Blunt Force Trauma

Summary

Crime Writers On... Podcast Summary

Episode: "Blunt Force Trauma"

Date: June 15, 2026
Panel: Rebecca Lavoie (host), Kevin Flynn, Laura Bricker, Toby Ball

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the Crime Writers On panel reviews the true-crime podcast Blunt Force Trauma from Echo Space, which investigates the suspicious death of Faith Ely in rural Oklahoma. The review explores the podcast's storytelling, production quality, investigative approach, and ethical concerns. The crew offers candid, often humorous analysis about whether the podcast delivers on its true-crime promise or misses the mark.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

Background on the Case and Podcast

• Case Summary:
  In March 2021, Faith Ely was found dead beside a rural Oklahoma highway, with conflicting views from law enforcement—was it a tragic accident or murder? The podcast’s host, Troy Taylor, attempts to untangle the mystery, focusing on investigative confusion and the ongoing struggles of Faith's family to seek answers.

• Podcast Angle:
  The main tension: accident investigators think it’s murder, murder investigators think it’s an accident. The show promises an exploration of this jurisdictional and forensic paradox but, per the panel, falls short.

The Panel’s Initial Impressions

• Confusing Introduction:

  • [08:52] Toby Ball: "This might be the weirdest beginning to a podcast that I’ve ever heard."
  • The panel notes that the podcast opens in Los Angeles—with a seemingly unrelated story about a bloody shirt in a canyon—before abruptly veering into the Oklahoma case, never linking the two.

• Host's Credentials and Role:

  • [07:28] Laura Bricker: "I wanted a little bit more background about who Troy is and what his qualifications are to be out investigating."
  • The panel critiques the lack of clarity about host Troy Taylor’s investigative credentials.

Production & Editorial Decisions

• Unedited Audio Overload:

  • [13:12] Laura Bricker: "...this is actually this mother's podcast. She's essentially done her own investigation... and [they] plopped them in a podcast with some occasional chatter from this guy, Troy."
  • Long, often unedited clips of interviews, phone calls, and raw tape dominate the episodes. The panel finds this retro or even amateurish by contemporary standards.

• Lack of Editorial Guidance:

  • [16:18] Kevin Flynn: "...when we don't have the host or a narrator come in... they demonstrate that they don't know what's important and what isn't."
  • The podcast gives too much unstructured airtime to Faith’s mother, resulting in a lack of coherence, focus, and necessary context.

Investigative Approach & Frustrations

• No Clear Mystery or Focus:

  • [19:03] Toby Ball: "There doesn’t seem to be any kind of through line... It just seems so randomly sort of thrown together..."
  • The show fails to clarify whether it’s pursuing evidence of an accident, homicide, or both, and never appears certain about its own mission.

• Speculation & Bias:

  • [38:14] Kevin Flynn: "No, something’s hinky. That’s not enough to carry a podcast."
  • Heavy reliance on the suspicions and bias of Faith’s mother without sufficient pushback or objective analysis.
  • Investigative dead ends (e.g., Indigenous jurisdiction, anonymous medical examiners) are pursued and then abandoned without resolution.

Notable (and Unintentionally Humorous) Moments

• Toby’s Theory:

  • [20:05] Toby Ball: "I think the mom killed her... and they put her on one side of her body and tried to make up that she got hit by a car so the mom doesn't get into trouble."
  • Sparks disagreement among panelists and jokes about saving their Patreon reveals for paid subscribers.

• Repeated/Confusing Audio:

  • [42:44] Laura Bricker: "Were there a couple episodes where the same thing kept repeating over and over again?... Is my player stuck?"
  • The crew highlights clear editing mistakes and tape reuse without proper framing.

• Lost Editorial Voice:

  • [52:24] Rebecca Lavoie: "I'm pretty sure that Troy Taylor just quit halfway through making it, because we didn't really hear from him at all after a certain point..."

Broader Critiques

• True Crime Podcast Tropes:

  • Perilous, self-inserting journalists ("David Fincher’s Zodiac syndrome"), and demonizing public officials just because they don’t want to talk.
  • The panel is frustrated with the podcast’s tendency to treat mundane obstacles as sinister or nefarious.

• Buried Lede:

  • [43:22] Laura Bricker: "...the autopsy system in Oklahoma is so fucked up because they’re doing so many that they’re not accredited."
  • The real story—the dysfunctional autopsy process—gets overlooked.

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Notable Quotes

• On the podcast’s intro:

  "This might be the weirdest beginning to a podcast that I’ve ever heard."
  — Toby Ball [08:52]

• On lack of editorial presence:

  "You have relinquished control of the podcast. That doesn’t help the listener. You’re not guiding them. You’re not telling them what’s important."
  — Kevin Flynn [16:18]

• On true crime tropes:

  "Somebody watched David Fincher's Zodiac and decided ... the journalist must put themselves in peril in some way."
  — Rebecca Lavoie [52:45]

• On public officials' silence:

  "It does not mean anything that you leave a person messages and they don’t call you back unless it’s part of a larger pattern of corruption ... which is not done in this podcast. I hate that, I hate that, I hate that."
  — Rebecca Lavoie [52:59]

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:48] – Case summary: Death of Faith Ely, initial mystery set-up.
• [07:27] – Panel reacts to Troy Taylor’s unclear credentials.
• [08:52] – The panel dissects the bizarre podcast opening.
• [13:12] – Extensive discussion about raw, unedited audio and the mother’s dominance in the storytelling.
• [18:32] – Panel questions the show’s actual purpose.
• [20:05] – Toby’s bold theory about the crime; panel debate.
• [25:46] – On air confusion and lack of show structure.
• [38:14] – Panel critiques reliance on "hinky" investigator remarks.
• [43:22] – Discussion of the overlooked story: Oklahoma’s faulty autopsy system.
• [46:27] – Thumbs up/down reviews from each host (see below).

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Panel Ratings: Thumbs Up or Down?

• Laura Bricker: Thumbs down. "It lost some of the power it could have had because of [poor editing] ... I felt like it lost some of the power it could have had because of that."
• Toby Ball: Thumbs down. "It’s kind of a hot mess ... There’s not enough guidance as to what the hell people are thinking or what’s happening or why certain things are important or why other things aren’t important."
• Kevin Flynn: Thumbs down. "First of all, I feel like you shouldn't make a podcast if you haven’t listened to a podcast, because it felt that way."
• Rebecca Lavoie: Thumbs down. "I heard opinion shopping. I heard the entire story being framed around the point of view of a grieving mother ... It’s just bad journalism."

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Overall Takeaways

• Blunt Force Trauma is universally panned by the panel for its lack of narrative clarity, editorial control, and overuse of unedited raw tape.
• The story’s potential—spotlighting a tragic death and the impact of a flawed local autopsy system—is lost in a sea of speculation and poorly structured storytelling.
• The show serves as a cautionary tale for true crime podcasters: context matters, objectivity is essential, and careful editing can make or break a story.

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For More

• For lighter moments and personal updates (including local gnome thefts and HOA drama), listen to the full episode or join the Crime Writers On Patreon at patreon.com/partnersincrimemedia.
• Follow the hosts on social (provided at end of podcast) or visit crimewriterson.com for more content.

