Latest / Luke's English Podcast / S1E24 - Interview with Meaghan Good_ The Charley Project(M4A_128K)

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S1E24 - Interview with Meaghan Good_ The Charley Project(M4A_128K) · Luke's English Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: On tragedy. We cover cases that involve real people and
0:03
Speaker 1: real events. Episodes may include discussions of violence, criminal behavior,
0:09
Speaker 1: and loss. We share these stories to honor those impacted
0:12
Speaker 1: and to raise awareness, but they may not be suitable
0:15
Speaker 1: for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Today, we're pleased
0:45
Speaker 1: to welcome Megan Good, the founder and driving force behind
0:48
Speaker 1: the Charlie Project. For those unfamiliar, the Charlie Project is
0:52
Speaker 1: one of the most comprehensive and widely recognized missing persons
0:56
Speaker 1: databases in the United States. It profiles over fifty thousand cases,
1:01
Speaker 1: providing critical details, photos, and timelines, not only to keep
1:06
Speaker 1: these individuals names and faces in the public eye, but
1:09
Speaker 1: also to serve as a resource for journalists, researchers, and
1:13
Speaker 1: the families still waiting for answers. What makes the Charley
1:17
Speaker 1: Project unique is that it focuses not just on the
1:19
Speaker 1: most famous missing person cases, but also on those that
1:23
Speaker 1: often receive little or no media coverage. Megan has built
1:27
Speaker 1: and maintained this archive largely on her own, dedicating countless
1:32
Speaker 1: hours to researching, verifying, and writing the stories of the missing.
1:36
Speaker 1: Her work ensures that these individuals are not forgotten and
1:40
Speaker 1: that the families continue to have a place where their
1:42
Speaker 1: loved ones cases are seen and remembered. We are especially
1:46
Speaker 1: grateful that Megan added the case of Ian Rodgers, who
1:49
Speaker 1: went missing from Crawfordville, Florida, in twenty twenty four, to
1:53
Speaker 1: the database, giving his family and community a place where
1:57
Speaker 1: his story is documented and visible. But like many projects
2:01
Speaker 1: on this scale, the Charlie Project requires ongoing support. Keeping
2:06
Speaker 1: it updated, accurate, and accessible takes time, effort, and resources.
2:10
Speaker 1: In today's conversation, we'll talk with Megan about the origins
2:14
Speaker 1: of the Charlie Project, the impact it has had over
2:17
Speaker 1: the years, and the ways we can all help sustain
2:20
Speaker 1: this vital platform so that these stories continue to be told.
2:25
Speaker 1: Today we're speaking with Megan Good with the Charlie Project,
2:28
Speaker 1: and welcome to the show.
2:29
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm glad to be on here.
2:31
Speaker 1: We're so happy to have you. But before we get
2:34
Speaker 1: into the Charlie Project, tell us a little bit about you.
2:38
Speaker 2: I'm almost forty years old and I live in a
2:41
Speaker 2: trailer park in Indiana with my husband and our two
2:43
Speaker 2: cats and our dogs, and I have been doing this
2:47
Speaker 2: the Charlie Project my whole adult life since I was nineteen,
2:52
Speaker 2: So this has been like a lifelong labor of love for.
2:56
Speaker 1: Me and tell us about the mission of the Charlie Project.
3:00
Speaker 2: Well, it exists as a tool to help find missing people.
3:04
Speaker 2: That's the that's what's at the very bottom of it.
3:08
Speaker 2: And the way that it helps find people is that
3:11
Speaker 2: it serves as an encyclopedia so that people can look
3:15
Speaker 2: up information about cases and they can find it all
3:18
Speaker 2: in one particular place instead of having to track down,
3:21
Speaker 2: you know, twenty different articles in ten different newspapers and
3:25
Speaker 2: so instead they just go to my site and it's
3:28
Speaker 2: all they're told in an essay type format, the story,
3:31
Speaker 2: what there is a bit, plus the physical description and
3:34
Speaker 2: if I can, I will get photographs of the tattoos
3:37
Speaker 2: and scars and that helps a lot and a lot
3:40
Speaker 2: of people have used it to help identify unidentified bodies,
3:46
Speaker 2: but it has also been used to help find living people.
