Speaker 3: 0:21

Welcome to One Good Thing Media, your official podcast review channel. We search the vast digital landscape on a daily basis to discover the best shows that podcasters have to offer. Are you ready to discover new favorites to add to your playbook? Stay tuned and listen to host Gerald Spears' latest podcast reviews.

Speaker 1: 0:52

Hello, lovelies, welcome to Season 3, Episode 11 of our One Good Thing Media Podcast. This is Gerald Spear, your trusty host and tour guide. This is Gerald Spear, your trusty host and tour guide. This week launches our annual vacation extravaganza. When the weather's warm and we're ready to rumble, we know you want to hit the road too, and for this episode it's going to be all about island escapes. As for our family, the weather is warmer, the sun is shining brighter and we are itching to enjoy the great outdoors. So are you ready to set the mood for your next tropical getaway? Today, I'm sharing podcasts that are mostly crime light, with a bit of fluff thrown in to sweeten the pot, and one of a more serious nature that really serves as a warning if you're thinking about getting away too far away. So buckle up, because we're hitting the road and taking you along for the ride. Your mind.

Speaker 2: 2:04

This week we decided to lounge beachside in the sultry heat of Florida a state that we craved to visit every year.

Speaker 1: 2:35

After spending six months in chilly mountain weather, we imagined ourselves sipping pina coladas with our toes buried in warm sand. But wouldn't you know it, even though we traded our towering peaks for palm trees, we're currently huddled in our hotel room with a view of the ocean and the downpour that's beating on our windows so hard that I'm expecting for the glass to break any time. Even so, you know, life is pretty sweet. The rain will pass and in the meantime, I have you and a lot of great shows to keep me entertained. And luckily for this little podcast junkie, my vacation playlist is locked and loaded and ready to send us on three wildly different adventures. One to the steamy shores of Florida. Then I'm going to transport us to a fictional dot in the ocean called Sex Island, a dark comedy that liberally spoofs the most cringeworthy reality shows and no, this is not about Jeffrey Epstein. And to wrap things up, we are going to be transported to a private island off the coast of Panama. So are you ready for some quality vacation time? I am. Let's get rolling.

Speaker 1: 4:38

The first show that I'm covering today is called Love Murder Florida. It is a deliciously clever murder mystery soaked in scandal, fargo-esque comedy and steamy fun. Lead character Ruth, played by actress Tammy Cates, has always played it safe and it's only gotten her trampled on for her entire life. In fact, if she were to take on a new middle name, it would be Dormat. The most recent egregious acts that have been put upon her were by her husband, who left her for another woman, and then by her longtime so-called friend, jane, played by actress Jane Lynch, who stole the most lucrative contract from Ruth's bus company, despite being part of her life since high school. Discouraged, disappointed and at her wit's end, ruth escapes for a mental wellness vacation to Florida, and this is when Ruth's one-person pity party turns into a salacious event Sandwiched in between pink flamingos, mexican palms and mojitos. Ruth has a serendipitous encounter with a much younger beefcake named Logan, who ends up showing her the wildest time of her life Sex, booze and drugs. And I'm just getting started.

Speaker 2: 6:28

Someone is dead because of me. Constance you're supposed to be on the road, already On a hop. Yeah, give me that, look, see what happens.

Speaker 4: 6:37

Starring Glee and Best in Shows, Jane Lynch.

Speaker 2: 6:40

Sometimes I think that I might be Jane's only friend. We lost the Timber Grove contract, what To who you can ask your friend Jane, and what are you going to do about it?

Speaker 4: 6:54

It started as a simple feud between rival bus companies, but that's not where it ended.

Speaker 2: 6:59

I'm going to Florida. I can't look at another bus. Hey Ruth, you need to get laid.

Speaker 4: 7:07

It was supposed to be just a fling.

Speaker 2: 7:09

In the sun, his body glistened.

Speaker 4: 7:13

Water dripped down his chest, it became something dangerous. What would happen if?

