Civilian or Spy: Death at the Super 8

Summary

CNN Presents – "Civilian or Spy: Death at the Super 8"

Date: August 10, 2026
Host: Isabelle Chapman

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Episode Overview

This episode launches a new, in-depth investigation into the mysterious shooting death of Ilya Beluzarov (alias “Eli”), a Russian-born American citizen, by federal agents in a Mississippi motel parking lot. Through firsthand accounts, interviews, and reporting, Isabelle Chapman explores who Ilya really was—a down-on-his-luck IT worker, a dedicated father, or a spy on the run? The story traces his troubled life, sudden flight across the country, and the unresolved questions left in the wake of his violent death.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Chance Encounter: Kennan Green Meets ‘Eli’

• Setting: Early fall 2024, Arkansas, in a McDonald's parking lot.
• Kennan Green, a charismatic man in his 50s living out of his truck, meets a mysterious stranger with a Russian accent carrying nearly a dozen laptops.
• Eli’s proposal: Offers Kennan $30,000 ($10,000 up front, $20,000 upon arrival in California) to drive west with him.

  "He said, well, you want to make a lot of money?... And he said, I gotta go to Southern California."
  — Kennan Green [01:13]

• Kennan, hitting “rock bottom,” agrees, not questioning Eli’s motives.

2. The Fatal Morning at Super 8

• Date: October 4, 2024, Hernando, Mississippi.
• Kennan goes to the hotel lobby to retrieve his deposit; hears noise, thinks it’s trucks, but walks out to see over a dozen armed agents.

  "When I looked over my left, there's like 12, 15 guys, you know, pointing their weapons at us.”
  — Kennan Green [02:51]

• Meanwhile, Eli (Ilya) is shot and killed by federal agents outside Kennan’s view.
• Kennan recalls:

  "All I could think is, what did he... what's... what'd he do?"
  — Kennan Green [25:05]

• Agents remain tight-lipped.

  "And I asked. I said, well, you know, why'd y'... all... why'd you have to shoot him."
  "He goes, well, it'll be a real long time before anybody knows what this is about."
  — Kennan Green [25:46]

3. Ilya Beluzarov: Piecing Together His Life

• First reporting: Chapman learns of the case in March 2020 through a sparse local news report.

  “Typically, when the FBI kills someone, it's kind of a big deal. In this case, the FBI said basically nothing...”
  — Isabelle Chapman [05:58]

• FBI’s three-sentence press release gives no details; Chapman decides to investigate.

a. Family and Background

• Interviews with Marina (pseudonym), Ilya’s ex-wife, who is desperate for answers.

  "I have to fight for justice, okay? ...And the people who executed him have to be held responsible.”
  — Marina [08:23]

• Ilya’s upbringing:
  • Born in Moscow, 1974.
  • Family were Soviet dissidents; emigrated to Virginia in 1987.
  • Raised with idealism and anti-Soviet sentiment.

    "He was raised up in highly anti Soviet sentiment. His forming years was spent in Virginia in military school."
    — Marina [11:12]

  • He considered himself a patriotic American, deeply committed to American ideals.

    “He could give you excerpts from the Constitution of the United States, quote all these Founding Fathers things... it was in his heart.”
    — Marina [11:53]

b. Work and Security Clearance

• Ilya worked in IT, most recently as a systems administrator for Maxar Technologies, a satellite imaging company.
• Maxar’s client: United States Department of Defense.
• Maintained a security clearance.
• Colleagues describe Ilya as socially withdrawn, loving toward his son, and intensely anti-Soviet/Russian.

  “He would talk about his childhood... that he didn't like Russia. He just said that things were too closed down, too locked down.”
  — Tony Johnson [14:58] "He was not fond of Russia."
  — Isabelle Chapman [15:16]

c. Possible Motives, Paranoia, and Onset of Crisis

• Leading up to the fatal incident, Ilya exhibited strange, paranoid, and tense behavior.
• Marina describes him as “defeated” and deeply stressed weeks before his flight.

  "He looked defeated. He looked really depressed."
  — Marina [19:10]

• Both Ilya’s and their son’s phone services were abruptly cut off.
• FBI attempts to contact Marina, asking about Ilya’s contacts and possible agent acquaintances.

