Death & Deceit in Alliance Q&A with Maggie Freleng - Hosted by Steve Fishman

Summary

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The Burden – Death & Deceit in Alliance: Q&A with Maggie Freleng

Hosted by Steve Fishman
Aired: January 16, 2026

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Overview

This special Q&A bonus episode of Death & Deceit in Alliance brings host Steve Fishman into an intimate, candid conversation with investigative journalist and host Maggie Freleng and private investigator Danny Wexler. Diving beneath the surface of the celebrated true crime series, Fishman explores Maggie’s emotional journey, the team’s professional doubts, their verdict on the infamous Alliance murder case, and what it means to pursue the messy truth—even when that truth doesn’t fit a familiar or satisfying narrative.

This episode highlights the emotional costs of true crime work, the challenge of changing course when the facts demand it, and the responsibility journalists have to their audience and the real people entangled in these stories.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mental Health and the Toll of Investigative Work

• Maggie's Openness about Medication and Mental Health
  • Maggie openly discusses her use of medications for anxiety and depression—Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Xanax—as a response to overwhelming professional pressure.
  • “I had a full-on anxiety panic attack that put me in the hospital... For me, it was a cocktail of medication.” (Maggie, 02:49)
  • She stresses the importance of destigmatizing mental health struggles, especially for women in the field:
    • “I’m a Pulitzer-winning journalist, and I take a cocktail of medication. It’s okay.” (Maggie, 03:22)

2. Hesitations and Integrity: Why Publish the Series?

• Maggie hesitated to revisit the case and republish the podcast due to criticism (accusations of deceiving audiences and exploiting victims' families for money).
• She shares a personal anecdote about another journalist who omitted exculpatory evidence and how this compelled her to transparent storytelling—even when the facts thwarted her original beliefs.
  • “Instead of doing that in Death and Deceit in Alliance... when the evidence [showed] that the correct people are in prison, we didn’t try and hide that. Integrity is so important.” (Maggie, 07:35)
• Danny expresses frustration at people believing they pursued the case for fame or profit.

3. Real-Time Investigation and Evolving Conclusions

• The investigation began with Maggie believing David Thorne might be innocent, but changed course as new evidence came to light.
• The series was released in real time, so listeners experienced the investigators’ evolution of understanding in parallel.
• The team’s conclusion: Joe Wilkes killed Yvonne Layne, and David Thorne almost certainly ordered it.
  • “I think Joe killed her. I think David Thorne paid Joe Wilkes to kill her.” (Danny, 26:32)

4. Professional and Emotional Investment

• Maggie and Danny describe the intensity of their work together—long hours, total immersion in the case, and moments of emotional breakdown as facts upended their expectations.
• Notable moment: Maggie’s emotional collapse in the car after an interview, realizing she could no longer believe in Thorne’s innocence.
  • “That was hard for me to accept... I had invested so much... At that moment, it really was like, okay, he... lied... he didn’t help himself... I can’t help him.” (Maggie, 19:35; 20:57)

5. Responsibility to the Victim’s Family and Wider Community

• Maggie acknowledges criticism for reopening old wounds for Yvonne Layne’s family but asserts her duty was to pursue the truth.
  • “Do I feel bad for dragging all this up? I absolutely do... But that is not my fault that the system tried a man on horrible evidence very poorly. That is not on me... that is my job.” (Maggie, 34:21)

6. Editing & Focus: The “Creator's Cut”

• The re-edited version condensed the story, omitted unproductive rabbit holes, and doubled down on only the most credible witness testimony and factual threads.
• Key revelation: The transcript and audio from Angie, an ex-girlfriend, suddenly reframed their understanding of Thorne’s character.
  • “One of those audio tapes was a new one. Angie—never heard of this woman before... and said ‘holy fuck, this has been sitting here this whole time.’” (Maggie, 38:13)

7. Learning, Regret, and Doing Things Differently

• In hindsight, Maggie would approach police corruption and family advocacy leads with more caution and less presumption.
  • “I would go into it just more open-minded... Yes, they can be horribly corrupt and… have wrongfully convicted people, but they still could have been right in this.” (Maggie, 32:52)

8. Personal Aftermath and Moving Forward

• Maggie describes months of darkness and self-doubt after her initial convictions proved incorrect, revealing the personal toll such work carries.
  • “For three months, I was just processing... I wasn’t looking for the next thing. I was just process[ing] what happened and how do I move forward after this.” (Maggie, 46:52)
• Danny continues to remind her (and the audience) that honesty, not mistake-free reporting, defines journalistic integrity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Emotional Cost:
  • “This is emotional work. We're dealing with people's lives.” (Danny, 23:57)
• On Journalistic Integrity:
  • “I think it is so crucial to be honest and open to keep the integrity of being a journalist.” (Maggie, 09:57)
• On Changing Course Publicly:
  • “If the facts are showing you different, you have to accept that and you’ll live through it. I did, you know, so just be honest.” (Maggie, 24:25)
• On the Pain of Re-examining the Case for Families:
  • “The family of the victim has to relive this every time someone puts in a habeas corpus, an appeal... That’s why it is also so important to get it right the first time.” (Maggie, 34:21)
• On Re-editing and Focusing the Story:
  • “For this cut, we just wanted to focus on what is important to this story... tracking down all the people originally in this case who never changed their story.” (Maggie, 28:46)
• On Personal Motivation:
  • “When someone shows up desperate, when someone comes to me...in prison is desperate, I think my weakness is going to be desperate people…If I have that platform, I’m gonna use it for good and to help people.” (Maggie, 48:34)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------| | 02:29 | Maggie discusses the mental health toll | | 04:51 | Hesitation to publish the investigation anew | | 06:09 | Real time vs. pre-planned podcast production | | 07:35 | On the responsibility to honesty in true crime | | 11:06 | Why Maggie invests emotionally in stories | | 19:35 | Maggie breaks down after realizing the truth | | 26:32 | Who killed Yvonne Layne? (Team’s final position) | | 34:21 | Responsibility to the family and audience | | 38:13 | The Angie transcript discovery at the bar | | 46:52 | Maggie on her months of self-doubt afterward | | 48:34 | Personal drive to help the voiceless |

