Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm
Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by Nina Instead, host
of the hit podcast Already Gone. Nina, thank you for
joining us today, Thank you for having me. Happy to
be here.
Speaker 2: I want your voice, but I you have such a
gorgeous voice.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: People have said this before. I know.
Speaker 5: Yes, I get a lot of feedback on my voice
and people think it's how do I put it? Not appropriate?
For a true crime podcast.
Speaker 3: Why, I don't know, little too, Silk Tree. Yeah, you
know what you could do audio books for a living
honest to goodness or voice really good.
Speaker 2: Or voiceover or all the above.
Speaker 5: Would love to all right, maybe something?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Free time?
Speaker 3: Seriously, between all the work that you do, I need
to start by telling us about your podcast. Please.
Speaker 5: I host Already Gone, which is a true crime podcast
focused on Michigan and the Great Lakes region. The podcast
goes back to twenty sixteen, so if you're in there's
a nice big back catalog to dive into when I'm
not working on the podcast. I am a certified victim's
advocate and a missing person's advocate with a Missing in
Michigan organization.
Speaker 3: That actually was more perfect of an introduction than I
could have possibly given. Can you give us a little
bit more information though about Missing in Michigan? What drew
you to it? First of all? And then what do
you what's a typical day like for you at Missing
in Michigan.
Speaker 5: So I initially joined the Missing in Michigan Facebook group
because I had started the podcast and I was looking
for material. I was looking for cases to cover. As
time went on, I started helping Mary Cross, who ran
the group for Sarah Krebbs. Sarah works as for the
Michigan State Police. She's an inspector, but she does the
Missing in Michigan group on the side. I was helping Mary.
She made me an administrator of the site, so I
was co running the site with her. And then Mary
died unexpectedly in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: And it was really hard because I had just lost
my father a few weeks earlier, like in middle May,
and then at the beginning of June, Mary passed away
and we were planning this move to Atlanta at the time.
I just realized that if I didn't step up for
Missing in Michigan for the online portion of the organization,
the group would go away. And the group is a
huge resource for families of newly missing and long term missing.
So I wanted to keep it going. So I said,
you know what, I can do this online work remotely
from Georgia, and that's what I did.
Speaker 3: I stepped up.
Speaker 5: I kept the group going, and we actually grew and
expanded the group. It's over one hundred and thirty thousand
people at this point.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: It's amazing to have. That's pretty cool. A large base
of people helping and following.
Speaker 5: Yes, we really work hard to be a good community
member and a good support. Like I said, families of
the newly missing and the long term missing.
Speaker 2: You're now moving back to Michigan from Atlanta.
Speaker 5: Yes, that is the plan. Hopefully by the end of
this year. I will be back in the Detroit area.
Speaker 2: Oh that's fantastic, Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm excited. So we wanted to bring you on today, Nina,
to talk about an issue that is appearing with increasing
frequency in groups like Missing in Michigan, which is the
issue of scam or fake missing posters. Can you start
us off by talking about why anyone would even want
to create a fake poster or a scam poster? And
I think you've probably got a better resp on the
vocabulary than we do. I don't know what you'd like
to call it, but I've just been calling it scam posters.
Why would anybody want to do this?
Speaker 5: So they're definitely scams, and they're super frustrating for the
community because nobody wants to be tricked. And what these
scammers do They create a fake post on social media
and they'll say something like flood your feeds missing child
or missing scen and it's this cute kid with freckles
that looks so wholesome and that they're missing from this
generic community. Like they'll give you a city name, like
maybe Taylor. Contact local police if you hear anything, but
there's no phone number, there's nobody to contact. And then
the post gets shared widely, and then within a day
or two, the post changes and it's no longer this
cute missing child or this friendly looking missing senior.
Speaker 3: It's a house.
Speaker 5: That's for sale or rent, or it's a property an
apartment that's available, or it's a cleaning crew that'll come
to your home for a price. So they create the
fake scammy posts to get it widely shared, and once
it's widely shared, they change it.
Speaker 2: When they make the change to whatever it is they're selling.
How is it that information ends up and all the
other places where it was shared. If you change the
original content, does the share content also change?
Speaker 5: Yes? And that's how just how posting on Facebook works.
