Murdaugh, Mental Health, and Making an Impact with Mandy Matney | EP4

hey there EV here with the good skill podcast where we talk with really interesting guests who bet on themselves their entire life use their skills and superpowers to be successful they don't wait for luck they go and they get it come and join us hey there EV here this is the good skill podcast where we talk with some real interesting individuals who bet on themselves they have used their life skills to get ahead in life and be successful in their Endeavors and they don't wait for luck I am so excited about this discussion we're going to have this morning with one of my favorite people in the world Mandy matne I'm going to give a disclaimer that we are co-hosts together on cup of justice and she has been such a vital and important part of my life since basically 2021 September of 20 21 and I owe so much of my trajectory to Mandy and her husband David without any further Ado I'd like to just talk a little bit about who Mandy is because she's quite impressive Mandy is an acclaimed investigative journalist she's an author and globally recognized podcast host known for her Relentless Pursuit Of Truth uncovering corruption and pursuing Justice she gained National recognition as the host and creator of the myall murder podcast which delves into the complex and chilling story of the mdof family in the low country of South Carolina unraveling layers of mystery and Corruption her podcast has been instrumental in bringing crucial details to light and holding powerful figures accountable she's a native of Kansas she's a rockchalk jhawk UK graduate and began her journalism career with a deep commitment to covering stories that matter she's fear feess in her reporting style and dedicated to her craft and has earned numerous accolades and a loyal following as co-host of the murd all murders podcast now named true sunlight and co-host of the cup of Justice podcast Mandy has ranked number one in the world at many different times at the height of the myall Saga and continues to be one of the highest rated podcast hosts in our world her best-selling book blood on their hands recalls her life and the Relentless Pursuit of double murderer fraudster and Thief Alex murall she's a fierce advocate for victims and known for her compassion with those who have suffered trauma Mandy is also the co-founder of lunar shark media a company that produces impactful and thought-provoking content through Luna shark she continues to expand her reach and influence using her platform to amplify stories that might otherwise have gone unheard please join me in welcoming Mandy mat to the good skill podcast where we will Explore her Incredible Journey the challenges that she has faced and the significant impact of her work and my co-host Whitney McDuff and I welcome you this morning Mandy what a smile hi good morning good morning what an intro thank you well you deserved it I always get extremely uncomfortable when people are talking about me I'm sure you feel I don't know I'm honored but also I am just I'm still to this day not used to that but thank you I really appreciate it and I'm glad to be here yes one of the most amazing things that I have thought about as I prepare to talk to you today was just the growth that you have experienced personally you were someone and still remain someone who's extremely private in your life and you have opened up yourself your strengths your fears some of your anxiety to the world and I think it's really an amazing thing that you've done because your audience and those who love you and follow you want to hear about it want to hear about those anxieties and fears and different things that you have had to confront over the last four years some stuff that could break people obviously the good is outweighed the bad how have you opened up yourself I want to know because now you're this P Piper to a lot of people and they look to you they look to you when you talk about corruption they look to you and talk about Injustice so how have you been able to open up yourself when you've been such a private person I was always a private person but not really because I was a journalist and I always felt like I kind of had to put myself out there in some ways but yeah I've opened up I'm just a lot more honest on social media and very vocal about things that journalists normally wouldn't be while covering a story and that the main thing is mental health it came naturally for me to open up about that very early on during the Murdoch murders podcast in the early days when the show was blowing up I was working a full-time job and writing scripts and doing the podcast at night at the kitchen table kitchen table with my amazing husband who I would have given up a long time ago if none of this would exist without David I can't say that enough he's the best but yeah my mental health really suffered in those months that were also so crucial to my success and while that was happening it just was natural to me to open up about it I think oddly enough it's what made MMP a lot different I think a lot of people wanted to hear not only the story but wanted to hear from me they come to me for a lot of different things and they want to hear what I have to say in my opinions beond my scope as a journalist and me as a person they started caring about me as a person and it just became a thing and people just really every time I opened up about my deteriorating mental health and how I was really doing behind the scenes I learned that I got an overwhelming amount of feedback more than anything else that I would really talk about or do and not only that but the feedback was meaningful it was people saying I'm going through something similar and I really appreciate you saying this or I'm a journalist too and I have been wondering how you're able to do this because I'm currently struggling with mental health working on this my mental health working on this story I just heard a lot of encouraging words from a lot of people and it just became more and more natural to be vulnerable and open up for so long mental health has been that kind of third rail in personal growth everybody doesn't want to talk about but everybody has experienced it whether it's something that drives them to be successful or can be an impediment and I learned in being around you for the last four years that you immerse yourself into what you're doing whether it's myall or it's Micah Francis or it's the the Tennessee guy who maybe ran over his son with the car and you remind me a lot of Larice Starling from Silence of the Lamb that you get so need deep into it that it it can't help but affect you it it for you to be that journalist to get inside and and glue yourself to that story it does affect you yes you try to remain neutral you Tred to remain objective and you try to let the story unfold but you're a human and you have emotions and feelings and these things affect you and the whole myall story whether it was the victims of the financial crime or it was Maggie and Paul I think your greatest quality is empathy you feel victims you feel for victims and people do a lot of talk about victims and it's easy to say oh yeah that we're doing this for the victims but you actually do feel you feel like you've