The "Blood Will Tell" Podcast

Twin brothers, 18 years old, go to a party in San Jose, California. A fight ensues. Somebody gets stabbed — and dies. The brothers are arrested, and one twin is charged with murder. The wrong twin. And he stays in jail for nearly two years before the guilty twin finally comes clean. 

My guest, author and journalist Jennifer Miller, met one of the brothers, Trung, while reporting a story for the Washington Post. Trung had joined a group that was performing Othello, in a program that uses Shakespeare’s plays to help rehabilitate people serving prison terms. Miller says the story Trung told her was so extraordinary that it “felt like Shakespeare himself could have written it.” 

She spent years getting to know the twins and earning their trust. She then shared their story in a podcast called “Blood Will Tell." It's not a true crime podcast in the strictest sense — Miller's burning question wasn't who did what. To her, this story was all about the why: Why did one brother take the blame for nearly two years? Why did the other one let him? 

Listen to this episode to find out how Jennifer Miller knew this was the story of a lifetime. And then, download and listen to "Blood Will Tell" to learn the answers to the deeper why questions asked above.

Host: Hal Humphreys 

Guest: Jennifer Miller

"Blood Will Tell" podcast: On Apple | On Spotify | On Audible

Sponsored by: TLOxp®

Music provided by Jason White, who composed our theme.

Special thanks to Kim Green, who produced this episode.

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Pursuit Magazine and PI Education are part of StoryboardEMP, a media and education company in Nashville, TN. Pursuit, a free online magazine for private investigators, explores all things investigative, from gumshoe techniques and surveillance tech to industry news and crime in media. PI Education, its sister brand, provides online continuing education for licensed PIs. Pursuit and PIed are owned and edited by husband-wife team Hal Humphreys, a PI, and Kim Green, a writer and radio producer.

In this podcast, you'll find episodes that dive deep into the work and the business of private investigations. And at PI Education's YouTube channel, you can dive even deeper into the knowledge pool of this fascinating profession, with regular briefings and webinars. Subscribe to stay up to date!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Twin brothers, 18 years old, go to a party in San Jose, California. A fight breaks out. Somebody gets stabbed and dies. The brothers are arrested, and one twin is charged with murder. The wrong twin. And he stays in jail for nearly two years before the guilty twin finally comes clean. My guest met one of the brothers, Trunk, while reporting a story for the Washington Post. Trunk had joined a group that was performing Othello in a program that uses Shakespeare to help people work through trauma. My guest says the story Trunk told her felt like Shakespeare could have written it himself. Trunk's story became an incredible podcast called Blood Will Tell. We'll hear about it when we come back.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

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SPEAKER_01 1:24

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to The Sound of Pursuit. I'm Hal Humphreys, your host, and I am pretty darn excited to bring in my guest, Jennifer Miller. Jennifer is a longtime friend. She's a journalist, she's the author of five books, and the co-producer of an amazing new podcast called Blood Will Tell. Jen, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Thank you so much for having me on, Hallett. This is such a delight to be talking to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Well, you know, we don't get to talk to each other enough. You know, Jen and I met back in 2012. Jen, you had just published a mystery novel called The Year of the Gadfly. Um, and the way we met is I think through a friend of a friend, we found out you were doing um a novel age stand in our neighborhood. Um tell us real quick about the book and what what the heck is a novel age stand?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah. Um, well, so first of all, um, you know, I met Kim through Twitter. Like, like I met her through Twitter, and uh I, you know, maybe somebody told her about me and and the book, but she was the she was like my first like actual like Twitter friend. And the fact that we ended up staying at your house, like was kind of amazing because I'm like, okay, Jason, we're going to stay with this woman who I met on the internet.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, yeah. Red flags, red flags. Um every time I'm glad you brought up the Twitter reference because every time Kim says Jen Miller or Jennifer Miller, I'm I'm just like I'm trying to process oh, oh, prop Jen.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

