Casting True Crime Projects with Alexis Linkletter

Biagio: Hey, everybody. She’s joke. He’s Biagio. We’re married. We make unscripted film and television and want to help you do the same.

Joke: Hopefully by teaming up with us.

Biagio: All right. Well, welcome to episode 99. Just one away from 100. More about that later. But today we are so excited to have one of our favorite true crime writer producers with us, Alexis Linkletter. Alexis has been working with us for years now, and just about every crime show we’ve we’ve done, we have more to come with her. Stay tuned. But we’re really excited to have her by today because we wanted to talk about casting true crime projects.

Joke: Welcome, Alexis.

Alexis Linkletter: Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me.

Joke: So true crime is on the rise, which is great for all of us since we were doing some good stuff in true crime. And so lots of networks are looking for true crime, and we’re getting lots of true crime pitches. And one of the main questions we get a lot is casting in true crime is how to find families that fit a certain, or find stories that fit a certain parameters of a show. But also, most importantly, how do you approach these people? Right? Because you might find out of like a great crime story that happened in your neck of the woods, or you’re like, oh, how do I reach out to find out if there’s a series there?

Biagio: Well, right. Because there’s well, on top of which, because these are real people on the other side of this line, people who’ve gone through something really awful in their life.

Joke: So before we get into the nitty gritty of everything, tell us a little bit about how long you’ve been doing this and kind of why you keep doing it.

Alexis Linkletter: Well, I’ve been doing I mean, casting every crime show is has been a big part of it. Casting and finding the stories and finding cases that fit certain criteria, whatever the series happens to be. I’ve been doing that for probably five years now, and why do I continue to do it? Many of the victims families, and many of the law enforcement officials who also participate in these shows get a lot out of it for a number of reasons. I mean, for a lot of these victims families, it can be therapeutic and kind of help them keep the memory of their loved one alive. And for law enforcement, they find a lot of value in it because you’re educating the viewer on kind of how to not get in these situations, and you’re helping them kind of spread information and awareness about a lot of different kinds of, you know, crimes and dangerous activities and all that sort of stuff.

Joke: So where do you start? So let’s say let’s just go through the thing that obviously every show where it’s in our cases where she made me do it or Three Days to Live or some of her other shows we can’t talk about yet. They’re all very specific criteria, right? Like three Days to Live. It’s obviously a kidnaping first, and then hopefully they’re found alive and sometimes they’re not and all of that stuff. But so once you kind of have the criteria down of to what specific crime story we’re looking for for a show, where do you start next.

Alexis Linkletter: So you find, say, you know, you can use something as basic as Google to find obviously a case. And then once you find that case, you kind of want to take a look at a has the case been adjudicated because you really can’t talk about in some on some networks, you can’t talk about a case unless it’s been totally buttoned up in terms of the prosecution and all of that stuff.

Joke: And so just in case nobody knows, the lingo adjudicated literally means the person has been convicted or has been cleared of conviction, is in jail.

Biagio: They’ve run through the jury trial, a verdict has been rendered. There’s no further action. Yeah. The case is closed.

Alexis Linkletter: Yes. So if a case is not closed, the problems you run into is that you can’t get participation generally from law enforcement or from, you know, the judicial parties, because it could hinder the case that they’re building and kind of mess that up for them. So you want to look at that first because that there’s no point. It’s moot if that’s not handled. And then you want to kind of look at the investigation. I mean, are there twists and turns? Is there are there riveting characteristics to the case? Are there good characters? Are there red herrings and, you know, are there is there like a whodunit kind of aspect? Because on top of it being produced and you want to make sure the case is closed, so legally you can do it. You want to make sure it’s interesting because otherwise no one cares.

Joke: And so that’s one of the things, right? If you’re looking at Google and the news article that you find says that they found the person within six hours, it’s probably not a story for an hour crime.

Biagio: Show, right? I mean, listen, there’s different there are different venues for every type of story, including true crime stories. And that ranges from the nightly news to full on documentary series like making a murderer. But if the story itself doesn’t have a whole lot of beats to it, that’s nothing against the victim. That’s not nothing against the crime. That’s not saying, oh, this crime is less than just because we can’t feature it for an hour. It’s just certain crimes work better in the television format, while others might work better in journalism or the nightly news or 20, 20 or 60 minutes. That type of format, right?

Alexis Linkletter: Like if someone witnesses a murder and they know who they know who did it and they know who committed it, there’s no there’s no mystery. There’s no twists and turns. People aren’t going to get sucked into that because the answer.

Joke: An hour.

Alexis Linkletter: Show for an hour show, right?

Joke: But it could be a great 2020 segment.

