Swell AI Transcript: Ben and Sarah Pre mix.mp3

Ben 00:04-00:07

Sarah, welcome to Crime Capsule.

Sarah 00:07-00:10

Hi, thank you very much for having me, Ben.

Ben 00:10-00:27

It is a real pleasure. You know, this is our last episode of our third season, and we were so privileged to get to share one of your episodes of watching Two Detectives a couple of weeks ago. It's really well done. Congratulations on that.

Sarah 00:27-00:32

Thank you so much. There's a lot of love that's gone into that production, that's for sure.

Ben 00:33-00:53

Yeah, it's very apparent. I mean, it's incredibly skillfully produced, and it's a gripping case. And I'm sure that our listeners were on the edge of their seats as I was. Now, let me ask you this before we talk about that particular show, you produce quite a number of different podcasts. How did you get your start?

Sarah 00:53-01:45

Well, probably not like most people in podcasting. So my first podcast is called conning the con. And It all came about because my little sister actually swiped right on a serial con man. And when that happened, yeah, for real. So when that happened, we were kind of living in this Netflix drama. And for some reason, my sister Emma had the foresight to hit record and recorded literally 24 hours after she discovered what his real name was. And we sat on that recording and the unfolding drama that happened, which by the way, was absolutely crazy. Like, We sat on that audio for a while and I was like, well, I don't know, I don't know how to make a podcast, but I'm sure that I can work it out because I was a big podcast listener, especially to True Crime. So I basically sat in my lounge and over COVID and got on GarageBand and pulled Con in the Con together. So that was my first podcast. And since then I've done several others. That one and then the next one are unfortunately both stories that happened to family members. So I try and stay away from those now if I can.

Ben 02:26-02:33

Yeah, you don't want any more of those kind of hijinks affecting the folks that you know and love.

Sarah 02:33-02:36

People were starting to think I was the bad mojo in the family, I'm sure.

Ben 02:37-03:11

Oh, no. Oh, no. Well, I doubt that very much on behalf of all of us here at Crime Capsule. So, you mentioned that you had been interested in crime for a while. Was the criminal experience of your sister kind of the trigger for you to begin uh… you know producing these things or had you always had kind of the idea or kind of a glimmer or spark of the notion?

Sarah 04:21-06:15

I think I was always really interested in true crime particularly but I did a social work degree when I was at university so I was always really interested in the justice system and how we can reform when people go into prison and how effective that is. So society was something that was always interesting to me and obviously that criminal element kept falling in my lap unfortunately so with my sister's case and then as I said the next podcast I did was called Clueless the Long Con and that was actually a month after my little sister discovered she'd been conned literally the month after my parents-in-law discovered that they were in one of the largest Ponzi schemes and Yeah, so it wasn't necessarily that I thought I would carry on doing true crime. In fact, I do have other podcasts that aren't crime related. I have a sustainability podcast and a wellness podcast. But true crime is really my passion because I like to make media with purpose is my tagline. And, you know, hitting away from that old age of unethical true crime. I want to make sure that the stories really have purpose, and whether that's educating people on the red flags of con artists, which we do with psychologists and Con in the Con, or I have one with the former head of the FBI's active shooter program, Catherine Schweick called Stop the Killing, and we discuss how we can make the community safer by being aware of, you know, the hurdles that we can put in place to stop mass shootings, not just in America, globally. So, yeah, that's kind of the purpose, and that's where I've fallen, to be honest. And I think when you're in that space, those stories keep coming to you.

Ben 06:15-06:18

They find you after a while, you know, you don't have to look as hard.

Sarah 06:18-06:19

No, exactly.

Ben 06:20-07:01

Now, I do want to ask you about watching Two Detectives because it really is phenomenal. It is so well done. And it is such an interesting story. I mean, the case itself, of course, revolves around a a very terrible murder, you know, one of the worst acts of senseless, you know, random killing that I certainly have encountered. But before we get to sort of the details of it, I mean, tell us how did this show get started? What was the origin of that?

Sarah 07:02-07:18

Well, that's such a good, actually, segue from the last conversation we had because, you know, when we're talking about stories finding you after a while, the reason that I connected with Scott and Peter, and this is an absolute, nobody else knows this, this is a Crime Capsule exclusive.

Ben 07:18-07:20

Oh, an exclusive.

