Amy Roboc and TJ.
Holmes present Killer Thriller with your Host Alisa Donovan. Hey, everybody, welcome to the very first episode of the Killer Thriller Podcast. I am your host, Elisa Donovan, and I am so excited to start this journey. Killer Thriller is going to explore the dramatizations of real life crimes through the lens of the actors, creators, and the people whose stories make
it onto the screen. And we're really going to dive into how real human behavior, often extreme and sometimes horrifying, can get transformed into character, performance, and narrative.
And I cannot express how.
Thrilled I am that Today this very first episode, we are going to speak with the creators of the Murdoch Podcast, Mandy Mattney and Liz Ferrell. These women are incredible journalists who broke open the case. So their podcast, the Murdoch Murders Podcast, is what inspired this series, Murdoch Death in the Family, and that is what we're going to be talking about today. Mandy is the executive producer of Murdoch Death in the Family, which is streaming on Hulu right now, and.
Let's bring him in.
Hi, Hi, how are you?
I'm great.
How are you.
I'm really good. It's so nice to meet you.
It is such a pleasure to meet you, Mandy. I'm me Lisa. I'm wildly proud to meet the two of you. And I really want to say how when we first started talking about doing this podcast, I said, we have to start with Murdoch Death in the family. That's what I want to start with, because you know this series of particular, it embodies to me everything that that matters
about these sorts of stories. There is such an utter respect for everyone who's involved, and the drive to tell the emotional truth of the story and really diving into the nuance and the complexity of every person involved really, which I think is quite a feat somehow. Uh, you know, the family dynamics, the problems with growing up with generational wealth and no accountability, and the list just is endless.
And so I'm.
Really truly thrilled that you two are taking your time with me today.
So thank you, thank you.
That was thank you. That was so nice.
And I have to say I watched Clueless last night just for a refreshure.
Toeah.
Yeah, and I meant to rewatch Sabrina the Teenage Witch because that was also one of my favorites when I was a little girl.
So this is awesome.
So we really appreciate all everything that you just said. It's been quite a feat, but we're here and we're ready to dive in all.
So I just want to note that I saw Clueless in the theater, so.
I love it. We're all old, but I'm a lot older than the two of you.
That's your skin looks so good. I'm so jealous.
Oh listen, a little tweak on the filter of zoom does like wonders for.
All of us.
I need to get that figured out.
Well.
I wanted to say first because it's top of mind. This is not what I was planning to start with, but I saw on Instagram last night, Mandy, your post that it was the anniversary of your brother's passing, and I didn't know that that piece was real from your life, that that part.
Of that scene in the series came from you.
I didn't know that. So first I wanted to just express my condolences to you. And I know grief is a very rollercoaster of a journey and it never really ends, and so I just want to send my love to you on that. But I also wondering if you are willing to just talk a little bit about that, And I think you were saying that Britney really helped to keep that in there.
Yeah, gosh, And I thank you for asking that, because I've done a ton of interviews about murdoc death in the family and nobody has asked about that. And I really want to talk about that scene. I love that scene. It meant so much to me and I actually got to watch Brittany perform that scene. But circling back when I first met Britney and she first called me, when it was like a green light that it was for real she was playing me, which by the way, was like the most insane moment of my life.
That was going to be my question later of like did you just completely freak O out when it was like, oh yeah, Britney, Snow's gonna be me.
I mean, yes, I am a typical millennial girly, like I grew up watching John Tucker Must Die and Pitch Perfect and all of her hits, and I'm obsessed with her and I and also this we found all of us out before the Hunting Wives came out, and she like blew up again.
Which I'm so happy that she did.
She has the career that she deserves right now, and I just absolutely love her and could not imagine a better person to play me. And I really do mean that, and this story is a part of that. So she she wanted to call me the first time that we connected on Instagram, and she was like, I just want to get to know you. I want to have Margarita's with you and Liz, because she read that in my book that that's how Liz and I used to like
dissect cases over Margarita's. She devoured my book and like days and when she called me, she knew that much about my life and was wanting to ask me questions about my brother's death, which was just, you know, surprising and really really refreshing to hear that she wanted to dive that deep into my character. You know, she wasn't just glossing over everything, and this wasn't a huge part
for her. She wasn't a main role or anything, but she she not only knew the entire podcast, but she knew my story and there were I don't know how much I can say about this, but there was a lot of debate back and forth within Hulu about how much of a role I should have in the show, because I was also an executive producer, and I know that they were a little weird the higher ups about
me having a storyline and how much of it. But Brittany advocated for the scene where I am at Steven's memorial and mentioning my brother's death, and the speech was actually longer and it was even better, and they cut some of it and it made her really mad and she fought really hard to get the whole thing in. And but my gosh, like to have as you know, as an actor, they don't have to do that much.
They don't have to. They don't have to, but the good ones do.
And I just was so grateful that I had such a good actor that cared so much about my story. And she actually texted me to apologize that the scene was cut.
Like it was her fault, and I was like, oh, my gosh, no, But.
I mean this is like welcome to Hollywood, you know, yeah, so frustrating in so many ways. There's so many beautiful things that come out of you know, this world, but sometimes it's like you watch something and as an actor, this has happened to be a million times I'm like, oh, that.
