transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:02] The Red Weather is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or events reflects the adaptation of real, publicly available materials for creative and legal reasons. The content of this podcast is the sole responsibility of Red Weather LLC and does not reflect the views and responsibilities of I Heart Media or its affiliates. Previously, on The Red Weather.
Speaker 2:
[00:22] I found that tape in my car when Anna left it with a bunch of her books. And when I heard it, that's when I knew she was banging some older guy.
Speaker 3:
[00:29] It also can't be true that age doesn't matter, which by the way, you say it all the time.
Speaker 4:
[00:34] All of a sudden she's missing school late nights, taking the car out.
Speaker 3:
[00:37] He wore her down.
Speaker 5:
[00:38] That son of a bitch wore her down.
Speaker 6:
[00:39] Jesus, do you remember Jacob Wyman, the English teacher?
Speaker 7:
[00:42] Wyman landed in hot water last semester when several parents noticed he had included the novel Damage by Josephine Hart on his fall reading list.
Speaker 1:
[00:51] I needed to see that book.
Speaker 8:
[00:53] So the sheriff's department is here.
Speaker 7:
[00:55] What?
Speaker 2:
[01:02] Yeah, because I don't care if you are some little shit that is serious.
Speaker 1:
[01:06] There are parts of my conversation with Mick Bowden that I didn't include earlier. It didn't seem relevant.
Speaker 4:
[01:11] Who actually came at you with a bat?
Speaker 2:
[01:13] The one dressed like the Phantom of the Opera or whatever. That's why I took him out, and that kid went down hard.
Speaker 4:
[01:19] You took him out.
Speaker 2:
[01:19] And he wasn't getting back up.
Speaker 1:
[01:21] We were talking about the night Anna Trainor disappeared.
Speaker 6:
[01:23] No way, no fucking way.
Speaker 1:
[01:26] Chris didn't see it quite the same.
Speaker 6:
[01:27] Took me out, I think I'd remember that.
Speaker 1:
[01:30] Anyway, Mick and I were going back and forth, and at one point, he said this.
Speaker 2:
[01:34] I was just lucky I didn't have a gun.
Speaker 1:
[01:37] That's a weird thing to say.
Speaker 2:
[01:38] No, I'm not making a point, okay, that if you come at me with a bat, if I had a gun, I ain't justified.
Speaker 4:
[01:46] Did you have a gun?
Speaker 1:
[01:48] Like in your car? Did you have a gun?
Speaker 4:
[01:50] No, of course not. What about at your house?
Speaker 9:
[01:53] No.
Speaker 2:
[01:54] Like, did you?
Speaker 1:
[01:55] No, obviously not.
Speaker 2:
[01:57] What do you mean, obviously not? You lived out there in the middle of the woods. Okay, no, but hold on. You didn't have a gun at your house, in your house, when you grew up?
Speaker 1:
[02:04] Yeah, my dad. I mean, we had hunting rifles.
Speaker 2:
[02:07] Okay, multiple guns.
Speaker 1:
[02:08] Okay, let's just, can we just calm down and take a step back?
Speaker 2:
[02:12] Why?
Speaker 1:
[02:12] We're getting off track here.
Speaker 2:
[02:14] We're not off track. You point a finger at me, I'm just pointing it right back at you.
Speaker 1:
[02:17] Mick had recorded our conversation the same time I did.
Speaker 8:
[02:20] They're searching the house. They're going through all the closets and outside.
Speaker 1:
[02:24] The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office had shown up at my parents' house with a search warrant. My brother Shiloh called me while I was still in Colorado. I thought Mick's recording was all about intimidation, a power move, a bluff, to keep me honest.
Speaker 4:
[02:37] What are they looking for?
Speaker 8:
[02:38] Guns.
Speaker 1:
[02:39] But obviously, it was more than that. I am actor and filmmaker, Ryder Strong. This is The Red Weather. I mean, I have to go, because my parents are freaking out. Instead of flying back to LA, I needed to get to Northern California, but that would mean my wife, Alex, would miss out on an acting job.
Speaker 10:
[03:52] It's the one day guest star, I can live without it. You should come home, stop recording, call a lawyer.
Speaker 11:
[03:58] Why? Why?
Speaker 12:
[03:59] It's total bullshit.
Speaker 13:
[04:00] No, this whole thing, it's...
Speaker 10:
[04:02] They have a warrant, they have a reason to be there, they have a legal document, you have nothing, you have just your podcast. Like, what are you not telling me?
Speaker 11:
[04:12] Nothing. What do you mean?
Speaker 13:
[04:15] Are you seriously asking me that?
Speaker 1:
[04:17] I'm not trying to hide, I'm not hiding anything from you.
Speaker 14:
[04:21] What?
Speaker 10:
[04:22] I mean, you left out the abortion, you helped your ex get.
Speaker 6:
[04:25] Oh my God.
Speaker 1:
[04:26] I can't believe you're bringing that up again.
Speaker 10:
[04:28] It's...
Speaker 1:
[04:29] I hope that you're joking.
Speaker 10:
[04:30] I'm not joking. I know you told, you said you told me, but I really do not remember, and I feel like that's something I would remember.
Speaker 15:
[04:36] It's pretty bad, man.
Speaker 1:
[04:37] My buddy Connor didn't hold back. Well, I mean, I think what she's mad about is that I've been gone for so long, you know, all this time.
Speaker 15:
[04:44] Or she's mad about exactly what she's telling you she's mad about.
Speaker 10:
[04:49] You know, when you said you were doing this podcast, I thought Willow was like a friend when you were kids, and then I find out more.
Speaker 11:
[04:57] You know, that's...
Speaker 1:
[04:59] When we were teenagers, it got a little complicated.
Speaker 15:
[05:01] Do you remember the night we wrote that song?
Speaker 1:
[05:03] Connor was talking about one of the first times he met Alex. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 8:
[05:08] It's very similar.
Speaker 15:
[05:09] It's the same thing.
Speaker 1:
[05:10] Connor had flown into LA to visit, and the three of us went out for a big dinner, had a fun night, and when we got back to the house, Alex went to bed. Connor and I stayed up. Before he became an academic, Connor was a musician. We used to do shows together. And that night, we stayed up until sunrise, playing guitar and writing a song.
Speaker 15:
[05:28] We were very intoxicated, and we were not quiet. Writing a song that was dealing with love and loss, and it was quite a dramatic song.
Speaker 1:
[05:44] We were loud, and you were singing at the top of your lungs.
Speaker 15:
[05:48] She did come in and tell us to shut up several times.
Speaker 1:
[05:51] Alex was trying to sleep, which was problem number one. But then, when she came out to tell us to be quiet, she heard the lyrics to what we were writing, and found out we were writing a song about an ex-girlfriend of mine.
Speaker 15:
[06:03] You've got to be totally up front with her. Like, an open book.
Speaker 1:
[06:07] When I called from the airport, I got Alex's voicemail. Hey, look, I know you're upset. And I understand, but I also, you know, I want you to be able to have the whole picture.
Speaker 11:
[06:22] So I sent you a link, if that's going to send you to a Dropbox where you can download all seven of the episodes so far that I have edited, The Rough Cuts.
Speaker 1:
[06:34] And you listen to them, you'll see that Willow is such a small part of this.
