levels.
Yeah, it kind of takes the pressure off a little bit of not remember stuff, but kind of stay in conversation with somebody and be more of a comfortable, approachable person to them and then go back, like you said. And sometimes you find stuff that you didn't really notice right away or something that they said that you thought was weird. You can confirm later on that, yeah, that was in fact weird.
So I totally get what you're saying. Yeah, I could have talked myself out of believing it was significant. Go back and you listen or you play it for somebody else and it creeps them out too. You're like, okay, so it's not just me. In your experience as a reporter, how often is the boyfriend or husband the main suspect, do you think? How often is that actually true? Like you could announce in the newsroom the boyfriend did it or the husband did it.
and be right like 99% of the time. You know, that's the safe bet. And if it's not the boyfriend or the girlfriend or, you know, basically the significant other, it's still somebody very close. It's very, very rare that you have random crime. I think
statistically to the ones that we cover often are low risk victims, which means it's not the person who's selling drugs on the corner, not because that life isn't as valuable, but the truth is that we as reporters were not sent out to those cases very often because it's news is
a victim that isn't putting themselves in harm's way, right? So it's usually somebody that you wouldn't expect. So it's a mom, it's a loving wife, it's a loving husband, it's whatever. And those cases do tend to be domestic more than stranger. I mean, I've written three true crime books and two of the three were significant others who ultimately were convicted. And then the third one was the son who killed his parents.
So it was always somebody who knew someone. Yeah, in Tara's case, there are a lot of boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, you know, rumored affairs. So all the persons of interest are all very close. They're all men that were in Tara's life. Statistically, yes, that's the likelihood. But you can't decide a case based on what is usually what happened. Absolutely. And that's how innocent people end up in prison. So...
You know, it's one thing if I'm making a macabre bet in the newsroom. It's another thing if I'm in a position to put somebody in prison. I mean, I'm not going to go with what's likely at that point. What was your investigative strategy when you guys went into this thing? And what were the biggest hurdles that you guys faced? I'd say the biggest hurdle would be the time element. Coming back at this 38 years later, 37 at the time, and
And just trying to get a hold of people. And when you're talking to them, asking them to remember things 37 years later. Yeah, that was definitely difficult. And then we also had an issue. This is kind of a strange legal issue. But in our case, it had been sealed at the original suspect's request. So he had been acquitted. And this is kind of standard that somebody who is charged with something so heinous so that they can move on with their lives.
they get the case sealed so that they can honestly answer on job applications and such. No, I've never been charged with a felony. So he had that done. And that meant that a lot of the case files that normally would have been easily attainable were not. So we needed to get his permission to have all of that opened up to us. We also ran into problems too because
because some of the original investigators are still part of the case and they are still set that the guy that they liked did it. So they didn't want to talk to us about the possibility that he didn't do it. So getting them to talk was really tricky. There were a lot of obstacles in this case. Gotcha. Yes. In Tara's case, there's a Georgia records law where unsolved cases, the records are sealed and it's
pretty much completely off limits. Oh, no. Yeah. I'm kind of handicapped when it comes to having the knowledge that they have. Actually, it's the largest case file in the history of Georgia. The closed records law really prohibits people, private investigators and reporters, to do a whole lot of extra digging around, having to work extra hard just to catch up with where they're already at, I guess. Really frustrating. I mean, that makes it so that it's very hard to do checks and balances.
Yeah, absolutely. The whole podcast for me has been not only an outlet for the story, but also in a way a big
a big part of the investigation and a very important investigative tool, just from random unsolicited tips to even people coming around and saying, hey, you know what? I've been tight-lipped for 10 years, but I feel like this is the right time to talk. It's created an avenue for some people to speak their mind and kind of clear the air on certain things, so to speak. Well, and it can help for people not to speak to police, which is another thing.
it's a shame that the case files are so hard to get at because there are people who will not divulge anything to somebody just because they're wearing a badge. And sometimes we reporters have a different skill set or they interpret us differently so we might get them to say things
that they otherwise wouldn't be comfortable saying. I think some people are scared of a badge. And, you know, in Tara's case, a lot of the persons of interest and a lot of the rumors and speculation revolve around men in badges. So I think that that part of it as well contributes to the fear people have
With the amount of exposure coming to podcasts like your podcast, Accused, Up and Vanish, and of course Serial, what effect do you think podcasts are having on cold cases and even current cases as far as maybe helping to solve the case? Any of these kinds of situations could end up being...
