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The podcast episode is discussing the topic of ethics in true crime. The hosts bring in guest speakers to discuss different perspectives on the subject. They explain that ethics is about one's moral compass and how they view situations based on their upbringing and personal values. They emphasize that ethics is not just about following laws, but about making decisions based on one's own beliefs and considering all sides of a situation. The discussion also touches on the importance of being sensitive to the victims and their families, as well as the ethical implications of discussing true crime on social media. You're listening to Sirens, a true crime podcast brought to you by the Sirens Network. The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely the views of the hosts and do not reflect the views of affiliates, associates, or sponsors of this podcast. A break from our regular programming for this special episode. This is Sirens, a true crime podcast. Hi guys, and welcome to another episode of the Sirens podcast. Today I have some special guests with me. We are actually going to talk a little bit about ethics again. This will be our third episode on the subject, but I wanted to bring in some outside perspective in this discussion. So I have with me today Curious Cousin's podcast, and I also have the wonderful Jax Miller. I'm good, I'm good. So good to hear from you ladies. You too. I'm glad that you were available today. No, that's fine. You actually caught me. I was buying frozen yogurt by the beach. Okay, one more. That sounds amazing. Why? How come I'm not buying frozen yogurt by the beach? I know. I'm telling you, you guys didn't come out this way. I know. I want you. I know. People keep saying this to us. I want you. Hi. Awesome. Hi. Hello. Rock and roll. Rock and roll. Rock and roll. We're going to talk about some ethics, and we're going to do kind of like a round table panel sort of style. I've got some questions that I'm going to posit to everyone, and then kind of have a discussion. I know. We've already went into this. Mandy, don't get lengthy with the first question. Yes. Because we are going to start with Mandy because Mandy teaches ethics, and so we're going to make Mandy explain. Mandy teaches everything. Mandy does teach everything. Mandy, you overachiever. I'm just kidding. So I'm going to start with what is ethics, question mark, question mark. So ethics is your moral compass. She's trying not to get lengthy already. I know. I'm trying not to do this long version. How we're raised, how we look at situations through our parents' eyes, through our caregivers' eyes as children, and then as we get older, we create our own families, our own world around us as adults, and we either kind of branch off from what our parents have done or we create our own ethical values. And ethics, again, really doesn't have anything to do with your crime. Yes. That's the whole point because you hear ethical true crime everywhere right now, and ethical true crime to me is just somebody saying, hey, try to bring your morals and values into it. It's relative. It's relative to who you are. But I think that they are using it incorrectly as in saying, be ethical when you're doing true crime. Well, what does that mean, though? Well, and there are different forms of ethics. There are ethics, and people think ethics mean thou shall not kill. Okay? It does mean that, but that is also a written law that is supposed to be followed by everyone. So people think, oh, well, that's my ethical. That's a written law. So that should be your ethical value because that's what you think. That's not because it's a written law. What you think is right, not what everyone is telling you is right or wrong. Exactly. That's what ethics is. Ethics are not, you can have ethical contracts with yourself and say, okay, I'm going to mow my lawn because, you know, everybody in the neighborhood wants everyone to have a great lawn. So I'm going to make this contract with myself, and I'm going to mow my lawn. I'm going to keep, you know, my house up because that's what I feel I need to do ethically because everybody, so everybody can feel kind of copacetic, you know? Right. But you're not doing that because it's in your neighborhood contract that you have to keep your yard up. Right. And so that's the difference in ethics is, you know, we talked about utilitarianism. Yeah. That's a form of ethics. Yeah. Well, explain what that is to our listeners. What? So utilitarianism is when the, it kind of goes with the majority. So say you were trying to save some people in an intersection, and a car was coming. You had to save some of them, and you have either a big section of five people or a section of two people, and they're separated. You decide you're going to save the section of five people because there's more. Right. So the five people plus you are saved. The two people die. Okay. What if one of those people cured cancer? I think what you're saying is basically there is no wrong choice here. Well. It's up to you to decide what's right in that situation. It is, and you can't, and what it is is you can't put a price tag on any decision. Right. So the best thing we can do is look at a situation from all sides and assess the best decision we can make in that time from our moral compass. Right. Not from what other people would do, not from the written laws. Yes, we should follow the written laws. Don't think I'm saying we're not. Don't kill people, please. But that's just not what ethics is. Ethics is doing it because that is your process. So then to you, Mandy, what does ethics in true crime mean? Well, it means looking at a situation or a case from all sides. Yeah. Exactly that. When you take a case and you review it and you put it on a podcast, you know, or you put it out on social media somewhere because you're trying to help get awareness for it. Right. You look at it from all sides, not just from your side, not just from the perpetrator's side, but from the victim's side, from the victim's family side, from everyone involved. From the perpetrator's family side. Yes, from their family side, too, because they're also victims. Right. So when you do that, you look at a situation from every side and then you make a decision on how to go forward with putting that out on social media that would be ethical for everyone involved. You know, I think to put it in context, what we're seeing a lot of in true crime now, you know, you have a lot of victims, a lot of families of victims want to be heard. Right. They want their stories told. Many do not. It's a personal choice. And what we're seeing more of are, you know, not even journalists, but especially these armchair sleuths and, you know, people who are really not in the profession that are really, I don't know if invading is the right word, or some of them have been exploitive. Right. And what we're seeing is these people, you know, victims, families of victims saying, please stop. You are fanning the flames. You are sensationalizing. You're being exploitive. And a lot of these people are like, well, hey, free speech. Sue me. You know, and I think that that's something that we're seeing so much of really in the past couple of years is, you know, where is the line? And I think that that's why more and more people are now coming forward talking about true crime ethics because there's been so much exploitation, so much sensationalism by people who are really only have themselves, you know, they're only invested in themselves and self-interest. So that's what I'm seeing a lot of. That sounds correct. Yeah. And this is just the portion in which we are bringing up some topics that we can kind of delve into further. Tiffany? Well, what is ethics in true crime mean? I am a big proponent for, you know, we do, we are looking at all the sides. And because I think most of us have only seen true crime from like the 48 hours standpoint or from documentary standpoints. And here we are glorifying these criminals. And that's what people see when there are so many other people that were affected by this crime. And kind of what you said, like one thing that I always try to remember is that the criminals' family, they're just as big victims as their actual victims. And so I always, you know, I hate when people or some podcast will put like their whole laundry