3:49
Speaker 2: And it's just a way to get the word out
3:51
Speaker 2: there and also as a investigative tool so that all
3:54
Speaker 2: the info is in one spot.
3:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really important for me to have you
4:00
Speaker 1: come on and talk about the Charlie Project. People who
4:03
Speaker 1: listen to a lot of true crime hear people sort
4:06
Speaker 1: of in passing saying the Charlie Project, but they don't
4:09
Speaker 1: take time to figure out what it is. And so
4:11
Speaker 1: that's why I wanted to make sure that we had
4:13
Speaker 1: you on the show. I know about the Charlie Project
4:16
Speaker 1: from a podcast that I listened to, that's right, and
4:19
Speaker 1: you are cited. The Charlie Project is cited quite frequently
4:23
Speaker 1: in that particular podcast, and I started looking into it.
4:26
Speaker 1: And then when we had our first missing person's case,
4:30
Speaker 1: Ian Rodgers, you know, I reached out to you, and
4:32
Speaker 1: I would think within like two or three days, you
4:35
Speaker 1: had Ian uploaded onto the project. And I know Ian
4:38
Speaker 1: Rodgers' family is very very thankful for that, So I
4:40
Speaker 1: just wanted personally thank you for your work on that
4:43
Speaker 1: and how quickly you were able to get him onto
4:45
Speaker 1: the Charlie Project. So thank you for that.
4:48
Speaker 2: I was glad to be able to put him on
4:49
Speaker 2: there to help the family. It's the only thing I can.
4:53
Speaker 1: Do, really, it's a lot. What you were doing is
4:56
Speaker 1: so much for all the families who are involved in
4:59
Speaker 1: something as unfortunate as this. So tell us how the
5:03
Speaker 1: Charlie Project got started and how you came to it
5:06
Speaker 1: so early in your life.
5:09
Speaker 2: I have autism and one of the things about autism
5:12
Speaker 2: is that autistic people tend to develop some really intense
5:16
Speaker 2: interests in some very narrow, open, peculiar topic. And for me,
5:22
Speaker 2: one of those special interests is missing persons. And as
5:26
Speaker 2: a teenager, I got in touch with a woman named
5:30
Speaker 2: Jennifer Mara who had founded a database called the Missing
5:34
Speaker 2: Person's Cold Case Network, which was similar to the Charlie Project,
5:38
Speaker 2: and I started sending her information articles that I found
5:40
Speaker 2: in stuff that she could add to her site, and
5:43
Speaker 2: so we wound up becoming friends.
5:46
Speaker 1: And tell us who uses the Charlie Project.
5:49
Speaker 2: A wide variety of people used, police officers, unit and
5:53
Speaker 2: workers for like nonprofits for missing children. The National Center
5:57
Speaker 2: for Missing Unexploited Children uses it regularly, and we are
6:01
Speaker 2: in correspondents occasionally. And the members of the true crime community,
6:08
Speaker 2: you know, either people who like run podcasts and TV
6:12
Speaker 2: shows and stuff, or the people who are involved because
6:15
Speaker 2: they're families or they themselves were victims of violent crime,
6:19
Speaker 2: they use it. And people who just like reading the
6:22
Speaker 2: stories of missing people. I mean, there's all kinds of
6:26
Speaker 2: people who are involved in trying to help solve cases,
6:30
Speaker 2: and it's something that pretty much anybody can do. You
6:33
Speaker 2: just need to internet connection in the computer and like
6:36
Speaker 2: a couple of three hours a week or you know,
6:38
Speaker 2: this is something that you could do on your phone
6:40
Speaker 2: even when you're winning in line at the grocery store
6:42
Speaker 2: trying to compare unidentified bodies with missing persons. And that's
6:46
Speaker 2: the way my site is used by many people.
6:49
Speaker 1: It's almost like the technological advance of the missing people
6:52
Speaker 1: posters that you would see at seven eleven and things
6:55
Speaker 1: like that. It's taking the information of.
6:58
Speaker 2: Deal like that.
7:00
Speaker 3: Based on your last comment, it's going tode me very
7:01
Speaker 3: curious at what people are doing behind me in the
7:03
Speaker 3: grocery store when I see him on their phones. Now,
7:06
Speaker 3: this never occurred to me.