That's right, prop Jen. Well, right. And that is a that's a reference from The Wire, um, from Prop Joe, um, who is full of propositions.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Um, but uh yeah, so my debut novel uh was a mystery set at a prep school called The Year of the Gadfly. And I was looking for this was a book that had taken me seven years to write and get published. And I was looking for creative ways to market it. And so I thought, you know, instead of doing a lemonade stand, maybe I could do a novel aid stand and just go out on the street and hawk my wares.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

That is a lot.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

So we um I had so I had done it in Brooklyn. Um, and you know, what's amazing, so I would get lemonade, I would make cookies, I would have books for sale with, you know, like a big colorful sign. And um, I would sell more books in an hour than I would often sell at a bookstore reading. Um which and it's kind of awesome also to like just be in a community and people are walking by. Um, most people thought I was self-published, and then I'd have to be like, no, I have a real publisher. But um, but it was so fun. And so, yeah, so Kim um, you know, through our Twitter correspondence, found out about it and invited me to come down to Nashville and run my novel aid stand in your neck of the woods. And it was just so delightful and wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

So much fun. We really enjoy that weekend. And it's, you know, these weird things, Jen, that that create lasting friendships. You know, you and Jason and Kim and I have had this ongoing kind of friendship where we we chat on the occasional, we we sometimes play around with each other in terms of work stuff. Um I I've really enjoyed it. And the the issue of the novel aid stand, number one, crazy creative way to get out there and like you said, hawk your wares, sell, sell your book. Um great way to meet people that you would not meet at a bookstore reading. They're not having to come to a special event, they're walking down the street and like, oh, what is this? Um and then, you know, you I'm assuming you did the Novel Aid stand in a couple of different places, and you you you stay and meet other strange, interesting people along the way.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

So Yeah, I mean, it's you know, when we were when we were in Brooklyn, I mean, just a few just crazy serendipitous encounters. Um, one guy came over and bought it and wrote, you know, I was collecting everybody's email so that I could, you know, add them to my email, my, you know, my mailing list. And one guy wrote his name and email down, and Jason was like, You're Ted Leo? Ted Leo of Ted and the Pharmacists? I love that band.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

That's awesome. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Which wasn't amazing. Um, and then also just randomly, like one of my favorite authors, who was a former Vietnam veteran who wrote kind of like the Moby Dick of Vietnam books, um, Carl Marlantes, happened to walk by. He was visiting Brooklyn from Washington State, um, and then ended up helping me on my next book, which was about Vietnam veterans. So it was like it this the serendipity was just really wonderful and amazing.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

This is the kind of community building and friendship making and networking. I hate to use that word, but networking that you don't get on Twitter or Instagram or those things, this real kind of in-person interaction that that makes a difference. Um Jen, you've been a journalist for a long time and and you know how to sniff out a good story. So you were reporting for the Washington Post. You met this guy who told you this incredible tale. Um, and this is this is about the podcast that you produced. Tell us about that day and that conversation and kind of get us started into this this business of um your podcast.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Sure. Um, so this was in February of 2020. Um, I remember flying out to California and just starting to see people wearing masks on their airplane on the airplane. Um, right? There COVID was kind of percolating, but nobody was like really that freaked out yet. And I was reporting a story for the Washington Post magazine, um, which sadly does not exist anymore. Um and the story was it was a it was looking at a number of things, but it was focused around um the Shakespeare program that was being run in California prisons. And it was part of this wave of criminal justice reforms that were meant to give incarcerated people more um agency um over their own rehabilitation. So, so really offering people new opportunities to grow and develop and heal and process, um, to try to then allow them to get out earlier potentially and reduce severe overcrowding. Um, so I was um so I went to San Quentin to observe a rehearsal for Othello that this production of Othello was going to be put on by the inmates in San Quentin penitentiary. And so I'm, you know, I'm I'm watching this rehearsal and I had asked to meet somebody who was going to be getting out soon because I wanted to kind of track somebody's journey from being incarcerated, doing this program, kind of how it impacted them, and then like how it might impact them and kind of help them re-enter civilian life. And so the director of the program introduced me to this 26-year-old guy, Trung Tong, um, who was actually at the time an understudy for Iago, who's the villain of Othello. Um, and Trung and I kind of sat down during the rehearsal just to chat. And as, you know, as you said, I've been a reporter for a really long time. And I have never had an experience like this, where I literally just asked Trung, you know, tell me why you got into Shakespeare. And the next thing I knew, he is pouring out to me the most unbelievable, like unexpected, unbelievable tale that I have ever heard. It was like something out of Shakespeare. And I was like, this can't be true. Like, what are you telling me? Um, I have not had an experience like that as a reporter, and it kind of swept me off my feet.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

