Reporting from the Edge: Pulitzer Prize Winner Rick Jervis Discusses His Career in Journalism and New Book, The Devil Behind the Badge.

Exploring Journalism: An In-depth Conversation with Pulitzer Prize Winner Rick Jervis

In this episode of 'The Wireless Way,' host Chris Whitaker welcomes esteemed journalist Rick Jervis. With over 20 years of experience, Rick has contributed to major media outlets such as USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and the Miami Herald. He shares his journey from being a journalist to becoming the Baghdad Bureau Chief, and winning the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism. Rick also discusses his debut book, 'The Devil Behind The Badge,' delving into the human stories behind a tragic crime. The conversation touches on the evolution of journalism, the challenges of writing a book, and the nuances of true crime storytelling. Don't miss this insightful discussion about the intricacies of journalism and the power of storytelling.

00:00 Introduction to The Wireless Way

00:28 Meet Rick Jervis: Award-Winning Journalist

02:16 Rick's Early Career and Miami Herald Days

03:37 Internships and Early Professional Experiences

04:58 Covering Major Stories at Miami Herald

07:13 Adventures in Prague and Eastern Europe

08:44 Becoming Baghdad Bureau Chief

11:07 Challenges and Rewards of War Reporting

13:24 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Investigative Journalism

16:56 Evolution of Journalism in the Digital Age

22:14 Exploring the Depths of Journalism

22:35 Introducing 'The Devil Behind the Badge'

22:57 The Call That Sparked a Book

24:20 Uncovering the Victims' Stories

29:18 The Human Side of True Crime

32:47 The Popularity of True Crime

38:20 Future Projects and Historical Fascinations

41:56 The Challenges of Writing a Book

44:37 Final Thoughts and Reflections

Buy his Book:
https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Behind-Badge-Horrifying-Twelve/dp/B0CNQC34Z9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2VQYGBWT7CDM7&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.YRETWVV01pR7Q6NFt2wTeQ.h-a1u6Mq1LEXnEgVNEd5IMHpiQjSEuxOcvCbE7SA37s&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+devil+behind+the+badge+jervis&qid=1726329752&sprefix=the+devil+behind+%2Caps%2C100&sr=8-1

Follow on "X"
https://x.com/MrRJervis

Transcript

Chris: 0:00

Hey, welcome to another episode of the wireless way. I'm your host, Chris Whitaker. And if you're new to the show, or if you've been listening, why just a quick reminder, the wireless way four years ago started out really as more of a technology podcast, but evolved, I realized how important it was to evolve. So it's a double entendre, the wireless way, wireless meaning no strings attached and no judgment. And the ways of the path of journey, the venture. And today we're going to hit on all three of those. And I'm grateful that you're listening and I'm equally grateful that Rick Jervis is with us today. He's my guest and a little bit about him before we bring them on. But Rick has more than 20 years of experience as a journalist for major media outlets, including the Miami Herald, Wall Street Journal, Europe, Chicago Tribune. And of course currently USA Today. He served as a Baghdad Bureau Chief for USA Today, and he won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism for a series on mayoral election fraud wow, in Florida, too he lives in Austin, Texas, though, and he has written a book that I, that's how I met him, at a book signing, actually, and he was just so gracious enough to agree to come on to talk about that, but the book's called The Devil Behind The badge. It's his first book. And beyond being that altered and loving Rosemary Beach and Inlet Beach in Florida his other specialties including covering hurricanes, wars, music, food, and border issues. Rick if we could wrap up any of those into our conversation today, that would be a fantastic as well. Rick, thank you so much for making time. I know you're busy. So you've been doing several other interviews. So thanks for joining us today.

Rick: 1:38

It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Chris: 1:41

Yeah, no, it's definitely an exciting time for me. I said you're a humble guy, but I've you're kind enough to give us, get the book for me here and sign it when I met you down in Florida a little bit ago. And it's really got my gears turning, just thinking about the writing process or storytelling process. And it's funny, I, I do, I've done a complete 100 interviews and I always just really I'm fascinated by how people get to where they are. None of us. graduate high school. So you know what? I'm gonna go write a book one day. I'm gonna be a journalist. Or maybe you did. I don't know. So tell us, how did you get here?