Whole scene's gone.
But when I come to the one where I was in the bathroom, you know, it's so like these things they really do, they're hard. It's like, you know, yeah, they say like killing your babies, but it's like a inevitably everything always serves the story, like that's the goal, and that lesson that piece of having to let go of certain things in order to drive something forward.
You kind of over.
Time see oh okay, I understand why they had to do that, you know, but that is a real challenge. So for both of you, this is one of my biggest questions of how how hard was it or enlightening or beautiful was it to watch these things both in the process but then the finished product of saying, you know, you got you women lived this in such a real way, and there has to be sort of a like how was it to watch these people embody these people that many of whom you.
Know, Yeah, I don't think the first thing. That's so I still haven't gotten the connection here. But we used to sit and joke about this being a TV show one day the work we were doing, like and not with any sort of sense of it even though like hopes and dreams and like you do hope one day maybe that your work is that important or consequential that
it does end up in that format. It just I still haven't I still haven't grasped that that, like Liz and Mandy like back then, I just want to like time travel and be like it's gonna happen.
Actually a joke that like warms my heart.
But I really feel like these are the things that I mean, I'm gonna don't want to get too woo woo about this, but I really do believe there are certain things that are meant to happen, certain people that are meant to meet, projects that are meant to go, like all of these kinds of things, and this clearly is something that it was meant to be.
And you know, I've just rewatched as much as I could.
I had already seen the series, but I rewatched most of it last night and this morning. And the scene towards the end where Mandy you and Mark and he he asks you if you feel guilty, and I felt the same way, like Britney's expression is like what you know, this sort of like of all the things that I could feel because it just feels so vital what the two of you did.
But again, that nuance. This is something that I think this series.
Does so beautifully is it captures that nuance of he can feel a little guilty, Like that's a real feeling for this man. Perhaps you know that because you don't. Nobody it's all so awful, but it's important to bring all the things to light, like the justice was served because of all of you.
Well, thank you for that.
And that scene is another really interesting tidbit that the writers obviously and that I never knew how you make a true crime and actual true crime into a TV show and like what needs to be factual and what changes. But our amazing creator and showrunner Michael D. Fuller always stuck to the concept of emotional truth and that was true throughout the show, and so there was always an emotional truth to every little part of the show, including
that scene. And it was funny, like Mark Tinsley never asked me that question, but I actually got that question in a twenty twenty interview.
In me know because I can imagine that, like what it.
Was my first interview ever, and like I was so nervous and I had been interviewing with twenty two. I think it was like two hours, and it was I was just a nervous wreck, and then the last question was that and I just was like and home.
I mean, thank god for everybody.
I think that they did not include it in the show, but I kind of want that footage to see my face, my reaction because I was like, it was just like Brittany's like no, but they wanted to include somebody asking me that question because that was a real question that we got and we still to this day.
Liz.
I mean, I don't know about you, but I still get weird messages that are like, yeah, if you I got. I got a weird TikTok comment the other day that was like, if you didn't poke around and get into the Murdoch's business, then Maggie or Paul would be alive.
Of the Lord.
And I would love to take not that we want to give anybody the time of day who does these sorts of things on the other but I would love to take that like that idea, right, take it all the way to the end. Okay, great, So let's say you didn't do that the trail of other like deceit deception and death and pain and brutality that would have come anyway, It just would it would be a different shade of it. Like this man was was an abomination.
He was doing horrible things and there was he was not going to stop doing those things unless someone prohibits him.
So I just like that stuff makes me crazy.
I think, well, that conversation that happened between Andy and Mark on screen happened between Mark and me behind the scenes, So I think that there's sort of like a combination had right, Yeah, there was a It was a concern, and not because of anything that I think, I mean, Bear,
It's just it was just something that comes up. And I think that's what it's important about the way this show is handled, and it really honors the point of our journalism, which is that and this is how this podcast started, by the way that Mandy started this podcast to clear the to get the truth out there, to say, this isn't just a true crime story that you can fly in clever the most salacious aspects of and think
that you got the story. And you certainly could do that, but with this case, there were so much more to understand, and Martinsley certainly understood it, which is that the entire economy, social economy, legal economy in that area relied on the Murdocks and was controlled by the Murdocks, and in the most silent of ways. So it's not like you can say, and you saw it in the conversation that Ellak had with his mother's caretaker. It's not a direct like I need you to lie for me. It's a you know
it a lie for me. And you know, because I'm saying these things if you were to repeat them back and harassed you. So that's kind of what people in the area were dealing with. And we lived an hour and a half from Hampton, but we were in the judicial circuit, so we knew it was affecting law enforcement in our area as well. So it's something that I mean, eighty six years, one hundred years of this kind of
informal rule kind of to capture that. I think that's the success of death in the Family because it's not just something that is about a dirty man who you know, exciting his staff and he kills his family. It's really just to understand the amount of pressure that was on that man and self created totally right, and why he would think that was a good solution to his problems.
