Ben 00:07-01:42

Welcome back to Crime Capsule. I'm your host, Benjamin Morris. So Crime Capsule veterans know him as the Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain, our producer, Bill Huffman. Bill is with us every week, making sure that things stay nice and smooth behind the scenes, and usually rescuing me from some stupid technical glitch that is nearly always my fault. But if you're new here, you may not know that Bill is not just a skilled producer. He is also a show host in his own right of the award-winning top podcast, Who Killed? He's also a longtime journalist whose experience and knowledge of the news industry goes back over 20 years. Well, we've got a special treat for everyone as part of our holiday grab bag season. This past week, Bill was kind enough to invite me on to Who Killed to talk about the art and craft of research and historical writing, a topic that is near and dear to my heart, but also a topic that I'm sure a number of folks out there are interested in as well. Bill is hard at work on his own book about a murder that hit close to home where he grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, a cold case file that is still under investigation today. If you have ever written a work of nonfiction or true crime history, or if you have ever wanted to, then this conversation, this episode is for you. So happy holidays, everybody, and enjoy.

Bill 01:44-02:06

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Who Killed? I'm your host, Bill Huffman, and this is a Slow Burn Media, Evergreen Podcast, and Killer Podcast production. This week we have a little bit of a special episode. We're going to do a crossover with the other show I produce, Crime Capsule, and I'm happy to welcome back to the show Benjamin Morris. How are you, Ben?

Ben 02:06-02:09

Doing great, thanks. Really appreciate you having me on.

Bill 02:10-02:50

Absolutely, man. We've spent a few years producing and working together, and I've heard you talk many times about how the sausage is made, and that's kind of what we're going to talk about this week in this bonus episode. Because it's not so much about the cases, it's about the process. And Ben is an expert in the process of research. He has written books and done this podcast for a number of years and he has also taught a class at one point about how to do certain research. So this week we are going to talk about that. So Ben,

Ben 02:51-03:52

Yeah, it's a real pleasure to do so. You know, I think a lot of folks out there have ideas about stories they want to tell, but they're not entirely sure about how to go about doing that, you know, and so discussions about process and methods are always, always helpful. Back when I was doing my graduate training, I did a PhD in archaeology and anthropology some years ago, the methods classes were always just the most oversubscribed. You know, you always wanted to think about how do you get your material? What do you do with it? How do you organize it? And since then, it's been, I'm not gonna say exactly how many years since I defended and graduated, but There were some books in the meantime, and all of those books that I wrote involved direct application of those considerations. So it's fun to think about, it's fun to talk about, and I think there are some really useful principles and tools that are out there for anyone who wants to talk about research work. So I'm looking forward to just diving in with you.

Bill 03:53-05:27

Yeah, it's one of those things when you set off to do a project or anything like a podcast or write a book, it's a daunting experience. You look at it and you just think, oh my, how am I going to do this? There is a step-by-step process that can make it manageable. And I think a lot of people out there are afraid of getting in too deep, or, you know, they just don't know where to start. And I think by us talking about that, I think, hey, maybe there's gonna be some people that are, you know, have some eyes opened about what their abilities are, and maybe want to explore, you know, what makes them passionate about, you know, telling long-form stories. I mean, that's the greatest thing about the podcast medium, and I've said that before many times, coming from a news background where you have, you know, a minute, two minute story package and it's tough to get across the message. And when you do a research project or like a deep dive, I know you hate that word, but you know, a deep dive into a case like I did with the Amy Mihaljevic case and you know, you spend months researching it and you know, eventually turns into years. It's just, It's just, I don't know, you become used to what your process is, but it can be challenging for other people that haven't done it yet. And I think this week we should open some eyes to how to get it done.

Ben 05:28-08:42

I think so. One of the things that often overwhelms people is just volume, volume of material. So one of the things I want to just kind of think about together is, how do you take stock of what you have? How do you, how do you triage it? How do you organize it? And then what do you do with it? And I think those are, when you have an extremely complex case, like the one you're working on, Amy's case, or, you know, anything that you might encounter out there in the wild, You need a system. You have to have a system. And if you don't have a system, you're going to be in some trouble. So I'm just happy to share some of the things that I've learned over the years, some of the tools that I've found useful. And we'll go from there. I think often, one of the first things that people really do have to decide, and this is a little bird's eye view, but the very first question, which always comes up, of course, is story. You know, what kind of story do you want to tell? And what is out there capturing your imagination? Sometimes it can be an individual person, you know, sometimes it can be the history of a place or a time period. You know, there are interesting books out there. about the history of certain inventions, you know, I think of Henry Petrovsky's book on the invention of the pencil, right? I mean, anything can capture somebody's attention as far as like the story that they're interested in. But, you know, that's one of the first and most grounding principles is, you know, decide what you want to write about. Now, I will say this, then I've got a question for you, Bill, which is, I've often found the The most important guideline here for narrowing down your material involves concentric circles, right? So you want to think about the big topics first, right? You've got say American politics, right? Then you want to think about American politics as it plays out regionally. Let's get a little narrower. Then you want to think about your time period. I think of like civil rights movements in the 60s, right? Narrow that down. That's still pretty big. Maybe you want to start looking at particular states or particular individuals who are involved in those movements, right? Maybe you want to look at, you know, violence on a particular occasion, what happened there, right? Eventually, the narrower and narrower you get with your concentric circles, You're going to end up with a really precise and important research question, such as, I'll give you an example from my neck of the woods, who was the guy that killed the civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer, and where did he go, and what happened to him? And that is how you end up with a book like the wonderful new volume by the investigative journalist Curtis Wilkie, who I know you've heard of, who wrote this book called When Evil Lived in Laurel. that you take the biggest possible topic, you know, first, and you drill down and down and down until you arrive at something like really specific and I'm gonna make up a word here, interrogatable, right? And I think that helps us frame our stories.