So I, you know, I want to I want to kind of die, dig into that swept you off your feet thing. You know, we both deal in in stories and narrative, and sometimes a story hits you so hard that you get like, did talk about what were you thinking and feeling when you heard the story? And is there like, do you do you get little spidey scents on the back of your neck? Or what what is that like?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

I mean, I yeah, I um I mean, uh to be honest with you, I was just I was just dumbfounded. I don't know how much you want me to say at this point about what what he told me.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah. Yeah, well, we'll and we'll we'll we're gonna we're gonna tease this out just a little bit to keep everybody listening for the whole podcast. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Um, but you know, I mean, what I what I'll say is, okay, it was an incredibly personal story having to do with Trung and his identical twin brother. Um and it had to do with um, you know, why he was sitting in a state penitentiary um and where his brother was at that moment and what was going to happen between the two of them when he got out. Um and, you know, as I'm listening to this, and again, the story that I've come to report is not the story that he's telling me. Um, and I know that. And so, and I'm trying not to push too hard on it because I mean, obviously I want to know more. Yeah. But the gravity of this story and kind of the emotion with which he is, with with which Trump is telling it is very apparent. Like he is, he is, first of all, he's a very, he's like very kind of soft spoken. And then the rehearsal was very loud. So I had to lean in really close to hear him. But even as he was talking, I mean, he he's tearing up a little bit. Like he was getting he was getting pretty emotional while he was recounting this. Um, and I'm a stranger, remember. Like I'm just some random person who has showed up at this rehearsal. And so I, you know, as much as I wanted to know more and kind of gently tried to ask a few questions, I also kind of just intuitively knew that there was a lot under the surface here. And like, if I did want to know more about it, I probably needed to bind my time and not push on it because this guy is going through something and I need to just let him go through it.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, and that there's also the the thing of you're you're a working journalist, you're there to do a job, you have a specific scope of work for that job. This falls squarely outside of that scope of work. But you've got you've got to, as a journalist, you've got to, as a writer, like make note of the story and get at least enough to to kind of work on a pitch to, hey, let's do this thing, let's get there. Um, you know, I don't want you giving away any spoilers just yet, but quick overview of the brother's story, what happened that night at the party in San Jose and afterward. Um, and what was a big burning question you wanted to answer as you pursued the story? And I want to I want to just before you do that, for our listeners, we're we're talking about you know, it's very unusual for us in the private investigations world and in the lawyer world, my friends that are attorneys, to have this situation where you have identical twins and you gotta rely on eyewitness you know testimony to figure out what happened. So give us, without giving any real spoilers, just tell us a quick story of of the brothers, what happened that night at the party, and and what was the question that was burning in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, okay, well, so um in terms of in terms of the backstory, so you have two identical twin brothers, Trung, who I met in prison that day and on. Um, they are Vietnamese, lived in Vietnam until they were nine years old, and then moved to San Jose. Um, and that's where they grew up. Um they grew that the area, they grew up in a public housing project um in downtown San Jose. It was, you know, I think the way that they talk about it is really like a scarcity mentality. Um, and and their immigration, their family's immigration story is is very complicated. Their dad had served in the South Vietnamese army. He had been in a uh re-education camp for almost three years. Um, he had tried to come to the United States um through a humanitarian program that was for people who had been in re-education camps and was denied because he missed the cutoff by a couple of months. I mean, and you know, this gets to like the insanity of our immigration system, but um, but you know, so when they they they've been trying to get here for a very long time and they very much were seeking some version of the American dream. Um, and then I think the boys, Trung and An, get here and they see that like there is no American dream. I mean, there there is for a lot of Vietnamese Americans in San Jose. There's it's um uh, you know, they're roughly 10% of the population out there. Um, there's a very robust and strong and successful community. But there are a lot of people um who, you know, for various reasons, like have not been able to access that upward mobility. And the twins, I think, kind of felt this pressure to become American, to seize all of the riches that they felt they'd been promised. They saw none of that. They saw their parents struggling and they became, they kind of fell prey to this whole ecosystem out there of Southeast Asian gangs and organized crime groups. Okay. Um, and they, you know, I mean, I say fell victim. Like they walked, they walked into it. They, so, you know, they were, they were kids, they were stupid kids, and then they also made their decisions. Um, and they got in, they got very deeply embedded in that underworld. And all of that kind of leads up to this one night where um they're at this party. It's it's actually just a normal college party. Um, and you know, the other thing just to say is that there's all of these complicated dynamics going on between Trung and An. If you have a sibling, if you are a twin, like you know that like there can be really intense competition, especially if like one parent praises, you know, you feel like you're getting the praise and admiration of one parent more than the other. Um, I think Trung always felt like, well, he was smart, but he wasn't strong. And his family really praised the strength side of things. At least that's how he saw it. Um, and his brother, of course, had the strength. And so there was all this competition going on between them. So they're at this party one night. Trung is in a very bad mental place. Um, and his brother An gets into a fight. Trung um sees his brother go down in this fight. Um, we can debate whether or not An was actually in trouble. Um, but Trung rushes in, um, pulls out a knife and stabs the guy that his brother was fighting with.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Um and um and and in fact, an interesting detail. I mean, there's so many, there's so many Shakespearean details in this story. Trung had left his own knife at home, and when he saw his brother getting drunk and angry, he took his brother's knife away from him because his brother was the one who was always really impulsive. Um, I say in the show, the show, by the way, is called Blood Will Tell. Um, I say in the show that Shakespeare is really the master of turning irony into tragedy. And that I think really sums this up, what happened.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, and um, you know, we're we're dealing with a truly this this this story is kind of spanning um a bunch of different literary touchstones for me, because you've got the absolute Shakespearean part of the tragedy part. Um you've also got what amounts to Chekhov's knife showing up in the process. Um so you've got this fight that that breaks out at a party, it's a college party. So you and and I'm assuming there's there's to some degree drugs and alcohol at the party, um, just your standard college party. Um you've got, and and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna dive in here from from an investigative standpoint. A lot of times when people are looking at people from a different race that look similar, it's hard for them to tell the difference, you know, between the two because we're we're kind of programmed to recognize, you know, um our own race first. We're we're more used to that. So you've got not only do you have twins who are identical twins, but they're Vietnamese, and I'm guessing some of the po folks at the party are not Vietnamese.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