Rick: 2:14

So thank you for that intro. You recapped it fairly well with some of the places that I've worked, but what's not in the bio is actually where I'm from originally, which is like Miami, Florida. First generation Cuban American. My parents actually came over from Cuba in the 60s I was actually born there like in Miami, but Spanish was my first language Spoken at home. I still actually speak it today like with my mom and other family members And I'll circle back later as to why that's important to bring up now. But Miami was very formative for me. It's, that's where I went to high school, graduated high school there, went to the University of Florida in Gainesville go Gators. And I always had a knack and a sort of passion for writing dating back to like grade school. I remember writing these essays and being praised by like teachers on it. High school was like the first place that one of my English teachers made me write for the student newspaper there. And that's how I got into newspaper writing. But then it just took off, University of Florida was was a great place to like study journalism. Besides having really good like professors and classes, it had a really good internship placement program. And so I actually was able to land these like really good internships while while at the University of Florida. One of the first ones that I did was at the Nashville Tennessee Inn in Nashville. And I'm Cuban American from South Florida and I got this internship to write in Nashville Tennessee and what I thought I was going to hang myself from like the first tree. I thought I was going to be miserable because it's the country music capital of the world. And I know nothing about country music and I thought it was going to be miserable, but it basically ended up being this really awesome internship and got a lot of really good clips out of it. Clips are your published newspaper articles. And like you want to round up as many clips as possible. And those clips led me to my next internship, which was in Boston. I got Boston Globe. And those were great too. I had a great summer up in Boston writing for the Globe. I covered arts, but also breaking news. It was a fantastic internship. And with those, I managed to get a job after graduating. I got the Miami Herald, my hometown paper. And so the Mammy Herald was a fantastic place to work as your first job. I can't stress that enough. First of all, some of the best editors anywhere were there at the time. I had Gene Miller who has since passed away, but he was a venerable, just editor icon. And I was lucky to work under him. Plus Miami and South Florida had one like international news story after another breaking in there. And just really weird news too. So like on my beat, one day, I showed up, I was like covering like the city of Miami Beach. So I was working on the beach covering the actual beach. I was like living at the beach at the time. And one day I show up to the newsroom and they tell me yeah, there's a body part that like showed up on the actual beach. Why don't you go cover it? So I went to go cover this. It makes me laugh a little bit, but it's not funny. Obviously it's a very tragic story that these body parts were like showing up on the beach, but I show up and there was a fully, a full leg inside the actual pant leg. And so I'm talking to the cops about this leg which, which had showed up on on South Beach, when I get a call from my editor back at the newsroom saying, we've got another report of another body part about 10 blocks up. So I hop in my car and go around and cover that part of that was a shoulder. And then I get another call that there was another, there was a hand that I showed up like six, five or six blocks from there. And so I end up. Going up and down the beach covering these body parts as they're shoring up and it turns out it was basically Connected to a drug deal gone wrong and somebody who was It was basically dismembered out at sea and all of these body parts showed up another day I actually showed up to the newsroom and they told me to drop everything that I was working on, because Johnny Versace, the famed designer, was shot and killed a couple blocks away, like on my beat. And so I ended up covering the shooting death of Johnny Versace, which was a huge international story. And so that was like the Miami Herald. The Miami Herald was one crazy. international story after another. And it was a great place just to get my sort of bearings and learn the craft. So things were going well with the Mammy Herald. And then after three and a half years, actually four years, I think I got an itch to work, to, to work abroad. And so I ended up quitting the actual Miami Herald and moved to Prague, the Czech Republic. And I just jumped out there had a couple of contacts like work to send back freelance stories, but that's all I did. And