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Crime Story Episode 10: Larrison Campbell

Host: Kathleen Goldhar

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The following episode contains difficult subject matter. Please take care while listening.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I'm Kathleen Goldhar. This is Crime Story. Every week, a new crime with the storyteller who knows it best.

SOUNDCLIP

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Gosh, I can still remember it so well. I burst into tears. I remember just this feeling of like complete disbelief and wanting, immediately wanting to just be like, how do we rewind the clock? How do we do this? How do we fix this?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Today, we get personal with journalist Larrison Campbell. 20 years ago, her grandmother, Precious, who everyone called Presh, was murdered. To this day, the case is a whodunit.

SOUNDCLIP

LARRISON CAMPBELL: She was found with a dish towel over her face. It was one of her own dish towels, and it had been very carefully placed. And so I don't know if the right word for it is a myth in detective work, but it is sort of a long held belief in detective work that if a victim is covered, especially if their face is covered, that it means the murderer knew the victim.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: In Larrison’s podcast, Devil in the Ditch, she returns home to Greenville, Mississippi, to find out what happened to her grandmother, and to her family who had to live with the unknown.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Larrison, welcome to Crime Story.

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Thanks so much for having me.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I want to start, obviously, with your grandmother. Tell me about Presh.

LARRISON CAMPBELL: So Presh was… Presh was sort of a wild woman I think is a safe way to describe her. And, you know, she wasn't really brought up to be that. She was brought up in a very conventional, traditional Southern upbringing. And, you know, she was raised to be a housewife and a church secretary. And she was the wife of a lawyer. And really, until she was about 40 years old, that sort of was enough for her. But then around her 40th birthday, the 1960s hit. And unlike many of her contemporaries, Presh really kind of… the 60s really got to her, and this sense of fairness and injustice and everything that she was seeing around her. And she really couldn't let it go. And so things like desegregation, criminal justice reform, all of those things really sort of became her life's work. And she really lost a lot of friends in the process. But she was one of those people who… I think by the time I came around, a lot of people had sort of come around to her. But she was one of those people who was just when she got something in her mind, she really couldn't let it go. And when she believed that something was right, it just completely propelled her. And, you know, that's a really great person to have sort of be one of the key people raising you. I mean, there is a flip side to it too. She really didn't care that much what other people thought. And I can remember like when I was in seventh grade and she would come careening around the corner in the carpool line at my school to pick me up. And she had this giant white Ford l t d and it was always dusty, and someone had always written like Wash Me on the back window. And she would just come, you know, speeding by and slam on the brakes and like lay on the horn, and I'd have to slink my way into the back of her car. So, you know, there was just… she was very much comfortable with who she was. And, you know, regardless of what the social mores of the… of that time were, she was not going to change.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And we'll get to this, but that doggedness mixes with the suspicions about her death in the end.

LARRISON CAMPBELL: It absolutely does. I mean, you know, you don't want to tell a story where you sort of say, well, the type of person somebody was is what put them at risk of, you know, being killed. But a lot of the suspicion after she died, you know, as much as people like to say that, you know, they really supported her and they supported sort of all the programs she did. And she worked a lot with kids in the juvenile justice system. And as much as people like to say that, I think it really did influence who people sort of suspected could have done this.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So before we get to that, but let's talk about what did happen. She was murdered. So can you tell me about what happened to your grandmother?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Yeah. So this is in 2003. It was June 13th. It was Friday the 13th, which I remember very well. And I was about a year out of college. And I was working in New York at the time. And I got a call from my dad and he told me immediately that she had been murdered and told me sort of the broad strokes of it. And, you know, at the time, it seemed like he was telling me a lot, but that was basically one of the most detailed conversations we would ever have about what had happened to her. And what he said was she was killed by blunt force trauma. I thought at the time that meant that she had… someone had pushed her and she had hit the back of her head. I later learned that somebody had likely hit her in the head with something really heavy in addition to her falling and hitting the back of her head.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: When your dad called you and told you what happened to Presh, how did you feel?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Gosh, I can still remember it so well. I… I burst into tears. And I remember it was sort of that, you know, it's the full body. You cannot control them crying tears. And I was alone in my office. Somebody I worked with did kind of walk down the hallway. And I remember looking at him and he looked at me and he was like, I'm not stopping in here to say anything to you. I'm going to keep going. And I remember just this feeling of like complete disbelief and wanting, immediately wanting to just be like, can I… can I… how do we return… like how do we rewind the clock? How do we do this? How do we fix this? And also, I think the other thing that really struck me and that really still strikes me now is the absolute cruelty of this. Because, you know, my grandmother was not a perfect person, but she was a wonderful person. And suspicion, you know, at the time that it happened, we just… it took a very long time for the police to sort of come out with a suspect. All we really knew for a very, very long time was that something had happened. Someone had been in her house and we had no idea to know like really who it was. We think it was around 10 a.m. They never established a time of death for her, so we don't know. And her body was found at about 4 p.m.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And there was something significant. Can we talk about the way she was left? Because I think that indicated that maybe the person knew her.

