Hurricane Georges

The soft tap of the rain against the hood of my poncho reminds me of a child casually popping bubble wrap retrieved from a box filled with mailed Christmas gifts.

I desperately brush the rain drops off my camera lens, and point it as hundreds of people falling in line outside one of the only grocery stores still open in Pascagoula, Mississippi.  Hurricane Georges is churning in the Gulf of Mexico, and these last minute shoppers make the nervous, yet familiar pilgrimage to the water, battery and canned foods isle.

For long time residents on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, hurricanes, and warnings of hurricanes are as much a way of life, as the changing of the leaves in Maine, or the first winter snowfall in Utah.

As they casually board up windows on their beach front homes, old-timers will often spin you a yarn, about Hurricane Camille in 1969.  The storm flattened the Gulf Coast and eventually killed 259 people as it swept inland. "I been through Camille," they'll extol as they hammer rusty nails into warped, plywood, "If I can survive that, I can survive anything."

In 1998, I am, as I've mentioned before, still living in Pascagoula and working for television station WLOX.  By now I am somewhat of a fixture, in the  practical, blue collar, shipbuilding town.  I am in the "bureau," which means I work with one other person outside of the main station located in Biloxi an hour away and, for the most part, am what they call in the business, "a one-man band," that means I run the camera, write the stories and deliver them on air all by myself.

After 2 years I've settled into the Southern way of living, where you accept the sweat soaked work shirt, moistened by the blazing Mississippi sun and accentuated by the humid air that sweeps off the gulf.  You understand that parades in Moss Point start 30 minutes late, and your appointment with a city councilman or the sheriff might be delayed, if he finds himself, "visitin'," with an old neighbor after lunch.

As Georges climbs on shore, I am hunkered down in the Jackson County Civil Defense building.  The solid, stubby, granite edifice is an immovable rock of a structure, and likely the safest place to be in town.  As I gather my gear around me late the first night and lay down on the cold tile, under a banquet table inside the marble facade, I am ever aware of the torrent of rain, powered by 80 mile an hour winds, pummelling the building outside.

Early in the morning, we discover our tiny office, used to transmit stories back to the main station, has been destroyed.  "you're gonna have to drive it here," says assignment manager Doug Walker, "we gotta get it on the air."

I am forced to make the hour long trip in a tiny Murcury Topaz, along an expansive extension bridge that towers several hundred feet over miles of Mississippi marshes.  The eye of the storm has moved on to terrorize another community  but the wind on I-10 is still wild, and the rain still torrential   As my partner Amy and I reluctantly load into the news car, we brace for the long terrifying trip ahead.  We dodge debris littering the soggy pavement, and pock marked by potholes burrowed into the highway by the passing storm.

Although I am behind the wheel, it is the 60 mile an hour winds that are doing the driving, pushing us frighteningly close to the Jersey barriers of this swaying bridge high above the water below.  As we splash over mini-lakes that have formed on the road, I feel the car hydroplane as the tires detach from the pavement, thanks to 7 inches of water and begin to gracefully drift our little car out of control.  Fortunately before the vehicle goes into a complete spin the rubber grabs black pavement again and jerk us back onto our path.

there is no talking in the cabin of our car, we only hear the whip of the wind and smashing of the rain.  My hands grasp the steering wheel so tightly I fear I won't be able to remove them if we make it safely to Biloxi.  As we pull off the towering bridge onto safer ground, Amy and I sigh together  and spill out a frantic, jubilant laugh as we hug each other, and Amy drags her index finger under her left eye wiping the tears of fear from her face.

The next day is remarkably clear and cool, as I tour the town.  Two-hundred year old oak trees are easily plucked from the soil and mindlessly laid hard on homes.  The roof of the elementary school, a place once designated as a shelter for people without homes, has been plucked off.  Small boats usually moored in the nearby harbor, are now casually tossed and planted on front lawns and in the middle of Denny Avenue.   Homes, entire homes,  are gone, swept away by an indifferent storm.  All that remains of a dozen houses in the concrete slab on which they once sat.

In Pecan (pronounced Pea can) east of Pascagoula, long time residents paddle in boats down rivers that were once paved streets.  I recall interviewing a rough hued southern boy, as he shovels mud out of his kitchen.

We chat about the sand, water levels, and "getting back to normal," when, like a SWAT team storming a drunks motel room after a long stand off, something burst out of the man's kitchen cabinet and onto my host's head.  The wet, wild raccoon hugs his matted hair, the ratty mongrel eyes me intently and rabidly as it squawks and squeaks and hisses, I stumble backwards, fumbling my camera, and trying to steady myself against the kitchen counter only to send pots, and plates careening to the ground.  "holy hell," I holler, as the man gives me a curious look, then pulls out a dog biscuit from his pocket and feeds it to the beast, "why you all bothered," he giggles, "this here's Charlie, he ain't gonna hurt ya." His laugh starts slow then quickens, becoming contagious as the giggles of 6 other dirty men in the room gather, much like that now passed hurricane, in hysterical laughter at me.  "I'm sorry guys," I blurt sarcastically as I pick up my camera and dust it off, "it isn't everyday a 20 pound rodent springs out of the soup cabinet." I say embarrassed , "It is around here!" the man proclaims, as he laughs even louder, his buddies struggling to match his level of hilarity.

For the next week, I will toil daily telling stories about things like the 6 large alligators that escape from a nearby animal refuge and are tormenting power company employees attempting to spark the cities power grid back to life.

Every night I will drag myself home, to a house with no power.   Thankfully for me and my roommate, our neighbors have stocked their refrigerators with ground beef, steaks, and sausage   Each evening we will gather in the middle of the street for an unplanned party, easing down in weathered lawn chairs, eating and laughing into the darkened night, only to return, flashlights in hand, to dark house and get up the next morning, pull on my slickers, and splash into the salt water for another long, lonely day.

It could have been worse

"The only thing that could make this day any better, is if the truck broke down," Photographer Mike DeBernardo, hisses ironcially after a hard afternoon on the road.  He and I are assigned difficult story about the Vice-Principal of Vernal Middle School accused of sex crimes against a juvenile member of his family.

David Papadakos, accused of sex crimes

In addition to the distasteful subject matter, to do the story, we must drive 173 miles to Uintah County, some 3 hours and 30 minutes away.

As our deadline approaches we are plagued with mechanical and technical issues, all the gizmos in the live truck (I won't pretend to act like I know how they work) keep dying, thanks  to a lack of power.  My computer is also on the fritz, making it difficult to track down the mugshot of the vice principal accused of the crime.

We are able to get our story on the air at 10 PM but, cannot establish our live presence in Vernal.  As we shut down the systems, pack away the lights, and prepare for our long slog home, Mike is peeved by the inability to "make," our live shot, and that's when he utters those now fateful words,  "The only thing that could make this day any better, is if the truck broke down."

When the words float out of his mouth, I say what everyone says when someone utters something like that, "famous last words."

At 11:30 PM those "famous last words," begin to flash before our eyes,  as Mike engages his bright beams, as we barrel down a dark and frigid highway 40 just outside of Duchesne, the scratchy song on the radio, buzzes off.  The gauges begin to spin and whirl wildly, like the dials on a futuristic machine in a sci-fi movie, then relent before keeling over to the left.  According to our dashboard monitors, we are careening across the pavement at zero miles an hour, with zero gallons of gas in our tank, and zero oil pressure to propel us back home. "Are the lights dimming?" I squint into the darkness, as the once brightly illuminated pavement is now just a dull, slight yellow, quickly disappearing before our eyes.
It only takes a handful of minutes for our truck to follow the cue of the dials, and, with engine choked to death, we slowly drift along the gravel shoulder to a silent pause, 10 miles from the nearest town, and 2 hours from home in Salt Lake City.

"Well, you got your wish," I sing to Mike, as we sit, stranded, the temperature, dropping quickly, a he engages the hazard lights.  "Click, clack, click, clack," the ticking, keeping the monotone, heartless beat of our dark isolation.