that's all I knew out there, and I didn't speak the language didn't speak Czech. And I had a place to live because I managed to set up. This like apartment before I left, but I didn't know what to do. I had a little bit of savings, but not much. And I just went out there just to see if I could do it. And I ended up staying out there three and a half years covering stories, ended up working as a stringer for the Europe, which is what I said are working for them. And a stringer, it's like a step above freelancer, but not quite a full time staffer either. So they pay you Per story and like you get this kind of monthly stipend. And so I did that for a couple of years for them and that was also fascinating. Got me to travel all around Eastern Europe. I was based in Prague, but I did stories outta Slovakia in Slovenia. I went down to I went down to the former Yugoslavia during the. The NATO bombing down there and covered a lot of ground Thats interesting. And then from there. Baghdad Bureau Chief. How long were you there? And did you volunteer for that? Or were you asked to go do that? Yeah, that's a really good question. I think most people wouldn't volunteer for that, but that's something that I did. So Baghdad actually came around because I was working. I was working at the Chicago Tribune at the time. So after leaving Prague, I came back stateside. I wanted to want to get my sort of career going more established stateside. And I had a couple of offers. And I went with the Chicago Tribune. So fantastic city. I love Chicago still. I still love it today. And I wanted to work in this really vibrant, cool city. And went out there and this was right around the time of the Iraq war, Operation Iraqi Freedom. And I was single at the time, I was a bachelor. I hadn't been there that long when Operation Iraqi Freedom happened. It happened in, if you recall, like March of 03. And I think I got there like in February of 2003. So I was a newbie. But and they were looking for volunteers to go basically help out like in Iraq. I put my name in the hat. I said, Sure, I'll go. But I actually volunteered like at a time in 2003 when things were going well back in Iraq, like when I remember when the US forces went in, and they went straight into Baghdad, and they did it in record time. And I took over the Baghdad and basically chased out Saddam Hussein. And everything was going well the Tribune The Tribune didn't ask me to go and tell about a year after that in 2004. And I had honestly forgot that I had even volunteered. It was like a year later, I had actually forgot that I had Put my name in the hat, but they called me out of the blue and asked me if I was still interested. And at this point with, if you recall in 2004, like fall of 2004 was when things were going horribly wrong for the U. S. You had the Sunni Shiite civil war happening. Basically you had people getting abducted and put into orange jumpsuits. You had the beheadings of foreigners. It was a really terrible time there in, in the war in Iraq. Nobody saw, like how the US was basically gonna be able to get out of the war. It seemed like a. endless war. And this is when my editors came to me and goes, Yeah, you raised your hand about a year ago, do you still want to go and they put me on the spot. So I was like, Sure, I'll go. And so I ended up going and was extremely difficult. It was like, it was very dangerous. was extremely difficult just to go out like on your own and basically report stories. But it also was fascinating to me, I just found it endlessly fascinating that you know the fact that I could get this kind of firsthand look At this seminal moment in US history was just fascinating to me. And as a reporter, I was like I just like love doing it. And so I did it for six weeks only for the Chicago Tribune. I went and came back. It was like a temporary stint. And when I came back I heard that USA today, had an opening for Baghdad Bureau chief and I applied and they and. And they basically gave it to me and credit them to, like at that time I had only had that one quick stint for the Chicago Tribune other than that, I had zero experience in being like a war correspondent. I had zero experience like in the Middle East outside of that six weeks stint. And so USA Today took a chance on me and hired me, I think it What was a conscious decision like they basically wanted to bring somebody in with fresh eyes. At that point, the actual war was more than a year old. You had a lot of people who have been there since the beginning. They like they were all exhausted. They were recycling the same stories over and over again. And they wanted to bring in somebody fresh to try to give it a fresh sort of perspective. And that's basically what I did. So I ended up being the Baghdad Bureau Chief for USA Today for over, over two years almost like two and a half years.

