Feeling overwhelmed with the constant flow of headlines and trying to keep up with the latest twist of this election year? Take a deep breath and turn on Crooked Media's What A Day podcast. In just 20 short minutes, What A Day, hosted by me, Juanita Tolleiver, and my co-host, Tré Bell Anderson, Josie Duffy Rice, and Priyanka Eribendi, breaks down the biggest news stories into bite-sized pieces that don't make you want to cry. And the best part is, we do it every day. So start your day off right with What A Date, available wherever you get your podcast. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode. This week's episode is from Crime Con 2024. I was honored to have a session to talk about my dad's story and my current investigation. And to top it all off, I was joined by NBC Dateland's very own Josh Mankowitz. This was recorded before a few updates that I have addressed in the show. Recorded live on May 31st, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, here is my one-on-one with Josh Mankowitz.

As an international nationally recognized producer and host of the highly acclaimed podcast, Ice Cold Cates, your next speaker is a daughter on a mission to solve her father's murder after 22 years without answers. Please welcome Madison McGee.

And joining Madison is NBC Daily Correspondent Josh Manklewitz.

Oh, yeah. Whoa. This is crazy. Oh, yeah. Tina Tinsley, could you move farther back? Because your hair is blinding me. Hi, everybody. Hi. I'm delighted to... I would say I'm delighted to see all of you, except I can barely see any of you through these lights. But I'm going to trust that you're here. I'm Josh Mankowitz from Dateland. My session is tomorrow, but this is something that I was so anxious to do. I met Madison less than a year ago at a podcast meetup in Los Angeles, and then I listened to her podcast, which is called Ice Cold Case. It's a great story. It's a great mystery, and it's her story. When it eventually is solved, the murder that she's investigating, she's going to be on daylight. Then probably, I would guess, in your local theater. But before we cast the movie, we're going to talk to all of you a little bit about where it began, how it began, and Madison's own story. So thank you for doing this. Thank you.

What an honor. And thanks for coming. Yeah, I'm new at this. This is weird for me.

This is the best part of crime con because you get to meet the people who are on the other side of the microphone, which is why I come. I mean, okay, I love taking selfies, but it's actually to meet all of you. So let me start. Just tell me a little bit about your childhood. Tell me about your memories of your dad and how that evolved into when you learned that your dad did not die in the way that you had always been told that he died. So just give us a little background on that.

Yeah. So I grew up in Charleston, West Virginia, and my dad was murdered in Ohio, so two and a half hours away. And he was murdered when I was six. So memories It's such a weird age because really, my dad died after two years of really remembering him because you don't remember a lot of those really early moments. So I have very faint memories of him showing up to I played little kid soccer, and I was a little cheerleader, and he was showing up for those things. And I remember him being there. And I remember my sister is 10 years older than me, and he was really strict with her. And I remember her being 16 and wanting to go out to parties and not being allowed. And then I don't remember anything because he wasn't there anymore because he had died. And my family told me that my dad had a heart attack, and that's how he passed away.

And you believe that?

Of course. I mean, the only people in your life you believe when you're a kid or your family, and that's it. So when my mom and my grandmother are telling me that your dad had this health thing happen, no questions asked. You don't even think someone got murdered.

How did your life change after that?

I mean, gosh. Losing your parent at such a young age, I feel like in the beginning, you almost don't even realize that your life is different than other people until you get into more formative years when parents are picking up kids from school and other kids in your class have two parents around. And then you start to realize, I'm not normal. I'm not in the traditional familial relationship that everyone else is having. And I justified that by just saying, Well, health issues. My dad had a heart attack, so I could make sense of it in the way that this happens to people, and sometimes they die. And that's sad, but I get it. And to find out at 16 that my dad was murdered shifted that process tremendously because for 10 years I had processed this and like, okay, my dad's death is justified in the sense that he had a health complication. And now all of a sudden, it is How did you find out? I was 16, and my mom and I were driving up to where my dad was buried in Ohio, and we were taking a headstone to put on his grave.

