Interview with Podcaster Courtney Fenner (A Nefarious Nightmare)

[00:00:06] It's a Jacked Up Review Show It's a Jacked Up Review Show Welcome all, welcome all. We have a none-exclusive sit down with true crime podcaster Courtney Fenner Courtney, the co-chairman of a Nefarious Nightmare. She has also been doing just some

[00:01:00] wonderful work, worked at the Ministry of Safe and Abuse Prevention Systems and at the law firm of Love and Norse. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Again, you've gone into

[00:01:13] a side quest with Mining the Beehive, discussing killers that mix in sex crimes and lo and behold, you've been very interactive with, again, prosecutors, feds, and just other people of these largely forgotten cold cases. You haven't really gone over

[00:01:34] done, you know, overblown familiar retreads. But first off, you noted before how you just felt like you had to create this at some capacity because you yourself had also been victimized. Courtney Fenner Right. Yeah, so I feel like there's a little bit of a need to clarify.

[00:01:58] So we started out back in 2021 July and we decided that we, you know, originally we wanted to kind of just be like morbid, which is like a huge true crime podcast. Yeah. You want to be very genuine.

[00:02:16] Courtney Fenner Well, yeah, I mean, we're still genuine, but we didn't, I wanted to be a lot more like, you know, comedy true crime. But then we kind of quickly discovered

[00:02:27] that, you know, it's okay to have a little bit of a sense of humor when it comes to dark things because if you're not going to laugh, you're going to cry, right? But at the same time,

[00:02:37] being that I am a victim of a past crime over 13 years ago, I also kind of finally got to see what it's like to be on the other side of the microphone and be interviewed about that,

[00:02:50] as well as really kind of delving into my own empathy and figuring out that that particular podcasting style just does not work for us. So we just decided to be a lot more serious

[00:03:03] and tone and be a lot more victim centric and advocacy oriented instead of, you know, just a true crime comedy thing. And since then it's, you know, completely turned around. Our format is completely different. Our sign off is completely different.

[00:03:21] We actually don't really do too much about serial killers every now and then we will if there's a sexual assault element to it. But we prefer to focus on marginalized communities that includes, you know, the LGBTQ people of color, sex workers, women and children.

[00:03:43] And Minding the Beehive came out last year in season two. And it was an eight part series. It was originally supposed to be just two parts. But more and more victims of a serial rapist by the

[00:03:58] name of Adrian Vilducea decided to come out and speak. And we offered our platform in that series was what actually set the tone for us to change our entire format sign off, etc.

[00:04:11] So as well. Well, and I've seen you guys promoted by her true crime podcast been great. And we're both local Texans. But did you buy any chance to attend true crime con in 2022?

[00:04:27] I didn't. We've been wanting to attend a crime con. It's no idea was a thing, but the people who were doing shows like nobody knew a crime. Yeah, they're promoting it and they were stressing a lot of your same philosophy where, you know,

[00:04:42] if there's a legal proceeding, cease immediately, you know, wait for the verdict. Actually got to interact with some of these people involved with the case, get every perspective. And don't Hollywood eyes it don't over dramatize it just, you know,

[00:04:57] buying good voice actors. You absolutely want to see things from every it's weird because we all want to empathize and be respectful to the victims and we want to make sure or survivors. Some people prefer to be called survivors and not victims, but

[00:05:13] regardless, we want to make sure that they are the ones that are respected and they are the ones that are highlighted. We don't want to glorify or romanticize serial killers or serial rapists

[00:05:23] and what have you never know, you know, so where I am, I would like to think that I am part of those that are actively trying to make a change within the genre of true crime because

[00:05:36] there are so many that do romanticize the Ted Bunnies and, you know, Charles Mansons in this. Too many movies. Yeah, it's Jeffrey. Yeah, that whole thing, I will never forget it. You know, everybody's trying to romanticize it despite those victims

[00:05:53] saying no, we did not want this, you know, there's so many victims and survivors out there that never saw justice and there are so many victims and survivors out there that have had

[00:06:07] their cases put out there without their consent or knowledge and the media will monetize and profit off of it. But guess who sees nothing is those victims and survivors that had to live or suffer through that ordeal. So yeah, it's ridiculous. Wrong on every level. Yep.

