Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Jen and welcome back to True Crime and Headlines with Jules and Jen. I'm so excited to announce that Missing in Hush Town, Season 1, has officially launched and is available wherever you listen to podcasts. So make sure you go support our girl Jules and go tune in. I can't believe we're already at the end of August. Kids are back to school at least mine are and we're going to be moving into fall very shortly, which I love. Fall. I'm so excited, Jules and I have a lot of exciting episodes coming up for you all for spooky season. Speaking of my lovely co-host, Jules will be returning here very shortly, so make sure you stay tuned.

Speaker 1: 0:43

So, as you know, as I've been taking over the first month of episodes for True Crime and Headlines, I have been bringing on some amazing guests and today I'm so excited to be welcomed by the lovely Dr Leslie Dobson. Leslie is a clinical and forensic psychologist and today we discuss her experience in the field and dive into the assessments given to determine if someone is a psychopath. We also have a heart-to-heart chat as moms and professionals in the true crime realm and talk about the importance of situational awareness and educating parents about the dangers of predators. So, without further ado, I'd like to officially welcome Leslie to the podcast. Let's go.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Leslie, thank you so much for joining me today on this episode of True Crime and Headlines. I'm so excited to have you. So today I am going to be chatting with Leslie about the assessments from like a psychological perspective when we're talking about serial killers, what Leslie's experience is giving these different assessments to determine if someone is indeed a psychopath. So we're talking about that. Leslie's going to share a little bit more about her background, her experience and then some of the things that she's currently working on. So I'm excited to delve into that. But, Leslie, I'm going to pass it over to you and let you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and your experience.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Great Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm a clinical and forensic psychologist, so that means I went to school for a long, long long time. I got a bachelor's, two master's degrees and a doctorate in clinical and then forensic psychology. So the emphasis of forensics was severe mental illness and how it interacts, intersects with the legal system, and so a lot of my training was violent felons who were hospitalized because they also had mental illness, or violent inmates, felons, people incarcerated. We keep changing the names and determining their violence risk and if they were to get out, how likely were they to reoffend? And I have a specialty in high risk sex offenses as well. So we use the psychopathy inventory we we use a lot of tests to see if somebody is a psychopath and dangerous, and then a lot of these tests are also further normed on sexual offenses, so they're even more specific to somebody who incorporates sex with violence.

Speaker 2: 3:42

That's the dark side of the career. I work a lot with victims of trauma and I testify as an expert in their cases explaining the trauma they endured and the truthfulness of their claims. That's the civil side of law personal injury. And then gosh, what else is going on? Social media has kind of shot up as I've started sharing stories about pedophilia and protecting children. And then I spend a lot of time empowering my clients, especially firemen and police officers, to be their strongest, their best selves. And I did work at the VA for about six years, I'd say, working for our honorable military.

Speaker 1: 4:29

That's amazing. Well, thank you. Thank you for your service and serving our service members, because, as our listeners know, I'm a military spouse of many, many years 18 years and going so it means a lot. My husband was diagnosed with PTSD after his first deployment to Afghanistan many, many, many years ago, so I appreciate those that care enough and that take the time to help them through the process, because it's brutal. It was a very brutal process for him. So, yeah, thank you, I appreciate that Definitely my husband is.

Speaker 2: 5:06

he's pretty high up at the VA working as a psychologist right now, so he's he's maintained his career and I left because I just felt like my ceiling was reached with my creativity and I like the flexibility of not working in the government, because I have two little kids and I just brought home a protection dog who needs a lot of training and attention and it's so fun to be able to have a dynamic life and still be a forensic psychologist rather than, you know, be within the government as a forensic psychologist doing like the seven to six kind of schedule.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Yeah, I have. I follow you, obviously, on social media, so I've seen your protection dog. That's so cool. I actually grew up my mom used to train German Shepherds like as puppies, and we used to do the whole protection thing as well as train them in German, and so it's really cool. So we always had protection dogs around us. I'm always really happy to see when someone does get a protection dog and they have children, because it's it really is important. I mean, you could put in all of the protocols right, so you can have video or the ring doorbells, which I do as well. I have them all over my house. But I think having a protection dog is so important as well, and it's really good to be educated on all that that entails, cause a lot of people just aren't educated on what that entails.

