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Who’s Behind the Raids? A Mystery in Marion (Part Two) · Question Everything

0:01
Speaker 1: When we left each other last week, Eric Meyer, the
0:03
Speaker 1: publisher of the local newspaper in tiny Marion, Kansas, was
0:07
Speaker 1: reeling from the town cops raiding his home and newspaper offices.
0:11
Speaker 1: And then his 98-year-old mom dying the day after, right
0:15
Speaker 1: after she told the cops. It's on video. This raid
0:19
Speaker 1: is going to kill me. You're going to be responsible
0:21
Speaker 1: for my death. I have to arrange for a funeral.
0:28
Speaker 1: I have to put out a newspaper. And by God,
0:31
Speaker 1: I'm going to put out the newspaper. There is no
0:34
Speaker 1: frigging way that I'm going to let them seize our
0:37
Speaker 1: equipment and keep us from publishing that week. My mother
0:41
Speaker 1: would have skinned me alive if I had. Today on
0:46
Speaker 1: Question Everything, we continue the story. Who was behind the
0:49
Speaker 1: raids of the Marion County record? That Friday, August 11, 2023,
1:01
Speaker 1: as the cops were packing up the records, computers, and
1:03
Speaker 1: hard drives in Marion, across the state line in Kansas City, Missouri,
1:09
Speaker 1: another journalist, TV reporter Jessica McMaster, was multitasking, getting dinner
1:14
Speaker 1: ready for her kids and scrolling through Twitter, when she
1:17
Speaker 1: saw word that a local paper in a tiny town
1:20
Speaker 1: a couple hours away from her had been raided by
1:22
Speaker 1: the police.
1:23
Speaker 2: I wasn't familiar with Marion at all.
1:24
Speaker 3: That's not actually even part of our coverage area over
1:27
Speaker 3: here in Kansas City. What piqued my interest, there was
1:31
Speaker 3: all this chatter on social media about who was behind this.
1:36
Speaker 1: A refresher on the suspect list. There was the mayor
1:39
Speaker 1: of Marion, who'd been clashing with Eric Meyer and the
1:42
Speaker 1: newspaper for years and had just made a nasty post
1:44
Speaker 1: online about journalists. There was the local restaurant owner, who
1:48
Speaker 1: was also mad at the paper about their reporting and
1:50
Speaker 1: whose name was included on the warrants. There was the judge, maybe,
1:55
Speaker 1: who appeared to be a fill-in for the normal district
1:57
Speaker 1: judge and who signed off on the search of the newspaper.
2:01
Speaker 1: And then there was the man who carried out the raid,
2:04
Speaker 1: Gideon Cody, the new chief of the Marion police. Gideon
2:08
Speaker 1: Cody oversaw the raids and applied for the search warrants
2:10
Speaker 1: behind them.
2:12
Speaker 3: When I pulled his name up, I found that he
2:14
Speaker 3: had actually just left Kansas City Police Department. a few
2:20
Speaker 3: months before that. So he hadn't really even been in
2:23
Speaker 3: Marion for a long time. So that's what really triggered
2:25
Speaker 3: my interest was that we had this former police captain
2:29
Speaker 3: over here where we live in Kansas City who had
2:32
Speaker 3: gone over to Marion, was only on the job for
2:35
Speaker 3: a couple of months, and the next thing you know,
2:37
Speaker 3: a newsroom was being raided.
2:40
Speaker 1: Jessica focused on investigative stories for the regional TV station KSHB.
2:45
Speaker 1: She's busted open cases of local corruption and incompetence, elected
2:48
Speaker 1: officials taking taxpayer-funded vacations on the city council of Independence, Missouri.
2:53
Speaker 1: After a seven-year-old boy was murdered in 2015, Jessica exposed
2:58
Speaker 1: failings at the Kansas Department for Children and Families that
3:01
Speaker 1: led to new legislation being passed to protect kids. So
3:05
Speaker 1: this former Kansas City police officer running a department that
3:08
Speaker 1: had just plundered a newspaper, it caught her attention. Then
3:13
Speaker 1: when Eric's mom Joanne died, Jessica was stunned.
3:16
Speaker 3: That is when this story really exploded and really took
3:20
Speaker 3: off because the public outrage was almost instantaneous.
3:26
Speaker 1: Jessica emailed Gideon Cody's office asking him to explain why
3:29
Speaker 1: he'd done this. After all, it's not legal for cops
3:32
Speaker 1: to raid a newspaper. Police Chief Cody responded with a statement.
3:37
Speaker 3: Saying, I believe when the rest of the story is
3:39
Speaker 3: available to the public, the judicial system will be vindicated.
3:45
Speaker 1: Jessica wanted to know what the rest of the story was.
3:47
Speaker 1: She wanted to tell it to the public. So first
3:50
Speaker 1: thing on Monday, she headed to Marion. From KCRW and
3:57
Speaker 1: Placement Theory, you're listening to Question Everything. I'm Brian Reed.
4:01
Speaker 1: This is the second part of our story about the
4:03
Speaker 1: mystery of the raids on the Marion County record. Within
4:07
Speaker 1: days of the raids... The county attorney would swiftly withdraw
4:10
Speaker 1: the search warrants against Eric and the paper, finding that
4:13
Speaker 1: there wasn't sufficient evidence to justify them. They never should
4:16
Speaker 1: have been issued. But the damage was done. The record
4:20
Speaker 1: office was inside out. Eric's life turned upside down. His
4:24
Speaker 1: mom gone. Confidential sources for the paper's reporters were likely compromised.
4:29
Speaker 1: Their names were in the hands of the police. And
4:32
Speaker 1: negative attention was being heaped on this small Midwestern town.
4:37
Speaker 1: Who was responsible for this? Why did this happen? Could
4:41
Speaker 1: Jessica find out? If you haven't heard part one yet,
4:45
Speaker 1: please go back in your feed and listen to that
4:48
Speaker 1: now first. Otherwise, stick around. The Monday morning after the
5:01
Speaker 1: Friday raids, Jessica and her cameraman make the two-hour drive
5:04
Speaker 1: from Kansas City to Marion. It's her first time there.
