The Delphi Murders: Why Everyone Got the Delphi Trial Wrong

[00:00:00] Content Warning, this episode contains discussion of the brutal murder of two girls.

[00:00:06] So I guess today we're going to talk a little bit about, I guess, the media coverage and the social media coverage of the Delphi trial and why we feel so many people were caught off guard by the guilty verdict.

[00:00:22] Yeah, there's a lot of ways to try to evaluate and judge media coverage of an event.

[00:00:30] And I think one way that is fair is if I watch this media coverage of an event, was I surprised by the ultimate outcome?

[00:00:40] And if you were surprised by the ultimate outcome, then I would I would posit that the media coverage you were watching failed you.

[00:00:50] Because the media coverage is supposed to help you understand what's going on.

[00:00:54] It's not supposed to give you false impressions or confuse you.

[00:00:58] And I really feel that a lot of the people who were consuming media coverage of this trial were surprised, if not shocked by the verdict.

[00:01:08] And to be honest, I don't think people who were following the trial on our show were surprised.

[00:01:13] I think they saw what was going on and they expected that result.

[00:01:17] Yes. And it's easy to say, oh, well, bad actors were lying.

[00:01:21] And that certainly was going on. But that's not all that was going on.

[00:01:25] So in terms of media coverage, in terms of media coverage.

[00:01:27] And I would I would love to just sort of sit and unpack some of the trends we saw, because we frankly found that it's probably something that's going to change the way that you and I personally evaluate media coverage of trials.

[00:01:40] And I think this would be helpful for our audience to know so that they can do the same going forward.

[00:01:48] My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:01:50] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:01:53] And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:55] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:02:01] We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:02:03] And this is The Delphi Murders. Why everyone got the Delphi trial wrong.

[00:02:53] So I want to also talk about before we get started, the reason why we want to cover this subject in particular.

[00:03:00] Well, first of all, the Delphi murders trial is over, but we still see it as our obligation to continue to put out the truth about the trial and the case and what happened.

[00:03:12] And the reason for that is that there is a turbulent sea of misinformation out there that I actually would argue more people have come away with the wrong idea about this case than otherwise.

[00:03:26] And I'm talking about just people who kind of read a couple headlines like the everyday public that's not really necessarily researched this case in depth, I think, has gotten ill served by a lot of the coverage.

[00:03:37] And we want to take steps to correct that because that's that's not fair to the public.

[00:03:42] And it's also not fair to the case or the memory of these kids, Abby and Libby.

[00:03:46] So that's one reason. And another reason is I think it's interesting to discuss as we as we all as I mentioned at the top, as we all kind of often rely on social media and traditional media to sort of evaluate cases.

[00:04:00] And looking at where there can be limitations with that can be a way to sort of better evaluate and increase our media literacy as we go forward, if that makes sense.

[00:04:11] That does make sense. And before we really dive in, I'd like to make another point.

[00:04:16] Despite our title, not everyone got it wrong.

[00:04:19] And we're going to be saying a lot of critical things about YouTubers.

[00:04:23] Not all YouTubers got it wrong.

[00:04:25] No.

[00:04:26] For instance, Lauren and her team from Hidden True Crime, they came to this trial basically fresh.

[00:04:32] I don't think they'd really covered Delphi before.

[00:04:34] They came in with an open mind and they they they covered this trial with integrity and honesty.

[00:04:42] Yeah.

[00:04:43] We're also going to have some criticisms for the traditional media.

[00:04:46] But again, this doesn't apply to everyone who covered it for the traditional media.

[00:04:50] I'll shout out one particular team.

[00:04:51] I know the team from Fox 59.

[00:04:54] They did not just rely on press passes to get in, although they were in the media consortium that got press passes.

[00:05:00] They would actually have team members camp out outside for hours in order to get in line with the general public on days that they did not get a press pass.

[00:05:08] And that was to ensure that they could give you the most robust coverage.

[00:05:11] Not everyone was able to do that.

[00:05:13] Not every channel or outlet had the resources to do that.

[00:05:16] So it's not a criticism of others because that, you know, that requires a lot of manpower.

[00:05:22] But at the same time, it is noting that, you know, all of our criticisms of this really should be taken more as macro observations and not singling anybody out.

[00:05:34] Because I think we can we can see how some of this stuff does happen, if that makes sense.

[00:05:40] So where do you want to begin?

[00:05:41] Well, I think maybe based on that, maybe we start off with the types of wrong that people were.

[00:05:48] That sounded better in my head.

[00:05:50] You know, in terms of the for I think the basically.

[00:05:55] Creators or conveyors of information, whether you're talking about journalists from a traditional outlet or YouTubers or podcasters and the public actually falls into three broad categories.

[00:06:07] In terms of people who got it wrong.

[00:06:09] So one is the people who did the first two are, I would say, more innocuous.

[00:06:17] And then the third is more malignant for the first category.

[00:06:20] I would say is people who don't know how to interpret information.

[00:06:25] Now, that's people.

[00:06:26] They have the good information, but they look at it and they kind of come to the wrong conclusion because they are not familiar with the subject or they might have a slight bias.

[00:06:35] One way or another.

[00:06:36] This would be like I mean, I don't know if you if you threw me into the ring and asked me to suddenly have a hot take about football or cars or other subjects.

[00:06:47] I know nothing about.

[00:06:48] I would probably fall into this, you know, like, OK, I'm looking at the cars.

[00:06:52] I don't know what's good.

[00:06:53] Here's what I say.

[00:06:54] I always tend to think of things like this in terms of cars and like car mechanics.

[00:06:59] I don't know if you guys have this experience.

[00:07:00] I know how to drive a car.

[00:07:03] And that's it.

[00:07:05] That's it.

[00:07:06] So I go in to get my car looked at or get the oil changed and the people give me information about the condition of my car.

[00:07:14] It's presumably good information.

[00:07:16] I don't know how to interpret it.

[00:07:18] I don't know what it means.

[00:07:19] Yeah.

[00:07:19] It's like you're speaking another language to me in the same subject, honestly.

[00:07:23] And so that that's an area where, you know, we might have the good information, but we don't know how to assess it.

[00:07:28] And therefore, we're liable to make a mistake.

[00:07:30] You're saying, oh, your X is overheating in your car.

[00:07:34] I don't know if that means, oh, do I need to buy a new car?

[00:07:37] Do I do I need to get like a two dollar part replaced or is it no big deal?

[00:07:42] So I have the information.

[00:07:43] I just don't know what it means.

[00:07:45] Yes.

[00:07:46] And then I would say the second group is is people who got bad information.

[00:07:52] This was information that was correct or spun in a way where information was incorrect.

[00:07:58] Incorrect.

[00:07:59] Yeah.

[00:07:59] This is either incorrect or so biased as to not resemble reality.

[00:08:03] And this was certainly, I think, a substantial amount of people.

[00:08:06] And to be clear, these people aren't lying.

[00:08:08] They're running with something that they think is accurate and true, whether they're, again, a creator, a journalist or or a member of the public there.

[00:08:16] They should we shouldn't look at them as doing something horrible.

[00:08:19] It's just, you know, they got something and it turned out that it was.

[00:08:23] So for the car thing, it'd be like if I take my car into the mechanic and the car is fine, the car is great.

[00:08:31] But the mechanic says, oh, your engine is about to go.

[00:08:35] You need to have like a thousand dollar new engine.

[00:08:38] And that's bad information.

[00:08:40] But if I'm trusting the person who gives it to me, I may be acting on it.

[00:08:44] And I suffer for that.

[00:08:47] Yes.

[00:08:48] And you could argue, OK, well, maybe some people in that category are guilty of being naive.

[00:08:53] But I would actually argue that if you are getting inundated with a waterfall of bad information, I don't think it's naivete.

[00:09:01] I just think the informational environment is so toxic that it makes hard makes it really hard for any good faith actor to interpret or get the right information out there.

[00:09:11] So I don't really see this as any individual's fault if they're susceptible to being in that group.

[00:09:17] It's more of just it's a bad situation.

[00:09:19] It's easy for that to happen because the world is so complicated.

[00:09:23] We can't be experts on everything.

[00:09:25] Yes.

[00:09:25] So a lot of times we take things on faith and maybe we should be more skeptical about that.

[00:09:31] And me saying the word skeptical does remind me that a few months ago we did an interview with Dr. Stephen Novella who talked about thinking critically and thinking skeptically.

[00:09:41] And how we should apply those things to different aspects of our life.

[00:09:45] Yes.