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Yeah, that was immediately what people thought. She was found with a dish towel over her face. It was one of her own dish towels and it had been very carefully placed on her. It wasn't like something that, you know, was already at the scene. And she was found lying on her back, you know, wearing a very typical outfit that she normally wore, white blouse, khaki pants, elastic waistband, little white Keds. And someone had very carefully… she was really carefully positioned, they thought. Her arms were down by her side. Her feet were sort of sticking straight out. And she did… she had this dish towel over her face. And so, you know, it's sort of a… I don't know if the right word for it is a myth in detective work, but it is sort of a long held belief in detective work that if a victim is covered, especially if their face is covered, that it means the murderer knew the victim. And so that was immediately what they thought. But with my grandmother and the fact that she was, you know, really active in every area in our town, you know, saying that the person who killed her knew her didn't narrow it down at all. In fact, it probably expanded it. I mean, she knew thousands of people.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Early on then, where did it seem like the police were going in terms of suspects?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: This is a small Mississippi town we're talking about here. At the time, Greenville was probably just under 40,000 people. And so I think the typical, you know, suspect that police tend to look for there tends to be a black man. That's kind of… when there's a crime like this, that's who they tend to immediately sort of try to pinpoint, is that's the population they look to. And so that's what police immediately told my family. They said, you know, we're interviewing people who, you know, gardeners in the neighbourhood. We're seeing, you know, we're canvassing, seeing if anybody, quote, saw somebody suspicious. And I think, you know, my family, people in my family ultimately started to doubt that. And I think there is a belief that police really lost some time only pursuing that one direction. But again, this is, you know, it's small town Mississippi. That's what these police officers are used to.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Listening to your podcast, I really felt like Greenville itself was a character. So can you talk a little bit about that? Like how significant was the culture of Greenville in the South to both your grandmother's life, her death and the podcast, really?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Greenville really is in a lot of ways the main character in this story because, you know, it's not just the setting for where this happened, but there is a character of this town. You know, one of the suspects, the motive that people ascribe to this person was that he killed my grandmother in a conflict over brunch etiquette. You know, if you're not from Greenville, that sounds like the most ridiculous thing, but it is so very believable to everybody in Greenville.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, tell me a bit about that brunch etiquette because that… we’ll get into who that suspect is. It's really important. But that brunch etiquette was really spectacular part of this. It was a culture that I had never even known about. So can you expand on that a bit, please?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Absolutely. So about three weeks before my grandmother was killed, one of my cousins was married. And it was a big sort of traditional Southern wedding. You know, probably 200 people were there. And when that happens, there were a lot of out of town guests. And so all of sort of the extended family got together to host a brunch the day of the wedding. And when the time came to pay, everybody whose name was on the invitation, you know, I think had to pay $200 apiece. And there were about 20 people on the invitation. But couples being one household paid 200. And then somebody like my grandmother, who was a widow, was also one household. So she paid 200. And my grandmother had a sister, Charlotte. And Charlotte had a son who always lived with her. He never moved out. And so he was about 48 at the time, but he was still living with her and his name was on the invitation. And they said, you know, we live together. We're one household. We should only pay $200. And my grandmother, it's sort of one of many conflicts in my grandmother's pursuit to get my cousin to move out of that house with his mother. But she said, absolutely not. Married couples pay $200, single people pay $200, and you and your mother are not married. And she would not budge. And, you know, he was just as stubborn as she was. And so they argued over this for, you know, the three weeks after the wedding. And a lot of people believe that, you know, he went over to her house to confront her about this, things got heated, and that he is the person who did this because of this conflict over a brunch invitation.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Amazing. I mean, I guess, like you said, the behind the conflict over brunch was your grandmother's dogged. You made it very clear that she would not let it go, that Richard had to leave her sister's house.

