Talking Dateline: Running Man

Transcript

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Speaker 11 Hi, everyone. I'm Blaine Alexander, and today we are talking Dateline.
I am here with my good friend Andrea Canning to talk about her episode Running Man. Hi Andrea.
Hi Blaine.

Speaker 11 Okay if you haven't seen it you can watch the episode on Peacock or listen to it in the Dateline podcast feed and then we want you to come right back here. But just a quick recap.

Speaker 11 In 2023 when the remains of Ashley Schwan were found in a burned out car at the bottom of a ditch investigators wondered if this was a tragic accident or something far more sinister.

Speaker 11 They learned that her firefighter husband, James, had meticulously planned out his wife's murder.

Speaker 11 In this episode, we've got an extra clip of Andrea's interview with Samantha Jones, the executive director of the Women's and Children's Shelter, My Friend's House.

Speaker 11 She'll talk more about the event held in Ashley's honor and how the Sunflower Fund supports victims of domestic violence.

Speaker 11 And later on, we will be joined by Dateline producer Lynn Keller to answer some of your questions from social media. So, Andrea, let's talk Dateline.
Let's do it.

Speaker 11 Before we even jump into the specifics of the episode, the thing that caught me immediately off the bat was seeing clips of young Andrea reporting in your hometown. That was the coolest thing.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, I covered that area. You know, we were based at a station in Barrie, Ontario, which is an hour north of Toronto, but Collingwood, Blue Mountain, was part of our coverage area.

Speaker 11 So I had really come home at that point, you know, to be a young reporter. And so it was interesting to go down memory lane.
And we went back to my old station and,

Speaker 11 you know, interviewed a reporter there, did a stand-up.

Speaker 11 The editor who was still there from when I worked there

Speaker 11 put together a bunch of clips for us.

Speaker 11 And so, yeah, it was really nice to be back there after all those years.

Speaker 11 And literally right as I walked in the door of the station, a cameraman that I used to work with all the time was just coming in from shooting something. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me.

Speaker 11 Like all these years later.

Speaker 11 That's incredible. There's always something special about the first station.

Speaker 11 For those of us who are in news, like, you always go back and look at those old clips and it's like, oh, gosh, I was wearing that or what was my hair? Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Speaker 11 When you you look at some of those clips, you're just like, I tried to pick the best ones because there were some really bad ones, which people might have enjoyed as well. But

Speaker 11 you know, well, it was very, very cool to see. And then we saw that sign, what was it, Canning Drive or Canning Way? That's Gord Canning Drive.
So that's my, that's my dad.

Speaker 11 So he ran the ski resort there for decades and they named a street after him. That's beautiful.
I love that.

Speaker 11 Well, with all of that as the backdrop, this certainly made for a very, very, very fascinating story.

Speaker 11 How did you find out about this story? This was not one of those ones,

Speaker 11 you know, that it was like, oh, in the story meeting, this was my phone was blowing up with, you know, texts and calls and, oh my gosh, did you hear about this story?

Speaker 11 I was hearing from all kinds of friends and relatives from the area who.

Speaker 11 you know, could not believe it.

Speaker 11 I mean, it's just to think like the way we start the episode, you know, to think that something that we cover all the time, Blaine, could happen that close to my house, you know, it just was unbelievable.

Speaker 11 Absolutely. It truly was.

Speaker 11 And we even got to meet one of your high school friends in this episode. Anne?

Speaker 11 Yes. Well, so I ran into Anne at a New Year's Eve party last year, and we were talking about the case, and I asked her if she would be a part of it.

Speaker 11 She had the privilege of knowing Ashley because they were neighbors.

Speaker 11 And so for me, when it comes to the victim, Ashley, it was amazing how like our lives had intersected, you know, but we didn't know each other.

Speaker 11 And so it was just, it was just like bizarre when you, when you start looking into a case and you realize that there's a million connections. Yeah.

