7 | “lost cause”

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Red Weather

Podcast: The Red Weather
Host: Ryder Strong
Episode: 7 | "lost cause"
Date: February 18, 2026
Produced by iHeartPodcasts

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Overview

In this episode, Ryder Strong delves deeper into the disappearance of Anna Trainor, confronting painful history and personal responsibility. He travels to Colorado to meet Anna’s mother, Lainey, who claims to hold crucial, overlooked evidence in Anna's case. The visit becomes a reckoning with the intertwined fates of Anna, her sister Willow, and the adults whose actions have left lasting wounds. The conversation explores the darkness in their Northern California community, bringing together possible new suspects and motives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Revisiting the Past & Setting the Stage

• After investigating Anna’s 1995 disappearance and the subsequent unraveling of Willow’s life, Ryder receives a call from Lainey, Anna’s mother, agreeing to meet with him in Denver and share new evidence.
• Ryder’s own past—especially his complicated relationship with Willow—reemerges, especially after re-examining their last road trip together.
• (05:53) [Ryder] "The central trauma of Willow's life had to do with her sister, Anna...I started this podcast because Anna's sister Willow sent me a letter before she killed herself."

2. The Willow Roadtrip: Misunderstandings and Hidden Pain

• Previously unspoken truths surface: Ryder recalls his road trip with Willow, believing they were taking a break from life, not realizing Willow was supposed to be heading to rehab.
  • (13:15) [Lainey] "It was rehab, Ryder."
  • (14:37) [Lainey] "For three weeks, I didn't know where my daughter was. My moonbeam. I thought I had lost her. It was Anna all over again."
• The revelation that Willow was pregnant on that trip, and planned an abortion, devastates Lainey, who didn't know any of this before.

3. The Burden of Guilt and Memory

• Ryder wrestles with unresolved guilt for leaving Willow alone during her abortion and for possibly becoming another adult who let the Trainor girls down.
  • (20:56) [Ryder] "I could tell Laney didn't believe me. And I couldn't blame her, because no matter how I described it...I did leave Willow."

4. Life at the Tender Hearts Commune

• Lainey reflects on their alternative, nature-based upbringing and the eventual strain as children grew older and sought more conventional lives.
  • (22:09) [Lainey] "Oh, yeah, man, we were gonna change the world...Let the woods be school."
  • (23:24) [Lainey] "Anna hated it. She wanted Diet Coke and Cheetos...Pom poms and the Sadie Hawkins dance."
• Lainey confesses her own trauma as a motivation for protecting her daughters.
  • (23:26) [Lainey] "I was raped when I was 14...Cooper Davis."

5. Anna’s Stalker & the Overlooked Evidence

• Lainey is convinced Anna’s stalker was central to her disappearance, but police, she says, wrote her off as a “hysterical” mother.
  • (25:19) [Lainey] "She goes off for the all American life and what did it get her? ...A boyfriend who thinks he owns her and some other guy. She won't say who it is...just constantly bugging her."
  • (26:21) [Lainey] "If you care about that...you want to actually do the work, well, then I'm a crazy lady, right? ...Let the men work."

6. Inside Lainey’s House: The Artifacts of Loss

• Ryder and Lainey sift through Anna’s keepsakes—homemade trinkets, books, and annotated notebooks.
• Notably, both Anna and Willow’s copies of certain books have mysterious margin notes, like “lost cause”—possibly from the same “Mr. Wrong” figure who haunted Willow’s life.
  • (29:35) [Lainey] "Burn here. No, burn here. Burn here. Willow started that fire, but there were—there was spirit guiding it. Spirit stopping it."

7. Spiritual Evidence & Skepticism

• Lainey insists she found breakthroughs via a psychic named Marianne, while Ryder struggles to take this line of inquiry seriously.
  • (30:23) [Ryder] "I'm an atheist. And I'm, you know, die hard skeptic."
  • (30:38) [Lainey] "I had a series of experiences."

8. The Mr. Wrong Connection: A Frightening Pattern

• Ryder hypothesizes that Anna’s stalker and Willow’s “Mr. Wrong”—the older man who impregnated her—could be the same person.
• Evidence emerges pointing to a possible teacher, and connections are made to the novel Damage by Josephine Hart (about an older man and a younger woman named Anna).
  • (38:29) [Lainey] "Van Gogh suffered from severe emotional and psychological problems and died in France at the age of 37. 37."
  • (38:37) [Ryder] "That makes me think that he was 37. Or I don't like about to turn 37. And maybe he's married. Maybe he would lose his job. Maybe he's a teacher."
• The group zeroes in on Jacob Wyman, a former English teacher known for his close student relationships and controversial reading lists.
  • (39:52) [Ryder, paraphrased] "Damage by Josephine Hart is a psychological thriller centered on...a destructive affair with...Anna."