5:09
Speaker 3: Just to give you an explainer on what this town
5:12
Speaker 3: looks like, you have the newspaper and right across the street,
5:16
Speaker 3: you have the courthouse. And across the street from there
5:20
Speaker 3: is the sheriff's department. Up the road from the newspaper
5:26
Speaker 3: is the Elgin Hotel. And across the street from that
5:29
Speaker 3: is Carrie Newell's Cafe. So you can walk to all
5:33
Speaker 3: of these places that were tied to this raid. There
5:38
Speaker 3: are brick roads, and it's this quaint, cute little town
5:42
Speaker 3: where everybody knows each other. And people stop by the
5:46
Speaker 3: newspaper to pick up their personal copy, you know, every Wednesday.
5:51
Speaker 1: On this day, the brick roads are buzzing with out-of-town
5:55
Speaker 1: reporters and with residents wondering what the hell had happened.
5:59
Speaker 2: There were rumors immediately.
6:02
Speaker 3: Almost immediately, you could tell that there was this rift
6:05
Speaker 3: between people some of the people who live there in
6:07
Speaker 3: the newspaper. And one of those people who, it was
6:11
Speaker 3: very well known, did not like the newspaper was Carrie Newell.
6:15
Speaker 1: Carrie Newell. She's the restaurant owner whose name had been
6:19
Speaker 1: mentioned on the search warrants for Eric's house and for
6:21
Speaker 1: the Marion County Records office. Carrie had beef with the
6:25
Speaker 1: record in the weeks leading up to the raids over
6:28
Speaker 1: some documents they'd obtained about her. She'd even complained about
6:31
Speaker 1: it at a city council meeting. As Jessica is checking
6:34
Speaker 1: into the Elgin Hotel, the old hotel downtown, the owner
6:38
Speaker 1: of the place gets to chatting with Jessica. Turns out
6:41
Speaker 1: she's a friend of Carrie Newell's.
6:44
Speaker 2: She started talking to me.
6:45
Speaker 3: And, you know, she was very stern that what police
6:51
Speaker 3: did was that they did the right thing and that
6:54
Speaker 3: the truth was going to come out.
6:55
Speaker 2: And that if I spoke to Carrie Newell, I would
6:58
Speaker 2: find out the truth.
6:59
Speaker 1: What did you make of that?
7:02
Speaker 2: I knew there was more to the story.
7:04
Speaker 3: It didn't make me think necessarily that anyone at the
7:08
Speaker 3: newspaper staff had committed a crime. I could tell that
7:11
Speaker 3: people were confused about the rights of the free press
7:17
Speaker 3: in this country. And there wasn't a general understanding that
7:23
Speaker 3: what police did was extreme.
7:26
Speaker 1: So Jessica goes to chat with Eric, who's still grieving
7:29
Speaker 1: his mom. while grinding to get a paper out without
7:32
Speaker 1: his computers. Reporter to reporter, they talk, and he tells
7:36
Speaker 1: Jessica the reason Carrie Newell seemed to be mad at
7:39
Speaker 1: the record.
7:41
Speaker 3: They received a tip that gave them her driving information.
7:47
Speaker 4: A person by the name of Pam Mogg said, you know,
7:51
Speaker 4: she's been driving illegally for many years. I've got proof
7:54
Speaker 4: of it.
7:57
Speaker 1: I hadn't really appreciated until I dug into this story
7:59
Speaker 1: How much the experience of running a small-town newspaper can
8:03
Speaker 1: be like shooting a reality show for Bravo. People are
8:06
Speaker 1: always trying to drag you into their little feuds, and
8:09
Speaker 1: you have to figure out what's worth looking into, what
8:12
Speaker 1: could actually be newsworthy, and what's just gossip-mongering. In this case,
8:17
Speaker 1: the source, Pam Mogg, a former 911 dispatcher, DMed one
8:21
Speaker 1: of Eric's reporters a screenshot of a driving record for
8:25
Speaker 1: Carrie Newell, indicating that Carrie had a drunk driving conviction.
8:29
Speaker 1: that she'd never resolved. It was from 15 years earlier,
8:33
Speaker 1: meaning if you trusted this tip, Carrie, a well-known local
8:37
Speaker 1: business owner, had been driving without a valid license for
8:40
Speaker 1: more than a decade.
8:42
Speaker 4: The first thing you do is verify that it's actually true.
8:45
Speaker 4: You know, this is a cell phone snapshot of a
8:50
Speaker 4: document that was sent very low res over Facebook.
8:54
Speaker 1: But it's real. A record reporter checks it out in
8:57
Speaker 1: a state database. Is that a story, though, Eric thinks? Maybe,
9:02
Speaker 1: if the cops know she's driving without a license and
9:04
Speaker 1: are letting it slide. But then Eric's team gets a
9:08
Speaker 1: new tip from someone else.
9:10
Speaker 4: The kid who mows the lawn for the husband of
9:13
Speaker 4: Carrie Newell.
9:15
Speaker 1: Lawnmower boy tells them, Carrie Newell and her husband, they're
9:19
Speaker 1: going through a divorce. This leak about Carrie driving illegally,
9:24
Speaker 1: it came from her ex.
9:26
Speaker 3: It was her ex-husband who gave her driving information to
9:29
Speaker 3: her now ex-best friend who gave it to the newspaper. Oh, yeah.
9:34
Speaker 1: Pam Mogg, the 911 dispatcher who ratted Carrie Newell out,
9:39
Speaker 1: she was Carrie Newell's ex-best friend.
9:42
Speaker 2: It's a mess.
9:45
Speaker 1: What happened between the best friends to make them ex-best friends?
9:48
Speaker 4: Do you know?
9:48
Speaker 1: Just is there— We don't know.
