Examined: The Backfire Effect | New Podcast
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Who was Scott Macklem and what happened to him on November 5 1986?
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In a sunny Californian suburb, one family's home is unusually quiet.
When detectives walked into that house, they said that it was like time just stood still.
It's 2010 and the Mixday family is nowhere to be found. Inside the home, no clear answer where the family could have gone.
Husband, wife, and two children, all gone, like poof, disappeared.
The search for the mixtays quickly captures the nation, but for years the search for answers only brings more questions.
Who's ever heard of an entire family going missing? A family of four doesn't just drop off the face of the earth.
Is this a family on the run? Or is the truth far more sinister? From ABC Audio in 2020, this is What Happened to the Mixed Days. Follow What Happened to the Mixed Days for weekly episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Or if you can't wait, the entire series is streaming now, ad-free, for subscribers to 2020 True Crime Plus. Find 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts to start your free trial today.
Pushkin.
Hey listeners, Josie Duffy Rice here. I'm dropping into your feed today to bring you a preview of my new podcast, Examined the Backfire Effect. Nearly forty years ago in the parking lot of a community college in Port Huron, Michigan, a student named Scott McLam was shot dead in broad daylight. The police quickly found their suspect. And that guy has now been in prison for forty years. A guy who says he's innocent. And who has eleven alibi witnesses that put him across the state at the time of the murder? This is a story of police corruption. Prosecutorial misconduct and a very, very complicated man. I promise you'll find this story as gripping as I did. Find examined the backfire effect wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Pushkin Plus subscribers can hear each episode ad-free. Sign up on the Examine show page on Apple or at pushkin.fm slash plus. Depending on how old you are, maybe you've never heard the sound of a car backfiring. That's what happens when a little bit of gasoline reaches the exhaust system and then suddenly ignites. These days cars don't backfire that much. But that used to happen all the time. You'd be in a parking lot somewhere, and the loud bang would startle you. That's why On the morning of November fifth, nineteen eighty six, when a loud crack whipped through the cold air. People nearby didn't think much of it.
You know, we didn't even discuss it. Oh, a car backfired. There was no discussion.
I I I could have sworn that I heard a back like it sounded like a car backfiring. as I pulled into the parking lot.
You know, I remember the the noise.
Which by the way wasn't unusual.
Those voices are some of the people who were in the area that day. Max, Kathy, and Sherry. They and a few others were in the parking lot of the St. Clair County Community College in Port Huron, Michigan. Some were students, some were employees. All were unaware that they were about to take on a new identity. Witness. This is where our story starts, in the easternmost city in Michigan, spitting distance from Ontario, Canada. Port Huron lives near the intersection of Lake Huron in the St. Clair River. And a few blocks from the waterfront sits St. Clair County Community College, or SC4, as the locals call it.
The St. Clair County Community College is spread over an attractive twenty-six acre campus in central Port Huron.
That was a clip from a very nineteen eighties promotional video. Downtown Port Huron is pretty. with the low slung brick buildings and the Christmas lights at night. But on the morning of November fifth, nineteen eighty-six, it was gray and chilly and dreary, a layer of clouds coating the sky. The parking lot of SC4 was full. Most students were already in class, but there were a handful of straggling kids. They were adults technically, sure, but really just kids, falling in lockstep with their friends, a bunch of eighteen, nineteen, twenty-year-olds, who heard not a car. But a gunshot.
You don't expect to hear a a s a shotgun blast in downtown Port Huron when you're walking through the college parking lot.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Who was Scott Macklem and what happened to him on November 5 1986?
0:00–4:56
2
What did the first eyewitnesses see and hear in the SC‑4 parking lot?
4:56–10:05
3
How did the alleged suspect explain his alibi and why did investigators doubt it?
10:05–15:57
4
What role did the police chief Herb Welzer play in the original homicide investigation?
15:57–22:13
5
Why does the case illustrate the psychological “backfire effect” and belief perseverance?
22:13–28:38
6
How did retired detective Herb Welzer’s private investigation uncover new evidence?
28:38–34:32
7
What does the backfire effect reveal about the criminal‑legal system’s handling of wrongful convictions?
34:32–37:19
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