Justice is not only measured by whether we find the person responsible for a crime. It is also measured by the questions we ask along the way — whose voices were heard, whose pain was overlooked, and whether the system truly understood the people it was meant to protect.

As a criminologist and forensic psychologist, I have always believed that every case is more than just evidence, suspects, and convictions. Behind every crime lies human behaviour, trauma, vulnerability, and stories that often remain unheard. Understanding a crime also means understanding the victim, the offender, and the circumstances that brought them to that point.

In this conversation, Netflix Junkie sat down with investigative journalist Paul Solotaroff, host of Bone Valley Season 5: The Devil’s Quarry, for a deeper look into a case that exposes the consequences of investigative bias, wrongful convictions, and a justice system that failed to listen.

Together, we explore the questions that exist beyond the crime scene — how two young men were convicted for a crime they maintained they did not commit, how victims and survivors were overlooked, and why understanding trauma is essential in the pursuit of justice.

Through Paul’s investigation and years of reporting, The Devil’s Quarry becomes more than a story about a crime. It becomes a conversation about accountability, empathy, systemic failures, and the responsibility we have to ensure that justice does not stop at finding an answer — but finding the truth.

Itti: How do you feel about the podcast actually being nominated for Tribeca this year?

Paul: It's gorgeous. It's gorgeous. And it's necessary. So we have the very rare privilege of telling a story not just about two wrongful convictions, two young men who had absolutely nothing to do with the r*** and m***** of a 12-year-old girl in the woods of rural New York in 1994.

We also have this crazy thing called a ticking clock. We have a clock and a calendar ticking down to the release of an absolute monster, a man that I and my entire investigative team strongly feel is responsible for the crime at the heart of the devil's core.

And what the Tribeca nomination, what the making of the series on such a prestigious platform, Lava for Good, Signal Company One, signals is that this injustice is so severe, is so outrageous, and is such a public safety menace, that unless the entire world can be brought into and lift their voices with ours, to demand justice for the r*** and m***** of Josette Wright, the 12-year-old who went missing in October of 94, the disappearance and presumed m***** of a second girl, her neighbor, in April of 95, six months later.

And the horrific crimes done to previous victims who lived, who were not discovered in the woods, or whose bodies have never turned up.

What Tribeca, what this platform does is allow us great leverage to create a groundswell of outrage, of passion, of justice hunger, to leverage the Putnam County Sheriff's Office, the Putnam County DA's office, the Attorney General of New York State, to do something, to finally actually investigate these two crimes, seemingly for the first time.

Because what we've uncovered is that they were never seriously investigated in 1995 and 96. And you have these two families who are broken, who have never recovered from the blow of losing a daughter in such horrific ways.

And if it weren't for us, if it weren't for my team, if it weren't for the people who have written the checks, because this is expensive work to do, to get to the bottom of this, these cases would simply blow away. And no one would ever have answers, no one would ever have justice.

So, a long-winded way of saying I am so grateful, and so privileged, and so honored.

Itti: When I was listening to the podcast, the criminologist in me was very much awake when I was looking at those aspects. So, there's this one aspect that Anthony and Andy were drug dealers. Yes, they were that.

But the investigative narrative was just pushed on them. And someone like Harvard, someone who had a history, maybe if the investigators had picked it up right then and there, then the case would have closed over there as well. But the entire focus comes on just Anthony and Andy, and never at Harvard at all, at any point in time.

So, when you spent time on this case, at what point did you feel that you were personally looking at not just investigative mistakes, but possibly the cognitive bias that exists within the system?

Paul: You put your finger on it exactly. So, I've been doing this now for 37 years. And I have been investigating big city police departments, the Chicago Police Department, the LAPD, the New York Police Department. And what you find in these cities is that there are great cops. There are cops who are so good at criminal detection that I call them artists. They think like artists. They see what others don't see. They are able to read human behavior, much like someone like you can, right? You've been trained to do this. You have a passion and a gift for it.

Unfortunately, when you get outside of big cities, when you get to small town rural America, you don't get the 20%. You don't get those great cops. Why would they go work in a tiny little town when there are big stars and big fish in New York City, Chicago? So, I'd always wanted to write about small town police. And in small town America, there is one man, usually a man, who is more powerful than everyone else. And that is the sheriff.

So, the sheriff of a small, sparsely populated community is the law, but he's also the judge, he's the jury, and he's the hangman. And when you have that much power, and no one's looking over your shoulder, the ease with which you can break the law, the ease with which you can distort the narrative is too tempting. It's too strong. And so, in this very peaceful, very sleepy community, Putnam County, where there was no history of violent crime, there was very little small time crime. These two kids were it.