been victimized as well and it comes across in your journalism it comes across in your in your podcasting it comes across in this amazing book it's empathy I think that is one of your greatest qualities appreciate that Eric and my mom will really like to hear that that I think that will make a proud empathy of all things because that's the type of person that I was taught to be and I it's funny you say I I do I get obsessed with cases I can't help it if I learn about a case and I see Injustice happening and I just get sucked in and nothing I just go down rabbit holes and nothing else really matters and for a long time in my career that was a bad thing because I was seen as like the silly girl who wouldn't let things go I still am but I learned to use it as a power and I never really knew growing up that empathy was super major right it's a strength it also what I've learned I am very open about this I've struggled with ADHD my entire life and my brain works differently and I'm still reading books on that and figuring all of that out but I have learned that ADHD is also a superpower and it's very common for people with ADHD to have that trait of not being able to let things go being relentless diving in I would say and not coming out and I really hope that kids growing up now here that have ADHD and are struggling in Traditional School and are struggling to relate to other people and how their their brains work I always thought that my brain was just broken honestly for a really long time but this entire Journey has taught me that the things that I thought were holding me back were actually my superpowers and empathy is extremely important to journalism I have talked about this a lot talked about this in my book my a very profound event of my life is that my older brother died when I was seven and he was nine and that was the most horrible thing that's ever happened to me honestly some days I'm can't even believe that happened and then I grew up in a family that endured that kind of pain it I was able to do something positive with that which is be an empathetic person who can actually when I talk to victims I don't I never say I know what they're going through because one murder is very different from what happened to my brother but I can relate cuz it's a loss right it's loss and I can relate especially earlier in my journalism career there were I I did several stories on parents that lost children and I know a lot of journalists who would just like coil up and run away from stories like that and I don't want to do that that's sad I don't want to touch it but it was natural for me and it also made me feel like I was helping people people and also just giving them a place and somebody to talk to and some people some of the grieving victims who I've talked to honestly you can tell they don't have that many people in their life that can relate to a loss I've always been very open about that I think that has definitely helped my journalism career so growing up I can imagine you were a very good student you you knew what you wanted to do I think pretty early on that you wanted to be a journalist and so I want to ask why journalism and what is a journalist tell me everybody says oh I'm a journalist I write but it's more than writing it's also about educating it's about telling a story it's about getting that story out why journalism and what is a journalist I was a good student growing up honestly a part of that was I felt an immense amount of pressure not not necessarily from my parents but just to succeed for my parents because they had they were enduring that loss throughout my childhood and I didn't want to be a problem and I wanted to be my my brother was also very smart and I always thought I I dealt with why him and not me for a lot of my childhood and and that was rough too so I tried I really tried in school I mean I did hours of homework every night I studied for every single test but I pred and it was frustrating because there was a lot of people in my classes throughout my whole life that just didn't try nearly as hard as I did and got the same grades and but I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was 18 so that helped a lot with things got easier for me as far as school and understanding yeah an understanding so before you were diagnosed was it a superpower of yours or was it condemned by teachers and others was it nurtured because it it makes you focused but it makes you obsessive on some things was it did it help you growing up or did it hurt you I didn't know that it was a thing that I had so I just thought my brain was broken I thought that like I had problems I thought that I was slow I'll never forget like I still have dreams about taking tests I hated test when I was a kid I was like the test anxiety girl but I also was would always take the longest to do a like test just I mean I I'm still to this day a slow reader but it's the ADHD it takes me just longer to process things and because of that I always thought that meant that I was Dumb and then I had to work that much harder to be on everybody else's level and on one hand I think it taught me the superpower of hard work because I worked really hard in high school and I made the Honor role and I again I was a great student but I always thought that I was not smart and I feel like and my husband knows this I'm really bad at math I'm bad at science I and I had to work really hard at those subjects but the only thing that I was ever good at was writing in English and those were the only times in my life growing up where teachers would tell my parents she's pretty good at this just let you know she's way ahead of the rest of the class everything else it was pretty much behind but writing was was my thing and because of that I was encouraged to continue to write I found writing is therapy growing up like writing essays most other kids I noticed would be like oh God we had to write a five paragraph essay right and I would write essays all day if I didn't have to take a test that's all the stuff that was in your brain that you wanted to come out you had so much bouncing around in there and you probably lived a life where you wanted it to get out so you can feel better about it you're it's cathartic like you said to write to express yourself and that's the hardest thing I think that our young kids have about expressing themselves in a way that is not just an emoji or a sign or a little ffo that I learned from you last week F around and you'll find out kind of stuff I love to be able to write I love to be able to explain because not only does it educate others but it makes me feel better because I'm getting it out of my head I have so much clutter in my head exactly it's clutter in your head and it's therapeutic to get it out and to and it's clutter like my brain's all over the place and when I'm able to make it all makes sense and it's a beautiful thing when it comes together if and when it on the days it does but yeah I always found comfort in writing I always found it was my strength and also I remember in high school writing several personal essays about what happened to my brother and just make in through that process realizing oh this makes me feel better about it I'm going to keep doing this so my senior year of high