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Episode Tone & Takeaway

The episode is unflinchingly honest: serious, raw, sometimes self-critical, and always grounded in a determination to let the facts—not hopes, narratives, or audience expectations—shape the story. Laughter and camaraderie lighten the heaviness, but Maggie’s journey stands as a challenge to both listeners and fellow journalists: integrity means being ready to follow the truth, even into disappointment or public reversal. The great burden, the episode suggests, isn’t in being wrong—it’s in refusing to face or correct it.

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Transcript

[John]

What happened to her? From the studio that brought you weapons comes a terrifying new vision. What was our daughter doing in the 3,000 year old sarcophagus? Lee Cronin's the Mummy only in theaters April 17th. New trailer online now.

[Sheryl McCollum]

I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place, it's a way of life. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims, family members. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Narrator]

On June 11, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing.

[Maggie]

Hey, if they'll kill a cop and bury him, what are they gonna do to me?

[Sheryl McCollum]

What really happened to the missing deputy? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert.

[Narrator]

Listen to Valley of shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Steve Fishman]

Hi there, it's Steve Fishman of Orbit Media. Really happy to share with you this bonus episode of Death and Deceit and Alliance. Maggie's going to be answering questions about the show and about her life, too. So we're talking drugs, though not in the way you're thinking. And another thing, in the bonus episode, Maggie's invited along one of her private investigators from this podcast, Danny Wexler. It's a pretty intimate conversation and there's a bunch of laughter and a bunch of kind of fun. I think we cut out the part about the tacos, but at heart, there's a serious topic at hand. I think the episode is really about work. It's about how you do it, how you invest in it, and how you suffer for it. All right, Maggie, Danny. Oh, and by the way, as always, you can hear this episode ad free by subscribing to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple.

[Maggie]

What medication stops you from feeling Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Xanax?

[Steve Fishman]

There's the cocktail.

[Maggie]

Yes. And I still. Somehow the emotions slip through. So, you know.

[Steve Fishman]

Is that right? So wait, you were doing that cocktail during the Yvonne investigation?

[Maggie]

That cocktail started, which I'm always open about. In grad school, I had a complete crash. Out in grad school, I was so overwhelmed, I had a full on anxiety panic attack that put me in the hospital and they were like, oh, you're not having a heart attack, you're just really overwhelmed. Maybe you should probably take some medication. It's my third semester in grad school, so I always tell my students, like, it's real, pressure's real, being overwhelmed is real. Do what you got to do. For me, it was a cocktail of medication.

[Steve Fishman]

Wow, thank you for me for sharing. That's amazing.

[Maggie]

Well, I just find so many, you know, in my world, working with a lot of women too, are very hesitant to discuss mental health and medication because it makes women seem unstable or crazy. So I just really like being open with people. Like, hey, I'm a Pulitzer winning journalist and I take a cocktail of medication. It's okay.

[Steve Fishman]

You know, the thing is that you, you seem very there, very kind. You always feel close to your emotions. That's what you present as.

[Maggie]

That's why I always think it's interesting when you want me to give emotional stuff because I don't consider myself emotional. I don't know, I think I'm just intuitive, maybe.

[Steve Fishman]

Foreign. Maggie, Danny, thanks for being here. Everyone has loved your podcast. Your creator's cut of what we call death and deceit and alliance. It's been gripping. It's been great to work on it. I'm going to jump right into it here. Did you ever have any doubts about bringing this production, which was originally researched, I guess, in 2017, 2018, back into the public eye?

[Maggie]

Yes, I did. Absolutely. I didn't want to do it actually, when you asked me like, hey, I really love this podcast. I would love for you to maybe put it out. What do you think? Just the initial reach out. I very much had hesitation because of a lot of the comments we got while making it. And then particularly after once, you know, we came to the conclusion that we think the right people are in the right place. I think a lot of people after that thought we, we duped them or kind of knew ahead of time and just did this to make money and kind of, you know, used the family in that sense. And so that was absolutely not the case. And I know Danny could speak to that because I think you were kind of upset seeing some of those comments. I absolutely hesitated. And I think our reasoning, which maybe I can explain after Danny's answer, but I think the reasoning for putting it out is meaningful and so I do feel good about it now.

[Steve Fishman]

So just to clarify for myself now, it's kind of a real time investigation in the sense that you are putting out things as they happen. You don't know how the story's gonna end. Is that right? Are you doing it week by week or is it all done in the. Before you put it together?

[Maggie]

No, it was maybe the first 10. Since those were a lot of background and John and Dani didn't really. Well, I guess now the numbers are different, but the first half probably was. I was able to write those. Cause a lot of it was just the background on the case and we were hitting the ground at that time. There did come a point mid season where it was actually legitimately real time. I was putting these episodes out. I was able to get ahead with a few. But yeah, by the time we were going to the prisons, you know, on the ground in Ohio, that was all being put out in real time.

[Steve Fishman]

Wait, wait. So finish that. What's the reasoning for putting it out?

[Maggie]

Yeah, so I think, you know, I just did another podcast recently called Graves County. It's season three of Bone Valley.

