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Crime Story Episode 24: Charlie Webster

Host: Kathleen Goldhar

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The following episode contains difficult subject matter, including references to sexual assault. Please take care.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I'm Kathleen Goldhar. This is Crime Story. Every week, a new crime with the storyteller who knows it best. One of the biggest podcasts of the year followed the cancer journey of a young woman named Amanda C. Riley. In 2012, Amanda's life was turned upside down when she was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And for nearly 10 years, Amanda fought hard, braving several relapses with the help of friends and family and a community of online strangers. But there was just one problem: Amanda never had cancer. Host and producer Charlie Webster spent years digging into Amanda's Web of Lies and created the hit podcast, Scamanda.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Charlie, welcome to Crime Story.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Hi, Kathleen and everyone, listeners, thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited to talk through Scamanda because there's so many nitty gritty, nuanced details behind the scenes that I think we can discuss.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And before we discuss, and I have such a joy every time I get to say this, because there's been more than one. But we can disclose that we have worked together before. So that's something that I always want people to know, that I actually know you on a more personal level than just the woman who produced a massive hit podcast.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: I love that. We actually know each other. Yeah, we actually do. We worked on the Shermans together, something I'm really proud of. And you did a brilliant job bringing that to justice. So yeah, it was great to work with you, and I'm glad that we can carry on talking about different stories as well and hopefully work together again.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That would be awesome. But let's talk about Amanda because she is quite the character. Tell me who Amanda was. Is. She’s still alive despite her diagnosis.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Yeah, despite having cancer many times, stage four, and then recovering, relapsing, recovering, relapsing. You gave a great introduction because Amanda started a blog in 2012, which you talked about, called Lymphoma Can Suck It. And she detailed her cancer journey so, so intimately, so so many people connected to it. And she gave hope to a lot of people. You've got to think about the time as well. You know, now, we've got everything under the sun. We got TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, you name it. You know, the world is small. And in 2012, it wasn't necessarily like that. Everybody was on Twitter and everybody was blogging. So it was the time of like the fitness blog, the cooking blog, the mommy blog. So she hit that blogosphere moment. And it's such a convoluted story because there's so much more to it, but she originally was part of this family because she came into this family as a 17-year-old where she taught cheer because the eldest of the two girls had, guess what, lymphoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma. And so Amanda was 17 and she was helping with this person's non-curricular activities, but she basically ends up marrying the husband of that family. Then the couple, Aletta and Cory, who were the parents of the two young girls, Amanda ended up marrying Cory down the line, and who is 12 years her senior. So if you kind of think of where, you know, maybe there's lots of different plays of where this might have come from, you know, in the fact that she spent a long time with a young girl who had Hodgkin's lymphoma, and then later, she had Hodgkin's lymphoma. But going back to this story, because it's not just about this woman who faked cancer. It's about a story about psychological manipulation. It's about a family and, you know, what lies can do to a family, as well as a wider community, as well as to the many, many thousands of people that she frauded. But this went on for years and years and years and years. And she became part of a church, a massive megachurch, you know, the churches that you kind of see on the TV, where you've got so, so many people in the crowd and the energy and, you know, she was part of that. She ended up calling herself the Anointed One. You know, people thought she was a miracle. But the key thing really to it is a lot of people like, how can people have been duped by her? And I don't know. I always think, well, you would never question somebody who has cancer. She had the best disguise ever because you're not going to question anybody that's got cancer. And so many of us have been touched by cancer in our lives, but she was so good. And I said to many, many of her victims who I spoke to, she was just that good. It wasn't your fault. She was that good. She, you know, fainted in church. She wet herself in church. An ambulance came to get her in church. People went to hospital to visit her in hospital having treatment. She emulated every step of the way of somebody who had cancer. So it wasn't just like she faked cancer behind a keyboard and stole money.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And when you say victims, I want to ask you to explain. How did somebody become a victim of hers? What are you talking about when you say a victim?