Reality Life with Kate Casey: The Must-Watch True Crime Documentaries and Unscripted TV Deep Dive

This week, we are thrilled to be joined by the one and only Kate Casey from the incredible podcast, Reality Life with Kate Casey. Kate is both a true crime enthusiast and the reigning queen of reality television, and she's here to share her ultimate list of must-see documentary recommendations.

Kate guides us through the captivating twists and turns of real-life stories like the legal battles surrounding Amanda Knox and the complex family secrets uncovered in Captive Audience. We take a fascinating dive into the bizarre world of cults, with powerful viewing suggestions such as Wild Wild Country and the groundbreaking work of The Keepers. Get ready for truly mind-blowing true crime narratives, from a mysterious baby swap to shocking, hidden family dramas.

We discuss the documentaries that made a lasting cultural impact, including The Jinx, The Devil Next Door, and Golden Greed—all of which should be immediately added to your watchlist. Kate also shares her unique insights on some of the most intense and unforgettable documentaries available, while Mandy and Melissa join the conversation, offering a few of their own top recommendations along the way.

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a True Crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi, Melissa. I'm Mandy. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I am good. Big day over here today. We've had a lot of big days lately. Okay, but don't downgrade the big day we're having today.

Oh yeah. No. Nothing compares to this big day. Yes, right. I said that I That came out much worse than I intended. You're good, you're good. We are here today with the lovely Kate Casey. Kate, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for joining me the other day on my podcast, and great to be with you today.

Absolutely. It's reality life with Kate Casey, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. I'm subscribed. I've been subscribed forever. You've always had the best guest. You get people. I don't even know how some people agree to come on your show. Not in a bad way, but I'm like, [00:01:00] you shouldn't open your mouth anymore. You really love is blind and you said too much.

That's not true. It's, but if you want to tell people a little about your show and we'll get into it. Yeah. I love unscripted tv. Real people, real stories. Couldn't be more bored with like a scripted television show. I was somebody that was like obsessed with the real world and it like spills over into documentaries, I mean.

You name it, I've probably watched it. So my show is in really, it's a daily podcast and I feature interviews with the talent, the directors and the executive producers of unscripted tv. So that runs the gamut of reality shows to documentaries and documentary series. And, uh, Mondays, I tell you what to watch.

Tuesday through Friday I do interviews, and then Saturday I have a Saturday series where I interview people who have like really cool personal stories. Like last week I had a woman who's. Mother was murdered while she, she was 14 months old. Her sister was four months old. They were in sleeping in their cribs.

Ugh. The next day, [00:02:00] they're crying all morning and the neighbors notice and they do a well check. And when the police officers got there, their mother had been murdered. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. A year later, her estranged husband, their father was arrested. He was convicted of the murders, and five years later he was exonerated.

No, when they found her body, there were bite marks on her breast, and they had ologists that confirmed. 11 of them that said it, it, it wasn't a match. The bite marks to the estranged husband, but he had a crappy lawyer who was a real drunk and there was a shotty investigation. So he ended up being exonerated, but the case is still unsolved.

And she, so she listens to my show and I interviewed her about, wow, what, what's that? What is that like when you grow up? The story is your mother was murdered, your father was accused, and then he was exonerated. Yeah. Wow. I don't know how you reconcile something like that. Yeah. You know who's one of my listeners too, is Ashley Bride again.

Really? Jared's sister. We love her. Yeah. Yeah, [00:03:00] she's awesome. Hi Ashley, if you're listening, she is wonderful. The entire family is just wonderful. We love them. Yeah. So Kate, one thing I'm super excited about is, of course you're a pop culture queen, and one of my favorite things, uh. But you, like you said, you mentioned things you should be watching on Mondays, so we're kind of pretending it's your Monday show, but you're doing it over here and we wanna get into your brain and hear about the documentaries we should be watching because I know there are like the regular ones you hear what's wrong with Aunt Diane.

You know, there's like this few that we hear over and over and over again, but you've got like a really solid list and I'm excited to talk about it. Okay, so this is also gonna give, give you a window into. The mad genius that kind of we all have, but mind specific to is like hunting down people. Right.

Which you gotta mention. So some of them, there'll be a story that might go with it, but the first one is the Amanda Knox documentary. Yes, it was excellent. It was done on Netflix in 2016, and that is a guess that I interviewed. [00:04:00] I've had a lot of people that have said that listening to her interview completely shifted the way they had perceived the case.

Amanda was a student who was on an ex in an exchange program and she was living in Italy. Her roommate, a Meredith, a British student on exchange from the University of Leeds, was murdered in their kind of, their duplex that they were living. They were both about 21 years old, so Meredith was found dead on the floor of her room and what.

We figured out in the process of this Netflix documentary, and certainly when I spoke to her, is that the unit in which they lived in, in Perusia, it actually had two floors to it. So on the bottom floor there were four, three or four men that lived there. Mm-hmm. And then in their top unit there were four roommates.