Speaker 13:
[06:40] It's really, it's not about her. It really is about Anna.
Speaker 1:
[06:45] Anyway, give me a call later and we can talk.
Speaker 11:
[06:48] All right.
Speaker 1:
[06:48] I love you. Bye.
Speaker 11:
[06:53] Hi, guys.
Speaker 4:
[06:54] Hey. Hi. Yeah.
Speaker 11:
[06:56] No, I'm fine. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:
[06:58] How are you?
Speaker 11:
[07:00] You really got me freaked out. I know.
Speaker 1:
[07:01] I know.
Speaker 11:
[07:02] I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:
[07:02] It took me all day to get to my parents. The sheriff's department was long gone.
Speaker 8:
[07:06] Yeah. So I was in the back house and I looked up and I just happened to see them. They had the lights on and they came down and then they pile out and everybody comes in here and then they grab mom and dad and bring them outside. So I walked down and then they saw me and I was like, what the fuck? They take me to a little area and then they start taking each of us individually and start interviewing, but we couldn't talk to each other.
Speaker 11:
[07:29] And they're just asking about guns?
Speaker 1:
[07:30] They're just saying like where?
Speaker 8:
[07:31] Yeah, they had a search warrant. They gave me a warrant.
Speaker 11:
[07:33] Where's the search warrant? Let me see that.
Speaker 1:
[07:36] It says they're searching for what's listed in Attachment B.
Speaker 11:
[07:38] And oh my god. Okay, so Attachment B says, one, firearms of any make or model.
Speaker 1:
[07:46] The gun thing might seem a little out of character, but for all my parents' bohemian tendencies, my dad was raised in rural Pennsylvania, where he grew up hunting. He was in the Marines. So he made sure to teach us how to shoot. I got my first rifle when I was six, and I'm not talking a BB gun. It was a.22. I'm actually very anti-gun these days, or at least very pro gun control. But my dad still had all of his. He has them locked and stored these days, but when we were kids, there was just a closet off of my parents' room that had all of them. Including but not limited to rifles and handguns chambered in.257 Roberts caliber or any other caliber consistent with ballistic evidence.
Speaker 13:
[08:28] So how many guns did they take?
Speaker 1:
[08:29] They took all of them?
Speaker 9:
[08:30] Every one I had, yeah.
Speaker 7:
[08:32] But they're looking for a match.
Speaker 1:
[08:33] Monica was talking about the bullets and evidence recovered from a tree. No, that's not what this is.
Speaker 13:
[08:38] This is publicity.
Speaker 1:
[08:39] This is just retaliation, you know? Mick sends them on a witch hunt, and they know that it's a witch hunt, but they still do it because they're pissed off for what you and I did.
Speaker 7:
[08:47] Well, I mean, it does make sense. I mean, she disappeared within a mile. And there's what? There's guns at your property.
Speaker 1:
[08:57] OK, so I did it. I'm literally making a podcast where I'm trying to solve the case.
Speaker 7:
[09:02] Oh, this is not new. Zodiac Killer sent letters to the San Francisco Chronicle. Then there was BTK. OK, he haunted the press for years.
Speaker 11:
[09:08] OK, don't.
Speaker 7:
[09:10] Question. Your parents, do they ever lock their doors?
Speaker 1:
[09:14] No, it's about, I mean, they're out in the middle of nowhere. Never.
Speaker 7:
[09:16] Exactly. So somebody actually could walk into their house. They could find a gun and then...
Speaker 1:
[09:21] But they would have to know that there are guns there.
Speaker 4:
[09:26] That's the point.
Speaker 7:
[09:28] You were in the woods.
Speaker 11:
[09:29] You, Willow...
Speaker 1:
[09:31] And Chris, Connor, Orion, we were all together.
Speaker 7:
[09:36] But you didn't stay at your house.
Speaker 11:
[09:38] No.
Speaker 1:
[09:39] We walked to Connor's. Is that how I told you that?
Speaker 7:
[09:41] Why?
Speaker 11:
[09:42] What do you mean?
Speaker 7:
[09:43] Why didn't you stay at your house?
Speaker 13:
[09:45] You were right there.
Speaker 1:
[09:47] Because we had...
Speaker 13:
[09:49] It was the...
Speaker 7:
[09:49] Your whole family. No one from your family was home?
Speaker 13:
[09:53] Uh, no.
Speaker 1:
[09:54] I mean, my... Yeah, my parents were in Taro. They were staying at a friend's cabin.
Speaker 7:
[09:59] And your brother?
Speaker 9:
[10:02] Hey. Hey.
Speaker 11:
[10:04] Where did you go after Heather's party?
Speaker 1:
[10:07] My brother was outside cleaning up. The sheriff's department had left a mess.
Speaker 11:
[10:11] Are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker 1:
[10:12] No, I'm just...
Speaker 4:
[10:13] Can you just help me with this, please? I will.
Speaker 11:
[10:14] Relax.
Speaker 1:
[10:14] My parents don't have trash service, so they have to bring it to the dump themselves every few months. And the sheriff's office had emptied it all out onto the grass. It was a month's worth of trash and complete disarray.
Speaker 11:
[10:26] I'm just trying to figure out how it all went.
Speaker 1:
[10:28] So you were at the party, and then, uh, where did you go?
Speaker 8:
[10:33] Uh, I was with Erin, we went downtown.
Speaker 13:
[10:36] Okay, and did you come back to the house?
Speaker 8:
[10:39] No, I crossed at Erin's.
Speaker 11:
[10:41] See, this is what I'm trying to...
Speaker 13:
[10:42] Why were none of us here?
Speaker 1:
[10:43] Like, the parents were in Tau in October.
Speaker 8:
[10:47] Oh, because the septic.
Speaker 13:
[10:49] I had forgotten about this.
Speaker 1:
[10:51] When they built the house, my parents had to put in their own septic tank, and that month in 1995, it had failed.
Speaker 9:
[10:58] Oh, well, the guy came in, and he had to get it pumped every three or four years. And the guy that came in and pumped it the last time looked at it. He said, oh, you know, this whole septic tank is no good anyway. You got to replace this. He said, why? He said, look in here. You look in, you see there's moss or something growing inside from the roots. He goes, yeah, the trees are getting into it. You got to replace this.
Speaker 1:
[11:18] My dad was originally going to do it himself, but it turned out to be a really big job. It was a full-on excavation. There was a cement tank about 10 feet by 10 feet with leech lines. So, we were all staying at other people's houses while a crew came in with back-o's. They dug up the old tank and put the new one in.
Speaker 8:
[11:35] Yeah, so the whole back hillside was torn up and we couldn't use the bathroom. What the hell?
Speaker 1:
[11:44] There was a box among the junk.
Speaker 8:
[11:46] What the hell?
Speaker 1:
[11:46] This is the pager. It was a box that we had packed up with a pager we'd found on the property. There was a chance that it was Anna's. So, we had meant to send it off to Lyle Rincon, who was a specialist in older technology. But the package had never made it to UPS. Hey, it's Rider Strong. I'm Christo Vecchio's friend. I called Rincon as it started to rain. Listen, I know why you never got that pager. It was actually never mailed off.
Speaker 11:
[12:13] It just got lost in the shuffle.
Speaker 13:
[12:15] I'm so sorry about that.
