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The Devils Quarry From Rollingstone Magazine Journalist Paul Solotaroff · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: Arrow dot net. It's a collection of podcasts that come
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  Speaker 1: But where did it come from? Because if it was
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  Speaker 1: hanging out with your grandparents, that's saying has got some history.
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  Speaker 1: Something our parents would say. Only on arrow dot net
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  Speaker 1: A r r oe dot net. Enjoy your exploration, love
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  Speaker 1: your logo. Oh that that's just me just playing around
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  Speaker 1: with AI. You know what that's all about these days.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, just hey, play with it. It's a tool.
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  Speaker 1: Just go have a good time. Like a kid that's
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  Speaker 1: out there in the front yard and their bike is Batman.
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  Speaker 2: Or the green lantern. I love your crook, Well what
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  Speaker 2: it is?
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  Speaker 1: That's actually part of a walking stick that I got
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  Speaker 1: from the Native American nation up in the Pacific Northwest.
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  Speaker 1: And I studied the surroundings of all spiritual tools and
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  Speaker 1: I just to watch them make it and to bring
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  Speaker 1: it to life was God that was spiritual as it was.
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  Speaker 1: And then to be able to share it and the
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  Speaker 1: energy of all Native American tools extraordinary.
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  Speaker 2: Sounds like you've got a story.
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  Speaker 1: There's it's somebody who loves his land. I live in
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  Speaker 1: a forest, and I mean it's like you. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure that you do the same thing. As you travel,
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  Speaker 1: you feel something coming from that soil, and you're called
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  Speaker 1: to a story. And I'll bet you you were called
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  Speaker 1: to this story the Devil's Quarry, because this doesn't just
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  Speaker 1: happen to anybody. The way you write it, the way
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  Speaker 1: you bring it to life, the way that everything comes together.
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  Speaker 1: This was something that's almost like you've lived this life
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  Speaker 1: before and you said, I'm going to do it better
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  Speaker 1: next time. Here it comes in twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed, brilliantly said Era so as the lead investigative
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  Speaker 2: reporter for Rolling Stone, a guy who broke the airn
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  Speaker 2: Hernandez scandal, broke the NFL concussion crisis, who got the
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  Speaker 2: wrapper Meek Mill out of prison, who got forty two
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  Speaker 2: thousand people exonerated with a single story in Massachusetts, I
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  Speaker 2: went up to Putnam County, which is forty forty five
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  Speaker 2: miles north of the Bronx. So we're not talking western Alabama.
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  Speaker 2: We are talking a commuter rail away from New York City.
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  Speaker 2: It's a community of New York city comps, fireman, sanitation workers,
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  Speaker 2: kanad workers.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: So I went up there to do two things. One,
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  Speaker 2: get an innocent man out of prison, the kid who
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  Speaker 2: went away at eighteen for the rape and murder of
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  Speaker 2: a twelve year old girl he didn't know and had
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  Speaker 2: barely met. But two, having done deep dives into three
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  Speaker 2: of the most lawless police departments in America, I really
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  Speaker 2: wanted to see what small town policing look like, particularly
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  Speaker 2: in a county like Putnam, where the sheriff is lord, master, judge, jury,
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  Speaker 2: and hangman. And what I found I found two things.
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  Speaker 2: About two weeks into what turned into a nine month dig,
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  Speaker 2: I ran into the devil God. And when I say devil,
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  Speaker 2: I mean the actual thing, a man so hell bent
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  Speaker 2: on harming girls and the women who cared for them
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  Speaker 2: that he was one man crime wave. He was a
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  Speaker 2: one man crimewave who had been given a hunting license
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  Speaker 2: by the Sheriff's office of Putnam County. Every cop in
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  Speaker 2: Putnam County knew Howard Gombert, knew what he was about.
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  Speaker 2: He had been in out of prison since he was
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  Speaker 2: a boy for these horrific offenses, and instead of finding
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  Speaker 2: Josette's remains, in the fall of ninety five, and instantly
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  Speaker 2: hauling this man in and sweating him. They dragged in
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  Speaker 2: the two most effeckless stoner teens in town and pinned
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  Speaker 2: this case on them with no physical proof, no direct eyewitness.
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  Speaker 2: There was one young woman who they coerced into Lyne.
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  Speaker 2: They then bullied, threatened, deprived their friends of their rights,
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  Speaker 2: and coerced then into falsely accusing their two best friends.
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  Speaker 2: One of them went away for twenty years, one for
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  Speaker 2: twenty five. In the meantime, the devil ourd Gombert was
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  Speaker 2: allowed to roam freely. He moved one state over fifteen
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  Speaker 2: miles to Connecticut, where he very quickly found his next
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  Speaker 2: set of victims and did what he does. But in
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  Speaker 2: Connecticut they take the rape and beating.