Bill 08:42-10:06

Yeah. I mean, I think definitely when I look at the Amy case, and I look at the amount of archival stuff that's been out there that's, you know, going back to 1989, you know, almost 35 years, 35 years of news stories and parceling through what is what and what is real, what is an update, what is just an anniversary reminder. I mean, I think when you see all that stuff and then you, you know, people have written a book about the case. So, you know, shout out to James Renner. And it's one of those things where you look at the fact that the case wasn't ever solved, you always end up with, well, how do you resolve that in the book to make it still an interesting story to tell? Because at the end of the day, like I said, the case isn't solved and you want people to be invested in the case because this is a tragedy that occurred. And again, how do you do that? I mean, that's really the, the, where I kind of look at and go, oh my, that's a lot of stuff. And how do I, figure out what it is that would make the most sense.

Ben 10:06-12:22

Absolutely. You know, and when you have that much over a period of going on 35 years, I guess, for Amy now, is that right? Since 89 to 24? Yeah. You know, you really have to start making some very broad decisions, sort of, you know, global level decisions about what kind of material you have, what kind you can get access to, and what you're gonna include. So in in research world, you know, we often make a very important distinction just right up front as far as data gathering goes between and I'm sure some of some of your listeners will be familiar with this distinction, but maybe there's some out there who are not. It is absolutely uh sort of intro level history 101 kind of you know distinction but it has to be said you know the difference between primary and secondary sources right you know primary sources are the things the objects the documents that are as close as possible to the event in question or are part of the event in question that have just a minimum of gap between the thing the place the person you know the the occurrence as possible. You just, you want to get the stuff, the raw stuff of that moment. And I think of, you know, examples like, you know, letters that somebody might have written, you know, diaries, photographs, testimonies in court transcripts, you know, often fall under the category of primary sources. Police records, even though they come a little bit after, those can be essential parts, you know, of a case, obviously, especially if time has passed between you know, the murderer and, you know, you're looking at it. You've got deeds, you know, land grants, ledgers, census data, you know, official proceedings, government records, all the stuff that pertains to the thing that you're writing about. The closer you get to that thing or to that person, the more likely it is you're dealing with a primary source. And those tend to be more reliable, more valuable, and more useful as you're writing about your case. So that's primary. We'll talk about secondary in a sec, but you have primary sources. I mean, you've got a ton of them that you've got to work with, don't you?

Bill 12:22-13:45

Yeah, I mean, the interviews with the parents or the father, chief of police, who was there that day, Special Agent Torsney, you know, the issue is, you know, there's so much Like I'm over like 150,000 words and it's just it's just too much and you can't you can't do that I mean, it's like Quentin Tarantino writing His screenplays, you know, the first drafts always like four hours long it's just it's crazy because he's got so much going on in his head and and For me, it's not so much that I've written because it's a true crime story with true crime. Like you said, you let the sources kind of tell the story and you don't do much of your own editorializing or whatever you're, you don't put in your own two cents that often. And you know, like when you mentioned court transcripts before, think about the accidental billionaires, um, which led to the movie, the social network that was Ben, Ben Meserick and all that stuff that is sitting in the, you know, law office being deposed, all really happened. I mean, they probably tweaked some things here and there, but that's some really solid stuff. And man, did that, you know, that makes a difference. It really makes a difference in what people will take from that story.

Ben 13:47-14:31

Oh man, we just had on Crime Capsule, a couple weeks ago, we just had a guest named Orise Jenkins, who was doing research on the massacre of his own family members, his own ancestors in South Georgia, back in the early 1900s. And, you know, what does he find when he is in the courthouse in Early County, Georgia, but the lone surviving copy of the court transcript of, you know, the trial and like, you know, who was being tried for the murders of his own ancestors. I mean, like, you find the one thing and suddenly you're catapulted back in time 100 years. And it is absolutely breathtaking. You know, those moments, it just doesn't get better than that.

Bill 14:32-15:52

Yeah. I mean, I did a case just recently about, I mean, it was from the 1890s, because it was a distant relative of mine from Northern Michigan who was gunned down and like did crazy circumstances. He was a doctor and, you know, the primary sources that I could get to, you know, were, you know, through ancestry and that kind of stuff. And, Like I just think it's really intriguing to go back and look at you know how cases were reported on back then and If they've if it's really changed all that much I mean if if I showed you some of the articles from 1890 You could very well think they were written today. It's you know the Circumstances, you know the violence that occurred, you know, they were serving a search warrant when I search warrant they were serving a warrant for tax overdue taxes and this guy who owned the mill didn't want to pay and shot the one sheriff under Marshall or whatever he was and that was you know, first degree murder right there. And then he shot my distant relative, Frank, Dr. Frank Thurber and ended up doing like 10 years in jail. But even though he had a life sentence and it was all because of having friends in high places, it's just nothing changes all that much.

Ben 15:53-16:10

Yeah. And the newspapers are a funny one to look at because they often blur the line between primary and secondary sources, especially the further back you go. There's a lot more overt bias in newspaper accounts. Oh, sure. You know, you know, pre, say 1940, 1950.

Bill 16:12-16:49

Oh, I'd even say in the 1970s, they were still referencing, you know, gay, LGBT stuff. I mean, it was terrible. I mean, it was just the way that they would headline stories. And, you know, it was like that, like their sexuality was somehow part of the story. And it's like, that's not part of the story, you know? If it's not part of the story, it's not part of the story. No, of course. So, I mean, I see that, again, I see that stuff and I'm like, man, you know, it's like, you thought we changed a little bit but yeah you're right you know going back way back in the day whoo definitely not the politically correct stuff that we see

Ben 16:50-19:09

the worst one that i've seen today dates from about the 1930s in south mississippi where i wrote my book um and it was oh yeah the you know height of jim crow or whatever but um there was an instance in which in the small town of macomb mississippi um an african-american man was walking across the rail tracks at a certain point and i think he might have been deaf and he did not hear the oncoming train and it struck him um and killed him unfortunately But the very, very racist owned newspaper in the area simply published an article with a headline titled, and this is a direct quote, Macomb Negro Hits Train. Period. That's it. And you're just like, yeah, what do you say that? But newspapers are interesting because they do blur that line between primary and secondary sources. Sometimes they're all you have. you know, the further back you go, and you have to use those to kind of get down to the little, you have to sift through the information in the article, biased and warped and skewed, though it may be, in order to get to the little nuggets of truth that are going to help you tell your story. Now, for the benefit of your listeners who may not, again, be familiar with this distinction, let's talk about secondary, because secondary is huge, right? The definition of a secondary source is any source which is basically someone coming later and speaking about a primary incident or source in some way. So that includes like a scholarly book, an article, you know, synthesis of data, uh what they call white papers or gray papers in industry you know unpublished analyses of things that's secondary sources memoir is also a secondary source although you can kind of treat memoir like journalism and you can it kind of blurs the line a little bit but even things like you know theses and dissertations all secondary sources and you know it's really important to make a hard distinction where possible between the stuff of the thing itself and people coming later to talk about the thing, because that distinction is the foundation on which a lot of investigative journalism and historical research stands.