LARRISON CAMPBELL: And that's the thing too. You know, it's never about the brunch. It's… it's… it was really the fact that this was yet another example of, you know, a, my grandmother really sort of inserting herself into her sister's life and really trying to kind of control what she thought would be the best outcome for her sister, which would be to live independently and not have to support her son who, you know, is like never really had full-time work. And she thought it would be good for him to get out of the house and it would force him to work in a way that he hadn't. But, you know, I think at the end of the day, a lot of people would say, well, you know, maybe that wasn't, you know, your fight. And I don't think she would have agreed with that. I mean, I think for years, she had tried and tried all sorts of different ways to get him out. And I think, you know, I think there absolutely was tension there, immense tension on both sides, I think that might be an understatement, between them. And yeah, this was the latest in years of conflicts.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: As an aside, I think if you needed a tagline for your podcast, it could be it's never about the brunch.

[Kathleen and Larrison laugh]

LARRISON CAMPBELL: [laughs] I wish I had known that.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Okay, back to it. Did you think Richard did it?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: It's one of those things where, you know, really kind of depending on the day and the set of facts that are dancing around in my head at that moment, I say, you know what? Maybe, maybe he could have. And then, you know, 45 minutes later, I'm like, nah, I don't know. Because like what about this? You know, one of the details… so if we were to play out like the scenario of how he could have done it, it would have needed to be that morning, that Friday morning, and he would have needed to get over to her house. Her house was about a three-minute walk from his house, but it was a fairly public walk. You had to kind of cut through a church, church parking lot. You had to cut through like a schoolyard that was behind the church. And then you had to cut past two really main like busy kind of streets or one busy street, one sort of small avenue. It would have been hard for nobody to see him, and nobody saw him walking over there. Not to mention the fact that Richard was not somebody who was up early. He was not like an up and atom kind of guy. And 10:00 in the morning was like not usually a time that he was awake. So, of course, you know, her time of death wasn't ever officially pinpointed. Police sort of establish they think it was around 10 a.m. I know somebody that I interviewed for this who called her probably around 10:30, and she didn't answer, and called her a couple of times. So I think it's probably safe to say it was before 10:30 that she was killed. And her last phone call that morning was at 8:23. So, you know, I think… I really think that alone is, I don't want to say it's exculpatory, but like I think it's a real problem for the idea that this person sort of magically appeared at his aunt's house at, you know, 10:00 in the morning without anybody seeing him and managed to do this. I don't know. It's hard. And then walk back without being seen.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What happened to the family dynamics between Richard and his mother and the siblings?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: This to me is one of the most heartbreaking parts of this story. You know, as I mentioned, my Aunt Charlotte had one son. And this one son, you know, he never married, never had kids. And it was very clear, I think, by the time my grandmother died, that he was not going to. And my great aunt really saw me and my sisters and my other cousins as kind of her surrogate grandchildren. And my grandmother really indulged that. She really wanted her to feel that way. And so when my grandmother died and the family's suspicion turned on this great aunt, you know, my aunts, especially my one aunt, the one who has children, cut off contact with her. And so she really lost a huge connection to, you know, she didn't just lose her sister. She lost her sister's family. And she became more and more isolated. And, you know, I wasn't living nearby. And, you know, I think regardless of what you feel about, you know, whether or not her son was involved in my grandmother's murder, her son was a difficult person to be around at times. And I think she just became more and more isolated in this small town that our family was sort of gradually leaving.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You do talk to Richard and your aunt. in the podcast. I found that really compelling to listen to. Why did they agree to talk? What do you think? What did they kind of hope to get out of that conversation?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: I think they really wanted to tell their side of things. I think my cousin Richard says at one time, and I mean, look, like this was hands down the two days that I spent with them talking to them about this, because, of course, you know, we're from like a little buttoned up Southern family. Nobody talks about anything unpleasant. So despite the fact that, you know, my grandmother's murder was an incredibly public event and the suspicion around my cousin Richard was very well known, somehow or another, it just had never come up in conversation with any of us. So I was excited to get to talk to them about it. And I think they felt like, oh, good, no one has… no one in the family has asked to hear our side of things. And, you know, 20 years, yay, we finally get to tell our version of the events. And I was really glad to get that from them. But the problem was, and sort of the emotionally exhausting part of this is that I sort of realized as the day wore on that regardless of whether or not they had had anything to do with, you know, my grandmother's death or covering it up, neither of them liked her. And that became very apparent. And there was a lot of resentment. And I think, you know, some of it, they came by honestly. Being cut off is really hard. But there was a lot of resentment that they held towards other people in the family too. And people I love. I love my grandmother. And so it was really hard to sort of… this was one of those times that being a journalist and also being in the family was really tough because you're sitting there and as a journalist, you want the person you're interviewing to feel like they can say what they need to say. Like the last thing I want to do is jump in there and tell them they're wrong. But, you know, I mean, my cousin Richard would say things like, ah, your grandmother didn't really have a sense of humour. Personally, I still think she's one of the funniest people I've ever met. You know, he'd say, ah, she was so cold, you know, she just like never made anybody feel comfortable. And I was like, that is the exact opposite of my experience with her. And I want to say, you know, like I get that like you have this low opinion of her in this way, but honestly, like let me give you example A, B and C about why you're really wrong about that. But you can't. You can't do that. And so at the end of those two days, I mean, I was just like… from kind of having to keep everything quiet and not say what I was really thinking, I was emotionally exhausted. I think I went to bed for like the whole weekend.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, that's the interesting thing about podcasting is we keep diving into these personal stories, but then you're also being asked to be a journalist, and it can be just as hard on you as the subjects that you're speaking to.