Speaker 2: 6:24

But that's so cool and how tight you have to keep the training. Like she knows when I am a little off and a little tired, she just tries to take advantage of that one moment. And yeah, it's amazing how smart they are, especially German Shepherds. Yeah, they really are. I definitely, like I'm privy, as you are, to the dangers of the world, and I finally got a house with a huge yard and needed to welcome, you know, a dog who could protect us, rather than a gun first.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Right Makes sense. I totally get it. I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you, leslie. Yeah, so let's dive into the actual assessment and then we can kind of take it from there. But I do, before we do that, I do want to touch too on your content as far as protecting children. I just I want to make that as a known thing here in the podcast, even though we're talking about we're going to be talking about the assessment. I think it's so important because the internet is a scary place and there's just a lot of dangerous people out there, and so I think it's so important to always make sure that, if you do have children, even yourself, just protect yourself.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Be mindful on social media as well. I never share my children either on my public profiles or anything like that. If I do, their faces are covered, things like that. So just putting those things in place because, again, we're going to be talking about these assessments, but there's so many crazy pedophiles out there and a lot of them you wouldn't even know they could be your next door neighbor. You know what I mean, but I just want to make that known. I do want to applaud you for sharing that content. It's not easy. I know you get a lot of lash back with a lot of the things that you post, but I love that you're so adamant about posting it and protecting children and getting the word out there. As a mom, I just appreciate that so much. So I just wanted to make that known.

Speaker 2: 8:24

But yeah, Thank you, yeah, and it directly plays into my training in assessing psychopaths because I know what a predator looks like and so if I can explain to the public predator symptoms, whatever they can look for, in that moment of situational awareness, it's so valuable.

Speaker 2: 8:47

But the reason I know it is because I have researched it and I've studied it and I've been trained in the assessments. So from the ground up is how I learned, not from the attack down, trying to understand it right. I've met the psychopaths and the predators and I've sat with them and I've given them these tests and I've a lot of these tests are semi-structured interviews, so they're very conversational, but I'm making sure in my head to tick off very important parts I need to get answers to. And then I'm also contrasting that to a massive historical review of the person collateral information, anyone who will speak for the person and so I take that understanding that big picture, and then I make these like really short TikTok and Instagram reels and I can't explain to everyone that for 20 years I've been building this from the ground up. I'm just hoping that people believe me. But I think that's where a lot of the criticism comes in, like who are you? Why can you speak on this? Well, that's why I can speak on it.

Speaker 1: 9:51

Right, because you have the experience. Everyone's attention spans let's start there is very short, so when you're doing TikToks thrills, it needs to be straight to the point. So you're right, you can't share your 20 years of background with everyone at that time. So, but I get it. I absolutely understand, you know where you're coming from, but, again, the fact that you're sharing is just so important, so crucial.

Speaker 2: 10:13

Right and I mean I really like the testing assessments that psychology as a whole has come together and researched and put out there. I truly believe in them. You know I was reading about the case of Dana Sue Gray who many, many years ago she killed almost four people but three, and we didn't really have a lot of attention on the psychopathy checklist, the PCLR, which is how we determine psychopaths, and it wasn't used at that time. With her and now, looking back on her case man, she would have scored 40 out of 40, probably really, really high. But now we have the ability to look at people's impulsivity and emotions and behaviors and use that to determine how much of a psychopath they are how dangerous they are.

Speaker 1: 11:06

Can you walk us through, leslie, what the assessment looks like, because you said they can score 40 out of 40. So what does the structure of that assessment look like and how do you typically conduct it? I know you said you know as you're talking you're kind of taking off check boxes, but what does that process look like?

