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93. Why We Love Mysteries with Brett Talley (Part 1 of 2)
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Brett Talley, is the co-host of The Prosecutors Podcast and an author of several bestselling novels and anthologies, including He Who Walks in the Shadows, That Which Shall Not Be, and The Fiddle is the Devil's Instrument.
We're going to talk about the world of mysteries, from classic literary whodunits to modern-day true crime. Brett shares his journey from being a fan of classic mysteries to becoming a true crime enthusiast, and discusses why humanity has an innate fascination with the unknown. We also explore some of the most unsettling cases including the disappearances of the Jack family and Brianna Maitland.
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Episode art by Hannah Hill who is the talented artist who produces art for every episode of The Prosecutors podcast, which Brett co-hosts with Alice LaCour. To check out and support Hannah's art, check out her Instagram at @serious_moonlite or her website at https://linktr.ee/HannahHillArt.
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Transcript
Why do we love mysteries?
00:00:00
Speaker
You've got people who only like to listen to solve cases it's one of their things i like soft cases they hate missing persons cases because they're obviously not solved i don't understand that like i can't i can barely get myself in that mindset because for me i like the mysteries i can solve cases whether it's the murders or the or the disappearances but i really love.
00:00:24
Speaker
Those sort of classic mysteries and the classic mysteries were a gateway for me to true crime. I didn't start off in true crime. I started off with the classic mysteries and then sort of that same allure of what happened. Who did it? What is the answer? Drew me into the true crime stuff. So.
00:00:43
Speaker
as As i think you and i have talked about before i think the love of mystery is completely in a in humanity goes back as far as you can imagine. And we just see it in different forms today you know it's but it's not as if these are still popular but you think of eighteen century with the great detectives whether it's.
00:01:02
Speaker
and then early, I really mean the 19th century and the early 20th century with Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes and Perot and even Edgar Allan Poe with the whole murder in the room or thing. I mean, that was sort of big. I mean, huge back then. And now we have true crime. And some people think that true crime is a new phenomenon. and It's not. It's just the latest iteration of this desire, I think, to to solve mysteries.
Introducing Brett Talley and his work
00:01:31
Speaker
That's Brett Talley, an author of several bestselling novels and anthologies, including He Who Walks in the Shadows, That Which Shall Not Be, and The Fiddle is the Devil's Instrument. Brett is also the host of the highly rated true crime podcast, The Prosecutors Podcast. This is the Silver Linings Handbook. I'm Jason Blair.
00:02:08
Speaker
Bread has been twice nominated for the Bram Stroker Award for Superior Achievement, the top award for horror writing presented annually by the Horror Writers Association. The works of writers who are nominated for the Bram Stroker Award, which is named after the Irish Victorian-era Gothic fiction writer who is the author of Dracula, are done by juries who are members of the Horror Writers Association.
00:02:35
Speaker
That Which Should Not Be was Brett's first novel and was published in 2011. In addition to being nominated for the Bram Stroker Award for a writer's first novel, it was a semifinalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards and winner of the Journal Stone Horror Writing Contest. That Which Shall Not Be takes readers on a journey to Missatonic University, a fictional school with a whispered reputation for being connected to the occult and supernatural, where a professor and a student search a nearby village for a book
00:03:09
Speaker
that's believed to control all the non-human forces that rule the
Exploring true crime and mystery narratives
00:03:14
Speaker
earth. The pair bring the book back to Mesotonic University, opening up a gate to the netherworld.
00:03:20
Speaker
Brett was also nominated for a 2014 anthology, Limbus Inc. Book 2, that he edited, where five masters of horror, fantasy, and science fiction writing take readers to a world of time travel, human sacrifice, intergalactic beings, and much, much more.
00:03:39
Speaker
Brett is an attorney and also the author of several true ghost stories in a nonfiction book called Haunted Tuscaloosa, which explores the paranormal in an Alabama town from the now shuttered local insane asylum and antebellum mansion said to be haunted by ghosts to cemeteries where Confederate soldiers are said to still march and ghost stories from the University of Alabama grounds.
00:04:06
Speaker
On the Prosecutors Podcast, Brett and his co-host, Alice Lecour, explore some of the mysteries of true crime, including the strange disappearances of people like the Jack family in British Columbia, the disappearance of Brianna Maitland, the daughter of our former guest, Bruce Maitland, and Maura Murray, the little sister of our former guest, Julie Murray.
00:04:28
Speaker
Part of their exploration of mysteries includes cases like those of the murders of John Bonet Ramsey and Lacey Peterson, as well as whether Michael Peterson killed his wife, or whether among other possibilities, it was a now.
00:04:42
Speaker
Often, Brett and Alice helped bring clarity to things that seemed mysterious, like their exploration of the murder of Ruthie Mae McCoy, which inspired the 1992 movie Candy Man, and the story of the real story that inspired the fears of razor blades and poison being in Halloween candy in the episode entitled, The Man Who Killed Halloween, Sweet Dreams.
00:05:06
Speaker
Brett and Alice go beyond what might traditionally be considered true crime, and have explored unexplained mysteries like the Battle of Pass, where nine Soviet hikers died under mysterious circumstances in the Ural Mountains, and the Kymer Debane incident, where six other Soviet hikers disappeared in the mountains near Lake Bacall in southern Siberia.