[00:09:46] And that's an interview worth revisiting from time to time.

[00:09:48] And I'm just going to say easier said than done.

[00:09:50] So the third group, and I'd be curious about how you use your car analogy with this, are people who are just actively lying.

[00:10:00] These are people who are coming in with a specific agenda and goal.

[00:10:05] And that is to put out what their favorite side or put out specific misinformation in order to kind of confuse, grift, satiate their own strange psychology, whatever, what have you.

[00:10:18] The motivations may vary, but the goal is to be dishonest.

[00:10:22] So with the car mechanic situation, remember I said I bring my car and my car is fine.

[00:10:27] And the mechanic says actually you need to replace your engine at a cost of thousands of dollars.

[00:10:33] So before we talked about me receiving that information and acting on it, and that's the person who gets bad information and believes it.

[00:10:41] The mechanic who's actually telling the lie are the bad actors.

[00:10:45] Right.

[00:10:45] The ones who are spreading misinformation about this case.

[00:10:49] Yes.

[00:10:49] Or other cases.

[00:10:50] That's right.

[00:10:50] And unfortunately, one important aspect of talking about this for Delphi is that it will happen and continue to happen in other cases until conditions change.

[00:10:59] So when we talk about this, I would say that in Delphi, my personal observation, obviously we didn't poll people.

[00:11:07] Hey, are you just lying?

[00:11:08] You know, we I think most people fall into the first two categories.

[00:11:13] They either got bad information at some point or they don't know how to interpret the actual information and things go badly from there.

[00:11:20] I would say that the small but very loud minority are actively lying.

[00:11:27] Yes.

[00:11:28] So.

[00:11:30] I guess.

[00:11:31] Where do we go from here?

[00:11:32] Let's unpack all of this.

[00:11:35] When it comes to, you know, I guess, like evaluating some of these sources.

[00:11:45] One kind of I would say the predominant group of people who were simply actively lying are more on the new media side.

[00:11:53] I really don't think any professional journalists who were there were actively trying to spread misinformation.

[00:11:58] I would say they were fully categorized in the didn't know how to interpret information category for me.

[00:12:04] Like, I, you know, I didn't see any malpractice.

[00:12:07] It was just more of like, oh, I can see why you made that mistake, but that's not good.

[00:12:12] But we're the new media where there really are no professional standards nor ability to police people like, you know.

[00:12:20] And also there's kind of an audience that sort of just keeps coming back to people who are consistently wrong and acting in horrible ways.

[00:12:28] I'd say that's where we saw the people who were just actively lying.

[00:12:32] Is that fair to say?

[00:12:33] That's fair to say.

[00:12:34] And maybe it's also, it might be worth pointing out that maybe by the standards of a lay person, some of these people may be actively lying.

[00:12:48] But by their standards, they may not be.

[00:12:52] They may be twisting or distorting things and leading people up, taking people by the hand and leading them to the wrong conclusion and then pointing to the wrong conclusion.

[00:13:03] And say there, go over there.

[00:13:05] Go to that wrong conclusion without actually necessarily connecting all the dots.

[00:13:09] And I say that because a lot of the commentators on this case who I feel are most problematic are attorneys.

[00:13:18] And attorneys have different rules and standards where you can't actually lie.

[00:13:24] But you can kind of create impressions and things like that and kind of spin things.

[00:13:30] Equivocation.

[00:13:31] Equivocation.

[00:13:32] So I think a lot of – I just want to make that point.

[00:13:35] I think that's important to note because, again, attorneys are, no offense, but super annoying about stuff like that.

[00:13:40] No offense to all the attorneys listening, but there's a lot of like –

[00:13:43] Attorneys are wonderful human beings.

[00:13:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:13:46] We all owe them a debt of gratitude because they teach us to view life through a prism of reason and logic.

[00:13:53] That's not what we saw at Delphi.

[00:13:55] I will say this.

[00:13:56] There's a lot of like, well, I didn't technically lie.

[00:13:59] Ha-ha.

[00:13:59] Yeah, and it's like, yeah, but you came and you basically steered people down a path of incorrect reasoning and, frankly, misinformation.

[00:14:11] So I would say that's no better than lying in my view, morally.

[00:14:16] I'm not suggesting otherwise.

[00:14:18] I'm just saying.

[00:14:18] If you're telling people competently, hey, go down this path in this foggy, rainy darkness, and then they happen to just fall off a cliff that you knew was there, then, you know, you didn't push them off the cliff, but you certainly led to the situation where they fell off of it.

[00:14:34] I'm just telling you some of these attorneys probably don't view themselves as actively lying.

[00:14:38] I'm sure they don't.

[00:14:39] You know, again, it's one of those things where you like reason and logic your way out of any sort of ethical obligations.

[00:14:45] That's something that I frankly see a lot.

[00:14:47] But it's disappointing because I just find it bizarre that people would sort of dedicate their lives to like the law and like courts and trials and then turn around and basically try to like tear apart our shared reality just to get clout online.

[00:15:03] I don't understand it, but that is the way it is.

[00:15:08] With all that said, let's also make a point about the press.

[00:15:12] Yes.

[00:15:12] We said a minute ago that the world is so complicated, we can't expect to be experts in everything.

[00:15:20] That's absolutely true.

[00:15:23] The problem for members of the press is, to a certain extent, reporters are expected to be experts on everything.

[00:15:31] Because a reporter today may be given an assignment to cover a murder trial.

[00:15:35] The next day, they may be expected to cover a city council meeting about road construction.

[00:15:40] The next day, they may be expected to cover something else entirely different.

[00:15:44] And they are supposed to be able to write or speak about all of these different topics in a way that reflects understanding of them.

[00:15:53] They can't possibly be experts in all these things.

[00:15:56] So what reporters often do is they talk to experts, talk to people in the field, people who may be involved in the matter, and reflect the point of view of those people in their stories.

[00:16:09] Yes.

[00:16:10] And the problem is, when they're doing trials, if they are, they may be reflecting the point of view of a particular, defense attorneys are a lot more friendly to the press.

[00:16:26] So defense attorneys and people connected to defense attorneys are likely to talk to the press and say, here is what I think about this.

[00:16:34] So you can't quote me, but you can use my interpretation.

[00:16:40] And so when you read stories from the media, they're often reflecting the point of view of the people who they are talking to who are often defense attorneys.

[00:16:49] And that's especially so in this case.

[00:16:51] Oh, yeah.

[00:16:52] Because the prosecution largely respected the gag order.

[00:16:56] Even take out the word largely.

[00:16:58] The prosecutors in this case respected the gag order.

[00:17:00] Yeah, they did.

[00:17:01] I mean, I would say that was very much the case.

[00:17:06] And we know that the defense attorneys, frankly, did not respect the gag order time and time again on our show.

[00:17:13] We've documented instances where, you know, their chief investigator, Matt Hoffman, is like, you know, chatting with Internet cranks.

[00:17:23] You know, we heard from so many attorneys in Indiana and so many people sort of connected with the legal community, how they were sort of going around bragging about how they were going to win.

[00:17:31] I mean, it was just like it was not something they took seriously.

[00:17:35] And we saw during the trial many times when members of the defense team would literally be talking and communicating with.

[00:17:44] Oh, members of the press.

[00:17:45] I mean, like.

[00:17:46] Including YouTubers.

[00:17:46] Yeah.

[00:17:47] I saw one of the defense counsel literally hand a post-it note to a YouTuber.

[00:17:51] I mean, like it wasn't subtle.

[00:17:53] It wasn't like we're not.

[00:17:55] This isn't conjecture.

[00:17:56] This is based on what we observed and what we heard from other people.

[00:18:00] So.

[00:18:00] So when you have one side actively spinning the press and the other side not, then the press coverage is going to reflect the perspective of who's doing the spinning.

[00:18:10] Because I'm going to tell you from the from a journalist perspective, you're taught.

[00:18:15] Go with the experts.

[00:18:16] You know, kind of figure out based on the experts.

[00:18:19] You're not an expert in this.

[00:18:20] You need to find people who are.

[00:18:21] So I understand from a journalist perspective, you get a bunch of people on one side telling you one thing and then the other side won't talk to you.

[00:18:30] How you can get into a position where you're like, well, you know, I mean, could they all be wrong?

[00:18:35] You know, and the answer is yes.

[00:18:37] And you need to kind of critically evaluate why someone might be spinning you or leaking to you.

[00:18:44] But, you know, I understand how that doesn't happen.

[00:18:47] And like, let's let's let's give the press some some credit here.