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This summary is useful for listeners who want a thorough, no-nonsense guide to the panel’s review and all key discussion points.

Transcript

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[Toby Ball]

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[Kevin Flynn]

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[Rebecca LaVoy]

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[Rebecca LaVoy]

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[Kevin Flynn]

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[Rebecca LaVoy]

I'm Rebecca LaVoy and this is Crime Writers. Crime Writers on is the original True Crime Review podcast that digs into true crime pop culture, other podcasts and on this episode, after a woman's body was found alongside a rural Oklahoma highway, one law enforcement agency said it looked like an accident. Another agency said it looked like a murder. We'll discuss the podcast Blunt Force Trauma. Joining me to get that done and more is True Crime author, TV journalist and host of these Are Stories podcast. My husband and the love of my life, Kevin Flynn. Hello, Kevin.

[Kevin Flynn]

Hello, Rebecca.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

You look like a referee today. Kevin.

[Kevin Flynn]

Do I have striped shirt on?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yeah. Or like pajamas?

[Kevin Flynn]

They look comfy.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Pajamas. Peter Pan pajamas.

[Kevin Flynn]

Okay. All right.

[Toby Ball]

I feel like I ought to start booing you.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yes. Gosh, yes.

[Kevin Flynn]

My goodness gracious.

[Toby Ball]

Quicker Whistle Raphael. Gotta protect Brunson.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yes, 100%. Also with us, private investigator, certified pet detective, resident cat lady, and author of the Final Curtain. It's Laura Bricker. Hi, Laura.

[Laura Bricker]

Hey, Rebecca. And that Bengal cat is still in my neighborhood. Speaking of pet detectives. So apparently didn't get hit by a car. My. One of my little old neighbors came knocking on the door yesterday and said, laura, I think it's outside. Can you come trap it? I'm like, it usually takes more than that, but thanks. So I'm.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I'm fascinated by that Bengal cat.

[Laura Bricker]

Yeah, it's still here. So the hunt continues.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Oh, my God. And finally, our captain of all things cynical, author of the City trilogy of novels, host of RIP Current. More like ancient Falians, Strange arrivals, and our Patreon Deep Dive Book club podcast, It's Toby Ball. Hola, Toby.

[Toby Ball]

Hey, Rebecca.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

So, Kevin, this is Monday's program. What's coming up on Thursday's show.

[Kevin Flynn]

So coming up on Thursday, we're gonna talk about the Netflix documentary the Murder of Rachel Nickell.

[Laura Bricker]

Mm.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

All right, so I have a plan for you, Kevin, on this podcast.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yes.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I'm gonna grab you by the head and shove it toward the floor, and then no one is gonna call a foul on me.

[Kevin Flynn]

That's the plan again, all these basketball references that, you know, I'm sorry that your Knicks lost the Finals.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I think it's bullshit when people complain about officiating when their team loses. I hate when they do that. They do it with the Chiefs as an umpire.

[Kevin Flynn]

I agree, Yes, I hate it.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

But that was fucking bad. I thought it was bad. Toby, did you think it was bad?

[Toby Ball]

That particular foul is a little rough. It's a little hard to see how they missed it, but I, too. It's just like complaining about the refereeing never seems. Never seems great. It's like you should be able to play well enough where a couple bad calls go against you and you can still win.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

It's like claiming an election was rigged because your person lost. That's kind of how it feels. Yeah.

[Toby Ball]

Yeah. The Knicks are going to win the series anyway, so I think so too.

[Kevin Flynn]

Oh, but by now they already have lost it.

[Toby Ball]

I'm not to our side.

[Kevin Flynn]

No, I'm just saying. I'm assuming. I mean, you can edit this out, but I just want to, like, assume that by Monday the series is over and they were defeated.

[Toby Ball]

That would be wild because there's only a couple games.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yeah, it's only two games before Monday.

[Kevin Flynn]

Oh, well, then just cut it all out.

[Toby Ball]

They can only win. Well, why don't you just. Why don't you make, like, three or four predictions and. Rebecca. That's right.

[Laura Bricker]

Yeah.

[Kevin Flynn]

Here we go. Try this. So congratulations on the Knicks winning despite all that. Or see I told you guys that the spurs were going to win, and so there's that.

[Toby Ball]

I'm so fucking surprised.

[Kevin Flynn]

And also. Yeah, well, you know, the series just keeps on going and I'm just riveted by it.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yeah. Yeah. How about those fires outside Madison Square Garden, Am I right?

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah. Are we just gonna start picking shit that might have happened and we can just edit into the podcast?

[Toby Ball]

Trump came back for game four. He had such a good time at Game three.

[Kevin Flynn]

He's like, I slept through some of it and I need to see the rest.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

All right, should we talk about it?

[Toby Ball]

I slept through some of it. I was up from 2:30 to 5 in the morning and was a complete fucking wreck the next day.

[Kevin Flynn]

You stayed up live. Thought you were gonna watch during breakfast.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

No, he's watching him live.

[Toby Ball]

I'm gonna have to watch the one tonight during breakfast because I've got too much stuff to do that I can't be totally fogged over.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

That's right.

[Kevin Flynn]

Okay.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I have a hard out for my. Something's off stream tonight because of that game. All right, Kevin, should we talk about the podcast that we're here to discuss?

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah, let's do that.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Looking forward to it. Leading off.

[Kevin Flynn]

Give me the blanket.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

What's going on?

[Kevin Flynn]

There's a lady out in front on the highway been hit almost in front of my house. Yeah. You have the access? She's just beside the highway.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

In March 2021, after Faith Ely left a cookout, her body was found on the side of a rural Oklahoma highway. Officials from one law enforcement agency said it looked like a hit and run accident. However, members of the highway patrol weren't so sure, and he says, my name is Lieutenant Dansby and I'm with ohp. I'm sorry to hear about your sister. Were investigating it, but at this time, I would advise you not to talk to the other party involved, as this whole. This. This ordeal is very hinky. Her boyfriend said Faith stormed off after a drunken altercation and that a white truck towing a black trailer had been traveling in that direction before she was found. Five years later, her family still wants answers as to who was responsible for Faith's death and whether it was an intentional act.

[Kevin Flynn]

But I want to talk to somebody who knows what happened and is willing to tell me what happened. So am I talking to my daughter's killer or am I talking to my daughter's witness?

[Toby Ball]

Which one are you?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

The podcast Blunt Force Trauma from Echo Space looks into the death of Faith Ely, asking whether her death was a pedestrian accident or Premeditated murder host Troy Taylor sifts through the evidence with experts and family members to learn the circumstances of the incident and and asks why Murder investigators think it was an accident and accident investigators think it might be murder. Spoiler alert. We're gonna be talking about plot points from blunt force trauma. So if you wanna remain spoiler free, go to the estimated timecode in our show notes for our thumbs up or thumbs down reviews. All right, let's go back to the beginning and start at the beginning, at

[Kevin Flynn]

the very beginning of the podcast.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yeah, Lara, who's Troy Taylor?

