Zone 7 with Sheryl McCollom: When Two Investigators’ Paths Cross - Olympic Park Bombing, 9/11, and The Power of Public Tips

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

Episode Title: Zone 7 with Sheryl McCollom: When Two Investigators’ Paths Cross – Olympic Park Bombing, 9/11, and The Power of Public Tips
Date: May 31, 2026
Host: Cheryl McCollum (filling in for Nancy Grace, “Zone 7” segment)
Guest: Jodi Weber – former FBI agent, award-winning journalist, true crime author, and host of the podcast “Caught in My Web”

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Overview:

This episode brings together two seasoned investigators, Cheryl McCollum and Jodi Weber, whose paths have intersected at some of America’s most significant crime and terror scenes—most notably the Olympic Park bombing and 9/11 at the Pentagon. Through candid conversation, they reflect on their early inspirations, the technical and emotional challenges of high-profile investigations, and the indispensable role of public tips in solving complex cases. The tone is warm, personal, and deeply respectful, peppered with professional insights and human moments.

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Episode Structure & Key Segments

1. Serendipity and Careers in Crime Solving

(02:13–04:50)

• Cheryl and Jodi discuss their shared history and how fate kept bringing them to the same places at critical moments.
• Jodi’s investigative instincts began young, fueled by self-bought Nancy Drew books and parental encouragement.
• The importance of reading, intellectual curiosity, and report writing in investigative work.
  • “If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.” — Jodi Weber (06:01)

2. The Path from Journalism to the FBI

(04:50–13:56)

• Jodi describes her early fascination with crime stories and journalism.
• Pivotal moment: After seeing “Silence of the Lambs”, she sought out the FBI for a journalism assignment—an agent recognized her skills and encouraged her to apply.
  • “That was the one sentence that changed my life.” — Jodi Weber (12:36)
• Five years later, she joined the FBI.

3. The Olympic Park Bombing Investigation

(13:56–22:52)

• Jodi’s first major FBI assignment was the ongoing Olympic Park bombing case, just after the Richard Jewell saga.
• Technical details about photo analysis and timeline reconstruction:
  • Jumbotron Time-Stamps: Using images of the Olympic event screen in photos to synchronize time (“We could see that screen in the background… know the precise second…” (15:04))
  • Precision image enhancement with NASA’s help provided vital suspect details.
  • The importance of public tips, including those from the bomber’s own family and a crucial eyewitness in the subsequent Birmingham bombing.
• Memorable story: A college student’s quick thinking and pursuit after the Birmingham bombing led to identifying Eric Rudolph’s vehicle.
  • “The public, in my opinion, is the bread and butter of law enforcement.” — Jodi Weber (22:08)

4. The Role (and Challenges) of Public Tips

(25:28–28:52)

• Cheryl recounts the avalanche of tips once the suspect’s image was public, highlighting both helpful and bizarre reports (“I know it was my ex-husband... he’s 6’4, bald-headed, African American” (25:52)).
• Jodi and Cheryl agree that genuine case breakthroughs often come from community members noticing something “off.”
  • Discussion of the Nancy Guthrie case as an ongoing example—exploring how everyday observations (Christmas tree pickups, home deliveries) could be the key.

5. 9/11: On the Ground at the Pentagon

(28:52–39:30)

• Both women found themselves at the Pentagon during 9/11, though they didn’t know each other then.
• Cheryl shares a personal story—her sister’s plane was diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, and the touching hospitality by Canadians (depicted in the Broadway play "Come From Away").
• Jodi recounts the harrowing task of evidence recovery:
  • Sifting through debris for human remains, classified material, plane parts, and hijacker evidence, all under extreme conditions.
  • The experience of the smoke and scent at the Pentagon: “If you could describe what evil smelled like, that was it.” — Jodi Weber (34:25)
• The strange proximity of life and tragedy, e.g., Cheryl’s husband and son visiting an empty National Zoo while she worked at the Pentagon (42:05).

6. Reflections on Community and Healing

(43:00–46:46)

• Both reflect on the outpouring of support after 9/11 and in the aftermath of other tragedies.
  • Cheryl: “Love wins. I mean, that’s all there is to it.” (45:56)
  • Jodi draws parallels to the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh—community unity in times of crisis.
• The importance of mutual support and acknowledgment among law enforcement and the public.

7. The Ongoing Costs and Awareness

(48:14–49:14)

• Jodi discusses embedding her own health challenges as a 9/11 responder into her fiction work, hoping to raise awareness about long-term health effects from exposure at disaster/crime scenes.

