This podcast is a Jeff Townsend Media production. This is Jeff Townsend. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Indiana Stories. All right, welcome back to another Indiana Story segment, a branch of America Stories, of course, and we are doing our monthly I can't believe it's like been a month since we've done the last update on the Delphi case, but here we are again. I'm just gonna say our monthly update because I don't think, my opinion, this will stop from having at least a monthly update from here till when we ever we see this trial through. I don't know. This is the Murder Sheets joining me. By the way, that the power couple of the the Brad Pitt and Angelina of the true crime podcasting world. Okay, that's a little much the point of being Yeah, I'm glad you guys took a few minutes to chat with me here. What do you think? Do you say we're going to have these updates all the time? Yeah, I imagine there's definitely periods in the Delfi case where not a lot is happening, So you do get your stretches where there's not much to update, or there's only minor filings, but judging from past history, it seems like there are kind of major updates pretty often, which is kind of unfortunate because oftentimes they're not good updates. Well, I think as we get closer to this trial, whatever happens, I think we'll continue to have more and more. We're definitely starting to get to where I don't want to call it a game because that just sounds psychotic. Things are just starting. I guess you could say really here, Ultimately, we're really just getting going, and we got a long haul. I see we as everybody that has any sort of emotional investment, but especially the people that are involved in the case, really just getting started. Absolutely. That being said, so last time we talked, we talked about this odinous claims that came out, and they basically when the defense filed purposely I wanted everybody to see it, in my opinion, and it's all starting to play out a little bit more now. They released information saying, hey, like Richard Allen did commit the murders. This is what happened, which is all part of a defense trial. And I get that they claimed with this odinus cult am I saying that right, Yeah, they're cold. I guess that sounds maybe biased. I don't know if by nature they're actually a cult that that's how we're got to determine. So that's yeahka, so I'm on the right track there then I'm not saying anything out of line. And they tied up the tried this to the connection with the crime scene itself and some of the things that we're done at the crime scene. We talked about that on the last episode, and they even went as far as to say that, hey, these guards at the prison are involved trying to I guess pressure coheres. They they made Richard Allen confess to the crimes because the Odinis group is they're involved with it. It's a whole whole situation of a lot of people, I guess coming together to do this is what the defense is saying. And they said, Hey, the guards at the prison and this is all like, I'm not looking at anything in front of my screen. I'm not reading any official terms here, right, this is just a casual conversation about it and an update for the listeners interested. But they haven't even gone as far as say there were badges on the uniforms at the prison, which you know this is my opinion. There's two things to man, would they really be allowed to wear that and that environment? Then the other part of me, I'm not as surprised as other people that the news has came out because I assume the defense said that for a reason. That's how I looked at it when it happened. So when the news came out this week, I'll let you guess, touch up on it more that they actually and I don't know all the details, a couple of different individuals. They have statements from say, hey, we do wear these patches. That may or may not be what it actually is connected to, but crazy to say that. I'm not surprised that they had the patches on after that was leaked. I mean, after they submitted that document last month. Everybody's acting really shocked to me, I'm not shocked. They wouldn't have said it unless they had a reason to say it is the way I can look at it. I think you're I think you're on the money, Jeff. It's a situation where we're there's cameras in a jail or or a prison. Rather in this case, doesn't really make sense to just make up hatches out of whole cloth no pun intended, because you know, that could easily be debunked. So when we saw that they were stating that there were patches, we believe that because again, what that could be easily disproven if it wasn't true. The question lies in whether or not the patches signify what the defense says it does. And there's you know, the guards have said that they are actually Heathens. They're not os oldiness or specific sect of Heathenry where they are very racist attached to gang's white supremacists, and Heathens are not necessarily that they you know, heathen Rea is a vast, vast faith with all these different practices, and you can be a Heathen and just a nice person, just a normal person, just like any other religion who's inclusive and non racist, anti racist in fact. So it's you know, and I think it's just kind of shows the public's kind of pendulum attitude to this case, where it's like, we're not going to believe the defense. Oh wait, the patches are there, then everything the defense says must be true. And it's kind of just that's you know, it's it's a it's a tactic to you know, unleash different narratives, and people just seem very susceptible to like whatever the last thing they heard is seems like a strange thing to allow the patches to be worn, I will say that, and especially in a place that's I guess I'm just going to put in simple terms, ran by this ran at a federal state level, however you want to phrase it. It's it's connected with the government right in some way, this facility, h am I fair by saying that, So to me, that was kind of strange that yeah, yeah, so is that kind of is that is that? Is that fair to say that that's kind of strange that being a division of that that you know, they wouldn't probably have