Sarah 07:20-07:56

Listen to us, my goodness. I feel very special. What happened was, I had a listener of Con in the Con and Clueless reach out to me and want me to have a look into a specific person that they thought was also a con artist. Now, I mean, this story is crazy, but he was a fake admiral, essentially. But, yeah. So, when I started pulling on the threads of the story of the badmiral, stay tuned, that's the next podcast coming out.

Ben 07:56-07:57

Oh, that's wonderful.

Sarah 07:57-10:38

I love it. love and fun. So, when I started pulling on the threads of like, whether this guy was real or not, the two threads that I pulled first was Scott Rogan and Peter Hogan, who happened to be victims of the bad moral. So, that's how I met Scott. And so, Scott, When I first talked to him, I was like, okay, I think this guy has a wrong end, whatever. And we started just working together on trying to pull the threads of the bad moral. And as that sort of relationship built, he was like, oh, do you know what? I've always sort of thought of this great stories of the work that we've done. And I've always wanted to do a podcast. And I was kind of a bit like, oh, well, you know, everybody says that. show me what you got. And the first recordings that we did, you know, were completely sort of higgledy-piggledy. There was no direction. It was just these guys downloading. And then they would interview different people and blah, blah, blah. But then they said that we had lots of different sort of ideas for episodes. But what happened with this first season was The story is of Michael Furlong's murder. And when Scott and Peter reached out to Michael's family to say, listen, we'd like to cover Michael's murder in the podcast that we're thinking about creating, would you be okay? It was actually Luke, Michael's son, who was 10 at the time of the murder, and was now, as he picks up the phone to Scott and Peter, is now in his 30s. And he said, oh my gosh, I have been waiting 20 years to speak to the detectives that solved my father's case. And from that moment, we kind of like, the whole season just turned into something completely different and something really special. And I don't think it's, there's not very often that you have the detectives that solve the case that have that full circle closure with the victim's family because they are by design genuinely kept apart when the investigation's going on. So, you know, it was a very different story that popped out of it. And I think probably unexpected for all involved.

Ben 10:39-12:12

Yeah. You know, I have to say, in listening to the show and hearing the way that the family's voices are given just such prominence. I mean, you speak to Colleen, you speak to, you know, their son, you know, you speak to, of course, Pete and Scott, you know, are sort of leading us through the case. You know what I found so interesting? I mean, number one was the way that you do give such airtime and sort of pride of place to how this affected them as a family and how willing and open they were to speak about it. It's very moving.Now, before we get to that point, we probably need to say what happened. Right? I'm sure our listeners are sort of like, you know, wait, what is this case even about? You know, but we're five steps ahead there. Let's back up and just tell us a little bit about this particular incident, this murder, and why it was so gripping to everybody who was involved.

Sarah 12:13-13:45

Well, I hope I can do it justice. It's been a while since I edited it, so. I mean, the story will obviously stay with me as it did with the detectives and everybody involved. Once you hear it, you can't un-hear it. But simply, Michael and his brother had been going to an electronic shop to pick up items that were unbelievably for He was, Michael was designing something that would save people's lives and stop them falling asleep at the wheel. So he was picking up electronic components. Now, when he was in one of the stores, just by happenstance, by complete, you know, sliding doors, he crosses paths with his murderer. And that guy in the CCTV footage, you can see stalking him. But it's not till Michael and his brother leave and go 15 minutes down the road to another electronics store that they actually talk for the first time. The brothers come out of the electronics store and At that stage, there's an incident where the murderer gets Michael into a position where he is able to pull out a very large hunting knife and just slashes his throat. And there's no other way to say it. It is horrific and just entirely tragic. And those murders by strangers, I think, are probably some of the hardest to understand.

Ben 13:47-15:06

And just for context, we should say this happened about 20 years ago. This is in 2002, and it was in a small sort of neighborhood of Sydney in Australia called Smithfield. And it was, fascinatingly, it was on a very busy intersection on a very busy road, which made the kind of the the fact that this man, you know, committed the homicide in basically full view. It was getting dark. It was about five o'clock in the evening, but it was in full view on a very busy street, lots of traffic all around. And it was random. I mean, it was just completely random. There was no prior connection between the perpetrator and the victim whatsoever. And it was all these elements sort of come together to just make it shocking, but also perplexing, you know? I mean, as you're listening, you're sort of like, what led to this? I mean, it's very, very strange in that respect. And there are, I think, quite a lot of unanswered questions as we learn more about it. How did you handle the unanswered aspect of it, the sort of sense of mystery and kind of, you know, confusion about how this all came to be?