Speaker 1:
[12:17] Well, if it's all right, can I overnight it to you? Is that okay?
Speaker 8:
[12:23] I really appreciate it.
Speaker 11:
[12:25] Yeah, I'll send it off today.
Speaker 1:
[12:27] Great.
Speaker 11:
[12:28] Thank you so much.
Speaker 13:
[12:29] All right.
Speaker 8:
[12:32] Does he really think he can get something off of it?
Speaker 13:
[12:34] I mean, might as well try it, right?
Speaker 1:
[12:36] Shiloh and I walked back to the house to get out of the rain.
Speaker 8:
[12:39] What was your pager code? 145, because it's shy upside down.
Speaker 1:
[12:45] I feel like everybody had 666.
Speaker 6:
[12:47] Yeah, or 69.
Speaker 13:
[12:49] Well, that's why Chris' was 96, because it was, he called it the anti-69, like two people facing away from each other.
Speaker 1:
[12:56] He called, he was the married couple.
Speaker 6:
[12:59] Yeah, I can't see it.
Speaker 1:
[13:01] Did they search the garage?
Speaker 8:
[13:03] No, I don't think so.
Speaker 11:
[13:05] Because dad keeps that one gun in there. Really?
Speaker 1:
[13:07] Yeah. A few years back, there was a mountain lion in the area. My dad was rebuilding a fence at the time, and he wanted to have a rifle nearby. It was still in the garage.
Speaker 8:
[13:21] They missed it.
Speaker 11:
[13:23] Well, what do we do?
Speaker 2:
[13:25] We turn it in.
Speaker 11:
[13:26] Well, hold on.
Speaker 13:
[13:28] Let's just think about this for a second.
Speaker 6:
[13:31] Think about what?
Speaker 2:
[13:34] Ryder, think about what?
Speaker 1:
[13:49] I want to believe that truth wins out, that if you're a good person, or at least an innocent person, you don't have anything to worry about. Well, it's their fault that they didn't find it, right?
Speaker 11:
[14:00] So why should I help them?
Speaker 8:
[14:01] Well, to solve the case, that's what you want, isn't it?
Speaker 11:
[14:03] Yes, but do I want them to solve the case? This is exactly the situation where people get completely screwed, isn't it?
Speaker 13:
[14:09] They, you know, think they're helping and they answer all the questions, they don't get a lawyer, and then they end up in jail for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 8:
[14:16] You didn't do anything.
Speaker 4:
[14:17] Yes, I know that. You know, suddenly, my fingerprints end up on a bullet.
Speaker 8:
[14:24] Why would your fingerprints end up on a bullet?
Speaker 11:
[14:25] You know what I mean?
Speaker 4:
[14:26] They plant something, they make it, they've already overstepped. Do you think you can trust them? Do you trust cops?
Speaker 8:
[14:32] Well, I mean, to a certain extent, no. This is why you have law. You get to a point and you say, okay, whatever, hand it off to them. Okay.
Speaker 1:
[14:39] I mean, I think at this point, I don't think they deserve any of my help.
Speaker 13:
[14:44] That's honestly the way I feel.
Speaker 8:
[14:46] You're just being paranoid.
Speaker 1:
[14:47] But was I? I mean, here was a sheriff's department raiding my parents' house while all the evidence that I had been gathering was pointing in a new, promising direction. I had come to think of it as the Mr. Wrong theory. I had pieced together that Anna was in a secret, inappropriate relationship with an older guy, and they had a plan to run away. It was seeming more and more likely that she could have met up with him on the night that she disappeared. And I had a theory on who that might be. A teacher named Jacob Wyman. He was really young, and I think maybe that's part of it, that he seemed kind of, you know, like there was that simultaneous, like, you know, almost trying to be our friends, and then at the same time, you know, like, no, you've got to do this essay, you've got to get it in on time, whatever. So like, he seemed more, you know, like earnest and really, you know, wanting to connect with people and communicate an ethos of life. I needed to see a book that was in evidence at the sheriff's department, a copy of Damage by Josephine Hart. If it had handwritten notes that matched the other books both Anna and Willow had, then it would point decisively towards Mr. Wrong, and by extension, Jacob Wyman. I wanted nothing more than to tell Sheriff Maldonado. I thought since he was retired, maybe he would be open to helping me.
Speaker 13:
[16:07] Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.
Speaker 1:
[16:11] But he still wasn't taking my calls.
Speaker 12:
[16:12] Oh, screw those guys.
Speaker 11:
[16:14] Yes, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:
[16:16] And Shiloh thinks I'm crazy.
Speaker 4:
[16:19] No, he's crazy.
Speaker 6:
[16:20] You'll find it.
Speaker 11:
[16:21] Oh, hey, I'm on Burnside right now.
Speaker 1:
[16:24] I'm like literally passing where we were that morning.
Speaker 15:
[16:29] Hell yeah.
Speaker 12:
[16:30] Turn on And It Stoned Me.
Speaker 6:
[16:32] Play that and imagine it's Orion singing.
Speaker 1:
[16:35] You mean Shallow Days?
Speaker 3:
[16:36] Wait, was that it?
Speaker 1:
[16:38] Was it Shallow Days? Yes, of course. That was like the epic Shallow Days performance.
Speaker 4:
[16:43] Well, just come back to LA and let the thing blow over.
Speaker 12:
[16:46] They have nothing there.
Speaker 16:
[16:48] They've got less than nothing.
Speaker 1:
[16:49] I knew Chris was right. I needed to get home, not only to lay low, but also to try and smooth things over with Alex. But then on the way to drop the pager off at UPS, I drove past Little Seed, the fruit stand that Maldonado had taken me to, and I saw that Andres was working.
Speaker 11:
[17:13] Hey, Andres, it's Rainer. Oh, yeah, hey.
Speaker 17:
[17:18] Bet for some, some best berries?
Speaker 11:
[17:21] Sure.
Speaker 1:
[17:23] It's cool that I'm recording. I wasn't hungry, though. I was hoping you could help me reach Maldonado. Hey, listen, have you seen Robert lately?
Speaker 11:
[17:31] Have you seen Maldonado?
Speaker 17:
[17:32] No, really, I mean, maybe last Sunday.
Speaker 11:
[17:35] Okay, yeah, I'm just trying to get ahold of him.
Speaker 1:
[17:41] You guys are friends, right?
Speaker 17:
[17:43] No, I wouldn't say friends, but yeah, I'll tell you this, though, I never charged him.
Speaker 1:
[17:50] When I asked why, Andres told me how, in 1990, his family's life was upended when his grandfather died. The county treated the inheritance as a transfer and reassessed their whole farm at market rates. Suddenly, their taxes doubled. They were going to lose the property.
Speaker 17:
[18:07] And you had a lot of families around here with deep pockets. That wasn't us.
Speaker 16:
[18:10] You know, we were broke.
Speaker 17:
[18:12] Plus, we didn't have the right last name.
Speaker 1:
[18:15] What do you mean?
Speaker 17:
[18:16] Well, if you had something that sounded Italian or Irish, you know, you were great. You had no problem.
Speaker 1:
[18:24] Maldonado didn't know Andres' family, not personally, but he heard about what was happening. And he told them about the Williamson Act, a way to lock the land into agricultural status and avoid the reassessment. But they still had to get through county bureaucracy.