These things and so easily be sensationalized, and this show is not that. So I'm curious about how you both. I'm sure were you just approached by a million showrunners and writers and TV people going let me make your story. And how did you wind up with Aaron and Michael? I can tell you that cast from every obviously you know, Jason Clark and Patrisharquette and Brittany are so well known and so incredible. It's like a perfect cast. So how did you guys come to Michael and Aaron?
So in twenty twenty one, Liz was working at the Sheriff's office when my husband and I started the podcast, but she was definitely with me behind the scenes for everything. For every phone call that I would get from weirdos, I would call them Hollywood weirdos like they write, and I would call her and like be like this guy, and she would be like, don't call them back, and.
This little town girl like this.
And they said the most insulting things to me, like they just thought that I. Yeah, they thought I was just this little small town journalist who had big dreams of living in New York. City and one of literally people said that to me and really just want and like they really thought I just wanted to get out of South Carolina. And I'm like, I really like it here, Like I don't like the politics, but like I live on a Hilton Head It's a nice area, right.
I like my life here and I like what I do.
I just.
Anyways, we and my husband was amazing. My husband was, uh there is Covid was not full time working at the time, but he just kind of figured out how to navigate Hollywood.
He was a genius about it.
He would take phone calls with people just to like learn the language, see yeah, or learn like the linga that y'all use that like nobody else understands.
He would take like spocan years, may see what it is. Yeah.
And so we spent kind of a whole summer just taking meetings and phone calls from people, and and then in September of twenty twenty one, everybody was still kind of on the fence, like maybe I'll do a documentary, maybe I'll do a show.
I don't know.
In September twenty twenty one, when Alex Murdoch faked his little roadside shooting debacle, and that was just ridiculous.
The story would not be crazy.
Yeah right, it's whenever I say it out loud, I'm like, when that happened, it's so stupid. But when that happened, this story went from zero to two thousand, Like it exploded into the outer universe in a way that I had never seen anything before in my life. And so at that point, all of these people, all these documentary people, were like, it's go time, we.
Need to we need you to sign and.
Everybody was just kind of swooping in and hovering over us and pressuring us, and it was really weird. And at that point we decided to get an agent, this man named Neil Cohen, which I know people go back and forth about agents. He was at UTA at the time. He saved our lives because he, like these people were pressuring us, specifically documentary people were pressuring us to sign the sign away everything and be a consultant to them.
And it was on a Saturday, and I will never forget and we and he was just calling and calling and was like you need to sign now. It's now or never, Mandy, and like and if you don't sign this, your career is over like those types of things. So we actually hired Neil in the first thing that he did was email this guy back on a Saturday. It is Saturday period. No one in Hollywood needs anything right now. That's so great, it's a Saturday period, and we were
like hired. Anyways, Neil connected us with Aaron Lee Carr. Neil. One of Neil's clients was Aaron Lee Carr, an amazing documentarian and Liz and I had been watching her documentaries for years and Liz, what was your.
Reaction which documentaries she done?
Well, Heart's of Gold was the one that really pushed me over the edge. Mommy Dead and Dearest, which I believe that's what it's the Gypsy Lee Rose story.
There was another one, Mandy, I Love.
God, I love you now Die is so good. If you haven't seen it.
Oh my gosh, I didn't realize.
So that britneyears, Yeah, Britney versus spears.
So we knew her from all of it because we were like obsessed with these documentaries that she'd done, and we had talked about them all at great length with each other, and I remember being so nervous to meet her for the first.
Time, and.
When I first met her, it was originally we were talking about doing a documentary, but Aaron got the idea of, like, I want to do something besides document what if it was a scripted show. And then through that she met Michael D. Fuller, who is not only a great guy and a really great writer, but he's from South Carolina. And so that combination of and I knew that Aaron could tackle really really difficult true crime stories, specifically involving women.
I knew that she was not in a She was not in the true crime space of like who done it? You know, the swoop in boring stuffs. She was really good at very complicated cases and staying factual and staying victim focused. And the combination of Michael and Aaron it just felt different. It was just like from all of the phone calls that we had that summer and everybody else was just so exhausting and so typical Hollywood quote unquote,
Michael and Aaron were just refreshing and kind. And it wasn't until last year that it was actually greenlit in September twenty twenty four, and then the ball just went rolling and Liz and I a year ago I think this week we went to LA and saw the writer's.
Room, Jason Clark is, I don't even I have no words, like next level this man's performance, it's like an arc of a madman, like you actually see. I just he's incredible in this show on every level. Everybody's wonderful, but I am just I was like blown away by him.
You can't take your eyes off of him. It's captivating and it really is true to who Elec was to some people. That energy that you know, I want to see what he does next because it's going to be not great but.
Interesting. Yeah, that like energy.
Because Mandy and I first saw him in person during Paul's first hearing in twenty nineteen, and the way he came onto the scene was exactly as we both expected him to, but even more so so he was a huge presence in this tiny courtroom and thought nothing of going up to the Beach family and shaking their hand as if they were at church and like this was no big deal, and clapping them, you know, on the back, and that sort of thing, and just it really, uh,
Jason really captured that feeling. And you're right, it's like it's in af football. You just don't know how to describe it, but it's it's you get on a ride and you take it with him, you know, and.