9:50
Speaker 3: My understanding is that that is what happened, that that's
9:54
Speaker 3: why they're ex-best friends.
9:56
Speaker 2: So what it really is, is this messy divorce.
10:00
Speaker 3: This very personal feud between an ex-husband and an ex-friend.
10:07
Speaker 4: So I decide that we aren't going to use this.
10:11
Speaker 1: This seemed personal and vindictive, and Eric didn't think they
10:14
Speaker 1: should get involved.
10:15
Speaker 3: Eric Meyer says he didn't do the story because of
10:18
Speaker 3: who it came from. He said, this was just a
10:21
Speaker 3: dispute between an ex-husband and his ex-wife, and that's not
10:27
Speaker 3: a story, and I'm not going to do it.
10:29
Speaker 1: The whole thing was such a nothing burger of a
10:31
Speaker 1: story that Eric didn't even bother contacting Carrie Newell about it.
10:35
Speaker 1: Why then, Jessica wondered, had Carrie been so mad? At
10:40
Speaker 1: her ex-best friend and her ex-husband, sure, but at Eric
10:43
Speaker 1: and the paper, when they didn't even run with the story?
10:46
Speaker 1: Where did this whole idea of identity theft come from?
10:49
Speaker 1: Whatever the reason, this is the story that's getting spit
10:53
Speaker 1: out of the rumor mill in Marion in those early days.
10:55
Speaker 1: That Carrie Newell had filed a complaint about the paper
10:58
Speaker 1: with the cops and triggered the raid of Eric's home
11:02
Speaker 1: and newspaper office for accessing her personal driving information. Other
11:06
Speaker 1: news outlets start pointing to this as a likely explanation.
11:10
Speaker 2: There was a lot of interest in this story.
11:12
Speaker 1: And it was in the national news at this point.
11:13
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, I was reading about it,
11:15
Speaker 1: I remember. And, like, what it looked like from afar...
11:18
Speaker 1: was it definitely looked like a concerning overreach by the
11:21
Speaker 1: local police in raiding this newspaper. I remember reading about
11:26
Speaker 1: Carrie Newell, the restaurant owner, and yeah, it seemed like
11:30
Speaker 1: maybe she basically lodged a complaint when she found out
11:33
Speaker 1: they were reporting on her.
11:35
Speaker 2: Exactly.
11:35
Speaker 1: About a possible DUI, right?
11:37
Speaker 2: You're exactly right.
11:38
Speaker 3: That's exactly what the perception was, that Carrie got tipped
11:43
Speaker 3: off that the newspaper was looking into her, got angry,
11:47
Speaker 3: went to the police chief And he kind of came
11:50
Speaker 3: busting down the doors. For me personally, as a journalist,
11:53
Speaker 3: I don't know any of these players. I know that
11:56
Speaker 3: there's very clearly some of that small town rifts, if
12:00
Speaker 3: you will, going on. But I have no idea what's true,
12:03
Speaker 3: what's not. And so I wanted to talk to Gideon Cody.
12:06
Speaker 1: After all, even if Kerry Newell had lodged a complaint
12:09
Speaker 1: with the police, it was police chief Gideon Cody who
12:12
Speaker 1: decided to respond with multiple raids. The question was, did
12:16
Speaker 1: he do that because he just didn't know about the
12:18
Speaker 1: laws against cops searching newsrooms? That seemed possible for a
12:23
Speaker 1: small-town police chief who probably doesn't deal with First Amendment
12:25
Speaker 1: law that much. Or did he know and still go
12:28
Speaker 1: through with it for some other reason? Meanwhile, this is
12:33
Speaker 1: still all on that Monday after the Friday raids. There's
12:36
Speaker 1: been a development. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the statewide
12:40
Speaker 1: law enforcement agency, KBI it's called for short, has taken
12:44
Speaker 1: over the Marion County record case. That proves to be
12:47
Speaker 1: an obstacle when Jessica tries to get Gideon Cody to talk.
12:52
Speaker 5: KSHB 41 Senior Investigator Jessica McMaster continues to push for
12:56
Speaker 5: answers after police raided the small-town newspaper, the Marion County Record.
13:01
Speaker 3: I did stop by Gideon Cody's office and tried to
13:03
Speaker 3: speak with him.
13:04
Speaker 1: By now, it's Tuesday.
13:07
Speaker 3: Tuesday morning, after not returning our calls and emails to
13:10
Speaker 3: request an interview, our I-team showed up at Marion Police
13:14
Speaker 3: Department to ask Chief Gideon Cody a few questions.
13:19
Speaker 2: That went about how you thought it would.
13:22
Speaker 3: He kind of shifted responsibility to KBI saying, I can't
13:27
Speaker 3: talk to you about their case.
13:29
Speaker 2: That would get me in all kinds of trouble. But
13:31
Speaker 2: KBI says that they weren't the one who issued the warrant.
13:33
Speaker 2: So can you tell me why instead of Issuing us
13:36
Speaker 2: a peanut.
13:37
Speaker 1: KBI will be angry at me if I start talking
13:40
Speaker 1: about their case at this point. Jessica does not leave
13:43
Speaker 1: with her questions answered.
13:45
Speaker 3: What would drive a person to do something like this?
13:49
Speaker 3: How did he not have awareness that this was going
13:52
Speaker 3: to become such a problem for him? Because he seemed
13:55
Speaker 3: so confident in the beginning. He just seemed to lack
14:00
Speaker 3: any fundamental knowledge of how big of a problem this
14:04
Speaker 3: was going to be for him.
14:06
Speaker 1: So Jessica wonders, was there something more to know about
14:10
Speaker 1: Gideon Cody and Carrie Newell? It was time to see
14:13
Speaker 1: if Carrie would talk. Jessica wants to talk to Carrie
14:29
Speaker 1: Newell about why she filed that complaint with the police,
14:32
Speaker 1: about any connection she might have to Chief Gideon Cody.