7:09
Speaker 2: Walmart, I know, and a couple of other big, big
7:11
Speaker 2: stores like it. They have missing child posters up at
7:15
Speaker 2: the front. They do often by the front door.
7:18
Speaker 1: That's true, Yes, in those class cases right, yes, for sure.
7:23
Speaker 1: And tell us about some of the successes that have
7:26
Speaker 1: happened because of the Charlie Project.
7:29
Speaker 2: Well, recently a woman, just like last week, a woman
7:33
Speaker 2: wrote to me saying that her son had been found
7:36
Speaker 2: as a direct result of what I do. Someone had
7:39
Speaker 2: been looking at the Charlie Project looking at his missing
7:41
Speaker 2: persons file. It made a comparison, a connection between him
7:45
Speaker 2: and a John Doe that was all the way across
7:48
Speaker 2: the country from where he disappeared. I mean, this man
7:51
Speaker 2: went missing from I think Florida and he turns up
7:54
Speaker 2: in California. But someone was able to make to make
7:58
Speaker 2: the connection. It may have been because I had a
8:00
Speaker 2: photograph clows up photo of his tattoo. He had a
8:02
Speaker 2: tattoo on his I think that's on his leg and
8:06
Speaker 2: that may have helped. But anyway, the mother told me,
8:09
Speaker 2: you know, I heard from this person and they told
8:11
Speaker 2: me that I should should tell you what had happened.
8:13
Speaker 2: I want you to know how grateful I am, and
8:15
Speaker 2: I'm just glad that she finally found out what happened
8:18
Speaker 2: to her son. Even I'm not happy. Ending is better
8:21
Speaker 2: than no ending at all.
8:22
Speaker 1: Yes, we hear that from Ian's mom. You know, it's
8:26
Speaker 1: been over a year now since he's gone missing, and
8:30
Speaker 1: I think she just wants to know, right, It's this
8:32
Speaker 1: weird place of not knowing what happened to your child
8:35
Speaker 1: and just wanting some sort of answers. That's right, Yeah,
8:40
Speaker 1: So what would where would you like to see the
8:42
Speaker 1: Charley Project go like, in the next five years, what
8:45
Speaker 1: are you hoping for?
8:47
Speaker 2: Oh, I'd like it to keep growing and having more
8:49
Speaker 2: more people, you know, in the database, and I'd like
8:53
Speaker 2: it to get more better technology.
8:56
Speaker 1: I suppose a.
8:57
Speaker 2: Very kind person did the put together the site for
9:01
Speaker 2: me for free in terms of the like the search
9:04
Speaker 2: engine and things like that, but I don't really know
9:07
Speaker 2: where to take it from there. I want people to
9:10
Speaker 2: know that I set up a Patreon for it recently,
9:13
Speaker 2: something which people have been asking me to do it
9:15
Speaker 2: for a year, but I did. I did, finally, finally
9:19
Speaker 2: do it.
9:20
Speaker 1: M hm. And so there's a web page. Do you
9:23
Speaker 1: have do other Do you use other types of social media?
9:27
Speaker 1: Like is there a place on Facebook people can go to?
9:30
Speaker 1: Or Instagram?
9:30
Speaker 2: Right now, there is a blue Sky account that is active.
9:34
Speaker 2: The Facebook and Twitter accounts haven't been active because of
9:38
Speaker 2: personal problems that I have with Facebook and Twitter. Right.
9:43
Speaker 3: Has your Patreon been successful? I mean, I know it's new.
9:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, so far it has been. It has been successful.
9:49
Speaker 2: And this is really good because you know, times are
9:54
Speaker 2: tough right now for I mean for everybody, sure, you know.
9:58
Speaker 2: And I have a dog to feed and he likes
10:01
Speaker 2: to pretend that you know, no one ever feeds him,
10:03
Speaker 2: but he gets groups of expensive.
10:05
Speaker 3: Dog food every day, and we were happy to see
10:08
Speaker 3: that up. So soon as we saw it, we put
10:11
Speaker 3: in fifty dollars. I think I told you that, Lisa, Yeah.
10:13
Speaker 1: And I had already donated as well. So good, totally fine, thanks.