00:05:29
Speaker
They also explored topics like the humanoid creatures reportedly seen in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, called the Mothman, whether the moon is hollow, and whether the Soviets lost cosmonauts in outer space.
00:05:43
Speaker
The Prosecutors Podcast was the 2023 winner of the People's Choice Creator of the Year award at CrimeCon. This October, they've already tackled the exorcism of Annalise Michelle, the unbelievably bizarre corpse-wood murders in northern Georgia,
00:06:02
Speaker
An episode on creepy places in the case of Zona Hester, also known as the Greenbrier Ghost, the only case that Brett knows of where ghosts appear to have solved their own murder. What brings a lot of Brett's many interests together is his love of mysteries. Today for this October episode, we're going to talk about some fascinating mysteries and why we as people are so gripped by them.
00:06:29
Speaker
This will be the first part of two episodes. Enjoy this one and join us next week for the next.
00:06:50
Speaker
So hey, Brett, I just wanted to thank you once again for coming back for another October episode to talk about mysteries. You know, last year we got to talk a little bit about unexplained things and then, you know,
00:07:06
Speaker
Every week, I get to listen to the Prosecutors podcast, which I sort of feel like is a ah a weekly mystery show. I love it when you when you talk about your October episodes and you know people think it's going to be so scary. I'm like, what are you talking about? Every month of the year, it's scary.
00:07:24
Speaker
But you know I just really appreciate the chance to to talk to you guys and just want to congratulate you and Alice on all the success you've had over the last few years and on the really wonderful community that you've built.
00:07:38
Speaker
Well, thank you, Jason. I mean, you're, you're a very important part of that community and I love, I love coming on your show. You ask such great questions and you know, there's, there's nothing I would rather talk about than mysteries, horror, Halloween, October. And this is, this is my time of year. So I'm, I'm excited to be here.
Childhood influences and the journey to mystery
00:07:55
Speaker
I was going to ask you, did you were were you ah were you in the Halloween and and mysteries as a kid? Because I was thinking as I was preparing for this episode, I was like, what mystery books did I do that did i read? And I was sitting and thinking about the different kinds of mystery books and I realized like,
00:08:12
Speaker
You know, everything was a mystery to me, whether it was like murder she wrote on TV, which my mom really loved, or her Agatha Christie books. But even like history for me, like how did Europe go to war, or how did the Holocaust happen? um And some of the, you know, this is just to tell you what a nerd I am, some of the most defining moments of my life growing up, I was in the same place, in front of my dad's record player,
00:08:40
Speaker
and ah the row of green encyclopedias thing. I was constantly there. Heard my first Tracy Chapman album there. i ah First girlfriend I asked out there, what else? I so i heard the challenger on the radio ah explode um or the news for it. That's how I found out. Everything was in front of the encyclopedias for me because I always wanted to figure things out.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah. It's funny. It's funny. She said, I knew as soon as you started saying that you're going to talk about encyclopedias because that was a, that was a big thing for me too. Yeah. It's probably hard for a lot of people who are listening to believe, but there was a time when everybody had a set of, I don't know, 15 year old encyclopedias. And that was your window to the world. And it was interesting because you're talking about this room and we had a room kind of like that, you know,
00:09:34
Speaker
middle-class family didn't have a lot of money, but we had one room that I'm seeing it in my mind's eye. On the left side was where the record player was. There were there was like a set of of bookshelves, there was a record player on there, and there was a whole bunch of records. And then on the other side was the encyclopedias, where all the encyclopedias were. And there was a couch. Basically,
00:09:58
Speaker
there was no TV, and what that wasn't what the room was for. and yeah But i so many times, sitting on that couch, listening to, we talked about this a little bit last time, I think, Thriller, Thriller was my big album. Listening to Thriller, reading the encyclopedias, that really was my sort of introduction to searching for truth and having questions and seeking answers and all that sort of thing. And I think, you wonder,
00:10:24
Speaker
just with every generation, things are a little different. And is that something that's lost or has something taken its place? I mean, maybe kids now are sitting, sitting in a room somewhere reading Wikipedia. I don't know, but there was something about kind of like Wikipedia has that whole thing where you read a Wikipedia article and you end up falling down some sort of rabbit hole. You're like going from one article to another and you end up, you know, you start off with Mozart and you end up with like the Andromeda galaxy. And how did you get here? I don't know.
00:10:54
Speaker
You'll always end up with Nazis, though. There you go. Well, yeah, you know, and and with the encyclopedias, World War Two is always one of the entries that you would you would end up on. So I'm with you went on all that. Yeah, I am. And I love that. That's it. It's great you make that point about Wikipedia and falling down the rabbit holes, because sometimes I don't think I appreciate that enough. But I remember so many times and I think so many things I've learned, I go and I grab the encyclopedia kind of like Wikipedia in a way.
