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The Red Weather is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or events reflects the adaptation of real, publicly available materials for creative and legal reasons. The content of this podcast is the sole responsibility of Red Weather, LLC and does not reflect the views and responsibilities of iHeartMedia or its affiliates. A few days before she died, I got a letter from Willow. Willow was my neighbor and one of my best friends as a kid. We grew up in the Redwoods outside of Sebastopol, California. It's about 60 miles north of San Francisco. And even though we were just through the woods from one another, we had very different childhoods. Willow was part of a commune, or what they called it, a collective. It was a group of maybe 30 people, and it was called Tender Hearts. It was one guy, really, the leader of the elric, and then Women and Kids. That's Sheriff Maldonado. He was the sheriff back in the 80s and the 90s. So he ended up dealing with the Tender Hearts. When neighbors would complain or if kids got into trouble, it was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying. I guess it would be called meditating today. And drugs. It was pot, mushrooms, mescaline. Willow's mom was a founding member of Tender Hearts, so she lived there with Willow and her sister Anna. When we were young, Willow and I were close, really close. We used to meet in the woods between our houses and spend all afternoon together, sometimes camping out. But things got complicated in our teens. By the time I got her letter, I hadn't talked to her in years. I didn't even know she had my address. She was in Panama, in Bocas del Toro. It's a series of islands close to Costa Rica. Apparently, she'd gone with an organization to help sea turtles protect their habitat or something. But really, it sounds like she went to get away and to get sober. The letter was mostly about what she was up to in Panama, working in a vegan pizza place down there. Before I could write her back, I found out she took her own life. My mom saw it on Facebook. So you're still in touch with her mom? Well, only through Facebook. It's not like I see her or talk to her, have private phone calls, but, you know, she posts things, and this was one of the things she posted. I was surprised. It's really sad. It's really sad. She was begging me to come visit her. This is Noah. He grew up with Willow, too. She begged me. She was like, can you please, please come visit? I'm really lonely. I need a friend. I need Some help. You know, she wrote me this poem that was very, you know, in that context was quite deep and dark and basically just talking about loneliness and isolation and kind of meaninglessness of. He's now a psychiatrist up in Seattle. And it's really challenging. It's really. I mean, I've had a number of patients suicide, and even with that, it's really hard to reconcile that of, like, could I have done something more? If I was honest, I might not have even written her back. I mean, we were in very different places. She was single, childless, hopping around different countries. I'm married, I have a kid, I live in la. I work as a writer, director, and as you might know, I host a podcast about the TV show I was on as a kid. Welcome to Pod Meets World. I'm Danielle Fishel. I'm Roger Strong. And I'm Will Friedel. Willow was still chasing new experiences, new people and new places in a way that when we were young, was exciting and admirable. But now that we're in our 40s, it felt a little desperate, erratic. I remember for the first few years of our friendship, you know, it was kind of like being a being on a drug near her. She had so much energy and excitement and spontaneity and like. But then I remember as she started to decompensate in our teen years, it was like. It was a very. It was really challenging to be around her. I should say all this with a caveat that, like, it's impossible for me not to, like, use my psychiatric nosology on her now. Now, looking back, I mean, she was just the archetype of someone who had. Had clearly had a lot of childhood trauma. There's a few traumas Noah could be referring to here. There was the fact that she grew up on a collective in the woods. She definitely had some awful boyfriends. There were drugs. But the central trauma of Willow's life had to do with her sister, Anna. Anna was two years older than us, which isn't much, except when you're 15. Back then, she was in a whole other category of existence. And I probably would have gotten to know her better, except. On Halloween night, 1995, Anna disappeared. It was a horrible time. For a couple of months there, it seemed like everyone we knew was a suspect or had a secret. We all got interviewed by the cops. People blamed Willow's mom. People blamed the tender hearts, Anna's boyfriend. People blamed the town. But no one knew what actually happened. No body was ever found, no charges ever filed. Most everyone assumed that Anna ran Away. That she just wanted out of Tender Hearts or Small Town took off. But Willow never thought that. She knew her sister would never leave without her. Or at least without saying goodbye. This is from Willow's letter. I know I made you promise something about the night Anna disappeared. You