  “They started asking me, does he have any acquaintances who could be certain agents? ...I was adamant that Ilya was a deeply, deeply a patriot of the United States."
  — Marina [21:10]

4. Back on the Road: Kennan’s Perspective

• Kennan details the journey with Ilya (“Eli”):
  • Ilya possessed military-grade laptops and a stash of cash (including $2 bills wrapped in flashlights).

    “He had laptops that were military grade, like 10, 11 of them. And every gadget, everything imaginable.”
    — Kennan Green [23:10]

  • Ilya was extremely paranoid, petrified of police stations, and drove exactly at the speed limit.

    "He was just so careful and cautious and didn't do one mile an hour with a speed limit. And if you got around a police station, he flipped out."
    — Kennan Green [23:49]

5. Unanswered Questions & Ongoing Investigation

• Ilya’s motives, whether he was truly a spy, and why he was targeted remain unclear.
• The episode ends with a teaser for the next installment:

  “What didn't Ilya want people to know? That's next time on Civilian or Spy.”
  — Isabelle Chapman [26:43]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Ilya’s ideals:

  "What does your ideals worthy of if you are not committed to die for them?"
  — Ilya (via Marina) [09:57]

• On the FBI’s secrecy:

  “How could federal agents kill an American citizen in broad daylight and offer barely a word to the public about it?”
  — Isabelle Chapman [06:01]

• On justice and truth:

  "What if I die tomorrow, right? And this case will sink into nowhere?"
  — Marina [08:23]

• On Ilya’s last hours:

  "They left him out there in the parking lot, uncovered, for like six or seven hours. You know, they could at least covered him up..."
  — Kennan Green [26:00]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:01–03:21: Kennan and Ilya meet; the proposal; morning of the shooting
• 05:24–07:30: Chapman discovers the story; initial investigation
• 07:30–13:15: Interviews with Marina; Ilya’s past, family, and idealism
• 13:46–16:21: Ilya’s work history, security clearance, professional profile
• 18:23–21:48: Marina on Ilya’s last days, paranoia, and the FBI’s inquiry
• 22:15–24:50: Kennan recounts the journey and Ilya’s paranoia
• 25:05–26:20: The shooting aftermath and unanswered questions
• 26:43–27:30: Teaser for next episode and hints at deeper intrigue

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Episode Tone and Style

Isabelle Chapman’s narration is deliberate, compassionate, and investigative, guiding listeners through personal testimony, suspense, and moments of empathy. The tone is serious, with a focus on the human cost and lingering mysteries at the heart of the story.

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Summary

"Death at the Super 8" expertly sets the stage for a gripping series exploring the tragic, mysterious demise of Ilya Beluzarov—a man whose life bridged Cold War legacies, American patriotism, and the shadowy world of security clearances. Through heartfelt interviews with family, associates, and a witness to his last days, CNN Presents navigates the ambiguities between civilian and spy, promising deeper revelations still to come.

Transcript

[Isabelle Chapman]

It's early fall, 2024, and Kennan Green is living out of his truck in the parking lot behind a McDonald's off an interstate in Arkansas. Kennan's in his 50s, charismatic, friendly, pretty scruffy. He's gone inside to use the bathroom. And that is the moment he meets a stranger, a man on the run.

[Kennan Green]

Like nine o' clock that night. And I went in to wash and came in there and asked me if I was, you know, from here and blah, blah, blah, you know. And I just got to talking to him and I said, I'm gonna step out here and smoke.

[Isabelle Chapman]

What Kennan notices about the stranger, he's a big guy, he's bald. He has a Russian accent. And Kennan says he's carrying nearly a dozen laptops. The two of them sit outside and get to talking. The man introduces himself as Eli, and

[Kennan Green]

he said, well, you want to make a lot of money? And I'm like, well, yeah, what do I got to do? You know, depends. I mean, you know. And he said, I gotta go to Southern California.

[Isabelle Chapman]

The proposal is $30,000, 10,000 upfront to buy a new truck and 20,000 when they get there. What did you think? What did you think was going on?