So most, I mean, so most of the I mean, I I do think that there is something to that in terms of like, you know, we are familiar, we are more familiar with what we see, right? Yep on a daily basis. Actually, most of the people at the party were Vietnamese and Vietnamese American, but but they but it was dark, it was very late, everybody or almost everybody was very intoxicated. They'd been they'd been drinking, they'd been playing beer pong, they'd been smoking marijuana, eating pop brownies, like the whole thing. Um and and and most of the and the people at the party didn't know the twins very well because they they were kind of friends of friends. And so when I was going through the case files and you know, reading the transcripts um of the police interrogations and the interviews um and listening to the eyewitnesses, um, you know, they interviewed maybe 30 people from the party. Most of the people at the party could not, didn't know that didn't exactly know which twin was which.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Um, and they were real, they they were really they were really mixing it up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Um it's it's eyewitness testimony is a really difficult thing. It's one of the very few forms of direct evidence. You've got someone who has firsthand knowledge of things, they either saw it or heard it, whatever. Um in this case, it's it's complicated of the fact you've got twins involved in in an alleged crime. But this situation certainly highlights that massive issue that we deal with in criminal justice, which memory's not always reliable. People mistake one person for another, um, especially when something that is shocking or traumatic happens. Did you have this in mind as you worked on this story?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Yeah, I mean, I it was it took a little while to actually get the case files. Um and so for some amount of time, I was just going based on the what the twins were telling me. Right um, and you know, some of some of their friends. Um and so for a while I had I had to believe it. Um, I mean, I I had to verify it, which was why I was so eager to get the case files and and to read through all the transcripts and the interviews. Um but um but yeah, I mean, I think for I think definitely like over the course of reporting this story, I would often take a step back and think to myself, like, is there is there a reason that that even now, right? This happened in in 2014. So um is there a reason that even now they're lying to me? They're not telling me the truth. And I I do I do want to say, like, I tr like, you know, now having known them for six years and having talked to them, um, and that this, you know, maybe this will be interesting for for your listeners from like a um, you know, investigative um uh point of view. But, you know, one of the things like I talk to them week. Over years and years and years. And we were often going over the same story and the same events again and again. I would get it from one, I would get it from the other. And it just became really clear to me over time that like they they were telling the truth because there was enough consistency and I was coming at these questions from different angles, not trying to like prove them wrong, but really just trying to get as much information from as many different angles as I could. But there were definitely moments, especially like early on, when I just wondered to myself, like, is there a reason like that they're not telling the truth? That like maybe it wasn't Trung who stabbed the guy. Maybe it really was on. And maybe even now Trung is trying to protect his brother. Um, so like those thoughts definitely crossed my mind. They have to. Yeah. Um, and I had to kind of I had to, every time it would come, you know, I'd go back to my notes, I'd go through everything, I'd check it against, you know, and I I always came up in the same, I always ended up in the same place, which was that yes, they are being truthful.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

