BONUS: The Making of Ransom with Donnie and Austin Miller

2024-07-10 00:22:55

Twelve-year-old McKay Everett disappeared from his Texas home in September 1995. His father Carl returned from an Amway meeting to find the back door ajar and the telephone ringing. On the line, a woman with a raspy voice demanded $500,000. Over the next week, the FBI played a game of cat-and-mouse with the kidnappers, who used inside information to stay one step ahead of the investigation. Ultimately the FBI uncovered a series of crimes that started long before McKay was taken. Most shocking of all was the suspect. McKay had been betrayed by someone he trusted – a pillar of the community hiding a dark secret. But decades later, McKay’s mother, Paulette, still isn’t satisfied with the official story. She doesn’t think everyone involved has been brought to justice. Ransom: Season 1 - Position of Trust is a story of greed and betrayal and how one’s outward appearance can be dangerously deceiving.

1
Speaker 1
[00:02.28 - 00:33.26]

So we're here today with former FBI agent Donnie Miller, who you heard on the podcast. He was the agent who interviewed Irene Flores and got her to confess to her and Hilton Crawford's involvement. the night before Hilton was arrested. And we're also here with Donnie's son, Austin Miller, who originally came up with the idea of making a podcast about the McKay-Everett case and then brought it to KSL. So, Austin, how did you first hear about this story?

3
Speaker 3
[00:35.02 - 01:05.24]

So with my dad, you know, him, having been in the FBI, having an adventurous career, anytime he went to church, soccer game, you know, people always wanted stories from him. And so storytelling was just kind of something that happened in our family. You know, I've heard his same five stories to neighbors that were, you know, rehearsed and he could repeat them in five minutes or so. But I wanted to know if he had anything that was worth telling in a longer format. And he started telling me about all of his, you know, buddy agents or, you know, other law enforcement guys he knew and some of the stories they had.

[01:05.26 - 01:21.66]

And I said, no, you know, you know, if I'm going to do this, I want something personal. And I was like, OK, I was expecting one of his five stories, you know, that he tells all the time. And this was a new story. And, you know, that kind of surprised me as he was going, you know, I was like, OK, he has a new story that I don't know about. This is interesting.

[01:22.12 - 01:41.76]

When he was telling me the story, you could tell he was emotional about it. And I started asking like, OK, why, why did he keep this story, you know, close to his chest for 20 something years? What is it about this story? And when he was talking about the story, he couldn't even, he couldn't even mention the victim's name. You know, was that emotionally jarring to him?

[01:42.02 - 01:58.24]

You know, this is coming from a guy who he worked in a violent crimes division. So he put, you know, hundreds of violent felons behind bars. He did a couple of tours in Afghanistan, you know, so he's seen a lot, you know, he doesn't get emotional often. So that definitely was like, OK, that's the moment. I think this is the story we need to tell.

2
Speaker 2
[01:58.34 - 02:26.62]

He wanted to hear it because I did not want to talk about it. I said, Austin, you will make me cry if you make me retell the stupid story. And Austin kept asking questions. If you can't say a victim's name 30 years post-incident, that gives you some indication of the profundity of pain that I think everybody experienced who worked there. We thought we could save the child's life, and we did not.

1
Speaker 1
[02:27.90 - 02:36.04]

Is that why it's so profoundly embedded within you, Donnie, is because it involves a child and you thought you could save him?

2
Speaker 2
[02:36.94 - 03:05.94]

I can't tell you the violent crime I've worked, murders and assaults and bank robberies, extortions, kidnappings. But I teach guys now, 25-year agents sometimes, and they will still come in and say, I still remember the children. It's almost always about the children. How do you feel about your neighbors? You care for your neighbors, but if one of their children was involved in something, you'd instantly want to join the fight.

4
Speaker 4
[03:06.64 - 03:14.76]

Do you guys have any, like, takeaways? Is there sort of like a lesson that you think we should draw with the story? Is that part of why it's resonant?

3
Speaker 3
[03:15.04 - 03:47.34]

For me, in terms of lessons, I already had skepticism for a lot of people, but after this podcast, honestly, it probably has changed a lot of the ways I act. For example, there's a carpool for my daughter's dance team, right, where we all take turns taking the dance lessons, and I was like, well, hold up, I don't even know who's his dad that is taking her to dance. And I'd hope they'd have the same question about me, right, but it forces me to be a little more vigilant and learn more about these people that we're trusting with our kids.

2
Speaker 2
[03:47.62 - 04:23.62]

Who would you leave with your children? There are only a handful of people, but after that, there were even less of those people. Everyone is suspect, and I don't want to live my life that way. I don't want my son living his life that way, but Hilton was part of the brotherhood, and that sounds cheesy, but he was part of the law enforcement military brotherhood. And when one of your brothers betrays you, a family member hurts you that way, you cannot dismiss it.