and Crystal Vecchio and Orion and Connor were there, too. Do you remember? We pinky swore. So here's the deal. I want you to know I don't fucking care anymore. I release your pinky. Sir, I am. No, I can't read this, but I think she wrote authority. But I want to know the truth. If Anna is still out there or the person who killed her is out there, then keeping my secret is stupid. It always has been. I kept going back over the letter, going back over my memories and my relationship with Willow. I kept wondering, why did she send this to me? Why didn't she decide to tell the truth herself? In 1995, my neighbor Anna Traynor disappeared. She was 17. Her body was never found. No one was ever arrested, no explanation given. And back then, I lied to my parents, I lied to police. I lied to everybody. Because Anna's sister Willow asked me to. I've decided to go back to my hometown, interview my friends and family and talk to police and journalists, whoever I can, to try to find out what actually happened. I am actor and filmmaker Ryder Strong. This is the red weather. Sam. Before I left for Sebastopol, I called on my friend Chris because he's one of the few people who knew what Willow was talking about. Recorded. What? Is that you? No, it's. The thing telling you that it's recording was that Sean Hayes? Is Sean Hayes with you telling me that this all is being recorded? Chris is a comedy writer now who also lives in la. So I don't. I. I don't know if you heard, but Willow Trainor died. Yeah, My cousin Torn texted me. You've never Torn, right? No. Sacramento Torn. There was a Thanksgiving you came with. I'm pretty sure you came with me anyway. Dude, crazy. I know. She killed herself in Puerto Rico or Panama. Panama. Well, she was always a fucking train wreck, dude. I mean, even before Anna, the kid grew up in a cult. Well, I. I don't know if I would even call it that. I think that's because you're a sweetheart. Sweetheart. Okay. I'm gonna call it a cult because it was a creepy fucking tree cult. They were out. They were basically like rural homeless. Before she killed herself, she sent me a letter. Jesus Christ. I know. And saying that we can tell the truth. Chris had also made a promise because he was with me and Willow the night that Anna disappeared. Who cares if we could tell the truth now? I know, I know, but, I mean, there's. There's so much that I don't even know about the case. The case, you know. Oh, yes. Oh, the case. Like, oh, Detective riders on the case. Now, there was a search party. And do they. Didn't they, like, find a bullet in a tree or bullets in. Yes. Three bullets in a tree. Multiple bullets. That's what I mean. I don't even know the basics. Like, and then let alone the fact that, like, what we did. What. What Willow did. Right. So that is why you're recording this phone call. Yeah, I. I don't know. I'm just. I. You know, I feel like I've got this. This. This platform, you know? Right. People are listening to public. Figure if I did a podcast, then. All right, Columbo. Well, you're not going to go solo on this. Brother will be the Hardy Boys or the Scooby Gang. And I'm not going to be Shaggy. It's too on the nose. I want to be Scooby or Velma. I'm definitely Velma. Testing, testing. One, two, three. I bought sound gear so I could document everything I could. I said goodbye to my wife, Alex, and her son, Indy. Are you recording right now? Yeah, I'm. I'm never going to stop rolling. That's the whole point. Okay. No, you got that? Okay. And you have that draft due? Yeah, but it's. I've got time, so. And I think while I'm up there, I'll be able to get writing done without this loud guy. Hey, dude, I'm saying goodbye. I had three months to write a script, a horror movie for a small studio. It wasn't my original idea. They had brought me in after they sold the pitch, but they were pain. This sort of thing has become my life. Writing movies that never get made. All right, fine, man. I love you. I love you, dad. Be nice to me. Okay. All right. Having. Have fun having special dude time. Special dude. Special dude time does it. All right. I love you guys. Love you. I'll see you. I'll see you in a week or two. Week or two. What? Yes. Or two. Hello? Hello. The kid is back. I drove across town and I picked up Chris. I was glad he was coming with me. I knew there'd be gaps in memory, conflicting versions and things people maybe didn't want to think about or talk about. So I thought it'd be good to have his help. I am not driving at all. Not at all. You do not need to see my road rage, bro. Ooh, another fun rule. You get one moody, whiny white guy song per hour. Okay. That's all I have. I know that. So we're gonna put on your phone. Yeah, dude, you're getting Beach Boys and Jimmy Buffett. He'd also. I know. Keep things lighthearted. I did some research before we left la, and when I looked into Anna's case, there was one name that kept coming up. Monica Tremblain. All right. Hi, Monica. Hi. How you doing? Hey. She was the journalist who covered the story for the Press Democrat, our local paper. Hey, you know we've met before, right? Well, yeah. I mean, I. We. We talked back in the day. I mean, I feel like my mom was there. No, no, no, no, no. This was way after then. It was in 2003. Yeah. I came to the Graduate play