school I started working it was volunteer whatever for the high school newspaper I was a little reporter I did all sorts of little High School Stories our paper was called the Northwest Passage and it was a weekly it was actually like we had a very good journalism program at my high school and public high school public high school in Kansas shy Mission Northwest and I learned I still to this day think of things that I was taught in that class I was taught a lot about the laws of the First Amendment the laws of defamation and how to really interview someone and how to get a real story out but I loved that and that just so I did that in college I worked for the college paper and it just kept going in college at one point at a few points actually I really was considering quitting journalism a lot I don't even know how many times because it's the 200 I'm talking between 2008 and 2012 and journalism was in a weird place then it nobody knew where things were going nobody was making any money off of online journalism and it everything was up in the air and Incredibly stressful and every time I would see a guidance counselor they would say something like yeah the journalism reporting thing is probably not going to work out for you it's G to be really like this is the hardest path that you could take but I just kept going because I loved it and again it was very natural and I also admittedly applied to a lot of PR jobs out of college Whitney nobody no I I wanted that because I was like that's steady there's better money there's Sayan people in it their business isn't completely falling apart I wanted it but nobody would take me well you know you grew up in the midwest which is relatively conservative in thought process of not only family religion politics whatever and here you are as a young woman who wants to break into pretty much a domain that those that had been successful are men whether it's a Bernstein a Woodward that really delving type of Journalism and here you are as a woman basic basically walking into a male-dominated world from a management standpoint so I've learned a lot from you that those who were in The editorial department and those who run the newspapers and decide on what stories are going to run were men in your life and here you are as this young woman you're a redhead so you got fire in your blood how did you manage that how did you manage your feminism in this kind of really weird male dystopian environment it's funny I did grow up in a very conservative Catholic Family but at the same time my my mom was feminist but she wouldn't say the word like the word feminist was dirty in her household it was like kind of an insult however there were so many things that my mom taught me growing up that like my mom never wanted me me to be a cheerleader because she said I don't want you on the sidelines cheering for boy I don't think that's right I think that you I think that you should play sports by yourself and I don't you don't need to be cheering Boys on and when I went from like my awkward phase in as everybody has in Middle School of looking as we all do in Middle School to starting to be attractive and wear makeup and be pretty my mom was always very be pretty I don't know how to say that I was like growing into my skin or whatever but my mom always really cautious about being like your looks are never are not going to last in your life you have to realize that you need to get an education you have to you want to be interesting you want to be smart being pretty is one of the least things that you need to worry about so she taught me things like that that always really stuck with me important stuff important stuff because my path in journalism was so much different than most people most people out of college they are a reporter some newspaper and working for lots of other people who tell them what to do and assign their stories I was delusional and accepted a job at a five day at the it was the smallest Daily Newspaper in the United States we had a circulation of 1,000 The Waynesville Daily Guide I was the editor of that at 22 years old had no I no idea what I was doing and you moved to to them nowhere I moved to the Ozarks knowing no one to a military town but because of that while it was really scary I had my own freedom to write whatever I wanted to and to cover whatever stories that I wanted to and to get whatever experience that I wanted to and believed in I had one boss that was like an hour and a half away and she was in charge of four papers and had nine children and was a single mother wow so I never saw this woman she zero help when I took the job she was like I'll be there helping you all the time it'll be fine blah blah blah no girl was long gone never any help so I had to I had to learn how to make decisions for myself and learn how to speak up for myself and learn how to assign just make decisions just go between a or b and go with it and make mistakes I learned how to make mistakes really hard so I had all of that experience when I started working for other newspapers where there was a lot more male dominance and because of my experience I it was able to speak up for myself a lot more because I've been an editor I it's not that hard you can't fool me don't and and also I I know I was also very good at analytics from early on in like 2012 I started just analyzing at a small newspaper what people were clicking on and what they weren't and so I could figure out how to focus my time and I went to other newspapers and older men would look at me like I was just insane when they were like you do what what but yeah I was able to take those experiences thankfully and navigate the na the male dominated world but man it was hard and it got increasingly frustrating throughout my 20s like the more I knew and the more I was figuring out how things worked it was just so frustrating now I hear you talk about your mother and what a powerful influence that she has been on your life which is beautiful and your aunts and the the extended family but there is somebody that also has been very powerful in your life and that was the mayor of that town that you worked in and she's an amazing woman full of spunk the kind of mom and working woman that both male and female should admire I met her at your wedding and just an a dynamic personality tell me about her and the influence that she's had on you and still does oh my gosh Lou Hardman that's so funny that you met her at the wedding she met everybody at she became friends with everybody at the wedding as she does she's just an amazing woman I met l in 2012 when I first came to Waynesville she was was my very first source and I think I met her at a some sort of meeting and she was immediately like I'll help you I'll be your friend whatever and it's funny because she was my first government Source but she was the opposite of corrupt she was actually a public servant and was actually actually cared about tax dollars actually cared about improving the lives of citizens and she worked so hard for so little money and and I saw she was treated with sexism too and she was just a huge impact in those early days of my journalism career in she was a retired history teacher in Wayville Missouri so she knew the entire town like every person she I taught