[00:06:26] Well, and it seems like we're still even seeing celebs who don't understand the different degrees of assault is like, hey, it doesn't no one has to even put you know, I would, I was in a hostile

[00:06:39] gym class growing up, you know, in one part of high school and literally got verbally berated. But that I cannot equate that to any level of physical assault. Right.

[00:06:53] Not alone any sex or rape crime. And you see so many other people who want to do the whole I mean, you see it with even comedians who've been canceled is like, you don't get to play the victim card.

[00:07:05] You got to just be creative or just own up to the fact that you're being a douchebag. You are not a victim. You have not been wronged in any way or capacity to where

[00:07:16] you have not been mentally harmed. You have not been physically damaged. So don't you dare? Right. Well, I think it's important to empathize with their plight no matter what. I mean,

[00:07:26] you know, what I have going on in the background is never going to be any better or worse than what somebody else might have. But I would, you know, be it would it would warm my heart

[00:07:39] if somebody would empathize with whatever I'm going through just like I would empathize right back. But at the very same token, you're right. It's like whenever those people who are actively hurting cases or hurting those that don't deserve it, you know, monetizing what have you and then

[00:07:58] they get, you know, quote unquote canceled. And they complain about how they have it so bad. It's just when you kind of want to turn around and be like no, check your privilege,

[00:08:08] because you're not the one that experienced the worst day of the rest of your life like these people did. So I understand, you know, we've all like at the end of the day,

[00:08:18] we've all got our things. We've all got skeletons. We've all got a past and we've all been through shit hard in my language. I hope it's okay to know. Say whatever is in your heart. Whatever

[00:08:33] it's just all of this. I'm kind of passionate about it. We're on cut, but we're not shocked. And everyone I think knows that listening to this. Right. But you know, it's just,

[00:08:44] I mean, I think at the end of the day, if we just advocate for one another, we help each other, we scratch each other's back and we recognize who's the most important in any story. It doesn't

[00:08:53] even matter if it's true crime, if it's comedy, if it's, I don't know, whatever genre that people are listening to, if we just recognize the most important part and try to empathize with that, you know, that's what's important. Absolutely. So what gets you up in the morning

[00:09:14] now when you just know, okay, I'm going to spend some time editing, researching and then schedule this recording for podcasters out there trying to get into just any kind of mirroring it with home life and work schedule. Right. So are you asking like what motivates

[00:09:32] me or yeah, what makes you say this is how my day is going to be? This is how I'm going to organize it? I am kind of sometimes I'm a fly off of the seat of my pants type. I kind of keep a constant

[00:09:48] motivation with me. What gets me up in the morning quite frankly is coffee, but you know, that's pretty normal. Yeah, but also it's just that, you know, if you're if you wanted to look at it

[00:10:04] from a mental health standpoint, I recognize a couple of things. It's I have a family to take care of. I'm a mom. My five year old is I'm sorry. Kudos to you. Oh, thank you. I have a five

[00:10:20] year old that I have to constantly, you know, feel like I'm blessed about because she was my miracle. I have to actively protect her and teach her and, you know, just be there for her be her advocate.

[00:10:37] I also realized that I have a duty to help others. I feel like that is my main passion. So that's really all of that is what gets me going. And then once, you know, there's times,

[00:10:53] I think we've all been there, you know, where we feel like we just want to give up and just kind of hang up, hang up our coats and walk away from it. But then whenever I get those

[00:11:03] messages saying you are doing good things. Thank you so much. You've actually helped. And then I recognize and remember why I do all of this. And I'm just like, you know, I've been in these shoes before in some way or another. And I have

[00:11:22] somebody that I want to educate about this when she gets older. And that's what motivates me. That's what gets me up. So plus there's a creation about it. You just can't deny that there's always a creation behind anything that we do, no matter what it is.