And while we were there, my mom asked if I wanted to see my dad's side of the family, which I had not spent a lot of time with since he passed away. So I said, Sure, I wanted to see my dad's mom was still alive, so my grandmother and some of my cousins. So we went over to their house. We spent some time with them. We were leaving. And as we were walking away from the front door, I turned back around to say goodbye, and I locked eyes with one of my cousins. And I had a visceral reaction to seeing him. It felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. And the wind was quite literally knocked out of my lungs. So I hurled forward, and my mom was like, Are you okay? What's going on? I caught my breath. We got back into the car, and I looked at my mom, also seeing my dad's death as a heart attack, and I asked her if my cousin Omar was there when my dad had a heart attack.

Because of the way he was looking at you.

I just had this feeling that he was there. I asked my mom that, and I said, It's almost like I'm watching it as a movie, and I'm seeing him there, and he's not helping him. And my mom broke down. We pulled over. We went to a Buffalo Wild Wings. And in that Buffalo Wild Wings, my mom told me that my dad was actually murdered. And a lot of people think that Omar was potentially there, had something to do with it, new information that he wasn't sharing. And it was very weird that I had this idea that that was going on without knowing the full context. And so that was when I found out. Then my whole world changed.

Did your mother tell you the full story? No. She knew it? No. You had to drag this out of members of your family who had essentially kept it from you for 10 years.

100%. I think if I had not asked that I would have never been in a position to ever ask, and I would have never known.

All right, so what do you do? So your reporting begins by trying to get your own family to give up the secrets.

Yeah. When I first started looking into this, it was get police reports, but it was also talk to my family about what really happened because this community is very small. All of my dad's family live there. So they all knew, at least the rumblings, the rumors, the stories that were going around, and no I mean, somehow I was completely shielded from this.

I mean, who's helpful and who's not inside your family?

No one is helpful.

Really? They all just want to keep up this idea that We don't want to talk about this.

Yeah, I mean, it's weird because my family loves to go online and say that they will help and do anything that they can. Then when it's sitting down talking to them one-on-one, it's, I don't know why you're looking into this. I I don't know why you're doing this. You're just wasting your time. Stop dragging us into this. Stop talking about it. It gets really weird. I mean, families are weird, especially in these situations.

At the end of our Dateland episode, after this is eventually solved, we will not be doing a What else do you think about how you and your family are all buds again.

Oh, absolutely not.

That's the ending I like.

Yeah. Absolutely not. When I first launched the show, I mean, first I thought no one was going to listen. So there was that. But I also was like, if my family does, they'll be pretty supportive, right? And they are the only people still to this day that have said anything negative about the show. I've gotten so many weird messages, threats. It's been really wild, all from family members.

All telling you, Don't disturb this. Don't dig this up.

Stop, yeah. Bringing skeletons out of the closet. Don't drag my name into this. I can't believe you said this about me. I mean, these are names that are in police files. It's not like I'm just pulling out straws. I'm reading straight from the file and then connecting the dots, and they're like, Why are you bringing me up?

So a member of your family is murdered, and the police are telling you more about this than any family member, including family members who clearly were not involved in any way.

Yeah, totally. Half of these people just maybe know a little bit, but they weren't there, and they aren't directly involved with anyone. They've just like, Oh, I heard this rumor. Even they're like, I'm not going to tell you that. I'm not going to talk about that. If you bring up that I know even a little bit, I'm going to threaten to kill you.

Police files ended up being more useful to you, gave you more information than anybody that you knew.

Yeah, definitely provided context. Useful? I don't know about that. I have only really heavily investigated one case ever. It's my dad's. You've looked at way more files than I have. But my dad's case file for a murder investigation that now is 22 years old was 36 pages.

Okay, so you're not a journalist or you weren't before this, certainly, right? No. And you were not a professional investigator? No. What made you think you could go ahead and do it?

Delusion. I don't know. There was just something... I'm a naturally curious person. There was just something that was like, I need to look into this. I'm also very creative, and I like television production, which is my background.

Which is what you were doing.

Yeah. I thought, okay, if I can- But not TV news?

No.

I thought if I could just get enough information, maybe I could start putting the pieces together. Naively, I was like, I've listened to a couple of podcasts. I could probably that. And that's so, what was I thinking.

All right. You get information from the police reports, and you're trying to prize stuff out of your family. Then I presume you're also going to talk to people who are mentioned in the police reports, maybe who aren't members of your family.

