Made a decision. Face Sunny sune on, I had a vision, Nach,
what's up everybody. Welcome to our very special Thursday episode with special guests.
And our special guest today is an old friend of ours, Matt Fondelier.
I was gonna say, Matt the Porson, punish your kiss you.
Matt, I know you. I have to say I miss you personally because
you know, you worked you know, I mean, he was Adam's assistant
and I leaned on Matt for a lot of things, and you being gone
as like a whole it was took a long time for me to recover.
But uh, yeah, I miss you and I miss face at the studio,
and you know, yeah, it's been quite quite a change. I
will say, it's hard to believe it's been almost two years. This April
will be two full years. Oh wow, kind of time kind of flies,
you know. Wow. Obviously I look back on my experiences with the
whole Corolla crew very fondly, and uh it's it was a little weird starting
over in Austin, but I have to say, like my wife and I
absolutely love it out here and it's just been like it was a big change,
but it was a great change. I'm really happy that I did it.
Well. We're going to get into some really good, juicy stuff about
what Matt's working on, because he was working on a lot of things that
sound very interesting to Stephanie and I. But just briefly, like, how
is Austin. I'm curious, like, is it great? Is it?
It's wonderful? I mean, have you either of you guys ever been here?
Now? But I really want to go. Okay, so Austin,
you know, the downtown area is a big college town, and it's the
very hip lots of bars and restaurants and you know, busy night life.
That's not necessarily what my wife and I are into, like going out to
bars and restaurants. We're not really hitting the clubs or anything. But it's
nice to have that kind of downtown area. And we're about fifteen minutes south
of downtown. And when you go north of downtown, it's a lot more
built out, lots of buildings and construction zones. But in South Austin that's
where they have like the Keep Austin Weird. It's very much like like Silver
Lake or Echo Park and just lots of you know, art community, very
dog friendly, big beautiful trees everywhere. You know, most of the bars
and restaurants are just on these multi acre you know, beautiful picnic areas you
can bring the dogs and let them run around. And you know, our
property that we're we're still renting, but we moved to a place that's on
a half acre with a creek in the back. And it's cheaper than what
I had out there. You know, gas is like two fifty out here.
Yeah, so it's you know, just the general cost of living as
a lot lower. But like the personality of the city is very reminiscent of
kind of what I left when I lived in like in Pasadena or Atwater Village.
Like, it doesn't really feel like to what I thought texts this was
going to feel like. But it's astin you know. Okay, wow,
that sounds great. I'm very happy, so very happy. Well let's get
into like what we were talking about before we went on air, about the
shows that you're producing that you're doing. Yeah, can you choose to like
how you when you first got there, were you were you going to produce
podcasts? Like what were you looking to do? I mean I just assumed
that I would continue producing podcasts just because I did that for Adam for what
ended up being twelve years. Wow, and I just there's a few podcasts
networks out here, and I just sort of felt like like I'm fucking hot
shit, like he isn't going to want to hire me, and that was
not the reality. You know, just really had a hard time finding anything,
to be totally honest competitive podcasting market, you know, I I think
that it is certainly if you're in my position where you just are like an
organized person who has good interpersonal relationships like that is apparently not as hard to
find as I thought. But you know, I call and can attest to
this too. Like we have we have a certain set of knowledge of you
know, engineering and editing, and that kind of comes in handy. But
my experience has been people want to know if you're like a video editor,
and I you know, I did a little bit of video editing in high
school and college, but I'm basically an audio guy, and so it's been
a bit of a learning curve for me to how to learn how to do
video content. Even I'm sure your Guys show has a video component to it,
So I think that was sort of the skill that I was lacking in
a little bit. But I have been schmoozing quite a bit over the last
year. I didn't tell you guys this off air, but I got a
gig actually just wrapped working as a story producer on a documentary about this stand
up comedian named Matt Rife who's been in the headlines Lady. Yeah, yes
he is. So this production company out here, I've been trying to work
for them for like a year, and the guy who runs this company finally
got this project with a comedian and asked if I wanted to come on board
and basically help them figure out the story that was within all of the footage
that they captured, and that to me ended up being like a dream job.