Everyone was out of town that weekend. Oh wow. And Amanda, everybody. Amanda decided to go to Raffaello, her boyfriends. So Meredith was the only person in that home that night. Oh, wow. Yeah, I don't, so [00:05:00] yeah, that's crazy. That's kind of, you know, smoothed over. When you go back and you watch that Netflix documentary, they go through all the pieces of evidence and you realize that the media in Italy.

Really exaggerated circumstances. Like we've all seen coverage over doing, like the cartwheels outside in the interview and in the documentary she explains what really happened and they like, they took a couple seconds and exaggerated it. She's doesn't speak the language, she's all alone. She's sleep deprived.

And I think you'll come away after watching that documentary, really understanding what, um. Crappy deal that she got. Yeah. Uh, and if there's also a book about a case in Italy, I think it's called, it's Monsters of Some Monsters of something, but I think it really illuminates how different the justice system is in Italy versus the United States in particular.

So I really recommend that one. If you are somebody who's like, yeah, she was such a weirdo. She was like kissing her boyfriend. [00:06:00] Watch that documentary is gonna change your opinion. And I feel like there's still so many people that don't even know. I mean us, we know, but like my husband, I said something about Amanda Knox and he's like, is she still in jail?

I'm like. Somebody else went to prison for it. It was never her and he just didn't really know that. 'cause you hear the whole hype of, you know, what happened in the beginning. And to have that follow you around and you know, she's a mom now. She has her kids. I just can't imagine being Amanda Knox. Truly it's, she's been through so much.

But of course, Meredith's family has also been through so much. But we heard like all the noise about Amanda and nothing really when the killer was actually arrested. Yeah. It was just kind of like a blip on the radar. That is another. That's a good point. It is. Another nice thing about the documentary is you get to hear more about Meredith and mm-hmm.

We do have to remind ourselves that it's so important to remember the victim story should be paramount. Right. Yeah, totally. So that's, that's a good one. Now, this one has lived rent free in my head [00:07:00] since I was a little girl. So the, the documentary is actually called Captive Audience, A Real American Horror Story.

It's on Hulu, that's relatively new, but the story behind it has lived rent free in my head because, uh, it's the story of Steven Stainer who is kidnapped as a little boy from California where he lived. He was rescued. Years later, the man that took him had another boy that he, he also kidnapped, and Steven didn't want that little boy to go through the same thing.

So they fled in the middle of the night and they ended up going to a law, um, see law enforcement and that. Became the genesis of a story called, I Know my first name is Steven, which was like a made for TV movie when I was a little girl. Yeah, can I tell you they would play it every year and I was always super obsessed with it.

Me too. I remember my dad like telling me about this story and saying, by the way, there's, you know, this show I. I think I, or I know my first name is Steven and Mommy. May I sleep with Danger? Are those two Oh yeah, that one too. But those are like my childhood [00:08:00] movies. That's, we like, those are the things I got into now.

We came back. I'm like, what? My kids, huh? They'd be like, what? I know. I know. My kids wouldn't even be interested in it. But yeah, that story in itself, that was enough to just be unreal and you couldn't believe it. I think the little boy's name was Thomas White and just the courage he had to take, but then.

You can go from here 'cause it just explodes from there. So Steven's kidnapped and then rescued, and he's from this family and he had an older brother named Carrie who was super cute and all the, the footage of Yep. You know the family, he's really cute. They got an actor that's really cute. He ends up being a serial killer, killed a bunch of people in Yosemite.

So the, or women that, yeah, that documentary is about that family and what, what happened? I interviewed Steven Steiner's daughter Ashley. Whoa. So, um, that was interesting too. Really admire her courage and ability to speak out so much about that family and what they've been through. [00:09:00] I can't imagine that is like.

Two sides of a different coin. I mean, to have the victim. Mm-hmm. And then the perpetrator being in the same family and being praised like everyone, Steven was a hero. And then to flip it on this other side, I've always think about that family because I just think, how do you, how do reconcile? And then didn't Steven die in a motorcycle accident?

Motorcycle accident? Yep. Mm-hmm. Right after work where it was just like, he never, he never really even got to live his life. I don't know that one, I have to tell my dad about it and after isn't, again, let's just go back to that. Sure. We were obsessed with a story about a kidnapping when we were kids, like a hundred percent.

That's crazy. And there was something about a milk box, the face on the milk box or something? Yes. I actually, there was another documentary not to like, within the last year about the genesis of the milk box, the kidnapping. Okay. Putting the missing kids on the back of the box. It actually was really helpful.

You know, when I was an intern in college, there was a period of time I did work with the missing children, missing and exploited children, really, um, [00:10:00] center, and we would find communities that had a missing child and put out press releases to kind of re remind people. But I mean. With social media now, it's just so much more helpful to get stories out about missing kids.

It is. Um, and so much quicker, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so that's definitely one watch. Okay. The Keepers on Netflix is an absolute must watch. Have you guys watched this one? I'm so embarrassed to say I haven't seen this one, but we have a friend who has covered this. He did a whole series on this. He's like friends with sister, all of the sister.

Oh yeah, no, Shane. Shane, thank you. Yes. Okay. I know his name. No, he does good job. I couldn't figure out the connection. He does a great job. He does amazing. Yeah, so the keepers I was obsessed with too. Uh, I have an aunt that was a nun. It's called The Keepers. It's on Netflix. It is about a six, I think, a six episode series.

It's the story of Sister Kathy ces. She was a teacher at Archbishop Keo High School in Baltimore, which was an all girl school, which has since closed down. [00:11:00] She was a beloved teacher. She was missing for a period of time, and then her body was found in 1969. The docuseries picks up, uh, about six years ago, and you get to meet these students of hers who are now in their fifties and sixties, and they have been tire tirelessly trying to find out what happened to Sister Ka.

And in the process you find out that she was likely a whistleblower to a scandal involving the archdiocese. The priest had priest at the school. The teachers in the police department, it was, they were, oh my, basically sex trafficking girls and she may have, have had information and was gonna bring it forward to authorities and was killed by po, probably killed by a priest.

Wow. So it's an absolute must watch. Yeah, I, I know of the story, like I said, especially from Shane, um, and his podcast. Um, but I haven't seen this. So when I watched the trailer, I tried to watch all these [00:12:00] trailers. First I was like, this, I, how have I missed it? I think I got, um, what am I trying to say?

Intimidated by it being six part, because sometimes I'm like, I need a three part. I know you're, that's a big, I need a two. I think you're gonna get into it right away. I think because it's the story of the, I think what, what you come away with it is like. It really is incredible how some teachers really have such a strong connection to students.

Yeah. And how awful it must have been for some of these girls. Some are victims, some are not. Right. Gemma Hoskins, who is Shane's co uh, co-host who I've had on my show too. She was not abused by any of these priests, but found out about it later. And the way they've all kind of rallied around the victims who they now know years later, their own classmates were victims and how their in such great support of them.

It kind of illuminates also the story of nuns. Yeah. And what, what happens, um, [00:13:00] in the church and how. They're kind of like these unsung heroes. Totally. Yeah. I'm gonna definitely check that out. I am telling you, you're gonna get sucked into it. I really highly recommend that I might start it tonight. I actually have a little time.

So now Girl in the Picture is directed by Sky Borgman and she does fantastic Netflix documentaries like the Big. Ones that you're gonna see on Netflix, it's typically Sky's the director. Mm-hmm. So this one was based on a book called A Beautiful Child and Finding Sharon by Matt Birkbeck, and it's about a young girl known as Sharon.

She was abducted by a federal fugitive named Franklin Floyd. And he told people that he, that she was his daughter. So over the course of the next two decades, she was assaulted by him, forced to marry him, and ultimately died in this very suspicious hit and run accident. Accident. So why the documentary is really interesting is it follows the events that transpired afterward and the three years, or the years long effort by Matt who wrote the book.[00:14:00] 

At the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the FBI to find out who she really was. So it's based on this picture, and people always thought the story was sort of strange with Franklin and this woman and. You're gonna like the documentary because it kind of plays out who the woman really is.

I did watch this one. This one was super fascinating and just, uh, meeting people that knew her when she was younger. Yeah. And then people that knew her at a different name and they all had, I mean, really kind things to say about her, but when you do see that one picture that is part of like, cover and everything, and you see this little girl and you just, you really do think like, what's happened here?

Like, it just, yeah. It's a very upsetting picture to see and to know that there's. I mean, it's horrific that this guy was able to get away with things for decades. I guess it goes back to our fascination with kidnappings. True. Did you ever read the book by JC Dugard? Um, I was obsessed with JC Mandy. I know that was one that you were [00:15:00] interested in too.

She was. How long was she kidnapped for? She had like three kids, right? And taught them to read and everything. I feel like it was 10 plus years, maybe. Unreal. I I'm fascinated by her story. She's incredible. She wrote about, so she was kidnapped and then she was rescued and she had children, um, in secret with the perpetrator and the, he lived with a wife and she helped cover for him.

And he was, Looney Tunes crazy. But she wrote a book, which I highly recommend, and the one part of it in one chapter she says. In this chapter, I'm gonna be very graphic about what this man did to me. And the reason I'm gonna do so is with the help of therapist, I've realized it's his shame and not mine.

And I read that and I thought, well that just changed my life. Right? And I think about that all the time. Like when things happen to us, small or big, we tend to take the shame on, like feel terrible about about ourselves and carry that. Why should we, someone did it to us. You know what I find is fascinating with [00:16:00] that.

I feel like a lot of times that's why kids are victims to perpetrators because who is going to, as a kid, you're gonna think everything's your fault. Yeah. And they know this. And so to put it on the child rather than, you know, if you do this, then this will happen. Or this will hurt your family or whatever.

A kid's gonna be quiet and keep it all in. So she's, she's incredible. Incredible. So powerful. Incredible. Yeah. Okay. Um, wild, wild Country. Did you guys watch that one? I started it and I stopped it, and I love Mark Duplas and I still didn't make it through. I'm not even familiar with this one. Andy, I feel like this is up your alley.

