Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
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What is 'The Haunted House Confession' episode about?
Hey everybody, I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and we're talking Dateline today with Blaine Alexander. Hi. Hello. Hello, hello. So Blaine is here to talk about her episode called The Haunted House Confession. Now, if you have not seen it, you, the listeners, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed. So go there, listen to it, or you can stream it on Peacock if you want to watch it, and then come back here. So to recap... This is about a young woman named Shantae Blankenship, and her remains were found in a deserted and very scary-looking farmhouse in Brownwood, Texas. And law enforcement worked for a long time to track down her killer because they were certain that somebody in that church-going community was behind the murder. And it would take a confession in church to crack that case. Now, for this Talking Dateline, we have some extra sound from a couple of churchgoers, Linda and Russell Lamond.
And they're going to talk about how their proximity to this awful crime gave them a new perspective. So let's talk Dateline. I am delighted to be here because this is your first two-hour episode as a Dateline correspondent.
How did Blayne Alexander experience her first Dateline episode?
Absolutely is. There is nobody I would rather do this Talking Dateline with than you, Josh. So thank you.
Now, you know, you are a veteran TV reporter, but I'm guessing that you were experiencing the same thing I did when I joined, which is, you know, you go from stories that are, you know, a really long story is two and a half minutes long. In your old life. And now you're doing two hours, which means a lot more can be included. You can tell a longer story. There's a there's a great deal more writing. But even so, there's stuff you have to leave out. You have to make some of the same choices that you do when you're doing a piece that lasts a minute and 10 seconds for the evening news.
Absolutely. There's so much to even undertake a story that's as long as the things that we do for Dateline. You have to gather so much information, right? Like by the time we finish these stories, you feel like you're an expert on these cases. And so there are all these different facts and different pieces of sound and information that you want to cram in. But even in two hours, somehow you run out of time. So that's why I'm grateful for talking Dateline, because we can talk about all of these other things that never made it into the actual show.
So let's talk about the episode. The locals referred to that farmhouse, which was off the map in a lot of ways. They call that the haunted house. What was that place like?
What is the significance of the haunted house in the investigation?
You know, I'd done a ton of research for this story, read about it, all of that good stuff, read previous, you know, news clips and everything. I hadn't actually seen the house for myself. And so I didn't see it until I was riding with the investigator, Investigator Bird. We had GoPros in the car and he was kind of driving me down the dirt roads. And then we get there. And immediately I said, oh, wow. You can immediately see why this place is called The Haunted House. I mean, it looks right out of central casting of what you would expect to see a haunted house look like. All broken down inside. It looks like a horror movie. It does. It does. It does. And then you kind of consider some of the other things. I mean, there is a fence around it, right?
That, you know, kind of tells people to keep out. If you go inside there, the floorboards aren't there. You can't really walk through. There are animals inside and creatures. And then there's this storm cellar, which... I wanted to when we were putting this together, we wanted to make sure that everyone understands what a storm cellar is. Right. I grew up in Oklahoma. Everybody has storm cellars for the most part. Lots of people have them. But this kind of underground place where you go for tornadoes and even tornadoes. And so that's where Shantae was ultimately found. And so the place itself almost becomes a character in the story just because of how how creepy it was, to be honest.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is 'The Haunted House Confession' episode about?
0:04–1:18
2
How did Blayne Alexander experience her first Dateline episode?
1:18–2:34
3
What is the significance of the haunted house in the investigation?
2:34–5:40
4
Why was Shantae's boyfriend initially suspected?
5:40–9:14
5
How did the church confession play a role in solving the case?
9:14–12:55
6
What role did DNA phenotyping play in the investigation?
12:55–17:39
7
What unique insights did police video provide in the case?
17:39–25:26
Speakers
6 identifiedMore from Dateline NBC
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