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Killer Thriller: Do You Trust Your Neighbor? The Girl Held Captive for Nearly a Decade. · Legally Brunette

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Elisa Donovan.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody. Elisa Donovan here, and this is Killer Thriller.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Some of the most disturbing true crime cases aren't shocking
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: because of how violent they begin. They're shocking because they
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: begin so quietly. At just 14 years old, Tanya Cash
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: was groomed by a trusted school security guard. who spent
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: years manipulating her before holding her captive for nearly a decade.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Lifetime's The Girl Locked Upstairs, The Tanya Katz Story, examines
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: not only Tanya's extraordinary survival, but also the psychology of grooming,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: coercive control, and how predators can hide in plain sight. Today,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: I'm joined by actor Robert Baker, who portrays Tom Hose. Together,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: we'll explore what makes this case so psychologically unsettling, why
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: grooming is still so widely misunderstood, and what this remarkable
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: true story can teach us about recognizing manipulation before it's
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: too late. Robert, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for having me. Glad to be here.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: You have played some very complex and dangerous characters in
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: your career over the years, but this is really, uh,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: this had to be a bit different. We spoke with
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Jordan who was singing your praises and said, yeah, like how,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: how much easier you made some of the things that
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: could have been extraordinarily difficult.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Um, so she says, hello.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Good. Good.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: We definitely tried to make it as, as, uh, a
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: safe environment to do what we had to do to tell, that, uh,
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: harrowing story, you know?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So Tom hose is a real person, a real
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: man who groomed and held Tanya cash captive for nearly
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: a decade. What was your first reaction when you read
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: the script?
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: I was, I was shocked that it was for so long,
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: but he held her for 10 years. Like you said,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: And four of it, nobody knew she was there because
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: she was so young. And he lived with his parents,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: you know, like he was just upstairs from his parents downstairs.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: So the fact that they.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Honestly, the fact that they got away with it for
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: that long just blew my mind. It just shows how
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: little some people pay attention to anything, to their surroundings,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: to anything that is going on.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It's like how do you miss that?
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: And this wasn't in the movie, but he had a
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: teenage son who lived in the.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Room with them.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Wait, so I'm so glad you're bringing this up because
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I had read that, that he had a son. Tell
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: me what you know about that.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Just that the son was, well, it's nothing good, of course.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: The son lived in the room with them.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: He was a teenager, did you say?
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I think he was a young teenager, like 13, 14,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: like young.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And he lived in the room in the same room.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: That is what I was told.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: That is what I was told, which seems it makes
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: it even more difficult to believe that it's even more
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: astounding that this was just kept secret for so long.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: It's just mind boggling to me.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: That was so like when I first read it and I,
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: I was, I was really just kind of like, wait, what?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is true.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: And then I, you know, cause it was one of
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: those gigs that you get an offer on Friday and
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: they're like, you're flying on Tuesday. That kind of, it
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: was one of those like family was in town, out
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: of town.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And the whole thing.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: So it was just like, come.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: On, read it.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: You know, it was like, I had to put the
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: kids in front of the TV to sit down and read.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: It was that kind of a, that kind of a day. Right.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: So I, you know, I didn't know anything about it
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: before I got it. And then I got it and
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: I read it and I was just like, I was,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: you know, I was like, this is real. And then,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: you know, I did a little research and saw about it.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: And then I took the role.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: And then when we flew up, we discussed, you know,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: then with the director and with, with Jordan, we, you know,
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: we were able to sit and talk about it and, and,
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: and figure out some of the reality of what was
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: going on. And then after it was over, we did,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: we spoke to Tanya a little bit about, about, what
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: her experience of kind of having all this stuff come
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: up fresh was, was like for her. Yeah.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Was that Jordan said she was on a zoom with her.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Is that the same that you guys were? Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: We were both, we were both on that one. Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, she seems to be very pleased, which is
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: a strange word, but like very, She feels like you both,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: you did justice to her story. So that has to
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: feel good.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Great. That's what counts, right? Yeah, it does. It does.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: That's very important. You know, when you put something like
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: that out there, you're kind of like, ooh.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: So if for no one else, then for her to
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: see that and feel like what she went through was
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: told in a way that could do anything to give
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: her any sort of peace or peace.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Of mind or healing, then there you go. you know,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: then it's worth it for that.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. I mean, I feel like that's the whole,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: you know, Elizabeth Smart, who is an executive producer of
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: this movie, who is just, I have to stop saying
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: how extraordinary I think she is because it's getting weird,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: but I really do. I'm so impressed with her and
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: what she has, how she's chosen to handle her life.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: But she has said that Oftentimes, the reason that she
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: told her story for the movie about her abduction is,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, for a lot of things to help her
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: to heal. But she said often, like, why, when asked
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: the question, why do we make movies and TV shows
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: about these things? And she said, oftentimes, it's easier for
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: us to kind of really understand the impact of something
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: through story and through narrative. And I think that's so
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: powerful and that's exactly what this is for.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: It also like it, it puts it at a distance
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: maybe where you can kind of absorb it as opposed
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: to the reality of it is kind of just like,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: you almost don't want to accept it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Like for your own sanity, for your own safety, for
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: your own belief in the goodness of humanity and.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: You kind of don't want to accept it. You know
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: what I mean?