[Laura Bricker]

I'm not totally clear on that. So we hear it, and I know Toby will talk about the setup and he's like, oh, it's me, it's Troy. Like, and he says something about investigating, but I'm not really sure. Is he a journalist? Is he investigator? Is he a retired police person? I googled him. I couldn't really find a lot. I'm like, I'm not really sure. He had another podcast he had been involved in. Later we hear him call this lady who's like, oh, yeah, she worked with me on this other case too. But I'm still, I'm not totally clear who she is. I guess I, I wanted a little bit more background about who Troy is and what his qualifications are to be out investigating. And then as the podcast went on and I listened to a lot of the strikeouts, trying to get information out of authorities and police and investigators.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Like, okay, maybe his cred isn't there.

[Laura Bricker]

I'm like, what's happening here? What's happening?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

So, Jeff, let's talk about the podcast open. We hear we're in a really scary place, but we don't hear said scary place.

[Kevin Flynn]

We've got no weapons, no backup, just cell phones, water bottles, and a whole lot of bug spray. In hindsight, something that could protect us from things a little bigger than mosquitoes might have been a good idea, but hindsight's not going to help us much. Now.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

What did you think about how the podcast began?

[Toby Ball]

I don't know. We've been doing this for like 12 and a half years. This might be the weirdest beginning to a podcast that I've ever heard that

[Rebecca LaVoy]

is saying something because we did the donut shop murders, my friend.

[Toby Ball]

Yeah, well, I guess maybe the donut shop has been sort of wiped from my brain. But so this thing starts off and Troy, so he's basically talking about how he's got to go out. He's in LA or the outside of la, and somebody found Like a bloody shirt or something that had to do with a murder that happened two years ago. And this guy's going to take him out to show him where they found this shirt, like, which is in some canyon somewhere. And he starts. He's like, well, nobody was ever caught. So, you know, we're headed out there and. And the killer, you know, he's still loose. So I have to say, you know, we're. We didn't have any guns, we didn't have any backup. And, like, backup for, like, a podcaster. We're like, what is that? You have, like, two other podcasters who, like, follow you from a distance, you know, and it's like you're going to show up and this guy, like, murdered some woman two years ago and just, like, put her shirt somewhere and decide to hang out there and wait for somebody to find it so you could attack that person. Like, I just don't understand what the hell's going on. So then he. He's like, he's out there and he's like, oh, you know, I've only got one bar. That's not even enough coverage to, like, make a call out if something goes down. And then, like, literally, like 30 seconds of podcast time later, he's like. And then I got a phone call and there was an Oklahoma number. And I was thinking, I don't know anybody in Oklahoma. And I was thinking, there's a lot of states where I don't know people, but I have friends who have phone numbers associated with those states because they went to college there or they grew up there or whatever. And so they just have. I mean, it's not like landlines anymore. The whole. I was like, what the fuck is. This is crazy. What is going on? And then, like, a whole bunch of stuff happens about the stuff in Oklahoma and everything. And about 10 minutes later, I was like, I am beginning to think that that first little sequence has nothing to do with anything else in this entire show. It was just setting this up. Like, what a dangerous job he has or something is like walking around looking for where a shirt was found. I don't know the whole thing. And to be fair, I think that was in a show that I quite honestly found confounding quite a bit. It gets better from that moment, but to start that way is so, so strange. I think I'll never forget it.

[Kevin Flynn]

Toby, you said it took you 10 minutes to figure out. That had nothing to do with the. It took me several episodes. I was still like, why? I was like, why did he need A gun, because the hit and run driver might come back. I just. I didn't quite get the connection at all. I don't know, maybe like in a, you know, in a buddy cop movie. You know, there's like, in Beverly Hills Cop 4, you know, Eddie Murphy's at the hockey game, and it's just like, you get to see all of a sudden him, like, you know, riding the back of a skateboard while, like, guns are going off and just get a phone call. And that's. This is where the story actually begins. I don't know.

[Laura Bricker]

Yeah.

[Kevin Flynn]

Were we supposed to.

[Laura Bricker]

Were we supposed to think. Was it. Was it her mother? Were we supposed to think it was her mother?

[Kevin Flynn]

Okay, I'm like, why do you need a gun?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I call bullshit on him picking up a phone call from a strange number. Nobody does that shit. Okay. Second, I remember listening to the first season of up and Vanished, which we tried very hard to like, and we actually liked some of the things about it when it first came out. But we all made fun of the beginning where Payne Lindsay talks about finding the case on Wikipedia. And I'm like, this is worse than that. This is 100% worse than that to open a story. And, Toby, I do take umbrage with the thing you said about the podcast getting better from there, but that's just my opinion.

[Kevin Flynn]

It couldn't get worse.

[Toby Ball]

The bar is quite low.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

So, Laura, let's talk about the production of this podcast. It has long pieces of unedited tape. It has a persistent humming, ominous music noise underneath the whole thing. And it has just some other production choices that from the beginning to the very end, which were basically unedited or sounds unedited pieces of long tape of a mother. Reid techniquing another person. I couldn't figure out whether this podcast was poorly produced, very poorly produced, or well produced and made to sound like poorly produced. What do you think?

[Laura Bricker]

Well, I was thinking about this because I was like, this podcast, I started off being like, okay, the production quality is really bad. The audio recordings are really bad. The writing, like, there's this. This needed an editor. And then I'm listening to it and I'm like, you know what? This is actually this mother's podcast. And essentially my impression is that when we hear in the beginning that the mother had this drive with all this information and all of her recordings that she's done, she's essentially done her own investigation. This case has really only been covered in the local media, and it did get on Dateline, but the local media has really covered this case. I feel like they took all of these recordings that the mother did and plopped them in a podcast with some occasional chatter from this guy, Troy. So I think I was like, okay, this is like a retro true crime podcast. Because this is like a true crime podcast back like 12 to 15 years ago when somebody started making a podcast and anybody thought they could go make a true crime podcast. It's what is old is new again.

[Toby Ball]

Think this is like the Blair Witch Project of podcasts.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Laura Bricker]

Because I was like, at the end, I'm like, does this need to be graded on a scale? Because this is essentially this mother who recorded all this stuff, and she finally found an outlet because nobody will freaking listen to her.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

And.

[Laura Bricker]

And I don't know if they should listen to her. But, like, the fact that, like, she now has an outlet through this podcast to put all this information out of all of her little secret recordings that she's done over the years, and all the information where she's calling people on the phone trying to get information. I don't know.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah, I want to pick up on your production point, Lara, because you're right that, that they're using extremely long, unedited clips of tape.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Casey had caught the biggest bass of his entire lifetime.

[Laura Bricker]

It was amazing.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I was a good £9. He was just on top of the world with that fish. He happened to be on the phone with his mother at the time that he caught this nine and a half pound bass. And I'm on the other side of the pond, and he's freaking out, yelling at me, and he's telling his mom, he's got to go, he's got to go. He's gotta. He's gotta get two hands on this fishing reel.

[Kevin Flynn]

Like, how long did it take from hearing that the sister was fishing to get to the part where she was on the side of the highway and figured out it was. Her sister was dead, and that was just all one long piece of audio. And while, you know, it's kind of. It's. It's kind of like the. The podcast of equiv equivalent of going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, get.

[Laura Bricker]

Get to the point.