So this this is a really good point to stop and talk about um investigative process and technique and and and methodologies. And I think um, you know, witnesses are notorious for remembering things wrong. It is just human nature, um, especially when there's some form of trauma involved. Um but if if you talk to enough witnesses, you can piece together facts out of all of their stories, so there will be commonalities that everybody agrees to. Um and then when you do get access to the interview transcripts and the case files and those things, then you can start to really hone in on what the actual facts are. And I've come around to this way of thinking as an investigator. I'm interested in the facts of the story. The truth of the story is a personal thing to each person involved in it. Um they have their personal truth of what happened all that business, but I'm really interested in the facts. Um, but when you're reporting a story for something like you're doing, you're not just looking at facts, you're trying to get to what is the whole truth of the thing. But I love the fact that you anytime you got you know to thinking, why are they lying to me or whatever, you go back to your notes, you go back to the records, and you verify where you are and where where the whole story is. And I think that's a critical thing for us as investigators to remember to do. You start talking to a witness, you start talking to um one of the players in in the drama, and you get really sucked into that. It's really useful to step back and review your notes and review the records and review those things. Now, this moving on to the next question, because I tend to prattle on, um, you tend to prattle on because we're both talkers and we're storytellers. Did you start off looking at this as I'm going to do a podcast? I'm assuming you haven't had a whole lot of audio journalism in your background, although you can't tell it by listening to your podcast. Um, when did you decide, hey, I'm gonna make a podcast out of this? And was it challenging to challenging for you to learn how to use the tools and techniques of audio reporting, narration, writing for the ear, those kind of things?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, my medium has always been print. Um, I've I'd done a little bit of audio, but really my medium was print. And um, and and and initially I was thinking I would I would do this as a book. Um, and so, and and even actually before that, it was like, okay, I want to do something with this story. I don't know if the twins are game to do something with this story. Um, I'm gonna have to just start talking to them if they are willing and see if I can earn their trust enough to then, to like then propose, okay, like let's now figure out how to get this story out into the world. And so that was that was like an initial process that went on for years, basically. I mean, I I came to them and I was like, look, like, you know, I'm a journalist. This is the kind of work that I do. Um, I am interested in the facts. I'm also interested in the feelings. Like, I want to understand your relationship. Like you'd asked me that burning, like, what was that burning question? Um, and I had this burning question, which was, I mean, again, I don't, I don't know. By the end of the first episode, like the big twist of the story. There there's many twists, but like the big twist of the story is revealed. So I don't know. Do you want me to go ahead?

