Interview with David Payne, President/Executive Producer RainStream Media
Meet David Payne. Former Assistant US Attorney at Dept of Justice, turned lawyer for Atlanta’s pro teams, turned CEO for digital tech co, turned creator and host of Somebody Somewhere, solving cold cases. #HoShiMo’s throughout! You’ve got to hear his story! #hoshimo #csuite #csuiteradio
Transcript:
Julie: Welcome back to another episode of The Conversational. Today, I am here with David Payne. David has an amazing, amazing background. I know I say this a lot because I feel very blessed to have super amazing people on my podcast, but his background is one that I have... I'm in awe of and haven't seen at all before, so let me back up to his first, quote unquote, career-resume position. He was the assistant U.S. attorney [00:00:30] at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., so, right away, of course, you pay attention, and I want to be sure that I'm not doing anything wrong. Then he became the VP of business affairs and the team counsel in Atlanta for three of their teams, the Braves, the Hawks and the Thrashers, as well as being the legal officer for Turner Sports, so, being a big sports aficionado, I love that. He was an SVP and GM of CNN Sports Illustrated, so I think we'll talk. I probably [00:01:00] ran into him then. I was doing a lot of work for a mutual friend of ours, probably Mark Ford, at Sports illustrated and Time Inc.
Julie: He went on to be SVP and GM of cnn.com and the SVP of business ops and development. He was then president and CEO of ShortTail Media, which was a digital video advertising technology company, then he was the chief product officer and the chief digital officer, two different positions, while he was at Gannett which is, as you probably know, the owner of USA Today, [00:01:30] and, finally, he now is the president and executive producer for RainStream Media where they have a smash hit podcast, one that I... It's right in my sweet spot of the kinds of content I love to both watch and stream, which is in the vein of, we'll chat about it, David, the Making a Murderer vein, but his podcast is called Somebody Somewhere, and the idea there is, and we'll get into it, is a bit [00:02:00] of a cold case investigative podcast, so very exciting. He's had two seasons so far, and excited to have you here streaming in from Seattle. We're recording this in the midst of the COVID, so it's my very first ever podcast not being done face to face, but being done video to video across the country, so welcome, David. Thanks for being here.
David: Thank you for having me, and I have to correct you right off the bat because you left out one thing, which is [00:02:30] my current occupation is hairstylist. I took the clippers through my hair today, so it's a blessing that you cannot see me for this podcast. There's a big chunk out of the left side of my head.
Julie: You weren't drinking first, were you? That's-
David: No. It's early. It's early here in Seattle, Pacific Coast Time, but I-
Julie: Yeah, but now it's COVID. Nobody knows.
David: Nobody knows. I figured now is the time, and, as I did it, I said it's really a proper metaphor for this [00:03:00] discussion because I thought, "What's the worst that could happen?" And, yeah, thank God you can't see me right now.
Julie: The worst thing that could happen is we could take a picture of us. That's okay. We're all in our least glamorous, I think, physical beings over these past couple of weeks. God help us, when we all have to go back, and I'm very curious, either people will be... They'll have forgotten what it is to look great again or they'll be just so excited to be putting on all their fancy duds and everybody will go back [00:03:30] to the whole business casual thing. When it'll have gone away, they'd be back to formal because people will be excited to put real clothes on again. I can't tell which. We'll have to see, I guess.
David: The former is certainly Seattle every day.
Julie: Oh, yes, that's true. That's so true.
David: Nobody gives a crap out here in Seattle about what you wear or how you look, that's for sure, so welcome to the world.
Julie: Right. Welcome.
David: Welcome to Seattle world.
Julie: Yeah, it'll be grunge every day, right? I love it.
David: Every day, you could pajamas to work.
Julie: [00:04:00] I always love to start off these podcasts because, for me, these are really about the backstory of my guests. Most of my guests are successful in some vein, and their successes are well-known or well-researched, but their backstories not so much, and my guess is you've got a tremendous backstory, so where were you born, who were your parents, how many brothers and sisters? Give me a little bit of the early days.
David: Sure. I was born in [00:04:30] Iowa, of all places, which is a strange place to be born, and I had not been back there until earlier this year when I was knocking on doors for Joe Biden, which I did in January, but I spent a very little time in Iowa. My father was a med student there with... at the University of Iowa. My mother was a homemaker. I eventually had three brothers. There were only two of us then there, [00:05:00] and I'm told-
Julie: [crosstalk 00:05:01].
David: I'm the second oldest. I'm the second oldest, and I'm told that it was... by my mother it was a very difficult time. I think, back in those days, they probably made $50-a-week kind of thing, and it was cold, and they had moved from Texas and didn't have the right clothing, so it was a very inauspicious beginning in Iowa. We later, and, by later, a year later, ended up moving to Washington, D.C., [00:05:30] where my father was in the army as a doctor and then, eventually, had his own practice in Washington, D.C.