00:11:23
Speaker
And I would be looking for, you know, pick a topic. I'm looking for yeah something about World War Two. And then all of a sudden I'm finding out about a famine in Africa or because I've just flipped past the page and stopped. And and I think that's one of the things that I love about learning in general or even things like like yeah Just exploring and solving any puzzles you may go to set out you may set out to solve a certain puzzle or learn a certain thing but along the way your trip on trip across all these other things that may ultimately be more. More fascinating for for you and i remember you. um
00:12:07
Speaker
talking about, uh, I'm trying to remember which one it was. Oh, it it was actually the mystery of what happened at diet love past. And I remember you talking about how you originally tripped across it. but Wasn't it just one of those like articles on, yeah, what, what was that? What was that? It was crack dot.com, but which I don't know if it's like this, but so it it's just, it's,
00:12:37
Speaker
It's interesting you talk about this sort of evolution because early days, I remember the Scholastic Book Fair coming to school and you get the little magazine that had all the books that they were going to have and then you go and you could buy them. Yeah. And I was always looking for the mystery books, the sort of like, you know, unsolved mysteries of the seas or something like that. I mean, I think the first time I learned about the Mary Celeste was in a book like that. And with crack dot.com. There was this period about, I don't know, 15 years ago. I feel like maybe, oh shoot, maybe more like 20 years ago when I was a senior in college and there were all these websites that popped up that would have these listicles that would be things like five greatest unsolved mysteries or 10, 10 things no one can
The appeal of unsolved cases and conspiracy theories
00:13:29
Speaker
explain. And I just love that stuff.
00:13:31
Speaker
And I remember Diatlov Pass was five mysteries that have a simple solution. That was the first time I've ever heard of Diatlov Pass. And crack.com had it always, it was paradoxical undressing, which it absolutely was not. But that's the thing about crack dot.com. It's not like we had the world's leading scientists doing this. It was just somebody put together five things and wrote on it. So that, but it's interesting with my sort of search for truth or whatever, the way it has developed. Because now what I do, what I spend a lot of time doing is I'm watching YouTube videos that are basically the same type, same thing. thing number of what yeah The number of like five mysterious places no one can go and stuff like that videos I watch all the time.
00:14:15
Speaker
It's very funny because if I left my YouTube on in the middle of the night, that's all it would be by the next morning, those kinds of, depending on what I was paying attention to. One of the things I was thinking about when I first started listening to your podcast and I'm probably going to get the year wrong, I think it it was sometime, it was obviously after the pandemic because you started off the pandemic, but you guys were in a little bit in terms of episodes. And one of the things that for me, um as much as I enjoyed the true crime, I really enjoyed that sense of like having you and Alice sitting and having a conversation. And I sort of felt like I was your third guest, which was really nice. And it's really interesting to think about the impact that you can have on people that you don't know or if I hadn't really
00:15:02
Speaker
delve into your comm communityic community you would have never known about. but um But one of the things that really stuck out to me um on some of those episodes, like the Diet Love Pass mystery, was listening to your level of excitement when you were doing those episodes. And I've seen it over and over again, like you mentioned the Mary Celeste, which was the um the That was the Canadian belt ship that disappeared. um right It started in Nova nova Scotia and then disappeared. Where was it that it? I can't remember if it it started in England going to Nova Scotia or the other way.
00:15:42
Speaker
But either way, they found it basically sailing perfectly fine, but with no crew. With no crew on it. And the mystery of what happened to them. Yes, that's right. That's right. um And I think it may have been like reverse to the Titanic. The Titanic was built on the other side of the pond in Belfast and then came over here. I think it was built in Nova Scotia and then maybe went over there. But the point I'm making is that your level of excitement when you talked about those kinds of stories was just palpable for me. And I felt this like connection and this sense of like this is a person who really is just naturally curious about the world and wants to um flip over mysteries. and and And but one of the things about being somebody who's interested in mysteries is I always wondered what happens when you do solve them or they are solved. It kind of takes something away.
00:16:38
Speaker
No, I mean, it I think it does. One of the problems is, oh, it is funny. It is that that is a really, it's it's the curse of doing a podcast where you get to talk about these things is I used to watch if there was a YouTube video or an article or anything on things like Dyatlov Pass or the Eileen Moore, Lighthouse Keepers, I would watch every video on that.
00:17:01
Speaker
Cause I'd want to see it. And then I was really interested in it. Then you do the podcast on it. You do four or five episodes on something or even one episode and you really dive in, you read all the stuff and you get a pretty good idea of what happened. You do lose something. Like, you know, I, it's been a while since I've seen an Eileen Moore lighthouse mystery video. I just, I don't find it as intriguing anymore. And the great thing about a lot of these mysteries is they'll never be solved. That bothers a lot of people.
00:17:26
Speaker
It's interesting, the true crime community, you've got people who only like to listen to solved cases. It's one of their things. They only like solved cases. They hate missing persons cases because they're obviously not solved. I don't understand that. like i can't I can barely get myself in that mindset because for me, I like the mysteries. I like the unsolved cases, whether it's the murders or the or the disappearances. But I really love Those sort of classic mysteries and the classic mysteries were a gateway for me to true crime. I didn't start off in true crime. I started off with the classic mysteries and then sort of that same allure of what happened. Who did it? What is the answer? Drew me into the true crime stuff so.
