You're listening to Facing Evil, a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the show and do not represent those of iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV. This podcast contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Hi, everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil from Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio.
We are your host.
I'm vet gin Lay and I am Roscha Piccquerero, and today is a very special episode. Our dear friend, our beautiful, amazing, talented badass, Jamie Albright is here with us today and she's not only a dear friend of yvet Nay, but she is our Tenderfoot TV. Ohana and Jamie, I am so honored that you are here today, and I know all of us at Facing Evil are as well, but I want to introduce you properly to our listeners at
Facing Evil. So not only did Jamie get a Bachelor of Sociology from Kenesaw State University in twenty thirteen, she also completed her forensic interview training in twenty fourteen. She has a master's of Social Work from Valdosta State University, which that was in twenty eighteen. And she is a producer on some of the best podcasts that are out there, just to name a few, some of our personal faves, MLK tapes, Kim Kardashian's The System and of course Gaining Ground,
Algorithm Sworn, all the things. And on top of that, she's a mother of six children and she started having babies when she was five, and.
She does not look old enough, not at all, not at all.
So I know it's so much, but I know you need to know who Jamie Albright is.
Jamie Ekomo may welcome to facing you all.
Thank you so much Russia any of that, and thank you for that very lovely introduction to everyone. I'm really happy to be here. I love the work that you do, and as I've told you both, I loved your podcasts before I ever met you and had the opportunity to work with you at Tenderfoot, so I'm excited to be here.
Oh my god, Jamie, We're just so thrilled to have you here. You know, I have so many questions that I want to ask you, but the first question that I want to start with, especially you know, Russia and I working on facing evil and dealing with so many
of these horrific cases. And you know, when I think about you, I think about different cases like Angela Simoda, and I think about one of her best friends who was so changed because of that event that happened in her life that she then became a private investigator because of you know, that that thing that changed.
Her whole life. How did you get into this industry?
Did something you know, happen when you were younger and it made you want to get into this particular field.
Yeah, so nothing happened to me like that specifically put me into this field. But I've always just wanted to advocate. I mean, it's kind of a funny story. My dad loves to say, like you were born rescuing kittens from a gutter, and you know, you're always finding something that was an important cause to you. And I think that, you know, when I became a mom, my children's safety
was something that was really important to me. I will say, I come from the generation where you know, you hug every uncle and you don't say you don't want to hug that person. And there were times when I wanted to have a voice, and it was kind of just not acceptable at that time. So one thing with my children I always did before I even worked in this field was if you don't want to hug someone, you know, it's your body, your choice. If you don't want to
sit on someone's it's your body, your choice. That was always really important to me. And then when I started deciding what I wanted to do when I went back to school, It's kind of a silly story, but I became obsessed with the TV show Special Victims.
Unit, Oh Yes, yes, and I just thought, oh my gosh, a lot of those shows are based on things that have happened, and I really thought, I just cannot believe that we live in a world where there are so many children who face trauma and even you know, women and men as well.
But for me, the children's stories really just impacted me. And I should say, anyone who works in the field says, never say that, because people will go, oh my gosh, nothing we do.
Is like that. It's very different.
But I will say I work alongside people who are superstars in this forensic interview world, detectives that really care about the work that they do. And that's why, even though I produce podcasts. I still keep myself in that forensic interview world because I'm passionate about it.
Right, I guess another question that I have for you is, in the industry that you're in, are there a lot of women that are forensic interviewers? And if so, let us know and also let us know, like for people that are interested in getting into the field, like how would they go about, you know, becoming a forensic interviewer.
Sure so, Actually, yes, the field is predominantly women. I say girl power all the time. As a matter of yes, at the center that I still conduct interviews at, we have a female attorney, we have a female director. I mean it's just you do see a lot more women in the field of forensic interviewing. And I will say it would be nice to see Mormon. We did have a male interviewer, and it was nice because there were times when a young boy may want to connect with
a male interviewer. You just don't ever know. So having the diversity in the field is really important. If someone wants to get in the field, I would say to do your research and find out what exactly you want to do, because being a forensic interviewer is not the same as being a police officer or a detective. It's
very different. A forensic interview is conducted at a child advocacy center in a safe environment where that child is you know, can disclose, and we partner with law enforcement to provide this piece of the criminal investigation, which is that interview. For me, I stayed home with my children, and then my last year of my bachelor's program, I did an internship at a very amazing police department in our area and met this inner viewer who an advocate, who told me it's a tough field to get into.