Julie: How old were you when you guys moved there.
David: One [crosstalk 00:05:44].
Julie: You were one. Oh, you were born. Oh, you literally didn't spend any time in Iowa. Okay.
David: Yeah. I would consider myself a native Washingtonian. I've spent most of my life in either Washington, Atlanta, or they're the two primary spots.
Julie: Okay. [00:06:00] Got it, so then your mom being a house-maker, your dad was a physician, it sounds like, yes?
David: Yes.
Julie: What kind of physician was he?
David: He was an OB/GYN.
Julie: Oho, nice. Okay, he brought in babies in the world. That's great. [inaudible 00:06:18], by the way, a little segue, they're expecting to be baby boom from this as well. We'll have to see how that turns out. I'm sure he's not practicing any longer, but [crosstalk 00:06:27].
David: No. He has passed away. It's [00:06:30] been a long time, and that, actually I'm sure we'll get to it, is one of those moments that you talked about that is a-
Julie: A holy shit moment?
David: Yeah, a holy shit or just a marker in my life that certainly defined a lot of who I am and where I am.
Julie: Talk about that. What were your parents like and how... What was that influence like growing up?
David: Sure. [00:07:00] I mean, let me back up a little bit to set the table for it. As I mentioned, I have three brothers, one older and two younger. We were a family of four living in Washington, D.C. My father was a physician. My mother was truly the grade A homemaker, president of the PTA, the one who really took care of us while my father, frankly, worked all the time. Because [00:07:30] he was an OB/GYN, his hours were, literally, 24/7, so my-
Julie: [crosstalk 00:07:36] whenever they want to. Right.
David: Yeah, whenever they want to, and so, my memories of my youth, as it were, were my father was largely working all the time and my mother was taking care of us and, with four boys, we just played sports all the time, and that's where, you mentioned some of my sports background, and how I ended up in sports. I just love sports. I'm a sports [00:08:00] guy. I'm a gym rat, but we grew up. We had a very normal, nice, upper-middle class upbringing, but then things got very tense with my parents. As we were growing up, they had a considerable amounts of tension in the house. I'm not going to go into too [00:08:30] much detail about it, but, at one point in the back and forth, it got very violent, and we had to, literally, pick up in the middle of the night and leave our house, and that set off a set of... Eventually, my parents got divorced. Eventually, the family scattered. We all scattered in different places. My best friend took me into his house and so forth.
Julie: How old were you?
David: [00:09:00] I would say stuff started hitting the fan when I was 14 and 15 and really got bad at 16.
Julie: In high school years?
David: That's probably that range, and like everybody who's in any kind of situation, you only know what you know. It's what I always say. I mean, that was my life, and that's how it was, and we picked up and left the house, and there we were. [00:09:30] You survive. You survive those things, and then we got our life back together. Things settled down after the divorce that my parents finally finalized. I went off to college to Duke University for my first year, and then that summer my father took his life, and so I was 18 when that happened, and I think that was, [00:10:00] as I mentioned, a defining moment for me because I really had to... I had really grown up quickly as soon as we left the house, but I really had to grow up quickly when that happened, and it set the course for a lot of things in my life including why I went to law school and so forth.
Julie: How was the rest of your family? [00:10:30] I imagine that was a holy shit moment for all of you. Did everybody react equally?
David: That's a good question. I don't know. My younger brothers were probably 12 and 13. Actually, they were three years behind, so 15... sorry, 15 and 12. That would've been the right... I can do math, see, but a young... I don't know if you have brothers. We don't-
Julie: [00:11:00] Yeah, I have one. I have [inaudible 00:11:02].
David: Yeah. Brothers don't talk a lot about stuff that is that deep and profound, but everybody made their way. Everybody survived. Everybody is very accomplished at what they do, and I think it hardened... I think what happens with when you have childhood trauma, it steals you to other things that happen in life where things just don't [00:11:30] seem like they're such a big deal, and it really is a blessing to have those things happen in your life. You don't know it at the time, but it makes your outlook change.
Julie: Yeah. Absolutely. It does. It's a perspective. It's a holy shit moment for sure, but it's also a perspective bringer of something that stays with you, I'm sure, always. You went off to college, obviously, right in the... [00:12:00] I would guess that you started college or you... you said you were... You just started college when this happened?
David: Right.
Julie: You were already in a major transition period in your life when that was occurring. Did you know that you wanted to pursue law when you went or did this... Was there a tipping point for you on that?