14:35
Speaker 1: but Carrie's not returning her calls. As the weeks go on,
14:39
Speaker 1: Jessica is filing regular nightly news reports about what's happening
14:42
Speaker 1: in Marion, hustling back and forth from Kansas City, scarfing
14:45
Speaker 1: down one meal a day.
14:47
Speaker 5: A significant update tonight as we follow through with our
14:49
Speaker 5: coverage of the raid on a Kansas newspaper.
14:52
Speaker 3: KSHB 41 News I-Team obtained this video surveillance from the
14:56
Speaker 3: newspaper's cameras. Marion County District Court released the list of
15:00
Speaker 3: items seized from the newspaper.
15:02
Speaker 2: You'll see OS triage digital data. This is a clone
15:06
Speaker 2: of the newspaper's. For the I-Team, I'm Jessica McMaster, KSHB
15:09
Speaker 2: 41 News.
15:12
Speaker 1: I remember following Jessica on Twitter during this time, and
15:15
Speaker 1: she'd update her followers about the latest documents her team
15:18
Speaker 1: had gotten their hands on or how she was quickly
15:20
Speaker 1: brushing her teeth in a parking lot before rushing to
15:23
Speaker 1: an interview.
15:23
Speaker 3: I was just communicating my day. I was walking them
15:26
Speaker 3: through that reporter life a little bit.
15:28
Speaker 2: In the morning.
15:29
Speaker 3: I think there's an impression, especially on TV, that I
15:32
Speaker 3: wake up and somebody's going to do my hair and makeup. No.
15:37
Speaker 3: I can barely get my teeth brushed and get out
15:39
Speaker 3: the door. That's after I get my kids to school
15:41
Speaker 3: and everything else.
15:43
Speaker 1: But still, no response from Carrie. Then Jessica remembers the
15:47
Speaker 1: woman she met on her very first day in town,
15:50
Speaker 1: the owner of the Elgin Hotel, whose friends were Carrie,
15:52
Speaker 1: who'd actually urged Jessica to talk to Carrie to get
15:55
Speaker 1: the whole story. So Jessica calls the hotel owner and
15:58
Speaker 1: convinces her to make a plea on her behalf for
16:01
Speaker 1: Carrie to please do an interview.
16:03
Speaker 3: I think it was really important for me to let
16:04
Speaker 3: Carrie know I wasn't judging her. That's not my job
16:08
Speaker 3: as a journalist. And how I looked at this was...
16:12
Speaker 3: You know, when I look at accountability, I really look
16:15
Speaker 3: at that with the people in power. Yes, Carrie Newell
16:18
Speaker 3: is a local businesswoman, but she didn't have the power
16:21
Speaker 3: to raid anybody. And so going after her in the
16:26
Speaker 3: same way that we would the police department for committing
16:30
Speaker 3: this act, I just wouldn't do that.
16:33
Speaker 1: And the hotel owner, Carrie's friend, she's successful. She gets
16:38
Speaker 1: Carrie to invite Jessica to her cafe.
16:42
Speaker 3: Carrie's Cafe has this beautiful front porch before you walk
16:45
Speaker 3: into her coffee shop.
16:46
Speaker 2: It was warm.
16:48
Speaker 3: I remember it was warm enough to be in a dress.
16:51
Speaker 3: And so we were sitting there in a couple of
16:53
Speaker 3: wicker rocking chairs and we were just chatting.
16:58
Speaker 1: How did she seem when you sat down with her?
17:00
Speaker 3: Nervous. Nervous. Like she seemed like a woman who had
17:04
Speaker 3: been battered a bit, you know, on the Internet. You know,
17:08
Speaker 3: her eyes were swollen and You could tell that she'd
17:11
Speaker 3: probably been crying a lot.
17:14
Speaker 1: In the TV report Jessica later made about this, Carrie
17:17
Speaker 1: Newell plays a loud voicemail she's been getting from angry
17:20
Speaker 1: callers since Joanne Meyer's death.
17:23
Speaker 2: Carrie Newell, I hope you end your business.
17:26
Speaker 5: I'm killing people!
17:28
Speaker 3: Kill them!
17:28
Speaker 1: Kill them!
17:29
Speaker 3: Kill them!
17:31
Speaker 2: What are they saying?
17:33
Speaker 6: Calling me a killer. Nonstop.
17:37
Speaker 1: Did you have like a top of mind question? Like,
17:39
Speaker 1: what did you want to know from Carrie Newell?
17:41
Speaker 3: I wanted to know her level of involvement with this investigation.
17:46
Speaker 3: And what I really wanted to know was how it started.
17:49
Speaker 3: Because what people had believed was that Carrie was mad,
17:52
Speaker 3: took this to Gideon Cody.
17:54
Speaker 2: He did her a favor and launched this raid.
17:57
Speaker 1: Chief Cody hadn't been in town long, but people had
18:00
Speaker 1: noticed that he and Carrie Newell had become pretty fast friends.
18:04
Speaker 1: In fact, some people speculated that maybe they were more
18:07
Speaker 1: than friends with Carrie going through a divorce and all.
18:11
Speaker 1: But as they sit down on the porch of her cafe,
18:13
Speaker 1: Carrie tells Jessica that was not true. The relationship was platonic.
18:18
Speaker 1: And the way people thought these raids started, Carrie says
18:21
Speaker 1: that's also not true. Carrie tells Jessica one day shortly
18:25
Speaker 1: before the raids.
18:27
Speaker 3: She mentioned she got a missed call from Gideon Cody.
18:30
Speaker 3: And he sent her a text message.
18:32
Speaker 6: Said, this is Chief Cody. I need you to contact
18:35
Speaker 6: me back as soon as possible. We believe you've been
18:36
Speaker 6: the victim of a crime.
18:38
Speaker 3: And so she said she had no idea what was
18:40
Speaker 3: going on. It was alarming to her. You know, you
18:43
Speaker 3: get this text message from a police chief in your
18:47
Speaker 3: town saying that you're the victim of a crime.