Speaker 17:
[18:38] And he fought for us. He pissed off some people good, you know, a couple council members and all that shit, and they just kind of walked out. But he didn't know us. And the guy, he still tries to pay me every time he stops by. So, anyways, that was a long story. I'm about to give him the bullet.
Speaker 1:
[18:59] Uh, listen, if you talk to him, if you see Maldonado, could you tell him something for me?
Speaker 11:
[19:04] Um, here.
Speaker 1:
[19:07] Here, say this. Yeah, tell him that I don't like the story, but I'm letting the evidence tell it. I got back in my car and went back to my parents. And then I drove to the sheriff's department. I'm not gonna lie. It was awkward.
Speaker 13:
[19:26] Hi. Hi.
Speaker 1:
[19:27] Um, I have something that I need to get to.
Speaker 11:
[19:33] Grace Laughlin or Thomas Greer, but I can't really...
Speaker 1:
[19:38] I'm not sure how to bring it in.
Speaker 13:
[19:40] I'm sorry?
Speaker 1:
[19:40] Well, it's evidence for a case, and it's a gun? A deputy came out to my car and got it. The next morning, before I left for LA., I got an e-mail from Alex. She hadn't written anything. She just forwarded an old e-mail that I had sent to her in 2010. It took a moment for me to know what I was reading. It was an e-mail where I told her about getting my first short story published. It's the same story that I talked about last episode, the one that was inspired by my road trip with Willow. Alex had obviously listened to the episode because in the e-mail from 2010, I told her that I had written the story about her, about us.
Speaker 15:
[20:22] So it was about Alex or was it about Willow?
Speaker 8:
[20:26] Well, that's the thing, both.
Speaker 1:
[20:27] I mean, I wrote it when I was 30.
Speaker 15:
[20:30] When you were already with Alex?
Speaker 1:
[20:31] Yes, but I was looking back at this time and I was combining things, you know?
Speaker 15:
[20:37] Think of people, you mean people.
Speaker 1:
[20:39] All right, but the story was about getting serious with Alex. It was about commitment. So it was about Alex at its core, I mean, you know, thematically.
Speaker 15:
[20:50] Thematically about you is not a great thing to tell your wife.
Speaker 1:
[20:53] This was an even worse version of keeping her up all night with our song.
Speaker 11:
[21:06] I'm home.
Speaker 1:
[21:08] When I got home, Alex wouldn't let me record. Our son, Indy, was there, and we put on a good front. We didn't talk about it. But later, Indy had gymnastics. I dropped him off and I came home. Alex and I finally had a chance to talk. Partway through the conversation, I began to record on my phone.
Speaker 10:
[21:28] Sorry, right now, I just... What is... Whatever is happening here is making me wonder how you feel about me, okay?
Speaker 11:
[21:36] Like... Oh, you're just gonna question...
Speaker 4:
[21:39] 15 years of marriage?
Speaker 10:
[21:40] I am. Because you're chasing Anna, Willow. Do you even care about them as people?
Speaker 11:
[21:46] Oh my God, yes!
Speaker 4:
[21:47] That's the whole point of this thing!
Speaker 11:
[21:48] I mean, think about it.
Speaker 13:
[21:50] All I'm doing is thinking about them as people, trying to get to know them. I'm doing all these interviews and asking all these people.
Speaker 1:
[21:56] Like, I'm trying to get them to know them better, to understand them more.
Speaker 10:
[22:02] Have you interviewed any women?
Speaker 13:
[22:05] What are you talking about?
Speaker 9:
[22:06] Of course.
Speaker 8:
[22:08] The sheriff is a woman.
Speaker 1:
[22:10] Like, the person I've been talking to the most is Monica, the journalist.
Speaker 14:
[22:14] No, no.
Speaker 10:
[22:15] I mean from Anna's life. From your life. Have you interviewed any girls that you grew up with?
Speaker 1:
[22:21] I hadn't.
Speaker 11:
[22:24] I talked to her mom.
Speaker 3:
[22:25] That's insane.
Speaker 11:
[22:27] Why?
Speaker 14:
[22:40] Not one.
Speaker 11:
[22:42] I just don't see it.
Speaker 8:
[22:43] It's not that.
Speaker 10:
[22:44] No.
Speaker 8:
[22:45] I don't see like what's the point.
Speaker 11:
[22:46] No, of course.
Speaker 10:
[22:47] Of course there's no point to it. That's not the point of this, right?
Speaker 14:
[22:51] Because it's about you and your guy friends.
Speaker 10:
[22:54] Making yourselves feel better about what? Just ignoring girls back then. Because if they didn't date you or didn't fuck you, they didn't really count.
Speaker 4:
[23:02] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[23:02] I get that you're upset, but you don't have to trash this whole project because-
Speaker 10:
[23:06] I'm questioning why.
Speaker 4:
[23:09] Okay.
Speaker 10:
[23:09] You're right.
Speaker 1:
[23:10] You're right.
Speaker 10:
[23:11] Are you recording this?
Speaker 1:
[23:14] Alex, it's-
Speaker 7:
[23:15] Oh my God.
Speaker 1:
[23:17] No.
Speaker 12:
[23:17] Get out.
Speaker 1:
[23:18] No, hold on. Hold on.
Speaker 10:
[23:19] Is this important to the project?
Speaker 16:
[23:21] Look-
Speaker 10:
[23:21] Dude, I asked you to talk to me. To come home to talk to me, to really talk to me. Yes, and I am really talking to you. And instead, you are secretly recording me?
Speaker 16:
[23:31] I-
Speaker 10:
[23:31] It's- My God.
Speaker 11:
[23:33] Oh my God.
Speaker 10:
[23:33] Please, Alex.
Speaker 11:
[23:33] Get out of this fucking pedestal. No, please, Alex.
Speaker 1:
[23:37] She didn't want me at the house, and I didn't blame her.
Speaker 8:
[23:43] Dead man walking.
Speaker 9:
[23:45] Oh my gosh.
Speaker 11:
[23:47] Hi.
Speaker 1:
[23:48] Chris let me stay with him. He and his wife, Fiona, met me at the door.
Speaker 11:
[23:52] Hi. Of course.
Speaker 6:
[23:53] Oh my God.
Speaker 12:
[23:54] You forgot the Cardinal rule, buddy.
Speaker 6:
[23:56] Happy wife, happy life.
Speaker 11:
[23:57] I hate that saying.
Speaker 6:
[23:59] But it's true. I mean, this is why I tell Fiona nothing. Lower the expectations.
Speaker 9:
[24:03] Yeah, he's joking, but also not joking.
Speaker 6:
[24:05] Women are complex, emotional creatures, which is why they'll never be president.
Speaker 11:
[24:08] Oh, come on, Chris.
Speaker 6:
[24:10] It's true, though. I'm kidding, but seriously, it's probably her turn of the month.
Speaker 9:
[24:13] Okay, all right. Good night. Good night to you.
Speaker 6:
[24:16] I know. I said too much. Fuck me. I know. God forbid. Give her time. Time heals all wounds, especially if you're a creature who bleeds a few days a month and doesn't die from it.
Speaker 12:
[24:26] Stop. Stop. I'm getting beers.
Speaker 6:
[24:28] I'm getting beers.