Speaker 11 And I'm now I hate the fact that I've gotten to know her family. because of this, but at the same time, I'm so grateful to know them now because they're, they're such an amazing family.

Speaker 11 And my heart is just broken for them because I'm just seeing this story on a much more personal level this time.

Speaker 11 And, you know, to see what they've gone through and what they're going through and, you know, going through this process with them,

Speaker 11 it's, it's surreal. That has to bring a new layer to doing a story like this.
Absolutely does.

Speaker 11 Well, let's, let's talk about this episode, Andrea. I want to start with the crime scene because obviously that's where everything begins.

Speaker 11 But just this notion, there was a portion when you were doing the drive-along interview and you said,

Speaker 11 and you heard from the investigator who said, I was immediately struck by just how hot that fire was. I knew immediately that that's not something that's normal.

Speaker 11 That really stood out to me, that just how massive that fire had to have been. Yeah, I mean, the flames, they said, were about 30 feet high.

Speaker 11 And, you know, this car went like right down into a ditch. And then the flames were so high.
that they could be seen going up past the road.

Speaker 11 I mean, fire and just the knowledge of fire plays such a big role in this.

Speaker 11 But obviously, with her husband being a fire captain, with all that he knows about fire and everything, he staged it, but almost staged it too well, right? Like,

Speaker 11 it wasn't likely that a car or a crash like that would have caused so much, such a fire. And the fact that he left his lighter inside and thought that everybody was in the middle of the day.
I mean,

Speaker 11 that was unbelievable to me. Initially, they said, well, wait a second.
Like, yes, the lighter's in there, but that is, you know, his car, right? So it could be

Speaker 11 theoretically. we know he confessed.
So clearly it was a mistake. But the dad in the story, Ian, says,

Speaker 11 you know, he doesn't, he doesn't watch Dateline. Like he made all these mistakes.
You know, this is a survivable crash.

Speaker 11 You know, it was like,

Speaker 11 there was no high impact that they could tell.

Speaker 11 I mean, there were so many red flags about that fire.

Speaker 11 I mean, you can only think maybe he thought it would burn out before anyone saw it, you know, and and then it would take a while for, I don't know.

Speaker 11 Like, I don't, it's like, what, he did all these things. Like, he made it so complicated, but then at the same time, it was such an imperfect crime.
He made some obvious mistakes.

Speaker 11 But it's so sad, though, because

Speaker 11 regardless of how he carried it out this crime or how he was trying to cover it up, like, Ashley's gone. Yeah.
You know, what a mess he's made of his, this amazing life that he had.

Speaker 11 And it was so self-centered. I mean, the, the, the children, like we could do a whole episode on that and of itself.
I think that what got me, one, knowing how young the kids are, um,

Speaker 11 watching their dad's arrest, the daughter hearing what happened, like hearing these, I mean, that's just terrible. How about the teacher call? Yes.
Yes. Like, wasn't that unbelievable?

Speaker 11 The teacher called forced me. And then seeing the sun, the silhouette of the sun as James was kind of scoping out the place where he would park the car was like, you took your son along.

Speaker 11 You're, you're talking. You're having father-son talk while you're planning to kill his mother.

Speaker 11 There are a lot of sick, Blaine.

Speaker 11 There are a lot of just really obviously creepy things that we hear in dateline episodes, but this one had to have been close to the top of the list.

Speaker 11 That was terrible. All right, when we get back, we've got an extra clip of Andrea's interview with Samantha Jones from the Women in Children's Shelter, My Friend's House.

Speaker 11 We'll hear more about Ashley's memorial and how her family hopes to bring awareness and help victims of domestic violence.

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Speaker 13 I'm Julio Vaqueiro, anchor of Noticias Telemundo. You can watch Daitline, the heat true crime series on Telemundo.
And now, you can listen to Daitline as a podcast.

Speaker 13 Stories of love and betrayal, of secrets revealed, of the men and women who stand between evil and justice. Every twist and turn can now be heard in Spanish, with new mysteries arriving every week.