him history and he failed that kid cheated on his test and she remembered everything but gosh louj is so important to me and it's really funny how things work out LJ happened to be at my house visiting the week that dick harutan said his little sexist speech in court and you she was yeah and she was right next to me as I found out on Twitter and I started crying and I it was just like uncontrollably I was crying mostly because it hurtful dick is one thing that that was hurtful but it was hurtful to see my colleagues laughing with him and not not a single person stood up not no they just laughed along with him and everything was a big joke to them I was a big joke to them and that was extremely hurtful and again mental health was suffering at that point and I could not have pictured a different and she planned this trip like way before we even knew the Murdoch thing was going to be a thing she just happened to be literally right there sitting next to me and she had she always it was a well-known thing in Waynesville Missouri and she tells the story often how one time in a city council meeting years ago another city council member and it was on live TV called her a split tail oh it is a bad it is a bad name for a feale apparently it's a military term for the seword basically he said that in a live city council meeting did he pay the price for it no no I mean he no but Lou never forgot and she told the whole town and the whole world so yeah but I was sitting next to this person who weirdly could relate to everything that I was going through and that meant the world to me and she just said that man is scared of you and don't pay attention to them they're laughing at you because they are jealous of you you are fine it is not you that is the problem it is them and seeing somebody that I've respected for so long and just hearing those words and her again the magic of the universe that she was happen to be right there I'll never forget I love that I I've got a quick question about this mental health piece and understanding that you're ADHD which is really fitting I in my 40s was diagnosed a few months ago so hearing you talk about this is welcome to the club yeah but in women it manifests so differently right and we're always conditioned because all the studies have been around men until recently we think of hyperactivity but in women it's happening in your mind and right one of the things that I think is so interesting knowing that about you now is that ADHD makes you exceptional at spotting patterns and I'm interested to hear about how that led you down the path with MLL right because then you like grab onto it it's a rabbit hole and then also on the mental health front it also can make people really sensitive to criticism and I think that it is impossible to understand what like overnight Fame how it would impact someone because it's just such an onslaught of all the things right good bad and ugly so going through that process with you was the mental health decline at that period in your life do you think it was related to the criticism that you were constantly facing or the pressure to get it right or all of these things and how does your day look different now than it did then like how are you taking care of yourself in a different way okay Whitney ADHD what is the first question the first the first question is did you deal with this criticism as a superpower to Yes it hurt you you cried you were depressed about it but did it fuel you did you turn it on a dime and say okay let me show these people and then was it an asset in getting down that rabbit hole do you think if you didn't have ADHD that you would have given up on the MD all instead of sinking your teeth in it harder oh that's a good question cuz Liz also has ADHD she's in the ADHD club and again I think Liz barl for our listeners co-host in cup of justice and Mandy's co-host in true sunlight Liz and I always related to not being able to let things go and going down rabbit holes and making connections where other reporters just didn't care to or didn't think about and I definitely think that was a super power for both of us as we were investigating and yeah it's your mind not running a marathon but just running Sprints back and forth and like being excited about this and being about that and it's exhausting sometimes because you can't pace yourself your brain can't Pace itself it's running like you said at 90 miles an hour and yeah you're constantly revving high on so many different levels and subjects it is exhausting so how do you manage the speed and the I look at your brain like in the Philippines you ever see the intersection where everybody's coming with the mopeds and motorcycles and they're all running in different directions and nobody's crashing that's what I see your brain as except for some days there are little fender benders okay I gotta admit but yeah that's exactly how it is and it's exhausting sometimes but it also means there's a lot going on and it also means that I'm thinking about things that nobody else is and I I'm not crazy as I used to think I used to just be like why can't I just turn my brain off at night like other people can't and just go to sleep like a normal person or let keep their job at their job yes let things go but yeah that absolutely made me not letting things go because there was just so many nights I would lay in bed and think about something and then open up my laptop and dig into a case File and be like oh these two people are and yeah it definitely helped me but was the Myrle case the first case of danger to you personally to your career to everything about you was it the first case of danger and when did you realize it was a dangerous case I'll tell you the first case that I felt danger and this is really silly but this is small town journalism I wrote about this woman who was hoarding cats she was found with 36 cats in her house and nine dead cats and she lived two doors down from the newspaper and the people that worked at the newspaper were always nice to her she'd always come by with these weird treat things but I never ate them got the creeps from her but Polie did this big bust and it was horrible the way that she was treating those cats I don't really like cats but was really bad so I wrote a big story there was pictures all over the front page I the headline was something like catastrophe oh W that's awesome there was all sorts of these are things that I was able to do because I had my own newspapers but as soon as I wrote this story all these people were like who her family is something about she's her family's the mob and they're going to get you and that's scary she kept coming into the newspaper screaming at me and was just very unstable and I think the whole thing with her as I have learned I've met a lot of women like or people like her it's mental illness she I think she really believed that she was helping cats but she was hurting them and it just got extremely out of control but regardless she was charged criminally and it was news and I stand by that story but I her being so scared that she was like gonna pop out of the bushes or one like I remember people saying she was had a family of criminals and they're going to come get you so that was the first time I I had felt fear can