And as a missing person's advocate, I'm grateful for that
because when I post someone who's missing, if I find them,
I can then go back and edit the post to say, Hey,
good news, we found this person. Right, so all of
the shared posts now reflect the good news that the
person was located, but it also can reflect the really
crummy news that they've got a condo for rent.
Speaker 2: I've never heard of this before. I've certainly seen my
share of missing person's notifications, and I have seen found,
which is always happy news hopefully, and then sometimes you
get the very sad news if someone's found deceased. At
the same time, I think it is important to let
people know that someone's been found, even if they are
no longer with us, because people are concerned, and I
think to that extent it's important that the Facebook, for example,
software works this way. I've never seen anybody more a
missing person's poster into some crappy I've got a condo
or I've got a cleaning service scam. But this does happen.
Speaker 5: It does, unfortunately, And there were a few photos that
were making the rounds. I actually have them posted in
the Missing in Michigan group. Hey, this is a fake post,
please don't share it, or they'll share a child that
was missing two or three years ago like it's a
brand new post and it's not. Sharing an old post
of someone that was missing and has been found is
actually super invasive. It invades their privacy, It impacts how
they're living their life these days. Especially if it's a child,
they shouldn't have that following them around.
Speaker 3: Sure, absolutely So then it sounds like the end goal
for someone who's out there creating these scammy posts is
financial gain or is it data mining too, or what
is the end goal behind this? Does it all just
come down to money?
Speaker 5: It all comes down to money, And I think that
a lot of the time, the property that's for rent,
or the cleaning service that's available, or the car detailing
business isn't even real.
Speaker 2: We're both shaking our heads. This whole thing is so maddening.
I wanted to ask Kristen to talk to us a
little bit about the Autumn Cleveland missing person's case, which
is what raised this question and concern for us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the reason that I reached out to
Nina frantically on Wednesday, was because there is a local
case here and this was a friend of a friend,
so not someone I know directly, but we have several
friends in common who had posted on Facebook that her
daughter had gone missing while in Maine. She of course
was very distraught, as any parent would be, and wanted
to get the information out there as quickly as possible,
and so she put together first a post, and then
people in the comments were advising her, here, make an
actual poster. Include this number of photos, put in heightweight,
what she was last wearing, what's the making model of
her car, all of this stuff. You could see this
happening in real time and unfolding, and I was monitoring
the post throughout the day and you could see she
was like, oh, here, I did a poster. Here's the
latest that I have. And then people were advising, here
are some various groups that you could probably post in,
and they were tagging various groups and things like that.
It all looked like this is what you would do
if you were a parent with a missing kid. The
problem came a little bit later in the day when
I had shared the post and people started writing back
to me, I think this is fake, Like why would
you be sharing this? Do you know this person? This
doesn't look real? And I'm sitting there going why would
you think it's fake? Of course it's real. And I
finally had a number of people like actually private message
me and go, I think you posted a scam or
a fake and I'm like, no, no, I didn't, and
I'm trying to explain here's how I know that it's
not fake. And it really just ended up being a
whirlwind for me trying to figure out why do so
many people think that this is a scam? And that
just confounded me. And it did turn out later, unfortunately,
that Autumn was found in Maine. When she was located,
she was already gone, So it did turn out that
this was real, which I knew that it was, but
of course lots of people out across the Internet did
not know that it was real. But I was really
just baffled by this idea of people making scam posts,
and I was very curious about number one, why do
people do this? And also number two, what are the
red flags that would alert to someone, hey.
Speaker 6: This is a scam post. So I definitely want you
to talk about that next, Nina. So, first of all,
I'm sorry about your friend's friend. That's very sad. That's
never the outcome that we want, no, not ever. Unfortunately,
running the Missing and Michigan group, where we put very
prominently in the rules, you.
Speaker 5: Agree to when you join the group that we vet all.
You have no idea how many calls I make to
law enforcement agencies to go, hey, you got a missing person.
I just want to confirm. And people still come into
our group and oh, it's a scam, it's fake, And
I'm like, no, We've got name, age, description, location, last scene,
and police contact information.
Speaker 3: And that's the biggie.
Speaker 5: If you see a post that has a police department
phone number in it, it's real or I'm ninety five
percent sure it's real. The other thing comes from Kansas,
what way was it now, Garden City Police Department in Kansas,
and they put out this great little meme that said
missing person's flyers do not originate in yard sale groups.