Alexis Linkletter: Or for example, you know, if that person is on the run, that would be great for America’s Most Wanted. So you don’t, you know, discount a story just because of those, you know, criteria or lack thereof in certain areas. But, you know, it would have to be for a certain kind of show then, right?

Joke: It’s like every crime could probably fit in some bucket. But as you’re casting, you’re looking for a specific list of criteria to be met to fit the bucket of that show.

Alexis Linkletter: Yes.

Biagio: The other thing that’s really difficult with these kind of shows is TV networks. Regardless of the network, they generally have to serve their viewers, which means programing needs to sort of have an entertainment aspect to it. But it’s a real hard balance when you’re trying to make a show entertaining, but still make sure you honor the victims and make sure the crime and the please get the, you know, get the gravity, the situation gets the gravity it deserves.

Joke: I’d like to change the word entertaining to engaging. I think what you mean is the same thing, but it’s not about sitting at home and being entertained as much as it’s being engaged. Right? If there’s. If there’s no twists and turns, if there’s no if I can’t go on the ride that the detectives went on in trying to solve this case, if it was all just kind of, you know, oh, it was so obvious. Here it is. And then it’s not really engaging for the viewer. But if you if if there was an investigation, if it wasn’t easy, if there wasn’t, if there was a whodunit, if there were multiple suspects, you as the audience get to be, as we also often say, the armchair detective, and you get to kind of go through the process that the detectives went through in trying to solve the crime. Right. Awesome. So once you kind of figure out, okay, this looks like a solid case, now it’s time to call people, right?

Alexis Linkletter: So that there are a lot of approaches. I mean, you you kind of if the case has gotten media attention generally, you could find the names of the people involved. There are obviously research tools where you could also kind of piece together family trees and figure out who the relatives of these victims are. And when you do that, I mean, you can contact people these days through Facebook, Instagram, you could find their emails. It’s really easy to track down contact information. But you want to approach these people with respect. And, you know, you sometimes can find clues in the media about how willing they are to to to speak to media further if they’ve never given an interview. I mean, when you reach out, it’s going to be a wild card. Some people, especially if it’s like a year or less where the crime has occurred, it’s going to be really raw. And, you know, reactions can vary. Like, there’s really no way, I mean, to anticipate how someone morning is going to react to your interest in their story.

Joke: And, you know, a lot of people have reached out saying how it’s hard to pick up the phone and make that call that, you know, that’s a difficult thing for them to do. Do you remember the first call you made to a victim’s family?

Alexis Linkletter: Yeah, and it’s terrifying. And it’s really hard and it’s a skill because you, you know, we all know someone who’s very good at this. A colleague of ours is very good at this, and he’s like a robot. And sometimes you’re like, how do you do this? And it’s very hard. And it’s a skill you have to hone in. And it’s just like journalists are really good at it. But yeah, no, it’s scary because you can get hung up on. And I remember on She Made Me Do It. I remember one of my colleagues was calling a victim’s family and they hung up. And then the cops called her because they called the cops on her for calling them. So it’s like you just never know. But some people are thrilled that you called and want to tell you everything and are excited that their loved one people are interested in their story. So it really is a crapshoot when it comes to how people are going to react. Because humans are there are a lot of variables in every crime and every tragedy, ranging from amount of time that’s passed. And just like mental state, emotional state, you just don’t know how people have mourned or grieved.

Joke: But obviously on, on a on a grander scale of things, since you’re still doing it, it’s mostly positive. There’s there’s just a few where, you know, it’s not always great.

Alexis Linkletter: But yeah, I mean, it’s mostly positive. I would say the whole like the whole thing is positive. I’ve really had very few negative experiences when it’s come to victims families or anything like that. Well, especially you guys, producer shows with such integrity. We’re not trying to exploit anyone, and no one’s been upset with the way an episode has come out. So generally. Yeah, I mean, if you have a team that has, you know, a sound ethical compass and generally no one’s going to come out of the experience with a bad taste in their mouth.

Biagio: Will you make a great point to is the fact that, you know, the difference between doing true crime that is, is perhaps, hopefully meaningful and can spread an important message versus tabloid a lot of times is family and police by in a lot of the tabloid shows they don’t have any. They’re not sitting down with the victims. They’re not seeing that the police, they’re just telling the story, you know, using recreation over. Whereas when a family or police, you know, members of the police department sit down with you, not only are they giving their stamp of approval, they’re they’re bringing it to the project. You know, that sort of.

Alexis Linkletter: Authenticity on the cloud?

Biagio: Yeah, the authenticity that you need for for it to feel real and feel important and not just feel exploited.