[00:18:50] I mean, this was a situation where even the people who were eligible for press passes had a hard job.

[00:18:59] You couldn't come back into the courtroom if you left.

[00:19:02] You know, so like, you know, for for people, especially on TV, that's really difficult because they have to go do a live shot and then maybe they can't come back in.

[00:19:10] Like there was all these logistical issues that came out of this case.

[00:19:14] There was no media room where they could almost leave and go without, like, you know, disturbing everybody else.

[00:19:19] There was no it hindered people's ability, I think, to check and to make sure everything was a lot more flying by the seat of the pants.

[00:19:29] And I feel that also kind of was not conducive to the best coverage at all times.

[00:19:37] And we saw a number of like notable extreme mistakes that came out of this.

[00:19:41] And that was largely due to that.

[00:19:43] I don't I don't think picking on individual journalists is fair here.

[00:19:47] I don't feel like, oh, these people did a bad job.

[00:19:49] It's it's just it's really a systemic issue.

[00:19:52] It's not.

[00:19:53] But I also.

[00:19:55] This made me realize seeing what was happening.

[00:19:58] I do feel like there's generally a skepticism problem in journalism.

[00:20:04] It felt like it felt like the skepticism only went one way in this case.

[00:20:09] And frankly, I do wonder if that was just because the prosecution wasn't actively leaking to anybody.

[00:20:15] So it was like they're not going to talk to us.

[00:20:17] Where are they hiding?

[00:20:18] And it's like they're just following the gag order.

[00:20:20] You got to you got to really even if someone's friendly, even if someone's kind of giving you some hints.

[00:20:25] All of that's great.

[00:20:27] And you can appreciate your sources and protect your sources as you should.

[00:20:30] But I think it's always good to at least be a little skeptical about why someone would be telling you something, because you should realize that, you know, they they're getting something out of it.

[00:20:41] They're not just doing you a favor.

[00:20:42] And if you run their information, maybe that helps them in some way.

[00:20:46] And I think critically evaluating that is really, really important.

[00:20:50] See, and part of this, I think, is that we should acknowledge.

[00:20:55] I think the press does have a very deep bias.

[00:21:00] And I think that bias is for a really big or sexy story.

[00:21:04] Oh, yeah.

[00:21:05] And so if someone comes out and says, hey, everybody, the murder victim had a hair in her hand when she was found and we and the DNA from that hair has never been tested.

[00:21:17] Then all of the reporters are going to be biased towards, oh, my God, this is a huge, sexy story.

[00:21:22] Let's play it up.

[00:21:23] And it's like when that happened, I was just like, OK, well, this is a nothing burger.

[00:21:28] And then I was really shocked to find that that was like, I mean, I wasn't shocked because I kind of had a bad feeling about it.

[00:21:33] But I also was like, you know, like dismayed when that became like the big hot story of the day that everyone was running with.

[00:21:42] And it was like, let's just sit down and think about this for a minute.

[00:21:46] So we're this defense team has been calling for the case to be dismissed against Richard Allen.

[00:21:52] They had a whole lengthy Frank's memorandum that went into detail about their view of the case.

[00:21:59] And this is somehow in voir dire the first time we're hearing about this bombshell hair evidence.

[00:22:07] And so what a cynical you have to be a cynic.

[00:22:11] What a cynical reporter would do in that situation is sit down and say, OK, that's interesting.

[00:22:19] But everything I just said, plus why are they breaking it out in this way?

[00:22:25] You'd think they'd like wait for their opening statement or something.

[00:22:27] Like, why did they not like file to have the case dismissed based on this?

[00:22:31] Why didn't they file it in their Frank's?

[00:22:33] Like, why is this just coming out in this way?

[00:22:35] And they would they would contextualize it in their reporting, saying the defense says this and almost like maybe fill in the blanks of like, here's more information that we'd want on it.

[00:22:45] You wouldn't run it like it's this big, sexy thing.

[00:22:48] And that kind of I want to, like, make another point here.

[00:22:53] Context is really important.

[00:22:54] A lot of times reporters don't have that because they're sort of thrown into a story randomly and they haven't necessarily been covering it before.

[00:23:01] So I think this is understandable.

[00:23:03] But had anyone been covering this case for a long time, they would have recognized that in this case, the defense team had a history of making really big promises, writing massive checks and then not living up to them.

[00:23:20] The checks would bounce.

[00:23:21] The promises would disappear.

[00:23:23] Here, you know, remember Jeff Turco.

[00:23:27] I mean, this is a like a time and time again.

[00:23:30] Who is Jeff Turco?

[00:23:30] Well, he was a Purdue professor who the Defense Act had like completely backed up their theory of Odinism.

[00:23:35] And then he came out in one of the prosecution filing and was basically like, no, like, please leave me out of this narrative.

[00:23:44] I'm I'm I the state police had it right.

[00:23:48] Not you guys.

[00:23:48] Like, and again, like, had they not had a history of that, I personally would have been much more interested in in the hair coming up, even though I would have been skeptical that it hadn't come up before.

[00:23:59] I would have been like, wow, if they had a history of credibility in what they were filing, what they were saying, I would be I would have been really interested in that.

[00:24:08] But they didn't.

[00:24:08] It's very important to take a look at people's track records and how have they done in the past.

[00:24:16] I know lately, for instance, an appellate lawyer who is connected to the defense has been making public comments about how strong the appellate case for Richard Allen is going to be.

[00:24:27] But please remember this very same appellate lawyer a few months ago was saying the case against Richard Allen was so weak it would surely be thrown out.

[00:24:35] Or at least there was a fair chance it was going to be thrown out even before it reached the trial.

[00:24:39] So he was wrong about that.

[00:24:41] Doesn't that make us think, well, maybe he might be wrong about this other thing as well?

[00:24:45] Yes, he's wrong about that, too.

[00:24:47] And I'm going to say this, like there's a reason for people in this case, at least.

[00:24:51] And you could hypothetically imagine prosecutors in other cases.

[00:24:55] You know, if one side is sort of just trying to put try their case in the court of public opinion, which is clearly what the defense was doing here, then it helps to put out that kind of confidence because they're saying, oh, man, yeah, we're going to get this thrown out.

[00:25:09] It's such a weak case.

[00:25:10] And then suddenly if he gets convicted based on the evidence, it's like, what could it be corruption?

[00:25:16] Could the Odinists have gotten to the jury?

[00:25:19] It creates doubt in the process because you're basically making the media believe, wow, our case is so good.

[00:25:24] Oh, no, we lost.

[00:25:25] Hmm.

[00:25:26] Isn't that a little suspicious?

[00:25:28] And, you know, it's like just because I tell you, you know, I'm the best, I don't know, singer in town and then I go to the talent show and I completely fall on my face and it's humiliating and embarrassing for everyone.

[00:25:41] You know, like, you know, if I bragged about it a lot beforehand, maybe then it makes you give me the benefit of the doubt.

[00:25:48] Oh, maybe she had a sore throat that day.

[00:25:49] Maybe she maybe somebody, you know, like sabotaged her in some way.

[00:25:54] You know, but in reality, it's just no, I just I'm not very good at singing.

[00:25:57] And this is what was inevitably going to happen.

[00:25:59] You know, I feel like but seeing the media kind of continuously fall into that trap is is dismaying.

[00:26:05] And you shouldn't lie to our listeners because obviously you're a wonderful singer.

[00:26:09] No, I'm not.

[00:26:09] Don't say that.

[00:26:10] Oh, my gosh.

[00:26:11] No.

[00:26:12] I'm telling you guys the truth.

[00:26:14] Anya is spinning it for bizarre reasons of her own.

[00:26:17] I'm really not.

[00:26:18] But shall we move on?

[00:26:19] You're very sweet.

[00:26:20] But we need to let's move on.

[00:26:22] So I.

[00:26:23] One issue we talked about in some of our coverage I think is really crucial is for whatever Judge Gold did correctly during the trial of protecting Richard Allen's rights, she completely failed in every way imaginable or in close to every way imaginable when it came to public access.

[00:26:42] And I really feel like we are going to deal with the consequences of those failures for a very long time to come.

[00:26:49] The reason is, you know, it gives fodder to conspiracy theorists.

[00:26:54] I think Kevin and I were both maybe leaning towards having cameras in the courtroom, but certainly understanding of why you would not in a sensitive case where there's going to be all kinds of horrific images shown of child victims.

[00:27:05] It's just that I think you needed some sort of like pressure valve release.

[00:27:10] Maybe having a sort of a CCTV thing for a media room would have been helpful.

