You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together
with Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a
researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social
media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly
and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by Stephen French, host of
the Unsolved Mysteries podcast. Do you thank you so much for joining us today.
I am truly honored to be here. Thank you, Kristin, Thank
you Bill. Are you a fan of the og Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack.
That's the first thing I have to ask who you'd have to be?
You'd have to be out of your mind to not be a fan of the
original. I can still remember being a kid. Why I was allowed to
watch that show as a child, I have no idea, but I can
still feel the shag carpeting in my family's house. I can still see some
of those in the mug shots and the composite drawings. Yes, just absolutely
hooked on it as a child. I don't know that I could have said,
oh I remember this, I remember this, but I can remember moments
of it and just being absolutely terrified by both the horrendous crimes happening and by
Robert Stack's voice. Yes, definitely definitely loved it and can't believe I get
to be a very small part of it. It's a future here. I
was going to say, do you ever have moments when you think, oh
my gosh, I'm the new Robert Stack. I would never profane the legacy
of the new Robert Stack. Terry Dunmuir, our incredible co creator of the
show, who I get to record with every session, which is it is
mind boggling. She originally said, so you have to understand you're going to
be the new voice of Unsolved Mystery that is going to carry with it a
whole lot of things. When I found out that I had gotten the job,
I did have a moment of that, going what am I doing?
I hate this? How am I possibly going to It's obviously a very different
thing. And fortunately I'm not on camera, nobody has to see my face
for radio. But it's don't know how I'm supposed to do this because all
I can think of is all anybody can think of with unsolved mysteries is Robert
Stack. Robert Stack. So yeah, it is weird. It's very weird,
but I think that we have found a good balance. And it's obviously
this new thing, it's a new creation. It's the same heart, the
same type of show. Never in a million years that was from the get
gos. We're not trying to imitate Robert Stack. You're not trying to replace
Robert Stack. Just do your thing. But I did notice, Steve,
in interviews and I was reading some articles about you, you did talk about
feeling like a strong sense of responsibility. That was the word you used in
following in Robert Stack's footsteps. Of course, we should be clear for the
audience, mister Stack's been dead for a number of years, so he won't
criticize the podcast as far as we can now, or any dumb questions we
might ask you. In all seriousness, Steve, you talked about responsibility like
you were taking on something important. There is such a following for the show,
and like the incredible work that you both are doing with your podcast,
these are very serious issues, right. I mean, there's of course,
with Unsolved Mysteries, there's a bit of this kind of cult following and memes
to no end of Robert Stack and the theme song, but he loves the
theme song. But it's this really serious job. We're talking about real people
who have had unimaginable, unspeakable things happen to them in their lives and their
loved ones. So there is a responsibility to give those cases, give these
victims the respect that they deserve, and also to keep up the mantle of
seriousness with which Tera has shepherded this, for lack of a better word,
this property that this show for so many years. So yeah, I did
feel a great responsibility, but I also felt like I was being taken care
of by everyone at Cosgrove Muhr, And I thought it was pretty incredible that
after all the success they've had after being a TV show for so long that
they said, wait, let's branch out, let's try a podcast. I'm
sure it wasn't an easy decision to make, and I'm sure they knew that
they were probably going to be up against people that are so set in their
ways they can't imagine Unsolved Mysteries being anything other than Robert Stack in a trench
code. But I'm happy to say for any number of people that are out
there that don't feel like listening to a podcast, we have a really incredible
group of fans that enjoyed the show for what it is and are there for
every episode and dedicated to helping to solve a mystery. So how did you
ultimately end up getting involved with the Unsolved Mysteries podcast. Did they put out
an all call and say, hey, we're looking for somebody to do the
pod, or how did this happen for you? Yeah, it was an
audition, just like any other of my voiceover auditions. You know. That's
for anybody who maybe knows me from the show where doesn't know me at all.
I'm a voice actor. That's my job, and so just as I'm
meaning for the un Mysteries podcast, I'm auditioning for candy bar commercials and car
commercials and cartoons and any number of things. Yeah, it was an audition
that came in. I think it was in September of twenty twenty, if
I'm not mistaken, and it took a little bit of time. They sent
a handful of scripts, nothing that was in our shows, but I think
scripts from old shows that they had put in some of the amazing Unsolved Mysteries
writing, and so I thought I glanced over it. And with my line
of work, there's so much sort of rejection or you do so many auditions
that you never book that Now I've gotten to a point in my old age
where I can say, just I'll record this and send it off and I'm
going to stop thinking about it. And so I said, oh, they're
doing an Unsolved Mysteries podcast. That'd be cool recording my stuff, send it
off. And then a handful of weeks later, maybe it was even a
month later, I got a callback for it where they said you're one of
the finalists for this, and they sent over a couple of different scripts and
said, we want to see a range of tones. Can you try some
hears, some slightly different stories and we want to see a range of stuff.