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

I mean, basically what happens is that they're both arrested. They are put, Trung, um, who is the guilty one, um, is charged with um homicide. And then a few days, and then the papers report that. And then a few days later, the papers report that the charges have been switched, and on is now being charged with homicide, and Trung is being released as an on bail as an accessory. And that's all the papers ever reported. And but like there was this sense, if you read the news articles, of like, you know, phew, can't like we got the like we were we were gonna incarcerate the wrong brother, but we but we caught our mistake and we and we got the right one, right? Um, and in fact, they had the right brother initially and they switched, they switched it. And what I found out was that through my reporting was that the reason they switched the charges was that they had put both brothers in a lineup together. Um like you're not supposed to do anything to influence the outcome of the lineup, like like legally speaking, and um putting identical twins in a lineup is the most absurd thing that you could possibly do. Yeah. Um and they had the reason that they ran the lineup was that there was this eyewitness who had initially refused to talk, who said that he knew he who like finally the police convinced him to talk, and he was like, I saw the stabbing. I know which brother did it. Um and you listen to the you we have the recording of this, you listen to the tape of it, and Trung comes out and the eyewitness says, Oh, it's him. And then they run through the rest of the lineup, and then on comes out and the eyewitness says, Oh, no, no, wait, I was wrong. It it wasn't the first one, it's this one. Um and then they run the lineup a second time and he points to An the second again. And and what you were saying about like memory being distorted is so true because the reason he could because the eyewitness basically said he like I saw this one stab the guy, I recognized him because of his beauty mark. Because like one of the like small differences between the two of them was that is that on has like this very small beauty mark above his lip. Um, and so the eyewitness like had that differentiating detail, but for whatever reason, he associated it with the wrong action, yeah, which was who had the knife, yeah, who committed the stab.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Yeah. Um this is absolutely fascinating and and and for our listeners, Jen, real quick, tell them the name of the podcast and where they can find it.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yeah. So the podcast is called Blood Will Tell, and you can find it um Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Um, it's out from Audible. It's free. There are no ads attached to it, so you can you can listen to the whole six episodes, you can listen to them all uninterrupted.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Okay. So getting back into kind of the process from from a writer's standpoint, you've you've you've woven this thread of Shakespeare throughout the podcast, and it works so amazingly well as a narrative device. Why did you decide to do this and how did you make it work?

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Yeah. Um, well, I mean, I decided to do it because I am a really big English geek, and and I love um, I I I just I love all the symbolic stuff. And like when when kind of real life intersects with literature and vice versa. Um, I mean, the reason that I the reason that I did it, that I felt like I had permission to do it, is because I met Trung at the Shakespeare rehearsal, because Shakespeare was really central to his experience in prison in prison and to his rehabilitation. Um so it to and okay, so like that kind of gave me this like kind of narrative permission to make this a framing device. Um also just because their story then is so Shakespearean. You've got, you know, mistaken identity, you've got ambition, you've got sacrifice. I mean, going to the that burning question that that I had, I mean, An is the one who is pointed out, he goes to jail. He sits in jail for two years almost before Trung, who is guilty, turns himself in. And what what I needed to know, what I was trying to understand is these brothers, as much as they competed with each other, they loved each other. They relied on each other. They they were they were everything to each other. So how could Trung do this to An? And why didn't An say something for that long?