Bill 19:09-19:16

So would that include, like, press conferences and, you know, that kind of stuff? Or is that more of a primary source?

Ben 19:16-19:30

I think that those are a little tricky. I mean, it depends on what's being communicated at the press conference and whether it's intended to actually disclose or whether it's intended to stall and punt the football downfield.

Bill 19:30-20:59

Fair point. I mean, I do, you know, when there's a good press conference and a worthy press conference, I have that presser of the week, you know, side show that I do and kind of talk about You know what the latest break in the cold case or you know, yeah like tomorrow well when this airs it will already have been out there, but the press conference tomorrow for the Gilgo Beach murders and I've covered that case since you know, I've been podcasting and it's uh, you know those press conferences you actually glean some interesting information from them and I think from what I've seen online You know They're gonna have probably another connection to more victims as my guess because it sounds like it's it's a big deal and he's got a press he's gonna be present in court and and they're gonna hold a press conference afterwards. So I'll probably do a presser of the week on that. So it's just interesting, those press conferences, what they say and what they don't say, like what you were talking about with Stalling. We've seen it with the John Bonnet case. They did that forever. There are lots of cases that you could say that, they're punning the ball down the field. I mean, they did that in the Delphi case for a long time, I think. And yeah, I mean, just an interesting side note, just as a former member of the press.

Ben 20:59-22:08

It is. And, you know, you have to be on guard, of course, you know, investigative journalists such as yourself, you know, you guys know that you never ever take anything that anyone says, you know, at face value, the grain of salt is permanently you know, added to the discursive soup. But, you know, the kind of thing that I find helpful here is trying to judge whether a story is still unfolding, as Gilgo is, right? And certain things have to be, you know, kept under wraps so that they don't contaminate the integrity of the investigation, versus, you know, you reading that court transcript from the 1890s and realizing that, you know, these statements that were made, well, they are now part of the historic record in a different way with the passage of time than the thing that's happening just down the street at the county courthouse is, you know, like, there is this kind of interesting process that happens with time where the same type of information morphs in our appraisal of it. And that's just based on the context and based on our reasons for accessing it.

Bill 22:08-23:09

Yeah, I think that's definitely been done in the Madeline McCain case, and… I'm sorry, Madeline McCann? I don't know. Maddie. Old Maddie, yeah, of course. You know, her case, you know, they've had all these different press conferences, they say they've got this guy, that he's in jail, and you know, it's like, well, do they? Are they just doing this because You know again like just new eyes are on it. So they're saying You know, they're putting it back out in the public. I mean, I just some of those cases like I just had Elaine Tassie from Colorado Public Radio on to talk about a case from 2017 here in Denver or a suburb suburb of Denver and you know when there's like not a lot of information out there like people just start to speculate and you know speculation is just can be a rabbit hole you don't want to go down that can actually screw up investigations.

Ben 23:09-23:46

In my opinion. It can. It can. I was still living overseas in the UK when Maddie was uh when she disappeared. Oh yeah. Um so for years I was doing all my graduate work over there and for years any you know, whisper of any development in the case was suddenly blared at, you know, like 40-point type in the heading of every single red top tabloid in British journalism. You know, just like The Sun, The Mirror, The Star, all these red tops as they're called, you know, the little penny papers that just thrive on BS and yelling.

Bill 23:46-23:48

Back in the days of the news of the world.

Ben 23:48-24:29

Well, of course, like anytime anything, you know, came up with Maddie, it was just like all over the papers the next day, you know, maximum volume. And it didn't matter if it was true or not. It didn't matter if the police would revoke it, you know, the following week, they didn't care. You know, it was just, make sure that we're yelling about this as loudly as possible, which of course means like, you know, scaring off anybody who might you know want to come forward and Contribute something genuine because it's like well their life is going to be ruined right if they have anything to say and there was some speculation back in the day that the way that the tabloid journalism covered that particular case did Contaminate the investigation and did interfere with police operations across the European continent.

Bill 24:29-25:48

So, you know, yeah Yeah, a hundred percent agree. I mean we talked and I mentioned JonBenet. I mean that case Talk about tabloid Fever here in the US. I mean that is absolutely a case that still to this day. They're making documentaries that are pulling in millions of viewers on Netflix and Peacock and it's just You know, I don't know that some cases just resonate with people and John Bonet's case Maddie's case you can say white girl and a little white girl thing. It's a whole news issue and why certain cases get the publicity that they do. And what it boils down to is a lot of times race, unfortunately. Race or what the actions of that individual were. I know that the Atlantic City Four, they were all sex workers, or most of them were sex workers and are into drugs. And the fact that they were In that lower class of people, I don't think their cases get nearly the attention that, say, somebody in the middle class or somebody from the suburbs gets murdered, and it's like, you know, all hands on deck.