And then a few weeks after that, all of a sudden, I
was on the phone with Terry dun Muir talking about how they wanted to craft
this part and what that would mean for me and how I could play a
part in it. And that's when I had my OMG moment of what's going
to happen. I'm sure I want to do this. I can't FULI but
they just took such good care of me, and there was such collaboration from
the start, and from the beginning I said, listen, this is We've
got to strike the right tone. I can't be Robert Stack. I'm not
going to try to do an impression of Robert Stack. And like you said,
my biggest thing was responsibility and respect for the subjects that we were talking
about. So that's what happened. I mean, that's I've questioned Steve.
Back in the day, people in your field went into a recording studio with
other people and recorded voiceover that way. Now we're talking to you for your
home studio, and it sounds like you mostly do this electronically now. In
other words, you're not typically with the people that you work with. That's
right. Yeah, everything is remote for me. Now. We were talking
before we started recording here. In March thirteenth, twenty twenty, was the
last time I went into a studio. I was doing a seried narrating a
series for National Geographic, And it was right as everything was really starting to
come to a head. And remember I went to the studio and I brought
some wipes, and the engineer had wipes, and we both looked at each
other and we go, we don't know what we're supposed to be doing here
your music stand, in your school whatever. Yeah, everything used to be
that way, Miss Lee. Some of some of the people who aren't familiar
with the voiceover world. There was the may he Rest in peace, the
incredible Don la Fontaine, the fame one of the famous movie trailer voices.
He was was known for. He is so busy, and he had to
go to all these studios around Los Angeles, and so the best way they
figured out to get him to all those jobs was to pop him in a
stretch limo and drive him right thing to thing so glamorous that today it's not
those The rest of us don't have that kind of lifestyle, but the technology
has improved so much that you used to if you wanted to have a home
studio. A dear friend of mine, one of my favorite voice over people
in the world, is the incredible Dennis Predewick, who I think, back
in the day was the only voiceover guy I knew the guy he was.
He had been an actor and then he had this just incredible instrument, so
he became a voice over guy. And he was the only guy I knew
that had a home studio, which at that point was an ISDN lines,
this digital phone line that you have to have run into your house, and
with an expensive codec box and monthly subscription fees, it was this enormous task
to do voiceover from your home. But using that DN you could connect point
to point with studios, and he was a very busy promo guy, and
so that's how that worked. But now your internet connection, as long as
you have a hardwired internet connection, you can connect through these different modules like
Source Connect or Session Link Pro or IPDTL and it's pretty darn good. It's
pretty close to being zero latency, and so most of my sessions are done
that way, or I just do them on my own. I'm the promo
voice for the Mandalorian, and I think I've had one or two sessions where
someone else has been on the other line. Otherwise, my manager just texts
me a script because it has to be turned around so fast. Can you
get in your both here's the script, pup up up, and then I
just jump up here, I stay where I am right now, and I
record this thing and then I send it off. So yeah, it's very
different than it used to be. So is there any feedback? Then there's
no one in your ear saying, can you go again, Steve, give
me sexy, give me shy whatever. That doesn't happen anymore. No one's
ever asking me to give them sexy necessarily built. But yes, we definitely
we have those. We have those remote sessions and so that that's when they
can direct me. But I have been amazed at depending on the type of
project, if I'm doing something commercially or like our obviously our unsolved Mystery sessions,
I'm talking to someone, they're listening directly in in real time, and
they can say, all right, let's try this, let's try something.
The way that it's the major difference, I would say, is that auditions
now I don't very rarely audition in front of people. All we actors used
to go into a casting director's office and all your buddies on the lobby,
and you'd small talk with each other and lie about all the work that you're
getting. And then then you go in and you stand in front of a
microphone with the paragrimy headphones, and you would you'd do your auditions for them.
And so now it's all self directed auditions. So that's actually where like
this added responsibility and kind of stress that has been put on the voice actors.
You used to just get to go in and do your job. Now
you have to be your own engineer, you have to be your own director,
you have to be able to edit your stuff and maybe do a little
bit of voice acting along the way, all those different little things. Now
but now I have to say, I take that for granted. I don't
even think about the way it used to be. Just this is what it
is. We still have relationships with all those people, all those incredible casting
directors, and you still have the relationships. It's just that you're not getting
to be in the room together. So when you're settling in to do an
episode of unsolved mysteries about how long does that take you? Can you knock
it out in thirty minutes or does it take a little bit longer. I'm
proud to say one of my I don't know if I'm any good at my
job, but I'm usually very fast at my job. You're good at us.
That's been good. Thank you. I was thinking about this the other
day. Terry and I have had I just can't even say enough about Terry.