more strict rules on that. I'm not getting caught up on this, but it was that was kind of strange to me. I think that it seems like from the documents filed by I doc that they were breaking the rules by doing that, or were they allowed that was mine You're not really supposed to from what we've talked to plenty of CEOs, and they told us consistently, you really shouldn't be you know, putting, you know, a patch across or something on your stuff, like it. It's not a place for self expression. So it definitely seems like it was a breach of rules, or a breach at least of you know, what should be rules, because you know, that's not necessarily the appropriate place where it. Honestly, when this stuff about the Patches came up, we were just so in the midst of this unfolding disaster about the leak that we kind of, you know, people were making such hay out of it. We kind of were just like going over our heads, honestly, So the leak. We'll get to the leak here in a minute. So you guys have known about that since before we had talked last, and you were managing through that. Yeah, it's fair to say, well, we got the leak October fifth, and I think we had okay after a little bit. So we got in the early morning hours of October fifth. I think I think we talked last in mid Yeah, so it was we were still much less jaded when we last talked to you. At least I'm not the crazy part. At least I'm not the only one thinking that like this Patches thing is way out of like like that nobody saw it coming. Once that information was shared because to me, it was I think going to be a given at that point in time, they were going to connect it somehow, talk about I'll know who's behind it all. But man, talk about being really observant, huh. I mean picking up on on on obviously things that you visit the prison and as you they talked to Richard Allen. You know, somebody's very observant and did catch that obviously. You know, whether Richard Allen directly told them or they picked it, it will never know, but I guess that's aside the point. But definitely observant of the environment that he's in. Yeah, I agree. He has great lawyers. Lawyers are the ones who visited him at Westville, and I wouldn't be surprised if they noticed that and say, maybe we can do something with this. Oh yeah, I mean that was like a low hanging fruit for them to pick there. So to get into the details a little bit more, they did get a statement from a couple of individuals, one of which was a sergeant and was another person just I don't want to mess up the titles. Was it that there's two sergeants? Was it three people? I don't remember? Was it two sergeants and two sergeants sergeant in the Frank's memorandum that they said not only did these guys have patches, but they they there was a suggestion that they were devoted members of Anism cult for lack of a better word, and they were so devoted to it that apparently they were threatening and intimidating Richard Allen and basically coercing him to make confessions to his wife and mother. So in these statements, the guards acknowledged that they did have patches, that they were they indicated that they were just part of their faith and they were not oldness. And they also said, we don't have a history of being violent with prisoners. Look at our work record history. And he certainly never pressured him into making confessions and the war and also back that up. And inherently there was some sort of internal investigation of these two guards shortly after the Frank Smain random was filed last month, and that investigation cleared them. And I'll say this, Jeff, you know, with the Odinism versus if there are many to wearing the patches, how could they not be Odinis? And again that goes back to the Heathen read being these people may worship similar gods, Norse God's, Germanic gods. But it's sort of like if you're wearing a cross and I say, oh, you're a Baptist and you say, actually, I'm episcopalian. You know, you may have the same fundamentals, but there may be very different practices. And so they're basically disputing that. And I think the thing people are missing on this is that this gives an explanation for Richard Allen's alleged confessions that does not bring in mental health, because the defense has been fighting to keep his mental health records from the prison from going to the prosecution. If his mental health becomes an issue, you know, then the prosecution maybe. So I that's my opinion personally, but I think it's kind of it's kind of in that case an ingenious strategy because it keeps that out of it. They need to come up with a way to explain away these so called confessions. Uh, the national thing to do would be to say, well, he had some sort of breakdown, mental breakdown. These are things he didn't me And they don't feel comforable making that argument for whatever reason, at least they haven't made it yet. So there seems like it's probably overdone quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah, that's something that's pretty calm, and I think in a trial like that would right or wrong. I'm not saying that. Yeah, you talk about it, you gotta explain the mental health, you gotta explain the confession, and they're just this is defense just doing their job here. But you guys have probably spent a lot of time researching this oldness thing that none of us had really been looking into you before. So you're you're sharing this information, so I'm assuming you've put in quite a bit of time research this subject. Miner further. Yeah, we've even interviewed members of the Tropes, which is a heathen group. They're anti racist. They actually combat the odeness. They have a whole ministry where prisoners write them and they write box saying hey, you can be a Heathen without being racist or joining a white supremacist gang. Yeah, which, man, it's just next is, like Kevin said, they're going to have to really connect all that and how it relates to So I think you got the patches in there, so that's the first step. But it's all about creating questionable doubt, right, I mean that's a ultimate Let's to be honest, by definition, that's literally what they're trying to do, and