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  Speaker 4: Of young women and their parents seriously, and so they arrested, convicted,
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  Speaker 4: and sentenced Gombert to thirty years in prison.
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  Speaker 2: The problem in Connecticut is that thirty years is actually
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  Speaker 2: twenty five. So this December, Howard John Gombert Junior will
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  Speaker 2: walk out of Max prison a freeman, no parole, no probation,
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  Speaker 2: no supervision whatsoever, and he will disappear into the woods
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  Speaker 2: where he has lived since he was about thirteen off
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  Speaker 2: the grid to reappear at a time and place it
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  Speaker 2: is choosing, and I made this series with my extraordinary
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  Speaker 2: team to try and stop him from returning to society
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  Speaker 2: and doing what he has helped him upon doing again.
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  Speaker 1: This is the kind of stuff why I love modern
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  Speaker 1: day journalism and how writing and podcasting go hand in hand.
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  Speaker 1: Because if you were to take this to your editors
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  Speaker 1: back at the magazine, you're only allotted so many pages.
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  Speaker 1: At least on this podcast, I can really I mean
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  Speaker 1: the pacing of this podcast. You allow me to experience
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  Speaker 1: it and develop my own expectation of it, and I
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  Speaker 1: can't thank you for that. And where did you learn
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  Speaker 1: that craft of pacing? Because it is so important when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to story sharing.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed, so what I try and do is put first
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  Speaker 2: my readers and now my listeners into my shoes, behind
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  Speaker 2: my eyeballs, in my skin, the dread of feeling, the
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  Speaker 2: outrage of fielding the broken heart. I'm nursing on behalf
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  Speaker 2: of these two dead girls, Robin Murphy and Josepp bray On,
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  Speaker 2: behalf of their families who thirty years later have no justice,
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  Speaker 2: no closure. In Robin's case, they don't even know a
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  Speaker 2: body to bury. That is what I require of my
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  Speaker 2: readers and now my listeners. I want you to be
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  Speaker 2: as outraged and as activated by this story. Why do
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  Speaker 2: I say activated, Because ten years ago when I wrote
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  Speaker 2: the Aaron Hernandez story, the world shook, right it was
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  Speaker 2: actually twelve twelve years ago. I was on every broadcast
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  Speaker 2: for two weeks, etc. Lo and behold they discovered another
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  Speaker 2: murder of Aaron Hernandez had committed a year before the
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  Speaker 2: one it was arrested for. Blah blah blah. These days,
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  Speaker 2: a print story is not enough. You need to do
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  Speaker 2: the podcast version. And the podcast version enables me to
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  Speaker 2: do something I've never been able to do before, to
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  Speaker 2: recruit my listeners to join their voices with mine and
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  Speaker 2: say enough enough. Leticia James, Attorney General of New York State,
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  Speaker 2: do your job. Arrest this man the moment he steps
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  Speaker 2: out of prison, commit him under the Sexual Violent Predators Act,
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  Speaker 2: and hold him for the rest of his natural life
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  Speaker 2: in a lock psychiatric facility. Because if you do not,
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  Speaker 2: he will repeat this offense over and over. And it's
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  Speaker 2: awfully hard to tell a guy to protect a community
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  Speaker 2: from a ghost. This is a guy who will live
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  Speaker 2: in a tent deep in the woods and reappear when
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  Speaker 2: he has his next victim or victims lined up.
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  Speaker 1: Please do not move. There is a lot more from
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  Speaker 1: Paul's solo Tariff coming up next. The podcast is called
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  Speaker 1: The Devil's Quarry. We are back with journalists from the
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  Speaker 1: Rolling Stone magazine Paul Solo Tariff. There needs to be
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  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand plus men and women who are in
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  Speaker 1: support of getting this man back behind those bars that
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  Speaker 1: wear a shirt that says he killed a version of
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  Speaker 1: the woman that she will never get back. My God, Paul,
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  Speaker 1: that is still in my heart. I had chills. I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to cry. I was like, what the hell am
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  Speaker 1: I doing on my side of the microphone If I
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  Speaker 1: can't help Paul get this out.
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  Speaker 2: Arrow, I thank you so much. What you are doing
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  Speaker 2: is so crucial again, creating a critical mass, creating a
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  Speaker 2: wave of outrage, of indignation, and justice fever. It's what
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  Speaker 2: must happen because in places like Putnam County, there is
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  Speaker 2: no oversight. When the sheriff gets it wrong or deliberately
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  Speaker 2: screws the case, there's no one over him to step
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  Speaker 2: in and correct his mistakes and get justice for the
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  Speaker 2: people denied it. Anthony and Andy to twenty and twenty
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  Speaker 2: five years for the rape and murder of a girl.