"It's going to take the tow truck 2 hours to get here," Mike looks at the ceiling of the truck as he silences his phone with a finger tap   "Thank goodness, we have cell service," or we'd be screwed," I add, "I might have been forced to kill and eat you." I joke, "well," Mike interjects as he scrolls Facebook on his smartphone, "it's still early."

It doesn't take long for the temperature to drop inside the cabin of our truck.  It's about 25 degrees along this lonely stretch of highway.  After about 2 hours, we watch our smoky breath, prompted by the fridgid temperatures, float out of our mouths as we begin playing the futile game, I call:  "Oh, there he is, finally!"    Every 10 minutes or so, we spot the tiny flash of headlights in the distance, to which one of us will, say, mostly hoping that our words, will somehow manifest our tow truck, "Oh there he is, finally,"  When the Semi or sleepy traveler  rumbles past us, the second part of the game is to curse the driver and his vehicle for NOT being the tow truck driver.  This goes on for about an hour, and I have to say is a lot of fun, particularly when you get to hurdle obscenities into the night at perfect strangers who have no inkling of your presence.

"Oh there he is, finally!"  I shout, waiting for the payoff, of cursing him as he drives by, but wait, that really IS him."

The  tow truck driver is a waking fire plug, stout and burly with a shaved head.  Despite his gruff exterior, he's actually very kind.  As we watch him jack the heavy white live truck onto the flatbed truck, he encourages, "Go get in the cab, you must be freezing."

After some small talk, (he went to East High, graduated in 1996,) Mike and I both doze off, only to be awaken by the heavy downshift of the truck, as we cascade around a dog leg turn, I open my eyes to see a row of deer, frozen in our path, unable to move as three tons of metal march on them, our driver pumps his breaks, and lays on his horn, within about 5 feet, the startled creatures gather themselves and scamper out of our unstoppable path.  "whoa," I breath, "That was close," "yeah," the driver pants, "that scared me."  I ask, wouldn't we have just shoved them out of the way, to which he answers, "No, this cab is made of fiberglass, We'd of been stranded out here."

Thirty minutes later, my head gently resting against the cold passenger side window, my body is vibrated to attention, and my ears ring with what sounds like a thousand duffle bags being opened one after another with rhythmic succession.  Our exhausted truck driver has drifted to sleep, and the truck has in turn, floated gently across the highway rumple strips.  "As I shoot a look at him, he blurts with eyes wide, "sorry!"

As the truck grinds to a stop in front of my house, at 4 AM, I give both men a weary nod and fumble into the darkness of my warm bedroom.  Despite what seemed at the time , to be a disaster of a night, I click off all the things that COULD have gone wrong but didn't (no cell service, subzero temperatures, plowing into a family of deer, careening off the highway into an icy stream) and I mumble to myself, as I shed my coat, "heck, that wasn't so bad."

In The Cabin

I can see the beehive awaken at the assignment desk, as the 10 PM producer, the assignment editor, and the executive producer, begin to buzz and weave.  "The Desk," as it is known, is similar to NASA's mission control.  Everything goes through it.   Assignment editors listen police scanners farm the fax machine and email, and field calls from viewers.

Greg Peterson with Senator Mike Lee

Just 15 minutes before the 6 PM newscast, someone anonymously calls to say Greg Peterson, a well-known political activist and fundraiser has killed himself.

Peterson is a successful financial planner, with ties to many top Utah lawmakers, as evidenced by the chummy video he shot and narrated of freshman Senator Mike Lee, waking golf balls into the grassy abyss of acreage owned by Peterson in Heber, Utah.

Despite efforts by some politicians to downplay his importance, Peterson $400,000 cabin in Heber was a frequent stop for seekers of higher office looking to raise quick cash.  Pictures show a proud Peterson, microphone in hand, lording over dozens of campaign donors, perched high above them on his elevated porch, speaking confidently about politics, politicians, and power.

Peterson speaks to donors at his Heber cabin

Peterson also counts Mitt Romney as a "friend," and with money influence, and infinite confidence, the smiling power broker is living the proverbial "Life of Riley,"

That "life," begins to unravel, as one woman after another accuses Peterson of raping and sexually assaulting them, often in the same cabin in which he has been raising money for politicians.

Mugshot

In his mugshot taken after his arrest, Peterson wears a smirk swelling with the confidence of a man whose Rolodex is bulging with Utah's power players.  Minutes after he is booked, those power players,   one by one, step quickly away from the man who had helped them raise thousands of dollars for their political campaigns.

Peterson spent months in the Salt Lake County Jail, awaiting his trial, and finally managed to bail out last Friday.

"We're hearing Peterson killed himself," the 10 PM producer utters to me breathless, as she turns and barrels to her desk.  That means "start making calls," which I do.

"Hello," Cara Tangaro breaths wearily into her cell phone, Tangaro, is Peterson's tough, outspoken attorney.  "This is Chris Jones from 2 News, Cara how are you?"  I say urgently, "I've been better," she answers, "we'll be issuing  a statement soon," she interjects without allowing a question.  

She thinks I know that Peterson has taken his own life, but all I have is an anonymous tip, and with 10 minutes to airtime, I need to hear the words from her mouth, before we can report anything.  "So is Greg dead?" I ask bluntly.  Not wanting to be the person who confirms the sad news,  she back tracks, "I can't say anything about that."  She sternly bucks up and walks away from her previous comments.  "Was his body found in his cabin?  That is what we are hearing,"  I press.  "I can't confirm or deny that," she says briskly. "When will you issue the statement?" I ask..."hello"...silence...she's hung up, I am likely the first media call she's received and doesn't want to have her name attached to confirming her clients death.

While I talk to Tangaro, assignment editor Mehul Asher is doing the same with the Wasatch County Sheriff, and fellow reporter Kristina Flores is trying to get in contact with the man who brought many of the rape charges against Peterson, District Attorney Sim Gill, but he  doesn't answer his phone.

I finally contact Gill, who confirms,  that Peterson is dead, and has likely killed himself with a single gunshot to the head.  Suicide, just days after his release from jail.  Found dead in the same cabin that housed his proudest moments, and possibly his darkest, now revealed secrets.

big screen, big risks

We've got 1 minute!" the frantic director bellows into the mic on his headset.  "we're gonna float!"  "floating," is a no-no, "floating," is industry jargon meaning your story is not going to make it on air on time, and for reporters and photographers, "we're gonna float," means you have sinned against the news gods.  If you "float," you must hang your head in shame as members of the production crew, the producer, other reporters and the boss shoot sharp glances your way as you make the humiliating trudge back to your desk.

Aside from getting the fact straight, there are few things more important than making your "slot."

On this night, the night of the second Presidential Debate, something warns me that the evening is going to be a pressure cooker, only compounded by the fact that I have tossed out the idea of using a brand new gizmo obtained by the TV station.

2News has recently added a new, massive, interactive big screen to our coverage. It allows reporters to manipulate the gleaming glass like a gargantuan smart phone, to do tasks like pull up data by touching the screen and displaying it to the audience,  we can also draw on the surface and bring attention to certain issues.  You've likely seen something similar to this on CNN during election coverage.    It is a breathtaking new technology, but if you don't touch the right part of the plasma screen you might find yourself dragging a long yellow line across a graphic instead of pushing the colorful statistic out of the way.  In short getting it right takes practice.

Other than photographer and editors using the Telestrator to draw glasses and mustaches on the head shots of reporters during their down time, the screen has not yet been utilized by any on-air types, and certainly not been used on television.  I for some reason have volunteered myself as the proverbial test rat.

My task is to analyze data provided to us by Google.  The company keeps track of everything users search and they will do so during the presidential debate.  The search term, "binders full of women," increased by 435% after Mitt Romney mentioned it during the presidential face-off.

The Google guy, says expect the data to be posted 30 minutes after the debate, "an hour tops," he adds a chipper yet ominous warning.  In the final analysis, more like an hour and a half, and that means the data drops at 9:30, half an hour before news time.