Chris: 12:54

Wow. Yeah, it's funny. Not to minimize that. I agree with that. Probably was pretty fascinating to work in that environment. But back when you were talking about the Miami Herald and the body parts on the beach, I was getting ready for you to say, that's a Dexter came to mind. The TV show that Dexter, that

Speaker 3: 13:10

was like Dexter way before

Chris: 13:12

Dexter. Maybe that story inspired Dexter. I don't know. All these body parts were washed enough. It went in black bags though. Did you have anything to do with that? But no that's fascinating. So you went from that USA today. What can you tell us a little bit about the Pulitzer prize? That's just again, everyone knows that. And there's different types of awards, right? But that the series you did, was that, how was that received? Did you, was that difficult to do? Cause again, anytime you'd get involved with politics and fraud, I imagine that was that a tough time in your career to get that accomplished?

Speaker 3: 13:45

Yeah, that was extremely difficult. It was one of the most challenging things that I've done in my actual career and. I was a pretty much newbie there like at the Miami Herald. I hadn't actually been there that long. I had been there maybe over a year or so, maybe like a year and a half. The best part about that is that I got grouped in. So it was a group of us, right? So I got how many people were on that team, 10 or 12 people, but I got grouped with some of the best, most talented reporters and like editors there at the actual Miami Herald at the time, Manny Garcia, who is now who is now like an editor working here in, in Texas and some of the other people on there, Francis Robles, and we all worked on this thing endlessly Day after day, week after week for like months, but I was able to learn a lot from them for sure, but it was a lot of it was really challenging because we were looking into these these fraud allegations coming out of this. This sort of election for mayor and the mayor who was elected Javier Suarez, he was Cuban American. He was extremely popular down in Miami. And I'm also Cuban American, like I mentioned earlier, but he basically went on Spanish radio there like down in Miami and said that the Miami Herald are communist and don't let them tell you anything and don't answer any of their questions. And so we would go up and try to find out. answers to some of these fraud allegations by knocking on people's homes and asking them how they had voted or if they had voted like in these elections, and we were chased off. We were like chased out of their house. We were like, there's this one person who literally grabbed the bat and chased me out of their home, or off their lawn. And they were just saying, Oh, you guys are communist. And so it was extremely difficult. I'm doing it, occasionally out of every 10 hostile people that we encounter, we had one or two who like open the door and basically told us, yeah, I never actually voted in this election, but that's my name and somebody voted for me. And so we were able to string together these this sort of pattern Voter of voting like in consistencies and really showed that the entire election was like fraudulent. Three judge panel ended up yanking Xavier Suarez out of there and placing in the sort of runner up candidate. And so we basically managed overturn this election. And I think Sort of one of the highlights for me personally, besides winning the Pulitzer that year, which was, extremely gratifying for all the hard work we did was being an answer on Jeopardy. And the the question was this Florida newspaper won a Pulitzer for its vote for its work on this fraudulent vote project. And the answer was, what is the Miami Herald? And so being an answer on jeopardy was definitely one of the highlights.

Chris: 16:50

No, that's awesome. When that now you have that the book is a new highlight. Before we get to that, just one last question on journalism. With two decades experience in journalism, I'm just curious how have you seen the industry change, especially in the way of stories being told and how the public consumes these stories? Stories tell us has been around for so long. What's your take on that?

Speaker 3: 17:12

I've seen a change so much with I've like probably witnessed every change imaginable to this media. And, when I was like starting out there, there wasn't really like an online presence. I think the internet was actually around obviously, but there, there really wasn't like an online Miami Herald. Why, yeah there was so like the newspaper was primarily predominantly a physical paper newspaper still, and that's what basically work for. And so like we basically try to get on the front page on Sundays because that was the, because that was like the biggest readership. If you could get on if you get on the front page, like on a Friday or a Sunday, that was like a really big deal because that's when the most number of papers were like read. And when I switched over to USA Today, similarly, still like the our main product was still like a physical paper. And that's all changed. Now, obviously, newspapers have gone online, most of the readers are online. And now I've even seen that shift from most of the readership going online to most of the readership going to people's phones. And that's how people predominantly, watch their news consume their news these days. Is scrolling through their news feeds. And so we've had to adapt, like my adaptation has gone from focusing just on the print product and try to bring like the biggest splashes Articles to, to the printed page, to working more with videos and making videos to go with some of my online articles, which was a phase for quite a while that, that they would ask us to make our own videos to accompany our online articles. That actually went away when people switched to like phones and then we're maybe less likely to pull up videos like on their phone. And and now there's, but there are still all these elements attached to different stories, right? And so we still make videos still go with stories, and videos are just an important storytelling medium as the words themselves. There's a podcast element to USA Today has a podcast the excerpt which runs every day. We get actually interviewed on that as well. And so I'm noticing that there's obviously this kind of constant this constant evolution of how people consume news, but I think that the thing which sort of remains the same is that people are still looking for good storytelling. They're still looking for good. For good writing. I think that still comes out some of the feedback which we get from readers a lot of times it's just that something was really well written. And so I think some of the sort of consistencies are they still want storytelling, they still want writing, like decent writing, and they're looking for context to I think that they're looking for what this. Story means to them and that it's even more important for them to have the important context behind the story than just to have the the sort of bare facts of the stories first. US a today tries to do all those things. I think we do things really well too. One of the things that I'm tasked with pretty consistently is trying to deliver a second and third day stories behind breaking news stories. So I'm trying to explain the actual story better. I'll give you like a quick example. There was a series of shark attacks out in Florida, which you may have read about in along 30A. That unfortunately ended in really tragic attacks with two with two women out there, both of them survived, but there were really tragic attacks in that both of the victims lost limbs, to, to the attacks. We basically sat back and I wanted to see how we like how we bring better information and context to that story. And so I filed a series of about Freedom of Information Act. Requests for information from like the local sheriff's office down there. We've managed to get a lot of documents detailing how the actual attacks occurred and how these bystanders jumped in to help save these people's lives and managed to to basically stitch together a much more comprehensive contextual look. At the shark attacks and how some of the local beach sort of communities basically respond to them. And so that's the type of stuff. I think that we're really good at is coming back with stronger sort of contextual stories behind the actual stories.

