Name w/ Paula Garcés

Of the Law and Order franchises. SVU is considered especially watchable.

We are the amateur detectives who kind of investigate the vicious felonies. These episodes are based on.

These are our stories, done done.

Hello, Hello, Hello, It's twenty twenty two and this is that's messed up.

I am Liza Traeger. Hello. Hi, I am Kara Klank. Hello.

And you guys know what this is or maybe your New Year's resolution was to get into this podcast and you don't know what it is. But what it is is we take an episode of Sview, we recap it, then we talk about the true crime it was based on, and then we interview usually an actor from the show. And today's episode is a hot one to kick off twenty twenty two. I'm so glad it's a new year.

It is a new year.

Obviously, we took a holiday break like a lot of like you should, and hopefully you're able to as well. So we did record this before our holiday breaks, so you won't know what we did until next week, but we're gonna try to.

Yeah, we're we're in the time machine again. Time machine. Yes, we wait.

We do want to talk about New Year's because we will have all just done New Years.

We may be spending New Years together. We're not sure. And I I don't know.

New Year's is like, now that I have kids, I'm like, what can I even do on New Year's I'm just excited that I'm going to a place where I can put my children to bed and drink a little bit.

Yeah, but what's weird about your sleepovers? Why don't you guys actually do a real sleepover? You guys do fake sleepovers?

Well, because where would we sleep you say us from downstairs?

Maybe we will do that for New Years.

Like, I just don't understand why. It's like you put them to bed and then still at ten you sneak.

Them out in the middle of the night, Like well, because first of all, one of them goes to sleep in our friend's bedroom, so Michael and like our friends would have to sleep with my six month old in their room. So I guess I could put Yeah, I guess I could reconfigure and we could try to sleep over. But normally what we do is we wake them up at like eleven or twelve and just like whisk them away into the car and bring them home and they go right back to sleep, so it's not a big deal.

We'll see.

Yeah, I am still waiting for plans.

I really I have a dress.

I would love to go out, and I'm trying to manifest something fun, but I don't think so. And then someone suggests that I should just straight up post on Instagram like where are the parties, bitch? But that seems like a little much. I don't know.

Maybe I'll just do whippets alone. If I hear of anything, I'll let you know.

I just think La it's like a town where nobody's really from here, so so many people go away for the holidays and then their New Year's is not really here.

But that said, I've actually had.

New Year's parties here when I was living in West Hollywood, and like, without children, I've had New year.

Yeah, that's another thing. Like West Hollywood.

I would definitely go, maybe do some spots, hang out, but I don't want to then uber back or try to a hotel on New Year's like so many drunk drivers, Like I don't really know.

Uber's gonna be a billion dollars.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. So I grew up with New Year's being a family holiday. We have a New Year's tree, we do gifts, and then what's cool is my sister would do everything with us, and then she would go out at like two in the morning. That's another thing. LA fucking sucks and everything closes at one in the morning. So if you grow up in a real city, you can go out till four or five

I it's not a family holiday for me, but I did. When I was a sophomore in high school. I threw like an epic party when my parents were out of the country. They had me, say with their best friend and I was I was, you know, fifteen, But my friends drove so I was like, okay, I'm going to like a little New Year's party with four friends.

And we just had them drive me back to my house.

Opened my house up, like people banging upstairs, like people taking showers, like like walking around naked, like full blowout party that I never got in trouble for. I then tried to have a party my junior year and my freshman year of college at my at my parents' house, and both times I got busted, but the sophomore year party never got busted.

I confessed it to my parents later. Wait, how many people were there?

Maybe like seventy It was like a lot of my class from my I was a sophomore, and then probably people some people from the grade above and stuff too.

But I was pretty proud of myself. It was a big party. And did people bring booze?

Yeah, and my parents, like people stole drip like booze from my parents. But my parents like aren't big alcohol people. They just have a lot of alcohol, like they always were gifted like vodka and stuff.

They never drink vodka, you know.

So, like I think I've talked about it on this podcast before, my parents got three bottles of Absolute ones and just gave them to my sister because we collected Absolute vodka ads and so they were just sitting on my sister's desk for all of high school and we would just slowly drain them and then.

Refill them with water.

So yeah, like and then later they'd be like, hey, could you bring that vodka down for the party.

We'd be like that shit is long gone. Mom, Sorry you're.

Delusional, but anyway, that's a fun New Year's memory. But I have done so many crazy New Years. I've done New Year's in like Boston. I've worked on New Year's. I've waitress on New Years. I think the best.

I like working on New Year's that's the best. I really love having a weekend at a club. You are drink it, you have fun, and then you go out after and it's kind of more low pressure. I love having an excuse. I love working on a holiday. That's oh isom and I had a big New Year's party.

My aunt and uncle used to have a loft and soho and they I've stayed in it over New Year's, like maybe twenty sixteen. No, it was like twenty twelve or thirteen because Jared and I were like together.

And it was all comedy people. It was really fun.

Yeah, I remember like my favorite, Like I remember senior year of high school. I think I did, like I went to a friend's house. That was the first time I did something with other people and your parents were probably like, No, it's fine though, but I was with other Russians, so maybe that kept them happy. Oh, last year it was just me and my parents and none of us were drinking.

Well, last year for New Year's you were out of town and our other friends came over and lit a fire pit on my fake grass and burned a huge hole in it. So I'm just happy that we're not going to be at my house this year, so I don't have to replace any burnt grass.

That burnt grass has been You've been talking about it.

Oh, yeah, well fixed now it's fixed now. It just was a nightmare to get it fixed. But I am I actually love the no pressure New Year's. I love the just do something with a few friends and not have to worry about traveling and getting an uber.

Yeah.

I don't want to be in a night club, I think.

No, if I was rich, I think I would enjoy I would be on an all inclusive resort, I think, or like a tropical vacation airbnb with like I would love ten friends are under in a house.

Or I think if you are going to do a West Hollywood, LA thing, you like hire a car for the night, like the car is your car, and it's like, that's taking you around for the night.

A friend of mine did that, Rich friends of mine did that.

I know that's expensive, but I'm saying that's where we're talking aspirational.

Yeah, Like, no, I think tropical is better than renting a car to go to West Hollywood.

I think, okay, of.

Course, But I'm saying, if you wanted to stay around town and have fun, I think having someone take you around, of course better than tropical. Better than tropical is buying your own island better than buying you. I mean, like we can go on and on about what's better.

You just followed up my Aruba with you can also get a car.

I just don't know.

Like I like to be around a lot of people, I know, so I don't know that a tropical vacation where I'm just with like maybe two people would be as fun for me.

No, I would love to be on an all inclusive resort for a New Year one year. I think I would definitely pretty much I would enjoy that. I would have you done all inclusive before. I did it once with my family when I was in high school the Dominican Republic, and then once with my friend Alex Crawley a few years ago in Mexico. I like being with people in a city and being not with other Americans in a resort. But I would totally do resorts again, for sure. Absolutely, but we stayed at the resort for

Tequila and you're like, yeah, you know, I like that. Yeah. No, I've never done all inclusive.

I only asked because my sister did all inclusive in Mexico at this place where her boyfriend, and she said that it was like impossible to get drunk, like the drinks were too watered down. But that was one place I was just wondering if you had a similar experience. Oh no, but I was just taking shots of tequila, so.

You can't those down. You're not really fucking around with that.

But I love a breakfast but I like, oh, say, like a nap, I had a hot tub or a butt. We had like tubs on our balconies, so like that's fun.

I love resort breakfast where it's just like ninety stations of all different stuff to eat for breakfast.

I love that shit.

Yeah, there's just different types of vacations. I would never say I would rather do a resort than like be in a cool place with people that actually live there and go to museums and see stuff. It's just it's different trips, and I think to unwind a resort's nice.

Yeah, baby, should we unwind into today's episode.

We've got a good one for you.

Yeah, absolutely, January, you're cold, are you working on your goals?

Have you already fail? Whatever? We have an episode.

We're consistent, honey, whether you're on top of your shit or not.

All right, guys, I'm excited about this because I totally knew this episode when I watched it, But this was like a little bit for me like what Scavenger was for you, Like you knew you'd seen it, but I didn't really remember a lot about this one, so it was kind of like seeing it new again. Even though well, I'm.