So all I have to do, is cull the data (9:40), pick the best bits (9:43), write a script, talk to the fellas in graphics, (9:47) who have to import the data, create a graphic, transfer to a hard drive(9:49), transfer the graphic from the hard drive to the big screen.  (9:50) Now grab a photographer, have him shoot my presentation on the big board (9:55), run to the editors have them piece it all together (9:57), Jay wraps that up at 9:59, just in time for us to hear, "we're gonna float!"

Usually the editors must take that file and drop it into some other file that goes into the news program, but that process takes about 2 minutes, unfortunately we only have one.  "We'll have to roll it from here," shouts the editor.  That means instead of letting the sophisticated computer do all the work, Jay will have to listen to the anchor, and push the buttons himself to make the story end up on TV. "are we gonna make it!?"  the producer's voice quivers the question at me on my cell phone, "Yes!" I pop into the receiver   "Now Google tracks all this data," I hear anchor Mark Koelbel over a nearby monitor, calmly and pleasantly telling viewers, "Chris Jones has been looking over the data, Chris," Mark recites, "go!" blasts the director, and that is exactly what Jay does, and there I am, on TV, to the viewers at home it was seamless, to our crew behind the scenes it was utter chaos.  No "floating" tonight, as I take my pulse, and collapse in my chair.

"I'm a Hooker."

Seeing her rush into my small office was perplexing, like glancing out a car window only to see an SUV resting on the roof of a house after a hurricane.   I'd seen her before, walking sadly and suggestively down Jackson Avenue in Pascagoula, Ms. late at night.  She was among a small cadre of prostitutes who prowl the 2 lane road,  book ended on either side, by a long-closed auto parts store to the north, and a questionable massage parlor to the south.

"I'm a hooker," she announces without fear of judgement as tears flow from her eyes, her thick, wet steams marbled with black mascara.  Inside the small office, she glances frantically, at the door she had just entered.  "I Just got out a jail," she roots nervously through her fatigued, faux-leather bag, I assume for a tissue, or a cigarette.   

Her dress is pretty, and modest.  It is blue with splashes of red and white flowers.  I can envision her sitting comfortably in a church pew in that ensemble,  but this is her work uniform, and she likely wears it most every day.  The blue and red, less brilliant than the day she received it, worn by the hot, Mississippi sun and faded by rainstorms that pepper the summer afternoons.  The shoes are even more telling.  The Dr. Scholl's are streaked with deep black scuff marks, and the flat wooden sole are rounded at the toe in heel, overworked grooves pressed away by hours and miles of endless walking. 

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, my time in Pascagoula is my first job in television news, and everyday, it seems is a new, mind blowing experience.  Like a man, blind at birth, given his vision well into old age, and this day in 1995, is no exception.

"The police just let me go," she cries dragging the back of her hand across her wet, runny nose, "but they spent all night raping me."  She quickly grabs at her bra strap placing it firmly on her shoulder, as if the memory alone had forced it to leap back to her bicep.  "What?  What happened?"  I'm  trying to comprehend what I'm hearing, "I gotta go," she digs both thumbs into each of her eyes, then pirouettes and bolt out the glass office door, "hold on!" I follow her a few feet, as she darts down an alley, jogs around a corner, and is gone. 

"I honestly don't even know if we arrested anyone for prostitution last night Chris," the shift captain will announce to me in his friendly, easy southern drawl, "and if we did Chris, man, I don't know how much stock you can put in them claims," he says as he tries to dismantle her charge, "ya say she said she was a prostitute huh?" he chimes trying to reinforce her credibility issues, as he tugs at his jowly chin,  "It seemed like she wasn't lying," I insist, "I wonder why she would make a charge like that and just run off?" he lifts his beefy paw from his chin and stroking the back of his head.  "I'll look into it for ya, OK?"  But I can't promise anything."  I will never hear another word from the captain on the allegation.  

On my way home from work, I will take the long way past Jackson Avenue, trying to locate her again.  I never do.

Several months later, my beeper buzzes alive, as I am summoned to a broken part of Pascagoula, populated by listing wooden fences, packs of meandering feral dogs, and houses topped with corrugated steel instead of shingles.  

Police have found the murdered remains of a prostitute inside one of the exhausted shacks.  I don't know if it is the woman who pleads with me for help that blazing August afternoon, but the description is similar. Either way, I think often about that day she charged into my office, how broken and helpless she seemed, and how futile my efforts were to do anything about it.

And...Begin!

The clicks and clacks bounce and echo off the tile floor and composite doors inside the airy, bright atrium of the Utah Highway Patrol's field office, as television photographers extend tripods and un-clip gear.

Major Michael Rapich, stands pleasantly and orderly at attention as 11 journalists buzz around him, perching lights nearby, clicking on cameras and phoning their stations with the latest information. 

Major Mike Rapich (Courtesy: Salt Lake Tribune)

In about 3 minutes, Major Rapich will be peppered relentlessly, aggressively, and in some cases, angrily with questions about one of his own.   His department's integrity will be questioned, the word "cover-up," will surface, and his management style will be harangued, but for now, it's time for light pleasantries.

"How are you?" I chirp as I clip a microphone to his thin brown tie," "I'm good!" he beams, "good to see you again," he retorts happily as the army of camera's form a claustrophobic half circle around him.

"Ok, are we ready?" the public relations officer for UHP, bobs his head into the scrum of reporters, checks each nodding head, "then we can start," he blurts as he dodges his body out of the way like a referee after he yanks, scratches and pulls two boxers out of a sweaty, tired, brutal hug. 

"Why hasn't Trooper Steed been fired given her checkered past?" I bolt out the first question.  Rapich will spent the next 20 minutes on his heels, as he searches for the right words, without saying too much.  Reporters will rat-tat-tat questions at him like machine gun fire, and the career trooper will field them all, but vaguely answer but a few.  

Rapich is from central casting.  The kind of man, the UHP might print on a recruiting poster.  He is slender and tall, his wide brimmed campaign hat (think Royal Canadian Mounties) is precisely perched upon his distinguished head of grey hair.  Rapich appears to be a man who joined the UHP, not with the intent of scribbling tickets, on a dark and desolate rural Utah highway in the freezing drizzle, but rather to lead those ticket writers.  He is charming, confident and poised, and you can imagine him at the Trooper's Ball, in his dress blues, shaking hands with the governor, and chit-chatting with ease with the top brass of the Department of Public Safety.  Although he is polished, his hardscrabble roots emerge occasionally in his vernacular  "I seen that," he will pronounce periodically.  He appears to be one part lawman, two parts politician, and at this press conference he is 100 percent of the latter, in the first 7 minutes of the press availability, Rapich will repeat, "I can't comment on that," 9 times.

Trooper Lisa Steed

"Are you asking me if I want to be standing here answering these questions, the answer is "No." he says  with firm conviction, unfortunately  it has come to this.  He is forced to face the horde, because one of his troopers just can't stay out of trouble

Trooper Lisa Steed's was once the pride of the Utah Highway Patrol.  in 2007 she is named "Trooper of the year," after making more than 200 arrests in a single year, that is a national record.  A record that the UHP's longest serving trooper says, is impossible unless you're doing something wrong. Martin Luther Turner is just the latest in a ever expanding laundry list of critics.

Here is the Cliff Notes on her notorious career in no particular order: 

1) Judges call her "not credible," 

2) Salt Lake District Attorney investigates her. 

3) She admits to lying on the stand. 

4) Shoots a man with a Tazer as he sits in his car. 

5) Davis County DA refuses to prosecute her cases. 

6) arrest a man on a bike for DUI for taking his Epilepsy medication. 

7) In Memo boss says 11 of the 20 people she arrest for DUI during one period of time are actually sober.

8) Same officer says, she pulls over a driver and claims his pupils are dilated, and he is moving uncontrollably, a sign of impairment, her boss who accompanies her during the arrest says neither assessment is true.

The major's head swivels from one reporter to the next as he is verbally accosted from the left, then center then right, then back to the left.

As the flood of questions begin to slow to a trickle, Rapich scans his adversaries awaiting another assault, I approach him, un-clip the mic from his tie, shake his hand, "so good to see you again I grin, "you too!" he squeezes my palm firmly and smiles.  As my photographer Nick slings the tri-pod over his shoulder and I shove my notepad in my back pocket, I hear Rapich exchange some jaunty patter with my colleagues  "that was a good question!" he says to one with awe, as he plucks his hat off his head, and retreats.  The match is over, both sides return to their corners. 