Sarah 15:07-16:44

I mean, I think there was just moments where I was just jaw on the floor as I was listening to the raw audio as I was going through editing. And there's moments in there where, you know, the perpetrator is actually I would consider him to be the definition of an evil genius because the length that he's gone to and we uncover his past, it's just frightening, absolutely frightening. You know, there's just so many twists and turns in it that there's even like, you know, I mean, it's just crazy. There's even like, is it poison toothpaste in there that he thinks he's being poisoned by his toothpaste and that he's being listened to by the Australian Federal Police. There's so many elements that are just like a James Bond movie super villain. But yeah, I mean, the thing is, I'd just like to go back also, Ben, and just say thank you so much for picking up on the fact that we gave the voices to the family so much. Because one thing that I do in my other podcast is we don't name the perpetrators in the Stop the Killing because of the contagion effect with mass shootings. But it's also something I'm very conscious about, is to try and make the narrative bookended by the story of the family first and not the perpetrator. And I think it's important to understand how everything unfolded and why it unfolded, but also to always bring it back to that this person was somebody's loved one and really special.

Ben 16:46-17:56

You know, on Crime Capsule, our listeners know, we talk a lot about the difference between aftermath and closure, and we actually don't really believe in closure. You know, closure is not something that many people get, and even then, it just doesn't prove to be that over time, right? We live in the aftermaths of these things. And it's very moving to hear how Colleen and the boys, you know, tried to reestablish a sense of normalcy after this. And she says very explicitly at one point, you know, after they lost their dad, that you know, this is what he would have wanted for his sons, right? And it's sort of like, I thought, I just, that touched me, you know, in a way. I was sort of like, yeah, that's exactly right. That is absolutely right that, you know, she wanted to get them back into school, even though, you know, it was hard on them. And spend time with their friends again, and so forth. And this thing is sort of following them around, but it's what he would have wanted for them to try to find a new way forward, right? And to make the very best, you know, out of an awful situation. And I just thought that it did such honor, you know, to his memory in that respect.

Sarah 17:56-18:38

I thought that, I mean, that Colleen and Luke, you know, really special people to be able to share the worst moments of their lives with us so candidly and so honestly and very raw. But I thought it was really, there was a moment in the podcast where Colleen talks about, and I think it's probably in episode four, where she talks about how She never wanted the boys to remember that day of Michael. That's not the day that she wanted them to remember because everything before that, he was just such a loving father. And so, you know, he was bigger than that one day and he shouldn't be defined by it.

Ben 18:39-19:29

Yeah, yeah. No, that makes perfect sense and just a really, really beautiful kind of testimony there. No, I'll say that one of the things that makes, despite the tragedy, one of the things that makes learning about this case and journeying through it just so reassuring in a way is the presence of Peter and Scott. I mean, they're great, right? And the two of them are just, I mean, what What a duo, you know, I was kind of curious about their backstory, because they slot right in, and it is so impressive to hear them uh know in a very challenging situation where time is of the essence to know exactly what to do and frankly sarah i thought one of the most interesting sequences in the entire show was that early discussion of how they established the crime scene and established the perimeter around it along with with Clive, right? They're sort of the other investigator. Because one would think a naive or sort of a newish detective might think, well, the crime scene is focused on the body, right? Or the body and the car, you know, where he was murdered. But actually, it's much, much broader than that. And to hear them say, we've got to get this circle as wide as possible, because we're going to have to collect every single little bit of evidence. I thought that was just such a shrewd move right out of the gate.

Sarah 20:49-21:26

And I think, I mean, you alluded to it earlier as well, I thought one of the things that stuck in my mind that was quite fascinating is when, I think it's Peter talking about how they have to interview the victim straight afterwards and how it is the hardest thing, like it really is the hardest thing to do, but they have to do it right because they only want to do it once for the victim's sake. You know, the way they honour that as well and are so mindful of it. I mean, those are some buzzwords that wouldn't have been around 20 years ago, but they fit quite nicely in here.

