So let's rock and roll.

Yeah, for sure.

So this gentleman actually just joined the Activation Method.

Oh, congratulations to him.

Yep, absolutely.

And yeah, he was in, I wouldn't say a unique situation, but in a bit of a desperate one.

When I got on and I started talking to him, it was evident that he was exhausted, for one.

I mean, especially if you're a scaredy cat, like me, like a guy like me, it's like, I don't want to be up there.

Yeah.

That was our generation's Pearl Harbor, and whether you were a journalist or whether you were a finance guy or an entertainer, it, everybody pulled together in a way I've never seen in the time I've been alive on this planet.

And I remember it being so quiet in New York, you know? And it was that way on the 11th, on, on, uh, Friday, walking out of Cantor Fitzgerald and, you know, going to...

I walked by, uh, St. Patrick's Cathedral and, you know, took in some of that and, and, uh, you know, went on about my day afterwards, but it was quiet.

... with a limited amount of time on the planet

... we're, we're bombarded by information at, at all levels now.

And, and so everybody gets to have an opinion.

You know, I had this conversation with my wife who, who sometimes reads the comments.

What's going through your mind?

mind?A whole lot at the same time.

I, I mean, I'm watching initially the moment, you know, listening intently to the conversation between the predator and the onsite decoy.

Um, trying to gauge the moment when I interrupt, when I go in.

Um, sometimes it's a law enforcement issue.

They think it's no longer safe.

They go in and settle it, and I get out of the way because ultimately we need to keep it safe.

Mm-hmm.

They

revealed for the first time all kinds of different things about this case and how he tried to commit suicide so he could go to heaven and be with Kaylee, his granddaughter, and find out what really happened and how the mother regrets not taking a phone call from...

Yeah.

Casey, the day of the disappearance because she was busy at work.

And, you know, we have the time to dig into these things and to get a better understanding of how these these crimes happen.

And we don't glorify it.

But we get into it.

Tell us a little bit about that.

They

revealed for the first time all kinds of different things about this case and how he tried to commit suicide so he could go to heaven and be with Kaylee, his granddaughter, and find out what really happened and how the mother regrets not taking a phone call from...

Yeah.

Casey, the day of the disappearance because she was busy at work.

And, you know, we have the time to dig into these things and to get a better understanding of how these these crimes happen.

And we don't glorify it.

But we get into it.

Tell us a little bit about that.

What were your favorite stories you worked on before you became Chris Hansen to catch a predator?

You know, there's so many.

And back in those days, we were allowed to travel internationally and do things, but probably...

The most impactful story, I think, was when we teamed with an NGO and went to Cambodia with the International Justice Mission, IJM.

And they were investigating Americans going over to Cambodia and other places to commit sex tourism with underage kids.

And we infiltrated a brothel in Svaypak, about 11 kilometers outside of Phnom Penh.

And our producer and our hidden camera guys posed as sex tourists.

But you were here in New York.

Because if it said Kevin Frazier on there,

I would be hopping mad.

I would want every penny.

You know, it's obviously something that lawyers are looking at, right? If you were to file a lawsuit, would you ask for a piece of the profits? I don't know.

I can't even comment on that.

I don't know what's going to happen.

And my mind isn't even there right now.

comment from the studio,

But is there one that stands out that was just shocking? Something that when I use the word shocking, you go, yeah, Mark, let me let me share this with you.

Mark, I think it's a 100-way tie for first, and we continue to see shocking things in the current investigations today.

Now, yes, I can tell you about the rabbi who walked in during our second investigation who lunged at me to try to get the pictures back that he had sent to someone he thought was a 13-year-old boy, the guy in the same investigation who walked in.

Yeah, exactly.

The guy in that same investigation walked in naked, John Kennelly, who then turned up the next day trying to meet a child, another one of our decoys at a McDonald's.

I mean, it's been a series of things, not only what these men want to do to children, but the fact that it's continued for so many years.

Recently in San Francisco, we did a sting with the San Francisco County Sheriff's Office, and we had seven guys show up in three days, one of whom was an Ivy League-educated lawyer who ran a multimillion-dollar investment fund, had a child of his own, and was married.

He's the guy that can do this.

Can you explain a little bit to the listeners what Roblox is?

Roblox is a multi-level gaming platform upon which anybody from the age of five to 105 can play games and also create games and communities in which you can have these interactions, gaming.

Many times healthy.

And Roblox's stated goal is to create this community where people can engage, creators can engage, and people can learn and have fun and grow.

And Roblox has, in response to some of these criticisms, created age verification systems and facial recognition systems, and it does, uh, take part in mandatory reporting of inappropriate activity to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC, as it's supposed to.