[00:27:16] Some overflow rooms.

[00:27:18] Like there were a lot of different options.

[00:27:20] So it's not.

[00:27:20] There needed to be more ways for people interested in this case to get all of the information about this case presented at the trial.

[00:27:28] I think if that had occurred and this information were freely available to one and all as it should have been, there would be much less surprise about this verdict.

[00:27:39] And I think people would understand it a lot better.

[00:27:42] And a lot of these ridiculous offensive conspiracies would die out.

[00:27:47] And I think the continuing existence of these conspiracies is the legacy of Judge Gold.

[00:27:52] I think one thing that would have been nice to you is more consistency when it came to strictness.

[00:27:58] Like, for instance, there were there was a YouTuber who was filming what they believed to be license plates of prospective jurors.

[00:28:07] They were allowed in the courtroom like every day.

[00:28:10] I mean, it wasn't like it wasn't like there was any sort of effort to sort of like ensure that people weren't behaving in all sorts of ridiculous ways.

[00:28:17] Like, like it was just like, you know, we're going to be really strict with everybody.

[00:28:22] But if you're acting out, that's OK.

[00:28:24] I mean, I wish there would have been a little bit more of like a kind of understanding of some people are here to do their jobs and other people are here to cause chaos.

[00:28:34] And maybe they shouldn't be treated in the exact same way.

[00:28:38] Yeah, I don't think Judge.

[00:28:40] There were there were apparently early on in the case, there were a couple of legacy reporters who may have accidentally filmed something pertaining to the jurors that they shouldn't have.

[00:28:49] And they were dealt with incredibly, incredibly harshly.

[00:28:52] But then you have this YouTuber that Anya refers to who's deliberately trying to film identifying information about juries.

[00:28:59] And it's completely ignored.

[00:29:02] I think in some way, Judge Gold just doesn't understand social media for good or ill.

[00:29:08] I think she actually I think she just doesn't care.

[00:29:10] And she basically is believes mistakenly that if I just don't make a big deal of it and if I ignore it, it's not important.

[00:29:17] But I would argue that at this point, that's just not true.

[00:29:21] And frankly, punishing people for horrific behavior and stalking would be would be welcome at this point, because frankly, a lot of these people are cowards.

[00:29:30] And if you if you basically put a stop to it, then a lot of them scurry back into their holes.

[00:29:35] And I just think that would have been if you're going to be really, really tough on everybody.

[00:29:41] It would have just been nice to see that consistency applied to people who, again, we're only there to cause chaos.

[00:29:47] Yeah. Again, it's a situation where she is yelling at a reporter who has a closed bottle of water in his bag.

[00:29:55] But she is silent when a YouTuber is filming what she believes to be our license plates of jurors.

[00:30:02] And I'm just going to say that's bizarre.

[00:30:04] We we we we don't need to belabor this point because we've made it a number of times on the show.

[00:30:08] But I think it is important to scrutinize this because we do think it led to some of the less than ideal informational climate around the case.

[00:30:17] I guess another another thing, you know, I guess like going back to what we were saying before about the mainstream press.

[00:30:31] This is something that I kind of think about a lot.

[00:30:33] It has to do with, you know, I don't know, just the medium when it comes to like our show.

[00:30:39] We can sit here in front of a mic and sort of yammer at you for hours or 30 minutes or whatever.

[00:30:46] We're not constrained by time or space.

[00:30:49] A newspaper columnist is constrained by space and word count.

[00:30:53] A TV journalist is constrained by time.

[00:30:56] You know, you have three minutes to tell us everything about what happened today in a case.

[00:31:01] And so different media, different types of media are going to be have have weaknesses and and and benefits.

[00:31:11] You know, one thing Kevin and I will never be able to do is show you anything compelling visually.

[00:31:16] Like you're not going to necessarily be able to picture it as well as if a TV journalist goes and films a courthouse and then you can see what what exactly was going on.

[00:31:24] But but a TV journalist is not going to necessarily give you the amount of detail that we're going to be able to give you.

[00:31:29] So there's there's pros and cons to everything.

[00:31:31] And that comes into play because the case against Richard Allen.

[00:31:37] Was not frankly, it's frankly not a super complicated case, but it is too complicated to explain in 10 seconds or 30 seconds.

[00:31:46] I think if you really want to understand all the circumstantial evidence against him, you need like 10 minutes, 5, 10 minutes.

[00:31:54] If that it would be it would be helpful to.

[00:31:57] Yeah, I mean.

[00:31:58] But you need a little bit more time than TV can typically allow.

[00:32:02] And so because of that, I don't think it was really gone into in depth.

[00:32:07] A number of people have contacted us.

[00:32:09] They really appreciated the episode we did where we spent like 10 minutes just going into it.

[00:32:13] Yeah.

[00:32:14] And then the reason we did that is because I felt like it was, you know, it's one thing to sort of pick through all of our episodes.

[00:32:21] It's another thing to get sort of a boiled down version that you can readily understand.

[00:32:26] And frankly, it's helpful for us to understand it that way.

[00:32:28] But I don't think a lot of media outlets were able to provide that necessarily just because of the way it works.

[00:32:34] And the other kind of issue around this is that there was no, I think, TV in particular, but frankly, a lot of media.

[00:32:46] Like, one thing I remember when I used to cover retail for Insider, I would go, you know, the first time I went on TV to talk about like, I don't even know.

[00:32:56] It was like something about Labor Day.

[00:32:57] And one of the other journalists gave me some advice like, don't be long winded.

[00:33:01] Don't get out there and be like, oh, here's the history of Labor Day.

[00:33:04] And this is what, you know, what they want is sound bites.

[00:33:07] What they want is a quick boiled down thing that everyone can kind of take away.

[00:33:12] That's what they want.

[00:33:13] And the answer isn't don't have any thought put into things or just be kind of like, you know, blurting out random stuff.

[00:33:21] But it is basically if you can boil it down into kind of a short, memorable phrase, that's going to win on TV.

[00:33:28] And frankly, you know, in quotes in newspaper articles, more so than some long winded nuanced take of like, well, I don't know.

[00:33:35] I think they did OK.

[00:33:36] But, you know, and I think there's no big bombshell piece of evidence against Allen necessarily.

[00:33:44] That is like a huge like DNA or, you know, here's the like a like there was no there's no like nothing like that in the case.

[00:33:55] It was more as we talked about.

[00:33:57] It was more about totality.

[00:33:58] It was more about everything stacking up against him.

[00:34:01] But I think journalists tend to prefer that giant boulder as opposed to a bunch of smaller rocks.

[00:34:07] It's easier to understand, easier to explain.

[00:34:10] Yes.

[00:34:10] And so when you had that, I think a lot of journalists kind of were like, well, I don't really get the prosecution's case.

[00:34:18] They're just talking about like people who saw a bridge guy.

[00:34:21] What's the big deal about that?

[00:34:22] And I understand that.

[00:34:25] But they didn't seem to kind of follow it as well as you would want necessarily.

[00:34:32] And I think sometimes when people don't understand something, then they're much quicker to say, well, that's reasonable doubt because I don't get it.

[00:34:39] And also they don't have the context in many cases.

[00:34:41] They're just kind of coming into this, you know, just sort of at the last minute.

[00:34:45] And so it's not criticizing anyone individually.

[00:34:47] It's just more of saying that that's a that's a recipe for the kind of coverage we got, in my view.

[00:34:55] I think we're going to do an episode later on Odinism.

[00:34:59] But in the context of this, I just want to say that the people didn't really understand or not all people.

[00:35:09] Many people did not understand how empty the Odinism theory was.

[00:35:16] And so they were under the impression that it was unfair not to include it.

[00:35:21] And we'll cover this in depth in an episode later.

[00:35:24] But it was an empty theory.

[00:35:25] They had opportunities to show otherwise.

[00:35:29] But it was an empty theory.

[00:35:32] And it's also important to note the defense is under no obligation in a criminal case to say, oh, it wasn't my guy.

[00:35:41] It was this person and I'll prove it.

[00:35:43] So them not presenting a third party culprit theory that doesn't really handicap them.

[00:35:50] No, it does.

[00:35:51] And like here's like that is one issue around Gull in particular that did kind of like make me just be like, what are we doing here?

[00:36:00] So many people from all kinds of media seem to think of this as like, well, if Gull ruled against the defense on Odinism, then it's proof that she's biased.

[00:36:13] And it's like if a referee in a game is penalizing one team for like overtly cheating.

[00:36:22] You know, I used to be a soccer referee.