Ben 21:27-23:42

Yeah, they do. And it is interesting, because we should also say, just for sort of clarity, there were nearly two murders that night, right? I mean, so the assailant does kill Michael, and he attempts to kill Michael's brother, who's able to sort of flee the scene in shock and in horror, you know, he's able to sort of get away from you know, in the sort of heat of the moment, he is actually able to escape. And the assailant does not continue to pursue him after a time. And that actually proves very important, right? I mean, for the development of the investigation and so forth. But yes, to have to interview, you know, Michael's brother right after that must have been just extraordinarily challenging. And I can only imagine for for everybody involved, you know, what that was like, but they handle it with such compassion and such skill. It's really remarkable. Now, in subsequent episodes, we learn a good bit more about the killer and It is, there's some really, really strange things going on there. I'm not going to spoil them. We want everybody to have the chance to kind of listen for themselves and kind of, you know, dive a little deeper into this particular case. But it is interesting to me that quite early on, there is, they do find a smoking gun, right? And the smoking gun happens to be this, the murder weapon in a car, and it is across town, right? So, they find someone sleeping in a stolen car. I looked on the map and Smithfield is not close to Centennial Park where this car was found. It is not close. And so, I was just kind of curious, you know, how When you learned about how much evidence was found in this particular vehicle with the assailant associated with it and so forth, and they bring him in, did you think as you were hearing about this case, oh, they've got him, it's cut and dried, it's over, we're done here? Because that does not prove to be the case.

Sarah 23:43-25:18

No, exactly. And I also think, like, the most incredible, and Clive always says it so well, he says, we had a bit of luck. And they had just a bit of luck. When they say luck, they had good policemen on the job who weren't related to that case at all, who happened to be doing their job and checking on a person sleeping in a car. miles away from, as you say, the actual crime scene. So that was literally just luck that those two kind of things happened. If that person, if the perpetrator had slept there overnight and been completely unwoken by that police putting their flashlight in the car, we have no idea what way it would have gone afterwards because it could have been a lot worse in terms of victims. So they did a great, great job doing that. And then again, we have a sort of the sliding doors moments all the way through at the police station, where they take this guy to a different police station. And they've got to put those two and two together. And how they do that is quite incredible. You know, again, somebody who's just happens to be listening, who's not related to the case, but knows about the murder is the person that puts that together and brings Clive over. So it's so many, so many sliding doors that you think, wow. that case would not have been solved had it not been for those policemen on the beat knocking on that window. It's remarkable.

Ben 25:18-25:30

Yeah. The near misses, the number of sort of near misses and, you know, sort of lucky strikes and that sort of thing. Exactly. They just keep piling on, just keep adding up, you know.

Sarah 25:30-25:38

And you're right. They think they've got it. No, this can't be the case. Yeah. And they think they've got them at that stage. But of course, that turns out, you know, it's just the start of a journey.

Ben 25:39-26:50

It is, it is, it is. And I want our listeners to be able to experience it for themselves because it really is an extraordinary, extraordinary story. Now let us zoom out just a little bit here from the details of the case. And I'm curious, I wanted to ask you, Sarah, this is a little tricky question. I've got a couple of tricky questions, and they're tricky on my end. So, I take responsibility for anything that is clumsily asked, but I'm going to try. Anyway, I'm curious, what was the larger profile of this case of Michael Furlong's murder. Did it have any impact on issues regarding public safety in the city of Sydney or the state of New South Wales? Did it have any, did it result in any changes to sort of criminal law or how police handle homicides. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Sarah 26:50-28:05

Yeah, well, I mean, there was definitely impact. Some of it isn't resolved now, but, you know, one of the things that did get changed because of this case, later years, is that the criminal actually, the perpetrator, actually changed his name whilst he was in custodial care, his last name, and the family were only informed of that you know, after the fact. And that raised a lot of questions, you know, about, well, why is somebody that's in, you know, custodial care, and I don't want to give it too much away about where he ended up. But, you know, he ended up in custody of some description. And should that person then be able to go and change their name? So that did change after this case. And you can now, people that are in the system cannot go and change their last name. That's fascinating. Thankfully, because obviously they get out and then there's no kind of history or link between what this person had done and who they have now presented themselves as. So that was one element of it.