Speaker 13 Just search Dateline en Español, wherever you get your podcasts, and start listening.

Speaker 14 On the night before Halloween in 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley was murdered, but police failed to make an arrest. Until, in 2000, her one-time neighbor, Michael Skakal, was arrested.

Speaker 14 He was also a cousin of the Kennedys. The Kennedy connection is the reason that most people know about this case.
But the deeper I dug, the more I came to question everything I thought I knew.

Speaker 14 Find and follow Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder on Pandora to listen to the latest episodes each week.

Speaker 11 You've talked about the family a lot and just becoming close to them. Yeah.
Let's talk about the investigation.

Speaker 11 So when James came in and mapped out the route that he took to walk the dog, I thought, oh, okay,

Speaker 11 it's not going to be him. That's just kind of a red herring.
We're going to go in another direction. It'll be somebody else.
And even, I mean, it seemed like that is almost kind of the ironclad.

Speaker 11 Okay, this way, this is the way I went. Camera, show me.
And we're all good.

Speaker 11 it sure looked like it yeah you know didn't it yeah absolutely and they sean glass forg the detective said you know the guys were saying he deserves an oscar if he's lying because he was that good right and usually we always hear from detectives oh he was cold or he wasn't showing the right emotion or there was something off and

Speaker 11 they were like no like this guy looked the part to a T, you know?

Speaker 11 And then, of course, they go and they look, they do the videos. He's not there where he says he's going to walk the dog.
And then,

Speaker 11 you know, we go into that,

Speaker 11 their little experiment, you know, and what's interesting is so they, you know, they, they enlist a colleague who I actually met at the OPP detachment in Collingwood.

Speaker 11 He was a very nice guy, very, very big fit guy. The runner.
And right there in the interview, I was like, my husband does that same run.

Speaker 11 He leaves early in the morning and he meets us at the Tim Hortons in town or the Starbucks. And like, you know, we get our coffee or whatever and we drive him home.

Speaker 11 But that's his run.

Speaker 11 So that was like, I was like, wow, you know, you could have called my husband. He could have done it for you.
Right.

Speaker 11 He could have done the experiment. He could have tested it out.
That is so funny. I wouldn't, I mean, showing the running man, right?

Speaker 11 Obviously, investigators would, well, not obviously, but you'd look at that and say, okay, that's our guy. Someone who's running.
We see somebody running from the scene.

Speaker 11 We learned more about James, right? Like, obviously, somebody who's very fit. Could he have made that run?

Speaker 11 But as I was watching it, I found myself really still trying to think of who else it could have possibly been other than other than James.

Speaker 11 I just didn't think it was him until very, until it was very obvious. Yeah.

Speaker 11 And also when you, when you throw in what happened, you know, with, with the affair, you know, unfortunately, it does bring in other people,

Speaker 11 possibly into the mix that they have to look at. Yeah.

Speaker 11 And I know that, you know, talking to Ashley's family, she regretted. what happened.
She was trying to save her marriage.

Speaker 11 And that was, you know, that was sad that that happened. And, but, you know, she was trying to do the right thing.
And the thing that I was thinking too is like, I'm,

Speaker 11 you know, I never met Ashley sadly, but when, when you, I would only imagine that when you have an affair,

Speaker 11 there's something broken. Yeah.
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 11 Right.

Speaker 11 So,

Speaker 11 like, not excusing an affair, of course, but like there's something at the root of that. And I could only imagine that it has to do with,

Speaker 11 you know with her with what she had at home you know this is where like domestic violence comes in and there there were no obvious signs to friends and family no 911 calls had ever been made you know about domestic violence and talked about that one moment where james you know lost his cool a little bit and was like you get home now

Speaker 11 um

Speaker 11 you know but Nobody unfortunately was able to have those conversations with her if there was something going on.

Speaker 11 And this is all, you know, just kind of speaking in generalities, but I mean, you can only imagine that she was searching probably for something.

