The Man in the Black Mask - Ep. 5: Trick or Treat

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Speaker 5 Ask his movie friends, they would have told you it's all made up.

Speaker 5 Of course, it was just a clever bit of spooky nonsense conjured up in the most unusual mind of Mark Twitchell. Man's whole life was devoted to make-believe, scary stories.

Speaker 5 He was a strange fellow in his way, if also harmless. Even his friends and colleagues would tell you that.
Them and the curious reporter who checked him out.

Speaker 6 He was in that kind of clique of people that would go to, you know, Star Wars conventions or they would dress up for the premiere of a movie.

Speaker 6 You know, everyone's got someone like that in their family who's just, you know, a big sci-fi nut or whatever.

Speaker 5 But does that make you a nut?

Speaker 5 Or just a person who enjoys pure, clean fun?

Speaker 5 The point was, Mark Twitchell loved it all. Loved writing the stories, loved making the movies, loved dreaming up a universe of dark and dangerous characters.

Speaker 5 A would-be master of misdirection is what he was.

Speaker 5 Mind you, it was true that some guy named Johnny Altinger was missing and possibly dead, and police thought it was curious that he, Twitchell, had bought the man's car. But that was about it.

Speaker 5 Nobody else had come forward to complain about him. Anyway, when the events of this tale occurred, it just happened to be Halloween, Mark Twitchell's favorite day of the year.

Speaker 5 For months, in between filming this and that,

Speaker 5 he'd been hard at work creating what might have been his best Halloween costume ever, a very respectable Iron Man get-up.

Speaker 5 Sadly, he was forced to put on the finishing touches at his parents' place after his wife discovered he'd been having an affair and kicked him out.

Speaker 5 But for now, for one grand night, all that could be forgotten. In a few hours, he'd make his big entrance to a huge Halloween party, where he would surely wow them all.

Speaker 5 But first, that afternoon, there was business to attend to. A meeting with a group of potential investors at a nearby coffeehouse.
Investors? So hard to come by.

Speaker 5 And these seemed to drop down like mana from heaven. So Or so Mark Twitchell had been led to believe by the friendly and persuasive man who'd called him.

Speaker 5 But of course, investor was not quite the right word for that caller.

Speaker 5 More like

Speaker 5 investigator.

Speaker 7 Our guy pretended he was going to invest in his movie-making business. Somebody wants to give you $30,000, $35,000.

Speaker 5 Come and meet me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, come and meet me.

Speaker 5 And so, with a light heart and a jacket to ward off the autumn chill, Mark Mark Twitchell sauntered down the sidewalk toward the coffee shop.

Speaker 7 And in swoops the tactical team and takes him down by surprise.

Speaker 5 Thrown to the ground by members of Edmonton Police Service's SWAT team, who slapped a pair of handcuffs on Mark Twitchell and drove him downtown and charged him with the murder of the still very missing Johnny Altinger.

Speaker 5 No Halloween party for Mark Twitchell.

Speaker 5 Instead, there was a press conference at which a senior police officer announced Twitchell's arrest, but never said why.

Speaker 5 Only that investigators believed Altinger had been murdered.

Speaker 8 And that Twitchell had put a lot of thought into it, a lot of work into it.

Speaker 5 A press conference thin on detail.

Speaker 5 Except for one, oddly, about Mark Twitchell's TV viewing habits.

Speaker 8 We have a lot of information that suggests he definitely idolizes Dexter.

Speaker 5 What did that mean?

Speaker 5 I'm Keith Morrison, and this is The Man in the Black Mask, the podcast from Dateline.

Speaker 5 Episode 5, Trick or Treat.

Speaker 6 It really just

Speaker 6 exploded on Halloween.

Speaker 5 That's the voice of Steve Lillebuen. Steve covered the police beat back then for the big paper in town, the Edmonton Journal.
But he'd never encountered a story like this before.

Speaker 5 The arrest of the local filmmaker and the suggestion that he idolizes Dexter? On Halloween, no less. Crazy.
Assignments were handed out. There was work to be done.

Speaker 6 One of the first things we did in the newsroom is we just went to Mark Twitchell's Facebook page, and we saw a person who was incredibly driven, a person who had a lot of charisma and was really into this, I guess you would call it like a geek culture.