Oh, yeah. Showing up at doors.

How often do people say, Okay, yeah, come on in and talk? How often do they say, I don't want to talk about you or your dad or any of that?

Ironically, a lot of people let me talk to them. And in the beginning, it was I think there was this level of, we don't know what this is going to be. I have a really powerful quote from my very first interview with the investigators where he knew I was recording. I mean, the phone is sitting right in front of him. I got his permission, all the things. He signed a release, and he looks at me halfway through and it's like, it's not like you're going to make a podcast about this or anything. I don't think anybody thought I was going to do anything with this. I think they were like, she's just asking questions. She's annoying. She just won't stop emailing us. We'll meet with her.

Just to shut her up.

Right. So they were very willing in the beginning. And then it was a month before the show came out, I got emails from almost every family member I interviewed, You can't use this. Too late. Yeah. So that was crazy. I think it was once the trailer had dropped and I had started posting. I made an Instagram account that they were like, Oh, she's actually doing this.

So you'd never done a podcast before?

I had done a little Big Brother recap podcast to practice making a podcast.

Right.

So no.

That probably counts. And the money for this came from your own pocket.

Yeah, I used all my savings and every credit card I've ever had and was just like, I'm just going to put everything into this. I'm going to fly to Ohio. I'm going to interview these I'm going to pay an audio guy to come with me. I'm just going to gather as much as I can and fund this because it's the most important thing to me in my life.

One of the things that drew me to your story was how, for our purposes, I was listening to it and I was thinking, Could this be a story that we would do? And the answer was like, Absolutely. I mean, first of all, we haven't said your dad's name. What was his name?

John Cornelius McGee.

Known as JC. J. C. J. C. Okay, so J. C. Was in the drug trade? Yes. And J. C. Also, we found this out through you, was an informant? Yes. So either one of those things could get you killed? 100 %. And in fact, the people who killed him may have thought that the house was full of drugs or full of money. And it's also quite conceivable that they were angry at him for having worked as an informant. Neither of those things would be a surprise. And he was about to testify in a completely separate court case.

Yeah, a custody battle.

Tell me about that, which could have cost somebody else a tremendous amount of money. Yes.

This is what's so crazy about this case is just the avenues that I needed to explore to identify just motive and then going from there to find suspects and all those things was crazy. But yes, so I had a little brother of Shane. I still... He's alive. I have a little brother of Shane. It's like, I'm right here. He was seven seven months or eight months old when our dad was murdered, and his mom was for sure not capable of taking care of him. But because systems just really favor the moms, she had full custody. My dad was fighting very hard in court for full custody of Shane because she really was just not capable of taking care of him. The final hearing for that custody battle was the day after my dad was murdered. So obviously, he was never there. And so that added a really interesting element. Danine is Shane's mom. She's passed away. And her boyfriend at the time Butchee is still alive. And so he's someone that, really, ironically, took over the father figure for my brother Shane. And still to this day, Shane visits him, spends time with him.

I I presume at some point police looked at Butchee as a potential suspect.

He was the first person they interviewed.

If I were a cop investigating a murder and one of the people involved was named Butchie, before I had lunch or coffee, I would get him into a room. But yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, he was the first person they interviewed and the first person they dismissed. It's the wildest thing in the show. I mean, this detective, it's crazy. I couldn't believe it. He's like, Yeah, I mean, but she told us that he hated your dad, but he would never kill him. And we said, Okay. And he left. And that was it.

So where he was at the time of the murder, we've all seen police departments work really hard on murders, some of them involving people who were in the process of breaking the law, who were in the drug trade. Then we've seen other investigations in which the feeling was, I don't care if these guys kill each other. This feels like at different times it was one and at different times it was the other.

Totally. It's so weird. They did end up taking someone to a grand jury who they thought did it, and then very suspiciously dropped the charges. But even to get someone to a grand jury takes time and effort, and you have to have enough to do all of that. I don't know. It's weird because in some ways it's like, okay, they're making headway, they're doing something. And then the next day, it's like, anyways, we don't have time for this or we just don't care. And now it's been 22 years, and there hasn't been movement on this in so long, when I started calling asking questions, it was like they were talking to a ghost.

