Investigating the Octopus Murders | An American Conspiracy | The Last Days of Danny Casolaro

Transcript

[Music] reporter Danny calero was found dead over the weekend in a motel in Martinsburg West Virginia local authorities quickly ruled his death a suicide it just didn't it didn't sit right in my mind I'm thinking they killed him the book that he was writing he starts looking into these powerful people and realizes there's something much bigger going on these eight men they're no longer government officials but their tentacles can reach into any part of government in almost any country I've come to call this group The Octopus most of us were convinced that he had been hurt for him covering the story if the federal government says we don't know what you're talking about it's beyond what a couple of local detectives can do it all started with the software promise these programs allegedly allowed the CIA to spy on the intelligence agencies that bought it the two of them transferred in excess of $40 million this money was used to buy [Music] off it was a disturbing conspiracy a lot of people that reported on there are dead all three of them had been shot in the head we knew who was involved no one was ever brought to Justice we found the body there was a wire running from around his neck to his ankles there's just too many people dead in this case this former NSA guy says I don't know how you heard that name but you can get killed just knowing that name can you turn the camera off I told him not talk to certain people not to raise certain issues Danny became obsessed with this story you have the same curiosity that Danny had if you think for a minute that you're going to go expose somebody you're going to get yourself [Music] killed that was the trailer for the Netflix docu series American conspiracy the octopus murders and this is factual America I'm your host Matthew Sherwood each week I watch a hit documentary and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects when journalist Danny cillero was found dead in a hotel bathtub police ruled into suicide but his family and colleagues believe he may have been murdered for investigating a conspiracy y he called The Octopus a hidden organization connected to stolen government Spy software a string of unsolved murders and some of the biggest US political scandals of the 20th century we are joined by Christian Hansen who has pushed to uncover the secrets behind castello's death and the director Zachary tritz who all the while filmed his friend in his Pursuit for The elusive truth join us as Zachary and Christian discuss what it is like to go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy and and Scandal stay [Music] tuned Zachary and Christian welcome to factual America how are things with you Zachary things are great thank you so much for having us yeah great to have you on and Christian how are you I'm excellent so nice to be here yeah just to remind our listeners and viewers that we're talking about American conspiracy the octopus murderers murders should say the octopus murders Netflix stocku series releases on February 28th congratulations great to have you on and all I can just say is wow this is um one hell of a one hell of a story I've had the pleasure of watching it and it's all four episodes uh usually we kick things off by asking uh one of you I was going to direct this to Zachary to tell us what is octopus murders all about but my goodness we we we don't have enough time do we it we'd be here all all day all night so maybe give us a brief uh synopsis uh about American conspiracy the octopus murders yeah so we'll just take the next six hours of your listeners time here um there's a lot of ways to look at this but I'll just try to do it a way right the story is really about for us for Christian and me a journalist named Danny celero who was found dead in a hotel room in 1991 and under what some people thought his friends and family thought were mysterious circumstances it was ruled a suicide by the authorities at the time and it's really about us and mainly Christian um looking at what happened over the last year of Danny's life and what led him to that place and it's about so Dany was an investigative journalist a novelist a poet a writer kind of a man about town in general in the DC area and he was looking at first this software product called Promise um it was allegedly stolen by the justice department and used to create the um a Spy software for you know digital surveillance and he started looking at a um series of related scandals that kind of stem from that which includes a um a reservation in Southern California called the capison Indian Reservation where a um one of his sources said that he he had Pro hired the promise software and um other scandals such as as it gets weirder the October surprise which is the idea that Reagan and his team had conspired to keep the hostages that were in in Iran at the time uh there to sabotage Carter's reelection and uh various intelligence scandals from the 1980s so that's the kind of Iran Contra world of of 80s conspiracies that you know yeah some of those real well I mean you know indeed U I was going to say I'm I'm bit older than you too um we knew how to do conspiracies and Scandals back then uh they they were pretty big and large just look at Iran Contra because a lot of the stuff your film talks about seems pretty crazy and outlandish but then not much different than around