Chris: 22:05

Which would you call it based on the story behind the story? Is that a cliche way of putting it?

Speaker 3: 22:10

No, pretty much. That's it. It's or even the context behind the story. But yeah, there's. There's always like a deeper layer to the initial story and that's like what we try to dig into.

Chris: 22:21

I love that. I love that. And that's, that you're right. It's that must be very challenging because, yeah, journalism is not new storytelling is not new, but I feel like our society is always looking for something new. Everyone's, consuming information differently and whatnot. Yeah. I want to change gears a little bit. Again, thanks for sharing all that. That's again, there's so much more to be told. I'm sure, but I want to change gears and get to your new book the devil behind the badge in the back of your book, in your acknowledgement section, I just, I love the way that the book is laid out But you wrote something I was going to read a little, a brief paragraph and ask you to comment on it and take it from there. But you write on Saturday afternoon, September 15th, 2018, I received a call at home from an editor at the USA Today alerted me to news emerging from Laredo, Texas. The U. S. Border Patrol agent had been arrested and charged with the murder of four women. All of them sex workers. Press conference was scheduled for that Monday morning. Take it from there. How did we go from that call to you going, I gotta write this book and then four years later you have the book.

Rick: 23:28

And I think like the like the actual acknowledgement page gets into this a little bit, but I was and I think it states this, that I wasn't happy about that, that, that sort of particular phone call, because it came on a Saturday and Saturday is like, when is, it was like my family time. It's, I work hard Monday through Friday, typically, and Saturday and Sunday is the time to be with my wife and my two daughters. And I wasn't happy about having to go down back down to Laredo like on a Sunday, which is what I would have to do in order to attend a Monday morning. Press conference, the press conference, the city's about four hours away from Austin. And so it's not terribly far, but it's something that that I needed to do like on that Sunday. So I grudgingly went down to Cerro Laredo, but I also realized, like when you have a border patrol agent arrested for anything, it's a big deal. When you got a border patrol agent arrested for the murder of four women, all of them sex workers, all right. I recognized instantly that there was that this was a really big story that needed to be covered. Yes, I wasn't thrilled about it, but I also recognized that this was a story that needed to be covered. And so I went down there and, Another reason why I wasn't thrilled about heading down there, which was because I'm not a huge fan of this sort of pack journalism where you have a breaking story and all these different media outlets show up and everybody's scrambling around for any nugget of information. And I've. I've done it a lot throughout my actual career. I've covered school shootings. Unfortunately, those are the toughest ones to cover. I've covered hurricanes and major breaking stories. And I'm not a huge fan of jumping in, like into that sort of melee and just trying to get scraps of information when everybody else is. So I went down to, to like Laredo attended that very first press conference. And I had a sense, I felt that coming out of that press conference and then talking to folks around the community, I got a sense that there was this underlining thinking that, yes, this is this was a tragic case and this guy did some very tragic evil things, but that these were sex workers and that they put themselves in to this sort of position just because of their character. There's a line of work, and there was this underlining thinking that these were sex workers and that they. And bad things happen to them. And then that's that. And I just had a feeling instinctively that there was more to learn about them. And while everybody was really focusing on him like on this, on the actual perpetrator, and find out as much as they could about him and what, and what drove them to do that, his motives, all of it. valid questions, obviously. I pivoted and wanted to find out more about the actual victims. And so I focused on trying to find out who these women were, how they ended up on the streets And what exactly put him in the path of this serial killer. And what I found when I started to meet the families, the first one, the first person that I met was Cristina Benavides, who's Melissa Ramirez's mother. And she is she was the first victim killed. I found somebody who was still extremely hurt over this. Got a sense that she still very much loved her daughter and hadn't like really given up on her. And that she told me stories about being in touch with her, like seeing her just a couple of days before. And she told me a story of over the years, like she basically knew what Melissa did for a living and knew that she was mixed up in drugs. All of these women, by the way, had like really debilitating drug addiction issues and substance abuse disorders. So they were all so they were all like mostly on the streets because of that. And Christina knew this and she like teared up talking to me and it basically was hard for her. for her to talk about. And then I met the the family of the second victim, Claudine Loera. I met with her sisters, like two of her sisters and her grown daughter Ciara, who was, I think, twenty, twenty five. Three or 24 at the time, maybe even 22. Sierra also told me like a heart wrenching story of trying to get her mother off of the streets and finding an apartment where they can both live and was in contact where they're right up until the her very final days. And it struck me that, that. That these are women who were beloved, who their families never ever gave up on them. And it just seemed different to my thinking of, sex workers with really bad substance abuse disorders. Because the sex workers that I've, read about in the past all seem to be ostracized from their families, right? Like they like they go on the streets and they have these drug addictions and their families like have ties with them and want nothing to do with them. And what I found like back in Laredo was the opposite of that. I found these families who really loved these women who never actually gave up on them. And I don't know if it's like a Latino thing, if it's a Hispanic cultural thing. But they love these women and never give up on them all the way to the very end. And I found that really compelling and really fascinating. And so I realized that there was a deeper story to do here. And that's how the sort of book came about. And so from like day one, I really wanted the sort of narrative spine of the story to basically be about the women, about their stories, about their struggles, their imperfections, warts and all, but show how they also had like ambitions and they, and all of them to a T all for the one, like wanted to basically get off the streets. Nobody. Wanted to be on the streets. They all wanted to get off the streets. They had some of them three out of the four had children which I wanted to go back home to. They had, there were sisters and daughters and wanted to show them. In that full picture and then digging into the actual investigation itself and how investigators tried to catch up with the actual perpetrator on David Ortiz and how all of these different lives intersected. I found fascinating and that's the basic story behind my behind the actual book.