I loved every minute of it. And it's really close to what I
do for the true crime stuff, which is kind of just becoming an expert
on a particular story and just consuming as much material as I can and then
trying to like tell that story, right If that makes sense, Yeah,
that makes sense. Is it a map Rife puff piece? You know,
it probably would be a little bit, just because he's on top of the
world right now and he has a sold out world tour for the next several
years. So the whole idea would be kind of following him as he's you
know, on him, rise going to be included, I think, so
yeah, we definitely we were incorporating that because it's all, you know,
real reactions to what's happening too, so it's a documentary on him. Yeah,
yeah, and to kind of circle back to what you were saying.
So that that came like within the last few months, but pretty much for
the last year, I just leaned on my creative writing. I did a
lot of sword and Scale episodes, and I ended up through connection that we
all know and love, Gary Smith. Through him, got put in touch
with a couple of defense attorneys that were looking to start their own podcast,
and I kind of became their producer. So the last year I've been you
know, producing the true crime shows, producing the Lawyer Show, Me and
Kaylin and Gary and Chris and Dawson. We also do a water cooler two
to three times a week, and then this this other follow doc project has
just been It's been a lot. But happy for you, Matt. I'm
so happy. Yeah, you're so busy, busy, busy, yeah,
but so tell us about the true crime podcast The Lawyer One, Yes,
The Lawyer one Yeah. Okay, so, uh, this wonderful attorney on
the West Coast. Her name is Sarah Azari. She is a criminal defense
attorney. Uh, and she started following, like everybody, the Alec Murda
case, which sort of gripped the nation, and she reached out to one
of the attorneys who represents Alec, and he lives in South Carolina and I'm
here in Austin, and basically they're on multiple coasts and I just produced the
show remotely. And the show is called The Presumption, and it's all about,
you know, the presumption of innocence. And we now live in a
world where as soon as you read the headlines, you're already starting to make
up your mind about whether or not this person is give And their argument is
that oftentimes, by the time the trial starts, everybody is in the assumption
of guilt, not the presumption of innocence. And so it is a legal
analysis podcast. They interview other defense attorneys, people that are kind of involved
in the sort of peripheries of criminal prosecution. We did an episode about light
detectors with an expert about cell phone towers, DNA and they look at it
from a defense point of view, trying to kind of pick apart what the
public convention. You know, what you would think is the reality about,
say a lie detector, and how you can beat a lot detector, and
what's the reality of being able to do that right into Yeah, Oh,
I thought for sure beating a light detector would be possible. Like I heard
you just literally you just squeeze your butt, you know how you can pass
the test. Oh, I've heard that, but I found out that they
actually have a butt pad censor that you sit on. It will measure that
I've never heard. Okay, but I have a friend, Okay, an
actual friend who decided to be a cop after years of maybe living a different
kind of life, decided to be a cop. Had to had to and
did pass the light detector test and had to. Yeah, and he said
he just like slowed his breathing. He you like, mind over matter and
he passed the light And so what I mean, as far as I could
tell, mind over matter would be the only way to do it, because
the way that this guy described it is that these tests are measuring the like
this is my this is my version of what he said, But they're measuring
like the synaps is going off in your brain before you've even said the word.
So you know, if I say the word horse, you just think
of a horse in your head. And it kind of works like that.
So even if you think that you're saying it, if you've already thought it,
it's too late. Oh and the whole idea of taking your time and
slowly responding, slowly, slow in your breathing, it doesn't work like that.
There's timers. You have to answer in a sad amount of time.
So the people have passed light detector tests and then been proven guilty like by
DNA. So I mean that's why they're not, uh, you know,
admissible, and yeah, thank you for the word admissible. Why aren't they
admissible? And co? None of this isn't exact science. That's the problem.
It's it's all. It's all crazy now. Genetic genealogy. Yeah,
they'll be able to find you out from your distant relatives. Stupid different relatives
that went on fucking twenty three and me like they understand there is a murderer
in the family that needs to remain anonymous. My god, right, have
some decency? What else about like that's that's been interesting that. Uh,
I'm sure you've gotten some like DNA stuff or how do they fight the DNA
these defense attorneys, these damn defenses, you know. Again, I think
it's really about just proving, like trying to prove that it's not an exact
science and trying to think, you know, just because they have something called
I think it's called contact DNA or touch DNA. There's a big case happening
right now about Brian Coburger. I don't know if you guys have heard of
that. Yes, yeah, the Idaho guy. And there's you know,
like a knife sheaf. The knife holder was found under the person's body and
it contained DNA from Ryang right on the on then, but one could argue
that you could like have that rubbed up against their clothing or they touched something
that somebody else touched before then, and there's just ways to transfer it that
it doesn't one hundred percent mean that it was yours. And that's sort of
at least my observations. They're trying to create a reasonable doubt does to just
you know, let you know that it's not one hundred percent. If it's
not one hundred percent, maybe you should go the other way from your decision,
right, But usually not, because usually there's a whole bunch of things
that line up right that they try to go I was listening to, of
course, like a dateline or something. It was the defense attorneys were trying
to argue the cell phone tower evidence and saying, well, it's not an
exact science, and you know, trying to get somebody to admit that just
because the cell phone tower doesn't mean that you were necessarily there. But of
course in the case, there were several cell phone towers for several places.