[04:23.96 - 05:02.26]

And not just a fraternity member, but a captain, you know, a guy who ran things, who made decisions, and part of the family, part of their family. The fact that he would give the child, I still have trouble saying his name. To give McKay that football sign, love you, Uncle Hilty, and then to walk away from that. for stupidity, for avarice, for greed, I don't know verbally where to go with that. Your best friend steals what matters to you most.

1
Speaker 1
[05:03.36 - 05:13.96]

You know, Donnie, as you speak, I'm thinking, I bet even at the time, and take us back to that time, that you were just incredibly angry.

2
Speaker 2
[05:14.56 - 05:45.44]

We were angry, yes, certainly, but I remember people at church holding my hand, the most sensitive, the most benevolent of females walking me down the hallway and saying, he has to be prosecuted, we have to make this right. When you're reaching the most genteel people in your community of faith, and they're seeking revenge vicariously by way of me, you can't let go of that kind of thing.

3
Speaker 3
[05:46.04 - 06:12.50]

The other lesson is kind of a non-lesson in terms of, the crime doesn't make sense to me. I don't really know how he felt like he was going to pull this off, especially as someone who studied crime, was a detective. For me, that's just, whether it's the gambling addiction, or the desire to be seen as somebody with money in the community, evil is evil, and it doesn't always follow a logical pattern, and sometimes people just do things that make no sense.

4
Speaker 4
[06:13.00 - 06:52.74]

This is maybe too speculative, but after thinking about this a lot, the thing that I can come up with that makes the most sense, still doesn't really make sense, is that there was some accomplice who was going to help him out, and then backed out at the last minute, but then, when that other person backed out, he's just decided, oh, I'm going to do it anyway, but didn't think it through, and then ran into problems right away. Then maybe that's just me not wanting to believe that he was just so callous that he planned to kill the kid the whole time. That's just me trying to come up with something better than that, and maybe it's just as simple as he was that callous, and thought he could get away with it, and didn't care.

2
Speaker 2
[06:53.26 - 07:29.52]

Read Averiss Obfuscate's logic. Bart, you're old enough, you probably remember many years ago the Polo Bandit in Houston. He'd pop his collar, he wore cool hats, he was always polite to all the tellers, and, if I remember right, he hit banks for several million bucks. When he was finally caught, the Polo Bandit had nothing, had nothing, and kept robbing banks. You'd think all that money he'd taken, but no, he burned it all on the ponies.

[07:29.70 - 07:56.54]

Again, same scenario, he loved the ponies, they loveth him not. He lived in a little, like a garage, etc., but behind his sister's home. Up on the wall, were clippings, if I remember right, of him, so he, like Hilton, he wanted a little status, he needed money to pay his debt. In both cases, ponies involved, gambling involved, egocentricity involved.

[07:58.22 - 08:12.02]

The linear logic that we experience in daily lives is flipped upside down when greed enters the equation. Greed of more money ruined their lives and everybody who loved them.

1
Speaker 1
[08:17.38 - 09:03.18]

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[09:03.18 - 09:21.92]

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2
Speaker 2
[09:24.24 - 09:30.00]

Guys, what bothers you about it? 30 years past and not being affiliated with it, what bothers you?

1
Speaker 1
[09:31.00 - 09:48.60]

Covering it as a journalist. What bothers me the most is that a man could be so incredibly sadistic with... I don't believe the story of R.L. Remington. Hilton was involved, and he did it all on his own.

[09:48.74 - 10:33.10]

I don't believe he had an accomplice. But this was a man who was incredibly manipulative in so many ways, and you just see it and feel it and sense it, how every person he's been trying to manipulate, and he feels like there's a way out of this. Even in prison, he's trying to, not really trying to negotiate how to get out, but at least saving himself religiously, attempting that maneuver as well. I mean, it's so incredibly maddening that an addiction could drive someone to do such stupid things and be so sadistic in his way of doing it as well.

2
Speaker 2
[10:33.92 - 10:44.82]

Do you know who beats the polygraph the most easily? Sociopaths and psychopaths, because they're either believing their story or they're believing that you will believe their story.

1
Speaker 1
[10:45.54 - 11:06.40]

Right. You would have to take one of those to love a young boy like that as family and then to turn around and lock him in a trunk and bludgeon him nearly to death. What are your thoughts about all of that? I mean, how could someone turn like that, Donnie? You've done this a long time.

2
Speaker 2
[11:06.86 - 11:42.94]

Empathy is probably the law dog's greatest ally. The great Harper Lee says, walk in their shoes. And if you can walk in Hilton's shoes for just a minute, I think you'd be your very best effing friend. Say their name, because names add a real profundity of meaning. You invite them over regularly, you share Christmases together, and could you take one of his children, put him in a trunk, bludgeon him, leave him in a swamp, and I can't even go there.