Speaker 6 You know, he was into Star Wars, he was into sci-fi stuff, he was into making costumes, but nothing sinister.

Speaker 5 Certainly didn't come off like a cold-blooded killer, let alone a dexterype.

Speaker 6 He looked like a really clean-cut guy. He, you know, had a schoolboy haircut, and he could be anyone's son.

Speaker 6 So that was almost part of the extraordinary part about it was just how normal Mark Twitchell did look and how horrendous these allegations were coming from the police.

Speaker 6 And the two didn't look to add add up.

Speaker 5 It seemed like, well, seemed like the plot of a movie.

Speaker 6 So this idea that you would have what the police was alleging, a filmmaker who would randomly pick total strangers and that they would become a victim of a horrendous crime, and in a way that was replicating actual Hollywood, you know, mythology, this idea of a horror film, it was just extraordinary.

Speaker 6 It didn't seem like it could be real.

Speaker 5 And maybe it wasn't.

Speaker 5 Because a bit more digging turned up a few salient facts about Mark Twitchell. Sorts of things that could make a reporter sit back and contemplate the possibility that somebody made a mistake.

Speaker 6 A lot of people thought this was a hoax.

Speaker 5 And why would a lot of people think that?

Speaker 6 Mark Twitchell was known as a prankster. He loved pulling pranks.
He loved telling jokes. He loved, you know, pulling someone's leg.
And with that, the police told us that they did not have a body.

Speaker 6 So the obvious question was, how are you going to prosecute someone for first-degree murder with no body? And here this guy is a prankster. And, you know, he's a filmmaker.

Speaker 6 Maybe it was some kind of prank with the film. That's something his own friends were wondering and talked about quite often.

Speaker 5 Like the actor, Sean Storer.

Speaker 9 I thought he was just trying to hype this new movie that he's going to do, and he'll be

Speaker 9 found not guilty. And at the end of the day, he walks away, not guilty, but he has all this publicity around him.

Speaker 9 And what better way to start a movie off off than to have your name on the tip of everybody's tongue?

Speaker 5 So maybe the police had been duped, totally pranked. Well, they feel silly when they figure that out.

Speaker 5 No way Mark Twitchell could actually pull off a complicated dexter-like murder scheme.

Speaker 5 Because, as Sean couldn't help but notice, Twitchell was not exactly the brilliant director he seemed to think he was.

Speaker 9 He had no idea what he's doing.

Speaker 10 He just doesn't have a clue.

Speaker 9 It's not that he doesn't have a clue. He just didn't have the skills.
He didn't have the ability to bring it all together.

Speaker 9 If you didn't have the smarts to pull off a movie with a really low budget, you don't have the smarts to pull something like that off.

Speaker 5 Murder somebody, that is, in some horribly clever way that avoided detection, but blunder into a prank gone wrong?

Speaker 5 Well, sure, said friends, that sounded just like Mark.

Speaker 5 As for Twitchell himself, he would do his talking through a lawyer, he said to those policemen who arrested him.

Speaker 1 Fine, said the detectives.

Speaker 5 But they kept asking him questions anyway, as was their prerogative according to the Canadian Charter of Rights. They kept at Mark Twitchell for six hours that Halloween night.

Speaker 5 Here was Detective Bill Clark.

Speaker 12 We're going to explain to you what's going on here today, Mark, okay? Why you're here?

Speaker 5 The room in which they were sitting, Detective Clark and a mute Mark Twitchell, was tiny, six feet by six feet. Suspect Twitchell was wearing a simple green t-shirt and black jeans.

Speaker 5 He faced Detective Clark head-on.

Speaker 5 No choice, really.

Speaker 12 You know that you're charged with first-degree murder? That's what the charges will be laid on you tonight.

Speaker 5 Their talk began just after 6.30.

Speaker 5 while excited kids took their loot bags door to door, and Mark Twitchell's fans gathered to watch him come strutting into that costume gala clad in his handcrafted Iron Man outfit.

Speaker 5 Instead, he was closed off in a room the size of a closet while an energized Bill Clark fired off one question after another, loaded with implied accusations.

Speaker 12 Did you film this murder?

Speaker 12 Are we going to find out on all those tapes and the hard drives we've taken?