It was like the place where the murder happened, and then the place where
he buried the body, and the where he something happened with a dog,
And it was like, so, okay, maybe if it was just if
it all relied on one cell tower, but then when you're talking about three,
that would be the biggest coincidence. Yeah, But the defense always tries
to go, well, that there's a coincidence happen, Yeah, yep,
exactly, And then the defense world they go, that's a bad fact.
They just call that a bad fact. I don't even quite get what that's
supposed to mean. But that sounds pretty bad to me, that's for sure.
Do you ever just that stuff? No, I don't know, because
honestly, like I can, and I believe in the mission of the show,
which is to ultimately kind of preserve the justice system and if you are
convicted or if you are accused of a crime, like you would want a
fair trial. Yeah, it is kind of crazy. I mean, it's
obviously harder and harder to find like an impartial jury, people who've never heard
any of the facts of the case. It's really hard to do that these
days, especially with the Internet and things like that. But it's it's kind
of bullshit if six people have already made up their mind before they've even looked
at the paperwork of the king, right right, That's that's the part to
me that I can get behind and understand. Like again, I write a
ton of stories about horrible people who do the worst thing is imaginable, and
they deserve to fucking rotten Hell sorry, yeah you can cuss. Yeah,
I produced the show, the show, I know, so like, I
am in no way like a pro defendant kind of person, But I do
think that a lot of times we make a lot of assumptions and it's not
fair. If it's in the matter of the courts now it shouldn't that should
not come into play. Do you ever think though, and I mean this
is the most obvious question ever, but do you ever think some of these
criminals that it's pretty much proven, like let's just say they admit to it,
you know, and it's just a heinous crime, and it's not just
a uh, a false confession, but it's like something that you know,
they actually really knew the facts of the case or whatever, and then there's
DNA or whatever. Do you ever feel like and it's let's just say it's
a horrible crime against murdering children or babies, you know, and then you
get the defense that's like really trying kind of poke holes and trying to find
any way to defend this person. Do you ever just feel like, how
does that person sleep at night knowing that there's a chance they could get somebody
out that will for sure go do something, you know what I mean,
like a serial killer, Like somebody has to defend that person. Yeah,
and when it's really obvious that they did it, but they still have to
mount a defense. Do you ever feel like, God, that's got to
be the hardest job ever. I mean, it's definitely a very difficult job,
and they get a horrible reputation for that reason. I mean, even
my dad is an attorney. He started as a defense attorney and he over
time became a plaintiffs attorney because he had a really hard time, like looking
at himself in the mirror when he was a defense attorney. Yeah, just
feeling like he's screwed. He screwed over people who, you know, who
didn't need to have to happen to them. And so I can definitely see
that side of it. But again, and what you're talking about where it's
like the person has obviously done it and they they're just putting every buddy through
this making them read it. That is the worst of the worst. But
I would say that the core of the defense attorney's job is a little bit
on the other side of the scale, which is more like sort of a
disenfranchised person who you know, they've had a really hard time in life and
maybe they did do something terrible, but like they deserve a chance to try
to get out, you know, even if it's even if it was something
terrible, like you know, I don't know, it's kind of hard to
put into words. That's yeah, I guess part of what's fascinating about the
whole topic in general. While we all like these crimes, tool yeah,
is a little bit of a gray area. Sometimes. Let's take a quick
break and then we'll come back and see if you have any specific cases to
tell us about. All Right, we're back, boy, so much to
talk about. I love this stuff. Were there any cases that they covered
that you were like thought one way, but then hearing the defense attorney's talk,
you were like, oh, maybe I was wrong. I have to
get back to that one. Well, let me ask you about, like
can we I want to ask you about I'm fascinating. I don't let me
be clear, I do not know anything other than what everybody else who just
watches TV and watches the docu series and things like that. Now I have
zero insider information, even though this guy is a host of the show.