list of all their family members and stuff. And I'm like, a lot of these people are still alive and have to live with this every day. And it's not my job. It's just my job to tell this story and to make people aware and to, you know, advocate for the victims. But I'm also advocating for the other set of victims who, you know, they still have to live every day knowing that their loved one did something atrocious. I just, I think it's one of those very sensitive things that you just have to be aware of. With our podcast, we aren't just true crime. So we try to, you know, stay from the start. Like, we're not experts. But, you know, this is the story. And we try to be very sensitive to, like Tiff said, not naming names, especially if there's like children involved that are still alive. Because you don't know, they probably don't want their business out there. And you just kind of have to keep all that in mind, especially if it's the perpetrator's family. I mean, I can't even imagine how, you know, what they go through. So you just have to be very conscious and aware and sensitive. Well, and I think that a lot of times bringing back utilitarianism, but I think a lot of times social media or platform, I'm just going to use platform in general to bring out a case, because there's so many. I think a lot of times we get on that utilitarianism mode where it's... Where someone says, this is what's right and this is what's not right. And then everybody just kind of follows that. The majority kind of, you know, you follow along with that. And a lot of times they might be right. They might have some validity to what they're saying. But the point is, is that you have to think for yourself, is that actually right? Or am I just kind of following the crowd here? Yeah, I mean, ethics is a really hard thing to, you know, and I've went into detail with you before on what ethics is, and I could go on and on and on. At the end of the day, it really is trying to do the best you can with the situation in front of you when you've looked at all sides of a situation and you've really taken into account everyone's thoughts, views, and their moral compass. Right, right. So I want to jump back to Jax for a minute, because she brought up the point of sensationalism and true crime. And I think that the first and foremost, we need to say, like, what is sensationalism? What kind of things have you seen, Jax, in sensationalizing true crime? I just wanted to jump back to what your guests were saying. What was screaming to me the whole time while you were talking, you know, when you're saying that we have to consider the perpetrator's family and things like this a thousand percent. And what kept jumping out at me is I keep thinking of Jeffrey Dahmer's father. Of course, we know that Dahmer just came out on Netflix, and that's like a perfect example of sensationalism. And, you know, right now we have Jeffrey Dahmer's father trying to sue Netflix or producers or something along those lines. You know, sensationalism, you know, we have these – I'm using Dahmer as an example because it's something we keep hearing about in the news. But we have the families, you know, we covered this in Oxygen. The families are screaming, stop. You did not have our permission. You didn't even have the courtesy to notify us. Now we're having to see our loved one's murder gruesomely depicted on a very popular series before the eyes of millions of spectators. Like, you know, where's the line? And then there are Halloween costumes of Dahmer and, you know, parents dressing up their children as Dahmer with a little toy drill. And it was really, you know, I was kind of taken aback. You know, I've talked about this a lot on social media. I've become close with the children of killers through my own work in Hell in the Heartland. They're amazing people. I mean, I love them, but my heart goes out to them because they're like, you know, we know that our parents, our fathers in this case, did horrible things. But they're still our fathers. And we're seeing left and right. I hope they burn in hell. They're the devil, you know. And it's like, yeah, they did horrible things, but it's so hard to, you know, how do you come to terms with that? It leads into legalities, if you will, for, like, defamation and stuff like that. But, again, back to your point, yeah, there's a law telling us that we shouldn't defame people. But ethically, we just shouldn't want to defame people. And people get ethics and the written law competing. Right. And it really is not the same. We should not want to do it because we should morally know that it's wrong. Like, for instance, saying that someone killed someone may be a fact. Saying someone is a monster for doing that is your opinion. Yes. And that is where you start sensationalizing. Right. And neither one is defamatory in the eyes of the law. You can't, you know, you can't go after somebody for posting their opinion or, you know, free speech. I mean, name one person that you know that's ever been in trouble for a defamation. Yeah. Not a lot. No, but people shouldn't want to do it because they want to bring awareness and ethics to future crime. I mean, back to the point, like, they still have family around. Like, if you were sitting in front of their family members, even though they perpetrated these crimes, would you still say the things you're saying? Would you still call them a monster? Would you still say that they're, quote, batshit crazy? Or, like, whatever people, you know, say, would you still say that if they were sitting right in front of you? And if you feel like you would probably be uncomfortable saying that in front of someone, why would you say it? Like, think about it as if it were your family. No, yeah, you made me just think of the book I just read, If I Did It. Oh. The O.J. Simpson book. Oh, right, yeah. And the reason I'm bringing that book up is because Ron Goldman's family run the rights to that book, and they put an excerpt in the beginning of the book stating why they did what they did, getting the book, and they had a lot of people defame them because they sued him for the book. Oh. And they said, but it's either we don't fight, we do nothing, or we get him anywhere we can. Yeah. And this is the only way we can get him is through his pocketbook. Wow, yeah. You know, and they knew they weren't really going to see the money. That wasn't their consideration. It was just to hurt him in some, you know, some point. But to that point, though, they are the victims in that case. Yes. And that's different. They aren't someone talking about the victims. But people are still defaming them. Yeah. Every day. I mean, they're the ones, if anyone has the right to do it, they're the ones to do it. Well, you know, O.J. Simpson isn't the most ethical of people either. I know. I know. I know. The biggest point to how can you be ethical, I think, points to treating others the way that you want to be treated. I know people have heard that trope. The golden rule. The golden rule. Yeah. Their whole lives. It's 100% true. It's 100% true in everything that you do, including true crime. Just sit and think about it. Well, if I told this story from the victim's standpoint, how would I feel if I were the victim, if I were the victim's family? How would I feel if I were the suspect, if I were the suspect's family? Like, just because they've done horrible things doesn't mean that you have to stoop to a level of disrespect, you know? Exactly. Well, and a lot of times, too, I think some of the, like the perpetrator's family, they knew a completely different person. Right. And they didn't know this person that did all these horrendous things. Yeah. And so, you know. You see that a lot with serial killers and their wives or their kids, and the wives and kids are like, we had no idea. And then you have people on the other side going, how could you not know about this? Well, they never saw that person. Right. We saw him recently in the Carla Walker case. Oh, yeah. We saw that for, you know, with our own eyes recently. I would say accused serial killer. We don't know if he was a serial killer, but we think that he was a serial killer. I'm going to say my ethics. No, I don't know. But you see that with, like, BTK. Oh, yeah. I read his daughter's book, A Serial Killer's Daughter, and it really, like, it pulled at my heartstrings because they didn't know. No