10:17
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we want to know absolutely, you know, once
10:21
Speaker 3: we understood what the Charlie Project was, and the fact
10:23
Speaker 3: that we keep hearing about it, yeah, show up in
10:26
Speaker 3: various conversations that we're having now that we've got involved
10:29
Speaker 3: in true crime. I want to make sure this continues going,
10:32
Speaker 3: and so anything that we can do to get the
10:34
Speaker 3: message out and to help you know, fund some of this,
10:36
Speaker 3: we're happy to do.
10:37
Speaker 2: Uh huh. Yes, Well, it feels like I was born
10:42
Speaker 2: to do this site like no one else spt ME
10:44
Speaker 2: could have done it. Like you know, it is difficult
10:47
Speaker 2: work for a lot of people to have to write
10:50
Speaker 2: all these terrible stories, and I'm the kind of person
10:53
Speaker 2: who was in particularly bothered by that sort of thing.
10:55
Speaker 1: For example, you've been involved with the Charlie Project for
10:58
Speaker 1: over twenty years. How has evolved and changed?
11:02
Speaker 2: Well, when it started, I think, uh, it was only
11:07
Speaker 2: six months. The person only had to be missing six
11:09
Speaker 2: months before they could be added to the Charlie Project.
11:13
Speaker 2: And then I discovered that that was kind of too
11:15
Speaker 2: much work for one person to do, and so I
11:17
Speaker 2: did I did pull it back to a year. And
11:20
Speaker 2: I've also, you know, like I said, the site has
11:23
Speaker 2: gotten more technologically advanced because of that kind person press
11:26
Speaker 2: did Winfrey, who volunteered his time and expertise in that matter.
11:30
Speaker 2: And there's like a better search engine than there needs
11:32
Speaker 2: to be. And I'm I think I'm a bit more
11:35
Speaker 2: careful about the family aduction cases than I had that
11:41
Speaker 2: I used to be. I don't add as many as
11:42
Speaker 2: I used to because basically I've gotten more experienced, and
11:47
Speaker 2: I found out that some children who are listed as
11:50
Speaker 2: like missing are not actually missing. There was one, yeah, yeah,
11:55
Speaker 2: there was one case, for example, where they knew where
11:59
Speaker 2: the girl was. She was out of state, out of
12:03
Speaker 2: their out of their jurisdiction, and it was just they
12:06
Speaker 2: had never sent anyone to pick her up.
12:09
Speaker 1: Do you you talked briefly about law enforcement connections. Can
12:13
Speaker 1: you tell us more about that? Do they reach out
12:15
Speaker 1: to you? Do you just know that they're checking the
12:18
Speaker 1: Charlie Project like, how does that communication work?
12:22
Speaker 2: Law enforcements on time reaches out to me. They do
12:24
Speaker 2: it often enough that I know a lot of them
12:26
Speaker 2: must be, you know, checking my side on a regular basis.
12:29
Speaker 2: They'll often you know, send in corrections or or like
12:31
Speaker 2: if they'll get in a new contact number, they'll they'll
12:34
Speaker 2: send that to me and say, hey, could you change
12:36
Speaker 2: the number so that it's up to date.
12:38
Speaker 1: Oh, oh, that's good. So that they're making sure that
12:40
Speaker 1: things are because they may have information that would need
12:43
Speaker 1: to be updated, but you would have no way of
12:46
Speaker 1: knowing that unless they're reaching out to you. So that
12:47
Speaker 1: sounds very proactive.
12:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I'm always checking the news for missing person's reports,
12:54
Speaker 2: and you know, always finding both new cases to put
12:58
Speaker 2: up and you know, old is to update. Sometimes I
13:02
Speaker 2: will just go what I call phishing, where I'll just
13:05
Speaker 2: put in name after Vaine that I'm drawing off the
13:07
Speaker 2: Charlie Project, name after name to Google to see if
13:10
Speaker 2: anything new has popped up.
13:12
Speaker 1: Huh.
13:13
Speaker 3: Do you know approximately how many cases have possibly been
13:17
Speaker 3: solved as a result of the Charlie Project. I know
13:19
Speaker 3: we talked about the first one are the one that
13:20
Speaker 3: you mentioned earlier.