9. Cliffhanger: Police at Ryder’s Childhood Home

• As Ryder prepares to present his findings to the authorities, he receives a call that police are searching his parents' house for guns, hinting at escalating stakes and potential new troubles for him.
  • (43:36) [Ryder] "I got a call from my brother...They have a warrant and they're searching the house...They're looking for guns."

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Notable Quotes and Moments with Timestamps

• Lainey’s Pain and Rage at Institutions:
  • (26:21) [Lainey] "You lose your daughter, you know, but if you care...then I'm a crazy lady, right? ...Let the men do their thing."
• Intimate Details about the Trainor Sisters:
  • (28:02) [Lainey] "Purple and white. My stardust child. Willow was my moonbeam. But Anna was all stardust."
• Possible Suspect Identification:
  • (40:19) [Ryder] "Do you remember Jacob Wyman? ...He was a teacher at Annalee. Did he ever come up?"
• The Thread Between Anna and Willow’s Fates:
  • (38:45) [Ryder] "It's a pattern, right? If this guy's got a thing for grooming young girls, what are the chances he would do it more than once?"
• Ryder’s Own Reckoning:
  • (20:56) [Ryder] "And I honestly can't remember how it went down exactly...Was I respecting her wishes? Or was I hurt and pissed off?"

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [03:07] Ryder learns Lainey will finally talk
• [09:58] Ryder arrives at Lainey's house in Colorado
• [13:15] Revelation: Willow was supposed to go to rehab, not on an adventure
• [14:37] Lainey confesses her devastation over not knowing Willow’s whereabouts
• [21:45] Lainey decides to share her evidence
• [29:29] Lainey discusses spiritual signs—constellation Pleiades, energies around the fire
• [30:57] Ryder investigates the meaning of marginalia in Anna and Willow's books
• [38:29] “Operation Van Gogh” – theorizing about Anna’s plan and the identity of "Mr. Wrong"
• [43:36] Cliffhanger: The police search Ryder’s parents’ home

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Tone and Style

The episode is heavy, introspective, and confessional, marked by moments of raw grief and regret. Both Ryder and Lainey vacillate between skepticism and desperate hope, seeking threads of truth in trauma’s aftermath. The dialogue is candid, troubled, and haunted, with flashes of mordant humor that sharpen the edge of the pain:

• Lainey, dryly: (10:02) "You look like a middle aged rider. That's—"
• Ryder, self-effacing: (19:03) “Oof, Ryder. Strong. More like writer. Weak.”

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Summary

In this emotionally wrenching installment, Ryder’s investigation circles back to not just Anna’s disappearance, but the cascading failures of the adults in her life. The theory that the same older man—possibly a teacher—preyed upon both sisters sharpens, connecting predatory patterns, authority, and communal willful blindness. As old secrets surface and the investigation provokes unintended pain, the question lingers: how many truths do victims—and their families—carry alone? The episode closes with Ryder himself suddenly in the crosshairs of law enforcement, raising the stakes and the emotional toll of his quest for justice.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Ryder Strong]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Narrator/Host]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Narrator/Host]

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[Ryder Strong]

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 or responsibilities of iHeartMedia or its affiliates. Previously on the Red Weather. 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. The central trauma of Willow's life had to do with her sister, Anna. On Halloween night, 1995, Anna disappeared. Well, it's a little superficial, but I would love to see some of this stuff. I was Reading the evidence catalog for Anna Trainor's case. Like this book, maybe. And then could I see the bullets? I always said that she made that tape for somebody else, an older guy.

[Lainey Trainor]

You said this thing last week. You said, oh, I'm glad you're 16, at least, because I know it's cause you just, like, want me to drive. But then it also can't be true that age doesn't matter.

[Ryder Strong]

I think in order to get more information about that, I need to talk to Lainey, because I know it's gonna be a worse conversation. I know I'm not looking forward to it.

[Lainey Trainor]

Ryder, it's Lainey Trainor. I don't know. It's been years. Decades. I'm in Colorado. Okay, call me back, buddy.

[Ryder Strong]

And I knew I had to go to Colorado. I was over a month into investigating the disappearance of Anna Trainor when I finally heard from her mom, Lainey, I.

[Lainey Trainor]

Have lots to show you. Things you need to see.