idea. At all. And here she grew up with this man who she revered and loved, and this was her father. And then here she is starting, you know, beginning to start her own family. And then, you know, 2005 hits, and her father is arrested. And then, you know. And to them it's out of nowhere. Right. And it was. And her mother and her had to go into hiding, and her brother. And it's, you know, you really feel for them because, you know, yeah, these other families lost loved ones. But she really lost a loved one, too. It's like her father essentially died in a way. And, you know, people said nasty, ugly things to her and her mother. Well, and they accused them of being the same kind of person. Exactly. So you had to have known. You see that guilty by association. Right, right. And it's just not true. And I think we need to cut that. That's one of the things we need to cut out of true crime, period. Well, yeah, because that. Just because one person did something does not mean the rest of the family. Yeah. They're not all aiding and abetting. Well, yeah. And I. Okay, I'm going to go back to my psychobabble here. But a serial killer or a psychopath was born that way. They were born without the empathy part of their brain showing up on a scan. You can see a scan of Ted Bundy's brain, and you can see that. It's in their prefrontal cortex and their brainstem. And that is something they're born with. That is not something that their sister, you know, I mean, they could, but I'm just saying. Probably doesn't have the same brainstem. No. So that is not something that you're going to go, oh, well, his wife has it. Yeah. That's not the way it works. It's not contagious. But I think a lot of people think it is. Jax, do you find that writing your, you know. Your story. All your stories that people think that's like contagious almost? I think as a society, it's more what makes us feel safe. And it makes us feel safe when we can separate ourselves and say, they're the monsters. At least I'm not out killing people. At least I'm not the one who killed my child. At least I'm not dismembering bodies. You know, that makes me superior. Yeah. You know, just going back in general, I think a big part that really comes into ethics too is a lot of people forget true crime has become a big business, if you will. And so much overrides ethics for some people, especially money, book deals, movie deals. You know, there's a lot of things that override ethics. And that's not just true crime, that's any business. That's a great point because it's like you sell yourself. That's a great point. Even you sell your ethics for the bottom. For a buck. Yeah. And I do think that the flip side of that is that a lot of people that consume true crime don't understand that most of us don't get paid at all for what we do. No. That we don't make any money off of it. I do. I get a lot of hate. Are you kidding me? I get hate all the time. But yeah, but that's the other thing is that, you know, they also don't realize how much time and effort and your own chunk of change you put into it, into delving into cases like this. Because most of you, and I don't want to speak for you, but most people who do things like, you know, a book or whatever, they want to try to get a solve. They want to help these families. And they put their heart and soul. I mean, just like Jax, I know you did. I mean, we know you spent four years on this. But a lot of people don't. A lot of people really don't. I know. And that is the issue. That's the issue that we're coming to is that I think people need to stop and look at what their reasoning is behind the story that they're telling, whether it's a podcast or an article or a book, whatever it is. Like, what's your motivation for it? And if it's anything other than, you know, telling the stories for the victims, all the victims in the story, and doing it in a way that they would approve of. I think you hit the nail on the head. That's ethics. That's when you stand up and ask yourself, look into your heart, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? That's ethics to me. You hit the nail on the head. And it's not you're asking someone else, why am I doing this? You're asking yourself why you're doing this. You're soul searching. It's a search within your own soul. It really is. And you might even start with good intentions, and then you start to turn. You know, you get consumed by money and ego and all that stuff that comes with some success. So, you know, I think that that's what ethics is, is taking a step back, looking into your own heart, saying, why am I here? Why am I doing this? Is it for the right reasons? And then you also have to ask yourself, because just like you mentioned, you know, you are going to catch flack from a lot of people. There's always like a divided line on why people think you're doing this, whether you tell them, you know, why or not. And you're going to catch flack. So if you can search your soul before you do it and say, I'm okay with that because my reasoning is, you know, a higher purpose, then, you know, that's how you proceed with it. Well, and their ethics might be different than yours. Right. Yeah. Everybody's ethical compass could be different. And that's why I go back to saying people were raised a certain way. It depends on a lot of different factors, religion, communities, from one side of the United States to the other. I talked to my students about this. You go from the north to the south and gun control is a huge, you know. Differing, yeah. It's very differing. And so people think that, well, we have to have the same thoughts on that. Right. We all have to think exactly like. But you don't. And if you don't, that's okay. Yeah. You know, it's okay that you all don't have the same thoughts. It's what you're doing is, you know, Jax and Raven, you, what y'all just said, going inside yourself and looking and assessing a situation completely on all sides of the box. Right. For yourself. And saying, okay, ethically, this is what I want to do. And I feel good in doing this. And if it's the wrong decision, you learn from it. Right. And you try to make a better decision next time. Yeah. I am 100% agreeing with everything you're saying because, you know, as podcasters, we do get people saying, do this case and do this case. And a lot of them. It's not that simple. Yeah. You're like, okay, thanks for your recommendation. Yeah. And then you start to look into it and you're like, wow, you know. Yep. I don't know how I can. We get plenty of those. And, you know, of course, I have a list. And I'm like, you know, we'll try to get to it. And we have one case right now sitting that a family really wants us to do. But the alleged perpetrator is walking around free. He's been tried. Those are very hard. But it's almost like, okay, we could get in huge trouble for, you know, stirring this all back up. But when you look at some of it, you're kind of like, oh, because, you know, the victim's daughter is alive. It's his daughter, too. Right. And we had something like that basically with the Divinity case that we did. It's like the person that everyone thinks did this has never gone to trial. They are walking around in that town like no repercussions have ever happened to them. So now we're just pointing the finger at people. Right. Yes. So I think in things like that, you really have to make sure that you are conveying just facts when it comes to that person. And you have to, in a way, let the listener or reader or whatever make up their own mind about it if you want to continue with a case like that, which is what we ended up doing. Ethically, we knew there were some dangers. And I'm going to say dangers because there were, are some dangers. Well, and I know Jax has a lot of experience with that. Yes. From, you know. From the hell in the heartland. Yeah. It's just that. I'm joking. I'm joking. Oh, me? But at some point, it's like, I don't know if you've, you know, Jax, I know you talked a little bit on the documentary, but it's like at some point you just say, okay, I feel I have to tell this story. I have to take this chance because in my moral, my ethical tells me I have to. Yeah. What led you to kind of say, you know what? I know there's dangers, but I have to get the story out there. You know what it was? I didn't, you know, I admit I went into it for a very different reason. I'm a writer. I had