18:50
Speaker 1: So Carrie called Chief Cody back.
18:52
Speaker 6: I'm like, what are you talking about? And he said, well,
18:57
Speaker 6: I believe that somebody's stolen your mail.
18:59
Speaker 1: Cody told her someone had gotten a hold of her
19:01
Speaker 1: driving records and then gone to a state website.
19:04
Speaker 6: And they accessed your case files and had downloaded that information.
19:08
Speaker 2: I said, who is they?
19:10
Speaker 6: And he said, Phyllis Zorn.
19:13
Speaker 1: A reporter for the Marion County Record.
19:15
Speaker 2: This just infuriated you. Yeah, of course it did.
19:19
Speaker 1: Jessica confirms with Carrie.
19:21
Speaker 2: Were you driving on a suspended license?
19:23
Speaker 3: I was.
19:24
Speaker 1: But for Carrie, that still wouldn't justify the paper committing
19:28
Speaker 1: a crime against her. Like the police chief was now
19:30
Speaker 1: telling her that they had.
19:31
Speaker 2: I asked her, did you file a complaint? She said, yes,
19:35
Speaker 2: I did.
19:36
Speaker 3: Because after he called me and told me this happened,
19:39
Speaker 3: he told me he needed something in writing from me.
19:42
Speaker 1: He directed her to file the complaint.
19:44
Speaker 2: According to Carrie, yes.
19:47
Speaker 1: This is completely at odds with what Chief Cody has
19:49
Speaker 1: been saying. He told the Washington Post in an interview, quote,
19:53
Speaker 1: As Carrie says to Jessica in her wicker chair on
19:54
Speaker 1: the porch.
20:02
Speaker 6: I think people very much believe that I filed a complaint,
20:04
Speaker 6: I demanded that the raid happen, that I was in.
20:07
Speaker 2: Cahoots with the chief. She told me she had no
20:09
Speaker 2: idea that there was going to be a raid.
20:11
Speaker 6: Cody did say that he was seeking a warrant. In
20:16
Speaker 6: my pea brain, I did not, in no instance did
20:20
Speaker 6: I equate that to a raid.
20:23
Speaker 3: Her biggest reason for wanting to sit down with us,
20:25
Speaker 3: I think, is that she was tired of the narrative
20:29
Speaker 3: being controlled by Gideon Cody, that he was just looking
20:33
Speaker 3: into a tip.
20:35
Speaker 1: Jessica asks Carrie to see the Texas Cody Center during
20:38
Speaker 1: this whole back and forth to verify what she's saying.
20:41
Speaker 1: Carrie says she doesn't have them anymore, unfortunately. A little odd.
20:45
Speaker 1: But a week or so later, Jessica gets a hold
20:47
Speaker 1: of an affidavit from Gideon Cody.
20:50
Speaker 2: And sure enough, it was in his affidavit.
20:52
Speaker 3: That he called Carrie Newell and informed her that she
20:56
Speaker 3: had been the victim of a crime, that some journalists
21:00
Speaker 3: with Marion County Record had obtained her information. He told
21:05
Speaker 3: her this was illegal and that they didn't have any
21:07
Speaker 3: right to access that information.
21:11
Speaker 1: Five weeks after she first strode into Marion, Jessica has
21:14
Speaker 1: a big story.
21:16
Speaker 5: Senior investigator Jessica McMaster dug deeper. She uncovered a series
21:20
Speaker 5: of events that led to that high-profile raid.
21:22
Speaker 1: Finding out a story that went global started with a
21:24
Speaker 1: bitter divorce and small-town feuds.
21:27
Speaker 3: After the unprecedented raid, Carrie Newell has been called a killer,
21:31
Speaker 3: a fascist, even Hitler.
21:33
Speaker 2: But now she wonders if she's a pawn. What do
21:35
Speaker 2: you wish people knew about all of this?
21:38
Speaker 4: The truth.
21:41
Speaker 1: Gideon Cody orchestrated the raids. But why? Why did he
21:46
Speaker 1: do it?
21:47
Speaker 4: Well?
21:47
Speaker 3: You know, the newspaper had told us we had been
21:50
Speaker 3: investigating Gideon Cody. We were working on a story about him.
21:55
Speaker 3: They told me that the first day I was there.
21:57
Speaker 1: This, remember, was a possible explanation that had gone through
22:01
Speaker 1: Eric's head as the officers were foraging through his house.
22:05
Speaker 1: Pretty quickly after Gideon Cody started in his new job
22:08
Speaker 1: in Marion, the record had learned that he was not
22:10
Speaker 1: going to be the most forthright police chief.
22:13
Speaker 4: Because when he took over as chief, he discontinued giving
22:16
Speaker 4: the newspaper any information. There had been a procedure where
22:21
Speaker 4: every week, in all the towns in our area, Hillsboro, Peabody,
22:25
Speaker 4: so on, they'd give us a little blotter narrative of
22:29
Speaker 4: what their officers had done for the past week, along
22:31
Speaker 4: with copies of the offense reports and the accident reports,
22:34
Speaker 4: which are open public documents, and they'd give it to
22:37
Speaker 4: us every week. He refused to do so.
22:39
Speaker 1: When they first reported that Cody would be Marion's new
22:42
Speaker 1: chief of police... The paper had been bombarded with warnings
22:45
Speaker 1: about him from people who knew Cody during his time
22:48
Speaker 1: as a cop in Kansas City, where Jessica's from. And
22:51
Speaker 1: according to Eric, the allegations they were hearing, they were bad.
22:56
Speaker 4: Demeaning comments about female officers, sexual harassment, running over a
23:02
Speaker 4: dead body at a crime scene that wasn't his, a
23:06
Speaker 4: person who had leapt to a suicide and he ran
23:09
Speaker 4: over their body.
23:10
Speaker 3: He....