Contra and sending birthday k to the ayatolla and doing all kinds of crazy stuff that was going on um just going to take this uh moment to give a SPO just to say a spoiler alert for our listeners um you know this I this episode well this episode this recording of the podcast well I think will be released on February 28th which same day as uh the uh the film's releasing um I mean it doesn't even do it justice to say there's many unex sort of unexpected twists and turns uh just to give you flavor even the zuder film about JFK's assassination gets a segment so do yourselves a favor pause this episode if you're worried about such things as spoilers and things and and go watch it it's on Netflix I'm sure you've got that and then and then come back appreciate that it it is important for certain surprises for us narratively to you know open to you as we intended them rather than just being uh told to you by us postao yeah and we're I mean and just to say if you're for those listen we're not going to we're not going to get into the nitty-gritty of the well we like we said we wouldn't even have time uh this could take we could have a whole podcast series maybe something you've thought about or but uh on um just looking at this but uh yeah so there you go it watch it and come back because as we were now talking about you were saying this trying to give a synopsis there are many ways of you know there's it's a it's a it's a trite expression but there's many ways of peeling an onion and my goodness this one got a a lot of layers to it so we're talking about Danny Castello um now I think what you were alluding to all these scandals um so he was this writer journalist and he sees this interconnected web of scandals at the heights of power and as I sort of alluded to and revealed my age um um I mean I lived in DC in the 1990s um and just for clarity for anyone I did move there in August of 91 but it was two it was two days it was 2 weeks after the so I was not anywhere near Martinsburg West Virginia um I was I mom can vouch for me I was I was in Texas but yeah no I I do remember this I remember these scandals not as clearly they' had kind of passed away from my my memory if you will so Christian I mean how did you come in contact with the story cuz most of this stuff happened before I would gather you were born or you were at least very little yeah I I stumbled upon the story really I was doing research into the private prison industry and if you remember in episode two you learned about this Corporation Called wacken Hut right they had um started either the first or one of the first uh private prisons but that was sort of that came later in a long line of um private security uh operations that this huge security company based in Coral Gables was involved in and Danny was looking at into the wack aut Corporation and just by the name Association um I found um an article about Danny and it uh blew my mind right right and I wanted to know more and you know all all these scandals that are from before my time that are name checked uh in you know this early article it's a mentioned that he was looking into October surprise and iron Contra and this promised software like needed to know what all that stuff was and yeah and so you just because this is how long ago is this that when you first got in um interested in in I think I think it was 2012 right it's 2012 I was 25 years old right either 2011 or 2012 I can't remember okay it was about 10 or 12 years ago yeah yeah and then Zachary how did you become involved well I'm really involved because of Christian and Christian and I I grew up in Kentucky together we were friends yeah so um we you know Christian moved to New York right before I moved to New York we were very close friends and he was working for the New York Times as a photojournalist for a long time and kind of in between stance he started telling me about this Dy Casto story and all of our friends and it was it was for me it just had very I had never heard of it and I had no relationship to it except for through Christian so I wouldn't have made this if I didn't know Christian you know I'm just not I come from the fictional film making world really Independent films uh previously uh love documentaries but I I'd never made anything close to what this is um so I and if I can interrupt I mean Zach is a really good listener and he would not be scared and he's an iconic class kind of in nature and he would give me really he would push back really hard on different kind of things that I was digging up and coming up with and which you know also involves you know he him learning um himself about the case through this Socratic process of him being my dear friend and listening to me and giving me notes and being a sounding board um so he was inadvertently well versed on the case like as the years went on you know we'd continue discussing it and he'd give good feedback and so you were back so in your a lot of your spare from what I gathered from the film a lot of your spare time spent on the trail of Danny Castello uh spending a lot of time following his leads uh tracking down contacts gaining I guess you gained access to his notes and his manuscripts um what did you find again how much time do we have but what was you know what what what what were you finding is you going down this this this path I mean I mean that that is a tough question because I found I found a lot one thing that really helped was that I