[00:36:24] Like if one team is like keep picking up the ball with their hands and running it down the field, which is not allowed in soccer, then I would be, you know, it's not biased for me to say, hey, put that down.

[00:36:35] You're not supposed to do that.

[00:36:36] That's against the rules.

[00:36:37] If the other team is generally not doing that, am I biased for, you know, blowing the whistle?

[00:36:44] No, that's ridiculous.

[00:36:45] You know, it's not about you have to look at the overall picture.

[00:36:50] I mean, if one side is getting a lot of calls or fouls and they're doing things that are generally increasingly ridiculous, that should not be surprising.

[00:37:00] That's not biased on the part of the judge.

[00:37:02] If.

[00:37:03] If I mean, like, I don't even know.

[00:37:05] I it's like people just have this kind of dumb idea that like.

[00:37:10] Oh, if they get one thing, then they get another.

[00:37:12] It's like it's they don't they don't you don't get to bring in Odinism just so that Judge Gull doesn't look biased.

[00:37:19] It's just.

[00:37:20] Yeah.

[00:37:20] So in terms of what we're talking about today, we're talking more about Odinism later.

[00:37:24] In terms of what we're talking about today, the judge not letting the Odinism in made for many people that made Judge Gull into a simplistic villain out to get the defense, which is not the case.

[00:37:38] You just heard us criticize Judge Gull about other things.

[00:37:41] She doesn't deserve that criticism about the Odinism.

[00:37:45] She made the right call.

[00:37:46] And people who didn't understand the context of the defense, the Odinism defense, and didn't understand the lack of evidence to support it and didn't understand Indiana law on that point are using it to criticize Judge Gull because that makes for a better and sexier story.

[00:38:04] Yeah, they would have won, too, if it wasn't rigged.

[00:38:08] It's like, yeah, no, we were there for all of the Odinism saga.

[00:38:12] It was not a good theory.

[00:38:13] They did not get anywhere close to where they needed to get.

[00:38:17] And I don't I just I don't know.

[00:38:21] It's it's disheartening to see people come in and talk about this case and sort of make a big deal about that when they clearly have no idea what they're talking about.

[00:38:32] I would say that in terms of the public, though, this is something really that was more of an issue in my mind for the public than necessarily all the creators and journalists.

[00:38:43] I think a lot of people have been almost in their minds telling themselves stories about the case for years.

[00:38:54] I mean, I'll give you an example of how I did that.

[00:38:59] Well, for a long time.

[00:39:01] I really hoped.

[00:39:03] And I guess I guess this kind of seeped into my mind that whatever happened to these girls was over very quickly because I wanted to imagine where they didn't suffer as much.

[00:39:14] And that was something I wasn't conscious of doing that.

[00:39:18] But I when that was really destroyed by the trial and it really upset me because it was like.

[00:39:27] That's what I wanted to be the case, obviously, though, wasn't.

[00:39:31] And I think people people we all tend to do that to tell us comforting things.

[00:39:35] And so one thing we'd hear a lot from people is they must have DNA.

[00:39:38] They must have DNA.

[00:39:39] They must have DNA, DNA.

[00:39:41] And it's like for a long time.

[00:39:43] I was always like, no.

[00:39:45] And by have DNA.

[00:39:47] I mean, like they must have DNA evidence against Richard Allen that they could use in trial.

[00:39:51] And my my reaction to that was always bafflement because it's like that would have been in the probable cause affidavit.

[00:39:58] Like it that would have been the premier marquee evidence.

[00:40:03] There's no way they have it.

[00:40:05] And also if they had usable DNA from a male offender, genetic genealogy being what it is today.

[00:40:11] I think.

[00:40:13] That would have resolved it earlier.

[00:40:15] I mean, we waited years for this.

[00:40:18] So when people would say that, it was like I could tell they were almost trying to.

[00:40:23] Write a happy ending in their minds like I did with with some with elements of it.

[00:40:29] So I'm not judging anyone for doing that.

[00:40:31] It's I think it's a human inclination.

[00:40:33] But I think people ended up building it up in their imaginations.

[00:40:39] I kind of think that as a result of that, to a certain extent, the Delphi murders case has been held to standards that don't get anywhere near beyond a reasonable doubt.

[00:40:49] Don't even apply to that.

[00:40:50] Like what I'm saying is that when you look at most murder cases.

[00:40:55] They're kind of I mean, they're somewhere around this level.

[00:40:58] This is very much within the parameters of what you'd expect from evidence in a murder case.

[00:41:03] But for some reason, because it's high profile, people start saying things like, well, if they don't have DNA, I couldn't convict.

[00:41:09] It's like that's not going to be the case in most murder cases.

[00:41:13] So like it gets held to unreasonable standards.

[00:41:18] And I just think that was something I noticed with a lot of people.

[00:41:23] I mean, again, it's.

[00:41:25] I don't think people understand what reasonable doubt means in general.

[00:41:29] Do you want to talk about that a bit?

[00:41:31] That that actually came up a lot in voir dire.

[00:41:33] That was something that prosecutor Nick McClellan was very much trying to gauge prospective jurors on of like, what do you what do you think reasonable doubt means?

[00:41:43] We heard a lot about Frosty the Snowman and certain examples about that.

[00:41:48] But tell us about the Frosty example.

[00:41:49] This is how this is how not on the ball I am.

[00:41:54] I didn't get this the first time you mentioned it.

[00:41:56] I was like, what the heck is he talking about?

[00:41:58] He's a he's talking with the prospective jurors.

[00:42:01] And he starts saying, if you came back from spring break and there was a puddle of water in your yard, what would you think?

[00:42:11] I mean, would you conclude anything about that?

[00:42:13] And they're like, I don't know.

[00:42:15] And then he's like, what have I told you that there were two pieces of coal in the puddle of water and some sticks?

[00:42:25] And this goes on and suddenly he's adding and a carrot and a top hat and, you know, a scarf.

[00:42:33] And so it's a snowman melted.

[00:42:35] That's the answer.

[00:42:36] And in his point is, you didn't see the snowman be constructed or then melt.

[00:42:43] But what a reasonable person is it reasonable to be firmly convinced that a snowman was constructed and then melted in your yard based on all of this?

[00:42:54] Or is it more reasonable to be convinced that there was some sort of, you know, rumble between a carrot salesman and a guy throwing pieces of coal and someone using sticks as swords?

[00:43:05] You know, the snowman might seem more likely.

[00:43:08] Just a bit.

[00:43:08] So he's so that's what I get.

[00:43:10] And when he was talking about coal, I was like, what the heck?

[00:43:12] Where are we going here?

[00:43:13] But do you want to talk about what reasonable doubt is and what it isn't?

[00:43:19] But reasonable doubt does not mean we say beyond a reasonable doubt.

[00:43:23] It doesn't mean beyond all doubt.

[00:43:24] It just means beyond a reasonable doubt, because anything that happens, you can come up with, you know, can Anya prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I wasn't in a UFO last night?

[00:43:41] She can't.

[00:43:42] She can't because UFOs don't even obey laws of physics.

[00:43:45] And maybe they just took my spirit and left my body behind.

[00:43:49] So Anya just, oh, Kevin's just sitting there quiet and and sulky, just like just the usual Tuesday night.

[00:43:56] There's there's no way she could get beyond all doubt, but she could pretty easily get beyond all reasonable doubt that Kevin wasn't in a UFO.

[00:44:03] Oh, you're like reading my mind.

[00:44:04] No, that's a that's a good point.

[00:44:07] You can't.

[00:44:08] And also, we can't observe everything.

[00:44:10] We're not omniscient.

[00:44:11] Right.

[00:44:11] Like so in very few murder cases, I mean, we're not going to be able to astral project back in time in order to view what happened if it's not caught on camera, especially.

[00:44:24] So like you have to there's there's always going to be a level of doubt.

[00:44:29] But is it reasonable?

[00:44:30] And when we did our episode on the evidence in the Delphi case, that's why we actually went back and sort of reversed it to talk about all of the things you would need to believe in order to dismiss everything.

[00:44:40] Because had a bunch of those been super reasonable, like if Richard Allen, let's let's go with this.

[00:44:47] Richard Allen in his interview with Lieutenant Jerry Holman said that.

[00:44:51] He did not mushroom hunt in the area of the crime scene, nor did he loan his gun out to anyone.

[00:44:59] And there would be no reason for his bullet to be there.

[00:45:01] But if he if he said, oh, gosh, yeah, I did mushroom hunt there a few days before the murders.

[00:45:09] Here's this.