Gonna I'm gonna let the listeners into the third wall or whatever. But you know, we do get asked how we picked the episodes, and we Hannah suggested this one and Kara was fighting.

You did not want to do it.

You were so mad, and then after you watched it, you were like, oh my god, what an incredible episode.

I go, yeah, SVU is incredible.

I think I thought it was a different one. I think I thought it was the one with Time saws more that's based on the Eton Pats case.

Which we will do.

But I think I was like, let's wait on that one whatever, and this one is great.

So it is.

But I just thought the listeners would like, yeah, that this was an argument.

Shattering the fourth wall and Lisa letting you know that. I was a baby bitch about doing this episode and now I'm happy.

I love it.

Yeah, but I hated execution and I just still don't like it.

Yeah. Oh, I thought you warmed up.

To it, But okay I did because we got to talk to Bede Wong.

That's gonna put favorable.

So okay, this is episode is called name and it's season seven, episode seven seven seven.

I love that I know something about the numbers.

Well, seven is universally good luck, Like people love the number seven, lucky number seven.

So we opened this episode on a couple of kids that like go up to some guys that are digging a huge hole next to their playground, and the guys are like, you guys, excited for your new playground and the kids are like They do a reverse shot where the kids are like yeah, but there's like a perfectly good playground right behind them. So I don't really know what's going on with the old playground, but it looks really good. So the this one kid's like, where's baby

I don't really know how he figured it out, but they should have made it a skull in my opinion.

So they're like, hold on, guys, stop the work, and a third guy pulls out like a full jaw, so they tell the kids to scram and the next thing we see are people like sifting through the dirt like it's your archaeology assembly in fourth grade. Like they're just like using those you know, like they're panning for gold.

My sister did a kid birthday party like that, she buried all these dinosaur bones in the yard or the.

That is the kids freaking cute and the kind of thing I would never have the like wherewithal to do. But like, wow, my sister, it's not about that she is, but she's really good at homemade parties, creative and dedicated because I would I could think of that, and then I be like I can't figure out how to do it, and then I would just give up. But anyway, I'll keep going here with this case. So they're all sifting through the dirt trying to find more bones. The victim

That show did come back.

I don't know if you listen ever to Race Chaser with Wilhelm and Alaska. But they there was a judge on one of the early seasons of Drag Race named Alessandra Torra Sani and she was on Battlestar Galactica, and like, it's just kind of a funny gag that no one knows who the fuck she is, and she got to be a judge on Drag Race, and so they'd be like, oh, obviously drag expert Alissandra Torra Sani.

And then they've.

Actually had her on the podcast like twice and she's become like a funny gag on their podcast. But that's what I think of when I think of Battlestar Galactica.

Now.

Anyway, there's a Twinkie in the box. Apparently we don't get to see it, but Finn's like, oh, here's the test of the Twinkies last forever, like go ahead, take a bite, and Munch is like no thanks, or maybe it's the other way around, but one of them does that, and then they're debating if it's a homicide and there's like a Lady csu tech there and she finds a

Like perfectly preserved.

Like they open up an art project that looks like this kid could have made it yesterday, and it's like a dragon and it says go dragons, and it has the number one forty eight at the bottom. Obviously, we know Stabler has an encyclopedic knowledge of all the high schools and schools in New York City, but they have to be Catholic for him to know the name.

So they track down PS one forty eight and.

They're talking to the principal there, who's like, I remember this all happening. I was their age that these four boys disappeared in nineteen seventy eight.

They were all twelve to the teen years old.

They were playing baseball after dinner and then no one saw them again. And she remembers all their names right off the top of her head because she was, I guess a kid when it happened. Their names were Juan Alvarez, Hector Padilla, Estebon Morales, and Michael Rodriguez. So there are four Latino boys that have been that went missing and their case is like still unsolved. So the precinct at the time of their disappearance has been shut down for

So he goes, that's probably why we've never.

Heard of the case, and it's like, yeah, but also they were Puerto Rican teenagers that I'm missing, so that's kind of more why. And that's also what the principal said. She's like, it wasn't going to be front page news. And then they munch, you know, comes back from a phone call and it's like, actually, all the files on this case have been checked out, so who checked them out?

She doesn't even look up from what she's doing.

And this is Milly Viscarando, who is played by Paula garsis a very pretty, very pretty actress who's playing this very cool character and this is like, I believe this is her third out of four episodes that she was in. She was also in Raw and a couple of episodes. And I love the name Milli. Yeah, so cute. There's another exactly right host named Milly from the I Saw What You Did podcast?

What's Up?

Girl?

Yeah? Girl.

Stabler is like, uh, do you have those files? I need them right now and she's like, uh yeah, I'll get him to you later. And he's like no, girl, like I need him right now. And she's like, I just don't want you to think I'm weird. And it's like and he's like, too late, and I'm kind of like, I'm kind of loving their.

Vibe together already.

So they go to Millie's apartment and she's said that she's basically pulled about fifty to sixty unsolved cases where the victims were Hispanic teen boys in nineteen sixty to eighty.

They say Hispanic a lot in this.

I don't think that that is like how you're I think Hispanic refers to what language you speak, whereas Latino is like your origin. I don't know if these boys like actually spoke Spanish. But she keeps saying Hispanic. I'm not saying that. I just want everyone to know before they come for me.

Her dad was a cop. Millie's dad was a cop.

He was a fingerprint analyst on the job back in the day, and he was obsessed with this one case where they found a nine year old boy dead in a box and it was called the Boy in the Box case. And he was never ideed and everyone had forgotten about this case, but her dad worked on it every day until the day he died this past summer. And she goes, do you think if it was for white boys missing, the case would still be open. The answer is of course, but Stabler goes, probably not. And

I hated when the mom wanted to touch it and they wouldn't let go.

Oh yeah, that was really really sad. Yeah.

Millie's like, you can't and it was like just let her touch. Yeah, I mean, no, she can't. When it gets solved, they can give her all that stuff. But it is really really sad, and so Stabler.

In the next scene, Stabler and Millie are talking to Wan's parents and they just always were like we told them that we knew our son would never have run away. Like everybody just assumed that this band of twelve to thirteen year old boys ran away, never to be heard from again. Sure, maybe they ran away, but they never called their parents on a birthday, they never asked for money, like, they just never were founding.

It just makes no sense.

It's a lazy cop out. Yeah, it's an easy way out. It happened. We see this all the time in the cases. We I think, yeah, research too. It's like, oh, probably a run away. They didn't like it, Oh they left, And it's like that's lazy, that's lazy.

Yeah, And like the like the girls from Cleveland, like oh, they just all ran away and not not one phone call, not one, not one ping on a debit card. Like it makes no sense and it is full lazy police works.

Because I wonder the percentage of actual runaway It's like of actual teens that are like peace out and disappear because they want to disappear.

Like I just can't imagine it being that hot.

Well yeah, well this is what like, this is what they talk about in like child trafficking and in kidnappings and stuff like that. Like they'll report like any kid that's like a in foster care that just goes a wall like leaves for the day, they get reported as missing.

We also hear about like in Cleveland they were missing for ten years and live.

It's like true and that's the hope.

And then one of the moms goes, hope is all we got, Detective Stabler and I really liked that little line. And Juan's parents said they'll miss the hope now that they've found his body. They're like, we'll miss having that hope that like when the phone rings it could be him, you know, like even though the disappointment of that, the push and pull of the disappointment must be so sad,

Think so, which you know, I kind of agree with.

And then the boy in the box was found in a water heater box and Sawyer listed his primary occupation as plumber. So you see those little gears are grind in a Stabler's head and he's like, let's go check out that box again.

So they go check it out. Millie like brings the box out.

She knows everything about this crime, and then Stabler looks inside like a fold of the box and find sand and it's like, oh yeah, a professional forensics team must have just completely overlooked that sand, like I don't. It's just so weird that Stabler comes in and goes, huh, what's this. It's like her dad investigated this every day of his entire life. Never saw the sand. She's investigating it,

The quarry is a funny word.

Arry. Yeah, I feel like I've read like about quarries a lot in books, like in Old like The Prayer for Owen Meanie. I feel like there was always a quarry or something where kids would go do bad things, like nothing good happens at a fucking quarry.

I'll say that.