Well, hence your title, Ice Cold Case. And complicating this, I I think, is that we're not talking about a big city department. Oh, yes, small town. We're talking about a small Department which doesn't have a lot of people to work on the cases that are coming in today, let alone the ones that are sitting on the cold case shelf. And that's a problem with a lot of departments, particularly in a time of limited resources.

Yeah, but in the same sense, there's less happening in these small towns. So it's not like they're getting an influx of cases like LA, but they don't have the staff.

They don't have a murder every day.

Right. I mean, it's like a murder every few years in this town. And even then, they only have a handful of cold cases. So it's just a really interesting dynamic. Small towns are weird. This part of the country is really weird. Appalachia, I From there, it's just a really interesting place. And yeah, just the level of resources and time and attention, I think. I think people in these parts of the country, just technology-wise, are 10, 15 years behind a major city. So even the knowing to do something is not there.

When police identified someone and took them to a grand jury, or at least convened a grand jury, did you think they were on the right track? Did you think they were the right guy?

Well, I was six.

But- So that happened all the way back then? Oh, yeah.

I was probably seven. But yeah, they took this guy, Darryl Smith, all the way to the grand jury. When I started my show in my investigation, that's where I started. So there is this level of... I'm quite critical of the police in my case, but there was a level of, well, maybe they're on the right path. So that's where I started. He was the first person I really went all the way through the process of going, Could it be him? And there was a moment in time where I was like, They might have been right. But then you wonder, okay, they think it was him. They still tell me to this day, Well, Darryl did it. Okay, then why'd you let him go? And how unsafe for your community if you think this guy killed someone, that you're just like, whatever, let him go. They say at the time they didn't have enough evidence, but my thought would be, well, then we need to find enough. If you really believe he did it, you have to keep going. And But since then, he's never been brought back at all for this murder.

You spoke with Darryl Smith.

I did.

Tell us about that, because that feels like death defying work.

Yeah, it It was such an unexpected turn. I did my show because my dad's case was no one knew about it at all. You couldn't even Google who J. C. Mcgee was. I thought, Okay, I'll make nine episodes, and I'll tell this story in a really compelling way, so all of you will listen, and then there will be some articles, and now people will have an idea of what happened to my dad, and maybe someone on Reddit will help me solve this case.

Or maybe it'll just light a fire under the department. Right.

I put out nine episodes, and then I was like, Well, let's just see what happens. And in that time, I did a little bit of research on where Darryl Smith was because I did want to talk to him, but I was a little nervous, especially putting out the show what would happen. He was in prison for an unrelated, smaller, petty drug crime and had a seven-year sentence. He was convicted, he was in jail. So I was like, Okay, I feel really confident putting out this show because he's behind bars. And if I do want to talk to him, I can write him a letter, maybe get added to his list, and do visiting through a glass wall, and I'll feel really safe. In December of last year, 2023, I wake up at 6:00 in the morning to a message on Facebook from Darryl Smith, that he had listened to my podcast twice, and he wanted to talk to me. He had gotten out of prison.

And he's across the That's great. Your lawn needs some work, he said.

I flicked out and didn't know What did you want to do? I waited a little bit and I just replied and I said, When are you free? I flew out to Ohio and we met on the West Virginia side in the Ohio County Public Library, and we sat about this far away from each other.

You picked location because you thought it felt safe?

Yeah. Okay. Public Library.

It probably was.

We met and we talked for about two and a half, three hours, and it was just absolutely wild.

How much of this is in the podcast?

A lot of it, and there's more to come. I coined them as the Darryl episodes. It's episode 11 and 12. But he has more to add that I haven't put in yet that's coming. I mean, he shed a lot of light on certain things, but what's really interesting is how attuned my family is to this podcast. As soon as those episodes released, I got a message from a family member who I do believe is heavily involved in my dad's murder, who is also currently in prison. And he reached out. He has never spoken to me. I don't believe I've ever met him in person. I think he's always been in prison every time I've been there. He reached out via his daughter and said, Add me to this app to talk to me. And he was like, I can't believe you talked to Darryl. He killed your dad. And so that really added an interesting element. And now I'm talking with him, but it's just like, and this is just what happens. It's like you put it out there and then something happens and something happens.

