Dateline Missing in America - Ep. 26: The Day Zelig Vanished

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0:40Right. Okay, we can afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. New York City has always had a magnetic pull for young, bright-eyed performers looking for their big break. That part in a Broadway show that takes you from obscurity to stardom.

1:15Like the song says, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. The line missing from that anthem of hope is that most of those would-be stars do not make it there. Those are dreams that a lot of people have, but very few people achieve. You're right. You're definitely right. Zelig Williams was one of those rare success stories. I literally looked at him while he was dancing. I was like, you're going to be a star. I just knew it. Zelig was just 19 and attending college when he landed a role in the ensemble of a little musical you may have heard of. I am not throwing away my shot. I am not throwing away my shot.

2:02Hamilton. What was that like seeing him on stage? Amazing. A legit triple threat. He wanted to perfect his craft, whether it was dance, acting, singing. He truly studied it and wanted to just be the best version of himself. By the time he was 28, Zellig was a Broadway veteran and ready to share what he had learned with the next generation. What's up, y 'all? I've been planning on doing a two-day workshop slash boot camp for dancers on how to audition for a Broadway show. He would never get the chance to impart all that wisdom. That's because on October 3rd, 2024, Zellig Williams disappeared. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Missing in America, a podcast from Dateline.

3:02This episode is The Day Zellig Vanished. Please listen closely, because you or someone you know may have information that could help Zellig's family find the answers they're looking for.

3:25Zellig Williams was born in the Palmetto State, South Carolina. He had two older sisters and was raised by his mother, Kathy Williams. He was an awesome little boy. Zellig's aunt, Christine Barber, saw her nephew blossom. He was very energetic, loving, caring. He clung to his mom. He loved his family dearly, his cousins, his grandma. He just loved everybody. Family was an anchor in his life. So was the church. Here's his cousin, Mioka Corbett Jacobs. He was full of faith, and he was full of belief for his life. Zellig spoke about that nexus between faith and career on the podcast A Time to Live with Amanda Jane Cooper.

4:14I grew up in the church, and I grew up having a—I felt like I had a connection with God. My sister sang at church, and so I just followed their lead. Looking back, that was probably the start of something. I sort of get the feeling he was a performer from very young. Yes, probably at the age of two or three. My baby girl used to step, and she'd come home, and she'd step in front of him. He'd just sit and look, and he just picked up just like that. A born dancer. Yes. In 2004, the Williams family faced a brutal tragedy. Both of Zelig's sisters were killed in a car accident. Zelig was just seven years old.

5:02After my daughters had passed on, I had to find something to keep him focused. That's how Zellig met Caroline Lewis-Jones at a dance studio in Irmo, South Carolina. She would become his friend and mentor. I'll never forget the day he walked in a dance class. Some people are just naturally born with it, and some people have to work really hard to achieve what they want. He did both. Zelig graduated high school in 2014. He took a deep breath and made a big leap. He moved to New York City to attend Pace University, where he studied dance. In the battle between Broadway and going to school, sounds like maybe school lost.

5:50Did he finish, or how did he balance that? It got to him a little bit, and he set out for a little while. On Amanda Jane Cooper's podcast, he talked about the pressures he'd been facing. So there was a phase where I got to a breaking point of doing school and the show at the same time. I wasn't, like, failing or anything, but it wasn't my best because I was trying to do everything. I was stretching myself too clean. But he went back and got his degree. Which made you very happy. Yes, of course. Did you go see him? On Broadway? I did. I was there all the time. Zellig's big break did not end with Hamilton.

6:36After two years in that cast, he went on tour with Hugh Jackman in his 2019 global concert tour, The Man, The Music, The Show. Then in 2022 came a featured part in another Broadway hit, MJ, The Musical. Here's Zelig introducing himself on the show's TikTok feed. My name is Zelig Williams and I'm Ensemble slash Marlon Jackson and MJ the Musical. On Instagram, he posted a clip from a curtain call. And a moment of celebration after he took on an even bigger role, playing Michael Jackson. We did it! Come here. Wow, we did it! Zalig spent nearly a decade building his career in New York. By 2024, Zalig had left the cast of MJ the Musical and was looking for his next gig.