Joke: Right. And I think also one of the things that we do here first is, is we usually try to contact law enforcement first. So talk about how how to get through law enforcement, the public information officer, they talk about how, you know, most departments in justice, whether it’s police or or the Justice Department, have specific people that you can talk to.

Alexis Linkletter: So generally and it depends. Of course, on the size of the police department. But generally there’s one person that’s the public information officer. And all requests go through them. And those that person is usually listed on the website. But if it’s a small it’s a small town in Idaho, for example. They’ll probably be someone like that for the county. But if you just go to their government website, there’s generally someone listed as either either the media contact or the public information officer, and they are in charge of releasing, you know, press releases about crimes or just general town government happenings. And that is the person who can generally put you in touch with the law enforcement officers who were directly involved in liaison, that for.

Biagio: You, public information officer, that’s often referred to as the Pio Pio.

Joke: But I think then once you get the Pio to put you in touch with the detectives who who work the case, that’s usually when you can get a good sense of, of the families, because the detectives have a good sense of listen to this family still struggling or yes, this family had, you know, has had good experiences with press in the past or, you know, they really want to keep that memory of their of their loved one alive. So, so you can get a good sense, usually through law enforcement first, on whether or not it’s worth contacting the family.

Alexis Linkletter: Yeah. I mean, not only can you get a good sense, but oftentimes in the really tragic cases, there’s been some sort of bond formed between the detective or the officer and the family in a family member. A lot of these officers, if the case was horrific, feel a personal attachment to it, like it was something really important to them, and they will kind of support the show and kind of get the family on board for you. So there are a lot of ways that could go, but it’s usually it’s important to get the try to get the law enforcement involved first. It can be a huge help.

Joke: Right. And then obviously, you know, the rule that we have is if we cannot get law enforcement and we cannot get the family, then the story is not moving forward.

Alexis Linkletter: Right? You want both because a family member can’t adequately, adequately tell a story because they’re emotionally involved. They can tell some of it. But as far as the investigative parts, I mean, you just need the person to give the facts and timelines, and the family doesn’t generally know that stuff. Right.

Joke: And vice versa. We think it’s always very important to have both sides represented, both from the family and from the law enforcement side, not just because it makes for a better storytelling, but also, you know, again, it gives us comfort in knowing that this is a story that everybody involved once told.

Alexis Linkletter: Right.

Joke: Awesome. Well, I think this is super helpful. Do you have any other tips and tricks that you wouldn’t mind sharing?

Alexis Linkletter: The one other thing that at least on all of your shows that I’ve done with you guys, actually, no. All shows archival can be can make or break a show, and there are some shows that it’s all archival. If you have amazing footage of a serial killer giving interviews, you could make a whole show on on just that and archival for you guys who don’t know what that’s considered, you know, news footage, just, you know, random footage of interrogations, photos. I mean, what else falls under the aircraft?

Joke: I’m seeing photos, newspaper articles.

Biagio: Recordings, any kind of.

Joke: Calls, you know, family pictures. Yeah. Any any kind of visuals or audio? Again, 901 calls are huge that help tell the story and help kind of bring that story to life and take pressure away from, you know, these sometimes dreaded recreation.

Alexis Linkletter: Something like that. You can just literally build a show on if you have something unique enough or and you have enough of something that’s interesting.

Joke: And so as you’re building your relationships with the law enforcement officials on the case, it’s also checking in with them, right? In terms of like, what do you still have on file? Do you still have the 911 call. Do you. Are you releasing some of the crime scene photos? Do you have specific things that you know about? And and also reaching out to the families once you have them on board, it’s, you know, do you have home videos? Do you have pictures? Do you have you know, maybe maybe they don’t have it, but they remember. Oh, the local NBC affiliate news channel, you know, did a lot of coverage on this case. And then now, you know, okay, I’m going to reach out to the NBC affiliate and and get it from them.

Alexis Linkletter: Right. And also, you know, what a lot of people need to realize too, is that police have this stuff at first. But generally when it goes to trial, it’s handed over to the prosecutors. And there’s a different process for getting for getting that from them, then getting it from the police. You just in every, you know, system is different. So you’re going to have to just kind of do the research and figure out how to request that stuff. But yeah, I mean, generally, if it’s a new ish case in the last five years, it hasn’t been thrown out yet.

Biagio: But an important part about all this video, photos, archival evidence, you can’t just take that and throw it into show, right? Can you just go to Google Images and be like, oh, this picture is great. We’ll put it in the TV show.

Alexis Linkletter: No.

Joke: It’s all about licensing.

Alexis Linkletter: Yeah. And it’s very that’s it’s own. That’s its own animal. You guys can have a whole episode on licensing. We’ll have to do a licensing.