Darryl Smith tried to talk you out of the idea that he was the murderer.

I left meeting with him, and I remember calling my producer, and I was like, What do we do now? Darryl didn't kill my dad.

After you met with him, you didn't think it was him? No.

But the only because... I mean, he said things that really made me question the police is handling up the case, and maybe they tried to pin it on him because that was easier to do. But also, just in my mind, I'm thinking like, this is going to sound crazy talking to people who listen to true crime all the time. I was like, what killer would sit next to me at a library and talk to me? So obviously he didn't I knew it, right? Delusional.

That might not be the metric that I would use because sometimes they do think they're the The smartest person in the room. That's why they talk to the cops, and that's why they sometimes make the mistake of talking to us.

Yeah, but like me? I don't know.

It seems as if Darryl at least made you think twice.

Totally. He definitely had me thinking about... I knew that there were multiple people there that day, so he really had me thinking about who the other people were and if I was on the right path with that and really questioning the motive piece.

When you look at the three possible motives, right? He was a drug dealer. Maybe he had a house full of cash that also had drugs in it. He was a snitch. I hate him because he turned in a friend of mine and he might turn me in. And the custody battle. Which one of those is in the driver's seat?

Well, I know which one's in your driver's seat. What do you think? Custody battle.

Well, maybe, but it feels like that was going to get resolved.

Yeah, I don't know. I I just don't really...

I think it was- The Custody Battle feels to me like the Dateland's smokes green. Yeah. We would play that up, but that wouldn't be it.

That's what I think. I mean... Sorry. When you watch the episode, it's all spoiled. No, I do think you're right. I don't think it was that. It had to have been drug-related in my mind. I am very much on the hunch right now that it was because my dad was an informant, and I think he turned someone in that was very powerful and really controlling a lot of the drug activity in this area who had a lot of people, whether or not the hit was put out, would act on behalf of this person. I think that is I have this weird... This is like, nobody... I haven't talked about this yet. I had a theory throughout the through line throughout the first nine episodes that I end with, this is what I think probably happened, and now I to go and really dive deeper to see if I can prove or disprove this theory. And then my conversation with Darryl really sent me down a rabbit hole. And I've heard from a lot of people recently, and I'm going through my own rolodex of information that I have. And I think I really was onto something, and I might have been nearly spot on.

And that theory was that my dad had informed on someone who had the resources to take care of it, and probably did. And I'm about to talk to that person.

And I was going to say, that's not Darryl, that's somebody else. It's not Darryl. So you've almost convinced yourself that you were wrong about what you thought originally. Yeah.

I mean, that was the whole premise for... We're in the middle of the next nine episodes, which is part two. And the whole purpose of part two was the premise was, is it wrong to be wrong? Was I wrong? And Is that okay? Does that lead me down the right path? How do we get to the answer? This is an active investigation on my behalf, so I might throw out something that isn't right, and I have to course correct. And now I'm like, Oh, my gosh, was I right, though? What if I'm right?

Anybody in your family say keep going, or they all say stop?

Oh, everyone says stop. And for different reasons. My mom says stop because she doesn't want me to die. My cousins say stop because they could end up in prison.

Well, it seems like they would meet a lot of your other family if they did that. Yeah.

We could have a family reunion.

I mean, silver lining.

Yeah, I'll bring the hot dogs.

What's been the attitude of the Police Department since your podcast first became available? Don't tell me they didn't listen to it. They did.

Oh, yeah, for sure. They did one interview publicly ever with the local news since the show came out, and it's burned in my brain. The lead investigator said that I gave this case the shot in the arm that it needed to get solved. And that was in July of last year, and I haven't heard from them since. I haven't had an email returned. I haven't received a phone call. I've reached out probably monthly at this point, and I haven't heard from them at all. I'm hesitant to say- When you call them, do they say, Leave us alone, or they just don't call you back? They just don't call me back. I'm hesitant to say they aren't doing anything because I guess it's, don't make an assumption, but I would venture to say they're probably not doing anything.

Are you running across their tracks anywhere? Does anybody you talk to say the police called and they wanted to know about this?

No. I put up a billboard in front of the Belmont County prosecutor's office. Yeah. You physically couldn't pull into the office without seeing this billboard. I put up a few more around town.