I've also never heard anyone use it in conversation, like it's only for movies.

TVs and books.

Right, Well, I think if you were to have grown up in like a small like New Hampshire town. You might be like, yeah, we're gonna go throw rocks in the quarry you want to come.

Like, but is it a pond or is it something different?

Okay, Annalise is in here with the assist telling us that it is a place typically a large, deep pit from which stone or other materials are or have been extracted. So it's like, yeah, you're like mining for rocks essentially out of like a more and there's different kinds of quarries, you know. I think there can be like a granite quarry and all different kinds of quarries. So then Stabler goes to talk to Carlos Guzman and he's super rude

And this woman doctor saying she was in the movie Prime. Doctor Singh was Doctor sing was you? Oh my, It's like wild, how many people were in the movie Prime? Like you are always like Prime, Prime, Like it's one of my favorite It's amazing.

So doctor Singh, who is in Prime, is like, yeah, I got I got this call from my client. And Stabler's like, let's dump the luds on the phone. He didn't even say that, I just know the terms. And this woman said that when she was twelve, her father murdered her brother and then forced her to help get rid of the body. And he's like, why is she reporting this now? And this the psychiatrist said, Oh, she had a dream and she suddenly remembered it. It's a

They find Anna sitting on a bench now.

She is played by Lisa Emery, who you may know as a full on batshit crazy character in Ozark named Darlene. She's this rich, poppy farmer in Ozark, and she's a really good actress. She freaks you the fuck out in Ozark and she's really good. And get this little side bit of svu alum information.

She was married for over a.

Decade to one Josh Peus aka Hank Abraham.

Whoa cool.

I wonder what happened little Sbu marriage is happening.

Hopefully she didn't find a child born on Joshua.

Hopefully he's not guilty of what he was in the show.

So she looks at like they see her sitting on this bench, she's staring into space.

She looks, you know, out of it or whatever.

And she looks at Millie, who is Latina, and goes, you look like my brother. Okay, So now we cut to Huang interviewing Anna. She doesn't know her last name or who the president is. And someone actually recently told me that they stopped asking people who the president is because there's so many psychos who are part of Stop the Steal who will say.

Trump even though he's not the president anymore.

So it's like not even a good question to ask people to establish whether they know what time period it is anyway, So I wonder what they ask now, yeah, probably like what year is it?

Like what? Yeah, I don't know.

And so she's not making a lot of sense. And then she does say something like they stole him from a hospital. And then she says two thousand and five, like she knows it's two thousand and five, so she's in and out of knowing what's up. And Huong is like, this is pretty common in longtime MDMA users. They have memory impairment and decreased attention span. I just like, I have barely heard of people using Molly or MDMA or ecstasy like as a long term thing.

I just didn't know how addictive it was.

I've heard of like you know, when you're a bad teen or you get into partying or raving in the nineties or whatever. Like I think there are people who are doing ecstasy all the time, and I.

Think they might be fucked up.

Like for me, I've been been Molly in a while, like I'm three times a year tops.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know same. I mean way less for me because I've been having children. But I definitely did Molly right before I.

Had some years it's zero.

But it's like I would never I guess if maybe I was going on a cruise, I would do it a few I would only do one time because yeah, I don't know, I can't imagine.

Do well we were gonna do when we went to Lizzo, I did do it? You did it? Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, I didn't want to I didn't want to call you out, like for a for a fun concert, I would do it or something, but yeah, I.

Well, yeah, but it is funny when you're one of the only because me and you were on such different vibes because you were drinking, and these girls like yelled at us and you were so mad, and I was like, I don't care.

These people yelled at us, and I kept being like, are we gonna get in a fight?

What's happening? And I was just like, I'll just move over. Yeah, they were staring at us, really pissed.

No, you came over to me and you went, are you gonna let her talk to you that way? And I went, okay, I'm floating. Why are you talking?

That's Lisa. I love you, but those words would never come out of my mouth. Are you gonna let her talk to you that way? I would never say that to someone.

You were, Yes, you did. You said that to me.

I think I said, these girls were being bitches and they're pissed at us because we're like standing in front of them.

But it's a concert. What are you supposed to fucking do?

Because I always get into like a little altercations with people at concerts, cause I don't think people know how to be in crowds. But anyway, I cannot believe I would never go to you into a fight.

I don't think you were goading me into a fight, but I think you were just very much like, believe these bits.

I can't believe it.

And I was just like, yeah, I was probably definitely not getting over it, that's for sure. Yeah.

And I was just like, Lizzo will never play in a venue this small ever again.

Yeah, Like it was fun though, Oh that was a fun show.

So Huong's giving us the lowdown on what MDMA does to your memory and in decreased attention spans, this woman's like a long time MDMA used or whatever. Millie thinks

And she's like on a full mission.

Finn and Munch are like this, ain't it girl, And she's like, fuck you guys, I know I'm onto something. And then she says, your hospital was involved in a black market baby scandal in nineteen sixty two, only thirty miles from where Anna grew up.

One of the babies was Hispanic, she says.

At the hospital, a woman is explaining that they caught the nurse responsible for this black market baby scandal.

I gotta look this up and see if this is really What do you do?

Just steal babies from the hospital, that's so quel, I.

Guess, and sell them on the black market.

I don't know, but they weren't able to track down all the babies, including this boy. I'm like, how many babies went missing before you figured it out?

Was this like one.

Big grab baby grab in the middle of the night where she took like five.

But also and then so then the next day the mom's in the hospital just gave birth and her baby's gone, Or are these teen moms that want to sell their babies?

No, no, I think these are thefts, because they're saying they tracked down all the babies, but they never found this boy. So she obviously gave this boy to somebody who awayed with the child and they could never find them again.

They maybe gave a fake name, who knows.

So Millie looks at these little handprints of the baby and goes, it's not him, because we've already learned that when her dad was a fingerprint analyst, he did it before things were electronic and technological, and he used to study the fingerprints.

So he could just tell.

And so maybe we assume she's done the same thing, and she can tell by the fingerprints of this baby that it's not him. I don't know, but she's kind of like, why would this woman have come forward at this exact time?

And the woman is like, the woman.

That they're talking to at the hospital is like, oh, are you guys talking about that kid missing since the seventies? And it's like, how does this bitch know about it? Like what's going on? They thought they were doing this whole thing quietly, And she's like, no, no, I read about it in the paper.

She goes over. Of course she kept the paper.

Of course it's open to the exact article she's talking about, and it's the obituary for Juan Alvarez. So that's what's kicked the story back into the consciousness, is just that the family obviously ran an obituary for their son. So now they're trying to take another run at Anna, and they show her a picture of the boy in the box, a picture of the boys that have been missing, and then a picture of a blanket that the blanket was found with the boy in the box.

It was cut in half and it was found with the boy in the box.

Suddenly Anna starts spilling tea. She's like, I remember the blanket. They show her a photo of Sawyer and she's like,

Where is he?

So Stabler is looking at pictures of the crime scene, all these bones, and he's trying to figure out how Sawyer got the boy in the box. Like he's just trying to figure out this guy's motive, like why would he be dumping the bodies in so many places? Why would you kill the boy in the box and almost dump him at the quarry.

But then dump him in Brooklyn.

Millie's like, maybe someone scared him away at the quarry, and he's like, why dump one and not the others? And then they start thinking, okay, wait, how do you control fourteen boys? You scare the shit out of them? So maybe he killed one of them to make the other three fall in line. And then another thing you might do is have an accomplice to wrangle all these boys.

And then they're like, who might that be?

Carlos Guzman his initial alibi, his coworker quote unquote, who was just like a fourteen or fifteen year old kid at the time, only a couple years older than these boys went missing. So Stabler's giving Carlos hard interrogation, like really going at him, and then Carlos finally breaks and said he said he'd kill Anna, and he said he loved her. They had a thing him and Anna. He was visiting his grandma in Brooklyn when he was fourteen and Sawyer came by and said I had to help him.

Yeah, you gotta be careful if you have kids. You can't just date a guy. Yeah you can just bring a step dad in. I mean, I don't know how people do it.

I don't know. Yeah, it seems so scary, so scary.

