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Season Five: A Monster Comes Out at Dark
303 Plays2 months ago
Today’s episode is with television writer and author, Alexandra Kitty, about her recent book Murder In a Sundown Town.
https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Sundown-Town-Alexandra-Kitty/dp/1958727172
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Music in this episode was licensed for True Crime XS by slip.fm. The song is “No Scars”.
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Sources:
Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
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Transcript
Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Introduction to the Murder Case of Carol Jenkins
00:01:01
Speaker
So today, we want to talk about a book that Meg and I just read. It's a pretty cool book. It's an older case. It has a lot of interesting elements to it. The book itself is about a 1968 case from Martensville, Indiana, and it's a murder case. It's the murder of Carol Jenkins.
00:01:23
Speaker
who we brought
Insights from Author Alexandra Kitty
00:01:24
Speaker
on to talk with us about this is Alexandra Kitty. And Alexandra Kitty, she's released in October, 2023, a book called Murder in a Sundown Town. Meg and I had a chance to look at this and we wanted to bring her on so that audiences could one, hear the story of the murder of Carol Jenkins and and kind of talk to Alexandra about how she came to be writing this book.
00:01:51
Speaker
So I guess the first question here is how did you like catch wind of this story and decide you wanted to write about it? um Well, actually in 2022, I got a left field opportunity to work as a true crime researcher for a television show called A Time to Kill. And that we that show I did for ah season seven to nine. And when I first started doing this show, there were so many hurdles you had to find when you found the right case for this
00:02:24
Speaker
Sure. I had to be a you you had to get the lead detective. I had to have multiple suspects. So in the beginning, when you're trying to pitch, you don't always get the right idea. So I said, I have to kind of study different cases to see what's the feel of this show.
00:02:41
Speaker
And one of the cases, i so I was looking at things that went with it and didn't. And through this, I basically stumbled on Carol Jenkins' story. And I thought, on the one hand, this would be a perfect story for a show like this. And on the other hand, it completely and rebels against the format of the show. So I then started thinking and I really, this case moved me. So then I started researching on my own. I said, this needs attention of a book. So this is how I started just trying to figure out a new job. And then I went into a totally different territory. So that's how I came across the case.
00:03:23
Speaker
And I've got
Challenging True Crime Narratives
00:03:24
Speaker
i've gotta to compliment you on something unusual here. You chose, and I assume this is because of how you discovered the case, you chose to frame it, the whole book, from the perspective of how this would all be portrayed in true crime media. And then you sort of set about as you're telling the story, you're kind of tearing down some of the tropes of the true crime community or the true crime media world and how those stories are told in sort of print and television and movies versus the reality of what happened. Did you decide on that formula because you were just immersed in that environment?
00:04:04
Speaker
yes because When you watch it, because i'm a I'm a true crime fan to begin with. So I can consume podcasts, shows, books. I'm really into the genre. So when I got the opportunity to write this, you're in a different world. When you're presenting it, you get a lot more information. It's not smooth and flowing. There isn't a narrative.
00:04:26
Speaker
So you look at things and you appreciate, I think I learned to ah love the genre more when I worked on the other side. So this is how it began with me thinking about, okay, what do I like about the genre? ah How did this case fit? How did this case not fit?
00:04:44
Speaker
You're actually solving a mystery different kind of mystery of understanding what is the genre, what makes it you know so adorable all these decades, and to see how a case like Carol Jenkins plays into it. How did you
The Role of a True Crime Researcher
00:05:00
Speaker
end up writing on a time to kill? I was looking for research work because I'm mostly a book author.
00:05:08
Speaker
and i was And I also teach Kintsugi, which is just something totally different. But those jobs are a labor of love for me. And I thought I need to get back into a grindstone. So I was looking, and I looked on LinkedIn, and they said they were looking for a true crime researcher for a television show. So I said, well, I'm going to ah put my resume in here. They're never going to call me back. ah They called me for an interview. And I thought, they're never going to hire me.
00:05:36
Speaker
And I got hired, so I got you know and an interview on Thursday. I worked the following Monday. And it was such an overwhelming experience, because putting into television episodes together is so intensive. I mean, it's you're literally going on 24-7, but it was i said has such a love for this job.
00:05:58
Speaker
Because you learn about different people, ah you talk to victims' families, you get to talk to the detectives, the prosecutors, and you understand the the people who have ah fallen as people. And you have a ah new appreciation for people who are involved in this process.
00:06:21
Speaker
And it was a job experience that I have to say was second to none. And I loved every second of it. And yet I would constantly cry because you know people never forget their loved ones. Police never forget the the families and the murder victims. So it was a very humbling and and and such an interesting experience at the same time. How many episodes did you end up working on? I worked on eight episodes over three seasons.
00:06:46
Speaker
from that experience. And now did they cover Carol Jenkins case on the show? No, they would. That's not a case they would have probably covered because it would have been hard to find um the original police and and it would have been a lot it would have been very difficult because we usually we were hitting from the late 1990s to about 2017-19 that was the sweet spot but I would have loved to have been able to do this episode because there was so much about this case that really resonated with me. Well you bring up a good point there how difficult is it to work a a case like this that it's sprawling out you know from 1968 until
00:07:29
Speaker
I guess you're deciding to write this in 2022, 2021? Is that what you said? Yes, 2022, yeah. Yes, that's ah there's a lot of time there. how do you like set about like like What's the first step you take when you've got a cold case that is from all the way back in 1968?