They were dealing marijuana and ecstasy pills to their classmates. They were both in high school, right? But the only people they were a danger to were themselves, because they were taking, they were smoking more weed than they were selling. They were swallowing more ecstasy tablets than they were selling. They were losing money as drug dealers, which is really hard to do. It's really hard to lose money selling drugs.

In any event, because they were so young, and because they were so badly educated, they didn't have the sophistication to put up a fight. When the sheriff's detectives framed them, created this false story, and then beat, or coerced, or bullied their friends into testifying falsely against them. And one of them, Anthony, was in prison for 20 years. And while he was in prison, he taught himself to read, and then he taught himself the law. And how well did he teach himself the law?

The best lawyer in America, a guy named Mark Agnifilo, who is Luigi Mangione's attorney in the trial, the trial of the century that's about to start this fall in New York. He was Harvey Weinstein's lawyer. He was Sean Combs's lawyer, who got him off of 36 out of 40 counts for s** trafficking and racketeering. He's a brilliant lawyer.

The first time he met Anthony in prison to interview him before his third trial, he came away from that meeting thinking, I just met the best lawyer in America. And he has been doing 20 years wrongly for the r*** and m***** of a girl he didn't know. And what Mark Agnifilo, this genius lawyer, did was basically let Anthony dictate and quarterback the case. And this time, Anthony, so he was tried three times. Twice, he was falsely convicted. But the third time, he had built up all this evidence against this man, Howard Gombert. And he finally had a lawyer who was able to persuade a judge to hear this evidence against a person who was not indicted for this crime. It's very rare. And it's really heroic.

What Anthony was able to do is, it's not a million to one chance. It's a zillion to one. He not only proved his innocence while he was behind bars, but he identified what we believe is the actual killer. And I can't tell you how proud and privileged I am to count him as a friend. And by the way, he's charming. He's funny. He's such a regular guy. He sounds like a mobster. He sounds like, or a garbage man, right? Which is his job. He was working as a garbage man, hanging off a garbage truck. But in fact, he's brilliant.

And thanks to Anthony, thanks to his stepfather, who found the money to pay lawyers, private investigators, he was able to prove his innocence and also get his friend out of prison. So his friend Andy did 25 years wrongfully in prison. He got 25 million. Anthony got 17 in total. And again, he's the hero of the story. What we're doing is simply telling the story that he was able to investigate and report while he was in prison, which it's just, it's never happened before ever. And the other thing I want to say is that he did this without DNA evidence.

So, typically when guys or women are able to prove their innocence, it's because new DNA evidence is available, right? It's sitting on a shelf somewhere in a police basement. But in this case, the cops destroyed all the evidence. The cops consciously destroyed all the physical evidence. So the only way he could do this was by proving to a jury that not only did he not kill this girl, but that this other guy did.

So, but I'm fascinated to talk to you because you're trained to spot criminal signatures. And in this case, there is the criminal signature of a serial predator, of a serial r***st, and we firmly believe a serial killer. So not only was this guy a very skilled woodsman, he knew his way around a forest in a way that I certainly don't, that almost nobody living in the city does. He was extremely skilled at tying knots. 

So when the victim, Josette's body was found, there was a noose around her neck that led to a rope around her hands, which were tied behind her, and then led to her ankle, the ankle of I believe her right foot. And so if she had struggled while she was being r**** and m******** and tried to kick, she would have strangled herself. So there's that. But also, almost all serial predators have a fetish.

They have, they se***lize something, some aspect of their victims. And in this case, this guy fetishized girl's un***wear. So he stuffed her un***wear in her mouth, and he tied her bra around her eyes as a blindfold. What we know, because I've worked with behavioral analysis experts, is that's called a signature, right? And it never varies. It's always there in this man's crimes.

And it's not just evidence that he did it, it's evidence that he's been building up to this for a long time, and that he finally went over the line from just ra***g girls, tying them up, to actually killing them as well.

So the thing that haunts me is that when the cops found Josette's body, and they saw all these signs of a serial predator, they didn't call the FBI. They didn't call the New York State Police Department. People who are really experienced at dealing with serial offenders.

Instead, they said, ignore all that stuff. Let's just go round up the town drug dealers. They're good for it. And they allowed this guy to move 15 miles away, set up shop, and r*** two new people. One was a seven-year-old girl, but he went to jail there. He went to jail. What is driving all of us crazy is that this December, or at the latest, January, he will be released from prison at a young age with no parole, no probation, no supervision. And he will just disappear into the woods, where he learned to survive from the age of 12. He lived in a tent in the dead of winter, and he either killed what he ate, or he stole it from people's houses. And he will reappear at a time and a place of his choosing. And he has been writing letters to his victims, the survivors from prison.