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Yeah, it's a good question. So it wasn't just financial. You know, there was people that looked after her children. She did have two children during cancer, and one of them was called a miracle baby that actually, she said reversed the cancer. But that's another story. And, you know, there was financials involved, but a lot of people didn't really care about the money. It was the fact that they were betrayed so deeply by Amanda. And it was people that, you know, raised money for her. They did like rallies for her. She went on the pitch in different NFL games and stood there with other survivors. So she betrayed all those people. They’re all victims of her lies because they're really having to deal with something that I can only imagine. I've been through some of my own illnesses and traumas myself, and I know how isolating it is and lonely and how horrifically painful it is, you know, not just physically, but mentally. And she sat there fine with those people that were struggling, saying she had what they had. So the victimization is so deep.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And she lied to her family too, right? So you include her family as her victims.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Yeah. She had a stepdaughter, which was not the daughter who had cancer, but the younger sister of the girl that had cancer. So it was Cory's daughter, and Amanda called her her bonus daughter. And, you know, she was part of it. She didn't realize, but Amanda ended up using her cancer with Cory in a custody battle to get Jessa, who's the youngest daughter, away from her mom, and she ended up living with Amanda and Cory, and she was taken away from her own mother. And, you know, never mind what that did to her mother, Aletta, but the fact that she was part of these lies and she started to question it after a while and she felt, you know, she was just a young girl. What was she supposed to do? You know, it's so deep in terms of victimization. So it was a really good question. And then also, people raised money for her and people gave her money, the least painful part of it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Right. Exactly. Because that feels just like a cut. Like it's like, okay, this is what happened. It was for the money. I get that. It's the victimization part of the more emotional manipulation that you start to question why somebody would want to do that to somebody else.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So thousands of people, decades or at least a decade of scamming these people, she is like full in this is her identity. But it does start to fall apart. How does that happen? How do cracks start to appear that at least other people start to now think that maybe these people who were waving, you know, a red flag might have been right?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Yeah. So I think it's important to break that down because actually, not many people did think that. That became something that I had to really sensitively step around when I was making this, because a lot of people still believed her when I got involved, because I got involved at a stage where we weren't quite sure whether she had 100% lied. Well, I wasn't. The other person was, which I’ll explain who she is. But how it started was Nancy…

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Who's Nancy? Yeah.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Nancy's a hardcore crime producer. That's probably the best way to put her, and a very different personality to me, which I think worked very, very well. And she's really dogged and, you know, like a dog with a bone. And she got an anonymous tip. I'm talking years ago. I’m talking like back in 2015 and said, you know, look at these blog posts. I think this woman's lying. And it became very, very personal for Nancy. And Nancy sadly lost a sister to cancer. So again, I think that really gave her that extra motivation. But then she started to speak to Aletta, who is Cory's ex-wife and the mother of Jessa, who's the bonus daughter, and I use that word because that's how Amanda termed her, of Amanda, who we were talking about the custody battle. And Nancy could see like, you know, the pain that Amanda was causing. And so she pursued and pursued and pursued Amanda and really looked into everything and didn't believe her. And so it was Nancy who actually handed it over to the police, and then in the end, to the IRS, which is how Amanda got caught, because again, something we should talk about is it was really hard to catch Amanda legally because it's not illegal to lie. And the thing about these kind of crimes is they're very, very behavioural and psychological. So, you know, our justice system is, no matter where we live, pretty much adversarial, where it’s about, you know, this piece of evidence, you know, you stole this. I can prove it. And whereas, behavioural crimes are much harder and coercive control is much harder to prove because of our justice system. Then it just became very personal for Nancy. And the more Nancy went after Amanda, the harder Amanda played. And Amanda actually sued Nancy and got a restraining order out against her, and cost Nancy a $200,000 lawsuit. But what's interesting, to your question, is when you said, you know, waving the red flag, you know, did people come suspicious? No. Actually, they thought Nancy was one of these horrible press people that was like just going after an innocent young mother, because Amanda's young. You know, she's, I think 37, 38 now. But, you know, she started doing this in her early 20s. And so, you know, this poor woman who is advocating for cancer, she's raising money. She's a stand up beacon in the community. She's got cancer