But it's not like, yeah, I'm getting a deep dive or learning anything
at all. Right, But we were talking about like Alex Murdoch, for
instance. You know his trial was in like the hometown of every Like,
how do you get a fair let's say, mate, Like like obviously he
did do it? You know, Bubba, you know, uh, it's
chicken, you know. But like let's say that didn't have Let's say he
could have been innocent, Like, but yet he looked really guilty. Like,
how do you how come they had the trial there? And that I
thought he wondered that. I don't know if you're aware of that this is
still ongoing there a trial even though it's ended. There is a whole thing
happening right now about tampering with the jury and was it a fair trial?
Right? And that was one of the big arguments, is like, how
how do you find twelve people who don't know this story, especially when it's
in the hometown and involves one of the most influential figures of that town.
Right of course everybody knows about it. And also there's been a lot of
documentaries about it. How do you find someone who doesn't have Netflix? So
what is the deal with that? If that's what the defense is kind of
arguing, right, they're like that it's it's bullshit. And in this particular
case, the like the head of the jury, like the clerk of the
court, who you know, you could say, it's almost like a den
mother to the juriors like trying to brings them in and out, and apparently,
according to like documents that were filed, she was essentially she made up
her mind that he did it, and was kind of the whole time just
being like, all right, people, we all know that he did it.
Let's just get up and get home. And you know, whether or
not people believe this woman, they still heard what she had to say,
right, and that's all. It's all influencing the decision that's being made.
Right, they're arguing for like a retrial basically, but again, the same
thing is gonna pop up, like how do you retry this case when even
more people now know this case? I didn't know the story basically, you
know. Yeah, wow, I feel responsible because I've personally like discussed it
with quite a few people. Yeah, but you know, Calen also had
me prepare some some of the true crime stories that I've worked on. Yeah,
tell you guys a little bit about you know, And actually I will
say that this first one that I'll tease a little bit is the season premiere
of this year's Sort and Scale show. So if you have Sword and Scale
plus, the episode just came out on Sunday and if you are on the
main feed, it comes out this Sunday. And this was the story that
I found to be pretty interesting, which is to say that, you know,
when people get old, we just expect that old people are gonna die
one day, and especially if it happens in like a retirement community, somebody
coming home with their groceries and then being found on the floor of their kitchen
with no visible injuries to them and some groceries that are just sitting on the
countertop, everybody just assumes that that old woman had a heart attack or died
like any other kind of senior citizen would go. And this story that I
dove into deals with that exact opening, except that the children noticed in the
days that followed that jewelry was missing from their mom slash grandmother's apartment, including
her wedding ring. And over the course of a couple months, a couple
other elderly women were found dead and again assumed to be of natural causes.
And it wasn't until another woman was attacked by a guy pretending to be like
a compassionate care worker, tried to smother her with a pillow. Oh my
god, survived, and essentially they tried to catch up to this mysterious man.
And as these story unfolds, you find out that he has been doing
this for a very long time. Whoa a lot of elderly women who were
all killed by this guy. Wow, that's diabolical, like really really creepy
stuff. I mean, I got a hand it to him. It's pretty
smart, Like I'm not like taking sides here like that, taking it out,
you know, like no, but it makes sense, like elder like,
you know, don't attack the young, vibrant mom that's at home alone
going for a jog, you know, because then you're it's gonna catch up
to you. Go for the elderly that do it. The old ticker's got
to go sometime. Well. They actually have like footage from the Walmart parking
lot and this dude would just star his car and just park his car with
a view of the handicap spots and he'd like follow them in and like,
oh man, let me help you with the car. Oh let me help
you. And you could just watch this guy just in the background just silently
following these women all over Walmart. It really makes you think, like that
that could be me. You know. It's terrified. But he didn't try
to kill them at Walmart. He would follow follow them other home, wow,
and then and then try to smother them with a pillow. So to
people's house, to their house, or to like retirement retire nursing homes,
so nursing home. So there's a whole other layer to the story of people
who work in these retirement communities that see this guy loitering around and they don't
do anything about it because they just aren't thinking that he's really a danger.