[00:45:10] Here's a couple of selfies of me in that area.

[00:45:13] You can even see my gun.

[00:45:14] I'm holding it up for some reason.

[00:45:17] Maybe something happened when I was going around there.

[00:45:19] Also, I always lent my gun out to my weird, creepy.

[00:45:24] Like friend who, you know, has been arrested for stalking children like that would have.

[00:45:30] And if that if facts like that can lead someone to say, well, that's a pretty reasonable alternate explanation of what happened.

[00:45:38] Or if one of the witnesses said, actually, I did see bridge guy.

[00:45:42] I saw a guy dressed in those particular clothes.

[00:45:44] But actually, now that I think about it, I actually saw is I was walking that day on the trails.

[00:45:49] I actually saw three different guys all dressed in that outfit.

[00:45:53] Yes.

[00:45:53] So that would give me reasonable doubt.

[00:45:56] That's reasonable doubt.

[00:45:56] And when you're when you're in a situation, if there's a reasonable doubt that benefits the defendant, but then maybe another reasonable explanation that doesn't.

[00:46:04] You have to go with the one that benefits the defendant.

[00:46:07] You have to you have to find him not guilty because that's the way it works.

[00:46:12] So there are situations where there would be reasonable doubt.

[00:46:16] But.

[00:46:18] That that doesn't fit the evidence, so you can't just kind of inject your own imagination into it of like, well, what if, you know, like a ninja guy was stalking Richard Allen and then, you know, ended up running to Target and dressing up just like him to fool the witness?

[00:46:34] Like in what world would that be happening?

[00:46:37] Yeah.

[00:46:39] I think that that kind of sums up it's not it's not it's not escape from all doubt.

[00:46:46] It's just what is reasonable if you say it out loud, does it sound completely ridiculous?

[00:46:51] Right.

[00:46:51] And also, like defense attorneys have investigators.

[00:46:55] They're able to investigate things.

[00:46:57] Sometimes something can sound ridiculous, but it turns out that it could be relevant.

[00:47:01] And if there's evidence for it, then it's certainly worth bringing out.

[00:47:05] We talked about a case in Hawaii where there was a wild situation.

[00:47:10] It was not a murder case, but we had a wonderful attorney on to speak about his investigation into it where a man said that he was being framed by his relative who was a prosecutor in Honolulu and her husband, who was the police chief.

[00:47:26] And he was being framed for the crime of vandalizing a mailbox.

[00:47:30] And you're thinking, oh, come on.

[00:47:33] That's stupid.

[00:47:33] That's stupid.

[00:47:34] How could that possibly be?

[00:47:35] But it was true.

[00:47:40] The follow and there was evidence.

[00:47:43] You go where the evidence leads you.

[00:47:45] And even the attorney we talked to, he was noting like, hey, like at first I was like, I don't know, like the sun's kind of wacky.

[00:47:52] But then when he actually had an open mind and looked into the evidence, it all fit.

[00:47:56] And so we've got to be evidentiary based.

[00:47:59] It's not that you have to necessarily dismiss a wild possibility.

[00:48:02] But if there's no evidence for it and it's a wild possibility, yeah, you can't dismiss it.

[00:48:09] I guess one thing I wanted to talk about a little bit.

[00:48:13] This is more in the new media side of things.

[00:48:16] Please do.

[00:48:18] You know, this is something that really wasn't going on during trial necessarily, but it's sort of come to our attention post-trial.

[00:48:26] And I want to talk about it delicately because I don't want to be mean.

[00:48:30] This ought to be good, folks.

[00:48:33] I'm just going to be quiet and let you.

[00:48:35] No, help me out.

[00:48:37] Dude.

[00:48:39] Don't be mean.

[00:48:40] I'm going to try.

[00:48:43] I think in true crime, there is too much in the new creator space, even amongst people who I would not label cranks or, you know, bad actors necessarily.

[00:48:56] There is way too much of an inclination to make content based on something that people do not understand and are not willing to do extensive research into.

[00:49:07] You know, the kind of the it's it's less about bad acting and it's more about mediocrity.

[00:49:13] So there seems to have been like a flood in the days post-trial of different creators who are just weighing in on Delphi and basing, which is fine.

[00:49:25] Everyone can have an opinion.

[00:49:26] Anyone can.

[00:49:26] You don't I'm not saying you need to study the I guess like be in the Delphi trenches for years like we were to the point where you basically lose your mind.

[00:49:36] Like I'm not saying you have to do that, but what I've seen a lot of is people drawing conclusions and putting information out to their audience.

[00:49:45] That's either very incorrect or based on a false premise.

[00:49:51] And I think it's because they're getting bad information from some of the sources that we've described above, whether that's traditional media or new media.

[00:49:58] And the problem is that the audience who is engaging with this content obviously trust the people giving it to them and they're ultimately getting bad or incomplete information, which gives them a false picture of what happened.

[00:50:17] And that's I really don't think there's any ill intent there.

[00:50:21] I think it just happens sometimes.

[00:50:22] I think every creator is susceptible to doing something like that.

[00:50:25] I'm not going to sit here and be like, oh, wow, I'm aghast.

[00:50:31] Pearl's clutched.

[00:50:32] You know, it I see how it happens.

[00:50:35] People say, hey, we want to hear from you about this.

[00:50:37] And then you say, OK, and then you do some research and you're like, here's my episode.

[00:50:41] And then people are like, like, oh, what?

[00:50:44] You know, like it's not an ill intent thing.

[00:50:47] It's just it can be a quality control thing.

[00:50:50] And I do think it's reasonable to criticize this, though, because ultimately these people are monetizing off of this bad information and they're doing a disservice to their audiences.

[00:50:59] They're doing a disservice to the case and they're they're not promoting the truth.

[00:51:04] And I think so.

[00:51:05] It should be criticized.

[00:51:06] But I think we can look at it with some compassion and say it's not necessarily to me in a situation like that.

[00:51:12] It matters more about what creators do afterwards.

[00:51:15] If they're if it's brought to their attention that they made a mistake or that they're basing stuff off of stuff that's wrong.

[00:51:20] You know, do they go back and say, ah, yeah, we messed up.

[00:51:23] Let's do something more in depth and try to correct this.

[00:51:26] Or do they get defensive?

[00:51:27] That's that's the kind of thing that I would look for in terms of, you know, I think I think one thing you can do is respect respectfully as audience members.

[00:51:38] You can respectfully and politely and kindly and compassionately reach out and just say, hey, here's where things may have gone a little bit off the rails here.

[00:51:47] You know, it doesn't have to be a call out.

[00:51:50] I don't believe in like, I don't know, like canceling people for making making a mistake or something that that's not helpful because that doesn't let anyone grow or learn or do better.

[00:52:02] I just don't think that's helpful.

[00:52:03] But I do think it's also not helpful to just kind of slop out a bunch of hot takes on this case.

[00:52:11] That's, you know, when I see people going around and being like, well, you know, yeah, he was convicted.

[00:52:17] But I mean, Odinism wasn't let in.

[00:52:20] It's like, you know, nothing of Odinism.

[00:52:23] How dare you?

[00:52:25] So I get kind of like behind the scenes when Kevin and I are just talking.

[00:52:28] I kind of go into like.

[00:52:30] I don't know.

[00:52:31] You wouldn't believe what I have to listen.

[00:52:33] My eyes start glowing red and I'm really mad about it because I'm like, there are real people at the heart of this.

[00:52:39] There are real families who lost children and you think you can come in and just.

[00:52:45] Like, oh, here's a tick tock of me like ranting or putting off my like it's like, no, do your research.

[00:52:51] But I also see it from the other side.

[00:52:54] And I think it's I think it's really just helping people understand that, you know, like.

[00:53:02] Maybe they need to do a little bit more digging and not base anything off of what they're hearing.

[00:53:10] You know, the best thing you can do is look at court filings.

[00:53:14] And I think actually in this case, even though transcripts are not going to be released for a very long time and probably for a lot of expense.

[00:53:22] One thing that could have helped a lot of creators in this situation is just look at all the pretrial filings on Odinism.

[00:53:28] And you will probably come away with a very different understanding of what that theory is and how powerful it was.

[00:53:34] And that could have helped the coverage.

[00:53:36] Like, just look at the raw documents.

[00:53:40] And I personally think it's sometimes better to go with a more fact forward, fact centric approach.

[00:53:46] If you're covering something that you don't really know about or that might seem kind of complicated where you're just laying out the facts and not even really weighing on an opinion.