Yeah, I, I really, I feel like this one's for you. Okay. Do you like things with cults? Of course. Okay. All you need to know is the beginning of this. Multipart series is a group of people who are dressed up in monochromatic outfits with like medallions around their neck. Okay. They roll out a red carpet, and then there are people, workers that have like Dustbuster trying to get all the crumbs off of it, and [00:17:00] they're playing like, uh, recorders.

Not like school kids, you know, fifth graders like real adults playing recorders with the monochromatic outfits and the medallions and the red carpet and up pulls this man who looks like he's a member of ZZ Top and gets out of a roll Royce, rolls Royce with a whole monochromatic outfit. And there begins the story of this group of people who basically sold all their stuff and were committed to this, uh, commune that this guru from India, uh, had created.

In the mountains. Like in the middle of nowhere of Oregon, and they were all devoted to him. It was really the first religion that Mel did, uh, western capitalism and eastern mysticism, which now is just like so prevalent. Like, isn't that just California? We're not there, but exactly. And so it's a bonker story about the group of people that like worship.

This weirdo, the woman that was like the right hand lady. [00:18:00] How she was so manipulative and what happened in this commune. And by the way, I just remembered for my Saturday series episode I just interviewed a couple weeks ago, a woman who grew up on that commune. Really? Yeah. But that is like one of the wildest stories, like if you like cults, it's Ben.

It's like almost like a movie, like a Ben Affleck movie meets a cult documentary. I love it. I love a good cult story, and I am, I have always been fascinated by cults. I think the last, um, cult story that we talked about or got really into Melissa, wasn't it the one, what was the documentary that had mother, God, what was it, mother, God.

God, yeah. Where she, her skin was all blue and they had the Christmas lights around them. I think I interview the director of that one. Yes. I was gonna ask, who did you get on this one, Katie? I think her, uh, birth name was Katie, but AKA mother died. Yeah. But then they, like, she got some other crazy name.

Yeah. There was a lot going on there. I felt horrible for her kids. They've been through so much. But that is another documentary that, Ooh, [00:19:00] you, you have no idea what you're getting into when it, when it starts. You don't even know what you're looking at, you find out. But I had to rewind it and Mandy had started it and she was like, I, I've, I'm gonna have to finish it later.

And then she restarted it and was like, what did I just do, do? I was like, yeah, well, yeah. 'cause you're like, should I go to sleep with one eyeball open? 'cause we just saw somebody who's blue with Christmas lights around them. If somebody brings Christmas lights in this room, I'm dead. I I don't wanna do this.

Yeah. Yeah. And all those YouTube videos that she made. Yeah. And the people who still after, uh, all the different father Gods too. They just, yeah. There was tons of them. Yeah. Do you, have you ever watched the vow on HBO About n Im, yes. My co-host on, um, criminality, Rebecca Sebastian, she is her husband, used to say that she is.

The only person that knows more about NEX Im than like somebody that was in it. She knows more about it than I wanna party with this cowgirl. She's amazing. Yeah. [00:20:00] Okay. Can I just say that every single time you say Nex, IM, or I've heard this many times, I can only think about. The like prescription medication next, know that.

Like I know that is very confusing. I agree. I was prescribed when I was pregnant for, for my nausea, um, or for my, um, heartburn I think, or one of those two things. Yeah. But that's always what I think of. So, um, anytime I hear anyone reference that documentary, I'm like, hold on. I'm like, is this like a, one of those like pharmaceutical scam things or something?

I'm like, wait. Oh totally. Yeah. We're still on cults here. So when I was pregnant with my fourth, I went down the nex VM rabbit hole. SW before the arrest. And I felt like I was a NEX VM Scholar too. Yeah. And that I interviewed so many, Frank Pardo, Catherine Oxenberg, and then I became with friends with Sarah.

Yeah. Who was the first one who got branded. And this you, you guys need to meet each other. I love Sarah. I, I've bought, uh, I bought Rebecca a cameo of Sarah and then she was like, I actually know her we're dying too. Good. I was [00:21:00] like, sorry about that. That did not turn You like ghost what? I got you. I know her.

It was so funny. Um, yeah, that one is incredible and it ruined. I'm a big volleyball person and Oh, for, without question, he ruined volleyball. Do we think he killed all those women to like poison them? I dunno. I think he did. I dunno about that. Yeah, I feel like he did. You their money from their trust or, or whatever the will.

Yeah. Yeah. I was just excited that the, what Catherine Oxenberg, what was. India, you know this? Yes. India. But remember she was on like a reality show. My princess, my wife's a princess. Oh yeah. Who married a princess. Mm-hmm. With Casper of dm. Yes. Thank you, Mandy. This is somebody who matches me. I, I know. I'm, I'm a dork.

I'm enjoying the conversation. I know Melissa will tell, uh, will tell you that I just don't watch a lot of, um, like documentaries or TV because I'm always. I'm always writing one. It's required to for one thing, and then I find it hard to follow like multiple stories at once. So if I'm working on like a, so you're like a deep diver?

