Nightmare Success In and Out

Anthony Pierre had made all the right moves. He chose the right path in school, but he ran with a group who had chosen the wrong path. Anthony hit the books and graduated with A's. He dedicated himself to become a D-1 Athlete, and followed a mentor into Real Estate and built a regional company. A wife, kids in great schools, Dad soccer coach, and a beautiful home. One day a life long friend that h...

The question I kept asking myself throughout this interview is, "how did Mikie Bobzin survive?" She recounts being a 5 year-old girl having to grow up quickly with a bi-polar mom who was a severe alcoholic. As a 7 year-old, Mikie knew she wanted her mom to drink beer not gin. That is a lot for a 7 year-old.  They were in and out of public housing and Mikie was always trying to figure out how to fi...

Bill Glaser, tan, white hair, looks like the picture of a successful country club rich man, and he was. He had worked his way to the top of the class with sought after clients with his wealth management company and real estate. Then the nightmare...A bad homebuilder turned into a terrible fraud for Bill's clients. The FBI came knocking on the door, and Bill found himself in a spin cycle of bad to...

Shawntelle Fisher walked out of prison for the last time on her birthday...November 3, 2011. She had been in and out of prison with multiple felonies mostly pertaining to forgery or bad checks. Fisher had become a mother at 15, a convicted felon at 17...by the time she was 19 she was in prison. Her birthday release was going to be different. This time was the last visit to prison, and she set out...

What if you were convicted of murder and it took 20 years in prison to finally prove you were innocent? That is exactly what happened to my guest Marvin Cotton Jr. one day when he was driving to pick up his 2 year old daughter from daycare. It is one heck of a story told in a way no one else can tell it like Marvin. We walk through his nightmare as if we are walking beside him...could have easily...

Samantha Lander gives us the Federal Prison experience from a female's perspective, and she has lived through her nightmare and survived. She has a very engaging personality that mixes humor and pain as she relays to us her incredible journey of survival, determination, and success. Sam grew up in St. Louis in an upper middle class suburban neighborhood. Her dad was a doctor.  She went to one of t...

How about this headline..."I went from being one of the top teen golfers in the World (#4) to Hawaii's most wanted. This is Kyle Quilausing's incredible story of letting arrogance get the best of him...falling from grace as a child Hawaii celebrity... being expelled 6 months before high school graduation...taking one hit off a meth pipe losing it all...becoming a fugitive most wanted, finally bein...

Russ Faria is my guest this week. He has been on Dateline 6 times, a record. He is the subject of the popular Podcast "The Thing About Pam" that has over 30 million listeners. The 6 Part NBC Mini Series just finished up with the same title as the podcast. Joel Schwartz, Russ's attorney, was my guest last week, and did an excellent job describing the details and characters of the case. Russ gives u...

My guest this week is criminal defense attorney Joel Schwartz. He is the attorney who represented Russ Faria in the case that has become an NBC 6 part series ratings darling titled, "The Thing about Pam" starring Rene Zellweger (as Pam Hupp) and Josh Duhamel (as Joel Schwartz). Joel has written the book Bone Deep that takes readers through the perfect storm of miscalculations and missteps that led...

Ripped from todays headlines... my guest is Brandon Reid. Brandon, Intake Coordinator of Criminal Justice Ministry, has dedicated his life to helping ex-felons find housing when being released...ironically he was recently denied housing himself because of a blanket ban of not allowing felons to live in the Hampton Garden Apartments. This prompted a headline article over the weekend in the St. Loui...

Billy Vasquez is my guest this week...  A very likeable Texan, along with, being a hardworking soft spoken gentle giant family man. Billy tells the story of how it was easy to fall into an addicted lifestyle with friends and family who were already living that life. He stepped into helping a group transport marijuana because of the benefits of being with the "in" lifestyle crowd. The group got gre...

Paul Hartfield is my guest this week on Nightmare Success In an Out. Paul is an author of the book: For Such A Time As This – When a Singer Forgets why he sings. Paul had a 25-year career being a professional international opera singer…singing for presidents, world class opera houses, and major symphonies. His twist in his life story occurred when he retired from singing, and hit it big in the rea...