   

Mrs. Amanda Jones

I try to act cool, an act that, for me, defies the laws of physics.   I noticed her immediately, how can you not?  She simply beams.  Her eager blue eyes are bright, and when her lips part in a smile they reveal gleaming white teeth, a smile that, unlike most, flashes not only her top, but her lower incisors as well.  Smiling I will soon find, is as much a part of her existence, and almost as crucial, as breathing or the beating of her heart.

"Is she looking at me?"  I ponder as I rustle through the well-worn daily paper strewn carelessly across the assignment desk.  I  check my hypothesis, as my cynical squinty green eyes are caught, just for a second, by hers.  I quickly, and awkwardly drive my attention back to an article about budget cuts, or a garden variety petty crime.  "She IS looking at you!" the little man in my brain shouts.  I quickly fondle my nose, then let the same hand drift casually to do surveillance on my zipper.  "Nose clean?: Check, Zipper up?: check." 

"Chris, This is Amanda Chamberlain," Announces Don Kauffman, the assignment manager at 2News, "She will be working on the desk."  The "desk," is sort of command central for a television newsroom.  Amanda will listen to police scanners, call police departments to check on crimes, and send photographers to breaking and other types of news.

"Awesome," I say as I take her hand in mine, "it's good to have you,"  I  can tell she is young, maybe just out of college, or completing her first job.   Most fresh-faced new employees struggle in those first few months in the so-called "real world." Everything is just so big, from the job they are thrust into with little or no experience, to the characters they will meet, particularly in a television station, crammed tightly with bulging personalities.  To be 21, still bunking with your buddies from college, shooting beer bongs on Saturday night, and sleeping on a Futon, then to be tossed carelessly into this bizarre, alter universe of television news:  A wild landscape of time-warping deadlines, lights, sets, squawking police scanners, and explosive egos, must be a mind-spinning proposition.

I recall my first day in a newsroom.  Think of it like this:  You are rushed into a cavernous mansion, shrouded in complete darkness, your job: Stumble to the kitchen, find the recipe and the ingredients, and whip up a nice Creme Brulee, of course, do so with the lights, and have it ready in one hour. 

On Amanda's first day it is clear she has an innocent gravitas, marinated in maturity, but not spoiled by cynicism.

As the first few weeks click by, it is clear this job is not grinding her up like it has so many others in the past.  An assignment editor, is at the convergence of everything in the newsroom.  Think, water treatment plant.  All the s%*t eventually ends up in, on, or around the plant, and the "desk." 

"Why aren't we on this!  Do we have anyone on this!"  Is the most common refrain fired at whoever stands naked (figuratively) as sentinel on the desk, particularly when a breaking News graphic flutters across the screen of a competitor.

"Seriously, that's news?" is a common refrain that an editor might be poked with by a crusty photographer, on the jagged end of a 14 hour workday and unhappy with his most recent assignment.

Amanda manages to handle the S*#t, with her smile disarming, and lighting the way.

Uncomfortable confession alert:  I Googled her.  OK, I admit it, and, it turns out, Amanda has a sizable Internet footprint, and I am stunned when I  stumble upon, her modeling portfolio that can be described in a word, two actually: Holy Mackerel !  As I tick through the pictures, I am floored by a photo of her graced in a striking blue dress, and platinum blond hair, her eyes gazing skyward, her chin lifted delicately by the palms of her hands.  "Dude," I alert the nearest male standing nearby, summoning him to glance over my shoulder at my computer screen, "check her out!"  She is stunning.  

I now concludes this completely base, sexist, misogynistic objectification of women portion of the blog, I now return you to your normal programming.

As Amanda begins a pretty meteoric rise At 2 News, she find herself first simply booking guests for the morning news show then producing, then even hosting and reporting, I continue to be quietly intrigued by her.

As the days continue, I find myself always aware of Amanda.  I'm not melodramatic or creepy enough to profess that I track her every move, in reality it is more subtle than that.  As I go about my work, I can always sense her presence as she floats through the office.  Like incense filling a room, you smell it's aroma in the air, you know where the scented stick is smoldering as it dances gently in your subconscious, but it doesn't stop you from reading a book, painting a picture or preparing your morning coffee. 

Some time later, by chance really, Amanda and I are, side-by-side as judges, in what can only be described as the most outrageous singing contest in history.  After the wild competition comes to an end, Amanda and I find ourselves tucked away at the back of a restaurant/bar, our conversation: magnetic, connected, uninterrupted.   When our knees accidentally (or on purpose) tap casually together the deal, as they say, is sealed. The big pronouncements that follow come quickly and with ease.  "I  love you.", "Why don't you move in?", "Will you marry me?"  

  

I'd be glad NOT To Talk To You

Tick, Tick, Tick.  I can almost hear the clock literally ticking in my head.  In my business, particularly when your job is to produce news content for the 10 PM newscast, unlike most, the closer you get to 6 PM is NOT an enviable mark of time when you have yet to pin down a story for the day.

Katie Weddington  seems eager to talk about a pretty horrible experience.  She works as a satanic clown at a haunted house in Salt Lake City (Utah inexplicably loves haunted houses, that is another story altogether) On Saturday, a man shuffling through the eerie walls of plywood coated in black paint, with teenagers slathered in latex makeup, synthetic blood, and wielding unchained, chainsaws, allegedly rears back and cracks Katie in the mouth with his fist.  According to charging documents, he turns to his girlfriend and laughs hysterically.  Police say he isn't angry or frightened by Katie's horrifying portrayal of every child's nightmare, a clown barring long, yellow fangs, but rather that he just thought it would be "funny."

I track down Katie's home address and find her affable dad sipping a Natural Ice beer with an equally affable buddy.  He gives me a warm smile, a hearty handshake, and reenacts to me the lively story of his daughter's assault.  He dials up cell phone picture of his baby girl's bashed in teeth, while his wife, calls Katie, and sets up an interview for us near the haunted house where she was assaulted.

Parked in the haunted parking lot, with the second hand moving briskly around the face of my watch, I get a spooky sense that Katie is beginning to waver.  The first call to he mobile rings several times then lands unanswered in her voice mail.  The second call clicks directly to her digital answering service. 

I've seen this before, Katie, might be pondering the affects of being remembered as the gal who got socked in a clown outfit, or perhaps, her bosses, excoriate her that discussing an assault at their place of business for thousands to see is not good for business   To that point, few viewers hold business owners responsible for bad things that happen at their establishments, that are beyond their control.  If a wild-eyes crook steals someones purse when she steps away from her cart that is judged differently than if an elderly man slips in a puddle of water that has been left unattended for hours.

I send her a text message, "Hi Katie, we are here, we can meet you near the pink restaurant "  After a maddening 10 minute wait, my lifeless cell buzzes awake.  "I'm not really interested, I've started my shift," and with that, poof!  End, literally, of story.  I don't blame her, and  don't hold a grudge (Much) I've seen my share of interview success (see last blog) and interview fail (see three blogs ago) so you can't pound your fist for too, long, because frankly you haven't the time.  It's already 6:30, the news will go on as scheduled, and you better begin culling your sources and court records for something meaningful to report.

Six Minutes.

"Is that him?" I peer through the window or our news car, eyes squinting to shade the blinding glare of the sun refracting off the stark white snow, "It is.  That's Josh!"  The sun crashes into my pupils, unprotected by eyes popped open with utter surprise.

Josh Powell

Josh Powell's car, or rented car as it turns out, is crunching through the cold, dry, icy snow on this unseasonably frigid December day, and parking in front of his sister's West Jordan home.  The man every journalist wants to talk to, is about to do an infamous 6 minute interview with me, that will provide essential evidence to police, send other news crews scrambling, and will cause Internet sleuths from around the world, to analyze every word, tug of the cap, and hesitation.

After all these tragic, perplexing, twisting years, you likely don't need a primmer on the sad mystery of Susan Powell, but I'll give you the thumbnail sketch.