00:18:12
Speaker
as we As I think you and I have talked about before, I think the love of mystery is completely innate in humanity. It goes back as far as you can imagine, and we just see it in different forms today. you know it's ah It's not as if these novels aren't still popular, but you think of the 18th century with the great detectives, whether it's in the early, I really mean the 19th century, in the early 20th century with Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. and Pro and even edgar allen poe with the whole murder in the room or thing i mean that was sort of. Big i mean huge back then and now we have true crime and some people think that true crime is a new phenomenon and it's not it's just the latest iteration of this desire i think to to solve mysteries.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, and a lot of, um you know, there have been a couple ah sort of true crime or historical cases that involve crime that I've, you know, researched recently either for my own, just out of my own curiosity or to do some kind of work with um someone. And, you know, ah one of the things that I realized, you know, earlier this year, did an episode on a woman named Patty Cannon, who in the 1800s and 18, maybe through the 1830s, she was a legal slave trader on the Delmarva Peninsula, like the border of Maryland and delafare Delaware on the peninsula was very ill defined. So, you know, she used that to sort of like escape authorities and all sorts of other stuff like that.
00:19:46
Speaker
But she was involved in legal slave trading. She was involved in kidnapping um ah free blacks from Philadelphia, like who were living in areas like that. And actually, you know, the fascinating thing about the story is a plantation owner from Mississippi who got some free blacks through her gang and knew they weren't actually slaves, plus the mayor of Philadelphia, the ones who teamed up to finally stop her.
00:20:15
Speaker
Stop her gang but the really interesting thing about it and going back and finding the history more recently some more solid historical books have been written but all the beginning early stories on her were these fictional mystery accounts.
00:20:30
Speaker
um That were written for magazines and you know, it's really interesting because her own story is wild enough on its own I mean like you got this lady running a gang during that time illegal slave trading like she was packing people and houses and tying them up and throwing them on boats and sending them to the south. It's a pretty wild story on its own, but something about the fictional mystery of her and building up the unknowns ah went into these magazine articles. um And they were hugely popular at the time. And I didn't even think about that. As I was looking at others, many other real life stories were told through those fictional mix mystery lenses. And it makes me wonder, like, what what is it about, like,
00:21:14
Speaker
the open-ended part of stories. like even even Even in a solved case in True Crime where you have an arrest, I think we still gravitate to the to the parts that are unknown. I was listening to your episode last night on Asia degree. And I was thinking to myself, just looking at some of the questions in the chat, but where where people want all the answers, but all the answers. And I think to myself, oh, we're probably never going to get all the answers. We're going to have to do some supposition and that's going to be OK. And so i I wonder what attracts me to that kind of stuff. and But but it's just interesting to me that
00:21:57
Speaker
that that i I find that piece of things that that are, I almost, you know, i once I once had, I was once working with a guy who's running a large government agency and he was like, people don't like ambiguity. A lot of people don't like ambiguity, but people like you and me Jason, we love ambiguity because we can paint whatever we want in there. And I think there's some truth to that for me. Like I like having missing pieces, if that makes sense. Well, I think you've put your finger on a couple things that are pretty interesting. I mean, one is this, the tendency to embellish even the most extraordinary story. And you see that a lot. I mentioned the Eileen Moore lighthouse keepers. And that story is enigmatic, no matter what. I mean, the idea- Is that the Scotland one? The Scotland one. Yeah, three guys, three lighthouse keepers.
00:22:47
Speaker
all vanish without a trace what happened to them. That in of itself is mysterious and creepy enough but even that was embellished with this notion that they had written these logs about a storm, the storm raging when there was no storm and people watching the lighthouse, it was clear blue sky and they were talking about storms. Well, none of that ever actually happened, right? But it it's people add to the the legend even no matter how attractive the legend Is nothing one of those things. Ties into sort of conspiracy theories because it's interesting to me it's always been interesting to me. How people really don't want. Number one they may not want the answer at all but if they get the answer they don't want it to be simple. Right they don't want it to be straightforward they hate that is a matter of fact you know the steven king in on writing talks about how when you're writing a horror novel or you're writing horror fiction.
00:23:45
Speaker
the The time that you've got the the reader in in your palm of her hands is when they're in a room and the doors closed and they hear a noise and the door shaking. and and the reader is imagining all these horrible, terrible things behind that door. You know, what is there? What is going to to get them? And the worst thing you could do is open the door because no matter what you show, no matter what's standing there, it won't be as bad as their imagination just sort of running free. They'll be like, oh, well that's thats bad, but maybe not as bad as it could have been, right? Once they see it, it loses a lot of its magic. And I feel like people are like that in a lot of cases, the true crime cases. I mean, Delphi is a good example, I think,
00:24:24
Speaker
Delphi was a case we all wanted solved for years. These two girls brutally murdered, just the worst case you can imagine, a nightmare for so many of us.
00:24:36
Speaker
you know, whether you have kids or not, but particularly if you have kids, you could, you could really feel the
Real-life encounters with mystery
00:24:40
Speaker
impact of that case. And people wanted it to be this monster. They wanted the person who was arrested to be this horrible, terrible, sophisticated serial killer monster. And they arrested a guy who's, you know, works at a CVS.