[Kevin Flynn]

Well, just get to the point. And more importantly, I think what it ends up showing is that as far as the editorial decisions here, when we don't have the host or a narrator come in and then move it along for us or just provide context for certain things so that we can get going, they demonstrate that they don't know what's important and what isn't.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Correct. Sorry. Is that emphatic? Sorry.

[Kevin Flynn]

Right. You know, and it's like some of it's interesting, you know, I mean, like when we hear from the sister and she's talking all about sort of, you know, the family loss and all of that, but it primarily just sort of gives all the airtime to one person and you've relinquished control of the podcast. That doesn't help the listener. You're not guiding them. You're not telling them what's important. You're not leading an investigation. Even if everything this person is saying is gold and it isn't. The biggest example are the final two episodes. And we're just gonna have to have a separate discussion about that.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

We will.

[Kevin Flynn]

And this is not unique to this podcast. We have said this time and again when we had very long pieces of unedited audio that just seemed like filler. It's like, here's five minutes of audio now that gets us 20% to the end of our episode.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Right, Right. So, Toby, the conceit of this podcast is this young woman, I mean, we're told was either murdered at a house or died from a hit and run, which could have been murder on the road. First of all, I just want to say, for the record, nobody ever asked the question if the guy they think murdered her could have been the one who hit her with his truck. They never asked that question, which to me is like an incredibly obvious one. Like, maybe he drove after her when she walked away and he hit her. Like, they never even, like, ponder that for a second. This is framed as one of the biggest mysteries in the history of the world. And granted, it is always very sad when somebody has died, but do you think that the people who created this podcast really envisioned this as a true mystery that needed to be solved or something else?

[Toby Ball]

I'm actually at kind of a loss as to what they think was going on. Because. Because my sense is when it's over, like, I feel like I know it happened.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I don't.

[Toby Ball]

It's not because they tell you, it's just because it comes up enough that it's like, oh, well, I guess that kind of makes sense. Like, again, I say, again, I didn't say it in the first place. So for the first time. Yeah, I think part of the issue with this, and I think you were saying it's like they don't know what the important parts are.

[Laura Bricker]

Well, it feels like, honestly, Toby, for me, the first three episodes I was like, this really just sounds like an accident and they can't come to grips with the fact that she died. And I don't mean to sound that insensitively, but did you. Did anybody else? It wasn't until later when you start to hear some discrepancies and issues about the medical examiner and the autopsies, and you start hearing. You start saying, oh, maybe there is something.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

They're doing some opinion shopping in this episode.

[Laura Bricker]

In the beginning, it felt like I was like, what are we supposed to be latching onto here? Like, I. She got hit.

[Toby Ball]

But I don't think they know. I mean, that's the whole thing is like, if you said, like, all right, so what was the reason for making this podcast? Like what? Like, you had done X amount of research. I don't know how much stuff came up while you were recording, like, during that period. But why were you making this? What were you trying to show? What were you trying to prove? Like, what was the point? And that's the whole thing is that there doesn't seem to be any kind of through line of. Of anything they're trying to prove or show or explain or anything. It just seems so kind of randomly sort of thrown together again. It's sort of like a found footage type podcast where it's just like, here we have all this kind of random stuff. See what you can make of it.

[Kevin Flynn]

I don't mean to be obtuse, Toby, but you said that you think you figured out. They said what? What do you think exactly?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

What do you think happened?

[Kevin Flynn]

Because I don't. I have not. I'm not being silly. I'm like, what do you think?

[Toby Ball]

I think the mom killed her.

[Laura Bricker]

Yeah, I think the mom.

[Toby Ball]

The mom had a fight, like, beat her up so badly that she died, and they put her on one side of her body and tried to make up that she got hit by a car so the mom doesn't get into trouble. Yeah, I think that's.

[Laura Bricker]

That's what I think happened too.

[Toby Ball]

That. That I got a pretty strong sense and like, even at the end. And we'll talk about this more later, but Ryan, the son is just like. It was the fight. It was the, like when he finally, like, gets broken down or whatever. Like, that's just the only thing is, like, what happened? Well, it was the fight. It was the fight. And I think they just. They dragged her out on the road, made up some story about her getting run over, and because they're not smart enough to understand how all that stuff works.

[Laura Bricker]

Right?

[Toby Ball]

Like, kind of indicted themselves. But, yeah, that seemed to me to be pretty Clearly. What happened?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Oh, I disagree, but it wasn't clear.

[Toby Ball]

Really. What do you think happened?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I mean, I'll tell you on Patreon. Oh, okay.

[Kevin Flynn]

I'll tell you exactly what I think happened if you join [e-mail] partners in crime.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Otherwise he will not.

[Kevin Flynn]

Otherwise I will not. I swear to God, I will not. But instead, you can listen to great things like the crime writers on after show. On this after show, Toby is going to tell us about his paddle tournament that he took part in in Valencia. We had a record at a different time last week, and we had a hard out because Toby had to leave for his paddle tournament. And so we're gonna see if this was worthy of his time and how he did. And I think Laura has something to add to that as well. Other incredible exclusive content includes Toby Ball's Deep Dive Book Club podcast. Toby and his guests talk about the true crime book the Other side of Prospect. There's also married with podcast. Our life goal. Are we life coaches while we give advice, Rebecca?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yes. Oh, yeah, we're like MLM life coaches.

[Kevin Flynn]

We absolutely are. We talk about all sorts of issues that people ask questions about, including one listener who asks about our opinion on sexless marriages. Oh, not great, Bob.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I think they're fine. If that's what you want.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah, if that's what you want.

[Toby Ball]

It's like your book on that. That's great.

[Kevin Flynn]

Oh. Oh, burn. Okay.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Just kidding, baby.

[Kevin Flynn]

Something's off. That's not our marriage. It's actually a podcast that Rebecca does with Mel Barrett. And I guess Rebecca in the world of Karen Reed. Looks like everybody's dodging depositions.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Oh, yeah, they are. Deposition dodging is the name of the game.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah. And like some incredibly racist texts get out there, creating a new art form in profanity and obscenity. We also have at the Bricker scale level, another exclusive podcast, it's Leave it to Bricker, in which Laura Bricker solves mysteries, or at least mysteries to her in her quaint AF town of Exeter, N.H. and Laura, is there still chaos going on at the condo association?

[Laura Bricker]

It's getting. It's getting worse. This week had intel delivered to me about possible embezzlement.

[Kevin Flynn]

Oh, my God. This sounds like a two parter. You have to get. You have to drop this episode.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

This is incredible.

[Kevin Flynn]

People will pay $6 a month to find out how that mystery ends.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I love this for you.

[Laura Bricker]

It's insane. It's insane.

[Kevin Flynn]

And if you join us at the Deep diver level, you also get to be Official sponsors of Toby Wall's Deep Dive Book Club podcast. Toby is recording the next podcast on June 29th. You can watch. Join in the chat, Toby. The book is called Murderland. Who are your guests?

[Toby Ball]

That's a good question, Kevin. My. My guests are Samantha Axtell Przblowitz, who is a scholar who studies true crime. Sarah Kalin, investigator and podcaster. And finally, there's a Pulitzer in the house. It's Maggie Freeling.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Oh, yeah, Pulitzer.