So I started volunteering as what's called a sexual assault response team coordinator, and I would come out all hours of the night and coordinate a response team if there was a victim of alleged a sexual assault. And that just kind of helped me learn the field. And then I kept going to my schooling and I found an opportunity to attend forensic interview training, which is a week long alongside detectives and other people in the field. And I actually did that myself. I didn't have a job.
A company put me through that, and I just kept working towards the goal that I had, and once I had that opportunity to interview at the same center where I was a start coordinator and an advocate, it was it was great. And when I say great, I mean that I was able to do what I knew I wanted to do to be part of that field.
But it is a tough field to work in.
It makes sense that there's so many women, predominantly women, right, because women have so much empathy and so much heart, and so much patience, you know, and kindness, So that makes a lot of sense.
I do want to say, like Jamie, we're so fortunate, of course to know your story because we've fallen in love with you over the past, you know, two years, because you know, even though Facing Evil debuted, you know, in twenty twenty two, we've been working on it since twenty twenty and I have to share this story with you. I think we've shared a little bit with you before,
but not in depth. When we had our very first meeting with your amazing brother, Donald Albright, you know, co creator and you know CEO of Tenderfoot TV alongside Payne Lindsay. What attracted Evet and I so much to Tenderfoot TV was the way that he lifted up his entire team and most especially you, Jamie, Like he was like, I work with my sister, and trust me, it's not just because she's my sister. This amazing, brilliant, amazing human who
is making huge difference in so many lives. With all of that being said, I would love to know because we get asked this question all the time, like what is it like working with your siblings and what brought you to Tenderfoot, Like what was that conversation? Like like how did you go from you know, being a forensic interviewer and you know, working at that incredible center to still doing that and also joining the Tenderfoot t V.
Johanna.
Yes, well, first, I love that that my brother was so sweet about me, because you know, your siblings don't always tell.
You that, like to you right right.
But Donald and I've always been closed.
We're only fifteen months apart, and when he I kind of have a funny story. He was in the music industry before and I was iving to grad school listening to podcasts and he called me and said he was, you know, do you listen to podcasts? And I was like yeah, And he said, Okay, I think I'm going to start a podcast company.
I was like, what, I was like.
So sry.
I was really concerned because I'm like, I don't know if people make money doing this.
I don't know what's happening.
But I remember even saying, well, I know people that maybe you can talk to, because I wanted to support him as much as I could. And you know, I was amazing to watch Up and Vanished take off, you know, he and painted such great work on Up and Vanish. And then what a lot of people don't know is while I've been working for Tenderfoot officially for a few years, when Atlanta child Murders came out, he reached out to me and said.
Hey, can you read these? Can you look at this?
Because of my background as a social work have a master's in social work and trauma, you know, just being trauma informed, and so I love that, you know, he reached out to me because we want our shows to be sensitive to the fact that the people who were speaking to have experienced trauma, and we don't want to sensationalize their stories. You want to tell them in a respectful manner. And that's one thing I've always loved about the work.
That we do.
Hear at Tenderfoot, and so you know, it's interesting because he'll say to me sometimes, so are you are you ever going to come like officially full time and not forensic interview, And I'll talk about it and then he'll go, you know what your heart is? In both places, those I feel very blessed and I'm able to continue doing both. So anyway, I worked a little bit on at landa Monster, kind of in the research and looking up family members
and kind of talking about the trauma piece. And then each time there was a project, if he had the opportunity to loot me in kind of just to see what my thoughts were, then I would help with that. And so once I finally officially thought okay, yes I'm ready, I want to do this work, I'm just thrilled to do it. At Tenderfoot, I love working with my brother. We get along very well. I get no special treatment.
I do want to say that because.
It makes me actually want to work harder, because I want us to have a good show and a good product that I always want us to be aware of the stories we're telling. So you know that's kind of my story, and I really I feel blessed every day to do things that I love so much.
It doesn't feel like work. I do have another question for you. You know, we talk about these cases again. You know they're heavy, and especially what you do, Jamie, how do you decompress because you are such a bright light, Like your spirit is always so positive, your attitude is always positive. How do you stay like that? First of all, what do you do to decompress from these cases? You know, to take care of yourself, to give yourself that self love?