It says, Who killed JC McGee? Yeah. Belmont County is not doing anything about it?

No. Yeah, it says, Help me solve my dad's murder. That didn't really do much. Actually, last crime con, I made these tote bags that said, Did you kill my dad? On them, and I gave like 500 away. My next billboard is going in front of the Belmont County Sheriff's Department, and it's going to say, Did you kill my dad?

I feel like you may have missed your calling.

Marketing?

I mean, it does feel like you might be on to something there. Tell me what... I mean, I mean, on one level, it's got to feel great to do that, right? To... I mean, they're not answering your calls, so they're going to look at that every day when they go out for coffee or leave work for whatever reason. Has it done anything? Has it been polarizing or did anybody call you? Anybody talking to you off the record?

It's been actually really helpful. I live in LA, so in a very LA way, I was Oh, how much would it cost to get a billboard in LA? But it was actually way more helpful to get this cheap billboard in the town it happened in because I'm getting calls and emails from people I've never heard of before that are like, I knew your dad. I or I knew Darryl, or my mom dated Darryl at the time of your dad's murder, and I saw your billboard. And so it's drummed up a lot. And even Darryl says, it's the funniest thing. His interview is crazy. You just have to listen because if If you hear him talk, you're going to be like, Oh, he didn't do it. But that's beside the point. He says, he's like, You're the talk of the town. Everyone's talking about this podcast. So in a way, it was like, Yes, I want everyone to listen because I think that will put a lot of pressure on Belmont County, especially if people in Indiana are listening. But it's actually been really nice that if everyone in this town is talking about it, that's really all I need, right?

If they're going to keep talking about it, it's going to get back to Belmont County because it's very small. So that was something that really stood out to me was like, Darryl's like, you can't go anywhere without people talking about this. So if anything, going from my dad's case not being Googleable at all to, I can't go there and stay the night in a hotel without someone being like, Oh, Madison McGee.

Okay. I realize I'm probably sounding like somebody's dad here, but when you do go there, you go there alone?

I Yes. But because it's too expensive to... I went one time with a crew of people. It was when I was working a lot and I had a lot of TV shows that I was doing. But when I met with Darryl, I went by myself because I couldn't afford to bring anyone with me. So I flew into my hometown, which is two and a half hours away, and I pick up my grandma's Subaru, and I drive up and stay the night. And a hotel that's 20 minutes away.

I mean, I'm alive. Yeah.

For now. If I get killed, do I get a Dateland episode?

Oh, yeah. But let's do this without getting to that point is my request here. I think that I think that trying to solve your father's murder and in the process, dig up the secrets of a small town, sounds like the plot line to a movie. But when it's really happening, it can be of no small risk to the person that's doing it. I would actually say to you, that you really should be careful.

Yeah. I joke, but I am. I did go by myself. That wasn't a joke. But I I try to be as careful as possible. It's tough. We're comparing apples to oranges here, but MBC will fly you wherever. I have to figure out how to do this by myself. Right.

But the people In my interview, when I'm talking to somebody who might be a murderer, or maybe they haven't been convicted yet, or the trial hasn't started, they're always on their best behavior with me. I'm less worried about Darryl because Darryl is trying to convince you he did nothing to do with it. And that's like the murderers that I sit across, which is like, No, this is a big mistake. I'm not that guy. The police have the wrong guy. They hate me. Don't believe everything they say. But it's the other people, and the people who have a vested interest I have no idea how to open that thing. We're never... We're never drinking water. I tried to open my water earlier, and I knew that if I continued, I would pour it all over me. If you figure it out, let me know. Oh, I will. Then they said to me, when I came in here, they were like, This is your tumbler for the rest of crime count. I'm like, That's good. So I'm going to die at crime count because I'm not going to be able to get any water. So this is a cruel hoax.

It's true. It's true. That's being... This is crazy. There are other people out there who have a best interest in you not asking any more questions in there not being more episodes of the podcast. That's what I'm worried about. I'm not worried about the... I actually worry about the Darrells of the world because I meet those guys and they're all like, No, I'm an innocent guy.