[00:11:40] It's an art and I love to see it blossom. So that really gets me going too, because I do produce and edit and master and I do 90% of the work not to say anything about Amanda. Amanda's amazing.

[00:11:54] Don't get me wrong. I just I just enjoy the back end of it as well. So absolutely. Right. So how did you guys first meet and decide, hey, you want to be podcast collaborators? It's so funny because so Amanda and I actually became friends kind of by accident.

[00:12:14] Her not an accident. No, it's I mean, it was a happy accident. Her mom actually, or excuse me, her mother-in-law actually went to school with my mom's entire family.

[00:12:31] And so my aunt was trying to be she's my aunt is an extremely good person. She's a pastor of a church. She's all about like fashion and all this. And at the time I was working at Nordstrom. So

[00:12:44] she was like, Courtney, I'm going to go get you some clients. And I'm like, bet because I really need to make some money, you know. So one of those clients just so happened to be Amanda's

[00:12:54] mother-in-law. This is before Amanda got married. And as I and as I got to know her mother-in-law, I was like, man, she is like really cool. She's got this like hippie vibe and she's just like down

[00:13:07] to earth. And we were talking and she was like, you would really love my future daughter-in-law. And I was like, yeah, okay, whatever. So about a couple weeks later, she had come to the Nordstrom

[00:13:19] that I'd worked at for some returns, an unrelated return. And she told me that she knew of me because of her mother-in-law. And I was like, okay, so we added each other on Facebook and

[00:13:31] state acquaintances up until 10 years later in 2021 where I noticed she had a podcast called Fandom Family Chats. And I was obsessed with true crime. And I messaged her and I was like,

[00:13:46] hey, I see you have a podcast. You want to kind of like start a true crime podcast? She's like, F yeah. And that's how it and we became best friends almost instantly. It was it was cool.

[00:13:59] So that's the whole story of Amanda and I. And how did you go about mainly just, you know, obviously you got to pick and choose and all that. But when did you decide, okay,

[00:14:17] we want these particular obscure ones like these just have not been, we're never really going to validate them. But we they just don't have enough of a public consciousness. And how do you figure out which ones just are as obscure as they are?

[00:14:38] So as far as like choosing what to cover in our episodes, originally, it was like I said, you know, we started out different than we are now. We were just covering cases that we found to be horrific but intriguing.

[00:14:56] You know, as women, we all have this kind of sense of, you know, really being deeply fascinated with true crime. I know a lot of men think that that's a scary thing because, you know,

[00:15:08] maybe they're one of the guys doing the wrong thing. It's either that or like they're afraid that we're going to try to get revenge on them and we're learning as much as we can about

[00:15:18] these cases that we're God. It's kind of like the whole cancel or be canceled is like, well, do you have any skeletons in your closet? Right. That would be fireable. No. Okay. And you know,

[00:15:29] I mean, as a woman, I can't confirm or deny. I was a job, by the way. Yeah. Anyway, but yeah, like we started out in the mood guys. We started out different but you know,

[00:15:44] not to get too deep into it but like part of the thing that happened with me as I was, you know, a victim of a crime. Some of that was a sexual assault element and you know, being a mom

[00:16:00] and being terrified at how this world has gotten. I just have a massive passion to help those that have been victimized by sex crimes. Not to mention, you know, we talked about it very

[00:16:15] briefly but I did work for Ministry Safe and you know, they gave me a lot of sexual abuse awareness training and I learned a lot from that as well and they were very victim centric and I

[00:16:28] I'd greatly look up to Kim and Greg from that so that's pretty much where all of that came that's how we choose our cases. I don't think it's fair that I mean, I think it's great that people were