23:14
Speaker 4: Reportedly told that when he was accused of sexual misconduct,
23:19
Speaker 4: that they were going to transfer him to the dispatch section.
23:22
Speaker 4: And he, we have a quote from him saying that
23:27
Speaker 4: I'm just going to find the skinniest and prettiest dispatcher
23:30
Speaker 4: and fucker.
23:31
Speaker 3: Wow.
23:32
Speaker 1: He was not a good guy. Eric's team hadn't published
23:35
Speaker 1: this yet. They were still reporting, but they had started
23:38
Speaker 1: putting some of the allegations to Cody. He threatened to sue,
23:42
Speaker 1: had his attorney call us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
23:45
Speaker 1: So that's the beef that was ratcheting up between the
23:48
Speaker 1: newspaper and the police chief at the very moment when
23:52
Speaker 1: Carrie Newell's ex-best friend sent her driving info to the record.
23:57
Speaker 1: Here's something else, though, that Jessica discovers. A kicker, if
24:00
Speaker 1: you will. When Eric's reporter got the tip about Carrie's
24:04
Speaker 1: suspended license, Eric worried that that maybe the way Carrie's
24:08
Speaker 1: driving record had been obtained by her ex-husband or by
24:11
Speaker 1: her ex-best friend, who, again, had been a 911 dispatcher,
24:15
Speaker 1: that maybe they'd gotten it illegally somehow. And so instead
24:19
Speaker 1: of publishing the info on Carrie, Eric alerted the police.
24:23
Speaker 1: Eric was the one who told Chief Cody about the
24:27
Speaker 1: fact that Carrie's driving record was circulating around. And Chief
24:30
Speaker 1: Cody then used it and Carrie to go after Eric.
24:33
Speaker 3: On Friday, Eric Meyer sent an email to Gideon Cody saying,
24:36
Speaker 3: we've been provided this information about Carrie Newell. We're not
24:40
Speaker 3: sure if the person who's giving this to us got
24:43
Speaker 3: it legally. You might want to look into it. Monday
24:46
Speaker 3: comes around. Cody reads the email and immediately launches an
24:51
Speaker 3: investigation into the newspaper. And by that Friday, he had
24:54
Speaker 3: raided them.
24:56
Speaker 4: This wasn't about searching for anything. This was about trying
25:00
Speaker 4: to embarrass us, trying to harass us. This was intimidation,
25:05
Speaker 4: pure and simple. They bragged before the raid that this
25:10
Speaker 4: was going to be the biggest raid in the history
25:13
Speaker 4: of Marion County. In all, seven cops showed up at
25:19
Speaker 4: my mother's house. This is like sending the SWAT team
25:23
Speaker 4: out for a jaywalker who's actually in the crosswalk. This
25:28
Speaker 4: was a show of force.
25:31
Speaker 1: At this point in Jessica's investigation... The county attorney has
25:35
Speaker 1: rescinded the warrants, saying they weren't valid. An officer who'd
25:39
Speaker 1: been sent the day of the raids to Eric's and
25:40
Speaker 1: his mom's house, who'd refused to go in because he
25:43
Speaker 1: knew it was wrong, has resigned from the department in protest.
25:47
Speaker 1: The Record and other outlets are now publishing their findings
25:51
Speaker 1: about Gideon Cody's time at the Kansas City PD. Allegations
25:54
Speaker 1: of sexual harassment, of running over a dead corpse. The
25:58
Speaker 1: Record based their reporting on conversations with seven of his
26:01
Speaker 1: former colleagues. But Cody is still in office. still presiding
26:05
Speaker 1: over the Marion police, a powerful position in a town
26:09
Speaker 1: of 2,000 people. Eric is starting to consider his recourse.
26:13
Speaker 1: He's looking into suing the city and Cody. And then
26:16
Speaker 1: one night as she's getting ready for bed, Jessica gets
26:19
Speaker 1: a call from Carrie Newell.
26:21
Speaker 3: I just remember it was late and she said, well,
26:24
Speaker 3: you asked me if I had that text message with
26:26
Speaker 3: Gideon Cody where he said that, you know, the newspaper
26:29
Speaker 3: had committed a crime against me and I told you
26:31
Speaker 3: I didn't have them anymore. And she said, the reason
26:34
Speaker 3: I don't have that text message anymore is because the
26:36
Speaker 3: police chief asked me to delete those. And I thought, oh, boy.
26:43
Speaker 1: After Joanne Meyer died and the raids blew up into
26:46
Speaker 1: a national story, Chief Cody had asked a key witness
26:50
Speaker 1: to delete text messages between her and him to destroy
26:53
Speaker 1: evidence that he had initiated the raids. You got out
26:57
Speaker 1: of bed?
26:58
Speaker 3: I got out of bed knowing full well my kids
27:00
Speaker 3: were going to get up at six in the morning.
27:01
Speaker 2: I got out of bed and I asked her, well, what.
27:05
Speaker 3: Was in your text messages? And she says it was nothing.
27:07
Speaker 3: She said that he didn't want her. She kind of
27:11
Speaker 3: indicated to me that he was a little flirty with
27:13
Speaker 3: her at times, that if people got their text messages,
27:17
Speaker 3: he didn't want them to get the wrong impression because she.
27:19
Speaker 2: Sent him a smile emoji.
27:23
Speaker 3: The way she was explaining to me, was like she
27:26
Speaker 3: wasn't sure that it was that big of a deal,
27:29
Speaker 3: but that she wanted to be honest with me since
27:31
Speaker 3: she withheld that information from me earlier.
27:32
Speaker 2: I assured her this is a big deal.
27:37
Speaker 3: Anytime a police chief asks a witness to potentially delete evidence,
27:43
Speaker 3: that's a big deal, potentially.
27:45
Speaker 2: A criminal deal.
27:46
Speaker 3: It also highlights that there's some level of dishonesty with
27:52
Speaker 3: this police chief. If nothing he is doing is inappropriate,
27:57
Speaker 3: why is he asking her to delete her text messages?