8. Closing Thoughts and Quotes

(49:19–49:56)

• Cheryl closes on a signature quote:
  • “When I run into a dead end on a clue, I go back to the beginning and start all over.” — Nancy Drew (49:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Power of Reading:
  • “Readers want answers… so I think readers make really good investigators.” — Jodi Weber (06:08)
  • “If it ain’t wrote down, didn’t happen, period.” — Cheryl McCollum (07:35)
• On Public Tips:
  • “What you think are such minor details end up being huge.” — Jodi Weber (22:18)
  • “You got to run [down all tips] just as if they may be legitimate.” — Jodi Weber (26:22)
• On Tragedy and Kindness:
  • “If you could describe what evil smelled like, that was it.” — Jodi Weber (34:25)
  • “Love wins. I mean, that’s all there is to it.” — Cheryl McCollum (45:56)
• On Investigative Tenacity:
  • “When I run into a dead end on a clue, I go back to the beginning and start all over.” — Nancy Drew, quoted by Cheryl McCollum (49:56)

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Themes & Takeaways

• The Unpredictable Power of Fate: Careers and human connections are often shaped by chance encounters, important mentors, and being “in the right place at the right time.”
• Technical Excellence Meets Human Intuition: Investigations are solved through a blend of scientific rigor (photo analysis, evidence processing) and gut-level curiosity.
• Community is Critical: Public tips—no matter how small or seemingly irrelevant—can generate major breakthroughs.
• Tragedy Yields Humanity: In the worst moments, kindness, generosity, and community spirit shine, both for victims and responders.
• Lasting Impact: The physical and emotional toll on first responders and investigators continues long after headlines fade, and deserves acknowledgment and care.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

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[Cheryl McCollum]

Sequences shortened and simulated this July 4th

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[Jodi Weber]

why did I search the Internet for

[Cheryl McCollum]

answers to my cold sore problem?

[Jodi Weber]

Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole

[Cheryl McCollum]

filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores

[Jodi Weber]

in various stages of ooze.

[Cheryl McCollum]

I can clear my search history, but I could never unsee that.

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Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast.

[Jodi Weber]

Healthcare just got less painful since he got out.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Bad things keep happening.

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Cape Fear, a new series is streaming June 5th on Apple TV. Why would I want to hurt you? Starring Academy Award winner Javier Bardem. Why? And Academy Award nominee Amy Adam.

[Cheryl McCollum]

He is coming after my family.

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Cape Fear, streaming June 5th on Apple TV.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Y', all, I am so excited tonight to have Jodine, Jodi Weber, y' all ain't ready. Let me tell you something. I'm kind of just in this mindset of, you know, those relationships that are just fate. And you realize after you have a best friend or a boyfriend or a girlfriend that y' all went to the same nursery school or you were just a block apart growing up or there was some connection. I have these connections with Jodine. We were both in Atlanta working. We both got into our respected fields by first or second grade. We'll get into that. We both worked the Olympic park bombing and we both were sent to the Pentagon during 9 11. And I'm sure there's probably some other connections, maybe some bars or some other fun things we did in Atlanta. But it's just crazy to me that our paths, we were at the same place at the same time. But I never knew her. But once I got to know her, there ain't nothing but respect for this woman, 22 years with the FBI. She worked domestic and international terrorism. She worked financial crimes. Well, y' all know how complicated that can be. And it's not just, oh, I'm going to see if somebody got a big insurance policy. Some of those cases can take you years to dissect. What's going on? She's got a podcast called Caught in My Web, where if you listen to one, that's what you're going to do all day. So there's your warning. Go ahead and clear your schedule if you're going to start that. If you hadn't already. Before she got into the FBI, she was a journalist. And not just a journalist. She won awards doing it. And then she's also the author of a book, the Ball Faced Deception. So, y', all, please help me welcome Jodine. Jodi Weber.

[Jodi Weber]

Well, thank you, Cheryl. And yes, we do have quite a bit in common. First, my respect for you and all you have done not only in your law enforcement career, but now you also are an author and have a book coming out as well. And our paths have crossed in the past, and. And we just didn't know it. And so it is a delight to be with you here today on Zone 7 and certainly when we've been on different other programs together. I've really enjoyed talking with you, and you are so smart. So I am delighted to be here.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Well, I'll tell you, I love how your career in solving mysteries started a lot like some people, but you went a little above and beyond. So you loved Nancy Drew. But, y', all, let me tell you something. Her mama didn't just go buy her the Box series, okay? She had to save her allowance and buy them one by one by one. So she was devoted.