[00:16:44] focusing a lot on Gabby Petito when that unfortunate incident occurred. I think that's amazing but I mean, I would also like to see that amount of media and press coverage happen when it's you know, indigenous women and girls. I would love to see it happen when it's sex

[00:17:01] workers or when it's people of color in the LGBTQ plus community because those are the ones that society deems to be not as important as your typical white woman who is young, you know and society tends to ignore those that are in marginalized communities and they're not taken

[00:17:23] seriously and I think that needs that desperately needs to change here in 2023. So that's what definitely helps us cover, you know these cases not to get too deep into this as well but our current series still minding the behind we talked

[00:17:41] to a lot of people who used to be involved in sex work and they are not taken seriously either but whether you agree with sex work or not they're human beings with hearts

[00:17:53] and we have to protect them at all costs. It really is amazing how we'll just keep going in waves it's like oh I don't believe them or they and then you get the there's always a douchebag comment

[00:18:08] that reads as oh they had it coming it's like no one deserves to have anything bad happen to them exactly even if it's low brow industry you know that that's that's whatever you know

[00:18:21] yeah I wouldn't wish some of this stuff on my worst enemy I mean it just shouldn't happen it shouldn't happen to homeless you're not having to construction people it shouldn't happen to anybody

[00:18:31] but it's just like it's like some people want to officially want to play god in a way right that's what we're currently working with is this perpetrator who thinks that he

[00:18:44] owns these women and wants to have that power and you know I just so desperately want him to get apprehended and I hope to god it happens so I'm hoping and yeah it's already bad enough as it is

[00:18:59] how there's different priorities depending on who's been wronged for a crime to get solved yeah absolutely you know what crimes I mean hasn't it also been starlings which crimes were just not followed up like absolutely there was like a full staff and no one even put out a

[00:19:17] bolo for these people right oh my gosh that is that's infuriating or just the evidence was gone and then just the fact that so many people just didn't want to even bother doing a DNA test

[00:19:30] that there's even modern day ones I'll see and it's like why was so-and-so released without a DNA test right that stuff that stuff is like so infuriating especially when they have all those

[00:19:39] resources right there at their fingertips and then and just saying bell will do yeah yeah yeah they're letting people off with a smack on the wrist it's like you are very obviously guilty why

[00:19:50] are you walking free getting back on dating sites you know raping these women or you know kind of to allude to like what you were talking about we were talking about the how they wait so many

[00:20:03] years until justice is seen related to our current series there was a sex distortion case I want to say well over 10 years ago in Canada and it was a young lady named Amanda Todd and she

[00:20:19] was a victim at the age of 13 through 16 by a man who was straight up extorting her photos online and she ended up unaliving herself 10 years later her perpetrator is finally caught and

[00:20:34] brought to justice but her life could have been saved and this could have been taken care of 10 years ago so why are things like sex distortion these days not taken seriously especially now

[00:20:48] that I received death threats about it it's like okay do you guys really want blood on your hands or or what so I'm like well insecurity seems to be the main source just everything now

[00:21:01] but it's taken us years to learn that when it's a civilian such as myself and we're doing all of the work like we're literally doing all of the work we've got all of the evidence we've got

[00:21:11] podcast episodes that explains further context and we're like we will give you everything you need all of it as long as you go and take this evidence that I have right here

[00:21:24] and go get these people reopen this case and they're just like I don't have time we did all of it for you I just don't understand the legal system I right so I don't think even half the tools

[00:21:41] there understand it either this is like they just want to just be promoted to district attorney for a bigger payday and it's like well right not exactly policing is it uh uh nope we'll return

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[00:22:22] podcast that's florida men plural on florida man podcast hey it's Brent pope the host of brentfist with brent pope you've seen me on some of your favorite tv shows saying things like give

[00:22:32] it up jimmy you got to think this but to win on brentfist with brent pope I sit down with guests for the entertainment world and we do it all over breakfast or should I say brentfist every week on