I don't even know that it's like we have time for me to talk
about what this experience has been like with her. But in terms of the
sessions themselves, we were just talking the other day after a session. When
we started out back at the end of twenty twenty, we were doing listen
to the show. I have these blocks of narration, yeah, and so
we just go block by block and we record each of those. And when
we started out, we were finding our feet for how do we want this
to sound? So I was actually doing three takes in three different kind of
tones for each of those, and then I think even up through the second
season. Then after a session or two of that, I said, you
know what, I think we can narrow this to two takes. I think
I can give you this and this, and I think it'll be about what
you want. And she said, yeah, let's try that out. And
then recently, after having done this for a season and a half, I
said, what do you think if we just do one take and then if
you want to change something, we'll change something. If you want to try
something, lean something there. And so now we do two episodes typically in
under an hour because and if you listen to it, I don't know.
I don't have a ton of narration in all these things. It's mostly our
family members and law enforcement. I maybe have five minutes sometimes maybe it's seven
minutes of total narration for our show, probably even less. So if I'm
doing my job, I can breeze through these things. If we're only doing
one take, maybe there's a note, can you hit this a little harder,
let's do a copy change. Terry is always right up into the last
minute. She's hearing something. I say something. It triggers something of her
and she goes, you know what, that doesn't quite make sense, And
she's amazing. Letting me say, you know, if there's something that doesn't
quite roll off the tongue, how do we want to change that, So
yeah, we do try to breeze through it. Are you ever hearing the
other segments? So, in other words, listening to the podcast, there's
oftentimes, like you say, a family member, law enforcement person, whatever,
who's also telling the story from their perspective, but you're also the connection
from point A to point B to set the stage for us to date and
the time and the place and what happened. Do you ever hear those lines
that come before and after you? Are you just recording your end of things?
Absolutely great question. Yes, I do get to hear those. And
that's one of the further amazing things about this gig is how well I'm taking
care of a lot of other projects. I don't even know. Some things
are so secretive. There's much nda surrounding all the stuff that you're recording that
you literally don't know what you're doing until you've maybe had an audition. Sometimes
it's a dummy script, so you don't you go and do I come into
my booth here in five minutes before the session, I get emailed a script
and I go, Okay, this is what I'm doing with the podcast.
Cadence thirteen is so unbelievable. They have the show pretty much fully fleshed out.
There are some edits that they'll make, there's some sound things that they'll
change, and then one of their editors does a scratch narration for me where
he reads my stuff there's a different voice. So there's like a rough cut
of every single one of these episodes with another guy going I'm Steve French and
this is unsulted, but so it's amazing. So I typically get those.
My kind of span of time with each episode is we record basically every other
Monday, and then usually the Thursday or Friday before that is when I get
our two shows for the week. I get the scripts and I get the
audio cuts, So then I'll listen to those a couple of times over the
weekend before our session and then go over the scripts and run everything over the
lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue, make sure everything's coming
out okay. But yeah, I get to hear these episodes before anybody else,
so I really have a great idea of what's being said, what the
story is, and how I should can best fit in to each of those
things, and what's going to be required of me storytelling wise? What do
they need me to push here? Do they need me to just move through
this? And the other incredible thing is that once we get recording a lot
of things that are so time sensitive with other projects, all my stuff for
National Geographic everything has to be timed out or certainly in a commercial or promo,
everything is an exact time a secondary amazing thing. Not only do they
have this episode for me and I can hear how everything should be, they
also very rarely have any sort of strict timing that I have to adhere to.
They edit things around me and can strict because I'm just in this pocket.
They can stretch out music around me. It really is. It's I
can't believe in terms of the actual doing of the thing, how easy they've
made it for me. It really is like a dream in terms of all
that'suff I was talking about before, the self directing, the editing, I
record on my end, I clean up things and send it off. They've
just made it so easy. I can't even begin to describe how how lucky
I am to work on this in all facets of it. Would it be
bad if they heard this podcast and they realized just how easy they've made it
for you? Would they use that against you somehow exactly? Maybe we won't,
Maybe we won't send you the editor that beforehand. No. And they're
so wonderful Chris, Chris Baseil, Andy Jaskowitz, who are incredible editors and
the main guys that do it. I just got an email from Andy the
other day that was like complimenting me on my files and how clean they are
and how easy it is to work with it. I was like, you're
the you make it easy for me. Yeah. So they're very special everybody
involved. It's just I couldn't be luckier. So I told you at the
outset of this that I'm a longtime fan. This is one of the only
podcasts that I listened to that as soon as the episode comes out, no
matter what I'm doing, damn, it's up and I'm listening to it.
There seem to be the two type of episodes, the criminal case episodes and
the paranormal episodes. Is there one that you prefer? I can tell you
before I get into that, I would say that you'd be amazed to learn
that there are fans of each who think there are way too many of the
other kind. We're never gonna get that we're never going to get that ratio
correct or afraid it's great. You look in the iTunes reviews. Enough with
the paranormal episodes, but the next person, enough with the true crime episodes.