a, I had a writing career. I was there to write a book, go home and collect a check, essentially. Yeah. And then I fell in love with the family. I fell in love with Maureen and Lisa and it became a part of me. And then everything else came second. Then it was like, forget about the book, forget about everything else. I really just wanted to help the family in any way I could. And, you know, I think that was my one and only true crime in me though, to tell you the truth. And, you know, I don't have much of a desire to help more families anymore. I just really wanted to help them and I still try to help them. You know, I'm still in touch with them and we do what we can on that story. There are those cases that, like, take it all out of you. And you're like, this is all I can do. But I would still fight for them. Day and night, I would still fight for them. We're so grateful that you were able to tell their story because that story really needed to be told. Yeah, and there are a lot of stories out there that still need to be told, but we all need to tread lightly. I mean, you know, you can have plenty of reasons to go into it, but once you get in there, you can figure out something's not going to go the way you think it's going to go. Or, you know, you have some pushback from family, whether it's, you know, on one side or the other, the victims or the suspects. And there's just a lot of reasons, but you really have to have that gut instinct to know I need to tell this person's story to continue moving forward with it. But on that note, I want to jump into advocating for the victims. What can we do and what do we see now in true crime where it's obviously just sensationalism, that they're not in it for advocacy in any way? And then the ones that are in it, what's the differences you see in how they present a case and how you know, oh, well, they're just in it for entertainment? I don't know. I can't read people's hearts. I really don't know. Oh, that was a good answer. I think some people make it more obvious than others. I think it's kind of like, you know, your gut feeling. You tend to learn quickly who's in it for what and why. And, you know, but not always. And, you know, I mean, who am I to judge? Who am I to judge who's in it for the right or wrong reasons? That is the perfect answer. I know. I'm so glad I heard her first. That really is. She's so brilliant. We discussed this previous, and that is basically the answer that we came up with, is that it's not our job to judge. Yeah, so that leads me into trying to teach instead of condemning because you see a lot of cancel culture right now. And some things are merited, some things aren't. Some things are taken a little too far. Some things are taken out of context. A lot of times it's he said, she said. But in the true crime world right now, we're seeing a lot of people. Political. We're seeing a lot of people point the finger and say, you did this and it's unethical. And instead of trying to get the whole story, like if you really want to be nosy, go ask them what happened. Or ask them how they are handling it, how they're trying to change things. And instead of saying, well, you did wrong, we're going to shun you, like shouldn't we be embracing and saying how can we help you change this? At the core of it, our criminal justice system in penitentiaries, originally we were supposed to do that. We were supposed to reform them. That was the whole purpose. That was the point. And, of course, it hasn't been that way for hundreds of years now. It's been more just a punishment. But you're right. Like how can we take this awful thing that somebody did and how can we change their thoughts and their opinions so that they can see what they did was wrong and then change everybody else's thoughts. And why is it wrong? Yeah. It's the biggest question. Right. Is it wrong? I mean, that's the philosophical question, I guess, is why is it wrong. And why do you feel like you are the judge and jury to sit and point the finger and say let's cancel this person because what they did was wrong? Well, I think it's fear. Yeah. Yeah. And intimidation. And a lot of people, I think, are intimidated by more successful people. And a lot of people like to drag those people down because they think they can climb over them and climb to the top, and that's just not how it works. Well, and I can add that sometimes when we use that utilitarianism, I love that word. That's the word of the day. It is. I love that when I teach that. So I think sometimes when we use that mindset, which is what this is, I feel like people that you say this about or you have, you know, issue with their ethics or however that works out, maybe they don't know that. Maybe they don't have a problem with their own ethics. And this is the thing, too. We don't know what goes on behind closed doors, and we do not know what goes on in conversation. Right. And just because we don't agree with it does not mean that we have the right to say that you're wrong if we do not know the facts. Yeah, we don't even have all of the information. And I think sometimes people put themselves inside of situations they don't need to be in, and we have to stay in our lane. Right. That's another thing is, like, how does it concern you? I mean, I feel like it gets us away from what we're trying all to do, which is to bring awareness. Well, and I feel like that some of these people think that they are elevating themselves as advocates when they point out other people's, you know, downfalls or mistakes, and it somehow elevates them up to be over, you know, over them. But that's not really how it works. There's a lot of opportunists in this business. Yeah, and it's, you know, it gets us, like I said, it gets us away from the bottom line. And then everybody starts looking at all the drama going on and stops looking at what we really need to be looking at, which is getting, you know, there's never any resolution, but getting justice for these victims' families and these victims. Right. And, you know, you have to think of it this way, too, is that when you go into whether you are thinking about being a true crime writer or whether you're thinking about being a podcaster or whether you're thinking about making a documentary, whatever it is, and you have decided that it is something you want to do, it fits your ethics, you're okay with doing it, and you want to move forward, like I think that there's a point in which you have to, I don't know, you really need to not worry anymore about what other people are going to say or think. Because, like I said, there is going to come a time, no one is ever going to agree with you fully. No. Never. That's why we all are our own people. Right. You know? Someone's always going to be upset. Yes. Someone's always going to think you did it wrong. And that comes down to should we and how should we include the victims or the victims' families in what we do? Jax, what do you think? You know, I know everyone approaches it very differently, so I'm going to say personal. Like for me, I can't imagine writing a book without the family's blessing. You know, just personally, not a sentence or a thing that I wrote or did went anywhere unless I passed it through the Bible to Freeman. Now, every writer that I know says you're crazy. You know, like I can understand that. This is what everyone does. I think it has to be one of those personal choices. That said, I don't like it when families are begging true crime creators to stop and they don't. That's what kind of grinds my gears. It's not that they don't have the permission, but they're like, stop, you're going to interfere with our case, you're spreading bullshit, excuse my French, you know, and they're continuously causing a problem and hiding behind its journalism, its free speech, which I think is bullshit. Well, that's a perfect example right there of why we have to use our own moral compass because, hi, I mean, we can't sit there and just keep driving that nail in to a family that doesn't want it. Well, and we don't know, I mean, on the other end of that, we don't know how long, you know, let's say it's a book. We don't know how long that's been going on. We don't know if they've changed their mind, if they've split heads. You don't know what goes on behind closed doors. So that is a decision that that writer or that podcaster has to make on their own. Well, we