Ben 25:49-29:52

always the case. And that's one of the sad realities of the system that we live in. You know, you and I could talk for two hours just about Luigi Mangione, you know, and those disparities like right now. I do want to return to the primary secondary thing just one last time, though, because there's I encountered something which, when I was researching my book on the history of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which was extremely illuminating as to why we need to keep our grain of salt on hand at all times, why we need to keep the chip on our shoulder a little bit too, as investigators, as researchers, trying to make sense out of the stories that we're telling. There are always aspects of the historical record, whether it's from 1989 or 1899 or the year nine that we're having to sift through to get down to the truth, right, or as close as we can to it. And I'm just going to tell you a quick story about one that really kind of showed me the importance of the critical independent assessment being so necessary. So the founder of the city that I was writing about is a guy named William Hardy, okay. By all accounts, he was a pretty industrious, you know, 19th century guy in Mississippi. He was a self-taught lawyer. He did fight in the Civil War, but he also was a state legislator and ended up founding three cities and built a railroad. I mean, he was a pretty busy dude, right? And as far as Mississippi history goes, like, pretty influential. Well, he also was a soldier in the Civil War, and you know who he was fighting for. So Hardy goes on to have this illustrious career, you know, lives a long time, has a bunch of wives, a bunch of grandkids, builds these cities, etc, etc. And he dies in the early 1900s. The number of letters that we have from Hardy dates to about just under 200. And as part of the research for my book, I had to read them all. And they're most of the ones that we have, the vast majority of the ones that we have are stored in a special collections library in Hattiesburg, which was the second city that he founded. And I had to read them all just to know exactly who I was dealing with. I'll make this quick. There's a collection of the letters and then there's a collection of the transcriptions of the letters because his handwriting is terrible. It's really hard to read. It needs deciphering. Well, I was going through, doing my research, reading one after another, and something sat funny with me when I finished reading all of the transcribed letters. Bill, it was this. It was that weirdly, I don't even know how I caught it. It just was bizarre. When I was looking at the sort of archival book of the actual documents, I realized that the numbers didn't match up. Okay. And the person who had transcribed these letters from the terrible handwriting was like some early judge in South Mississippi history, you know, some guy in the 1900s, who just took it on himself. maybe 1930s, took it on himself after his good buddy William Hardy died, you know, to just make those transcriptions and leave them for posterity. Well, I just happened to notice that the number of letters that Hardy wrote was not the same number as had been transcribed. Right? And I see dum dum dum, you know, like not exactly smoking gun yet, but I'm starting to, I'm starting to get some whiffs of gunpowder, you know, like something's happened. So I go back and look through the archives again, start from the top and go one by one until I finally find this one letter that had not been transcribed. I found where the numbers got out of sync. All right. Would you like to guess what that letter was?

Bill 29:52-29:57

No, I don't know.

Ben 29:57-32:01

Well, when I tell you, you would have guessed this. I'll put it that way. It was a letter that he wrote in the early 1860s. He was fighting in the Civil War at the time. I think it was 1863. He was out in Maryland or somewhere, and he had been wounded, injured, and was ill, was not actually fighting, but was still able to correspond with his wife back in Mississippi at the time. Here's what's interesting. It wasn't even the full letter. It was a scrap. It was a piece of paper that had been damaged. So we only had part of it. But the part of it that we had in his handwriting, which by that time I was able to read, was instructions to his then wife, his second wife at the time, instructions to his wife, to beat and whip one of their own slaves for harboring a runaway from a nearby plantation. All right. Now, this may not surprise us. This is a white landowner in the South in the 1860s. He probably had slaves. But what this is, is the only hard evidence, this is the smoking gun, that William Hardy, illustrious legislator and landowner and city founder and railroad builder, was a slave owner. It's the only piece of evidence that we have in existence that he owned slaves. And what is interesting to me about it, so that's a primary source right there. The secondary source that came after him, note how that judge, his buddy, tried to conceal that fact from the historic record by making sure that that was the only letter that was not transcribed for posterity. He didn't destroy the letter, but he certainly did not include it in the quote unquote, official transcription of Hardy's letters. And you know, it's just things like that, when you're doing this kind of research that require you to keep that grain of salt, I like to think of it as the whole salt shaker with you at all times.

Bill 32:02-32:18

Yeah, I mean, you never know what you're gonna find, I think, when you get down into the, you know, like Oris, you know, finding that transcript. You just never know. And you've always heard the old expression, oh, there's a flood or a fire. You know, it's always one of the… The flood.

Ben 32:18-32:20

The flood in the police archives.

Bill 32:20-33:12

Always the flood. And the fire. Come on. You know, Bessie is knocking over the fire, you know, the flame and burning down Chicago. And oh, man, all those records are just gone. We don't know. But… You know, the funny thing about all that stuff is people just don't know where anything really is once it's like out of the possession of the original owner or, you know, a library or a museum or something along those lines, you know, that stuff one day it could be found. And I mean, there's, you know, like, there's that place in freaking Turkey or wherever that's got all those books. And there's only like, there's like, a million books or something there from like, way back when. And they've only been able to like, interpret like, one, 2% or something crazy like that. What is in those books?

Ben 33:15-33:38

Yeah, the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. Yeah, they've only just started to use, you know, like MRIs and lasers and AI to, you know, like, check the carbonization of the ink molecules against the original papyrus that would then enable them to create sort of like density clouds that resemble letters. I was just reading the article about it earlier this morning because it's really interesting.

Bill 33:38-34:02

It's so interesting. I mean, when you think about all that history that could be unlocked with that Yeah, and we'll be. That discovery. Yeah, I know. It's just… And we'll be. It's so interesting to think, like, what were they writing? Because that is a lot of text. I mean, we're not talking like… This would make a library look like a… somebody's private collection.

Ben 34:02-35:39

No, no, it's great. I'm so excited about that kind of stuff. It really does keep me up at night reading those articles. It's the very best. But you're right, we never know exactly what we have. Or if we do know what we have, we also know that we don't know the extent of what we have. And that point was made never more clear to me, again, in the civil rights, violence and murder context than hearing the incredible journalist whose work I know you know, Jerry Mitchell, was investigating, you know, the murders of Medgar Evers and, you know, like all these figures back in the 90s, he reopened the cold cases of the civil rights leaders assassinations. And in the course of his work, it's now published in his book Race Against Time, he learns, he goes and finds out that the state archives, I forget exactly which specific unit, but the rifle, the murder weapon that Edgar Ray Killen had used to assassinate Medgar Evers, had just been lost for 40 years until someone decided to just go and look for it. And lo and behold, it was in evidence lockup. It's just, we still had the damn thing, you know. And no one, one of the most important artifacts in all of state history, And people had just forgotten it was there until he went sniffing, you know, and then there it was with a tag on it on the shelf. And on the basis of that, among other things, he got Edgar Ray Killen convicted, retried and convicted, and the dude died in jail for what he had done. You know, and it's like, sometimes you just never know. Right, exactly. You never know what you have until you start going after it.