happen in any story J now they you're saying it when you write a story about someone it outs them whether it's good bad indifferent and you become the protagonist that that outed them that made them be a public name and you constantly could be a Target I just realized it as you were saying this yeah and one thing that Waynesville taught me was how much stories impact people and how it's not a game what we're doing and it these are people's lives because when people would get upset about their names being in the paper I don't know what the deal was with that town they faxed it was 2012 they faxed as their main form of communication I swear and instead of calling they would just show up at your office just show up the sheriff would just show I would call the sheriff shows up at mlat nobody shows up at mlat everybody now let's send me a text message what are you doing like I would call the sheriff all the time and be like can I get a quote on this and he'd be like I'm just right around the corner I'm going to come and have a cup of coffee with you they just were always showing up but because of that I learned again that just the major impact that stories had on people and communities and not to take that lightly and to think twice before I put names and stories think twice before I put Muk shots in stories things like that were you careful in Waynesville because I know during the myrtl you became isolated physically where you stopped going to the store you stopped going shopping you didn't go for your walks on the beach you used to go with David to go out for Friday night drinks and you shut down during the mer matter cuz you were scared yeah I did and I hadn't experienced that before so you asked when I first realized that I was scared or that it was a scary story it was immediate whenever my first by line was on a story back in 2015 that had to do with the murdocks an immediate flood of messages and emails started trickling l in of be careful about this family I'm worried about your safety and very vague they were all very vague because I would write back and say what tell me about it tell you mean I heard over and over again they know how to make bodies disappear and I would just say what bodies what are you talking about yeah the journalist and you is tell me more about this yeah is this something that I can work with I'm just trying to figure out what's going on here how dangerous is this but we got so far down that rabbit hole and it felt and we had so much encouragement from people in Hampton to finally say the things that they've been waiting to be public for a very long time that it really didn't the safety it unfortunately had to take a back seat it was too important and it was it's hard to describe but when you are on a mission like that and you start to get the wheels start cranking and being scared just it's a part of it that I just feel like can compartmentalize it right yeah and it just has to be shoved to the side and you also just have to do what you can to get through I knew I greatly underestimated the link that this whole Murdoch thing would be I thought I was running a marathon for maybe three months tops but it ended up being two well over two years three years three years so you used a word earlier that really that stuck in my head use the word source so sourcing is a very important part of investigative journalism so I have a two-part question so corruption obviously has always been on your head where did the idea of I'm going to be a corruption fighter come from and then sourcing is that intuitive that you just have a six Sense on this person's going to be a good source how did you learn the importance of sourcing and what it means to what you have to do it goes back to my mom again my mom always told me and no offense that you know my mom but growing up she always said and her she said her father would tell her this two people not to trust cops or lawyers and never trust cops and never trust lawyers so with that in mind I grew up in a household that was extremely not extremely but had a healthy skepticism toward the government and as they should so I grew up in a house that wasn't like oh just accept for what they say and everything's fine I grew up in a house I was like question everything don't trust these people so it's just natural for me and I wanted to do something with corruption I spent a lot of my career writing catastrophe stories and making funny front pages and writing about alligators and sharks and things that were fun but really ultimately weren't majorly impacting people's lives and I looked up to specifically the reporter Julie K Brown who exposed the Epstein story she was the mcache reporter at the time I think in 2017 and watching all of that unfold and watching the tremendous impact that she made with the Epstein story I 100% believe that we would not know a thing about Epstein if it wasn't for Julie K Brown she put that story in the Forefront she asked questions she was told by her editors this is boring this is old news and she was like this is Major corruption so that really inspired me to do something like that and by the time Murdoch came along um I was an editor I was seasoned at the Island packet I think it was there more or almost four years and I was like I want to do this man like time for a real story and off I went boy was it a real story you you stumbled onto a historic Story one of the things that I hear about you and it applies to me because I hear the same thing is that we've turned into one trick ponies you're known as Mandy Myrle and I don't even practice law anymore with people think that all I do is talk about mytle and I'm on a podcast I'm a full-time lawyer you're a full-time journalist a full-time podcaster you don't talk about myall every minute of every day it's such a small part of your life after you wrote your book obviously you had your National book tour but how do we how do both of us get out of this that we're one trick ponies it's like the actor that can only do Fury one Fury two fy3 Fury four and nobody's gonna considering to be a s serious actor you're a serious journalist you you're not a podcaster at heart you're a journalist what you're doing in the JP Miller Story is amazing that was a North Myrtle Beach story that now is National TV being followed and JP's interview I think you and Liz and what you've done to bring that story to light Force JP to go in front of the camera so the world now sees who JP is it's like you goated him to go in front of the camera how do you and I get out of this stereotype that we have Eric I just have to say that I think those people are losers I think that anybody who has anything to say about somebody else's life they don't know us they don't know what our day-to-day life is like they have no expertise in our field whatsoever they're just losers Murdoch is extremely unique it was one of the biggest Trials of the decade of the century of the century right like it this is one of the biggest True Crime cases probably of all time so we all have to take a step back from that and realize what happened there was very weird and different we did a great job but I refused to live my career trying to chase that again like trying to get up there you get that high we do you think you'll ever get