When your person goes missing, you don't go to the
yard sale group and post it. You post in a
community group, you post in a neighborhood group, but you
don't post any yard sale group unless you're trying to
sell something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very interesting point. You were telling us
that these posts morph and turn into something else. I
was baffled. We obviously have listeners all over the country
and even all over the world. I noticed our Australian
numbers keep growing for some reason.
Speaker 3: Excellent.
Speaker 2: But you know, because we've covered the Colonial Parkway murders
from the day we started. We have a heavy listenership
in Virginia, and we appreciate that Autumn, who was the
missing person, was a twenty something from Virginia. But there
was something about the fact that Autumn had traveled to Maimee,
which she had done, that somehow threw people off, and
Kristin and I were was looking at each other going
people do travel, and actually sometimes when people go missing,
they are en route from one place to another. Some
of it may be escaping their troubles or whatever, or
they could just be on vacation. There's a million reasons
for somebody to hit the road. But something about travel
from her home base of Virginia to Maine, where she
was ultimately found that somehow threw people off.
Speaker 5: Which I find strange because the most well known missing
person's case of the last few years is Gabby Patito
and what was she doing when she went missing.
Speaker 2: She was traveling, traveling with her boyfriend fiance.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, So I don't know why people would be
put off by the information, Like it's not hard to
figure out she went missing. This Virginia native went missing
while visiting Maine. Straightforward, No, it doesn't. It doesn't seem
you would need to think all that hard about it.
But throughout the day I had people sending me messages
friends of mine or friends of friends who were like, Hey,
this post over at this I'm not going to call
out a group name here, okay, but there's a post
over at this prominent Facebook group about a county in
our area. And there's somebody over there stating this looks
like a scampost because she's from here, but they're posting in.
Speaker 3: I was like, where do you get that from? I
don't understand what do you mean. Also later that day,
in the same group, there was one of those posting
from a yard sale group. Here's two pictures of a
random missing kid and a message saying kid was found
at this local police office, please share everywhere. And it
was like, that's a scam, Like how are you not
recognizing that's a scam? And the actual missing person's poster
with information, like you said, from a police department and
all this other information. How were people not getting the
difference between these two And it looked like there were
some people who weren't.
Speaker 5: The other popular scam post is there'll be two pictures
of a purebred dog, maybe it's an Irish Setter, maybe
it's a husky, and it'll say, oh, we found this dog.
They were sick and dehydrated. Does anyone know the owner?
Hashtag city name? And that's another very popular scam post
because the missing person's posts are getting noticed as being fake,
so now they've switched to dogs.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, nothing like tugging at the heartstrings exactly. Can't
be missing people or missing kids. It's going to be
missing cute dogs or fat or found cute dogs.
Speaker 3: Right, So then what are some strategies for reading and
interpreting these posts to determine whether or not they're real
or fake? Because obviously people were taken in by they
sat for a while and thought that maybe autumn stuff
was fake. And then I also saw on the very
obvious scam post there were still plenty of people clicking, sharing, liking, commenting,
and it's like, what kind of primer do we have
to help people understand? Here's how you can tell if
a post is fake or if it's real.
Speaker 5: We talked about the yard sale groups, so one of
the things to look at is where does the post originate.
Does it come from a missing person's group like Missing
in Michigan or the Aware Foundation, or a police department
or an organization like crimes Stoppers. Those are legitimate sources
of information on missing persons. Then look at the information
included in the post. And as someone who works with
families of newly missing every day, when people are making
posts about a missing child or a missing parent or
a missing loved one, they're upset. They're not thinking clearly.
So we sometimes get posts that say Janie Jones missing
from Clarkston. Call pull nine one one if you see her,
and it's honey, that Clarkston. What where is Clarkston?
Speaker 2: There's a lot of Clarkston's.
Speaker 5: If I call nine one one. If this person goes
missing from Dunwoodie, Georgia, and I see them in the
city of Atlanta and call nine one one, Atlanta City
police are going to go what who You need to
call the other police department, So you want to have
that proper police number to contact in the post. Always
never ever put a personal contact information. So many of
my famamilies end up with extortion attempts. And I apologize.
I'm getting a little preachy. I just see this all
the time and it makes me so frustrated. But people
don't know. They put their personal phone number in there,
and then they get a call saying, I'll tell you
where she is if you send me two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it happens all the time.