Well that'll be some that we have to Sorry, you can't please everybody.
It's tough, isn't it. It's tough to say, with this job
that you have that I enjoy doing it. You're talking about these really difficult
things. I have this incredible fortune to work with Terry. We have a
wonderful time together. We've developed this really great working relationship everybody at CMP and
King's thirteen. I don't particularly enjoy telling the story of a young person that's
been trafficked, or people have lost family members, And even the paranormal stuff,
I could say I have more fun doing those. Sometimes sometimes it's fun
to add a little spookiness to even those. Sometimes are the people telling us
the stories have not had a fun experience. So if as I'm listening to
them, if you can sense that they're that the people telling the story are
at peace or at ease with something, Okay, maybe that's all right.
It's funny. I'm such I'm amongst my friends I'm famously a scaredy cat when
it comes to any sort of ghosty thing or spooky thing. We don't have
to go into details, but there may have been a forced visit to a
haunted house when I was in college that garnered the nickname that I still am
trying to live down that kind of thing. We don't need to go into
that, so, but I would say at least, at the very least,
there's at least some a little bit of lightness to those the paranormal stories.
That's different than are the horrific cases that we deal with. Does that
answer? That didn't answer your question at all, but it definitely did.
Like you guys, just recently, I think it was like three weeks ago,
it was the Demon of Brownsville Road episode. Scared the Jesus out of
me, but also at the same time, what a great story. That
was a terrifying episode, honestly, absolutely, And the stuff that I remember
the first time, the very first episode we did was the Ball Cemetery.
Oh yeah, And I remember thinking, oh great, this will be great.
They're sending me these scratches, don't okay, we'll turn out the lights.
I'll lay in bed here I'll put my headphones in and I'll bone up
on this three minutes into that episode. Never doing that again. Too scary,
Never too scary. Never listen to these things with the lights off people.
Never. Oh that was a hair raiser of an episode. I remember
that very well. Yeah, those stick with you, all these in some
ways. We've done almost eighty of them now, and you remember little bits
and pieces and details from each of them. And yeah, the paranormal ones,
it just doesn't sit with me. I just can I say alien aliens
flying through the sky that didn't hurt anybody and everybody's okay, and they just
saw them. Those are the ones I love. Let's do more of those.
Yeah, it gets hurt, you know. So how often does the
podcast resulted in arrest? Because I know that you guys recently had an arrest
made in a case it was featured on the pods, So I don't imagine
you get to do those case updates very often, but I know that you
recently had one. Do you have an idea about how often these cases resultant
in arrest? I think we have had. My answer to that is in
two parts. I actually don't know if I'm being completely honest that the podcast
has been responsible for somebody heard the podcast and then said, oh, that's
my neighbor. And but we have covered I think it's five cases that have
had updates. I think three of those were resulted in arrest. Three of
the murder cases. There's also people who listen that the incredible story of the
girl with the S tattoo, Tammy Terrell, which through forensic genomics they found
out finally found out who she was at what forty two years, which is
just amazing. And also Kim Flint, who was covered in our story missing
from the bridge. They finally found her body and there are no signs of
foul play. They determined those. So I think it's in terms of our
over these two seasons, we've five cases where I've gotten to say the word
update. So that's obviously that's the goal. That's the whole point, and
we can't rest until we've got many more updates than that. Is there any
kind of internal discussion with your team about updates we are seeing, and of
course we've interviewed a lot of people that are involved in really advanced forensics who
are breaking cases all over the place. Is that part of the mix now
do you think for unsolved mysteries the podcast, let's try to do more updates
as new information is developed in some of these cases. Oh, certainly,
in any time that we have new information to share, I think would probably
have to be of a certain dynamic, of a certain large result of some
kind. That's always the goal. I think that they're and they also it
was funny the other day someone we have incredible fans, and somebody sent me
a news article I think somebody we had profiled before it was involved in another
had been arrested for separate crime another domestic violence or something, and I sent
it to them. I said, oh, one of the fans, and
they said, oh, yeah, we know. So they've got their ear
to the ground. And I'm sure the Google alerts set up like crazy,
so they are on it. So that's that really is. It's really the
whole point. And I just commend Terry for I feel like, I don't
think I'm exaggerating. I think she can remember every case they've covered, over
the cases and the decades that she's been doing this. It feels like when
we're talking, she'll say, oh, say, oh, did you ever
experience that she goes I remember it was like nineteen eighty eight there was this
case with this wow, wow she has yeah and she just That's what really
struck me, was not It wasn't like I got on the phone with somebody
said, oh yeah, I've been producing this unsolved mystery show, this thing
has been great, whatever, just to say what I mean, so invested
as if these are the first cases she's covered, is if it's the first
Terry O's ohs, nobody a rationale or a justification of her success and what
she's done for true crime, for unsolved mysteries, for that being basically the
first show to end with a call to action to insite viewers to help them
out. The way that she has changed the landscape of this is remarkable.