Speaker 11 Another piece is that oftentimes it's difficult to open up to someone and,

Speaker 11 you know, say, okay, this is the person that I chose and chose to be with. And now it's not a great person, right? Right.
I mean, do we want to introduce that clip, Blaine?

Speaker 11 Because it goes more in depth. Yeah.
Let's talk about this memorial.

Speaker 11 This past September, it was with my friend's house, a women in children's shelter there in Ontario, and they did a memorial hike and raised money for a fund that they created in Ashley's honor, and it was called the Sunflower Fund.

Speaker 11 So let's listen to this clip. It's of Samantha Jones from my friend's house talking about that day and the fund that was created in Ashley's honor.

Speaker 11 We've birthed what is called the Sunflower Foundation, which is in honor of Ashley.

Speaker 11 And it goes directly to our child and youth programming, and it's to support children who are accessing our services to do the fun stuff like camp or or things that they may not be able to do.

Speaker 11 So it goes towards that, but then also seek therapeutic services and help families out who are engaged with us.

Speaker 11 And last year we serviced 116 kids that are coming from homes where there's domestic violence. You had an event in honor of Ashley? It was her family sort of a.

Speaker 11 memorial celebration of life, if you will. It was a beautiful day.
There was a hike for her over in Duntroon and all her family was there, friends, police services.

Speaker 11 It was quite something to see everyone come together to honor and celebrate her life.

Speaker 11 Because I will say that what was really shown that day is what a beautiful soul she was, and how loved she was, and how much people just want her memory to be lived through her children and how they want her remembered.

Speaker 11 We see it so often on Dateline, these tragedies happen, and then the family wants

Speaker 11 something

Speaker 11 to

Speaker 11 propel goodness forward, you know, from the name of their loved one, you know, and this is one of those situations where domestic violence is now something that they want to help combat.

Speaker 11 Yeah, no, absolutely. And that was one thing for us because these things happen.

Speaker 11 There's lots of families that are affected by it, but they have intentionally reached out in a way to build awareness so that what happened to their Ashley doesn't happen again.

Speaker 11 This is, like we said, a lot of families want to do good, right? Out of out of tragedy. And just a really quick story that I discovered because of Ashley.
Um,

Speaker 11 so my mom passed away a long time ago, and um, they had like a sale with her jewelry and her clothing.

Speaker 11 And all these years, I thought that the money had gone to the Special Olympics because my mom was involved in the Special Olympics.

Speaker 11 And I asked my dad, I said, do you ever, does, does your girlfriend, his girlfriend Shirley, I said, does she, does she work with my friend's house? And he said, well, she donates. He said, so do I.

Speaker 11 I said, oh, really?

Speaker 11 He goes, yeah, I've been donating for years and he goes and your mom the sale of all your mom's jewel jewelry and clothes went to my friend's house oh wow and i said not the special olympics and he said no my friend's house wow so i it was like a weird it was like a revelation for me i was like i had no idea so just to hear something like that and I didn't know she was involved with my friend's house, my mom.

Speaker 11 Of course. Oh my gosh.
What a, what a beautiful full circle moment. That's unbelievable.

Speaker 12 Another, it's another connection we were talking about.

Speaker 11 So many. Absolutely.
Absolutely. But that's a beautiful, that's a beautiful service.
And that's just a beautiful

Speaker 11 thing to do in her honor as well, in Ashley's honor.

Speaker 11 You know, I mean, we talk about this, all the different things that come together in this story. One piece we didn't talk about is once everything came out,

Speaker 11 James and being with Alexandra. That was honestly a twist that I didn't see coming.

Speaker 11 Right. Right.
I mean, for her to to be the one who said, okay, you have to tell your husband about this or I will to flipping it around and they're the ones who were together.

Speaker 11 So in this case, you know, Alexandra and

Speaker 11 James never had a, like, it never got physical from what we understand.

Speaker 11 But it definitely seemed like

Speaker 11 through police and through their texts and whatnot, that they found that there were feelings and that James wanted more.