Investigating Cold Cases
00:07:48
Speaker
What's the first thing you did?
00:07:50
Speaker
I started looking at every media article I could find on the case, but the originals. And it's interesting when you look at old ah newspaper ah ah reports, they'll tell you where the victim lived, the exact address. They'll tell you the address where the the homicide happened. There's so much detail.
00:08:11
Speaker
We always think, well, now we have you know cameras and ah you know cell phone cameras and social media, that we get a lot of information. And yet we had as much information because you had reporters literally knocking on everybody's door trying to find out things. so You start reading new old newspaper articles, and then you you take it from there. You look at whatever you can imagine from police files, court files. You try to find it as much as you can. But with an older case like this, it's very difficult because so many people have passed away. And in a way, this is still an ongoing case. So there's a lot of reticence of speaking because ah there were two people, and we know of one. So this is actually a semi-closed case.
00:09:00
Speaker
Right. They have an accomplice that they they have not identified, but they have identified one of the actors. And i don't want to I don't want to spoil that for people who are going to read the book. Following this case all the way into the 2000s, did you get a chance to talk to, because I know it's an older case, did you get a chance to talk to the people that are working it now that have sort of been handed down this case?
00:09:27
Speaker
Unfortunately, no, because it was considered an ongoing case, they won't they won't talk. So you you have roadblocks, it's even modern cases. You'll have some people who will open up, but it's not always, that's why you have so much in True Crime TV lead generation where you have to have more cases than what's gonna actually end up on air, because things fall apart at the last second, somebody agrees to talk and then they don't talk. ah Writing True Crime books is a lot of the same, even though you have
00:10:02
Speaker
you can do take as long as you want to to wait. i was actually that That's a good segue into what I was going to ask about. You have a lot of writing experience, you have a journalism background, and you're suddenly in two different realms here. One is you're you're writing these television episodes and the research to that, I have a lot of experience with the lead up there. I know how time-consuming that is and how disappointing it is when a case falls apart because someone superior says they can't talk or a victim's family you know lets you know that they're not gonna be coming to talk.
True Crime Media's Role
00:10:40
Speaker
um And that's even from the perspective of just trying to get a quote from them to put your story together. What what you did here is you transformed it all into this long-form story. In this case, it's it's a book. Did you did you find yourself like wishing
00:10:57
Speaker
Of those three forms, meaning articles in journalism, television writing, and this book, did you have a favorite form that you worked on? Well, I would have said book was my favorite form, and then I started doing research for True Crime TV, and I realized that because you're doing recreations and and you're talking to people, and people can see and hear the original source, i I fell in love with the TV format.
00:11:24
Speaker
And because there's something about, even if it was a podcast, if you can talk to people and other people can hear what these other people say, they can see it through another person's eyes. And we really, you know, the television, the the true crime Audio or visual format really it's gonna sound funny It's totally underrated because the details when I was a researcher, you know from what the victim was wearing that we would have I would have to find that out but in the recreation in the the but We would read reconstruct the scene. We would find as much identical clothing of the person the little details and when you're writing you
00:12:05
Speaker
you You want to have a bigger scope, but in television, a lot of it is unspoken. So there'll be little you know nuggets. If you watch or rewatch, you actually get a better a really pretty good reconstruction of the of the case that way. Do you work a lot with the victim's families and How is that in terms of complications? Like how do you keep your journalism separate from the more human side? I try not to. I understand that my feelings are there for a reason and I can explore it. Sometimes things don't sit right with you, so you have to do more research. um When you talk to the victim's family, I think that's probably one of the most important things in true crime TV, because you understand this person not as a role, not as a victim, but as a person.
00:12:54
Speaker
So there would be cases there was one case I worked on I talked to the victims a brother and sister the brother ended up on the program but when the sister gave me insight about the case that No article or even police file could give me so it gives you a chance to be Sensitive yet accurate. She understood her brother probably better than anybody else because she was an older sister and she just he was, like I would say, her pride and joy. The older brother had a much more ah morose feeling about the case. So when you're talking to victims' families, you're getting more information about this victim. How did they end up in this horrible situation and not of their fault and not of their doing? And you learn about the victim through the family
00:13:46
Speaker
And i I always would encourage, sometimes it's even a niece or a nephew that tells you all sorts of wonderful nuggets about the victim. So when you're a researcher, you're going back, writing your research pack about the case, you're making the Bible of the the case, ah you under you can put pieces together much you know more delicately than if you don't. A lot of times
Understanding Victims Through Families
00:14:10
Speaker
you you don't get that the victim's family will say, yes, we agree to it and that's the end of the road. But when you can talk, ah you get more information that you you get off that hamster wheel and you have a look around at this person and you get to really understand them. And and you can translate that even subtly or non-verbally in an episode.
00:14:34
Speaker
And that personalization really does hit the viewer, ah the audience, because as it's translated onto the screen, they get to know the victim as well. And it has to come from a place of, you know, somebody, a family member that does know them, right? And it humanizes the whole situation for everyone.
00:14:55
Speaker
I found it very almost therapeutic because this person hasn't been forgotten and the nice thing about true crime is you not only educate people looking for warning signs ah from body language to actions, but you also You get to explain to people, you know, these people matter, and you're keeping a torch for people who can no longer speak for themselves. And that's something about true crime that I always always appeal to me. We don't forget the fallen.