Bill 35:39-36:25

Yeah. You know, very different note but it's a sad note you know it's like when they discovered all those rape kits in Chicago and yeah you know that just for sitting in Detroit and they were all over all these different cities have these backlogs of all these kits that have never been tested and it's like what what What are we doing in society that we're not going to do the actual thing that these women went and actually experienced and then we're just going to put it in a warehouse and not deal with it? I think that's absolutely garbage. And, you know, like something really needs to be looked at as far as that process of testing. It just doesn't seem to be working.

Ben 36:26-40:17

I know. And for researchers who are coming after the fact, you know, sometimes you have to write a book or do a project or, you know, script out a show, and you just don't have all the information that is ultimately pertinent to the case, you just have to go with what you have at the time. Now, that raises the question, of course, and I know this is something that you're working with on Amy's book, you know, is how do you make sense of it all, right? Like when you start to accumulate all your different sources, you got your primary laid out, you got those kind of sorted and organized, you've got your secondary sources and what's been said later, and you've got those kind of triangulated. You know, when you have the massive material at hand, how do you organize it? And what I found was most helpful, and I hope this is useful to folks out there because, you know, when you're dealing with overwhelming volume, you know, you really need a system. And so I ended up using and have for years from projects like this, a two-fold method, okay? And what it is, is the combination of two types of storylines. It's a timeline, otherwise a chronology I should say, let me refer to it that way. You have a chronology, And then you have an outline. And those two things overlap, but they're not identical. And so the idea is the chronology is the hard timeline of the things that happened in your case. And that can be down to the day, the hour, the minute, right? And every time you learn something, which is a hard fact about what you're researching, you put it in that chronology in order, scrupulously in order, so that you can see the events as they unfold one by one, okay? And every time you put it in there, you also put in where you found it to make sure that you don't forget. I'll come back to that. But then, so your chronology is you know, like they used to say in Jorge Luis Borges' short stories, the only accurate map of the territory is the territory itself, right? It's that kind of principle. You want to construct the most accurate map of the territory by getting as much of the territory in there as possible. But then, Your map through is your timeline, right? And that is, excuse me, your outline. The outline of the book, the outline of the story, the outline of the script, or whatever it is, it is not identical with the chronology of the events. The outline is the way that you are going to tell the story, which uses the material from the chronology, but which is framing it in your own unique way. And so what I found in researching and writing the Hattiesburg book and other projects is that if you have your chronology as airtight and accurate as possible, you almost always start to see the storylines which go into your book outline or your chapter outline emerge. So the two are always in conversation with one another, right? if something happens, if you learn a new fact, you put it in the chronology, and then you also put it into your outline, but it often goes in a slightly different place, right? If your outline changes in a way that requires a new aspect of framing of the case, then you go back to your chronology, and you hunt for those relevant storylines within it, and you amass the narrative that you need. So anyway, all that is to say, The two tools that I have found most helpful as you're making sense out of all the information that you have, they're like conversation partners. First, it's your chronology, the hard facts, and second is your outline, which is the way that you're going to tell the story of your event.

Bill 40:18-40:53

Yeah, I think that's a very good method and one that would keep you on track as far as just knowing what you have in front of you, like you said. And I do feel like the timeline is such an important aspect of things. I actually wish there was a good app or good program. Program or something. Yeah, where you can make a good timeline and actually add information to it. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure it exists somewhere, but I haven't seen it, but I would love it.

Ben 40:53-42:17

Mine is called Microsoft Word. I just do it as old-fashioned as possible. Actually, I'll tell you this, Bill. When I was researching that book, I actually hand wrote, because sometimes you can only take a notebook and a pencil into an archive. If it's a really important archive, that's all they let you take in. But I kept four spiral notebooks of all the primary sources that I was looking at when I was researching that book. And in that, anytime I would learn anything that was relevant, I would write down the relevant thing in the notebook and then as though it were welded to my arm, you know? Like, I would then write with another pencil, a different colored pencil, where I found it. Because I guarantee you, I guarantee anyone out there who is listening to this, I guarantee you, I will bet you $10, I will bet you a lunch at Commander's Palace here in New Orleans, I will bet you anything that as you research and write you will forget where you found something. Everyone does. And the more meticulous you can be whenever you learn anything of interest about putting down where, when, and what archive, what call number, whatever it is, the more meticulous you are in that part of the process, the more successful you will be in retrieving it later and ensuring that you've done your work. So.

Bill 42:18-42:36

Yeah, I think everybody has that issue where you kind of start and then you get to a point where you're kind of lost and you don't really know where you really started from and then everything kind of gets bungled together. It's overwhelming.

Ben 42:36-42:50

I mean, you're swimming in a huge sea. Yeah. I mean, you know, you've got 150,000 words on the page and you're like, okay, where did I get that one quote from that one interview? Holy crap. You know, like there's no way a human brain can recall everything quite, you know, quite like that. So.

Bill 42:50-43:08

Yeah, there are certain things I remember, but like, like a long quote or, you know, something like that. It's so good to have the transcripts of those interviews that I did. Uh, you know, that's just a luxury. Um, I, I like to use, uh, I don't know if you've ever used the app Scrivener.

Ben 43:09-43:12

Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar. It's helpful. I mean, yeah, it's good.

Bill 43:12-44:22

I guess I'm old school. So I just use word. But yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a, I don't know, it's a nice kind of way to organize. And I feel like it was a worthy purchase. And I don't mind it. And it does help me organize as far as, you know, it's not a timeline, it's a vertical timeline to a degree. But yeah, I just feel like Scrivener helps me with organizing stuff. And I mean, like when I wrote screenplays, you know, I, you know, Final draft you use that or you'd use I think magic movie screenwriter was what I originally used but those two were basically formatting apps, you know, they're just Format the screenplay for you and you wouldn't have to worry about that all the different margins and stuff like that, and it was just amazing. Good tools. Good tools, yeah. Very good tools. Very good tools, yeah. Notecards, just digital notecards, because that's a good way to organize as well, is just keep your facts and… certain places.