The West Valley, Utah mom of two little boys disappears December of 2009.
Her husband Josh, inexplicably says he and the boys went camping in unbearable subfreezing temperatures, at midnight the night before, and when he returns his wife is gone.  Everyone suspected him of having something to do with Susan Powell's disappearance  the police (although he was always officially just a person of interest) his neighbors, and eventually, even members of his own family.

Susan Cox-Powell

Susan has never been found, and last year, on Super Bowl Sunday, Josh, hacked his boys with a hatchet and burned his home to the foundation, killing himself, and snuffing out the lives of those two little guys.

On December 10th, 2009, when I meet a meek Josh Powell, in his blue cap and long out-of-style black leather jacket, I can't begin to fathom, that this story will erupt like a volcano into the nation's most tragically twisted tale of mystery and death.

Back in 2009, the story of Susan Powell is in it's infancy.  We know very little, simply that there is a woman from West Valley City, who hadn't been seen in a few hours.  Although things seemed odd, there is a conventional wisdom, based strictly upon conjecture, that Powell might have galloped off with an old flame, perhaps dozed off on a girlfriend's chaise lounge, or simply needs a breather from the pressures of marriage, work, and children.  All of these explanations seem reasonable, since as a member of the media, I've witnessed all three scenarios, and them some, play out in the past.

I am among those who assume Susan might wander home by the cold open and theme music of the 10 PM newscast.

As my colleagues and I discuss the case in our afternoon editorial meeting, questions are asked, and personal theories casually tossed out, but a laundry list of other stories need attention as well, and after some wrangling I insist that I should at least head to West Valley, and "check it out," I get feigning approval, couched with the caveat that, "if something bigger comes along we might move you."

"She would never just walk away from her kids, unless something was wrong," pleads Kiirsi Hellewell, one of Susan's Friends.

Kiirsi Hellewell

Hellewell, continues, off the record, that Josh and Susan are struggling with marital strife and in an aside, tips her glasses downward and confesses, that Josh's father has "problems."

Hellewell convinces me that Susan is not "OK," and she intimates that Josh might be responsible.

It turns out police are already focusing their attention on Powell, and are beginning to think, as you might expect, that Josh might have know more than he is telling police.  Which, as we will later learn, is nearly nothing.

"a small plane has crashed in Utah County," barks executive producer Jeremy Laird, as I click the "answer" button on my cell phone, minutes after stepping out of Hellewell's modest, kid evident, living room.  "You're the closest, we need to get you there immediately!" he demands.

"I don't know about that," I question, " I think I need to stay on this,"  Not willing to debate, and watching the clock, Jeremy, presses as he raises his voice, something he has rarely done with me in the past, "You're the only one, right now!  We need to get you on the road!"  his patience is thinning.  "Jeremy, this is going to be a big story, and if we miss it today, we will be playing catch up tomorrow, caught with our pants down, I guarantee it!"  I snap into my cell.  "Alright!" his voice, cutting through the airwaves, "we'll send Fields Moseley!"  He isn't happy, and is likely wishing he is jousting with me on a traditional land line so he can drive the clunky plastic receiver loudly down into  it's base.

As more suspicions mount in the collecting hours, and days and local TV stations are beginning to dedicate more resources to the story, and national media outlets, are noodling the idea, in their news meetings, of ginning up, the cranking, creaking national media machine, and book a flight to Utah.

Most of the proverbial bases are covered, with the exception of Josh, no one had talked to, or even seen Susan's husband since she disappeared.

There are hushed conversations in the neighborhood, and in news rooms about his audacious silence. "If it was me," I remember one colleague suggesting, "I'd be shouting from the rooftops for help finding my wife."  It was time to find Josh.

My photographer and I do a round-robin of possible places Powell might be tucked away. his home, the West Valley police station, his sister's house.  I recall the monotonous circle we travel this day.  Powell home, Police, sister, Powell home, police, sister, Powell home police, sister, for hours.  As we roll up on the sister's home one last time, a nondescript Chevy rounds in front of the house and comes to rest.  I squint and see a face that resembles the pictures I'd been looking at of Susan's husband, smiling with their two boys, holding a plate of food, or wrestling with his kids in the couple's back yard.

"Start rolling," I command in a low voice, "Hi, Josh?" I walk softly toward him.  Josh stares at me, caught flat-footed in the cold Utah snow. "Hey, I'm Chris Jones from 2 News, How are ya?"  "OK?" he sputters reluctantly, and lifts his hand to meet mine and shakes it.  as I ask him how he's doing, he nervously glances over his shoulder, like a riverboat gambler, whose just cheated a couple of desperadoes out of a weeks wages.

Despite his reticence, he begins to answer my questions, and I can recall, the beat of my heart, pounding deeply enough that I can hear and feel it in my ears as I walk a proverbial mental tightrope.

To date, Powell has met only once with police, and on the advice of his attorney, given a physical description of his wife, and a vague laundry list of the items she might have been wearing, but remains silent as a stone, about where he was that night, and particularly where his wife might be right now.

I know I must be placid, I don't want to spook him, if I do he will potentially vanish into his sister's home, and likely disappear from the public eye forever, just like his now missing wife.

I keep my tenor low and attempt to level my energy with his.  I start by setting him at ease with a question about his kids, and his own well-being.

then I transition genially to a line of questioning about what happened the night his wife vanished, why he didn't call in sick to work, and suggest that people think he might have hurt his wife, it is the query that elicits the response that will be repeated on TV sets, radios, the Internet and newspapers across the country.   "I didn't do anything, I mean, I don't know where she's at.  I don't even know where to start looking," he utters pensively.

I begin to pepper him blandly with more pointed questions, as he tugs on his cap, shuffles from one foot to the next, and averts his gaze to the home in which he desperately wants to be.  I realize, he is wavering, "Basically I need to figure out what to do, get into my kids," he interrupts as he transitions  towards the door of safety. Then I ask: "Where do you go camping?" I'm not certain, but I'm told some time later, that his answer of, near "the Pony Express Trail," will send a team of officers combing the frozen deserts of Southern Utah.

This ends up being the most comprehensive interview with Powell, until he finally speaks to national media outlets two years later.


A few weeks after my interview, an investigator on the case, spots me at a movie theater as I patiently wait for my film to begin.   He grabs my hand shaking it vigorously, "thank you," he smiles, "That interview, with Powell, really helped us,"  "oh," I say gently, trying to level my energy with his so as not to spook him,  "how so?" I ask in dulcet tones.   He laughs, chomps his popcorn with gusto, and wanders off chuckling, to his movie.

It's a Dirty Job

"Well, ya best tuck them jeans into ya socks if ya don't want vermin to get up them pants," the Moss Point Police detective rolls out in his long southern drawl,  as he adjusted his breathing apparatus over his mouth.  For me, a cub reporter, with maybe six months worth of experience, it is the most daunting piece of instruction I have ever received, and I quickly and nervously do the same as my teacher.

It is my first job in television, at WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1995.  I am technically the bureau chief, of the station's Jackson County office.  I am in charge (by default) of the two-man operation, that includes myself and another, just as green, photographer/reporter.  Together we are eager, but not very experienced.  The two of us are stationed in a tiny little office in Pascagoula, the space is about the size of the guest room in your home.

Shipbuilding in Pascagoula.

Pascagoula/Moss Point/Gautier.  Those are the primary towns we cover.  It is a tough little community, weathered and shaped by the muggy summers, and perched on the rock of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  At one point the stubborn, blue collar towns prospered, because of a strong shipbuilding culture, that helped families build homes, buy modest boats, and make weekend trips to Bozo's Fish Market for a bag of Crawfish, seasoned in a secret Cajun concoction, but those boom days are over, and Jackson County is forced to limp along.

Pascagoula is built for functionality, not beauty.  The city has weathered too many hurricanes in the past to waste time building expensive, ornate structures.  The tallest building in town in a bank, it is five stories tall, of which the top two floors are utilized for storage. The Gulf Coast economy, is usually at the mercy of government spending of warships and aircraft carriers, making this a boom or bust environment.