But too often, I think these companies, and Roblox is right at the top of the list, don't wanna take those extra steps.

Mm-hmm.

And texting, and, "Oh, let's meet up." And let's do this, and let's do that.

What's the time period of how long they get to suffer for, for their actions?

I mean, I don't know if there's a linear time period for it.

I would say... um, their relationship to their own punishment is going to be the thing that eventually gets them to a place where they're, they're no longer going to have that experience.

So it's, if somebody feels like they deserve to be punished, punishment will show up for them, right? So to me, it would be this client's own relationship to their actions.

Is he truly one with himself? Let's take his wife out of the equation.

Has he truly acknowledged exactly what happened with himself? Has he been completely honest with himself about this situation? Why it happened? What happened? All of that, right? So we know at that point that he is clear with the actions that were taken.

Felt all of the feelings around that, right? Shame.

So in the listener's mind, they know that they have a second chance to get that grievance off their chest.

Yes.

Right? So I am very aware of, hey, all right, this is gonna happen.

What are the skills that are required to come back together? Um, and then how quickly can I execute them? And so many times I have done that exact same thing of just, like, I go down the path, one, of writing stories of, you know, hey, uh, do I actually want to bring this back together? Do I actually want to be in this relationship? Like, I can go down this whole long path, um, and get lost in that, like, very quickly.

Yeah

... honestly.

If I, if I'm coming in the house and I've got, you know, uh, if I'm not grounded, I'm not settled into the space, like, she's gonna point it out.

So it's been really easy for me to, like, when I walk through that door, like, I know that I'm a different person.

I'm coming in as a CFO, and, like, we're just gonna go have fun as a family and as a husband and all of that.

Mm-hmm

... about this or nervous.

Uh, it's obvious that he cared about Nolan, but the reality is, Megyn, somebody had to be the last one to see Nolan alive, right? So the question now is, who was that, and what did they see? It's frustrating to a lot of people and, and if it was my child, I'd be frustrated too.

And I understand the concern about the phone and no videos, but there's no evidence that the phone was scrubbed.

And having been a lifelong boater on and off from the time I was Nolan Wells' age, I understand why they would put the phone in the center console or in the front console of the boat, because you're up to your waist in water.

So while Nolan was a prolific Snapchatter and liked to videotape and post all day long, I can understand why he didn't in this particular case.

But again, why does a young man stay behind? Right? At that age, it's typically because of a young woman.

What's that?

What does that mean to you?

Roommate with a ring.

Yeah.

So when I think of roommate with a ring, I think a lack of intimacy, a lack of connection, going through the day-to-day routines of life without a level of intimacy.

polarity in a relationship, lacking excitement.

I think of roommate with a ring as I get up, I go to work, I come home, I eat dinner, I sit down on the couch, I watch Netflix with my wife, she falls asleep, I go to bed, and then I do the same thing again over and over and over.

And I take the kids to soccer practice and I do all of the things that are required of me, but I don't have any real... passion or fire or intimacy in the home and it feels like i might as well be living with a guy really that's just we're just kind of functional in this relationship and not really like in this relationship and there's lacking that spark that fire

One piece of advice, because I know you've been in the situation as I have, What's one piece of advice or hope that you would give a guy who's like, crap, when I reach for that doorknob, I don't want to turn it and walk in.

And what's the chance of connection or intimacy that evening? Very low.

Yeah, and then you've gotta, you've gotta rebuild that, that trust until the, the next moment where you have the opportunity to actually exercise it, right? Um, one of the tricks that I like to use in my relationship, there are certain, certain things my wife may say that, like, that, that trigger point feels sharp, right?

Yeah.

Right? She's talking about somebody else.

And I f- I find that if you're not familiar with staying in that engaged and different spot, that can be a really good way to, like, get to that place of just, like, "I'm not taking this personally.

Right? This isn't about me, even though she's saying it is.

Not about me," and just kind of remove yourself from that piece of it.

Yeah.

Well, and I think as men, there's some validity to the idea of that internal feeling.

Yeah.

Because as men, our wives are – our biggest supporter.

They're the thing that like men are pretty fragile at the end of the day, right? We're big, strong, we protect, but you hit us sideways, especially our wives.

It's like we can shatter really quickly.

So we want that support, right? We want that.

And the shame guilt loop starts.

And not quantity,

quality.

I'll tell you a story.

My 14th wedding anniversary was Monday.

And we've just had a lot going on in life.

Just, you know, kind of from every angle, just stuff happening.

Um, and Sunday rolled around, I'm like, shit, man, it's anniversary is tomorrow.

Well,

And I think you would as

well.

I agree.