Speaker 2: 11:25

Yeah. So basically it's in America it's you get 40 points and the closer you are to 40, the more psychopathic you are. The cutoff in America tends to be 30. So if you have over 30 points then we would consider you psychopathic. In other countries the cutoff can be 20 or 25. So there's a lower standard and they will call someone a psychopath with less behavioral disturbance. So it's interesting if you're ever looking at serial killers or psychopaths, or Charles Manson, you know, look at what country they were in and who did that test, because the norms are different. But Charles Manson is a good example, because I think he was a 37. So it doesn't matter what country he's in, he's a psychopath.

Speaker 2: 12:15

What we do is we have a variety of tests, right, we don't just use that one, because we want to make sure that everything is valid. So I want to know that you're telling me the same story, no matter the time of day we talk, no matter the day, no matter the type of questions I ask. If you're filling out a questionnaire on your own versus me asking you, I want to know that it's all consistent. So I use a lot of that and then I also incorporate a lot of the history into my questions. So maybe I say the chart said this, your conviction said this. Can you please explain to me how it was for you what happened?

Speaker 2: 12:55

And then we hit on all of the topics of psychopathy. So we hit on. We hit on the emotional dysregulation, the impulsivity, the need for stimulation that is beyond what most people would need. So somebody who has excessive spending, skydives, tortures, animals, doesn't feel emotional, doesn't have normal emotional range and needs something extra, extra severe to get it. So we look at that full picture and ask a lot of questions about life and how those moments showed up in life.

Speaker 2: 13:38

But we also look at the interpersonal manipulation. So I can ask you a lot of questions about relationships, promiscuity, how has your work life been, family, friends over time. But also what I'm really looking at is how much are you manipulating me right now in the conversation? So I'm going to intentionally play dumb or play extra smart or throw in false information and see how the person is going to react and maybe lie or make themselves look more mentally ill than they are to get potentially out of a charge. And then you go back and you score all of what you have based on this massive amount of information and you write 40, 60, 70 page reports that are presented to the judge. Wow, wow. So it's a tremendous amount of work.

Speaker 1: 14:36

It sounds like it During the process. I mean, I'm sure doing it for so many years, you've perfected it. But of all the people that you've done this assessment or multiple assessments on, is there one in particular? And if you can't share specific information, it's totally okay. This is just a side note, because and if you can't share specific information, it's totally okay. This is just a side note, because I know with HIPAA and everything, but is there one particular individual that you did the assessment on that really stands out where it was? Like whoa, like this is just crazy. Or, you know, maybe had a crazy reaction to some of your questions, could be a very dangerous line of work, just depending on who you're speaking with and their tendencies and all of that. So I'm just curious if there's anyone in particular, or one case or whatever however you want to word it, that maybe stood out to you or one that you'll never forget.

Speaker 2: 15:27

I mean a lot stand out to me. Incarcerated individuals tend to like psychologists more than psychiatrists, because psychiatrists are really there pushing the medication. So psychology is kind of seen as more of somebody who can help them and a little teeny bit more on their side. So usually when I sit down with them they're not defensive right away. They will openly engage in conversation and then when you get to the nuances of crime, that's when they begin to get more guarded.

Speaker 2: 16:02

So I have many clients I can think of many people where at that moment of asking about the crime they either told me way more than was in the record to be charismatic, to show off, or they changed the story and told me way less. So I can think of one. We can call him Bob, but he told me where three bodies were buried that no one had found were buried that no one had found, and he did not need to tell me that. But there's a part of the test where we're looking at criminal versatility. So do you just do the same crime over and over, because that's actually less threatening than if you're really, really versatile and you just are. It doesn't matter what you want to do, you just want to hurt and punish the world, and you just are. It doesn't matter what you want to do, you just want to hurt and punish the world. And so when I ask open-ended questions, in particular this case, just he just outed himself because he was so, he was so impressed that nobody had found the bodies yet.