They're thinking, Oh, how nice, Gladys has a visitor. She hasn't
had many visitors. That's all right, So that's that's that's the newest and
Scale. I have a question. So when you're looking for these stories,
you gotta you you want to find the stories that have good audio, Like
have that have the audio from the interrogation? Is that always like you look
for or video, So it's not just a story, it's got the you
can hear the interrogation. That's sort of the hook of Sword and Scale is
that, you know, we fill out the Freedom of Information Act requests and
we actually track and get the audio from the stories themselves. But there is
another variation of the show that recently came out called Sword and Scale Nightmares,
and rather than being hour long episodes with all of the audio, they're half
hour episodes and it's just narration. It's just a story. So what that
means is that now I can do cases that don't have incredible audio okay,
crazy stories from really any point in time, which is a good transition for
another story that I like. Yes please as we're delighted episode great skill,
dream come true? What are you doing next Monday? This is so old
old school for us. Yes, okay, go Matt, go okay.
So this is on the Sword and Scale Nightmares feed. This is one of
it's weird to say my favorite episodees because it's such a fucked up story,
but it's a good one. Yeah, yes episode here and said that we
you know Matt does these all the time, and on the water cooler we
always he's always like kind of talking about his cases and he gets so excited,
like horrible, horrific nightmare cases and his face gets all giddy. We
always make fun of him for like Jesus man, calm down, there's I
know I remember, like I remember specifically talking to you at the warehouse like
years ago and I'm like, I need something to listen to, and You're
like, do you like true crime? And I was like yes, I
was like done and done. And that's what started me on the true Crime
like podcast because there's so many other good ones. Okay, so go ahead,
go ahead, I was gonna say, speaking of of the show that
we do with Kalin, you know, he has a pond Pond clean business,
but there have been casualties, and he therefore has his own segment called
Sword in Scales some really nasty fish murders you don't even want to bike.
I think there's been one or two fc old Patreon episodes where I've been the
various investigations that have gone on in my poor Sword and Scale nightmares story.
It's called going for a Spin. And this is going back to the seventies,
all right, nineteen seventy six, that's my ali. Yes, sorry,
Well, as the country was celebrating its bi centennial, a bunch of
people got together and made a thousands of mile long bicycle path and it was
called Bike Centennial seventy six. It was a very successful event, people riding
on their bikes from Oregon to Boston or something on the office. Remember that
where was the bike? How did the bike trail go? Was? From
what state to It starts and start in Oregon. I honestly can't remember which
one it goes to because the people in the story don't get very far.
Okay, oh, but essentially nineteen seventy six, big successful year. There
was a guidebook. And in nineteen seventy seven, these two college sorority sisters,
I don't know what they were in a sorority together, but these two
friends from college, they decide, with limited experience, that they are going
to take this bicycle trip together. It's months long camping, you know,
but you're getting to see nature. You go through ten different states, and
it was just sort of like this romantic idea to just have the open road
ahead of you. So these two like nineteen year old girls, they're on
this path, starting in Oregon. They're going to go east and they meet
up with this married couple who are clearly like much more experienced bikers than they
are. And after about a week it's obvious that the two girls are holding
this couple. So the married couple says, listen, we're just gonna We're
just gonna go separate ways. They go twenty miles, and the two girls
have their little guidebook and they see that about fifteen miles, which is a
lot easier for them to do, there is an overnight park called Climb Falls
State Park, and they take the track to climb Fall State Park. And
when they get there, they find out that it's for day use only.
You're not supposed to spend the night there. Their guidebook was rocked on.
But now it's too late and it's getting dark, yeah, and so the
two of them decide to set up a tent and stay the night by this
river. And in the middle of the night, a truck comes burning into
their tent, pins down one of the two girls. She while she's pinned
under this truck, here's her friend and this like thumping, nasty, gashing
sound. And the woman who's pinned under the truck suddenly feels relieved. The
truck has moved away from her. And then she hears the footsteps of a
guy approaching and he stands over her with an axe in his hands, and
she cannot remember his face. All she can remember was that he was a
handsome cowboy and she begs for her his begs for her life, and he
walks away, and let's wow. She goes up to her friend, who's
been struck in the head several times with an axe, but miraculously, another
car has come into the over the day park campsite and manages to get the
two of them to a hospital. The woman who was struck in the head
makes it through, but she has no memory of what happened, and the
woman who was pinned by the car, who begged for her life, she
remembers everything except for who did it, what this guy actually looked like,
and a like five foot six child molester kind of guy who's in prison admits
of the crime, but it is not the guy that she remembers. She
remembers like a handsome cowboy. Now, this case is never prosecuted, cold
case, no suspects, no clues, nothing. This woman, by the
way, imagine your memory of somebody who just like tried to murder your friend
and you is that he's handsome? Yeah, I mean he wasn't half bad
looking, you know. Okay? Sorry. Fifteen years go by and this
woman has been battling some like psychological issues, as you can imagine, and
she decides that she's going to go back to Oregon. And solve the case
herself, and she wrote an incredible memoir where she basically does just that,
and I essentially adapted her book into the episode of This Sword and Skill mas.