It's exactly the same today as it was all those years ago. So very,
so fortunate to have gotten in with this team. And I note that
her goals are never about creating content, creating a property, creating a brand.
It's sure it's all those things, but it's really about the heart and
soul of what she's trying to do. You're listening to Mind over Murder.
We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at
mindover Murder. You had mentioned a couple of minutes before that it can be
difficult to deal with the details of true crime cases, and we know that,
of course. Do you ever have difficulty dealing with the material after you've
been spending a long day invested in learning about these true crime cases? How
do you deal with the difficulties that can come with being immersed in that world.
I'm a father of a seven year old boy on the autism spectrum,
and we just did a case recently. Lord from Home teenager Alicia Navarro was
taken disappeared a few months ago. I was out with my son on a
nature walk and in a place that we've been often, and he's very fast,
and it's a place we've been a million times. But I lost him
for twenty minutes in the woods, and it was the long longest twenty minutes
of my life, right of these things flashing before my eyes and the unbelievable
amount of possibilities that went through my head. And some very kind people were
there and he found someone. He talks a lot, He's verbal, but
he doesn't always communicate what he needs to communicate or what you'd like to try
to say, try to talk to him about but he found somebody. He
said, where's daddy? And I found him. The only reason I bring
this up is that was twenty minutes that I'm pretty sure took time off my
life, maybe a week or who knows how much. I cannot imagine what
people who have lost someone in their lives that they when there's no closure,
we don't know what's happened them. I even doing these cases, even studying
these things, even telling these stories and trying to have as much empathy as
possible, I cannot imagine what that feels like. Those are the hardest cases
for me. The lost children, the abducted children, the missing children.
Jessica Nunez is Alsi's mother and actually reached out to me over Facebook when I
had posted this, and I just think it's extraordinary. But she and the
parents of everyone that we've profiled, it's in the situation and all the even
the families of murder victims, and I just I don't know. I don't
know how. I don't know how people get by when this has happened.
It's really that was something that struck me doing the show that I don't think
i'd considered was listening to victims' families, to loved ones, that perseverance,
that ability to wake up every day with this part of you that will never
be whole again. And I don't wish to presume, but Bill, this
is something I admire so much about you, of your direct experience with this.
It's I don't know, that's the hardest thing for me to deal with,
and so I just try to tell these stories as simply as I can
and as pointedly as we can, with the hopes that by us doing this,
something may happen, something may help down the line. Yeah, thank
a parent, it messes with you these ways. So yeah, no,
it definitely does. And I think anybody that's been in your situation, even
for twenty minutes, the horrible thoughts that cross your mind and that immense sense
of responsibility that you feel as a parent. Now, my son is twenty
four years old now in law school, and you can pretty much take care
of himself, but I still worry about him every once in a while.
And the thing you experienced losing your son for that short period of time,
and then when you mentioned that he was on the spectrum and he didn't always
communicate. I thought to myself, would he communicate what he needed if he
ran into somebody else in this situation. Happily he did. We've talked about
this with the Colonial Parkway murders. Actually, one of the four incidents in
the Colonial Parkway murders is still technically a missing person's case. That's of Richard
Keith Call and Cassandra Haley. They're still missing. It's been over thirty years.
And I remember years ago when we attended up briefing with the FBI,
my father, who has since passed on, he actually leaned forward. We
were driving back from Newport News, Virginia, back to Annapolis, Maryland,
where he was living at that time. He said, least we know what
happened to Kathy. We knew that my sister had been murdered and that her
life had been ended, along with her girlfriend, Rebecca Dowski, But there
wasn't any doubt in our mind about what had happened. There's the why and
the who and all the other questions that we still have all these years later.
But I'm not trying to balance out someone else's sense of loss. But
I actually think the not knowing of the missing persons cases is actually worse,
at least from my point of view and from my dad's that day that he
spoke to us in the car about it. I think that is incredibly difficult.
The missing person's cases, the missing children cases. I think all of
us struggle waving to do with kids, even a teenager. You could make
a case a teenager might have made some mistakes in terms of their judgment or
whatever they were doing, not blaming the victim in any way, shape or
form, but the kids are incredibly difficult. And our friends in law enforcement
it said the same thing for sharing that bill. Yeah, it's fascinating.
It just it's brought this whole new level of human experience to me that I
didn't know. And so to me that has been the most profound thing is
just listening to the cadences of the way people talk when they've dealt with this.
It's amazing. I can't really formulate exactly how profound it is, but
it's amazing. Are there times, Steve, when you've said to Terry and
your team, I gotta stop or I gotta go again because you get a
little too wrapped up in the emotion of the thing. Remember I was asking
you about do you hear the voices of the people who come before and after
your narration segments? And you said yes, because I think that certainly helps
in terms of your storytelling. You're hearing what this person said, followed by
your setting of the stage, followed by more of their perspective or a different
person. Since the point of view on what happened? Is it difficult?