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: It's like, or at least for me, my initial thing
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: is just like, no, that's not, that didn't, couldn't, not didn't,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: that couldn't happen.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: It's like, no, it definitely happens. Unfortunately, it happens a lot.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: And I think that like the seeing it as a
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: narrative kind of thing and just sort of with that,
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: that separation, I think from the, from like reality in quotes,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: you know, Makes it more palatable and you can, then
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: you can kind of absorb the message of what is
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: coming from it, I think.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great, I never really thought about it
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: in that, that point of it. I think you're right.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: That there is like a, you can't, you know, like
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: reading the news or watching the news or seeing some,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: it's just, it's just can be too much sometimes.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: So Tom's own mother seemed to be a pretty harsh woman.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: And at least that's how she was portrayed in the film. And,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: you know, do you think it's possible to understand how
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: someone became a predator without excusing what they did?
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: I'm lucky that I had a, you know, my early
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: childhood was good.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I had good parents. I
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: had a loving family. parents, they cared, they were there
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: for us.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: And so I can see how people like myself, that
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: leads you in one direction. So I can see how
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: if you would have those chunks missing without those kind
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: of North stars to give you some guidance, I see
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: how people could go into a lot of different directions. And,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't think it was so much the
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: case in this one, but then you could talk about,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: you know, somebody's socioeconomic environment, you know, they're just the
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: Where they grow up, you know, just their environment, period.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Just all those little aspects could lead somebody to any
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: kind of horrible thing. You know, it's kind of the
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: old saying, you don't know somebody until you walk a
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: mile in their shoes, honestly.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I see how that happens. I don't get it.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I don't get it. And I'm glad.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: That I don't get it. It gives me great comfort
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: at night that I don't get it. But I do.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I can understand.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: It's like a, I always feel like it's a, and
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: these things are, they're explanations, not excuses.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, of course.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Those things are, you know, they're very different things. So
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: he obviously, Tom spent years controlling Tanya without locks or
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: chains or sort of traditional physical restraints. And what, what
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: do you think gave him that kind of psychological power?
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's because she was so well, her
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: age to begin with there's, it's funny. I, I understood
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: a lot about it because one of my kids was
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: doing an activity, was doing a, uh, you know, a
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: thing that kids do. Sorry, I speak very generally about
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: my kids. They're private citizens. They didn't choose to be public.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: That's me.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: So they, one of them was doing something, an activity
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: where I had to get, I had to become a
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: mandatory reporter.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: You know what those are?
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: It's like if you, it's like you, because you're around
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: kids in a volunteer capacity, you have to No certain
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: signs of abuse, certain signs in the leg.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: So if there's anything that you.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: See that you get that you're like, hang on, this
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: isn't right, that you can kind of, so that you are,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: it's on you to.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Talk to somebody about that, to try to find help
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: for this kid.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: That ultimately turned out to be the case. Anyhow, I
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: had trainings. So she kind of, she was kind of
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: a perfect target. She had no family support. She had
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: no friends. She was quiet.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: She was isolated.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Predators seek those people out because they don't go to somebody.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: They don't have somebody to go to to tell them
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: what happened. Honestly, they're probably so desperate for the attention
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: that some part of them, maybe not at the time,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: some part of them maybe might not even realize how
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: awful the thing is in the big picture of what's
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: happening to them.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Because it's just like, well, somebody cares. Somebody's paying attention
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: You know, I, at the beginning, certainly the way that
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: it was portrayed in the movie, he was, he really
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: was like, I'm here to help you.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I'm your friend.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I can help you. You want to go see your mom?
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: I'm going to help you go see your mom. I'm
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: going to do all these things. He did that knowing
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: full well, the mom was going to do what she
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: did and send her running back to him. So I,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: so yeah, I mean, it's, it's terrible. She was, she
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: and so many like her, I would imagine are just,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: just like, sitting ducks there's like perfect targets for these
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: monsters right yeah i mean that that need for.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Love and connection is cannot be understated as a human being.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: It's imprinted it's in our it's we are we're a pack.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Animal we it's yeah yeah yeah it's it's it's heartbreaking
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: so um In the movie, and I also heard Tanya
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: say this, that it's true that he, Tom seemingly had friends,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: you know, like coming home drunk one night, telling Tanya
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: that his buddies liked reading the sex journals that he
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: made her keep. Don't you think it's just so hard
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: to believe that he never told anyone about this, that
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: he was keeping her captive? Or did he tell them,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: do you think, or? And to your point, was it
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: like they just don't pay attention, like didn't ask enough questions? Like,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: what is the deal?