And then especially like she dies and there was nobody like to take over, like you just stay with my ex boyfriend who's a psychopath I don't know, or not my ex boyfriend, my boyfriend who I died. Was there like a widowing term for having a boyfriend I don't know? Anna says, his name isn't Sawyer, he has a real name, and he had told Anna same thing that he had

Those are the fingerprints of Robert Sawyer.

That are on file, so they wouldn't match with like anything that came up at crime scenes because that guy's fucking dead. And so they have bad guy Sawyer's prince, but they never went into the system because probably because he passed the Polly.

And he had an alibi and all these other things. It's wild.

I've watched this episode in the past few weeks, like three times, and you're telling me play by play about all of it, and I have no idea what's happening.

I don't know why, No you are, I don't know why.

For some reason, my brain cannot handle all these prints and all these psychos from forty years ago.

I like care.

This is a complicated episode though, because it's like based on multiple crimes.

It's involving multiple crimes.

It's like involving multiple detectives and closed precincts and principles that were kids when things happen.

You know, like a lot of things are happening.

So basically, through finding his prints, putting his actual prints in the system, they figure out where he lives. They bust into this apartment building and they find this old fuck like on oxygen in his bed, and he's maybe laughing like yeah, it was fuck, it's like really fucked up.

He's like, hey, you found me kind of.

And then at the precinct, Novak walks in and then this old fuck comes in with his lawyer.

He's got like an oxygen tank on him, and so is this the stepdad?

Yes, this is Sawyer, Robert Sawyer, the man that the parents have always thought was responsible for taking the kids always because he was this handyman who used these boys and stuff. But he had this alibi and he had to be past to Polly, which I think a lot of psychopaths can do because they can keep their emotions flat, and I think that's what the polygraph is like testing.

Yeah, and this was so long ago, because there's no way a lie detector would be yes, would not have held up fact.

Yeah.

So I think his alibi helped. And also probably what helped was that just no one was looking for these boys because they thought they ran away. And so we find out that this guy has end stage pancreatic cancer and Stabler's like, I hope it hurts ooh. Novak says, basically, here's your deal. You can plead guilty. I'll arrange for an oncologist to treat you, and when your condition worsens, which it will, I will not oppose your counsel's request

Him and shoved him in a box.

He's not his father, his adoptive father, or the guy who stole him, essentially, excuse me. So they're thinking that this guy, this kid probably also had a horrible like nine years of life when he was alive too, of just being tortured by these horrible people. And so there's definitely this guy remembers who the kid is, like he definitely knows, but he's saying, sorry, I don't remember, like he won't confess anything.

I didn't know you were so good at voices. Thank you so much.

I try. I can be a pretty good impressionist. So Millie is, I'm no Melissa via Signor, but I think I'm okay. So Milly is at the grave of the Boy in the Box, which her dad and some other cops paid for. She's there with Stabler and she it's really like kind of a sweet scene. She's like, I used to hate this kid growing up, Like I thought my father loved him more than I did. And I think maybe I jinxed this case somehow by like hating

Dick wolf baby off of a child's grave. Damn yeah, damn, damn, damn, damn credible. And you know what Milly and Stabler had a nice vibe.

Yeah, like they had good chemistry. Like I was, like, I definitely could watch you guys fuck like I could, But I don't necessarily think that that's gonna happen, and I'm not hoping for it.

But like two hot people.

Yeah, but it would have been like an abuse of Stabler's power, I feel, because she's clearly a younger officer.

She's consenting age she is, but at work. No, but they had a nice energy. I enjoyed it.

They'd be a hot, little one time thing.

I never really cared about seeing them back in Stabler hookup, but I would have watched a Millie's Stabler hookup, you know.

On ah. Yeah they fucked, uh, I mean yeah, I was. I hate back.

All right, listen the crimes they're sad. We'll see you after these commercials. After we hawk some goods, we'll go into some horrific cold cases.

Okay, welcome back.

So these are two cases and I'll cover both of them. And there's unfortunately, fortunately I don't know, oh but not a lot of information on either of.

These cold cases, and none were solved. Ever, maybe this is a job for Jensen and Holes. Yeah, and you know, when we.

Were talking to Karen a few episodes back. She was saying that the crimes that she hates the most or that honor the most are the unsolved, like the child unsolved criminal cases. So I did think about her while yeah, researching this, and it is sad. So we'll do the Boy in the Box first. A boy's body around four or five was found bruised and naked in a cardboard box in a patch of woods outside of Philadelphia in

And younger than like they like it doesn't really matter, but like four or five is so like a little baby, like and they made him nine in the episode. I think just to be like just a smidge more palatable than four, you know, like, oh so horrible.

Yeah, like hurting a little kid is I don't get it.

Yeah, the first officer at the scene was a guy named Elmer Palmer, and he died in twenty eleven, but this case haunted him forever, and all the other detectives who worked on this case never really gave up. It was always in their hearts and minds and actions. They visited the boy's grave often. So basically, this guy Elmer Palmer, I mean, that's what a funny name. Elmer glue Arnold Palmer.

Is just too much. Elmer is a funny name, Elmer funn.

Oh yeah, so here I've done the scene February twenty sixth, nineteen fifty seven. He remembers the boy's hair had been cut really crudely, and his body was covered with loose hairs from like the haircut.

So that's confusing.

Detective Palmer remembers thinking we'll solve this quickly because there were so many leads, but then so many problems happened, and all the leads didn't really help out at all, didn't pan out. A college student actually found the body a day sooner, on February twenty fifth, but waited to call the police until the next day after he went to talk to a priest, and so because of that that fucked the case because the cold slows down decomposition, so it was impossible to tell how long the boy

Please please just go tell the authorities.

So when I was home a few months ago there, like I was staying back at the condo, you know, my Scope condo, and there was like an Amazon Prime food delivery downstairs that was not picked up for like a day and a half, and I thought, I was like, someone died. I'm like, I know, someone died, Like why else whence you could get your groceries? And then I

It's kind of weird or like if you saw like a food delivery of any kind like just sitting there for a day, you'd be like yeah.

And then it was already so late, it was like past midnight, and I was like, do I buzz up to an apartment at this time of night, and I didn't do anything, So I did not see something say something, So I should check in and see if there was a death in the building. Okay, neither here nor there, and we're back. But yeah, if you find a dead body, don't make a pit stuff at the church. Just call somebody.

Anyway.

The autopsy confirmed the child was beaten to death and was ill and undernourished. Like I said up top, his baby teeth were intact and he had never ever been to a dentist. His body had small scars that looked like surgical incisions, but they asked local doctors and hospitals and there were no records of him or any surgeries.

Like, nothing turned up.

Photographs of the boy's face were printed in newspapers and hung on storefronts and mailed with utility bills throughout Philly and beyond. They checked orphanages and other child care institutions.

Nothing.

This case really reads like an SVU episode legit, like it's a treasure hunt relay race of place to place to place to place, and so it's not just SVEW magic. It's like, this is what the cops are doing.

I'm just running around.

It's like it's just like so crazy that like no one because you'd think, oh, well, the parents would have reported him missing unless the mom is dead or the dad, you know, like unless they've also been killed. And then this kid was taken and killed in a different way or something. No, the parents killed the kid, yeah or the Yeah, I'm thinking of various things, like a kid was missing, like they're they're like a couple of different ways, like that the parents killed the kid, or whoever killed

This kid was that they just never saw.

Again, I kept thinking about Eileen Warnos in a way, and the community knew she was being abused and.

I'm not, but like she did live in the woods, and so.

I thought about her here where It's like maybe these are off the grid. Sure, weirdos like that lived in the woods somewhere or like you know a lot of people don't know if they were unhoused, like.

Maybe so true. There's just so much shit.

Yeah, and I guess in nineteen fifty seven, it's like people are just kind of like you could leave town and no one would really know, like, oh, we're moving by, and like no, you know, no one knows where you've gone. And it's not you can't track people as much as now, you know.

Yeah, Like you're right, Like a whole family could have been like we're moving and then killed this kid, left him in ditched town, like yeah, but then at least the community would have recognized recognized him.

That's what I'm like.

Yeah, they did find a man's corduroy cap near the body, and they traced it to a store, which I'm impressed with. In nineteen fifty seven, the owner recognized the strap from a man in his twenties who came in alone, but nothing was that special about him and they could never find him. They traced the cardboard box to another store. It was one of a dozen that held bascinets that were sold from December third, nineteen fifty six to February sixteenth,

God, that makes me feel like though, if the parents killed this boy, that they had another kid, like a baby from a basinette that.