[00:22:41] brentfist you get inside hollywood info and tips great breakfast recs and hoody debates most of all you get the most delightful 30 minutes of your week so dig in it's brentfist time listen at brentfist.com apple podcasts or wherever fine podcasts are found the jacked up review show

[00:23:01] podcast is honored to be part of the blind knowledge podcast network join anytime talk to talk and enjoy yourselves there's something enlightening for everyone with this crowd of cool cats check them out are there any other uh true crime podcasts you've thought of collaborating with

[00:23:22] because they got a similar just very careful awareness good research habit and you know very respectful of those who have been wronged I really wish there's been a couple times where we have reached out to Sarah attorney from voices of justice she is

[00:23:44] Alyssa turnies sister and she's been very instrumental in raising awareness about her sister's case I don't know if you're familiar I think so yes yeah she um disappearances yep and I've been wanting to kind of work with Sarah turnie um I desperately and it's and

[00:24:07] it's sad but I'm open to admit it desperately want to work with Tiffany Reese from something was wrong I am a fangirl I email her and inbox her constantly and she is so I will be sure to

[00:24:19] look those up something was wrong yeah her podcast is actually huge influence for our current format she is an amazing human being she's so sweet um her and Amy Chesler um Amy Chesler actually hosts another podcast called what came next and it's kind of like you know a

[00:24:39] discussion or like a an update podcast to something was wrong but Tiffany Reese like hands down is my favorite and then another one that I would love to work with is um Heather Ashley from Big Mad

[00:24:56] True Crime um those are my top three so okay yeah Big Mad True Crime and something was wrong okay yeah yeah because Sarah's deal with uh on yeah voices for justice was just sad because it's

[00:25:15] like her should have died you know was a cop and will never reveal yeah it was very unfortunate on you know how they acquitted him recently despite all of the evidence is just and he refuses to

[00:25:31] say why he's going to die with the truth yeah while hiding behind the blue wall it's like what insane yeah absolutely I'm glad that also there's just so many who are very friendly very

[00:25:46] interactive and very open to telling all kinds of new stories instead of just we're not official media circus you know right right yeah it should never be a media circus either it just needs to

[00:25:58] be straight of awareness I mean if you want to create a compelling story and create that's perfectly fine as long as you're doing it all for the right reasons right um but I am I am one of

[00:26:10] those where I'm actually a lot more introverted than I might appear online but um but I am I am absolutely okay with being kind to others because you know I would like for that in return um I

[00:26:26] don't see any reason to be nasty than anybody um some might see all of this as a competition I think that frankly my only competition would be myself because I can always improve every single

[00:26:38] day I just want to be better than yesterday so love it yeah love the positivity here um thank you what uh you know just anything just editing and other research and just even just a study suite do you recommend for those trying to make these compelling stories

[00:27:06] low just underseen stuff just coherent so what we do with our research is and everybody likes to shine wikipedia we don't use wikipedia but we will go navigate to the sources in wikipedia

[00:27:21] and go from there um I know some people will use things like lexus nexus and things like that um you can reach out to those who have created news articles online see if you can maybe reach out

[00:27:34] to them the freedom of information act is also available um not a lot of people know that but especially family members and you know survivors themselves can reach out and do a FOIA request

[00:27:49] um but there's all all kinds of ways to do your research it always starts with google or wikipedia but you don't have to use either of those as a source if you don't want to

[00:27:59] but we also like to a lot of our sources are actually the people that we interview because those are the ones that saw all of this firsthand and then they'll offer us whatever

[00:28:12] sources that we go we use and we go from there so good that's what I would recommend um editing um I use simply audacity um works great I do I do it yeah I mean you it's free dollars and

[00:28:28] you know you get what you get for free but I mean it works and you just do a whole lot of research on how to master and you know practice practice practice that's what I use for that

[00:28:39] and you really don't need a bunch of expensive equipment either um that stuff comes with time um I just now got this like it looks like the eyeball I'm not sure if you know what it is but