At times? It certainly is. I'd say the one thing I have going
in my favor, like we were alluding to before, the very unseerious aspect
of I have a lot technically that I'm doing. I got to make sure
I'm recording everything. I've got to make sure everything is working on my end
and we're doing it. So I do get a bit of tunnel vision with
Okay, let's make sure we're hitting this and then hitting my Marxism going through
and reading. So you try not to get too wrapped up. I always
say to Terry, we have this bit of Joe Friday, but it just
the facts. Man, Let's not get too wrapped up in this. Because
there are occasionally are times where I maybe have been what I remember in drama
school, I was playing a very dramatic character and I really got into this
monologue and I was downsitter stage and I was drooling and pounding the floor.
And then after I was done, I expected the room to erupt in applause,
and my very British director, the late Malcolm Morrison, took a pause.
If you were enjoying yourself, then wound you. And it made me
realize, oh, yeah, it's not my place to myself. So I
don't think I've had those moments of we have to stop. I'm fortunate to
because it really is. It's in my thing is I'm always, as the
character of Steve French, the narrator in Unsolved Mysteries, I'm there to keep
things connected, keep things moving along. Plenty of emotion from everyone else that
you're hearing, though while I have to be respectful, there's a bit of
a bit of a distance, and that was something that's stacked it so well.
You felt like he was holding us all as the audience, but he
wasn't giving his opinion on this necessarily, he wasn't emoting. So that's how
I get through. But it is. I find it's difficult to start these
things. It's when we start each episode just to jump into this thing where
you're gonna wear In three seconds, I'm gonna start talking about something horrific that's
happened. It's tough to just do that, but you just start somewhere and
you do it. And I always try to remember by doing this, we
are paying homage to those we've lost and the people that have been through.
So how closely interrelated are the TV series, the wonderful TV series and the
pods? You the cases on the pod ever make it onto the show?
And are we ever going to anything from the show making it onto the pod?
I don't believe. So. A big part of the reason why the
podcast started was they had so many cases and a back people had requested that
they look into and there's just not enough bandwidth to produce all of those episodes
or television. And they say, there's so many true crime podcasts or the
OG true Crime, why don't we start a podcast and we can at least
tell a bunch of these stories. It won't be a TV show, but
we can get a lot of information. We can focus on one story at
a time, and so it's a way of adding to that case load,
getting those stories out there still in a beautifully produced way. In a very
sensitively produced way, with that same focus and attention that Unsolved Mysteries gives to
all of its work. But no, I don't think they will ever cross
paths. And in fact, sometimes we'll be talking Terry and I and she'll
say, oh, we're doing this for Netflix. We're doing this for Netflix.
This is happening. And I've had a very few, very sweet people
that are still obsessed with this idea that Unsolved Mysteries as a TV show has
to have a host. The new version on Netflix does not have a host,
and it's Brilli. I think it works great. And there's been all
these people who said, get Steve a host Netflix show, Just put him
on there. He's got to get them a trench code. Give him the
trench code. This all work and time and the Burberry share. Everything's good.
Obviously a little bit more goes into it than that, And I think,
again, I just think what's extra special about Terry and the team is
that they're not afraid to take chances, they're not afraid to change how they
do what they do. And of course there's always this through line, but
what a cool thing that they started out with the show decades ago and then
when Stack passed away and Dennis Farina took over a while, it was a
little different then, and then Netflix a different animal then, and then to
add a podcast to this really is They're just I don't know. They're brave
and everything they do and with so much heart. So I just appreciate being
a small part of it. And please, folks, nobody needs to see
my face on TV. It's why you don't act on stage. And nobody
needs to see this. But you find the one episode of all My Children
that I did as a blackjack dealer, and you will understand why you don't
need to see this muck. Okay, we just don't need to go.
But you did start as a stage actor. You started in theater. I
did, yep. I caught the bug when I was young and up in
the incredible small town and Damrascott a main and Beth Preston my incredible drama teacher
and music director, and so I went to the Heart School in Hartford,
Connecticut, graduated in two thousand and three, a long time ago, and
that was my goal. I was going to be a stage actor. And
I had some very kind people occasion just say, oh, your voice is
interesting. You ever thought about doing voiceover, thought of voiceover as a career.