[Kevin Flynn]

Get all that exclusive [e-mail] partners in crime media. Hey, also stop by crimewriterzon.com our website there. It's very easy to sign up for our newsletter. You get all sorts of great content. You get summaries of our reviews. You get the crime of the week, the pet of the week, the post of the week. You get to find out all sorts of new merch and kind of what's going on in our lives. Crime writers on bts. That stands for behind the scenes.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Thank you.

[Kevin Flynn]

If you are not one of the Youngs, and you're wondering what that stands

[Rebecca LaVoy]

for, BTS isn't also the name of, like, a K pop band bts.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah, it is. I don't know. I told you, I'm old.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

What I mean is, I think it's the Youngs that does need to be told. BTS means behind the scenes.

[Kevin Flynn]

In the scene. Oh, okay. All right. I guess I'm part of the with it generation that understands all sorts of acronyms. So there you go.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

All right. Kevin does Thus end our business section.

[Kevin Flynn]

Thus ends the business section.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I just want to say one thing before we end the business section.

[Kevin Flynn]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

You mentioned Maggie.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

You know, there's actually three Pulitzer Prize winners in the crime extended universe.

[Kevin Flynn]

Well, let's see. There's also Marcia Chatlin and who else?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Amber Hunt.

[Kevin Flynn]

Amber Hunt, that's right. How do we forget Amber Hunt? Yeah.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

We have three Pulitzer Prize winners in our extended universe.

[Kevin Flynn]

Or is it Pulitzer?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I say Pulitzer.

[Kevin Flynn]

I think I want the three of them to rock, paper, scissors it.

[Laura Bricker]

Yeah.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Oh, yeah.

[Kevin Flynn]

Hey, everyone, it's Stavros Halakis, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, Stavi's World. Each week we're joined by great guests like Josh Safdie, Eric Andre, Caleb Herron, and more. It's sort of an interview show, but really we're just messing around, making each other laugh. And hopefully making you laugh while you're washing the dishes or grocery shopping or on a long drive. Plus, I take listener calls where we have honest conversations. About dating, life and everything in between. Imagine if your therapist was a vulgar degenerate whose office was in a Greek diner. No scripts, no polish, and absolutely no holding back. Listen to Stavi's World wherever you get your podcasts.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

So, Kevin, who's the sponsor of this fine podcast?

[Kevin Flynn]

Oh, we're sponsored by Quint.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Shut up.

[Kevin Flynn]

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[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yeah.

[Kevin Flynn]

Rebecca, what? Have you recently purchased Quints?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Well, you know, I love a linen shirt.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yes.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

And I have a couple of Quint's linen shirts. The European linen I love. The dark blue with the white stripes is my favorite one. I have a white one. I've got a pink one. I've got a. A solid blue one. They are the most versatile, cute shirts. I wear it over a bathing suit. I wear it out to dinner. We were on vacation, remember? I wore a linen shirt every day.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yes. Yes. And in fact, for that vacation, you purchased me two pairs of swimming trunks.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yes.

[Kevin Flynn]

Bathing suit. Whatever. Whatever you call it.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yes.

[Kevin Flynn]

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[Rebecca LaVoy]

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[Kevin Flynn]

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[Rebecca LaVoy]

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[Rebecca LaVoy]

so Debbie, a lot of left turns in this podcast, like investigating things like is the mother part of an Indian tribe? Why? Why are we investigating that? What do they find out? And then where does that resolve do you just feel like this woman that he's working with is like, aha, a thing that doesn't mean anything. What do you think?

[Toby Ball]

Well, they don't really explain very, very clearly what the whole Indian tribe thing has to do with anything. My. I thought it was probably they thought they could get the feds to come in and do an investigation if it was, if, if it was under Indian jurisdiction. So I think that's what it was. But they do this thing and they find out that Ryan's mom, whose name is Veronica, I think is her great grandfather, was in a member of some Indian nation.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

So that is, they said, right?

[Toby Ball]

Well, they asked if it was Cherokee and I don't think they answered.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

You're right.

[Toby Ball]

And so I guess she's like, you know, 1/8th is what they said. I mean, it seems like a weird thing to say about somebody, but anyway, doesn't seem like they're clear about which one it is, which nation she's part of. And so does it even apply in this case? And regardless, they don't follow up with it at all. As soon as they get to that little part, they're like, oh, I don't know. And then do you ever hear about it again? It just goes away. So there's a few things that are like that where something will come up and they'll spend a little bit of time on it and then suddenly it'll just go away. Including the entirety of episode eight. Basically.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Tell the truth, Toby. There's two episodes.

[Laura Bricker]

We just want to know, Toby, we're not going to be mad.

[Toby Ball]

The last two episodes are just entirely just this one conversation at a diner. The third to last episode, episode eight is a large part of it is the tape of somebody who I think had called in somewhere and has these wild allegations about Ryan and his friend Jake, I think, and how Jake's thing is like, beating up women. And they had. They murdered all these. Kidnapped and beaten. Murdered all these women. And they have three houses, and there's like, 21 bodies. And people keep disappearing. And it was a list of women

[Kevin Flynn]

that they were supposed to take out. Faith was on the list. I was on the list. There's all kinds of women on the list. There was, like, 10 girls on it that they had a list of people that they were going to kill. I don't know why. I still have never figured out why

[Toby Ball]

she's scared and all this stuff. And it's like, what are we. What is going on here? Like, what are we supposed to make of this? And it sounds like it's a guy, but I think it's just because they're trying to disguise the voice because she refers to herself as she a few times. It's wild, but I think it's almost certainly not true. And maybe just like the rantings of a lunatic, but they just kind of put it out there and then it ends, and they don't follow up on any of it. But the accusation is basically like, these two guys are like serial killers. I mean, when it was over, I was like, that was intense. Like, what does it mean? And then, you know, the next episode, they've completely forgotten about it, and they've moved on to two. Two nonstop episodes of one conversation taking place in a diner.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Lar. One of the things that makes me a little nuts is when we hear on podcasts and in documentaries that it's definitely nefarious because the host tried to get information from an official and didn't get the answer that they wanted or didn't get an answer that it's definitely nefarious.

[Laura Bricker]

Right.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

What are your thoughts on that? Because there is some jurisdictional questioning here about which agency has what. But it seems like every response that's received is met with a tremendous amount of suspicion.

[Laura Bricker]

Right.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Even when they don't get a response.