herself she's fighting, stage four. She's a miracle. She's got children. She's, you know, and this horrible, you know, journalist is coming after her. And that was the narrative right up until Amanda was sentenced. Like right up until the moment she was sentenced. And even then, people were like, still not sure. So that's how convincing she was. And when, you know, when I started to speak to people, it was this like, what? I just can't believe. Like what? You know, it's like, this is not the Amanda I know, and it was so conflicting. Not one person. Well, I mean, a few people were like, okay, you know, actually, like there were a few things in hindsight. And, you know, I spoke to people when Amanda was younger, not in the podcast. This is after. And they said that she used to lie a lot. But nobody said to me, yeah, actually, she was this and she was that. But the majority of people, like, you know, I don't understand. Like, you know, so it was actually Nancy that became the baddie. And then I actually in the podcast try to kind of use the two female characters to see what you thought about either of them, because again, Amanda played into the innocent victim because she's very charming. You know, I spoke to her many times. She's very, very polite, very charming, very endearing. Looks you in the eye really, you know, empathetic. And Nancy is a wonderful person, but is far more like on the nose and a very different manner. So I think they played into each of these roles just because of their natural mannerism.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So Amanda was so good at it. And so many, like you said, you couldn't, you know, find anybody for a long time who was really ready. But who tipped off Nancy then? Do you have any idea?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: I do, but that's the million dollar question.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Can you tell me?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: I can’t because I agreed that I wouldn't out this person. Now, the reason why is because they felt scared over what Amanda might do, but this person didn't want to be revealed. Maybe down the line, she will be, because like hint, hint, we have other projects building off of this one. But right now, like out of my duty and confidentiality to her, like I can't say because that was part of the stipulation.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah, of course. No worries.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I know you've said Nancy was the one who started all this, but. So how did you get involved? What point in the story were you brought in and why?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: So I think Nancy and I were talking about a few other stories, and she told me about this Amanda. So I was like, I can't believe somebody would do that. Let me, you know, I’ll be interested to have a look. So I had a look at it, and then Nancy was like, well, do you think you could make it into a story to like get the story out there? And I was like, okay, let me have a look. And I had to be really careful that look, Nancy, Nancy absolutely hates Amanda, and Amanda absolutely hates Nancy, right? So I had to step away from that and not have that opinion. And some listeners might be like, yeah, but this woman faked cancer. Yes. In hindsight, we know that, and she's been sentenced to prison. But also, it's really important, as you know, Kathleen, as a journalist, that you don't… Nothing's black and white. I really don't believe it. There's so many colours in between black and white. There's so many reasons and complexities to our behaviour and why we do things. It's not an excuse, but it was really important that like I looked at it that way. And to be honest, Scamanda, the actual story and podcast, would never have been the podcast it was if I'd have just gone in there bulldozing and gone, this woman faked cancer. This is the story. Because what it is is a tale of psychological manipulation. And I'll go back to your question, but the reason why I made it like I did is because I wanted the listener to feel and understand that behaviour, because the behaviour is actually more common. It's very narcissistic behaviour, gaslighting behaviour, which we hear a lot about in terms of maybe a more intimate relationship, but we hear less about in friendships or in general community. But sadly, it is quite common. So I really wanted listeners to go along that journey and not have me tell them what to think, or me tell them what this woman did. You know, once I started to look into the story, it really did intrigue me. I got into the stage where she was being investigated by the police. Her house had been raided by the police. Amanda didn't stop. She carried on posting. She actually, you know, the more the police went after her, the more she turned the heat up and doubled down. And so I got involved in that stage, and then Nancy and me went through all the blog posts. But Nancy had done so much work beforehand, and then I separated myself and started to do my own investigation.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So who did you talk to?