28:00
Speaker 3: People would be very curious to know why this happened.
28:05
Speaker 3: So on its face, it was just bad. It didn't
28:09
Speaker 3: look good for Cody. And she says, but you can't
28:12
Speaker 3: tell anybody this. I want this off the record. I
28:15
Speaker 3: just don't want anybody to know. And so I went
28:20
Speaker 3: to bed, and by the next day, she.
28:22
Speaker 2: Changed her mind.
28:24
Speaker 1: How did you verify that this had happened if she
28:26
Speaker 1: deleted the messages?
28:29
Speaker 3: I did say to her, have you had any discussions
28:31
Speaker 3: about this? Did he send you a text asking you
28:34
Speaker 3: to delete the text? Things of that nature. And she says, no,
28:36
Speaker 3: I don't have anything like that. And then she called
28:38
Speaker 3: me a day or two later and she said, Cody
28:41
Speaker 3: just called over here to the cafe. I'm going to
28:45
Speaker 3: talk to him about these text messages.
28:48
Speaker 1: Carrie starts texting with the chief, says she's worried she
28:51
Speaker 1: might get in trouble for deleting the text messages like
28:53
Speaker 1: he asked.
28:54
Speaker 3: He text messaged her back saying something, you know, quit
28:58
Speaker 3: being paranoid.
29:00
Speaker 2: He says our phones are moot. He used the word moot.
29:03
Speaker 2: And then he confirmed.
29:05
Speaker 3: What she told me on the phone earlier, saying that
29:07
Speaker 3: he didn't want people to get the wrong impression because
29:11
Speaker 3: she sent him a smile emoji.
29:14
Speaker 4: Boom.
29:16
Speaker 1: Jessica has it. Scoop number two.
29:18
Speaker 5: New tonight, a key witness in the raids on a
29:20
Speaker 5: Kansas newspaper accuses Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody of asking
29:25
Speaker 5: her to delete text messages.
29:26
Speaker 3: According to Newell, she deleted the text messages at the
29:30
Speaker 3: chief's behest.
29:31
Speaker 7: I did make mention that I didn't know the necessity
29:35
Speaker 7: of that because there was nothing inappropriate in the text messages.
29:38
Speaker 2: Newell says the chief asked.
29:40
Speaker 3: asked her to delete their alleged text messages after the
29:43
Speaker 3: raids as rumors began to circulate about Newell and Cody's relationship,
29:48
Speaker 3: which Newell says is platonic.
29:50
Speaker 6: He said it just kind of removes the element of
29:51
Speaker 6: people being able to ask.
29:53
Speaker 7: I did delete those messages against my better judgment and
29:56
Speaker 7: instantly regretted it.
30:00
Speaker 1: What did you think when you saw that reporting from Jess?
30:03
Speaker 4: First of all, I thought Jess had got a good story.
30:05
Speaker 4: I mean, that was that she'd gotten something that we
30:08
Speaker 4: hadn't been able to get. I suspected that there had
30:11
Speaker 4: been much communication that went on this way. The destruction
30:15
Speaker 4: of messages, I had assumed this all along because we'd
30:19
Speaker 4: made an open records request for these messages and we
30:23
Speaker 4: got stonewalled. We're still suing on that open records request.
30:28
Speaker 4: But it was nice to have the admission that Cody
30:30
Speaker 4: had told her to destroy it.
30:33
Speaker 1: Within days of Jessica's report, Chief Cody resigned. Prosecutors charged
30:38
Speaker 1: him with obstruction of justice, a felony. He's out on bond,
30:42
Speaker 1: living in Hawaii, last I heard, awaiting trial. He didn't
30:46
Speaker 1: respond to my multiple requests for comment. Jessica, were these
30:50
Speaker 1: criminal charges a result of your reporting?
30:53
Speaker 2: Yes, it was. This is the only thing that they
30:58
Speaker 2: got him on.
30:59
Speaker 1: The charges were for pressuring Carrie Newell to delete the texts,
31:02
Speaker 1: not for the raids themselves.
31:05
Speaker 3: The prosecutors really acknowledged that he didn't do this right.
31:11
Speaker 3: They were stern in their report too, but kind of
31:14
Speaker 3: drew the line saying, does it amount to something criminal?
31:19
Speaker 3: They decided it didn't. But then the one thing that
31:22
Speaker 3: they stuck with were these deleted text messages that we
31:25
Speaker 3: heard the story on. And that's what they've charged him
31:29
Speaker 3: in relation to with that low-level felony. And in the end,
31:32
Speaker 3: this was the only thing that Cody was held accountable for.
31:34
Speaker 3: So it does feel good that we did our job, right?
31:38
Speaker 3: That we dug further and we looked into things. Even
31:42
Speaker 3: if it's not being held accountable directly for the raid,
31:45
Speaker 3: it's something.
31:47
Speaker 1: Eric feels differently.
31:48
Speaker 4: I was shocked. surprised that they did not charge him
31:52
Speaker 4: with more.
31:54
Speaker 1: Eric is now suing the city of Marion, the Marion
31:57
Speaker 1: County Sheriff, several individual police officers. He's suing the man
32:01
Speaker 1: who was mayor of Marion during this, David Mayfield. Eric
32:04
Speaker 1: alleges and has been gathering evidence to try and show
32:07
Speaker 1: that Mayfield knew about the raids and let them go
32:10
Speaker 1: ahead instead of stopping them, like Eric says the mayor
32:13
Speaker 1: should have. When I asked David Mayfield if he wanted
32:15
Speaker 1: to comment on this, he directed me to his lawyer
32:17
Speaker 1: and she never responded. And Eric is also suing now
32:22
Speaker 1: former police chief Gideon Cody, trying to get accountability that
32:27
Speaker 1: he feels the criminal justice system failed to get.
32:29
Speaker 4: They did not charge him with anything related to the raid.