Speaker 2: Just and these are before are legitimately looking for someone
who's missing, be an adult or child.
Speaker 5: Yes, they are legitimately looking for a missing loved one,
and they hopefully put their They're very hopeful, and they
put their phone number in the post that someone's going
to call and go, oh, I've got them right here.
Speaker 3: They're at the dairy.
Speaker 5: Queen and it ends up being a scammer that's calling them.
Speaker 2: And what we've found, and we consider ourselves part of
a larger true crime community. I feel like people in
the true crime community want to help. Yeah, and they
absolutely any of us can be taken in by fake
news if you will. Someone saying that there's a missing
person is something that tugs at the heartstrings and you
want to help without some sort of, as you said,
some vetting so that we know that this is real.
Do you find that with the families that really are
missing someone, are they open to the coaching that you
and other advocates can provide to walk them through here's
how you do get the word out about your missing
loved one.
Speaker 3: By and large, yes they are.
Speaker 5: I do run into families where the missing person might
be unhoused, or maybe struggling with addiction issues, or may
have a criminal record, then they're less likely to want
to include law enforcement because they're worried their person is
going to end up behind bars. They're worried that they're
going to be hurt again by law enforcement not taking
it seriously. They're worried that law enforcement is not going
to respect them when they reach out and looking for support.
My belief and the belief of most of the law
enforcement agencies that I deal with, is that everybody deserves
to be safe. Everybody deserves to be located. We'll worry
about the bench warrant later. Let's make sure that there's
someplace safe.
Speaker 3: If a family has a missing loved one, what information
You've covered some of this, but I just want to
make sure we've got all of it. What information should
they make sure is on that poster so that people
so that people will look at it and go, oh, okay,
this is really this is legit. You had mentioned a
contact information number for a local police department. What else
should they be putting on there.
Speaker 5: The first thing they should do when someone goes missing
is call law enforcement. You do not have to wait
twenty four or forty eight hours. That is a myth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was very prevalent that urban myth.
Speaker 3: Yes, and people still believe it that you don't, especially
if it's a missing child or a senior that has
maybe some medical issues, you can report right away. So
you want to have that law enforcement contact information in
the post. That's super important. It adds an air of
legitimacy to a post. Immediately. You want the person's name.
You want what they were wearing, if you know what
they were wearing, You want what they were driving, if
you know if they left in a vehicle, what vehicle
can I look for? Those are all important things to
include in a missing person's post. A lot like an
organization like the Aware Foundation, Yes or Missing in Michigan,
We will make a flyer for you.
Speaker 2: You've got the format ready to go.
Speaker 5: Yep, or maybe you know someone who can use CANVA
and whip up a quick flyer for you. The flyers
tend to be shared and respected more than just the
photo with a little description on it. We make do
when all we have is the photo and the little description.
We get that shared, we get that circulating, we get
that out in the public eye. The flyers tend to
go a little further, something a little more. I guess
what we'd think of is traditionally legitimate is way Yes
helps make people go, okay, this is real, not a fake.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 5: If the post looks polished, people tend to believe it.
Speaker 2: Professional presentation on some level doesn't have to be super slick,
but that some good clear photographs and good descriptions. The
vehicle thing is incredibly important. Obviously, a young kid's not
going to be driving a car, but lots of other
people leave in a known vehicle.
Speaker 5: Yes, or unfortunately, we have a lot of teenagers that
slip out of the house and are spotted getting into
a car on our ring doorbell, so then we know
that they got into a silver Honda. Or we may
not have a great description, but maybe one of the
kid's friends knows someone who drives that silver Honda, which
helps the parents get closer to locating their child.
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Speaker 3: The other thing that comes up, and I'm getting slightly
off topic here, so bear with me. Is there a runaway?
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is awfully dismissive. It is of a kid
or a young person with maybe legitimate concern.
Speaker 3: Yes, And you know what, runaways end up in unsafe situations,
and then it's an endangered missing advisory and we're really worried,
so don't I'm asking listeners to not be dismissive or judgmental.
If a child is a runaway, they don't know better.
They deserve to be safe.
Speaker 2: And we know a number of situations in cases that
we've worked on and others where sometimes people were characterized
as runaways, and maybe they did run away. There can
be a million reasons for why they would be fleeing
their home or the place that they live, which could
extend up to them not feeling safe there. Whether that
makes sense or not, that needs to be sorted out later.