LARRISON CAMPBELL: It really can.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So who did Richard and his mother think killed Presh?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: So they had a very clear idea of who they think did this. And, you know, it was a little bit different. Richard my cousin thinks that it was some random black man who sort of wandered in off the street and did this. And my great aunt Charlotte thought that it was somebody from the local juvenile detention centre. And that's relevant because my grandmother, one of her biggest passions in life, and one of the things that she really sort of believed in terms of like her quest for, you know, justice and equality was that people need education. Education should be great for everybody. She worked for years with her husband to get the Greenville schools desegregated. And afterwards, she began teaching in them. And then she discovered in the mid-80s that there was this juvenile detention centre downtown, and that when the kids were there, they didn't go to school. They just sat in their rooms all day long and they'd be marked absent at their school. And it really, you know, this sentence really set them back academically. So she and a friend of hers started a school in the juvenile detention centre, and that for the last 20 years of her life was everything to her. She'd show up there five days a week and she loved it. She was proud of it. She'd brought me down to teach English one time, which I was so not qualified for, but it was really fun and everyone was lovely to me there. But, you know, it just… it was… outside of her family, it was the most important thing in her life. And my Aunt Charlotte never understood that, and neither did my cousin Richard. And, you know, I think a lot of it probably has to do with racism. A lot of the kids in the juvenile detention centre were black. And so my Aunt Charlotte looked at that and she says, you know, in a way that really shows that she feels like this is absolutely the only possible thing that makes sense, that if my grandmother were hanging out with, you know, these kids, that one of them must have done it. And that is absolutely hands down what she believes. She brought it up many, many times. And that’s really hard to hear because that's, you know, my grandmother never had a negative experience with the kids that she worked with there. And it just, you know, it… it feels like a very old fashioned racist trope, and it was really hard to hear her talk about it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So what did the police do with all of this suspicion around Richard? Did they take it seriously too?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: You know, I think it's hard to see with… it's hard to define taking it seriously with the Greenville police, because one of the first things I’d said in the podcast was that, you know, I'm telling the story about this town and this is my hometown and in my home town over the last 20 years, 85% of the murders that happened there have never been solved. So, you know, when you think about the police taking it seriously, I think they thought that they were. But I don't know that the people who were in charge of this investigation were particularly good at solving this murder or solving murders in general. And so, you know, you had things like evidence was collected. We had the state crime lab come. That's great. The state crime lab does a really good job. But then evidence was sent off to them and the police never followed up on it. Hurricane Katrina happened two years after my grandmother's murder, and there was evidence still waiting to be tested in the lab on the coast that just was lost in Katrina.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You worked really hard to try to get access to their investigation. How did that go?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Oh, this is still like just the most frustrating part of this whole experience. You know, everybody I spoke to in Greenville, and I really did sort of try to interview a pretty big cross-section of the town. I spoke to former detectives with the sheriff's department. I spoke to former police detectives. I spoke to, you know, friends, neighbours, other people in town. I really got everybody I wanted to speak to. And I was able to get a lot of really interesting information from everybody but the Greenville Police Department. And the first interview I did or the first person, I should say, because it wasn't really an interview because I didn't think it needed to be, but I stopped by and I introduced myself to the chief of police as soon as I got to Greenville. And he was like, oh yeah, this'll be easy. Yeah, we'll get you… you know, He's like, I'm not going to get you everything in the file, but yeah, let me, let me look for it and yeah, we'll get it for you. And he kind of did a quick search on his computer to see where it was, and he was like, you know, it's not here. It's not here. He's like, I bet it's in a warehouse. He's like, don't worry, we'll find it. And I said at the time, do you think that maybe y'all… like is there a chance it got lost and that's why you're not finding it? And he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, we never lose files. But, you know, his stance three months later, after I kind of kept pressing him for that police file, suddenly, they were like, you know, we can't give it to you. And there is a part of me that really wonders. I mean, why couldn't they give it to me? Does it, a, show that there were a million leads they didn't follow? Very likely. Or is it that they don't have it? And I think, you know, in a place like Greenville and in a police department without sort of a solve, right, yeah, I think it's very possible that some investigation files just have disappeared over the years.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And this lack of resolution, it didn't do Richard any good either, or your family or anybody. Like it feels like this lack of resolution extended the trauma of the murder in a way.