Ben 28:05-30:27

Hmm. No, that's great. That's that's very encouraging to hear that. Let me ask you another tricky question. And it's tricky because It is ever so slightly political. And it's a question, I suppose, from the perspective of an American who does live in a country where we have the absolute highest rate of mass shootings, where gun violence is the number one leading cause across the board of homicides. And this case is set in a country, it took place in a country, where gun laws are very, very tight. They are very strict. And, you know, Australian regulations on, you know, what a person can and can't own and so forth are much, much more stringent than they are here. As a result, I have heard it said sometimes, Sarah, that, you know, homicides, if you are forced to use other implements than a gun, like a knife, say, or, you know, a cudgel or whatever it might be, homicides can be more personal, right? They're sort of more likely, there's a more, you're more likely to have to know the person You know, there's a dispute, there's a beef. It's not just a random kind of act that you get. Is there any, does that hold any water to you? Or, I mean, in your previous work on other shows, as you've explored, you know, these kinds of topics, do you, how do you see the relationship between, say, firearms controls and types of crimes occurring across these different contexts?

Sarah 30:28-30:34

That is quite the doozy of the big question, isn't it?

Ben 30:34-31:06

Let me just contextualize it by saying, I mean, here you have someone who purchases a very large hunting knife and then uses it to commit a murder hours or days later of somebody he doesn't know at all, right? There's obviously mental illness involved. But I mean it is you know in order to kill somebody with a knife you have to get up close and personal. That's kind of what I'm trying trying to understand.

Sarah 31:06-34:34

Yeah, I totally agree and I think that's part of the Interesting nature of this case as well as trying to unpick why you would what would motivate somebody to do that? and I think that it's quite chilling to think that somebody could come up to you and do that. Whereas with, you know, as I mentioned before, I think I co-host a show called Stop the Killing with the former head of the FBI's active shooter program, Catherine Schweigh. And now we came at that podcast, it was literally created because of that question of me being outside the US coming to her and saying, What is the deal? Why don't you just get rid of all the guns? And, you know, over four seasons of Stop the Killing, I have learned that it is just not that easy to get rid of all the guns in America. You've got quite a nuanced problem there. But having said that, you know, We always zoom out on Stop the Killing and look at other countries and what they're doing. We recently did a case, an episode, where we had Stephen Keogh, who is a former homicide detective from Scotland Yard, And Catherine on it and he bought all the UK figures and smashed them against the US ones and we kind of just always bring the research and the numbers and It's not a political podcast at all. It's literally just here's the numbers. Here's the facts and Let's talk about, is this country doing it better? What can we learn from it? Is this country doing it better? Can we learn from it? And particularly, you know, you talk about Australia. Australia's got the stringent gun laws because of the Port Arthur massacre. They had a massacre there, boom, straight away, guns gone. you know, gun laws change. Same with New Zealand. We had the Christchurch mosque shootings. That's right. And, you know, straight away, actions taken. But these are mechanisms of government that are a lot easier to move than the US set up. So it's really nuanced, but it's not hopeless either, is the one thing that I would say in the US. I mean, We know that we've had, just last year we had a listener who was an assistant principal who wrote into us and said that because of the things that she'd learned in the podcast, they actually had a child with access to weapons, a two-year plan, a list, imminent shooting. And because they had all of the threat assessment teams and a see something, say something attitude and stuff that she'd learned from Catherine on the podcast, they swung into action and actually stopped a school shooting. That's incredible. I mean, I cried a lot that day. It was incredible. And, you know, when you look at the stats, even the recent FBI figures have come out for mass shootings for 2024, I think, or 23 rather, it would have been the year before. The year before it was 60. This year, oh no, sorry, I think it was, I don't want to get these numbers wrong, so don't quote me, but literally it was two less this following year. And I thought to myself, wow, one of those. One of those was because of your work. Potentially is, you know, that the message is getting out there and people are being active and making the community safe. So yeah, it's not hopeless, but everybody needs to be part of the solution.

Ben 34:35-34:49

that is extraordinary. And that is the best thing I have heard in weeks. I mean, you must, I can understand the weeping, but you also must have just been on cloud nine, just for days on end.