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I bet he didn't. I don't know the answer to that.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I bet he. But if he was that good.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: At keeping secrets, I wouldn't be surprised if he waited
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: till she was 18 to start.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Telling them at least. So that if there was any
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: kind of if one of them was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What?
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: She's legal. You know what I mean?
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: So he probably wouldn't tell her he'd been keeping her
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: since she was 14, captive, using a bucket for a toilet.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: You know, but like I.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: Find it knowing normal men and their ability to keep
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: their mouth shut about how sometimes, you know, about romantic interludes.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: I find it hard to believe he'd never said anything.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: to one of his friends in some capacity, but I
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be surprised if he waited until he knew legally,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: at least as far as the statutory thing goes, he
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: was clear.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Cause I don't think he was stupid. I don't think
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: he's stupid, you know? Right.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Well, it certainly coincides with her. If he abducted her
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: at 14 and then he only started letting her leave
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: the room and And the house at four years later,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: which makes her 18. So everything becomes a little more
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: complicated then.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: A little more complicated, a little while maybe unseemly to
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: the outside world, not illegal.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: And that just really shows a, you know, a real understanding.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: It's just despicable, but like a real calculated kind of
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: behavior that is not just whatever sort of explanation he
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: could give. Oh, I just, I fell in love with her.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: She was so sweet and pretty, you know, like whatever
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: kind of.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: It's really, really playing the long game. You know what
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: I mean? It takes a real perverse discipline. It seems
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: like to do that. Yeah.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Do you think people still underestimate how powerful emotional manipulation
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: can be?
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: I think people do because I think probably anybody can be,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: I think probably anyone, not to that extent, perhaps, but
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: I think anybody can probably be emotionally manipulated a little bit.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm thinking about how often my, I've been
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: emotionally manipulated by my children in a far more innocent manner.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: But like, I think that the, I think that that's
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: something that is incredibly powerful and that's something that people
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: do and can do.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: And, and unfortunately probably will always do.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: And there's also, you know, this is a part of
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: it that I can, I just like, I really can't
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: wrap my head around it. I'm utterly perplexed by the
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: woman who was his friend, Judy Sokol, who, and they,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: they do a great job in the film with this
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: of even sort of confusing the audience of like, well,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: wait a second, what's going on here? Who is this woman?
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: She's allowing this to happen. And so, she did. I can't,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: I can't. So she was ultimately charged with a minor
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: accomplice offenses and I think was sentenced to six to
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: 23 months in jail. Do you, do you know any
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: more about that relationship?
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: No, I, everything that we, the, everything that kind of,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: there was nothing we found about it and everything that
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: we did for the movie was just, I, it was
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: just supplied from my imagination pretty much. Uh, I just
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: kind of assumed he had had some sort of a
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: relationship with her previously, and she was still in love
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: with him, or wrapped up in the mind tricks he
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: could play, and she thought she was helping him out.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Which, I mean, how many people have been led astray
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: thinking they were helping somebody out? I think it's probably
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: somewhere in that world for her.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: And again, whatever she needed, we talked about this with Jordan.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: She was so articulate in saying, you know, when someone's
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: being groomed, that it's so specific to each person because
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: they're essentially finding what that person needs and it isn't
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: one general thing. And so, you know, for her, there
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: was probably a part of that too. He was serving
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: something for her and then didn't want to let that go.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: And so then you find yourself like, okay, I'll keep,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: if I, I help him, he'll come back to me.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Or if I, you know, you can sort of rationalize,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I suppose.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: That was sort of where I went with it when
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I was doing homework thinking about her and my.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Relationship with her and how I get her to.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Do these things and why I would think to take
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Tanya there in the first place.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Was there anything, and this is very funny in my
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: notes here, I just have, was there anything, and then
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: in big parentheses and capitals, or everything about Tom that
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: you found genuinely difficult to understand, even after spending so
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: much time with this character?
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, me.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: As a person? Yeah, I don't get any of it.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: I don't get any of it. I don't get the, like, man...
