Behind the Files & Q&A June 2026

I also was ashamed of our country during this time, and how this happened ›

It’s fascinating to me that Casey didn’t know anything about Waco. As an American it’s almost a part of our DNA. 😅

Swindled always has intros that effectively function as mini-episodes on their own while also segue-ing into the main case of the episode. The long Ruby Ridge intro slots right into that structure and worked beautifully. I think for a one-off, and for such huge topics, it was great. Thank you for answering my questions about the Folbigg case! I am also team "Craig get out of bed" 😅 I bring this up a lot when people talk about the double standards people have towards mother's and fathers: Shannan Watts was described by people as a bossy officious helicopter mom while their friends all thought Chris Watts was an amazing father. But that seems to be because he did the performative bare minimum as a father. In reality he was so checked out that he didn't even know when his wife's prenatal appointments were. And he could barely come up with positive things to say about his daughters in his I infamous "I miss them" interview. I feel like we see this all the time, with men being given the benefit of the doubt and mothers being scrutinized and criticized while they're doing the work of two parents.

My mom was a liberal arts student from Beverly Hills who was very into "supporting" (talking loudly about but not contributing to) causes that did not actually affect her; from a very young age she discussed all kinds of 90's era world events with her favorite kids as well as with me, and we also watched those sorts of things unfold on the news, so it occurs to me that I might have had a slightly more informed upbringing than other weirdos my age. I'm curious as to what news stories people here in the comment section were aware of when they were 8 and why.