32:33
Speaker 4: I think there's ample evidence that he lied in his
32:36
Speaker 4: probable cause affidavit for the search warrant. They didn't charge it. Now,
32:40
Speaker 4: I understand that they might not be able to prove
32:43
Speaker 4: it beyond all reasonable doubt. In our court case, we
32:47
Speaker 4: just have to prove it by the preponderance of evidence.
32:50
Speaker 4: And I'm pretty sure it'll be provable by that standard.
32:53
Speaker 4: But it is surprising and disappointing that a raid that's
32:59
Speaker 4: based on virtually no investigation, that there were red flags
33:05
Speaker 4: raised by officers involved, that the county attorney did not
33:10
Speaker 4: protect us against, that the magistrate judge did not protect
33:14
Speaker 4: us against, can be accomplished and no one's responsible.
33:21
Speaker 1: For a long time, I saw this story as a
33:23
Speaker 1: triumph of local journalism. Yes, the people in charge in
33:27
Speaker 1: this small town had perpetrated a terrible violation of their
33:30
Speaker 1: local press. Yes, Joanne Meyer had died in the midst
33:33
Speaker 1: of it all, tragically. But the reason the police and
33:37
Speaker 1: local leaders had done this, presumably, was because the record
33:41
Speaker 1: wasn't just doing police blotters and graduation notices. It was
33:45
Speaker 1: covering them tough, tough enough to spur them to attack
33:48
Speaker 1: it in this egregious way. And then when that happened,
33:52
Speaker 1: a regional reporter, Jessica, came into this town that's outside
33:55
Speaker 1: her coverage area. And just because she cared and is
33:58
Speaker 1: a skilled, dogged reporter, she did force some accountability. It
34:03
Speaker 1: was imperfect. It was sad. But in some backwards way,
34:07
Speaker 1: I found it reassuring. As time goes on, though, I'm
34:11
Speaker 1: not so sure. Today, the day this episode is coming out,
34:15
Speaker 1: Eric is going to court. trying to get legal fees
34:18
Speaker 1: from the city government after they were found to have
34:20
Speaker 1: blocked the paper's records requests about this case in bad faith.
34:25
Speaker 1: He's mired in all these lawsuits. One of his reporters
34:28
Speaker 1: quit after the whole ordeal. His mom is dead. Meanwhile,
34:32
Speaker 1: Chief Cody is on a beach somewhere in Oahu, maybe.
34:34
Speaker 1: And Jessica, she's at home, out of work. KSHB eliminated
34:41
Speaker 1: her position in April. Budget cuts. I think it all
34:46
Speaker 1: just means that even when journalists in a place like
34:49
Speaker 1: Marion in Kansas are figuring out, despite the challenges, how
34:54
Speaker 1: to do a good job, even when the journalistic ecosystem
34:58
Speaker 1: in a place like this is operating decently, it's still
35:02
Speaker 1: really fragile. The fallout from the raids, at least it
35:06
Speaker 1: was a good reminder of that.
35:08
Speaker 4: I do ironically think, and one of the reasons that
35:13
Speaker 4: I haven't probably reacted in great peers or anything else,
35:19
Speaker 4: is that I also know my mother. And when you're
35:22
Speaker 4: 98 years old, you kind of have a feeling there's
35:27
Speaker 4: not much time left for you in the world. You're
35:29
Speaker 4: not going to make your mark on anything. To be
35:32
Speaker 4: able to go out at age 98 and have your
35:34
Speaker 4: death mean something, that would be something she would have
35:38
Speaker 4: appreciated big time.
35:42
Speaker 1: What does her death mean?
35:44
Speaker 4: The raid attracted attention. but it attracted attention among people
35:49
Speaker 4: like you, people who are journalism fans and journalism interest people.
35:56
Speaker 4: The video of her objecting to it put the human
35:59
Speaker 4: face on the story, made the general public understand it,
36:04
Speaker 4: made people say, I want to be just like her
36:07
Speaker 4: when I'm 98 years old, that kind of stuff. They
36:11
Speaker 4: could relate to it. They could see the human impact.
36:14
Speaker 4: I mean, it's an abstract quantity to say, Well, we
36:17
Speaker 4: rated a newspaper, and that may cause a chilling effect
36:19
Speaker 4: on future coverage to, here's this woman in her walker
36:25
Speaker 4: trying to stand up against seven cops in body armor.
36:30
Speaker 3: Why are you going to be in trouble?
36:32
Speaker 1: You take my computer. That's personal property.
36:36
Speaker 5: It's on his laptop.
36:38
Speaker 1: I think that's the right image to carry with us
36:40
Speaker 1: from what happened in Marion.
36:41
Speaker 4: Thank you.
36:42
Speaker 1: I may be 90-some years old, but I know what's
36:44
Speaker 1: going on.
36:45
Speaker 3: And what's going on is illegal as hell.
36:49
Speaker 1: The image of Joanne Meyer going out with a fight.
36:54
Speaker 2: We've got power.
36:55
Speaker 4: We've got power. Oh, we've got power.
36:58
Speaker 2: We're going to put out the newspapers.
37:12
Speaker 1: Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory.
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37:38
Speaker 1: week specifically, I'm going to share this one moment with
37:41
Speaker 1: that we didn't include in this two-part series that's from
37:45
Speaker 1: the body cam footage of the raid on the Marion
37:47
Speaker 1: County Record office that just makes my skin crawl. You
37:51
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37:53
Speaker 6: You have a right to look for it.
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Speaker 4: I know.
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Speaker 1: produced by Emily Maltare with help from Rebecca Lacks. It
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Speaker 1: was edited by Robin Simeon and Jonathan Goldstein. Carrie Newell
38:10
Speaker 1: also didn't reply. My email is asking if she wanted
38:13
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38:16
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38:19
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38:22
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38:26
Speaker 1: Annika Robbins and sound designed by Brendan Baker. Our music
38:29
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38:32
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38:35
Speaker 1: Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Tejal Jumeirah, Natalie Hill,
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