Speaker 1: Hey, you can find all of my podcasts in one location,
all seventeen of them.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: I love the platforms that have been available all these years,
but it's now time to centralize it Aero dot net,
a r r E dot net And thank you so
much for your support for all these years. Oh the
two of you guys. What an amazing podcast. In the
way of understanding, I don't know, there's just a it
opened up my heart, my eyes, my emotions because when
I heard of the peace Maker, and it's one of
those where I'm going, well, wait a second, that's what
I study. I study peace I study this. But then
we see a different side of this story because you
guys went in and did the homework.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you for your interest. It's this crazy
story of this suicide cluster at a prestigious Missouri college
and it takes place at a fraternity called Alpha kapaal
Anda and one school year, one fraternity member after another
started killing themselves and they all had connections to the
same guy. They were all super close with the same
guy called Brandon Grossheim.
Speaker 1: So right away, I mean, I'm going to tell you
how I felt, and when I was going into each episode,
I felt like, is this a cult? Is this guy
controlling people's minds? What is going on here? To where
it's happening? And so the mystery that you guys put
into this, I think it's the glue that keeps us
all going to the next episode. I got to hear more,
give me more, I gotta have it.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you feel that way, because I know we
felt that way whenever we were making this thing, just
we had we always wanted to talk to that next person,
get that next interview, find out that next piece of
the puzzle, and what a complicated puzzle it is.
Speaker 4: And I mean, yeah, in.
Speaker 2: Some ways you just can't even believe the story given
the fact that you know, these were kind of well
to do kids.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, came from good.
Speaker 2: Fan and write this prestigious university and you know you're
not the first person to draw, you know, the parallel
to to a cult here. While obviously the fraternity was
not a cult, there is maybe, at least in some
people's minds, a similarity where I think it's kind of
well known that the cult leaders prey on people's vulnerabilities.
Maybe there their sense of community, that sort of thing, companionship,
and the people who think that Brandon Grossheim has some
serious explaining to do. They accused him of similar things,
kind of seeking out vulnerable people, praying on those vulnerabilities,
and you know, sort of turning their close relationship into
something pretty twisted.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: I had a WTF moment though, when I heard that that,
you know, that Jake's girlfriend was now at the side
of Brandon. I'm going, what what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: This?
Speaker 1: This came from Adam left Field.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this guy, Brandon Grossheim, is being sued by some
of the parents of the victims for encouraging allegedly their
sons to kill themselves. And this is one of the
details that they bring up. They said, not only did
he date the girlfriend of the second suicide victim, but
he dated girlfriends of other suicide victims as well. You know,
it's almost like some guys have a type, you know,
some guys like blonde, some guys like brunettes, and this
guy seemed to like dating girlfriends of suicide victims.
Speaker 1: Mmmmmmm. One of the things that I that I put
in my notes in experiencing the podcast, and it is
experiencing it. It's not listening to it. It's physically experiencing it,
because that's the kind of emotion that you put into it.
The depth of this story, it's going to put people
in a cavern of multiple questions as well as fear
you are affecting us on this side of that speaker.
Speaker 2: And I'm so glad to hear you say that, because
that's definitely something we were shooting for. This is a complicated,
sorts of nuanced story, and I know maybe the central
question at its core is what is Brandon Grosstheim's palpability here?
Speaker 4: And for me, with the cavern I.
Speaker 2: Kept finding myself in was you know, some days I
would think, oh my god, this guy needs to be
locked up. Other times I'd be more sympathetic to him
and thinking, man, this guy's just profoundly unlucky to keep
having people close to him to take their own lives.
And some days, whenever we were working on this thing,
you know, I'd alternate back and forth in the course
of one day, in the course of one eight hour workday.
So I really hope that people, you know, who are
listening to these eight episodes, they'll have their own kind
of journeys going back and forth. And we really try
to embrace all angles of this thing, give everyone a
fair hearing. We're not trying to tell a simple, simple story.
We understand this is complicated, and we're trying to just
lay it all out, as you know, as an intriguing
way as possible.
Speaker 1: You said one of my favorite words, complicated. Now, I
want to see your guys's notes. I want to see
what you guys put on paper on that yellow tablet probably,
And you were trying to build this story, and it
was like, okay, are we doing this in chronological order?