that high I don't think I will I mean it was surreal things were changing every day and all the characters involved made it so unique it was like cheers or Mash or Seinfeld the cast was perfect the cast of characters was perfect and it was a once in a-lifetime thing and it was so important you use the word important it is it was important politically it was important judicially it was important legally it changed stereotypes of South Carolina it broke decades and Decades of dominance over political and Judicial Systems it had so many different tentacles that were so important and you were at the Forefront of it and from a financial standpoint I can absolutely say had you not uncovered the saterfield settlement the first settlement of $500,000 it was a benign reference in a court record without any factual background to say what it happened I don't think the financial crimes would the fraud would have come out and then when you started reporting on the weirdness of this family and then the murders happened and then the Labor Day shooting it it you couldn't like I always said John grishan could show up and just write not Fiction it's not fiction but I think it's important to point out with both of you all and what people need to understand is you all didn't become the players that you were and the murdog game like overnight like you did what you have always been doing Eric you have always been a tenacious litigator like Mandy you have always been just like an incredible journalist and it's important for people to remember that because they only see like a snapshot of who you were but you all have been doing this for decades and it just happened to be in the spotlight what you're saying leaders and people who rise to the occasion everybody's going to have 15 minutes in their life or something where they have an opportunity to grab it and run with it and create legendary one of my favorite things is be legendary Mandy you are legendary I'm not gonna say I'm legendary but the point is you are it didn't happen by luck right it did it happened by years of hard work look would maybe become a lawyer was Bob Bernstein and Woodward Woodward and Bernstein I fell in love with Woodgate and politics and I respected how these guys were so tenacious and I use that in how I became a lawyer I was not at the right place at the right time I was destined to take on Alex myall and dick carple in a financial sense and you were destined to uncover this heinous set of crimes it wasn't by accident everybody else could have done it they didn't have the skill set to do it that's why this podcast is called good skill you were meant for this this was your destiny yeah and so are you and I appreciate you saying that Whitney because I think that people just think that we stumbled on a crazy thing and just woke up one day and famous and all of a sudden semi famous or and just locked into this crazy case but everybody involved like you and Mark and Justin all were literally perfect for your parts in this and yeah your whole careers were just waiting for that moment and it all did click into place and that's how a wise person would look at it but bitter people have learned look at it in a completely different way and yeah some guy the other day was like murdo's your wheelhouse you should stop doing these other thing Mur oh thank you for telling me what my wheelhouse is Sir on the internet who I didn't know know existed before 5 minutes ago like how do you know what my wheelhouse is unfortunately got too angry about that because gosh but people need to realize a Murdoch will never happen again it was an extremely crazy thing but also we were a part of making it big this we made the story interesting we exposed things that nobody else was exposing we kept willing to expose or willing to expose or willing to put their name on it yeah exactly and willing to say I remember when one of the first times I called you and you were just a lot you were way more Frank than any other lawyer that I had ever talked to you and I like are you sure this is on the record and you were like yeah no problem and I was like can I put this on a podcast there goes that mouth and you were like sure goes that mouth sure thing ever it's great but you were enthusiastic you were able to break down things so people could understand it so what I'm saying is that people that say that think that we just latched on to this phenomenon and it was already there no we were major parts of the story we had a pickaxe we had a pickaxe and every day we swung that pickaxe right and we were it was living in a movie every freaking day like everything was unbelievable twists and turns all the time and it was exhilarating and that's another thing with ADHD we're great in chaos and that was three years of chaos I love chaos I love tension Discord and Chaos yeah I love I still to this day act I treat deadlines like I did in college when my papers were due and I'll go to the very last second for every I like chaos I thrive it and it's sad dopamine yeah it's a dopamine and I can get my brain to click into place and I like the rush of the clock when I was in Waynesville there was literally a press in the back of our newspaper office and so my dead like the guys would start yelling at me to finish my deadline so my deadline was an Act was a more of a physical thing and but there yeah I'd have all these Burly men being like Mandy hurry up and I'd be like five more minutes and it wasn't five more minutes but I've always liked that I like a challenge I don't like things to be boring I like my life to be a little bit different every day but at the same time the flip side to that is it does take a a major toll on Mental Health when you were constantly in chaos so back to Whitney's question way earlier that I should have answered my day-to-day life is just less chaotic I have learned I think the biggest thing that I've learned and was able to do for myself was step away from breaking news and get out of the train of thought that every time something is developing I have to be the first person to report that doesn't matter I was living that for so long and I feel like I I feel like I had a chain with a laptop on it for two years because I could never be far away from my laptop because there was things always breaking and I was constantly under the have to be the best I have to be the first one to report this or nobody's going to take me seriously nobody's going to care and getting out of that and removing that train of thought and being able to say hey I'm good at other things besides breaking news I don't need to hustle to that degree because that was not good for me and it's okay to step away from things like that do you feel like the pendulum is swinging because news is happening so quickly all the time and people are now craving authenticity and truth that they almost don't mind that it's not like breaking because breaking news is inaccurate so many times like how do you manage that as a journalist how fast media is moving right and and I think you're exactly right I think people are really tired of how fast it's moving because it's it doesn't help things get confused and facts get wrong people get their facts wrong and things go wildly out of control so quickly on the internet that I