[Steve Fishman]

Great podcast.

[Maggie]

Thank you. And in that podcast, I actually encountered a journalist who was doing what I did back in the day, back in the 2005, 2006 era. And he was investigating an unsolved murder and took credit for having a hand in the conviction of five people who now, 20 something years later, many people, including myself, they have a active habeas petition, a judge has already granted an evidentiary hearing, believe that they are actually innocent. And this journalist is still gloating that he put these people in prison. And that's okay if you really do believe in the facts that you found. But what I found is that he twisted the facts. And in fact, actually he omitted the facts. Not twisted, he omitted facts knowingly that these people were potentially innocent. And so instead of doing that in death and deceit and alliance, when I, Danny myself kind of found the evidence, or lack thereof, that the correct people are in prison, we didn't try and hide that, we didn't try and cover that up. And so when I found this journalist who did, it made me really mad. And I was like, you know, I want to put back out my experience. And even though I got a lot of crap for being wrong, at least I was honest about it. And I think that integrity is so important.

[Steve Fishman]

So let's unpack some of this. So the first thing that occurs to me is like, with the Graves county, and this is a BBC journalist, did you feel like you had a chance to kind of make right what you'd done wrong?

[Maggie]

It's interesting you say done wrong, because I'm not. I don't know if I did wrong. Right. Because we course corrected very quickly when we. My wonderful PI Danny was like, you know, I think what we're finding is affirming these convictions, actually. And it did take me a while. I was definitely hanging on to the. These guys could still be innocent. Long after Danny kind of accepted, you know, where we were. I don't think I did anything wrong. I accepted it, and I put it out there. If you want to say, you know, following this case, which some people might say is so obvious, the right people are in prison, was wrong. Sure. I think I wanted to give this journalist the opportunity to do what I did and look back and reflect and admit that we're all human and fallible and imperfect. And instead of accepting, like, oh, my gosh, 20 years ago, when I was a younger journalist, not particularly young, he was still older, I did make a mistake, and that could have hurt some people's lives. I would say it did hurt lives. It. And to double down, actually, and send me emails telling me that I'm a conspiracy theorist for looking at facts and court records that show innocence, that makes me mad. And, Steve, I'm sure as a journalist, too, you might have opinions about that. I think it is so crucial to be honest and open to keep the integrity of being a journalist. People now, trust me, people go, oh, I know when she finds something that isn't in the best light, she'll still tell us, and she's not gonna cover it up and lie. And I now know that this journalist, Tom Mingold in Graves county, indeed knew information and put out something completely different.

[Steve Fishman]

Maggie, let me. So let's just go to that moment, too, because it is such an important moment in the podcast. And not to be cynical, but it's a huge twist which kind of serves the whole. The whole narrative, I think. But the twist has to do with your personal journey and your investment. And could you just describe two things? Let's start with why. Why do you get. Are you somebody who invests in these. Why are you somebody who invests in this particular story? And, like, what do you feel your investment is?

[Maggie]

Yeah. So I want to explain to people, and I do think, Danny, you could also talk, because as a PI, you looked at this case when I handed the files and said, hey, there's legs here. We didn't just find some random person in prison and say, oh, my God, let's. Let's figure out if this guy's innocent and get him out. That absolutely did not happen. David Thorne had been in prison for 22 years at the time. And he had many, many investigators, innocence projects. People look at his case and really hit a wall. I talked to Beth Caris. Many people know her from Court tv. She's covered every freaking case from OJ To Pam Smart. I talked to D. Pullman, a local award winning investigative reporter who also covered this case. So we didn't just find some random case in a pile of people claiming innocence and decide to dive in. This case truly had legs. And when I spoke to David and looked at this case, I thought, you know, we could talk about my belief in his actual innocence. But I thought at minimum he didn't get a fair trial. And there's probably something here.

[Steve Fishman]

And Maggie, I mean, but you do emo invest emotionally in these stories. I, I, I think so, right?

[Maggie]

Well, I think, yeah. So when I see that, right, that like this is so wrong, this guy didn't get a fair trial at minimum. And, and I'm, I am a reporter in this field reporting on truth and justice, the legal system, right. And I see a wrong, I see a flaw, I see a mistake. That makes me upset, that makes me mad. And I think that I'm just so driven to fix it for the integrity of everybody else. Right. Like shining a light on this one instance in this state can open up a door for so many other people. Right? Like in Kentucky and Graves County. Looking at the Quincy Cross case, from that case, I have found five, six, seven others of potential people that do not belong in prison. So that makes me mad. And then talking about the police in this case too, in David Thorne's case, the amount of malfeasance, malpractice, sometimes mal intent of these officers is completely inappropriate and egregious. And looking at all of that in total, yeah, I get emotionally invested in it for sure. And I also think it's important to let listeners know that I'm not just a robot.

[Steve Fishman]

I think you're right. Danny, what was it like to, to, to work side by side with Maggie, who's a kind of fireball badass.

[Maggie]

You.

[Steve Fishman]

Know, she leaves it all on the field.

[Sheryl McCollum]

I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place, it's a way of life. Now this ain't just any old podcast, honey. We're gonna be talking to family members of victims, detectives, prosecutors, and some nationally recognized experts that I have called on over the years to help me work these difficult cases. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims, family members. Come be a part of my Zone 7 while building yours. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Narrator]

On June 11, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing.

[Maggie]

It's an all out manhunt for John Awjay. Every search and rescue team in LA county has been called in to help.

[Sheryl McCollum]

Within days, tips started flooding into the Sheriff's Department.

[Maggie]

The rumor around the drug scene was.

[Sheryl McCollum]

That a deputy was taken care of.