Speaker 5 The look on Mark Twitchell's face suggested he had grown to dislike Bill Clark.

Speaker 12 One of the things that we notice in people who are sociopaths, which I really think you're a sociopath.

Speaker 5 In response to that broadside, Twitchell slouched in his chair, arms folded across his chest, motionless, staring straight ahead as Clark continued to chew away at him.

Speaker 12 I mean, this is all modeled after Dexter.

Speaker 12 You know that, Mark. You know, eerily, you kind of look like the guy.
I look at that picture. I saw that one on your website, and you guys kind of even look the same.

Speaker 5 Sometimes, as everybody knows, a face will give clues to what's going on inside. Twitchell looked,

Speaker 5 well, certainly not scared, not even defensive. If anything, maybe annoyed, bored, put out by Clark's aggressive performance, certainly.

Speaker 5 And the horrible timing of the arrest, it being Halloween night, after all.

Speaker 5 The only thing Twitchell had to say to Clark was.

Speaker 12 I won't be saying anything.

Speaker 5 Stalemate of sorts. But then another detective entered the room to take Twitchell's dinner order.
Well, now that was a different story.

Speaker 12 What would you like teach to us? Sub sandwich, a hamburger? What would you like?

Speaker 12 Well, I don't know where you can get it from. We can get

Speaker 12 Mr. Sub Subway, McDonald's, what I'm just

Speaker 12 going to do on the street. Okay.
Whatever. Right.
Sub, I guess. Okay.
Boy, what do you like? Chicken, turkey.

Speaker 12 Steak and cheese. Steak and cheese sub? Sure.
Prefer Subway or Mr. Sub?

Speaker 12 A Subway, I guess.

Speaker 12 And what do you like to drink?

Speaker 12 Coke. Coke? Sure.
And anything else? No, that'll be fine. Okay.

Speaker 5 And when Twitchell's order later arrived, a foot-long steak and cheese sub,

Speaker 5 he tore into it like he hadn't a care in the world.

Speaker 5 As if he was on the set of one of his low-budget movies, taking a break between scenes.

Speaker 5 And then Detective Clark started in again with his pesky questions and annoying comments.

Speaker 12 You made a lot of mistakes. You never considered the fact that your victim would email his friends and tell them where he was going.

Speaker 5 It went on like this for hours. Less an interrogation than a monologue.
Certainly not a dialogue. Mark Twitchell said nothing.

Speaker 5 Then, sometime in hour three, Bill Clark left the room. His aggressive questioning wasn't getting them anywhere.
And in his place, a detective named Paul Link settled into the chair facing Mr.

Speaker 5 Twitchell.

Speaker 5 By comparison with Clark, Detective Link was practically chummy.

Speaker 12 You're obviously a bright guy. You're very intelligent.
You know,

Speaker 12 you're in the movie industry. Trying to make a goal of it.
You've written some scripts. People are accepting your work.

Speaker 12 You're getting people to work for you and that script by the way that sk confession story said detective link well that was buffo a work of art that's a fabulous script it's actually fascinating okay and that's what i'm saying when i talked about this being a movie you could send this off and get your foot into the door whether it be it paramount fox

Speaker 12 warner brothers whoever I mean, you could send this to the Dexter people. Maybe this will be an episode.

Speaker 5 Mark Twitchell linked his hands behind his head and stared at the far wall.

Speaker 5 Silence.

Speaker 5 So, Detective Link started reading SK confessions out loud, like a creepy bedtime story.

Speaker 12 This story was based on true events. The names and events were altered slightly to protect the guilty.

Speaker 5 And that's when Mark Twitchell finally decided it was time for a word or two from him.

Speaker 14 Hi there, it's Andy Richter, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, The Three Questions with Andy Richter.

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Speaker 5 Crammed into an interrogation room not much bigger than a storage closet, Detective Paul Link began reading SK Confessions to its presumed author, Mark Twitchell, hoping it might trigger some sort of reaction?

Speaker 5 And for one brief moment, it did.

Speaker 12 This story was based on true events. The names and events were altered slightly to protect the guilty.
This is the fiction.

Speaker 12 You're saying that's fiction?

Speaker 5 Was Twitchell about to reveal that all of it? The disappeared man, the apparent attack in a goalie mask, the homicidal ramblings and SK confessions, that all of it was a hoax, a publicity stunt?