Yow. That's great. So they found the guy. It's I want
to kind of tease it a little so that I don't give away necessarily everything,
but I will say that it's it is a somewhat satisfying ending in that
it kind of goes back to what we're all talking about, which is it
really does seem like that's the guy. That they did find the guy,
but there's also parts of the whole case that you just kind of never know.
But it's truly like a real life, you know, campfire axe,
murderer in the woods kind of ghost story, but it's a real story,
and he's doing an incrediblory of like survival of this one woman too. I'm
gonna ask you, you guys a question, why do you think it is
like this is just never the other way around? There are never like,
oh, a guy decides to like go on a hike by himself and just
gets murdered by some random woman with an AX, Like it just doesn't it's
always women alone like what is that bloodthirst that men have to go and like
rape and murder women the second they're alone, Like it's crazy to me that
there are so many bad men that women can't be in a stairwell alone,
Like if you're just walking down the street atlone alone at night, like your
game for gott to learn some guy and murder you. But like it scares
me that you can't think about going. I mean that no woman would ever
go camping by herself or with a girlfriend somewhere remote by themselves because for fear
not of like being killed by a bear, but of some guy going,
oh, good women alone, let me rape and kill them, Like why
is that? I don't know. And actually there was another point of the
story early on when the two girls before they went on this on the bike
ride, they're just like practicing doing a bike ride somewhere else, and they
had set up their tent and at the campsite there was like a creepy dude
who is just kind of just making like dick jokes and being a little bit
like too uncomfortably flirty with them, And one of the girls had this idea
that we should turn the tent around so that you would think the opening of
the tent would be facing the river or facing the rest of the campers,
but we're gonna put the opening on the other side. And sure enough,
that night, while they're falling asleep, they saw handprints on the side of
their tent where the zipper would normally be of this dude trying to get into
their tent. Oh my god, these girls have bad luck at camp site.
Yeah, it's not bad luck, it's bad men. It's crazy.
No, but I think I mean, obviously like a size and strength thing,
it's you know, it's fucked up. It's really fucked up. Just
sad crime stories of crazy women, but not like that, not in the
same way did the women all like every episode of Snapped or whatever. Women
kill their husbands, they kill uh you know, their their lovers, their
rival for their lover, the other woman. They kill family members, they
kill their you know, brother. I mean, they're abusive uncle. But
women are not. There's there aren't sexual crimes. They're just random trying to
attack a guy and have sex with them. Yeah. Well, let's take
a quick let's take a break, and let's get back to some other stories
on that note. All right, we're back this is the best time ever.
I know, I know, Matt, do you have one mark?
Well, just really quickly, I wanted to ask Matt, like, where
did you find that you said she wrote a book? Are you like,
do you is that just research? Oh, here's a true crime book.
Did you read the book? Did you then look into like if that story
had been told, Like, how exactly does that develop into an episode?
Yeah? Great question. I generally am looking for I start with just a
kernel of an idea, and then I want to see if there is a
story that's kind of like that. So, for example, this is a
story I remember when I was a kid. This is a quick side note.
When I was a little kid, my family and I went to Yosemi
and when we got there, I went to the hotel. I turned on
the TV and there was a news flash about an axe murderer that just murdered
a scientist living in Yosemite. And that night, my dad, not really
knowing or giving a shit, was like, let's take a walk around the
campgro walk around the hotel at nighttime, and I was like having a fucking
heart attack. So that has always stayed with me. Now that story has
been covered, I ended up finding. I was going to cover it,
and then I saw that there's like a Hulu docu series that's about that case.