Speaker 1: 17:06

At the end of the day, it's good, because now you know where those victims are. I'm just trying to picture being in that scenario and, and for some, for a killer to actually share that information is just yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:20

Yeah. So I just I was very calm and I just asked him oh OK, can you, can you give me a little more information? You know, where are they? Oh, how did they get there? Where are they? Oh, how did they get there? And he offered me quite a bit of detail. That helped solve some cases. And again it was okay in the sense that I was hired by the attorney, so there was no confidentiality. He wasn't a patient coming into private practice or anything, and so it was free game when he shared.

Speaker 2: 17:53

But I've had other people who you know tried to use me in order to like they would give me information, in order to get things from me. So, like one example is, one very psychopathic person told me and I was pregnant at the time that people were taking bets on kicking my belly and they wanted to kill the baby in the hospital. And he said I just want you to know. You know I'm telling you this so that you can protect yourself and get out. Ok, thank you, I appreciate it, but no, it was more of. I'm going to give you this because when you come back, you're going to owe me to give you this, because when you come back, you're going to owe me. So in that interview that was his, I mean, that cunning, manipulative capacity really shot up in that moment. He used something very severe, very personal to me, and manipulated it in order to plan gain in the future.

Speaker 1: 18:49

Yeah, being in that situation. I give you mad props, leslie, because that's not an easy job to do, but kudos to you for still pushing through and being strong through it and staying professional for the information to flow and that's the hard part.

Speaker 2: 19:04

I see a lot of people you know, is it Pierce, pierce Morgan who just interviewed serial killers? And I see a lot of these shows where they interview serial killers but they don't know what they're doing. They can't get information from the people. They they seem like they're judging the individuals. The individuals are guarded. It doesn't flow. So in practicing these assessments with other psychologists and we all compare our answers to make sure we're on board, and we practice for years, it makes you a much better interviewer. That's the whole purpose of why I'm going to start this podcast is because I just want to interview people from a perspective of a forensic psychologist and how I was trained to.

Speaker 1: 19:55

Yeah Well, tell us a little bit more about your podcast I'd like to share with everyone so they can get excited about exactly what it's about when it's launching. If you have the information yet, or if you're ready to share, that'd be awesome.

Speaker 2: 20:08

Yeah, it's called Intentionally Disturbing and I am going to go through a series of interviews with people who range from celebrities to first responders, police surgeons, firemen, but everyone who's been to a place in their life of witnessing trauma, and we're going to talk about it very deeply and we're also going to laugh a lot. We've been filming some of it and we're working with who wants to pick it up for main production and then we're going to start putting it out there.

Speaker 1: 20:45

That's exciting. Well, I like the balance, though, because trauma is hard, you know it's really hard to talk about, but if you can incorporate the laughing, that's amazing. I'll make sure I put all the ways to connect with you, leslie, in the show notes below so our listeners can follow and make sure that they are connected before that launches so that they can see it wherever it gets picked up. But it sounds amazing and I'm wishing you all the success in the world because I think that that's. I think it's great. I think it's a great concept. I think it's something that doesn't get talked about enough is trauma and diving into it. So, as someone who's experienced lots of trauma in my life and gone through therapy, I think it's been very healing, so I can just imagine how that's going to be for for those that are sharing.

Speaker 2: 21:35

I'm just humanizing the fact that we all go through so much shit and we all carry so much with us every day. Like I think I posted yesterday or the day before that, my daughter's shoelace got stuck in the escalator and it was it was legitimately horrifying, horrifying. It was legitimately horrifying, horrifying. And no one gave me an inch of okay. I don't know what this woman's going through, it was just immediate like get the fuck out of the way.

Speaker 1: 22:05

As a mom. That's so heartbreaking. If no one's familiar with the story, leslie, if you want to give a little rundown but there was a mom that kind of came in and helped at the end. But there needs to be more women like that. If you see someone struggling and you can clearly see there's something happening, why wouldn't you want to step in? Everyone's so afraid to get involved and get on with their day that they have no situational awareness and this is something that my husband and I teach our kids all the time is to have situational awareness, to be aware of your surroundings, to see what's happening in front of you, but also to have empathy, because if someone genuinely is struggling and you're in a public place and it's not a dangerous situation, you know, help out, do something.

