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So Dave Colley's on with us now and Dave before we talk about the podcast give us your background

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Exactly. What is it that you do out West? Yeah, I'm a radio journalist. I've been working in the field since

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2003 my entire career has been in the Salt Lake City market

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Started at a clear channel station back before they became I heart. I started working with KSL news radio in 2012

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I was an afternoon news producer there for about six years and then started this podcast project

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Kind of while doing my day job juggling that until it became so unwieldy that they had to put me on this full-time

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So we're seeing this more and more now

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Radio folks deciding either to take their on-air content and turn it into a podcast or or even go off and create some new content

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Why do you think that's happening in the radio industry? I mean, I think we're chasing our listeners, right?

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For me as a radio producer at a heritage radio station

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We knew we had a strong local audience that connected with our on-air

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personalities we had a great field of reporters, but we also had opportunities to tell stories and

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We just couldn't do that in the constraints of our on-air shows

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So as we're looking at the rise of podcasting people adopting kind of these long-form stories

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You know, I looked at

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This particular story that became the focus of my podcast and thought if there's a way to take our existing radio audience and draw

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Them into the podcasting space to engage them with a story that they might already know a little bit about but to get much

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Deeper with this topic. It just seemed to go hand-in-hand with what we are already doing

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So instead of being you know a move away from radio to podcasting

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I view it as very much all of the above strategy

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So why did you decide that that was something that you wanted to do?

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I mean being on the radio is a great thing

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It could also it could be you know a comfortable thing when you know exactly what you're gonna do all the time

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Why did you decide that you wanted to be one of the folks that kind of veered off into the podcast space?

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I still I still have a little hesitation about it to be honest with you because I did give up

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Being on air daily, which I loved to do this

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You know it really came down to my personal engagement with the story. I covered this as a journalist. I always had

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Questions that were unanswered through my own coverage and so there was personal curiosity that came into play

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I wanted to be able to spend the time myself to dig in for these answers to go long form with

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The people who are involved with this story and really put them on the spot to answer questions and I figured if it's something I'm passionate

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Passionate about if I can translate that passion

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Into the podcast in a way that other people who feel the same way will join with me then that just makes sense

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So why do you believe the true crime?

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Category has become so popular it I believe it could be you know one of the most popular categories for listeners now

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in podcasting

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Yeah, yeah, it's kind of hard when you look at the the landscape and you think oh we're going to end up

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And you think oh, we're going to add another true crime podcast of it to the next year, right?

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But for me it really came down to

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You know yes, this is a genre that we know people connect with there is this element of I think mystery and I

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Don't want to say voyeurism, but there's definitely kind of a peek behind the curtain

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Kind of appeal to these kinds of stories that you don't get from maybe traditional

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You know daily news coverage that peaks that interest a little bit. I also think for podcasting

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When you when you're talking about true crime a lot of times you're talking about personalities you're getting to know

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suspects victims investigators and

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Presenting them as full well-rounded people is something that is just so difficult to do in a 30-second soundbite

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But if I can spend 30 minutes or 60 minutes engaging you week after week with you know

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These people's own stories their own lives. I think it connects a little more strongly

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In a sense that you start to see elements of these people's struggles and their experiences in in your own life

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So give us to give us the background on this story that you decided to turn into a podcast

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I believe it dates back to 1999 is that correct no 2009 okay, so we're actually

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We're about nine years out from this case and just to set the scene for you

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What happened was this mother of two boys Susan Powell disappeared on December 7th of 2009?

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In the podcast we do go back into the late 90s

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Okay, to kind of to kind of get into so I think that's probably what you're getting at the the background of the suspect here

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We spend a couple episodes

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Really diving back to his childhood to see the family dynamics of his of his father who was a

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Let's just say not a very nice person and how that kind of influenced his treatment of his wife

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When Susan disappeared the circumstances were questionable to say the least

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Josh Powell claimed that he had been out on a camping trip in the desert in the middle of a snowstorm in

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Subfreezing temperatures with his sons who at the time were four years old and two years old so very

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atypical parenting decision there

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Take your kids out in that situation and

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the criminal investigation basically followed Josh from that point until

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February of 2012 after he moved to Washington State he under pressure from

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investigators killed himself and his boys and

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Basically took any chance of finding out what he had done to the grave with him and to this day

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Susan's body has never been found and nobody ever faced criminal charges for what we presumed was her murder

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so

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How do you start your research? Do you I know you had covered it?

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But do you go back to old tapes at the radio station?

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Do you go back to old newspapers and then do you set out an outline of how you want to lay this podcast out?

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What's what's the research like when you first decide? Okay?