[Laura Bricker]

Yeah. Well, I think what was hard about this is, you know, when you have people that are. That are grieving that. That want answers and they're not getting answers, you know, it's. It's hard to sometimes see the forest through the trees. And like you, we all know, having worked as in journalism and in other areas, working in investigations, if there's an active investigation, they can't release any information. Now, it probably would have been more helpful if somebody had explained that to the family in a more kind and thoughtful way. I don't know if they would have been able to hear that information. But, you know, there was a jurisdictional issue here. This is a tiny town. We hear it's like this little town that once was like the oil town and then it left. It's kind of like the town in Cars, the movie. And now it's like out here in the middle of nowhere with 3,000 people and little police that can't, like, you know, small. The police probably covering big territories, can't figure out who has jurisdiction. And then nobody wants to comment. And so we hear ongoing tape. I mean, I think there was one episode where it was just like calling, hey, it's me again. Hey, it's me again. Hey, it's me again. That was hard because it just felt like we were supposed to be following along with that. I think it slowed down. I mean, it was unnecessary to play all of that for us. But it's frustrating to me because I feel like, yeah, there is something that we hear later on the injuries. There is some stuff that could be questioned about the injuries. And we finally do hear from the prosecutor who says, hey, yeah, we just. We don't have enough to move forward. So then the we don't have enough to move forward is interpreted as, well, they didn't do the job in the investigation because obviously there should be enough to move forward. Well, maybe there wasn't anything there. Maybe, you know, they don't have a witness unless somebody, you know, comes forward and confesses or somebody has told somebody what happened. It's like one of these cases that I felt like there's, like, a little town where somebody knows what happened, but nobody's gonna say anything now, like, 20 years down the road, somebody's probably gonna say what happened. Somebody's finally. And even when the kid, the son, the boyfriend tries to say what happened, she didn't want to hear him, and she wasn't able to hear him.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Well, she was re techniquing him, telling him that Jesus would hate him if he didn't tell the truth. So that's what she was doing.

[Kevin Flynn]

You want to get on the path

[Laura Bricker]

to redemption and forgiveness?

[Kevin Flynn]

Start getting on the path to truthfulness and facing what has happened. That's the first major step. And I'm telling you, once you've made

[Toby Ball]

that step, the rest of the steps fall in place.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Make no mistake about it, her interrogation technique was the Reid technique. He couldn't, you know, making him feel like he had to sit there, couldn't leave, and that he would literally go to hell forever and eternity, where it is very hot. Unless you tell me the truth right now, but for her, the truth has to be the truth that she wants to hear, so.

[Laura Bricker]

Exactly. So it's like we're left to believe. We have to rely upon speculation. And then the anonymous medical examiner here.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Right.

[Laura Bricker]

Which is hard because I think. Yeah, I think that there's something strange with this, but the way that this was laid out and the way it was presented, it's hard to see what's strange and what doesn't add up because there was so much that was not edited in a way to allow that information to come forward as like, here you go. Here's the information you should be paying attention to in this. This situation.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I mean, I was very confused, frankly. Then we had the anonymous medical examiner, but everything that that person was reading that that person said sounded reasonable to me. Right, Right. I was actually at the end of the podcast, I was surprised they included it, because I'm like, at the end, the mother's like, that's definitely not what happened. And I'm like, I don't think definitely is a fair thing to say here, given, you know, that at least one person, allegedly, that is qualified, seems to think it's completely reasonable that she was hit with a truck with a brush guard on it or something. I don't know. But, Kevin, another side road is. We're burned up. This whole other side road in this episode called what? Why does this Matter?

[Kevin Flynn]

Why does this Matter?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

And I ended up episode thinking, why did this Matter?

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah, I don't know if that's the worst title, the absolute best title for that episode, because it's about Faith's sexual assault about two months before her death. And, you know, Mom's efforts to get that looked at. And, you know, it's like, what's interesting about, you know, like, the evidence was found and lost and then found again and then lost again. And in the end, you find out, you know, the rapist that she's been going after already in prison. So there's some sense of justice there. But they don't really answer why it matters to us. I just don't understand why there wasn't a whole lot of investigation in this podcast anyway into the theory that this was vehicular homicide. And that means that somebody did kill her. Right? It isn't.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

If it was that.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yes, if it was that, then there is a killer, and it's somebody. Either it's someone who didn't know that they struck a pedestrian, or it's someone who did and just kept on going, and that's a crime too.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yeah, it was either this happened or she was beaten to death. And it was not. And it was not really considered that the crime could have been that someone hit her on purpose, that hit her on purpose.

[Kevin Flynn]

Or I mean, even if you're like, you know, you buy these different agencies theories that, no, this was a hit and run accident. Okay, Find out who hit her and ran, because that's not a boogeyman. That's a real case. Right. And so whoever did that, you know, and you said, well, maybe, you know, it could have been Veronica or Ryan. Okay, sure. You know, just because you're like, that was weird that I heard a, you know, speed bump thing, but she didn't get run over. And so, I mean, again, there's all these sort of, like, little inconsistencies here that, you know, sort of like, read as, oh, well, I don't know, maybe that doesn't sound right. So can't possibly be. And, you know, a lot of this hinges on the fact that one investigator said to somebody, this looks hinky.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yes. Garbage in, garbage out. Right. So they're relying on that as a fact of some kind.

[Kevin Flynn]

I think it's really interesting. I mean, I mean, the. To me, like, what makes this interesting is like, what we had in the tease going in. You have the agency that looks into murders saying this is a car accident, and you have the people who look into car accidents saying, this is a murder. Now, both of those people are not qualified to come to either of those conclusions that they did.

[Laura Bricker]

One of the things.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

The reason I said garbage in, garbage out, when you were talking, Kevin, is because the podcast so heavily relies on things like that and investigators saying the word hinky. This weird sequence of 911 calls into which so much is interpreted, despite the fact that we don't get, like, any verification that. How do they have the timestamps on these phone calls? Were they manually entered? Were they. You know, it's just. It's all speculative. And the. The girl outside, she didn't hear a speed bump thing, but she did hear him screaming. So that's. It's like, what are you talking about? Like, it's like she wouldn't have walked down the road barefoot. I don't know. We heard somebody. We had somebody here who was using drugs, right. Regularly, was in a domestic violence situation, which everybody kind of looks made over what she was. And it's like, is it not impossible that she would leave the house after getting into a physical fight with one of the members of this family in her bare feet just to get away.

[Kevin Flynn]

Of course, that would take time to go find her shoes.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Of course that's possible. Like, everything that sort of fits this alternative narrative taken so seriously and everything that, you know, could be. I mean, it sounds like the scene was messed up to begin with. Like, so many things. Like, we're led to believe as podcast listeners that Doberman means dog. For the first fucking six episodes of the podcast until we learn her nickname was Doberman. It's like, because I was like, what's the deal with the dog? Was a dog also hit by somebody who didn't stop? Like, there's just so many weird things. It's like, if it fits, we'll, We'll. We'll assert it. And this is why I think the mother is so sure. Because not only does she have her bias, the journalists don't do anything to dispel it. And at the end of the podcast, we're just informed by her bias, which of course she has. She has every right to be biased. Right. Like, nobody wants to think that there's no answer that will ever be found for a story like this. I don't know.

[Toby Ball]

I mean, maybe I was mishearing or wasn't paying enough attention or whatever, but I thought in that last episode or two, like Ryan says, like, at least two or three times that it was the fight. Like, how did she die? He says it's the fight and then, you know, it gets kind of blown off and they, they keep moving on and threatening him with hell and damnation. I mean, he says it about his mom, you know what, when, when asked point blank. And it, and it sort of fits.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

His mom said it was him.