[Narrator]

Is this the story of a man who just got lost in the desert? Or of a cover up inside the nation's largest sheriff's department?

[John]

A homicide captain saying detective, do not find out if this guy's guilty or innocent. Who does that?

[Sheryl McCollum]

Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert.

[Narrator]

Do you have any advice for us while looking into this disappearance?

[John]

I wouldn't do it alone.

[Sheryl McCollum]

Listen to Valley of shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mind Games Narrator]

What if mind control is real?

[Steve Fishman]

If you could control the behavior of.

[Maggie]

Anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

[Mind Games Narrator]

Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy.

[Steve Fishman]

A When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings.

[Mind Games Narrator]

Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

[John]

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.

[Mind Games Narrator]

Can you get someone to join your cult?

[Maggie]

NLP was used on me to access my subconscious.

[Mind Games Narrator]

Nlp, AKA Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for for your brain.

[John]

It's about engineering consciousness.

[Mind Games Narrator]

Mind Games is the story of nlp, its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, nlp, might actually work.

[Maggie]

This is wild.

[Mind Games Narrator]

Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts starting January 20th.

[John]

It was unlike anything I'd ever done before. But that energy, she became like a family member to me. We spent so many like a little sister. I mean, we spent so many hours in the car. We spent hours under the cabana of the hotel, in the lobbies of the hotel. I mean, you really live when you're out of your element in a town you've never even heard of for weeks. Weeks. I mean, we spent weeks there. There's nothing else to go distract yourself with. So when you're truly on the ground in that environment, you go to sleep thinking about it. You wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about it. The case, the details. Things are popping into your head through. Sometimes it's a download of something. Hey, I didn't look at this. I mean, we had moments like that where we're just innocently sitting on a plane and for whatever reason, we're pulling up PDF files on our phone and we're like. We never. I never saw that. And I mean, you mean you. You're living in the case and to think. And I guess like Maggie said earlier, what was so confusing was people saying this was all she knew in the beginning. This was all for ratings. And I don't get caught up in reviews and comments because I always feel like you're never going to meet a hater that's doing better than you. So I can typically tune that out, you know, but we got. Me and John both got very protective of Maggie, that being said. And answer your question, because of that, we've. We're eating every meal together, we're waking up together. We're going to bed with this case on our. Our mind. And it was listening last night just re replaying some of those memories. It took me back because we keep in mind the world was in chaos as we were performing this.

[Maggie]

You can hear in this show. I have Covid.

[John]

It was January of 2021, you know, and it's. Yeah, airports were chaos.

[Steve Fishman]

Danny, let me just go to that, though. You're sitting in cars now. Cause this whole amazing emotional scene takes place in the car. Maggie, somehow I imagine you're in the backseat.

[Maggie]

I am.

[Steve Fishman]

Okay. Just walk us through that scene. And to the extent you can, how you experienced.

[Maggie]

Really was surreal. And like listening back, it's one of those moments where it's so vivid. Um, because as I. I mentioned, John and Danny had, I think, accepted long before me that the correct people were in. In prison. Um, I. I don't know. I don't want to say guilt or innocence. Maybe that's not at the correct people in prison. But there wasn't much more we could do at this point. Was really the. The conclusion. They saw that every road we were going down, we were getting the same information. No one was changing stories. Dani can elaborate on this more as an investigator but we weren't getting new information pointing to innocence. It really was showing that the people were where they belonged. And that was hard for me to accept. So in that moment in the back was right after you had interviewed David, and this was it, I still had hopes. I had talked to Joe. I was still in my head, like, believing this, like, crazy blackout story. I was like, this is possible. I know amnesia. Like, oh, my God. I was like, deep in amnesia. And then they talked to David, and I was like, but maybe he's just, like, on the spectrum or something. It can't explain himself. And they just were sitting there, like, I don't think. Like, it was this moment where they didn't want to look at me and be like, you're wrong. But I knew I was wrong, and I just. I just broke down and I just. I had invested so much, and I. At that moment, it really was like, okay, he one lied to them. He didn't answer any questions they had in a helpful manner. He didn't help himself. And I think I was also accepting that whether this man is innocent or not, I can't help him at this point.

[Steve Fishman]

And that felt. It felt like he betrayed you in.

[Maggie]

A way, I think, and him and himself. Because at that point, I did believe in him. Maybe still. It really wasn't until that final call I had with him where I confronted him about all this. But, yeah, I think at that moment, I maybe still believed, like, he's just not helping himself. And that was also devastating to me, like, I can't help you if you're not helping us. So it was a lot of things, a lot of processing.

[Steve Fishman]

Hmm. Wow. Danny, what was it like to see and be with experienced Maggies breakdown?

[John]

You know, that's a great question because me and John had just come off a Memphis, Tennessee, Dallas, Texas, a three cases in a row in which we felt like they were innocent going in. And we reached a point in the middle of all three of the cases. And the other one will come to me in a minute. It really doesn't matter. But we had just had. When we told Maggie the last three cases we bought into, it turns out the right guys were in prison. But me and John, as soon as we knew, were like, fuck, all right, time to move on. But knowing how invested Maggie was and our love that we had developed for her, it was a different approach because she was crumbling in the backseat and trying to come up for the right words. In that moment, when we're acknowledging that she's accepting what we already know. And haven't had the fortitude to tell her. Maggie, this is when we left Joe, me and John had us a powwow in the hotel and was like, dude, they knew. Joe never took himself away from the scene. He's got all these variations. We went into this believing there was a full recantation, but Maggie has recapped it and is acknowledged after the fact. And in that moment, I don't think it was there, but Joe was always there. Every time, there was different things that happened, but Joe was always in Yvonne's house the night she died, all the way up until the newest iteration of it was just a 14 hour blackout.