[Kennan Green]

I mean, look, I didn't really care because we've hit rock bottom.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Kennan's fallen on hard times, and $30,000 would be life changing money for him and his wife. So he doesn't ask a lot of questions. And over the next few days, as Kenan and Eli prepare to head west, the two become friends.

[Kennan Green]

He just seemed like a lonely guy and he needed a friend, you know, because. And he kind of talked about, you know, death, didn't he? He talked about, you just never know when it's your time.

[Isabelle Chapman]

On October 4, 2024, Eli and Kennan wake up in a Super 8 hotel in Hernando, Mississippi, finally ready to start their 1,600mile trip to Southern California. But before they can leave town, Kennan wants to get his deposit back for the room.

[Kennan Green]

I said, look, I gotta stop and get my 50 bucks back. And he said, all right, I'm going to the truck.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Kennan is deaf in one ear. And from the hotel lobby, he hears what sounds like trucks passing by on the interstate.

[Kennan Green]

And I thought I heard just, you know, the trucks hitting the bamboo and didn't think anything of it. So I walk out with a tote, plastic tote of clothes that I'd washed night before. And I opened the back door to the truck and I put them in. And when I looked over my left, there's like 12, 15 guys, you know, pointing their weapons at us.

[Isabelle Chapman]

He's about to find out that on the other side of the parking lot, just beyond his line of sight, his new friend Eli is lying dead, shot and killed by federal agents. Some of the truth trickles out over the next few days. His friend's name wasn't Eli. It was Ilya Beluzarov, a Russian born American citizen. He was also an ex husband, a father, and maybe a spy. From cnn presents, I'm isabelle chapman and this is civilian or spy?

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[Isabelle Chapman]

The first time I heard Ilya Beluzarov's name was March 2020, five months after he'd been killed. Another reporter at CNN sent along a local news story from Mississippi.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

A Mississippi motel is back open tonight after a shooting this morning involving the FBI.

[Geico Spokesperson]

In fact.

[Anderson Cooper]

Thank you.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

This happened at the Super 8 on

[Geico Spokesperson]

Sloan street in Hernando.

[Isabelle Chapman]

That's close to i55. The identity of the person who died

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

in the shooting has not been released. FBI's Jackson Field Office did say that no special agents were injured in the incident.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Honestly, at first, I wasn't sure. Story was for me. We were six weeks into the new Trump administration when it landed on my desk. I felt like I should be chasing any one of a dozen big national stories and this kind of felt like small town news. Except there was a war going on in Ukraine, which was now dragging into its third year. Ilya's ties to Russia made me wonder if this case was Bigger than it appeared. So I dug in. Typically, when the FBI kills someone, it's kind of a big deal. In this case, the FBI said basically nothing to anyone. The FBI's Jackson, Mississippi field office issued a three sentence statement when it happened. I'm going to read it to you. Here it is. The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously. In accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident is under review by the FBI's Inspection Division. As this is an ongoing matter, we have no further details to provide. How could federal agents kill an American citizen in broad daylight and offer barely a word to the public about it? Why was Ilya killed? I've been trying to uncover answers to those questions for months. First of all, I'm so sorry this happened.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

Thank you. Thank you so much, Isabelle. I'm so grateful that you're reaching me, because I tried to reach.

[Isabelle Chapman]

So I started with figuring out what happened in that Super 8 parking lot. And that's how I ended up on the phone with Ilya's ex wife, Marina. That's not her real name.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

Ilya was my husband. And we divorced 15 years ago. And he was a devoted, devoted American.

[Isabelle Chapman]

I her on Facebook called her and left a message. She almost immediately called me back. And she was eager to talk to me. Initially, she wanted to tell me everything, but she was reluctant to be part of this story. I mean, her ex was shot to death by the FBI. I didn't blame her for wanting to keep a low profile, but if there's one person who really wants to figure out what happened to Ilya, it's her. And she thought a reporter might help.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

I have to fight for justice, okay? I have to fight for justice. And the people who executed him have to be held responsible. So I do want to talk to you because I don't know, what if I die tomorrow, right? And this case will sink into nowhere?

[Kennan Green]

No, I.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

No matter what, I want to tell you the key things.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Anything you have is helpful and will all take a look, okay?