David: Yeah, there was a tipping point. It was really interesting that the best friend that I had, whose family I went to stay with when our family broke up, was a lawyer, and he [00:12:30] was actually our family lawyer, and when my father passed away, there was a very set of... There was a set of strange dynamics that happened. One, he had just gotten remarried. Just as a side note, an interesting footnote for people of our generation, he married Jessica Savitch. Remember Jessica Savitch?
Julie: Oh, my goodness, yes.
David: Yeah. Yeah, and he had just gotten remarried to her, and she, of course, [00:13:00] died about a year after he did, but there was... As you might imagine, the fighting still continued post his death, and there were lawsuits against his... People came out of the woodwork to try to get money out of his medical practice. There was bad blood between Jessica Savitch and our family. [00:13:30] There was bad blood in other places with the executor, and, as a result of that, everything was being litigated.
David: Meanwhile, we had no income and no means to pay the bills and so forth, and so really that, watching that happen or being in the middle of that as it happened, I said, "I don't want this to ever happen to me or my family again." [00:14:00] It seems like, if you get a law degree, you can protect yourself from some of the-
David: ... and it seems like if you get a law degree you can protect yourself from some of this stuff. And that actually was a really kind of a driving force for me going to law school.
Julie: Interesting.
David: Yeah.
Julie: That's interesting. So I was wondering if there was ... and it makes sense now that you had lived with somebody who was in an attorney. But, usually it's an influence of some sort, typically. So you went through and you stayed. If I look back, I'm not looking at your resume now, but [00:14:30] you were a Duke undergrad. Did you get your law degree there as well?
David: Yeah, I ended up getting my law degree there. The bio I think you're looking at, thank God, doesn't go all the way back to those first jobs. I felt old enough as you read off the things I had done. But, I went to Duke undergrad. We were able to kind of figure it out from year-to-year. And thank God it was much more affordable back then. One of the [00:15:00] biggest problems right now, of course, is how expensive college is. But we figured it out. I got through college and I started my career in television journalism. Like a number of people on your podcast that I've listened to. In local TV.
David: But then I decided I was going to go back to law school. I went one year to BU, and then I ended up transferring back to Duke to finish the last two years. Where not surprisingly, the woman I had met who [00:15:30] is now my wife of 30 years, was at Duke Law School. So there was a little bit of a draw.
Julie: Interesting. Does your wife still practice?
David: She works for Amazon. She's a deal maker for Amazon. She acquires the channels on Amazon Prime Video. So she's a recovering lawyer too. We both haven't been practicing law for about 20 years.
Julie: Interesting. But, what's interesting to me about listening, this is my favorite [00:16:00] armchair, psychiatrist thing, which clearly is just an arm chair practice. Is you kind of continue to tie these knots of the journalism, your love of sports. I mean it's littered throughout your background. All the way through even to having worked at Gannon. You know what I mean? You're still tied in sort of with the story telling, combination of investigative journalism. And then kind of bringing you where you are today. But, before we get to this, because I'm [00:16:30] dying to go and talk to you a bit about your current podcast and the series of what you're doing. But, I don't want to skip over, because I know there's going to be some sort of interesting moments that led you on your way. So when you graduated with your law degree. So you had done some journalism, went back, graduated with your law degree. Did you leave there immediately and then go the Turner Sports avenue?
David: So when I out of law school, [00:17:00] like all of us, I had a little bit of debt, as you might imagined. And I went into private practice for two years at a firm called Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher in Washington DC. Which was enough to let me know that I didn't really want to be a lawyer, even though I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. Although, I almost have to retract that statement as I say it. Because, you may or may not be surprised [00:17:30] to know that I've just taken another bar after 30 years. I took the California bar last summer. And it looks like I'm going to take the Washington State bar in three months.
Julie: Why? I know you took it last time, because we talked about doing this podcast last summer. You were in the midst of studying for the bar. [crosstalk 00:03:53]. Anyway. Yes.
David: Basically, I'm coming back around. Life [00:18:00] really, truly is this journey. And nobody really has any idea which way they're going. I felt kind of pulled back into it when I was doing the podcast for reasons we can talk about when we get to the podcast. But, I have things that are left undone. And I think I'm really interested, the podcast that pulled me back into the courthouse and it pulled me back into issues around criminal justice, and equality, [00:18:30] and how people are treated, and I have some unfinished business that I want to attend to. And so I'm finding myself reengaging with the legal system again after all these years.
Julie: Amazing. Let's talk a little bit about sports, because then I do want to get right back up to present time. How did you get to Turner Sports then? After you had the private practice for a couple of years, what was-
David: ... so I went to private practice and then [00:19:00] you mentioned off the top, I joined the US Attorney's Office in Washington DC. Which was my first escape from private practice. And I was lucky enough to get a job there where I prosecuted criminal cases. And I loved that job. I mean it was a chance to wear the white hat. I was so young. I was so naive. I look back on it and [crosstalk 00:05:26]. What's that?