Yeah, well, thank you.
First of all, I feel that way about you guys, Like I just love whether we're exchanging text messages or quick you know, social media, Like I just love that.
Like I feel that from you.
Guys just radiate this positive energy, and I think that that's so important. Burnout is high for people who work in these types of fields, and I see that on the law enforcement side, a lot of our detectives or time there is getting less and less. And that's just not in Georgia, that's nationwide Special Victims Unit. They work with really tough cases. And in the field of social work it's very high as well. So I have always only interviewed part time, and that is very intentional for me.
Even before I worked at Tenderfoot, I did some curriculum writing and some other things at schools that really warmed my heart because I remember saying I get to see happy children at the school.
It just was that balance for me.
I think it's important to make sure that we practice self care, and that's a word we hear a lot. But what that means is whatever brings you to a place of peace. You can feel trauma in your body.
And there's secondary.
Trauma where I hear this story and it's I can feel my heart race and I'm really like, oh my gosh, this was tough to hear, and I'm processing it and honestly, with forensic interviewing, I'm visualizing it because I'm trying to see what they experienced. And then there's the long term VI carryus trauma where I'm now viewing the entire world like that person, that person, that person, they could all be child molesters. And I do not want to view
the world that way. I want to view the world with open eyes and I don't want to let the things I hear change my image. And so for me, I have a very supportive husband and he is not afraid to tell me why are you looking at that?
Before you go to pass y.
I mentioned that I loved to watch you know, True crime constantly before I worked in it.
I don't do that as much anymore. Right, you might watch something.
That's lighthearted because I listened to so much of it, you know, for work and things that I try to do more lighthearted things. I fell in love during the pandemic because our numbers were really high. And seeing children with getting outside.
Yeah, we see that, we see on social media. You get out, love it.
Come up with things that just give you that breather, put our phone down, connect with people, connect with the earth. To me, those are just things that have helped me and also so important. Learning to say no boundaries are so important because.
One more time, say it loud, say it one more time.
Learning to say no. Boundaries are so important. And I do lots of reading. I follow lots of social media, you know groups where they talk about this and it's my no does not mean I don't want to do this. It might mean that I need space to hike or to sleep. Getting enough sleep is important and just being aware of like your body. I'm not saying these cases, whether it's an interview or it's a true crime case
that I'm researching. They don't stay with me, But I try to find ways to compartmentalize as much as I can, and remember, I can only do what I can do, and the most important thing for me to do is to be kind to the people that I come across, to have empathy for them, and to know too that you know, it's not left in me.
To solve or fix their problem.
It's really giving them the voice to tell their story and maybe some resources after.
That's important to me.
You guys, know, y resource resources are everything?
You know?
Paying it forward right is so important.
Yeah, Like I won't watch you know, Monitor Spu as much as I love Marisco Hargetay, but I, you know, will go and watch a Marvel movie. I mean, Hello Wakanda Forever, although that wasn't as light hearted it was.
No, let's jump ahead a little bit. Can you tell us any of the new projects that you're working on?
What are you allowed?
What are you all to say? But we can yeah, if you can, If you can't, we understand.
No.
So I am like a bit of too tenderfoot cheerleader since day one. So every project my team works on I'm just.
Like, yes, it's so great.
I'm so proud of everyone because Tenderfoot's a small but mighty team and we do divide and conquer. We all work on different things, but I am working on a project right now that's very close to my heart. This is about a case of it. At least six young black girls and women who were sexually assaulted, murdered, and left alongside freeways in DC in nineteen between nineteen seventy one and nineteen seventy two. What makes me passionate about this?
These victims and their families have not had a voice for so long, and there were things that happened during the investigation that left them feeling very unheard. And this case is still unsolved. And we talk about trauma, it's important to remember it doesn't matter if it happened five days ago or fifty.
Year years ago.
Trauma is trauma.
Yes, and these.
Family members wanted to share their story. It's you know, one family member said to me, can someone just say my sister's name correctly? All fifty years and the few shows that have come out or the few times the cases have been investigated, the names weren't pronounced right. I mean, your name is so important to who you are, and so this project is close to my heart. And it's one of those things too where I've was able to
connect with the detective. We don't say ages because for women, but she has Trace has been close to her heart for fifty years and she's a mature woman and she says in her lifetime she would love to see these cases get more attention and these families have the opportunity to share their story. And that's the project that is really close to my heart right now, and I hope that it reaches the people that.