But when I was typing in Axe Murderer Campsite, I stumbled across this
other story and I just saw like a little headline about what's called the Kleine
Falls axe attack, and I was like, oh, that sounds kind of
interesting, and so from there I had like Wikipedia, Google search that and
then eventually found all this woman wrote a book about it, and then it
just kind of goes from there. Some of the sword and scale ones where
you need the audio. I'm honestly just looking at YouTube for cases that are
online that have audio. That's really like a good study point. But if
you put in your Google search, I'm just kidding, there's an FBI right
now. Search is insane, It really is. I mean it just depends.
Like I said, like Ax Murderer Campsite, that would definitely be one
I wanted to do a story about, like an exorcism. I feel like
there's gotta be like murders that involve exorcism. There's a really famous one that
they turn into a movie. But I found a truly horrifying story about a
priest who killed a baby because he was trying to perform an exorcism and it's
so messed up. But then my Google search becomes all about the details of
that case to try to find reliable news sources and contacts. Right wow,
So anyway, you know, and I don't know if that answers your question,
what's your algorithm? Like, like, what kind of videos are popping
up on your all? Like true crime? Yes, in fact, they
recall on an episode of Water Cooler, I try to share some video on
YouTube and you guys all saw like similar videos or videos I've been looking at
on the right hand side, and it was it was disturbing a lot of
uh yeah, like pedophile and stuff like that too. Like yeah, I
mean occasionally I've I have covered stories like that. I mean, to me,
I'm obviously we're looking for stories that are about the darkest parts of humanity,
but I my interests are more in the kind of slasher horror movie adjacent
kind of stories, right right. You know, some of the other writers
can really really get into like the true horrors of you know, interpersonal relationships
and things like that, which I've done some stories like that, but you're
too nice for that kind of stuff. You want to keep it more slasher,
more axe murdery. Yeah, I get it. I just I got
to compartmentalize a little bit. I become like a temporary expert. Like as
I've been retelling you these stories today, like I've got a bunch of notes
in front of me, like I had to go back can read what I
wrote, because once I've turned in an episode, I want that ship out
of my head. It's funny that you say that, because way back in
the day, I remember filling in for you on like doing a sword and
scale covering some case, and you were like, you're out of town and
something, Hey can you just you know, look up the details of this
and kind of, you know, host this episode. And I remember it
was a case that they kind of made a horror movie about called Don't Breathe,
where like these teenagers break into this guy's house and they go into his
basement and then he kills them. Yeah, the famous one. Yeah.
And then I just remember it and there's literally audio of this guy like killing
these teenagers in his baby. I can remember to this day. It's so
horrible. It's just one one still gives me chills, like just thinking about
that one episode that's the Castle Defense or whatever. Mm hmm, that's right,
stand your ground, yes, so let me do Let me do one
more for you guys. Yes, and this is this is one that has
not come out yet. I've turned it in. It's probably gonna come out
later in the summer or something. I don't know. There's a bunch of
great episodes, so I was trying to yeah, oh yeah, this the
show's been plotted out. He's got a lot of really he just real quick,
how long does it take to cover to write it? To do one
story? I mean, it takes me. It takes me a couple months
of work, you know, probably you know, forty to sixty hours of
research before I even start outlining. You know, I will say it used
to take me a little bit longer because I used to when I would help
build the episodes out, I would do a lot of like music and things
like that. But the process behind the scenes has changed a little bit.