[Ryder Strong]

We traded phone calls. She agreed that if I came out to Denver, she would tell me everything. We set a date. I got a flight. I was excited. But then. I cannot believe she's gonna talk to you. My buddy Chris reminded me he basically ran away with her daughter that one summer. What are you talking about? Didn't you and Willow take that road trip up through Humboldt? I started this podcast because Anna's sister Willow sent me a letter before she killed herself. Yeah, but it wasn't like we were running away. Connor, our other friend, agreed with Chris. She'd already run away. She was living in the Hess building. The Hess building was an abandoned building behind the coffee shop in our hometown. I mean, I just remember you had to go through, like, this little fence to get in, and. And then, you know, it was all run down. The whole wall was open, and you kind of climb around a lot of different places, but that was the spot. You'd go and smoke weed and. I mean, it wasn't really a party place. I never really, like, partied there, but that's where people would go about. I know she lived there for a while. In the years after her sister disappeared, Willow's life began to unravel a bit. Drugs, alcohol. She discovered raves in San Francisco. She dropped out of school. It was definitely a rough time, a dramatic time for her and me. You might remember the first episode of this podcast I mentioned. There was a moment when Willow and I dated. I wasn't sure if I'd ever talk about that. This was a podcast about Anna, after all, trying to uncover what happened to her or at least get a better understanding of her story. After I talked with Connor and Chris, though, I went back and found my last contact with Lainey. It was an email she sent me in 1998. It was just a subject line in all caps. It said, ryder, stay the hell away from my daughter. I am actor and filmmaker Ryder Strong. This is the red weather, Sam. In some ways, I was further along in Anna's case than I'd ever dreamed. I had found new evidence, a new angle, and a new hypothetical person who might have helped her run away, maybe even killed her. The catch? I had no clue who that person could be. Lainey seemed to know what I was talking about, though. She knew all about the stalker, she said. When we connected over the phone, she said she had plenty of evidence, But Sheriff Maldonado and his team ignored her. I couldn't confirm this, though, because the sheriff's department was no longer talking to me.

[Lainey Trainor]

So she has stuff to show you.

[Ryder Strong]

I was leaving home again at the worst time, personally. My son had a play performance and a piano recital. But my wife was understanding.

[Lainey Trainor]

I mean, it's not great timing, but, yeah, it seems important.

[Ryder Strong]

Do you know where my copy of the Subterranean is?

[Narrator/Host]

You're going for a few days?

[Lainey Trainor]

How many books do you need?

[Ryder Strong]

No, no, no. It's not for that. I'm looking for this very specific copy.

[Lainey Trainor]

Just get a Kindle?

[Ryder Strong]

No. But I wasn't just looking for a casual reread. I was preparing to see Lainey. Jack Kerouac's novel the Subterranean was one of my favorites when I was younger, and I wanted to find a specific copy. After seeing the stay away from my daughter email, I checked the timing, and Connor and Chris were right. It was right after a very specific experience. A road trip I took with Willow in 1998. Willow gave me the Subterraneans on this trip, and I found it wedged in my bookcase.

[Narrator/Host]

Welcome to Hollywood Burbank Airport.

[Ryder Strong]

A reminder for passengers on my way to Colorado. I flipped through it. It was a copy that got passed around, full of little notes and underlined passages. There were a few books like this in our friend group that we all read and handed off to one another. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, east of Eden. I remember one of the first books that you lent me was Wordsworth. It's a book of poetry by Wordsworth. Then we started getting really into the Americana stuff, right? So we moved into the beat Generation, and so it was like Kerouac and Burroughs. Ginsburg. I think you gave me My first copy of on the Road, I kept the copy with like your notes in it and my notes in it. And we put our names on the front. Like everybody that we passed this book along to, we'd share. And I remember doing that with a few books. Yeah, I remember that. Subterranean is kind of crazy, overwrought, dense. It's about a week long love affair that ends badly. I looked at all the underlined parts, the notes scribbled in the margins. I found my own bad handwriting. But there were other notes too. Some of them were from Willow. I know because she had a habit of putting stars next to passages she liked. But she was also responding to notes from someone else. Like the one that said love makes men crazy. And Willow had written women too. Next to a section where Kerouac's narrator jumps on a street sweeper cart. The other person wrote lost cause. These were from the guy who'd given her the book. Mr. Wrong. Mr. Wrong was exactly why our road trip was such a disaster. I landed in Denver and got a rental car. Laney lives in a suburb called Commerce City. I checked into a hotel and pulled up to her House around 5pm I could see Laney on the porch. I decided to record from the get go. Hey, Laney. Hi.

[Lainey Trainor]

You look like a middle aged rider. That's.

[Ryder Strong]

That's what I am.

[Lainey Trainor]

Hi there. W. What. What are you, a spy?

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, I know. It's. Is it. Is it all right if I. We're recording.

[Lainey Trainor]

Of course. I told you you could just. Don't you upload my brain to the Mothership.

[Ryder Strong]

So I really thank you for talking to me.

[Lainey Trainor]

Yeah, you know what? You're welcome.

[Ryder Strong]

Laney had always been small. And she seemed even smaller now. But not fragile. She still looks like she could live in the woods.

[Lainey Trainor]

If you told me that we would get somewhere, anywhere with Anna's case, let alone that it would be right or fucking strong, I would have told you you were crazy.