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

I'm just telling you what you will see. It's something you never seen before. Okay? But I do.

[Isabelle Chapman]

I talked to Marina on the phone a bunch of times over the course of a few weeks. And then in spring of 2025, I went to D.C. and drove out to her apartment in the suburbs so we could talk in person. We stood in Marina's bedroom where she'd spread out papers, records, photos, the pieces of Ilya's life that were left.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

Pictures with Russian Kremlin when he was visiting me. This is picture of his.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Ilya and Marina met Online in 2005. Marina was living in Russia, in Moscow. She was eager to get married and start a family, and she was intrigued by Ilya. Expats were glamorous to her. He was an awkward guy, though, abrasive and cold sometimes. He had a terrible fashion sense, which definitely made him stick out in Russia when he visited her. He also seemed like an idealist. Marina was attracted to his very strong sense of justice, of right and wrong.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

He was writing me many letters back in 2005, and he was saying me. In English. It means, what does your ideals worthy of if you are not committed to die for them?

[Isabelle Chapman]

Ilya was raised with some strong ideals. He was born in Moscow in 1974. He was raised by his mom, Lina, and his stepdad, Nikolai, who married Lena when Ilya was very young. And he was the only dad he ever knew. Nikolai was a mathematician, an intellectual and a Soviet dissident. The USSR was not a friendly place for people who spoke out against the government in the 1980s. So the family left and in 1987 they settled in Virginia, where Lena and Nikolai taught school. Marina said Ilya had a fraught relationship with both his parents, who've now died. But he idolized his dad and all of the things he thought were important. Science, intellectualism, pushing back against Soviet tyranny.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

Ilya, here is the thing. He was raised up in highly anti Soviet sentiment. His forming years was spent in Virginia in military school.

[Isabelle Chapman]

According to Marina, Ilya loved the United States. He considered himself a patriot. It had defined him in a lot of ways since she'd met him. She told me the story from their early days together. They went to explore some historical sites, Civil War battlefields. It was totally uninteresting to her. She said she was thinking what Russian would be into this.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

But he was so captivated by that. He could give you excerpts from the Constitution of the United States, quote, all these Founding Fathers things. He knew so much, and it was in his heart. And he was telling me that it was in his heart because it was something sacred for him, that was sacred for him. And our son was sacred.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Ilya and Marina got married in 2007, and she moved to the US for good. They'd only met in person a few times. They had a son, but the relationship went bad pretty quickly and devolved into a bitter divorce and eventually a custody dispute.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

We ended up discovering how drastically different we were.

[Isabelle Chapman]

But through it all, Marina says Ilya was a devoted father.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

Ilya very much loved Our. It seems like Ilya was so much, according to him, deprived from fatherly love, and he felt that he needs to give him our son all of that.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Things were not good between Marina and Ilya for about a decade, but in the last few years, there had been a kind of thaw. They saw each other more, talked more, and so Marina had a bit of a window into Ilya's life. One thing he'd sometimes talk about was his job.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

Ilya was a IT guy. He was a supporting IT person who was like a support staff.

[Isabelle Chapman]

I wanted to know more about what exactly Ilya did, so I tried to track down people Ilya knew through work. I combed through his LinkedIn, wrote to his coworkers. I DM'd basically everybody he'd ever interacted with on Facebook. And finally I heard back from someone.

[Tony Johnson]

If you looked at his Facebook, his LinkedIn, there's not a lot of people there. And that's just him. That's just the way he was.

[Isabelle Chapman]

This is Tony Johnson. He and Ilya both worked in IT for a computer company on a government contract back in the 2000 and tens. Tony and Ilya saw each other every day back then, sometimes hung out after work. But despite that, Tony felt like he never really got to know Ilya. They rarely talked about anything beyond work and nerdy IT stuff.

[Tony Johnson]

He's not the kind of guy to go out and talk with people. You really had to go to him and try to get him to talk. I saw pictures of his son. He was very fond of his son, so I knew that that was the one thing he did talk about.

[Isabelle Chapman]

But over time, Tony picked up on a few details about Ilya's life.