You feel like this is why another it's so brilliant because you see how this man is slowly losing control, like slowly unraveling, and then how that gets more escalated and the dynamic just becomes more extreme and his I just disincredible. So how did he come to the show, how how did he get involved?
So with Jason, I'm I'm not exactly sure. I just remember a very chaotic period last year when Aaron would call me and say we were close to an actor and then it would fall through and we were not greenlit until we got Patricia Arquette. But I also loved that because she was the reason why it was great. Love that it was led Y's and she's number one on the call sheet, like Patricia.
Was the queen of our show. Yes, and I absolutely.
Love saying content that's what they call it, like.
You casting content. Yes, it was casting contingent for a long time, and I remember, and I'll just say I can't say the names, but there was several big things that would come in and we would get really excited and be like, Oh, that's gonna be great, and then it would fall through. And that happened for a while, but then Patricia Arquette and then Jason Clark signed on pretty soon after Patricia, and I wrote that her. Yeah, I know, I do too, I really do. And she
is also just so wonderful. So like, as much as we talk about how great Jason is in the show, we have to talk about Patricia, because Patricia kind of played the opposite of that, Like she played a role that was quiet, in a role that was like you can she was constantly doing these little movements that you could tell there was no space for Maggie in that household, and that there was. She just played that part so beautifully and eloquently. And so they were like the opposites
of each other. He was this big, giant presence taking up all the air, and she was just her entire life revolved around him, and she slowly started to realize that that was the wrong move yet.
Right slowly realizing all the things that I thought, this is my life to be actually looking around and realizing, oh, this is.
What my life is.
It's so I love that scene where she the two of them after the party and she's like, you think, I'm doing.
These things for myself, you know, all of it. And I felt like there is.
Something so identifiable to so many women to I identify with that feeling. You know, I throw dinner parties and do things, and I'm like, this is not for wait a.
Second, invisible labor. Yeah, the labor is right.
And that was Patricia's basically her whole role. So, I mean, uh, and Jason was wonderful and amazing, but Patricia I was just extremely impressed by not only she took her taking on the role of Maggie, but she did a lot of research into coercive control and what it's like to be in a relationship with a narcissist, and that is how she approached the role and I thought that that was so genius.
She really.
The nuance that she brought to it is really something because you see how there are so many moments where you, as a viewer, I felt, oh, this is when she's going to like really lose it on him, or she's going to and then swallows it. Yeah, that's what she like takes the next step, you know that stuff is and that's really how this is why this show is so great with.
All the nuance of these people.
And you know, you two are both very committed to putting the victims at the center of these stories, and so I feel like that's what this looks like. But you know, my question is what for you guys? What does that look like for you? And I this is probably part of it.
Yes, yeah, I think this is part of it. This is like the end of it. The you know, a lot of times when we put victims in the center, they're actually in the background, but they're in the background with us. And I don't want to give away too much in life, but it's important that we are honoring what the victims want in terms of the type of coverage we do. We don't force them to you know, when I say force, we don't put them on the spot to come on the show and talk and explain
themselves in anyone. We we very much consider how that we're acting on their behalf, I guess is the best way to say it. So there's things that we can do that they can't do because you know of an ongoing case or you know, family dynamics, and that was the case in the Murdoch family. Even there are people behind the scenes that we were, you know, talking with, who could not be out loud about their grief about Maggie and Paul because to do so would be an
affront to the family. So I think sometimes victim centered, we're able to tell the victim story, but sometimes it takes a while to get there because what we're doing is the work of you know, where crime meets corruptions. So we're trying to make change and get these investigations looked at or.
I don't.
I hate to say shamed people, but we have Sometimes we have to shame people to do their jobs, and so that's for the victims.
Yeah, what I'm saying, yeah totally, And yeah, I mean I just think about like with Maggie, her story was so forgotten for such a long time, and I actually really I liked that they ended up showing that Maggie did not like the Mandy character in the show, because that was true to form. Maggie blocked me on Instagram years ago.
She did.
Yeah, I know that she did not like for a fact that she did not like me, But I looked back to on that and I'm like, we could have been taking down the same monster together, you know, like it was we all had the same enemy at the same time. And I don't blame her for thinking that I was the enemy, because she was just trying to protect her kids, right.
She's trying to preserve her family, her own life, like she's so deeply embedded in it.
Right, And so that's another nuance that I had to think about and stop about. Like first, I was like, eh, I don't really like being uh, it's a little uncomfortable. But when I thought about it, I'm like, yeah, we were we had the same enemy all along, and it's just too bad. And I hope that that's a message for women that like, actually, just look at your husband. Your husband's fall not most women. Now.
I have a great husband, right, so do I, but you know there are a lot that are not right.
Yeah, exactly.
Like I look back on that, I'm like, huh, that's just so sad. And and that's where Maggie, unfortunately, like the entire series, just goes through this cautionary tale of what is happening to a woman when she realizes that she's married to a very bad man. And unfortunately, by the time she realized it, it was too late for her.