00:15:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's why we do it, right? I mean, it is, um it's a side of human, the human experience that ah would, you know, it makes everybody take notice of it. And we have so much empathy for them. And and that is exactly why true crime is, I mean, I don't want to say entertainment, but it is something that people are intrigued by is because it's It's somebody who's experienced the absolute worst. And most of the time it's something that is, has at least some element of it unsolved, right? And so we want to keep that alive and we want to keep the notion that no matter what, we'd like to solve it and and let the victim rest in peace, their story complete. I have a question for you. So this story, Murdering a Son Downtown,
Cross-Border Perspectives
00:16:26
Speaker
you're Canadian.
00:16:27
Speaker
Have you ever lived in the US? No, I actually live an hour from the border. so i'm I'm constantly on the other side. I'm very close to Niagara Falls, so I go across the border. so i I have the best of both worlds. I i can have sort of that objective looking on the outside, but then I have the benefit of coming in and immersing myself in in another country. I think it's an interesting way because I've worked for American publishers and American publications, but I always enjoyed the fact that I have two lenses I can look through, not just one.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, that that's that's exactly where I was headed. So Sundown Towns, it's a term you use in the title. It's a really interesting thing that is primarily like ah like a US thing. Basically, we spent the middle part of the 20th century with this practice that was like this very strange type of racial racism and racial segregation.
00:17:33
Speaker
where gray towns or sundowner towns or sundown towns were primarily white neighborhoods and municipalities and small towns where once the sun went down like it was either a stated known thing that quote people of other colors meaning non-white people were to either be out of town, like have left, or to be indoors somewhere away from white people. What did you think
Racial Segregation and Sundown Towns
00:18:05
Speaker
of that as someone looking at how the U.S. treated people at the time? I have to admit, it it shocked me. It shouldn't have.
00:18:16
Speaker
And I thought, you know, you you're you're but what surprised me even more was the denial, and yet with the denial, things would come out. So for instance, there was officials in Martinsville were upset that it was called a sundown town. We don't do this. But in the same breath, they were going, well, there were another group of encyclopedias salesmen that came, and they were black. And we told them, oh, better safe than sorry, you should leave.
00:18:45
Speaker
So to me it was interesting that you had this phenomenon and yet people who took it were not even fully cognizant of what they were doing.
00:18:57
Speaker
So how do you fight something where a person has a blindness to what they're doing and we don't, and then they they do? And the problem with Martinsville was for decades, there was a total denial of this ever being a hate crime or racially based at all.
00:19:16
Speaker
We should give a little synopsis here and I'll kind of talk through like what I know about this and give the short version. But I think that's important in order for people to understand some of the elements of the story that I want them, I want them to pick up your version and read it. So Carol Jenkins was a young black woman who was murdered September 16th, 1968 by two white men in what would have at at the time been the town of Martinsville, Indiana. So her murder stays unsolved for like 34, 35 years and investigators get a tip about one of her killers. This killer was a ah man who was known like locally to law enforcement. There were some affiliations that he had had to the Ku Klux Klan. He does end up being
00:20:13
Speaker
charged in terms of Carol's murder, but he he's declared incompetent and he dies pretty quickly after that they have kind of put all the pieces together. Now, for Carol's part, so she grew up in Franklin, Indiana, and her parents were divorced, but she had a stepdad and who lived in Rushville, Indiana.
00:20:39
Speaker
Carol had plans and she was going to be moving from this area to Chicago. so She graduates in 1965 from Rushville High School. She has a job locally at the Ford Motor Company. Unfortunately, there's a strike that like shuts down the plant temporarily. so
Carol Jenkins' Martensville Experience
00:21:00
Speaker
She takes this job For a book publisher called colliers and sons and she's going to be going door to door selling encyclopedias So september 1968 she gets dressed up. She goes out on her first day to sell these encyclopedias door to door and She volunteers ah To go to martinsville indiana, which you point out in the book. They actually had a different destination that day originally
00:21:33
Speaker
That's right. So she goes with her coworkers and two of her coworkers are, you know, young white males and there's another black woman with them. At this time in the United States, there's all sorts of chaos surrounding racism and they experienced some of this. They are followed by ah and talked to and sort of confronted by different white people in Martensville.
00:22:02
Speaker
And as she's walking alone by herself, she is, for lack of a better word, verbally assaulted. And she goes up to the door of a local couple that you cover very well in the book. um their names They're white a white couple named Don and Norma Neal. She basically says to them, I think someone is following me, and if you could just let me in.
00:22:31
Speaker
The Neils bring the police out to try and help her. Norma even ends up walking with Carol because she thinks that she can maybe help her find her co-workers that she's supposed to meet up with. She offers to stay with her, let her come back to her house. Norma Neils stays, and there's interviews with her for many, many years after this incident.
00:22:54
Speaker
but
Racial Motivations and Media Denial
00:22:55
Speaker
Carol walks off around 8.30 PM because she genuinely does not want to drag the Neil's into whatever is happening. She heads to the rendezvous point where she is supposed to meet her coworkers and they're all going to go back home to Rushville. We don't know exactly what happened, but while she's standing here waiting, two men get out of their car and they chase her down.