Speaker 2: 22:46

And this huge burly man walked by and just tapped her on the head and said you got it, kid. Well, her shoelace was still in the escalator. Nobody pressed the emergency button I didn't even know there was one and everyone just toppled over my back as I hovered over her. It was just, oh my gosh. You know I don't know what's going on in all of their minds, but you know, get out of the way and be there for another person, and then don't just judge me.

Speaker 1: 23:19

I'm not on the ground at the bottom of an escalator having a cup of tea, I mean right, or just you know, chilling there waiting to get run over by somebody. There's a reason why you're there. There's a reason there's clearly it's goodness. Well, thank God your daughter is okay. And I mean cause that could have been so tragic, and how quickly that happens. It just takes a second for something, something that you wouldn't expect, you know, and my gosh, that's why I'm so terrified of escalators. I really am. I'm like they scare me just for that reason, because you just never know it could be, as like with your daughter. Shoelace gets stuck.

Speaker 2: 23:54

But thank God she's okay. I guess maybe one was just a little, maybe long enough to just hit, or I don't even know.

Speaker 1: 24:01

I don't Right, you don't, you never know. And again, it's just that situational awareness and people helping out, just being being a good human. It doesn't, it doesn't take much to do that.

Speaker 2: 24:15

It out just being being a good human. It doesn't. It doesn't take much to do that, it just doesn't. And then, you know, good or bad, I I, I swore I left and right was screaming at these people, but you know what, I don't care, I kept her safe. And they, I told them just all to fuck right off and go to hell.

Speaker 1: 24:32

Oh, I would have did the same thing, leslie. We were on the same page, the other mom who flipped the shoelace out.

Speaker 2: 24:39

she was telling everyone to fuck off too, and it was great.

Speaker 1: 24:44

It's like mama bear mode kicks in, you know. But that's, that's awesome. I'm so glad that despite that terrible experience, you did have someone that kind of came through another you know mama bear. So it makes the story at least happy. A happy ending, I guess, in a sense.

Speaker 2: 25:00

See, like the podcast, we have trauma but we can grow from it and there's there's good points to it. Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1: 25:07

There's that healthy balance, which is what you need. Let's chat a little bit more about your work. We talked about the assessments, but what I'd like to talk about, too, is really just your experience overall, We'll say even in the last 10 years, because I see you're doing so many different things and, like you said, you do a lot of different things in your work. You work with clients, but you also are on kind of the law enforcement side. What's the one thing out of everything you do that you genuinely love and keeps you going?

Speaker 2: 25:38

You know it depends on my mood and my energy.

Speaker 2: 25:41

But I mean, if I can undergo cross-examination and the client I evaluated wins, you know, if that attorney is saying you were 13 but you wanted it, if I can be the one that testifies and says I can tell you why she is not developmentally able to want it and why he is a predator and a psychopath and a sex offender, and if I can tell that to the jury in a way that they remember it beyond that of closing statements and they honor the victim.

Speaker 2: 26:18

That to me, that to me, is everything. But then I also have these moments in therapy where I'm sitting with. I'm sitting with a veteran who had very severe PTSD, fully dissociating back at in the military, couldn't be at home with his family because he was so dangerous during the night terrors, and I bring him after a few years back to a place of he's okay to be home with his family, to a place of he's okay to be home with his family and he hears gunshots or sirens and he doesn't get hypervigilant. So those are, those are beautiful moments. I live for that to be able to just allow people to be back in their life after they gave their life up for this government, in this country.

Speaker 1: 27:00

You're going to make me cry, leslie, just because I can relate so much to that.