Itti: Yes, yes. I saw that in the podcast when I was going through. And it still has an impact on those victims. They're trying to say that it shouldn't be overpowering them, but the fear still persists, that what if this person comes out and harms them again?

Paul: Exactly right. And you know, from all your clinical experience, that when you're a child, and you have been not only se***lly violated, but se***lly violated with violence, it burns its way into your brain in a way that's unforgettable. You release that trauma every day, every night for the rest of your life.

And what kills all of us on my team, my investigative team, is no one took those girls seriously when he r**** or beat them, or bound them, or did all the above. But no one ever took care of these victims when they were young. No one ever got them therapy or counseling.

No one ever got them any kind of support. No one ever, you know, spent money to see that they were functional human beings. And so one of the things that we're really hopeful is that our listenership will not only scream to the heavens for justice, but, you know, urge the authorities to take care of these surviving victims, to compensate them, to get them treatment for their suffering.

Itti: And that is what is very important, because I feel we have reforms in place for the offenders, that we want them to eventually reintegrate into society. But our focus on victims is something that is really less than it needs to expand. And it's high time that it should be expanding, keeping in mind everything that is happening around us, unfortunately.

So, like I said, I also come from that background, and I get a lot of chances where I sit on the other side, and I deal with the offenders, right. But there's one aspect, which we are always taught, that is to have this unconditional positive regard that, irrespective of whatever the person has done sitting in front of you, you have to be neutral, you have to be nonjudgmental, and you have to just see it as if it was their circumstances that they became what they are, right.

So when you were working on this case, and I heard in the podcast as well, that you did connect with Howard on the call as well. And there was a point that you had to just keep the call down, because you just couldn't go on listening to everything he was saying when you were bringing him to the point. So how did you navigate that conflict between that journalist's responsibility, you have to listen, basically, without judgment, because in a way, you are also presenting the truth. So you have to be non-biased as well. And in turn to the reaction you were getting from Howard.

Paul: It was very hard. And it's one of the things that haunts me. I had a very, very painful experience reporting the story in 2021, from my magazine, Rolling Stone. And when I reported that story and published it, I never wanted to have anything to do with it again.

Because unlike all the other investigations I've done, the victims, they lived inside me, their voices, their suffering, their sobs, they lived inside me. And it wasn't until one of them called me 15 months ago and said, sobbing, screaming, he's getting out early, they're going to release him, he's coming after me, that I knew I had to go back into the lion's den.

I had to this time, get a whole team, a dream team of investigators, reporters, producers, to finally finish the job, get justice where justice has been denied. You are absolutely right that the standard of conduct for someone like me is to be impartial. I don't always meet that standard.

When I see someone who is obviously a harmer, a destroyer, a torturer of the weak, of the vulnerable, the bully in me wants to bully that bully, if that makes sense. I want to, yeah. So, I was on the phone with Howard, I think twice, it might have been three times. And each time, I just, I couldn't contain my anger. I could not contain my sense that this is unfair. He's here to lie to me when his victims can't.

And so, one of the reasons I made the podcast series, one of the reasons I put together this team and spent 15 months doing this work, is that none of us could accept that the job was not finished. None of us could accept. And thanks to our investigation, the Sheriff's Department of Putnam County has just reopened these two historic cases.

They have finally- It's a big win. Yeah. It is a win, but it's only a win if they do the job and we have no confidence in them to do the job. And so, we're actually appealing for the state of New York to take over these investigations and do them in the most powerful and thorough way so that not only do these families get justice, but that man never walks the streets of our cities or our woods again, our forests, and that these survivors finally felt seen, heard, and cared for. And that was the mission.

Itti: And that is, again, something very important. Like the loopholes lie within our system. And until we ourselves start taking those initiatives, they are never going to get filled in. So, that is, I guess, what you did and what Rebecca will also help this story to basically reach out to others, which is very important, which is very important.

Paul: And what you're doing is so important because you are a force multiplier. Your voice and your listenership are part of the public that we need to finish the job, to make sure that this doesn't happen again to another eight-year-old girl in Connecticut, in Putnam County in New York. And that is when you finally punish the cops, when you finally really make them pay for their crimes, it serves as a real disincentive for other cops to behave the same way.

And in America, as far as I know, I'm the only journalist who's actually sent cops, bad cops, to jail. As far as I know, I'm the only journalist who has gotten crooked prosecutors disbarred. And that needs to happen. There needs to be consequences for behaving criminally, whether you're wearing a badge or not.