[Jodi Weber]

That's correct. We had the Little Shop Co Store. And, you know, they were 250. And I may be aging myself here, but back in the 1970s, they were 250. And, you know, I. My parents really encouraged reading at a very young age. They read to me. I enjoyed reading. And once I discovered those Nancy Drew books, it was on Cheryl. It was on, you know, one after another.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Yeah. And she did it with her best friends. I always thought that would be so much fun. I could never really get my friends on board correctly, you know, because I was already a huge fan of J. Edgar Hoover. They just didn't get it. I mean, they weren't professional enough, so I had to ditch them and, you know, open my own just, you know, private investigative firm of one person. But if they had gotten with the program, we could have had a lot of fun.

[Jodi Weber]

One of the things I find from people who read is they have a general curiosity about people, about things that don't make sense. And readers want answers. And so I think readers make really good investigators because they're not afraid to ask questions. Questions.

[Cheryl McCollum]

That is a good point.

[Jodi Weber]

Not afraid to push the envelope. Well, why did that happen? Or how did that happen? And they're seeking answers. So I do think that really, my parents gave me a gift by really promoting my love of reading at a young age.

[Cheryl McCollum]

That's an excellent point. And especially when it comes to case files and, you know, writing reports.

[Jodi Weber]

It's.

[Cheryl McCollum]

It's a gift if you don't mind reading, because there's a lot of it.

[Jodi Weber]

Well, and certainly writing skills are very important for every type of investigator, whether you're a forensic investigator or an agent or a detective. And prosecutors rely on your written reports. And we used to say in the FBI, if it's not written down, it didn't happen. And certainly we've seen cases where officers have not done proper documentation contemporaneous to an arrest or to a search. And sometimes they go back and do their reports hundreds of days, if not years later. And that really does come up in court and can hamper a prosecution. And it's so unfair to the victims in a case.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Yes. If it ain't wrote down, didn't happen, period. That's the truest statement you're going to hear today, y'. All, if you're a young rookie or a young detective, got to write it down. But your love of reading did not stop with Nancy Drew. I love that you are also a Patricia Cornwell fan.

[Jodi Weber]

Yes. I went from Nancy Drew to Mary Higgins Clark to Patricia Cornwell and certainly her characters with the pathology and the autopsies and the medical examiner and all the information you can glean through autopsy and that the human body can give to investigators. That really raised my curiosity. And then eventually, when I did become an FBI agent, I was on the evidence response team, was able to attend multiple autopsies. And certainly that is really, if you are an investigator, that is a skill. And so much can be just beneficial to your investigation to learn through a good medical examiner and what can be collected from the body, as far as evidence under fingernails, as far as tool markings on some bones in your skeleton, as far as fibers and hairs and even lifting pressure prints and DNA off a body. Very, very fascinating.

[Cheryl McCollum]

It is, and I tell you, it's a gift when you can work hand in hand with one of them, because the information they can give you, there's no way you would know it. Like, even stomach contents, that's going to just put you in a whole different level of where you would have been without them.

[Jodi Weber]

Absolutely. That can be very critical to timing, who had access to that person, to the scene, et cetera, et cetera.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Yep. I love. I love all of it. And again, when you've got somebody really good, they can break it down and hand it to you. It's a wonderful thing. And, you know, recently I got to teach at the National Forensic Academy, and when I walked in, the first thing I saw was a huge, like, picture display of Patricia Cornwell. And I just thought, this is so awesome. I'm walking where she walked, you know?

[Jodi Weber]

Yes. She used to come to the FBI Academy and tour it and do research for her novels. And, you know, I remember once I became a new agent in training and I had read all her Scarpetta novels, the way she would describe where a lounge or a TV center was at the academy, it was precise to the down, to the picture on the wall and the details of the color of the carpet. And so she really, really. She really nailed that quite well. Very, very accurate.

[Cheryl McCollum]

She's somebody I would love to meet. I've never met her, but I've just always admired her and just. I mean, obviously her books are, you know, something that everybody, I think, in our field should read, especially when they're young, starting out. But, you know, here's the other thing I love about you, Jodi. I want you to tell them you're a journalist, and then you go to the movies with some friends and what happens.

[Jodi Weber]