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah, well, you know. It was Willow's letter.

[Lainey Trainor]

Yeah.

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah. I'm so sorry.

[Lainey Trainor]

I know. I know, honey. Here, let's have a seat, huh?

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, sure. She had chairs on her porch. She had bourbon.

[Lainey Trainor]

You want a little of this?

[Ryder Strong]

Uh, yeah. Why not? Thank you. I got the feeling Lainey might have already had a few.

[Lainey Trainor]

I need to tell you something. I was angry with you for so long. You know that.

[Ryder Strong]

And here it comes. It's kind of a long story, but I had seen Willow a few weeks earlier. We. We ran into each other at a party in Santa Cruz. My road trip With Willow was doomed from the start. And I wasn't there for. So why wasn't I not there? You were already back east, but actually, I guess you would have been home for the summer. Chris had already transferred to a boarding school in Boston. One thing leads to another, and we find ourselves in this room at this party, making out. But that was not the first time, my friend, was it? No. She was my first kiss. But context is everything. That first time, we were nine, and it was a game of truth or dare. Then she stops kissing me and tells me she can't. Can't do this. She's seen someone brutal. Yeah. So I'm like. I'm all hurt and embarrassed because here we'd finally taken this leap from friends to, oh, yeah, maybe we're gonna date, and then just boom, like, immediately shut down. Of course, there's someone else. This was the first time I heard about Mr. Wrong. But a few weeks later, Willow called me from the Oakland Airport. She wanted me to pick her up. She was supposed to be getting on a flight to some kind of summer camp or retreat. I wasn't totally clear, but she didn't want to go. She wanted us to hit the road. She wanted to see if we can be together. I was free. And I did want to see if we could be together. There was a big part of me that had been in love with Willow from the moment I met her. So I drove to Oakland.

[Lainey Trainor]

There were years. Years, right. Where I could not say your name. I wouldn't. You know when you picked up Willow that summer?

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah, I know.

[Lainey Trainor]

Yeah. And you guys just took off your van?

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah. I mean, I thought. I thought it was fine, really, because she called me and asked me to come pick her up because she didn't want to go to the camp.

[Lainey Trainor]

A camp?

[Ryder Strong]

You know, that thing in Montana, wherever she was going.

[Lainey Trainor]

Camp? You mean like a summer camp?

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah. Why?

[Lainey Trainor]

It was rehab. Writer.

[Ryder Strong]

I should have known. Oh, God.

[Lainey Trainor]

Yeah. We found her, Willa. She had bottles. She had all these pills. Just a whole bunch of pills. Yeah, me and Charlie. You remember Charlie?

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah, kind of. Kind of? I actually didn't think I ever met Charlie, but I knew that was Lainey's boyfriend for a couple of years, a pseudo stepdad to Willow.

[Lainey Trainor]

She wasn't going to school, wasn't coming home, so Charlie had found the place, a place for her to, you know, get treatment. We'd already paid for it.

[Ryder Strong]

It was, like, for two weeks. I had no idea.

[Lainey Trainor]

Really? You had no idea?

[Ryder Strong]

I should have known within minutes of picking Will. That she was lying. That she didn't want some soul searching road trip. This was not a romantic getaway. She was all distracted and emotional and manic. Yeah, totally. You know, she just wanted to listen to music and find places to camp where no one was around, smoke cigarettes. And she just, like, burst into tears suddenly. We spent a week driving north up into Humboldt. And despite what she'd insinuated over the phone, everything was strictly platonic. I could tell she was going through something, but I didn't want to pry. But I also was confused and had a lot of my own feelings. It wasn't until about five days into the trip that she finally told me what was going on. She was pregnant.

[Lainey Trainor]

For three weeks, I didn't know where my daughter was.

[Ryder Strong]

She didn't tell me.

[Lainey Trainor]

I hope you know now that you're a father, you understand. I can. I can't. But, lady, let me just get this out. Ryder, please. For three weeks, I didn't know where she was. My moonbeam. I thought I had lost her. It was Anna all over again. And she finally called when you left her in San Francisco. And she never got over that, Ryder, by the way, I'm not gonna lie. That's a wound that did not heal. I had to drive down to the city, and she was a mess. She was crushed.

[Ryder Strong]

This was tricky, because in my mind, I hadn't left Willow in San Francisco. In fact, I wanted to stay at first, but Willow had decided to have an abortion. And she told me that the father, Mr. Wrong, was coming to help her. But I didn't want to sit here and get into that with Lainey for two reasons. One, I thought there was a good chance Willow had lied to her mom that she told Lainey I was the father. And two, I thought that was a lie not worth correcting. Because I had a bad feeling about Mr. Wrong. She ever tell you who it was? No. No clue. Right. That's the thing. She just told me that she shouldn't be with this guy. And honestly, I had this thought, like, maybe it was her mom's boyfriend. Holy Charlie. Seriously? Yes, I know. It's incredibly up. Yeah. Why. Why else wouldn't she tell me who it was? Wouldn't tell you? Wouldn't tell any of us. Okay, I get that you didn't want to upset Lainey, but. But why does any of this matter? Yeah. What does this have to do with Anna? Well, because of what Laney showed me in the house.

