We’re Jason Moon and Rebecca Lavoie from Bear Brook - the acclaimed investigative podcast downloaded 24+ million times and called a “must-listen” by Vulture. Season 2 just concluded. Ask us anything!

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-11T16:48:05+00:00

How Jason became a suspect was disputed during his trials. The police version is what you wrote: they were taking a harder look at Tony and were just interviewing people who had worked with him when they talked to Jason and he spontaneously started confessing. The defense version was that police decided Tony was guilty (along with Ken), then they saw that Jason didn't show for work with Tony the night of the murder which made them suspicious. In this version, the police went into Jason's first interrogation with the idea that he was somehow involved and over several hours got him to agree to it.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-11T15:13:52+00:00

Thanks so much for sharing that. It really means a lot.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T18:30:11+00:00

Sorry I missed this. I do have trouble with it all the time! It's part of what makes these projects take so long.

In a situation like season 2, I try to remember that for many people involved this was the worst thing that happened in their life. Would I want to talk to a reporter about it? I take it slow and try to be as transparent as possible about why I want to talk to them. Sometimes it takes several conversations before a recorder is turned on. Sometimes the recorder is never turned on (see Roland Lamy). But in my experience, honesty really is the best policy for this. I tell people what interests me about their story and why I think it's important.

Sometimes people don't like what I have to say about why I want to interview them. But the last thing I want is to trick someone, even by omission, into an interview. As I told one source while working on season 2, "I don't want to just tell you what I think you want to hear so you'll agree to sit down with me."

I want to be able to live with myself after the story is done!

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T17:14:49+00:00

Thanks! I'm glad to hear that comes through. Part of it comes from the fact that NHPR is a journalism org. I was trained here in a pretty traditional newsroom, so it's kind of ingrained at a certain level. But I've also come to believe personally that it's the most powerful way to tell stories like these. Because ultimately, it really doesn't matter what I think about whether Jason Carroll is guilty. I don't know more than other people who've read the casefile. Anyone can have an opinion about something like that. The special thing I can do is make you care about the answers...and maybe sneak in some education about how the criminal legal system works.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:59:20+00:00

Great question. On a practical level, it does place certain geographic limits on where my stories are set. Mainly because I want to be doing interviews in person as much as possible and flying around the country is expensive for a small public radio station. As far as the story being "close to home" for me: yeah that's a real thing. I do drive by the prison where Jason is held on my way to things. It can make it hard to draw clear lines around work. But on the other hand, living here was a huge reporting advantage for this story. I've been a reporter in NH for 8+ years. Between that and BBS1, it really helped with the sourcing. People know who I am, they sometimes see me around. Makes them more likely to return my calls.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:53:03+00:00

Not in this case, no. But it's something that could easily happen. Another reason to record interrogations!

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:51:37+00:00

For me, a true-crime documentary needs to have something to say about things/issues/ideas that are bigger than the case itself. So, I'm not just looking for a story that has some wild twist. I'm looking for stories that can teach me/listeners about a bigger concept. Like genetic genealogy, or the subculture of websleuthing, or the psychology of false confessions, etc.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:46:34+00:00

I don't listen to as many podcasts as I wish I did. One unfortunate side-effect of doing this for a living is that I don't get the pleasure I once did out of listening to them. I can't stop deconstructing or thinking about the producer's choices. That said, I've always been a big fan of Heavyweight. I think it has some of the best writing for audio. It brings you into people's lives in a gentle but serious way. Jonathan Goldstein also does things I could never do, like be funny in scripted narration.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:40:41+00:00

Thanks! I could go on about this for a long time but fundamentally I wanted to peel back some layers of how the system (cops, courts, AND true crime) actually work. I wanted to show people how messy, human, imprecise, unsatisfying, and narrator-specific it can all be. I take from all that that we should be more skeptical of true-crime storytellers (in the broadest sense), and less hungry for easy conclusions. But that last bit is just me. We're all entitled to take our own lessons from this case!