don't know how they cope. We do not know how these victims or these victims' families or the perpetrators' families cope. We do not know. Everyone has their own coping style, own coping mechanism. Some people don't know how to cope. I've seen people sit beside each other, you know, on a curb, and one is crying hysterically and the other one is stoic. And they're like, oh, the one that's stoic doesn't care. That is not what that means. They have their own way of coping. And some people, most people compartmentalize, but some people don't. And some people want to get it out right up front. Some people compartmentalize for years and years and hold it and hold it. So we don't know. We go into these cases blind. We do not know how these families are going to react or what they're going to think. And there's a lot of people to consider. Yes. A lot. And so you have to take all that into mind and really think about all of these factors before you make the decision to tell their story or how you're going to tell their story or what's going to go into telling their story. If you're a podcaster or you have a YouTube weekly channel or, you know, you're even a crime writer like Jax, like, we are coming across so many cases. Like, there are just cases flying across our desks. And it's like you're moving on to a new family with a new web of people attached to them. And they're not going to be the same as the case before. Right. Have you all found that in your? Yes. You've made me think about where do we draw the line between information and education and entertainment. Right. Exactly. Because in my mind, like, even though it was a great film, the Ted Bundy film with Zac Efron. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. So is this entertainment or is this informational? Because here you have this big star that people are in love with. I say this because my kids are weirdly attached to high school musical right now. And we've been watching them. My daughter went through that phase already. My mom is still in that phase. And so you look at, like, what Zac Efron has become. And then he plays this role of Ted Bundy. And you're like, okay, is this informational? Is this advocating for victims? Is this getting the story out there? Or are you doing this for entertainment? Well, you're bringing up a thing in my brain that correlates to what you're saying is that sometimes, because that was based off of a book, right? It was based off of the book from the girlfriend who told her side of the story. Great read. Great from her point of view. But did it translate well? Right. And should it have? You know, should we have made that? Because when you watch it, it is very sensational. Yeah. And kind of the same with the Dahmer one that came out where everyone started dressing as Dahmer for Halloween. I mean, in my classroom, I had to outlaw his name because these fifth graders are sitting here, you know. Romanticizing. Yeah, exactly. And I looked at them one day, and this, I think, was when the podcaster in me came out. And I was like, you will not say his name again in my classroom unless you have a legitimate question. There are loved ones of his victims still alive, and you don't know who they are. They could literally be in this class. They're not in my classroom. Sure, but they could. They could be. I don't know that. And just like we talked about before, his father is still alive and has to live with what his son did for the rest of his life. Yeah, and that point of you never know who you're talking to, I literally had, let's jump into what happened to me last week. I literally had someone jump into our DMs and started bad-mouthing one of the suspects in one of our previous episodes. Turns out, well, one of the victims who had a rap sheet, okay, turns out she didn't know that he was my cousin. Oh, gosh. And so you just, you never know who you're talking to. Right, but I like what you said. No matter what somebody has done, it doesn't warrant them to lose their life. Right. It doesn't warrant them to be beaten, you know. When Jeffrey Dahmer, the Halloween costume, came out, can you imagine opening the door to a sugar-treater and finding your son's killer? Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine that kind of trauma, that real trauma? You know, I couldn't imagine it, and that pissed me off, and I went on a rampage. Well, because, I mean, you just don't know whose door you're going to show up on. Right. It could, well, in fact, be a victim family. You don't know. And if you want to maintain an ethical essence, then I think that you really should think before you speak. That's just, you have to have some kind of filter. Yeah. You have to be able to think, well, would I get upset if this person said something about my, whatever. Well, yeah. So, I'm going to throw a scenario out. Okay, you guys ready? No. Okay. So, we are all, I think of us all as colleagues in this genre here. If we found out that someone had treated someone disrespectfully, let's just say a victim family member, and it was a one-time incident, how would we handle that? How do we go, how do we move forward from there? I just feel like, again, I kind of like to stay in my lane, and I feel like my job is to teach students to take what I teach them and what they learn out into the world to become advocates, police officers, lawyers, I mean, counselors. It goes on and on. Teachers, hopefully maybe a professor of what I do at some point. Some of you I've taught, that's what you need. But, you know, I give them the skills to take in the world to try to be good advocates for crime. I don't know the right word. I'm kind of on the fence about some of that because I feel like I want them to do what they need to do to become that person, but I want them to listen to me. And so, I'm just like, you know, how do you, so basically what I'm saying is, is that I want them to take what I can teach them out into the world and make it their own, because when I condemn someone for something they've done, and I condemn them and tell my students, it would be like me condemning and telling my students, you need to not think that. You need to, it's right there. When you go out into the world, you can do whatever you want, but don't do that. You know, and I'm telling them that, and then I'm expecting them to take that in the world and keep that. And to me, that's not right. And so... Because that's your opinion, your ethic, your moral code. That's my opinion. So basically what I'm saying is I think you cannot put your opinion into the process and try to feed it into other people to take with them forever. You have to let them take in their own information from what went on and bring their own conclusions. And that's why I bring my students into it, because I feel like anything that I feed them, and they're going to take it to heart because that's what they're supposed to do, and they're going to take that into the world. And what if I feed them something that is totally inappropriate or completely unethical, you know, an ethical, I mean, written law, any law, just unethical, period, and have them take that in the world with them. Hopefully I would know that they would know the difference, but some of them don't. And, you know, when you're on a platform like a podcast or a writer or you have something that you can use that influences the public, it's the same situation as my students. And I really feel that way. I think that's why you see a lot of people say keep your opinions out of it. Yeah, because you don't want to. I mean, you can always add your experience. And they want your experience. Most of my students want my experience, and I think a lot of our listeners want our experiences, but what they don't want for us to tell them how to think is for us to shove things down their throat and expect them to take that away and keep it. Because that's not fair to listeners. It's dumbing down my students. It's dumbing down listeners, and I don't think that's right. Yeah, I actually thought of an example. You know, I hate to keep going back to how in the heart I am, but because that's my point of reference. But I remember I was doing one of those radio tours with my publishers, and someone brought up a question. You know, why would Lorene leave her child? Like, we're just blaming Lorene. And I went off. I went off, and my publisher was