Speaker 5: 7:19

Jane wasn't around. What if?

Speaker 4: 7:22

she was gone. Like to Europe or something something, a dark crime story with a dash of florida strange are you?

Speaker 6: 7:31

kidding me ruth. We can leave now, no one would prosecute this. Or we can finish it now, and no one will ever know murder's hard work, ruth, you can't half-ass it.

Speaker 2: 7:41

Maybe we deserved each other.

Speaker 4: 7:45

If you like Better Call Saul or the White Lotus crime and dark comedy from Voyage Media, producers of the hit podcast Red Meat Village, love Murder, florida, available on Apple Podcasts, spotify and anywhere you listen to podcasts there.

Speaker 2: 8:08

I was drunk enough to make bad decisions, but sober enough to know it. Were I sober as a judge, though Logan's eyes would still have intoxicated me.

Speaker 1: 8:22

So when he casually alluded to Jane dying, I heard myself say how you know, I usually don't give unsolicited advice, but if Ruth were here with me right now I would look her in the eyes and say Ruth, honey, you should going to love this podcast. It's called Murder on Sex Island. It's actually an audiobook written and narrated by Joe Firestone. The plot goes something like this when a cast member goes missing from the hit reality show Sex Island, the producer hires Luella Van Horn to go undercover as a contestant and solve the crime. What the show team doesn't realize is that the enigmatic Luella Van Horn is actually a plain-dressed, mousy woman named Marie Jones, a divorced, ex-social worker and sad sack from Staten Island who is leading a double life as a sexy private eye, being a couch potato IRL, with TV being her only company.

Speaker 1: 10:21

Marie is unable to resist the opportunity to become part of her favorite trashy TV show. So Marie Azluella accepts the gig and jets off on a journey of liberation and intrigue. First Shocked, she realizes she's expected to go undercover without much cover, as in a beach babe wearing nothing more than a fig leaf and two strings and acting like a nympho between the sheets. How's she going to get around all of this? Why is there a body in her bathtub and what are the sleazy producer and director up to? And what are the sleazy producer and director up to? You'll need to turn out by tuning in to this spoof to find out the whole story unfolds over 13 episodes and will keep a smile pasted on your face all day.

Speaker 7: 11:25

This is Murder on Sex Island, written by Joe Firestone and read by Joe Firestone, and both of that's me. That's both of those of me. Chapter One Like my forefathers, gene Simmons and Christina Aguilera, my life began in Staten Island. The first 25 years of my life were going somewhat according to plan. I was an underpaid social worker. I got married to a man I knew from high school and, to top it all off, I was dead inside. What can I say? It's a Staten Island way.

Speaker 7: 11:56

When most grown people get bored, they cheat on their spouses, they start buying lottery tickets, they develop a drug habit Not me, though. No, sir. When I need to fill a gaping void in an otherwise predictable, monotonous life, I like to think outside the box. So I made up an alter ego named Luella Van Horn, who solves crimes. Is that the worst thing in the world? In theory, no. When I slap on a blonde wig, fake white teeth and some red lipstick, I become Private Detective Luella Van Horn. Suddenly, I'm a woman who knows what she wants and gets it.

Speaker 7: 12:28

People start paying attention to me. They tell me things they're not supposed to. The powerful see me as an ally and the weak see me as a threat. I think it's probably because of the teeth Growing up. All I wanted was to be someone like Luella Van Horn, to have people finally look at me like I have something to offer, something they want. When you're mousy, nobody cares where you're going at night. When you come back to the house at 2 am and your husband sleepily asks were you gone? You can say no and he'll believe you turn over and go right back to sleep. Nobody bothers to ask why you're spending thousands of dollars on blonde wigs made with real human hair and going to the dentist for teeth molds and maxing out your credit cards at Sephora. They've barely noticed.