when you did it with Jerry Hall. We talked for a second at. Okay. Yeah, I was. For sure. I was like, oh, he doesn't remember me, or either you were avoiding me. Oh. Oh, gosh. Sorry. Do me a favor, though. Don't look up the review of that play. Monica graduated from Berkeley and then moved to Santa Rosa to work for the Press Democrat only a month before Anna disappeared. It was a small paper doing all the things a paper did in the 90s. Classifieds, town hall meetings. The kind of things today you just find online, if at all. You know, it was like my first real story. I mean, I was only 23 then. I was so young. Yeah. But what was interesting was that, like, everybody. Everybody at the paper assumed that Anna was a runaway, but I did not believe that. Why? You know, there was something off in everything about this. I mean, everything just felt like there was something there. Felt like there was something more. Like, more going on. I felt a vibe. Vibe. I was younger than everybody at the paper, you know, and so when I talked to the kids, you kids, I felt closer to you than everybody else. But then again, you guys were a bunch of white kids in this very white hippie town. Some of y' all had money. I mean, you. You were already on tv. You were famous. So it was a lie. You know, the commune, the drugs. Yes. Fire. That's like. I want to get into all of that, but let's just start with this. What can we just do, like, the. What. Where Anna was that night or what happened to her. Just like the pure, only the facts version of what we know. Anna Traynor was at a party in downtown Sebastopol. That would be Heather Colburn's house. A Halloween party. There were a lot of witnesses that said Anna was there and she was drinking and that she had a fight with her boyfriend or ex boyfriend, depending on your point of view. His name is Mick Bowden. My brother Shiloh was actually there at the party. I remember sitting there, and I just remember he punched the window. There was a lot of screaming and arguing going on, and then I don't remember exactly what it was about, but it definitely stopped the situation. Like, everyone's like, whoa. Okay. And then, you know. But it's kind of in a party scene, so, like, everybody's, you know, I think they might have been out smoking. Well, yeah, Mick, he left the party an hour or so before Anna. More on that later. So she gets a ride. So she gets this ride from these three girls. Lindsey Green, Gianna Parotta, and Audrey Wick. So I don't know if I should tell you this, but I call them the mean girls. Because weren't they pretending to help her or. I mean, they were. You know, honestly, there was a lot of back and forth with that. Lindsay, Jenna and Audrey gave her a ride, and when they were asked by the police, they said they drove her home. Lindsey told the police that they were actually messing with Anna and that they dropped her off a few miles from her house. Actually, like I said, mean girls. But we can assume at least that she didn't go home, because then Mick got that page from Anna at 1003. This was the era of pagers. We all had them, and we all had our own code that we used to let someone know if we wanted them to call us back or meet us somewhere. Well, first she paged him to a phone number, which we later found out was the Juniper street pay phone. And he told police that he paged her back with his code, that he was going to meet her there. But then the fire. A devastating night in western Sonoma county as fire raged over 100 acres and burned four homes in its path, sources tell KQ. Well, we have that the first witness called in the fires at 10:20pm it started out on the Tenderheart property, and then, you know, as we know, it spread. No one was hurt, but a lot of loss. It was a big deal. Two firefighters, I don't have their names in front of me. On the way towards the fire, they saw a young woman, blonde, walking alone on Juniper. That was the last time anyone saw Anna Trainor. Okay, well, I have some info, some new info, maybe answers for some of this. Well damn Ryder, it's only been 30 years. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosure is available at public.com disclosures hey this is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. 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Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See Terms. It's an eight hour drive from LA to Sebastopol. So along the way Chris and I talked about our hometown. Yes. I mean when we were kids, it was like this tiny, crusty, crusty, oh my gosh, all the time. And now it's like crusting. Now it's like nice, nice restaurants, you know, cute little shops, boutiques. Yeah, and like even the Foster Freeze is now a place that, you know, you get like milkshakes and $15 hamburgers. That burger is so good. Sebastopol isn't all that different from a lot of small towns in California. But back in the 70s, it had a very particular culture. Here's how my brother Shiloh put it. A lot of hippies that moved from San Francisco, like our parents, but then there were also the pot growers and like that sort of edgy ness to it. Kind of where the Haight Ashbury Summer of Love crowd went to grow up, grow some vegetables, grow some pot, and raise kids with names like Ryder and Willow. In the actual town