think that people are taking a step back and appreciating deep Dives appreciating I will say that I got that from my audience the encouragement of our audience has been so amazing every time people I was late to a podcast people would say wait wherever take your time we're more worried about you or when I wasn't on top of a breaking news story and I would say I was on vacation blah blah blah they would say I'll wait all week if you have it doesn't matter we want to hear it from you so I learned that was a again a superpower that I had people that would wait for our take on breaking news verse just I I didn't have to be in the rat race your book blood on their hands the murd murder corruption and the fall of the myall dynasty was an amazing book it took a long time to write obviously I I was aware of what you were going through and what amazed me is that you were able to write this book while during the myall trials the murder trial during all the pleas of guilt for the financial crimes it it's been such a hit talks a lot about you personally and what you've gone through and what you experienced but what comes out is the true crime junkie you are you're just an amazing True Crime junkie I always knew you were amazing and you were destined for greatness but I went to a bookstore in Colorado to get a book and when I walked through I saw your book and I said wow that told me that the genre that you wrote about was something that interested a lot of people so how did you manage writing this book which has been highly successful it's now elevated you to being a speaker from somebody who hated being in front of the camera and now you're invited to universities and journalism classes you've gone to law schools and talking about this in in a law environment cles are doing stories on continuing legal education or doing stories on this and you're part of it how did you write the book during all this when did you find time two words Carolyn mck who was my co-author she was extremely organized she kept us I mean that girl was I could not have done it without her and her specifically Carolyn was very sensitive about the things that I was going through it was almost therapeutic talking about the things that I talked about in the book before we would get into chapters we would divide it in different periods of was this chapter will discuss August through September of 2021 and I would go back and before we would have our discussion have to look at all of my text messages all of my screenshots from that period of time did you contemporaneously write little thoughts and different things or was it a regurgitation so when I'm my book's almost finished it's actually finished we're in editing right now anything but bland mine was at the end so I had to remember everything and and my co-author my Carolyn's Kathy Mays and she took me to different portions of my life and it was like a psych psychiatrist in a session I would go through this time and I'm like oh my God that did happen and then this time or did you have this already organized from the start that you were going to write a book I didn't but I've always been a journalist so I've always taken very good notes I've always I I record a lot of conversations and because of the podcast I was recording a lot of conversations too obviously with the source knowing and I just I think because of that it because of my journalism background and a lot of the things that I wrote about in my book I've also wrote about in some way I learned that my photos on my phone were really helpful and me figuring out what I was doing on certain days and me and Liz have this am M I think me and lizz's or Liz and I are text chain from the last four years could just be a book because there are so many times when if I don't know what was going on a date I just I know how to look up the date list and see what we're talking about and there's also been a million times when names have come up before with us like Corey Fleming years before and I all see these text messages me and Liz being like this guy looks sketchy blah blah blah it's wild it's just this encyclopedia very thankful to have my phone I don't know how people wrote books before so you and I have this uncanny ability to get people to talk I I guess I was Dear Abby in high school so that's the award I won someth yeah people came to me with their problems and so I could get people to talk how did you hone that raft do people naturally want to talk do you pull out because sourcing again we're back to that word source which is the most important thing to a journalist one I remember I I didn't out one of your sources intentionally but I used the name on it was something that I did or said in a tweet or something and you ripped me like my mother RI me I don't even remember that you were so protective over your sources and that is the Integrity of a journalist and so how did you hone that skill of getting people to talk and wanting to talk to you not to talk to Whitney not to talk to Eric not to talk to David but they wanted to talk to Mandy how do you hone that where did that skill come from it's funny because I'm an introvert like it's not natural for me to start conversations with people I do not we are the the same way we're like I don't like small talk if I'm in an elevator I want it to be quiet I'm not going to ask you how your day is going I don't care but I've always been good I've been good at relationships my entire life a lot of my friends as you saw from my wedding I've known for more than 20 years i' and you're good with men that's the other thing you got to be good with men yeah I think that this is important to because as a and I was talking to a Dean in my journalism School the dean of my journalism School the other day about how I was always an introvert and I wasn't aggressive as a reporter and because I wasn't aggressive and knocking on people's door and demanding that they would talk to me I felt like I was bad I felt like I was bad at it but I think because I'm an introvert people are more likely to open up to me are more likely to go deeper are more likely to trust me and the other thing that was was just so helpful in the Murdoch story was that I had two years under my belt getting sources in Hampton and getting and word got around that I was trustworthy and that that word trust trust is essential in your business right and it was essential and sacred that I had to keep that I could not my reputation was everything of being a trustworthy person that people could talk to love that so important trust that is the reputation and Trust if you squander that you never get it back if you break trust you break your word or I always told my kids your reputation is all yours you craft it don't let other people craft it for you and if it's taken away from you it's almost impossible to get back and the reputation that you have crafted for yourself is somebody that is tenacious that that hunts Justice hunts corruption and there's a tremendous amount of Jey out there not only among people who are just hateful we've experienced hateful people that follow us God knows why they want to follow us if they don't like us do they follow us just to say demeaning stuff but there's also jealousy in your own industry which really shocked me and