Chris: 30:21

Oh, that's fantastic. And even after. reading the first few chapters, I like the approach you take, because you just don't tell the story. You don't just report on the interview. You just don't share what you learned from the law enforcement. It's written as a novel, right? You humanize these women. And and I got to admit I remember that story breaking years ago, which is why I was, when I met you and I realized what you wrote, I was like, yeah, I remember that. I felt a little guilty. Cause yeah, I was ah, And the sex workers that's what you get. They're there. You play with fire, you live by the sword, you die by the sword, whatever the saying is. But after reading these stories, I'm like, yeah, some people just dealt a bad hand in life. And they have circumstances that, yeah, it's easy for a guy like me to say rise above, but they didn't or couldn't. Yeah, you definitely humanize the story make it you start to realize this This was a good person that just had bad circumstances and wow, it went really bad for them.

Rick: 31:16

I think it's not even it obviously wasn't only you either way. There's, I think that's a more sort of common approach when reading about sex workers, especially sex workers with these really bad drug addiction issues. And. And they were just like really under the thumb of some of these drugs, most of them heroin. I like the sort of opiate crisis is like a big thing, which, which affects, millions of people across this country. And I think anybody who has been even, just. barely touched by the opiate crisis could read this book and relate and in some ways that you know these are not bad people these are just people who were put into these circumstances who fell into these circumstances and one of the things that I try to point out in the book too is that there wasn't a lot of social structure to help them out of it either, like the, like there, there wasn't even like a overnight rehab center there down in Laredo, the the closest one was in Corpus Christi, two and a half hours away driving. And so it really was up to them and like up to their families. So I try to get them off the streets and a lot of them tried and just, I couldn't just couldn't make it happen.

Chris: 32:34

But definitely, yeah, if you're listening please check out the show notes for the links and check out this book. Along that same lines, guess it falls in that true crime. This is definitely nonfiction that you did get the true story really happened. True crimes become so popular now, especially in recent years. I think the first podcast I ever listened to was one called S Town. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's about a murder that happened in Alabama. But why do you think people are fascinated with these stories?