00:24:55
Speaker
who Who's like a little overweight and short and he just didn't fit the picture, right? And I think because he didn't fit the picture Because when you open the door, he wasn't what you expected I think that's one of the reason that people have gravitated so much to conspiracy theories in that case because that is more satisfying to them and I think you see that in a lot of places and And a lot of times, the mystery, if it is resolved, one of the reasons I think it's disappointing is because usually it's it's not actually that interesting anymore. It's like, oh. Yeah. yeah that You know, it's a really good point because ah you know thinking about that Delphi case, you know I had noticed it in 2017 and read something
00:25:34
Speaker
really briefly about you know two girls on a bridge, you know ah one of them recording a suspicious man approaching them and then ending up dead. And that in itself on its own was quite mysterious. And you know And I wonder like, you know, it takes till 2022 for them to make an arrest. And I wonder whether part of it too is like also our fears that it it needs to be more complicated than that. yeah Because if we can't solve it for that long, it needs to be ah
00:26:11
Speaker
way more complicated or we lose interest because part of the reason we're not necessarily really acknowledging that our interest is to some extent in the in the mystery and you're right this does go back to history because I think of things like the death of Nero right like that was crazy enough on its own but like then everyone made stories up afterwards about how he's secretly still alive and hiding Tupac it's I remember when Chelsea Clinton was like he's not dead I'm like. oh But um but I'm wondering whether there is something about like our interest and our fears that need things to be like a little bit more complex than they are in reality you know I interviewed.
00:26:56
Speaker
This year, Bruce Maitland, his daughter Brianna, went missing in 2004. And I was thinking to myself, and I visited Vermont after that interview and like over the summer went to all the different sites. And I remember standing across the street from the um where the barn was, where she went missing, and you know just like noticing small details that I couldn't couldn't notice not being there, like how short the distance was from her work, how the roads curved. And it sort of like narrowed the possibilities of what could have happened in my mind. I remember this thought going through my head where I was like, when we figure out what happens here, it's going to be a lot simpler than we think. And
00:27:38
Speaker
I don't know. It kind of deflates the balloon a little bit. Yeah. And I think the cases where people get the maddest at us is when we're like, yeah, it's not that complicated. Those those are the ones that make people angry. I think Mara Murray was one of the first.
00:27:54
Speaker
Where we, we do more Murray, which is also up there. It's a great mystery, incredible mystery. And we were like, yeah, she probably just wandered down the road and then died of exposure and her body's in the woods somewhere. and They never found her. And people hate that they hate that they want it to be, you know, some really complicated. She was driving up there with somebody else or she was pregnant and running away from her boyfriend or.
00:28:18
Speaker
A serial killer picked her up and they wanted it to be that they don't want it to be something simple and straightforward. but We talked about conspiracies before, you know, we're, we're a week after nine 11. I think nine 11 is a similar thing. It is strangely for a lot of people more comforting to think there was some, there was some massive organization out there with enough power and control over our lives.
00:28:40
Speaker
that they could plan and pull off 9-11. That is more comforting than 20 random terrorists got into the country somehow and pulled this off because that is like so simple and so straightforward and could so easily be replicated and we're just so powerless against that. Whereas the notion of someone's in control, you know it's almost like faith in God, right? Like the notion that someone's in control, even if they're a bad person, the fact that someone's in control is better than randomness and chaos. I think you see that a lot. That's right. Like, and so much of like, there's something to the randomness of the world, like who way, you know, whether it's good things or bad things that happen because it's certainly Like I think about the blessings of my life. It's not all because I'm like hardworking, brilliant and whatever. Some of it is just random luck and some of the bad things are just random. And and and that can be more frightening. it's ah It's interesting. So, you know, I was in New York for 9-11 and covering it. And i we were actually having a conversation, one of my colleagues and I in the office this week, we were talking about a woman that we had hired, I don't know, like,
00:29:51
Speaker
It may have been like, oh, it was probably like 15 years after 9-11. And you know, a real turning point. For me, she was our accountant, so it's like a trust job, right? Real turning for me was when we were sitting and it was like September 10th of the year, we're talking about 9-11 and she starts telling me about the conspiracy.
00:30:12
Speaker
her conspiracy theory about how the US government had actually blown up the buildings and that like X, Y, or Z would not have fallen down. And I kept, I was like, I was there. I was there that night. I was like, I watched number seven, World Trade Center. I watched two fall. I watched from across the Brooklyn Bridge. I watched seven burn right in front of me. She's like, there's no way Jeff would have done that. I was like, I was there.
00:30:43
Speaker
ah Like you are not hearing me. Yeah, it's just I don't know and with stuff like that. it's It's funny how those things become matters of faith, where arguments don't actually matter. you know they Someone is convinced, is whether it's that or the moon landing. I mean, you could explain a thousand different ways how we know we landed on the moon. Not not the least of which are all the rocks we brought back from the moon, but people who are convinced. you know I mean, do you really think if Vladimir Putin knew
00:31:18
Speaker
That we didn't land on the main, which the Russians certainly would have the excuses always. Well, the Russians, they were fine. Just letting us have it because they didn't want to admit their failure either, which doesn't make any sense. But even assume that was true right now, if Vladimir Putin knew we didn't land on the moon, he would totally sell us out. likere not worry He probably would. But you have all these people and you have growing numbers of people who believe stuff like this. And I think there's sort of a deep psychology to this. And one thing we talk about on the podcast, I love conspiracies. Like you said, some of the, some of the things that we cover where I get the most excited are the mysteries. They are the conspiracies, you know, the, the lost cosmonauts or
00:31:59
Speaker
You know, the moon being hollow and it's all the cover up, like all that stuff. I love that stuff, but it's kind of like, you know, any, it's like, I mean, I want to say it's like drugs because that doesn't sound worse. It's like drinking, right? Like a lot of people, a lot of people can drink alcohol and they're perfectly fine and, and everything's great. But some people when they drink alcohol, it triggers something in them. They become alcoholics and they have to just cut it out altogether. I feel like conspiracies are kind of like that.