[Steve Fishman]

And so Maggie's in the backseat crying. I forget whether it's you or John who says to her, maggie, this is emotional work. Did that was you?

[John]

Yeah, I mean, it's emotional work. We're dealing with people's lives. And then I've said something about we're not throwing in the towel. But I was. I mean, I just. I care about her, you know, because she cares about this so much. She was truly. This was.

[Steve Fishman]

This.

[John]

This wasn't theatrics. Maggie was. John started to cry. I was about to get out of the car because I was like.

[Maggie]

It was really. It was intense.

[John]

It was a tough moment.

[Maggie]

But, you know, because there's so much involved in that, like, I felt bad for, you know, dragging them in. I said that, you know, it was like they invested so much time and money, they could have been working on other cases. So I was then having this guilt for that. I was still feeling really guilty about Sue. There was just so much guilt. And the only answer I had was not to pretend like it didn't happen, was to just confront it and say, look, this is what we found. And I think it's important to put that out there and be honest about it and show journalists and investigators, like, just follow the facts. You can be emotional and you can be in it, but if the facts are showing you different, you have to accept that and you'll live through it. I did, you know, so just be honest.

[Steve Fishman]

So. So did you have a debate with yourself or your producers about whether to put that really emotional and potentially embarrassing moment in the podcast?

[Maggie]

So I was, my producer and I had an editor, Amber Hunt, Amazing, amazing investigative reporter. Yeah, we talked about it. I don't know if it was. I think my instinct was to put it in. Like, as a journalist, I just always want transparency. So my instinct was, let's just put it in and see what she thinks about this moment, right? Like, I knew, actually criticism we were already getting at that point, like, oh, my God, these guys are so guilty. What are they doing? Why? Why can't they see it? Right? Because at that point, we're in real time. So I thought it was important to show the real human cost of this. Again, Danny's a professional. He's not a robot. I'm a professional. I'm not a robot. We're all human. So I just thought that was important. So instinctively I wanted to put it in. If Amber was like, no, this is exposing yourself too much, probably would have become a conversation, but she was with it.

[Steve Fishman]

That's really interesting. Who killed Yvonne Lane?

[John]

I think Joe killed her. I think Joe Wilkes killed her.

[Steve Fishman]

And what do you think David Thorne's involvement was?

[John]

I think David Thorne paid Joe Wilkes to kill her. To have Joe kill her.

[Maggie]

$300.

[John]

Yeah. Because, you know, one of the things that I thought about is that I've been revisiting my memories of this case is I've been in many prisons, and I've stood in front of many murderers. The closest I ever came to wanting to hug a prisoner was Joe Wilkes. When he tells me his childhood story of being in the foster system. At 1, at 12 years old, his foster mother was sneaking into his bedroom, molesting him. He wanted someone so badly to love him. He wanted. He was living on a couch behind an abandoned old warehouse. So he could relate to David's promptings of, my child is being abused. The mother, Yvonne, is living with a dangerous criminal. My child is being abused. I don't want to have to pay child support for my child to be abused. Joe could relate to the abuse of a child. He had spent his. He was only 18 when this happened. It wasn't that far away that he was remembering what an abused childhood looks like. And I think Joe being able to buy into David's very influential ways.

[Steve Fishman]

Need.

[John]

Joe felt needed. Joe felt like in some ways, I think he could be a hero and save this child from possibly things that he had experienced. Plus, he would have an ally, someone that had promised to look out for him for the rest of his life if he did just this one thing.

[Steve Fishman]

Maggie, what we call the creator's cut. So we. And you led this process, re edited it, and it went from 20 episodes to about 15. Do you feel you were able to accomplish now that you're, you know, you were able to look back and condense.

[Maggie]

It was really interesting in the first one. We had so many rabbit holes. You remember, you know, Finding the guy in the warehouse that we like, wired sue up to go talk to him. Like, those were things we were reporting in real time. So we put them in, thinking they might go somewhere, which they didn't. And that's, you know, a problem you have with real time reporting is kind of knowing what has legs and what doesn't, and if it just doesn't go anywhere. Okay. So for the this cut, we just wanted to focus on what is important to this story. And yes, there was a lot of people who came out of the woodworks with false leads and stuff, but what was really important was tracking down all the people originally in this case who never changed their story. I mean, finding Sam Pegg was probably one of the most, if not the most important piece of this because that was his best friend. Says he told me David asked him to kill her long before the murder. He's my best friend. I still don't think he do it did it, but he told me this. I don't think you could get around that, Danny.

[John]

No. Sam was huge. She was credible. She had no reason. She did not want to be involved. That was obvious from every action she had taken. But it was amazing. We are at the airport, about to board our plane to go home, and she texted me, texted me and said, joe says I can talk to you. Me and John are like, travel was already a pain in the ass because of COVID and the weather. It was snowing and we were like, dude, we may not get home. So we had a week to prepare. Like, we got to get back up here. Joe gave. It was amazing how fast she was able to communicate with Joe in prison and get the okay from Joe. Joe told her, tell. You can speak to them. Just tell them the truth. And we went into that knowing that she's going to talk to us with Joe's permission, with the intention of giving us the truth. And you know what? I think she told us the truth. And in the end, that was where, you know, we were already. We were already starting to have nervous tummies with Chris because Chris was. He too was spot on. He stuck with his story.

[Maggie]

Twenty years later, we were sure, you know, we had heard from many people and we did a lot of door knocking to find Chris. So that was a lot that got cut out. All the multiple girlfriends who hate him and wives and whatever. Um. Cause we really thought he was going to be this big bombshell. So we set him up. We had heard, you know, he was an informant, a CI getting paid and. And John and Danny Talked to him. And I don't think you found that.