Yes. So I grew up, as I said, reading Nancy Drew and reading Patricia Cornwell, and there was a big murder trial in the Milwaukee area, the Laurencia Benbena case. She was a Milwaukee police officer accused of murdering the ex wife of her husband. And it was a very controversial case in Milwaukee. And eventually she was convicted of the murder, and she always proclaimed her innocence. And I remember watching that trial as a young girl, and it was just fascinating. And I thought, well, boy, if I could become a journalist, I could go sit in a courtroom every day and listen to murder trials. And then what better job is there than to get on TV at night and tell everybody all the details about it? I just thought that would be the best thing ever. So I was majoring in broadcast journalism in college, and between my junior and senior year, this little movie called Silence of the Lambs came out. And I Went to the movies with some girlfriends, and there was Jodie Foster playing Clarice Starling. And I saw that movie, and I literally was like, well, now how do you go and do that? Because that looks even better. And that really piqued my interest. And that summer, I had an internship at a radio station. And as one of my assignments, it was to do a feature story. And so I decided, well, I'm going to call up the local FBI office and find out how do women become FBI agents? And I had just the most gracious, wonderful agent take my call. And he said, come on down. Bring your notebook. And so I interviewed him for an hour, and he was so gracious with his time. And I got done interviewing him, and he told me all about the application process and what would be required. And when I got done interviewing him, he said, you know, you interview people really well, and that is a skill we need. We never know from day to day who we will need to talk to. And you did that with great ease, and I think we could really benefit from you. Would you be interested, after you get a few years of work experience under your belt, would you want to come work for the FBI? And that was the one sentence that changed my life that was just. Just so impactful. And that agent, believe it or not, reached out to me about a month ago on email. He's in his 80s now, and he just said, you know, I've been following your career. I'm so proud of you. And he truly, he was a legend himself in the bureau. So, I mean, I got lucky right out of the gate to have such a great advocate for me, and that planted the seed. And I went and worked in television for five years. But after three years, I applied to the FBI, and. And it just took two years to get through all the background investigation and the tests they put you through and to get clearance to go to the academy. But then in 1997, I was accepted to the FBI Academy and began my career with the Bureau.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Unbelievable. So I know you were in Atlanta, so let's talk about your time in Atlanta, because you were fairly new when you were hunting Eric Robert Rudolph, the Olympic park bomber.

[Jodi Weber]

Yes, I was straight out of the academy. I got there in November of 1997. So the case had been ongoing for about 15 months. I missed the entire Richard Jewell fiasco, all of that. But as a former journalist, it was very interesting for me to come in and be assigned to that case right out of the gate, because I had a lot of questions because so much had been reported in the media about how did the FBI blow this, and why was his name leaked? And, well, he was a material witness. And how did this all go sideways? I was very curious about all of that. And then we did receive information from former employers of Richard Jewell, who indicated he had some problems in his past, but ultimately, he was a hero. He cleared people away from that. NBC sound tower backed him away. The bomb had been placed under that park bench. And my job coming in as a new agent was to work on the photo team, because back in the mid-90s, we didn't have cell phones. We all had cameras with film in them. And so my job was to collect photographs from people who had been in Centennial Olympic park and basically tried to identify everybody in every photograph, interview them, and then try to find photographs that had either a picture of the bomb under the bench or hopefully the bomber placing the bomb under the bench. And so it was very, very fascinating. And ultimately, we were able to time out the photographs. There was a large jumbo screen in Centennial park that would broadcast the Olympic events to the crowds that were in the park. And because of satellite time, we were able to coordinate with NBC, who was hosting the Olympics, what time every image was on that screen down to the second. So if we could see that screen in the background of a photograph, we would know the precise second that photograph had been taken, which was very crucial to developing our timeline as to when the bomb was brought into the park and when it was ultimately placed under the bench.

[Cheryl McCollum]

I'm sorry, I gotta interrupt you. Honey. That is brilliant. That is a piece I've never heard. I've never heard that before.

[Jodi Weber]

Yes, and it was very, very crucial because we had some pictures that we knew by 12:28am and the fact that I can remember all these times 30 years later is really quite impressive that they're just cemented in my mind because it was so, so fascinating. I remember by 12:28am we can see the bomb under the bench, and then we can back it up. And by 12:19, we ultimately obtained images that showed a shadowy figure seated on the bench with the backpack on their back and the backpack. You could tell the bomb was inside the backpack because it was a very square box. C type army pack that had three pipe bombs in there. And you can see this image, but it was all blurry. What we did was we took that image to NASA, and NASA had the best, at the time, enhancement abilities, able to take pixelization and improve them. What we were able to develop, we could eventually get Shifted shoe detail. We could see that the person had on shorts, a T shirt, had his arms crossed and we could get right up to just below the chin. And then we couldn't get facial detail. But using that image we could then go to our laboratory and have them measure and determine how tall this person was, what size shoe they wore, what type of shoes were they, et cetera. And that all became very, very crucial when er, Robert Rudolph was eventually identified as our suspect. Because we ultimately found those clothes and we found those shoes.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Wow. And you know, one thing I remember his ex sister in law calling in the tips. Do you remember that?