took all of his notes which are like if you look at any journalists notes it's like a lot of um scribbles and da dashes and underlines and circles and it makes sense like you look at my notes it might not make sense to even Zach but it Mak actually probably makes sense to Zack but it make it makes perfect sense to me it's um but what I did was I put it into this um computer software and annotated all of the notes so that I could like type in any any name and and find every occurrence of the name and and just sort of like cross reference it so because it's thousands of pages of of scribbl handwritten notes right that way I was able to you know quickly kind of dive through and cross cross reference them and then he also had um decent chunks of writing in in the form of um book proposals so that was also a guide and then when you just like kind of on top of that um learn the material you know the subject matter that he was looking into and and you know he's referencing different names who are these people are they still alive can you talk to them you know and then just eventually the the the thing becomes more clear okay and so what he thought he was on to um was an again this intricate web of Deceit and deception and Espionage and all kinds of things which he termed he did he's the one that came up with the term the octopus is that is that right um that's correct and yeah I mean that that's not you know some wildly crazy or thing I I think the octopus imery in relation to crime and right um organized crime and various cartels over the last century is you know the crack just it's common kind of image but he was the first person to kind of put that stamp on this series of interconnected stories and if I could just kind of really quickly frame it it's in how I think about it is you know Danny was you've got individual scandals like we've already mentioned October surprise IR ran Contra there's a BCCI which is banking Scandal all these different things inst LA and and each one of them is a whole web of different people and Scandals whatever what Danny's thing what's sort of unique about it is him seeing the interconnectedness and creating this almost Theory of Everything kind of right right you know you think in physics like The Theory of Everything Bridging the the the sort of einsteinian physics with the quantum uh quantum mechanics it's like there's no you know there's no way to fully do it but he was trying to pull all these things and seeing that they're all interrelated they must be interrelated because the same names keep on popping up right um so that's that's the kind of unique part of what the octopus is in terms of that era of scandals it's this Theory of Everything okay and it's not I should say our Theory it's his theory yeah exactly at the I would have put Alan Dulles uh on that list he didn't I don't know why I mean but either way just saying the former uh head of the CIA is that the John it's related to John Foster Dallas right it's his brother yeah yeah who yeah hence your comment earlier about the uh Catholic nature I think of the uh because there's a Brother's also um was a priest I think uh yeah but anyway um wow so you Zachary again what did so I think what your film real docu I mean a lot of people thought there are people who questioned uh Danny Casello sanity or how his mental state was going the time um you're following you essentially rough you know 30 years or more later following down the same paths um um Christian I mean what is what is it like to watch your friend go down a rabbit hole of of conspiracy and then to follow them cuz then you follow him along on this journey don't you um yeah I don't think I had any relationship to conspiracy theory world if that's you know the conspir theory industrial complex right uh before this you know like I said I don't think I would have been I would have even known about the story really um because it happened when Christian and I were Danny's death happened when Christian and I were six years old right in Kentucky um one stayed over weirdly yeah that's true um so the feeling of going going into it I think you you see this what we tried to capture in the film I think is a it's a very subjective ultimately very subjective point of view that we have which is kind of this Russian doll effect of my view of Christian's view of Danny's view all what happened you know but essentially what it is is is what it's like to get sucked in to this kind of story and this story specifically um when you start meeting the people who are um telling you this information and trying to parse what's real and what's not and so I watched Christian for years go go into this and me and my friends we all um had some concerns you know I mean we were his sisters and I would talk about it's like you know do we need to intervene here because things are getting a little weird and scary um in terms of you know you know ju not not scary scary but just like is Christian going too far into this thing once you dip your toes into it what I found it's almost like a a tar that some sort of magic that kind of gets into you as soon as you touch it it's like what they say about the abyss you know you stare into it and stares back like this is head story you touch it and it touches you and it kind of consumes you and you see that process happening probably slightly inadvertently with between both of us in the in the end of this thing um so uh it's it's it's it's a in my