What are we going to do? How can we put
it in here? Because I would love to see how
you built this podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well there are there are actually five victims in
this story. That's a little bit of a spoiler because
the last victim was actually not a traditional suicide. In fact,
she pretty much drank herself to dat and the last
person she saw before she died, like minutes before she
died was you can probably guess by now, this guy,
Brandon gross High. And so how did these stories all
tie together? That was kind of the central storytelling part
of it that we wanted to figure out what was
motivating him and how did this all happen?
Speaker 1: I'll tell you where I freaked out. He wouldn't touch
that second body. It was too stiff. I'm going that's
kind of a bullshit answer. What are you talking about here, dude?
I mean, what do you mean it was? I mean,
what would you guys have done? Would you've taken the
body down?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I don't. That is such a good question.
Speaker 2: And so many times, you know, I wondered myself, what
would I do in this situation?
Speaker 4: What would I do in that situation?
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things that really makes
this up an experience, like you said, rather than something
you just listened to, is we were very lucky from
a reporting perspective in that the we were able to
get the audio from the bodycams of the police officers
who again and again kept responding to this one fraternity
house every time someone took their own life. So we
kind of using that audio from bodycams that was capturing
the exact moments after these things happened, plus interviews with
people kind of reflecting with a little bit of hindsight,
we are really, you know, trying to put people at
this fraternity house as these events are unfolding, and rah
for me and I hope for listeners, it does spark
that question of you know, we're putting you in this position.
We're kind of making you like you're in this space
and time what we do. So that's exactly I'm so
glad to hear you say that, because that's exactly what
we were hoping listeners and viewers would get out of this.
Speaker 1: Well, that bodycm sound, that to me added a texture
to your podcast which made it unique in its own right.
And I'll tell you what, I paid such close attention
to it because those microphones will pick up everything. So
I was listening to the background, I was listening to
the people talking, I was listening the way people were moving.
So it really does work in the way of painting
that picture for listeners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm so glad to hear Curious say that.
Speaker 2: And Yeah, the kind of quirk here, I guess you
could say is I do a lot of reporting just
as a kind of day to day basis, and so
often you want to get a hold of records from
law enforcement and the courts, but they can't release things
like bodycam audio because there's a pending criminal investigation. In
this case, the criminal investigation is all wrapped up and
it's really just there's one mother who the one of
the sons who took his own life. She's leading this
civil action against Brandon, and she's a big resource for us.
We interview her quite a bit as part of the podcast.
And it's because there was no criminal liability anymore. It's
just a matter of this guy going to trial on
a civil basis. That there was kind of an unusual
amount of material that was opened via Missouri's public record laws,
and we really, I hope, made the most of it
in order to kind of create this unique listening experience.
Speaker 1: So what would you have done if you would have
been one of the students on the campus and here
comes Brandon wearing Jake's clothes. You see how this emotionally
gets to me. He's wearing Jake's clothes.
Speaker 5: Dude, Yeah, I think I would have done what the
fraternity ended up doing, which is about half row through
the academic year that this all took place.
Speaker 2: They basically booted Brandon out of the fraternity and he
had he lived.
Speaker 4: Still in Kirksville near.
Speaker 2: Campus, that in an apartment complex. And you know, this
is just where it gets hard to believe and just
even more tragic, But there were two more deaths, including
the one that Ben mentioned about the young woman who
basically drank herself to death at that apartment complex where
Brandon moves into. So it's just even after the fraternity
kind of got rid of this guy, just tragedy and
death continued to follow him.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Ben West and
Ryan Kroll coming up next, the name of the podcast
The Peacemaker. We are back with Ben West and Ryan
Kroll as the journalist as the producer. How did you
locate balance in this storyline? Because it can go in
any direction, and when you're talking about suicide those of
us on this side as well as that campus, that
gets inside the head and heart and can actually poison us.
But I don't feel that in this podcast.
Speaker 4: Oh I'm so glad to hear you say that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we're definitely, like, you know, we wanted to
tell the story from all sides. But then yeah, we're
also are cognizant of this phenomenon of suicide clusters. And
this is the case where reporting on suicide can actually
lead additional people to take their their their own lives.