Speaker 1: 13:13

In this clip it is showtime for Luella Van Horn. She walks on set for the first time, meets a lot of the archetypes that I talked about earlier and, because they were filming this, it was her first introduction to her future audience.

Speaker 7: 13:31

Two minutes on the dot later, issa wrangled me back, leading me to a large beach hut covered in tropical flowers. As we got closer I recognized Phil and waved to him. He waved back and I blushed, absolutely humiliating. I felt like an eighth grader. Phil was standing with a few other cast members I recognized as Tasha, sarah, david N, nate, ethan and Blair. Oh, I loved Blair. She could be so mean. One time she stuck a wad of chewed gum in Sarah's long blonde hair because she couldn't find a trash can In a confessional. She once told millions of viewers that Nate's balls smelled like Lipton soup mix. She had curly brown hair, a flat stomach and I'll say it, breasts the size of cantaloupes. It's possible Blair was made in a lab for reality TV.

Speaker 7: 14:17

As I approached the group, issa made introductions hey folks, this is Luella. She's going to be joining us as a wild card. Me the wild card Hi. I tried hard to swallow anything that could be misconstrued as fangirl energy. The collective group murmured some casual hellos. Nate even flashed me a peace sign For them.

Speaker 7: 14:37

I gathered this was just a typical Wednesday. They all looked so different in person. David N wasn't nearly as skinny and I noticed for the first time he had bright green eyes. On television Ethan looked practically orange, but here he just looked like a guy who got his money's worth at the tanning booth. I could see Sarah's individual toe rings. I counted seven.

Speaker 7: 14:57

Issa got a far off look as someone spoke into her earpiece. All right, in a few minutes Luella's going to be coming in through the hibiscus arch camera lift. I need jealous reactions from Sarah and Blair and a sexy reaction from Nate. I tried to remind myself this was somehow detective work. Phil spoke up. Hey, issa, I'd like to do a sexy reaction too. Nate let out an exasperated whine. Why can't I be the only sexy one for once? Issa held up her finger, waiting for the person in the earpiece to respond. Okay, we're gonna have both Nate and Phil giving sexy reactions. Nate sulked.

Speaker 7: 15:33

Issa continued Ethan and David in. Let's have you wrestling in the background, and Tasha, we just want you to stand there. Tasha crossed her arms and looked toward the ocean, her long black hair shining in the sun. No bitch, she said under her breath. For what it's worth, tasha did technically just stand there. I was amongst professionals. I was escorted to the hibiscus arch camera lift. Issa got that far-off look again, as someone in her earpiece gave her further instructions. A sound guy came over to give me a microphone pack on a lanyard. As he placed it around my neck, he muttered just don't touch it and you'll be good. I'd once heard that same sentence from my 85-year-old male gynecologist. Issa addressed me Luella, you're going to walk through the hibiscus arch, shake your hair and give a smoldering look to camera. This footage will be in slow motion, so try not to blink at all and stop covering your body. That's why you're here, ready in 4, 3, 2, action.

Speaker 1: 16:27

And there you have it Just a small snippet of 13 episodes and multiple. My last review for today is a true crime tale that's definitely not family friendly. It has to do with an American expat named William D Holbert, aka Wild Bill, who fled American soil as a wanted man in the mid 2000s. After fleeing to Panama, wild Bill escalated his criminal activities from theft on an epic scale to murder. At that time, panama was overrun with corrupt officials, attorneys, judges and even clerks, who were responsible for state paperwork, including issuing licenses to businesses and deeds to properties. To say that Panamanian justice was fluid at that time is an understatement. It was also a country that Holbert viewed as a land of opportunity. Realizing that the rules were loose and money was the justice du jour, he became a serial killer who preyed on other expats by killing them, stealing their property and then paying officials to change said property to his name. It was all too easy to resist and, one by one, american expats disappeared, and then, wouldn't you know it, holbert would become the new owner of their property and life would move on.