Rick: 33:04

That's a that's actually a great question. Tell you something that a lot of people don't know about me. I'm not a huge true crime consumer. Like I don't I don't watch a ton of true crime documentaries. I don't really actually read a lot of true crime other than books that like helped me with this book. I do like true crime podcasts, and I have listened to those. But That the sort of culture and popularity behind true crime fascinates me too. And I got an inkling of this when I was attending on David Ortiz's trial in San Antonio back in 2022. This is the actual gunman who perpetrated all of these crimes in my book. I went to his trial because He was arrested and tried, and I'm sitting through his trial, and it, first of all, like it was being filmed by Court TV, Nightline was basically also there gathering information. And There was that but then people would show up there was people who would show up and sit in our kind of press galley area, and I talked to them and they had no actual connection to anybody in this case, but they heard about the case and just showed up because they were fascinated by that. And I found it really intriguing that here are people who have zero connection to anybody in this like it's not a victim's family. It's not a member of his family that they either had heard about it like on the news, or saw it on court TV and showed up and sat through day after day of this trial. And I'm like, wow, there are people out there who are just fascinated by this. And I don't know what exactly drives them. But the thing which I found really interesting about true crime, and maybe others share this also, it's not the it's not the crime, the crimes themselves, but it's it's it's how normal people react in these really horrible situations, right? And the thing that I enjoy actually about covering, not so much crimes, but like these really horrific situations. It's it's like hurricanes and I've covered a number of them or some other tragic event or natural disaster is that those types of events, although tragic, bring out some of the best in like people to you, right? Like you really see people stepping up and either doing acts of like heroism or helping other people or stepping up and doing things that, that they never imagined that. they'd be able to do. And that's what intrigues me about it, is how true crime, like how these incidents, impacts people that never felt safe. foresaw themselves in these situations. All of the victim's families, for example, got to know all of them really well for the families of the four victims in this case. That's in my book and all of them got to know one another. And they've since gone to to each other's birthday parties or had barbecues at each other's house. And and to see these people connect. Within this otherwise really tragic situation is really kind of heart warming for me and I just see that there's a that there's really this incredible side to humanity that always emerges out of these situations. I think another thing is to. That especially like in a case where you don't know what happens, people are also intrigued by that, to see how these things play out. And then and in my case, in the case of my incident I think there's a fascination too, when it's done by somebody who you wouldn't expect to be doing it. Am I, My case, I think, is a classic example of that. David Ortiz was a Border Patrol agent. He was married with three kids. He was a, he was like a 10 year veteran of the agency. He was a Military veteran and literally nothing in and his personnel record or his background pointed to any to him being capable of anything like this. And so when people who you would think otherwise, like outstanding citizens. Something in them snaps and they and they engage in crimes like this. I think that also fascinates people.

Chris: 37:40

Wow. Yeah, that those were all brilliant points. And I agree with you as you were talking. I was even thinking about And what is it that I, drawn to and I'm not a huge follower of it either. Like I said, I actually got turned on, to my first podcast ever. Someone told me a story about a true crimes podcast and I listened to it. And yeah, I think it was more like I'm just blown away about what people are capable of doing even. It's I can't believe that actually happened. And it's just, is this fiction? No, this is not fiction. It really happened. And I loved your approach to the silver lining. At all things that go wrong in life, there's always someone usually there to Hey, I'm here to help you get through this. So that's a beautiful observation. Is there a story or topic you haven't covered yet that you would like to explore in the future?

Rick: 38:26

If I'm thinking about doing more long form like book length, the things which really intrigue me and I'm fascinated by history I would love to dig into a really interesting historical story. I'm not exactly sure what that story would be. I think it would have to be driven by really interesting characters. I think everything that I do, especially this book is filled with like really colorful characters. I think anything that I do would have to be driven by really interesting, colorful characters. Characters. But I would love to explore something that happened either in the recent past or the far away past. Elements of the Spanish American war fascinate me. I think it's my Cuban background, but just the fact that Cuba like at the time drew all these Americans there. From, Teddy Roosevelt and Rough Riders to journalists who, who made really big names for themselves by going to Cuba and and basically reporting on this, on the Spanish American War. I think there's something really fascinating to write about there. But I don't know I could also see myself stumbling onto another really intriguing case down here. Something along the border and kind of, and exploring that further, but I would love stories that are, both driven by, by really colorful characters and stories that that maybe teach us something about ourselves and about, society that like we currently live in.