00:32:26
Speaker
There are people who can dive into these mysteries, have fun with them, have fun with the conspiracies, but then there are people who, once they start down that path, they start seeing conspiracies everywhere.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah. And I, you know, I've seen it like in the case that you were mentioning Delphi where I've seen people go through that transformation from, uh, okay, I'm really interested and curious about this. Wouldn't it be interesting if this happened or that happened to the, I'm convinced that it's this conspiracy and then all of a sudden rolling over into like conspiracies outside of that. And it's, that's a really interesting metaphor about like the drinking piece because, uh, For me as somebody who's a recovering alcoholic, I totally relate to that because I view the world like I don't look at drinking as inherently a bad thing. I look at it as something I can't handle. I can't handle. Other people, it's it works for them or they find a way to manage it um or it brings more joy than good and it doesn't bring
Impact and ethics of storytelling in true crime
00:33:29
Speaker
harm. right you know whatever Whatever mix, but that's like not me. and
00:33:33
Speaker
um But I too love conspiracies and i you know I constantly find myself battling ludicrous ones that will cause harm. But like two of my favorite first books, they weren't my first books that I read by um Stephen King, but two of my favorite first books were Firestarter and Stand and Firestarter in part because it was about a government conspiracy. and And I think it's driven my interest in government conspiracies and maybe even some of my pursuit of journalism.
00:34:05
Speaker
um because it was just so interesting and fascinating and that there was a little bit of truth to the idea like through things like MK Ultra, there's a little bit of truth to it. So it made it really fascinating but for me what it did was like it and the the conspiracy that Stephen King wrote made me more interested in the real stories of what happened as opposed to turning other things into conspiracies. And I think for other people, it it actually works the the opposite way. So, you know, that's funny because lately I've been talking a lot about conspiracy theories in just such a negative fashion. But I do think that there is something from an entertainment value that's just awesome about them. Yeah, I mean, it's it's hard to say because on the one hand, I think there is
00:34:57
Speaker
I will say this, I try very hard to avoid conspiracy theories in the true crime cases we cover. It's not as if this isn't true of the historical cases, but it feels less true.
00:35:11
Speaker
It's, it's not as damaging to talk about a conspiracy. Like if you're talking about a conspiracy, what happened to the Mary Celeste? that It was really an insurance fraud scheme, right? I mean, that's one of the conspiracy theories about that and that the crew actually just got off on another boat. They had let this happen. They collected the insurance money. They split it with the other ship. I mean, that's a conspiracy theory about it.
00:35:30
Speaker
And that doesn't feel like it's all that damaging, whereas getting into a conspiracy theory about a case that is being tried right now, for instance, you can see the in real time, the damage being done and people being harmed and the justice system being corrupted. And it's just It's really shocking to watch it, and it's also shocking to see people fall into it and and fall into it so hard, and the inability to move those people even with facts or or just an attempt to approach it from sort of like, hey, let's let's take a step back. I mean, is it really likely that this is what's happening here? I mean, maybe it is. You know, maybe it is. we' Keep an open mind.
00:36:14
Speaker
But I feel like we need some we need some real hard evidence here, not just a story that sounds good. We keep going back to Delphi because it's such an obvious example. the The defense in that case, for those of you out there who don't know, you you have these two girls who were murdered. A man has been arrested. Like I said, he's just a manager at a CVS store. no Nothing really that interesting about him. The defense comes out with a theory that this was actually a cult sacrifice organized by local Odinists who were sacrificing the girls as part of some sort of ritual.
00:36:46
Speaker
And man, you know, it was like the defense saw how disappointed people were that it was their suspect or their client was the suspect. And they just, they just went directly for the opposite because so many people who were disappointed by that here, like, Oh man, this guy, really? Yeah. I'm like my boring, weird neighbor is the guy that's exactly like this. This is number one, terrifying.
00:37:11
Speaker
That that guy pulled this horrible thing off that we've been talking about and and fretting about for so long, but also disappointing. But then you you give them, you throw them that sort of red meat of Odinist cult sacrifice and it all the sort of like.
00:37:27
Speaker
The most visceral sort of reptilian part of your brain just starts firing off, right? And you're back in the Salem witch trials or you're back in the satanic panic and you just, there's something about those stories and about those ideas that we love. I mean, dopamine is just pouring into your body when you hear it. I'm not exactly sure why that is. I think that'd be an interesting thing for so like a psychologist to look into. Why do people love these stories so much and these conspiracies so much, but you just see people eat it up.