mind a slightly cautionary tale of the popular maxim of do your own research yeah I had a very fulfilling career as a photojournalist in New York City uh won awards uh had mentors that were at the top of their game game and um I was just you know writing a paper about the private prison industry I was not planning on throwing my photography career down the tube and yeah disappearing into a world of 1980s uh Espionage research right right but it happened and did you question your own sanity oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and also you know I I didn't really care that much about conspiracies before and I um I I had to figure out what the world was what in part of part of the process I was vetting you know 19 you know 80s 7s 60s 90s 2000s conspiracy literature to see what's bunk and what's you know what's interesting okay um I think that takes us for to a good point for a a break for listeners and viewers so we'll be right back with Zachary tritz and Christian Hansen the filmmakers behind American conspiracy the octopus murders released on February 28th on Netflix you're listening to faal America subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook Instagram or X to keep up to date with new releases or upcoming shows check out the show notes to learn more about the program our guests and the team behind the production now back to factual America welcome back to factual America I'm here with Zachary tritz and Christian Hansen the filmmakers behind American conspiracy the octopus murders released on February 28th on Netflix so we were talking about the world of conspiracy the world of conspiracy theory and how it uh it's it it seeps into your pores I guess I think tar was the uh also the other mixed you know another analogy if I'm going to mix metaphors um Christian you've you encounter some very interesting people in this whole process using interesting in the southern way of using interesting I guess um as you were following cold on Danny's castello's Trail I mean would were did you ever feel like your lives were threatened did you ever receive death threats I get there were time there were Dark Times early on before Zach joined me when I was still just alone when I kind of wanted something to jump out of the Abyss because then I would know I was really on to something um but I mean no there have been like weird little instances but nothing nothing overt yeah thank thank god um no um no major uh threats no direct threats okay I think the you see in the we show some of this is that people are often warning us that something bad could happen or that we need to be careful right and fortunately for us there's not been anything that has fulfilled those promises okay because thankfully definitely uh but the reality is I mean as you go through this and some of the stuff just seems so fantastic uh in the sense one of the senses of the word um other there are many tales of Woe here there have been many there they're documented there have been deaths they are this people who keep popping up who are then always popping up around the time that others that are in this Web die as well I mean and Danny was himself warned on numerous occasions isn't that right yeah yeah um I mean I think that part part of the story is about several murders um hence the title and it's about this larger yeah larger crimes and political crimes and things like that but they're kind of interconnected with a series of murders especially that happened on the west coast in the 80s um that we became interested in and we got a lot of document uh documented um you know tapes and documents and various things um that I don't think anybody's ever seen before so we always wondered you know the classic conspiracy question is it connected is it all connected and I think that our goal was to find out the truth one way or another and well I'll leave let people just experience it but I think we pack up the uh several of our thesis with uh evidence that yes there were some connection here and they're pretty wild yeah if for as wild of a story that we're telling it's extremely well documented yeah and yeah so this brings so how do you tell this story so you know and and then how do you pitch this stock because I think there's a point in the film where Danny's let's face it he's got money wos he knows he needs wants to get an advance on a book he's going to go pitch this book but it's too broad it's too wild it's too wide ranging the want no one's going to publish this without more proof you must have been thinking you were going the in the exact same direction didn't you I mean when you're making this like well we were in the same spot that Danny's in yeah it's a it's a task where you're you're repeating history you're hopefully not repeating every bit of the history right right so that was that was this a struggle for us I mean Christian and I have been batting this around and we we you know you know we got really lucky with who we worked with on this the the same two groups of producers who did w Bal country uh found out about this story and they were you know Young and Hungry enough to be willing to go along on the journey with us and they were confident enough which is which is why you know like I said we don't we had never done anything like this before in our lives so uh we got really lucky in that in that respect but I think that for me and Christian can can tell his own side of it but part of the excitement of