Speaker 11 But Alexandra said, you know, you're married. And so he said, well, I'm going to

Speaker 12 take care of that.

Speaker 11 Unfortunately, no one knew exactly, you know, what he was talking about with that, which is not good,

Speaker 11 how this whole thing ended. They said he was, they believed he was lining up the next Mrs.
Schwamm, which is very disturbing. It's disturbing.
It's scary

Speaker 11 considering what happened. I mean, why him?

Speaker 11 Like, you're a firefighter. Like, you're, he's posting things,

Speaker 11 a domestic violence post, right? Like fighting domestic violence. He is that leader.
He's helping people.

Speaker 11 I think everyone just, you felt that devastation throughout the community just of how blindsided, you know, everyone was.

Speaker 11 And even like his fellow firefighters that we interviewed, Brittany and Jordan, they were defending him at first because they were like, no, they didn't know all the details, right? Sure.

Speaker 11 And they're like, no, he could not. He could never have done this.

Speaker 11 And then they find out like all the details and they're like, oh my gosh, like, what? This was the person.

Speaker 11 It was comforting.

Speaker 11 And Jordan told us this story

Speaker 11 about how they finally got some therapy for the firefighters because they were so just screwed up from all of this. And they were all sitting there and nobody wanted to talk.

Speaker 11 And then finally, Jordan was like, fine, I'll go. And then he said it was like after that, the bloodgate opened up of tears and why and questions.

Speaker 11 And he's like, I've never seen grown grown men like get this worked up about, you know, something together. Yeah.
Yeah. That's got to be difficult too for all of them.
Right.

Speaker 11 I mean, just to watch that and see that, that unfold. Did you get the sense?

Speaker 11 I mean, as I was watching this, the theme that came to my mind was just this almost obsession that he seemed to have with outward appearance, right? Yes.

Speaker 11 I mean, like, oh, everything looks perfect and couldn't just say to his wife, hey, I, I want a divorce, or how, you know, as Ashley's dad kept saying, how hard that news of that affair hit him, the fact that he was, you know, it was a blow to his ego and that type of thing that he just couldn't get over.

Speaker 11 Yeah. I mean, he said, again, I always say, I'm not a doctor.
I don't know if he's ever been diagnosed. Sure.
But everyone, you know, says he had those narcissistic tendencies.

Speaker 11 And it was really interesting to talk to Brittany afterwards and Jordan. and how they felt so manipulated by him, you know, because everything that they believed about him was not true,

Speaker 11 you know, about who, the quality of him as a person. And they all were like, how do I ever trust anyone again? You know, I would, I, I trusted him with my life,

Speaker 11 you know, like you run into a burning building with this person.

Speaker 11 And so now, you know, you just, you just look back and you're second guessing and you're like wondering, like, why did, you know, even Lindsay, when this, Ashley's sister, when she found out he'd been arrested, she like had a moment where she felt bad for him.

Speaker 11 And she's like,

Speaker 11 it's so twisted. Like, but, you know, he's family.
She was being so honest in this interview and like raw. Yes.
And she's like, that was

Speaker 11 what I felt like in that moment. And she's kind of like, how messed up is that?

Speaker 11 But it's real. I, I, that's a, that's a real thing.

Speaker 11 Something that stood out to me about what she said too was, he's going, you're going to spend the rest of your life paying for this when she talked about that affair.

Speaker 11 That was just so, it was chilling. It was sad.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 she didn't mean it like

Speaker 11 with what happened. she just meant, like, you're going to pay for this because he's going to make you pay for it.
He's going to hold it over your head, right? Yeah. Not with murder.

Speaker 11 You know, of course. Like, never did that ever enter her mind, Lindsay.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Well, this was a fantastic episode. Thank you.
Of course, of course. All right.
After the break, we will be joined by Dateline producer Lynn Keller to answer some of your questions from social media.

Speaker 11 I turned off news altogether.

Speaker 12 I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

Speaker 9 It's the rage bait.