13:22
Speaker 2: I couldn't really guess, because frankly, most of the time
13:25
Speaker 2: I don't find out right, But at least I know
13:30
Speaker 2: of about a dozen or so, and there's probably at
13:33
Speaker 2: least twice that many that I don't know about, So
13:34
Speaker 2: we're talking at least twenty four. But when you consider
13:37
Speaker 2: it's been it's been a very long time, and you know,
13:42
Speaker 2: there are thousands of cases on my site, it's really
13:45
Speaker 2: hard to say understood. But I know I have proof
13:48
Speaker 2: that it has solved, you know, multiple cases, and I
13:51
Speaker 2: am confident that there are more of those. David Middleman,
13:56
Speaker 2: who runs DNA solves and he's kind of a he's
14:00
Speaker 2: got like a patent or something in some genetic genealogy thing,
14:04
Speaker 2: and his company is a bold at this. Anyway, he
14:06
Speaker 2: says by size is a great tool that he uses,
14:09
Speaker 2: like he'll figure out, say that, Okay, the unidentified person
14:14
Speaker 2: is a member of this family, and I'll have like
14:16
Speaker 2: a list of both their names. Okay, cross reference that
14:19
Speaker 2: with Charlie project. Does anyone pop up? Oh, someone does
14:22
Speaker 2: that it's probably the person mm hmm.
14:25
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. One of the things that I have
14:27
Speaker 1: found that as we continue what we're doing here are
14:31
Speaker 1: the connections that different experts in the field have, which
14:35
Speaker 1: is what you're describing, right, You're describing a connection that
14:38
Speaker 1: the repository has with someone who does genetic genealogy, and
14:43
Speaker 1: that you guys are interest all out by yourself, but
14:45
Speaker 1: you're using each other's resources.
14:47
Speaker 2: You know, tell me, that's definitely how I see it.
14:50
Speaker 2: You know, it's the World Wide Web, and a web
14:53
Speaker 2: is things connected all together, and what impacts one thing
14:57
Speaker 2: impacts another, and everything works together to hold the weight
15:02
Speaker 2: of whatever the problem is, the question, the mystery.
15:06
Speaker 1: I never actually thought about it that way. I just
15:07
Speaker 1: thought about the Internet. But when you say web and
15:10
Speaker 1: then you make a visualization of a web, that makes
15:13
Speaker 1: perfect sense. I love my husband and technology is like, hello, yes,
15:18
Speaker 1: but I've never even thought about that. Do you have
15:22
Speaker 1: a case that's currently on the Charlie Project that you're
15:26
Speaker 1: watching closely, or one that you are maybe more interested in,
15:31
Speaker 1: or one that's just super baffling to you, something that
15:33
Speaker 1: really stands out.
15:35
Speaker 2: Well all the paint that really break me unfortunately, or
15:40
Speaker 2: the child abuse ones. I can tell you about two
15:44
Speaker 2: cases which are just outraging, but neither of them are
15:49
Speaker 2: really mysteries. That is to say, we know more or
15:53
Speaker 2: less what happened to each child, and in one case
15:55
Speaker 2: that were actually convictions. But like Peter, Peter, I think
16:00
Speaker 2: his name's last name is pronounced Kemma he kma. He's Hawaiian,
16:07
Speaker 2: and I hope that I'm pronouncing the name right. Anyway, Well,
16:11
Speaker 2: he was six years old when he went missing in
16:14
Speaker 2: the nineties, and it was one of those situations where
16:19
Speaker 2: he had been in foster care and then he was
16:20
Speaker 2: back with his parents, but his parents were sort of
16:23
Speaker 2: on probation, and so the CPS Hawaiian CPS was supposed
16:28
Speaker 2: to be looking after them in making sure that Peter
16:31
Speaker 2: was all right, and they didn't, I mean, they were
16:35
Speaker 2: not good guardians, and Peter disappeared in months passed before
16:40
Speaker 2: anyone noticed. And now the thing that makes this case
16:44
Speaker 2: kind of unusual is how long it is in the
16:47
Speaker 2: Charlie Project. I mean, the Charlie Project has often very
16:50
Speaker 2: detailed case files, but this one in particular has all
16:52
Speaker 2: sorts of information. And the reason that it has all
16:55
Speaker 2: this information is because about a decade or so after
17:00
Speaker 2: Peter went missing, the head of the Department of Human
17:05
Speaker 2: Services in Hawaii, they got a new director, and this
17:08
Speaker 2: new director said that they wanted to apologize about their
17:12
Speaker 2: failures in Peter's case, and that they wanted to be
17:17
Speaker 2: transparent also about those failures, and part of that, part
17:20
Speaker 2: of this transparency was releasing his entire normally confidential file
17:25
Speaker 2: to the public to read. And so they had it
17:29
Speaker 2: available on pdf online to download, and I did, and
17:33
Speaker 2: it was three thousand pages long, and I just sort
17:39
Speaker 2: of stapled my butt to the seat of the chair.