4
Speaker 4
[11:43.72 - 11:58.46]

Yeah. I think the thing that's surprising to me is just sort of that someone who's capable of doing something like that went mainly undetected until he was in his 50s, that that person can be sort of lurking there for that long.

2
Speaker 2
[11:58.76 - 12:02.18]

Who says he didn't do something like this three times before?

4
Speaker 4
[12:03.00 - 12:17.86]

Well, yeah, and we did discover red flags in his history when he was a police officer in his 20s. You know, he did a bunch of financial crimes, you know, betrayed a lot of friends. But yeah, I don't know. It's still surprising to me, I guess.

1
Speaker 1
[12:18.64 - 12:22.18]

Austin, is this how you thought the podcast would play out?

3
Speaker 3
[12:22.82 - 12:46.74]

You know, part of the reason I teamed up with KSL and I wanted someone with journalistic skills. Also, y'all did a great job with Cold, right? That was a big hit show and I knew that y'all were capable of it. And, you know, part of it was, OK, the mom has this real desire and she's kind of trusting me with this story. Part of her desire, her.

[12:46.74 - 13:02.20]

ask, what she claimed, you know, kind of said, is her, you know, kind of her dying prayers. is that, like, hey, I want this case reopened. I want to see if, you know, if we can bring some attention on this. So I felt kind of somewhat obligated to kind of at least look into that, poke into that. Right.

[13:03.34 - 13:29.48]

There's a lot of podcasts where they are just taking, you know, the base news story that's in a BuzzFeed article or whatever it is, and they're just analyzing and discussing what they think. Right. But I wanted to really, like, go back in that time period, get in people's heads, kind of see, like, the full story from everyone's perspective. So that was what I was hoping would happen when I partnered with you guys. And fortunately, that is what happened.

[13:29.58 - 14:08.88]

I'll say the one question mark was, you know, Paulette, one of her big motivations in telling this story was she felt that the mother was complicit, right, that she knew things. And that is one area, you know, we did get a little bit of kind of how that's affected her life years down the road. But I really wish we could dig a little bit more, with kind of the DA and some of kind of more, like what evidence was ever presented or considered against Connie and her involvement. But I'd say that's the only kind of hanging thread I had throughout this. But everything else, I felt, played out just as I'd hoped.

[14:09.32 - 14:10.90]

Yeah. Good.

1
Speaker 1
[14:11.26 - 14:48.82]

And what I've enjoyed about the reception from people I've heard from is that it is it is so incredibly researched, with really compelling stories from those individuals who were, who were being interviewed as well, that they enjoyed listening to kind of the background of the individuals, you know, outside of even Hilton Crawford, and understanding his background a bit more and, and really having it embedded in their minds, of just how much of a, of a jerk this guy really was, you know, and how much he was hiding and his just hidden life.

2
Speaker 2
[14:49.50 - 15:28.52]

Ben, I don't know if you've ever heard the term Proustian existentialism, but it's a wildly effective technique that it can be synopsized in, like a paragraph where he would dip a cookie in his, a certain type of tea that his mother made, and then he could see her and smell her cologne. He was right there with her. And your storytelling does some of that. I could see the sights and smell the smells and hear the sounds that I heard from all those years ago, because your storytelling was vibrant enough that it transported us. We.

[15:28.52 - 15:42.72]

we were there again. I guarantee you, I'm not the only one. But thank you. Good stuff. Your narration, either you're Marlon Brando or you really feel it, because when you speak, it sounds as though you care.

[15:43.18 - 15:45.14]

It sounds as though you were there yourself.

1
Speaker 1
[15:46.02 - 16:07.00]

Well, that's a tremendous compliment, Donnie. I appreciate that. You know, I just so enjoyed the interview and listening to you as well and the clips we used. Your verbiage was just so compelling and just brought the audience, I think, to what you were talking about. And I just loved that.

2
Speaker 2
[16:07.46 - 16:34.66]

Lloyd Diaz and I are such perfect foils for each other. His natural go to, his natural go to his comfort zone is intimidation, and not in a bad way. He is a tall, handsome, very wildly accomplished investigator. But patience is not on the menu for him. He wants to go in and say, this is how it's going and you're going to do it right now.

1
Speaker 1
[16:36.16 - 16:40.68]

Yeah, I just loved how you talked about how you complimented each other in so many.

2
Speaker 2
[16:40.68 - 16:59.94]

beautiful ways. I was afraid that night and I said I was brand new. I probably had. I guess maybe I had four or five years in the view, but there were so many investigators who I thought should have been there rather than me. But when I saw Lloyd, he's almost punching holes in the phone and he's sweating.