You know it should reach.
Someone might know something that they don't even know they know, right that could give these families a little bit of more closure, you know, because closure looks.
Different for everyone.
So that's what I'm working on that I have a few others I can't talk about, but all of our projects to me, are equally important. And we realize a lot of things of change, but a lot of things have stayed the same, and that not all victims get equal media coverage, equal platform to tell their stories. And I'd like to think that at Tenderfoot, we are trying to, you know, reduce that barrier for people.
One thing I really want to talk about, Jamie, And first of all, everyone out there needs to know how passionate you are about your beautiful family. Beautiful I mean beautiful from your beautiful grandma, great, I mean all the way to your youngest daughter, like it radiates through you
and the entire you know, Ohanna, that you have. But I know something that really I mean I think if you please remind me if I'm misquoting here, but you discovered that your son Joshua was going through some major health problems and you have been.
Such a huge advocate for and I want to get this right.
Is it?
I want to say, I'm like, how do you even pronounce it?
Is it?
Nef Care Kidney International? Okay.
I would love to know more about the work that you are doing and what you and Joshua are doing together, and please tell our listeners what FSGS is and how you can educate others on this.
It's a disease, right.
Yes, yes, thanks for bringing that up. So this would be one of those things where I talk about, you know, what does it look like? You know for self care? You know, you e my kids go to the doctor every year, they have physicals, I'm obsessive.
Get your physical, your teeth clean, do all of these things.
And my son, Joshua, was senior year of high school, doing really great in the gym three times a week, I mean looking great. And my lovely sister donated a kidney to a family friend on her husband's side and then through a kidney exchange, and we were joking about it, like, oh, you know what, we need that kidney. Everyone needs two kidneys. Don't give it up as a joke, you know, and
not joking of anyone. The kidneyssease which try to keep it quiet harder because what she was doing was very serious, you know. So we go over to see my sister and at the last minute, Joshua, who's my Joshi, I call him Joshi. He came with us and at that visit with my sister and brother in law, my brother in law called me over and was playing with the blood pressure machine and said Joshi's blood pressure was too high.
We went from a medical visit the next day to within six weeks ultrasound biopsy being told that my son was in stage two kidney failure. And it was shocking, absolutely shocking. At first, he didn't want to tell anyone. And again, I'm kind of a born advocate, so it was hard for me at first, but I wanted to respect his wishes, right, And then I was that mom at night at two am, trying to like find support
groups because I was crying all the time. I mean, I keep bubbly and lighthearted, but like, oh, and it's your baby, it's just in your heart.
Yes, yeah.
And I met this amazing lady named Kelly Helm who also has a daughter with kidney disease and FSGS, and she said, to me, join these groups like neft cure can help you. So what FSGS is the best way to describe it is, it causes kidney.
Failure, kidney disease.
It's almost like it's attacking your kidney's attacking itself. And my son had genetic testing. It is a genetic condition, and so we don't have a long history of canney. He's on my side. My husband did know that his grandmother had kidney disease, but just like digging through that family history, and so I want everyone to know my son's type of FSGS is caused by a specific gene in the black community. He has a po l one facilitated FSGS, but anyone can get different types. It's an
aggressive form of kidney disease. Most people never have symptoms. We are very blessed that Joshua's was caught early and again though kind of like Ve mentioned earlier connections, Joshua was having his biopsy and the doctor's last name rang a bell to me. Come to find out his wife conducts trainings I attend as a forensic interviewer.
I don't think that's coincidence.
Just these little connections that kept me just for me remembering that we were not alone on this walk. You know, I believe in a higher power. I believe that we were not alone. Spirituality to me is really important. Yes, we ended up on this fast track to like Joshua being a voice for research studies and traveling, and we've met amazing people you mentioned earlier. You know how I
stay positive. I believe in surrounding yourself with people who are like minded, who are passionate, who are kind like you guys, and who have prayed for my son, or if they don't pray, they've sent positive quotes or positive energy all the way. All the good you do, right, And so it's been a journey I had a friend. I have a really good friend who's at therapist and one day she said to me, but have you stopped to process? And I cried at lunch and I said, well, let me cry a little bit.