Speaker 4: There can be a contagion effect.
Speaker 2: So we wanted to be you know, extra responsible and
how we were reporting the story, and we include a
lot of resources about what to do if you yourself
were experiencing suicidal ideation or a loved one.
Speaker 4: Is And because exactly to your point, we didn't want to.
Speaker 2: Romanticize glorify suicide in any way, shape or form. So
that was kind of a prime directive for us from
the get go was how can we tell this story
about suicide cluster and contagion without being a vector for
its spread. And you know, we didn't just trust ourselves
for that. We talked to a lot of suicide prevention
experts through in the podcast. They kind of gave us
some guidance on how to report this, and I think
the podcast is much much better for it.
Speaker 1: How did Josh Thomas find it in his heart to
trust Brandon, Because I mean, I mean, if you if
you've got a lot of stuff that's going down and
and fingers are being pointed somewhere, it's like Josh still
hung in there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is that is a great question.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, he was the third fraternity member to take
his own life, and that was in the this that
was in the spring. Whereas his his two fraternity brothers
had already taken their own life and the fall, the
previous fall, So that that is a great question, and
you know, you sort of wonder, Yeah, with the benefit
of hindsight, how could this guy open up and connect
with with Brandon and the way that he did. I guess,
I guess I would just say that you know that
that fraternity connection, I mean, they call it a brotherhood
for a reason, right, Like, it's it's a very close connection,
it's a close bond. And he would have been someone
who knew Brandon before those two guys took their own life,
before Brandon kind of got this reputation.
Speaker 4: So I think it's, you know, kind of you can't put.
Speaker 2: Yourself in his shoes and see how Jake might have
confided in him. And also kind of one of the
things that we kept hearing about whenever we were trying
to better understand Brandon, people who knew him told us this.
They said, you know, he sort of sought out people
who were in states of crisis, people who were depressed,
who were kind of going through it, you know.
Speaker 4: So it seems very very.
Speaker 2: Likely that he would have sought out Jake in that
exact I'm sorry, Josh in that exact in that exact instance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, here's here's the thing, dude, is
that I I don't. I think it's because I would
say that I'm a people watcher or a silent wolf.
I can spot somebody who was down in a heartbeat.
But this podcast is going to change me because I'm
not going to go see I'm the solution maker or
the peacemaker. But god dang, this guy could spot him
in a heartbeat. And it's like, okay, so where are
we going with this than mister Brandon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So he that was the nickname he gave himself was
the peace Maker because you know, he's basically to kind
of paraphrase, you know, he's with someone who fancied himself
like a you know, a guidance council and amateur psychologists
that kind of thing, and he thought he could bring
peace to people who are going through turmoil. And yeah,
he really I think, you know, we have a line
in the podcast. He kind of ran towards other people's
affliction the way that some people who fancy themselves heroes
might run towards the burning house. Right.
Speaker 4: He sort of saw there was this problem, and I.
Speaker 2: Think people who maybe want to go to him the
benefit of the doubt might say that he thought like
he was the man to solve it, right, he thought
he had the answers. But clearly you have to it's
pretty plain that was not the case, given the fact
that these guys all took their own lives. So we
don't know exactly in every instance what he said to
these young men, but I mean, holy smokes, like the
outcome is just the worst of the worst that they
ended up ending it all.
Speaker 1: And my heart is still flooded with so many deep
quoesquestions in the way of wanting to know why isn't
Brandon considered to be a serial killer, probably because he
didn't do the actual killing. And number two, why is
nobody brought up why isn't anybody brought up doctor Kvorkian
Because he sat with people too, And it's like, because
I'm trying to figure out is Brandon a good guy
here or a bad guy? And oh my god, am
I going to court for saying that?
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, I see what you're saying. So yeah, the
Kavorkian angle is an interesting one, and he was like
kind of a reference point for Ben and I whenever
we were really right in the same Yeah. Yeah, But
I think the key sort of difference here. I don't
pretend to be an expert on doctor Kiborkian, but you
know he was he was working with people who who
you know, had terminal illness, who wanted to in their
own life, and it was kind of a more uh,
you know, measured considered act. As strange as that it
is to say about suicide was in the case of
these young people at this university. I mean, they were
in many cases depressed or had other kind of mental
health issues. But you know, those are temporary problems that
can be solved. You know, suicide is a permanent act.