[Toby Ball]

I know, but that. I, I don't think that's. I. That doesn't seem to fit with the whole. The theory, the theory of his mom killing her and then them having to cover it up makes more sense than him doing a 25 mile an hour vehicular homicide on a highway. I think, you know, you have murder investigators saying it's an accident. You have accident investigators saying it's a murder. I trust accident investigators to be able to tell me whether something's an accident more than I do murder investigators. Being able to take a look at a corpse on a highway and say whether it was hit or whether it wasn't like that. That's kind of what they do. That's their job.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

You know who would be driving 25 miles an hour on that highway? Somebody who's looking for the girlfriend that just ran away from the house after a fight.

[Toby Ball]

Yeah, but then once he sees her, then he accelerates and, like, kills her. Yes, but he didn't.

[Kevin Flynn]

Could be.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Absolutely could be.

[Kevin Flynn]

But the absolute problem with the podcast, and you laid it out, we're here saying. I say I didn't get anything out of it. Toby said, I heard something. You know what had been helpful? If the host came in and underlined the fact that that that was an important thing that he said, because I listened to the same thing you did, and I missed all of that. And so either I missed it or you misheard it or something, but because we had two episodes that were just like an abandoned child of raw tape, and it's really important, but we get zero context, we are left wondering what the fuck actually happened.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Well, Lara and Toby think they know. We didn't even get a goodbye at the end.

[Kevin Flynn]

I know.

[Toby Ball]

It's the whole family ends, and it's like, what the fuck? It's not like. Thanks for listening.

[Laura Bricker]

Can I ask you guys a question? This is totally just a weird. And I don't know if it was because I was walking in my phone. Were there a couple episodes where the same thing kept repeating over and over again? And I was like, yeah, I'm like, I'm pretty sure I literally just heard this, like, yes, a minute ago.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

It happened a few times. Also, they use tape at the beginning of episodes that they would then reuse, but they didn't frame it as a preview.

[Laura Bricker]

And I'm like, yeah, literally, I'm like, it's my. Is my player is like, my. And I'm like, is it stuck? I'm like, they didn't.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

There were some editing mistakes in the podcast for sure.

[Laura Bricker]

But the other thing, in addition to the, like, what happened? I mean, one of the things that gets dropped, like, three quarters of the way through this that I felt like really was like, this could have been a hook at the beginning is the fact that the autopsy system in Oklahoma is so fucked up because they're doing so many that they're not accredited. And I'm like, ding, ding, ding, ding. This is a story right here. Ding, ding, ding.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

That's the story. Ding, ding, ding.

[Laura Bricker]

That is the story. And I'm like, this lead got buried.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

That is the. That should have been the story.

[Toby Ball]

Yes, Kevin and I read that story, but it took place in Mississippi. But it was the same thing. It was like the coroner just, like, doing way more autopsies than he could possibly do competently. And the shit that falls out.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah, Foreign. Hey, everyone. It's Stavros Halakis, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, Stavi's World. Each week we're joined by great guests like Josh Safdie, Eric Andre, Caleb Herron, and more. It's sort of an interview show, but really we're just messing around, making each other laugh, and hopefully making you laugh while you're washing the dishes or grocery shopping or out on a long drive. Plus, I take listener calls where we have honest conversations about dating, life and everything in between. Imagine if your therapist was a vulgar degenerate whose office was in a Greek diner. No scripts, no polish, and absolutely no holding back. Listen to Stavi's World. Wherever you get your podcasts, you've likely heard about pdrn.

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[Kevin Flynn]

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[Laura Bricker]

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[Rebecca LaVoy]

All right, let's do what we do. Let's let our listeners know should they check out the podcast Blunt Force Trauma. Laura Bricker, Thumbs up or thumbs down for blunt force trauma?

[Laura Bricker]

So this is a thumbs down for me, but I, I feel like, I feel badly about that because at the heart of this, this is a story that is largely told through long sections of unedited tape coming from a mother who has tremendous grief at her daughter's death and really is seeking answers. And that's a valid story. And there are a lot of parts of that story that could be told in a way to, you know, highlight what, what might have happened and to hopefully get some answers. It felt like this could have used some editing, and as a result, it was hard to know what to focus on. And I felt like it lost some of the power it could have had because of that. This really felt like, I think I said during the. The main portion of our review, it's like a retro podcast. This reminded me of back when people first started doing true crime podcasts and would just go out and be like, I'm gonna go investigate this case and get some tape and put a podcast together. And, you know, that works in some situations. In this case, it didn't do justice to whatever story was underneath here. And I came away kind of like, what happened, what was, and not really sure what I was supposed to focus on. Which is unfortunate because at, you know, the heart of this, there is a family that is, you know, trying to come to terms with what happened to their loved ones. So thumbs down. I hope at least having the podcast out there maybe shed some light and get some answers for these people.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Toby Ball, thumbs up or thumbs down for blunt force trauma.

[Toby Ball]

I have to disagree with Lara. She said this podcast needed some editing. I would just say it needed editing. It did not seem to be an editorial hand involved. It's just, it's kind of a hot mess. You know, it starts off with the most confounding opening to a podcast I've ever heard. It's completely ridiculous and confusing and then turns out to have nothing at all to do with the entire podcast. But it doesn't signal that. And you can sort of people figure it out at different points in the podcast, I guess, but it's just so weird. I don't know what the mission statement for this podcast was. I don't know. When they sat down, it was like, what this podcast is really about is this. It doesn't seem to really have much of a sense of where it's going. There are these little threads that are picked up and then sort of discarded and there's no follow up. You don't really know why they were picked up to begin with. There's not enough guidance as to what the hell people are thinking or what's happening or why certain things are important or why other things aren't important. And in the end, you got these three episodes. One episode is mostly one conversation. The last two episodes are entirely. Is a two episode one conversation. And there's literally no. There's no host voice or anything. It doesn't appear to be edited at all. And then the freaking thing just ends. Like, there's not even. Like, nobody even says, like, oh, well, thanks for listening. The conversation at this diner ends and the podcast is over. And it's like, wait, what? You know, Lara said she was. She felt bad about giving it a thumbs down. Like, I might have felt bad, but like, I mean, come on, just like spend five minutes and just give us like a hint that this is the end and just be like, yeah, that's it. No more. No more episodes. Thanks. They don't even do that. It's just so strange. As you would probably guess, I'm a thumbs down on this.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I guess that, yes, I think there's

[Toby Ball]

stuff here where you could have probably made a kind of interesting podcast. I mean, there's some weird stuff around it, but yeah, I mean, I think you just have to try a little harder. I think was part of the problem.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Kevin Flynn.

[Kevin Flynn]

Yeah, I'm a thumbs down. I mean, parts of this is just really lazy, big chunks of audio with no guidance from the host, no context provided. First of all, I feel like you shouldn't make a podcast if you haven't listened to a podcast, because it felt that way. But I think they really could have learned a lot from season two of Hush because it's a very similar story. Found a woman on the side of the road. Was it a vehicular accident? Homicide? Was something nefarious here or not? And because it was something that they could not really answer, that podcast became about a lot of other things about the people around it. It ended up being an inciting incident for a different kind of story. And we could have had that here. Maybe you also could have decided that maybe there isn't enough here to tell a story. Sometimes that happens. But, you know, in the end, what they put together was just really not good and had absolutely no editorial guidance at all. This doesn't spoil the podcast, but it will spoil our discussion about it. Toby listened to it and in the end, thought he heard what happened. And I listened to the same thing and thought, no, they didn't say anything about it. And that's largely because they left. The host just sort of abdicated all this space to other people to talk and talk about things that, like, we don't even know what they're talking about.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Right.