doing this and part of the giant amount of fear in terms of not in terms of safety but in terms of Storytelling and being able to pull this off was starting a story where you really don't know how it ends and I think a lot of documentaries whether we like to think of them as uh you know happening on the W fly on thewall sort of verit style or not right have a good idea of where they're Landing this thing and we just this is about us not knowing what's going on and us trying to figure it out as we went along and that is why it's both exciting and was uh terrifying to make for me at least and to anyone that didn't mind the spoiler alert It is Well we do land the plane in in a in a field uh it's a field but it's nice really dry Earth um there was an amazing moment and so you know Zach's talking about worrying about Landing in the plane I mean there was times when we were trying to take off you know there was one time where we had the crew book to come and do interviews um on the west coast we we did a lot of the interviews during Co so we basically had to like rather than kind of cherry-pick everybody fly here there wherever we uh we had to um book them out you know and so we do it in a caravan of like two or three cars with the camera people you know we had a small crew but and so we me and Zach went out first like a month early with no interview subjects and we just knocked on doors and and Charmed people and and got and got the interviews that we need that by the time the crew was on the plane um we you know we had the interviews ready I mean it was crazy it was such a a Mad Dash and a a furious project is amazing friends in Netflix about how we did it you know just just anybody who's listening to this don't mention this to Netflix that we were so FL you know see but it was wild because we were we just really quickly it's like we started at the northern tip of California and we just drove to the southern most part in California and so much of the story takes place for one of the at least in California and so we just knocked on every single door of every single person who we knew is still possibly alive many of them even died since we started filming but um it was uh it was one way of doing it I don't suggest it for anybody else we used to listen to music while we were driving around doing this kind of research but at a certain point things got so stressful Zach just wanted to sit in silence I I I would always drive and then some point the book the books on tape stopped and music stopped and we just grinding yeah but I mean ultimately one of the interesting people you meet is uh Mike ronos uh who plays a big part in this story and uh ultimately towards again spoiler alerts but at the end he says basically um ultimately he went with his structure didn't you he says just present the leads get it get that in the can and uh so you you present you you do present the leads and the interconnectedness I mean I don't know if he gets a writer's credit or not but uh um he he also says he promises to gives you the answers once the dock is in the can so has he I'm sorry I just spilled water on my glasses yeah are you cry um he hasn't um I we're we're still in touch but I didn't you know it's balls in his court you know right we'll see right Michael has a lot of stories and um he told a lot of these stories to Danny and he told a lot of these stories to us and uh I think for for me personally I'm was very skeptical of many of the things that Michael told still am skeptical of many of the things that Michael told us but what was weird was going through the process of researching often his most outrageous claims we would do the research and find out that they were true or more true than not for a lot of stuff that that um it's almost uh you know it's it's strange to have somebody say things that seem so off-the-wall and you're just like there's no way that's real and then you find out it's true and then they tell you something really benol and and you're like well that could be true and it's just not like like one example I got an example I like about Michael is that he he would drop when we first met him in when we picked him up from prison he would drop a lot of names and so here we have all this footage of of him and so we're going through it and we're like all right so what what's true and what's not and so all right well let's like he's talking about this Avant guard theater in the San Francisco hate ashbery District in the mid-60s that he says he was a part of and he's talking about the names the people that that were the founders and were involved in this avangard theater called the straight theater and okay this is this is sort of like outside of the realm of the documentary doesn't make even make it into the docent that episode just like there's so much background to Michael this is just kind of like out outside so I I called the founders of the Street Theater I was like do you know this guy like just like was he there you know that's just what I'm hoping to answer was he just straight up lying about that in general and not Not only was he there but they volunteered and Michael loves this story they volunteered that the night that uh Neil Cassidy from Jack hawx on the road was doing a poetry rap to the Warlock which was the Grateful Dead prior to be calling being called The Grateful Dead the night that he did this 30-minute rap Michael ranido brought a laser from Stanford's laboratory and used