17:42
Speaker 2: It was in my college dorm room, I remember, and
17:46
Speaker 2: I read the three thousand pages and just the horrors
17:50
Speaker 2: of it. He was forced to eat dog poop, he
17:54
Speaker 2: was shot with a pellet gun. And he first came
17:58
Speaker 2: for the attention of CP yes because at the age
18:03
Speaker 2: of like four months, he had a spiral fracture. Do
18:05
Speaker 2: you have any idea what causes a spiral fracture?
18:08
Speaker 1: Maybe pressure?
18:09
Speaker 4: Uh, when the limit with it until it breaks like spiral,
18:14
Speaker 4: That makes sense. Yeah, So imagine doing that to a baby.
18:18
Speaker 4: And yeah, So I was just so angry reading all
18:23
Speaker 4: of this, you know, and I wanted everybody to know.
18:26
Speaker 4: When I put putting it up on his Chorally project file,
18:28
Speaker 4: I hoped I was thinking, I hope everybody realizes, you know,
18:32
Speaker 4: who how terrible his parents are because at the time
18:37
Speaker 4: they were still free and they were still outliving their
18:40
Speaker 4: lives and having.
18:40
Speaker 2: To have jobs and stuff. And yeah, eventually they were
18:44
Speaker 2: convicted in his case. But that's one of the cases
18:49
Speaker 2: that has always sort of stayed with me, you know,
18:53
Speaker 2: in part because of this immensely detailed file that I
18:56
Speaker 2: had all these horrific things in it. And the other
18:58
Speaker 2: is the Heart case. You might have heard of this
19:01
Speaker 2: one a family named Heart. There were two lesbian women
19:06
Speaker 2: who had adopted some black and biracial children, six of them.
19:10
Speaker 2: They drove their vent off a cliff into the ocean.
19:13
Speaker 1: I don't know that.
19:13
Speaker 3: I don't know it either.
19:15
Speaker 2: Well, that happened, and the reason that one of the
19:20
Speaker 2: boys is on the Charlie Project is they never found
19:22
Speaker 2: his body. Some of the bodies got washed away and
19:26
Speaker 2: his was never found. But there was a big podcast
19:30
Speaker 2: about the Heart case. It was a very similar situation
19:33
Speaker 2: where there were a lot of failures with protective services
19:36
Speaker 2: and the parents were abusive and things should not have
19:40
Speaker 2: gone as have gone the way that they did. And
19:43
Speaker 2: that case has struck me also. It's just like I said,
19:48
Speaker 2: I'm not usually bothered emotionally by the cases that I
19:51
Speaker 2: put up, the sad stories and everything, all the domestic
19:54
Speaker 2: violence and what happened with the serial colors, but the
19:57
Speaker 2: child abuse.
19:57
Speaker 1: Does bother me a great deal. That makes sense. I
20:02
Speaker 1: have the same sort of lack of empathy. I guess
20:07
Speaker 1: when it comes to serial killers. That's sort of what
20:09
Speaker 1: brought me to true crime. And usually we'll be in
20:13
Speaker 1: a place and I'll see something. I'm like, oh, oh,
20:16
Speaker 1: this is something that's affiliated with ex serial killer or
20:19
Speaker 1: something like that, and my husband's like, awesome. What else
20:23
Speaker 1: would you like to share about the Charlie Project?
20:27
Speaker 2: Again, I just wish to emphasize it is not an organization.