Used the cat nut yeah.

So anyway, so they tracked down all but one buyer of the bassinette. Wow, which is amazing since it was a cash only place.

Wow.

Yeah, so good classic detective work. I mean, these are the detectives you want to fuck, you know what I mean? Yeah, these are these are the hotties. But yeah, no, luck, I can't believe they tracked all those boxes down.

But yeah, nothing.

So then tons of tips and theories. Obviously, maybe the boy was a refugee who came to America after the Hungarian Revolution of nineteen fifty six, so they checked eleven thousand Hungarian passports, found nothing. Then they go, maybe he could have been the son of wandering carnival workers. And all these carnival workers were cleared that they looked into. But that's another thing we didn't think of, like traveling

And end of the word Q is weird. Yeah so rock No, that's not even now, that's not with a Q. Oh, hypnotic, That's what I was thinking of.

Hypnotic.

We used to drink that hypnotique. It's like blue. We used to get that.

For fun New York, for fun. So yeah.

The VIDOC Society is a Philadelphia group composed largely of law enforcement professionals who investigate unsolved crimes that have been unsolved for a really long time.

So they adopted this case.

And if you guys are thinking this society seems kind of familiar, you're correct. Chester Lake, if you remember, was a member of this crises.

And he would go down to Philly for their meetings.

Yeah yeah, so and this is I think it's the episode where he ends up killing the person and getting arrested and peace out. And there's like another actress who works totally in this Philly group. I would love to be able to join. I wonder if you could just be a regular podcaster and joy No, I think you have to have law enforcement, but maybe they need my eyes.

Because trust me, podcasters have knocked on their doors.

I'm sure.

Oh man, Yeah, maybe they need fresh eyes. You guys need fresh podcasting eyes on this case.

And then a real life Melinda Warner is a member of this onsolved group and she was a medical examiner at the time, and she was like haunted by the case. And her name is Remington Bristow. That is from a movie that name Remy. I bet they call her Remy Remington Bristow, I mean, and that's a gun. I wonder if like her parents were in the Armed Force Cop World too, Remington Bristow.

Wait, is that a man?

Oh?

I just assumed it was a woman because I said Melinda Warner. Yeah, I think it's a man. Yes it is, but I wish it wasn't.

So.

Yeah, he was.

Obviously haunted by this, and he carried a death of the child in his briefcase, which clearly makes me think he did it.

You're a creep. What's happening? No, And a.

Death mask is a wax or plaster cast or mole taken from the face of a dead individual.

Oh wow, I've never heard of that.

So they're true portraits and sometimes they change, you know, if so, like because of the eyes you have to close the eyes or shit like that. Yeah, So he carried this mold of this kid's face. So he's a freak. I don't know if I like Remington anymore. So Remington's theory was the child was the son of unmarry of an unmarried daughter of a couple who ran a foster home in an old mansion.

So that's his idea.

You know, we all no idea is a bad idea JK. And then in nineteen ninety eight, the body was exhumed and reburied at Ivy Hills Cemetery and it was a plot donated by the cemetery. And during this exhumation and reburial, they obtained the boy's d and put it in the system. So they're hoping one.

Day, maybe they'll be like a familial match one day or something.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for. Wow.

Other members of the Secret Society Solving group is William H. Kelly and he's a retired Philadelphia detective and Joseph mcgillan, a retired investigator of the Emmy's Office. And they believe that there was a woman who grew up in Philly and she says that when she was a child, her parents brought a boy home and kept him in the basement. One day, this woman said that her mother battered the boy to death and drove him with her to the patch of woods to dispose of the body.

Okay, so this is Anna.

Yeah, And the woman told her story to Kelly and mcgillan in the early two thousands in front of a psychiatrist, and she decided to come forward after a television reprise of the case. And the retired detectives do think she is the real deal, but other but other members and retired Philly cops and an FBI agent who's the president of the VIDOC Society are not sure and say that and nothing she has said has been proven, right, But

I don't know if you can make this up.

I guess that's another thing too, is like there could this could have been a foster kid, is what they're saying. And like then there's like a lot of foster kids bounce around and you know, nobody's keeping track, Like I don't know what the records were like in nineteen fifty seven, but you know.

That's so fucked up. Yeah, but it's also probably so strange to be.

A kid, and I I doubt someone that would be a kid that they kept in the basement would treat other kids well. But you are being treated better than Like, what would you do if your mom came home with a.

Boy and locked him in the basement.

Yeah, it's it's kind of like what happened with Nick Murray Brown, where they were all these other kids, but Nick Murray got all of the of the brunt of the violence, and the other kids were just like happy it wasn't them. You know, I think you go into survival mode. So yeah, like I said, it is a cold case.

And then the next case that is really closely linked to the SVU episode, I wouldn't really be able to cover one of these, and you'll see how many similarities. It's called the Clinton Avenue five, not to be confused with the Central Park five. But you guys are amazing smart people. I don't think you would be confused, but.

I was, okay.

So on August twentieth, nineteen seventy eight, five teenagers disappeared in Newark, New Jersey. So the five teens were named Melvin Pittman, Ernest Taylor, Alvin Turner, Randy Johnson, and Michael McDowell.

So those are the boys.

And they were black boys, and so obviously would this case be handled differently if it was five white boys. And I think we can assume yes, And that is something to think about while we talk about this. And the boys did everything together. They were always together, best friends.

It wasn't a loose contractor.

So basically after the game, like they all went home to change, maybe grab a bite to eat, and then they all came back to the corner of Fabian Place in Clinton Avenue. The contractor's name is Lee Evans. He told police he picked them up to help move boxes, but drop them back off on Clinton Avenue and they

So was it a drop off? Was he just driving around?

We don't know, And there was a sixth teen on the truck but the dad made him get off before they left.

Oh wow.

Yeah, there was no evidence, not a trace. But also it's like how is there no evidence? There's a contry, like get the evidence? What do you mean there's no evidence? Did they not search the fibers of the truck? Like, I just I don't trust that there was no evidence? Yeah, did they search this fucker's house? Like I just don't believe this case. Like we'll get to how little information that really is, but like, I just what do you mean? No trace, no evidence? They were last scene places and

So nuts.

They tried hard to solve it, apparently asking advice from psychics.

Hello, Sebastian Valentine.

So that's how desperate they got. They were legit like talking to psychics. They followed hundreds of leads. Apparently I just don't trust I just am really, I mean, I'm upset in every fucking case. So they followed hundreds of leads, apparently searched mental wards, youth houses, circuses, looked into mass suicides because like Jones Township was happening around the same time, so they're like, maybe they're in occult and killed themselves.

It was just cold Richard.

Ramirez, you know, like you could just tell somethings off.

But I also know this information.

If I saw him walking down the street, would I think this too, I don't know, But just looking at.

His photos made me think, like, you have no fucking soul.

So they did have one lead, where an unidentified caller said that the five had been arrested for trying to steal a truck in DC, but there were no records of that. And how are like five teens getting to and from DC in the seventies.

I don't know, I don't I have no idea.

But and they traced the call to the National Visitors Center in DC, but like couldn't find who made the call, but they said that they are in DC.

So then the case was.

Reopened again in nineteen eighty six when a psychic said the bodies could be found at a garbage site south of Newark Airport.

This is why we're opening up reopening cases based on the words of psychics.

Better than nothing, I mean, if it's a cold case, it's like, fine, let's fucking do it.

No luck though.

Other theory were that they maybe moved to DC and joined an underground religious sect, but there is no proof.

And also like there's.

Just no way five boys would all get into that, Like one of them would have been like this isn't for me and would have gone home, you know what I mean, Like, there's just no way five boys are of the same mind to do anything.

Yeah, and they didn't give off troubled runaway vibes. And like you said, all five of them decided to ditch their family. Like, I don't know, teens are impressionable, but that seems like a lot to ask them for your friends. Completely also not a fun fact. But at any given I didn't think about this at any given time in our country. There are thousands of bodies that lay unidentified in morgs around the country. We don't think about this. Yeah,

No luck.