00:37:56
Speaker
Well, and I think I think you may have like I wonder whether part of what it is that makes conspiracy theories in sort of like those other kinds of stories much more safe than the the ones that are ongoing right now is time because I think it's something like the Mary Celeste because I know that like hey what's it was Benjamin Briggs and his wife.
00:38:20
Speaker
I think and his daughter. Yeah, his wife and his daughter. ah Yeah, it was like a two year old or three year old daughter. I just remember Sarah and Sophia and I can't remember which ones which but yeah they they were on there. But like if We're engaging in conversations right now because that was like in the 1870s about different conspiracies. It's unlikely to harm anyone, but if it were 1873 or 1874, 1875, I'm just making up a year for the year after, I think it would have a very different feel and a very different effect.
00:38:57
Speaker
And I think that's part of the reason why I like I do enjoy going back and looking at cases and stories of the past, even in true crime, because there is, I think, a freedom to kind of like speculate or even talk, not speculate, even talk about things that are absurd and knock them down ah without potentially doing any harm in the same way. Does that make sense?
00:39:21
Speaker
No, it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense. It absolutely does. And you can you can sort of have fun with it without guilt if that makes sense. Yes, right. Because anybody anybody who likes true crime and likes mysteries and likes all this stuff, if you really sit down and think about it, there is something unsavory about it. you know I mean, I always tell people don't feel bad about liking true crime.
00:39:45
Speaker
And I don't think they should because I think it's, like I said, I think it's deeply ingrained in us, but there is, you are deriving joy from somebody's worst day. And a lot of times a family is still out there mourning. You know, you take the missing persons, maybe talking about more Murray, Julie Murray, who I think you've had on your show. Um, no, she's still looking for a sister. Yeah.
00:40:12
Speaker
And for her, this is this is a very real, constant, present thing. This isn't, as Young Lee said when talking about Hey Man Lee, this isn't just a podcast for them. Yeah. And that's something that the you know you always have to remember. But when you're talking about the Mary Celeste, like you said, everybody who was alive then, their kids, kids, kids are dead now, right? So that there is not that that possibility to do the damage isn't there. Yeah.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking as you brought up Julie Murray, those exact words from Younglee, this isn't a this isn't a podcast for me. And that he said that Younglee was the um for anybody who doesn't know was the um brother of Haman Lee who in 1999 was murdered in Maryland and her former boyfriend Adnan Said was arrested from the prosecutors in a great 14 part series and actually recently did a great like summary episode for those who don't like 14 part series. They do it in 30 minutes. ah I don't know how you did it. yeah
00:41:20
Speaker
But but but but his point like in in one of the hearings over vacating sites conviction was it isn't a podcast for him and i just thought that was so powerful for me as somebody who does.
00:41:36
Speaker
you know interview people about missing persons cases or other things just to handle that stuff with a different kind of care. Um, because it means something very different for them. I was gonna ask you about something. So back in, I don't know, this was like, it had to be like September of had to be September. Would it be 2023? My years are getting bored. You guys, you guys did the disappearance of Brianna. maam I think it was like a two-parter or a three-parter. I think it was a two-parter. And I had never heard the story. I knew nothing about Brianna Maitland. 2004 was a bit of a black box for me because it was coming right out of the time stuff. And so um so i i until ah I really listened to your more and more coverage, i I had heard the name but didn't know anything about it, but i't I'd never really
00:42:30
Speaker
heard anything about Brianna's case. Frightened me. Absolutely frightening. Few things frighten me. like the Like the coverage of the case or the picture of the car backed into a barn, her car parked into the back of a barn. And then you did your October episodes after that, which are the ones where you guys focus on sort of like spooky month type stuff. I found the Brianna Maitland story much more frightening than anything you covered that Halloween.
00:42:57
Speaker
um And i I wonder what it is about, because you've mentioned sometimes some of her listeners, I don't know if they get freaked out or they sort of peel away during the Halloween episodes. I don't know what it is about the real life scary things that people talk about that is easier for those mysteries, easier for people to digest than, I don't know, the exorcisms and what I would consider other fun stuff like that. No, I'm i'm with you 100%. Right in September, I think in September and maybe November, I can't remember exactly the timeline, but right around then,
00:43:35
Speaker
We did what I think are the three freakiest cases we've done. Brianna Maitland, which I'm with you, that that there's something about that photograph and how that all went down that is just, it is so unsettling. It's unsettling in a really sort of deep way that I can't really explain. And I can't really put my finger on it. What it is about that case, but it is very unsettling to me.
00:43:57
Speaker
The other one is the Jameson family disappearing. And there's yeah there's the photograph of a little girl in that whole case, incredibly unsettling. And then the Jack family disappearance. I mean, those three cases, we did them right in a row and they all, I mean, they stick with me. I mean, those are the ones that I like lay awake at night thinking about. And I'm with you. Those are the ones that freak me out. The Halloween stuff.
00:44:22
Speaker
I mean, number one, it's, it's mostly just true crime, but even the ones that aren't, I'm with you. I don't, I don't understand it. I think it's, and i and um you know, Alice is one of these people. Alice finds the Halloween stuff much more.