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Um, and I knew that's where the mystery, that's where the real mystery lies. Not in like who committed the crime or but it it but really in in the in the fabric and the heart of their relationship.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

And I think that's where the I think that that burning question, that it seems like we're getting down to the to the marrow of of what you were looking for. That burning question seems to be what drives you to take this podcast so much deeper than the standard true crime tale or who done it. You know, your reporting is more like a mitigation investigation in a capital case. Um, you dive into the brothers' relationship, their family history, um, their drives and impulses. Why did you feel like those details were so important to include I mean, I do not think of myself like true crime, true crime is fun.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

It's like a great, I mean, there's really good true crime out there. I am not um, I don't actually like consume a lot of true crime. Um, I'm not, it's just not my orientation. Like my orientation really is the like, because I write fiction as well as nonfiction. Um, and when I'm crafting characters or or when I'm reporting a story, a true story, like I'm really interested in the psychology. I'm really interested in, you know, the the nature versus nurture question. What compels people to make the decisions that they make? What are the outside forces that kind of push them and squeeze them? Um and and so and so I was never really thinking about this podcast um, or if it was going to be a book, whatever it was going to be, like I wasn't really thinking about it as true crime beyond beyond like that's the genre where it most easily slots in. Um, but that the thing is is that like you learn you learn who did it at the end of like by the end of the first episode. So it it's not, and that kind of just bucks the trend of true crime, where like you're going through the whole series trying to figure out who did it. This is why. It's the why.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Which is a which is always the more interesting question, I think, is the why. And a lot of times we don't get to know the why, but you you you've done an amazing job of getting to the why. And I don't want to give too much away. Um, but in the last episode, you had these very profound and personal moments between the brothers. They're trying to understand what happened and why they did what they did and maybe even forgive each other. Two questions. How did you win their trust and eventually convince them to be so vulnerable with each other after all this? Much less on tape. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Yeah. Um, well, I mean, you know, the first question, how did I earn their trust really goes back to what I was saying before about from the very beginning, from that first day sitting down with Trung, like not pushing too hard to get the story, to get the information. Um and and to be really upfront with them. Like, I think your story is interesting. Here's why I think it's interesting, right? Like, not for the like, yes, it's very dramatic, and people are going to be shocked and um, you know, wowed by this, you know, case of mistaken identity and this lineup. Um, and frankly, that's probably what's going to make it sell as a media product. But that is not why I want to tell the story. Like that is the there's some scaffolding there. But really, I want to understand you, I want to understand who you guys are as twins, as brothers, as, you know, I'm really interested in, I do a lot of um, I do, I do a lot of consulting work um with image with an immigration nonprofit. I do storytelling for them. Um, and you know, I write about mental health. Like there's all of these things that um to me are really rich subjects to understand like what does it mean to be an American, to belong in this country, to find your place, this whole thing about the American dream. You know, I was just so taken by this idea that like there's this version of the American dream that their parents had and they saw how inaccessible it was. And so they were basically like, all right, we want the American dream. We're gonna get it the way that we know how to get it, which is illicitly and criminally. Um, and that says a lot about our culture, you know, as as and our country. Um so I was really upfront with them about all of that. Like the purpose of this story is really to get into these deeper issues. Um, the other thing is that this really is a story of rehabilitation, of forgiveness, of um of what it means to be defined or not defined by the worst thing you've ever done. And both have both Trung and An have spent years and I think will continue basically to spend the rest of their lives working to atone for the various sins that they have committed and they know that. Yeah. Um and so I think that I think they understood like this is a valuable story, like from a criminal justice perspective, this is a valuable story to tell. Um, and I think that they just saw from me, like I wasn't pushing too hard on anything. I was giving them, you know, from like I said, I talked to them for years under the like agreement that nothing would become public without their explicit consent. Um, that was a lot of time that I invested potentially just to like form this relationship with them and learn their story and like actually have nothing professional come out of it.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

And I think uh, you know, you you've said a couple times um I was up front with them. I was up front with them. And I'm I'm my ears hearing that is I was completely honest with them about my motivations, what I was trying to do, those kind of things. And I think that's a critical thing for investigators and investigative journalists. People, if they can't tell it immediately, they'll pick up on it quickly. If you're not being honest with them, they will oftentimes shut you down. And being upfront and honest at the beginning is really key. And then the the other thing that you said in this process is you didn't push, you didn't rush, you didn't try to get to a thing too quick, and that does two things. Number one, it makes them feel comfortable. Number two, it makes sure that you get the whole story. It'd be awful, awful tempting to get into this, spend three weeks, write a story, move on, but taking the time to invest the amount of time and effort that you did into it with no guarantee that there's gonna be anything at the end of it. Um, and they know this, and you know this. I think that is part of the trust building process. Let me ask you this, Jen. Um, what interview tips can you give to investigators about building trust and talking to witnesses you've been through who've been through trauma or to folks who've done things they're not proud of?