they're certainly on track to attempt to do that, but they are going to have to tie it all in and explain things a little bit more. With that being said, let's segue to that you referred to as the league an unfortunate thing. And this was odd for me because last week I was, uh, well the last couple weeks, but last week in particular, I was really key up with that. What was the Boy in the Box trial? Yeah, and they also had a defense leak as well. Are you aware of what I'm talking about here? No Boy in the Box trial? Who haven't really followed that, honest, but you're aware of like what the trial is though. So the defense had a leak last week. So when the jury is going to go back and make a decision the trials wrapping up the arguments have been made, they supply you with the evidence that you're allowed to review until you come back with the decision right guilty or not guilty or whatever. And they leaked. So they had come to an agreement where because the police had to arrest, they arrested the young man, Well, they handcuffed him, right, the wouldn't necessarily arrest him. He ran away, and that was protocol how they were going to handle it. And so the defense was told to and what was greed upon and presented in the trial itself was they were going to show They're going to clip the footage, not show the kid. Could not show him being arrested, right, that was like what was agreed upon because it was the termin it was irrelevant to the case. So the defense sends the jury back with this thumb drive and on it, what do you know, all the footage is there of him literally being interested, which was not supposed to be seen by the jury. So they have to call they had to call it back in hey, you weren't supposed to see that. The defense has to give an explanation and all that, and people were like and watching court TV, which you guys are on all the time. How the heck is say, like, what do you do? Like, what's the reaction to this? How do you get disciplined for this? And obviously at this point in time, the jury deliberating, so the judge is just like, I'm very disappointed that this happen, and so I was already like, man, that leak was crazy to me. Right, So then this week, you guys, with the information that you've had for a little less than two weeks, came forward with information that and I'll let you explain it, because people are here to listen to you, mostly not me, that what had happened, and you guys were able to so somebody reached out to you and supplied you with some information that had and circulated. Yeah, so on the early morning hours of October fifth, well, to back it up, there had been a photograph of a blood smeared tree circulating out there online and there was not really we looked at that and we I mean, I honestly thought it was just some jerk in their backyard doing a hoax, you know, painting something. And to be clear, this was purported to be something from the crime scene because in this Frank's memorandum, the defense attorneys provided a description of the crime scene and they indicated that on a tree mirror where the girls were killed was some sort of symbol written or drawn and blood and right, well, they maintained that this was a symbol of odinism, and others maintained what perhaps it was just random or something, so it became very important to a lot of people. What was this symbol? Yes, so that starts floating around. Then the person who published that on social media reached out to us, and you know, early morning hours, ended up sending us a number of more graphic I'm seeing photographs in addition to other discovery material. To give you a sense, the discovery material in the Delpi case is under a protective order, meaning that you're really not supposed to leak it, like there's an order against that from the judge. That's not the case in every trial or every case, but that is the case here because it's so sensitive and so we were you know, it was very you know, we're not describing what exactly we saw on the images, but it was very very disturbing and apparently that there'd been a very serious breach immediately, so crime scene though, crime scene the crime yes, that's correct. This is like when obviously is early morning hours. We're talking about like two or three in the morning. Yeah, we were just like it was very difficult to sleep that night because it was just really it was bad. And we reached out to the police the next you know, when the when the sun Rose essentially and let them know that a serious breach had occurred. We also reached out to Defense that day to let them know that there seemed to be some sort of breach going around. We wanted to let both sides know because we did not know where the breach was coming from. So seemed prudent to say, hey, these are the two sides, here's what's going on. And with that, at the same time, the man who sent them to us, who is not associated with the Defense in any way and was not the original leaker, he was feeling freaked out. I think he was in a position where he didn't necessarily think through through ramifications, and he wanted to cooperate at that point and wanted to give the police what he knew and basically offer to give us all his information so that we could provide that to police since we're here in Indiana, and we agreed to do that, and basically he said, I'll give this to you on the condition that you got police, and so we said, okay, and so that's what we did. We basically provided them with everything he had, and the information he had is that he received these images from a person we identified as Are and are happened to be a friend with a former employee of Criminal Defense in this particular case. This is some of those close to attorney Andrew Baldwin used to work there and never worked there while the Delpi case was going on, you know, has not This is not like a disgruntled employer or anything like that. But you know, it's just, I guess we don't know motivations. We don't know any of that. It's hard to fab them, frankly, but it's just it's just been such a sad and devastating situation. Frankly, the you know, the families now have to worry. Unfortunately, so we're not the only