00:23:18
Speaker
and There is a confrontation where her arms are held behind her back and the other man stabs her a single time ah with a screwdriver. And they leave her bleeding on the street and she dies. This case is looked at a number of ways by the media. And you did a really good job of pointing this out. They do everything in their power to avoid linking this back to racism. They basically say that this is kind of some kind of sex crop.
00:23:51
Speaker
How did you feel reading all of that? I was not surprised and shocked at the same time. I mean, there was so many problems with that narrative. I mean, I don't doubt that they have picked on her because she was a five foot three hundred and ten pound woman. ah But I mean, to say that race did not play into this was an absolute stretch. I mean, there was no homicides for years in Martinsville.
00:24:24
Speaker
ah So this is was, you know you have rarely had anybody ah of color coming into Martinsville. The first you know young woman that enters gets murdered. It's it's very hard you know to say, well, this was a sex crime. It it was definitely, there was no actual so overt signs of ah sexual assault or anything else. I mean, it was an attack. I mean, a screwdriver to the heart. That's as violent
00:24:55
Speaker
as it gets. so To me, to say, well, this was not this was not racially motivated, was you know it it was a little bit of an overly adamant denial. so that You you ah could read between the lines that yeah the as people knew it was racially motivated, but they didn't want to have to admit that it was racially motivated.
00:25:19
Speaker
It's almost like it would bring out all of the secrets. So we'll just cover our ass and then we won't be looked at as being, i I don't want to say flat out stupid because it's worse than that. It's more like ignorant. They didn't want the reputation for having been that ignorant that something like this could happen.
00:25:38
Speaker
Exactly. I mean, and I mean there was other problems. I mean, it was raining that night. ah They contaminated the crime scene ah beyond all hope. I mean, people were walking around. I mean, they did absolutely nothing to preserve anything.
00:25:54
Speaker
So you have this, and then you have these denials. Well, it's easy to make a denial if the crime scene's contaminated beyond all recognition and all hope. So it was, you would think, okay, if the crime scene was contaminated that badly, that they would keep an open mind on any and all motives because you would want to solve this as quickly as possible, not shut down the door to where the most likely scenario was.
00:26:18
Speaker
there's There's two elements at play there, and Meg, you can chime in if you think I'm wrong here. The
1960s Police and Society
00:26:23
Speaker
1960s were not a great time for smaller police departments to have a grasp of like like, they would have denied that there was racism because they didn't realize that they were being racist, if that makes sense. Right, and so it's not so much like malfeasance, except I mean, it is malfeasance.
00:26:45
Speaker
but it's like incompetence to the knowledge of it because I do i think that they were they literally just had no idea, right? And so while it's blatantly obvious to us now,
00:27:00
Speaker
I think that they were just in a state of denial. um Part of this, in reading the book, part of I kind of had to switch my mindset because I'm not used to thinking about ah cases in the terms in terms of it being in 1968, right? And to kind of get there,
00:27:23
Speaker
i Actually, I actually don't know I didn't know anything about sundown towns. I I don't know much about Indiana and I I'm surprised because um a lot of this racism Issues from the time during the civil rights movement. They're they're geared more towards the south right and um I think that ah This made me sort of wonder like how much more is there, right? Like that maybe just oblivion kept from being in the news. it I don't know if that makes sense or not. But so taking that into consideration that I have to put myself in 1968. It's a whole different world.
00:28:13
Speaker
I don't see any problem, especially now in 2024, in saying that, um or even in 2004 or whatever, that yes, this was an atrocious, racially motivated crime, right?
00:28:34
Speaker
None of the people that are sitting in authority now, you know, had anything to do with it. And we we learn from mistakes, right? That's like the best thing to do is acknowledge it. And it it has to make it made me wonder why be so defiant that it wasn't. It just didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me because it seems like the very best thing you can do is acknowledge mistakes were made, especially when they're obvious. But ah it's almost like pride kept them from doing that. To this day, there are there are parts of Martinsville that do not acknowledge this crime the way they should.
00:29:15
Speaker
Would you agree with that assessment, Alexandra? Absolutely. i mean There were racial incidents even after. um you know yeah There were you know as sports games where there were racial slurs hurled at outsiders. i mean this This town really needed a self-assessment.
00:29:34
Speaker
And there would be outside media outlets such as the New Yorker, Metropolitan Dailies outside the area who were saying, this is our you know there's a racism problem. And then though it was doubling down. Well, no, there isn't. Well, you have a young girl on her first night of working. And not everybody in Martinsville felt like this because so many people with the the police and the reporters interviewed were saying, she was so nice, she was so kind, and they really liked her. So it was, you had this racist element within Martinsville that it seemed like other residents were absolutely terrified of them and to the point where they were in denial that this hardcore racist element existed.
00:30:25
Speaker
Do you think, and I'll ask Meg too, um do you guys think that it's because they don't know that there's racism going on or because like there they're covering that? or
Community Responses to Racism
00:30:39
Speaker
like I can never really tell which town is which. In the world, if I look backwards, I can't tell which towns like let it happen and which towns don't know what's happening.
00:30:50
Speaker
Well, I don't think that it can be characterized. um I think it happens. I don't think like a town sits down and says, okay, this is the plan. um I think it happens. And then when the you know the people in charge ignore it, deny it, that's when it you know becomes a problem. I think that everyone would agree that Carol Jenkins' murder was horrendous. There's no question. It was a form of evil that no one should have to experience, right? And because of that, it is possible
00:31:39
Speaker
that, especially all the people that met her that evening and liked her and didn't see a problem, they it seemed to be from the accounts that they were aware that it was possible for her to be harassed, right? That's why people who, you know, didn't have a problem with her being there. They weren't ah racist. They were trying to help her because they must have recognized this young woman could face some some issues here.