like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, what are you doing? And I had to scale it back, and I talked to Lorene. I said to Lorene, well, why did you do that? And it was a real learning experience for me. It's not my lane, essentially. It's not my lane. And I think this is years ago when I was very new to a true crime writing. So, you know, you learn. But that was a big learning moment where it's not my place. It's not my place to defend them. Now, if they ask me, I might reconsider, you know, bringing my New York out a little bit. But what I've also found, and this is just my personal experience, is that a lot of the people who are doing that, they're opportunists. They're looking to get a rise out of you. They're looking for, you know, a little bit of attention on Twitter. And it's not worth it. It's not worth the fight. I don't have to explain myself to you. Thank you. Sit down. That's how I feel. Exactly. Yeah, that's how I feel. You know. I definitely feel that because I am one. I'm very guilty of this. If you ask me, like, well, how did you feel about this or that, like, I'm not really going to tell you because I just am going to be honest. And that will get you in more trouble than anything with you just being honest and like, well, you're the one that asked me. But, you know, I mean, Mandy, what you said, that totally, like, even, I know you teach at the college level, and I teach at the elementary school level. Like, that is, like, what I do, too. Like, it is my job to give them the facts. And hopefully in their brains they will start to, you know, develop their own thoughts and opinions based on the information I gave them. Right. And that's kind of how I see, like, us as podcasters. Like, yeah, there are times, like, we'll cover people, and I'm like, God, I hope they stub their toe for the rest of their life. They're such awful people. You know, but, yeah, I probably shouldn't say that. But at the same time, I'm like, you know, in my mind, I'm like, everyone else should think this way, too, because this person did X, Y, and Z. And it's hard not to get passionate about it or get behind that. Yeah. At the same time, you know, like we've continued to say, they have a whole other life that we – nine times out of ten, we don't even have an inkling about. We only know about the terrible one, ten, five things that they did. Yeah. You have to look at it like reviews. People are going to give you bad reviews of your podcast. People are going to give you bad reviews of your book. You know, these are people who are not with you when you write it and when you do it. You know, you have to take it in stride. It's like reviewers. You've got to just take the good with the bad and leave it alone. Ignore it. Yeah. Don't respond. That's how I – just leave it alone. And I think that this also plays into my next point of discussion, which is the learning curve. Okay. None of us are going to have this 100% right when we start. Is that Vandy? That's Vandy. I'm just kidding. Sorry, I had to throw that in. It's obvious. No, not me. I mean, a lot of us are going to make mistakes. I've made plenty of mistakes and missteps in my podcasting journey, and I'm just thankful that I haven't been condemned for any of those, you know. But, I mean, not all of us are going to make the perfect choice every single time. No, we're people, and the situation is never going to be the same. I mean, you know, we are talking about cases, case after case after case, but they're not all the same, and the people included in them are not all the same, and those people's opinions and those people's feelings, and there's just so much that's always going on that, you know, you're never going to be perfect at doing this. No. You just have to keep striving to do what you think is right at the time and move forward, you know. Even in teaching, you know, you do this every day, and you teach, and you try to get the best information you can out there, but every day I'm like, oh, you know, I'm going to do this a little different. And so the next class I'm teaching, I will change it up a little bit because how the students reacted to it. And I think we do that with podcasts, you know, depending on how listeners react. Exactly. We don't change the information. We just change how we present it. Right. Yes. To that point, I think that goes back to how you present the information. I think that goes back to sensationalization because there's definitely different ways to present that information. Oh, exactly. Like, for instance, if you have a horrible, let's just say Candy Montgomery, okay? Oh, wow. We know Betty Gore's death was horrible. Let's say I'm looking at that autopsy report. Is that something that I need to go down in every single little detail and report on? Probably not. Because I feel like there's a certain point in which you're going to start sensationalizing that. Well, and especially when you go down that and you might say the autopsy and you start, oh, because, you know, it's going to be eventually perfect. Right. And then when you actually go to the house like we have and you're like, oh, weird. And it's all about perspective. But then, you know, but then you have some cases that, like the Evans case that we worked on, we have the autopsy in front of us, and you have a woman who was in a domestic violence situation that she has over 60-something traumatic things going on with her body, different injuries. And you're going, okay, now I know that once I start presenting all of these, it's going to start sensationalizing. So take out the most important parts of the story, I feel like. Well, and why insult your listeners or your readers anyway? I mean, like when you take into account Montgomery, like, you know, where Betty, we know she died by an accident. Let's say she had 10 wounds. I don't know how many there were. It could have been 100. She had like 40. Yeah, or 40. Okay. And then why do you have to get into the nitty-gritty? I think the audience can paint a picture for themselves. Yeah. And the people who do want the nitty-gritty, they're the ones who are not there for the right reasons, I feel like. Exactly. You know? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, because I think that you can definitely paint the picture by just simply saying, she was struck 40 times versus, well, she was struck once in the face, she was struck once in the leg. Right. Like, you don't have to do that. No, right. That is turning it into gory sensationalism. I don't think it's inappropriate. Yeah. I find that a little bit disrespectful to the victim, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just because you're looking at the autopsy report doesn't mean you have to report everything. Well, and you don't know what happened, and I hate to say this because I'm not making, because her death is horrific and it's horrible, but you don't know what happened in the middle of that fight. Right. You don't know what happened in that exchange. No. I mean, there's still a lot of things that we just don't know in a lot of these cases. No. And especially with that case, like, looking at the house and looking at, things don't match up for me. After seeing the house, I'm sorry they don't match up. But it's just, those are things that you, you know, like, if you said, oh, well, this and this, and then you actually go by the house and you see different, then you're like, I just sensationalized that for no reason. Yeah. Right. For no reason. Well, then it goes back to, like, the victims and the suspects' families. Like, they don't want to hear that. No. Yeah. That could be traumatizing. Yeah. Like, re-traumatizing. Right. Yeah. And I know that Jax has a lot of experience, obviously. She wrote a book or whatever. Just a little book that everyone knows about. Just a little book. Right. That's so good. But I think there's definitely a way that you can present your storytelling and still be a storyteller without sensationalizing anything. Yeah. I remember there was this one part, and I really, you know, being new to it, I grappled. There was this one scene I had that did not make the final cut, thank God. But there was a scene where I kind of depicted what the girls went through, just based on the pictures. And it was – I didn't even mean for it to be sensationalized, but my publisher says this is too sensationalized. I see that now. I totally see that now because