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Nancy was close with Cory's ex-wife. Again, reminder, Amanda, that's Amanda's now husband and that side of things. So I was like, okay, I'm going to speak to more people that know Amanda. Let's speak to the church. Let me speak to the pastor that she was very close to. Let me speak to her closest friends. And there's some people that aren't in the podcast because again, they were slightly too fearful to go on tape on Mike. And some actually, you know, sadly felt maybe ashamed about their… as if they were complicit even though they weren't. And that's the funny thing about our behavior, right? And going back to the conversation about victims, we sometimes blame ourselves. And few people I spoke to were like, I don't understand how I could have not seen it. And part of my job was to also reassure them, you know, I've never been in that situation, but I have been in situations of betrayal and narcissism on the other end of it and trauma myself. So I understand that you self-blame. It's like a really common symptom, maybe, should we say that, of trauma.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: But I think you particularly would be sensitive to that stuff, because I don't know how much… I think we should talk a little bit about you because you have had trauma. I mean, you've been very open about it, so we're not going to like, you know, be talking about something that you don't put out there. But I think your history does help who they see walking in the room to have that conversation. And I think probably from your background, you have a particular way of approaching those conversations that make people even subconsciously understand that you know what it feels like to be confused and a victim of something and unsure of how it got to that point. Am I saying that right?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up because I do understand. Yeah. Like I've had a, just a very quick one, and I don't want to trigger anybody, but I was raised in a very severe domestic abuse. I come from a very poor background. My mom had me as a teenager. We were homeless twice when I was younger. Then when I was a teenager, I was groomed and sexually abused by my running coach. So, you know, I had a lot of turmoil before I even turned 18. And then in my adult life, seven years ago, I fell critically ill and I ended up in a coma. And then that was another trauma and another fight. And I've also gone through the battle of, you know, feeling ashamed. And for a long time, I felt ashamed about what happened to me and ashamed about my past, even going into this industry. I was like, well, if people knew, know that I'm from that, because, you know, the industry is quite privileged and it's hard to come from where I've come from to even get to where the majority of people start. So, you know, I carried that, you know, that shame even into starting media and thought that, you know, I wasn't good enough. And then after a while, I started to realize, to your point, that, oh, the people I'm talking to and I'm working with are people like me. I even did a show called Surviving El Chapo recently, and I worked with Jay and Pete Flores, who are twins that turned Chapo in. And I know we have to talk about Scamanda, but, you know, people would think, oh, they were the biggest drug traffickers in North America. And then they turned on a dime and they ended up turning El Chapo in voluntarily, it's unheard of, and put themselves at risk. And people would think, you know, I can't relate to these people, but I can. We spoke for hours and hours about post-traumatic stress disorder. We talked about mental health. We talked about our chaotic backgrounds. We talked about, you know, their dad was in prison. We talked about they were groomed behaviourally from a young age to drug trafficking from the age of like seven. And we talked about those learned behaviours and we had so much in common. So I think I soon realized that, you know, maybe I could help tell stories and help people see them on a different light, because in ways, I can relate to a lot, to a lot of the emotions that connect to them, and I could in the case of Scamanda, in the story of Scamanda. You know, I even spoke to Amanda and didn't go there shouting or judging or going, give me an answer, which is what I know other people tried to do with her. You know, I'm not here to judge. I’d just love to understand. And with, again, victims, and maybe some people wouldn't like being called that, but, you know, they were victims of a crime. Let's just like hard line it. There’s no emotional judgement around it. They actually were. And whether that's emotionally or financially or, you know, their time. People gave so much time to Amanda and their heart to Amanda. And I think sitting with those people and helping them understand that it wasn't their fault. And every single person said to me that they had a piece of the jigsaw in this story, right? But they didn't know the rest of it. And so for so many people, I was helping them put the pieces together of their own experience, which helped them process it and move to the other side. That was a very long thing. And actually, I'm going to do a really little shameless plug. As we're speaking now, Kathleen, I've not announced this, but when this comes out, I will have announced it. But I've got a book coming out on trauma in May called Why It's Okay to Talk About Trauma. You can tell.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That's awesome. That's awesome, Charlie. Good for you. Because you're not busy enough because you don't spend enough time writing. But whatever.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: I know. I need to get out more.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah, exactly.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What did you find out about why? Did you go… How far down that road did you get to figuring out why she behaved this way? I know that like you said, that's the one question everybody wants to know, and you're not going to get the full answer. But I'm curious to know how far down the road you got.