Julie: Very idealistic too, as well?
David: [00:19:30] I think very idealistic and I was just looking back at a case that I prosecuted, or actually I didn't prosecute it, I should say it a better way. A case I investigated. It was a police shooting that happened, gosh, this is 30 years ago. And I was reading, I had like a 80 page memo, grand jury investigation, an 80 page memo that outlined the, why we shouldn't prosecute that crime. [00:20:00] And as I read it, I was like, if this had happened today, I would have been in such a different place and such a different frame of reference to assess the credibility of the witnesses. So for instance, I think I took whole slate, the statements of the police officer. Now, they seem to be backed up by the evidence and I wouldn't make a different [00:20:30] conclusion. But, I also think with time, and experience, and judgment, and times changing, you really see things differently.
Julie: Was there a particular case outside of that one that really stuck with you during your time there?
David: I wouldn't say a particular case, but I would say one of the things that jumped out at me when I was ... we moved. So I was looking back through all these old folders and everything. [00:21:00] That was in the middle of the crack epidemic in Washington DC. We were having, and I don't know if you remember the sentencing guidelines that were passed at that time in Congress, and everybody wanted to be tough on crime. And we were smack dab in the middle of prosecuting people and throwing them away for 30 years, for not a whole lot of [00:21:30] drugs.
Julie: Is this early '90s, David?
David: Yeah, this was exactly, the early '90s. And that's one of the areas I'm really kind of interested in now in kind of the next chapter of my career is kind of seeing what we can do to unravel the wrongs of the '90s. Because, we get older and wiser, and [00:22:00] you see the impact of these things that happen. And I was just a foot soldier in that war. But, I feel like there's work to be done to correct those things.
Julie: Yeah. Well, you can tell. I mean, we'll move forward. I keep trying to drag you into your sports things.
David: Let's go to sports.
Julie: Kicking and screaming. I'm going to circle back, because I made a note, a footnote here about ... I didn't mention it in your [00:22:30] bio. I mean you're on Boards of Directors, and Council on Call, but you're doing quite a bit for it feels like those, whether it's homeless or whether it's, which is of course the focus of your second season of your podcast, but also immigrants. And just kind of hearing you speak now about it, it all very much makes sense. And I'm very curious again as we get towards the end, and it's sort of coming full circle home again. But, okay. Sports. I'm not letting you [crosstalk 00:22:56].
David: Sports. Let's get into sports.
Julie: Look at some Hotlanta sports.
David: Yes. [00:23:00] So I left the US Attorney's Office in 1993. And I joined Turner Broadcasting. And what I tell people who ask me, "Well, how did you get into that sports thing?" I picked a company, Turner Broadcasting, that had sports. That had all the things I was really interested in and passionate about. And then I figured out how to get my foot in the door. And I didn't go straight into the Sports Group. I joined the Legal Department and I took a job [00:23:30] in the one space they had open, which was this very unglamorous ... I think they called it the Copyright Lawyer. And I didn't know shit about copyright.
Julie: That sounds like a book.
David: It could be a book. I picked up the US copyright code and read it front and back, and studied it, and looked up cases. And came in and got a job. But, my reason [00:24:00] for joining Turner was the Sports Group, and what I wanted to do. So I always counsel people, just get in where you can. And then the next step of the nefarious plan to do what you want to do in life is to volunteer. So I started ... there was a guy who was the Sports Lawyer, who didn't like to do all the dirty work. He just kind of wanted to be the Sports Lawyer. And he's a good friend of mine, but there's [00:24:30] a lot of stuff that was beneath him. And I would volunteer to do all the shitty work. And so, I think the one that always stood out at me where I felt I'd hit my low was when I was doing the urinal signed contracts for Omni. The signage that's over the urinals.
Julie: It's important that we don't get [crosstalk 00:24:55].
David: That's important work. You want to keep eyes up. Eyes up the whole time. [00:25:00] You got to have good signage in the bathrooms at the Omni. Now, the Phillips Arena. But that was the kind of stuff I would do. I'd do all the independent contractor agreements and so forth. And when that attorney moved on to a business role, I was there ready to step in and take his job. And this was the late '90s. And I couldn't have been luckier in the timing that we had to be a Sports Lawyer at Turner Broadcasting. We [00:25:30] won a World Series. That was a great start. We lost a whole bunch of others after that, of course. But we also acquired an NHL expansion team. So being part of the kind of the bottoms up work to do that. We renovated or built multiple stadiums, including Phillips Arena, Turner Field, the Disney Sports Complex, where the Braves play spring training. Practice facility for the Thrashers. The whole nine yards. [00:26:00] So it was a heady time. It was a bullish time to be in that kind of business.