I get a little worried. I'm pretty careful about my address. The Jehovah's Witnesses got a hold of my address and I got a stack of weird letters. About this? Yeah, just like, Oh, we can help you talk to the dead, and all this weird stuff. And then a pamphlet for Jehovah's Witnesses. I got one, and I thought that was weird. And then it was like, My mail My mailman had to get a hold of my building manager and was like, Can you call this girl? We have a stack of 500 letters. They won't fit in her mailbox. They were all... No fan mail. It was all Jehovah's Witnesses. So I had to do some stuff to I checked my address and other things like that. The weird messages from my family, the death threats, I was a little worried about in the beginning, and then I really thought about it, and I was like, These people are not flying from Ohio to LA to kill me. They're just Internet trolls. They just happen to be related to me, and they throw suspicion on themselves. So now I'm like, Oh, great. Now I look down this avenue, and then you're not going to like the next episode.

Your best interest would have been to just be quiet.

So when you're doing something like this, and it's on your own dime, how do you know if anybody is out there listening? You can count the downloads, but how do you get traction without a A big TV network promoting you like we do?

My marketing. And that's why I put so much emphasis on the bags and the billboards. And I made 500 I have bracelets for a crime con. That's a high school case on them. And I do whatever it takes within my realm to do, to talk about it. And coming to a place like this where it is full of people who are really passionate about true crime and cold cases and solving things and listening to shows is really helpful. I don't know. It's tough. I didn't think anyone was going to listen. I'm shocked that I even know you. It's just this is such a weird position to be in because in the beginning, when I launched independently, it really was like, I hit upload, and it was like, oh, now we wait.

Right. And when When did you realize that you were connecting with somebody out there?

The first episode charted, which I thought was weird and crazy. I was very grateful for it, but even then it didn't really hit. It was like, oh, what a fluke, or, oh, their algorithm is really wild if I'm up there. So I think it was when... This is actually a really weird... I was at a wedding, and I was a line at the bar, and this woman was staring at me, and I was like, This is really strange. I was like, Hello. She was like, I was listening to your voice all morning. And I was like, Oh. And she was like, Yeah, my husband and I were listening to your podcast. Now, we were at a wedding for a mutual friend who I'm sure had posted about the podcast. It's not like it was like, Oh, you found me randomly. But that was like, Oh, that's crazy that people I don't know are listening. And And I think that moment was a really pivotal moment where I was like, We might be onto something here. And then just a few weeks later, I started hearing from people who live in that town and were... Even just people who were like, Oh, I remember your dad.

He was so nice. And they weren't providing any real information, but just the fact that it was reaching people who knew my dad, who I never would have met otherwise and never would have connected with. I was like, Okay, now we're starting to get out there.

How many people have you spoken with so far? What do you think?

Probably like that knew my dad or have information.

Just that had information?

Probably like 100.

This has come at no small personal cost to you.

I am an emotional wreck. It's been brutal on my financial, emotional, mental, physical life in every facet. Someone was talking to me about, Oh, if you could do this over again, what would you do? I was like, I wouldn't do it. It's been brutal.

You want to go in a little more detail about that?

Sure. It's just such an emotional roller coaster to... I'm going to cry. To put your life out there in this way. I remember hearing from friends I went to high school who had listened to the podcast, which also is a testament to its success. I think getting people you know to listen or watch something you do is the hardest thing. Strangers, it's like, yeah, okay, but getting people who actually know you to listen to your podcast, it's like, No chance. So the fact that my friends from high school were listening was really interesting. I remember them reaching out. There's one episode, episode 2, where I really dive into some of my really deep personal trauma with my mom. And they all were texting me after that episode came out, and they were like, We had no idea that this even happened to you. And I think putting my life out on display in that way, in an attempt to connect with an audience, in an attempt to solve my dad's murder, is definitely not my plan A, B, or C. And it deeply impacts my ability to connect with people in my personal life. It's just hard.

It's just been really hard.

You have to have thought to yourself, maybe I won't do this anymore.

Every day.

But here you are.

Yeah. I did an interview, which was spectacular with People magazine. Which was so wild. I said something I didn't even remember saying until I read the article, which was, I will stop at nothing to solve this case. And I mean, I'm already this far. I've already ruined my life. The only way out is through. So now I'm here, and I'm going to keep going because I now have nothing to lose. I didn't realize, I guess, in the beginning, how much mental tenacity I did have to lose. And now I've lost it. So whatever.