Ben 44:22-45:19

A couple years ago, this was a little after my Hattiesburg book came out, I had the opportunity to help an emerging researcher. She had a book, she had a PhD that was accepted as a book by Cambridge University Press and so she asked me for some help and just kind of you know, doing that conversion process. She used EndNote, and EndNote is a good program that can be very powerful. I think it may be a little too powerful for its own good sometimes. It's kind of like… I had trouble with it. Yeah, like if you are driving an F-350, but all you're doing is really going back and forth to the grocery store, you know, do you really need all those supercharged cylinders, you know, it's up to you, make your call. But EndNote is powerful and can – That's all dependent on where you live, as you know, Ben. Yeah, that's true. If you're going like, yeah, up a 40 degree incline every day to that grocery store, right, go like – Or if you're just living in the South.

Bill 45:19-45:20

Get you that Nos, baby.

Ben 45:20-45:22

Or rev it up.

Bill 45:23-45:32

I'm sure you have plenty of double, you know dualies down in New Orleans rolling around that aren't doing what dually trucks are meant to do.

Ben 45:32-45:38

Oh, yes, sir. No, absolutely. Most of those are hauling boat trailers actually, but anyway.

Bill 45:38-45:40

Fair enough, fair enough. Big truck energy there.

Ben 45:43-49:37

big truck energy, so deep south you're going to have it. But no, I think all of those assets, all those programs that you're describing, Scrivener and, you know, the screenplay one and so forth, they all have their place. The point, though, the point is, if you're ever doing this kind of long form storytelling in any genre, in any domain, you have to be organized about your sources. Because if you do not take care of them, they will not take care of you. when it comes time to publish, to release, you know, to get your stuff out there. And it's just, it really is a very mutual relationship there. You know, it's like someone can haul you in for fabrication, you know, or worse. I mean, there's just a lot of risks of not being on top of your source material there. yeah um but you know i find that uh working with those two i think of it as scaffolding on a building right like the scaffolding is the thing that builds the building and then once you're done building you take the scaffolding down your chronology is one part of your scaffolding, your story outline is the other part of your scaffolding, and those two together can build that structure and leave it in pretty good shape. So I hope that's useful to folks. It does also does raise the question of once you've built it, what do you do with it, right? How do you start to get it out there? How do you start to propose it and give this work the beginnings of its public life? There are a lot of answers to that question. I know this is something that you're beginning to, you know, to grapple with as you near the later stages of your own writing process. I think the most useful answer I can give to anybody out there who's interested in, okay, we've made most of the sausage, say, but now we need to start thinking about, like, where are we going to sell the sausage? Right? Like, who wants to buy it? And how are they going to find it? Fair analogy. Sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, down in New Orleans, we eat a lot of sausage. It's a Creole thing. So, I'm comfortable running with that all the way, you know, like, anyway. I should probably refrain from putting in too many personal plugs of my favorite sausage makers that go back to the 1820s that all have like French last names. But, you know, anyway. So no, one thing that I find incredibly helpful, and this comes from my years working with a publisher of history books, you know, Arcadia Publishing, History Press, and so forth, is, you know, they have proposals that are out there that talk about all the different aspects of the public life of your book. But the single most important one that everybody wants to know, if you're going to be pitching a project to somebody, And you know this because you've already said it 45 minutes ago with respect to who's already been out there working on Amy's case, right? The number one most important thing you have to pitch, you have to say as part of your pitch is, you know, what else is out there? What else has already been done? What is your literature review? What are your comps? And that's the publishing kind of term for it is like, what are the comparable titles you know that are already out there that have started to cover this landscape and then most crucially how is yours different what are you bringing to the table that's new that's original that's undiscovered that's untold that's been forgotten that's been overlooked that's been buried you see what i'm getting at like you have to know who's written and published what and then you also have to know and say very clearly how yours is different there's nothing more important than that to a book publisher

Bill 49:38-50:44

Nothing. Yeah. I mean, I think that's definitely the most important aspect of getting your work out there. What, you know, you're done with the project or you're in the middle of the project and you want to know where you're going with this. And, you know, it could be a book, it could be a podcast. It just, you never know. Sometimes it could be both. I mean, we've seen, you know, TV shows come out with, you know, partner podcasts that have after show discussions about the series. And it's like, it's just cool to have new mediums being created, you know, whether it's stupid TikTok videos or, you know, podcast but Like you see it with like short short videos, you know the tic-tac video of true crime like that's a thing like there are people out there that follow all that stuff and hey, you know, that's probably something that we should all be doing but who knows if They're taking your information. I don't know. I'm not going to go into the tick tock.

Ben 50:44-52:04

No But you are touching on a really important question Which is like do you intend the work that you're doing to be primarily entertainment or education, right? Like are you trying to like amuse and and kind of like delight people, you know, or are you trying to? Um actually make a contribution to a case and in your particular instance one of the things that I really value about the work that you're doing on amy's book on amy's case Is the fact that you have direct personal connections to the area you have deep local knowledge, you know You're not kind of parachuting in from the outside, but you're actually trying to make a real difference to those for whom this was deeply traumatic troubling and has haunted the area for 40 years and it's sort of like you have a personal investment in the story, you know an absolute personal investment as a member of that community and And your work is not designed, you know, to just titillate or give people like something to do while they're waiting on catching their bus or, you know, like on the subway, just kind of like watching stupid stuff to pass the time. You know, you're trying to do something very different. You know, I think… There is a lot of bite-sized stuff out there which can be fun, but as always, grain of salt. You know, we have to recognize what is just fun and then what is actually trying to do something more.