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I'm ditching the radio mic and I'm gonna really get into this

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Yeah, it was nuts in 2013. The police department basically declared the case cold

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they said we've run out of leads and they took a

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Somewhat unusual step in they released their entire case file now certain pieces of it were redacted

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But I mean we obtained

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gigabytes and gigabytes of reports witness interview transcripts

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warrants photos of the case

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Crime scenes all this kind of stuff and so for me it became a process of at first

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Categorizing all this information. What do we have and then in reviewing tens of thousands of pages looking for?

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Any references to existing audio visual materials?

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So we noticed that our suspect in this case Josh Powell had recorded

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Audio journals that the police had seized using a search warrant and those had never been made

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Public so we used public record laws in the state of Utah to go back to the police and say

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Hey, you already gave us this case file, but we want more give us this give us that and so

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Some of the stuff had actually been sent up to Washington State since that's where part of our story played out

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I physically traveled to Washington

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But you know really to the heart of your question a lot of it was

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I would go home after producing the after the police report

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I would sit down with pdfs and I would spend two or three hours

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reviewing taking notes and then basically outlining the timeline of the case and figuring out

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Where do we have audio that will help?

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carry an episode through and

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Where are those breaks in the story where you can maybe stop and say, okay. Well, you know

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This is a natural story that's self-contained in the story

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It's part of a larger narrative, but it's a good place to to stop and so that's essentially what we did

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We outlined our our basic approach to

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The larger story the back end of it is a little fuzzy just because we're still

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Getting new information as we're producing our episodes, but uh that was kind of the task of organizing the whole thing. So

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How did you decide or where did you decide when you sat down and said, okay?

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Here's what we're going to do. We're going to do a little bit of a

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Little bit of a

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Little bit more of a

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Little bit of a

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Little bit more about how we're going to do it or how we're going to do it

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And then we had a little bit more of an in-depth analysis of what happened

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So what did you decide or where did you decide when you sat down and said, okay

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Here's where we're going to start this this at point in time, you know this this

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Take us through that

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It came it came together very late. What happened was I had identified

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last name and had never spoken publicly. And I thought if I could find this woman, she

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certainly must have a story to tell. So we released our first episode on November 14th.

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I did not find this woman until late summer of 2018. So it was just a few months before.

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And I basically had already written out where the story was going to start. It was going

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to be Josh and Susan Powell's early marriage. And then all of a sudden, I managed to identify

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this woman and she agreed to do an interview. Interview was amazing. The stuff that she

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shared just kind of blew my mind. And I realized I have to start over in a sense and really

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start the narrative with her. So quickly shuffled what we had and refocused my first episode

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to kind of tell her story and draw in a lot of the background elements about who Josh

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Powell was, his troubled upbringing and allow Katherine, this ex-girlfriend to fill in the

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rest of that story. And it just worked out so well because then after she leaves the

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scene and you get Josh and Susan together, there are parallels between those two relationships

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that really speak to who Josh was, how he treated women, the way he controlled romantic

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interests. And so it was a pretty late ad to get that into our story.

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So do you determine how many episodes there are going to be? I know you have several in

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the can now and the story is ongoing. How many do you think you're going to produce

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or do you just figure, okay, we're going to keep doing this and keep doing this until

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I achieve my goal with this?

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Yeah, the story definitely has a beginning and an end point. But of course, it continues

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on with the work that we're doing. So I have an idea. My manager is reluctant to let me

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say what that is. Suffice it to say it will be longer than I think a lot of these true

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crime series are. And if we continue to develop new leads or new information through our investigation,

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we're leaving it open ended. So we have a game plan. It's not small and it could go

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even longer.

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How helpful have investigators been to you?

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Good and bad. We sat down with the primary police department in this case very early

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on and explained to them what our approach was, what our goal was. And of course, everybody

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wants to compare it to, oh, you're trying to do serial. And so in a certain sense, I

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think they had an idea of where we were going, but maybe not specifically the breadth or

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depth of what we hoped to do. There are some materials that we sought through public records

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laws that they refused to offer or provide. And attorneys got involved. And so long story

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short, we don't see eye to eye on a few things that we would hope to have that we still can't

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get our hands on. But they've been responsive. They've been respectful. And I will say that

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the lead detective in our case, who is now retired, has been incredibly helpful. He and

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I have sat down and talked about this case at length on several occasions. And his insight

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has been very, very valuable.

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Why would there be anybody on the investigative side that wouldn't want to cooperate?

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I think there is, I don't know, it's tough to speak for law enforcement in this case.

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They got a lot of heavy criticism, understandably so, because this is a case where you had two

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innocent victims additional to your first victim who died, right? These two young boys

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who were killed in a case where publicly most people looked at it from the outside and thought,

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why in the world did our suspect ever have access to those boys in the first place? So

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there is, I think, some reluctance there and just that they've already taken some punches.