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: So I did go down the rabbit hole. Nancy would think differently. Nancy thinks that it was financial. I really don't think so. I don't think it also was premeditated con. And I was really in two minds about calling it Scamanda because originally, we were using Scamanda as a joke in working title, and then I ended up calling it that. And I was in two minds because of the word scam, because it's scam Amanda. So Scamanda. And I didn't feel like it did it justice because of the why, because I don't think… to me, a scam is like, I always think it's like a con, you know, it's something that's premeditated. People scamming people out of money. Whereas, Amanda, I feel like it was something that she did, and she lied, and then it just grew from there, and she got validation through it, and she got attention through it and self-worth through what she was doing, and then it just carried on and carried on and carried on. So if you're in that situation, right, you can't… when people start questioning you, if you really think about it logically, if you go, oh no, oh, I'm outed, I've lied, then you've got to look in the mirror and you're going to lose a lot. So that's why a lot of people double down on their lies, because it's self-protection. It's human self-protection going back to fight and fly because it means that you can carry on not without losing face. So it's actually quite a common behaviour for people like that. And I honestly, to a point, think she believed her own lies and what she was doing. And if you think about it, and again, I just want to caveat that this is not a justification. It's just to understand her behaviour. You know, she was stood on stage and people were like in awe of her. She became a local celebrity. And, you know, that's attractive to a lot of people. It really is. A lot of people, a lot of young people, they go on TikTok, they go on YouTube because they're trying to be known and a celebrity. And I think that's what it was. She got attention. She got free things. I don't think it was about, you know, buying a Ferrari.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's interesting that she still holds it up. So in prison, she's obviously not being treated for a cancer and she's still alive. So how is she telling you that that all makes sense?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: That's a really good question. I mean, she is in a medical facility, which is interesting. And she is saying that she is not very well. I don't know what with, and I don't know whether that's true or not, but that's what I know and that's what she's telling me. And, you know, she does say that she is sorry about the people that she hurt. But interestingly, when you listen to the podcast, in the last episode, I had like a creator’s choice to make because I play out the court situation. So I play out Amanda's whole statement and the judge’s statement. And a lot of creators would have just cut that out and said, oh, she got sentenced to X amount of years. She got sentenced to five years, by the way, and which was the first case of its kind. And also, the recommended sentence was 12 to 18 months and she got five years federal. And now, this case is being used by police all around different states in the US how to catch these people. But the reason why I play that out is because I wanted people to hear what it was like, because I was in that courtroom, and I wanted to hear what Amanda said, because she didn't actually say that she lied about it. And she did. You know, she said sorry about the people that she'd hurt, but she's never actually said that she lied about cancer, which I find really interesting.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What did the police actually charge her with? Can we talk about that? You said it's the first time, which is fascinating, and that she got more. So can you break down what they actually charged her with and like how they got her?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Yeah. I find this really interesting. So the police went after her. It was the San Jose police, and it was a detective called Jose Martinez, a really great guy. And he's in the podcast. And he went after the case. And he said that he had so much work on at the time. Like he was pretty much a one man department, and Nancy kept pushing him. So it was Nancy that took the case to him. And there was something about this that made him carry it on and pick it up, and I think it became personal for him. And that was where… that was Amanda's downfall, because I honestly think she'd have got away with it. But it was the fact that a lot of people resonated with it and were like, oh, that could be my family that she's targeting and taking money off. And actually, like all of us know in some capacity somebody that's been affected by cancer, whether it's ourselves or a family member or friend or somebody that we're close to in our community. So I think that was her best disguise, but also was her downfall because people emotionally connected to it rather than just doing it as their job. And that's what happened with Detective Martinez. So but he just kept getting stuck and going up against walls all the time because he couldn't work out how to get her because she was protected by HIPAA laws. So he was phoning up hospitals on hospitals and they were like, can't give you any information about this patient. And I think it's so interesting because I think the majority of us just think, oh, she's doing something wrong, the police should get her. But it's actually not like that. They need so much evidence to be able to bring a charge. They don't tend to bring anything to court unless they think they can get a dead on conviction. HIPAA laws protect all our medical records. So if it's to do with anything medically, then the police can't access it. But he did manage after a long time, and I'm talking several years, that he spoke to a hospital. And he describes it really well, far better than I'm doing. And he said, okay, fine. Just tell me, though, is this person a patient? And then they said no. So it was only by the fact that he got that confirmation that she wasn't a patient he could then take it to the IRS, and then the IRS ended up charging her with wire fraud. She was only convicted for the money that she took online. So all the cash, I mean, I've got a picture of her where there was cash thrown at her feet on stage in church. None of that counted. All the like services in kind like, you know, food and clothes and like babysitting and fundraising.