My Guest this week on Nightmare Success In and Out is Paul Gutierrez. Have you seen the movie Cocktail with Tom Cruise flipping those bottles? Well, Paul can do all of that cool stuff. Paul shares a relatable story about how choices can lead you somewhere you didn’t even plan on going. Paul is a smart guy who had a great job in the healthcare industry in his 20’s, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted m...

Ben Robinson is my guest this week on Nightmare Success In and Out. What a journey, from the drug streets of St. Louis…to staying committed to his education… to his life taking a fork in the road with an interview with Boeing…that eventually landed him in prison with a 10-year sentence. His story of the final days of getting out of prison are unbelievable and everyone’s worst nightmare, but someth...

This episode is chalked full of incredible nuggets of good stuff for surviving, resilience, and determination...and this guy, Michael Hughes, is so damn smart. Mike is brutally honest about his life, his relationships, and his addictions. Mike never gave up on himself. He believed until he was breathing his last breath there was always hope to make it. Mike shares his incredible love story about h...

Sean McFarland grew up as an army brat that traveled the country.  Sean is educated as a horticulturist, and he is also a talented known singer and songwriter that is currently performing with his band singing the 60 songs he wrote in prison. Running in his pajamas down a mountain in the rain away from the Feds who had ransacked his marijuana growing farm in California…this is a story to tune in f...

They should have made a movie about Jeff Smith...wait they did...A documentary titled "Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?" He has always been a man on the move. Playing basketball at 5'6" and 100 something bumping up against bigger stronger players, but none of them  more tenacious or passionate...has been a metaphor for Jeff's life. He is not afraid to tackle the deemed impossible. He got h...

I have a couple of firsts for this weeks episode. I interview two people...Jordan Markell and Wendy Watson. This is my first interview with a female who has gone to prison. Just to warn you this episode is pretty graphic and has explicit language, but I think they are two stories that need to be heard.  Jordan (AKA Lowkey$) came from the hard crime streets of North St. Louis City. A drive by shoot...

Big Man Mark Ross is my guest this week. Mark grew up in a little town in Iowa with less than 1000 people. He also has an identical twin brother. Playing sports until dark in the park and dreaming of someday playing football for the Iowa Hawkeyes was his simple boyhood plan. Mark achieved his childhood dream of playing for the Iowa Hawkeyes football team. He shares some behind the scenes stories o...

Jeremy Gilmore has a story that reads like a movie. Jeremy was a kid growing up in Southwest Missouri. Good parents…he loved hunting and fishing, but drifts into some friends that help get him addicted to meth. This appears to be Jeremy’s only crime…a meth addict. His story leads us through a crazy taxidermy story where he is arrested. His business competitor is the local law enforcement officer a...

My guest this week is Ron Slovacek, a true Texan survivor of his life experiences. Ron is the first person that I have interviewed who went to trial. His story is fascinating, with an inside look of a big case and the workings of the Federal Government. Ron got swept up in one of the biggest cases in Texas history…The Dallas Morning News titled it the “Dallas City Hall Corruption Case." In all, 14...

Eric Ross grew up on the north side of St. Louis. He wanted to be liked and to be the "cool" kid in school, which sometimes got him in trouble and running with the wrong crowd. He found himself starting his own painting business, but running with a gang, living a criminal lifestyle for the adrenaline rush, and feeling of being accepted. Ross shares an incredible story of the day he was caught with...

Gerald Murphy has many talents, but one he is famous for is being the creative inventor of the Leavenworth "fried honeybun." Murph describes the funny story of how this fried honeybun is prison made. Murph's story moves along from his early childhood growing up with "Southern Women"...with yes mam, no mam rules in the house. His Dad is his best friend and made certain moves to keep Murphy away fro...

My guest this week is Ed Levinson. Ed was a very successful homebuilder in the St. Louis area, and he is also an engaging, funny storyteller. Some of the most quality neighborhoods in the St. Louis region are a legacy of Levinson's creative vision. Ed even ventured into politics when he thought the city of Chesterfield needed a voice of reason from the business world. When the home market cratered...

You will want to listen to this episode with Marc Glover. Marc received a 14-year sentence. He immediately takes us on a rollercoaster journey with his brutally honest assessment of all the different choices he made in his life. His Dad went to prison when he was 3 years old. He began getting kicked out of school from the 6th grade on for having issues with authority and running with the wrong cro...