[Tony Johnson]

He would talk about his childhood. Every now and then, we'd have some conversation about that he didn't like Russia. He just said that things were too closed down, they were too locked down. It's not an environment you would ever want to be in, he said. You wouldn't want to wish that on anybody.

[Isabelle Chapman]

I had a few conversations like this. What people remember about Ilya was that he was reserved, not really an outgoing guy, kept to himself, loved his son, was not fond of Russia. None of this was exactly revelatory. But eventually I heard back from another former colleague of Ilya's, someone who actually hired him at the last job he'd had before he died. And what I learned was that Ilya wasn't just an IT guy. He was hired as a systems administrator at a company called Maxar Technologies, a satellite imaging company. They actually go by another name now, as a systems administrator, he would have maintained computer systems. The Maxar client that Ilya worked for, the United States Department of Defense.

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[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

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[Geico Spokesperson]

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[Isabelle Chapman]

At this point, this is what I knew. Ilya was born in Russia and was an American citizen, worked in it, had a security clearance. And then there's the whole thing where he paid a stranger to drive him to the border with a bunch of cash and computers. Could Ilya have been a spy? If Ilya was a spy, who was he spying for and why? I tried to find out more about his politics, his take on current events, and there were clues that his anti Soviet upbringing stayed with him. Back when he was in college at Virginia tech in the 90s, he wrote more than one letter to the editor that ran in the Roanoke Times, where he criticized the idea of universal health care. He called it a Soviet concept, something that belonged to, quote, the empire of evil. I asked Marina whether his anti Soviet opinions carried over into anti Russia, anti Putin ones, and she said, Ilya definitely didn't like Putin.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

He was very disappointed how Russian opposition was crushed, had been crushed, and that clearly reminded Stalin times to me. His position about the war in Ukraine, about political situation in Russia, to me was very clear. He did not support it at all.

[Isabelle Chapman]

In the weeks before Ilya's departure, Marina started noticing he was acting weird. They were on better terms lately, so they were hanging out sometimes. But Ilya would be friendly one minute and cold the next. Marina remembers mid August. She saw him really upset.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

I saw Ilya in such emotional stage, which I never seen him before. He looked defeated. He Looked really depressed. A couple weeks later, he was again, normal.

[Isabelle Chapman]

The first thing that you noticed that something was amiss. What was it?

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

On September 20, something. I realized that my son's phone is not answering. And I hear the same response from Ilya. And I started texting my kid through telegram. No response.

[Isabelle Chapman]

So when Marina says telegram, she's talking about the messaging app she uses to stay in touch with family and friends. Now, this was late September, a week before the shooting in Mississippi. It turns out both Ilya and his son's phone plans had been canceled. Ilya had primary custody of their son, who lived with Ilya in an apartment in Virginia. Marina drove to their place, desperate to make sure their kid was okay. Eventually, she found him at home. Her son assured her everything was fine. But Ilya wasn't there. And what Marina didn't know was that he was already on the run. Then that weekend, Marina's phone started ringing with calls from numbers she didn't recognize.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

And I just dismissed the call, and they called me three times in a row. Then I. I googled this number because I started being worried. And it shows FBI.

[Isabelle Chapman]

So the next time a call came through, Marina picked up, are you such and such?

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

And said, yes, it's herself. And we are asking you about your ex husband.

[Isabelle Chapman]

What did they ask you?

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

They asked me, do you know his email address? Do you know his phone number? Do you know other email address of his? They started asking me, does. Does he have any acquaintances who could be certain agents? And I was like, no, no. And I'll tell you why. Because no matter how ugly our own relationship were, I was adamant that Ilya was a deeply, deeply a patriot of the United States.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Meanwhile, Ilya was on the road. Soon he'd pull into the parking lot of a McDonald's in Arkansas. He was worried the FBI was on him and he needed help. Yeah, I think that's him. Hi. How are you? No, you look great. I'm Isabelle.

[Kennan Green]

I'm Kenan.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Nice to meet you, Kenan. I met Kenan Green and his wife Megan at the same place that they'd met Ilya Belouserov in the fall of 2024. It was at a McDonald's off an interstate west of Memphis, just over the Mississippi river in Arkansas.

[Kennan Green]

This is where Eli stayed, right there?