[Jodi Weber]

Yes. And it was very interesting. His family, because he had several siblings and some of them were very anti government to the point where the older brother sought off his hand with a circle saw in protest of the government investigating Eric. But then he also had siblings that cooperated with us. And so it was a very divided family. The mother was very anti government. However, when Eric ultimately was arrested and he confessed, she was like, well, I did not raise you to murder people. And so that was. It was very fascinating from start to finish to see that case play out. But when I got there. Back to your original question, Cheryl. We didn't have a suspect. Richard Jewell had been cleared. We didn't know what direction to go in. And then within two and a half months or so after I arrived in Atlanta, there was a bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. And that was his last bombing. And what was so fascinating about that was I remember we were at work and it was maybe 9 o' clock in the morning and we got word there was a bombing in Birmingham. And so a bunch of us responded and there ended up being this college student in a dormitory nearby at the University of Birmingham. And when the bomb went off in Birmingham, there was this huge cloud of smoke that went up and it was in front of a women's reproductive health clinic. And so everybody was looking out their windows trying to find out what this explosion was and looking at all this smoke. And here, this college student saw this man walking across this green area on campus at a very quick pace. The college student was astute enough to know that's not right. Everybody else is looking over here at this big smoke cloud and this guy's hustling it away. The college student decided, I'm going to follow this person. He got out of his dorm and started following this person on foot. This person that he was following started to dart in between houses in the neighborhood and started working their way up this very steep slope. In the neighborhood. And as he was following him, he could see this person start to take off clothing and take off a wig. And it was so surreal. And this student realized he's climbing this hillside and is going all the way up to the top of the hill where there's a park and there's a famous statue up there in Birmingham. And he's like, I know where he's headed. This guy is. This guy did this. Nobody wears a wig and takes her clothes off and cuts through yards and hustles away from a bombing like this. So the college student ran back, got his car, drove up to where this big statue is on the top of this hill in Birmingham. And he passed Eric Rudolph, who had now gotten in his truck and was headed down the hill. So the college students circled around, tried to catch up. And at the bottom of the hill, Eric Rudolph made the red light and the college student didn't, but he was able to get a license plate. And so that's how Eric Rudolph was first identified. And then the college student, when the red light turned green, he went across the street and went to a McDonald's. And whatever he said, everybody in the McDonald's believed this person and was like, we gotta call 911. This is so credible. And ultimately it broke the case wide open. And the public, in my opinion, is the bread and butter of law enforcement. If you see something, say something. There have been so many cases where such. What you think are such minor details end up being huge. Huge. And it, it, it started with this kid recognizing why is this person moving like this and hustling away from what everybody else is looking at.

[America 250 Announcer]

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[Cheryl McCollum]

since he got out, bad things keep happening.

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Cape Fear, a new series is streaming June 5th on Apple TV. Why would I want to hurt you? Starring Academy Award winner Javier Bardem. Why? And Academy award nominee Amy Adams.

[Cheryl McCollum]

He is coming after my family.

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[Cheryl McCollum]

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[Cheryl McCollum]

And I think one thing people don't understand is all the tips that y' all got because I'll go back to the ex sister in law for a minute. Yes, she called in but immediately, you know, she's an ex so maybe she's got an ax to grind. Once we got the composite of Eric Robert Rudolph put out, oh honey, tips were flying in. But we had a picture of him and y' all, mostly, you've probably seen the picture. He's young, he's Caucasian, he's got dark hair that's kind of over to the side, kind of, you know, I mean he's attractive enough. Like if you saw him you would know that, you know, this person. And the drawing from Marla was unbelievable. And we had this one woman call and she said, I know it was my husband, my ex husband, I know it was. He's 6, 4, bald headed, African American.

[Jodi Weber]

Well, that's it. With tips you get the good, but then you also get all the ones that are not so good. And you got to run those down just as if they may be legitimate.

[Cheryl McCollum]

That's right. You got to run them down. And that's something you and I talked recently about. Nancy Guthrie, I believe that this case gets a break. It's going to be from somebody in the general public. They're going to find something, see something, hear something.

[Jodi Weber]

Absolutely. And you know, I was thinking the other day, you know, they've recently come out and Savannah even mentioned that January 11th is on the radar as potentially another date where Nancy's house was cased by a suspect and was looking at that, and I started thinking, I'm like, you know, at that time in January, people are taking down their holiday decorations. I wonder if somebody came out in December and hung a wreath for her or put up lights or something like that. And that's how they noticed that this was an elderly woman living alone. And then I started thinking, well, was their Christmas tree pickup around January 11th? That was over a weekend. You know, it's things like that people are going to remember that maybe seem like nothing, but then suddenly think, well, hey, there was this crew of day laborers in the neighborhood that day who were picking up, you know, discarded trees and wreaths and things like that. Something like that from the public could break this case open.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Agreed. And, you know, when you're Talking about the 11th, the 24th, the 31st, they're

[Jodi Weber]

all weekends, all weekends. And so that makes me wonder, okay, is this someone who does have a weekday job during the work week and then on the weekends moonlights at night?