Speaker 12:
[24:28] Thank you.
Speaker 1:
[24:29] Chris didn't have a guest room, which meant I was sleeping on the couch in his living room. I mean, I just think that this whole day, this whole project has been driven by guilt.
Speaker 6:
[24:39] Are you confessing right now? No one saw this coming.
Speaker 1:
[24:45] I'm confessing to something a lot more boring than murder. It's just that Alex is right. Like, I... Weeks doing this recording, I didn't interview a single girl from our teens.
Speaker 6:
[25:02] Whatever.
Speaker 15:
[25:03] You would have interviewed Willow if she hadn't...
Speaker 1:
[25:05] I don't... Would I? I mean, she inspired this thing, you know? Do you remember in 2004 or 2005 or whatever, when I found the pictures of her online? I was talking about a time when I was in college in New York, somewhat early in the days of internet porn, and in a crazy coincidence, I came across photos of Willow, naked.
Speaker 15:
[25:26] Yeah, you found photos of her, kind of like amateur porn photos of her online, in a kitchen, maybe? I just remember being really kind of saddened by that, because that was when I really fully appreciated how desperate she was for attention, and also possibly money. It was a real DIY kind of job.
Speaker 1:
[25:48] They weren't professional, but also not private. The worst part, she was wearing her same old fairy wings, and nothing else. Well, I see them, I find them, and then what do I do?
Speaker 4:
[26:02] I immediately download them, put them in an email, send to you and Connor, and I don't even know who else, and be like, oh my god, look what I just found.
Speaker 12:
[26:11] Yeah, because it was crazy. Of course she sent them.
Speaker 6:
[26:14] If I would have found them, I would have sent them to you and Connor, too, and done the same exact thing.
Speaker 1:
[26:16] Okay, yes, it's crazy, but my reaction wasn't, oh god, I should maybe reach out to Willow and tell her that this is up on the internet.
Speaker 12:
[26:25] Maybe be sex positive.
Speaker 6:
[26:28] She may have wanted them out there. She may have wanted to do that.
Speaker 12:
[26:32] You could have been like good for her. She's living her best life.
Speaker 1:
[26:36] I never thought that.
Speaker 13:
[26:37] Instead, I was just like, oh my god, look what Willow is doing.
Speaker 1:
[26:42] I can't wait to show the guys.
Speaker 6:
[26:43] So?
Speaker 1:
[26:45] So if you think about it, I only found the photos because I was actually looking for porn. I'm the target guy.
Speaker 13:
[26:51] That's why those photos are up there in the first place.
Speaker 4:
[26:54] So what's up with me?
Speaker 1:
[26:56] How can I be like, oh, I want to find naked chicks on one hand, and then also be like, oh shit, my friend's naked online.
Speaker 4:
[27:06] How pathetic or funny or awful.
Speaker 6:
[27:10] Or all three.
Speaker 4:
[27:11] All three.
Speaker 1:
[27:12] Right then, I got a call.
Speaker 9:
[27:15] Oh, I gotta take this. Okay.
Speaker 1:
[27:18] I recognized Maldonado's number. After checking with him, I called him back so I could record. All right.
Speaker 11:
[27:24] Yeah, I got it recording now.
Speaker 16:
[27:27] So I heard from Andres. I appreciate that.
Speaker 11:
[27:31] Yeah. No, thanks for calling.
Speaker 1:
[27:32] And I've been piecing together a lot here. And mostly I've been zeroing in on this teacher, this guy named Jacob Wyman. I don't know if he ever came up.
Speaker 16:
[27:41] Listen, it was good that you turned that left for me.
Speaker 1:
[27:44] Of course. No, I've got nothing to hide. You know, I don't know what Mick is telling you or them.
Speaker 16:
[27:53] Look, look, I want to be clear here. All right? I'm not in the department. Got it?
Speaker 11:
[28:01] Yeah.
Speaker 16:
[28:01] I'm retired.
Speaker 11:
[28:02] Right. Yeah, no, I know.
Speaker 16:
[28:04] Okay, so this is a citizen just calling another citizen who appreciates the honesty.
Speaker 11:
[28:11] All right.
Speaker 16:
[28:12] So I'm going to be honest with you as a citizen. Okay. That rifle that you gave Lachlan, that's a.257 Rogers. That's a very rare caliber. Okay.
Speaker 11:
[28:24] What do you mean?
Speaker 16:
[28:26] Well, there might be 100.257s in the whole county. And if one of them sits 10 minutes from where we pulled those slugs out of a tree, I'd be surprised if it's not a match. They're going to run ballistics because that's standard. But already, I can tell you right now, it doesn't look good, my man.
Speaker 1:
[28:53] If Maldonado was right about the gun, then Jacob Wyman didn't make any sense. It had to be someone who knew there were guns in my parents' house.
Speaker 13:
[29:02] And he says, it doesn't look good, my man, like what? Me?
Speaker 1:
[29:07] I called Monica to fill her in.
Speaker 13:
[29:08] But you have to believe that I went crazy, walked into my parents' house, got a gun, and then came back out and just randomly found Anna on the road.
Speaker 7:
[29:17] Well, look, it's not random or crazy if you were in a relationship with her.
Speaker 13:
[29:21] Okay, fine. I never even talked to Anna, but sure, fine.
Speaker 1:
[29:25] I'm in a relationship with her, and I'm the guy, and I planned to meet up with her, and I shot her, and then I what?
Speaker 13:
[29:35] I just magically made her body disappear.
Speaker 7:
[29:37] Buried it?
Speaker 1:
[29:38] Sure, I buried it.
Speaker 13:
[29:43] And what?
Speaker 1:
[29:45] I didn't say anything to Monica, but right then, something did occur to me.
Speaker 13:
[29:51] The septic work.
Speaker 1:
[29:53] The reason my parents were gone. The reason Shiloh and I were staying at Friends. There had been a giant, freshly dug hole right in my backyard. A person could easily dig up right next to the tank, drop a body in, and no one would ever think to look. Do you need like a toothbrush or something?
Speaker 7:
[30:14] Uh, no, I got that.
Speaker 9:
[30:15] You brought that?
Speaker 1:
[30:16] Do you need toothpaste?
Speaker 7:
[30:17] No.
Speaker 1:
[30:18] Yes, I will need toothpaste.
Speaker 6:
[30:19] I'll lay some out.
Speaker 1:
[30:21] Great.
Speaker 7:
[30:21] Yeah.
Speaker 11:
[30:22] Okay.
Speaker 12:
[30:22] We're off to bed.
Speaker 11:
[30:23] Good night, guys.
Speaker 13:
[30:23] Good night.
Speaker 12:
[30:24] Good night, pal.
Speaker 1:
[30:28] I couldn't sleep that night. I was on Chris's couch just staring at the ceiling, and sometime around 3 a.m., I checked my email.
Speaker 13:
[30:41] Okay, I'm rolling because I just opened up my computer and Rincon already got back to us. I actually think it might have been Anna's pager.
Speaker 1:
[30:49] I want to go wake up Chris right now.
Speaker 13:
[30:50] This is insane. All right, Rincon says, Hi, Chris and Ryder.
Speaker 1:
[30:57] Quite a journey with the Motorola today.