ones who got these. These have been circulated all over from what we can tell, and the families should not have to worry because if they get published once then they're on the internet forever. And and you know, obviously there's a benefit, an investigative benefit to crime scene photos, like the jury needs to see them, the judge may need to see them, certainly the defense and the prosecution, and they're various experts who are going to testify all of that. It's not like these don't have a place, but they don't you know, we've said this, like they don't have a place in the general public. We don't need to see those, And after we reported everything to the police, we deleted them. We don't have them anymore, you know, and we've just been trying to encourage people to remove them as well, because they just these we shouldn't have these. And you know, we've gotten documents that we've reported on in the past that you know, like we're you know, like we're you know, either accidentally posted. And I feel like there's a spectrum in journalism of like, you know, stuff that furthers the public's understanding. But as far as we're concerned, deans don't have any journalistic purpose whatsoever because none of us have the tools to analyze them because we don't have the full context of the case as the jury will have. Is that so the saddening part, obviously, just to start, is the victims of the case, which are are and I've said it before, ranging from the families of the two girls of course Livian Abbey, and then of course there's other victims in this. You know, Richard Allen's family doesn't exactly come out of this great no matter what huge impact on everybody. So that's saddening. So would you say that back end of that is the saddening part is also that journalism integrity that you touched up on. What was the question? Sorry? Is is that like the second part of what's actually sad to you? When you get past the most important part, which is obviously the victims being so involved in this case, in the thousands of hours you guys spend on this point in time, is that sad? Is that what's saddening to you as well? That's not really saddening to me. I mean, I feel like we kind of did rut of the right thing here. I think, to me, what's really sad and what's just like understandable and we relate to this. I feel like curiosity drove a lot of this, and curiosity is a wonderful thing, Like you're curious, We're curious, like we want to know what's going on in these cases. It's just when it trumps everything else, when it trumps like human decency or respect for the court or respeck for the process, respect for Richard Allen's rights as a defendant who is not guilty, who is innocent until he's proven guilty. When the curiosity and the morbid curiosity just consumes everything. I feel like we get here because we get people who are acting just based on their own interests and not based on any sort of social responsibility. And that is sad to me because I feel like it's not fair to paint everyone who's interested in DELFI with that broad brush. I think the vast, vast majority of people care about the case. They want to see justice done. They don't want to convict Richard Allen before they have evidence. They just want to let the process play out, and they want to be informed along the way. And that's most of the people that we speak to. That's most of the people who listen to us. That there is a minority of people who let their interests essentially become an obsession, and that obsession is not, in my opinion, always the healthiest. And we say that as obsessive people ourselves. It's not a personal criticism at anyone. It's just that when actions are being taken that could damage a case and could damage a defendant's rights, things have gone way too far, and a lot of it could be the way this case has been managed. There's a lot of there's a long time without a lot of information, so it's kind of been a breeding ground of miscellaneous probably not very good activity. I'm not blaming anybody, but I'm not blaming the prosecutors or anything. But there was certain there was little information for five years, so people are just going a frenzy with it. Well, you have a combination of a huge amount of understandable interest, a huge amount of understandable curiosity, and you combine that with a complete lack of verified information. People still want it, and if they can't get it from verified sources, they'll go to crazy people on YouTube or Reddit, and they're get gossip or lies or rumors which they twist around them. So I understand why law enforcement and prosecutions wanted to keep some of these details under wrap. I certainly think that did contribute to their eyes of social media in this case. So in social medium, this contact. Well, I'm gonna also throw some shane at true crime, and that's that's dangerous because obviously we have a true crime podcast, but for years, as a marketing tactic and a branding tactic, true crime creators have been encouraging their audiences like, let's solve a mystery together, we'll crowdsource, we'll all work together, we'll solve a mystery. That is not how it works, and it's not how the system works. I'm not encouraging people from being citizen journalists or citizen salutes and trying to find things in a responsible manner. But it's gone way too far because we've basically said, you know, you know, you can google and jump to conclusions and figure it all out. And that's why you have people for years posting side by sides with the sketches and their you know, uh aspect djure. And the result is you have a lot of really entitlement and arrogance amongst a small minority of people who just think, I'm going to solve it. I just need all the information, give me all the information so I can solve it. And it's like that's totally unwarranted. It's totally unwarranted. And I mean you have like a kind of a media landscape where like people's you know, you know, experts are weighing in on everything, and half the time it's like, are they really even do they really even have the credentials that they say they do. And I just feel like all of that has kind of created this this