0:01

Who is the dad? For years,

0:03

a Canadian lab promised people the

0:05

answer. It's obviously legit. It's a

0:07

DNA company. But one by

0:09

one, its prenatal paternity tests gave people

0:12

the wrong answer. You're the

0:14

company that's supposed to provide me with results.

0:16

I was pissed. This is the story

0:19

of our investigation into how it all

0:21

happened. And a company that continues

0:23

to stand by its testing. Listen

0:26

to uncover bad results everywhere you

0:28

get your podcasts. You

0:56

can listen to episode one and to my

0:58

interview with Crime Story host Kathleen Goldhar over

1:00

on the Crime Story feed. We've

1:03

got a link for you in the show notes. Here's

1:05

an excerpt from our chat. You've

1:11

had to deal with that a lot. Do

1:13

you see a process parents go through or

1:15

family members go through? Because so much of

1:17

your stuff is unresolved. Even sometimes

1:19

there's not a body. So just like how

1:22

do you see families and stuff reacting to

1:24

that? Well, there's incredible guilt. So

1:26

when someone disappears, there's incredible guilt in family

1:28

members. Why wasn't I

1:30

there? I could have helped her. I could

1:32

have protected her. Why

1:34

didn't I drive her? Why

1:37

did I argue with her?

1:39

You know, in Mary Ann's case, there's

1:41

incredible guilt about this argument she had

1:43

with Chrissy that day when she disappeared.

1:45

So that it's often about over trying

1:47

to overcome that and allow themselves to

1:49

live again because a lot of the

1:51

family members I've worked with will not

1:54

allow themselves to enjoy themselves because it's

1:56

because it's not something that they

1:58

don't deserve it. So when I

2:00

first start working with people, they don't

2:02

trust me, they don't trust themselves, they

2:05

don't want to enjoy themselves. But

2:07

by the end of it, and it sounds very protracted

2:09

here, but by the end of it, it's perfect. And

2:12

everything's amazing. No, but by the end of it,

2:14

I notice a change and they often tell me

2:16

about the change. And they'll come back

2:18

to me a few years later and tell me about the changes

2:21

sometimes and say thank you or whatever. So

2:23

it's a process that works. It's like confronting

2:26

the thing that's bothering you the most. I mean, it's

2:28

like throwing the guy in the elevator that's afraid of

2:30

elevators. So the process is, it's

2:32

really SKS is about that process. Yeah.

2:35

So is there almost like you always involve

2:37

the family or often in your podcast? Always.

2:39

So is that... With one exception,

2:41

but always, yeah. So that process is

2:43

important to you beyond being the good

2:45

journalist. Like there's something else going on

2:47

in your process about why you're engaging

2:50

them. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I

2:52

believe that when you engage these cases, you have to

2:54

work with the family members, because

2:56

it's sort of proof against exploitation, first of

2:58

all. But also I just

3:00

think that that's where the benefit is,

3:02

to have the family doing it, doing

3:04

the work with you. It

3:07

is true that I don't share everything with family members

3:09

though. Like I don't seed the case

3:11

with information. I don't tell them everything people

3:13

are telling me because that's wrong. That's just

3:15

journalistically wrong, but it's also just wrong investigatively.

3:17

You don't want to tell people what you're

3:20

learning or else you'll start learning

3:22

it from other people in town because it's

3:24

been getting around through the people you're telling.

3:26

So you're getting confirmation bias from the people

3:28

who are getting your shit, right? So I

3:31

don't tell people the most important stuff usually, including family

3:33

members. And they know that. Going in, I tell them

3:35

that. And they know that I'm going to keep stuff

3:37

from them, which I

3:39

haven't actually ever spoken about that before in

3:41

an interview, but it's important to

3:44

know that. Like I'm not... We

3:46

don't sit there and look at all the transcripts together

3:48

and decide what the edits are, you know? Of

3:51

course. And then confronting the information, what do you

3:53

think I should do? Where do you think we

3:55

should go? And then sometimes I

3:57

work on my own and sometimes I work with family. Depending

3:59

on... on what they decide. You

4:06

can hear the rest of our conversation

4:08

and get early access to episode one

4:11

in the new SKS case by subscribing

4:13

to CBC True Crime Premium on Apple

4:15

Podcasts and visiting the Crime Story feed.

4:17

Just click the link in the show

4:20

notes. Subscribers will also get

4:22

binge access to the entire new season

4:24

on November 6th. For

4:31

more CBC podcasts,

4:33

go to cbc.ca/podcasts.