20:30
Speaker 2: It is just one person, you know, in a computer
20:34
Speaker 2: in a trailer park in Indiana, and you can support
20:38
Speaker 2: it by joining the Patreon or with PayPal or whatever
20:43
Speaker 2: if you want. But I don't believe in like paywalls,
20:46
Speaker 2: and I don't believe in ads for something like this
20:50
Speaker 2: m HM, and so I never want to have any
20:53
Speaker 2: ads or pay walls on it, m H. You know,
20:56
Speaker 2: for I've been running it absolutely one hundred free for
21:01
Speaker 2: two decades now, and I wish to continue to do
21:03
Speaker 2: so in the.
21:03
Speaker 1: Future m HM. And for people who aren't familiar with it.
21:07
Speaker 1: Can you give us the website please?
21:10
Speaker 2: Charlie b A A R L e Y Project p
21:15
Speaker 2: R O j e c T dot org. Yeah, Charlie
21:20
Speaker 2: is after a little boy named Charlie Ross who was
21:22
Speaker 2: kidnapped in the eighteen seventies in Pennsylvania. He was never
21:26
Speaker 2: found and he spelled his name with an L E y.
21:29
Speaker 2: So that's what I did too with the Charlie Project.
21:32
Speaker 1: You read our minds. We were just about to ask
21:35
Speaker 1: that question in the eighteen hundreds.
21:38
Speaker 2: You said, yeah, he was kidnapped for ransom. It was
21:42
Speaker 2: kind of the first big random kidnapping cage in the
21:45
Speaker 2: whole country. It was hugely famous at the time, like
21:50
Speaker 2: picture like how the genbred Ransey case is now. It
21:54
Speaker 2: was bigger than lind Bergh. I mean, I'll that's how
21:58
Speaker 2: famous it was. Remember like the Limberg Maybe they was
22:00
Speaker 2: kidnapped in the thirty Oh yes, not as big as
22:02
Speaker 2: that or or bigger.
22:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, So maybe people don't know about that about Charlie
22:08
Speaker 1: Ross because that was like before people were taking pictures
22:11
Speaker 1: of things. When we've got the Lindberg baby, I know
22:13
Speaker 1: they are like archival pictures. And of course they were
22:16
Speaker 1: super famous, right, Like, so they had a lot of money,
22:19
Speaker 1: so of course people are going to be paying attention. Well, unfortunately,
22:22
Speaker 1: people pay attention to people with lots of money.
22:25
Speaker 2: So Charley were off the family. They were middle class,
22:28
Speaker 2: but Charlie was. She was such a beautiful child. And
22:32
Speaker 2: you know, they had they had this picture of him
22:34
Speaker 2: that was two years old and then they had someone updated.
22:36
Speaker 2: It was the first aid progression, oh missing child done
22:41
Speaker 2: and his father's quest to find him. You know, that
22:47
Speaker 2: was very news friendly, like the news were always reporting
22:51
Speaker 2: on this, and of course Charlie's family didn't discourage any
22:53
Speaker 2: of that because they were trying to find their son.
22:56
Speaker 4: M m.
22:57
Speaker 2: It's just they never found him ever.
23:02
Speaker 1: Well, we just want to thank you so much for
23:04
Speaker 1: being with us, and we hope that by having you
23:08
Speaker 1: come and sharing the Charlie Project and your work that
23:12
Speaker 1: you have done, we can get the word out to
23:14
Speaker 1: more people.
23:16
Speaker 2: That is my wish, although that's what I've been trying
23:19
Speaker 2: to do, you know all the time.
23:21
Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, you've been listening to Tragedy, a true crime podcast.
23:30
Speaker 1: Our purpose is to honor victims by sharing their stories
23:33
Speaker 1: through the voices of friends, family, and those whose lives
23:36
Speaker 1: were forever changed. If today's episode resonated with you, we
23:40
Speaker 1: encourage you to follow, leave a review, and share the
23:43
Speaker 1: podcast so these important stories continue to be heard. Together,
23:48
Speaker 1: we can preserve their memories and ensure their voices are
23:51
Speaker 1: never forgotten. If you have ideas for cases we should
23:54
Speaker 1: cover or questions about what you heard, you can connect
23:58
Speaker 1: with us through our Facebook group. Track a true crime
24:01
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24:07
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24:11
Speaker 1: our website www dot Tragedy at truecrimepodcast dot com. Thank
24:17
Speaker 1: you for listening, and we hope you'll join us next
24:19
Speaker 1: time