[Cheryl McCollum]

Could be. And I have not thought about the Christmas connection, but that's really smart. That's something to truly put out there for people to think back, because I may remember they picked my tree up. I may not be thinking that was the 11th. Maybe I didn't notate that on the calendar. It's just something I signed up for and they came and did it, you know.

[Jodi Weber]

Well, and that's the thing, you know, like, you think about it, well, what if she had ordered a wreath back in December? That's typically when people put up their decorations. Maybe this person, all they did was deliver it. Maybe they didn't even put it up for her. Maybe her family did that. But they were on her property for one occasion, and that may be all you need to get exposure and scope out a place.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Well, let's talk about one other time. We were in the same area and didn't know each other.

[Jodi Weber]

And.

[Cheryl McCollum]

And that's 9 11. And, you know, it's so crazy to me that time. And I'll just tell you briefly, because you don't know this part of my history, but I was sent to the Pentagon. My sister Charlene was a flight attendant with Delta. She was on Delta Flight 15 that had left Frankfurt, Germany, and got diverted to Gander, Newfoundland. So I get word that she's in Gander Jody. I don't even know where that is. And I'm like, gander. And we're driving to Washington and My husband says, honey, that's Canada. They're our friends. And I'm like, well, I've got to call there. And he's like, they are not going to answer the phone. Like, baby, their world has just, you know, flipped upside down. But I called and it rang one time and I hear, hello. It's the friendliest voice I've ever heard in my life. And he said, this is constable Ozzie Fudge. And I thought, well, if there is ever a children's book about a constable, that's it, you know. And I told him who I was and where I worked at the time for the Fulton county sheriff's department and that my sister was somewhere there. And he goes, can you hold on a minute? And I said, of course. And my husband's like, he's fixing to hang up on you. Like his world. He's so busy right now. The pop population of Gander doubled. And they had one constable working at a time, they had three. And each one would work a 12 hour shift. So you would work 12 hours, have 24 off. Can you imagine? So he was working by himself when all this started to go down. So then all of a sudden he comes back on the phone. He said, I just wanted to transfer you to my cell phone. I think I know where she might be. And drove and looked for her. Now, he couldn't find her, but he left his business card and said, please call me. And I said, look, if you can find her, just give her a hug for me. You know, that's kind of how I left it. And I thought maybe he'll call me back, you know, maybe she can somehow get in touch with us. But you remember at that time they started shutting down cell service, you know.

[Jodi Weber]

Right.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Well, she was able to call me back and she went. This constable just came up and gave me a big hug. I know. And I got to meet him. Last year we went to Gander because. Do you know the Broadway play Come from away?

[Jodi Weber]

No, I don't.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Okay, well, it's a play based on what occurred there in Gander. And me and Charlene, the phone call is depicted in it. So they had us to come there and it was a wonderful experience and to meet him and all those tremendous people. But what I got during 911 is not what Charlene got during 9 11. They took care of her, they comforted her, they fed her, they put her up, they took her on tours because they're in Gander, you know, they have this iceberg alley. They've got the Titanic that was off the coast. They've got all these wonderful things. They took them golfing and showing them moose and bear. I mean, they really were tremendous to her. But you and I being in Washington, it was a different time. It was a.

[Jodi Weber]

It sure was. It sure was.

[Cheryl McCollum]

So tell us, like you got the call out, you get to D.C. and what is going on from Yalls point of view?

[Jodi Weber]

Yes. So we got the call that we would need to dispatch to D.C. because of course all the air traffic had been shut down due to the plane crashes and we were within driving distance. So the FBI deployed their evidence Response teams geographically. So those close to Pittsburgh would respond to the Flight 93 crash. Those close to the Pentagon within driving distance would respond to the Pentagon. So we got there and the fire was still going. There was an intense fire for the first two days. And so once the fire was put out and once OSHA went in and at least made sure the structure was sound enough for us to enter, that's when we were able to start processing just the immense amount of debris that was taken out of the Pentagon with bulldozers and basically made two large piles. And we just had to basically, for days and days and days on end, working 12 hour shifts, sift through all the debris. And our assignment was to look for four key things. Number one, human remains, both of victims and the hijackers. Number two, any plane parts, parts of the plane because they would attempt to reconstruct the aircraft. Number three, any evidence that could be related to the hijacking, terrorism, etc, anything that may belong to the hijackers. And then number four, any classified documents. Because with the Pentagon going up in flames like that, you know, they do have classified and very sensitive military information contained in that building. So that would need to be collected as well.

[Cheryl McCollum]

For us driving north, you know, when you come up on the bridge and the Pentagon is down kind of not in a hole, but it's downward to your left. That smoke was unbelievable.