Speaker 13:
[30:59] Powering it up with a bench supplier was easier than I expected. It chirped the old 2 kilohertz tone. Hollywood fakes that all the time, so hearing it for real was pretty sweet. I have no idea what this means. Okay. The LCD was a nightmare.
Speaker 1:
[31:11] Receding the zebra strip.
Speaker 13:
[31:13] Oh, I think that's Chris upstairs. He must have seen the email. Okay.
Speaker 11:
[31:20] Checked the hacks.
Speaker 13:
[31:21] Found some packed BCD, ran a little script. Jesus Christ. I don't know. Okay. Dumping, the EEPROM actually worked. I recovered the last 12 numbers. I just see attached.
Speaker 11:
[31:33] It's a text file.
Speaker 13:
[31:36] Yes. Yes. 823, 829. Those are definitely from Sebastopol. I gotta get my notes.
Speaker 8:
[31:47] All right. Yeah, I think Chris is coming down.
Speaker 13:
[31:50] Okay. That's, I can see, that's the Juniper Payphone number. And that's, it's actually, it's Mick's home phone number, twice. This is Anna. And then there's the last four pages. It's the same one, four in a row. It's not a phone number. It's code 911.
Speaker 1:
[32:12] That was the standard code for this is an emergency, or at least this is important.
Speaker 13:
[32:18] Dash 204.
Speaker 1:
[32:20] 204, the street address of the Tender Hearts property. 204 was saying, meet me there.
Speaker 13:
[32:27] And 96. Chris. That's Chris' code. Wait, 911-204-96, four times. But that's Chris. What was Chris do?
Speaker 4:
[32:57] Ryder, Ryder, Ryder!
Speaker 6:
[33:01] Ryder, is she seriously fucking in a way?
Speaker 12:
[33:08] Nothing, don't worry about it, babe. Just go back inside. If you want to go back inside, just, I've got this. You're freaking my life out, Ryder. Where the fuck are you, man? Ryder, can we please fucking talk? Can we, can we please just fucking talk? Come talk to me. You wanna ask me something, you wanna accuse me of something? Come on out. Man up. For once in your life, be a man and talk to me, face to face. Come out, come on, come on. You got an email?
Speaker 16:
[34:05] Hey, can I tell you a story?
Speaker 1:
[34:06] Does it involve Johnny Appleseed? It was three months since I managed to get away from Chris's house that night. I was doing a follow-up interview with Maldonado, and he said he wanted to make me feel better. I assumed he meant feel better about the fact that I never suspected my best friend was a murderer.
Speaker 16:
[34:23] My old man, my dad, he died when I was 15. And when I was, I don't know, 16, 17, my mom started dating this guy, Luis. She and Luis ended up getting married. He moves in, and I move out. And I was painting houses, mainly down in Marin. I didn't get back home that much. But every month or so, my mom's at the doctor or in the hospital. Something's broken. Oh, my mom twisted her ankle again. Oh, shit.
Speaker 14:
[34:57] Yeah.
Speaker 16:
[34:59] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[35:00] Oh, yeah.
Speaker 16:
[35:01] But I was busy, you know? 19, it was all about me. I was making good dough, painting houses. But then finally, finally it happens. I get that call that my mom's in the hospital again. Except this time is serious. And this time, well, this time it's undeniable. They got Luis with scratches all over his face, scraped up knuckles, and that bastard had tried to run.
Speaker 1:
[35:24] So he was, he was hitting her the whole time.
Speaker 16:
[35:26] The whole time, from day one.
Speaker 9:
[35:28] Was she okay?
Speaker 11:
[35:30] I mean, did she?
Speaker 16:
[35:32] Yeah, she, she was fine. She came through. Luis got two years.
Speaker 7:
[35:37] That's it?
Speaker 16:
[35:38] Yeah, well, it was, it was the 80s, man. Who'd you expect? But that day, when I came back to find my mom in the hospital like that, knowing that this guy had done that, had been doing that, kept doing that, well, that's the day that I quit painting houses and I enrolled in the police academy.
Speaker 1:
[35:58] I was trying to figure out where this was going, how this could possibly make me feel better. So you became a cop because Luis was there in your life, your own stepdad, and you had no idea?
Speaker 16:
[36:14] Of course not. Exact opposite. I became a cop because I always knew that son of a bitch was coming. I told my mom every chance I got. That's right. I've got the nose, man. The radar. You see, I think the worst of every person, every time. You know the old saying about assume?
Speaker 1:
[36:37] If you assume it makes an ass of you and an ass of me?
Speaker 16:
[36:41] Nope. It's don't assume. It makes an ass of you and a cop out of me. Yeah, it's a curse, Ryder, so just be glad you don't have it. Oh, and hey, don't quit your day job.
Speaker 1:
[36:58] 18 days ago, Chris Del Vecchio was charged with the murder of Anna Trainor. He's awaiting trial without bail. Anna's body was found in the backyard of my childhood home, 20 feet from my bedroom window. It was a sloped grassy hill my brother and I used to roll down as kids, play laser tag on. Once we set up a projector screen there, and I watched Coco with my son. No clue what was right below the grass. After 30 years, what remained of Anna was skeletal, but telling.
Speaker 5:
[37:30] You want the gory details, don't you?
Speaker 1:
[37:32] The Sheriff's Office liaison Thomas Greer filled me in. No, no, I'm, you know, I'm just hoping that if I could interview somebody— Come on, you're a showbiz guy.
Speaker 5:
[37:41] You play it cool, but you're a song and dance man. Admit it.
Speaker 9:
[37:44] Fine.
Speaker 13:
[37:46] Admit it.
Speaker 1:
[37:47] So you'll let me talk to the forensic pathologist?
Speaker 5:
[37:50] Oh, hell no. This case is ongoing. But I'll get you a summary of findings.
Speaker 15:
[37:56] It still blows my mind.
Speaker 1:
[37:57] We had all lied to the cops about where we were in order to protect Willow, so it never occurred to us that Chris might have been lying to us, too.
Speaker 15:
[38:06] He was definitely at my house in the morning. He was there.
Speaker 1:
[38:08] Here's what Connor, Orion, and I have been able to piece together. After the fire started, we ran, we scattered. Orion and I eventually found Connor on the road, and later Willow caught up with us. But even then, we split up throughout the night to hide from the cars, the fire trucks, sometimes in pairs, sometimes alone. And when we thought back, we all assumed that Chris was with us, had been with one of us at any given point.
Speaker 9:
[38:37] But he wasn't.
Speaker 1:
[38:39] He wasn't there for sure until sunrise, at Connor's house when we made the pinky swear. Which leaves Chris unaccounted for from 10 p.m. until almost 7 a.m. And in the days that followed, like me, Chris was questioned twice by the cops. Like me, he lied. Other than those meetings, there's no official record of his whereabouts. Plenty of time to move Anna's car, catch a bus home, even join the search party. Okay, do you mind reading it?
Speaker 5:
[39:10] Oh, you're the actor, Umbray.
Speaker 1:
[39:13] I don't need you to act, just read.
Speaker 5:
[39:16] Oh, okay, pressure's on. All right, skeletal remains were exhumed from approximately 67 inches below grade. Associated artifacts included degraded denim fabric, those pants, shoe fragments, and metallic jewelry. Now my mouth is dry.