Yes. You're like, I have to [00:22:00] just only focus on the one story that I have in front of me. Yeah. Which is usually the one that I'm like writing for the next episode or for an episode. Yeah. So I just don't, I end up not watching a lot of true crime documentaries unless it's something that I'm specifically watching for the podcast.

So there's, I'm just enjoying the conversation here and also getting some, uh, recommendations for myself to check out For sure. You would actually be a perfect person to direct or write the screenplay of a movie based on a true crime doc because of that. True. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you, you become a scholar from every case that you cover.

I'm sure I, well, I don't know if I would say that, but, because I feel like I, it's hard to retain a lot of that information too sometimes. You know, when you have all those cases and stories floating around in your head, um, you know. But of course there are the ones that really do stand out and definitely certain documentaries that.

I feel like I will, will stick with me forever. Like you're never gonna forget seeing, um, a mummified human with Christmas lights around them as though you don't No, you don't. A documentary. [00:23:00] No, but maybe we'll see. Well I remember all these useless facts. 'cause I've got like a, like a photographic memory, but I can't properly cook chicken.

So we all have our things. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, not so good for your family, but not exactly. Okay. This one, do you like sports at all? Volleyball. And I'll watch the Olympics. Okay, so it is Olympic adjacent, so it's called Icarus. That's another great one. Uh, dudes who asked me for things to watch.

I always recommend this one too. It's the story of this guy who was actually an actor and he became obsessed with cycling, and he would get so frustrated because he would do all these competitions and he is like, why am I getting my, my butt kicked? So he devises his idea. He is like, you know what? I'm gonna do like a Lance Armstrong doping.

System and I'm gonna film it and I make a documentary out of it to see if it helps me with my, my races. Well, in the process, he hires this Russian doctor to help him in the making of [00:24:00] it. That Russian doctor ends up being the whistleblower for the Russian Drug Pro Drug Program for the athletes in Russia and.

He, uh, like can't go back to Russia because he will be arrested and probably killed. So it plays out. Like a thriller. So in the beginning you're like, oh, he is hired this guy and we're gonna figure out what it's like to dope like Lance Armstrong. And by the end of it, you're like, is he gonna, are they gonna get killed?

Like, he had to go and this doctor had to go in no witness protection program, but no way. He blew the lid off of what was happening in Russia for decades. Wow. It's a, it's bunkers. That sounds really good. Yeah, that one was really good. That's like one I watched and then I had to find the director like two days later.

'cause I had, because a lot of cases, like I'm sure with you guys too, you watch them. You hear about a case and you're like, well, I've got 14 other questions, right? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So a good one, like if, for your husbands who are not gonna be into a story about a romance [00:25:00] scam, Icarus is a really good true crime one, and then they, they also like the Jinx, which is the HBO doc about the real estate.

He who. Really killed several people, but he's most known for killing his wife, Kathleen Durst. And he was a real sociopath and a lot of people followed that case. And that's on HBO. Do your husbands like that one? The Jinx? My husband doesn't watch any if I like it. He doesn't like it. Does he like war movies and like scripted series?

Yeah. He'll do. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. That might be one. I think he'll love Icarus. He might like the jinx, but Icarus absolutely shoo in no problem. Whole. Love it. Yeah. Okay, good. The jinx was great. Me, uh, we covered that a long time ago, I think on our, uh, for Patreon, I mean, years and years ago. And, um, I remember that one being really good.

Melissa had. A lot of funny commentary I remember about, uh, Mr. Durst, he's such a weirdo. He's, he is. That one is fascinating and I'm sure you saw the second part that [00:26:00] came out. Mm-hmm. I thought that was really interesting that we got to see the families in real time, you know? Yeah. Seeing it, that was incredible because when you.

Watch the documentary and there is like this really big moment in it that I don't wanna spoil. If somebody hasn't seen it, I mean at this point it's not on me anymore to protect you, you should just have seen it. But when the family gets that information and just watching them, it's, it's. I don't know, it's like the most perfect piece of cinema ever.

Just to have, have that insight to that moment. Mm-hmm. And then you think about how long the filmmakers chase that story. That's unreal too. Yeah. I always think that with. Do you hear that a lot with, um, like documentary filmmakers and stuff? I just always think this is like years. We do like a weekly through, usually it takes years.

Mm-hmm. I cannot imagine just waiting and not even knowing the ending of the story. A lot of times, you know, stuff is in process, so, um, that's, yeah. [00:27:00] That one's a good, well this one I know that you guys have probably covered and talked about American Nightmare, about the couple. That the girlfriend was kidnapped from their home in California, and they suggested that it was sort of like a, like a.

Made up Gone Girl story where the couple had set it up to get some money, but in reality she was kidnapped by this horrible guy and kept captive. And then he finally released her. And even when she was released the, the police department and the media said that she had made the whole thing up. And then of course, they ate their own words and they found out that there really was a guy that had kidnapped her.