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Yeah. I mean, I think, and I, you know, right now I'm reporting a book on teen teenage mental health, and I've been talking to young women who have been through some pretty serious stuff. And it's it's a similar thing. Um, where if you have, I mean, hopefully you will have the time to invest, and I know that's not always the case, but you will be able to kind of go through layers of peeling back, like if you think of it as like an onion, like just layers of peeling back. So, you know, your first conversation is maybe going to be somewhat surface level. Um, and you're gonna, and you're gonna really follow their lead to see like where they're comfortable, um, like where your source is comfortable. Um, and pay attention to how they are, like not just like what they're saying, but how they're saying it. Like, do they sound confident speaking to you? Do they sound really emotional speaking to you? Are they hesitating a lot? Um, I I check in with my sources like as I'm going along. Um, like I will, especially like if we're if we're talking about something that's really sensitive or like you know, some kind of trauma that they've experienced, like I will, I will, I will always bookend it. Right. So I'll say in the beginning, like, I'd like to ask you about this thing. Um, how do you feel talking about that right now? Like all like never just dive in, like and and and then giving them the space, letting them know, like, because if you're not, you know, like we don't, we like don't have to go there. We can, we can, you know, we can address something else. Um, but if you're comfortable, you know, and you know, please know, like at any point you can stop, you can pull back. And then as we're going along, checking in with them, how are you doing? Like, how are you doing? Like, does this does this feel okay? Do you need do you need a break? Do you need to go get some water? Like, um, just want to make sure that like, you know, and and so just just that kind of human interaction, um, which I think journalists like kind of sometimes forget that that people um that like this isn't just about getting the story, this is about actually connecting on a human level with people.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Yeah, and I think investigators oftentimes forget that part too. And in in the journalism world, you have deadlines, you have you know publication dates, those kind of things that you're working towards. They may be flexible, they may not be. In in the criminal justice world, when you're dealing with court dockets and deadlines, a lot of times they are hard and fast and fixed, and and and you've got to push as fast as possible. There's this balance that you walk to get as much information as you can to understand the story, but also to kind of um acknowledge that we're dealing with human beings who have been through trauma, and it is critical to, like you said, check in with them along the way, give them the chance to take a break, give them the chance to say, hey, I don't want to do this right now, let's come back later. Um, and the reason I say that is, Jen, if you push too hard in the beginning, you forecless the possibility of coming back to that sometimes. And that's what you don't want to do as a journalist or as an investigator. Um, Jen, look, I gotta say thank you so very much for taking the time to chat with me. It's really good to see your face. To our listeners, I want to say the podcast is Blood Will Tell. Um, Jen, one more time, if if somebody out there listening to The Sound of Pursuit wants to find your podcast, what is the name of the podcast? Where can they find it?

SPEAKER_00 43:07

So it's called Blood Will Tell, and you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere that you get your podcasts, um, Blood Will Tell. And I would be so excited to have investigators listen to it and to hear what you think of like from an investigative perspective. I think that would be so awesome and fun.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

I love it. Uh, Jen, again, thank you so much for taking the time. Again, it's really good to see your face and get to spend a little bit of time with you. Um, if people want to get in touch with you, what would be the best way to do that?

SPEAKER_00 43:41

Um, so I'm not really on social media. Um, you can find me through my website, which is byjennifermiller.com, and my contact information is there.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Very good. To our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Hal Humphreys, your host. You've been listening to the Sound of Pursuit, and that is your sound of pursuit. For this week.

SPEAKER_02 44:01

You've been listening to the Sound of Pursuit, a podcast by Pursuit Magazine and PI Education.