it as part of the light show and was like bouncing this brand new laser light technology around the around the straight theater so it's just like you know if Michael would have told me that story I wouldn't have believed him but you know he this guy that founded the straight theater he also said like he didn't like Michael and he didn't understand why he was around or why he was there which also matched like Michael said that he was an informant um I don't know I'm sorry I'm I'm getting too excited about Michael's San Francisco 1960s history which is a story that you know we haven't published so I mean it's this War I mean what it's an interesting point um what is it I mean someone like Mike but there are others who who spin I mean while you even get into this actually these web spinners or whatever they're called um to do you think they just are so in the habit of obus skating and doing all kinds of stuff like that that they just start themselves not knowing what's reality and not or do you think it's uh there do you have any insights because it's it's just these it's I I guess where I'm getting with is I mean cuz I was going to ask you some questions but I don't think I need should ask you do you believe in the octopus what do you you know I mean you let people watch this and you present it well in terms of the evidence you find but at the very least what we can say and whatever you think about conspiracy theories or not or these conspiracies there's this really odd group of people out there they exist you've met them you've interviewed them they're on the film who are in this really weird fuzzy hazy gray world isn't that right Matthew uh Z we yeah go ahead we we have had so many late night discussions at the end of the day about that exact topic and you know our private discussions go into some very bizarre areas and and speculation but yeah this MK Ultra is something that often comes up as a theory it's hard very hard to get documents to prove any of it but it's a sort of recurring theme like yeah I think that you know since it's such a subjective documentary I don't mind going a little bit out of the box of you know Journal straight journalism you know we're interested in documenting in the in the show what's going on but we're also interested in a very subjective point of view of like how where are these people coming from what is the story they're trying to tell what is the purpose of their story to tell and and since so many National Security related things that this story touches on are so purposefully hidden you know they have to be anyways um that you know you you can't help but go into the realm of speculation right so I don't mind doing a little bit of speculating here like Christian and I do but I I think that we talked to a guy named Doug vau who was a who was a reporter and he he kind of goes into this theory about the web spinners and I think that where eyin on this and maybe Christian does too is you know you can't you you can't fully land anywhere on on the such a complicated hir kind of subject but right there seems to be a purpose behind everything that happens here right and we talk this the third episode is called the game and we talk about the game um but strong theory that I have is that there are criminals and criminal Enterprises that are involved with this story that Danny called The Octopus right and we showed of those criminals and criminal activities and these some of these conspiracies seem to do a good job of mixing fact and fiction in a way that obscures the people who are actually benefiting from highly lucrative activities yeah and so those activities some of them we show some of them have been reported out some of them have never been connected quite in the way that Danny connected them before that yeah and uh you know two Bros like us who going into this world we're maybe not the best people to even you know be experts on the subject but it's almost like nobody else is gonna take the pill to to to jump into this and just here you know just because something is murky just because the water is murky doesn't mean somebody shouldn't figure out what's what's possibly in there is I guess our philosophy it's maybe not the most New York timesan journalistic effort but there's something to be said for simply jumping in and finding out what you see yeah I mean isn't it uh one of the deceased now but one of the subjects in the film Robert Booth Nichols even says supposedly said to someone they hadn't worked hard enough no journalist has worked hard enough yet to really know the answers um whether what he really meant by that you know I mean I mean I'm just thought I I should I got to watch myself I do have a years ago I had a had a boss who we were all convinced had connections with a three-letter acronym three yeah one of the um um maybe south of the pomac somewhere there um but um um the thing that I I mean and not in any ways linking him to this this stuff but the thing is what I will say about anytime you meet sort of EX Spooks or or people maybe in that world in retrospect I realized every single thing he you know like if you and I saw each other in the you know going to make coffee at work or something run by the cubicle whatever you just say some off-hand remarks you never you realize that everything he said he had thought of beforehand he had you know there was a reason for every single thing he did and it's like I think it's I don't know again it's all conjecture it's speculation but there's something about this world that even those that are the most well-meaning even those who let's say they don't have any blood on their hands uh I think it's just a it just it's such a foreign world I think maybe that's why no one especially for people who are inquisitive like yourselves and others maybe that's why we've never really gotten to the bottom of this stuff it's it's so beyond the way we kind of see the world and operate what what do you think about that as a um it's like stumbling upon an alien game right yeah yeah interested in the game but you don't know the rules and so you try to play it but there's people who know the rules and and it's maybe even being improvised as it goes along on top of all right extremely complicated and it's a it's a the game essentially is one of information you're passing information around and you're trying to you're putting disinformation out there into the world seeing who's going to bite on that and how that information travels and then you if you have another person like Robert Nichols maybe hates Michael ranoso so he puts this thing there about Michael ranoso he sees who bites on it he watches the game of telephone he calls all these journalists and sees what they say to the other person and how that gets to back to Mike so he does he accomplishes several things he gets to see what the what people know about him because he finds out the other the opposite flow of information he gets to insult Michael or whoever his enemy is and he gets to see the structure of the communications that are happening so it's a pretty powerful and whether it's formal intelligence or not formal intelligence-based kind of operation or game um it's definitely one of information and and some kind of intelligence gathering and Christian I think there's a point in the film because you are as much as being I say you're filmmaker you're also a subject in the film I mean you even get to play Danny don't you uh yeah that's true in the film uh which was uh that must have been that's a quite a scene too with his uh his friend who remarks about how how much you resemble resemble Danny and all this uh but uh uh I think you're saying you don't know what to believe anymore is that do you do you believe anything anymore what is that uh um you know when when you go I mean I you know it's a I guess I I I I was always really I was always really offended during like the SC uh political uh campaigns in the early 2000s about calling people a flip-flopper I've always felt like I don't have a stance on anything I'm right I want to keep learning and and this thing is evolving and changing and um I yeah I don't I I don't know what I believe for sure about anything um especially not right off the top of my head but um I mean I could rattle some things off but uh yeah but more importantly oh go ahead Zachary you're about to say sort of like think that movies like the ones that we made can get into a place of like well what did you really find what did you find at the end of the day or was he mer you know and and and we present some evidence that hasn't been seen before or publicly hasn't been seen before accounts that haven't se before um and I think we present opinions on those things yeah they're somewhat informed right but over the course of the movie we also present a lot of stuff that people just haven't seen before that that I think is pretty hard evidence in various right and so um you know yes we're willing to to to dance and and be fluid with our with our mentality and a lot of this the of this film is is sort of in that sort of like well what can we believe what do we believe and I don't think that um we land on a sort of PL place of like mush but you do be become more open to the dance of this entire kind of and being more fluid in terms of not necessarily having to have all the answers but creating your best guess at the time much like how you know science or something is you know is supposed to work I mean we saw it happen to the editors we had uh four editors uh working for almost a year simultaneously on the show and they all got super deep into nothing's as it seems and they it it was an amazing experience and then and then another thing I want to point out is that you know the edit because the story is so complicated the edit took a really long time and Netflix was really cool about being patient and letting us take the time that we needed to tell the story but the other thing is I did a and I did a lot to service the edit of the film but when I had all of that those responsibilities done I still went to work every single day and I would continue working on the investigation and so by the time I mean by the time we got to certain points in the story it it it had changed like you know especially when we get to episode three and we go to San Francisco like I mean that was like at that point when we were filming such an active investigation I had just put all this stuff together and then we're like we got to change the beat sheet up a little bit we got to go out to California like this is a big thing that I just figured out yeah I mean go ahead one last little Salvo to that is like the day that we finished the edit the day that it was like this is done don't get to work on this anymore kind of thing you know like it has to go out Christian gets a letter from the National Archives and Records Administration Nara that's yet another foia request Freedom of Information Act request has been fulfilled and there's documents waiting for him in Washington Wasington DC you know it's just like about about Philip Arthur Thompson really because the thing is what I was goingon to say it was on New Year's Eve I got that cuz you got the the foyer request finally came in to see the files from uh Danny's case in in Martinsburg West Virginia right and you were you were able to I mean there wasn't much left but you were able to go in that something you you show at the end you you're the first people to see this stuff in at least I think the guy says at least 20 years years yeah so did you go that took that took seven years to get those files so this so have you gone and looked at those files but they uh they just arrived so yeah there and it's Zach misspoke it's it's the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office U Oh I thought it was a Nara thing sorry no it's actually there's so many of these I imagine you get them get confused so yeah you know as soon as we finish but we're very interested in Contin looking into Philip Arthur Thompson we got to get out there I know wow well that brings us to um I guess uh we're actually coming to the end of our time together so uh brings us to um um I guess one of the last questions is so what is next for you are you g to you you mentioned you're going to check this out uh Zachary going to return to to scripted what's what's what's next for you two this isn't enough you guys need more so long to me I am happy I am you know that is a very good that's actually the perfect response to that question I mean unfortunately for better or worse there's other stories in this world that I think Christian and I are both interested in telling and there's stories completely outside of it that we're interested in telling and uh it kind of just depends on we just go where the nose takes us okay I'm not trying to go back to freelancing for the New York Times as a photojournalist I want to keep making movies okay and shows and go ahead I'm not burning take me back you know the US Open was a great assignment and uh but I save the last question for you actually Christian uh because the film also I forget her name but there's an investigative journalist and she talks about what it's like to go through one of these Sher yes yeah and so have you been able to withdraw from from all this or has it is it is it sterile tempting is it is it something is it almost like an addiction you're going to have to fend off on a daily basis or do you see that as being a choice that you have to make she said it was a choice I think the ideal is like finding some sort of balance I mean I definitely want to keep studying this material I definitely want to keep sharing what I've learned about it in intriguing and interesting ways um but I also want to you know be healthy and live a long and fruitful life uh maybe find a girlfriend um you know I I you know we're about 50/50 in our audience so you know I'm sure there's someone out there who would uh be interested in in meeting you um and we got a younger demographic don't worry don't judge it on on me um but um uh but no I well good I mean I think it's uh it's I mean I just say I think it's been I I really enjoyed it um for me it's been I mean I lived in DC in the 90s I said I've been to Martin I've been to a lot of these places I've been to sign of the whale didn't think I'd ever yeah U Back in my um drinking days yeah so um this was the side of the whale in loman's Plaza in Fairfax County oh no not the one in DC yeah not in h not not in okay okay well then I haven't been to that one I think he went to both but the SC the that he was more of a Fairfax Virginia guy that's true um I've got my wife watching it cuz she's from she's from Alexandria actually so she's uh she may have been to the side of the way I know who's been the sign of wh Lo's Plaza my my old father-in-law definitely had been but that's that's that's another story um well guys it's been great I really enjoy it definitely recommend the film um it's um it's a great uh great piece of work four episodes they they fly by they're it's it's it's amazing and uh just to remind our listeners and viewers we've been talking with Zachary tritz and Christian Hansen the filmmakers behind American conspiracy the octopus murders released on February 28th on Netflix check it out thanks again for joining us on factual America a big shout out to everyone at in Sound audio in York England for their great studio in fine editing and production skills a big thanks to Amy or our Podcast manager who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show and that everything otherwise runs smoothly finally a big thanks to you our listeners please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas whether it is on YouTube social media or directly by email and please also remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts this is faal America signing off you've been listening to factual America this podcast is produced by Alm pictures which specializes in documentaries television and shorts about the US for international audiences head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode our guests and the team behind the podcast subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook Instagram and X be the first to hear about new productions festivals showing our films and to connect with our team our homepage is faal amica.com