7:35Since he no longer had to be in New York to perform in eight shows a week, Zalig found himself visiting home more and more. He came back to visit me. Right. And he loved to come home and see my mom. He would go in the womb with her, sing to her, read the Bible to her, and stuff like that. Zelig's grandma passed away in April of that year. His cousin Mioka says after that loss, Zelig decided to come back to South Carolina for a longer stay. He definitely wanted to spend a little bit more time with his mother. He, of course, went back to New York initially, but then decided to come back just to spend some time.

8:18That did not mean he was giving up on returning to the stage. He kept his apartment in New York and continued to audition remotely. He had his family or friends help him with the scripts and the audition. So, I mean, this was going to be a temporary thing back home. Right. In between his auditions, Zellig wanted to share tips with other kids, also hoping to make it to Broadway one day. I've auditioned for a lot of other Broadway shows. So he came up with the idea for a workshop, posting about it on Instagram. So I wanted to give my knowledge back to the students out here in Columbia and nearby areas on how to audition for a Broadway show, because there is skills that you need to have before even getting into the room.

9:08This is somebody who, once they had achieved their dream, like still wanted to help other people achieve theirs. That kind of tells you a lot about who he was, doesn't it? Yes. Hello, everybody. Save the date, September 27th and September 28th. Those will be the days we will be doing this boot camp. Unfortunately, when late September 2024 arrived, Mother Nature had other plans in the form of Hurricane Helene. Hundreds of thousands of residents in South Carolina still without power after Hurricane Helene's devastating winds and heavy rain caused widespread damage throughout the state. The studio that he was having it at, they had to cancel it because all the electricity was out.

9:55Caroline says Zelig was working on rescheduling the workshop for October. Then came Thursday, October 3rd, 2024. Zelig's mom Kathy remembers that morning as routine at first. I went outside on the front porch, and you saw I was sitting out there. And then he came back in the house, and the next thing I knew, he came back with a pair of shorts on and his top and little flip-flops and a picture of him, headshot. Like a headshot. A headshot. And he said, Mama, how you slept last night? I said, I slept good last night. I said, how you slept? He said, I slept good last night, too. And then he walked down, got in the vehicle, and then he drove off.

10:44Did he say where he was going? No. Kathy says Zelig left their home around 9.50 a.m. She thought he was going to the local Staples to make copies of his headshot, because that was something Zelig would routinely do. After he left, she was getting ready for the day when her phone rang. It was one of Zelig's friends from New York. And she said, good morning, Ms. Kathy. I said, what's up? She said that SOS just came to my phone. And I said, what's going on? The friend received that alert from Zelig's phone at 10.08 a.m. An SOS alert can be set up on your phone. If your phone detects a severe car crash, it will notify your emergency contacts or contact emergency services.

11:40I said, Zelig just left home. How could he be in the accident that fast? I said, well, I'm going to go right out and see where the accident was. Zelig had only been gone around 20 minutes, so Kathy drove to that Staples. No sign of Zelig or any accident. Then the friend from New York told Kathy, where they saw the SOS alert was activated. It was near a place called Angel's Diner, in the opposite direction of the staples. I said, I never heard of that before. So they gave me the address. I know that this had to be terribly stressful for you. Yes, it was. Because you had already lost your daughters in a traffic accident.

12:32Yes. Kathy kept searching and drove to Angel's Diner herself. The GPS directed her to a strip of asphalt called Highway 378, known locally as Garner's Ferry Road. There was nothing in the street outside, nothing suggesting, no car parts, no broken glass, nothing. Nothing. Kathy is not the only one who went out to investigate. The Richland County Sheriff's Department got Zellig's SOS alert as well. When that came in, our deputies did respond to that area. That is investigator J.P. Smith. He has spent four decades working in law enforcement. On one side of the road, it's a diner. The other side of the road, it's a trailer business.

13:22That's a heavily traveled area. We would like to think that if an accident did occur, we would have gotten a call. But when the deputies arrived in that area, there was no sign of accident. Smith is familiar with the SOS alert, its advantages, and its flaws. For the years I've been in law enforcement, I have seen the SOS alert get activated both when somebody's in an accident and when they accidentally drop their phone. They could be driving a car, they slam on brakes, the phone slides forward, hits the floor. I have seen it where somebody is talking on the phone, and the phone drops out their hand, and it activates the SOS.