I think about Maureen doesn't need to read this. Right. She has used her imagination plenty. She does not need me to do it for her, for other readers, you know. So, like, just don't insult the audience. They have imaginations. Not you, yes. You know, Stephen King says, starts with the writer but finishes with the reader's imagination. Something along those lines. Yeah. Oh, that's great. And that's how I think it should be when you have an audience, no matter what your platform is. You know, put it out there, but let it finish in their imagination. You present the case and you let them decide. Connect the dots. What happens. Connect the dots on what happens. Yeah. My last topic here is a lot of people think that if you are going to be in true crime, whether podcasting or writing or whatever you're doing, that you need to somehow give back. So a lot of people, for instance, claim that if you are writing a book and you do make a lot of money off of it, you should donate some of that to the victims or the victims' preferred charity or something like that. If you are podcasting, then you should do something that advocates more like you're donating to an organization or something like that. Yeah. I think that this goes back, once again, to ethics. I think this is a personal choice for the life of me. You know, who did Dahmer? And he didn't consult the family. They were like, you know, Quentin Tarantino, he didn't consult the Tate family when he had to take Sharon Tate, you know, one of the victims of the Manson family. Right. So, you know, did they have scholarships and funds for the family? Doubt it. I don't know for sure, but I doubt it. So I think it's a personal choice. I chose to do that. I did, you know, help the family create a scholarship and things like that. And that was something that we talked about, you know, throughout the process before the show came out, before the book came out. But, again, I think it's a personal choice. I don't think if you're going to profit, you know, you should. That's my opinion. But, again, that's personal. Yeah. And I think to that point is that, you know, a lot of people think that us podcasters sit around and get paid so much money. I know. They think the same for writing, too. It's insane how rich they think we are. I know. I know. Oh, you're a podcaster? I sure am. You know me, must bake dinner every night. Yeah, no kidding. I can hear the cans shaking in the background. That's funny. I think that a lot of people think that. I think more people than we think think that. And the fact of the matter is that, you know, even with book sales, you know, the people who make the book and print the book and all of this book, like, it's a lot of it is coming out right there. They make a lot more money than you. Yeah, they are, yes. And that's the point of it is that, you know, like even if you're a self-published author and you put your book on Amazon, I have a book on Amazon, and it's a crappy zombie novel. No, it is not. But the point is there's a price point that you have to match, you know, that they set. You don't get to set that price point. And then anything after that is like, okay, well, this, so much of it goes to, you know, the printing of it. So much of it goes to, you know, Amazon. And then you're left with like a dollar after somebody pays $21 for your book. And you're like, okay, well, why did I do this again? I think, you know, people want you to, like, donate like these billions of dollars you're making. And you're like, I do not, I'm sorry to admit, do not make that much money with my $0.50 I made. That's actually more common with the families. When I, you know, even at the helm of heartland, you know, I had worked with other families, you know, playing with an idea, looking into, exploring other stories and true crime. And one of the most prevalent things is how much do I get from the families? And, you know, I'm like, what do you want? And they're like, well, you know, well, we want, you know, $100,000. And I'm like, what? I would too. I would also love $100,000 to climb on the board. And a lot of people won't talk to you for that very reason. I remember very early on, you know, with my job, people wouldn't talk to me because of how much I profited. And I was kind of inclined to say, well, tell me how much I'm profiting. Tell me. You know, because, you know, that's not how it works. And people didn't want to be a part of that. I don't want to talk to a writer who's profiting. I'm putting everything I have, I'm putting every cent I have into the story, traveling. I really did. I put all my heart and soul into it. Oh, yes. But, I mean, a lot of people don't realize that with true crime comes a lot of mental exhaustion. Yes. Not just putting your own, you know, because you're not going to profit until you have a product, right? Yes. And so you're not going to profit. Now, you might have a bit up front or whatever, but you're not going to really profit until you put out that product. So everything that you do up to that point is basically coming out of your pocket. And it's coming out of your mental health, in a way. Well, and I want to say that I think all of us on this tonight have, giving back to me is so much more than just monetary. Yes. People think it means monetary, but... That's the point I was going towards. Yes. Because then we're not making money. Because we don't have money to give. So what else can we do? So we drive to meet with the family. Yes. We drive to the scenes of, you know, of cases that we do, so we can actually view it with our own eyes, so we can give you the most clear facts that we can. Because a lot of times, okay, something looks different when you see it with your own eyes. Perspective. So we try to do that almost pretty much to everything that we do. One of us will go and see it, so we can really, you know, see what's going on. I join many, many, many boards, which, you know, Raven knows this. I've been on so many boards, I can't even see straight. And that's how I give back. Yes. I join city boards. I join domestic violence boards. I join just any board that I can help out. Well, I like to share other people's work. I feel like that's how I give back. Because you don't have to, again, like you just said, it doesn't have to be monetary. And it is your personal preference if you want to give back at all. I feel like that, too. I also fully agree with that. But if you don't have money to donate to some nonprofit or whatever, there is plenty of ways. I mean, just sharing. Just sharing the episode. Just sharing the link to the book. Just sharing things like that, I feel like, is in a way advocating for the victims in those things. Get the missing victims. Share it on social media. That is a way that you can give back so much to the community. And people think, well, it's not going to make a difference if I. But you know what? It could be that one time that you make a difference. It's just like you never know who you're talking to. You never know who's going to see something on Facebook or on Instagram. Or you could be in a picking site and you just happen to talk to one of someone's cousins. I mean, you just don't know. And pick the way that you feel like you can give back to the community the most. And if you can, do it. I know everybody can't. Some people are health-wise. They can't do that. And in a way, and this might be just me, but in a way I feel like part of giving back is doing the story in the first place. It is. Because a lot of people, especially with unsolved cases, don't want to do unsolved cases because there's no finite. You know, there's no wrap-up at the end. You're just going to leave your listeners or your readers with a wide open, no closed ending. But these families need, they really need that platform. Yeah, and I feel like that just telling their story is a way to give back. And ask them. You know, I think a lot of true crime creators are like, let me come in and help you. You know, but it's really, you should be going in there saying, how can I help you? Exactly. That's perfect. Exactly. That's great. Oh, really? Yes, today. That we would like to be more involved in that giving back process. We were talking about some things that we could do or something that we can volunteer at. Because, yeah, we don't make any money like New Flash. We make zero money. In fact, we would be in the negative if we