[00:28:52] they have this thing called an eyeball and it's got you know yes what's it called you enlarge and see the sound waves and we're the quieter well no this it's a it's a filter that you put on your

[00:29:05] microphone oh and it's like a big big foam ball with a spit guard on it that's what I call the spit guard um pop filter that's what it is um and mine is a knockoff one it's by Icona mar iconic

[00:29:22] Mars I got it on amazon for like a hundred dollars if you want the eyeball it's like four hundred dollars um but it's definitely whether you get either one of those things it's definitely worth

[00:29:35] the investment because I just kind of cut it up and put it over my yeti blue and just moved on with live and is definitely improved our sound quality so that's that's kind of the tips that I

[00:29:46] can give out um is to start there it's great yeah there you go so all laid out you don't need anything fancy I've got my daughter's old crib mattress as a um and what's it called um I have it on

[00:30:03] next to the wall what are those foam things that you put on the wall oh uh like acoustic protection or something like that I use my daughter's old crib mattress for that and it works

[00:30:15] there you go so it blocks out the sound it does yes man well if you're ever hosting a panel I'd love to check it out okay we'll do this is delightful um and there's some good suggestions

[00:30:31] there and thank you uh all together what do you think you'll cover after the beehive concludes well um I've got a list of things um that I have to keep close to my chest I will tell you that one

[00:30:47] of them is a severely disturbing domestic violence turned murder situation and that's all I'll leave with that but some of them are going to be updates to older cases as well um and then

[00:31:00] some of them will be victims and survivors that we actually met at the true crime podcast festival in Austin just a couple weeks ago they're still getting their voices out there that's good yeah um if

[00:31:13] we want to help them first because you know they are the ones that have been actively trying to amplify and raise awareness and have not gotten very far and we want to help change that narrative

[00:31:26] so yeah we've got pretty much a list going so yeah I should got you um yeah um then it's good to that we're also just talking about the different degrees of abuse because it seems like

[00:31:40] so many people like to make again like to make this a gray issue and it's like no right you can tell if someone has wronged you and gone more than just you know an

[00:31:48] older protective dad just like down the wrist and uh a few bad apples was a good podcast that talked about how it's hard for even uh spouses uh police officers to get a restraining order against

[00:32:04] their ex-cop husband or wife in some cases and it's like well now that they have the blue shield now now we got a whole other set of just BS to deal with and a whole good old boys club

[00:32:18] a good old boys club yeah and when they should be out stopping bank robberies they're you know beating up their friends and eating donuts eating donuts and giving out legal extortion in the form of a traffic ticket so yeah it's it's very eye-opening to also just see

[00:32:39] just other ignored topics by authority figures alone how all the signs were there like college classmates other family members and it's also able to just tell people hey we're not ending this anti-climatic there's nothing else we know when this this person is gone literally body everything

[00:32:59] yeah it's I don't know this this whole I love I love the thought that you know we will progress and evolve as you know each year gets a little older but unfortunately it seems like we're going backwards

[00:33:16] in a lot of senses and it just inverts me and I know if it infuriates me and infuriates a lot of people so I can only imagine what they're feeling not alone no right now this is a good

[00:33:29] catching up with you and please keep spreading your word thank you I appreciate that and I appreciate the love anytime a nefarious nightmare is on literally every platform Spotify anchor by being yep uh speaker we prefer if you go find a nefarious nightmare and go subscribe on

[00:33:50] speaker that's that helps us out because they recently made it to where um and I want to reiterate we do not do this simply for monetizing but you know if you do go listen to us on speaker

[00:34:01] they have boosted our our ad revenue so we're really trying to save up so that way we can give back to the victims and survivors so so go help us out and and follow us on speaker

[00:34:12] so there you go yep all right well godspeed to you godspeed to you thank you be spotify i heart radio anchor apple and anywhere else podcasts are available feel free to review our show and leave comments on any of those sites thanks a million for listening