00:32:08
Speaker
um i and Again, I have to put myself back in 1968. I wasn't alive then. i I don't know what it was really like. and so Taking that into consideration, you know we have no idea if more people were like the couple that helped her or more people were the people who would be more likely to cause a problem. And I do think that if more people are like the couple that helped her, they could honestly be looking beyond the fact that she was a young black girl and just that she was a young girl who was horrendously murdered. I still i you know i don't feel like that
00:32:53
Speaker
is really enough to say it wasn't a racially motivated hate crime. But I do think that it would be possible, you know, people could be well-meaning and in ignoring. I don't think that it ever had the overtones of a sexual assault.
00:33:12
Speaker
um I think that that is more like almost, it just points to the fact that it was a woman that was killed, um but there was nothing about it that seemed to indicate that that's where that was headed. And so that that kind of bothered me, but at the same time, I think that it would be possible for it not to be readily apparent that you know, the driving factor here was the fact that she was a a young black woman who was out after dark. And I think that it's mentioned in the book, but right now I can't remember. This was a
00:33:52
Speaker
a fairly, except for the fact that it was a sun downtown, this was a fairly safe neighborhood for the people who live there, right? It was extremely safe, but the interesting thing after that um ah that homicide, they had a so whole slate of unsolved murders afterwards. They almost sent a signal to people saying, ah you can kill people here and you'll get away with it.
00:34:19
Speaker
And so Martinsville came from a very, became very safe to a not so safe place because of this homicide.
Media Perspectives on the Case
00:34:26
Speaker
So there were ramifications for being in denial that this was a racially motivated homicide um because it sent the wrong message. And all of a sudden you had ah quite a few um unsolved, or to this day that are unsolved ah from that era. Now you did a ton of research that you documented so well in the book here.
00:34:49
Speaker
from the media of that time, did you get the sense that the media was buying the idea that this was some kind of sexual assault or like in reading it was the final take that that you walk away with that they kind of knew this was racism and they were just trying to get the story ah to to stay a little bit in the spotlight when they could.
00:35:15
Speaker
ah You had two different media. So you had the outsider media that were pretty much aware from the beginning this was a racial a racially based murder. And then you had the local media double down and said, no, it was it was a it was a sex crime. It was a sex crime. To me, the insiders were more worried about their reputation.
00:35:38
Speaker
and maintaining a reputation than actually solving the case. And then you had reporters on the outside ah who were more concerned of showing the injustice and trying to help solve the case. so It was like two different media. It was like night and day.
00:35:55
Speaker
ah Those who were too close ah did not see the problem of their coverage, but the ones on the outside definitely handled it completely differently. It was very interesting to see the same case, same profession, journalism, and how different a takes there were on on this case. I think that part of the blatant denial to something that was so incredibly obvious, it made them look more it looked it made them look like they were trying to cover it up even more so than just stating it right when something is just blatantly obvious and you know this is a young lady who
00:36:42
Speaker
was killed. And we're saying her race had absolutely nothing to do with it, except like no other young women walking around in the evening time have ever been killed this way. right And you know I think that that makes it inherently worse. And then of course, like you were saying, that would be the um insider journalists who are saying it had nothing to do with the race.
00:37:07
Speaker
the outside journalists come in and they say, Oh, obviously. And so I think that that just, it deepens the divide even more because it, you know, you want people to recognize like this is a problem. And I feel like, you know, there's, there's a bit of irony in this entire situation um in that in the partial ending that we get, right? And so I feel like that would be a way to very firmly address the facts of the matter without having to implicate anybody that lived there at all.
00:37:50
Speaker
You make a good point with that. I don't want to spoil the rest of Murder in the Sun Downtown for our listeners, but I do want to keep talking for a minute. First of all, where's the best place for people to get Murder in the Sun Downtown if they want to read it? ah Amazon, um Genius Publishing, right on their website. ah Those are probably the best places to to get the book.
00:38:15
Speaker
And if they want to learn more about you, what, ah is it your website? Is that the best place to go? Yes. Alexandrakitty.com. So there's also more information there. So.
00:38:26
Speaker
The book is just basically getting to understand this case, but also getting to understand the true crime genre, how, you know particularly on TV, how we how it's put together, ah every consideration, every angle we go through when we're putting together an episode, ah because because you have to do justice to just more than the victim. You you know that the police the were involved The prosecutors were involved. um There's victims' families. There were people who gave information. A lot of times risked their own life and well-being coming forward with information, too. And I want to talk a little bit about sort of some of the other things you've written. You write a lot about psychology when it comes to journalism. Does that spill over to true crime for you?
00:39:13
Speaker
Yes, I mean everything I do has the basis of psychology. My undergraduate degree was in psychology. I always had a ah love affair with it because it was like the rosetta key to understanding things. And to me, journalism and psychology always went hand in hand because what's journalism? It's about people.