[00:53:54] That's hard to do because we're all human.

[00:53:57] It's easy to kind of put some opinion in there.

[00:53:59] I just that would be my recommendation for for folks in Delphi.

[00:54:03] If you're covering it, it's just or any topic.

[00:54:05] Yeah.

[00:54:06] And I would say that creators also can remember that we're all lucky to have audiences who are smarter than us sometimes.

[00:54:18] There have been numerous times in our coverage of this case when something comes up like ballistics and we say we don't really fully understand all the implications of this.

[00:54:28] And then people will contact us and say, well, I'm an expert in ballistics.

[00:54:32] I've worked in this field for so many years.

[00:54:33] Here's what I think.

[00:54:34] And then we can have them on the show and we can all learn together.

[00:54:38] Exactly.

[00:54:39] I'm not saying we do everything perfectly.

[00:54:41] It's not that.

[00:54:41] It's just that we we understand how you could fall into this trap.

[00:54:45] And it's it's it's unfortunate.

[00:54:47] But it's also we do owe our audiences and the victims of these murders and their families and the community that they're from.

[00:54:56] We owe them the truth.

[00:54:57] We owe them to get as close to the truth as we possibly can.

[00:55:01] And some of what I've seen has been very mediocre and not anywhere close to the truth in the days since.

[00:55:08] And I just think we need to gently encourage people to do better.

[00:55:12] And if they're good faith actors who are trying their best and maybe just made a mistake, then there really shouldn't be any issue receiving that feedback, I would say.

[00:55:20] And I would say also there's other people who are just not good faith actors who are running around and doing things.

[00:55:31] And most of them will still get invited to CrimeCon.

[00:55:33] They'll continue to make money.

[00:55:35] And I feel like as a as a sort of a business, true crime, new media, podcasts and YouTube, we've not grown up enough to really hold anyone accountable.

[00:55:46] And nobody, frankly, even good actors wanted wants to do the right thing in this because imposing wider standards means that their own business might have to mature and their own approach might have to mature and change is difficult.

[00:55:58] And they don't want to be getting in a situation where, you know, they're condemning one person one day, but then the next day they do that and then they get condemned or their friend does it.

[00:56:06] And I get that we don't want to get into some, you know, cancellation standoff.

[00:56:12] I don't think that's helpful, but I think at the very least.

[00:56:16] We don't need to pal around with people who are behaving horribly.

[00:56:20] I don't think they need to be touted at podcasts, festivals or conferences.

[00:56:25] I think that we can maintain some standards when people are clearly acting in bad faith.

[00:56:30] And I would encourage audience members.

[00:56:32] The worst thing you can do to any of those people is to stop listening because then you're not financially contributing anymore.

[00:56:38] And perhaps that encourages people to not behave in poor ways.

[00:56:43] Maybe they turn over a new leaf.

[00:56:45] Maybe other people see that and they say, well, I'm not going to go down that road.

[00:56:50] And it makes true crime a little bit less toxic for families who are already dealing with a horrible pain or, you know, everyone else, frankly.

[00:57:02] I think I think having having recognizing when people are, you know, especially creators.

[00:57:09] One thing I've noticed, have you noticed the double standard of evidence?

[00:57:13] What are you talking about?

[00:57:14] OK, well, like I feel that people will say, well, I'm convinced that I'm not going to name them, but these Odinists did the crime.

[00:57:26] And the evidence they will cite for that is significantly weaker than the evidence in Delphi against Richard Allen.

[00:57:32] Oh, for instance, they say, oh, this person who some have alleged to be connected to the Odinists.

[00:57:38] He once made an ambiguous comment.

[00:57:40] I'm going to interpret that comment in the worst possible way and assume he is guilty.

[00:57:46] And at the same time, I'm going to ignore the 61 plus explicit comments that Richard Allen made.

[00:57:53] Exactly.

[00:57:55] Like you just summed it up perfectly.

[00:57:57] I think when you see a creator doing that, that is a that is a significant red flag because that means that they're kind of just going with whatever they want.

[00:58:06] And they're not really led by the evidence or the facts.

[00:58:09] Yes.

[00:58:11] And I think we also just have to be aware that there's a weird cottage industry that's cropped up where people invariably cry corruption and wrongful conviction no matter what happens.

[00:58:22] For a lot of people who came into this case during the trial, they were never going to be convinced that Allen was guilty.

[00:58:28] That was not on the table.

[00:58:29] That was that's not why they're there.

[00:58:31] That's not how they do their work.

[00:58:33] They're coming in to.

[00:58:37] E on one side.

[00:58:39] And that's it.

[00:58:42] And if that's the case, then I think taking them a lot less seriously is probably the word of the day.

[00:58:49] That's fair.

[00:58:51] Yeah.

[00:58:51] Yeah.

[00:58:52] And for members of new media and for the members of the audience, some members of the audience, not our audience, but.

[00:59:01] The wider Delphi audience.

[00:59:03] Some people just genuinely do not want this case to be over.

[00:59:07] This case has allowed them to feel a sense of purpose in life.

[00:59:10] They've enjoyed the endless drama.

[00:59:13] The fighting.

[00:59:14] They've they've they've made friends.

[00:59:17] They feel like they belong to a community.

[00:59:19] And so they will either take their terrible behavior to the next case or they will continue to fight to make this continuously relevant.

[00:59:30] And there's something very disheartening about that to me, because I would think we.

[00:59:35] Some point, you know.

[00:59:38] Want anything to be over, but I just think.

[00:59:41] Especially something like this.

[00:59:42] I think anyone who cares about this case has wanted it to be over.

[00:59:47] Wanted there to be closure as much as possible for the families once there to be some sort of answer given.

[00:59:55] And that's where we're at.

[00:59:56] There is a guilty verdict.

[00:59:58] And it's a verdict that's well founded by the evidence in the case.

[01:00:02] This should be what people have been wanting.

[01:00:04] And I think for some people where it's more of a hobby, it's like it's an existential threat because it's like, what am I going to do now?

[01:00:12] And again, the two answers are bad.

[01:00:14] They're either going to continue to try to harass people in this case or they're going to go on to the next case and harass people there.

[01:00:19] So it's not it's not good.

[01:00:21] But we need we I feel like we need to really try to.

[01:00:27] Make true crime a better place.

[01:00:28] It's not I don't feel like it's a healthy genre right now.

[01:00:31] I don't feel like when you have this kind of level of behavior with every high profile case at this point, it's not a it's not a good situation.

[01:00:39] We need we need to encourage it to be better.

[01:00:41] And we also I think I'm going to tell you, I'm a huge I'm a huge journalism fangirl.

[01:00:49] I love I love journalism.

[01:00:50] I love journalists.

[01:00:51] This is this case has made me I think I'm going to probably view even traditional media coverage of cases going forward with a little of a different mindset, not disbelieving it, not saying, oh, they're lying to us.

[01:01:10] So the mainstream press.

[01:01:12] No, it's not.

[01:01:12] It's nothing so dramatic.

[01:01:14] It's just maybe saying journalists are humans, too.

[01:01:17] They're trying to cover this probably as best as they can.

[01:01:19] But still, things can get be wrong in a factual sense or maybe it's a bit biased for whatever structural reasons or maybe the people are not understanding this information and they're reporting it accordingly.

[01:01:34] It just might make me a little bit more skeptical, skeptical going forward, which is kind of.

[01:01:43] I at first I felt it was very disillusioning, but now I see that it is just an opportunity to really critically engage with cases even more so.

[01:01:54] I think I learned to critically engage with podcasts and YouTube, but now maybe applying that even to more traditional sources might be what I'm challenging myself to do going forward.

[01:02:05] And along similar lines, I've had some of the same reactions you've had to the press, but it also reminds me back when I really years ago when I first went in depth on Burger Chef.

[01:02:18] And was really fortunate enough to talk to a lot of the original investigators on that case, talk to some of the family members of the victims, talk to coworkers of the victims.

[01:02:32] It became clear to me at some point that the people who knew most about the case and the subsequent investigation were not the people who were talking to the press.

[01:02:45] And so reporters wrote a lot of very good stories about that case over the years, but they weren't getting the full story just because not everybody was talking to them.

[01:02:55] And so that's also important to remember that when we read about a case, there's some of the issues we've talked about today.

[01:03:01] And there's also the fact that sometimes the knowledgeable sources aren't the ones talking.

[01:03:05] That's a really good point.

[01:03:07] Yeah.

[01:03:08] And I think it's a lesson for everyone to take going forward.

[01:03:11] It's not to say don't believe the press.