And her sister. I was so moved by j Smith Cameron another. I mean, just like one of the best, the best, that position that she held, right of being the last person to the last conversation with her and sort of that guilt that she must feel. But how complicated that is. That It's like, you can't change you know, you can't change someone else's decisions. We can't make it
for her. So even though I'm sure she witnessed so many things over the years in the dynamic of that relationship that it is a certain point you accept this is the choice my sister has made, and you kind of have to go with that. And you know, it's such a strange place to be of not endorsing, but then are you endorsing? Like I think about her, that sister a lot, and how what her pain must be like and how she goes through the world today.
It's so yeah, it's complicated. Yeah.
I know several murder victims friends at this point that they're and that their husband's the victims husbands killed them, and it is so sad, so profoundly sad to see them going through the process of grief and regret about like what could I have.
Done, What did I miss?
And then the men don't feel anything like they're not going through any of that at all. But the friends and the sisters and the people that really cared about these victims. I've just really noticed that in the past few years. It's just so incredibly sad because they are stuck. And I also don't know what the rate move is when you're in jas Smith Cameron's case, like, uh, Maggie's sister's case, rather what do you do.
Well, especially because he went and lived with Maggie's family after the murder, so he in that part. I don't believe that I wasn't in the show.
Yeah he did, Yeah I did. Yes, Yes, this is another it's like.
My mind is yeah, it's it's like, yeah, yes, he wanted to, like, yeah, what's led. He wanted to He wanted to monitor them to see like if they knew anything about his relationship with Maggie I think.
And also just his presence around them. And then again that abuse of the psychological abuse and the emotional abuse. They I'm sure just felt like, oh, this is a reminder I just need to stay in my place, right to not make waves.
And you got to pretend to be the grieving husband and all that to make it difficult for them to believe. But ultimately, like his sister said on the stand, you know, I wanted to find out who killed my sister, and this man was excited about charges being dropped against Paul, and you know, it just it didn't add up. It
didn't seem like he was looking yeah at all. And I think just ultimately the most important thing to her was her relationship with Buster, which I think the show captured beautifully, and just that sort of line that she had to walk with him.
Right, yeah, right.
I feel like one of the reasons I am so interested in doing this podcast is because I am fiercely curious about human behavior and how and why we do the things that we do, and the actors that are portraying these people there is I thought about how it is such an important service that they're doing, but like there's a real responsibility that they have when you're playing a real person in any situation, but certainly with cases like this where these people have gone through trauma, they
are still either still going through it or the family is, and so what kind of extra responsibility do you think that they have towards you know, people that are that are still grieving, that are still seeking justice, that are still reporting these things.
I think just when that's a conversation that I have with myself a lot and sometimes with Mandy two. But who owns the story is something that sticks with me a lot, and I know it's a conversation we had with Amanda Knox. You know, whose story is it's to tell, because the truth is, we are journalists who were working the case, so we have a story to tell, and this is our story, but it's also every single person that was represented in the show has a story to
tell from their perspective as well. So I think we lucked out. And that's what makes the show so good is that every single I mean right down to the most minor roles, these people took their little seriously. And you know, even Ala sha Kella, who played me, like, there were moments I was watching her perform and I was like, oh my god, I really do something like that. It's it's things that you don't pick up on I
think about yourself. But I do think that there was a lot of philosophical conversation going on with the actors and themselves about you know, especially with Johnny and his portrayal of Paul. I mean that was like, he's my gosh, yeah, yeah he had to they had I mean they really Patricia Arquette had a character that was very difficult to play because nobody knew anything about Maggie.
That's what I was going to say.
She Yeah, there isn't really much to know about like nobody, nobody knew.
Yeah, even her closest friends had trouble describing her. And you know, as we've said many times on our podcast, ELC basically just described her as a woman.
On the pony literally the sand on the sand, he said, a woman and a mother of boys.
Oh, and.
He have all the things to mention about his lovely What you you would think that you would have, you know, things to say about your dead wife on the stand as you are fighting for your life right right, And you would think that you would like come up in your head at least a couple of nice sentences. But yeah, a woman, a mother of boys. And then he said she had a lot of hard times when she was pregnant, and.
It's like he wanted more kids.
What what?
And it's like pregnant like twenty five years ago, why are you mentioning that?
Right, Like, that's how he identifies.
Her exactly, like this woman mother of my boys and couldn't have enough of my kids, so it's her fault. Unbelievable, Like and I don't even know what the what we were about Patricia.
So it was like Maggie was kind of an enigma. And yeah, ultimately we know that's because he didn't give her space to really be her own person. And I think that conversation even with her sister on the way to Moselle or before going to Mozelle, it feels like they didn't have the kind of relationship. They had a
really close relationship. They talked all the time, but there's a there's a bridge you're crossing when you tell somebody, especially your family member, that you're having relationship problems or and it's a point to take it back.
Right Yeah, yes, a great and they're going to hate them forever. Yep, that's how everybody. That's kind of an
unspoken thing that women all have to deal with. It's like once you tell your friends that you were in an abusive relationship and all the terrible things that your partner is doing, your friend is never going to forgive him for that, so you can't take it makes it real to Yeah, it makes it too real, right where you could just shove it to the side and let it eat you up inside, which I think was a lot of Maggie's personality.
I think that he was just eating her up inside, right right, right.
Yeah. She actually had cancer too shortly before she died and was was throwup cancer right yeah, yeah, yeah, when you think about the symbolism of that, right.