atmosphere that could allow for something like this to happen, and it's just very, very unfortunate. I mean, true crime is just a genre, So let's talk about that a little bit. To me, I mean, you didn't say anything wrong there. It kind of sounds like to me when when I just analyze what you said and I put my opinion on it, some of the things that make true crime great are also some of the things that have really heard it. I mean, it's become such a thing that you can people get involved in, which is not always a bad thing, but just like anything else in life, moderation has to be taken into account. So I think some of the things that's really made this true crime boom in the last ten years, which I remember getting Investigation Discovery that channel and it was crazy, it was cool, And I think before that you really besides documentaries and stuff, you kind of relied on the America's most wanted or unsolved mysteries things like that. Then when that channel in particular, I'm just kind of mentioned it because I think that everybody's heard of it at this point in time. It's really just boomed in the last ten years. But with that, you kind of had this. Like you said, this citizen involvement has really escalated, and along with the Internet in social media, all these things that have grown. Because even ten years ago the Internet is what it is today, you certainly had to put in a lot more work to find something. Search engines were not optimized like they are today. You could basically find anything by googling something now, which is not always a bad thing, but in this case, I can certainly see what you're saying. So some of the things that are great about true crime also are starting to show their ugly head now, I guess I'm saying, yeah, I think that's well said, and I think that it's a situation where I mean the amount of stuff I mean anyone. People are not always good at like kind of figuring out like the nutritional value of what they're consuming on the Internet. And they'll just be like, well, these people were saying this on Reddit, and it's like those are anonymous people. They can say whatever they want, they can lie. It's very possible to lie on Reddit, believe it or not. That might shock some people, But you don't even want to see my credit karma on Reddit. Sorry, oh credit we don't even I'm on wrestling one, so I've got like a negative five hundred karma. We don't even go on it anymore because in the beginning, when we started covering this case, we're like, oh, people have some interesting ideas, And now that we actually talk to people who know what they're talking about, you can kind of see where like it's just people jumping to conclusions. It's not really that helpful. And I'd like to say, I think it's important to stress that the vast, fast, vast, vast majority of people who are interested in true crime and who follow true crime, it's a healthy interest. And I think their level of interest and attention to these cases helps provide public accountability. And I think that's a great thing and I applaud it. There's just a tiny minority who take things too far. There are people out there who, like, are very upset that we did not post these crime team pictures. People were saying things like the girls would have waned those crime team photos to be posted so people can figure out the truth. It's like, how dare you, Like, yeah, you can show some consideration for the families. Yeah, I mean, I just I get disgusted with some of that sometimes because it's like you obviously are just operating based on your own And I also think it's important to place all of this in a context. People have listened to other episodes and then listen to this one. With us, we'd probably seen down and sedate and on He's obviously mesh are very upset about the state of true crime, and so I went up to mention that the person we referred to as are actually in the midst of all of this, took his own life. And obviously we can't be in this man's head, and we can't understand why he made this decision, but the fact that it happened when it did is very disturbing, and so that's certainly informed some of our more sedate mood and some of our anger and frustration. And it's been devastating because now this tragedy, which is ultimately about two girls losing their lives, has actually expanded and affected another family. And we certainly are against this leak and feel like it was totally totally wrong, And at the same time we understand that people involved are not just leakers. They're people with families and lies, and you can make a bad mistake and still be worth something as a human being. And I just feel so bad for this man's family at the end of the day. It's just horrible. And even before this man's family got a chance to bury him or have a funeral, there are people online spreading his name. We have to find out the truth about this. They have conspiracy theories. Are you murdered biotinists? And there's obviously something distasteful. It's very distasteful, and I just I wish I think a lot of people are reaching out with empathy and sort of like this is an awful situation. But then again, this is like little fraction of people who are just del fi obsessives who just don't have the tact or the restraint to avoid doing stuff like that, which just further You know, in journalism, there's a concept called harm reduction. You're supposed to if you have two choices, and one you always looking to devastate people's lives, And there's not really much served by it from you know, either letting the public know about something important. You know, it's it's you're supposed to consider that, and there's not a lot of consideration for that at times on social media unfortunately. I definitely think this is a conversation that needed discussed. I don't know how far and detail you guys have gone into the content you've created the last couple weeks on that top of grade there, but I appreciate you sharing that definitely made me emotional. I think it really should make you think twice when while you're doing and you guys, I want to walk back through one thing before I forget, and then I'm going to come back to