Speaker 12 It feels like it's trying to divide people.

Speaker 15 If we got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little.

Speaker 4 NBC News brings you clear reporting.

Speaker 2 Let's meet at the facts.

Speaker 4 Let's move forward from there. NBC News, reporting for America.

Speaker 11 Hi, Hi, everyone. Welcome back.
We are so lucky to be joined by Dateline super producer Lynn Keller. Hi, Lynn.

Speaker 11 Hi, Blaine. I want to ask you, I'm so excited to have you here.
Is there anything in all of the many Dateline episodes you've produced, what sticks out the most about this one to you?

Speaker 12 Well, first of all, being, I've worked with Andrea for the past 13 years, and I've heard about Collingwood. I've heard about her town, and it was just kind of a little surreal to go there.

Speaker 12 And I remember because I got there before Andrea did, and I was driving, and on my GPS, it said Gord Canning Drive, which is her father's name.

Speaker 12 Our hotel was right near her dad's street. It was like, we had to drive on her dad's street to get there.
So it was really nice. It was nice to see.
And we got to meet, I got to meet her dad,

Speaker 12 who's amazing. And it was just a really, that was, that was a really nice part of this.
such tragic story.

Speaker 11 I love that. I love that.
And I know that obviously one of the jobs of the producer is to scout scout out all the locations where we're going to be shooting.

Speaker 11 At what point did you realize that even though you're doing a story in Canada, you're going to have to travel to the Bahamas to shoot part of this story?

Speaker 12 Well, I knew that early on because when I first called

Speaker 12 Ashley Schwamm's father, he was in the Bahamas. And so when I talked to him, he was telling me all about where he lived.
And so I knew that we were probably going to

Speaker 12 get to go to the Bahamas, but it rained. It rained almost the whole time we were there.
Oh, no.

Speaker 12 Actually, when Andrea went out to do the walk and talk with him, it was like the, there was, it was like a moment where it stopped raining. So we got to do that shot.

Speaker 12 And then as soon as they were done, it started to rain again. Oh, gosh.
But it's still beautiful. Really beautiful there.

Speaker 11 Talk about good luck, though, just getting that one little sliver of sunlight. It was, it was gorgeous.

Speaker 12 And it was such an important moment in our story, too, because it was a pivotal moment. in you know the future of what would happen where she told her husband about the affair.

Speaker 11 So let's talk about these comments. As you can expect, as you might expect, we got a lot of social media comments.

Speaker 11 A number of them were focused on Ashley and James's dog, interestingly enough. So I want to read some of those.
This one was from Brenda Thorpe. She said, I watched last night.

Speaker 11 I saw that the suspect left the house to walk the dog at 5 a.m. But when the cameras caught him running back home, I didn't see the dog.
What did I miss? Where was the dog?

Speaker 11 That was something that was explained in the episode, though. Just kind of bring us up to speed.

Speaker 12 Yeah, it was explained, but it was quick. So you would have to really pay attention.
So the dog's name is Rocco, and he's since been rehomed, if anyone's interested.

Speaker 12 And what happened was the police believe that James shut off his, he remotely shut off the ring camera, the blink camera from his front door so that he could go back into the house, drop off the dog, get in the car and drive away.

Speaker 12 So that's that's how they. He definitely put the dog back in the house.

Speaker 11 Yeah. Well, let's, a few more questions about the crime scene and evidence,

Speaker 11 specifically the car at the bottom of the ditch. So Laura and Tom Birchill write, he must have taken his time driving the car down the embankment and having no footprints leaving the car.

Speaker 11 Someone else asked if the fire melted the snow, therefore footprints wouldn't have been visible. I did have a question about that too.

Speaker 12 Well, there was so much snow that you wouldn't see footprints because the snow would have covered it. But what they could see is sort of like they described it as track marks.

Speaker 12 And if you watch the episode, you can see we sort of push into it a little bit.