[Narrator/Host]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Narrator/Host]

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[Ryder Strong]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Ryder Strong]

Did you know that I wrote a short story about that road trip with Willow? Was it called Friend zone down Route 66? It was the first story I published. I fictionalized a lot. The characters were older, and I gave the girl a different name, Opal. But the plot was the same. A man and a woman go on a road trip to run away and give Bean together a shot. Then she reveals she's pregnant with her ex boyfriend's child. I went back over the story for any clues to who Mr. Wrong was. So in the story, I'm trying to get her to tell me who the father is. And this is what I wrote. She wasn't going to say. I wanted to scream. I wanted to leave. I wanted to kiss her. Oof. Ryder. Strong. More like writer. Weak. I hated him, whoever he was. With nothing to go on, he grew monstrous and perfect in my mind. Oh, now that is a good line, friend. He was rich. He was cool. He was taller than me, older. He listened to better music. None of that might be true, but I knew one thing. He made her happy. At one time, he made Opal happy. Older, richer, taller. Right, but see, that's. That's me being insecure and paranoid, right? So, like, that's just speculation. In real life, I dropped Willow off at a hotel near a planned parenthood and drove off, confused and sad. In the story, the narrator turns back around, he picks her up, and they decide to stay together. I left it ambiguous if they kept the child or not. Anyway, so here I was on the porch with Lainey, who's, like, still in mourning. This woman has lost two daughters now, right? And all I can do is sort of lamely defend the fact that I didn't abandon her pregnant daughter to get an abortion by herself. Yeah. I really didn't want to leave her. I. I was. That was not my intention. I mean, we fought about it. I wanted to stay.

[Lainey Trainor]

Okay. All right.

[Ryder Strong]

I could tell Laney didn't believe leave me. And I couldn't blame her, because no matter how I described it, no matter how I spun it, I did leave Willow. And I honestly can't remember how it went down exactly. I remember crying. I remember her crying. And I know she told me to go, but why did I listen? Was it because I was respecting her wishes? Or was I hurt and pissed off? Was I jealous of Mr. Wrong? Was I mad that she wouldn't tell me who he was? Was I mad that she didn't want to make out with me? Yes. I think yes to all of those things. Is it better if I leave? No.

[Lainey Trainor]

I need to show you what I have. It's too important.

[Ryder Strong]

But we stayed on the porch. Lainey smoked. She poured more whiskey. Eventually, she began to talk about the tender hearts.

[Lainey Trainor]

Oh, yeah, man, we were. We were gonna change the world. It was radical. It was a radical change. And with the kids, we thought it was perfect. Let the woods be school. Let nature, you know, be their teacher.

[Ryder Strong]

But the reality was the kids, the grommets, got older.

[Lainey Trainor]

God damn. Liam was out, out of hand. What a snot. And him and his mom left when he was like, nine or ten. And then Joan's son started going to Twin Hills.

[Ryder Strong]

Before they knew it, Laney and the other moms were driving to three different schools.

[Lainey Trainor]

Suddenly our, like, free flowing, groovy thing became about who was picking up whose kid, who had the keys to whose car. And God, my girls hated it. Anna hated it. She wanted Diet Coke and Cheetos. She wanted Pom poms and, you know, the fucking Sadie Hawkins dance. Oh, God. There was a girl in town, Bailey, Bam, Bam, whatever. And she would be dropped off by her mom. And she would pull up in the front of the school and she had this, like, white Jeep, you know, the blonde hair and all the clothes. And Anna turns to me one day and she says, why can't we be like that? And I was like, honey, stardust. Love of my life. That is death. That is hell. You want to live like that, you got to take the whole thing. You're going to have a job you hate. You're going to have some man telling you what to do breathing down your neck.

[Ryder Strong]

Laney saw tender hearts as a refuge.

[Lainey Trainor]

I was protecting them. My girls, they had no idea how much I was protecting them. I was coming from. Well, I'm gonna tell you, I don't care. I was raped when I was 14.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, God.

[Lainey Trainor]

Yeah. By my dad's best friend, Cooper Davis. Cooper Davis.

[Ryder Strong]

So sorry. That's awful.

[Lainey Trainor]

And for my parents, for Cooper, there was something normal about it, you know? It was, like, expected. First week of summer, Laney's 14. Lanie has a new bathing suit. So, sure, Cooper couldn't help himself.