We're going to go into territories later this summer that we haven't been in in 20 years.

And people ask, is it worse now than it was when you started? Well, when we started, Sean, we merely had decoys in chat rooms on AOL and Yahoo, that antiquated platform called MySpace.

Today, there has been an explosion of platforms upon which adults can approach children.

We did a documentary at True Blue, it's on the platform.

I

So I'm going to let you have the floor and kind of have at it.

Okay, sounds good.

Yeah, so I have a really interesting life.

right from the get go.

Um, in fact, I'm, uh, finishing up, it'll be finished this year, a memoir, um, just because of, uh, some of the things I cover in the film, um, but really dig into that.

I just kind of touch on them a little, uh, but most, mostly what people ask about and, um, how I got into fly fishing is, uh, um, uh, Something that happened that, you know, really is is started my fly fishing journey.

I was on vacation with my wife and we're done.

What was it about the sport?

Is it different trailers or different boxes?

There, there has been different trailers as we've continued to grow.

The core design is always the same, but we've ...

I think we've kinda settled into what we like and what we see.

And so, I, in the last four years now, I built two new trailers.

And so I've gone off that original design and I'm like, "Okay, here's features I liked, here's features I didn't like, here's features that worked, and here's ones that didn't really provide any benefit." So like this year we were...

I bought a new, new to me trailer last year, and I think I built the trailer in a month, you know, for half the price of my old house, but it, it's kinda crazy how much money you can bury into a trailer.

... of that store right now? [laughs] Based on the social media I've seen.

A similar question when I asked you about child predators earlier, like what bears someone to put that in their soul and become that thing?

You know, Silence of the Lambs.

I mean, how do you start in this? John Wayne Gacy, you know, the notorious smiley face killer, you know, in Oregon.

I interviewed him face to face.

This is a big dude, too.

We did a piece for Dateline years ago.

And, you know, you're sitting as close as you and I are sitting with this guy with leg irons and handcuffs on.

Just for, and you know, I'm not saying like going to graphic details and stuff like that, but when you say someone like Schlepp got abused on Roblox, what are you referring

is it that they will come forward with names that maybe can't be corroborated by what's in the files or what's been released? Or do you think they're going to say who's involved?

I know, because I've talked to all three of these survivors.

They're a part of survivorsinc.org. And these survivors, these three women, are ground zero.

They were among the very first women recruited into this evil scheme run by Jeffrey Epstein.

And so it starts here.

And because they know the very roots of this horrible human trafficking, they have a great insight into what has happened since then and what needs to happen to give them and the other survivors peace and to let everybody else who has questions, who thinks about conspiracies here, some closure, hopefully at some point with what they have to say.

But they might be asked

We spent

How will this work practically speaking?

Well, I think practically speaking, people will have a place to go to get help.

You know, we see this all the time, Nancy.

There are not resources easily accessible for people whose children have been victimized by predators online, how to teach your children how to be safe online.

I'm on a sting right now for my streaming crime network, TrueBlue, the Take Down Predator series.

And, and it's just not about catching people, it's how to make people safer.

And by going out and catching these guys, as you so appropriately mentioned, we prevent others from taking place.

We'll do it.

[laughs]

And then COVID hit, and, uh, my mom was working at a quilting, uh, studio, Sew Yeah Brothers, down there.

And, uh, they had this destash, uh, video that they do, uh, every week.

I think they still do it every week.

Um, but they knew that I had, uh, cobbled together some basic tools 'cause I just wanted to make toys with my son, uh, in the garage, just like I used to do with my grandpa back in the day.And, uh, so they asked me if I could make some just simple point turners because my mom showed her the one-- uh, showed them the one that I made for her out of, uh, some spalted koa and quilted maple, and they're like, "You gotta do that for our D stash." So, um, we ended up...

I ended up making, like, I don't know, fifteen, twenty, somewhere around there, and they sold, like, really, really fast.

So I was like, "I'm just gonna see what, what we can do with this." Um, but then COVID hit, and I was furloughed from my job for a couple months, and then that's when a lot of people started, you know, digging into the quilting, um, uh, the quilting craft, and, and I just kinda rose along the ranks with a whole bunch of people, and it just snowballed since then [chuckles].

[laughs]

Right.

But 17 guys showed up in two and a half days, and it's not stopped.

We were in Louisiana last week.

We uncovered a human trafficking plot by two illegal immigrants from Honduras, and guys who were in the military, their colleagues are fighting, you know, for freedom in Iran, and this guy is trying to hook up with a 15-year-old girl.

Mechanic at the Air Force base in New Orleans.

I mean, it's shocking.

Guy walked in, stripped down to his underwear.

Yeah