It's called American Nightmare, and it's on Netflix. Is, uh, great man. Do you remember We covered that one. But the big thing being her boyfriend was there at the time when she got kidnapped and wasn't able to describe certain things that they had a flashlight in his face. So it does seem. That could have been a possibility.

And that's where, uh, we talked about on your show. We don't like to really come [00:28:00] up with a lot of theories about what happened a lot of times, because you just never know, especially in the early days of investigations and stuff, when people are, you know, you look at the comments, they're like, the husband definitely did it.

He nodded three times, and if you look to the left, you're a liar and stuff like that. You just don't know. And this was like a very good reminder that. You never know. And there's real sickos. Mm-hmm. And that lady, police officer, she was wonderful. She was absolutely on her game. Keep sweet, pray and obey.

Mandy, did you follow this story, this like war? She, this was all about Warren Jeffs and the Polygamist church. And if, if anybody has not washed it that like that is the one you can watch and you get caught up on all of the fundamentalist. Colt, uh, coverage. It's all in one ke and I interviewed the, the, the, the main character in the documentary series, Alyssa Wall.

And yeah, if anybody's unfamiliar with fundamentalist Mormons, this is the one to watch. It's called Keep Sweet, [00:29:00] pray, and Obey. I feel like I did watch it or at least started it, but I feel like I'm also getting it confused with another documentary that I can't think of the name of, and I think I have two stories in my head that are confused with each other.

Yeah. Right now with this one. But I always get into, like you, when we were just talking about the Keepers, I am fascinated by any of like the. The ones that are based around like a religious thing. And I just find it really fascinating how religion is sometimes used, um, in a terrible way. And like, you know, they have, uh, different components to that are used to justify certain things.

Um, so this one sounds like something I would definitely be interested in. Now the, this other one is called Burden of Proof. It's four parts and. It's heartbreaking because this man is trying to find out what happened behind his sister's disappearance, and she had a horrible relationship with their father.

She disappears one night. They go through the crime scene, [00:30:00] or at least the recreation of it, and. I, I just, it pulls on your heartstrings, but I think it goes back to that, those stories that I, you hear less of now, but whether or not someone was kidnapped, taken, you know, out of the home, or maybe they left to meet someone and just disappears off the face of the earth.

Like is it a case of somebody who. Disappeared on purpose or if something else nefa nefarious happened and it's about a man's sister, so definitely worth to check out. It is. And his confrontation in that with his parents. That's another one. Like you were talking about the girl you interviewed. Um. For your show last week where she has, you know, her dad, who's now been exonerated and all that stuff.

That was a prime suspect. I can't imagine just going through life and always having that. Mm-hmm. It's still your parents and having that in the back of your head that they could have had something to do with it. That one really broke my heart and that guy was angry and I don't blame him whatsoever, but it was a hard watch for me.

Yeah. [00:31:00] Now a lot of people love Tinder Swindler on Netflix. That's a story of a conman who swindled about $10 million from different women, and I think a lot of that was a, definitely a mainstream story, but a lot of people may not have heard of The Imposter, which is on Prime video, which is this 1997 case.

Where there's a French trickster by the name of Frederick Borda who pretended to be Nicholas Patrick Barkley, who was a little boy who had disappeared in Texas at age 13 in 1994. And it, you know, Nicholas the boy seems to reappear. The family seems to just accept it. And so when you watch the story play back out, you're like, wait, what?

Mandy, I feel like this one's up your alley. I've, yes, I have watched this one and I love this documentary. I actually had forgotten about it until, um, you just mentioned this one again. But, um, what a wild story that is though, because I can't imagine being, you know, can you imagine [00:32:00] losing a child and then how.

I feel like at face value lost. Don't think you're like, how do you believe anything? You know, how could anyone fall for this or believe any of this? But if you think like people in their grieving, like they just want their dreams to come true, right? They want their child back. They want that, you know, their family to be complete again.

And so that's the heartbreaking part about it, is that. That is such an easy way to be preyed on, you know, by somebody who sees an opportunity to be like, I'm gonna pretend to be this person that I'm not. And you know, see how far it can go. And yeah, that was definitely a really fascinating story. But by the way, another part to it is there is a part where you're like, why are they so quick to accept the story?

Right. Did they do something to him? Yeah. That was a hard thing because I. Like Mandy was saying, you want to believe, but when you start hearing like his eyes are a different color, uh, he speaks with an accent with all these things where you're like, huh. But at the same [00:33:00] time they're being told by, you know, whoever, this is your kid.

And so just like, I can't imagine, you don't wanna question that. I wouldn't wanna question that. Also, if I had done something wrong, I would very much want to accept that and to have that in my home so people stop asking questions. I also do feel like, as a mom, I'm not saying the case for everyone, but I feel like I would know if it was my child or not.

You know? I feel like you would have a sense about it. So that was kind of one of the things in, in that documentary that I was like, I don't know, I, I don't know if you can put too much weight in a mother's intuition, but I do kind of feel like, yeah, I, for me personally, I feel like I would. Think about how I actually felt if I felt like that was my child or not, that'd be a thing.