[Narrator/Host]

Un.

[Lainey Trainor]

Fucking believable. You know what my dad did? He went and he had a talk with him. My mom's a mess. My brother Jacob doesn't know what the hell's going on. My dad goes to Cooper. The men had their talk, and everything's fine. Just right back under the rug they have their talk. Cooper comes to dinner the next week. You want to smoke? Yeah. Come on.

[Ryder Strong]

Just. Thank you.

[Lainey Trainor]

You gotta quit this shit, writer. I stopped. I made it almost five years this spring.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, good for you.

[Lainey Trainor]

Wait til you have a teenager. What do you have a girl?

[Ryder Strong]

Son.

[Lainey Trainor]

Oh my God. Thank God. You better thank God. Every day you take him to the woods, you give him tree time.

[Ryder Strong]

I do, actually. I try, yeah. Anna turning away from the tender hearts wasn't just a lifestyle choice or a philosophical betrayal. It brought real consequences.

[Lainey Trainor]

She goes off for the all American life and what did it get her? It got her shitty friends, the mall girls. I called them. A boyfriend who thinks he owns her and some other fucking guy. She won't say who it is and in her notes are just constantly bugging her.

[Ryder Strong]

Okay, so this is the stalker. At first, Anna complained about a guy who wouldn't leave her alone.

[Lainey Trainor]

I start putting two together.

[Ryder Strong]

She's. But then things changed.

[Lainey Trainor]

All of a sudden. She's missing school, late nights, taking the car out. He wore her down. That son of a. Wore her down.

[Ryder Strong]

And she never said who it was?

[Lainey Trainor]

No, because by then, you know, she lost her tender heart. She barely talked to me anymore.

[Ryder Strong]

Hold up, hold up. Is. Is this where you tell me Anna's stalker was? Charlie? No. No, because Charlie and Lanny didn't meet until 1997, and he was. He was stationed overseas in 95. But you're on the right track. Lainey was convinced that she had evidence that could solve Anna's case. But Maldonado and his team wouldn't listen to her.

[Lainey Trainor]

They're pulling bullets out of trees, chasing parking tickets, going after Elric. They destroyed that man. They just. They destroyed him. You lose your daughter, you know, but if you care. Care about that. You want to actually do the work, well, then I'm a crazy lady, right? I'm. I'm hysterical. Miss, Miss, calm down. You know what that means, you know, know your place, keep your mouth shut. Let the men work. Let the men do their thing.

[Ryder Strong]

Cooper comes to dinner next week.

[Lainey Trainor]

God damn, look at you. That's right. You listen. You're open. Okay, let's head inside. Yeah, sure.

[Ryder Strong]

Walking in, though, I wished we'd stayed outside. I couldn't see the floor. Clothes everywhere. She had rows of paper bags, brown paper bags that looked like they were filled with rocks. And there was insulation. Rolls and strips of pink wall insulation piled around.

[Lainey Trainor]

I've been. We needed to go through all this stuff.

[Ryder Strong]

Blankets, baskets and figurines. She had a huge Collection of kachina dolls, traditional Hopi figurines. I didn't know where to walk, where I could walk, so I focused on those. Oh, these are great.

[Lainey Trainor]

Oh, yeah. My little warriors. Let's go to the kitchen. Sure. Got these three boxes here.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, wow.

[Lainey Trainor]

It's my Anna collection.

[Ryder Strong]

One box was full of early childhood stuff.

[Lainey Trainor]

Her first little haircutting.

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah.

[Lainey Trainor]

Look at this dress she made. Isn't that good?

[Ryder Strong]

Mm.

[Lainey Trainor]

Purple and white. My stardust child. Willow was my moonbeam. But Anna was all stardust.

[Ryder Strong]

It was a lot of homemade trinkets. There was a dream catcher. Then there was a box of stuff from when she was older. Yeah.

[Lainey Trainor]

This is the makeup box she made me buy her.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, were those Anna's?

[Lainey Trainor]

Yeah.

[Ryder Strong]

It was a collection of books. Edgar Allan Poe, the Dao of Pooh. The Secret Language of Birthdays. It. Yes. And there was a copy of Stephen King's It. It was the same edition I remembered reading.

[Lainey Trainor]

Anna liked all that gothic stuff. But here, this is. This is the real stuff here.

[Ryder Strong]

She pulled out big folded papers and leather notebooks.

[Lainey Trainor]

So. Okay, the first thing, the most important thing, is the fire, right? Willow's rage.

[Ryder Strong]

Lanie unfolded a map of Sonoma County.

[Lainey Trainor]

So when Anna didn't come home the next morning, I knew that we were dealing with vindictive forces.

[Ryder Strong]

She also had a page of tracing paper with lines and symbols, and I started to get worried.

[Lainey Trainor]

Yeah, these are. Here, Take it here. This candle.