It is a lot.
Yeah, but also having that those friends in your circle that are like holding you accountable to self care.
Yes, to feeling the feelings that.
You need to feel to still be a really strong advocate. So nef Cure provides patient and family advocacy as well as funding for research for people who have rare kidney disease. Joshua is in a study and he's feeling wonderful. It's a blind study, so we don't know everything, but he feels great.
That's fantastic.
And he's nineteen and he's really my hero. He's just kept such a positive attitude. And again, my husband is like the stoic one. We're going to get through this. And when I get too crazy on the advocacy train, he's like, er, let's go on a high.
It's that balance, right, that balance, Yeah, it's that balance.
And you mentioned o'hannah. I love that. When I met you.
Guys, we have an amazing family, whether it's my brother saying, hey, my agent has connection to the kidney world.
Hey, he'll be at.
Dinner and he'll tell someone about Joshua's story, right, or whatever we can do to let people know about this illness.
The screening is so simple.
When your child goes for a file like an eight to ten dollars, your analysis can detect protein in their urine.
Why can we do this? Yeah?
And when I say why don't we do this?
I don't mean people, why doesn't Why isn't this just a normal part of it?
Every year's physical is not right anymore.
So thank you for mentioning that, and thank you for being so supportive when you guys send me you're sweet you know, reminders or positive notes or texts. I really it really means a lot to me and my family.
Absolutely, Jamie.
You know, I know you listen to Facing Evil and you know at the end of every episode we always end with an emua. Right, how you know people ourselves can move onward and upward? What is your emua? What is your purpose? You know in your life?
If you could just share a little bit with us.
Oh wow, that is a that's a great question. When you guys told us you wanted to do this positive. At the end, I remember thinking that is awesome. People just hear such a heavy story and it gives them the opportunity to see hope and light.
Yeah, I would say for me, I.
Look at my life as I believe that we are all put here for a purpose, and I think that my purpose is advocacy, is connecting people, and I want to live out that purpose with my life. I want to live a life that means something and that touches others. It's really important to me, so I hope that I'm doing that.
You are, Jamie.
You are, and you're inspiring others to do that, and you inspired me an evet before we ever got to.
Hug you and everyone, Jamie gives the best hug.
I mean I just say that right now, Like you know, like when you're like you fall so in love with a human and you're like you just want to wrap your arms around them, and then like if they give you a week hug, you're like, ooh.
I didn't what's happening.
No, Jamie is all love and light and a little bit of spice, Oh a lot of spice, I shall say, Like, oh my god.
Jamie is the best combination of everything.
Yes, yes, because we know, we know it's not always perfect, it's not always sunny, it's not always light and love. But if you lead with that, you know, that's that's I think that's how we can all make the world a better place, right.
Absolutely, Yeah, that's I think it's it's we're all putt here, in my opinion, for a purpose, and it's not about to me, money can't buy happiness and peace and love. It's about what we do with our time here. And I feel very, like I said earlier, very blessed that whether I'm at the center, conducting a forensic interview or working on a podcast, I feel like what I'm doing I hope is you know, it is with all my heart, and I hope that it is making that difference.
So yeah, Jamie, every word that you said today, I know has inspired me, has inspired Yvette, and I have no doubt will inspire every single Facing Evil listener. Thank you Mahalo Nuiloa for being a part of today. Onward and Upward, Emma.
Well that is our show for today. Thank you again, Mahalo Nuiloa. Jamie Albright, the one and only. We love you so much. Words can't even say how much we do.
We we just we do.
As always, we'd love to hear what you guys thought about today's discussion and if there is a case that you would like us to cover, please let us know.
Find us on social media or email us at Facingevilpod at Tenderfoot dot tv.
And one request, if you.
Haven't already, please find us on iTunes and give us a review.
And good rating.
If you like what we do, your support is always.
Cherished until next time.
Aloha.
Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. The show is hosted by Russia paccuerero in Avet Gentile, Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, our executive producers on behalf of iHeartRadio, with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk, Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay, our executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy k Appin. Our researcher is Claudia Dafrico. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on social media or email us at Facingevilpod at
Tenderfoot dot tv. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.