Bill 52:05-53:29

Yeah, I definitely feel that there is a fine line to be drawn between what we do is, you know, trying to create content that's interesting to people as well as providing a service, you know, semi-service to the family and doing them justice by, you know, not exploiting their case and not speculating about what could be this or could be that. And I think with the Amy book, you know, as it is a work in progress, you know, with your concentric circles and, you know, some of your research methods, I definitely feel like, you know, I'll personally probably take on some of those as well, you know, and adapt them into my own writing and research because, you know, that's essential. You've got to be able to cut the fat. And I've always known that with screenwriting, you've got to be able to kill your darlings. That's a famous expression. You can tell in a lot of movies and a lot of TV shows, a lot of books. when something just seems off, it's like, well, they just couldn't pull themselves to do it. They couldn't get themselves to say, this doesn't belong, even though I love this person and this character, you know. Story bloat. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's totally a, it's a thing. It's bad.

Ben 53:29-53:35

Yeah. Story bloat is very painful for both writer and reader and viewer.

Bill 53:35-53:51

Yeah. And I'm not gonna like say The Sopranos wasn't a great show and it was a great show but I feel like there was a lot of story bloat and within that series because of the fact that it was kind of HBO's cash cow for you know a solid decade and

Ben 53:52-53:53

Gotta milk it.

Bill 53:53-54:02

Yeah, and unfortunately, but luckily at the same time, The Wire came out and that is the best TV show.

Ben 54:02-54:06

It's as lean as it gets. Absolutely. No, and that's the goal. That's the goal.

Bill 54:06-54:23

Connects the dots from season one, episode one to season five, episode 10. You know, it's all… So satisfying. It's such a… Yeah, the full circle. It's such a great… great series. I've always said if anybody's not seen it, it's worth your time.

Ben 54:23-57:33

Oh, for sure. You know, I think one of the things that at this point, I also have to put a plug in as I'm thinking about kind of like, where we get our stuff, how we make sense out of it, how we begin to kind of think about its effects in the community and how we draw on community support to sort of validate and enliven our work as we research these things. I just, I can't come onto this show and not put in a plug for libraries and librarians and public libraries in particular, because, you know, they are one of the greatest assets that this country has, our public libraries and librarians, especially in local areas. If you're doing a research project on something that happened near you, These people tend to be just so committed and dedicated to their material They also know their holdings, you know, which like they may put you on to something that you've never heard of before I'll give you an example when I was writing the Hattiesburg history book. I went to the local public library Hattiesburg's a mid-sized Southern City. It's in that sort of 40 to 50,000 range. Okay. It's got a university. It's it's it's It's no, you know, Knoxville or Atlanta, we're not talking six figures of population, but it's decently sized for, you know, a small southern state. Anyway, went over to the public library and was, you know, starting to introduce, you know, the research to them and the work that I was doing. And, of course, they get on board immediately because they love that kind of stuff, but then one of them. says, you know, we've got some stuff that nobody's ever looked at before. And you know, Bill, when somebody says that, every light on the dashboard starts, like, blinking hard green, you know? It's like, set thrusters to full, you know? Like, engage afterburners. Like, you mean there's new material? There's a what? And so, they took me to a file cabinet. No, actually it was three file cabinets of material that librarians in their system had simply been collecting about area history because they thought it was interesting. They'd been collecting this material for 30 years. They had three file cabinets of just clippings, documents, surveys, you know, like anything that came out that that one of the city's own librarians just looked cool, They took it, they stuck it in a file cabinet, and they just filed it away for later. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you I read every single sheet of paper in those in every single one of the folders in every single one of those cabinets, and I found sources that do not exist anywhere else except but for the pluck and the wisdom of that random person clipping it out, saving it, and then tucking it away. And, you know, I was able to get material that literally would not exist otherwise. Make use of your libraries. If anyone out there is doing a research project, a storytelling project, a long-form piece, whatever, go talk to your librarians. Tell them about it. Like, introduce yourself. Get them on board. And you have no idea what good can come out of that. It's just extraordinary.

Bill 57:33-58:20

Yeah, I mean, I can say that, you know, James Renner's stuff is down at the Kent State University archives. I've been down there, looked at the files and, you know, been through that and, you know, Sam Shepard's case from Bay Village, the same city Amy was killed. You know, his files are down at the Cleveland State Historical Society. And so, you know, that's just a cool resource to have. You know, the historical societies, the libraries, the the universities, the local universities, you know, they have stuff that libraries, your local library won't have, and maybe more advanced stuff, but again, it's there for you to take and learn from.

Ben 58:20-59:23

Absolutely, go and look at the theses, go into the criminology department, you know, go to the criminal justice department, go to the history department, you know, in your area universities, and like as not, you know, there might be something on the case that you're writing about, because Folks who were invested in local history tend to, you know, keep their materials close-ish to home or deposit them in these local institutions. And, you know, you just never know what might be there. But you get somebody, you know, who's behind the desk there aware of what you're working on. And I, I'm going to use a little Southernism here, I guarantee you that they're going to be thinking about it in their off time. And if they come across a source that is useful for you, that librarian, nine times out of ten, is going to hold it aside for you, or email you and tell you they found it, or be like, hey, I ran across this, you want to come take a look? And they will help you do your work. I mean, it really is just remarkable to see that level of commitment. But it's there. And you know, because you've been into those places, and you see how people get interested in the case that you're working on, too.

Bill 59:23-01:00:30

Yeah, and again, just take advantage of what we have to offer that's free. I mean, there's just nothing that beats our library system and the access to knowledge is there and it's at your fingertips. So, you know, I always agree that you should explore your local library and even if you don't like to, you know, do the physical books, you know, you can get the audio apps and You know, your local library has a connection and you just need a library card and you can listen to audiobooks for free and not have to pay Audible. Also free. You don't have to pay Audible, 15 bucks a month for one book. It's like, oh, this doesn't make any sense. But yeah, the Libby app, I shout out to that and shout out to all librarians because again, like you said, they will help you do their work, your work, and they enjoy it. And it's something they do. They go to school for, they have to go through a lot of schooling for their jobs and there's a reason for it. And I think, like you said, it's a great resource and you should use it.