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And trips.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: And trips. Yeah. She went to New York several times. That was funded. And funded, you know, in business class, you know, air flights as well. And that was all funded by people. None of that counted. So it was only the money that you gave online to donate to her cause that she was convicted of, because that was the only thing that they could prove. Because it was through wire fraud, that was the only way they could charge her. So I think it's fascinating, just even like the charge aspect of how this justice system works with these kind of cases.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And I know you ask this. This gets asked in the podcast, but everybody's always curious about her husband, Cory. He was never charged. You know, what do you believe? Do you think he didn't know? He insists he didn't know.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: You're right. This is the question a lot of people ask. So he didn't get convicted, but Detective Martinez says that he did know. So I found a key piece of evidence, which was the audio from, because they claim bankruptcy twice on Amanda's medical bills. So again, it's not just the money that was taken offline that she got convicted for. There was also the money that they claim. You know, they claim bankruptcy twice. They actually, Aletta, the ex-wife of Cory, was paying child custody to Aletta and Cory because of Amanda's medical situation. So there was a lot of money coming in from different directions that wasn't part of the actual case. But it took me probably about six months, maybe even more, to get the audio from the bankruptcy. But it's of Cory basically taking the oath, and he says that he goes to every single appointment with Amanda. Yeah. So there's lots of different things. If you listen carefully to anything where anybody's talking about Cory, because other people did speak about him and what he was like. And, you know, the things that he did, I mean, he told people he was a fireman, and he was never a fireman. You know, there's lots of little things that really didn't add up. So you can go and make your own mind up. But the police said that he did know. And the reason why they didn't go after him was because it would have weakened the case. And if they involved him, they were worried that they would actually lose them both and they wouldn't get a conviction. So they had to choose. And Amanda chose not to say anything about Cory, which I think is really, really interesting. And he the whole time claimed that he didn't know. But in court, I was there. And Cory, you know, his daughter was giving a really emotional victim's testimony. And it was really emotional. I mean, she talked about how this affected her mental health and she was really upset. And as you can imagine, like she's 19 now, and Cory just didn't even react.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And I'm assuming that the couple, they're still together, and he's just waiting for his wife to come home?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Yeah, they're still together. And he has the two, they've got two little boys and which, you know, the grandparents on both sides look after the little boys as well. And Cory's got the boys and they're still together, you know? And it was interesting because when I first got the story, and, you know, we were talking about how you look at a story and how I personally look at the same thing, I was like, well, hang on. There's like a 12-year age difference. Is there some kind… isn’t Cory 12 years older than Amanda? You know, is there some kind of, and I'm not saying this. This is just the way that I looked at it. I wonder if there's like some kind of coercive control here. I wonder if he's, you know, pulling the strings behind the scenes. You know, that's what I looked at to start with. But, you know, everything I found was that it was her that started doing this. And there was, you know, when she was in college, I found out that she said she got lupus. And there was things that she did in college to get out of doing certain tasks and to get attention where she lied. You know, I spoke to people when she was younger that said that she would lie about silly things. So I think this is something that's a learned behaviour from very young. And I just think that Cory and her were the perfect storm, because I think that my own opinion is that he's got his own things as well, and that they just… this just happened and carried on and then they got stuck in that situation.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I think I say in my intro, it's one of the most successful podcasts of the year, but I think it was the most successful podcast of the year. Can you tell me lastly, sort of the response that you've had since this thing blew up?

