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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast more what you hear

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weekday afternoons on the Drive. Kate
Michigan is a podcaster and a reporter.

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Her printing reporting has appeared in the
La Times, pro Public of The Guardian.

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Her podcast includes Smokescreen, Dagdly Cure, Very Scary People, The Amityville

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Murders and more, and her new
attention falls on a podcast called Hello John

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Doe. First of all, welcome
Kate Michigan, and let's start with the

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story of Todd Matthews. Thanks for
having me. Todd Matthews was a amateur

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sleuth from a very small town in
Tennessee. He got started because he got

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very interested in the case of a
woman named ten Girl, and she was

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a body without a name, and
he spent years hunting down her real identity

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and that kind of launched his career. He worked for the DJ as a

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working for a database that basically houses
missing folks and unidentified folks, as in

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like if you you know, if
you go missing and no one knows where

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you are, and unfortunately this is
a morbid example, but there's a dead

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body. He was able to match
the two and so that led him to

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the case of Steve Patterson. Was
it was a missing person's case. This

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boy went missing in nineteen seventy four
as an infant. No one knew what

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happened to him, and Todd being
Todd, sunk his teeth into it and

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just couldn't let it go, and
then and then kind of did let it

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go. And then in twenty nineteen
Steve called him and he was that missing

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person. So did this guy have
any forensic experience at all or any medical

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experience at all? No, that's
odd. He didn't. He worked at

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a factory working on air conditioning arts. He just taught that drive and everything

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else I think was taught on the
job. And what in him interested him

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so much about these cases? I
mean, was he did he consider himself

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an amateur sleuth? Was he reading
a lot of Sherlock Holmes books? No,

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I don't think he did. I
think what really interested him in him?

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What interested him about these kinds of
cases. I think Tom just had

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a huge heart and a real curiosity, and his real it came from within

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and his drive to do this.
He when he was a little kid.

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Two of his siblings were born and
died within days, and I think that

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really had an indelible mark on him. It made him think about death and

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and he felt like, at least
I know where they are, That's what

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he said. At least I know
where these kids are, where they're buried.

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Imagine missing someone and never finding them
again, or imagine being a John

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Doe that that that person has no
identity. And I think that just kind

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of you know, that that I
can imagine would have a different effect on

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different people, And I think for
him it just kind of struck something in

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his soul. Plus, it sounds
like he had a pretty regular job,

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so maybe he had more time on
his hands to look into this when the

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authorities didn't. That's true, I
think he did. I think he worked

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a lot of nate late nights doing
this. This was kind of the dawn

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of the internet, so he was
this was at a time where if you

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were only on the internet and someone
was on the phone, that would,

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you know, bump you off the
computer. Anyone frommers that. But he

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would do it late at night,
so no one would be calling the house,

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and his kids would be sleeping and
his wife would be asleep, and

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so he kind of stayed up all
night sleeping Kate Michigan is with us.

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The podcast is called Hello John Dowit's
the story of Todd Matthews. No relation

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to Lead Matthews. By the way. I'm not nearly this much of a

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sleuth, but so now he he
has grown this now to the point where

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even authorities across the country refer to
him when they're looking for somebody or something.

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That's right. Yeah, he was
picked up by the DA and so

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he did a ton of work there, and yeah, there were thousands of

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these cases. And you know,
I even cross paths with him in twenty

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seventeen as a cup reporter in Virginia
Beach and I was interested in cases of

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John Joe's and missing people, and
it led me to him. He was

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a spokesman for the DJ And you
know that that southern twang really has an

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impact and it will stay with you. And what he was saying, I

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mean, he just spoke with in
a way that no other public information officer

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ever did. He clearly cared so
deeply about this. He called these JAD

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people his friends. He woke up
every day thinking about them and thinking about

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reuniting them with their families, and
and you know, I talked to other

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reporters who had the same feeling about
him that he's stuck with them. He

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has he has a friend from his
sleuthing days in the nineties who he had

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that same he picked up the phone
in his news room and he had that

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same right respon to Todd and so
yeah, Todd for sure me that was

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his uh reputation. Does are most
of his stories sad endings? Or does

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he have some happy endings? You
know? I think inherent in the work

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is sad endings. That I mean, it's sad in that you know they're

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sad when they find him. It's
there's a sad part about being missing.

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There's a sad part of being about
being already being a John Doe. But

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I think there's a better sweet element
of being able to hand someone hand a

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family the identity of their or say
I found I found your you know,

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your sibling or your parents or whatever. And I think for that he would

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consider that a happy ending. This
is a story with a happy ending,

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of course, because it's this is
totally you know, this never happens as

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a missing person pulls you up,
you know, So I would I would

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say in the thousands of cases.
I bet there are more like this.

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We just have to go tick around
for them. Kate Michigan. The pod

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cast is Hello John Doe. It's
the story of Todd Matthews, a self

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declared hillbilly and self taught detective.
Most of your material, though, is

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investigative. It's not you yourself are
not a big sleuthor. I would say,

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one of those are one in the
same sometimes, Yeah, yeah,

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that's true. That's true. But
a lot of the lot of the stuff

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that you report upon is more investigative
rather than a missing person or or is

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it a little of both. No, I would say, you're right,

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it's investigative. Yeah, Kate Michigan
is with us, Hello John Doe.

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The significance of the title is that
what Todd finds himself saying when he gets

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a new case. I think,
so yeah, and that it's it's I

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mean, it's it's kind of it's
a fun title. It's it's you know,

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one the alliterations. But this is
a it's kind of intriguing and I

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think it would bring a listener in
like, what does that mean? Yeah,

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Hello John Doe. That's you know, there obviously these John Doe cases

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and this one so it's you know, there to say hello back. So

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I think that's the idea of the
title. And where is Todd Matthews now,

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I mean, is he still at
it? Has he passed his craft

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on to anybody else? Well,
I'm sorry to say that Todd Matthews actually

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passed away in January, so we
finished the story with him, but he

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was not around to see it in
the world. Hello. John Doe is

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the podcast and Kate Michigan is the
producer and the investigator for the whole thing.

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It's available everywhere you get podcasts,
including the iHeartRadio app. Kate Michigan,

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thank you for joining us, Thanks
for having me, Thanks for listening

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to Later with Lee Matthews, the
Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen

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to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from
five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation