Transcript
In the consult, we discuss cases involving violence, sexual violence, abduction, and murder. Sometimes the cases we discuss involve children. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the consult. I'm Julia Cowley, retired FBI agent and profiler. And today, I'm joined by Jason Usry, podcaster, writer, and editor extraordinaire. So Jason is the host of Santa May Be a Criminal and Missing in a Moment. So those are two podcasts. Santa Maybe a Criminal is a bit more lighthearted, I'd say. And Missing in a Moment, some of your episodes are some of the most compassionate true crime episodes I've ever heard. So I highly recommend listeners listen to those podcasts of yours, but that's not why we're here today. We're here to talk about your latest project, The Story of Temujin Khensu. This is a new podcast that you've spent a great deal of time investigating. And as our listeners know, we covered the murder of Scott Macklem, and we created a profile of his killer. And, ultimately, we believed that Fred Freeman, who's now known as Temujin Khensu, was wrongly convicted. Many people believe that. And so having Jason here today on the show, I wanna discuss with him, you know, what drew him to the case. He went to Michigan to do research on this case, and I wanna find out, you know, how his perspective evolved along the way. So many questions for you, Jason. And so welcome. Welcome to the consult. And by the way, I also have to mention that Jason is not only the editor of our show, but he's also the editor of the prosecutor's podcast and their other podcast legal briefs. So he works behind the scenes on our show as well. But now you're the star of the show today. Welcome, Jason. No. I'm never the star. You're the star. No, I appreciate you having me on. It's a great honor to be here. Obviously, we've worked together for more than a year. It's been so eye opening to hear what it's like to be, you know, in the BAU and to walk through cases and, you know, learn some of the things that you did when you were with the Bureau. And a lot of those things informed my approach to the way I've tried to investigate this case. I don't really consider myself an investigator, not my background, but I have learned a lot by working on a number of different true crime podcasts, including Yours and Brett Analysis and LA Nautica Confidential, which is a forensic psychology podcast, and I've worked on numerous other ones and taken a lot of that experience and it has helped inform the way I talk to people and the way I look at cases. So I'm grateful for the chance to be here today and to talk about the project. Yeah. And you're already in media. That's your background. Right? Yeah. My background is in broadcast television. I've written a few movies that I have had fortunate to be produced. And back in 2018, I I started working on the podcasting journey with a couple of retired law enforcement guys. It was that podcast was called End of Watch with Bootsie and Sal. Bootsie was a former homicide detective in Savannah, Georgia, and Sal, a guy named Lou Velozzi, who actually has a show on, HBO Max and Discovery now. Lou was an undercover ATF agent, and their careers ended sort of unceremoniously due to the things they saw on the job. And the focus of that show was to break down barriers as it relates to mental health in the law enforcement first responder community. I'm very proud of that. It was is very raw, and that was sort of the the deal. They wanted to be raw, sort of uncut, you know, sort of thing. The sound's not that great in many of the episodes. But it was just, you know, two cops chopping it up with people that they met along the way and ending it with talking about the impact they had on their mental health. And then also giving a shout out to a law enforcement officer who had died in line of duty. So I'm very proud of that show. I ended after some time because of, you know, time and everything. And then, I got involved with with Brett and Ellis a few years ago, and then well, actually, during the time of the end of watching Bootsy and Sal, I got involved with Shiloh and Scott. I started editing their show, then got involved with Brett and Ellis, and then, of course, got involved with you. But my background has been in media since I effectively got out of college about twenty plus years ago. And it's been a really, really interesting thing because media, as you know, has evolved and you've had a really cool opportunity. I'm a storyteller at heart. I'm from the South. I'd love to I just love to sit on the front porch, sipping sweet tea and telling stories just like everybody that came before me. And podcasting is another way to do that. And as it's evolved, we've had a lot of opportunities to tell some really cool stories. And to just quickly go to Santa Maybe a Criminal, a true crime satire podcast about Santa Claus being arrested in a small Georgia town and an amateur podcaster's quest to free him and save Christmas. And I play the amateur podcaster because I was still learning how to do podcasting at the time and, you know, sort of very intentional that we we move that way. It and Missing in a Moment have taken a little bit of a hiatus just because I've been delving into what we're gonna talk about tonight. The Missing in Moment is a podcast that was spurred by a number of people who wanted to hear me do something serious because Santa maybe is, you know, is lighter hearted. It's sort of a hope angle there, and it's like writing a sitcom every week. And I was asked to do some serious things, and so I said, I'll give it a shot, and gratefully had some good success with our first couple episodes with that. And and I have several more researched, thanks to a wonderful researcher I have, and one to a couple written and then one that's almost ready to release. It just depends on the timing with this insane rabbit hole that I'm in the middle of. Well, I was gonna say too, I should have introduced you as well as a master storyteller because you are great at telling a story. Something I really admire because I'm just not a creative person. I'm very straight to the point. I write in a law enforcement format. I don't add a lot of descriptive words and things like that. So I don't think I'm a great storyteller. So I really admire somebody that can tell a story the way you do so elegantly and articulate. It's a real talent that you have. And so I think that's likely. I anticipate that is what is going to set apart your coverage of Temujin Khensu and Scott Macklem from the other shows that have covered it in in a much different way. But, you know, I wanna back up and go, like, what drew you to this particular case, and how did you learn about it and become interested in it? Yeah. So I first found out about the case with Brett and Alice, the prosecutors, their coverage of it. I think it was March, early April of '20 '20 '1. They were new to the game. I was a fan of theirs very, very early on, long before I had to buy bread a drink and convince them to let me edit their show in Las Vegas at CrimeCon a few years ago. A perfect time to strike. Exactly. Exactly. It just took an old fashioned he's he's easy as a sell. But but no. Like, I heard the case first on their show, and, of course, it struck me as very, very unique. They've done some sense. They've done a few wrongful conviction cases since, but this was the first one they'd ever done. And, of course, you know, I'm listening to the prosecutors and they're basically saying, we don't believe this guy did it. So that stood out to me. And, you know, it it it sort of languished in the ether for me for a bit. And then I found I came across a few other podcasts that covered the case. And of course, every time I I heard about what the facts were, my concern raised each time. And then Paula Kinsu, who is Temujin's wife, reached out to me on Twitter. Back then, it was still Twitter. And she said that she loved Santa Maybe a Criminal, and so I was like, oh, you're Timogen Kinsley's wife, and she said, yes. She says, he can't listen to it in the prison. Would you send me a script so he can read it? And I said, absolutely. A %. For sure. And I said, just so you know, I believe he's absolutely innocent. And I sent the script off. And then around Christmas time, I got a letter from Timogen, very nice thank you note, and it was a very touching note. And it sort of stuck in my brain. Right? Still not really interested. Like, I'm not again, I never identified as an investigative journalist or anything like that. I still don't. But, you know, it was just one of those things that was just there. Like, it was just sort of hanging around in my head and my heart and everything. And then last year in about sort of early March, I really, really started to look at the case and think, I think I have to do something about this. And I don't know what it was that really, really pushed me to have that gut feeling, you know, aside from just the culmination of the the feeling that something was wrong here, because I'll and I'll be the first to tell you, like, I believe that most people who are incarcerated earned their way there, and they deserve to serve the sentences that they've been given. But it just kinda hung around with me, and then when I started to feel this pull, I started really reading reading up on it, and then finally just told Paula, I I think I gotta do something about this, like, I don't know if I can do anything more to help than than's been helped, like, a bunch of gigantic podcasts have covered this and he's still in prison, but I don't believe he needs to be there. And, you know, if I can, you know, provide some little measure of opportunity to get him out. I wanna do it. What I didn't know was it it was gonna be the wild ride it has been so far. But I'm very grateful for the ride because I've learned a lot and there are a lot of wonderful people, including you, who have really set the tone and given an enormous amount of help to me and an enormous amount of content for everyone to take in. Well, one thing that you're doing that is different than I think other podcasts have done, at least I know for our show, we don't reinvestigate cases. You know, as even as profilers, we're not the investigators. We don't go out and reinvestigate. We look at the investigation that's given to us. So one of the things you are doing is you're going out and you're talking to people. You're visiting the area. You are looking as well through all the records. And when you started this and you spoke to me about it, you said, you know, I'm gonna be upfront with everybody. I'm gonna be upfront on the show that I am going into this with a bias. I believe he's innocent. But I'll tell you that as you and I have talked, as you've gone through your investigative process, you're really questioning everything. You're not just looking at this in through the lens that of that he's innocent. You're really questioning everything and looking at it even though you went into it thinking he's innocent. I'm not saying your mind has changed, but I think you're doing a really good job. You're asking the right questions. You didn't set out to say, I'm gonna prove he's innocent. I'm going to tell a story and see where that leads me. And that's the way an investigation should be done. You follow it. And so I commend you for that, but it's hard to set your bias aside and look at things in a critical way. But I I know that you're doing that. Is did you expect that? Or did you set out to do that? But because you you'll call up and say, well, what do you think about this? This, you know, or what about this piece of evidence? And you're really questioning everything. And I think that's fantastic. You're not just trying to tell the same story that's been told so many times, glossing over things. You're really digging in. Well, I mean, I think both Temujin and Scott deserve those questions to be asked because if he didn't do it, which I fully believe he didn't do it still, even though I am asking those questions, they both deserve the answer to those questions, and they both serve somebody that's gonna be out there who's committed to trying to find the truth. And as far as I'm concerned, you know, yeah, I'm not trying to prove that Timogen is innocent. I'm trying to prove the truth of what happened that day. And while I do walk into this with a bias, and I am harder on that bias, you know, that's probably a blessing in disguise, frankly, with the way I'm doing this because you know we've been on hours and hours worth of calls where I'm calling and I'm poking at that bias, and I'm trying to poke holes in my own thinking because I don't have the experience you have. In my interview with Temogen, I poked the same thing. And as I view this, we have two life sentences and one search for the truth. One of those life sentences ended in Croswell Cemetery and my first trip, one of the things I'm very proud of and have a lot of, you know, honor about is that I made it a point to go and visit Scott's grave when I was there. I felt it to be the right thing to go and have a moment of silence and prayer with Scott. And then when I went and interviewed Timogen the second time I was in Michigan, I started that interview with him, the official part of the interview, we had small talk in the beginning, but I started the official part of the interview with a prayer. And my prayer is this, to find out the truth and get justice for both of them. I think that if we get closer to the truth for what happened that day, then we have an open avenue to free Timogen, but we also have an opportunity to give Scott what he deserves. And it has been an eye opening journey. I did not expect to go into it doing this the way it's been done. I thought I was gonna tell a hero story for someone who was wrongly convicted. The truth is much messier when we actually look at everything. And I looked at this for years before I even decided. In my mind, I was walking into a win easy. You know? It was supposed to be a win. It was supposed to be a good, great story, and it was supposed to come to the the same same conclusion everybody else did, which, you know, that's well on the way. But when I got into the middle of it, I realized that the good thing to do, the right thing to do as you all did in the consult, is to really, really take a hard look at the things that we know and then ask a question on everything. And I think that that's sort of the issue with some of these cases is that, you know, I I do believe and I have been told by law enforcement whom I've interviewed about this case that there was really just one guy that was honed in on, and we don't ask questions. We don't we don't teach our kids to ask questions. We teach them to give answers. But the most important thing I've learned in this whole entire process is, like, I've learned how to ask questions now. And sometimes those questions do nothing, and sometimes they actually open up an entirely new door that I get to walk through. And sometimes it's literally me sitting in a restaurant or in a bar and talking to the person that's sitting next to me and just saying, hey. Have you ever heard about this case? And the first time I was there, almost no one knew. The second time I was there, I had more success. And I had more opportunity to continue conversations with people that could help us get to a place where we we know a little bit more about the the people, places, and things that happened that day. Yeah. Which was not done at the time, surprisingly. They It was not. They all live there. They work there. These questions were not asked at the time. That was one of the biggest frustrations we had when we looked at the case. So many unanswered questions, questions that were just never asked, to be honest. So when you went out there the first time and you and I talked after that trip and you said you were just amazed how many people, local people had not heard of the case, because I think it's a big case. It has received international attention. Temujin's been on international podcasts and been interviewed. So in the true crime world, it's a well known case. But locally in Michigan, the people that you were talking to, community members that you would just talk to when you were out and about, hadn't heard of it. Was that surprising to you? It was totally surprising because yeah. I mean, I'm I'm living in the true crime bubble too. So everybody that I know knows about the case and certainly is, you know, sort of in the same camp that I'm in. We were in Chesterfield and Yale, Michigan and in Port Huron and then went up to Escanama, drove the route that would have had to have been driven for if he drove down in a car, I would have driven that route to Murder Scott. And in all of that time, I probably talked to a 20 people. I would I would sort of ballpark it around that. And one person had heard about it and the the person was an older gentleman at the Brass Rail Pub, which if you're in Port Huron, it's right across the street from the campus, and it was about 02:00 and then or maybe it was at 01:00 in the afternoon. And he was sitting there and I walked over to him and just started to talk to him, and I wish I'd put my phone on record because the first thing I told him or I asked him, I said, this is gonna be an odd question, but do you happen to remember a murder that took place across the street at SC 4 about forty years ago? And he goes, oh, yeah. Isn't that the one where they got the wrong guy? It's first thing he said to me. And I was like, yeah. Well, that's kinda why I'm here. And we talked about it. And he said, as I remember, he was there was way more evidence of him being up north, which is what they call the EP there, up north and there was of him down here. And I said, yeah, actually, we're about to get in the car and go up north today. And that was the only time that I got that when I was there the first time. Most people had not heard of it. Most people, when I would tell them the the story, I had half of a bar enthralled. You know, there were 10 guys listening to me tell the story. They're all on their phones looking it up and got a couple really good advocates out of that meeting. Some people up north in Escanaba, this should be a Netflix series. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully, knock wood. Netflix if you're listening. But it but it does have that really engaging thing because when you just look at it, and it sounds so inconceivable. It it's hard for you to imagine that this could have happened. And obviously, I don't know all the reasons or motivations that happened the way it did. You know, you deal with people, everyone has their own different agenda, and when you mix a bunch of people together in the soup, you got a bunch of different agendas going a bunch of different ways, and this just seemed to be the recipe for putting a guy in prison that I fully believe does not deserve to be there and he's been in there for thirty eight years, and that's another thing that people roundly say to me is, but he's out now, right? Like, no, he's not. He's literally interviewed him just a little bit ago. People are, like, mind blown by this. And the other thing I would like to say too is in all the people that we've talked to over the course of these two trips now, because I got denied to talk to him my first trip, fought for it, got it the second trip, The people that I've talked to, there are no boundaries to who they are. They cross political, racial, socioeconomic boundaries. Like, people of all walks of life, when I tell them the story and encourage them, I obviously always encourage them, like, just look it up. Like, you can get the information you need, and you don't don't just take it from me. They are all just completely shocked that this has gone on so long, and I just wanna reinforce again because I think what happens in these cases is that the story becomes the story is gonna be about Temujin Kinsoo and what has happened to him. And if I had it my way, it would be about both Temujin and Scott in equal measure. The problem is we don't have a lot about Scott, and I wanna tell the full story. So I try to make sure that I mention Scott's name. Scott Macklem died 20 years old, St. Clair County Community College, November five, nineteen eighty six. I wanna make sure that his name gets resurrected in a way that we give him honor and that we understand that he was a kid who was shot dead in broad daylight on the campus of his college. And I think in some of these cases, the victim's name, because they've long been buried, sometimes takes a back seat, but he was the first victim. And I just wanna make sure that's known. Yeah. And you visited the very spot where he was killed, and you sent me a picture. And I looked at him like, this doesn't look like it's changed at all. It was quite it's always surprising to me after all these years when a crime scene doesn't change because normally they do. But the picture you sent me, I'm like, that looks exactly like the spot. And you did visit not only the crime scene where he was killed at the college, you went to Croswell, you went up to Escanaba, you visited all these areas. Were there any surprises to you? What were your impressions? Well, I mean, I think my impressions downstate sort of in the thumb. Like, it's funny because, you know, there's the joke about how people from Michigan use their hand to say where you are, and it stood out that things were small, like, very small. I you know, the Port Huron is a very, very classic sort of coastal blue collar town. You know, it's right there on the Saint Claire River. You know, when you drive into town, you pull your phone out, it says, welcome to Canada, because you're literally I mean, I could probably throw I could throw a baseball to Canada. That's how close even with my old shoulder. But, I mean, it is a working class town, you know, talking to people there, you know, it's a port town. I was interested in what, if any, drug trade may have been there both then and now. I live in a port town right now. We see those things happen. That's something that's very interesting to me that may or may not have played a part in this case. So I was interested in those things, those questions too, not just about what we knew about the case, but what what sort of environment that was surrounding both at the time and now. With up north, what was really interesting was we were told so is is this is kind of this is kind of funny, frankly. But so, you know, downstate, it was, wait, you're going up north? And I'd say, yeah. And people say, well, things are different up there. Do you have a gun? I'm like, well, I don't have a gun. I mean, looking around here, I could probably get one if I wanted one, but they don't have a gun and I don't think I need one. And, you know, everybody that we talked to is just they were just perfectly lovely, wonderful people, very interested in what I was there to do. And, well, you know, found a lot of love for both places. Escanaba is really just right on the the coast of Lake Michigan. Beautiful, beautiful spot. Probably even really cold right now and really snowy right now, but beautiful spot. Went to Rock, Michigan, which is where Timogen is alibied by Michelle Woodworth, who I also interviewed in Petoskey on that first trip. He's alibied with her there. She was not called to the stand, and then we don't wanna rehash the trial or anything like that. That'll come in the podcast, but went up to Rock where he was living, which is, I mean, smaller than small. It is there's one gas station in the town, and it still has little spinning dials. Doesn't even have a digital reader on it. Right? And there's a little bar restaurant in town, went there for lunch and talked to the bartender there. Then we walk in and there's a dog around your feet, you know, and you're petting the dog and eating your grilled cheese or whatever it is. And so it was like which is what I found has has been very, very impactful is just really getting down and talking to people about things, and sometimes they don't those leads don't go anywhere. But you do get a sense of the character of the place, and I think and I hope that is part of what I'll bring to the storytelling is trying to give people a sense of being there and doing this and learning how to do this and really, again, questioning everything that we can question to try to get to a place that we get some semblance of what the truth is in as respectful way as possible. And the other thing was the drive from Saint Clair County Community College, which is in Port Huron up to Escanaba Rock area. Rock is about twenty five minutes north of Escanaba. We drove to Rock, and we stopped and took bathroom breaks and, you know, took a couple of scenic photos and things like that, but it took us nine hours. I know we didn't take two hours to do all that stuff. So it's a hike, and it's a hike in a 2024 Kia, which is what I had rented, and twenty twenty four roads, which were perfect, very good roads there, and and twenty twenty four speed limits, which were 70. And as far as I can tell back then, they were 55 and in perfect weather conditions. And then this was in early October, and it was 70 degrees and sunny. Not a problem at all, which back then it was in it was November in Michigan, the UP, and then down on the lake. And so those were the things that really stood out to me. The people really stood out to me, the the kindness that people showed us, and the interest that people had when they heard about this and they didn't know. From what I could tell, the people we spoke to were very common sense people. And as far as I can tell, this is a very common sense case, and they understood that. And they were just all very engaged, and I hope that, you know, one of them can come forward. We did get a chance to meet with Jim McNeil at Delta Force PI, which is up in Gladstone, which is near Eskenau and Rock, and talked to him about the case, and they're doing some good work up there. They've assigned a new PI to to run down some potential witnesses, people up there that can talk about that day. I was on the phone with that assigned individual earlier this week, and I'm very excited about there there are a lot of things happening now that I think will benefit getting us to a place closer to the truth. Did anything when you were visiting there, did anything change your perspective, or did it just solidify what you already thought? Nothing changed my perspective. You know, it's tough because this is a a case that's Timogen has been in for forty years almost now. And there is a great deal of angst from a lot of people who support him, and I completely sympathize and understand that. What I think sometimes happens in this situation is that rhetoric outruns reason and causes more issues than it causes opportunity. So there are places there are times in the visit where I felt like that might be an issue. Fortunately, it has not become an issue yet. But in terms of just being there and investigating the case, nothing swayed me or made me think anything different than I did. As a matter of fact, I do feel, like, firmer on the side that I was on when I started, but I don't want to ever close the book because there are a lot of things that you can still find out. Right? And that's really kinda what I appreciated with you all when you did the extra episode that you and you called me, and you told me I was actually in the airport. You called me, and you told me that we're gonna do this episode and don't know how it's gonna play out. I know you're working on this, so this means a lot to you. I'm just gonna tell you. Don't know how it's gonna play out, and I really appreciate that. And I I I told you then, it was like I would never ever ask you to say anything but what your your professional opinion is. Like, that to me is helpful. And, like, I'm relieved and glad that it, you know, still was positive in the sense that it reinforced the fact that, you know, you didn't believe he could have done the crime. But, like, I really appreciate the honesty with which you all operate. I know that's a function of your training and who you are as people, and I really appreciate that. And that's you know, I'm trying to emulate some of that myself. And right before we jumped on the the call, you were talking about you're very, very analytical and, you know, kind of straightforward. And, you know, I am a more emotional creature. Shocker. For anybody that doesn't have me. For anybody that doesn't have me. But I am, you know, genuinely trying to do the right thing as it relates to being honest about those things. And, again, like, a lot of that is because I do believe that Scott Macklem deserves to have his story told as well, and and it breaks my heart in a lot of ways that I will not be able to tell a story that we have a couple of photos of him on the Internet and very, very little else to go on aside from people that very likely will not talk to me. But I hope if they hear me talk about this, despite the fact that I do believe the wrong person's in prison. I hope that they would be willing to tell me who he was because that's the way he can live forever. And so we just tell a story. And I'm very, very passionate about that, and it really does give me a lot of pain and hurt that we can't do that as it is right now. But I'm not gonna stop trying to do that for him and his family. One of the things that you and I had talked about and, as you mentioned, the additional episode we ended up doing after receiving the commutation hearing transcripts. We had a long talk about who he really is or what was going on with him back then. You asked, I mean, you really wanted to go in and do a productive interview with him. And I think I told you, I I don't wanna hear another bro interview. Hey, bro. Hey. I don't wanna hear that. I've heard him interviewed many times. And what we know about him, which is not always the romanticized version of the wrongly convicted hero who was just a stereotypical bad kid at some point. You know? But what we have is what I believe you have somebody who was abused and had significant issues. A lot of that goes to his insecurities and all of that manifested as he got older. And he had he's impulsive. He was violent. All these things. He's very controlling. And he's controlling because he didn't have control when he was younger. It felt like he has to control everything. One of the things that I think he has done is he's tried at least to control the narrative of his story. And so you didn't want to go in there and and allow that to happen. You didn't you wanted to do an authentic interview with him and not let him control everything. And I can't wait to hear in your podcast more about your interview with him because you approached it probably different than any other