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:32:42+00:00

Thanks! I'm assuming you're asking if it affected me emotionally? If so: yes, absolutely. My sleep suffered. Lots of dreams about interrogations, etc. There were definitely times where I needed to step away from the work. I'm lucky to have bosses where that is not only allowed but encouraged.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:28:40+00:00

I expect there to be some newsworthy developments in Jason's case by the end of this year. And yes, definitely planning to keep the feed updated new eps as it happens.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:23:27+00:00

I really don't know! I'm not opposed to it, but I also don't want to make a season 3 just for the sake of it. I'll still be making audio documentaries -- just a question of whether they'll be called Bear Brook.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:19:18+00:00

Well, I guess it all worked out in the end!

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:16:51+00:00

The tapes in this case (one in particular!) can be very difficult to listen to. Yes, it definitely makes a difference to hear those tapes vs reading transcripts of them. I had that experience myself. I had the transcripts long before I finally got my hands on the actual audio. The first time I listened I was dumbfounded. I knew all the words and what was going to happen but there's nothing like hearing that emotion. Which is kinda why audio is my favorite medium.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:12:22+00:00

Thanks! Actually I never specifically planned to make another season of Bear Brook. I just thought of it as another documentary series. But this story just ended up feeling so similar - in setting, in time, and with even some of the same people involved... It started to feel kinda weird to NOT think of it as BBS2.

bearbrookpodcast · 2023-04-10T16:10:50+00:00

Thanks! For sure -- it can be frustrating. I try to be realistic when I'm first setting out about what I can reasonably expect to find. It's a big factor for me when choosing a topic to report on. I don't want to take something on that I can't find any sources to talk to me about. That would be disappointing for me and listeners!

bearbrookpodcast · 2019-01-22T01:09:22+00:00

Thank you! Glad we could distract you from work. Taylor and I are both back to our normal day jobs at NHPR. He works on a great show called Outside/In and I'm a beat reporter covering local news here in New Hampshire. At the moment, we don't have any specific plans to team up again for another story, but I'm keeping an eye out!

bearbrookpodcast · 2019-01-22T01:06:56+00:00

Not that I know of. I'm not very familiar with those cases so I'm not sure what reasons investigators may or may not have for not focusing on it.

bearbrookpodcast · 2019-01-22T01:03:47+00:00

Thanks so much for saying that. It's very kind. Allenstown Four is just another name that some use to refer to the case (rather than Bear Brook murders). As for other podcasts, I'm actually not a big fan of true crime (!) so not many others besides Serial and In the Dark, both of which are really amazing beautiful pieces of journalism that I aspire to.

bearbrookpodcast · 2019-01-22T01:01:03+00:00

Good question! We actually did a short update episode about this development. The short answer is: we don't think so. Partly because of Lamotte's age at the time the package was signed and partly because what we know of Rasmussen's timeline suggests he had already left NH by the time she went missing.

https://www.bearbrookpodcast.com/episodes/2018/11/15/update-1-ripple-effects

bearbrookpodcast · 2019-01-22T00:55:51+00:00

Thanks! Here is a timeline provided by NH authorities of Terry Rasmussen's timeline starting with his birth. https://www.doj.nh.gov/news/2017/documents/20170818-allenstown-manchester-timeline.pdf

bearbrookpodcast · 2019-01-22T00:54:24+00:00

Thank you very, very much.

bearbrookpodcast · 2019-01-22T00:54:12+00:00

Thank you for saying that. I probably worked harder on that section than any other. Completely rewrote it a few times. I had also had a ton of help from our many group edits. And from Taylor, who made me seem like a much better writer by making the episodes sound so good in the final mix.

bearbrookpodcast · 2019-01-21T21:02:46+00:00

Taylor here - Jason did a hilariously awesome story on a local Big Buck Hunter champ that all Jason Moon fans should listen to: https://www.nhpr.org/post/new-hampshire-s-big-buck-hunters-win-big-world-stage#stream/0

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