But let's at least find out where they are and
make sure they're safe.
Speaker 5: And I very infrequently come across cases where the child
is unsafe at home and that's why they left. They
usually leave because mom said, no, you can't hang out
with that twenty year old, No you can't hang out
with that much older person, and parents set a boundary
and the kids I know better, I'm going to hang
out anyway.
Speaker 2: And I'm fourteen and this person is twenty five.
Speaker 5: Yes, and we want those kids to be safe.
Speaker 3: If a family has a missing loved one, what are
the best groups to post to in order to get
awareness out. You've mentioned the Aware Foundation already, what else
like on a sort of national level.
Speaker 5: You would ask law enforcement to involve nick MEC National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and they put out posts.
My only very minor criticism of nick Mack is they're
not always as quick to take them down. But again,
they're a wonderful resource for families with a missing child.
Strongly advise nick mac. Also, when you do file a
police report, ask to sign a media release so that
the law enforcement agency can immediately release information to the
six o'clock news, the local newspaper. They'll get it out
on social media. Also, it's another layer of awareness.
Speaker 3: You'd already mentioned what I think is a great piece
of advice, which is do not post to yard sale groups.
What are other types of groups that people with legitimate
missing family members should maybe steer clearer from. There are
some people I could see deciding Okay, maybe I will
post to every single Facebook group out there in the
state where my loved one was going because coverage is good,
without maybe thinking, Okay, maybe I shouldn't be posting to
the yard cell group because it will be perceived as
a scam or something like that.
Speaker 5: I think it's more important to look for the legitimate
groups like being from Metro Detroit. There's Metro Detroit Crime
and Homicide. There's Crime and the d there's the Macombe
County Scanner, there's Flint Police Operations. There's a really good
Monroe County news group. Those are the groups to look for.
I don't advise sharing to the larger generic true crime groups.
Speaker 2: M M.
Speaker 5: I know one of the true crime groups I'm in.
They're regularly posting missing persons from Australia, which is fine,
but I'm not the eyes you need to get it
in front of. You need to be in an Australia
centric a province, they're not called provinces in Australia. Doesn't matter.
In Australia centric group is where it needs to be posted,
not in a generic crime group.
Speaker 2: And unless we know, for instance, if that person from
Australia has left the country, then let's try to stay
focused on where it can do the most good. Got it?
Speaker 3: Just curious? And you don't have to You don't have
to admit this, youn't want too, but I am curious.
Has there ever been, like, is there ever a time
when you were taken in by something that someone had
posted when it really looked to you like it, Okay,
this really could legitimately be a missing person, and then
it switched to condo car service, purebread dog or whatever.
Have you ever been taken in by one?
Speaker 5: I have not, because our group is run by law enforcement,
so I have to have law enforcement contact.
Speaker 3: In the post.
Speaker 5: I can't post something in our group, and I can't
approve a post in our group unless there is police
contact information. So as soon as I see something like that,
I go and look at the originator of the post,
And every single time, I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, this person's had a Facebook for six days.
Speaker 2: A bad sign.
Speaker 3: Bad sign.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you click on the originator and it says product
or advertisement or cleaning service.
Speaker 3: No, this is not legitimate.
Speaker 5: So fortunately I and it's only because I have so
much experience. I'm not denigrating anyone who's been tricked. Do
you see a missing kid, you see a missing senior?
Of course your first reaction is what can I do
to help.
Speaker 2: One of the things we were talking about off air
a few minutes ago, Nina, that I wanted to revisit
was I was saying how I felt like law enforcement
wasn't very good in situations where someone is found, whether
they're dead or alive, they're not very good about explaining
later cause of death or what the outcome was. And
you were reminding me that we may all be curious people,
but we don't have a right to that information. Can
you elaborate a little bit sure?
Speaker 5: In the missing in Michigan grew we use the term
found as an angel, and that covers someone being found
de ceased, whether they were inflicted self harm, or if
someone brought harm to them, or if they were perhaps
using illegal substances that led to their death. They were
found as an angel because we support the families and
we try not to focus on the really negative. It's
a terrible outcome. It's never the outcome we want, it's
never the outcome we expect. But we use the term
found as an angel just to be gentle with the
families and friends that are in the group. Now, I
often know how a person was found in the circumstances
surrounding them being recovered, but it's not for public consumption.