Speaker 5 There was a pause. Twitchell seemed to be concentrating.

Speaker 5 Detective Link broke the silence.

Speaker 12 The fact that, you know, I was one of the guys that said, this could be a hoax, okay? There's a lot of investigators in the office that thought this was just a hoax that was going to be a movie.

Speaker 12 Let's say it was a hoax, okay? And you get arrested, you're charged, and

Speaker 12 the police do a thorough investigation, all of a sudden, Johnny Altinger appears on the scene. That would make a pretty good movie as well, right?

Speaker 5 Now Twitchell leaned forward, picked up the bottle of Coke sitting on the table, slowly unscrewed the cap, took a swig, and then just as slowly screwed the cap back on before placing the bottle back on the table.

Speaker 5 And then he asked a question.

Speaker 12 Just out of curiosity,

Speaker 12 does a person not get in trouble for the hoax as well? Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 12 Why do you ask?

Speaker 12 Yeah, there would be a couple charges. Stark justice, public mischief would be another one.

Speaker 5 Hmm, he said,

Speaker 5 and then lapsed again into silence, motionless, chin still resting on his hand.

Speaker 5 Seeing that Mark Twitchell had no more to say, Link changed course.

Speaker 12 It's not done, Mark. The script's not done.
How do you want this to end? And you want me to tell you what happens at the end?

Speaker 12 Mark, the police, they go out with the person responsible and they go to the body.

Speaker 12 And that's what we're going to do. Mark, you need to finish the script.

Speaker 12 We can do this tonight. We can bring some lights.
We can do it the first thing in the morning. It's up to you.

Speaker 5 Twitchell uncrossed his arms, looked at the fingernails of his right hand, and then said something,

Speaker 5 well, kind of surprising.

Speaker 12 Don't get me wrong. I respect you guys.
I respect what you do. I understand what this is about.

Speaker 12 I just can't say anything. You think sitting there waiting that out is going to make a difference?

Speaker 12 Maybe, maybe not.

Speaker 5 So there were two options now, said Detective Link.

Speaker 5 Option one, wait for the lawyer, continue to say nothing.

Speaker 12 Which is your legal right.

Speaker 5 Or option two, tell them the end of the story. What happened to Johnny Altinger?

Speaker 12 You move on.

Speaker 12 You're accountable. You finish what you started.

Speaker 12 Don't look like a fool. Comes down to two options, Mark.

Speaker 5 Twitchell stared at the floor and literally twiddled his thumbs. Detective Link pressed on.

Speaker 12 Mark, asking a question.

Speaker 12 What do you wish to do?

Speaker 12 What do you want to do right now?

Speaker 5 28 minutes later, Mark Twitchell finally broke his silence.

Speaker 12 Man, you're preaching to the choir. Option two is where I'm leaning, but I just can't do anything until tomorrow after I talk to my lawyer.

Speaker 12 So.

Speaker 12 Okay, so option two, you're receptive to option two.

Speaker 12 I just need to consult first and

Speaker 12 that's basically it.

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 12 Like I said before, so I don't know what happens now.

Speaker 12 Okay, so option two would mean we'd go out during daytime hours, cover the body, put closure to it, and then move on.

Speaker 12 And finish the script. And then it's done.

Speaker 12 You're okay with that, Mark? Mark?

Speaker 5 Twitchell laced his fingers atop his head, stared at the ceiling, and said nothing more. Had he just admitted to murder?

Speaker 5 The evidence in that garage suggested that poor Johnny Altinger had been killed and cut up in ways eerily reminiscent of, yes, Dexter.

Speaker 5 Did this mean Twitchell would cooperate now, officially confess, and show them where he dumped Johnny's body?

Speaker 5 Tantalizingly close now, Detective Link got up to leave the room and then turned to Twitchell and asked, Would you like some water?

Speaker 12 How are you making out you got water?

Speaker 5 By then, it was about midnight, and sensing success, Detective Link arranged for a bigger room and a bed.

Speaker 12 Any questions about anything?

Speaker 12 No, concerns and issues. We'll see you in the morning.
Have a good night's sleep. Okay.
Okay.