What do you need from everybody listening today? And what do you need from your audience?

Keep talking about my dad. It's so easy. There's so many amazing people at this conference who have dealt with such a great loss. But it's so easy to connect with those stories because the victims feel like you, right? You're a good person, and these other people didn't deserve to die. It's very hard to connect with a drug dealer turned informant who lived in Ohio If you spend half of the amount of time talking about my dad, that you do these other cases, I think it might get solved. At the very least, Beaumont County will be very upset. I think that's just the most important thing, and that's why I did this. Thank you. How embarrassing. I'm not wearing waterproof anything. But I think that's just the most important thing is listen, share it, talk about it in the same way. I mean, you're all obviously fans of true crime. This is not a cheap conference to come to. So you're talking about this at least half of your free time, I'm sure, I'm watching Dateland on Friday nights, 2 hours every Friday. So talk about my dad, too. Throw that in there. If you're researching you're searching something or you're adding something to a website.

There's so many amazing websites I'm meeting today where you can add cold cases to them or whatever. I don't know.

What's still to come? Oh, gosh. You have material that hasn't come out yet. Yes. So what's ahead?

We're finishing out part two over the next 20, 10 weeks.

Which is how many episodes? Five.

I'm going to finish putting out all the information that I've collected, and then I'll take a little bit more time off to investigate more as it comes in. But I thought we started with a bang and that I was worried that we weren't going to have enough to finish nine episodes. And then I have this interview that I'm doing next week that I think, well, I mean, maybe we're done. Maybe it's solved. I don't know. I mean, it's getting to a point where every interview is ground-breaking.

Is it enough if you know, or does that person have to be tried, prosecuted, and locked up? That's a good question.

We'll be right back. In the beginning, In the beginning... Sorry. That's commercial break right there. In the beginning, I thought to myself about this a lot because I knew if I started, I would have to know what that bar would be before I began, because I think having goals is really important, and I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment or failure. So in the beginning, I was like, You know what? If I can go to bed at night and know who killed my dad, and nothing else comes of it. It's been 22 years. This person, if they haven't been in prison for something else, has already been living their life. What's spending the last 10 years of their life in jail really going to do for me?

It might be satisfying in ways you haven't thought of.

Maybe. At the time, I was like, I just want to know. I don't care about anything else. Now, I don't know if this person can ever go through a trial because it's not as easy as all of us saying, I think they did it. There's police involved. The prosecutors have to decide to take it to trial. There's so many different elements to it.

Which they almost certainly will not do unless they think there is not just a case, but a great case. Right.

And DNA evidence is wildly important to do that, especially after 22 years. And I don't believe that there is any. And so there's a really just difficult... There's a lot of difficult red tape to get through. The only way I think this will get solved in court is through witness testimony. I do believe there were four people there that day, and only one of them could have pulled the trigger because my dad was killed with one gunshot to the head. So that means there's three people who have the opportunity to say, Yeah, I was there, and this is what happened.

Is there any chance that one of them will crack without the leverage of a police investigation or that they will be arrested or charged? I mean, is there anybody who's- I mean, maybe if they're on their deathbed.

But I don't know. I don't know, especially in this town, especially given the context that my dad probably died from being an informant, is someone really going to come forward and snitch? I don't know.

You're going to do five more episodes of this? Yeah. And then?

And then a Dateland episode, hopefully.

The podcast is called Ice Cold Case. It is hosted by and indefatigably reported by Matt Jason McGee. Thank you all.

Oh, man. Yeah, I guess thanks for coming. Thank you so much for listening to Ice Cold Anyways, special thank you to Crime Con for giving me the opportunity to have a session this year, and Josh Mankowits for saying yes to joining me. If you don't already know, you can find Josh on MBC's Dateland, and where I find him to be equal parts hilarious and informative on Twitter at Josh Mankowits. Please continue supporting this show by downloading, rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you are listening. To submit any information, please email, icecoldcasepodcast@gmail. Com. A video version of this episode is available on our YouTube channel. I'll be back next time to continue my investigation into my dad's unsolved murder.