Right, Oh my gosh, yeah, right, it was course.
Yeah.
And I think some of the best little stories that we got about Maggie that Liz got from her friends were from college before she really was in a relationship with Alex, so like I think that because they described this very bright and bubbly personality funny, what were other like silly?
Uh, Yeah, she's kind of a different just a different person. Yeah.
And Alex was the quarterback and was the big man on campus and just swept her off her feet and she never looked back.
They tried to get her to stop dating him, and I think that that's the thing I don't talk about enough. Yeah, she had a little friend intervention in college where he was because he would have got rough with her, you know, but she she thought, you know, this was the guy for her. So it's just that that makes me so sad to think of myself at that age too. Like you you don't realize at that time in your life that you have so much left of it, exactly.
It sounds like this is the beginning of the end or something, right, And they can't see outside.
Of what's immediately surrounding.
You, yeah, right, And especially at that time, like women were just basically told like college is like you're time, you gotta you gotta pick one you're going to be it's all actually.
To be educated.
It's Mason and there she was, and like I could also understand that when people, I think the churchier Arquette asked me, what do why do you think Maggie was attracted to Alex And I was, like, they started dating when they were nineteen twenty years old. So think of yourself, you right, Think of your little brain everybody had. I had a very tiny brain when I was nineteen and
dated very terrible people. And it's fine now thinking back on it because my brain's developed, and I just thank God that I did not stay with those people, you know, like I, but Maggie had to stay with us, ended up staying with him for the rest of her life, and that was just it was kind of the way that And also I think sadly, I bet a lot of women envied her because she was marrying a Murdoch and she was marrying the big man on campus, and she was married this man that was so funny and
full of life and had all this money and his family had all this power. I'm sure she was very much envied at the time, and then now you look back and it's just such a tragedy.
Oh.
I mean, this is I think why people continue to be so obsessed and interested in this particular case. You know, we're we're always looking I think for sort of to understand. That's what I'm looking for, right, Like I want to understand why or how, and and sometimes that is such a.
Labyrinth of like you just can't. It's it's endless.
And I think it's also about the accountability though, I think as a nation, when everyone is watching this, ye, I don't know that we're all used to seeing a man with Elex's power and pedigree. I guess we could call it be held accountable for something so heinous. Do you think that, like, when you're watching it, is that what you're getting from?
Like I think that it's like I can't I can't believe it. I think that's what it sort of feels like, is oh my god, did he really?
Is he really being held accountable?
Now?
Is that really happening? Because when you look.
At you know, the whole the kids especially, I think like, well, these boys, that was their example of what it is to be a man, what it is to be a father, what it is to just live. They had no guidelines. It was like this is anything you do, we can if it's bad, we'll take it away.
You don't have to be Like.
That scene where Paul the first moment he's brought into court and all they do is arraign him, I think, is what's happening? And he just goes is it over now? As if like that's all I have to do.
I just need to show up and now it's over right.
It's so telling of and that's you know, his his performance also is so beautiful in that way, because you really do feel like I never thought I would have any compassion before I watched this series. I was like, this is a bad kid. He's spoiled, he's a train wreck. He's my worst nightmare. Like, I have no sympathy for
this kid. And something about watching that you really see how he just had no help and then he was trying to keep friends, you know, and that sort of like now, it doesn't excuse him in any way for the things that he did, but it explains it, you know, it's a little bit of an explanation. And I think this is also the thing, like we all from the human standpoint, we all at a certain point have to grow up, and these like that.
He never grew up. Alec never did.
He just decided I don't have to, you know, It's it's really crazy.
One of my favorites on set.
I mean, he is a wonderful human being and an amazing person. So, Liz, you were with me on set when we when I met him for the first time.
Did you meet everybody on set for the first time, or you met Brittany before?
Yes, we met Britney before.
It just would depend because.
You're scared of Jon.
So yeah, I literally never neither.
Oh, he was terrifying on set, Like he never I never heard him speak in this Australian accent until the last, until the end, until the last scene literally ended, and he was done at like four o'clock in the morning, and then he started and I was like, I forgot your Australian. This is so weird because in between takes he would kind of curse like Alex, he would stomp around and get mad like he was just fully in character.
So he was a scary.
So every time, like we were both big fans of him, but every time it's like, oh, not now.
Scrubs, but now John.
Was in Scrubs.
I just met him because he was playing the hospital scenes.
And when he after the boat crash, yes, yes, So he is incredible in this that scene of like you feel you see, oh, he's the mini version. He's becoming his father, Like this boy is his father's son.
Right, And I am the same way. I think one of the.
Things that I struggle with in life is compassion for just bad people or for people that like people that hurt other people, I just have little compassion for. I have a hard time getting to a place of feeling sorry for them. So Paul was definitely a journey even after he died, like especially after in the two years after the boat crash, before he died. Pretty much all of the things that we ever heard about Paul Murdoch was that he was just this awful kid, spoiled, entitled.
He was easy to hate, and I wrote about him in that light, and so did Liz. We both just kind of viewed him as the spoiled brat child who killed Mallory Beach and he should be held accountable and was not and was dodging accountability in our eyes and in It took talking to a lot of Paul's friends to understand that he did have a sweet and softer side and that he was honestly kind of like the black sheep of his family, and he was not little Alex.