Chris: 39:59

I would love, I hope you get either one of those would be really cool. I love history. And as you were talking, I was thinking at Surly, have you been to Waco to the Texas Rangers museum?

Rick: 40:09

I have. Yeah. It's a great museum.

Chris: 40:11

Colorful characters, great history. If I remember right, again, Texans listening, forgive me if I get my facts wrong here, but the Texas Rangers, I think there were originally only like 12 or 13 of them, and their whole job was really around livestock. Just trying to, because they didn't have fences up back then. And I guess what, I dunno if that was 18 hundreds or whatnot, but I was fa, I was fascinated just how the Texas Rangers are a law enforcement organization that, is just, is famous, probably made famous by Texas Walker, Texas Ranger, but but obviously, great history there. That's really cool. This has been a great conversation. Again, please check the show notes. It's on Amazon. The devil behind the badge. As I confessed to you earlier I was hoping to be done reading it by the time of this interview. But now I'm even more, more intrigued to go finish it up and mid read mid read here. But any last words, is there anything we haven't talked about or any words you want to leave us with? I do hope people pick up the book just because I'm really always curious hear people's feedback on it. And I think it's a book which teaches people not just about this sort of specific crime, but it teaches people about, a little bit about life on the border, about the culture and the flavor and like the sort of language there. And it also, it's also filled with people who are uplifting also. It's got some, it got some really human characters in there. Thank you. That end up being really up, uplifting. And for that reason, I just hope you do, you, you pick it up. Even if you get it from our library, I'm not saying go out and buy the book, but do hope people read it and we'll love to hear feedback. Fantastic. One last question that popped in that I wanted to ask you earlier on was overlooked. Briefly, all the years as a journalist, I guess you call that short form articles and series whatnot. Were you surprised? How different writing a book was, I've talked to other authors and have friends who have written books and no one makes it sound like it's an easy process. It sounds like it's just a lot of work. Forget all the research you have to do, but just the process of dealing with the publishers. What was your experience like, Going from, more traditional journalist work to being an author. Did it surprise you the difference or did your career prepare you for that?

Rick: 42:27

It's funny because I think that my career helped me for some aspects of it. Like I knew how to file. Freedom of Information Act request for like information. I knew how to interview. I knew how to basically request and secure documents and interviews and court documents. But the thing which it didn't prepare for, which it didn't prepare me for was just for the length and stamina of writing a book. One of the biggest challenges I had. If not the number one challenge I had was switching my mind from short form journalism to just thinking and a longer form way and just allowing Your brain, that elasticity and allowing it to think longer term. Cause all of my career, like I've been training, all right, get the facts and banging out as fast as possible. Cause you're under deadline and you got a couple of hours, maybe have a couple of days, like if you're lucky and, but still try to be as succinct And quick as possible. And now suddenly I had all this runway. And I had people telling me you've got a couple of months, but it turned into a couple of years. And just switching my brain to be able to sit back and think about stories. And in a sort of longer way was really challenging. Actually I ended up enjoying it towards the end. Once I got used to it, I had a how to break it down into chapters. And that's the only way that I kept from really going. Completely insane was just looking at by chapter. All right, so I'm just going to focus on this chapter. If I could get past this 4, word chapter, then I'll just get to the next chapter. And that's how you go. You do building blocks. But if you sit back and think, all right, I've got, I got to put together 90, 000 words. That's a very long runway to to be staring at. And like my, and my brain didn't really compete that. So it took a while to make my brain think in, in longer terms, but I think it worked out in the end.

Chris: 44:37

Wow. No, it was like it did. Rick me and thank you for being flexible and being gracious enough to eagerly accept my invitation to come on the show and talk about the book. And I'm grateful for it. I appreciate it. And man, I just keep up the great work. I can't wait to see where you go from here.

Speaker 3: 44:53

Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Enjoyed it.

Chris: 44:56

Yeah, likewise. So there you go. Another episode of the wireless way. As always you just listened to this great conversation Surely along the way you thought of someone that could enjoy this or benefit from it. Please share it with them. Thank you Again, that's our goal here is to educate, motivate, inspire. I think we, we hit on a lot of that. There's so much more to this as Rick was telling us. So again, thanks so much. And we'll see you next time on the wireless way