[Kevin Flynn]

If they solve this mystery, at least come on and say, well, we solved the mystery for the actual fuck. You know, instead of having, like you said, the final two episodes of being a conversation where one person harangues the other until they say something, it just, like you said, it needed to be edited, but it also really needed to have a serious look at whether or not the incident here, whether or not it's a crime or not, and whether or not this needed to be told. There just was no context other than something's weird here. No, something's hinky. That's not enough to carry a podcast. So I'm gonna go thumbs down.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I'm a huge thumbs down for this podcast. I'm pretty sure that Troy Taylor just quit halfway through making it, because we didn't really hear from him at all. After a certain point of the podcast, I'm like, did he quit? But I'll feel really bad if I found out he died. Just FYI album. I'm gonna look that up. I'll cut this whole section if it turns out he died.

[Toby Ball]

I'm looking it up right now.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

But it did feel like he.

[Kevin Flynn]

Like that one podcast where the guy died. Yeah.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

But there are some very specific things I don't like about this podcast. First of all, it does a thing where it's like somebody watched David Fincher's Zodiac and decided that everything single thing they made in which they are the journalist, must put themselves in peril in some way. Which is not how journalism works. Unless you are covering politics in 2026, there's no peril. It's not. I mean, being a journalist is harder than it used to be. People don't trust them as much as they used to be. But no, the murderer is not hanging around and might kill you when you're on the scene. And for fuck's sakes, if you're on a scene doing something for a project, play the tape of being on the scene. Don't just play ominous music in the background. Second thing I don't like is this podcast completely plays in to something that the true crime podcast industrial complex has created, which is this side lane of our culture of outrageous, where every Normal pedantic thing that happens has to be seen as nefarious or corrupt or bad. Sometimes a public official is just really fucking sick of talking to someone so they don't call them back. Sometimes a public official looks up a journalist's bio and says, you know, that's not a serious person. I'm not gonna call them back. It does not mean anything that you leave a person messages and they don't call you back unless it's part of a larger pattern of corruption that you can demonstrate in other ways, which is not done in this podcast. I hate that. I hate that. I hate that. I hate it in the true crime community. I hate it when people see a hearing and they're like, oh, that judge said something I didn't want him to say. That means he's part of the corruption. It literally doesn't mean that a judge is in control of their courtroom. And they can usually say whatever they want and they are usually not corrupt. Hate that, hate that, hate that. So, yeah, there's a lot wrong here. I heard opinion shopping. I heard the entire story being framed around the point of view of a grieving mother and trying to make her feel as if the facts could and should point that way when there are so many signs that they might not. It's just bad journalism. It's just bad, bad, bad. And it also doesn't sound good. And there were also a lot of editing mistakes. So this is a huge thumbs down for me. This might be my least favorite podcast of the year so far. Maybe it might be that. Anyway, thumbs down. Now it's time for my favorite part of the podcast, a little something I like to call the crime of the week. A Florida woman called the cops after being robbed of all her garden gnomes. The north Fort Myers homeowner said about a half dozen of the little figurines vanished, but told police she had the theft caught on her ring camera. The video showed a man scooping out the lawn ornaments and escaping on a tricycle. It didn't take long to identify a suspect. They just had to ask if anyone saw a grown man riding a tricycle with an armful of ceramic garden gnomes. Police arrested John Ramey. He still had the purloined figurines and. And it's not clear whether the tricycle was his either. So he's being charged with petty theft. So, panel, one question remains. We hear about it in true crime podcasts all the time. Why? Why did he do it? What was the motive for this gnome napping? What do you think, Laura Bricker?

[Laura Bricker]

Clearly he was a criminal mastermind who was taking them to their natural habitat on like Florida man's lawn.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Oh. What do you think, Toby? What was the motive for this new gnome? Napping.

[Toby Ball]

He's gonna send a ransom note to the leprechauns for their big pot of gold.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

What do you think?

[Kevin Flynn]

Well, he was taking six or seven of them and trying to assemble a new basketball team to take on the New York Knickerbockers.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Oh, okay.

[Kevin Flynn]

Magic.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Yeah, I think he's doing Lollipop Guild fan fiction. That's what I think he's doing. All right, Lar Bricker, if folks want to reach out to you online and say hello, how can they find you on social media?

[Laura Bricker]

You can find me Laura Bryan Bricker on Instagram and Blue Sky.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

What about you, Toby? How can you be found?

[Toby Ball]

Obiwall603 on Instagram.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

What about you, Kevin?

[Kevin Flynn]

I'm a Kevin Pflin.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

You can find me everywhere at Reb Lafoy. Follow the show everywhere at Crimewriters On. That includes TikTok, by the way. Check us out there and check us out on Instagram. Get episodes early and ad free and everything else we [e-mail] partnersincrimedia and please sign up for our awesome newsletter at crimewriters on. Com. It's free, it's funny, and it has a. A very high open rate. Our theme song was composed and performed by Ty Gibbons and the executive producer of this show is Kevin. And this one was edited by me. This show is recorded in the Kaitlin Rogers Project Studio, also known as Studio C, the closet in our New Hampshire basement, where we also feel a firearm is necessary to protect ourselves from cold case vehicular homicides. On behalf of all the crime writers, thanks so much for listening. We'll catch you later.

[Toby Ball]

Later.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

I think that Troy quit. I'm not fucking kidding.

[Kevin Flynn]

That would make sense.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Or that he flaked out.

[Laura Bricker]

Roy Taylor has 194 followers on Instagram and.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Is he dead?

[Laura Bricker]

No, he's just kind of a. Oh, this is him.

[Toby Ball]

Is that guy with a beard?

[Laura Bricker]

He says. Follow my new podcast, Blunt Forest Trauma. They said it was simple hit and run. They lied. He posted that on March 18th. Then he posted some garden pictures and that's the last thing that's been posted.

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Maybe he died.

[Toby Ball]

Would, would, would you mention that on the podcast?

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Should we, should we google Troy Taylor obit?

[Kevin Flynn]

Do you love hair raising?

[Toby Ball]

Allegedly true stories about the paranormal? Then you should summon the podcast Scared to Death. It's the popular horror series with more than 60 million downloads to its name

[Kevin Flynn]

and is co hosted by me, Dan

[Rebecca LaVoy]

Cummins and me Lindsay, co host and also Dan's wife. Each week on Scared to Death, we share bone chilling tales from old books and creepy corners of the web, and even some submitted by our listeners, all designed to make you want to sleep with the lights on.

[Toby Ball]

Think you can handle the horror? Tune in to Scared to Death every Tuesday at the stroke of midnight to find out.

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[Laura Bricker]

Why have I asked my H Vac

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[Rebecca LaVoy]

I was so amazed at how he

[Laura Bricker]

replaced our air ducts, I knew I

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[Toby Ball]

I think we should call a doctor, Angie, the one you trust to find

[Kevin Flynn]

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