[Jodi Weber]

Well, and you know, I'll tell you, Cheryl, I have never had a great sense of smell to begin with. I think it's the one thing the FBI doesn't test for. So when I got to the Pentagon, I just remember thinking this must be what it's like for people normally who do have a good sense of smell. Because it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Like, it was just so strong and it was like if you could describe what evil smelled like, that was it. It was so horrendous.

[Cheryl McCollum]

And that's a great way to describe that.

[Jodi Weber]

It Just hung in the air.

[Cheryl McCollum]

And you know, something else for me, I was 40, give or take, and some of the folks that were wearing the uniform of the Navy and the army and the Marines, they look so young to me. And I just remember thinking, look at them pulling all this stuff out and, you know, trying to hang the flag and doing this work that, I mean, it was awful. Like, you're talking about not just documents and debris in the aircraft, but people and people they worked with.

[Jodi Weber]

Yes, yes. And, and the stories you would hear about how, you know, almost like when a tornado strikes and you'll have complete devastation in one yard and then the home 50ft away next door isn't touched. There would be things like that in the Pentagon where there'd be someone who was standing on this side of the hallway and they didn't survive. And then there was someone a few feet away that did. And it was just so unbelievable. And the way that plane went through the concentric rings of that building and eventually the nose cone implanted into the third ring. And you can see, you could see, see where it was embedded. And essentially the front cone of the plane kind of bounced off almost ping ponged off pillars, cement pillars in that ring structure and just blasted through the various rings. It was just, it was so surreal to see that. And, you know, very, very gruesome because like you said, it wasn't just documents. When people die in a plane crash, it is very, very, very devastating and very graphic.

[Cheryl McCollum]

And y' all did unbelievable. I mean, y' all found the black box, y' all found jewelry, you found remains, you found all sorts of things that piece that puzzle together for everybody that was willing to listen to it.

[Jodi Weber]

Yes, there was some very crucial evidence found at the Pentagon, also at Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. And ironically, Pittsburgh ended duty station. And so I worked with a lot of the evidence response team members from Pittsburgh who responded to Shanksville, and they found some very, very, very critical evidence related to the hijackers there. But certainly I remember at the Pentagon, they, the military uses these special kind of clips to clip their documents together. Well, they look a lot like box cutters. And so every time we would find one of these clips in the debris piles, like, your heart would stop almost because you're like, is this a box cutter? Is this, you know, something that's going to break open the case? And so, I mean, I just have such vivid memories of that all these years later.

[Cheryl McCollum]

And, you know, and people don't know what that does to you. I mean, it's it's one of those things you want to find it but you don't want to find it.

[Jodi Weber]

Exactly, Exactly. And you know, it was. So we were, we would work these horrible long days, 12 hour shifts. I was, I was 7pm until 7am we'd go back to the hotel in Pentagon City which was like a ghost town. That was surreal. It was like the apocalypse. That's the way it felt. And we take a shower, we get a few hours sleep and then we'd get up and the hotel, the Holiday Inn kept their little diner open just for us. The evidence response team members working and they would cook whatever, whatever we wanted to eat and we would just devour the newspapers reading what is going on with the investigation and what do we know and where were these hijackers and, and how did they practice and how did they get access? And so it was just, it was daily for weeks and weeks just trying to absorb everything and all the information and what was being developed and what else should we be looking for? What were they wearing? Everything. Everything. Every little detail.

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[Cheryl McCollum]

since he got out, bad things keep happening.

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[Cheryl McCollum]

He is coming after my family.

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[Cheryl McCollum]

Google is a trademark of Google LLC. Sequences shortened and simulated.

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[Cheryl McCollum]

My son Huck was a baby and so my husband went with me because I couldn't really leave him. And the National Zoo stayed open the whole time. So Walt and Huck went to the zoo every day while I was working and just had it to themselves.

[Jodi Weber]

Well, that's a nice memory for them.

[Cheryl McCollum]

That's what I'm saying. Some people had a different memory than we did.

[Jodi Weber]

I was going to say, you know, back to your point about Canada, I don't think the Canadians get enough credit for how much they help helped us out. You talk about wonderful neighbors and coming to our aid and really the world's aid, you know, like your sister on that flight. You know, people from all over the world are on flights. So the fact that they let planes land up there, they let planes divert. They took such good care of people.

[Cheryl McCollum]

JODI they have two little motels. They don't have a hotel. They have two little motels. And they tried to put some of the flight crew in. Those people opened their homes. They have a hockey rink there that became the largest refrigerator in the world because people were making food and just putting it there because they didn't have anywhere else to store. How are we going to feed these, you know, people that have now gotten here? So again, you're talking about 200 people on each plane and they had 57 jumbo jets. They had 283 different languages. They had people with medical issues. They had folks that were headed to get married. They had some Make a Wish children that were headed to Disney. They had all kind of people that had all different kind of needs, whether it was medication or food or religious. And they stepped up in a way that I have never heard in my life.