Speaker 5 Then Detective Link shook Twitchell's hand and walked out of that tiny room, hoping that within a few hours, Mark Twitchell would take him to Johnny Altinger's grave.

Speaker 14 Hi there, it's Andy Richter, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, The Three Questions with Andy Richter.

Speaker 14 Each week, I invite friends, comedians, actors, and musicians to discuss these three questions. Where do you come from? Where are you going? And what have you learned?

Speaker 14 New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests like Julie Bow and Ted Danson, Tig Natara, Will Arnett, Phoebe Bridgers, and more.

Speaker 14 You can also tune in for my weekly Andy Richter call-in show episodes, where me and a special guest invite callers to weigh in on topics like dating disasters, bad teachers, and lots more.

Speaker 14 Listen to the three questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 5 Early on the morning of November the 1st, Edmonton homicide detectives pulled Mark Twitchell out of jail and put him in the back of an aging Crown Victoria, pointed a camera at his face, and said, Okay, Mark, take us to Johnny Altinger's body.

Speaker 7 And in response, Twitchell said to Clark, Well, if I got to go with you, I'll go with you, but I'm not helping you out.

Speaker 5 Just like that, the man had apparently changed his mind.

Speaker 5 Unless the almost not quite confession of the night before had been just a ruse all along, a Halloween trick designed to get him out of that tiny interrogation room and into a bed.

Speaker 5 Whatever it was, events in the morning made it clear there was no deal. Twitchell was admitting to nothing.
But Detective Bill Clark, who was now behind the wheel, wasn't having any of it.

Speaker 5 He decided to take Twitchell on a this is your life kind of drive around town to all the locations mentioned in that series of horror vignettes called SK Confessions, hoping Twitchell would crack, give himself away.

Speaker 7 We just took him for a drive. He says, you're going to show us where the body is.
You're going to show us where Johnny is.

Speaker 6 It was pretty unusual to do that, man.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 10 for what we did, it was unusual.

Speaker 7 We're just trying to think outside the box and see if something might trigger him first up tritchell's childhood home

Speaker 5 which is where we later spoke to detective clark on a blustery fall day drove right here parked right in front of his parents' house and uh no reaction no reaction at all

Speaker 5 detective bill clark said tritchell didn't seem the least bit concerned about the possibility his parents might come running out of the house at any moment to see what was going on

Speaker 5 Instead, still wearing the clothes he had on the night before, along with an orange windbreaker, he leaned back, rested his head on the seat back, closed his eyes, and tried to nap.

Speaker 5 Then Clark said this to him. Oh, it was here.

Speaker 5 Twitchell opened his eyes, looked outside the window, and saw a TV news crew. They'd been hoping, apparently, for an interview with Mark's parents.
Unbelievable timing. What is it?

Speaker 11 They don't even know who we have in the back of the car.

Speaker 5 Oh,

Speaker 5 Markov.

Speaker 5 Mark stepped out of the car, leaving another detective inside with Mark Twitchell.

Speaker 16 What's the media, Mark?

Speaker 16 There's nothing we can do about this.

Speaker 16 Entirely coincidental.

Speaker 5 They have a right and a...

Speaker 5 Call them? No.

Speaker 16 They have a freedom to be here, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Speaker 16 We can leave if you tell us where we should go.

Speaker 5 Let's go back to HQ. Mark Twitchell scrunched down in his seat, tried to hide his face behind his handcuffs.
Didn't work. Seriously, let's just go back to the station.
When you think you can do that?

Speaker 5 Two minutes later, Clark was back in the car and ready to go. Where do you want us to head to, Mark?

Speaker 5 Station.

Speaker 11 The station? Body's not at the station, Mark.

Speaker 5 Where do you want us to go, Mark?

Speaker 16 Which way?

Speaker 5 We need to get this done.

Speaker 5 Do you know where?

Speaker 11 I shouldn't say that. Bad question.
You know where. It's just where do you want us to go?

Speaker 7 Tell us what direction.

Speaker 5 But Twitchell said nothing. He just stared out the window like a petulant teen, forced to go on a road trip with his annoying parents, who had control of both the car

Speaker 5 and the radio. In this case, the local news talk station,

Speaker 5 which repeated one particular story again and again.

Speaker 5 EPS homicide detectives have arrested and charged a suspect in connection with the disappearance of John Bryant Attinger.