[Steve Fishman]

Yeah, that I remember that he was amazing. He was very convincing when we, when we heard that interview as well.

[Maggie]

And you know, I want to point out again is I wasn't in any of these interviews. So I am also only listening as the listener is hearing. I really relied on John and Danny to be professional investigators and tell me what they were seeing, body language, what was happening. I'm only hearing this. So I really relied on them for that too.

[John]

That's a good memory because Maggie jumped our shit back in the car at one event. And we're like, Maggie, she's like, you gave him the wrong dates. We're doing that intentionally, giving him wrong dates, thinking that if he knows what's true, he's going to correct us. And she was so mad at us for getting details wrong, but we were intentionally getting details wrong.

[Maggie]

It was so interesting to learn from them, like how to interview when you're interrogating someone. I guess it was really interesting.

[Steve Fishman]

Maggie, what would you do differently?

[Maggie]

I would go into it just more open minded, I think, you know, there's no getting around how corrupt the police force was. The chief of police, all of them who he attacked, attempted to sue us and cannot because everything we put in there is factual. They're not great. I think I maybe would have gone in not going so hard on them, I think because I believed we were going to find there was some cover up. You know, I think a lot of what we present in the podcast made a lot of people think that. I know Dwayne Pullman still has many questions about, you know, Leech was the name of the chief, one of the detectives. I forgot his position. There's still a lot of questions. So I did go hard for the police and I think it's hard not to when you work in the world. I work in wrongful convictions where police and prosecutors are wrongfully convicting people, whether intentionally or not. I would go in just more open to, yes, this police force, I think John said it, a broken clock is, is right twice a day. Yes, they can be horribly corrupt and bad and wrong and perhaps have wrongfully convicted people, but they still could have been right in this. So I just, I would have maybe not gone as hard at that angle.

[Steve Fishman]

Interesting. What do you think? Did you get any feedback from Yvonne Lane's family? I know they were hesitant to get involved in the first go round.

[Maggie]

There was no communication from them and it's really hard. I think that was one of the things that people got on me a lot for is, you know, you're really hurting the family, bringing us up. And for what? For clicks? Again, that was not it. You know, there in these cases, when someone is wrongfully convicted. That's not what we found here. But in these questions, these cases, it. Everyone gets hurt. When someone is wrongfully convicted, the family of the victim has to relive this. Every time someone puts in a habeas corpus, an appeal, they are notified they have to relive the worst day of their life every single time. That is why it is also so important to get it right the first time. So do I feel bad for dragging all this up? I absolutely do. However, that is not my fault that the system tried a man on horrible evidence very poorly. I still don't believe he should have been convicted. That is not on me that it is my job to investigate this and bring this up again. And I deeply apologize to them for that. But that's my job, and that's why it's important to get it right.

[Steve Fishman]

Maggie, you know, one of the things that comes from not following the rabbit holes is we get a really kind of condensed emotional experience in a way. And so I think that the interesting thing about this, albeit it's hours long, is that, you know, we're on an emotional ride. And frankly, your emotional ride. So for me, it was kind of a huge success in the re editing. And I want to thank you for that. You're sitting at the bar, you've got had. I forget who you interviewed. It was a bust. Or didn't get an interview. It was a bust. You're sitting at the bar, and you guys are thumbing through a file that apparently you've had for a while when you come upon some news that changes everything, right? Can you tell about that? And one of the things I'm interested in is what happens if you're not at the bar.

[Maggie]

So this moment, right, we were packing it in for the day. We were like, we are done. John and Danny were like, we. We are done. And I think we all, like, had gone back to our rooms and we're just like, now we gotta. Let's meet at the bar. We're just going through some stuff like, I have no chill. And that.

[John]

It was so. Or I remember we were all going to our rooms. That was the last we spoke. And then 30 minutes later, they're like, oh, there's Maggie. Oh, there's John.

[Maggie]

We all just were at the bar coordinating it.

[John]

We're all just so worked up. Nauseated pissed off, whatever it was. We all ended up right back together within 30 minutes of that.

[Maggie]

Yeah. And so I think I coordinated.

[John]

I was like, did y' all tell each other? We're like, no, we're just. We just ended up here.

[Maggie]

We just need to keep looking at files, which is what we were doing. Danny doesn't even drink, so he wasn't going to the bar to drink. You were just looking at files. So. Yeah. So when you asked, would I do anything different, I think, again, I would. I would rely less on Sue. I think this was one of the first investigations I had done, and so I was relying on her a lot for, like, where are documents? What are documents? Of course I FOIA for my own documents. You often don't get those. So it was really like I was using her as a directory, and I would do that differently. But this was something. It wasn't like it was hidden. What it was was we had. She had given us all written transcripts because she didn't get all the audio files from the police. I had to FOIA for that. And I actually had to go into the Alliance Police Department station, sit there with a physical tape recorder, and copy from tape to my computer, like, for endless hours. So I was getting audio that sue didn't have. So one of those audio tapes was a new one. Angie never heard of this woman before. We did not know to look for Angie. We were not told there was an Angie. So, you know, when we're all going through these files 800 times, it's kind of like a transcript we glossed over. It was like a one page. We didn't. It just got glossed over. You know, she was never a key player we heard of. And so when I got this tape that said Angie, I was like, is there a transcript for this? And that was when we found the transcripts in the file that night and said, holy fuck. This has been sitting here this whole time. So if I didn't do my job as a journalist and FOIA for these tapes, and it's hard to get. Investigators try to get them. It's so freaking hard. And if I had done the work and gone there, maybe we wouldn't have known about Angie. Maybe we would have found it that night just flipping through. But the second I saw a name we had never heard of that we then knew there was a transcript for was pretty shocking.