where Chris grew up, you could still have a pretty typical suburban childhood. But outside of town, it was the wild west of alternative parenting. There were all kinds of situations. Take my buddy Orion. He grew up on a commune. It was 54 acres of land. There was a ranch house where all this stuff happened. Like a central ranch house that was owned and common by everybody. So this was the common land people would take turns with, like running the daycare. It wasn't religious or spiritual but it was certainly a countercultural scene. Kind of like, you know, hippie dancey, twirl your hands and spacey, you know, kind of just like, you know. And tie dye. Oh, so much tie dye. Yeah. Yeah. I just love that. It really was. That. It really was. Yeah. My own home life wasn't that extreme. Chris and I pulled into my parents place that evening. Hi. Hey. It's so great to see. See you. All right. Hi Lynn. They moved into the woods, put in a well built our house as a kid. We had electricity, but we didn't have tv. I was homeschooled on and off. We were vegetarians. And while my parents property has a name, we call it Redwood Shire. Unlike Tender Hearts. That started as kind of a joke. As soon as we bought it, you know, we just. The redwoods were just so beautiful. And so dad coming from an accounting background, he wanted to make something that was taxable. Tax freedom. Yes. Deductible. So we made it an experimental farm and we had to give it a name. So I said, well, it has to be Redwood, you know. And then it also relates to my dad's name, which is for real King Arthur strong. Well, yeah, but a lot of it came from, from King Arthur Lake Shire, you know, so Redwood Shire. And it's just always stuck. Our day to day life was positively mainstream compared to Willow and Anna, who were literally a few hundred yards away, living in tents and barns with some kind of guiding spirituality or philosophy, which I was realizing I knew nothing about and neither did Orion. I think I understood what was going on more even later when I was in my 20s or something like that. But her family. So this guy was called, what's he called, like the father or something creepy like that, you know, very much polyamory but like not modern, you know, consensual, et cetera. Much more of kind of like dude has a bunch of wives kind of thing. Our lives couldn't be more different, but we were within walking distance, which is how I ended up physically smack dab in the middle of this case. And that was news to Monica. So I was, I was with Anna's sister Willow that. Yeah, you and your friends were at Connor Drake's house watching horror movies. Well, that's. That's what we said. Yeah, that's what you said, but we were actually in the woods. We were on the Tender Hearts property. Wait, if you were on the Tender Hearts property, then you can confirm none of the adults were there. Yeah, I mean, we didn't. As far as we knew. No. One was there. They were all on the sunrise seance hike the night that Anna vanished. The adults of Tender Hearts said they were holding something called a sunrise seance, which was an annual tradition for them. Elric and the women would hike up Mount St. Helena for a ceremony, and apparently it involved psychedelics. Shiloh and I actually went on one of these with Orion and Willow when we were younger, like maybe 12 or 13. And the whole idea is you go up there and watch the sunrise and. Yeah, I just remember being so tired and exhausted. Yeah, I did it a couple of times, but only got got lost once. Oh, man. To us, it was just a hike, but who knows? We were clueless kids at the time of Anna's disappearance. None of the Tender Hearts were charged with a crime, but it was shut down within a year. I never knew why. And Willow never talked about them. Part of doing this podcast is about finally getting some answers about what was going on next door. So does that. Does that change anything? I don't think so. I mean, it confirms what they said at the time. Yeah. So I think what. What we were doing, me and Willow and our friends, I think the person that it affects the most is Mick. Mick Bowden was the ex boyfriend Anna argued with that night because he was also with us. Wait, hold on. I need to grab a pen. Hey, Ryder, you're talking to me, and that's fine, but are you going on record? Are you hoping to officially reopen this case? I actually wasn't sure if what I had to say would warrant that, but I was willing to find out. Our first morning in Sebastopol, Chris and I went to the police station. I thought it'd be good to do this in person and get an honest reaction in real time, but I had a lot to learn. Hello. Hi. Hi. So we're here to talk to someone about an old case from 1995. I tried to explain what we were there for, which took way longer than I expected. Juniper teenager on Juniper Road. I think that's county, but let me ask. Hey, Ken. Turns out I wasn't even in the right jurisdiction. Really? That would be the sheriff's office, Western County. Yeah. If you're asking about a missing girl outside the town limits, we wouldn't have anything to do with that. That was a huge dead end. That was awful. That was so embarrassing for you, I gotta say. Dude, you're crushing it. Sherlock Homeschooled. Cracked the case wide open. Oh, she called 91 1. 