Speaker 2: 27:05

So yeah, and anyone can reach out anytime because there are so many trauma-focused treatments that I really love and I can refer anyone. I know that our veterans go to the VA and it's very siloed. Were you in combat? You go here. Are you this kind of sickness? You go here. So I think people do need to educate themselves on what works for their type of trauma and they have to really advocate for themselves to get the right compilation of treatment.

Speaker 1: 27:38

And I think it's great feedback too, because a lot of people, even veterans, if we're just talking well generalized veterans, anyone with trauma, a lot of people, even veterans, if we're just talking well generalized veterans, anyone with trauma a lot of times they don't really know what the best thing for them is. The resources just aren't there. So that's great that you kind of open that up to point them in the right direction, or to give resources or to share content that's helpful and educational, because there are just so many people that just genuinely either don't have the support or they don't have the knowledge of what to do next to help heal from that trauma. So that's really important.

Speaker 1: 28:13

I love that you're very victim centered, victim focused as well, even in your work, especially when it comes to children and like the pedophilia. I know it's hard to watch. A lot of people even say like that's really hard to watch. Or even if I share something that's educational about the dark web or pedophilia, they're like that's really hard. I don't know why. Would you share that? I'm like well, because it's educational. People need to know about this and I wouldn't be doing my due diligence as someone who's as a creator, who's out there, being victim centered. Being victim focused is a mom. I wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I wasn't sharing that content, so I think it's just it's really important to shed light on that.

Speaker 2: 28:55

Definitely, and it's. You know my page isn't for everyone all the time, but if it's a message, like sleepovers that is, if it's a nuance in the back of your mind where you've been like, eh, I don't know if I really am comfortable with it. You know, listen to yourself. You know, make an educated decision and then move forward, but don't just live with the disruption of this icky. I don't know if I should have done that and ignore it know if I should have done that and ignore it.

Speaker 1: 29:29

Yep, especially parenting, absolutely, and I totally relate to that. I would rather be called overprotective psycho mom than to know that I didn't trust my gut when I was feeling something off and something ended up happening to one of my kids. I just I couldn't. I would rather be way overly cautious than not cautious enough. So I agree, I think that as a parent, if you have a feeling, if it doesn't feel right, if you're just like, if you're questioning it at all, then just don't.

Speaker 1: 29:55

It's not hard to say no. Just say no, it's okay, or find other ways around it. Like same thing with my kids. I do not allow sleepovers. It Like same thing with my kids. I do not allow sleepovers, especially with my daughter, unless it's family. Like grandparents are very, very overprotective and I've been told that for many years. But it's fine. I would rather tell you I'm overprotective and it doesn't hurt my feelings. I'm just like. That's fine. Whatever, you can think what you want, but at the end of the day my kids are protected and you know it is what it is. The world is a crazy place. You can't prevent every little thing as a parent, which is scary sometimes, but if you can put in the proper precautions and listen to your gut, it's the best thing you can do as a parent.

Speaker 2: 30:40

And honor that you and I and so many others are aware of things that most of the world will never have to see, and so, rather than criticize somebody who's overprotective, maybe think she might just know more than me, and I'm happy I don't have to have the visuals in my head.

Speaker 1: 30:59

Exactly, exactly. It's so true, though's so true Because you either have experienced it in your line of work or you've personally experienced it via trauma, and it's just something that you would never want your children to go through, or any child for that matter. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:18

I know, I know because it gets deep.

Speaker 1: 31:24

It does. It gets deep, it gets dark, but at the end of the day, you know, the best thing again is just educating. It's just educating, it's putting it out there and I do, I just really do admire your work, I admire your content and the fact that you're strong enough to continue, despite what certain people are saying, because I've seen like some of the stuff you share with people are crazy.

Speaker 2: 31:57

People are more crazy on TikTok, but yeah, it seems that way.

Speaker 1: 32:01

Right, I don't, like I'm not a fan of TikTok, I don't, I'm not on it too often. I know it's a good platform to grow your following, but I just for that reason. So, but, man, I just a lot of the or a lot of the comments or messages that you share, like I'm glad you share it too and put people on blast because that's not okay. Like what is wrong with people? Right, right?