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: These guys with the young girl, I just I can't
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: I can't wrap my head around it. I just I
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: don't I just don't understand where that comes from in
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: any way.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Shape or form as a human.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Now, as an actor, that's your job is to figure
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: out what that is, because this is. a human being
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: like for for as terrible a one as he is
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: this is a human being and if there's not something
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: there then it's a monster's not in this setting, a
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: monster isn't scary.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: It's not believable.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: It's like, nobody's got, it's not going to make anybody
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: think maybe somebody might be like, Oh, that's scary. Or
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: that's sick, but they're not going to think about anything
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: or like, think about how it could be happening somewhere nearby.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Cause it's like, I don't know anybody like that. That's absurd.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Nobody's like that. But I, so I had to kind of,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: you know, figure out what it is that he'd wanted it.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: in a very human, from a very human place that
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: made him do all these things. And then when I
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: figured that out, then I could understand him from that
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: point of view as a, as just me today talking
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: to you, I.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Don't get him even a little bit.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you think that this whole case challenges the
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: way people define captivity?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. She wasn't chained to the wall, so
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: she wasn't captive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, prisons are of many different makings, right? They're
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: not always just chained to the wall. Some people's prisons
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: is between their ears. I think he had her so scared.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: I think he probably convinced her that she would get
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: in trouble. If anybody ever found out, she would go
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: to jail. If anybody found out you're not going to school,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: what are you doing? You're living with me. Why did
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: you come and live with me? Like, yeah, I could
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: see how he probably spent, turned the entire thing on
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: its head into making her think it was her idea.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: And she's only here because she needed somewhere to go.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: And aren't I a good guy who let you come
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: and live here? So I think in that, yes, sorry,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I didn't quite understand the initial wording, but yeah, totally.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I think it should. It should at least broaden the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: definition of it for people, yeah.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What do you, after spending so much time with
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: this story, what do you find yourself, or what did
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: you find yourself thinking about the most once filming was over?
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: What stuck with you?
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Probably just the reality of that room. We had a
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: great set that was supposed to be.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Tom and Tanya's room. And the set deck did a
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: great job. The room was great.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: It really felt like a room of some man in
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: arrested development.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Yes. They were like, like hockey posters and yeah.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: And like, and all that kind of stuff everywhere. And I,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: and that was very informative when I saw that. And
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: when I talked to the director about that, I was like, Oh, okay.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: So he's, he probably thinks he's living his high school
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: romance here.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: He's probably like.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: This is probably his idea of what a perfect high
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: school romance looks like. And what wouldn't you do to
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: keep that in place? so the feeling of that room,
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: I can bring it up in my mind right now.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: And my back is going up, you know, like I can,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: I can, I think that is probably what held on
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: to what I've, what I held on to because it
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: was just sort of, it was just a good encapsulation
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: of sort of just him in the whole scenario, you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: cause that's just where everything happened. And there's so little,
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: so few things you can think of as.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Like, one place.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: It's like, it's like an entire life happened in this
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: 10 by 10, 12 by 12 room, you know?
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: So that's really what, what, what hung around.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I bet. I mean, it just, right. And just thinking
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: about that, just being in that space in and of
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: itself is unimaginable for all of those years, but then
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: to just have the abuse on top of it, it's
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: just a, it's, it's, it's really, it's, I mean, I
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: talk about a lot of upsetting content on this podcast.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you must. You must. I was listening to a couple,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and I was like, whoa.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: It is this. There are a few that sort of,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: and maybe it's because it feels closer to home in
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: some way. I have a 14-year-old daughter, so maybe that's.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Certainly a part of it. How could it not?
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: But it's like, it's just... Yeah.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was listening to the podcast with Lou, Diamond Phillips,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: the other day.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the other one that really I was like,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: this is messing with my sleep.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: But that almost seems like a serial killer of that notoriety,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: I guess is the word, infamy. Sometimes somebody like that
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: or Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, it almost is like,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: so wild that you're like, that almost doesn't feel real.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: That it is real, obviously, but it almost doesn't feel real. This, however, though,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: it's just like, Jesus, that could be literally happening across the.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: You would, you, you know, I, I, Because nobody knows,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: as opposed to those serial killers where it's like, here's
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: another sign of them.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Here's a sign of them. You don't know who they are,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: but you know that that was them.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: That was them again. They were in this place. They
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: were in that place. But this, you know, with Tanya, like,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: that could be anywhere. That could be anywhere.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: And we don't know. You don't know what happens behind
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: closed doors.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That's what's really so specifically unsettling about this one
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: for me. Yeah.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Well, you do, again, these words, beautiful work.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: You really do. And again, I feel like these things are,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: you know, we talk about them and make these stories
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: because it's a part of humanity undeniably. And if we don't,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: if we aren't capable of talking about the hows and
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: the whys of these things, and helping us to have
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: a deeper understanding. I just don't know how we can,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: you know, avoid them.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Can't, I mean, it would be impossible. Yeah. People wouldn't
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: even know about it, you know?
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Because they, because like, especially now with the news cycle,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: the last 20 minutes, you know, you're just.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Onto the next thing. Right.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Well, Robert, you're, this has been so lovely. It's a,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: it's such a pleasure to meet you and thank you
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: so much for talking with me.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: My pleasure. Thanks for talking. That was great. Thank you.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: The Girl Locked Upstairs, the Tanya Cash story is streaming online.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: It's very powerful, and I highly recommend people watch it.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: So thank you, Robert.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you.