The place is run, literally, by tough, good ol' boys.  The Sheriff, DB, "Pete," Pope, was a portly power broker, and he was more politician than lawman.

Former Jackson County Sheriff Pete Pope

 His piercing, blue reptilian eyes framed by his stark mop of white hair, and his checkered sports coat accented with a pair of hand-made cowboy boots was terrifying for me, as he would summon me into his office-lair, either schmooze me or more likely, excoriate me for a story I wrote that angered, a man whose soul was born mad.  He was one part southern gent, 2 parts Boss Hogg.

He once warned me that he had a machine in his office, that alerted him whenever a recording device was operating in his presence, his ominous pronouncement told the kid reporter, that I better never think of trying to tape any of his rangy rants.  It wasn't until later that I learned that, "machine," never existed.

He was sheriff  but his political power was immense because, to borrow a cliche, he knew where all the bodies were buried and so did the body buriers, and that made him more like the king of his own tiny sovereign, southern nation, than the bureaucrat in a county department.

County Commissioner Tommy Brodnax, wasn't a power broker,  he was more like the people he represented, a former shipyard worker and a stout fireplug of a man, with stubby limbs punctuated by thick, brawny forearms, and round, beefy fingers, weather worn and streaked with scratches, scars, and finernails caked with soil from his garden, and grease from his tractor.  He was quick to pick a verbal fight with fellow commissioners, and physical ones with just about anyone else.  He was once arrested for punching a man in the face during a dispute over fallen tree branches.

Jackson County Commissioner, Tommy Brodnax

He relished in harassing me about my green reporting skills and unseasoned on-air presence, that included a terrified face accented by no expression, what-so-ever.   Whenever I'd fumble into a county meeting, awkwardly juggling a camera and tri-pod, he'd interrupt the proceedings, no matter how important, to announce, in his high pitched southern accent, reminiscent of billionaire and former presidential candidate Ross Perot, "hey everyone, here comes stone face!"

As a young reporter you do as you're told, and that means you are on call, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.   On this muggy August night, my station issued beeper buzzes abruptly alive at 1 am, waking me starkly with a gasp back to consciousness.

I am ordered to the end of a desolate  dead end street, in Moss Point, a small town just north of Pascagoula.

Moss Point isn't exactly the best run town in Mississippi, in fact it's the opposite. At one point the Moss Point Chief of Police, out of sheer incompetence, had his permit to carry a gun revoked by the state's top police agency.

One cost saving measure enacted by the city council, led to a state of utter calamity.   In an effort to save money on the restoration of weathered, dulling street signs, the city concocted a scheme that may have literally lead to houses burning to the ground, and residents dying while waiting for an ambulance.

The town leaders decided NOT to buy new street signs, but rather to pull all the old signs down, then repaint them. Unfortunately , instead of repainting, for example the "Oak Street" sign with the words "Oak street," the parks and rec. department  stenciled, without much thought, over that sign, with the words , "Main Street." instead of Oak.   They did this all over town, all the signs. That was fine for a while, but  after a few months battered by the blazing Southern Mississippi sun, the cheap store bought paint faded, and the signs began to read a mish-mashed combination of the two, think "OaMakin Street."

The fire department, and ambulance service found themselves racing around the city searching in vain for a burning house or man in cardiac arrest, only to get garbled, maddening guidance from the disastrous Scrabble-like street grid.

Somehow, no thanks to Moss Points, illegible signs, I fumbled my way to a modest home surrounded by Moss Point officers, blazing flood lights, and a cacophony of critter wranglers.

After a welfare call from a resident of a house nearby, concerned for the safety of an ailing, immobile woman inside, police force open the door, only to find it barricaded by rotting garbage, cat feces, and carelessly discarded soda bottles.  It was a clean freaks nightmare, and a hoarders dream.

after rescuing the sick woman, and arresting her daughter for neglect, police had the unenviable task of removing dozens of feral cats from the home, collected over years by the two women.  The pair only took in a third of that, but the wild animals spent the next few years breeding with each other, creating a inbred cat version of "Lord of The Flies."

The cops, totally unaware, or unconcerned with protocol or the law, invite me to come in , "Hey there Jonesy, ya wanna check this out, brother, git yur camera and follow us in!"  The boys outfit me with a breathing apparatus and duck tape to strap my loose clothing to my body.  "Why am I doing this?" I ask as I peel long strips of tape off the giant, metal roll, "Roaches, boy!" one officer belts out with a laugh as he blows a wet, brown mouthful of spitting tobacco onto the city sidewalk, "roaches!"

As he scoot the rotting door open, I recall the sucking in and out of air through our masks belting out a Darth Vader-like pant.  The house doesn't have electricity, hasn't for months I'm told, and is lighted by flashlights and a flood light only.

The putrid stench of ammonia is overpowering, and I take it all in despite the protective gear over my face.  disintegrating garbage is 2 feet high and blankets the entire ground below me, I crunch and crack over the foul flooring, shuffling through waste, as tin cans crush, and tumble away as I push, like a canal boat icebreaker through the ocean of cardboard, food, and animal waste.

The garbage is everywhere, the floor, the shelves, inexplicable even the ceilings.  It is stacked in structurally defying mountains that line the halls.

The black insides of the house are revealed only in pieces when the darkness is broken by the faint flashlights, fumbled by disgusted police officers.

The flood lights reveal a tired, pea-green sofa, that appears to be made of wax, as the left side breaks down into what looks  like a melted mess of mushy fabric.  The sight defies my eyes, "what the hell?" I say with mouth agape.  "The cats have been peeing there for years," chirps the lead investigator  "Looks like they just went and melted the thing."

A dirty farm hand, in overalls, and a dingy CAT Diesel hat, called by police to help with the wild felines, stops the army of police officers and reporters, and warns, "Ok, this is where it gets bad," "Oh," I belt, "now it gets bad."

He wrestles the bedroom door open, and 4 or 5 of us shoe-horn ourselves into the back living space, someone closes the door behind us, and I find myself, squeezed on all sides, mountains of muck to my back, sweaty cops to my left, and the low guttural hum, of hidden cats echoing throughout pitch black room.

"Yall, ready?" he screams as he slaps his gloved hand to the left side of a stained mattress laying on the floor, "NO!" I yelp in pleading tones.  I remember the word just jump out of me, unprovoked, like a frog off a lily-pad, startled by a rock tumbling into his pond.

"Too late!" he hollers, as he overturns the bed, jerking it up on its side, revealing the wooden underbelly of the box springs. In the chaos, I see something, but the darkness makes it hard to make out.  It appears to be a sea of life is pulsating inside the box springs, and as the lights are directed to the bed, I see a wall of undulating cock-roaches, thousands of them, crawling and racing for safety as they are shocked into movement by the first light they have experienced in months, maybe years.

I have little time to catch my breath, because a dozen wild cats, who also inhabited the darkness under that bed are springing from their black, musty home.  They hiss and shriek as they bound up the walls, their claws scraping and propelling them higher up the grimy surfaces towards the ceiling of the room.  As they hit the acoustical tile, they rebound, like mangy, infected, overfilled basketballs towards our heads.

I feel like I am storming Utah Beach, as German soldiers try to repel me with gunfire and cannon fodder.

The farm boy, and police trip and stumble over one another, half of them desperately dodging the airborne cats, the other half trying in vane to catch them, clawing at the frightened, feral animals.  The chaos is more than my mind can handle, I jab at the door knob, my hands slipping and fumbling with it as I try to escape.  I finally jerk the door open, and fall out the portal, I'm darting my way out of the surreal disaster, when I notice the flood lights cast a sickly light on the homes living room, and catches a roach perched proudly on that melted couch, he appears to have his head lifted high, and smugly watches me as I scamper, terrified out of his home, the light casts his shadow against the dirty wall, and his dark outline makes him appear 3 feet tall, and for a young reporter struggling to learn the ropes, that roach and that job seems to be just a little to big for me.