That that's private. And well, I'm as curious as the
next person. I have learned that I just don't I
don't deserve to know. We had that we talked off
air about the baseball player whose daughter went missing, and
people were like, Oh.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to get the scoop on this. Sorry,
it's not your business. It's more than likely a medical issue,
and that's personal in private. And while we do get invested,
I one hundred percent get invested in these cases that
I work on, and I would love to know the
details of how somebody was recovered when they're found alive.
Speaker 5: It's not my business. My business is to help them
make it home, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 3: I think as people who consume a lot of Internet content,
people start getting this idea that they are entitled to
information because they are invested in it. And I think
it's a great reminder that you just gave us, Nina,
that yes, maybe you're interested and it's out of the
goodness of your heart, but you're not entitled to know
these things. And there's nothing wrong with being curious. I understand.
Speaker 5: I think it's natural to want to know the resolution
to the story, but we also have to respect the
boundaries of the family the missing person and just understand
that we're not going to know.
Speaker 3: I want to.
Speaker 5: Change gears slightly on this. I just read an article.
There's a movement in Canada that when a person goes missing,
they're not going to use their last name. They're going
to use a photo and their first name so that
when they are recovered, it does not follow them.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, I'm not pushing back, but does the lack
of a last name does that handicap someone that might
be encountering this person. We're just going to call them
Jane for example, and not Jane Smith or whatever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my friend Kelly, she's a missing person's advocate. Her
cousin Richie went missing in nineteen ninety. Kelly worked as
a bus driver in the Kalamazoo area and stopped at
a light and looked and spotted a missing girl and
she got out of it. She stopped the bus and
got out and went, your mother is looking for you,
and literally picked up called the police and put one
hand on her and called the police and found her.
Kelly couldn't remember her name, but she just seen her face.
So I feel like you either know the person or
will spot the person, and you don't necessarily need to
know that. Jane Lewandowski of Ottawa, Ontario, went missing in
September of twenty twenty four. Because those news stories are
going to follow Jane Lewandowski for the rest of her life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get it, and I know we've touched on
this a little bit. Sometimes in these situations, these are
people that will need ongoing assistance help, whether it's dealing
with the mental health issue, whatever it is, and that's
going to be challenging enough without this Internet browser history
of following them for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Or maybe she was fleeing an abusive relationship and went
into hiding and couldn't tell anyone where she went. I've
actually had that happen, so it's an interesting discussion. Do
I think we need to implement it across the board?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: If it's a missing young kid, maybe we do need
to know their last name. Maybe they were kidnapped by
a parent or a relative and it would be helpful
to know the last name. But if it's a missing
adult and you've got a nice clear picture of their face,
maybe you don't. And I'm not sold either way. I
just thought it was an interesting idea and something to consider.
Speaker 2: I have this romantic viewpoint of Canada. I've traveled to
Canada a few times, but I'm not an expert by
any means, I somehow have a romanticized vision of Canada
as being like like the United States, but with nicer people. Yeah,
and Putine. And I think to myself and Tim Horton's
that maybe that practice of just the first name would
work in a wonderful place like Canada. Forgive me if
I sound cynical when I'm speaking about the United States
of America, where I happen to live.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and people would feel entitled to that last name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. I feel like when we talk about
all of the upsides of the Internet and helping to
get information out about missing people, we are also just
faced with a massive amount of problems that get compounded,
such as that sense of entitlement. Everybody wants that story.
It's the same impulse that will lead people to send
Bill an email and say, I'd like to see your
sister's crime scene photos. You're not entitled to that, No,
it's so disrespectful.
Speaker 2: Or I'd like an object that your sister Kathy owned
that we want to put in our museum of serial killers.
And I'm like, I'm not easily offended. I'm thinking to myself, what,
why do you think I would be interested in your
That's Museum of serial Killers.
Speaker 3: People feel a sense of entitlement to the stories that
they're invested in and the people that they're invested in,
and in one sense, I think that's what keeps all
three of us in business. Here are you with the
podcast and everything. So I guess I can't really get
down on it too much. But we were talking of
Aaron Nina, and I think you really said the best cure.
Curiosity is one thing, because we're all curious. That is
why we are interested in this sort of thing. The
sense that you, as a member of the public, are
entitled to know all aspects of something you're not.
Speaker 5: No, and I don't mean that disrespectfully. It's curiosity is natural.