14:02The only thing that we can say, it's activated because the phone had an impact with something. Regardless, his department checked with the highway patrol. And they had no record of an accident taking place or anything like that. They also searched the area near that diner, hoping to find the phone that had initiated the alert. They did not find it or anything else. Unsure what else she could do, Kathy decided to head home and describes the waiting as agony. I just wait on him. I just wait on him. But he never came home. All of this felt downright weird to Kathy. I tried to call him. I couldn't get in contact with him.

14:50I keep calling his phone, keep calling his phone. He never answered the phone. Late that night, Kathy called 911. She says two young deputies from the Richland County Sheriff's Department responded to her home. I was telling him that my son is missing and I don't know where he's at. And they said, well, your son had a birthday. I said, yes, he did have a birthday in September. And they say, well, he's probably still out there partying and going places and doing some of that. I said, no, my son don't party like that. On October 4th, after 24 hours with no word from Zelick, Kathy called her sister Christine.

15:33I was at work, and she called me. She said, Chris, he didn't come home last night. I think he's missing. So I got off work, I left, and I came down here, like, right away. Christine believed something was wrong So she called 911 and told the operator about Zellig The Richland County Sheriff's Department came back later that day Investigators asked more questions this time And took an official missing persons report When investigator Smith was assigned Zellig's case He quickly agreed This was not someone just out partying He has not contacted family. His normal operations have not taken place. So we're looking at it as a missing person, and in any missing person case, it's serious.

16:27Smith's team of investigators began the search for Zelig Williams. We had numerous people a part of the search. Our air team, the drone operators, the canines. It was a large number of people involved in the search. They ruled out that theory about Zelig going to Staples. That was what she thought because of him having his photograph and a headshot with him. Investigators found no evidence he had been there that day. We have nothing to say that he went to Staples. And after a few days of searching, law enforcement received a mysterious eyewitness tip. They saw someone fitting Zealick's description down into the park.

17:15Could that point them in the right direction?

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18:49When someone goes missing, loved ones left behind often go back over every conversation, every interaction, every moment before that person disappeared. Kathy Williams has done all of that, trying to figure out what her son Zalig's thoughts were in the days before he vanished. You have to have looked back over your conversations with him, Kathy, that day and the day before. Mm-hmm. Anything unusual? He sound different? You get any hint that he was planning something? Oh, no, no, no, sir. None of that. And he didn't seem unhappy or distressed or worried or angry or anything? No, none like that.

19:36Kathy says she did not notice anything unusual. But there is no question Zelig had been struggling. The family says while Zelig was living in New York, he'd been facing some mental health issues. Doctors had prescribed him medication. He even spoke about that in a podcast he created. called Human in the Mirror. I'm glad to be where I'm at with everything that I've been through and where I'm at with my health journey, my mental health journey, my self-love journey. That was eight months before he went missing. He was taking his medication for his mental health. He was working so hard. Kathy shared that information and everything else she could about Zalig with the Richland County Sheriff's Department.

20:29By the end of the night on October 4, 2024, investigators located the red Ford Escape Zalig was driving. The SUV was left in a parking lot at the intersection of McCords Ferry Road and Bluff Road near watery South Carolina. That is about half an hour's drive from the Williams home and about 20 minutes from Angel's Diner, where the SOS alert went off. Friend Caroline says it was unfamiliar to Zellig's loved ones. When I first went out, I got lost 10 times. Like, it's in the middle of nowhere. Investigator J.P. Smith says his team went over the SUV. There was no obvious damages or anything to the car.

21:14There was nothing outstanding about it that we saw, but we did look into the car. Smith confirmed they found some of Zelig's belongings inside. I can't comment on what was located in the car as part of the investigation. The family says everything Zelig had with him when he left that morning, except his phone, was found in the car. They found the car with his clothes fold up in it, his shoes, his wallet. That's Kathy's, because the clothes were folded. In her mind, Zelig would not have folded his clothes neatly like that. He wouldn't have. No. Investigators also processed the car's data. They would not comment on the information that revealed.