Ben 01:00:30-01:02:15

Absolutely. And, you know, they can also help you, just back to the point about what you do with your stuff once you've got it all together. You know get that sausage out there to sell it or help people find it I mean they have ideas about what makes you know a project distinctive and where to market it and where to You know promote it and publicize it because you know, they are invested in community knowledge and they want new good Research and storytelling out there, you know benefiting the community. So it's it's really kind of a package deal you know when you when you walk in there, but I don't know, I hope this is helpful. You know, it can sometimes feel daunting when you're trying to do a big research project and you're not exactly sure where to start. But you know, I often think about just like those steps in the sequence, I think about, okay, what kind of story am I trying to tell? I try to think, What do the sources out there give me? What kind of sources do we have? What's been said about them? How do I make sense out of them? Once I start to evaluate that, and that can be a period that takes months, but that's part of it, then I start to think about, okay, how am I going to make sense out of this volume? And I get my tools in place. I get my chronology. And I get my outline, my storyline outline, right? And then, only then, do I start to, once that is underway, you know, do the actual writing process, which leads to publication. But there are, like you said earlier, there are distinct steps. Sometimes they shade into one another a little bit and that's okay, but there are distinct steps and I think kind of following that path can get you through the forest, you know, pretty, pretty well.

Bill 01:02:16-01:02:37

Yeah, yeah, I think this has been helpful for me and helpful, I think, for the listeners who are interested in this type of project or, you know, podcast, book, that type of thing. I think this has been a good resource for people to use as a starting point if they want to dip their toes in the waters.

Ben 01:02:38-01:03:07

And Ben, that's awesome. Well, delighted. And here I'm going to just put on my listener of Bill's show hat and say that we are all, of course, excited about the work that you're doing on Amy's Case and can't wait to read that book when it finally comes out. It is a process, it is a journey, and that's a part of it. I mean, these things cannot be rushed, but we know that you're going to have a lot to contribute there, and it's going to be really, really cool to see when you do. Yeah.

Bill 01:03:08-01:04:16

Yeah, I mean… Excited? Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, it's hard not to say you're not excited, but it's… Like you said, it's daunting, and it's whittling down, and you wanna be accurate, and you wanna be… It's the word I'm thinking of. you want to be respectful of the family and the people that are involved because it wasn't just the family, but it was also the investigators, it was the family's friends, the teachers of her inner school, principal, you know, all those people are impacted and it's like, you just don't want to do something that's shoddy or, you know, half-assed because at the end of the day, you're really just trying to push the envelope or push the meter needle whatever forward because you need to get Answers to these questions and you know, there's there's DNA stuff that they've got out there But again, it boils down to technology and so, you know when that occurs I don't know we'll see but

Ben 01:04:18-01:05:05

I'm looking forward to it, but I do also understand that it's an overwhelming And sometimes daunting task so you'll find your way through, you know, and um, sometimes the material itself tells the story for you and um, you know, i'm sure there are lots of Lots of contributions that are just waiting to appear, you know, right then and there and i'm i'm very much looking forward to To seeing them but you know, there are plenty of other resources out there. I just hope that you know, these basic tools are useful. And if we can maybe return to that final, I know I've gotten like six metaphors deep now, but like, if we go back to the sausage, I hope this helps people find something that's delicious, you know, and that they really enjoy eating. So, there we go.

Bill 01:05:06-01:05:48

Awesome. Well, I do appreciate you sharing the knowledge that you have gained over the years of Researching and writing and I do think the audience will definitely get something out of this We did talk about true crime cases and some of the cases that have been covered and you know or oversaturated and there's a lot to do to that and I think the more The more the technology gets to where it needs to be, I think a lot of these cases will be solved, but we have 250,000 unsolved cases out there and not enough people working on it. That's the bottom line in my opinion.

Ben 01:05:49-01:06:22

Yeah, well, hopefully this will, you know, help anybody who is out there trying to attack a case and doesn't know exactly how to start. You know, that's my hope is that this gives somebody some equipment to do that. I really appreciate your letting me come on and hang out for an hour and, you know, talk through this stuff. I love methods. I love, love, love methods. I think methods are just like Some of the most interesting things that we can discuss when it comes to research and it's a it's a it's a subject that just never Gets old so it's a real joy to get to kind of come in and dwell on it for a little while.

Bill 01:06:22-01:06:30

Thank you Yeah, I appreciate you coming on and doing this. I think this was great for for me and thank you again My pleasure.

Ben 01:06:30-01:06:31

Let's do it again soon.

Bill 01:06:31-01:06:36

No that absolutely you have a great day and Enjoy the holiday

Ben 01:06:37-01:06:50

Thanks, man. Hey, look if you guys can send us a little snow down here in New Orleans It's like the middle of December and it's 75 degrees outside and I'm just hurting I'm hurting man You know like anything you got just our way Honestly in Denver.

Bill 01:06:50-01:07:10

It's pretty dry right now. It hasn't snowed in a couple weeks. So the mountains are kind of getting parched, but hopefully, while I'm gone, they'll re-up on the snow up in the mountains. But I'll do my best to bring some your way. Appreciate that.

Ben 01:07:10-01:07:20

Fingers crossed. I'll send you some of that 1800s era, last French name, you know, good sausage that we've been talking about in return. Is that a deal? Is that a deal?

Bill 01:07:20-01:07:25

Can we do that? That's a deal. Sounds like a plan. Appreciate it, Ben. Thanks. Thanks, Ben. See you soon.

Ben 01:07:29-01:08:37

Thanks for listening. Join us next time for yet another special bonus episode in the middle of our holiday grab bag series. We're taking a week off for Christmas, and we'll be back after the holidays with all new content, continuing our interviews with the hottest true crime authors working today. Happy holidays, everybody. See you soon. Thanks to our producer, Bill Huffman, our production director, Bridget Coyne, audio engineer, Sean Rule Hoffman, and our executive producers, Michael D'Eloia and Gerardo Orlando. I'm your host, Benjamin Morris. Crime Capsule is a production of Evergreen Podcasts and a signature title of the Killer Podcasts Network. You can find Crime Capsule wherever you listen to podcasts. Discover more great true crime and paranormal programming at killerpodcasts.com. you