Speaker 11 It's like little,

Speaker 12 you know, like a track through a snow, but it didn't show footprints because snow had come over the top. But there was definitely evidence that someone had left the car.

Speaker 11 That's a scene. Okay.

Speaker 11 Sarah Anderson writes, did anyone else notice that the guy running had on a light colored shirt and light hat?

Speaker 11 And when the husband was throwing things away at his work, he was wearing a light colored shirt and a light hat.

Speaker 12 I don't know about that because I feel like it's really black and white. I don't, I don't know that you could see color.
I see what they're saying that it was like, it didn't seem light.

Speaker 12 And maybe, maybe, but the police never, the police never put that together. They never thought, I think that, but here's an interesting thing: they never found the backpack that the man was wearing.

Speaker 12 And they had had James on surveillance and they one day tracked him to a certain place that was where they shot the Schitt's Creek

Speaker 12 show, where that old motel was. And so they feel like that is where he dumped it.

Speaker 11 Oh, wow.

Speaker 11 Wild. Okay.
Yeah. You know, one of the things in this episode that really pulled at my heartstrings, everyone's heartstrings, was their children, Ashley and James' children.
Big part of this episode.

Speaker 11 But there was one part that really was just notable. That was when the teacher called investigators.

Speaker 11 Janice Pennington wrote a comment about that and wrote, the teacher's information was critical to this case. I admire that teacher so much.

Speaker 11 She had the child's interest at heart and is a hero for contacting the police department.

Speaker 12 What's interesting about her is that she, when she made that call, she didn't know that Ashley had died.

Speaker 12 So her whole thing was,

Speaker 12 it was really bothering her. Like, why didn't after the daughter said she heard her mom fall down the steps, she didn't see her in the morning.

Speaker 12 So she was asking the police to go to Ashley's house to do a welfare check. That's what that call was.

Speaker 11 Oh, wow.

Speaker 12 Yeah. So that she was really going above and beyond.
Really, really great teacher.

Speaker 11 Talk about listening to her instincts and just really and acting on them too.

Speaker 11 Yeah. I mean, we talk about the children.
Do we know much about them, how they're doing today?

Speaker 12 Everything that I've heard is that they're doing extremely well. First of all, the kids are really amazing.
Everyone loved them. They were just really, really great kids.

Speaker 12 And now they're being very well taken care of and they're thriving.

Speaker 11 That's beautiful. I'm so glad to hear that.

Speaker 11 Another question that we got was about Ashley's family, specifically her mother. But Sue Nunn writes, did they mention where Ashley's mom was? Is she deceased?

Speaker 11 They did not interview her, so she must be out of the picture somehow. Any insight?

Speaker 12 Yeah, she died in 2004 of cancer. Okay.
So Ashley was probably early 20s when her mom died. And it was a huge, huge loss for their family.
Of course.

Speaker 12 Ian, the dad, talks about, it sounds like they had an incredible marriage. He just loved her so much.
Yeah, it was a big hole in their family.

Speaker 11 Of course. And Ashley's dad mentions how similar Ashley was to her mother.
It sounds like they were very close.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 12 I think Ian's on the tough side. Lindsay, the sister, and then the mom and Ashley are kind of like maybe softer around the edges.
Yeah.

Speaker 11 Well, Lynn, thank you so much to you and Andrea for bringing the story to us and doing it so beautifully and so delicately. And it was great to have you on today.
Thanks for talking Dateline with me.

Speaker 11 Thanks so much. And that's it for Talking Dateline this week.

Speaker 11 Remember, if you have a question about Dateline, please DM us a video on social media at Dateline NBC for a chance to be featured in a future episode of Talking Dateline.

Speaker 11 Or of course you can leave your question in a voicemail. That number is 212-413-5252.

Speaker 11 And if you or anyone that you know is experiencing domestic violence, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at any time. That number is 1-800-799-7233.
Again, 1-800-799-7233.

Speaker 11 Or you can visit the website thehotline.org for more resources. And of course, we will see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.
Thanks so much for listening.