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Itti: And coming on, because we are talking a lot about that, how important it is to focus on the victims. So, during the podcast, Rachel's story it does stand out because she was repeatedly abused. And when she was raising her voice, there was nobody who was listening to her. And she also had that fear that what if she goes to the same system again? And again, nobody listens to her.

So after interviewing these survivors, basically, what do you think that the justice systems still misunderstand about trauma? Because I think there is a huge gap that still needs to be filled about what trauma actually constitutes. And it's just not one small thing.

Paul: That's a brilliant question that I have not been asked before. So thank you for that. First of all, in America, law enforcement is male, it's guys, it's men. And men have forever and ever not taken seriously, not taken personally, these crimes done to girls and women. Right? In fact, what we believe happened was that the cops thought these girls were s**ts. They thought they were just, you know, se***lly promiscuous children who brought this on themselves. Well, what eight-year-old is se***lly promiscuous? What nine-year-old?

 What 10-year-old? And yet, they never took seriously what these beautiful children reported. And what has begun to change in America is that we have many more women now in law enforcement. They're not usually running a department. They're not usually, you know, the lieutenant, the captain, the major, the commander. But that's starting to happen.

Women are much more present in police departments, thank God. But until we take violence, se**al violence against women, seriously, as seriously as death, this will continue to happen. And what we saw over and over again in these cops was utter contempt for the girls, utter contempt for the victims, and because they were poor.

So even in a community where everyone's white, what separates them is money. So people who have money look down, spit on white people without money. And these girls came from single-parent households that came from a lot of chaos. And these cops were like, this is just how these people live. This is how they act. No crime here. Let's move along. Well, you moved along, and you let this monster go and do it again and again and again. 

Itti: So, when we talk about investigations, the focus is always on identifying the offender. But again, we are talking about victims here. Nobody wants to understand their environment and their vulnerabilities. So if we talk about the victim here, Josette, right, she was lonely as well. All she was looking for was basically validation, and sadly, she also did not have a lot of people around her who could give her a safe environment and protect her from her own vulnerabilities, and also the vulnerabilities she was unfortunately exposed to. So, do you also think that the system misunderstood who she is before they started solving the case of exactly what happened to her? Because it’s very important in an investigation to understand where the victim is coming from and what their background is. What were the problems they were dealing with before hopping onto solving it. So, did they misunderstand her?

Paul: That’s beautifully said. So, we were actually talking about this with that class that the financial gap between the cops and the victims. And so, Josette’s mother was a single mom. She had three girls. The cops looked at her with a kind of side eye, like, “Oh, she’s not a good parent. She’s not enforcing discipline. Her kids are wild.” In fact, Josette was, as you said, someone who desperately needed attention, desperately needed someone to care about her, someone to be consistent, stable, someone to notice that she was suffering, she was in pain. And in ignoring all of this, ignoring the girl’s cries for help, the cops basically enabled the killer, right? Because in not understanding who this girl was and what her behaviour was telling them, which is that she is lonely, she is sad, she is depressed, and she feels unloved, and she is seeking it outside the home. Well, if that happens when the kid is 22, you get them to a therapist. When a girl is 12, and walking around town at 11:00 in the middle of the night, no matter what the weather, by herself, it couldn’t be any louder a cry for help. I mean, she is already vulnerable because she is emotionally needy and because her understanding of men’s intentions is not sophisticated, but here she is literally exposing herself to kidnap, to abduction, and in fact, we firmly believe she got into the car willingly of her abductor and m*******. All the evidence is pointing in that direction. She knew him; she had flirted with him. She was very interested in the attention of men at an age when she was not yet able to understand what her behaviour was signaling to these guys. 

So yes. You are absolutely right. No one took her seriously. No one took these other girls seriously. There was this assumption on the cops' part that there was something wrong with girls. They chose these men. Well, first, when you’re 8 or 9 or 10, you’re not choosing anything, right? You don’t have enough information, enough experience to actively choose. Right. So, there’s a new sheriff who’s investigating these, uh, facts. We hope that they have a better understanding of human behaviour, more compassion for the victims of these crimes, and a real hunger. I have a hunger for justice. We hope they share our hunger for justice and that they finish the job. They see this to the very end and arrest the man responsible. 

Itti: And even I stan you on that. That we all need to have that hunger for justice in us again in the times that unfortunately we are in, else this society as a whole is going to collapse right in front of our eyes.

At its core, this conversation is a reminder that justice is not only about solving a crime — it is about questioning what went wrong, listening to those who were silenced, and ensuring that the pursuit of truth never loses sight of the people it was meant to protect. Bone Valley Season 5: The Devil's Quarry is available on Apple Podcasts now.

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Do you think that justice truly be served only if we understand the victims, their trauma, and the stories they leave behind? Let us know in the comments below.