Speaker 1: 18:26

Out of all the podcasts that have covered this serial killer, I'm focusing on season three of the Criminal Conduct Podcast. It's hosted by Javier Leva, who is also the host of the Pretend Podcast, and John W Taylor, who divides his time between criminal conduct and the Twisted podcast. I definitely trust the integrity of their investigation. But beyond that, javier and John devoted an entire season to this killer's crimes and his five maybe six victims. In doing so, they amassed several hours of phone interviews with Colbert, who's currently serving a 47-year sentence in a Panama prison. As an aside, his former wife, laura Reese, was also convicted of being complicit in those murders and is serving a long prison term.

Speaker 1: 19:21

I was also drawn to their podcast for a more personal reason. One of the victims, bob Eisler, lived in my hometown of Santa Fe, new Mexico, before selling his business in the mid-2000s and moving to what he thought would be a fresh start on an island paradise off the coast of Panama. I'm going to play a couple clips from the show so that you can get an overall idea of what the show is like. And I have to say and this is really frightening, but you know, people are trusting and William Holbert is a confidence man above all else If you didn't know he was a convicted serial killer. You might even like him. He even sounds honorable. So be careful when you're out there folks, you never know who you're talking to.

Speaker 6: 20:19

So, Javier, tell me about the phone call you just got.

Speaker 5: 20:23

John, it was the craziest thing because it's New Year's Day and there's nothing going on. Really, I mean, it was just a quiet day and all of a sudden I get this call from this guy who's known as Wild Bill.

Speaker 8: 20:38

I want to be really clear that I don't feel like a serial killer, feel like a serial killer and when I think of the word serial killer or of a person who's a serial killer, I think of a guy like Ted Bundy or a person who does things for compulsion or emotional needs, emotional reasons, and I myself, I'm not a person who has any blood lust. These terrible things I did, I did, you know, starting about 15 years ago, and I was just a heartless, cold-blooded asshole who hurt and killed people for money. You know, I don't have a compulsion to kill people or a desire necessarily to do that. Like you gotta understand. The expat community is not a normal community. People in the expat community are, by nature, fucked up. They're not people who, they're people who can't be in their own country for some reason.

Speaker 5: 21:37

They're running away from something right.

Speaker 8: 21:39

Exactly, or they like cheap drugs because drugs are cheap and abundant and better than the drugs in the United States. They're here for, you know, craziness and stuff.

Speaker 6: 21:50

While Bill's partying days were coming to an end, at least in Bocas, because he got word that the authorities were going to come looking for him.

Speaker 5: 21:58

So let's talk about your time at Bocas del Toro. You know you were like a socialite, the number one socialite during that time period. You said everyone was afraid of me. Why were they afraid of you?

Speaker 8: 22:08

Well, I don't think it was a very big secret that I was a killer when I lived there. I lived huge. I wasn't quiet about anything. I was a fucking idiot. I believed my own bullshit. Never do that. I mean never believe your own bullshit. It's okay when you bullshit everybody else, but you should never bullshit yourself. It's okay when you bullshit everybody else, but you should never bullshit yourself. I really believed that nobody could stop me. Do you know what I mean? Like I was never afraid. I knew without a doubt I was going to get away, because I always got away. Everything always worked exactly how I had it planned and I knew for certain that I'd get away.

Speaker 5: 22:53

These conversations took place over the course of several nights. Each time we spoke we got a little deeper. John, I couldn't even eat dinner that night in anticipation of that phone call with Wild Bill, and then, after we were done talking, I couldn't even sleep that night. It was just so disturbing. I've never spoken to a serial killer before, let alone anyone who's ever killed anyone, or at least that I know of.

Speaker 6: 23:24

Yeah, I mean the thing is you just you didn't know what you were going to run into. You just didn't know what angle he's going to come at you. There's just there's many aspects as far as he could be coming at you completely calm, talking about what he's done, which could be very unnerving, or he could be very explicit and put images and words in your head that you're never going to be able to get out. Javier, I found your interview completely fascinating and I mean I have a lot of opinions about what I heard. But one of the things I liked is kind of your style in interviewing Wild Bill, because you separate Wild Bill from William Holbert and I think that that distancing, that separation, allowed him to kind of speak more freely and be more comfortable because he can distance himself from, say, actions he did that he's not proud of.