this and we'll wrap it up. So just to specify and clear it out, because there's so confusion on this. The person was or was not working in the law office. You said was not working in the law office during this entire DELFI sing. That is correct, So the question's got to be how did they get it then if they don't, if they didn't work there during this DELFI thing, So we don't know. I can say that generally, Andrew Baldwin's firm is called the Criminal Defense Team. It's a very unusual place to work because they tried to foster an environment of collaboration, sharing things with one another. People who work there say, you're not just friends, you're not just employees. You're like part of a family, and so if someone leaves on your good terms and then comes by to visit it, I'm guessing it wouldn't be out of the norm for or someone say, oh, you helped us and you had good opinions when we collaborated before. Let me let me shoot something by you and see what you think. Is that what you would say? Yeah, it's that You're not saying that somebody leaked to the leaker. I just want to specify that because the way it kind of sounds like right now, we don't know how the leaker, excuse me, hit my microphone. We don't know how the leaker got the information. Did somebody leak it to the leaker? Is there more leaking going on that we know about? I guess is why I'm trying to clean up here. We've not seen any evidence in all of this and all of our digging into this, that the defense team, the attorneys directly knew about this league. All we've seen is that it's coming through somebody who used to work for Andy Baldwin who may have gotten improper access, but nothing about like, oh, they directed this, And I'd like also to make a player I don't think we made in this discussion. The league ultimately was more than just photos because this person, we got it out here to read the messages exchanged between our and our source, and those messages included a lot of details about defense strategy and things the defense was doing, things that have not reached the public's attention, and also even details like oh today Andy's going to drive here and do this, things of that nature. So it's it's become clear that the person who worked at the firm, who was past person it previously worked at the firm, who was passing this information along, still enjoyed good relations with people there and was getting information from them. So it was that one time breach, It was a it was a extended breach, if that makes sense now. I just wanted to specify that if you if you're just watching television something sometimes that is not explained for well to kind of go jumping on to the next guest, the next expert or whatever, and what you just said does not been explained really well. In my opinion, can't speak for what you guys have said because I haven't listened for a few weeks. I'm not gonna lie, but I wanted to specify here in this setting. So two things left, and I'm appreciate you staying over with me. I know you're busy. What is the fallout of this? What do you see happening? Who does this impact negatively positively aside from the victims of this heinous crime. I'm just talking in a courtroom setting. So there's a hearing that's been called. And what's the general consistence of what I'll be discussed there? And what are some possibilities from when this has happened before some fallouts that have happened from it. Great question, and I know so tomorrow is it's going to be the hearing on Thursday, October nineteenth. Our understanding is that the league will be discussed and Judge Gall, Judge Frank Gall, who's the judge on this, has a wide range of options because these attorneys are appointed by the court, so Richard Allen isn't paying for them, the state is, and they were brought in by the court. He can reprimand them, don't let this happen again. She can. There could be fines, There could be contempt at court charges. There could be the dismissal of one or both attorneys and We don't know this because this is all up to the judge. They have such power and such latitude over handling a situation like this. But again, the consequences could be very severe. Consequences could be comparatively minor as well. Who this negatively effects, in addition to the girls' families, just on an emotional level, it negatively effects in my opinion, Richard Allen's writes, he's been accused of an awful crime. If images of what he's alleged to have done are published, then I believe that inflames public opinion against him. Maybe for some people if they say, oh, it must be the others who did this, But I think other people are going to be inflamed against him. It's not fair to him prior to his trial. In addition to that, I would say that it negatively, I mean, it negatively impacts the defense because there's a there's a there's a credibility issue here, you know, when they're directed to you know, guard this material carefully and it gets out. There's also an issue of if they are removed, then what happens, you know. I mean, it's just it's an awful situation, and you know, even though we've not seen any evidence implicating the lawyers directly, it's going to come down on them because this is not If it was a situation where this was like a current paralegal who was doing something to sabotage them, but who had filled out the paperwork and the lawyers have done everything correctly, then it would come down on that person. But the buck stops with the attorneys, we believe in this situation. So it's going to be ramifications for them. It's by deal, do you think, Yeah? And I'd also like to stress another thing to consider in terms of the rights of Richard Allen. If the most extreme thing happens and Judge goal ends up removing both of these defense attorneys, then obviously this man's trial is not going to happen in January. There's so much evidence in this case. It's such a complicated case that if there's new attorneys appointed, they're going to need a lot of time to go through that, all through all that, and Richard Allen is innocent until proven guilty. He hasn't been convictim of anything. He's already been imprisoned for a year, and