I think him and Alex fought all the time because Paul liked to question things and Alex was not about that. He buster would just nod his head and say, okay, that's our family, does it Okay, that's fine. Paul would just kind of say why. And I think that he really, I think that his mental health issues just got wildly out of control when he was a teenager and he would just try to ask questions about things, and his parents would not help him.
Or would not guide.
Him in the right way of and then they would completely shield him from all accountability. Like at school, he was never teachers knew that they were never allowed to get the Murdoch boys in trouble, so at school he could never get Yeah, they just created this bubble where it was impossible for them to grow up like normal kids.
So Johnny's portrayal of Paul, I think was so incredibly brilliant because he got so many people to see that and to look past this person that was very easy to hate for a long time and see that he didn't have a chance and if he did have a chance of ever becoming normal, his father took that away from him because he died at twenty one years old.
Yep.
Yeah, has anybody from the Murdoch family or crew reached out to either of you since the show has aired. Have you heard from anyone?
Oh?
No, no, no, no, I don't think I don't think so.
I did hear from the friend of Randy's that they thought that Randy would like the show.
So this is what I was going to say.
There are some suspects of it that I feel like they would I mean, much of it.
Sure, if they believe that he's in the center. They don't want that out there.
Of course they're not going to like that. But I do think that the show creates fully realized human beings in all of them, and even you know, even Alec. He was an addict also again not an excuse, but a part of an explanation. And I think, you know, but again, you would have to then be willing to be accountable for your life. Like this is what is so fascinating to me too, the string of connection of every time we allow something like we let it go, it isn't just that then we take it on the inside.
So it's like you take that with you.
If you've allowed an injustice to happen, or you've allowed someone to lie or to cheat or to do something, you're taking that with you. You know, It's like it doesn't, it doesn't, we're not teflon.
It sticks.
And the more that you do that, then it starts to, you know, impact your life. And I feel like all of these people will forever be.
Impacted by this, you know.
Yeah, if there's no way to really.
Move on, well, I mean, I hope everybody can move on, I guess, but.
I don't yeah, yeah, I mean I think that this was all such a moment, and I think the saddest part of it is that our state, particularly the South Carolina Bar and the agency that police as lawyers in our state, has not learned their lesson of like we let this man gain so much power and spiral out of control, and nobody within our court system ever held him accountable for so many years, and he was able to steal millions of dollars because he was a lawyer,
because he passed the South Carolina Bar allegedly.
Yeah, I know, I wonder about that too.
No, they know, we have heard that man's phone calls when he talks about lawyer things, and it is ridiculous. He did not know what Habeas Corpus is apparently worried just watch, like, come on, it's not hard. He was just just not But it's just really upsetting that, like we have not used this moment as something to get better, to something to really change.
I mean, Liz, you think that like some things have changed.
Yeah, I mean we hear from attorneys in the fourteenth Circuit that they are now stricter about five So basically, when I say things have changed, they're doing what they're supposed to be doing in the base level, like the most basic. But overall, I don't think that things have changed. Do you think that, like like a little.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, but everything moves at a snail's face, in particular the justice system, good.
Lord and in South Carolina.
And there, But it's has have you.
I mean it sounds like that you were worn to be careful with even investing this at all in the first place. So were either of you ever afraid that they might retaliate against you or harm you.
Or Yeah, I mean we were told they would and we were told to be very careful by you know, sources in law enforcement who told us that. So that part was disconcerting. Honestly, though I don't know that he was.
I don't know if he's the person I feared. I think, you know, looking back on it, it's and maybe this isn't probably to say, but like the boat crash case itself with Mallory Beach, Stanley sued elc Buster and a number of other people, one of the parties was Parker's Kitchen, which is this billionaire billion dollar gas station committees stor Chine in Georgia and South Carolina. I'm honestly more afraid of him, the guy who owns that company, than in
our coverage than I am. And I never thought I would say that, But like, there was a time when Mandy and I were in Hampton County interviewing a source in a heart ease, and somehow it must have cut out that we were there because we went to look at where Stephen was killed for the first time. We didn't stop. We just drove by, went down Stephen Street,
turned around, and came back the other way. And as we were driving, I could see like in the distance this like silver STV coming toward us, long road, like you could see a long distance, and it slowed down as it passed us, and then hooked bangda yuis in Boston bed like he took a U turn and he
went right behind us. And I have never felt like if you wonder, like what feels like in the moment where like your entire body like just sinks down to the ground, like it's just like So Mandy had to call one of our sources who is in law enforcement and keep them on the phone just in case, and that guy followed us until we got out of there. So yeah, it was like one of those things where it's really I think this is the.
Thing that people don't understand.
Like I have friends family in North Carolina, and I spent time in South Carolina and not just there, but these are very remote places often and people don't understand how, you know, they might think like, oh, well just drive away or just go to another when it's so insulated and so isolated, you really don't have, like you you can understand how these kinds of dynamics can control everything. And then it's like you're entering a different world where you don't you don't hold the same value.
As you do in the of the world. You know.