journalist or podcaster that's interviewed them on their show has ever approached it. What was that like for you? Because as you said, when we first started talking on today's show, that you wanted to tell this story of a hero, and now you're sitting in front of him. What was that like? Well, it's interesting because you go through the rigmarole of getting searched and going through the metal detector and all this stuff. And, you know, I walked through the the gate at the prison, and they had a little room for us. And there's a glass window, and I thought it was honestly like a two way mirror because he was standing there, like, sort of in a resting sort of karate stance with this sort of angry look on his face. And I was like, I mean, is he mad at me? I don't know what's going on here. And I got in there and he was upset because of some of the procedural things that happened with the visits. And we had some small talk, and then I I said, okay. Well, let's you know, I've only got I had a two hour block, so I said, well, we've we only got a little bit of time here, so let's go through this, and I wanna start this differently. And we said the prayer, and he was surprised by that, genuinely grateful by that. Oh, and I wanna stop you right there because you that was your idea to do that and you had run that by me before. Like, I don't know if this is gonna go over well, but what I thought was you were setting the tone of this is what this is about. Yeah. This isn't about you. It's about the truth, and it's about Scott. And I think you set the tone, and and I'm glad he was receptive to that. And we'll talk more about your relationship with him because I think you've developed a very special relationship and a different type of relationship than many other people have with him. And it's because of the way you've dealt with him. But go ahead. I didn't wanna interrupt I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just wanna say that I thought the way you started that really, it set the tone of how how this is gonna go. Yeah. No. I mean, it was it was very powerful. I I started praying for Scott and his family and ended praying for Temujin and our search for the truth and for justice. And he thanked me. He pulled out. He was wearing a Celtic cross. And when I asked him to pray, he pulled it out. And we prayed together and he was thanking Jesus and things. And it was super powerful to me and I'm very, very grateful for sharing that moment with him to talk him through that because I think that was sort of setting the tone that I didn't need to hear everything that I've already heard a thousand times before. I wanted to get to some things that were more about him, that were more about his experience, and he did talk about his abuse. He told me some very vulnerable things that sometimes spurred questions that went nowhere, sometimes spurred questions that went, I think, right to his core. And I do think of I've listened to a lot of things with him, and I do think that I got a very, very, very honest, authentic interview. And if you listen to Timogen, it's really easy for you to say it's performative or an act. And sometimes even I can listen to him and think that. What I can tell you is 80% of the interview that I have with him was not an act because I was there. The sad thing is I couldn't record it, but I wrote a ton of notes down. And they're you know, sitting across from him talking to him, I worried because if you listen to Timogen talk, you can tell that he does do exactly what you say. He tries to run the thing. He's got his he knows what he's talking about. He's a he's a he's a brilliant guy. Like, he's one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. I mean, he he has a steel trap memory. I've gone back. I've questioned things that you said to me, and I've gone back and looked at the case files. Like, he has it all in his head, and he can spit it out at a moment's notice. And those who knew him when he was younger described him as being smart and brilliant as well. He absolutely is. Everything you hear like that, he is that guy. The problem is with that, you can get enamored with that persona and just you just allow him to talk. And, you know, he he really did when I said, you know, let's let's go back. I I got I got these questions I need to get to. You know? He really did allow me to talk. He was very, very, very, very gracious. He was very, very attentive. He was the most focused, I think, I've ever heard him. It did genuinely seem like he really cared that I was there and really listened to what I was asking him. And there are a handful of really special moments that I can't wait to share in the podcast. One of them, couple of them were super, super emotional for him and almost made me emotional. It was a special thing, and he answered everything I asked him. And, you know, I hope to get to go back up there again and reinterview him more. Maybe I can convince the state to let me take a recorder in this time. I did have a workaround for that, which I'll reveal in the podcast, so I do have audio. It was it was really a special thing, and I do think we have a a very special bond. And he knows I'm not gonna BS anybody. He knows that I'm gonna tell the truth. I told him early on, if there's any way that I find out that you did this, I'm going to say it. And he said, fine. You're not it didn't happen. You know? And, like, that's then so far, I haven't, you know, found that out, and I don't believe I will. But it is it is interesting to see because reading you know, when you do this, obviously, you know this, and I hope the listeners that decide to take on a case, if they do, really do read as much as they can about people and from every angle because you can find out a lot about how people were. And if you can measure a man by how he was at 23 years old and then measure a man by how he's at 61, and you can see a very, very stark difference. Not in everything. Like, it's a really, really wild thing because I wanna I wanna go back and look at my I wish I had files on me when I was 21 and now I'm 44 to see how much I've changed and how much I've grown. Because you can definitely see a sense