[Ryder Strong]

I realized too late I had backed myself into a corner.

[Lainey Trainor]

This is the constellation Pleiades. You know, your stars? No, Pleiades, the seven sisters. Right. Yes. So that's key. Okay, now, look at this. Do you see this? Look at this.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, they line up.

[Lainey Trainor]

Yeah, they line up exactly.

[Ryder Strong]

Look.

[Lainey Trainor]

Burn here. No, burn here. Burn here. Willow started that fire, but there were. There was spirit guiding it. Spirit stopping it.

[Ryder Strong]

I knew that if I said the wrong thing, I'd be one more person telling Lainey she was crazy and hysterical.

[Lainey Trainor]

Huh?

[Ryder Strong]

Okay.

[Lainey Trainor]

Okay. But the real breakthrough, yeah, Came later. Now, this is. This is my journal here. I tracked every session I had with Marianne.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, Who's Mary? Who's Marianne?

[Lainey Trainor]

Marianne was the medium I met in 2002. By the way, I met her on October 23, 2002. Yeah, Anna's birthday. I found her in Monterrey. She was working with the Pascali group. She was trained by Pascali himself.

[Ryder Strong]

Okay, Lainey, I don't. I'm sorry. I don't want to. I don't mean to cut you off.

[Lainey Trainor]

You need to be open, Ryder. I need you to look at this.

[Ryder Strong]

You have to be open. I'm open. I'm trying to be. I just want. I think I should just be very clear. I'm an atheist. And I'm, you know, die hard skeptic.

[Lainey Trainor]

You don't believe me?

[Ryder Strong]

I believe that you. I don't doubt that you had an experience.

[Lainey Trainor]

I had a series of experiences.

[Ryder Strong]

Okay. Right. But I. You know, I'm looking. I'm trying to find some evidence that this is. I don't know what I can really do with this. It's not like I tried to get her attention back to the first couple boxes. I'm thinking more like. Do you have any journals or letters that she wants?

[Lainey Trainor]

Yeah, I showed you this box right here.

[Ryder Strong]

Okay. Yeah. So the books. And what is this? Is this. I was flipping through the copy of it. Is this Anna's handwriting? Who. Who gave her this book? I don't know, because I. I have a book from Willow, and I swear it's the. It's the exact, exact same handwriting. There was a note in the margin of one page. Lost cause, Mr. Wrong. I remembered the book in evidence at the sheriff's department, too. The way of the peaceful Warrior. Did it have notes in it? What book? From Willow? It's. I. I have it back in my hotel. If I could do. Can I keep this?

[Lainey Trainor]

That was Anna's.

[Ryder Strong]

Okay. Right. Because Willow. Do you know who was giving her books? Like, who were giving her.

[Lainey Trainor]

I don't know, writer friends, teachers.

[Ryder Strong]

Lainey said it so casually, but I suddenly had a very strong sinking feeling. A teacher? Yeah, because Willow gave me a book, and it was from the guy that she was seen in. In 98, the guy that she called Mr. Wrong.

[Lainey Trainor]

Mr. Wrong.

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah, he was. I don't know. I don't know who he was, but he was the. He was the father.

[Lainey Trainor]

Whose father?

[Ryder Strong]

You know, baby Willow's baby Lainey. What? Turn that fucking thing off.

[Narrator/Host]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Narrator/Host]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Ryder Strong]

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[Lainey Trainor]

I don't think I knew the whole story.

[Ryder Strong]

I told you about Willow. Maybe, but isn't this podcast about her sister? Yes, it is. Right?

[Lainey Trainor]

I didn't think you're gonna be spending all your time talking about an ex girlfriend.

[Ryder Strong]

She's. She's a friend. It was just like this one, you know, this one moment when we're teenagers, right? Who you were in love with and who you, what, drove to get an abortion. That's not what this is about.

[Lainey Trainor]

It's kind of becoming about that.

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah. All right, look, I gotta. I gotta get to the hotel. I'm still kind of reeling right now, so can I just call you later? Yeah. I went to the hotel. I wasn't sure if I should stay in Denver and try and call Laney the next day or what. I felt horrible here. Laney thought I was coming to help her. That I was somebody was finally going to take her seriously and maybe help give her answers. Instead, I brought more doubt, more questions. Maybe even made her feel betrayed by her other daughter. Hold on. You think Mr. Wrong, the guy who got Willow pregnant and Anna's killer are the same person? I called Chris and Monica to go over things. Exactly. Because of a note in a book. No, it's more than that. It's more. It all fits. Just stay with me here, okay? Anna has a stalker. She complains to her mom, but then at some point, Anna stops complaining about him and she actually starts dating him. And she makes the tape for him, but she doesn't say his name on the tape because it's a secret relationship. She can't tell anyone. Her mom, her sister, Mick, anyone. She doesn't want anybody to know who this guy is. There's something wrong or inappropriate, maybe illegal about their affair. And they have a plan. Operation Van Go. And from the tape we know he's scared of what's the society thinks of him. He's told her age doesn't matter. There's also this moment.