22:01However, the family learned that was not Zellig's first trip to the area near the parking lot. We know the day before, on Wednesday, October 2nd, that Zellig had been driving in that area. Anything about that area familiar to him or to any of you? No. It's like, it's major farmland. The parking lot where Zellig's car was found is located at the Palmetto Trailhead. It's an entrance to a hiking trail, which stretches nearly 500 miles across South Carolina from the mountains to the coast. The trail off that parking lot is wooded and crosses miles of wetlands and river swamp with multiple bridges and places where people can fish, canoe, and kayak.

22:51The trailhead is a very popular trail. People come in from out of town just to walk that trail. It's huge. It's just huge. The Richland County Sheriff's Department walked that trail and found no sign of Zellig. So they turned to local news media for help. On October 5th, they put out a press release about Zellig. Deputies with the Richland County Sheriff's Department are asking for your help in locating a missing 28-year-old man. Just like in any other missing person case, we push all the information we can out to the public because if someone sees something, we want them to say something. And someone did.

23:33A volunteer doing maintenance on the Palmetto Trail reached out and said he was approached by someone who said they'd seen a man on the trail who was in some type of distress. The description the eyewitness gave matched that of Zellig Williams. The volunteer told investigators he went down the trail to see if he could find that person, but was unable to do so. That tip came complete with a problem. That volunteer did not get contact information for the eyewitness. And Investigator Smith says they have not been able to identify that person. We haven't talked to that person. We don't know who that is.

24:16Still, that tip, vague as it was, did give investigators an area to focus their search. We used boats, ATVs, airplanes, drones, you name it, we used it. Local NBC affiliate WIS documented the efforts and kept Zelig's name in the news cycle. A very active search is underway right now. Right now, family members are continuing on with their own search. Given Zelig's Broadway profile, it did not take long for his disappearance to hit social media, too. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, I desperately need your help in finding this man. If you know anything or think you have seen him, please contact the police or their tip line.

25:03Even Hugh Jackman, who worked with Zelig on his touring show, posted on Instagram saying, quote, Zellig, we love you and are praying for your safe return. National news stories followed. We are now hearing from the family of a missing Broadway dancer who vanished in South Carolina. With all that attention, Kathy and her family knew they needed someone to take charge. Cousin Mioka took on that role. She began fielding interview requests, talking with investigators, and coordinating search efforts. She quickly found out she had a lot more questions than answers. There's limited resources about how do I support my cousin?

25:48How do I help organize the search? What do we do? How do we get missing flyers? How do we get those out? Early on, the Black and Missing Foundation helped create and distribute flyers. Other organizations, such as We Are the Essentials and Missing Link, whose mission is to support families of the missing and guide them through crisis. Also stepped up. There's not much of a playbook on this, I know. Well, I'm working with Missing Link now to write it because I come from a very corporate infrastructure with Verizon. I'm retired as a chief of staff for the senior vice president of customer care. So I'm just used to playbooks and there is no playbook that exists.

26:28And I can't imagine another family going through that. on october 16th 2024 13 days after zellig disappeared richland county sheriff leon lott held a press conference i want to thank all the media for being here today because you play a very important part in bringing closure to this family and helping us to find mr williams we need help of the community we need help from everybody to be involved in this search Mioka also spoke at the press conference. She shared those details about Zelig's mental health and said that when he vanished, Zelig did not have his medication with him. Right before Zelig went missing, he stopped taking his medicine is the belief, okay?

27:17And that would put him in a situation that he would be very, very vulnerable, all right? Mom Kathy also stepped up to the mic with a raw and emotional plea. I just want to come home.

27:37It was a difficult time in Richland County, still reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which had hit nearly three weeks earlier. South Carolina is recovering from Hurricane Helene. We have seen so much damage in the area from downed trees to downed power lines. Undeterred, a group of volunteers from the community came to assist in the search. I just was so appreciative of how many people came to support. It won't be an easy search, but they're going to continue to look for as much as they can. Investigator Smith says damage from the hurricane made their search efforts along the Palmetto Trail much more challenging.