Then, in twenty ten, Essex County Prosecutor's office announced that Evans was arrested for the crime along with his cousin Philander Hampton, and were charged with luring the boys to the house in Newark and locking them in the house and setting the house on fire. They allegedly burned the boys as retaliation for the boys stealing some weed. So this Philander guy, he was in jail for something else and he decided to confess to these crimes while in jail.

So there is no happending.

Like bone or anything at the house fire it gets for okay, So okay, sorry, no, it's not your fault.

It's a fucking mess. Our world is a mess.

So yeah, the allegedly it's like they sold So what this Hampton guy said was like the boys stole a pound of weed and so Lee locked them in a closet at gunpoint and burned the house down.

Like what the fuck?

But the police treated this fire and the missing teens as separate cases and didn't ever investigate for bodies in the fire.

Okay, but also what closet? What house?

Is this an abandoned house because of those leice house, you'd look into it. So it's like, but if this, if he was a contractor and he was hired to work on this house that burnt down and he was last seen, why wouldn't they have investigated it? Or was this just like some abandoned weird house he knew about. Yeah, maybe that he tricked them into thinking there was work and then burnt it down and that's why it wasn't connected.

Like it's just hard. It's just hard to figure it out.

But like I don't know if there was just a fire in town and then a missing person, like is it common sense?

Just yeah, like search the rebel.

I don't know, but it's just like sad, And it's sad to think about these boys friends in a closet together slowly die, Like it's just really horrifying to think about.

I mean, hopefully this isn't true. I don't know.

So the Newark Fire Department then later admitted that they often let abandoned buildings burn, like in the late nineteen seventies, like.

They just oh maybe, so was there an abandoned building.

If it was burned to the ground and like there was never an attempt to put it out, then it's possible. I guess that the body's fully burnt up, like even the bone.

But I thought that I'm going off of making a.

Murderer with like the Teresa Hallbach evidence, where like they found fragments of bone in the burned in of when like so that I didn't think bone ever fully fully burned up unless it was like a super super like yeah.

Because I don't know the case that.

I don't know that case, but like if the fire department came and put it out, maybe.

That like saves the evidence.

And you're right if they just let like buildings burn So yeah, it was an abandoned building and the fire department just let.

It burn down. Yeah.

I mean this is like the quote unquote best theory, but I don't want this to be true.

Uh huh. So, like I said, this case came out or.

This so this all came out because Hampton was in jail for unrelated crimes and then confessed to this crime and implicated Evans, but there was no evidence except his word. And we know how courts were like Casey Anthony, Hello, you need a body and you need how the murder happened. You can't. It's not a gossip court, Okay. So since no human remains were found where they were, like, there's

Because there's no fucking evidence.

Oh my god. And this guy asked to say in jail for ten more years when he didn't well, but he did. Wow, nothing to do with it.

Yeah, he should have said something earlier. This is true.

And Hampton was released from prison in February twenty seventeen, and there's no other theories. Lee Evans was pissed and after the trial, filed a civil suit in superior Court against the Essex County Prosecutor's office, the Newark Police Department, and US Senator Cory Booker.

Is funny to me, Yeah, mister Rosario Dawson.

People said it's a hard case because he has to prove to the like that the prosecutors lacked probable cause to arrest him. But they have that, you know, like if you're the last scene with the bodies, you have probable crouse. So I don't I found no information on how the civil case panned out, which I think means it was thrown out or like not really happened, because if he settled, maybe it would be printed. I don't know, So no information on how the civil lawsuit worked out.

Shut up. You don't get now, you don't now get money.

Also, yeah, but if Lee is innocent, that's a bummer for him, but also, you're not in jail.

I don't know. I think he did it. Yeah, it sounds like he did it.

And I'm sure you all feel the same way. But it is just fucked that five teens can vanish in a major American city and the story is completely unknown with no evidence.

That's strange.

This journalist and author James Queally quality. I don't know why so many vowels, but he had the same experience and reaction as me. Like when you google this case, you get a sparse Wikipedia, some blogs, an occasional article, but the articles are mostly from the twenty ten arrests and that trial, So from nineteen seventy eight to twenty ten, there's really like nothing. It's like the least amount of sources I've used for.

One of these.

And so is this case considered solved since one man served some time for it even though the other man was acquitted, it's not.

It's probably not nice anymore because we don't know. Yeah, nobody, nothing but crazy. It's so sad that this happened for like if this, if this is true, it's like I don't know what's worse, not knowing and hoping.

Something like and it's like you're out on the streets, you're like with your friends. You're thinking, oh, I'm in a group, like I'm safe, you know, like cause I'm in a like I'm not walking the street alone, and then you just get picked up with all your best friends and vanish. It's really crazy and sad. Yeah, but we have a great interview, guys, and it's going to pick you right back up off the floor, so.

Stay right with us.

Okay, you guys, we have quite the guest for you today.

She's so accomplished.

You've seen her on everything from All My Children to Devious Maids, The Shield, on My Block and of course Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. But today we are delighted to talk to her about her role as Millie vis Krando. Please check out our chat with Paula Garcis.

Well, we started going through your IMDb and we're like, wait, what nineteen ninety four?

Like, it was really shocking. You've been You've been killing it.

You're in so many cult classics and so many projects. What do you get recognized for the most when you're out and about law and hotter.

SVU is totally up there. It's totally up there, and that's the reason why I'm here. I mean, you ladies are lovely, but Spu kills it for me all the time, and Harold and coolmar the Shield and lately on my Block.

No oh, yes, Well, Kara has a friend I know, Jessica Garcia.

She's so great and she's having a baby that's right, so exciting.

So SVU, like you were living in New York was did you know it was a big well you've done other Dick Wolf stuff. How did it feel as a New Yorker to book it? How is the audition process and like all of that kind of stuff.

So my Law and Hotter story is actually really really cool. Law and Order, the original, the one with Michael Moriarty, was actually my first TV gig, if I remember correctly, back in nineteen it's either eighty eight or eighty nine. And I was super excited about it because it like

We love Neil. Yeah, he's been on our podcast two times.

Okay, so you.

Know that he's like og right, And they were very good friends. And after I did his movie, he sent the movie to Neil Bear and he was like, I think you should have this girl on your show on law and on her SCU and he set up a meeting and I met Neil Bearer here in Los Angeles. I happened to be in Los Angeles doing pressed for the movie, and I sat down with Neil Bear and I couldn't believe it.

I was like, I can't believe I'm.

Actually like in this legit like showrunner meeting. And he was just like asking me things about New York and we just like had a meeting, and then he said that I should I should do like a casting session with Jonathan Strauss, who has always been my homiet. He's been very very supportive of bringing me in for a lot of Law and Order stuff and other shows. And obviously he casted me like way way way back, and so he was like, sure, you know, let's do it.

It was so cool.

Because I was a huge fan, of course of Marishka Hargate and Christopher Maloney, and I see like I was all over that.

I really went into it first.

As a fan, and that's how I did my meeting with Neil Bhrer more like a fan. Like I remember rambling the way I am now and talking about like my favorite episodes and this and that, and he was like, Wow, you really are into it. You're not like just saying nice things to get the gig. And I'm like, dude, I know everything. I know a Firshia has done through I know what Christopher looked.

Why don't they kiss?

Like why aren't like the show?

But yeah, is there anything when you showed up to set as like a fan of the show, knowing so much information that you were kind of surprised by didn't expect something wild?

You know what?

What I what really sticks out for me, uh, apart from acting.

On the show is the fact that Dick.

Wolf In in like the middle of my first episode, which I don't remember if it was Name or I think it was Name. I think Name was the first one that I did. And in the middle of the episode, they were like, oh, Dick Wolf wants you to come into his office and talk to him. And I was like, I'm so fired, Like he's gonna fire me. He hates my job. He hates my work like I so. And he was really really like serious, and I was very nervous, and he was like, hey, hey, listen.

I like what you're doing.

And it's really cool, but there's there's something about your voice. It's really high pitched and the rhythm the way you talk is way too fast for us. And it was funny really, but I have to give all a lot of information. I was like pleading my case and he's like, listen, if you're into it, we want to send you to a voice coach, and they were. And MY first thought was like, that's really cool. I've never been to a voice coach and I'm totally down to that. But God, that sounds so expensive.

And I think he saw it.