30 years ago. Did you take that call personally to leave? Idiot dude, you got to leave this in. No, no. Injures you to the listener. Of course, if I had just asked Monica instead of running off and trying to play Gotcha, she could have told me that the sheriff's department ran the investigation. But when she and I talked, we were deep in the weeds of my whereabouts that night. Make bolden was with you when? After the party. And then before Anna Paige, I think. I'm not exactly sure what the timing is. Well, what were you doing out there? It's kind of a long story. A lot of this goes back to. What? Well, let me ask you this. What do you know about Anna's social life? I know she was in a tough spot. It was sexual. Some rumors in innuendo, harsh stuff with you guys. I'm actually surprised Monica even knows that. Anna was going through a lot that fall. There's a reason the mean girls were picking on her. And there was a reason that I was running around the woods that night with my friends. And this is the most uncomfortable part of doing this podcast, because in order to really get into the story, I'm gonna have to get into what was going on among us kids in ways that will probably be hard to confront. But as it turns out, even Sheriff Maldonado, who was indeed the correct official investigator, he knew some of this. Well, I know she had a rep. I do know that. I remember that. I tracked down Maldonado easily just a Google away. It turns out he's retired now. But he remembered the case immediately? Well, yes and no. I mean, we tend to assume runaway with a teen like that, you know, but then there were also other things there. You had that home situation that she was in, and, you know, that's not something that we're used to dealing with. Then there was the fire. The fire that threw us for a loop. And then I do remember we found her car down south of here. Anna's car. Technically, it was her mom's car. Was found almost a month later in a parking lot near the San Francisco airport. Well, finding the car like that, that pushed us in the. In the runaway direction, you know, but at the same time, we had the bullets. And then, yeah, there was. There was just a lot of. A lot of loose ends with that man. You. You just calling me? That's. That's. It's bringing it back, that's for sure. He agreed to talk with me, so we made a plan to meet at his house and sit down for an interview. After my utter fail at the police station, Chris and I went to The Pinecone Diner, which is one of our favorite old downtown spots. This is the real stuff. The stuff that everybody cuts out of their podcast. That's gonna. I know, that's. I. I just want. I just want to make sure that, you know, the sheriff or whoever it is like that. I want them to take me serious. They will if they don't arrest you. Oh, come on. Then why would they arrest you? Cause you lied to the police. Hey guys. Everything okay here? Yeah, we're good, thank you. Oh my God, I love her. Look, all I'm saying is take a beat, exhale, like cover your bases. Like, have you talked to a lawyer? Yeah, you should talk to my brother in law. Like find out where you stand legally. Well, I mean, I already talked to Monica, the reporter. You did? Yeah, I zoomed with her before I left. And what did she say? Okay. Okay. Well, that was always one of the big questions. For the first time, I had broken the pinky swear. I guess I'm honestly, I'm not sure. Does that answer things or does that just create more questions? Right. I mean, that's kind of my whole. With this podcast, that's what I want to find out. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures hey, this is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com pennymac loan services llc/housing lender and mls id 35953 license by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending act, conditions and restrictions may apply. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of meaningful beauty. When Dr. Sabah and I decided to do a skincare line together, he said to me, we are going to give women meaningful beauty. And I said, that's exactly right. We want to give women meaningful beauty, which means each and every product is meaningful. It has a reason to exist. Exist. It's efficacious. You're going to get results, and then you just go out and live your life. Meaningful Beauty confidence is beautiful. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com I'm here with Spinquest, where you can play and win from the comfort of your own home with hundreds of slot games and all of the table games you love with real cash Prizes. Right now, 30 coin packs are on sale for $10. For new users, it's all@spinquest.com that's s p I n q u s t.com Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. I had told Monica the truth, that the night her sister disappeared, Willow started the fire. She didn't immediately say, boy, you're up. No, no, not at all. And I know some of you might be thinking, why keep this a secret? We knew Willow had accidentally started the fire, and we thought that if it came back to her, she might get arrested for arson on top of losing her sister. But I'll be honest, I didn't really think through all that. I was 15. Willow was my friend. I didn't tell anyone because she asked me not to. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So it may not. It just might not change anything. Maybe not. But while we had lunch, I got out my notes. Fine. Let's just go over the theory. Yes, let's talk about what we do know, what we need to know. Theory number one. Anna ran away the most likely situation by leaps and dots. Okay? I mean, that's what everyone got out of a car. I think that's what everyone assumes. But I have a hard time imagining that she changed her name and ran off to I don't where and has never called, called anybody. And now she's just. What Sippy martinis on a rooftop somewhere. That sounds lovely. Theory number two. Someone killed Anna that night. Right, but who? Well, there's Elric the Guru. The leader of Tender Hearts, because he's a very shady guy. Yes, maybe people accept are shady people, but from all that I know, the cops did look into him and he was exonerated at the time. Go. Exonerate. Stop. Look at you. I think in order to get more information about that, I need to talk to Lainey, because Lainey is Willow and Anna's mom. But she hadn't responded to any of my calls or Facebook messages. It's gonna be the worst conversation I know. So I'm not looking forward to it. There's also always the chance that it was a random. Sure, some psycho killer just driving around. Yes, that happens all the time. Have you not seen the Dateline? On Dateline, it's always the husband. She was too young to have a husband. Yes, but the husband in this case. No, the husband in this case is Mick. Right. That is a theory. They never brought charges, but. Right, right, right. Maybe once I tell the cops what we were doing that night. More coffee? Yes. Was the coffee here always this terrible? Jesus Christ. Terrible. Well, my friend is doing a podcast and we are trying to be very honest, so I just going to lay it on the table. This coffee is terrible, but you, my dear, are a delight. You're wonderful. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And if you need anything else, just wave me down. I might think of something. Okie dokie. Are you kidding? The waitress? Oh, chill. I mean, what, you want me to call Fiona? Gee, just calm down. Then don't hit on some random waitress at the Pine Cone. Oh my God. But what. What the. Lighten up, okay? Excuse me. My friend here thinks that I was hitting on you. Now look, I'm clearly married and. Okay, we got it. I was joking. Yes, I know. Oh, I know. She knows. Do you know? Yes, now I know. Oh, now you know. Yes. Oh, now I'm sorry. Now we. I'm sorry. Oh, you are? What are you sorry for? For being too sensitive. For thinking that you making her uncomfortable. You're not. You're not uncomfortable? It's fine. All good? Yes, we're good. Thank you. I'm sorry. You are such a Debbie Downer. Can you please just lighten up? Let's have fun. Don't be the brooding sad sack reformed child actor, okay? You're not gonna crack this case, buddy. Okay? I know, but I gotta try. I knew I wasn't gonna solve anything. But I hoped that looking back at this time in my life, I might be able to understand some things that never made sense and in some way, and maybe this wasn't healthy. I felt like I owed that to Willow and my parents. That night, around a campfire, Chris and I got into it. Here's when I just think about Willow. You know, how she was when we were teenagers, a complete mess, right? But, you know, I wrote her off, I guess, because I was out of town all the time. And the drugs that she did and her bad attitude and the way she slept around. Okay, right. Like, right there, you know, we were still in the era of slut shaming and, you know, not like you and I did that, but I definitely felt like she was going down this path. And I didn't. I didn't know how to deal with it. I don't want to deal with it. Willow isn't an easy figure to describe in my life. I might have met her earlier, but I didn't really connect with Willow until I was seven or so when I ran into her in the woods. This barefoot girl with hand me down clothes. We used to meet between our properties. We'd climb trees, find salamanders, banana slugs, play house, play war. She sort of felt like an imaginary friend. Friend for a while. She was funny, fearless. I mean, I went back to my house every night, but her house back then was a teepee. Later, they had a building, a shack, but I think she still slept out in the woods a lot of nights. My brother thought she was crazy. She threw rocks at him once, and he never got over that. My mom said, she has spunk. And my dad said, watch out for that one. But, you know, that was a compliment. She was there when I broke my arm. I was there when she stepped on a yellowjacket hive. She taught me how to make a spear and how to skin a squirrel. She was my best friend. She was my first kiss. For a lot of reasons, we drifted apart in high school, not the least of which I ended up on a TV show for seven years. Best Friend's Cry. Oh, the heck Would that marry me? I live in a trailer park and I have no education, but my hair does. Not this. Sean. Shut up, man. I'm going for it. I had been acting since I was little, doing plays in Santa Rosa, which is the biggest town about 30 minutes away. And then I got lucky. I was discovered. Boy Meets World took over my life. Took me away from Sebastopol to go work in la, put me in