[01:03:13] It's just to say maybe at the end of reading a story, you ask yourself, what's missing?

[01:03:18] Where do I think they got this information?

[01:03:19] Like interpreting it and analyzing it and filing it away accordingly.

[01:03:25] Was there anything else you wanted to talk about, about why everyone got Delphi wrong?

[01:03:30] Not everyone.

[01:03:31] Except us.

[01:03:31] No, I'm just kidding.

[01:03:33] The murder sheet retains the mandate of heaven.

[01:03:35] I think it's a situation where you and I were both open, me much more so than you.

[01:03:41] I think you were more correct than I was.

[01:03:43] I was more open to a hung jury.

[01:03:46] You were like, no, they're going to convict him.

[01:03:50] I think it's – I do agree though.

[01:03:53] I think a lot of people were completely caught off guard because they were not prepared for what happened based on what they were reading in traditional and nontraditional sources or listening to, I suppose.

[01:04:03] And I think that's a failure of the reporting at trial.

[01:04:08] Yes.

[01:04:09] And it's not to say – there can always be a curveball.

[01:04:12] There can always be a shocking acquittal or a shocking conviction.

[01:04:15] But that – I don't think people should have been shocked with this conviction based on what we saw.

[01:04:21] Is that fair to say?

[01:04:22] That's fair to say, especially after that closing argument that Brad Rose gave.

[01:04:28] I still think about that closing argument.

[01:04:30] It troubles me.

[01:04:33] It was – I laugh about it.

[01:04:36] Sometimes you laugh about the things that make you uncomfortable.

[01:04:39] It was so bizarre and so inappropriate to be doing that.

[01:04:44] And this – two girls died.

[01:04:46] And the closing argument is about a giant snake.

[01:04:49] What do you think is inappropriate about it?

[01:04:50] I'm curious.

[01:04:53] This is a serious thing.

[01:04:54] Two girls died.

[01:04:56] And he's basically arguing for a jury nullification with pictures of big pythons.

[01:05:01] And it was like a tasteless Saturday Night Live skit.

[01:05:06] The case deserved more dignity and seriousness.

[01:05:11] And if you think that your best argument to make for your client is, oh, beware of the big pythons,

[01:05:17] then you're doing your client a disservice.

[01:05:19] And I think the verdict reached was just – I don't think Richard Allen got a very good defense.

[01:05:26] Yeah.

[01:05:26] I don't think he got a poor defense up until the point where it was ineffective.

[01:05:30] Also, he fought to have them back on.

[01:05:31] So I think that would be a very difficult argument for him to make at this state.

[01:05:35] But I don't think it was a good defense.

[01:05:37] I don't think it was a – I don't think it was a strong defense.

[01:05:40] I think it was pretty haphazard in the end.

[01:05:42] And to an extent, you could argue they did the best they could because their client was clearly guilty

[01:05:48] and was going around giving evidence of his guilt to everyone who would listen.

[01:05:53] That's fair.

[01:05:53] So there is that.

[01:05:55] But that closing.

[01:05:56] I think they could have made it look a little bit better.

[01:06:00] But I think some of the stylistic choices they made were terrible.

[01:06:04] But I do have some sympathy with them because I think he put them in a horrible position.

[01:06:09] I think he's a client from hell.

[01:06:10] And I think ultimately they could not get around that.

[01:06:13] And they certainly couldn't get around that with any grace.

[01:06:16] But I think to your point, to bring it back to the media, I think a lot of journalists were really impressed with the snake

[01:06:21] because they don't know what jury nullification is.

[01:06:23] And they think, wow, the passion.

[01:06:25] And it's like you could be doing a lot and not doing very well.

[01:06:30] Yeah.

[01:06:31] That's always important to remember.

[01:06:32] A lot of effort and a lot of yelling and a lot of snakes does not always equal well done.

[01:06:40] I just think that people are used to sort of a courtroom drama view of lawyering.

[01:06:49] And when they're getting fed that, they're like, well, yes, this is what I expected.

[01:06:54] It must be good.

[01:06:55] And just think jury nullification is basically when you try to – well, maybe he's guilty,

[01:06:59] but isn't this other thing worse, trying to change the subject.

[01:07:03] And obviously, Ani and I never fight about anything.

[01:07:07] But many people do have the experience of arguing or quarreling with a spouse or a friend.

[01:07:14] And if you've been in that situation and you're arguing about a particular subject and in the middle of the argument,

[01:07:21] you abruptly change the subject to something that you think makes them look worse,

[01:07:25] that's not a sign of strength on your part.

[01:07:27] That's a sign I know I'm losing on this particular topic.

[01:07:30] So I'm going to change it to something they did last month or a year ago.

[01:07:33] Yes, it is.

[01:07:34] Yeah.

[01:07:36] It's so true.

[01:07:37] And we don't know that.

[01:07:39] We don't know that.

[01:07:39] We've never argued it.

[01:07:40] We have the perfect marriage, obviously.

[01:07:42] No doubt about that.

[01:07:45] No, it's true.

[01:07:46] It's a sign of weakness.

[01:07:47] So much about their case was a sign of weakness.

[01:07:49] And a lot of people interpreted it as signs of strength because they would say,

[01:07:52] we're strong.

[01:07:53] We're going to win.

[01:07:54] This is going to get dismissed.

[01:07:57] And this is why skepticism is important, just because someone's saying that doesn't mean actions speak louder than that.

[01:08:05] And I apologize.

[01:08:05] We've digressed from our topic.

[01:08:07] So we should just—

[01:08:08] Any concluding thoughts about why everyone got this wrong and how we can all try to figure that out afterwards?

[01:08:15] Well, my concluding thought is maybe we will have an argument in a moment because you really have a great singing voice.

[01:08:21] I don't.

[01:08:22] And so you shouldn't have said that about yourself.

[01:08:25] Oh, my gosh.

[01:08:27] So that's my concluding thought.

[01:08:28] This reminds me of what you did last week.

[01:08:30] No, I'm just kidding.

[01:08:33] We're not going to fight in front of the listeners.

[01:08:35] All right.

[01:08:35] Well, thank you all so much for listening.

[01:08:38] And, yeah, stay tuned.

[01:08:39] We'll probably do a couple more Delphi topics.

[01:08:41] If there's stuff that you feel like you're not understanding or a lot of people around you are not understanding about this case,

[01:08:46] let us know because we can always kind of do some additional reporting around that to help out.

[01:08:51] But—

[01:08:52] And also, if there's details you're curious about that haven't gotten reported, let us know.

[01:08:56] We are working on a book on the case that's going to be coming out next summer.

[01:08:59] Yeah.

[01:09:00] And one thing we want to do is try to answer as many questions as we can.

[01:09:04] Absolutely.

[01:09:05] All right.

[01:09:05] Well, thanks, everybody.

[01:09:06] Bye-bye.

[01:09:08] Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet.

[01:09:11] If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com.

[01:09:19] If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[01:09:28] If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet.

[01:09:38] If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet.

[01:09:48] We very much appreciate any support.

[01:09:52] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[01:10:02] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join The Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook.

[01:10:10] We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much.

[01:10:15] We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages.

[01:10:22] Thanks again for listening.

[01:10:28] Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this Murder Sheet episode.

[01:10:31] Just as a quick post-roll ad, we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings Handbook.

[01:10:39] This show is phenomenal.

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[01:10:55] He has so many different conversations with interesting people, people whose loved ones have gone missing, other podcasters in the true crime space, just interesting people with interesting life experiences.

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[01:11:56] Yeah, I think our audience will like it.

[01:11:58] And you've already met Jason if you listen consistently to our show.

[01:12:00] He's been on our show a couple times.

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[01:12:05] I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this.

[01:12:10] That really resonated.

[01:12:11] Like I do quote him in a conversation sometimes because he really has a good grasp of different complicated issues.

[01:12:17] She quotes him to me all the time.

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[01:12:38] There's kind of a common through line of compassion and empathy there that I think we find very nice.

[01:12:43] And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it.

[01:12:49] But this is something that almost can be like if you're kind of feeling a little burned out by true crime, I think this is kind of the life affirming stuff that can can be nice to listen to in a podcast.

[01:13:00] It's compassionate.

[01:13:02] It's affirming.

[01:13:02] But I also want to emphasize it's smart.

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[01:13:17] Yeah.

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[01:13:25] Download some episodes.

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[01:13:30] But anyways, you can listen to the Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.

[01:13:35] Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[01:13:36] Very easy to find.

[01:13:37] Absolutely.