Speaker 1:
[39:37] No, you're doing great. Sounds good.
Speaker 5:
[39:39] Hey, how many times did you say anti-mortem on Boy Meets World, huh?
Speaker 1:
[39:43] Okay. Well, now you know how actors on CSI feel.
Speaker 5:
[39:46] Cranial trauma. Left parietal bone exhibits a depressed fracture measuring approximately 4.1 centimeters in diameter.
Speaker 1:
[39:54] In other words, Anna was struck in the head, but that didn't kill her.
Speaker 5:
[39:58] Right, fourth, and fifth ribs both display complete perforation by a projectile.
Speaker 1:
[40:04] The bullet killed her. Now, to be clear, everything up until this is the extent of public information. The district attorney isn't revealing more about their case. So let me state, because my lawyers have insisted that I say this, anything more is speculation. My speculation. But here's what I think happened that night.
Speaker 2:
[40:26] That's why I took him out, and that kid went down hard.
Speaker 4:
[40:28] He took him out.
Speaker 2:
[40:28] And he wasn't getting back up.
Speaker 4:
[40:29] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[40:30] Chris is hurt by Mick, physically, of course. But when Mick knocks him down, something snaps. Years of being picked on. Rage, humiliation.
Speaker 17:
[40:40] He used to mess with DeVecchio constantly.
Speaker 1:
[40:42] Really?
Speaker 17:
[40:43] Oh, dude, he lost his shit.
Speaker 1:
[40:45] But it's not just that. It's who this is. Mick, Anna's ex-boyfriend, maybe still her boyfriend, knocking him down. That's the worst thing in the world for Chris, because he's in love with Anna. He is, by then, in a relationship with her.
Speaker 14:
[41:03] I think you just need it to be true that you like me, and that I like you, but it's not okay. It isn't okay for society, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:
[41:15] When I heard about an age difference on The Mix, my imagination only went in one direction, older. I never thought it might mean younger. Chris began as Anna Stalker, the son of a bitch who, according to Laney, wore her down and became her secret inappropriate boyfriend.
Speaker 6:
[41:33] She was older, man. She was the coolest.
Speaker 4:
[41:35] You were in love with her.
Speaker 12:
[41:36] We all had a massive crush on her. I was not alone.
Speaker 4:
[41:39] I barely even talked to her.
Speaker 6:
[41:41] But whatever. I was in love with anything with a pulse and boobs.
Speaker 1:
[41:45] Chris was a scrawny 15-year-old, one of her sister's weirdo friends. The guy dressed as Phantom of the Coffee Shopper, or the guy everyone still called Fancy Pants to watch him wig out. She also, obviously, must have liked him.
Speaker 4:
[42:01] A lot.
Speaker 1:
[42:02] But I can imagine she was torn. She made tapes, he gave her books, they had fantasies of running off like Bonnie and Clyde. But did she take it seriously? I don't know. But I think Chris did. And that night, he tried to confront Mick. It's actually possible, likely, he orchestrated the whole plan, our Tom Shanagans, as a way to confront Mick. It would have been easy to tell Willow and each one of us what we needed to hear to get us out there.
Speaker 15:
[42:33] Yeah, and Chris and I were on the road, too.
Speaker 1:
[42:35] Oh, really, you guys, I thought you guys were still in the woods.
Speaker 6:
[42:37] No, we met back up with you guys, walked back, and we watched the sunrise at Connors.
Speaker 15:
[42:42] We did.
Speaker 6:
[42:43] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[42:43] Chris brings a baseball bat, and then after Mick knocks him down, he goes and gets a gun. I don't think to kill Mick, but to scare him. But by the time he gets back, Mick and Travis are gone. He finds Willow in the barn, and then the fire starts. Chris runs to my parents' house. He pages Anna. He's thinking, Operation Van Gogh. It's time. Anna meets him at the driveway, but something goes wrong. The wounds describe an escalation. So what does it say is the official cause of death?
Speaker 5:
[43:19] Uh, it's a twofer. Combined blunt force, cranial trauma, and gunshot wound to the chest.
Speaker 1:
[43:25] Anna won't go.
Speaker 11:
[43:26] They argue.
Speaker 1:
[43:27] They fight.
Speaker 13:
[43:28] It gets physical.
Speaker 11:
[43:29] He hits her.
Speaker 1:
[43:30] Maybe intentionally, with the butt of the rifle, maybe she falls. Either way, now she's hurt, bleeding. Anna runs. Chris panics, chases her. He shoots four times, at least. The three rounds that hit the tree, and the shot to the chest that kills Anna Trainor. Now, wait. I just want to be sure, the way she was shot, where the bullet went in, she was definitely shot from the front.
Speaker 5:
[43:57] Yeah. See? You know your audience.
Speaker 1:
[44:02] This is a gory detail I do want to consider, because it makes what Chris did more intentional, more brutal. It means Anna wasn't running. She had fallen, or stopped, and turned around, and maybe she was on her back, maybe sitting, hands in the air, maybe she was pleading. No matter what, she was facing Chris when he shot her. No matter what, he was looking right at her when he pulled the trigger.
Speaker 7:
[44:28] I mean, he didn't seem nervous, or honestly even concerned.
Speaker 1:
[44:32] Chris' arraignment was a few days ago. Monica was there. Was he wearing an orange jumpsuit?
Speaker 7:
[44:38] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[44:39] Oh, wait. I was joking.
Speaker 7:
[44:43] What's the joke?
Speaker 1:
[44:44] Well, I don't know. Maybe, not a joke, no, not a joke. I guess it's just the, it's bizarre, the reality that this is actually happening, that Chris is, you know.
Speaker 7:
[44:58] I mean, there were 32 arraignment hearings in the morning session alone.
Speaker 1:
[45:02] Right, right.
Speaker 7:
[45:04] Still 32 jumpsuits.
Speaker 14:
[45:06] Uh-huh.
Speaker 7:
[45:08] Your friend is charged with murder, so why is it bizarre that he looks like the other defendants?
Speaker 11:
[45:14] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[45:16] Do you remember when we first talked?
Speaker 7:
[45:18] Yeah, back in 95.
Speaker 1:
[45:20] No, I'm talking about the one we first did our Zoom for this. And you said that you had seen me when I was doing the graduate in my 20s, and I said, I didn't remember you.
Speaker 7:
[45:34] Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[45:35] Yeah, that wasn't true. I saw you that night right when I walked in. It was that party at the hotel lobby right near the Kern.
Speaker 7:
[45:43] The Warwick.
Speaker 13:
[45:45] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[45:45] I avoided you all night. I was totally terrified. I kept thinking that you were going to remember me.
Speaker 7:
[45:53] Well, I did.
Speaker 13:
[45:55] Right, of course.
Speaker 1:
[45:57] I was scared that if I talked to you, I was going to crack and just tell you the truth.
Speaker 7:
[46:03] About the fire?
Speaker 1:
[46:05] You know, just that I had lied to you back when I was a kid, because I remembered talking to you when I was 15 and lying to you and just how hard that was. So it was so awful to see you now in my 20s.
Speaker 13:
[46:23] I just, I avoided you.
Speaker 1:
[46:24] I mean, I even left the party early. Now, talking to anyone else, I might have been more direct. I might have just come out and said something like, you're a good journalist, Monica. But something told me I didn't have to.