Julie: Yeah. Great. It's so fun. And again, my background, I love sports too. But when I was at Chrysler, I had $2 billion media budget. Sports was a big, big platform for us in our messaging. And spent a lot of time probably around ... I'm always surprised I haven't crossed paths, but you talked about hockey, and Gary [00:26:30] Bettman, and there was so much activity and so much expansion of sports. And the stadiums, to your point, there was a boom in the '90s it felt like for stadiums. And the reconstruction. It was an exciting time.
David: Yeah, it really way.
Julie: Okay, so then you were there. It makes total sense you went to cnnsi.com. And we'll have to talk about mutual people there as well from our backgrounds. But, after you left CNN, [00:27:00] it seems like a fun job. What was the impetus to leave and go? It looks like you started, or I don't know, with short-tail media, did you start that company?
David: I did.
Julie: You did?
David: I did.
Julie: What was the impetus that pushed you that way?
David: The thing that I realized, so I ran both cnnsi.com and cnn.com for eight years. And the thing that I struggled with day [00:27:30] in and day out, and it's still a problem today, was trying to build a digital business that was sustainable. And it was principally ad supported. It had a little subscription and [inaudible 00:27:44] revenue on top. But these businesses, because of the way they're ground, were destined to be free boarded businesses. And I had a real problem [00:28:00] with that, because I couldn't figure out how to do it.
David: Bob with that because I couldn't figure out how to do it. It's not like ... Nobody really could. I don't have a Messiah complex. But, I spent a lot of time and energy and many years of my life trying to figure out how to make these things meaningful businesses, because it was obvious that everything was headed digitally. And then, it was obvious that everything was going to be headed to these phones.
David: And as you try to keep making this ad model work for these platforms, [00:28:30] it was obvious it wasn't going to work.
Julie: Yeah.
David: And when I started Short Tail, it came out of a board meeting of the [Anala 00:28:39] Publishers' Association, which Pamarand, who you know, was the head of at that time, Peter's spouse. And we had a professor who came in from Harvard Business School who was advising all the big media companies what to do given this problem in the [00:29:00] ecosystem. And one of the biggest challenges we had was ... It was Google, Yahoo, AOL. I can't remember who the fourth was. There's one other big one. You probably can remind me.
Julie: Google, Yahoo, AOL.
David: This is before Facebook even.
Julie: Oh. Oh.
David: It was the big portals. Remember the big portals? They were taking all the ad dollars.
Julie: Yep.
David: and this Harvard professor, Jeff Reppiport, came in and said, "You [00:29:30] guys really ought to band together, you big publishers, Disney, Weather Channel, CNN. You guys should really band together so that when you can't sell your ad inventory, you pool it into essentially an ad network, and it will be a premium ad network, and all the money won't flow downstream to Ad.com and some of these other bottom-feeders."
David: And I thought that was such a good idea, and so astute, that [00:30:00] when they said, "Yeah, we should really do that," I decided to leap out of the womb and do that for the industry. This was now three months before the September 2008 crash.
David: And so, it feels a lot like today where you've got all these great plans. You've got all these great ideas. And then, the whole landscape shifts. But, that's what we set [00:30:30] out to do at Short Tail, was to try to coalesce the industry, the publishing industry, at least around a way to clear ad inventory that wasn't so detrimental to the health of those businesses.
Julie: So then, did you get on Gannett's radar then, in terms of did they come after you to go pull you over there?
David: Yeah. I don't know if they knew about it. They were a client. I'm not sure upstairs knew about it. But, it is a traditional recruiter [00:31:00] reach-out kind of thing.
Julie: Because it makes sense that there's ... Those connective tissues make sense, especially because you were Chief Digital Officer over there, and Chief Product Officer, really helping them probably leverage what you had just learned and figured out.
David: Yeah.
Julie: When were you at Gannett?
David: Gannett. Gannett.
Julie: Okay. It's the second-
David: As we say.
Julie: Okay.
David: Or Gannett/USA Today.
Julie: Yes. USA Today. Right. Everybody knows USA. Yeah. So how long were you there?
David: [00:31:30] I joined there in 2011 and left in early 2016, a little over four years.
Julie: And why? Is that when you left and started this Rainstream Media?
David: Yes. So, as I mentioned, my wife works at Amazon.
Julie: Yeah.
David: We took a year off and kind of traveled the world. We both had left big companies, and taken the proverbial packages people our age [00:32:00] do-
Julie: Right.
David: When they want to get rid of weight, mergers. Mergers happen.
Julie: [inaudible 00:32:06] right?
David: It was great. What's that?
Julie: You have kids as well, yes?
David: Yes, we have kids.
Julie: Yeah.
David: We have kids.