LARRISON CAMPBELL: I think it did. I mean, I think that's one of those things that I really wanted to talk about because in this town, you know, you have a lot of people, a lot of families that have a situation similar to mine. And I think… I think if any… if nothing else, this story really shows how hard it is for the mind to kind of give up and say, you know what, I'm just not going to know that. Like we want resolution. Like we crave it. And we are, you know, if it means cutting out members of your own family, if it means spending a decade looking into something and like really, you know, kind of centring your entire life around finding an answer, the desire to get this certainty is so much more compelling, I think, to people than trying to live with not knowing. And, you know, I think for me, I think I was really uncomfortable with not knowing too. I just… it… because when you don't know something, like you don't even know how to feel about it. Okay, so I have this cousin. People tell me I should be suspicious of him. Does that mean I don't hug him when I see him? Does that mean I don't greet him? Does that mean I don't return his phone calls? Does that mean I don't return my aunt's phone calls? And if I do do that, am I being disloyal to the people in my family who do believe this? And so you think, okay, well, if I get resolution, then I… then I know how to act in these situations. But I didn't. I didn't get that resolution, but I think I did get a better understanding of how this all played out. And for me, I think that's enough.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You must have gone into this knowing that stirring this up again 20 years later would sort of stir the pot again, especially in a small town. And I know you went into it hoping for resolution. You didn't get it. What do you think then was the end result for the town and for your family with the work that you did?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: I think in some ways, for members of my family who really did… have really spent a lot of time sort of looking for an answer, I think in some ways, my working on this, even though I didn't get an answer and I said to myself, you know, I don't think I can say who did this, even though I know there are people who wish that I could, you know, point the finger at my cousin Richard. I can't do that. Like I just don't. You know, I would never feel comfortable doing that based on what I know. But I think just the fact that like I spent this time, I spent a year working on this story, and that almost validates, I think for them, the amount of time they've spent trying to find an answer. You know, it sort of says this is a story worth telling. Like the issues that are in this story and the issues that have sort of consumed my family and really, you know, defined members of it for the last 20 years are actually like worth talking about and they're worth, you know, sharing with other people outside of our family. And it's something that people outside of our family probably can relate to. You know, one of the craziest things actually that happened after this podcast came out is the number of messages I got on like Instagram and things like that and Facebook from friends, like old friends who were like, you know, I never mention this, but my grandma, my grandfather was murdered. You know, when my parent was murdered, I always suspected this person in my family. I didn't… I didn't know that.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: How did Richard respond to the podcast and how is life for him now?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: I don't know. I… I haven't talked to him since it came out. I talked to him right before and I walked him through every single thing that would be said in the podcast about him. And I wanted to give him a chance to respond to everything and just make sure he was comfortable with it. And he disagreed with some of the things, but I think he was overall… he was overall relieved that I said there is no good reason to have this man arrested for this crime. There's no evidence that he did that. And I think he in some ways seemed to feel vindicated by that. Now, of course, if you go to the town of Greenville, you know, I've heard from people in Greenville. I think… I think sometimes… I think this is… I think this is a little bit of a Rorschach test, this podcast, because there are people in my town and, you know, like I said, Greenville is a character. And what Greenville as a town thinks about what happened about this murder, what happened in this murder and the way Greenville and the people of Greenville responded both, you know, to my family and to Richard and his mother afterwards and what they believe is very much at the heart of this story. And so there are a lot of people in Greenville who very much suspect him. And those people reached out to me and they said, I'm so glad you did this podcast saying that, you know, he did this. And I'm like, that's not at all what I said. But, you know, I think people hear what they want to hear. And so I do worry about that. I worry that, you know, there are people who think that I made a podcast that points the finger at him, and that's not at all what I wanted to do. I really wanted to look more at this idea of guilt and, you know, talk about what makes someone look guilty rather than say this person looks guilty, and therefore he did that.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Tell me about the name of the podcast, Devil in the Ditch. What does it mean?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Devil in the Ditch is a game that we played when I was little constantly like at every family event. And, you know, I think it's a game that a lot of people in the Deep South play. I hear since I've made this podcast that nobody outside the Deep South has ever heard of Devil in the Ditch. And the point of the game is you're trying to cross a ditch or a sidewalk, and there's the devil. And the devil hangs out in the centre of this, and they try to grab you as you go across. And usually when you play these games, you're playing them with other kids your age. But my cousins and I who are all around my age got to play them with my cousin Richard, who would be the devil. And when you're playing them with an adult, it's so much better because that adult can grab you and that adult can pick you up. And, you know, Richard, as we say in the podcast, I think he was… he was not like the other adults in my family. He never had adult conversations. You know, he graduated from college. He did well in college, but he just never socially fit in with the other adults. And he was always more comfortable hanging out with the other kids. And so when we'd have family gatherings, he'd be out in the front yard playing with us. And so when I was little, like this game, Devil in the Ditch, I mean, I'd find out I was going to my Aunt Charlotte’s, so I'd like, yes, we'll get to play Devil in the Ditch. And it was like this wonderful feeling of safety. And then as I've gotten older and I think back on that and I think about the way other people see Richard, you know, it kind of changes it and it kind of makes me wonder if this really wonderful childhood memory, you know, has a sinister tinge to it. And so that's… and that's kind of how I feel about this story.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And presh, how do you think of her today?