[Jodi Weber]

That almost sounds, you know, you said they made a play out of this. That sounds like a book that needs to be written too because, you know, one of the best books I've ever read, Cheryl, is the Only Plane in the Sky. And that's an oral history of 9 11. And I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about 911 and the events that day. And while there are some graphic parts, there's also just this immense humanity part that comes across in the book. The people, strangers helping strangers, and the generosity of spirit and the kindness that was expressed that day when this tragedy unfolded. It really, you know, especially in these trying times when there's so much conflict and animosity amongst people, it really does, I guess, maybe help you believe that we can be nice to one another and we can help people we don't even know. In times of crisis, there are good. Good can overcome evil and we can look past our differences. And certainly that did happen that day. People just. I mean, we'd never seen anything like it.

[Cheryl McCollum]

That's right. And I tell you, there is a book, and when we hang up, if you will give me your address, I'll send it to you. It's called the Day the World Came to Town.

[Jodi Weber]

Oh.

[Cheryl McCollum]

And it. It talks about every story. I mean, you won't believe it, but I'll send it to you because you will love reading it. It'll just make you proud of all that everybody did.

[Jodi Weber]

Right. And you know, I should say at the Pentagon, too, there were people. I mean, I remember there were people who were part of their church group and they would make these egg salad sandwiches and they would bring them whether we ate them or not. They would make them because they just wanted to do something.

[Cheryl McCollum]

That's right. That's right. And to your point, and I say it as often as I can, love wins. I mean, that's all there is to it.

[Jodi Weber]

Yes, absolutely.

[Cheryl McCollum]

And even what you and I were going through, the reality is you did have the folks with the egg salad sandwiches. You had churches that would stop by. You had other just people stopping by to say, hey, appreciate what you're doing. So we got it, too. It was just in a different way. But I think if you look overall, you know, a million people lined up to give blood. I mean, you don't have to look any further than that. I mean, seven or 11 evil people did something. But of those 11 people, a million people showed up, a million just to give blood. That's not everybody else.

[Jodi Weber]

And you know, the only other time I saw somewhat of a parallel of community spirit like that was after the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. It was very much, you know, so horrific, just like 9 11, that people didn't care about religious differences. They didn't care about your politics. It was just, how can we help? How can. What can we do? Where can we bring food? Where can we donate blood? What can we do? How can we help law enforcement? And you know, it's a shame that we can't be like that all the time that it takes these tragedies.

[Cheryl McCollum]

That's true. Well, listen, I appreciate you. I know how you operate, I know how you investigate, I know how you show up and do job, your. Your job. And again, nothing but just admiration. And I appreciate your service.

[Jodi Weber]

Well, right back at you, Cheryl. You as well. You are such an immense talent and you do so much for victims and especially the unsolved cases, you know, with all your work. And I'm very looking forward to your book coming out in May. And you know, I look forward to having you on Caught in my web in the near future.

[Cheryl McCollum]

I cannot wait. That will be wonderful. And I'll tell you, I know you've written a book and you've, you know, been there, but woo, that's an undertaking for me, honey.

[Jodi Weber]

It was, it was a lot. And you know, I made one of my characters a 911 responder who has had ongoing health issues. And that's based on my own experience. I went through a number of surgeries, I started to lose my hair. And so I thought, you know, if I'm only going to write one book, I'm going to write something that I want people to know about and that's the ongoing health issues of 911 responders. So if anyone has someone in law enforcement and is worried about their exposure at toxic crime scenes, if you live in a fire zone and have been exposed to toxins or a hurricane zone and had buildings fall down, I just think there's a lot we can learn about the health issues that can come either from natural disasters or crime scenes where toxins and exposures occur. And you know, if I can raise awareness through my book, then all that blood, sweat and tears that went into it and all the edits were worth it.

[Cheryl McCollum]

The edits don't even go there.

[Jodi Weber]

You know what I mean?

[Cheryl McCollum]

Yeah. Yes. Let me tell you, I'm Southern so I have a way of speaking that's not always proper, you know, grammar wise. And I'm dyslexic and I don't spell very well. So my poor editor, I mean she was probably just drinking holy waters, all I can tell you. But I appreciate you and y'. All. I'm gonna end Zone 7 the way that I always do with a quote when I run into a dead end on a clue. I go back to the beginning and start all over. Nancy drew. I'm Cheryl McCollum.

[Jodi Weber]

That's a great one.

[Cheryl McCollum]

Isn't that great? I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is Zone 7.

[America 250 Announcer]

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[Cheryl McCollum]

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