I've been on the inside with you and Liz and I've seen that jealousy within the industry and that was really surprising to me US lawyers want you could say whatever you want about lawyers but we build each other up we congratulate another lawyer when he gets a big verdict or a big settlement but I saw in journalism a lot of petty stuff where people were not happy for you or Liz but wanted to tear you down so you were not only getting teared down by the trolls on the internet but some of the people even in your industry were trying to tear you down yeah and I think that's because journalism is in general very sad industry like it's declining for the most part as far as I a lot of the people that you're talking about journalism is tough It's thankless you aren't making enough money at all I hate to say this but I would be jealous of me if I was still at the packet and watching somebody have the trajectory that I did of go going out on my own and having my own business and being able to do what I want to do and still do journalism I would be jealous too would I be nasty to them no that's the difference that's the difference I everybody's got jealousy I will admit and there's sometimes I will unfollow people on Instagram not because I don't like them but just because I can sense jealousy in me they have something that I that I want and it's just not a healthy feeling and but instead could be envy jealousy you know a little bit of that Envy jealous yeah and it's a normal thing but instead of obsessing over it or obsess or getting angry or like a lot of people do with me just try to tear me down just move on live my separate life realize that I have everything I have things going for me and that's okay I can live I we can both exist and somebody can have something that I want and I don't have to tear them tearing them down doesn't make me any better and I wish people would realize that like all these people that are that have wasted so much time on tearing Liz and I down are nowhere they've gone nowhere you're like the top 50 basketball players of all time so I look at you like a a Julie serving or something like that and so your career is over what and it's not but that's what people think okay now there's my all done she had her two years in Fame not 15 minutes she had her 2 years you're not done you're 34 years old what I don't know if you know what the future holds for you know per day per minute but it's bright what is the next chapter for Mandy matney and we're going to be closing up soon I've taken so much of your time what it what can we expect from you more of the same are you going to be behind the microphone behind the camera you want to I know you want to start a journal ISM Empire company entity that gets the story out for people that have difficulty getting their stories out for female authors and other journalists what does the future look for you oh that's a loaded question it really changes all of the time as far as what I want out of my life in the next couple years but and this is no secret I'm 34 years old I'm married in the process of trying to figure out when we want a family and that's a major thing that I have to plan for in the next few years of my life which is very difficult when you're on you're going up and everything's better and everything looks great you don't want to mess that up but at the same you got to ride your wave surf you got to ride the wave and then you got to see it through the tube I mean you got to once in a lifetime monster 150 foot wave and you're in the middle of the tube do you bail out or do you see it through to the end right and there's just all these qu again ADHD all these questions in my mind of you're 34 how long your eggs are dying or whatever how many do you have left and if you wait to a certain and I know many women across the United States deal with this exact same thing because this is not uncommon as soon as your career starts taking off it's like you also are in your time to have a baby and you can't wait forever and that really sucks it sucks so bad but I also and I've thought about this a lot I do not want to look back on this time in my life and say I could or there the flip side to that is what if I wasted all of my years that I could have been I could have had a child and now I I don't want to be resentful for that of waiting so long that it's too late pasy and Luna I know I have fur babies who are very important to me and a in a great full life and I love everything that we're doing at Luna shark I think the answer I want to encourage and Empower other people to do the same thing that Liz and I did and that we all did on which is to be able to speak truth to power and stand up not only for victims but stand up for yourself at the same time I that's where I get the most joy in my life I think is encouraging others and cheering other people on I was greatly uncomfortable being in the spot like quote unquote I Eric you're great at it I don't I would have been so tired doing a fraction of the TV interviews that you did I wouldn't have been able to formulate a single sentence I I had to do it for my clients it was keeping the spotlight on it and yeah there was a part of me that really loved it and likes the Limelight likes to talk about I'd be lying if I didn't say it but I used the media and they used me and it was a beautiful relationship I love the media I'm not scared of the media and it's a symbiotic relationship there's so many Micah Francis stories out there and that's what you're telling the world look around you deaths happen all the time ask the questions why it happened not just accept it happened look what you've done for Micah Francis whether it's for her or others that are in these coercive relationships where they're being manipulated and they're being emotionally traumatized daily by a spouse whether it's a male or a female you're bringing light to that which is changing the world I speak your name I think you have done an amazing job in carrying the lanard I think the future is so bright for you there's so many other micas out there that you're going to uncover and you're going to get to the Forefront and you're helping people just tremendously indebted to you from a person person Al level professionally as well I'm very grateful Whitney and I that you took the time today to spend and you laid it out on the table that's what you do I really respect what you're doing keep it up happy to be in your wake I can ride that surf forward in your weight as long as you'll let me do it thanks so much yeah Mandy I mean you know this just as woman in business I just love what you're doing and I love how vulnerable and encouraging you are to others and we're just really grateful for your time and keep on doing it cuz you're inspiring people all over the world we're grateful for you and to the listeners out there go grab blood on their hands it's an unbelievable read get on the beach chair sit by the pool you'll be able to read it in a weekend it tells the real story of the dastardly Alex mdll and those that enabled him to do what he did on a bluecollar crime level and on Financial crime levels thanks so much Mandy and I'll see you in a week or two when we do cup of Justice sounds good thanks for so much for having me [Music] w [Music]