That's so you're noticed what fans of the show were like people who followed the case. When they come to South Carolina and decide to take a trip to Moselle or to Hampton, I'm just so curious about how that goes down, because it's I just they're I mean, they're immediately clocked. I'm sure, and Hampton to have to get used to that, but I just I often wonder if that's a pleasant experience for people. I don't see how it could be.
It's well, it's so funny that you say that, Like, well, first of all, it was a cop that was following us, so like that was obvious.
But people like you.
Said, it's also just such a rule and desolate place that when somebody is following you, it's very obvious, like and there's not a lot, there's nobody else's on this road, and some guy comes on of nowhere, polls of you, Like that's an obvious, uh, you're being followed situation, and and yeah, and it's hard to also understand that it's possible that we were talking in Hardy's a few minutes before we remember seeing a cop in there, the policing
lunch or something, and like that's how we're that's literally how we're traveled in small towns like party from parties. It just goes, it goes really quick, and it's just very different how things operate there versus the rest of the world.
Right, I can't believe I fard to say that it was a state trooper who followed us.
I was afraid of going to jae.
You.
I just remember being like, if we go to jail, what's gonna happen?
Like the laws don't apply here.
We know that exactly the laws don't apply.
And so what are we going to do?
Oh gosh, I I can't believe that we have to wrap up, but we do. And if you could see the sides of my computer, which I could turn this around, I can't. But I have so many notes and so many things I haven't covered even half of them.
But we'll do it again. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it, yeah, every week, every other day.
I think you guys just like dial into my headset, but I do.
I want to make sure that.
I, first of all, I absolutely love that you have changed the name to True Sunlight again, not to like just really reiterate how much I really love and respect what the two of you are doing. It's taking something so dark and so difficult and then just even changing the name to truth Sunlight to show that is what that's what you're that's what the essence of what you're doing is. Is trying to bring everyone to that place now.
And I just think it's beautiful and important. So I want to make sure that you have a moment to tell everybody what any last thoughts you have, where people can go to listen, and what you want people to know going forward.
Well, We had a really hard time rebranding after Murdoch Murders podcast was over, as in, we could not come up with a name, and it took a very long time to figure out what we wanted the concept of going forward our podcast to be, and we just did not We were so sick of saying Murdoch murders and so sick of people's saying and it was after the trial, so it was a kind of over, but not really.
We were so sick of people saying all you ever do is Murdoch and you'll never be anything past Murdoch, and we were like.
Yes, we can watch us.
But Liz came up with the concept of true Sunlight, and I really want her to explain her reasoning for it, because it was really genius and I love it.
Was in the line at Starbucks I was getting and a look for David, and it was during the dark days in the immediate aftermath at the court of the trial, and we were just you know, throwing it around and we were you know, David in particular is just really eager for us to do, like I think even during the trial He's like, let's change it.
Yeah.
Yeah. So it was basically like, you know, we knew that true crime. Plenty of things that are out there that people can listen to, and it oftentimes they're beginning, middle, and end, Like it's reporters or people who have interested in the industry or the industry, the justice system or the legal system. They have a beginning, a middle, and
an end to the arcs that they tell. But we're reporting in real time, so our audience is there with us, with the battles to get information from public officials, with the watching the men act like maniacs, so we get to really have a team on our side behind it or behind us, but who have our backs. And so it really felt like something that we wanted to like share. And like sunlight is a word that we use in journalism for transparency, So oh is that right? Yeah, So
it's it has like double meaning here. So it's not just you know, it's not true crime, but true sunlight in the sense that we're taking the crime and we're exposing you know what, why isn't this crime being solved? Why why are police doing that in this one? So it's really it's exposing crime and corruption. And it was in the kitchen, Mandy your house when we were just like it was so simple, like we just said I just said it, and then it was like yeah, and.
We were like antithesis of true crime, like make it opposite and make it be ultimately about good, which is sunlight, you know, like make it ultimate, like that is the goal of what we do, to make it to make life better for victims, to make them feel like and then we've also found that justice comes in many forms, and one of the forms that we are able to give to people is to just expose the bad people that have done horrible things and just the process of
exposing bad people and helping victims feel validated in the way that they have felt about how they've been treated by the justice system. And we have an amazing army of hundreds of thousands of followers that we are so incredibly grateful for.
Every day that they amazing they go to battle.
For these people, you know, like they'll say on social media like leave them alone or or like or they make fun of the perpetrators. We do a lot of that because that's also kind of a little form of justice, Like we can't arrest people, but we can let these bad guys know that we are after them.
And that we are watching and your eyes yeah yeah, and.
There is no shortage of that so of the bad guys that need to be exposed, So we are very busy. But ye, Truth Light Yeah, I don't know, but True Sunlight podcast is where you guys can listen to us and Cuple of Justice podcasts. Cup of Justice is every Tuesday and True Sunlight is every Thursday. And again, we appreciate you so much.
This has been awesome.
You can't thank the two of you enough. This has been an absolute pleasure. And again I'm just mad respects for both of you. I wish you the best with all of it, and I feel like, well we'll chat again sometimes.
Seriously, let us know this is fun, amazing, Thank you so much.
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