So it's it's just not the way to go under
any circumstance for someone who is, you know, struggling with depression,
that sort of thing. So I get the Kavorkian angle
for sure, but kind of give you a little bit
if you look at a little more complicated to use
that word again, those are those are just these are
just totally different circumstances.
Speaker 1: So when when you went into this project, did you
already know that he stole the money and drugs and
the thing or did that come to you is a
oh my god, WTF moment.
Speaker 6: That's a great question, is this It can be the
difficult to remember which you learned when a lot of
the initial facts of this case were in this lawsuit
that was filed by the parents of some of the victims,
the suicide victims against Brandon Grossheim.
Speaker 4: I don't know that.
Speaker 2: I can't remember exactly if I believe that the idea
that he took things was something that that we came
from interviews we did with fraternity members. The detail about
wearing the clothes of the victims was in that initial lawsuit.
But really, I mean, anytime you read a lawsuit, it's
just it's usually kind of bare bones information, that sort
of thing.
Speaker 4: There's not a lot of detail. And yeah, we've had
a lot of you know, holy cow moments.
Speaker 2: Whenever we really started talking to the people who were
there at the time and were sort of attendant, you know,
witnesses as all of this was going down. I think
the one thing that really kind of sticks with me
was Ben did this great interview with a woman who
was at Truman Stand at the time, who knew a
lot of these people knew branded and She said that
she heard that Brandon actually texted instructions on how to
tie in noose some of these young men. And that
is just like a very visceral detail that it just
you know, has stuck with me every day ever since
I learned about it.
Speaker 4: And I should say that this was just that's what
she says.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't have that text message, but I mean,
but that's something that you know has really stuck with me.
Speaker 1: See, that's the kind of stuff that I will not
watch it on YouTube. I don't need to learn how
to do anything like that because I and then for
him to do that, it's like, dude, you stepped over
across that line. Now what's next. It's almost like you
gave me an invitation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And that's that's the poor opposite of what you want
to do. Whenever someone is expressing, you know, thoughts of
suicide that sort of thing, you want to you know,
redirect them towards resources. You don't want to be a
resource of how to kill yourself. I mean that should
go without saying, but clearly, you know it does need
to be said.
Speaker 1: You your journalism is just mind blowing to me because
you got you guys understand it. You you physically have
got to be able to see who your listeners are.
And I can feel that you do what what is
your next project? Because you can't be stopping at this one.
You're too damn good at what you do.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you saying that, and yeah, we are
thinking about what we want to do next. One idea
that we been bouncing around is in my and Ben's
hometown of Saint Louis, there was this cult that was
occupying really high end real estates in the suburbs, and
they've now been indicted on forced labor conspiracy for forcing
people to work ellish hours at a sort of holy
hall center, calling up people getting them to donations, to
getting them to give donations to a fake church. And
it's just a fascinating story for a lot of reasons,
one of which is that one of the mansions they
occupied was sort of famous locally because it used to
belong to the rapper Nelly.
Speaker 4: So it's a totally different story.
Speaker 2: But I think to your previous point, it has to
do with someone praying on other people's vulnerabilities, other.
Speaker 4: People's desire for a sense of community.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we are looking into that to kind of
explore how this cult, which by all accounts lasted for
about eighteen years from its inception, how it got so
big it generated over fifty million dollars occupied, Like I said,
a lot of these this high end real estate in
Saint Louis and elsewhere. So we're really kind of curious to,
you know, exploring the why and the how of that.
Speaker 1: Wow, you've got to come back to this show when
that happens, because I want to continue having a conversation
with you. Dude.
Speaker 4: Hey, right, I appreciate it, so appreciate that.
Speaker 2: And yeah, whenever that thing comes out, you'll be you'll
be our first stop.
Speaker 1: Axel, will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 4: Okay, hey, yeah, you did the same. It was great
talking to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. God, damn, that's fucking scary shit. Go on,
stop