Julie: So it was a good timing for-
David: It was a great time. But then, she was getting recruited by Amazon to come lead their video content acquisition group. They were going to create kind of a live streaming service akin to YouTube [00:32:30] for channels. And so, they just kept making her greater and greater offers to come, and we said, "Well, why not Seattle?" So that's what pulled us out here.
Julie: Oh. Got it. And so you've been out there since '16 or '17?
David: Yeah. '17.
Julie: '17.
David: Yeah.
Julie: Okay. And so, then you started Rainstream. Give me a little background. How did that happen?
David: Yeah. Well, so you'll appreciate this. I think anybody [00:33:00] who's in our age bracket will appreciate this. When I got out here and started looking for media jobs, there weren't a lot of good fits. There's just not a lot of media out here, to be honest. And so, I had another one of those moments of, "Well, why not?" Why not start my own? Why not get into a format that I'm interested in?
David: And I was inspired, as many people were, by [00:33:30] the Serial podcast, and that investigative thing. And gosh. You talk about checking a lot of boxes, or pulling a lot of threads, through in my life. I'd done investigations as a prosecutor. I had been involved with, and failed miserably, at podcasts at CNN in the early days, because we couldn't figure out what the right format was.
David: And then I saw what Serial did, and my [00:34:00] epiphany there was that format was not meant to do what we were trying to do with it at CNN, which was to take clips of headline news, or Anderson Cooper, whatever it was, and put them on an audio format. That format was much more intimate, and it lent itself to more of a diary format.
David: And so for journalists, I think this was a real breakthrough, where it no longer is about third person storytelling. It's about first person storytelling. [00:34:30] So, if you listen to Sarah Koenig, what she says is, "I think. I feel. I wonder. I'm not sure." I, I, I. And that's a ... So, I kind of pieced those together and said, "You know, I'd like to try this format." I didn't know anything about it, but like my haircut, what's the worst that can happen?
David: And there was a friend of mine that I had worked with at CNN who was out here who had just left [00:35:00] a job running production for Volkin. She was trying to figure out what she wanted to do next. And I called her up one day and said, "I want to do a podcast. Let's find a cold case. Let's go after it."
David: And the case we found was perfect. We started asking around to try to find a cold case, and this one acquaintance that I had met through my many interviews said, "You know"-
Julie: [inaudible 00:35:25]. Yeah. I was wondering.
David: Yeah.
David: Yeah.
Julie: Okay.
David: So this friend said, [00:35:30] " There's a case here in Seattle that's really famous that's never been solved. It's the murder of a federal prosecutor." And I had remembered. It was like this story that was tucked away, way deep in my memory. And we got connected with ... The man's name was Tom Wales. He was an Assistant of the United States Attorney who was murdered in 2001.
David: Somebody walked up to his daylight basement window and shot him through the window. [00:36:00] It's never been solved. It turns out it's the most fascinating case most people have never heard of. And we just kind of lucked into it. And so, season one is about our investigation, and i say our's because it's I think, I wonder, I feel, into this story.
David: We went really deep. We spent over a year, when it's all said and done, going across the country, chasing [00:36:30] leads, talking to people, uncovering all sorts of documents. And it's a weird thing to say that they're documents in a murder case, but if you listen to the whole series, you'll understand.
David: And it's been fascinating.
Julie: So at the end, because I want people to go and listen to it because it's this and then I want to talk about season two, which is really something, but after you finished investigating, [00:37:00] even though it's quote unquote unsolved, do you feel satisfied that you know who it was, or how it happened, or are you left equally as ... Personally, you don't have to tell me-
David: Yes. Yes.
Julie: Yeah.
David: It's a tricky thing, as you might imagine, how we talk about it, because I'll start with the premise saying that I don't think anyone will ever be prosecuted for this case. [00:37:30] And the reason I say that, absent somebody coming in and confessing and bringing forward the murder weapon that they've had in their basement or something, this case has been investigated for, what, almost 19 years now.
David: It has generated three times as many documents at the FBI than the Enron investigation.
Julie: Wow. That's crazy. Oh my god.
David: So if you can think about just multiple [00:38:00] rooms of documents, FBI 301s, and interviews, and tapes, and license plate records, and on, and on, and on, in this room, there is reasonable doubt in that room, any attorney will skewer that case.
David: The FBI has zeroed in on one primary [00:38:30] suspect that they think did it, and they essentially tried to find a way to convince themselves that ... Or find the evidence is a better way to say that. Find the evidence to prove it. We think they are on the wrong track. It seems just, and there's some evidence that we uncovered, that suggests a much stronger motive for murder than the one that they have posited.
Julie: Interesting. [00:39:00] See, that's just why I was curious, because there's got to be a ... For you to keep on going, it's got to be both personally for you and then obviously for your audience interesting, exciting, kind of gets you up every morning type of work. And so in some of these cases, I'm sure it would be even more satisfying if you could actually bring a cold case to conclusion, but even in situations like this where just the way that our legal system works to your point, sometimes more information is not better because it creates [00:39:30] those opportunities to ... Unless it's a confession to your point.