Well, you know, it reminds me, I interviewed, um, did you ever see the documentary of The Lost Sons? Remind me what that one's about. That's an interesting story. So these, uh, this little boy disappears from the hospital room right after, like a day or two after he was born. Um, Doris Franza is the mother [00:34:00] and she has a little boy named Paul.

And this nurse comes in, we now know as a woman, dressed as a nurse and says the doctor needs to do some tests. Walks outta the hospital. It's the reason they have the pink bracelets on at hospitals. Mm-hmm. It was the largest manhunt in Chicago history. They never were able to find this baby. Well, it's about a, it may be a year and some change later, and this little boy appears or is in a, his stroller with some bruises on his face outside of Atlantic City, like a strip mall.

The authorities get in touch with the FBI. The FBI calls the franza and says, this little boy is in New Jersey and we think it may be your son now, because he was a newborn, they didn't do fingerprints. They just did the picture of the baby of Paul Franza. So they said, well, because of the size of the ears, we think it might be your son.

Which is like, what? Yeah. So the Franz Act, and they're comparing this with like a, a baby, like a newborn baby. Yeah. Okay, so the Franza [00:35:00] fly out to New Jersey and they have this big press conference and they go, yeah, that's our son. So they bring him home and this little boy Paul is growing up and he can't help but realize like, I don't look like anybody in his house.

Like it's a little weird, right? One day he pulls like a chair or a couch back, and he finds this box filled with newspaper clippings about a kidnapped baby. So he brings it to his parents and he asks, is this about me? And they're like, don't ask us about it ever again. So then he's an adult and he is like, listen.

I wanna do a DNA swab. The parents don't wanna do it. They finally give in, he does the DNA swab. He's not the baby Paul Ronza. So the documentary is called The Lost Sons, and I first came, um, I could realize about it. Barbara Walters interviewed him in October of 2013 and it was like this ongoing story on 2020.

And so they made it into a documentary. You can watch it on like HBO, ID Discovery, HBO, and. I've interviewed him too, but one [00:36:00] of the things he said, I asked him about his mother and his father. Like, you get to New Jersey and you know that baby's not yours. And he said she was such in deep grief about the loss of her son.

She couldn't bear the thought of that little boy not having a home. So even though she knew it wasn't hers, she still had the, took the baby home. Oh wow. Mm-hmm. Man, that gave me chills actually. That's actually a, actually, surprisingly like high school kids, if I bring that one up, they always are interested in that story.

Hmm, okay. For whatever reason. And then the last two I was gonna suggest you do are the staircase, which is the story of Michael Peterson's wife Kathleen, who was found at the bottom of the stairs. It became hugely popular Netflix documentary, but a lot people will. C There are ties to the last season of White Lotus on HBO because I believe that the, the, the family that they depict in that fictionalized series is based on the [00:37:00] Peterson family.

Oh, but who was it that. The Southern Lorazepam. Who, what is Parker Posey? Parker Posey, right? Yeah. So I know, wasn't it her and the guy that played her husband that were given like, um, told to look at Thomas Ravenel and stuff like that, to like work on voices. Are I crazy? I. Yes, but the Ravenal were from South Carolina and that family in White Lotus was from Dur Durham, North Carolina.

Oh yeah. And this case happens in Durham, North Carolina. And also there were girls from, oh, okay. So Michael Peterson, who's con or who was accused of killing his wife, Kathleen, who again was found at the bottom of the staircase. There was a couple that he knew when, in his previous life, before he married Kathleen, when he was married to his first wife.

They were very close friends in Germany when he was in the military. Um, and that family had a mother who was also found at the bottom of a stu of staircase and died. Michael Peterson [00:38:00] adopted her two daughters, their last name. That family is the same last name as the family in White Lotus. Okay. Well, I mean, my mind is blown.

Yeah, let's not try too hard there guys. Yeah. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. I think you're onto something there. And then the last one I really like is called the Devil Next Door. It's on Netflix. It's this Cleveland grandfather who's brought ended, ended up being brought to trial in Israel. They accused him of being this infamous Nazi death Camp Guard, known as Ivan the Terrible.

So it's kind of like one of those documentaries where it's almost like. Like a DNA analysis, historical kind of follow where you're trying to figure out does the timeline match? Is it possible he was this hellacious personality who had worked as a death camp guard? Right. I hadn't heard of that one. I've heard of, of course, Ivan the terrible.

Um, that one looks really good as well. I saw Did you interview anyone with that? [00:39:00] No, I think I just talked about it. Okay. 'cause I got really sucked into it. Yeah. I saw like the grandson or something in the trailer and I was like, oh yeah, I forgot you'd have all of this family here. No. All of a sudden your grandfather's on trial for being a big part of a Holocaust.

I cannot imagine that. That's, yeah. Unreal. Um, yeah, I wanna definitely check that one out as well. So that's my list. Okay, great. Can I give you like two Yeah. That I need you to watch. Okay. So I don't think you've seen this one. Um, Chowchilla, it's on Max. I never watch it, but I'm familiar with the story and it, but like, it, it nerves me so much.