so that time's going to be extended. Yeah, and we just want to say, Jeff, like this is just sorry, just an aside, we really appreciate you and the sensitivity and intelligence that you bring to your coverage of this case, because I feel like us checking in with you once in a while is clarifying for us as reporters to kind of regroup look at the big picture. We're so in the weeds on this sometimes it feels that it's often very nice to come on and out with you, especially in circumstances like this where it's just been a very heavy process for the past a few weeks, and just thank you. We're sorry that we probably seem depressed. We're not our usual bubbly selves because we're normally so charismatic and happy. No, I'm just I'm sharing of it. I'm you know, I I just want to say we appreciate what you do because I feel like you you get a lot of this, and you get a lot of the big picture and able to convey that to your own We get a lot of our we get a lot out of our conversations. Yeah, so I just again want to commend you for what you're doing, and you know your coverage and just keep up the really good work because we appreciate it. That means a lot to me, and I've I've got very emotional when you started tearing up, I was tearing up on you. Uh. It's been rough because up of the last few weeks, but a lot of just crying jags. You know. I can't like say I relate to this situation with anybody, nor would I be that crazy to say that I do have daughters, So I do I feel emotional connection there. Although I can't relate to the situation, and God haven forbid that never would want to. But it's still an emotional attachment there that I definitely feel for me. It's beyond obviously it hits at home because it is near home, right and because of the situation if I have kids. So I appreciate you guys taking the time to tidy up that part of it a little bit. And I would summarize it also by saying that it doesn't do the prosecution any favors either, if we have any sort of question that this the Richard Allen's not going to have a fair trial. And that's piggybacking off what you just said, but I wanted to bring that point up. This just muddies the waters even more of this guy's getting a fair trial. So there's nobody that benefited from the leak or a lot of the other drama that we've talked about that happened with this case. Yes, But and you're kind of just on a lighter note, you're talking about the buck stops with me. I was thinking of those, Joe Hogg said, political commercials that tree Fort, the guy running against him put out on the true Crime on the Crime. Have you seen that commercial where there's talking about like all the crime that happened and he's like it all is on me, Joe Hogg said, saying that anyway, so you know it's that time of the earth, the political commercials. What's in this? On a really another heart tugging moment here before we split our ways for the day. What does it mean to you guys that people, this isn't the only time that somebody's coming with you information that probably shouldn't be public or information true or false or whatever. But what does it mean to you, guys that this individual came to you and trusted you with doing the right thing with this. It's very humbling and we appreciated and we just want to say the guy who leaked to us was not the original leaker. A lot of people have been putting hate on him. I don't really understand why I tend to think that in this situation like this is especially since somebody has possibly had a suicide link to it, coming towards people with compassion, and he very quickly, I think, was just like, wait, what have I been doing? And then can you help me make it right? And for him, making it right was going to the police, and so we very much appreciated him. I feel like we've gotten to know him, and he's a nice guy, and we've all of us made mistakes, all of us about things that we may not be proud of or it bears by, and we all deserve better than to be judged by our worst moments. And I just feel like he immediately rectified the situation by saying, okay, I was participating in this league and then all of a sudden, you're like, I'm sure we've all had that moment of realization where we've been doing something, we've almost been so one track minded, we're just doing it, and then we kind of come up for air and say, I mean I may need to do something differently now. And I feel like the strength of changing your mind and then switching and pivoting says a lot more about somebody's character than just the initial mistake. And so we appreciate him and appreciate the trust he gave us. How have you guys grown as individuals and professionals since we started this a journey with this case? So this case has done a lot of things, had a huge impact on a lot of people. But you guys in particular, how would you say it's changed as far as your view on law, Kevin? Than you know, Anya and Kevin, I guess your view on journalism. We talked about true crime directly, But what about you guys personally? This has got to be just a crazy journey this last year and a half, two years, you guys really dug deepn Well, I guess it's been about a year since you've dug deep. Yeah, how kind of you to assume we've grown. I feel like I've just become more angry and jaded sometimes because I like, I've just seen a lot of stuff that I find wrong with this. I think it's made me realize on some level the importance of good journalism, and why not waiting for authority to give you information is so important. Why it's important to just go and get it and inform the public, because I've seen what happens when it's Kevin said, you're not getting the information. You know, credible reporters are very busy, especially at the local level. They are covering everything. They're running around and covering a fire and then city hall meeting, and they don't have a lot of time to dig, and so it's not a criticism to say that sometimes it's hard for them to break through a story if they're not being given any official word from law enforcement in this case. But when that happens, when all the credible journalists go home because they don't have any reporting to do because