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They don't want to get beat up unnecessarily beyond that. You know, and we have to be critical

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of the police department and the investigators and the social workers who are involved in

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this case just because of the nature of what happened. Now, that's not to say we're out

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to get anybody, but I certainly think there is maybe sometimes that reluctance. Once we

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started, I think, spelling out what we were going to do and the way we were going to approach

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the story, it brought down some of that reluctance. And I also have the advantage of working for

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a radio station at KSL that has strong respect in our local community. And I think that also

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helped them maybe get over some of that reluctance as well.

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Yeah, absolutely. Has Susan's family members, any family members been helpful or involved

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or they interested?

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Yeah, yeah. Susan's dad, Chuck Cox, he and I have spoken several times. I've visited

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him in Washington state multiple times, traveling up from Utah. You know, for I think the rest

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of the family, it gets hard, right? Because they've dealt with reporters and producers

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from the very beginning on this thing. And, you know, nine years later to still be doing

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interviews has to be exhausting for them. It just has to draw up very difficult emotions

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and memories. And so they've been helpful, but I've also tried to use a very light touch

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in not hounding them unnecessarily and hopefully being respectful of the privacy of their family.

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You know, there are certain considerations that came into play with this story regarding

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Susan's journals from her teenage years, which her husband and father-in-law attempted to

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publish in this case very crudely. And some of that material did end up in my hands. And

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I made the decision that we were not going to disclose any of that information because

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I consider it to be her private information. So I think as long as we were having those

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conversations with the family to express that we were being respectful of Susan and her

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privacy in this case, they were willing to work with us.

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Now you also have some audio of the husband, correct? I mean, it sounds like it sounded

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creepy. I don't know. Is that real audio from him?

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Yeah, it is. So we did a couple of interesting things with this because we had these tapes

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of him from basically his young adult life through his romancing and early relationship

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with Susan. It provided a lot of insight about how he thought about her, how he treated her,

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the way he maybe used religion to manipulate her. And it was just incredible to be able

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to sit back and allow him to tell the story for us. Likewise, his dad, who had a very

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inappropriate physical attraction to his daughter-in-law, he recorded video tapes where he would sit

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for an hour and describe all the ways in which he was trying to get close to her. And there

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again, we were careful about the pieces of tape that we used so that we weren't unnecessarily

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re-victimizing Susan in this case. But there is power in my mind in hearing her father-in-law

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tell her that he loves her and then hearing the way she responded to that. So that tape,

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when we got our hands on that, there was no way not to use that. In some other cases,

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we have had to use voiceover actors to read journal entries. And so I do the best job

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I can to explicitly call out when we're using real audio and when we are actually using

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a voice actor.

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Now, Dave, in becoming a storyteller like this and keeping the audience engaged, how

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are you setting it up where you're writing the script and you want to make sure you're

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not reading 12 minutes of script before a cut and then you're playing some music? How

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are you putting that all together to keep the audience engaged and involved in the entire

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podcast?

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That's a great question. It's something that I still struggle with. The more I have produced

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on these episodes, the more I'm realizing I don't want to be the voice telling you the

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story. If I can find an interview clip, if I can find a piece of tape, I would much prefer

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to play that and then stand back and allow the listener to hear that. So it's been a

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lot of work. We've done more than 20, at this point, more than 25 interviews. Many of these

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were very long form, two, three hours sit down interviews with the newsmakers. All of

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that gets transcribed and indexed so that I can draw out pieces in telling the story.

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We're bouncing a lot of different voices, so it can be difficult to track who's speaking.

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And a lot of my job in telling the story is basically to set up who this person is, what

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they are here to tell you, let that sound play, and then just only pop in to provide

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a little bit of narrative or context where necessary.

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Are you doing the editing yourself? And are you using the radio stations facilities to

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be able to edit it down to the point where you're happy with it?

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Yeah, 100%. What a great advantage. A lot of people who are jumping into this kind of

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podcasting are coming from a print journalism background. They're not radio professionals.

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I thankfully have been working with my own audio for 15 years and I'm very comfortable

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with the software, recording our own interviews on radio professional gear, sitting down with

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a professional multi-track, being able to use a well-set up studio space to record my

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VO. All of this has been helpful, being a radio guy coming out at using the facilities

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here at KSL. I imagine if you were doing this from your own home in the closet, it would

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be a lot tougher job.

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Are you happy with the final product when you hear it?

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Yes.

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Okay. Hesitation.

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You're always your own worst critic. There's not an episode that I put out where I don't

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go back and listen to it and go, ah man, I wish I had done this, I wish I had done that.

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But of course, we're working on a deadline. Now that we're in our release window and I'm

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still writing and producing episodes, time is very tight and you reach a point where

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you have to say, you know what, if we don't track this today, it's not going to make release

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and so you do the best job that you can.