You get infested in a story, you want to know
the outcome. But we're not always entitled to the outcome.
And oftentimes the kinder thing to do if you really
want to help is leave them.
Speaker 2: Be right, pitch in, help them be found. But yes,
after that, when they're back in a place that's safe,
we all need to step back and give them some
space and some time. And yes, we can't really contribute
to their well being. I think beyond that point, it's
going to be up to the families or social services
or whoever's involved.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and no, Shade, I want to know too. I'm nosy,
but it's the right thing to do is to just
let it be.
Speaker 3: We were talking to one of the family members in
the Colonial Parkway murders case yesterday who learned the truth
about who murdered her sister this past January, and I was,
quite frankly, I was surprised when she said the media
had largely left them alone after that news was revealed,
because I honestly thought that they weren't going to I
would have assumed right she would have been hounded by
the media because everybody here locally knows the story, wants
the story, and feels entitled to more information about the story.
And so when Jeanette said yesterday the media had left
them alone, I had a moment of shock, but good shock,
when it was like, oh, wow, they did. Because when
you get invested in any case, there is an audience
out there that wants to be fed and they want
that information. They feel they're entitled to learn more about it. Yeah,
they do.
Speaker 2: That was an interesting dynamic because in Robin's case, her
sister's case, there's a still strong possibility that may tie
into the other Colonial Parkway murders, and so we are
are still probing and looking for more information and quite
frankly pushing law enforcement to keep putting resources into this
case and things we ask them to do. When they
finally did them, he said, through gritted teeth, wouldn't you
know it led directly to the identification of an offender
who is deceased himself. It had a good outcome, And
the truth is, even Jeannette said this when we spoke
to her, she's fine with us continuing to talk about
it because she continues to hope that good things will
come out of these first steps in terms of identifying
what happened to her sister and her friend. But that's
not a typical situation where you have an individual who
has gone missing and then is found. Typically, I think
for us as members of the public, that ends our involvement. Yes,
with that individual. Hopefully they're able to get the care
they need.
Speaker 5: Yes, But in your case, it's still an open investigation
and we're still looking for answers, so we still need
to keep probing.
Speaker 3: Any final pieces of advice for families who are dealing
with missing loved ones and who are trying to navigate
the at times treacherous world of both the internet media
other forms of publicity. What would be like your best
three pieces of advice?
Speaker 5: If a loved one goes missing, please contact law enforcement.
You don't have to wait twenty four to forty eight hours.
If your local agency says no, move up to the
sheriff's department or the state police. You don't have to
take that no for an answer. Be careful on social
media the information that you put out there. Please don't
share your phone number. It puts you at risk. It
makes a stressful situation even worse.
Speaker 2: Or your personal email address as well. I've tracked I
see that a lot. And remember any of us can
set up, if we're just getting started, another alternate email address. Yes,
if you have to. You don't have to put up
the one that you use on everything.
Speaker 5: You can create a free Gmail account to support your
missing loved one or your unsolved case and keep your
private email private, which is also good for your mental health.
It gives you a break so that you're not inundated
when you go in to check your email and pay bills.
There's not that creepy email sitting there from someone who
may or may not be helpful, and that.
Speaker 2: Just causes me such pain too. When you hear about
people who are desperately trying to find their missing loved ones,
and then they're hearing from sleeve balls that are looking
to capitalize on them or LOOKI loose other advice that
you would have for those individuals.
Speaker 3: Yes, take care of yourself.
Speaker 2: You can.
Speaker 5: It's a cliche that you can't pour from an empty cup,
but I see people when they're a loved one goes
missing that first twenty four hours. They're not eating, they're
not sleeping, they're not hydrated. They're going to make themselves sick.
So I generally check in with families and be like, hey,
how are you this morning? Did you eat anything? Do
you need some tail and all? Have you had a
glass of water? It's because they forget. They're so stressed
that I can't get anything down, and I'm like, have
a glass of water. You have to stay hydrated. If
you make yourself sick, you can't look for your loved one.
So practicing self care short term and long term cases,
it's incredibly important because it's exhausting work.
Speaker 3: Excellent advice, Nina. Thank you so much for joining us.
We really appreciate you taking the time. Oh, thank you
for having me that is going to do it for
this episode of mind Over Murder. Thank you so much
for listening. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.