Tell the good people listening what that story's about. 'cause it's so disturbing. Well, if you don't wanna watch it, it does have a good ending. So back in 1976, there is this kidnapping. There is. There are these kids on a bus and they're ranged from like early, early elementary to high school [00:40:00] and 26 kids.

All of a sudden their bus driver, he stops. There's these men that take everyone out of the car, out of the car, out of the bus, put them in two moving vans, drive them 11 hours to this rock and gravel query, and. Is from there, there is a moving truck that's in the ground that they make them all get into.

So there is a bus driver and 26 kids underground. In full panic 'cause they have no idea. So the whole thing was for ransom, like that's what these people are trying to get out of it. But the incredible thing was, I mean you have five kids, Kate, so you're already like way you know you can handle kids more than most 26 kids.

In a moving van, screaming, terrified. And the bus driver's able to keep everyone calm. Oh, the older kids are able to literally scratch their way out to get out and, uh, you know, notify police, but. [00:41:00] It's incredible. And uh, there is an interesting aspect where people were giving all this credit to someone else in, in the story.

And I can't remember exactly who it was, if it was the young boy or something, somebody was taking on all this credit. But really it was somebody else that had done the whole thing. And it was kind of like, man, but I cannot imagine they interview, you know, of course some of the kids, but it's like several hours they're down there and.

I cannot think of anything, uh, worse. It's like batteries are on top. I mean, it's just, it's unreal, but it is. You know, everybody got out. So that's what I can say about it. Do they have survivors telling, like how it forever changed their lives? Mm-hmm. That's a really interesting thing, seeing how different people's, uh, lives were affected by it.

Mm-hmm. And even in the same family interviewing different people, or one kid wasn't, uh, on the bus that day, but his sister was. So, kind of like how that all comes together. It's, it's fascinating, but it is like. It's deeply [00:42:00] troubling that, that it ever happened. But it was like rich kids that decided to do this.

It was, it's so weird. Um, the entire thing. Um, and then my other one that I really enjoyed, that I saw recently, uh, it's called Golden Greed, the hunt for fin's. Treasure. Yeah. It's on Netflix. It was kind of a blink and you miss it. Uh, one. So there's, there's this 80-year-old millionaire named Forrest Finn.

He hides this treasure chest somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, and he has this book you buy that has a poem, and if you figure out the poem, you'll find millions of dollars. Oh God, I'm already like, I would never figure it out. No, and the crazy thing is it's like 300,000 people are all looking for this treasure over like 10 years.

There are people that quit their jobs and are convinced that they have, they know where they're at. So it'll be interesting, you'll see somebody like breaking down part of the riddle and saying, oh, what this refers to is [00:43:00] over this mountain. There's a valley. And that's, but everybody reads the same thing and they can point to different.

Places it could be. So everybody's like, you wanna make it, I don't know. You want it to be right, want it to be true. I'm talking four people died in the process of this like, and then they found in the afterlife that he actually didn't put money anywhere. He did. He actually did. Okay, good. I don't know that it was as much as he said, but then what if it's like Burger King coupons?

Wouldn't you be pissed? I would be so pissed. Anyway. Like I can't imagine. The odds were so, uh, low that you would ever, one person would ever even find it. Somebody does find it, but the guy doesn't like, wanna be on camera. Don't blame him. So then people are like, did somebody actually find it or did they just, they were begging this guy to stop this because people were dying and he just loved the media.

It was fascinating, but, uh, wow. Somebody that found it, some guy bought something. Did they find it? Somebody did find it. Oh wow. But there's another guy [00:44:00] who ends up buying pieces of it. I can't remember this part very well, but. Like is hiding it. And I was like, please stop. Like stop. Oh, so are they gonna continue this?

Yes. Very. Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah. That part just enraged me. Well, I was gonna say that person who found it has to be in a witness protection program. A hundred percent. He, I mean, they like made him provide proof. 'cause people were like, no, he just stopped doing this treasure hunt. And that's not fair. And I, I'm talking, people went to go live with this old man to just like learn more crazy.

But it's a really good watch. Wow. Yeah. All right. All right. Thank you so much for coming on and talking to us this week, Kate. I definitely got some recommendations for some documentaries that I can't wait to watch in my next free moment, and you wanna let everybody know where they can find you and listen to your show.

So my podcast is called Reality Life with KKC. Every Monday I'm gonna tell you what to watch, so I'll give you a list of what to watch that week. Documentaries reality show series, and then Tuesday through Fridays I have interviews. [00:45:00] Saturdays I have my special Saturday series episode. You can find reality life with KKC everywhere, where you listen to podcasts.

The list of what to watch each week is at KKC. substack.com and it comes into your inbox every Monday. Easy. You could share it with everybody. I've got a great Facebook group, reality Life with K KC bonus episodes, and you can follow me on Instagram at K KCA TikTok. It's K KC and Twitter threads and Blue Sky at K kc, and you can go back and listen to my interview with Melissa and Mandy too.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Alright guys, that was everything for this week. We will be back next week. Same time, same place. New story. Have a great week. Bye.