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

Yeah.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Is that right? Okay. Kennan wasn't easy to find. He'd reached out to Marina shortly after Ilya was killed and told her he'd been with Ilya in those last days. Eventually, I tracked down Kennen's phone Number he and Megan were still living in their truck. He said he was happy to let me come down and ask him about Ilya. Kennan didn't know Ilya for long, but he was there at the end. What Kennan saw and what he didn't see in those final days, I wanted to hear it from him.

[Kennan Green]

Back over where that truck's backed in, over there by the light pole. That's where he was parked. And then he tried to give us a line that he worked at Burger King. And he had laptops that were military grade, like 10, 11 of them. And every gadget, everything imaginable. And he always had a thing hanging around his neck, little zipper pouch with a stack of hundreds, 50s and twos. He had, like, flashlights and had money wrapped, mostly two dollar bills wrapped around the battery. Slid in all these flashlights and stuff.

[Isabelle Chapman]

They also noticed he was a little paranoid. More than a little.

[Kennan Green]

He was just so careful and cautious and didn't do one mile an hour with a speed limit. And if you got around a police station, he flipped out.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Ilya planned to ditch his car, and he and Kennan bought a used pickup with Ilya's cash. Then they stopped at a Red Lobster before heading south to Hernando, Mississippi. Kennan has a Mississippi driver's license, so their plan was to register the car there the next morning before heading to California. That's when they checked into the Super 8 Hotel. Kennan fell asleep that night, the night of October 3, thinking to himself, tomorrow would be the start of a new life for him and his wife, Megan. None of them knew it would be Ilya's last night alive. The next morning, they all headed out, Ilya to his truck, Ken into the lobby to get his deposit back.

[Kennan Green]

And then I thought I heard just, you know, the trucks hitting the bamboo.

[Isabelle Chapman]

He stepped out into the parking lot and saw guns. He knew right away this had to do with Ilya.

[Kennan Green]

And all I could think is, what did he. What's. What'd he do?

[Isabelle Chapman]

Kennan couldn't see Ilya. He and the truck were around the side of the hotel. The federal agents sat him and Megan down, started asking them questions about Ilya.

[Kennan Green]

I looked at the guy, I said, is my friend all right? And he said, I don't know. We lit him up pretty good. And I thought maybe they stunned him because he was with a stun gun or something. And I said. I said, is my friend dead? And he goes, yeah. And I asked. I said, well, you know, why'd y'. All. Why'd you have to shoot him.

[Marina (Ilya's ex-wife)]

What'd they say?

[Kennan Green]

And he didn't give me an answer. He goes, well, it'll be a real long time before anybody knows what this is about.

[Isabelle Chapman]

And you never saw a gun?

[Kennan Green]

Nope. They left him out there in the parking lot, uncovered, for like six or seven hours. You know, they could at least covered him up. Somebody finally did, you know, they put his jacket over him.

[Isabelle Chapman]

It was a sudden and violent end to a really strange week of Kennan's life.

[Kennan Green]

I just. We wonder what. What he was thinking or what what was said. Maybe he didn't want to deal with it. He didn't want anybody to know.

[Isabelle Chapman]

What didn't Ilya want people to know? That's next time uncivilian or spy.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

He was like the holy Grail for a foreign intelligence service.

[Tony Johnson]

I asked him, so what exactly were

[Anderson Cooper]

they asking you about?

[Tony Johnson]

And he said, and I'm quoting him, something to do with Ukraine and a laptop.

[Anderson Cooper]

Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper. On my podcast All There Is, we explore grief and loss in all its complexities. My guests are David Frum and Danielle Crittenden. They're both journalists and writers who've been married for 38 years. They've had three children together, Miranda, Nathaniel, and Beatrice. Miranda, their eldest, worked as a journalist and model before she died unexpectedly.

[Isabelle Chapman]

Parental death feels in the natural order of things. You lose a child, it not only upends the universe and your universe, but it was a grief with a capital

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

G. There are those who are in

[Isabelle Chapman]

grief, and the rest of humanity I

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

now call pre grief because it's coming.

[Anderson Cooper]

Talking grief, building community. That's what the podcast is all about. This is all there is. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.