[Steve Fishman]

Okay, so just background now. Tell listeners, viewers, who's sue and what do you learn from Angie?

[Maggie]

Sue is David Thorne's wife. She's older than him by many decades. You know, she's kind of the spokesperson for David, and that was something maybe Danny could speak to. But when David didn't have sue kind of speaking for him and telling him the facts of his own innocence, he couldn't really speak for himself. So sue was really this the leader. And many. Everyone in prison, if you. If you want your voice out there, you basically have to have an advocate. And that was Sue. That was how I heard about this case. Sue brought it to me. So Angie is an ex girlfriend of David's who had some very damning things to say about him. And, you know, that was when John and Danny were able to confront David and say, tell us the truth. You never told us you were violent. And here we are with these police incidents from Angie saying he was a violent man. And it was just. It was so shocking that night. It was so shocking.

[Steve Fishman]

She had given you Angie. You guys just didn't at that point understand.

[Maggie]

I think so. I think whether. Yeah, it was just there because people have to understand, you don't get a cohesive, organized file. It doesn't work like that. You get thrown thousands, tens of thousands of pages in a pile shared through, you know, I got from sue, who got from police 20 years ago. Then I sent to Danny, and then I was getting other files. So it's not like anyone didn't do their due diligence. We were gonna find it eventually. When we went through all the files, it just took a lot longer, and luckily the tapes came in before we finished the podcast. Truly.

[Steve Fishman]

Oh, wow. How long did you spend on this case investigating this, Maggie?

[Maggie]

So I think with you guys, it was almost a year from, like, talking to you, handing you the file. I had been on it before because I had done my own one off episode on David. I was doing my own podcast called Unjust and Unsolved, where I was just telling, you know, 30 minute wrongful conviction stories. And this is before I had a whole team, like I do now, to vet them for me. So I just found this one that many people had covered. And so I just kind of rehashed it with David. But looking at it, I said, oh, my God, this was. This was it. On its face, you could see this man did not get a fair trial and that I said, oh, my gosh, there's legs here. I had just met John and Danny because I was covering another case of theirs in West Memphis, and I was like, I know these investigators. I'll bring this to them. So I think for me, it was like, almost two years for you guys. It was like a year. Ish.

[John]

We started in December, and by August, we were like, maggie, we're. We're done. So nine months? Yeah, about nine months.

[Steve Fishman]

Just give us a flavor for the reactions you got from the always loving, always understanding Internet crowd.

[Maggie]

It was. It was. They're doing it for money. They're doing it for clicks. You're ruining this family's life. And I do also want to say about the family, for our director's cut, creator's cut, we cut out information we came across about the family, in fairness, because it didn't pan out anywhere it was in the original series. And we found some really not great things out about Yvonne's father and allegations she made about him to multiple people. So, you know, we got a lot of. You're ruining this family's life and you're bringing this up. And I've already explained. Yes, I feel terrible about that. But again, I don't think they were particularly the most innocent people. People in this. It was a lot of that. It was a lot of that. And I think.

[Steve Fishman]

Was it personal?

[Maggie]

I don't know, Danny. Were any of them. I know you got really upset reading a lot of them because you were.

[John]

It was years later that I. Because, as you knew, you were about to release the final episode of Murder and Alliance, and you sent it to me and John and, like, that was the first time I'd listened. I was like, you got to take this out. And I don't remember what it was, but something small. And so I just, like, you know, I'm not giving this my attention. You know, I. It doesn't matter. It's easy to judge. It's easy to be a critic. It's easy to. It's like a sports fan, you know, it's easy to be the Sunday Monday morning quarterback, you know, and say, this is what they should have been doing. But they're not out driving, bottoming out in their minivan. Oh, yeah, parking lot, you know, dilapidated. You know, freaking living it. Living this case. I mean, we lived it, you know, so I'm like, it's easy to be a reviewer on the Internet, but Maggie will tell you, I'm not on social media. I don't. I don't give that. That's not part of my mental diet.

[Steve Fishman]

Did you get a feedback from Sue?

[Maggie]

Sue was. Well, you guys had to call Sue. You personally called her?

[John]

We did, but she was receptive.

[Maggie]

And he was.

[John]

Wasn't pleased, but heard us out. I mean, and we were Just, we knew how invested she was, Aggie was, and we. But we laid it out. I mean, point by point. We were. We were comfortable in our decision by the time we spoke to her that we're not putting any more into this.

[Maggie]

They sent letters to David and Joe. I mean, your letter to Joe, I remember, was certainly more affable. And I stayed in contact with Joe a little bit after just because, you know, he is up for parole. He does have a shot. If he does say, hey, I did do this, assuming he did, I don't want anyone admitting to things they didn't do. So, yeah, I remember that. But sue was okay at first, and then I think she started doubling down when it set in that this was really David's virtually last chance. She told that to us at some point, like, it's his last shot. His. He told me his case was dead in the water. It was. So I think once that set in that they were not working on this, she. She got angry.

[Steve Fishman]

And what did she. How did she express her anger?

[Maggie]

A lot of online shit talking, you know, again, calling, saying we were, you know, didn't do enough, didn't look into her leads. We weren't, you know, in that sense, professional. Just. Just a lot of anger. And I don't blame her.

[Steve Fishman]

Maggie, you know, I gotta ask you, what were those three months like? Dark, depressed.

[John]

What.

[Steve Fishman]

What were you doing?