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  Speaker 2: They barely knew they were compensated. But how do you
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  Speaker 2: give two kids back their entire lives?
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  Speaker 1: Paul, I got to ask you a personal question here
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  Speaker 1: in the way that I know what it's like to
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  Speaker 1: go out and get the sound bites. That's one thing,
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  Speaker 1: because that's the inner voice, and that is the inner
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  Speaker 1: producer coming out. But when you have to sit there
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  Speaker 1: in that editing studio and you have to relive these
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  Speaker 1: sound bites, I don't know how you're keeping your stuff
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  Speaker 1: together because when you're reliving it inside your earphones and
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  Speaker 1: then you've got to put it in a story for
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, I don't know how you're doing it. Because
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  Speaker 1: you've got this inner strengthen you that really resonates.
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  Speaker 2: You're so kind to say it. You know what I
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  Speaker 2: tell my listeners is having done this for thirty four
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  Speaker 2: to thirty five years now, I built a layer of
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  Speaker 2: callous around my heart, and you know, necessary itself protective.
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  Speaker 2: It allows me to compartmentalize the most horrific things I
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  Speaker 2: see and hear. This story was different. This story broke
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  Speaker 2: that skin, and it wasn't meeting the devil, it was
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  Speaker 2: meeting his surviving victims. We hear from six women who
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  Speaker 2: were girls or young women at the time Gombert stepped
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  Speaker 2: into their lives and to hear what they have had
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  Speaker 2: to do with no help from law enforcement, with no
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  Speaker 2: help from victim services, with no help for even their
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  Speaker 2: own lawyers to heal to get restitution. They've never been
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  Speaker 2: able to heal. They've never been able to get restitution
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  Speaker 2: for what suffering was inflicted on them. And I had
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  Speaker 2: to tell their stories. I had to shame the state
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  Speaker 2: of New York into doing the right thing for these women.
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  Speaker 1: There's got to be a way that we can inform
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  Speaker 1: the people of New York and especially the East Coast,
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  Speaker 1: because that dude's going to travel that forest will go
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  Speaker 1: all the way down here to the south. There has
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  Speaker 1: to be a way where you say, the devil is
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  Speaker 1: hiding in plain sight, and it could be in your backyard.
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  Speaker 1: And that's what scares the hell out of me on
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  Speaker 1: this because once he comes out the Holy East Coast
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  Speaker 1: or even the mid part of this country, they need
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  Speaker 1: to be looking over their.
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  Speaker 2: Shoulders exactly right. But the first people who are going
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  Speaker 2: to be looking over their shoulders, heads on a swivel.
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  Speaker 2: Are these surviving? He has been threatening them from prison,
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  Speaker 2: far from remorse, far from rehabilitation. He has been talking
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  Speaker 2: about how badly he wants to set up that tent
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  Speaker 2: and bring friends back.
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  Speaker 1: I was doing research on true crime and for an
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio events, and the thing is is that you are
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  Speaker 1: so spot on with what you're doing with this podcast.
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  Speaker 1: Because so many times they'll put it on, they'll glorify
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  Speaker 1: different areas of what the crime is. You are putting
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  Speaker 1: your focus on that victim and those survivors, and God dang,
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  Speaker 1: I'm so proud of you for staying true to that
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  Speaker 1: because that's what people need to hear, and that's what
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  Speaker 1: they need to experience.
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  Speaker 2: You couldn't have said it better than I did. You
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  Speaker 2: did say it better than I did. Your outrage is
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  Speaker 2: a bomb to my heart. It really is being.
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  Speaker 3: Able to connect with people who feel as passionately for
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  Speaker 3: the wrong, for the powerless, for the women of Putnam
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  Speaker 3: County who have no protector.
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  Speaker 2: That is what keeps me doing this work. I'll never stop.
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  Speaker 2: It's a privilege, it's a responsibility, it's a calling. Whatever
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  Speaker 2: the hell. But in this case, it's not just a
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  Speaker 2: moral duty, it's a public safety duty. There is a
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  Speaker 2: ticking time bomb and Howard John Gombert Junior and unless
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  Speaker 2: the authorities in New York State do their job, we
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  Speaker 2: are going to be attending another future.
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  Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show anytime in
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  Speaker 1: the future because we've got to continue this story and
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  Speaker 1: keep it in the headline.
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  Speaker 2: Sir, I would be privileged and proud to do so. Eric,
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  Speaker 2: thank you so much.
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  Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Sir I shall and so shall you.