I just thought, oh, maybe you could do a commercial and make
a little money to pay your rent every once in a while between your stage
gigs. And in fact, even when I started finally got a kind of
real deal voiceover agent and managed to get my first kind of long running campaign
right out of the gate. By beginner's luck, I was out of town
doing shows, and I was driving my agent's nuts because I was saving I
was in Connecticut and trying to drive to Bristol, Connecticut to do stuff for
ESPN, and because being on stage was my focus. And it was only
later in life when Alison and I got married and we decided to have a
family that oh, it looks like the technology is such that I could do
this from home probably, and I was getting tired of life on the road,
and so yeah, so that's where it comes from. But I think
in my voiceover life, I love all kinds of narration because I'm still getting
to tell stories, and I consider myself a voice actor. I'm always an
actor for first and foremost. And I imagine it might be a little weird
for fans of the show if they follow me on social media to see the
same guy that's talking in such serious terms about unsolved mysteries, to then a
couple of days later post, Hey, here's me doing voices the moon on
a Noggin Kid's yoga show. But there might be something weird. Oh here's
a Toyota commercial that Steve. I'm sure there's a bit of a weirdness to
that, But I hope people know the seriousness with which I take my job
and that it's all just part of this thing. I wouldn't have even been
involved if I wasn't a voice actor, So it's going to try to compartmentalize
these things. I was wondering something, how often do you get to identify
yourself? Because I know you do a lot of different voiceover work, how
often do you actually say I'm Steve French. I think this is the only
time. I think it's the only time that it's ever come up. And
when we first started, I felt so bad because I'm just part of what
I love about voiceovers. I get to be pretty anonymous and I just I'm
behind the scenes. You just hear me as they were starting. I'm sure
there's a small part of them going How do we make it sound like Steve
French is somebody important that that should be hosting this series. He's just a
guy. He's just a guy. He's just a guy we got and he's
going to do the show. So no, not very often. I think
that's about it. And frankly, Bill, I like it that way.
And the only other thing I get is, I don't know if you guys
are familiar with that old Canadian sitcom Trailer Park Boys. There's famously a mountain
lion that makes an appearance in the show, and his name is Steve French.
And so I often have people responding to post by Unsolved Mystery that say
Steve French and then there's a picture of Steve French, the mountain Lion.
I know, folks, I know there's a mountainline named Steve French. Is
this an homage to you or is that just a coincidence? Oh definitely,
Oh definitely not. No, it's just for some reason, this beautiful mountain
line was named Steve French. And so here we are. I'm sure you
probably have to scroll down on Google on the Google search results past the mountain
line to get to me. If you're looking for me. So if someone
wants to put their unsolved mystery up for consideration on the pod, how do
they We would love to see our case on Unsolved Mysteries. How would we
do that? You can go to unsolved dot com, as we say at
the end of every episode, or submit a tip at unsolved dot com and
you'll see up on the menu there's submit a story and so you can submit
a form there with your details and they look at all of them. They
those are read, those are looked after. They really do know everything that's
coming down down the pipeline and keeping it on what they can tell, what's
what's best for them to be working on. Where can they best put their
resources while they go on the TV show? Will it be a podcast?
So please never hesitate to to submit to them. There was a really cool
show on the television series That's season or two ago that was all about a
UFO siding in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, which is quite close to us.
And I knew nothing about the case, nor did Pamela, my partner,
and we go to GB all the time, and we just about fell out
of our chair. It was such a cool episode and I thought, man,
this is like an amazing story. I've had a weekend house here for
twenty five years. We've been living back here full time for four years.
I said, I never knew they were a bunch of spaceships in Great Bearrington.
It was a really cool episode. Isn't that amazing? I hear that
a lot. People say sometimes there's stuff that's really infamous, and people don't
but say the same thing. I've lived here for years. It's right down
the street from me. I never knew that happened in the Hudson Valley in
New York, and we did an episode on the podcast Something in the Sky
and it was about this enormous number of UFO sidings that was so big.
It was called the Hudson Valley Wave. I didn't know anything about that.
Of course it was before my time here, but it was. But nonetheless,
you think that something like that had happened and thousands of people knew about
it, and you're like, why did I not know about this? Yes,
isn't it weird? Which I guess is why it's so important that we
have all these different ways to get these stories out there. We're covering often
on our podcast, we're covering stories that have been covered elsewhere, and I
think it's important to just keep telling these stories. It's not like one place
should tell them that should be the authority. We should tell these stories as
many times as we can, with as many different viewpoints as we can,
until we uncover the truth about every one of them. And the podcast also
covers a lot of stories that I wasn't familiar with because there are interesting and
sometimes tragic stories that have happened across the country, and you guys have actually
shined a spotlight on a lot of cases that I literally knew nothing about.
It just feels really important to be a part of that. And I always
enjoy when I hear somebody say, oh, they covered this on this and
so it always makes me want to go and look those things up and see
how they told those or we will post about the upcoming episode and someone will
say, oh, there's this info. So it's just we feel like we're
apart of it. We are certainly never thinking that we are the only authority
on an earned subject. We're just adding to the conversation as best we can.
So what do you see is the future of the podcast and the show.
If you feel like you want to speak to the show as well.
But what does the future look like? Can we expect to hear the voice
for years to come? Are we going to hear Steve French for seasons five,
six, seven, eight and so on? I have no idea.