Biagio: Through a licensing podcast at some point. But but needless to say, it’s not as simple as just grabbing a picture off the internet or letting an officer hand you a picture. I mean, like every case, every show and depending on the network you’re working with are going to have different rules.

Joke: I’ll just tell you this. The number one rule is check with your lawyer.

Biagio: Number one.

Alexis Linkletter: So so and yeah there’s a different process for a picture, a recording, a police document. I mean you just have to the the general thing is you have to secure permission for all of these from the owner.

Joke: Yes. Yeah. And but that’s a big thing. It’s it’s being honest with yourself about who the owner is because someone might hand you something and that does not make them the owner. So for example for a picture. Well we’ll do that in the licensing.

Biagio: But listen Alexis, thank you so much for everybody out there. Alexis is just a superstar. We love working with her. She’s incredible at what she does. And I think it’s important for us to work with people like Alexis, because you really do care about the people you reach out to. And you have heard, I mean, firsthand from some people who’ve been approached sometimes by other productions. They’re not necessarily handled with the same care. We try to.

Alexis Linkletter: Right. And, you know, if a victim’s family has a bad experience with one producer, they will say no to everyone because they think that’s how it all is. But here you guys, like everyone, has been so thrilled with all of the work that we’ve done. And I just love working here because of that. Well.

Joke: And it also helps that now that, you know, we have families of victims that have trusted us and like what we’ve done is that, you know, we’ve put some of them in touch with new families. We’re trying to cast or book on their stories on certain shows. So, you know, once you you build up a reputation that obviously, hopefully helps. And that’s why it is so important to us. We don’t want to have someone have a horrible experience or an unfair experience, and that’s why hiring good people is top of.

Alexis Linkletter: Our list.

Biagio: I always say we always want to hire people that are better than us. So,

Joke: But anyway, the whole point of us doing this is podcast is obviously crime. True crime is taking off as a but I think as as true crime pitches come in, a lot of times it’s not just like, hey, we’re going to do and again, this is just an easy one. Wives with knives. You have to bring a pitch with sample cases that you know are bookable. We have to do the same thing when we go to network and those kind of things. So we wanted to do this podcast. So you know how to go about approaching these cases in law enforcement and families. So you know what that’s like. And we’ve had conversations with some of you who were hesitant on making those phone calls. And again, totally normal, very human. But I hope this gives a little more confidence that that it’s okay to reach out and to do it respectfully. And again, if you go through to law enforcement first, you’ll have an idea of what state the family will be and when you call. But again, it’s still.

Biagio: It’s necessary. I mean, and if you feel weird about reaching out, just remember it’s not really fair to tell the story without reaching out, right?

Joke: Exactly. It’s their story. And without their permission, we shouldn’t tell it. And if they say no, then it’s like, okay, you know, totally understand. And you move on and find your next story. But so yeah, so both things one, finding stories is extremely important. And how and then to it’s very important to make those phone calls and to build that trust and the relationship with both law enforcement and family in true crime casting.

Biagio: Great. Well thank you so much, Alexis.

Alexis Linkletter: Thanks, guys.

Biagio: It’s awesome having you here for all of you listening. Yes, this was episode 99 and yes, we’ve been talking forever about episode 100.

Joke: And when we say we, we mean you.

Biagio: We mean me. Just shouting ridiculous ideas at joke everything from running out the zoo to doing a huge loss to shoot. I feel like I threw that at some point. I was like, hey, we’ll do it at the zoo anyways. Listen, it’s going to be a little bit lower key than that. But the good news is it’s going to be all about you. So we’re working on something special for you. We should be back in four weeks with episode 100. You’ll have to forgive us if we miss it by a couple weeks, because we are putting together something kind of big for it. Big for you. Not not not a big crazy extravaganza like I like I had hinted at for the many, many podcasts, but you know, on a separate note, you know, joke made fun of me way back when in a podcast. When I started naming these with a zero, I did 1002 so that you could go to producing unscripted combat, whatever. Well, it’ll finally pay off because we can really only do 999 with the current numbering system. So we’re getting to 100.

Joke: 11 times something, what, 4 or 5 years ago, I never thought we’d make it to 100.

Biagio: So she’s like, I never thought I’d let Biagio drag me off this.

Joke: This just shows the power Biagio has over me. In case anyone thought it was the other way around. You were all wrong.

Biagio: Listen, I must have something over her, because. Look at her. How did I ever end up with her? I must I got some kind of magic even I don’t understand. Anyways, thank you so much for tuning in. And we’ll be back in, let’s say 4 to 6 weeks with episode 100.

Joke: All right. Thanks, Alexis. Thank you guys.

Biagio: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.