of growth in him, and you can see, you know, with the way that the corrections officers there and the other inmates because, again, he's sitting he's looking out the window. I have my back to the window. When people are walking by, they're waving at him. He's saying, how you doing, bud? Good luck. So I was there about to get resentenced, and he was giving him love and good luck and all that stuff, and you can see the respect that he's he's built. And, you know, I asked him about some of that in, you know, in the prison, and he talked about, you know, people would come to him for counsel and things like that. I mean, he's been in there for he's been in prison for thirty eight years almost, and he's sort of the old old guard there now. And it's just an interesting thing. Something like that was an that was an interesting thing I didn't realize that I would kinda take away from it, but it was a powerful interview. I wish I wish I could have had a camera and a microphone in there so that people could see it and test it against everything else that he's done. Yeah. Maybe next time you'll be allowed to I hope so. I'm gonna fight for it. I I had to fight for this interview. I had to fight for this one. And it thankfully, like, when the state agreed, we got a bunch of people up there to interview at the same few days. So that was really, really cool and and good. And I know it did his heart good. I know it did, you know, a few of the people who were there, not just media, but just people, friends who had been there and supporters. One of his alibi witnesses wasn't there and hadn't seen him in since the trial and got to spend a lot of time. I've connected you know, I've talked to that person. We were already connected, but I talked to him after that. And I would you know, it, you know, it was very, very impactful to him. And this and Timogen's case has caused him a lot of angst because he was put on the stand and asked to testify as an alibi witness, and he testified that Temujin was up north. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about your interview with him, and I'm without sounding too condescending. But since I'm older, much older, I could probably say this to you, but I'm very proud of you. I'm proud of the way that you went in there and and did it because I wanted you to do a unique interview with him. As you said, we know his version of events. You've talked to him before. You know you've read everything he said. You've heard him on other shows. We don't need to hear that story from him again. So we wanna hear something that we don't know. And I'm really glad that you went in there and did that type of interview with him so we learn something more, and it informs us even more about who he was then, who he is now. As you pointed out, much of him is the same as when he was a young man. He's certainly grown, matured in the best way that he can being incarcerated the way that he is. I don't believe he has been able to grow or develop the same way he would have had he had opportunities outside. Although, the other thing is that, is it possible that he would have ended up in prison for something else, you know, just by the way his life was heading at the time? We don't know, but that chance was taken away from him. But I'm just really proud you went in there, and we're gonna hear something we hadn't heard before. And for me as a profiler, I can't wait to take those pieces and see, am I learning something new? Is there something in there that makes me or makes our team here think maybe we were wrong? Maybe he did. Not coming from me as soon as I'm feeling selfishly. So, you know, some of what you're doing, we're living vicariously through you. You're the investigator now. We're learning information from you. The more information that we can learn, the more we can try to put the pieces together ourselves and and get to the truth. So I can't wait to hear more about it. I know we've talked a lot about it, but I don't know everything yet. So and I certainly wanna I want the listeners to listen to your podcast to find out all the details. But I do sincerely wanna thank you because you have been my trusted confidant on every new piece of information. You know more than any anybody aside from Carly, you know more than anybody. And Robert Palmer knows a lot too, but I was gonna say trust me, I'm the FBI. Yeah. Exactly. Some people will be like, oh, I don't trust that at all. Yeah. Right. Exactly. So far so good. I haven't breaking news. You're no. You've been amazing in in in everything that I've done. Again, I've picked up pieces from every project. I do put a lot of stock into learning from experience, and I love, you know, working on your show and Brett and Ellis' show and Shiloh and Scott's show and when I worked on Missing or Crawlspace or Women in Crime or Death by Incarceration or in a wash with Boots and Sal or Sam, maybe a criminal and missing a moment. I've loved all these experiences that I've had because every one of them has given me a piece of information that I could take forward to try to navigate a situation. And some of those things, you know, when you're in a restaurant or a bar or your shopping center or in the airport or whatever and you talk to people about the case, it's just it's all relationships. Like, you build relationships, you if you can build relationships with people, you can find ways to connect. And if you find that way to connect and you talk about the case, and someone may have something big. And I can't say what it is, but someone had something pretty big that as soon as I can verify it and get it on the record, it'll be very, very helpful, I think, in what we're doing going forward here. But I am very appreciative of you having me on, letting me talk about the case. You know, it means a lot to me. It's a very, very wild and inconceivable situation and we will move forward in whatever way the truth leads us. And again, I want everybody to say a prayer for Scott Macklem and his family tonight, and Timogen and Paula tonight as they spend one more night apart until we can get this sorted out. Well, I'm really happy to have you on the show to talk more about the case