00:44:37
Speaker
unsettling than a lot of the true crime cases we do. And I don't know if that's just because, unfortunately, crime, the tragedies surrounding it are just part of life. And we kind of and have internalized that and ah in a way and we're kind of numb to it. And the other stuff is a little is more unusual and esoteric and we're not numb to it. And so it scares us in a way it doesn't. I'm not sure what it is, but you are absolutely right.
00:45:01
Speaker
It is, it has always been strange to me that people who will listen to some of the darkest, most disturbing stuff, you know, 11 months out of the year, we get to October and they're like, Nope, I'm out.
Ghost stories vs real-life horrors
00:45:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually a really good point. I wonder whether some of it's like with crime, even though some of it's mysterious, we think we have our heads around it. So so like we feel safer. But when you're talking about ghosts and exorcism um and you know, it may just be the way that I'm wired. I had a I had a guy Chris Suzy on earlier this year who's paranormal.
00:45:36
Speaker
investigator um and you know it's just very fascinating to have a conversation with him about ghosts and one of the points that he made in there you know we're talking about how people were afraid of ghosts and he said you know the most common ghost story he ever hears is about a loved one coming to visit someone after they died and he was like ghosts the most common ghost story is about love and i it it And it resonated with me. um But I think it's just the way that I kind of ah tick that those kinds of things are not scary to me. They're much more fun, like break out the candy, break out the candy or or or like in my mind, when I think about something like ghosts, assuming they're not real or that some of them are not real and some could be real, some may not be real, but
00:46:28
Speaker
There's a reason why we've created a lot of the myths that we've created around us, and I think a lot of them exist to to um comfort us. I'll take the example of, is it Ruthie McCoy? The Chicago woman whose apartment was broken into by her neighbors who came through empty space they had between the walls. And by the way, after you did that episode, I went and knocked on the medicine boxes throughout.
00:46:57
Speaker
i to make sure there was no empty space Luckily, one is against the wall outside and one is against an elevator, so we're good. But so they you know they came through the walls, they came to the medicine cabinet, the Chicago Police Department did not have its finest moment.
00:47:18
Speaker
um And she ended up getting killed, but it became the a story that inspired the whole idea of Candyman, the the supernatural guy where you look in the mirror and you say Candyman three times, it comes out and bad things happen.
00:47:32
Speaker
um But but but like somehow, for some reason we've made these mess and somehow Candyman is more comforting than what actually happened. That my neighbors came down to rob me and killed me and came through my messing cabinet sounds way more frightening. So in a weird way, the story of Candyman feels to me like a less frightening version of reality.
00:47:58
Speaker
um'm I'm with you 100%. I don't know that most people would agree with us on that, but but I don't know if the reason people don't agree with us is because they're sort of in denial. like adult They don't want to accept how frightening it is that just some random guys came through the came through the medicine cabinet to steal the lady's TV and shot her and killed her. And then she lay there and dying while the police fumbled, bumbled around and didn't go into her apartment.
00:48:27
Speaker
for days afterwards. I mean that, maybe it's just, we'd rather let ourselves be scared by Candyman than let that frighten
Connecting with listeners through podcasting
00:48:36
Speaker
us. I don't know. he Maybe it's a defense mechanism, but it is one of the things, it's funny when you do a podcast like this, and we were talking about this a little bit before we got started, we get to know our listeners so well. you know It's not like,
00:48:52
Speaker
You know, you write a book and you shoot it off into the ether. And if you're really successful, maybe you go on a book tour and you meet some people for a couple of minutes when you're doing a signing or whatever, and that's the feedback you get. Maybe you read some reviews, but podcasting, the communities are such a big part of it. And unless, you know, um I mean, I don't know, maybe, maybe crime junkie has, there's a lot of connection between the creators and the community. I don't know, but other than the biggest ones i think there there is this this connection and getting to know people and seeing their perspectives has been so fascinating for me because i've seen this. This phenomenon and i don't really understand it and i love that aspect of doing this i love seeing different people's ways of reacting to things and then. Trying to figure it out for myself because it really is eye opening and like i said i wish we had a psychologist or a psychiatrist on the. ah
00:49:46
Speaker
or a sociologist along with us today to explain sort of this. This is the kind of college class I want to take. I want to take a college class, yeah horror movies and psychology of them or something. yeah yep This is where we'll pause for the day and call it a wrap. We'll be back next week for the second part of our episode where we'll look a little deeper into mysteries and explore some of the reasons why it might not just be about solving puzzles, but it might be the journey along the way.
00:50:21
Speaker
This concludes the first of our two episodes with Brett. If you can't wait till next week for the second episode, you can find more of my conversation with Brett on a bonus episode that's on Patreon right now, where we explore the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass incident.
00:50:40
Speaker
the prosecutor's podcast coverage of it, and updates since then. If you'd like to join us for more discussions with me and other listeners, we can be found on most social media platforms, including a great listener on Facebook group called the Silver Linings Fireside Chat.
00:50:58
Speaker
For ad-free and early episodes and deeper conversations with our guests and live conversations with other listeners, including bonuses like the dial-up pass one I mentioned, you can also join us on our Patreon at www.patreon dot.com forward slash the Silver Linings Handbook. I'm Jason Blair. This is the Silver Linings Handbook podcast. We'll see you all again next week.