"But, still, you should be straight up with people. Let 'em know."*

Candor matters.

I came across Dead and Gone in February 2021, and I was hooked by the story, because I like listening to Grateful Dead music and the podcast focused on a crime committed in the mid 80's—around the time I was about Greg Kniffin's age, the same age of some interviewed for the podcast.  After I  finished listening to the ten episodes, I went to Reddit to see what others had thought about the podcast and to see if anyone else (e.g. amateur sleuths) had done work on the case.  I came across a thread with the heading, "Lies By Omission By The Duplicitous Payne Lindsey."  Here I found a link to People v. Thomas. I read it and used it to check Lindsey's reporting.  This document led me to look for other court documents that I also used to check Lindsey's reporting.  I also used them to evaluate the postings in the Reddit thread.  While I think some contributors were not fair to Lindsey, nor were they being accurate in their assessment of the reporting (e.g. the OP refers to Weston Sudduth as "Milton"), their contributions did wake me up to how gullible I'd been while listening to the podcast.  After doing my own research, I don't believe that Lindsey deserved to be called duplicitous**, but I do find a lack of candor in his reporting to be troubling.  I'll give an example of what I mean by Lindsey's lack of candor. 

After reading through the court documents I've posted and listening to the podcast more than a few times, I kept returning to one question:  

Prior to flying out to talk to him in person, did Payne Lindsey know that “Robert” had testified (or had his story entered into the record) during the evidentiary hearings conducted in 2002?  

For those who've not listened to the podcast, let me give a brief overview of how Lindsey's investigation seems to have developed.  Apparently he and his partner, Jake Brennan, decided to do a podcast looking into a number of deaths involving fans of the Grateful Dead.  They sent notifications to a number of media outlets regarding their plans, and word seems to have gotten around to a person only identified in the podcast as "Robert."***  Robert sends an email to Lindsey, telling him that he may have a story to tell about two murders that took place in Berkeley back in 1985.  Lindsey seems to have considered this email to be an opportunity to begin crowd-sourcing the Dead community, and, after Lindsey does a little preliminary research, he exchanges emails with Robert.  Robert agrees to tell Lindsey his story on the condition that Lindsey meet with him in person.  Lindsey flies to Oregon to meet with Robert.  What the listener's not told is that Robert and/or a person by the name of Toma Cauffield had already told their story (or their story was entered into the record) during an evidentiary hearing held as part of the appeals process in 2002.  Here is how two of the court documents report this testimony:

"Robert Herbert and Toma Cauffield: Herbert and Cauffield came to California from New Jersey in 1985, attending a few Grateful Dead concerts along the way, and moved into an apartment in Chico. They were roommates of James Bowen for a month or so in September 1985. They witnessed a discussion at their apartment between Bo and another Deadhead, Weston Sudduth, who said words to the effect, ‘How could you do it? How can you sleep with yourself at night?’  They did not know to what this referred.

Herbert and Cauffield were never in Rainbow Village. As with Kohn, Thomas's assertion that they could have been located depends on trial counsel's making the Bo-Bowen connection. Moreover, unless counsel made that connection during the brief period immediately after the murders when Bowen was living with Herbert and Cauffield, Herbert and Cauffield could not have been located without an investigator's working backward to identify and visit every place competent investigation would have revealed Herbert's and Cauffield's identities.' (In Re Ralph International Thomas on Habeas Corpus, p. 13)

(Just a note here.  The "Kohn" referred to in the second paragraph is David Kohn ("aka Alabama Dave"), another person Lindsey interviewed for the podcast.  His story also appears in these court documents.  But I don't think that Lindsey ever lets his listeners know this.)