I don't know if I voiced that concern to him or if he just read it in my like physicality, and he was like, don't worry. I think we can afford it. The show got the show has you.

Yeah, well we'll pay for it.

And so I remember that being like one of my concerns.

But I loved it.

I loved going to a voice coach and I learned how to how to control the tone of my voice and my voice more mature and people.

Could understand me a little bit more.

And I was I also had some issues with uh, with my accent, Like sometimes my accent was like a little to New York, believe it or not for the show, and the Latino thing would come through and the street thing would come through. So like I learned a lot from actually being on the show, Like I got really an education from the inside out, behind the scenes and also in front of the camera.

And I just.

Remember being really really excited being told that because Marishka had just found out that she was pregnant and she was about to want to take a little bit of leave of absence because she wanted she wanted to just relax and do her pregnancy, that would I be okay with kind of like being next to Christopher on a couple of more episodes.

So in the beginning.

I was just brought on to be on one episode, and then it just so happened Marishka was pregnant and she was leaving a little bit, and so they gave me a little bit of more of an arc and I was like, oh my god, so I'm not being fired. They were going to give me a voice coach, and then he was like, yeah, you know, I were thinking of more than a couple, so maybe like three, maybe four, depending on how you do and how the story flows.

And I was like so excited.

That's so cool.

You mentioned all the stuff you had to say with your lines. How is it memorizing CSU tech lines versus just regular Is it a lot harder? And is there special tricks you do to remember all the tech stuff?

Yeah?

I remember being really challenged by all the information that I had to give. And there's a certain rhythm to it that you have to have in order to be good at that job, you know. And I remember thinking, like, you know, my part is important. I'm giving all the information on what potentially could have happened in this crime scene and how I see it being.

Done and being and having having.

To explain it to obviously the detectives and the people in the show, but also in a way where it also engages in audience. So I remember, even though I was still a very young actor, like I remember going through like thinking about all.

Of those things and getting.

Like really deep in my head and then like trying to eternalize it so that I could seem like I knew what I was talking about. And I've always had to fight kind of like you guys mentioned in the beginning, you guys did a Cara was still nice to say that I still look at I know we're in a podcast, and you know, those opinions might differ for other people, but I still do get that my face is kind of like sweet.

And young or whatever.

And so I remember having to fight against that stereotype that even a person that looked like me, maybe young or small or cette, could be like powerful and could be like could have an important job like in like an as you know, like a CSU tech that gave.

A lot of information.

And also I was I was I remember even back then being kind of like I'm a Latina actress and I want to make sure that I sound authentic but intelligent and powerful and and go against the stereotype of what's mostly given to Latina actresses, and Law and Latter was always one of those shows that that kind of fought against that and gave you know, latinos a lot of really cool roles in you know, powerful positions and intelligent things to say, not not just were we weren't.

Just the criminals.

We were the lawyers, and we were the cops, and we were the people who were trying to be like the heroes. So I've always had a lot of respect for that, for the shows of that as well.

Well.

You definitely accomplished it. I mean I thought your character was like, don't mess with this girl. You know, she's got shit to do and a apartment full of files and she's going through these cases on her own time.

Yeah, you like put Maloney in his place, a stabler or whatever like it. Really, I don't know, you guys had chemistry. I felt chemistry with you guys.

Yeah, you know.

I had a great time with Christopher and both of them, but Christopher in particular, I remember when I first when I first got the park, going like, oh my god, he could be one of these actors that could be like either really cool or like mean, he might be mean, you know, and how am I going to handle that?

But he was so cool.

I remember, in order to get like the nervousness out and sort of just relax, I used to go to the gym. There was a gym in the studio that we were filming at and he was always there, so it was kind of away for me. I kind of after that, I was like, oh, so he hangs out at the gym, okay, So I.

Would go.

Not shocking, not shocking.

I would go to the gym to to sort of try to like talk to him, and it works in between like our cardio sessions. He would he would be like, so, you know, how are you liking it? And I'm like, I love it, you know, like just fill out all this information. He was like, okay, right, well, let me

Was very very nice to me.

And I remember also like in the scenes that we did have together in between takes, sometimes he would be like, Wow, that was so good, Paul, like that was that was.

Actually that was really really cool.

You know, I really liked the way you did that or I didn't expect for you to make that choice and it was actually.

The right choice.

It was really cool. So he was very complimentary about about my scenes with him, and I felt really after that. I felt confident and I felt like really really nice. So I really do have to say that Christopher was

You're relieving me alone.

Really but she was super super like just so dope and strong and nice.

And in this episode you also got to do like a couple of scenes with like Finn and Munch where they were like kind of maybe trying to, you know, disagree with you, and you were like, ah, So I liked I liked how your character could stood up to them. But inside as a fan where you like, oh my god, it's iced tea and mounch like I mean, you know, I again.

I was a super super fan of the show, but I grew up in Spanish farleams, so iced tea was like that was like another level.

I bet I grew up listening to.

Him and and.

Knowing like his whole thing as a musician.

But then when he made this whole transition as an actor and like totally legit and like you know and like a total star, you know, all of in another in another level right, like another another total a totally different side of who he was. Uh it was. I respected that so much.

Well, he he realized you have to diversify, right, He was like, you this rap game might not go on forever for I gotta like, you know, and now it's like he's twenty years on this hit show, you know.

And I remember like being really really excited about that and totally inspired by that and respecting that whole you know, that whole thing. And I was I was totally totally like fanning out when I first met him.

And then what was really cool.

I'm sitting on set right was like on my Law and Order Actor Chair next so ic team, just like shooting the breeze in between tapes and who comes to visit him?

Coca, Yes, Lilisa girl with like cleavage hanging out.

And I was like, yes, I was such a fan of hers, and it's so cool. Because of the show, I was able to become friends with Coco and like she.

Was so cute.

At the time, she was doing like a reality show and she was like, listen, I don't have a lot of time to really hang out hang out, but if you want to like pretend hang out with me, come beyond my reality show.

And I did.

I was I was on her reality show.

If you want to come pretend to hang out, that's so funny.

She's like, look, I gotta slot you in where I can slot you in.

And she was like, if you want to hang out with me, I'm doing this reality show. And there's actually like a scene coming up where I'm like hanging out with my girls and I'm gonna have some some drinks.

They're not going to be pretend.

We're gonna have some real drinks. And she's like, you can be part of the conversation and the drama, or you could just be like just hanging out. You're cute, just like hang out with me, and I'm like all right, And so what I did, I.

Was just I had drinks with her. There was dancing after, there was.

Like cameras rolling, and there was some drama happening, but I wasn't really understanding what the drama was about. So I was I'm just there, like I step in my drink next week next to Coco and then I'm like dancing in the background.

Oh my god, You're like living our dreams. Paula, I don't know. We read about this while you were at SVU.

You got offered The Shield, right, did you have to like make a decision?

Was that tough? Was that like?

Was that as dramatic as how the Internet made it seem.

The Shield was the hustle that I hustled for myself. The Shield was another show that I was like completely obsessed with because at the time nothing was being shot

But got for to read and so I remember.

Telling my agents and my managers like show them my tape on that SPU like because they did not even want to audition me on the shield. Finally, somebody convinced somebody to let casting pre read me.

Casting pre read me, and.

She was like, Okay, they will never hire a girl like you. You look too soft, you're too pretty, like maybe if you put your hair up in a bun.

Who's here with you?

And I was like, my husband's waiting for me downstairs in the car, and she's like, go get his shirt, Like, go put on his shirt, rub everything off of your face, and then go in there.

And the way she said it, I think she.

Was kind of trying to make me pissed off on purpose.

Because when I went into the room.

To finally read for like three, I read for like four of the producers and two of the writers. There's like five men in that room. I went in there like with a chip on my shoulder. I was totally kissed, you know, and I did something that you should never do on an audition as an actor, which is like I basically told.

Them what was wrong with the show, and this is a show on LAPC and you don't have not one lat that cop and like I think my whole like Spanish Harlem accent was on like three thousand.

I was like, that is so wrong and that is I don't understand that because I love your show.

And amazing and basically was.

Like pitching how I should be on the show.

Like I rambled, and they were like, okay, whatever, Like they were looking at me like I was crazy.

They gave me some copy.

I gave it my all and I left there thinking like they're never going to book me. That was crazy what I just did. But they gave me one episode and I started as.