magazines and On TV every Friday night. And even though I still went to school back home and. And I flew home every weekend, it wasn't the same. I never really fit in in my hometown. And Willow and I got older. We got different. There was a moment when it seemed like we should date, so we did. But then we went back to just being friends. I woke up one day and realized I hadn't talked to her for years. I was 20 years old when Boy Meets World ended. I moved to New York, and Willow and I lost touch. And then the letter. So you feel like you bailed on her? Kind of, yeah. Didn't you? I mean, I guess, yes. Because all of us guys managed to stay in touch, right? We managed to stay friends. You and me, Connor and Orion. Not Willow. And that's fucked, because I think she lost her sister and her whole family situation. I just feel like maybe if we had told the truth back then. Dude, she asked us not to. She begged us not to. Right, but you can see that was obviously the wrong call. You're in full martyr mode right now, dude. You're in for a world of pain. I don't understand because you're the one that's telling me that I should be honest and leave in everything, like going to the wrong cops. Because that's funny. Because that's entertaining. And that's not potentially going to get you arrested. You keep saying that. Why would we be arrested? Because Willow accidentally started a fire. Accidentally started a fire. That is not at all what happened. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? I'm talking about the pinky swear. The barn? Yeah, she lit the barn on fire. Right, with the M60s that we had. Because she was trying to scare Mickey. It's not an accident. She didn't accidentally drop M60s. She saw all that weed and she lit it all on fire. What? This was the first I'd heard this. Apparently the barn that Willow burned was full of marijuana from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. It's the most weed I've ever seen in my life. And Willow burned it down to the ground intentionally. Did you really not know it? Aren't you calling this thing the Red Weather because of the fire? No, no, it's from a Wallace Stevens poem. Oh, of course. An obscure poet's even more obscure poem. Holy Christ, Ryder, no one cares. Willow started that fire. She took out four houses but burned to the ground because she found a crap ton of drugs in that barn. Like, where'd the pot come from? We should probably find out. Shouldn't we I was only two days into recording and already I felt like I had no idea what I was getting into. For what it's worth, the title's from a poem called Disillusionment of ten O'. Clock. Here it is. It's short. The houses are haunted by white night counts and none are green or purple with green rings, or green with yellow rings, or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange with socks of lace and beaded censures. People are not going to dream of baboons and periwinkles Only here and there an old sailor, drunk and asleep in his boots catches tigers in red weather. It's tough to not conform, maybe impossible. We wear the same nightgowns, we have the same dreams. And if I think about how my parents, how Willow and Anna's mom, just the baby boomers in general, they had such high hopes. They really thought that they could change the world and remake it for us kids. And they tried. Protests, the sex, drugs and rock and roll, running off into the woods to build houses, to join communes. I want to believe that it meant something, that it did some good. But maybe not. Maybe they were just catching tigers in red. We. The Red Weather is an iHeart podcast hosted by Ryder Strong. Sound engineering, editing and mixing by Bo Milkus, produced by Tess Bartholomew, executive producers at iHeartRadio, Trevor Young and Matt Frederick associate producer Bo Milkus. Original score by Kyle Morton. If you're enjoying the show, please please remember to leave a review and rating. Thanks for listening. Aldous Hodge returns as Alex Cross, your favorite detective on television, for season two of the hit show Cross, premiering February 11th exclusively on Prime Video. Critics called season one one of the year's best shows, with over 40 million viewers worldwide. And on February 11th, the story continues with a new season from creator Ben Watkins and based upon characters created by James Patterson. Cross is Washington, D.C. 's most brilliant homicide detective and forensic psychologist. Fresh off his capture of the infamous serial killer, the fanboy, Cross teams up with the FBI to hunt down a vigilante serial killer targeting corrupt billionaires. As the case unfolds, Kross navigates a moral crossroads where the lines between justice and vengeance are blurred. Kross is back and better than ever this season. Get ready for a new case. Higher stakes, but the same Kross. Watch season two of Kross new episodes weekly starting February 11th, only on Prime Video. This is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jewels. Sunday mornings, I've got my game day ritual, coffee, lucky socks and now, New Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches. It's all about that 12 gram protein boost with the new Uncrustables Bright Eyed Berry or up and apple flavors. 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