00:39:31
Speaker
And how do they think? Because we a lot of times don't think about how we think, let alone how how somebody else came to their thought patterns. And psychology had so many answers. When I was and so when i studied it, i I was like a never-ending escapade learning staff through this lens. So when I went into journalism, I went into it using psychology. Then I veered off into history and true crime again ah with psychology and understanding, ah you know, having empathy, um reading people and also, you know, not being judgmental because it's very easy to make a a reaction and just sit back and reflect, well, where did this person come from? How can I understand them better?
00:40:18
Speaker
Do you follow like trials in the US s and Canada, like the media that comes out about it? Oh, yes. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, that's how we how we deal with things that have fallen apart. It's it's a very important thing to know. Meg and I, have we've we debate like quite a bit of what we're going to cover in terms of um like live trials. um Because a lot of times, like if you if you jump on those bandwagons, it's kind of um It's kind of doing it for clicks and that's not like, that's not how she likes to work and it's not really how I like to work. But I noticed that um you talk a little bit about radial journalism or empirical journalism. Yes. That's sort of my style. I'm more of an, um i'm I'm very into empiricism with everything that we, I mean, from the perspective of being a creator, I'm not, you know, not from a criminal perspective per se, but
00:41:16
Speaker
um Meg is very logical and by the book and we try and blend that for the show.
True Crime Journalism
00:41:21
Speaker
um what do you What do you think of coming from that perspective of like empirical journalism and and mixing in psychology and sociology like you're talking about, what do you think about the 24 hour news cycle that we're in today?
00:41:36
Speaker
I think it's always about getting the gap being first, getting the exclusive that you tend to react and not reflect. And journalism should be both because things happen on the drop of a hat. I mean, things and and utterly change the course of history.
00:41:53
Speaker
And other things, it's just so subtle and quiet that we totally forget about. Once a problem explodes, that's where journalism heads. We rarely, rarely have journalism going, oh, there's little problems coming up. What does this mean? Let's do a little more.
00:42:09
Speaker
you know, an empirical approach, compare and contrast to different systems, ah see where things going. A lot of times, you know we forget you know, we don't appreciate a journalist actually, let's say, maybe wanting to get a job somewhere and actually immerse themselves in that environment because sometimes it's a boilerplate and we can be very judgmental, not understanding what people are under pressure. And when you're under pressure, your brain functions in a certain way. So what's happening? So I think journalism is under attack, but I also think that there's so much and so many different avenues journalism can take to totally reinvent themselves. And what I like about true crime, it seems to be a subset, we don't think of true crime as journalism, and yet it is, but it's a special kind of journalism where we're talking about the emotional factors, ah the primal factors of surviving and not surviving, then of course the facts of empirical basis. I think
00:43:04
Speaker
If journalism was really to invent themselves, they should actually start watching a lot of true crime. That's a really good point. did you i' I'm asking this out of curiosity and I'm breaking a cardinal rule here for recording purposes. Did you watch the Karen Reid trial at all? No, I have to admit I didn't. Okay, then you made the smart move there. I got sucked into that one and I dragged Meg with me. We noticed something interesting going on with it. It's not the trial itself. It's not like the crime.
00:43:33
Speaker
It's the the internet troll side of things where like Twitter and Reddit and Facebook, they they sort of explode with like, it's almost like protests. So you have people that are like free Karen Reed or free out myrtle or whoever. And then you have people that are like trying to.
00:43:53
Speaker
shout down the protesters with facts and and and logic. I didn't know if you had noticed that trend or not. Oh, um yeah it everywhere. i mean from i remember I think it was so during the Johnny Depp trial. that was Yes.
00:44:12
Speaker
to a new level. I mean, you have no gatekeeping on social media, essentially. So you have factions. It's almost these tribal factions. ah We're trying to rig this outcome this way. And then you have people go let things play out themselves. Let's look at the facts. And people go, I don't want to get the facts to get away, you know get in the way with what I want to ah validate my worldview. And people will just you know they They start lobbying ah through the court of public opinion and then they hop into a shout down and shame people and make them retreat so that they can get whatever outcome they want. it it's It's a very interesting outcome that and I don't think people expected it when we first started having social media that this is what it would be used for.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah, we can't have nice things. Meg, I think you got interrupted there. What were you gonna say? Oh, no. um Well, I was just gonna say that um you're exactly right with... ah especially with the Karen Reed trial. um so I don't know if you know anything about it. Karen Reed was on trial for second degree murder and some lesser included charges with regard to the death of her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, who was a Boston police officer. And um it
00:45:31
Speaker
caught my attention, well, because John sent me a link. And then just sort of looking into it, law and crime covered it, like, you know, gabble to gabble coverage or whatever, where they played the entire trial every day. And there was a parade of people wearing pink, cheering this defendant on in a parade-like fashion as she walked to court every morning.
00:46:01
Speaker
And it was driven by social media. It was one of the most mind-breaking situations that I've ever seen in my life. i was actually I was actually amazed and appalled at the same time because I couldn't, I didn't think it was really real. And then obviously, you know, this is like way off track for this interview, but it,
00:46:30
Speaker
It made me realize how exploitative, I don't even know what to call them, people who want to take a narrative in spendnet and it and spin it in a direction that they're guiding, how exploitative they can be of people who are what, ah they're able to be influenced by it. and it's It's literally influencers.