Julie: Do you feel ... Was there enough there, it was like okay, it might ... You don't think it will ever be solved, or closed. Is that frustrating ever for you, or was it just exciting and compelling enough it was like nope, we're going to do more and more of these?
David: I think every time we find a new piece of information, or a new lead, it's [00:40:00] exhilarating, and you just want to chase it down, and find out what is that about. It's just so curious, this case, and what's happened. So, it never was frustrating. It is frustrating that they won't necessarily listen, or don't appear to be listening, to ... I know they listen to the podcast, but listen to the directions that we have pointed.
Julie: Yeah. And [00:40:30] I think what's really special about it is that it's not only your expertise. Look, as a legal professional, as an investigative journalist, all those things kind of to your point the thread coming home, that's one thing. But then being able to put it together in a way, in these short snippets so it's really consumable, so you're keeping the listener on the edge of their seat, that's the trick. Right?
Julie: That's why, I think, some of these other [00:41:00] TV ... Like, the streaming programs Making a Murderer, and some of those ... Even gosh, even Joe Exotic these days. Holy cow. Some of these kinds of things, it's an art form to be able to take those types of details and make it into a compelling listenable consumable conversation. Is that your doing? Is that Jodie's? How do you guys work together to make that happen?
David: We write it, and [00:41:30] I'm the writer of the show. Jodie's greatest strength is that she gets people to talk. We call her the human can opener. So, a lot of the interviews that you'll hear on the show, you'll hear her a lot in there because if it was just me going in there and asking somebody about what they did and who they talked to and what happened, it would not nearly be as compelling.
David: And then, [00:42:00] we produce it and we sit down and we work over
David: We produce it and we sit down, and we work over every paragraph and every music cue. And both of us are type A perfectionists, and so hopefully that's reflected in the work.
Julie: Yeah. No, absolutely. Well, so and then I want to kind of go to season two. How did you decide on the case, the jungle case? Which, I've been to the area, I took my kids there, my parents lived in Seattle-
David: Wow.
Julie: ... ago. And I took them, we [00:42:30] were walking around underneath the bridge and kind of stumbled upon it by accident, we were just exploring the city. The visual of it, and I knew exactly where this was. Do you want to, I don't want to give it away, but do you want to set it up? Because it's-
David: Sure.
Julie: ... it's fascinating, and I'm curious too how you chose it and what compelled you towards it.
David: Well, we started looking for another case, and we had been spending a lot of time down at the courthouses here [00:43:00] digging up documents on the Tom Wales case. And like anything, I just started asking questions about, "Were there any interesting trials going on? What's happening here?" There was a trial going on down in Kent, which is about 40 miles south of Seattle, maybe not 40 miles, 40 minutes, 20 miles with the traffic. And they were mid-trial on the first trial of these two teenage brothers who had been accused of a multiple homicide, basically [00:43:30] going into the jungle with another five to eight people and shooting up the encampment of a drug dealer and stealing his stuff, that was the basic core allegation. And of course, like everything, it's always more complicated than the top-line report. So I started [crosstalk 00:43:53]-
Julie: ... For people listening, is a homeless encampment, if you will, right?
David: Yes.
Julie: It's private for people we have listening, [00:44:00] okay, who don't know what the juggle is at all, yeah?
David: Any anybody on the West Coast has seen their own version of the jungle. It's the area of town where you don't want to go in. It's very highly regulated. There's a high... there's a lot of drug consumption, drug dealing, and the necessary enforcement around that. So anyway, I stumbled into this trial, jody was traveling at the time, and I said, [00:44:30] " You got to come back," and, "I found the case. I found the case, come on back." So she came back and heard the end of the case and the jury hung. And that was a really shocking thing because this was a really high profile case in Seattle when it happened. One, because the homeless issue is such a big deal. And the mayor of the city had just the... literally the night of the shooting, declared a state of emergency for the city of Seattle. They were asking for [00:45:00] more money, shots rang out. And so, this is a high profile case, they end up arresting these teenagers and charge them with the murder.
Julie: Yeah, they were like 13, 16 and 17 years old-
David: Yes.
Julie: ... or something, right?
David: Yes.
Julie: Really young-
David: Yes. [crosstalk 00:45:15] Yeah, really young. And the story was, as it came out, that they were avenging a drug debt owed to their mother by the drug dealer, which on his face [00:45:30] didn't make-
Julie: Oh, weird, right?
David: Yeah. Didn't make a lot of sense.
Julie: [inaudible 00:45:32], right?