Speaker 2: 32:28

And so, and the fact that for 20 years I've worked with violent felons, yet the shopping cart video led to more death threats than I've ever had.

Speaker 1: 32:40

I am appalled but shocked by that because I don't get it. So, if our listeners aren't familiar, if you don't already follow Leslie, well, first of all, pause right now and go follow her. But Leslie shared a couple I've seen a couple of reels and things on Instagram and, I'm sure, tiktoks, because I know you're on TikTok as well. There was a case about a mom and oh my gosh, it's just heartbreaking. A mom and her little boy, who were shopping, came out, were loading up their groceries and were violently attacked by a woman who killed them, murdered them.

Speaker 1: 33:16

And so Leslie was talking about not putting your cart back if that's the case, if you don't feel safe. Again, there's that situational awareness Leave the cart If it means protecting your kid or protecting yourself and getting in the car. And it caused a huge uproar and people were so mad that she said that she wouldn't return her cart and not even understanding the underlying message here. I was just appalled and I see that it's still going with the nasty comments and the threats a threat over not returning a shopping cart. You're not getting the message here, yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:55

And just how I guess vapid people can be, that they'll watch a 16-second video but they won't go to the creator's page and see the bigger picture. I mean, that video has been shared over a hundred million times. It was on every news channel and I was introduced as the mom, not the doctor who specializes in predators, the mom who wouldn't return her shopping cart, and even the media Fox News, even the highest levels of our media, didn't honor the fact that I'm an educated woman providing really important information.

Speaker 1: 34:29

They sensationalized it for abuse, gosh, and see, that's what's so frustrating. And one thing that I'm so adamant about is ethically reporting things, stories when you're sharing these things, stories. When you're sharing these things, even if it's not about a case or about a victim, if it's simply about somebody who is educated, who's a professional in the field but also happens to be a mom, shares content like that. Ethically report it, share the facts. See, that's the hard part about the media sometimes is that that's what happens.

Speaker 1: 35:04

But this is exactly my point when it comes to ethically reporting stories and even sharing about victims and sharing about cases. State the facts, share the facts. Make sure you have all the information before you put stuff out there, because it can ultimately ruin someone's reputation or cause what's happening now in uproar and people aren't taking the time to go see your background or who you actually are. Two seconds that they could find that on your Instagram or your TikTok, but they're not doing that and, yeah, it's causing just a lot of backlash, but at the end of the day, I think it's doing clearly more good than it is doing any harm. It's not doing any harm, it's just stupid people, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:47

Right. The whole intention was to draw attention to safety, and now I mean thousands of messages I've gotten saying you know, I'm standing with my shopping cart right now and I thought of your video Like that's fine, then let's you know, let's just be aware of our surroundings and take the, take the power back from the predators.

Speaker 1: 36:11

Yes, and that is so important because my gosh, that case is just. It makes me so sad. When I first saw and saw it on the news and heard about it in the media, I was like you have got to be kidding me, like this is just insane. But that's the point of educating, that's the point of having the situational awareness and having professionals like you sharing on social media, because that's the best way we're going to reach people and the quickest, and providing that feedback and that experience and that education. And so if it can help even just a few people or a few moms, you know, or save a few children, then it's worth it.

Speaker 2: 36:50

I know it's amazing, it's amazing. But yeah, I'm really glad to have the platform and it's only been about a year, so it's like I think people appreciate the content and I'll keep giving it as long as people want to hear it and it can help giving it as long as people want to hear it and it can help Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 37:06

Well, that's again. It's amazing. I love that you have so many awesome things happening, leslie. Obviously I am going to continue to follow your journey and I would love to have you back on the podcast. I'd love to dive a little bit deeper into certain cases too. This has been an amazing conversation and make sure again to go follow Leslie. I will leave all of her information in the show notes below. Thank you all so much for tuning in to today's episode. I'll catch you in the next one.