00:46:57
Speaker
spinning their influence among their followers. It's sort of the tribal thing, but so but what alex Alexander was saying is they split, they go trod out, but what you're recognizing is sort of false prophets within the tribes. I have seen people, um it's And it's not just the Karen Reed case. There's lots of cases. There are certain inalienable facts of cases, right? And I actually don't know so much about the Canadian justice system, but you know here this the prosecution has to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt um to a jury. A defendant, in theory, is presumed innocent until proven guilty. And you know that all takes place in a courtroom. and and
00:47:48
Speaker
a jury of their peers decide that. And there's a stark difference between a defendant being innocent and a defense team putting on a defense.
00:48:04
Speaker
right um I am a firm believer that every single defendant ah that is taken into court for a trial, especially one having to do with like a real crime, like a violent crime against a human being, um they should have the most vigorous defense possible and they would be found guilty anyway because of the way the system is set up. um I have seen recently that attorneys are They're plugging in these holes where they can exploit like their defense strategy.
00:48:43
Speaker
to the detriment of the system. i mean Ultimately, it could cause like a really big problem if it were to become this slight out of control thing. But they instead of just putting on a defense strategy, making sure their client gets the best defense possible, they're actually lobbying towards this, oh, my my client is innocent when that's not the case at all. right and it it's concerning to me because I've never seen so many um because it you know defense attorneys are for the defendant but they're still officers of the court and so they're supposed to hold like a certain I know that that sounds like a stretch but they're supposed to hold a certain amount of you know ethical responsibility and I've seen it really blown out of proportion here recently in a way that I didn't think
00:49:36
Speaker
it would be possible to see
00:49:40
Speaker
canadas legal system on the internet like can you watch trials we have we have coverage but we don't have it like the united states i mean for instance you can't ah
00:49:57
Speaker
you can't? They're not allowed to? No. oh no So like we don't have ah televised. We'll have reporters in the courtroom, more old you know but it's not the same. I think the US s ah system is much more transparent. ah You can see things. So if there's problems, actually, they're more exposed. Here, it's it's a little it's a little different. It's not entirely different, but it's different enough that and we We can have the nice, long talks about the differences. It's just the U.S. system, yeah we know more because they have televised ah trials. ah you You can talk to jurors after going well what was going through your mind.
00:50:37
Speaker
it's it's I think it has a lot more empirical value. ah The thing is that a lot of times it gets hijacked by people who don't know a lot, but they think they do. and Then they go on the tangent, not thinking that there's ah subtle nuances that they're totally missing because they don't have a deep understanding of what's going on. I think that's been my concern too. Meg, go ahead. I felt right now i agree percent. i and i I hate watching it unfold with just sort of normal people who like they got behind a movement. um In Karen Reed's case, it's that Karen Reed was you know factually an assent and set up and all this narrative that was spun as a defense strategy. And you've got people who don't understand a bigger picture. They don't have any idea that it would be possible for a team of defense attorneys to be paid enough money to go in and have a defense strategy.
00:51:34
Speaker
um It is 100% percent ah thing that happens. Her case ended up involving a lot of innocent people who got coffee caught in the crossfire, which is where I started going, oh,
Defense Strategies in Legal Cases
00:51:48
Speaker
this is really bad. um and And it was unbelievable. but i think that For the most part, it is a lack of understanding where you're going, well, yeah, this is just a defense strategy. And then on the other side of it, you're you know being yelled at. like yeah man yeah She's absolutely innocent. right Alexander, we get caught in this rabbit hole where Meg
00:52:15
Speaker
And sometimes myself, we desperately want to teach people things, not from the perspective of we know and whatever, just to like get them thinking, maybe get themselves out of a rabbit hole. I think that's extremely important. That's also why I write the books that I do, because we take so much for granted that it's we don't see the forest from the trees, so to speak.
00:52:35
Speaker
and it It can be very frustrating when you have deep knowledge and then you see it being totally distorted into something that doesn't resemble it at all. Meg, do you have any more questions for Alexander? Because I have one, but I'm going to derail the rest of the conversation once I ask it.
00:52:52
Speaker
Well, um I was just going to tell you, Alexandra, that um I really enjoyed reading your book. I actually have my, a lot of times I have my phone read the book to me. So um like on the spoken content, it'll, it just comes through. And one of the things I noticed, we talk about this on our show all the time. We talk about people that headline skim and we are,
00:53:19
Speaker
pretty, we advocate for people to not be headline skimmers. We want them to really dig in to like actually knowing what they're reading and not just taking the headline out of context. I felt like when you were explaining all of how In your experience with writing for television, the way that it streamlined, what would be cut, what would be included, it followed a very specific format that that was used for that show and other shows like it.
00:53:55
Speaker
And it really resonated with me that you you totally get what I'm saying when we talk about headline skimming and how a narrative is crafted and details are left out. Some of those details can be so incredibly important to a story and they get overlooked because um John and I do this show because we absolutely, we have a passion for the cases that we cover. We don't have It's completely our show. We don't have outside pressure like telling us to say anything one way or the other. and so We get to take the time we need to research and understand stuff and pass that information along to our listeners. and
00:54:37
Speaker
When you were explaining that in different parts of the book, I really um i felt like we sort of were like kindred spirits in that way of thinking because you don't really get a lot of people at least talking about it. right where you get to explore all the facts because most of the time there is this pressure to get it streamlined, get it into a condensed version that an audience is going to understand and enjoy or at least be semi-entertained enough to watch it to the end. And there's always so much more than that to cases.