I of course would be there with bells on. I think that's all up
to Terry and the team and if they feel that it's worth their time and
effort, because they do put so much time and effort, and it's Cadence
the thirteen putting a ton of effort into this. I really have the easiest
job of everybody. I just come in at the end and tell me what
to say and I'll say it. So I think it just it's a process
for them of where can they best allocate their resources of a feeling like it's
creating positive mark within their all of the projects that they have going on.
So I hope so. But at this point as much as I do,
do you think you would ever consider attending this true crime and paranormal podcast fest
that's going to be happening in Austin in August? Kristin and I are going
to be getting down there, Yes, please come, please come. Is
that something you would ever consider doing? Gosh. I always think of things
like that. It'd be like the loneliest guy at the booth. That'd be
like it still is, truly thank you for asking that. It is still
so bizarre to me that I would ever do something that people would know who
I am. That this. I'm always so moved when people reach out to
me and pass along a kind word and tell me that they love listening to
it, and then I'm part of their week. It's really extraordinary. And
again I always feel a little sheepish because I am not, by any means
a true crime expert. Of course, I'm learning about all of this and
meeting incredible people like you who are welcoming me into this community. I'm so
proud to be a part of it. But I'm definitely not a scholar or
the best authority on a lot of these things. So listen, I'll never
say never. I don't know who would want me to come down to crime
con but everybody, anybody, everybody, Yeah, you would have some it's
crazy. Maybe certainly no one would know who I am. I mean,
that would be fine. Yeah, I guess you're standing in line. You.
I guess I'd never have to put those words together. We who aren't
you saying at the front desk, I'm Steve French with unself mystery. People
will be like, whoa, But as soon as you open your mouth,
people will be like, I know you who you are? Yes? Yes,
Oh, it's so much fun. You should definitely come to any and
all of it. It's an incredible community, and I'm again, I'm just
I'm happy to be a small part of it and feels very important. I
try to. I think that about a lot of the work I do,
and some of the work I do is more frivolous than others, and I
always put my heart and soul into it. But doing something like this has
really been very special. That you were working on something just a voiceover guy,
right, But I'm doing something that affects people, and we're telling stories
from people who really are desperate for help and closure. So anytime I have
a family member reach out, it's really it stops me in my tracks for
a minute. Ago. This is way more than just a voice over gig.
Kristen, Before we sign off, I think there was something you wanted
to ask Steve to do. It's a little bit on the lighter side of
things. Let me let me get a sip of my tea here. Yes,
we are definitely hoping that you would be willing to say, I'm Steve
French and this is mind never murder. All right, let me just really
quickly email my agents here told you we couldn't afford him. Bill it to
Bill Thomas went in charge of all of that, exactly. Yes, it
goes to Bill Thomas Ryning up in Connecticut. You said, okay, no
problem, Okay, let's see all right, let's see what we can do
for you. I'm Steve French and this is mind over murder. Let the
record show that Christen is freaking out. Don la Fontaine, who Mike did
meet and work with, would be very proud. Oh wow, oh well,
oh we'll have to have this. I love. I'll have to get
We'll do that off off Mike sometime. But my favorite thing I remember seeing
Don la fontainne do is because he was so extraordinary. He came on Jay
Leno one time. There was a bit where they had him come out and
so that he could say something. It was like like the fair balance or
the disclaimer for a pharmaceutical thing or something and live in the moment. I
remember he messed it up. He tripped over his words and put his finger
in his mouth and popped his cheek out. Just just a wonderful ambassador for
the voiceover world, full of great humility about what he did. He was
born with a gift and paved the way for basically everybody else. You get
generations of us who've been trying to imitate Don Lafontaine, and it's just it's
so cool to see how that landscape has changed, see more incredible diversity of
voices that are getting to do movie trailers, and how things have changed.
But I don't think we'll ever no one will ever forget voices like Don la
Fontayne or how Douglass and just the way that they created this whole thing.
And so because of those guys, I'm proud to be a voiceover guy,
for whatever that means. I'm very proud of this. Jeve, this was
absolutely wonderful chatting with you. Thank you so much for joining us on this
episode of Mind Over Murder. Thank you truly for having me, and keep
up the great work. And you know, I respect so much about that.
You come to your work with such grace and respect and seriousness, but
you also have a good time, which I think when you're dealing with such
heavy stuff you have to right, you have to keep it light and make
your way through it. So thank you. Still in shock that anyone would
ever want to talk to me about anything, So thank you very much for
having me. It's going to do it for this episode of Mind of a
Murder. We'll see you next time. I'm Steve Frene and this is mind
Over Murder. Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog
Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art
is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod. Mind Over
Murder is distributed in partnership with cral Space Media. You can follow us on
Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You can also follow our page on the
Colonial Parkway Murders on Facebook, and finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on
Twitter at Bill Thomas five six. Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.