they can't get backs on the record from authorities, then you have the clowns sweep in and they just start making stuff up. And if nobody is going there and pushing and saying, what is really going on, let's get this out there, then you have an informational vacuum, and that's dangerous and that is harmful to the people at the center of this, and so that's it's heightened my resolve to try to do journalism, responsible journalism in a new media format. And I'll say for me one thing, when you're not a part of the case directly, when you're just reading about it as a news consumer, I think it's easy to almost think of it as a story, no different from something you might read in a book. So the book, I'm reading it on a computer monitor or newspaper, and so it's easy to lose track of the fact that these are real people at the center of it. And I'm going to be big about our sources, but we have a lot of sources all over the case that we've talked to and come to now and that's been meaningful to get to know that these are all real people. And also, generally speaking, any time we've talked with people and learn more about what's happening behind the scenes, I think it's fair to say we've developed more empathy and understanding. I feel that really everybody involved in this is really doing their best. And it's easy to say, oh, John Doe really messed up and he made this choice, or so did this they just don't care, But everybody in this case cares, and we're all doing their best. But they're human and so I think it's increased my empathy for everyone in the case and just people in general, because it's like when you're flattened down to a you know, few words in a news article, you know, that doesn't really capture the very complicated human person you know behind that name, and you know, it's just important to just remember that if you were suddenly thrust into a really high profile situation, you know, regardless of what side you're on, you know, you would probably hope that people engage with you in an empathetic manner too, as opposed to just assuming the worst at every turn, or you know, criticizing. I mean, I mean, even the families in this case have gotten so much criticism about how they're hiding something, They must be hiding something, and it's like, just imagine if that were you and your family and you were thrust into the spotlight and people were without any evidence, just taking apart everything you said and just maybe consider that that would be pretty hurtful. And one more thing I think something that's really changed and helped me grow with this is this whole experience has brought a lot of wonderful people into our lives. Play about some of the social media stuff with justification. But we've met a lot of great people. We've met you, We wouldn't have met you if not for this case, and you're a great person. We really get a lot of out of our conversations with you. And we've also met other people listeners and stuff who we don't even talk to, we just exchange emails or text with. And there are so many good people out there. There's so many good and caring people. It really does give you faith for the future. Well said, and I think for me, it's also important to kind of think about if you have a platform like what we do, like we've built different platforms. Obviously I'm not big into the true crime scene by any means, but other things that I do. If you have a platform, you need to really think about what you're doing with it and kind of take it considering these things that we've talked about today. Even if your platform is a blog about true crime, being in a community about true crime and trying to help investigate whether your blogs, being a podcaster or somebody on television, you really got to do and think about what's right for and do what's right on the platform that you have available as an outlet and make sure you're doing the right things, you're utilizing it correctly, because it's easy to get off track, I think, is what I can say from this conversation. We just said amen, And it's easy when you see people making mistakes to want to calls them out and put your boot on their neck and just shame them as much as possible. But please try to have some grace because you don't know what those people are going through. And sometimes when you're facing a lot of public criticism or personal criticism, it feels worse than it really is and you think it'll never pass. It'll pass, right, But in that moment, if people are putting their heels on your neck and just kicking you and kicking you, who knows what a person might be. Gret Huh very well said, I enjoyed this time. Sorry went a little bit over. If you're here to if you're here because of the Murder Sheet, check out some cool stuff I have on Indiana and American history. If you're here for because you've come from that outlet, then make sure you check out the Murder Sheet podcast. They've got. They do some other deep dives into some things, so they got they've got a lot of stuff and they've talked to a lot of people about this case in particular, and it's valid, good logical information, nothing reckless being shared on the Murder Sheet podcast, which I always appreciate. So make sure you check out that podcast wherever you listen to podcasts or Murder Sheet podcast dot com. Man, I'll never forget that because I run the website. Yes I running. I mean I don't have to do anything with it. But nevertheless, yeah, thank you both for your time as always, and I encourage everybody to check out everything you guys are doing. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for listening to this episode of Indiana Stories. If you like what you heard, you can go to Indiana Stories dot com for more episodes and other stories relating to Indiana. Also, if you're enjoying this podcast, there's several things you can follow, the podcast itself, the newsletter, and various other things. Thanks again for listening, and we will be back with another episode, and I hope you join us for another Indiana Story. And the question is do I stay here? Will you be back? How are you going to come back? Will you be back? How are you coming back?