spend all of our own money. Hey, I'm right there with you. But, you know, there's so many things that you could do just to volunteer your time. But like you said, like I like how you said, like just sharing the stories. That is a great way. And that's what I like about the community that we kind of have. If, Raven, for instance, you post something on Facebook, you share something, we can go in and share the same story and get it out there. And that's one thing that I've really enjoyed about it. There is a good sense of community. Yes. Like you said, give back in a way that, because you don't know who's going to hear it or see it or, you know, whatever. That's why I'm like constantly, I love having guests on the show, obviously. And so I just love sharing everything that we're all doing. Like everything that my guests are doing, everything, anyone. And I continue to share those things just like I continue to share the stories far after they've been on the show. Because I truly believe in everything. Everything that I have on the show I truly believe in. And I think that that's just my ethics or my moral compass or whatever. Well, I do too. And that's why, you know, we work together. Because I don't feel like I want my students to listen to anything that I feel like I'm not invested in or proud of. Because I don't want them to have that mindset, if that makes sense. Well, if you don't believe in it, they're going to be the first ones to call you out on it. They're going to be the first ones that are going to know. And if you don't believe in something that you're covering or believe in the story behind it, you're, you know, the fans or the listeners are going to say like. Yeah. Yeah, they don't think that was. Because you usually lax on your backs. Right. You know, you can tell when somebody hasn't done their homework. Right. And they just are here to. And that just hits it all back. Yeah. Or comes full circle around to that's ethics. Yeah. And I do think that there's, you know, more ways to help if you want. There's more like true crime fest and crime fest out there now that, you know, more of us are being a part of. And I think it's important that when we're there and when we're sharing about, you know, our podcast or our book or whatever we're sharing about, we're also continuing to share those stories. So what we do is when we go to festivals, I take some flyers. I usually always print out some flyers. The one that we went to in Dallas, we had flyers out for the girls, actually, for Ashley Freeman and Laura Bible. And we have like a little thing we set up on the table. I think we had two or three different cases where it was like a missing person and like two unsolved. And to just kind of get people talking about it there. It's just another opportunity to share those people's stories there. And I think here's your strength. Like, you know, my husband, he was my right-hand man throughout our six years working in Oklahoma. And I know he fell in love with the family as much as I did. Now, he is not a writer. He is not a storyteller. You will never hear him on a podcast or anything else. It's just not his strength. But he's a pretty good hustler. And he hustled to get a lot of billboards up in Oklahoma of the girls' faces. Oh, awesome. Oh, that's awesome. He was working with a knick-knack about getting their faces on the gas station pumps. So he does like behind-the-scenes stuff. You won't see him, but he's there. He uses his strength. And I think that we can all use our strengths. My strength is writing. That's the only thing I feel like I'm even slightly good at on the surf. So I use that strength. You know, I try to utilize whatever gifts I have. And I think everyone is very unique, but there's so much that anybody can do. They don't have to be a true crime creator. There's so much people can do. It's really, I mean, there's people in media. You know, I know with my work with Oxygen, it's very different than Hell in the Heartland, but I love getting stories out there, several stories a day, and, you know, getting the news out there. And that's very rewarding. You can bring awareness. Yeah. It's like you can be in media, you can be in communications, you can be in art. I mean, you can be in virtually any field and still make a difference. A teacher. Exactly, exactly. Like, you know, that wouldn't be a strength I have, you know, but that's a strength that somebody else has. That's what I need. That everybody can do something. Raven's a great researcher. Wow. She really does. I mean, she really does. I'm amazed at how well you research and know the facts and do your homework. Those are what I think is the important part to share, and then everything is secondary on how you share that, how you're telling your stories and stuff like that. But I do agree with Jax. I do think that even as a listener at home, there are plenty of ways that you yourself can get involved and simply share the stories or find, you know, find an organization that either you want to donate to or you want to volunteer for. There's so many that need help. I can always hook you up. Again, there's so many. I've been, you know, a part of so many organizations, and, you know, there's a Palomar in Oklahoma City that could always use help, and YWCA. I mean, there's so many different organizations. And, of course, all of these organizations need help monetarily, and, of course, they need, you know, boots on the ground. But, again, if you can't do either of those things, the most important thing to me, at least, is advocating. And a part of that advocating is sharing those stories and spreading awareness, I feel like. That's my opinion. Well, yeah. And, you know, even getting out, you know, these different resources into your social media helps. I mean, there's so many, you know, resources with RAIN and just so many things that people just don't know about. Yeah. And just getting those resources out to people in need. Speaking of that, you just, like, lit a bulb in my brain. That's another thing that I was going to bring up is for content creators, that is a great way to help advocate and spread awareness at the same time is at the end of your whatever you're doing, you can always ask for, like, a call to action. You can always say, you know, if it's a cold case, you know, if you know anything, call this. Share it with somebody who might know something. But there's always a great section for resources. Whatever, because we cover so many different subjects, that's one thing that we try to do is, like, okay, well, this was a domestic violence case. So at the end of this, we're going to share just a whole crap ton of domestic violence resources that I think people are afraid to reach out, even to people like us. They're afraid to reach out and ask questions or, you know, they're afraid to call these sources that we give. Don't be afraid. I'm going to tell you right now, you can anonymously reach out to anyone pretty much. You can anonymously reach out to us. You do not have to, even OSBIs, you do not have to share your name. Crime stoppers. Yeah. Please remember that. Plenty of ways, yeah, that you can. And they are, like, up to the point where you can just, like, text message your anonymous. That's one beautiful thing about working at Oxygen, you know, and I know that you guys had all of them on your page. Oh, my God, I know those people. I get to meet so many wonderful people in law enforcement. I mean, every day. Well, yeah, it's really amazing how many people I've met. But, yeah, I always do that. Like, if I'm writing something about domestic violence or about suicide, that's a big thing. We have, like, any triggers in our articles, we'll put something in there. You know, we have GLAAD, you know, Gay Rights, you know, whatever we're working on, you know, we'll plug in there. A very special thank you to the Curious Cousins Oklahoma podcast for being on with us today. You can find their podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Catch them on social media as well. Follow them, like them, subscribe. A special thank you as well to our friend Jack Smiller, author of Hell in the Heartland. You can find her bio and books on our website at You can also find her books in our Amazon storefront. Thanks for listening to this special episode. Catch more next time on The Sirens Podcast. Do we have an outro? That's our outro, isn't it?