Speaker 5 The 38-year-old Attinger went missing on October 10th from the area of 40th Avenue and 57th Street. Charged with first-degree murder is 29-year-old Mark Andrew Twitchell.

Speaker 5 Twitchell was arrested yesterday without incident at a home in North Edmonton. A large CNP continuing.

Speaker 11 This is just the start of the media frenzy, Mark.

Speaker 5 And it's going to continue on until the body surfaces.

Speaker 6 It doesn't end.

Speaker 6 So we could put an end to it today.

Speaker 5 Next, they drove to the apartment complex where Twitchell's sister lived.

Speaker 16 Which one's your sister, Mark? This one?

Speaker 4 Next one.

Speaker 5 And again, they encountered a TV camera.

Speaker 5 Gotta be changing.

Speaker 5 What are you for real?

Speaker 5 Nothing, I guess, but what's the point? Fucho's sister refused to come outside to talk to her brother.

Speaker 5 So again, Clark started the car and 45 minutes later turned down an alleyway and pulled into a gravel driveway and parked next to a detached two-car garage.

Speaker 5 So here we are back at the killing garage, the Dexter garage.

Speaker 11 The Alberta Productions, Alberta Film Industry Productions out Dexter.

Speaker 5 Here, police believed, was the very place where Johnny Altinger met his killer. Look familiar, Mark.

Speaker 5 Let's return to the scene of the crime. At which, Mark Twitchell turned to the policeman beside him and said, He's just hungry.

Speaker 5 Hungry?

Speaker 9 You just ate.

Speaker 5 You know what? I think we'll go take a look at the kill crash. Nice.

Speaker 5 All four got out of the car this time. Three detectives and Twitchell.
They ducked under strands of crime scene tape and walked into the courtyard separating the garage from the house.

Speaker 5 Give me back any memories.

Speaker 7 You want to tell us where the body is now?

Speaker 5 We can get this over with.

Speaker 11 Get you back to the station?

Speaker 5 There was no response from Twitchell. Okay, let's go to another Actus.

Speaker 5 So back into the car.

Speaker 5 Where do you want to go, Mark? Your choice.

Speaker 5 No answer. So Clark just started driving and got Twitchell's girlfriend on the phone to see if she could convince him to give it all up.

Speaker 16 Hi, Tracy. How are you?

Speaker 5 You wanted to talk to Mark?

Speaker 5 Okay, it's up to you. I'll put him on the phone.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 5 Blue?

Speaker 5 Hello?

Speaker 5 Okay, then.

Speaker 5 I can't see anything at the moment.

Speaker 5 Then Twitchell handed the phone back to Clark, who was now fresh out of ideas. The parents, the sister, the girlfriend, the crime scene.

Speaker 5 None of it worked.

Speaker 7 Absolutely showed no emotion at any time. Was almost disgusted that we were wasting his time.

Speaker 5 Or maybe not quite. There was that one thing, Twitchell said.
A question, really. that indicated how he was going to spend the entire case.

Speaker 5 It was while he he was being questioned by Detective Link that Halloween night,

Speaker 5 when it was almost like a light bulb went on in Mark Twitchell's head.

Speaker 12 Just out of curiosity, does the person not get in trouble for the hoax as well? Why do you ask?

Speaker 12 Does.

Speaker 5 Oh, it was just nothing, is what Twitchell was suggesting with a casual shrug of his shoulders.

Speaker 5 Oh, but it was a very big deal.

Speaker 5 Because Mark Twitchell may have just figured out how to end his story happily.

Speaker 5 Happily for Mark Twitchell, that is.

Speaker 5 Coming up next in our final episode of The Man in the Black Mask.

Speaker 2 I watched the live blog that they had.

Speaker 9 And I was screaming my head off at home. You liar.

Speaker 1 You liar. Were you afraid that Jury would believe him?

Speaker 10 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 The Man in the Black Mask is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Vince Serle is the producer.
Brian Drew, Deb Brown, and Marshall Hausfeld are audio editors. Justin Ratcherot is field producer.

Speaker 5 Leslie Grossman is program coordinator. Adam Gorfane is co-executive producer.
Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer.

Speaker 5 From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Katie Lau, Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.

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