Speaker 5: 24:16

Yeah, I didn't even know how forthcoming he was going to be, so I wanted to like kind of ease my way into it, but at the same time I also didn't know that I was going to eventually talk to this guy multiple nights in a row. I thought this first call was going to be my last, so I just got down straight to business.

Speaker 6: 24:35

Yeah, and what you were experiencing is what essentially every detective experiences in an interview. You can't jump right in, but at the same time, there's always the possibility the person you're talking to will stop talking. So you have to try to get things important out early, but you also have to balance that with the idea that maybe they'll just stop talking and I'll never hear from them again. So, yeah, I think what you were feeling is very real.

Speaker 8: 25:00

Or it wasn't something. I was like, yay, I get to go kill somebody. I was like, fuck, I gotta go do this shit, but I mean I don't have to. I chose to Don't misconstrue what I'm saying, but I never enjoyed it and it was always a nerve-wracking thing for me, completely, just like totally ugh, like very, very anxiety-filled. And when it was over I was like so relieved, thank God that that's over. And I mean like I'm speaking honestly with you about it. I mean, it's not something that I ever enjoyed doing. If you enjoy killing people, something's fucking wrong with you. You know what I mean.

Speaker 6: 25:36

Like you've got a real problem. Javier Wild Bill did not answer your question, so you asked him if he remembered killing the victims, and what he talked about was that he said he didn't enjoy killing people.

Speaker 5: 25:49

Yeah, he was just taking me for a ride, taking me in whatever direction he wanted me to go in.

Speaker 6: 25:51

The reason that wild bill gave for not giving you more information was that it's just too painful and I don't know that. I buy that. I mean that's that could be part of it, but there's certainly other reasons why he's not giving you more information it's good to talk to you again.

Speaker 8: 26:10

The phone, just the minutes, ran out the last time. I didn't have an, I found another chip that had minutes on in here and I stuck it in, but now it would have been too long and you had already.

Speaker 5: 26:18

You know it had been like an hour or something no, I waited around a little bit, but I figured that's what happened while bill's minutes ran out, and so we picked up the conversation the following night. When I think about Cheryl Hughes, I just want to know, not about the killing, but like what did you know about her? Did you consider her a friend at the time?

Speaker 8: 26:38

Well, I don't know how much of this stuff you've listened to, but even during the trial I told the truth that Keith World paid me to kill his wife. That happened. He ran off with a new chair. I mean, everybody in Bocas knows that. I don't know. It was a stupid fucking thing. I should have never done that. I mean, I knew Cheryl to some extent not like really really well, but I knew her fairly well and it took me three times to kill her.

Speaker 6: 26:59

Keith, by the way, is Cheryl's estranged husband.

Speaker 8: 27:02

I invited her over three different times before I could come up with the balls to do it. It before I could come up with the balls to do it. It's not something I wanted to do. It's actually something I didn't want to do. It was something that, economically, I didn't even need to do. I didn't need to do it. But.

Speaker 1: 27:16

I was involved to do it. If you would like to listen to the entire story, tune in to Criminal Minds wherever you listen to your podcasts and scroll down to Season 3. That's a wrap for this show. Thank you so much for joining us. Please make sure that you hit the notification button, because next week we have another trip to share with you, and this one is all about entertaining your kids so they don't kill each other while you're trying to enjoy the scenery. We'll see you then and in the meantime, always remember you know we love you. See you next week.

Speaker 3: 28:22

One Good Thing Media is brought to you by our host and creator, gerald Spear. All things technical are by David Dodd and our announcer is Robert Spear. Our theme song is Force by HGST. Thank you,