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Yeah. The response has been phenomenal, and it's been so fascinating reading people's comments. You know, they ask a lot about Cory. A lot of people said, you know, why didn't I talk about a diagnosis of Amanda? Like did she have Munchausen syndrome or, you know, some kind of disorder? And the reason why I didn't was because that was never mentioned in her court case. It was never mentioned in her defence. It was never mentioned in anything, by the police, any records, any medical stuff. It was not mentioned. And I thought it was really important that I didn't decide to give her a diagnosis. Even if I brought a psychologist in, you know, I've said I've done a lot of psychology work myself, you know, that person's just making a judgement based on the podcast. And I thought it was important not to take that away from the victims as well, and it's a story of psychological manipulation. So that was one of the comments. And also like the decisions that I made, some people said, oh, you know, you could have made it shorter. And I was like, no, because it's not about the end result, it’s about how she did it, and it's about taking you on that journey. It's about immersive storytelling as well. Like I used Amanda's blog. For people that haven't listened to it, you know, Amanda's blog posts are wiped from the internet now. And, you know, I used her blog posts to help tell the journey from her point of view and how she did it and what she did. So it's also, it's just fascinating storytelling, not let's get to the point. And also, you know, one of the other things is like the repetition of, oh, now she's got cancer, now she hasn’t. Now she's got stage four and now she's relapsed. Now she hasn't, now she's back. And the reason why there’s that repetition isn't because I'm repeating things, because that's what she did. So it's important to show that. If I just go, oh, you know, she's got cancer. She had it, you know, four times and relapsed four times, then that's boring. And you need to feel how she did it to understand the complexity of what she did and how, I'm talking like not just hundreds. Thousands of people were along for the ride and believed it right up until… There was people that stepped into that court that still believed her.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah, I think that's the incredible part, is that you show just how long it lasted and how good she was at it to maintain that life for so long. She really had to be good at it to make you believe that somebody could relapse four times.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Exactly.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. And still be alive. Yeah.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Exactly. But it's, you know, again, it's not… I think it's not as obvious. There's hindsight, right? You can look back and go, oh, now. Well, if you look. I feel like I could talk about it for ages. So.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Thank you so much for joining us. It's really nice to see you, and it's nice to hear from you again.

CHARLIE WEBSTER: Oh, thank you for having me on. Thanks, everyone, for listening too.

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 Podcasts YouTube channel or by subscribing to the CBC Podcast 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, Kathleen Goldhar. Our producers are Alexis Green and Sarah Claydon. Sound design by Julia Wittman. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner. Our video producer is Evan Aagaard, and our YouTube producer is Jon Lee. Executive producers are Cesil Fernandes and Chris Oke. Tanya Springer is the senior manager of CBC Podcasts, and Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts.

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Transcript: Crime Story, Episode 24

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