"Robert Herbert and Toma Cauffield: Toma Cauffield and her boyfriend, Robert Herbert, moved to California in the summer of 1985 and settled in the Deadhead community living in Chico. Rec. 11(l) at 732, Rec. 11(o) at 960. In August 1985, they rented an apartment there with several friends. Rec. 11(o) at 960-61. In late August or early September 1985, they took in as a roommate a thin, strawberry-blond man they knew as "Bo." From mail that came to the house, Herbert learned that Bo's real name was ‘James Bowen’Rec. 11(l) at 736-39. Bo drove a silver or yellow Volkswagen Scirocco or Dasher. Id. at 740. 

Several weeks after Bo moved in, Herbert and Cauffield witnessed a confrontation in their living room between Bo and Weston Sudduth. Id. at 743. Herbert testified that Sudduth angrily demanded: ‘How can you sleep at night? How can you live with yourself? Why were you washing your hands in the early morning in the bathroom? Id. at 745. In response, Bo was passive and sheepish. Id. at 746.

The incident made a strong impression on Herbert and Cauffield. Herbert found it disturbing and unsettling. Id. at 747. At the time, neither Herbert nor Cauffield knew about the RainbowVillage murders, but Cauffield immediately inferred that Bo had ‘done something extremely wrong, extremely bad, and that it was...big time. Whatever he did was a big deal, and it had to have been incredibly awful.’ Rec. 11(o) at 985.  After that incident, Bo's behavior became increasingly strange and reclusive, until he finally disappeared one night, leaving no note or explanation. Rec. 11(l) at 751, Rec. 11(o) at 972-73.  Although Bo had been a regular at Grateful Dead concerts, Rec. 11(o) at 963-64, he virtually stopped attending them thereafter. Rec. 11(l) at 751-52." (Thomas v. Wong, p. 19)

*****

Lindsey could have read all of this in the court documents before flying to Fennario.  And he may have.  In fact he may have read about the testimonies of Randy Turley, David Kohn, Megan Barry, and Claus Von Wendel before he made that flight.  The thing is we don't know whether he did or not.  If he did, then why wasn't he straight up with this listeners?  The way he tells the story of his investigation suggests that he'd not read the court documents before meeting with Robert.  And this might have given listeners an impression similar to the one that u/Habanero_Grande had while listening to the podcast.  Posting to r/TrueCrimePodcasts on Reddit,  this person wrote: "...my biggest gripe with the podcast is that it felt very staged. Not saying the situations were fake, but it felt like Payne found way too many 'needles in a haystack' for me to find it believable."  It may have felt staged because Lindsey was interviewing people whose stories had already been told during an evidentiary hearing back in 2002.  It may have felt this way because Lindsey's investigation seems to have followed the investigatory path that James Barnes (another person he interviewed) had followed back in the mid 90's.  Knowing a little bit about Deadheads, as I listened to the podcast I wasn't surprised by the leads he was getting.  But after reading the court documents, I began to suspect that Lindsey hadn't been up front with his audience, and there were very good reasons to be skeptical about his reporting.  This brings me back to Robert says in an early episode.

In the third episode of Dead and Gone, Robert expresses his hope that, "anybody who hears this, that beyond it being some kind of form of entertainment or intrigue, maybe somebody has the nuggets of information out there, missing pieces of a puzzle, some information that might reveal, you know, what really happened."  He seems to be suggesting that a commitment to finding the truth should be put ahead of entertainment.  I agree.  To get justice you first have to get the truth.  Payne Lindsey seems to have agreed too.  In the very first episode, he states that he thinks it's human nature to want the truth.  

The thing is, if one wants to get those missing pieces of the puzzle to reveal more of the truth, one should be straight up with people, you know?  Candor matters.

*Weston Sudduth speaking about Payne Lindsey in Episode 7 - "Bad Actors"

**Over the last few months my mind has changed. Lindsey's podcast sets up a straw-man for the sake of creating an entertaining podcast. (03.04.22)

**Why is it that Lindsey gives Bo's full name (James Bowen) and Weston's full name (Weston Hugh Sudduth) but he doesn't give the full names of those he interviewed and who suggest that Bowen and Weston might have murdered Mary and Greg? (03.11.22)