It's a little easier to kind of submit stories without having to do a bunch
of post production work on them. But I would say I checked, I'm
averaging about five stories a year, which is not prolific compared to some of
the other people who do this work. Does that include the nightmare ones too
though, Yeah, yeah, that includes those, and those are a little
bit shorter, not as much you know, research ahead of time. Some
of the ones with like the big trials, I have to watch every second
of the trial to try to see what, to me is actually important to
the story and how to really tell it anyway, Okay, share one more,
one more for you guys. My goal for this story was to do
what Jaws did for the ocean. I want to do that for ride sharing
service. Oh no, oh, go on, keep in mind we have
teenagers that take well a little bit. So this is a story from actually
just a couple of years ago, twenty nineteen in downtown Columbia, South Carolina,
really famous bar district called Five Points, sort of like I don't know,
Sunset of Art herself. It's just like a lot of stuff happening down
there. And this, uh, these college girls are celebrating the end of
their senior year, about to you know, have the greatest time of their
life. And this girl or named Samantha Josephson, Uh, she was out
partying with her French She wanted her boyfriend to come and visit, but he
was going to be visiting the following weekend. It was a long distance relationship,
and so he's like, I'm not gonna be able to come out tonight,
but you know, you should go out and have a good time with
your friends. And she's got a lot on her mind, some personal things
with her family, and ultimately she decides she is going to go home for
the night, and so she calls her boyfriend as she's waiting for an Uber
and she finally sees the car they's supposed to take her home. She gets
into the car, she's hung up with her boyfriend by now, and uh
on security camera, the car drives away, and this is the last time
that this girl has ever seen again, because it turns out it was not
an Uber driver. It was a guy kind of stalking the downtown area and
saw a confused girl and he was so excited that his car literally jumps the
curb as it's creening into the parking spot in front of her. But she's
so distracted that she just gets into the car. And he had child safety
locks that prevented her from even rolling the windows down. And I don't want
to say what happened to her, but it not good. Let's just say
that, and this guy is so guilty, so so guilty. But the
security footage only captured the car and you could not tell who was driving the
car. And so bringing this all full circle to the beginning of our conversation
today, the defense in this particular case is fascinating as they try to explain
how somebody dressed It's like, our guy wearing his clothing took his car and
committed this act and brought the car back to him, and there's no way
that it could be our guy. And like we were saying at the beginning,
just somebody who's so obviously guilty, forcing everybody to relive this because they
are just claiming innocence in the face of complete absurdity. So anyway, it
is fascinating story case that started to say my name law that is correct,
that is the very one exactly what's my name is what the family of the
victim essentially said, like before you get into a car, you just need
to ask what's my name and they should be able to know your name otherwise
it's not your driver. And they're also responsible. You'll notice now that ride
sharing services have big light up displays of the Uber logo or the lift logo,
and that's another part of the legislation that this family unfortunately had to try
to bring to light. Yeah. I remember that was a horrible story.
Right. That guy's in jail, right, Yeah, he's in jail.
Yeah, he is in jail. But if you are not familiar with it,
later the summer, it'll be a sword and skill. Wow, maybe
look careful with this ride shares. I'm so I'm so proud of you.
I'm like, you're doing the Lord's work. Thank you. Yes, researching
serial killers is most certainly what the Lord intended, right, And how's the
wife. She's doing great. You know she's been she's a production accountant on
The Bachelor, the Bachelorette. Oh she is. Yeah, she's been doing
that for a long time now, so she's doing real well. We got
a we got a puppy about a year ago. The dogs ten weeks old,
so now she's one years old. And that has been it's like a
Collie cattle mix. We're not exactly sure. Yeah, but she's like thirty
five forty pounds. Her name's Tiki, and uh yeah, we still have
taco. So we got Tiki talk and taco. That's so cute. Yeah.
So we've just been, you know, taking her to dog training classes
and there's a really cool awf Leash dog park that we go to with her
all the time. And that's honestly been like a bulk of my days when
I'm not writing or working, is just just trying to keep this little one
year old ball of energy under control. So yeah, I'm so proud of
you and I'm so happy for you. Thank you for coming, yes please
and like come again soon and we love talking to you. Yeah, when
does the episode? Like how what's the schedule of which show episode? They're
They're all just kind of random. So the presumption that show drops every Tuesday,
and I am on air for that show as well, if you like
the Centema voice. Also, as mentioned, the water cooler, Me and
my Boys, my Pearl digital buds. We've been doing that for over a
decade at this point. That's twice a week, not necessarily the same days
every week, but generally like Tuesday Thursday. We do moving and things like
that as well. People, and then lastly, yeah, sword and Scale
and Sword and Scale nightmares those it's pretty periodical. They're like once every two
weeks pretty much, unless you're a Premium member and then it's every week.
But like I said, there's a number of mine. I have about twenty
five stories that are out there for people to check out. And how do
they know if it's your story? Does it say it in like the show
discribed? Don't? Okay, there's just no way. But wait wait if
you if you follow Matt on Facebook, don't you post? Yeah? Follow
on Twitter, I've put out from time to time. People ask me and
I'll tweet out like episode numbers and things like that for people who want to
hear. So I'm also on Twitter for x rather okay, Matt fondlier.
Oh Matt, thank you so much. I love you so much and see
this is awesome. Please come again and give my love to the wife and
I absolutely will. All right, thanks many here, guys. All right,
everybody, thanks for listening. All right, check out. Let it ain't go