[Lainey Trainor]

Van Gogh suffered from severe emotional and psychological problems and died in France at the age of 37. 37.

[Ryder Strong]

That makes me think that he was 37. Or I don't like about to turn 37. And maybe he's married. Maybe he would lose his job. Maybe he's a teacher. Halloween night, Anna and Mick have their fight. The mean girls are mean. And Anna makes a decision. It's time for Operation Van Gogh. But she still pages Mick. Yeah, I don't know about that. Maybe she's torn. Should she get back together with Mick or run away with this other guy? Maybe she's hedging her bets because the guy might not go through with Operation Van Gogh. Either way, yes, she pages Mick. But then she changes her mind and she meets up with this other, other guy. He picks her up before Mick gets the pay phone. Or they meet somewhere else entirely. And maybe they start Operation Van Gogh. Maybe he helps her get to the airport to fly away somewhere. Or they fight and she threatens to tell everyone about their affair, which would ruin his life. Maybe he kills her to cover up the affair. He hides her body. He drives Tony down to the Kelty lot. Makes it plausible that Anna just ran away. Now, all that is pretty much what I was thinking anyway when I was focused on Mick. But here's what's new. Three years later, 1998. The guy got away with it. Anna's gone. The case is cold. Life has moved on for everyone. But he's still in town. He is? Yeah. He's still potentially in Laney's life. He could be a friend of the family. He's still teaching. And losing. And behold, here comes Willow, a new young trainer girl. This is gross. I know. But it's a pattern, right? If this guy's got a thing for grooming young girls, what are the chances that he would do it more than once? High, I guess. Now it's 1998, and Willow, like her sister, is in a secret relationship. And Willow can't tell anyone. Not her mom, not us. Why not? The same reasons Anna didn't tell anyone. He's older, he's inappropriate. He's maybe still a teacher, still married. Jesus. Do you remember Jacob Wyman? No. The English teacher? I Never had him. But there were kids who loved this guy. He was one of those dudes that was like one of the kids to call him by his first name. Not Mr. Wyman, but Jacob. Oh, was he the one that took kids camping? Yes, exactly. Exactly. The senior trip. Jacob's senior trip. Okay. Who's that? He was a teacher at Annalee. Did he ever come up? No, but hold on, I'm gonna search the archives. Monica still had access to the back articles of the Press Democrat. Oh, there's a lot. I mean, these are boring mentions. Assemblies, football games, direct to school play one year. Oh, okay. There's an article about Harry Potter. He's quoted. It was 2001, remember? There was a backlash to Harry Potter, that the books were promoting witchcraft. We don't give kids enough credit, says Jacob Wideman, an English teacher at Annalee High School. I'd rather kids explore things dark or risky things in fiction. I encourage them to read whatever they enjoy. Horror, crime, any genre. Yeah, Anna had a copy of Stephen King's Hit. His stance, though, isn't without controversy. Wyman landed in hot water last semester when several parents noticed he had included the novel Damage by Josephine Hart on his fall reading list. I could see their concerns. Wyman said he ended up dropping Damage from his syllabus. I don't. What is this book? Damage? Yes. Damage by Josephine Hart is a psychological thriller centered on a respectable British politician, Dr. Stephen Fleming, whose life spirals when he becomes obsessively and destructively involved with his son's fiance, Anna. Are you kidding me? The character's name is Anna. Forbidden Desire, Secret Affair, an older man and a younger woman. I. I haven't read it. I haven't read this, but it sounded familiar. I thought maybe because it was a bestseller, because there was a movie made, but actually it was familiar for another reason. What's this other note here? Weeks ago, I had been requesting items one by one from the evidence catalog at the sheriff's department. Damage. Heart spelled H A, R, T. That might be a note that the book is damaged or could be a type of damaged art. I needed to see that book. That night in Denver, I could barely sleep. This felt like enough to bring to Greer and Lachlan. They could open up the evidence locker and see for themselves. I compiled my clip so I could call the sheriff's department in the morning. But when I woke up, I got a call from my brother. Hey, what's going on? Hey. So the sheriff's department is here. He was calling from my parents house. What yeah, they have a warrant and they're searching the house. They're going through all the closets and outside. It's like, hold on, hold on, hold on. I don't understand. What are they? What are they looking for? Guns. The Red Weather is an iHeart podcast hosted by Rider 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 remember to leave a review and rating. Thanks for listening.

[Narrator/Host]

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[Ryder Strong]

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[Lainey Trainor]

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[Ryder Strong]

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