00:55:16
Speaker
I think there's a whole it's ah it's like a world unto itself. And when you're doing television, you try to actually push in it put in as much as you can, even if it's what somebody wore or the lighting or something in the background of an episode where you're trying to You know, you you fight with, you know, you you advocate to the script writers, you advocate to the directors, everybody else, why this is important. And that is something that a lot of people don't appreciate the researchers of true crime because ah they're they're the ones that advocate, they're the ones that talk to people, and they are the ones that get moved. And that's something that I learned while I was doing this, you get moved in this job.
00:55:59
Speaker
what is the So the the best way that people can support you and your work right now is to buy the book, right? Yes. Is there anything else that they can do? to to help you out in the world? Do you have a podcast? Do you make appearances elsewhere? Is there anything that they can do? I'm actually very much a very low key. I love doing interviews on podcasts. I love writing books and I like doing research. um If they're interested in the case, ah they should ah read Murder in the Sun downtown. If they're interested in the true crime genre and what ah how television shows put them together, ah this this's the book also will give them an insider view into it.
00:56:40
Speaker
I agree with that. did i And I may be wrong when I ask you this, if I am, I'll cut it out. Do you teach kintsugi? Yes, I do. I teach in a couple of places. i i teach um And I teach groups of people, too. I mean, it's not just individuals. um I got into that about 16 years ago because I have cats and they were breaking everything.
Kintsugi and True Crime Research
00:57:02
Speaker
And I didn't want to keep throwing it away. So I learned to fuse our broken pottery ah with gold.
00:57:09
Speaker
It's not just pottery, it's plants now, furniture, people's sentimental ostrich eggs. So I do that as well. That's a truly very therapeutic kind of art form. And I would teach the whole world how to kintsugi because it's one of those art forms that you just learn to pick up pieces after catastrophe.
00:57:29
Speaker
And when your true crime is about doing the same thing, picking up the pieces after catastrophe. So I think that's probably why I understood it so well, and why I could actually be a true crime researcher. Because things constantly fall apart and you're putting them back together, and you're making it better than what ah plan B ends up being better than plan A. And I think Consugi really taught me how to have patience for being a researcher in true crime.
00:57:53
Speaker
So Meg, um and for the audience, if you don't know what I'm talking about right now, Kintsugi, it's an art. ah it's It's a Japanese traditional art. And the idea is that you um you take breakage or chipping or the need to repair something, you treat it as part of the history of an object. Rather than covering it up, you make it beautiful. and I think you said gold. I've seen platinum and and other metals be used to like join ceramics and pottery. and
00:58:25
Speaker
I hadn't thought about doing like plants, but like the plant pots, that that would make sense at my house. I have dogs, so that happens. But um it's it's a healing art, actually, where ah the idea is embracing part of your history. I just thought it was an interesting metaphor because we're talking about Murder in the Sun downtown. Meg, you brought up a lot of really interesting things about Martensville, and then you also brought up how true crime has a riff and it and like these ongoing trials can create all this dissonance. And then you teach kintsugi classes. I think, did I read you wrote a book or that the you had a... see but I ah wrote native first native English language book in 2020 called The Art of Kintsugi, learning the Japanese craft of beautiful repair published by Schiffer.
00:59:10
Speaker
And that was, you know, I fought for years to get a book out like this and finally Schiffer ah agreed to it. And I was really very fortunate that to me, Kintsugi is probably one of the most ah interesting art forms because you learn to ah be happy and relaxed and focused and in the disaster.
00:59:31
Speaker
And that's our biggest fear that everything's going to fall apart and we're going to be totally helpless. And here, we don't care who's who made the catastrophe. We know we're going to put it back together with our own spin. It's going to be better. And we had and it was in our hands. And the curtain falls. Yeah, but it rises again. And that's what Kintsugi teaches us.
00:59:54
Speaker
i don't have I don't have anything else today, but at some point, well, i hold on, I do have one more question. Do you have another story? Do you have another book that you're gonna be writing? I have things that I'm considering right now, but I don't, I like to jinx myself, so I keep, there's but I don't, I can't say anything at the moment. I wish I could. Well, if you if you put another one out, we're gonna bring you back on and talk about it. Okay, it's a deal.
01:00:20
Speaker
Meg, do you have anything else for Alexandra? No, thank you so much for joining us. It was very nice talking with you. Yeah, I enjoyed chatting with you too. I enjoyed it myself very much. i this Your program is very interesting to me. special consideration was given to truecrime excess by labroticreations dot com If you have a moment in your favorite app, please go on and give us a review or a five star rating. It helps us get noticed in the crowd. This is True Crime XS.
01:01:42
Speaker
True Crime Access is brought to you by John and Meg. It's written, produced, edited, and posted by John and Meg. You can always support True Crime Access through Patreon.com, or if you have a story you'd like them to cover, you can reach them at TrueCrimeAccess.com. Thank you for joining us.
01:02:02
Speaker
This is just a reminder that we are part of the Zincaster Creator Network. And I've put a link in the show notes if you guys want to check it out for your own podcasting needs. um I've always enjoyed using Zincaster. Their quality is great. And we we were able to join their Creator Network at kind of a key time in in their history. um I have enjoyed it. You know, I've considered a lot of other ah places to record and a lot of other ways to put together and host and distribute our podcasts. But I've stuck with Zincaster the longest. We've been with them for hundreds of episodes now. And I'm putting a link in the show notes where you can check out ah what they have to offer and see if it's something you would want to use.