Stacked Against Me

He is stunned that I am standing on his porch.  It is palpable in the air, and in his body language.  He sits quietly on his sofa in Salt Lake City, thumbing through a book, the weather is reasonable on this August day, so his front door is propped opened, only the screened door protecting him from mosquitoes, flies and reporters.

"Hi, I'm Chris Jones, I'm a reporter."  His eyes are wide, his hand frozen in mid page flip.

"He," is the last person to see Lori Hacking alive.  The story of this murdered, pregnant Salt Lake City woman has engulfed Utah, and awakens a national media feeding frenzy in July of 2004.

Lori's husband Mark, claims his wife goes for a run early one morning and never comes home.  Tragically, it turns out, he'd shot her in the head with a .22 rifle and tossed her body in a dumpster.  Mark had been perpetuating a Jinga-like deception, his wife thought Mark had graduated with an honors degree in psychology and is accepted into the medical school at University of North Carolina.  Sadly, it turns out this tale is just that, a long, hollow lie, and when Lori stumbles upon the truth, Mark shoots her in the head while she sleeps, killing her and the couples unborn baby.

The competition to find angles, stories, and exclusives on this case is unlike anything I'd ever before witnessed.

I recall knocking on the front door of a man who is somehow involved in the case, as I wait, a reporter from some trashy grocery store tabloid saunters up next to me as the door creaks open, I try to get the man to talk, he won't.  Then the editor chimes, in, "Hey, do you like New York?"  "Uh, yeah, I guess, I've never been there," says the befuddled stranger, "Do you wanna go?," the reporter says with the forceful, sooped-up patter of a New York native, "  "Uh, to New York?" the man fumbles, "Yeah, you and all the guys you work with, How many are there?"  the quick talking out-of-towner demands, yanking out a small notebook, "Six," he proclaims excitedly, "Tell me what you know, and all 7 of you are going to New York for the weekend, all expenses paid, on me."  The man blabs everything, I don't recall what it is however.

As the two of us march away from the door, I decide the information isn't of much value and decide not to report it, I tap the trotting reporter's shoulder, "You guys are allowed to do that?  Offer trips to New York?  We wouldn't ever do something like that."  What?" he says preoccupied with his notes, "Oh f%#k that, ain't nobody going to New York," he says as he clomps down the narrow concrete stairs and screeches out of the parking lot in his rented car.

On August 3rd, 2004, surveillance video from a convenience store near the couples home surfaces, it shows Mark and Lori purchasing a few items, then a few hours later, Mark returns to the same store without his wife.  Between the two visits,  it is revealed, Hacking has shot, killed, and dumped Lori's body.

The clerk on the video who unsuspectingly rings up one of Utah's most notorious killers, is now on the media hit list, CBS, NBC, FOX News, CNN, the New York Times, Rueters,  and me all have one goal on this day.  FIND THAT CLERK.

Inside the Downtown Maverik Store the manager has no intention of giving me the name of the young man who is now the most sought after person in Utah.  She invites me back to the office, as she searches for the the business card of the corporate public relations manager, another clerk, on his break, munching Doritos and slurping a large cola from a plastic cup points with his forehead to a worn sheet of paper on the wall, it is a list of all the store's employees and their phone numbers, he holds up three fingers, and my eyes drop to the third name on the list, I make a mental note, take the pr flack's number and rush out the door.  His name is listed in the white pages, and 10 minutes later, I am knocking on his door.

He refuses to get up from the sofa, he is frozen, it appears, in fear, "Can I talk to you for a minutes?"  "No," he says in a treble monotone, "Do you mind if I come in?" I touch the knob of the screen door,"  "you can't come in," he retorts in a low, emotionless drawl.  "You were there that night, you're the last person to see Lori Hacking alive?"  "Yes," he stares at me, book in hand, fingers fondling the pages.  "My boss said don't say anything to reporters," he scoots himself to the edge of his green sofa, and farther away from me and the front door.  We thrust and parry for about 30 minutes as I try without success, to get some sort of comment out of the man.  In the end I am denied.

A couple weeks later, as the fever of the story begins to cool, I find myself in a grocery store checkout line.  As I mindlessly pick up candy bars, and breath mints, my eyes lock on the cover of the National Enquirer, The headline is, as you might image, wild and flashy, LORI HACKING'S FINAL TRAGIC MOMENTS, in the middle of the front page, is a picture of THAT GUY!  the sentence under his mug reads:  Hear from the last man to see Lori Hacking Alive!"  I drop the Three Musketeers bar on the grocery store tile, and punch out something that I won't repeat here, but that propels the hands of the woman in front of me over the ears of her curious toddler.

I've ferried that failure to get that interview around with me for years, as I do every interview I didn't land, or video I was unable to capture.  I also remember every face that has denied me.  Weird, phsychotic? yes. Now, fast forward 6 years as I find myself at a Maverik Store in Herriman, Utah, and there he is, THE GUY.  One of my most gut-wrenching failures of my carreer.  "Hello, I say as I put down the beef jerky or apple on the counter top, "Do you remembger me?" I squint into his eyes, "Yes," he says in that familiar, haunting monotone, "Why did you talk to the National Enquirer, and not me?" I force, as I hand him my debit card, "I don't  know," he swipes it, and uncomfortably hands it back to me, "well, no hard feelings," I lie, as I stomp towards the door, then I turn and ask with my hand on the glass of the entrance, "did they pay you?"  recalling the hollow promises made by another tabloid reporter years ago, "yeah," he pushes his glasses from the end of his nose back to the bride, " a little bit," he say shifting from one foot to the other, "I knew it!" I announce as I bolt out to the parking lot.

It is a faint consolations, but I also realize, in the end, a failure is a failure, none-the-less sometimes, you have to accept that the cards, and in this case, the bills are stacked against you.

Oh, the places we will go.

"Gimme a dollar! Gimme a dollar! Gimme a dollar! Gimme a dollar!"  The little man in the dirty green sweatpants barks incessantly, almost manically, as we quickly disengage and turn back to our news truck.  Just a few seconds before I am rapping on the front door of what is the last known address of the mother of Curtis Allgier, Maxine McNeeley.  Allgier, who is about as despicable a human being as you might ever imagine, has just plead guilty to gunning down a Utah corrections officer, and we hope to get a comment from the woman who likely knows Allgier best.

I track down the address using old court records, and photographer Mike "D" and I find ourselves rolling into a neighborhood, inhabited by worn and weary apartment buildings near the end of a dead end street.  McNeeley's unit is #1.  The black entrance is framed by a wooden storm door  with three panels of mesh.  The top quadrant is torn and tattered, the second panel remains somewhat intact and the third has been kicked or stripped out years ago leaving a jagged, border of steel.

The access to the apartment is shrouded in an uncomfortable touch of claustrophobia,  The unit is planted to the right of a narrow, crumbling sidewalk, straddled to the left by a tattered, weather-worn wooden planked fence that lilts and leans, and strains to stay standing. As I knock on the door, that fencing to my back seems just a bit too close, like a customer pressing near you in the grocery store line, who lingers a little too long in your personal space as you finger the minty gums and magazines at the checkout.

The paint chipped awning overhead seems to press down on my head, as I wait for some response.  I can hear the muffled tones of the TV blaring inside, and with each pop on the door with my knuckles, I hear the shrieking bark of what is sure to be a tiny little pooch.

To my left are yards of used, but for some time, underutilized building supplies, old mops, ladders, buckets, and a pile of rags, tarps and towels, long discarded, and colonized by ants and rats and Box Elder Bugs, years ago.

The close proximity of the tri-plex to the fence makes for a spider web wonderland, as clear strands of silk criss-cross back and forth from the tattered, uneven boards of the listing fence to the broken rain gutter that jogs jaggedly across the eave of the home.

Somebody nearby has, or had a cat, and never fully potty trained the feline, because with each breath the slight scent of ammonia from cat urine lofts occasionally and uncomfortably into you olfactory.