hurtful in that, you know, it could look like we're all ganging up on policing. They're not doing a good enough job. And I do think that that can be a consideration. But I think for the most part, what it's doing is it's highlighting different ways that investigations can be tackled. I always like to think of how...
forensic files. You would hear in season 10 about a case that was open because somebody had a eureka moment watching a season two episode of Forensic Files where they saw an expert who had this particular skill set and they reached out to them. So my hope is that people will be able to catch that there's a fingerprint expert and one that might be able to help another. And I think a
On the broader scale, it's teaching people to be more critical, period. Because a lot of these cases that have been highlighted, police were dead set that they had the right person. And the evidence didn't always back that up. And I think it's really important that we always remember it's not just about what can be proven. It's about what's true. So you need to actually look for the guilty party and not just the one who is most convictable.
by, you know, more people being interested and by being concerned about these issues that it holds a lot of the officials accountable in that manner too. So we're looking at these officials who play a role in these cases and hopefully they're realizing the things that they're doing may or may not be correct. Well, and that's
That's what is kind of infuriating about the cases being closed, because we're all real people. We're all prone to make mistakes. It's going to happen. That's OK. But the nice thing is when outside parties have access to the case files, at least to a degree, I don't expect that they have every slip of paper, but it allows for another talented party to come in and say, OK, well, what might have you missed?
How can I look at this a little bit differently? Because the truth is that the people on the front lines very well could make mistakes. And there's got to be a way for the everyday citizen to combat that. Because otherwise you have innocent people in prison and you've got guilty people walking free and nobody is held accountable for that. ♪♪
Thank you.
So right now I'm midway through this season of Up and Vanished on the Tara Grinstead case. I guess you could say I'm halfway through this investigation because at this point, the investigation that I'm conducting is pretty much in real time now. You guys having completed a season of an investigative podcast, what have you guys learned from your experience? And do you have any tips for success in my investigation and what I'm doing? We've learned a lot along the way. A lot of kind of things.
things not to do. But as far as talking with people, we didn't even approach Bob, in our case, the boyfriend, until we had talked to so many other people.
around him to kind of get comfortable with us to let him know that he could open up to us if he wanted to and we took our time yeah we wanted to make sure the details we had all added up and we knew as much as we could about things before we kind of got the ball rolling on other things what do you spend the most time doing you think
staring at the wall. Yeah. Thinking. Yeah. There was a lot more contemplative time on this project than there ever has been in any of my other journalistic endeavors. When we're playing with one puzzle and we're going back and forth and talking, it allowed us to have some sort of eureka moments where we're like, oh, we have to chase this down because it's when you stop thinking about something that the good ideas start to come. Being able to just kind of
live and breathe and eat this case for a year, we wouldn't have gotten nearly as much done. You got to really, like you said, stare at a wall and think about it. And it's when you least expect it, you have those wow moments and you start putting things together and connecting the dots, but you got to have the dots first before you can connect them. Right. I think we had to come to accept that we might not ever finish, which is
Probably the scariest part that I don't really want to even articulate because I'm hoping we come up with an end.
here at some point. But in the meantime, we just keep picking away. There will always be something else that pops up. I'm still requesting some records that I didn't think to ask for the first time around. And there are still people who call me because they finally heard the podcast and, you know, they live in Timbuktu, but they used to be in Oxford and they have some information. So we're just trying to be patient. So if you were to do it again all over, what would you do differently, if anything?
Hmm. I know. That's a really good question. Like I'm a, I'm a big believer in the mistakes helping the process rather than hurting. I'm glad we made some mistakes so I wouldn't take those away. I probably would have been less, uh, naive with the police because we, we believed in trusted when they told us that they were willing to listen and help us. I, I believed them. And, um,
And then they just shut us out. Probably I'd be a little more jaded. So are you more on a trust no one stance now? I thought I was already and now I'm even worse, which just means I'm a terrible date. Oh, man. Yeah.
Trust issues. I don't date anymore. It's okay. What is your words of advice for me halfway through this thing? Don't give up. Yeah. Don't settle. Keep going. If your heart's in it to solve it,
recognize that it might go far beyond this season and be willing, you know, even in 10 years, somebody all of a sudden happens to listen to this thing. Oh, I didn't know this information I had was important. You know, still be willing to talk to that person. Thank you guys for listening to Case Evidence. Be sure to tune in next Monday, January 16th for episode 11.
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