[17:00.50 - 17:31.14]

He is that deeply involved in making this thing happen. In fact, I think I turned to Miss Flores at one point and said, you're going to need a new damn phone because he was punching the phone so hard. And she smiled. If you know anything about smiles, you know that it engages a region called the subgenial anterior cingulate cortex, which helps reduce cortisol. Her fear went down and she and I kind of giggled together.

[17:31.76 - 18:00.98]

And I think that was a. I think we began to walk the same walk right about that moment. It was, it was for me, it was nascent. It was a real birth into believing that I could get in heads and hearts. By way of empathy, by way of telling a story, showing a picture and the art of touch that was kind of born that night, I began to believe that I could do it, and so much of that I owe to Lloyd.

[18:01.86 - 18:13.70]

What would you guys change? What would you change? Seeing it in retrospect, what would you? what would you refine, or how would you make it better? You're supposed to be asking the questions I'm so used to.

1
Speaker 1
[18:14.42 - 18:16.28]

I'm going to leave that one to Ben.

4
Speaker 4
[18:17.12 - 18:38.28]

I mean, I have a ton of things, but I did actually drop the ball a little bit. There was a story beat that got sort of cut. Diaz was talking about like. he was so tired that after that night, his boss was like, you can't work tomorrow. But he was like, I want to be there when Hilton's arrested.

[18:38.98 - 18:47.86]

So he showed up. But his boss was like, OK, look, I can't stop you. But just like, don't get on camera because, like, I don't want my boss to see that you're there at the site.

2
Speaker 2
[18:48.16 - 19:07.20]

He is a contumacious dog of an agent. Try telling him no, he's not going to be there that morning. And I felt the same way. I remember my wife asking me if I was going to take a nap. And I said, honey, we can save, we can save that little boy.

[19:07.32 - 19:08.72]

We believed we could.

1
Speaker 1
[19:11.04 - 19:31.48]

Yeah. Well, we I think all of that as well truly came across of your incredible, diligent work. You know, you were all interested in the life of that young boy. You wanted to see McKay alive. And sadly, even at that time, he was probably already dead.

[19:31.48 - 19:38.60]

So I just. it's just so heartbreaking, such so heart wrenching, all of this. I mean, I just,

[19:40.30 - 20:06.90]

you know, of what, of what a person can be capable of doing. And it's just so upsetting. And the more I got through, you know, the narration of this, you know, the more I hated this man. But, you know, and the more I just thought of people like you, Donnie, and others and other investigators who were just working so feverishly wanting to make this right.

2
Speaker 2
[20:07.26 - 20:35.74]

And I thank you because I finally did say his name again. So you helped me catharsize painfully. Thank you so much for the revisiting the pain. But it was good to finally say McKay's name again. If you ever study this, the Spec Ops world, Special Operations world, they they say that pain shared is pain minimized and sharing.

[20:35.74 - 20:43.90]

that, I think, helped an awful lot of us to kind of minimize what we'd held for all those years.

3
Speaker 3
[20:45.06 - 20:52.78]

Well, as growing up, we always wanted another story, right? You say we got the same five stories. We're like, get another story. Can we get one more story? Get us something new.

[20:52.78 - 21:01.84]

And I didn't think it would take this route of having to do a podcast. It took four years to get the new story, but we finally got it. So that's good enough for me.

1
Speaker 1
[21:02.08 - 21:18.56]

Well, we sure appreciate you both and Austin for just, you know, asking those, you know, really intriguing questions as to what would be a good podcast and and both of you just for your allowing this to take place. We really appreciate it.

[21:25.26 - 21:33.28]

For more information, including pictures, find us on social at The Ransom Podcast or visit our website, RansomPodcast.

[21:33.28 - 22:09.32]

com Ransom is researched and written by Ben Kebrick and hosted by me, Art Rascone, production and sound design by Ben Kebrick, Aaron Mason and Trent Sell, who also did the mixing, co-created by Austin Miller. For Podcast One, executive producer Eli Dvorkin. For Workhouse Media, executive producer Paul Anderson, and for KSL Podcasts, executive producer Cheryl Wortley. Ransom is produced by KSL Podcasts in association with Podcast One and Workhouse Media. Thank you for listening.

[22:09.88 - 22:30.78]

It's just been amazing to be able to narrate this and be involved in this, but it's just such a sad, tragic story. I thank you for enduring this with us and and getting to the final of this. And so I really appreciate it. It's been, it's been amazing. And Ben, no doubt you agree as well.

[22:30.88 - 22:33.18]

This has been just an incredible thing to work with.

4
Speaker 4
[22:33.36 - 22:42.30]

Yeah. And it's been a delight working with you, Art. So, yeah, if you're listening now, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please let your friends know, and let them know that they can binge the whole thing.

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