Sarah 34:49-35:17

I mean, When I say I make media with purpose, when I did Con in the Con, we stopped one person being conned, job done, box ticked. And straight away we had people writing and saying that. So when we did Stop the Killing, we had this lofty goal that perhaps one day it might just slow something down or something might happen, but we never had that. So when that happened, it was like, job done, box ticked.

Ben 35:17-36:33

That's incredible. I love it. I’'ve got one or two more questions for you, but I do want to ask, let's stay on that note of hope while we can. You know, working in true crime can sometimes Be a dark place, you know, I mean it we're just we'd have to live for a while in an in a dark world and You know, it's mental illness it can be any number of different things which which we have to kind of immerse ourselves in as we're researching and writing and producing and so forth and And somebody asked me this question recently, and I was very grateful to get to think about it. And I wanted to pass the same question on to you, which was, how do you get out of that hole? How do you get out of the deep end? You know, how do you come back into the light and make yourself whole again to find those notes of hope or to, you know, do you sort of find a room full of puppies and kittens and just say, you know, everything's going to be okay or take long walks, you know? Right, absolutely. Yeah, what do you do to kind of like bring yourself back to sanity and to, you see what I'm getting at.

Sarah 36:34-38:16

Yeah, I do. I do. I mean, I think on that, like, you know, top note of if you asked me what I do to pull myself out of it, yeah, I go and hang out with my family. I go and, you know, be with my animals, three cats, a dog, you know, there's always a fur baby. But on a deeper level, I think what holds me to have that, like, recovery from those traumatic stories is that my purpose is always so strong in making them. And that is that as hard as those stories are, there's a reason that I'm telling them. And there is a hope that somebody else will be protected from hearing it. And, you know, in particularly, you know, in watching two detectives, what has been quite unique is that It's been unexpected who's been helped by telling the story. And as you go through, the most powerful thing in the first season of watching two detectives is the, what's the word? I'm trying to think of the right word. Like the healing for Luke Furlong, the son. And it's this arc of his story starting out with the pain and then having this, all these years later, 20 years later, having this sort of, you know, full circle moment. And he doesn't hide the fact that it is probably the best thing that he's ever had, more than all the therapy. So that's been quite unique. And I have to say, coming up in season two of Watching Two Detectives. I've just finished it. It's three, it's, it's three episodes. Um, and it is the story of Hubert Humosey, who was a taxi driver in Sydney who was killed by the youngest perpetrators that Scott and Peter ever dealt with. Um, and it is a shocking case, but again, the unexpected side effect of making this and telling this story is that I received an email yesterday which was the message from the daughter who is featured in the podcast, but not her voice. like read her words in the podcast and how incredibly honoured it was. You know, she felt, sorry, she felt very honoured and that her father's memory was honoured and it was a really healing event for her as well. So yeah, I think to answer your question, the very long way around, sorry, is I find hope and purpose.

Ben 39:23-39:45

Marvelous. That is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Thank you. Thank you for that, Sarah. Now, Season 2, we're all very excited about Season 2 coming out. When might we get to put on our headphones and get to work?

Sarah 39:45-40:17

I don't know. I have not scheduled it yet, but I will because I'm just, you know, it was a very strong launch for season one, so it kind of took me by surprise. And I need to get my A into G, as we say in New Zealand, and get it scheduled. So stay tuned, it'll be in the next month or so. But already season three is turning out to be quite the cracker of a series as well. a lot to listen to.

Ben 40:17-40:35

Exactly. Watch this space. Well, we will, and we will with bated breath. Sarah, this is a pleasure. Tell us, before we head off to the pub, tell us, where can folks find you? How can they get a hold of your work, your shows?

Sarah 40:36-41:02

Yeah, so probably the best place is my website. You can go to sarahferrismedia.com and you can follow me on Instagram at Conmunity, that's con with an n, Conmunity Podcast. And of course you can follow Watching Two Detectives as well on Instagram and on Twitter or x, as they call it. Yes, whatever they're calling it these days. Yeah, at Watching Two Detectives. There you go.

Ben 41:02-41:27

Brilliant. Well, thank you so much. We, again, we were just so privileged to get to share a little airtime, you know, here on Crime Capsule, you know, the last few weeks. So we're all super excited about what there is coming down the pike. Thank you so very much. This has been a real pleasure speaking with you.

Sarah 41:27-41:29

Thank you. Thank you so much.