A rookie cop.

And in the middle of that episode, one of their big producers, Scott Brazil, him and Kurt Sutter, basically was like, do you want to like stick around for a little while and be part of like the Shield Familia, and I.

Was like, yes, oh my god, Wow, I can't believe you just like stood on you just like said what you thought and like sold yourself so hard.

That's like, I think, like ezy Hollywood story.

Yeah, I basically sold myself to them. And the only reason why I got on the Shield, honestly is because Law and Order SBU did not ask me to do more episodes, because if not, I would have. I mean I was in New York, I was home. I would have sit home and been on Law and Order. So yeah, I don't know what's what's being what was written in the.

Internet about that whole thing.

It was honestly just an actor that was out of work who was watching a lot of television was like.

I should be on that show. I should be on that show.

And I kind of hustled myself onto the Shield.

So I know, right now you're on on My Block, which is on Netflix, amazing, and you've been directing on that. You directed an episode of that, right, and so what else is going on with you?

Do you have any other like projects?

Well, hopefully she will be directing next season SVO.

Yes.

Hopefully somebody hears this and knows that Paula is on the market for directing, so definitely.

I mean, I know that people are definitely listening to Lisa and Kower because this podcast is awesome and you guys are amazing.

So I do think directing.

On Law and Order SVU is not impossible and would be really really cool. I think my character could come back and people would really dig that. I think people are into nostalgia right now and people really like like to know, like what happened and what's their history and what happened at couple of years. So I think that could be really cool. But the concrete stuff that I have coming up is On My Block has a spinoff

So I don't know.

Maybe yeah, I don't know how many episodes or what the story is, but I don't know.

I'm excited to find out.

And I have my own superhero guys.

Oh my god.

A Luna is a comic book that I co created. We have eight books, we have a graphic novel, and she is her own video game now on Nintendo Switch and Steam and we're coming out on Xbox Oh my wow soon PlayStations.

But yeah, you are like a never You're like a non stop like, oh my god, you have so much going on.

Kids, mama got a hustle.

Oh my gosh. She is a dream. I would have talked to her all day, so sweet.

Yes, and we did not include this in what you heard, but she is living huge goals, my goals. She is by coastal, so that is really exciting. So way to go, Paula.

Yeah, and she's getting into directing, which I think is cool.

I mean, not everybody.

She's a go getter. She's a go getter. I would say, aulas a hardcore go getter.

Yeah, So I mean, you know she's a go getter.

You know, I mentioned this in the episode, but when Karen Kilgaroff told us that like the ones that haunted the most are unsolved crimes, that wasn't something I thought about. And then after this episode, I'm like, oh, yeah, there is something daunting, scary, sad that so many of these boys just like no one knows. And then to think how many missing kids and disappeared people are out there with no clues. It it's scary. Yeah, it's really scary.

Hope, Like you just actually ruined my life. Yeah.

Even worse, it's like, have you ever seen that Netflix documentary that I think Tim Dillan is obsessed with about Johnny Gosh, that's like, whatever happened.

To Johnny or something like that.

Yeah, that was like wild because like the mom swears that her son came back as an adult and visited her, and it's like you you wonder as like was that a dream?

Did that really happen?

Like, but it's like the hope that parents manifest, you know, because it's like, yeah, they have that one day their kid's just gonna like knock knock.

It's like must be. I don't know.

I can't tell what's worse to like know that your child is gone or to just have hope that that you live with every day and that pain.

I don't know, because no matter what you're gonna think about your kid. Yeah, like your life's not gonna be good, right right, You're gonna have a sad life. You know, it's unnatural. It changes you, I think. But I don't know. I don't know about the like that Johnny one because now I'm thinking, I mean, they found these bodies, they don't they never found the five boys.

I mean I do think that guy it.

But I also want to become a part of a secret society that tries to solve crime, Like can we join it?

Like can we pass a test?

Can we prove ourselves that like maybe we can maybe there is something that we can provide at provide the.

I will say that this just for everybody. It is called who Took Johnny? And it was on Netflix. I don't know if it still is, but it was called who Took Johnny?

Why was I saying that was the first? Like milk Carton kid? I think that was a part of it. And the theories are he's a sex slave for the government, you know, like he was kidnapped by human trafficking rings, snatched in the day less people. I think it's not well, I don't know. I really like when someone this was on the internet. I spent too much time on the internet. Well, jed your friend when we were out, he was like, you don't read, do you? Or something like that. It's

Online about how like in my day.

No one locked their doors, and it's like, yeah, that's why everyone got killed in the sea of these Yeah.

We just kept our doors open.

And it's like there were serial killers on every block back in the day, Are you kidding?

Yeah, people were just come on in we'll call insurance for you.

You know, everyone was just letting everyone in.

And I don't know if these snatchings happen as often anymore either, because back even when we were I was a child like I was gone from sun up to sundown in those streets in a you know, suburb.

But I was just I was out all day. Roller blades, bic.

Roller blades, baby Lisa, just fucking taking it to the streets and a pair of blades. I love the visual. My Christiamagucci rollerblades.

Amazing.

They were white, they were so and like turquoise and purple.

I loved them.

No, my friends would bicycle and I would always roller blade behind. I was a I like rollerblading more. And I got into a lot. I crashed my bicycle a lot. I was bruised, cut up, falling in bushes, running into cars, going over.

Curbs. I was not good on the.

Bike interesting, but on blades you were good. And in soul cycle I can do.

Yeah, but a bike no problem.

Yes, But if that's what someone if that's what's maybe stopping someone from not doing soul cycle or something. But yeah, bicycle in the and then I made some money A few years ago. Whatever I bought, like a four hundred dollars bike. I've wrote it maybe eight times. It's still in my friend's home. She's like, so do you want to wait? Who I want to bike? If it was in Lading, was in New York? Sorry, it was in New York because I moved to Crown Heights like a

Only will I take it, I'll pay for it a year in advance.

Yes, it's like, is it close to the trains? Absolutely not. Is it close to a lot of fun stores and coffee shops?

Absolutely not? Like nothing. Is it close to shows? No? Is it close to your friends? Well, i'd be safe being carbon monoxide poisoned. No.

No, Like it was so fucking wild. I don't know how we got ye o New York, my bicycle. Whatever I wrote it, Maybe I'm glad you didn't get snatched off the streets.

I have a feeling that they can, they can spot a mouthy child that you were probably gonna be more trouble than you were worth. I think that's what they say.

No, I love that I don't know if this was a real story or not, but there was a viral story that a boy kept like singing hymns and praying and so they let him go because he was so annoying. They're like, we don't want this Jesus fe.

Oh my god.

That reminds me of what hot American summer where they're like driving the kids and the kids just being so annoying they just roll them out of the van while they're driving. All right, let's move on to our what would Sister Peg do?

Segment?

Uh. This is our weekly segment where we direct you guys towards an organization, book, article, some kind of resource to give you more info on what we touched on in today's episode. And this week, Lisa and I found this organization that is exactly what Lisa is talking about that she wished we could be a part of, which

It sounds a lot like Liza pointed this out.

It sounds a lot like the group that Chester Lake was involved in in that one episode where he kept going to Philly to like work with a cold case group. And yeah, they're dedicated to solving cold cases and they have easy to fill out web form where you can submit information about cold cases and their services are completely free of charge. There's also ways you can sort of help if you're not a person that's got law enforcement

Amazing.

Thank you and if you're listening Cold Case Foundation, we are willing, active, ready fail, we will, we are available.

Thank you for I don't know, I don't have a cavagary.

I'm kind of careless, but I can help solve some crimes. Next week we're going to a new season, current season, exciting for all of us. We're doing one more Tale of Two Victims, season twenty three, episode four, watch on Hulu current season.

Yeah, if you have cable, you might be able to just watch this one on like Spectrum on demand because it's from the current season.

Yeah, so that's always exciting when we do it. Not exciting to say the full name of the episode over and over and type it out.

We like you, Wren I mean, though, the more we get into it, you know, I'm not into this like twenty Things. I hate it anyway, Happy twenty twenty two. We hope you guys are going had an amazing New Year's and are having a prosperous twenty twenty two so far, and we'll see you next week.

That's Messed Up is an Exactly Right production.

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