Speaker 7:
[46:41] Well, thank you.
Speaker 1:
[46:43] Thanks. Well, thank you for everything. Keep in touch?
Speaker 7:
[46:50] Will do.
Speaker 1:
[46:52] You might wonder why I wasn't at the arraignment myself, and maybe I should have been. But I'm in Boca del Toro, Panama, where Willow wrote the letter that started all of this.
Speaker 11:
[47:03] The beach is gorgeous, clear water, and we have our own personal beach.
Speaker 3:
[47:09] How do we get there?
Speaker 12:
[47:11] We just walk up the beach and found it.
Speaker 1:
[47:16] I'm not sure exactly why I came here, except I guess I wanted the place to be real. To be honest, I hate the beach. But I brought my family, and we've had a good time. I haven't heard from Lainey. I understand why. For every reason she might thank me, there's a reason to condemn me. Lying back in 1995, keeping Anna's murderer close while pushing Willow away. I may have eventually helped to solve the case, but for 30 years, I neglected, and for two months, running around with a microphone, I misdirected. I complicated everything. I also haven't heard back from Fiona, Chris's wife. She's refused to speak to press. According to public records, she's filed for divorce. But then, she appeared in court at his arraignment, which means, I guess, that she has complicated feelings. I have complicated feelings. Of course, there's this righteous, vengeful part of me that is just so angry, that hopes he suffers, can't wait to see him locked up for the rest of his life. Then, there's another part of me that maybe I shouldn't admit to that's just sad. I still can't believe he could do this, did do this. And the weirdest part is, I catch myself wanting to share that disbelief with my best friend, which means, almost every day, I want to talk about how crazy it is that Chris did this with Chris. Looking back, it's obvious that Chris joined me in the podcast in order to throw me off, insisting that talking to the cops was a bad idea, throwing away the pager. For all I know, he paid sparks to feed me conspiracy theories and then vanish. Because Monica, and more importantly, the district attorney, never found evidence about campaign contributions. I was blind in so many ways. Maybe I should have always seen the signs, but it's hard when the memories are actually good. Like, I remember sitting in a restaurant with Chris when he just grabbed the check and ran. When we were 12, Chris talked our way into an R-rated movie, demanding to see the manager and then cracking the guy up so much that he just had to let us in. I remember afternoons, wandering six flags, so scared to talk to girls, but Chris would talk to anyone, everyone. So by the time our moms picked us up, we'd have phone numbers and pen pals. There's this thing that guys used to say, not anymore, not in my circles at least, bros before hoes. And I know that's cringe these days, like Maldonado using the old F word, and rightfully so. But it's also true that in 1995, I might have flinched at those words, but not at the sentiment. I was a lovesick teenager, always heartbroken, always wanting a relationship or mourning one. Having a friend, a guy who was there for you, was kind of a matter of survival. He'd tell you, it's okay you don't fit in, it's okay you can't play sports, or that people treat you differently because you're an actor on a kid's show. A friend who'd tell you, she's psycho, you're better off without her, or even just chicks, man. That was a friend that I thought I needed. Sometimes, I'm sure, I was that friend for someone else. Even now, when I think about Willow in 1998, I can see she was honoring a bro code by not telling me that Chris was Mr. Wrong, the one who got her pregnant. She was protecting my friendship with Chris, protecting me, knowing that I was in love with her, that it would hurt me to find out that the two of them were seeing each other behind my back. I called this show The Red Weather because I thought there was something reckless and potentially damaging in the non-conformity of my parents' generation. How, like the drunken sailor with the dream, they broke from consensus, ran off into the woods, walked around naked, worshiped trees, did drugs. But now, I think, they didn't go far enough. Because for all the unique parts of my town, my friends, in the end, Anna's murder was a pretty predictable story. There's a tendency to look back at history and think we get smarter, more sophisticated, that people used to be gullible, naive products of their time. Starting communes, using lead gasoline, or, you know, believing slavery was tenable. And we like to think of ourselves as past that. We've gotten better. We see more clearly now. We've somehow escaped the bubble. But I didn't even know my own friends. And I'm not talking about Chris. I mean Anna and Willow. It pains me to think how they have figured in this podcast. At various times, victim, muse, enigma, prop. Even with the best intentions, I built stories around them, eclipsing them. It's not really that different from the way Chris once had a fantasy of hopping in a car with the girl of his dreams. She would fix it. She would make it better. Which is why, I think, I wanted to come to Panama. So this place wasn't some abstract thing in my head, not an idea whose meaning only grows in relationship to my life, to stories that I tell myself, but real sand, real water. I'm working a little here too, finishing up that script finally. Alex is glad I'm back to fiction, to made up monsters. We were walking on the road last night along the main drag here, and I saw something, a bakery that Willow had mentioned in her letter. She had this crazy story about an argument that she got into with this ex-pat who was trying to bring cronuts to Bocas del Toro. I started recording a voice memo on my phone because I realized it could make a great ending to this podcast. It would bookend these episodes with Willow's letter, and it would offer the opposite from where I started, something funny, light-hearted from her life. But then I thought about how Willow wrote a letter to me, labeled it, stamped it, sealed it, and I shut my phone off. The Red Weather was written and directed by Ryder Strong. Sound engineering, editing, and mixing by Bo Milkus. Produced by Tess Bartholomew. Executive producers at iHeartRadio, Trevor Young and Matt Frederick. Associate producer, Bo Milkus. Original score composed and performed by Kyle Morton, and featuring The Sound the Body Makes by Kyle and Ben Morton. The Red Weather stars me, Ryder Strong, with Alexander Buretto and Indy, King, Lin and Shiloh Strong as themselves. Chris Wild was Chris Del Vecchio. Lenisa Frederick was Monica Tremblayne. John Huertas was Sheriff Maldonado. Rachel Marsh was Anna Trainor. Heidi Solzman was Laney Trainor. Chris Lemke was Elric Light. Kelly Lou Dennis was Sheriff Grace Laughlin.
Speaker 13:
[56:04] Travis Schultz was Thomas Greer.
Speaker 4:
[56:06] Leif Gantford was Mick Bowden.
Speaker 1:
[56:08] Alva Sente was Andres. Adam Stillwell was Sparks. Adam Bush was Howard Tripp.
Speaker 13:
[56:13] Lindsay Phoenix was Julie.
Speaker 1:
[56:15] Tess Bartholomew was Fiona. And Logan Bartholomew was Yuri Donenfeld. Ashley Platts was the Pinecone Waitress. Henry Ditman was the News Announcer. Sarah McGelegant was the News Anchor. Thelma Sugai was the Protest News Anchor. Zane Rubin was Front Desk Woman. Jessica DeVonville was Front Desk Attendant. Sheila June Azim was Laughlin's Assistant. And Eric Luminarius was the Bodyguard and Kent the Police Officer. Special thanks to Ocean Green, Sean Fox, Nathan Sackett, Aaron Grail, Toby Lawless, Amy Sugarman, Daniel Fischl, Chris Levitas, Joshua Melkin, Paul Gandersman, John Flynn York, Todd Goldberg, and Elaine and Andrew of Cathay86 and Equal Rock. And a very special thanks to all my friends and family who lent their time, their voices, and their stories. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed the show.