LARRISON CAMPBELL: That's really interesting. I mean, I love her dearly. You know, I think there's something that happens after somebody dies, especially somebody you love. And I think it's a really helpful coping mechanism to really just sort of talk about what made them great and really focus on all their wonderful qualities. And, you know, there's no need to sort of look at the things about them that could have been difficult or, you know, really made them a three dimensional person. They sort of get a sort of sainthood status. And I think Presh did in our family. You know, she was really funny and she was very forgetful and she was very, you know, off in her own world a lot of the time. And so like we can laugh about those things and laugh about her sort of spacey moments. But like on the whole, you know, we didn't really talk about as you and I have just now, like these other issues that came out when I was reporting this podcast, which are sort of her, you know, doggedness almost to a fault, her busybodiness, like her unwillingness to back down and admit that maybe she was wrong or maybe another opinion that was very different from hers, you know, was also worth listening to. And so I… I think doing this podcast really reminded me of all that in a wonderful way. Gosh, I mean, it made me feel so much closer to her. It made me, you know, I think… I'm sure you have this experience too, but like as a reporter, sometimes, the stories I like working on the most and the stories I'm drawn to are the ones that let me spend time, you know, in a subject or in a place or in a time period that I really want to spend time with. And for that year that I was working on this, I got to spend time with my grandmother, and that was really, really wonderful. And I got to see her as an adult. And I hadn't. You know, I was 24 when she died. I hadn't really gotten to see her as an adult. And, you know, that alone was worth this whole project.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I love that. I love thinking about you in that space for that year. That's really nice. Larrison, thank you. This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you giving us the time.

LARRISON CAMPBELL: Thank you very much.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You've been listening to Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. We drop a new episode every Monday. You can get our next episode a week early on CBC Podcast's YouTube channel or by subscribing to the CBC Podcast’s true crime channel on Apple Podcasts. In addition to early access, subscribers to our True Crime Channel also listen ad Free. Crime Story is written and hosted by me. Our producers are Alexis Green and Sarah Claydon. Sound Design by Graham MacDonald. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner. Our video producer is Evan Aagaard. Our YouTube producer is Jon Lee. Executive producers are Cesil Fernandes and Chris Oke. Tanya Springer is CBC Podcast’s senior manager, and Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts.

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Transcript: Crime Story, Episode 10

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