[Maggie]

I think that I had put the call in with Danny, a bit of it. I called. I was calling Danny and Danny was. Danny would sometimes just send me messages I maybe hadn't heard from two weeks we're living our lives. And he'd just be like, you know, I was thinking, like, makes me mad that people like, you're just so great, like Danny. Danny was there for me, trying to really make me understand I didn't do anything wrong, that I didn't, like, betray myself. I'm still a good journalist, you know, and he. He helped me realize, like, even he got wrapped up in it. So those three months were just a lot of processing and really leaning on Danny because he was the only other person that could help me understand what happened.

[Steve Fishman]

Does that mean you're, like, staying in bed and not getting out or not turning the lights on or.

[Maggie]

I was certainly avoidant of journalism work. You know, I think I had a bunch of shit I was finishing, but I was not. Like, I'm always thinking about stories and what's next, and I'm working on a story and there's six other stories I really kind of shut down in that sense, I wasn't looking for the next thing. I was just process, like, what happened and how do I move forward after this. And some people might think it wasn't a big deal, like, oh, girl, you were wrong. But you realize in the end, like, you know, it was, you fixed it. But like, for me, it was like an instinct. I was like, how are my instincts so wrong to believe, David? And I guess a lot of it again, comes down to this case was just botched. It was always botched. And again, that is why it's so important to get it right so people are not here dragging this shit up again 30 years later.

[Steve Fishman]

I mean, one of the things about a long process like this is that you get so involved. Maggie. Danny, going forward, how do you not get so wrapped up emotionally, professionally? Do you get emotional easily, Danny? I'm sorry, Maggie.

[Maggie]

No, that's why I just went into journalism, because I just want to help. I never went into journalism to write, you know, travel stories for rich people who can afford to travel. It was always, I want to help people who are voiceless.

[Steve Fishman]

And well, of course, now I want to know, like, wait, you didn't, you didn't want to go into journalism? How did you know?

[Maggie]

Oh, yeah, well, I was, I always just wanted to help. But no, I went into, originally, I was, my first job at 18, I was a travel reporter. And I was sent to the Alps on like three course wine and cheese excursion through the Alps. And it was fucking amazing. I was 18, it was great. That could have been my life. But there just always wanted to help people. I don't know why. I just did. Because when someone shows up desperate, when someone comes to me and someone in prison is desperate, like, I think my weakness is going to be desperate people, just people, marginalized people in extreme situations that I want to help. Because I recognize and I have fit from a very early age, the extreme privilege I have in many ways that people listen to me and pay attention to me. And if I have that platform, I'm gonna use it for good and to help people.

[Steve Fishman]

You don't have emotions?

[Maggie]

No, I don't. I mean, I take so much medication. So I don't have emotions because I don't like feeling. I like just working. Like, I like just doing just the facts. Like, I hate. I really don't like feeling, especially when it's a feeling of like sadness or pain for people. Every day I'm talking to people in pain. Like, I, I can't feel that all the time. I can't. I I am not able to. I couldn't work. So there is so much of you that has to detach in that sense. So, like, when I get a personal reach out from Sue Thorne and hands me this case, and I look at it and say, I think I could help this guy. I know these two PIs there, and this is. This is the case, I. How do I say no to that when the resources are right at my fingertips?

[Steve Fishman]

Danny, what do you think?

[Maggie]

I don't know.

[Steve Fishman]

Emotional.

[John]

Yeah. However many pills of poison she takes, she's authentic.

[Maggie]

Okay? Authentic?

[Steve Fishman]

Well, emotions are authentic.

[John]

Whatever she takes to mask or deter or discourage, I've always viewed her as real, so I don't. I don't give a. What she puts in her body. She's me, you know, I. She knows I'm the opposite. I take nothing.

[Maggie]

Nothing. Danny doesn't even have a drink at the end of the day. Danny was mine and John's DD when we had to let loose and when we were. There's a whole, like, we were going to bars, getting in with the locals who knew this case. I was just putting my phone down, taking shots with these guys, and Danny's like. Like, I'll pick you guys up in two hours. This is real stuff.

[John]

I remember I was in the van, and we got iced into the parking lot, and I was just down the van by myself till, like, John and I are inside.

[Maggie]

We're, like. We're doing recon, Danny. Don't worry. We're just landing shots.

[John]

Karaoke.

[Steve Fishman]

Yeah. That's a good ad to the cocktail, by the way.

[Maggie]

You know?

[Steve Fishman]

So. So. So the. The emotion in the car after the st. The interview with David Thorne, that was a breakthrough incident.

[Maggie]

It is abs for me to have that, and I think that's why it was just so much for. It was just so overwhelming because I don't get that. Like, that.

[Steve Fishman]

Interesting.

[Maggie]

Which. Which I think is why, for me, it was a standout moment. So it was never a question. Am I putting this in or not? Because it's not a day in my life where I'm sobbing all over the place. It's just. That doesn't happen to me.

[Steve Fishman]

Huh. Wow. That's interesting. Thank you, Danny. Maggie, this is amazing. Thank you for really sharing not only the story of death and deceit in alliance, but your personal stories. I don't think that listeners get that kind of thing. Viewers don't get that kind of thing. And it's kind of amazing to understand the person behind the podcast. Death and deceit and alliance is out. Now you can get all 14 episodes. Plus, here comes a bonus. This is the bonus episode. And please, you know, send us any feedback you have. We're at InforbitMedia FM and, you know, Maggie and Danny could use the criticism, so thanks.

[Maggie]

Yeah, we love it.

[John]

Thank you.

[Maggie]

All right, thanks, Steve.

[Steve Fishman]

Thanks, guys. Bye.

[John]

Bye.