David: Yeah. But the police were able to get a confession of these boys. So they have videotaped confessions of the boys through an informant who went into the jungle or into their, the brothers encampment and recorded them on this terrible video. So, that was the environment when this trial set down, everybody thought they were going to be convicted. You got confessions, they got the guns, they got the kids, done, [00:46:00] done, and the case hung. And so, when it hung, I was, "Okay, that's the story. What's behind what's going on?" So we basically took it from there. We picked it up after the first trial, we go into the jungle and start tracking down the witnesses, tracking down the people, getting the backstory on what happened, tying it back to these other cases that had happened in Seattle, major drug operations that the U.S. Attorney's office here had shut down [00:46:30] two years prior. And we just started filling it in the backstory.
David: And of course it went to trial again, and it hung. And we're there, we record it, and everybody knows who we are at that point, and it hangs again. So we just kept following the story, and what came out of it really was less a story about the murder itself than it was about the people associated with this homeless encampment and [00:47:00] the culture around it. And how it works and how there's there's a king of the jungle who runs the jungle, and how the people operate within that society. And it was just this weird opportunity to go in and see a world that very few people go into.
Julie: Yeah, fascinating. And it's so to your point, it's even more than just the case itself, it's this dynamic that sort of living in this sort of underworld [00:47:30] space and how that's happening, and I know you, kind of going back full circle, can break... so first question, is there going to be a season three? Let me just ask that.
David: Yes. Yes. I found another case that I'm super excited about and I'm in the research phase of it. Jody is going to help me, even though she has taken a job down in Arizona, we're trying to figure that out. But we're going to go... [00:48:00] I'll go ahead and give away... well, I'm going to [crosstalk 00:48:03]. I'm going to hold it back. It's another murder case. It's another unsolved case, and it has incredible layers in it. I'm very excited about it.
Julie: So when would we expect to be able to listen in on this one?
David: Well, the COVID has put a little crimp on this one.
Julie: It's hard to go investigate things when you can't leave your house, I get that.
David: You got it. You got it. So, I'm doing what I can. I'm doing what we're doing right now, which is [00:48:30] I'm setting up Zoom interviews for people that I can.
Julie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David: But a number of the characters that would be involved, and I use that term as a metaphor, are not people who are going to be doing Zoom interviews.
Julie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). All right, well fascinating. So maybe, this year are you hoping we'll be able to...?
David: Yeah, as long as travel restrictions come up.
Julie: Life up, okay. All right, good. All right, we're holding on to that. So now let's go back because I want to wrap up with your... going back to your [00:49:00] bars. So I know you completed and passed, congratulations, the California bar last summer.
David: Thank you.
Julie: You said you're taking a Washington... what's up with going back into [crosstalk 00:49:09] land and taking bars again, other than just being a glutton for punishment for taking [crosstalk 00:49:13].
David: Well, yeah, I'm not a glutton for punishment, but the Washington... this California bar... I think my daughter put it right in our Christmas letter, which she writes a very funny Christmas letter, but she said, "Dress for the job you want, not the one you have." And [00:49:30] I have always had my dream to end up in California. Again, we'll see what happens with where we are today. So I took the California bar thinking that I will go back and practice in some form or fashion. Not in a big firm or anything, but I, as you can tell, I'm fascinated by criminal law. I'll do something in criminal law, criminal justice, judicial reform, and the like, hopefully in California. The [00:50:00] reason I'm now signed up to take the Washington bar this summer, was that we were supposed to be climbing a mountain, I'm a big avid mountain climber. Not a technical climber, I should say a trekker is probably a better way to say it.
Julie: Okay.
David: We were supposed to do Mount Blanc this summer, and I don't think we're going to do that. And so, I had to look at my calendar and say, "What's a mountain I can climb?" And [00:50:30] I also don't know how long we're going to be in Seattle. I just don't know. I mean, how do you sell a house now? I don't think you do.
Julie: Right.
David: So I'm trying, like everybody else in this environment, trying to figure out how to be productive and contribute, and be a part of something while I can. So that's my rationale for this one. I don't really enjoy it, but I figure it's a path.
Julie: Well, and it gives you options, [00:51:00] right?
David: That's right.
Julie: Peter, this has been super fascinating. I have loved listening to you and I share the love of the backstory. And your backstory is amazing. So thank you for sharing that with everybody who will be listening here. I wish you the best through this COVID period. And I'm very much looking forward to season three of Somebody, Somewhere. So for everybody who's listening, that's your next podcast if you're listening here, if you haven't already subscribed. It's totally worth your time, especially [00:51:30] now that we all have a little extra time maybe to binge things, so it's a good time for that. So thank you very much for being on here with us, David. It's been a true pleasure. Thank you.
David: The pleasure's been mine. Thank you so much Julie.