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What were your thoughts when you saw how popular it became as soon as it was released?

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Oh my gosh. Day one was insane. I've been working on this thing largely in my free time

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for the past three or so years and through that time, I knew I was interested in the

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story. I didn't know if anyone else would care. Thankfully, we have a great advantage

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at KSL in that we are also owners of a TV station and a top rated website and a newspaper

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in this market. It's a very rare occurrence to have all of that. And so KSL to its credit

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put a lot of weight. We identified places where we could tell a unique story supporting

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the podcast on television, how we could write a very targeted story for our website, focusing

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on a piece of the story that would drive people into the podcast. All of that, I believe,

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really helped with our launch. But to see it do as well as it did on day one, I can

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tell you I was sitting at my desk working on another episode and trying not to get too

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caught up in download numbers and things when my boss suddenly shouted from her office and

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clapped her hands and I walked in and I think at that time we were like number three on

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the iTunes chart. I had told her at one point that if we ever cracked the top 100, I would

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consider that just a huge success. By the end of the day, we were in that number one

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top spot and we stayed there for a day or so and my head started spinning and it was

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all I could do to say, you know what, I can't get caught up in that because I've got to

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focus on telling this story. So there's that pride in seeing that people are attaching

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to it and discussing the story and engaging with us on our social media and stuff but

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at the end of the day, I didn't want that to basically pump me up too much. So I set

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it aside and went back to work.

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So you have a history of covering the story. It happened in your market, in your market

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area. You have the radio station facilities to work on it. It sounds like you have an

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employer that's allowing you to do a special project. What advice do you have for somebody

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that wants to go out and start a true crime podcast on their own that doesn't have all

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those things?

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Man, good luck to you. Here's the thing. This podcast for me has been a passion project

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from day one. I never knew if I would have the ability to invest as much time in it as

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I have. It ended up being a much bigger commitment than I ever expected. But if I had the choice

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to go back and do it all over again, I would. Certainly, if you are coming at it from a

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position where you don't have all of those advantages, don't let that stop you. If you're

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passionate about a story and you believe that there is good reason for telling that story,

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go out and do it. I can tell you, Ed, that after we released our first episode, I started

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getting messages from people who were telling me, thank you so much for doing this podcast

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because it resonates in my own personal life. Either I've had domestic abuse in my past

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or I have a relative, a sibling, a parent, a friend who's gone through domestic abuse.

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This idea that telling our story could have a positive impact in our community, it really

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rang true. More than download numbers, more than iTunes rankings, that to me has been

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the biggest takeaway from this is that telling stories of this scope and scale can positively

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impact lives. It doesn't matter if you have the support of a radio station, a TV station,

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or a computer because right now people are hungry for these kinds of stories. If you

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can find your audience, go out and do it.

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Have you been able to come to a conclusion that people that were following that story

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closely like you will be surprised by?

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We have learned some new things. Certainly, a case like this, the ultimate goal for investigators

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was to find Susan's body and to put the person responsible for killing her in prison. We

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know that the person who's responsible based on all of the available evidence can never

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be held accountable because he's dead. It raises that other question, where is Susan?

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I'm not going to step out and tell you that I can find Susan myself. I would hope that

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doing this podcast would provide the impetus to maybe put some fresh eyes on it, to develop

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some new theories, maybe generate some new leads. All of that is yet to be seen. Ultimately,

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I think the goal of my podcast when we finish telling this story is going to be just exactly

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what I described, to learn about these warning signs of domestic abuse, to help future victims

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avoid suffering Susan's fate, and to also identify the places where the investigation

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may be missed a clue or missed a step, so that future law enforcement officers who are

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dealing with a case similar to this can learn from what happened here as well.

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Dave, I look at you like a marathon runner who trains for however many weeks, and then

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finally the race comes around and you cross the finish line, the 26 plus miles are run,

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and then all of a sudden the race is over. When this is finished, what's going to happen?

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What are you going to do next?

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Man, here's the funny thing about doing a story like this. You dive in on episode one,

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and people listen to one hour of what is going to be a much, much longer process, and they

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immediately go, hey, cool podcast. What are you doing for season two? It's like, wait,

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wait, wait, wait, wait, let's get through the first one. We certainly, based on the

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early success of season one of Cold, we have some ideas on where to go for season two.

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I personally, I'm going to need a bit of a break. Living in the headspace of trying

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to understand why somebody was murdered in a heinous way, how their body has never been

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found, all this stuff, man, it takes a personal toll on you. I'm hoping to sit on a mountain

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peak or a beach or something for at least a weekend, man, get my legs back under me,

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and then maybe identify another good story and hopefully dive in and start working on

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a season two sometime in the near future.

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Dave, thanks so much for the interview.

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Thank you. Had pleasure talking to you.