28:23The landscape had totally changed. The water from the storm had pushed things up probably in a safe estimate, three to four feet higher. So there were a lot of safety concerns. Numerous searches were done pertaining to that area. Zellig's friend Caroline says she and her husband even took boats out of the river to look for him. It's like a very snaky river. the water was extremely high that day. So you're dealing with a lot of variables in terms of the environment and how the landscape changed. So if he did somehow end up in the water, you know, that would be very tricky. Days became weeks with no sign of Zelig and no news.

29:14His family was growing more and more anxious and their thoughts were about to lead them to even darker places. Anything come of any of those searches that point you in any particular direction? No, the only direction those searches point us into is Fowler.

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31:02Many 20-somethings are more than willing to share every detail of their lives, the good, the bad, and the ugly, on social media. Zelik Williams, ever the performer, took it all a step further. Hello, hello. Welcome to Human in the Mirror with Zelik Will. That's Zelik. In that podcast, he released eight months before he disappeared. He shared updates there about his professional life. This is my first time as a professional performer not having a job, and I'm in a new season of transition. He shared even more on Instagram, like dancing videos, excerpts of his singing,

31:55as well as those personal details about his mental health. I'm sharing because I know there might be some other brother out there that might be struggling. He also spoke about a different struggle he was facing. hello everyone this is zeleg um i wanted to hop on here and just let you guys know a testimony on my side i i've been delivered from homosexuality i'm thankful to be where i'm at right now i've struggled with this for so long and i feel free i feel like i can be myself again that video begins with him saying i've been delivered from homosexuality right which which feels like some admission of shame from him, which I heard that I felt so bad for him.

32:46Yes. So just think about what we have to think about even as a family is Zelig is a free spirit. He's a beautiful soul, right? And at the age of 18 or 19, he's in New York, and he is involved in Broadway and meeting a lot of people, having a lot of experiences, with his traveling. He's had a lot of experiences. And he was impressionable and young. And now he's older and he's trying to figure it out. Cousin Mioka says that as much as Zelig shared online, he didn't talk much with his family about his sexuality. It feels like he was wrestling with his sexuality. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yes. Absolutely.

33:34He was figuring it out. And it wasn't like anybody was cutting him off because of his sexuality or because of any of those issues. Nobody was threatening to, you know, sort of throw him out of the family or stop talking to him. Right. I don't know about you guys, but I don't, you know, have conversations about my sexuality to my mom. Right. That's not a topic of discussion. Right. So, Could all the different struggles Zalig was facing have led him to harm himself? His family doesn't think so. He had stuff he wanted to do. He was interested in this camp. He was planning on going back to New York, going back on stage.

34:16This is not somebody who sort of abruptly decided to stop. And none of that says self-harm to me. No. He had tried out for some parts and had gotten a callback or either a part that was supposed to start in January. Yeah, in January. And he was excited about his future. Plus, they all say Zelig was a mama's boy. After the loss of his sisters, that attachment only grew. This family does not think Zelig would put Kathy through the pain of losing another child. There was no question. The love for his mother was evident. He knows what they went through together, and he wouldn't leave her. And Zedek was too spiritual.

35:00Yes. He was too spiritual to do that. It's hard to believe he would want to put you through that again. No, he would never do that. When I first started reading about this, I thought to myself, this story's different. This person did this to himself. This is not somebody else's doing. But the more I read about this and the more I talk to you guys, it's really just not clear. I mean, you do have this sort of mental health component and you do have some sort of feeling of shame or anguish that comes out of that Instagram video. But on the other hand, like, this guy is not going to disappear and leave you behind.

35:39No, no. Exactly. And what you don't have is his journals. What you don't have is his dreams and what his intent was, right? And there is no intent to do any harm to himself or no intent. You can have moments where you're sad or you're going through things, but if I get anything from all the things I read, it's that Zelig was full of hope. So if Zelig did not harm himself, could something else have happened? Maybe an accident? His family is not sure. With no evidence of that and no solid leads, they had to consider another, more disturbing possibility. What did you think had happened, Kathy? I really don't know.