The old man inside jerks, turns and pops the tired old medal door knob, and lifts, wrestles and jams the door open, but instead of standing inside his threshold waiting for my question, he darts onto his front stoop, and I find him quickly within inches of my face.  His grey mane of hair is wild and wispy, his beard is long and untamed, I can tell he is a smoker, his mustache is stained with a sickly yellow glaze of nicotine   His top is clad in a faint grey sweatshirt that was, years ago, a potent black.  He's been wearing it for a while, as evidenced by what appears to be the dribble from a meal enjoyed days ago.  His green sweatpants hike up high on his left leg exposing his hairy calf, and rides low on his right leg, the dirty, tattered hemline having been dragged under his right heel for days.

"I'm looking for Maxine McNeeley?"  I ask doubtfully, assuming now that she must have moved some time ago.  "McNeeley, McNeely, I don't know any McNeeley," he says moving in to me even closer, "Well ok," I turn to see Mike 'D' has received the hint seconds earlier and is already strolling back to the truck with his camera in tow.

"Well, wait, wait," the man says eagerly, and begins "hey, gimme a dollar, gimme a dollar, gimme a dollar, gimme a dollar," He chants as I speed up my gate, "gimme a dollar, gimme a dollar,"  I've got to laugh as I wonder how long he will continue to holler these three words after we roll away.  Then I find, not too long as he changes tactics, noticing the camera slung over Mike's shoulder, "take my picture, take my picture, take my picture, take my picture, take my picture!"  As I glance back, I see he has choreographed a little dance to accompany his monotonous, monotone tune.  His hands are propped next to his shoulders, palms towards his audience, and he is hoping from one foot to the other, with each bark of the phrase, Take my picture," now to the right, "Take my picture," now to the left...

I was a bit taken aback by the whole scene, the oppressive surroundings, the manic chant and dance, Mike sees it a bit differently, as he hops in the truck, turns the key to crank the engine, he proclaims calmly, "that was awesome."

The Guessing Game

When Ryan Vitale of Salt Lake City, barrels around the left side of Mike Paproski, high above Golden, Colorado, he looks like a man, or more to the point, a teenager desperate to win, the Buffalo Bill Downhill Bloodspill.

Nobody atop Lookout Mountain, wants to see a challenger zip past them in this raucous long board race to the finish line, and it appears no wildlife wants to witness that either, as Ryan finds out in an eye-popping internet theater.

Just a few minutes into a practice run of this very popular annual event, Vitale is racing, then blinks, then finds himself hugging one of the locals, a fully grown Mule Deer.  Seconds later his body is skating, not his board, across the dust dirt and rocks of Lookout Mountain, as he is hit, at 45 miles an hour by that scampering mammal searching for food, but somehow stumbles with his hoofs tapping unsteadily onto the black asphalt and into a hipsters paradise, of brightly clad, helmet wearing teens, bolting around on long boards, and oozing words like "Rad," and "Bro," as they chug tall cans of Rockstar, and bump fists.  Vitale's mind-blowing collision is scary, but remarkably, he is OK, no broken bones, just some road rash, and some bruises.

Vitale's colossal collision is even more head spinning because we get to see it on line  A camera mounted to Paproski's  headgear is rolling and captures the entire, ridiculous crash.  Check it out below, but be warned there is some dirty words towards the end of tape.

By Monday the video is, as the kids might say, "blowing up," on line, and just about every boarder, long or otherwise is replaying, re-posting, and regurgitating it with their jaws, slacked.  After a short Google hunt, I discover, Vitale is a pretty accomplished skater, he even appears to have some association with a line of long boarder clothing.  An indication that he has a bit of a following in the mostly underground skater world.

I figure a monumental spill like this is something a kid like Vitale will love to spill about.

"Hello," Ryan answers, as if I might be his father on the other end, angry about a report card dusted in "D's and "F's,"  "Hi, Ryan, this is Chris Jones with 2 News, how are you?" After a tense pause, he finally breaths into his smart phone, "Yeah."  I'm taken aback a bit, this is the response I expect to  receive from a man accused of exposing himself at the park, not a kid who is part of an Internet sensation.

"Oh, uh," I try to regroup, "this is a pretty remarkable tape of you on the Internet,"  I chirp sprightly, "It's not a big deal," he retort, "I hit a deer on my board, got up, went to the hospital, whatever," he barks, annoyed that he has to talk to me.

"OK, well we'd love to talk to you about it if you're up to it," I suggest.  "Uh, can I text you back in a second?" he responds.  In my line of work, if someone says, "I'll call you back," or "I'll text you back," that is code for "I WON'T ever talk to you again."  People, I've learned, don't like to tell you "no," they don't want to disappoint others, and saying "I'll call you back," is a way of avoiding that discomfort, I've heard it a million times, and I begrudgingly get it.

Oddly in this case, Ryan does text me back, and proclaims, He is "overwhelmed by the attention the video is getting, and is "bugged," by calls from guys like me.

Meanwhile Mike Paproski, the man whose camera catches the collision, is "blowing up" as a minor, 15 minute star.  He is interviewed by websites, magazines, TV stations in Denver, even by ESPN. The attention he says is "unf#$ing believable."

I'm still to this day, stumped by the question of who will, and who will not speak to a reporter.  Paproski, revels in the attention, Vitale, skates quickly away from it.

I've found myself, over the years rolling up on far more tragic scenes than the one that spilled across the face Lookout Mountain.

I am often tasked with the heavy lifting of approaching family members, devastated by crime, disaster, and death.  Some people will wave you off with disgust and animosity, others will politely decline your invitations to do an interview.  Still others, and I would argue, the majority, will welcome you graciously and grant you your request.

What a surreal existence.  At least once a week, I have the unenviable job of rapping on the front doors of families who have just experienced something terrible.  As the GPS blips out directions without emotion, you know the emotion inside the home when you reach it will be palpable.

You also sense the address of the tragedy without glancing at your notes, because it is the home with cars surrounding the house, squeezing into the driveway, filled with somber well-wishers, gently delivering, flowers, potato casa-roles and hugs to the people inside.

As the news car creeps towards the house, I always steady myself with a deep breath.  This is without question, the most oppressive part of the job.

When the door opens, you find yourself face-to-face with raw, painful sorrow, the person creaking the door ajar has been weeping for hours, and facing friends and family at this portal for just as long.  And then, all of a sudden...Here I am.

Sometimes they usher you off, but more often than not, that person will invite you in, and stand you awkwardly in living room, as they search the house for a spokesperson who might be willing to talk to you.  There I am in my suit, an uncomfortable photographer at my side, lugging, a massive camera, large clanky tri-pod, and a bag full of lights and stands.

On countless occasions I've discovered myself propped up in the middle of a families most challenging moment.  Inside a house filled with people, all of them quietly looking at me.

You can see the disgust in the faces of some, as they push the funeral potatoes around their paper plates with a plastic fork, others will give me a gentle, forced grin, with weary eyes, punctuated with redness.  On occasion, a young child will buzz past me, perhaps a toy plane in hand, maybe rolling a Tonka truck over my loafers, someone will say, "that's his son," referring sadly to the person who has died, or is currently in the hospital.

After all these years I am unable to wear a stoic face, when I walk gently into sadness like this I still find myself absorbing the hurt that fills these homes.  It's reassuring actually, it's a note to my soul that my humanity is still intact even after years of taping countless interviews with countless families destroyed by murder, fire, and accidents.

Finally the door greeter has found someone reluctantly willing to speak to me.

I always ask people in these situations  "what do (not did) you love about your brother, father etc?" It is heartening, as they beam past tired, crying eyes, and tell you an anecdote, about a camping trip, a Halloween prank, or a show of charity displayed by a lost loved one.  I know, despite what some might think, that I give the heartbroken family member an opportunity to tell those in their community who never had the pleasure of meeting their father, brother, cousin or sister, that this person is important, that this person is loved, and this person mattered immensely.  Seldom do they crave the attention, almost to the person, they have one agenda, and that it to share the love they have for a family member with those watching the screen.

Ryan Vitale, didn't suffer a tragic crash, thankfully, and he also isn't in the mood of replaying the amazing collision, I would have never guessed that.  That being said, trying to guess who will talk to a reporter and his camera is almost as impossible as predicting when a murderer will spill blood, a tanker truck will explode, or a wayward deer will tackle a teenager.