because I find the case fascinating from my perspective as a criminal profiler because I don't wanna call it a vision because that sounds too mystical if that's not what it is. But I have, you know, we we have this profile of this killer. And it's like we know who he is. We just don't know his name. We know the type of person that he is. We know characteristics, and we don't see those in Fred Freeman, who he was back then. We don't see those in Temage and Kensou. I don't know if your show will enlighten us some more. And like I said, maybe we will see some things that we didn't see in our review of the case. But I just feel, as I sit here right now, that there is a killer out there. This person who killed Scott, he's out there somewhere. Probably, you may have even run across him in your travels to Michigan. You know, that I believe the person's probably local to either Mhmm. Croswell or Port Huron. That area, they were familiar with there. Maybe they're even still there. But I find the case fascinating. And as more information comes up, I wanna take another look at it, keep getting as much information as possible. So I'm really glad you're doing this project. I'm happy to have you on the show, and I encourage all the listeners who are interested in this case and and heard our episodes, as well as the prosecutors, they also did a great series on this case to please listen to Inconceivable, the story of Temujin Khensu. And when will that be coming out, Jason? It will be released by the time we drop this, but I'm working to release episodes every two weeks or maybe just based on the nature of investigating. They may delay a week here or there, so I don't wanna say every two weeks is gonna be out, but as you know, this is a gigantic, gigantic case, and every day I'm finding something else, and every day I'm going down another rabbit hole, and I'm reconfiguring the episodes so that they are themed in ways that are, I think, with a storytelling bent, we will go through the case. There are case episodes and trial episodes, but there are things too like talking about the relationships between people. For instance, there's a man named Mike Mongan. Mike is sort of Temogen's surrogate father. He became a supporter of Temogen's and he visits him as much as he can. He's like a father figure to Temujin, and we're gonna have an episode about relationships between parents and and kids. And we're gonna have episodes about eyewitness testimony and hypnosis that, of course, plays a big part in the trial. We're gonna go up in an airplane and do all the things that pilots do to see what it takes to take off and get down and, you know, do those things. We're gonna show all of those different things in a way to try to like I said, I really want the listener to feel like they're in the middle of doing all of this with me and in the hopes that maybe somebody else would if they find something they really believe in, that they might try to help. And that's really all I'm trying to do right now, and I hope that we can do some good with it. I think you will. Where can people find you? I know there's a Facebook page. Yeah. So there's a Facebook page called Inconceivable, the story of Timogen Kinsue. You can find that if you search. And that's a private group, so we will we will approve accordingly. We just wanna make sure there's there's no spies in there from nefarious corners of the Internet. And the the show will be on the trailer's out right this second on Spotify and and iTunes and Apple Podcasts and all of the major places. That's where the show will be distributed as well. And, yeah, the the first episode is sort of a preface. I'm designing this in sort of a way that it's like a book because I want to take the project and turn it into a book project as well. And I am looking to try to put it into a pitch for television as well. I think we do have some opportunities that may give us a chance to turn this into a TB project. So that would be great. But my major goal here is there are two goals. We either one, get new evidence so that we can get the conviction integrity unit in Michigan to reevaluate the case. The other goal is to make enough noise that it can't be ignored anymore. And so any chance we have to do extra media or extra things that could enhance the communication of the story we're gonna do. But those are the two things, and those are the things where people can help the most is to, you know, write the governor or Dana Nessel to talk about Timpson's case. He is prisoner number 189355. He was incarcerated under Fred Freeman. You can talk about reviewing his case in the Conviction Integrity Unit. You can ask the governor, governor Gretchen Whitmer, to grant him clemency or commuted sentence, or we find new evidence. And the investigation side for me has been really we're trying to find new evidence. I have leads on that, but a lot of them are gonna be hard to develop. But from the podcasting side, the goal is to make enough noise about this that the conviction integrity unit along with the voices of everybody singing in one chord, that we need to look at this, they will reevaluate his case. And so that's sort of the those are the two main things that I'm looking for us to accomplish here. And there are a lot of people right now, there are a lot of projects right now, that are looking at Tim Jin's case, and I would encourage anybody to look at all of them and see because you just need to have a whole picture. And that's the thing. It's not an easy picture to put together until you start looking at and listening to all of it. I'm really glad that it was put on my heart to take it on, and I just hope I do everybody proud. Thank you, Jason Asery, the creator and host and, I guess, investigator. Now, Inconceivable, The Story of Temujin Kensou. So that's it for this episode of The Consult. Thank you for listening. Music for The Consult is composed by John Hanske. If you'd like to learn more about our show, you can visit our website, www.truecrimeconsult.com. That's www.truecrimeconsult.com. You can also follow us on Twitter. Our handle is at theconsultpod. Thank you.
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