36:26I'm going to say somebody got him. You think this is foul play? I think somebody got my child. I think our consensus is just based on all the information that we have is that, yes, we do believe that foul play is involved. In their minds, foul play could suggest different scenarios. They wonder if Zelig was going to the trailhead to meet up with someone. And maybe the encounter went wrong. If he went there to meet someone, no idea who. No. Zero. Or a second scenario. Maybe someone harmed Zelig in another location and then moved his car to the trailhead. There's a possibility that someone drove that car and parked it there.

37:15For us to believe that that's where Zelig was. And the phone's never been found, so. Right. The dogs never picked up a scent at all, never. Given how active Zelig was online, that someone could have been anyone. He was constantly auditioning and talking to people in his room, on his laptop through Zoom, auditioning, preparing for parts. And studying his spirituality, having meetings with that as well. Zellig followed some very specific public figures in terms of some different churches and prophets that he was very connected to and journaled about them, and he tagged them. Zellig was immersing himself in multiple congregations.

38:02He'd gotten baptized and was joining young adult and men's groups. He was really trying to find community here in Columbia. Do you have any sense that anybody that he was in contact with from any of the churches that he was involved with was trying to control Zelig or might have in any way been involved in this? Everything's on the table. But yes, we have thought of, yes, of all those things. Thought of all of those things. But there's nothing pointing to that right now. No. There's kind of nothing pointing to anything. You're right. Investigators say they have done their best to track the data from Zellig's digital footprint, trying to find any of the people he'd been interacting with online before he disappeared.

38:51We have accessed some information pertaining to the phone records. I can't go into detail with that because we are still dealing with an open investigation. Of course, it makes it harder when you don't have the actual phone, but that information is still being looked into. Zelig had two computers as well, which Smith's team is still examining. Those computers were brought to our attention, and we're all looking into both of those matters. Investigator Smith says his team has to keep some secrets. We still have this open case. We don't know where it's going to lead, so we're protective of information because we want to find Zelig.

39:28We can't comment on his medical state. We speak to the family on a regular basis. They voiced their concerns to us, and we're going to consider all of that information that we're receiving from the family. We've spoken with numerous people that knew him, that worked with him. If there is someone investigators have missed, Smith wants to hear from them. If someone or anyone has information that causes them concern about who he may have came in contact with, we encourage them to give us a call so we can look into it. and if they can tell us why they have concerns about it. People who were in Columbia or at the trailhead during this time days before, days after, they had a family meeting, family reunion, anything, just give us a call.

40:20Someone else they would like to talk with? That lone eyewitness who reported seeing someone who looked like Zalig in the park on the day he disappeared. If that person hears this or hear any other news feed, we want that person to come back and say what they saw and exactly where they saw it at. Investigator Smith says he and his team have not ruled anything out. We're still looking into it. It's still definitely an active investigation that's going on. The searches for Zelig are ongoing. The family is beginning to plan their next one for October.

41:02The state of South Carolina has a motto, Dum Spiro Sparrow. Translated from the Latin, it means, While I breathe, I hope. For Zelig's loved ones, those words ring very true. Do you think he's still alive? I think so. I hope so. We understand the likelihood of Zelig still being present with us is slim. We know the probabilities, but the possibility is that he is alive. We want answers, period. And we just pray for those things. As his family approaches the two-year anniversary of his disappearance this fall, they remember Zelig as a performer, a son, a friend.

41:57will we grow

42:05A young man who worked hard and dreamed big.

42:13If you have any information about Zellig Williams' disappearance, please come forward. Zellig Williams is about 5 '9 and 175 pounds with brown eyes. He will turn 30 in September. Anyone with information about Zellig's disappearance should call the Richland County Sheriff's Department at 803-576-3000 or the Midland Crime Stoppers at 1-888-Crime-SC. To look at pictures of Zelig and to learn about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series, go to datelinemissinginamerica.com. There, you will also be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening.

43:05We'll see you Fridays for Dateline on NBC. Or you can stream anytime on Peacock, YouTube, or by subscription on the NBC News app. You can also listen to full Dateline episodes and original podcast series wherever you're listening right now. Subscribe to Dateline Premium for early access and add free listening for all our podcasts.

43:37Missing in America is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Veronica Mazzaca is the producer of this episode. Sarah Dahlberg is the associate producer. Brian Drew is the editor. Bradley Davis is senior producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, Jessica Fenton is head of audio production.

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