This is the debut episode of the Rewriting Dad Podcast with hosts Meg Murphy and Leslie Bradford-Scott. Today's episode is called "Ring of Truth" and Leslie introduces the wild story of her father who, through all the emotional trauma of growing up with him, she learns led an even more unbelievable life as an informant for the DEA, INS, and CIA.

Leslie and Meg then continue to a story of how they met, the strange parallelisms between their lives, and how they both unraveled the timeline and context of Claudio's double life.

HIGHLIGHTS

01:03 Birth of the podcast: Finding Claudio's memoir

05:53 Opening up emotions and Leslie's portrayal

07:58 Leslie meets Meg and planning the podcast

11:27 Meg becomes a partner to unravel Claudio's story

14:30 Meg's story with her own father, a criminal lawyer

20:39 Parallelisms between lives

23:26 The mystery of the engagement ring

QUOTES

04:53 "I read it pretty much day and night for a week. And I went through this incredible emotional rollercoaster then I remember my darling sweet husband. Every night, he sort of would say, okay, what did you learn? And when I closed the last page, I read the last page, I literally broke down. I was inconsolable. I just could not control my emotions."

06:47 "I would take the filter, what I remember when I was a kid, and I had these vivid memories of certain situations and certain people that the filing system in my head had to collapse and completely refiled with what he was saying. And I had to ascertain was he BS-ing on us? Is this true? Or does this make sense in the context of what I remember?"

08:41 "I thought my father had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for, in maximum-security prison, for trafficking cocaine. However, he was actually working as an informant with the DEA and the CIA. He was smuggling arms. There was fencing of jewelry. And by the way, the story about the $50,000 diamond is incorrect. And that's all. Of all the emails. I didn't even open the manuscript yet. I was like, what are you talking about?!"

21:00 "Okay, so we both have these manuscripts. You're dad's the criminal lawyer, my dad's the criminal, you decide to take this, recondition his bike, take this trip through Ireland with a journal and make a documentary film about it called 'Murphy's Law' and, which is a wonderful film, by the way. I just watched it."

23:08 "That is an incredible coincidence because you lived there from the years 2010 to 13 and he died in 13 so I was kind of there when you were there. We could've been at the liquor store standing next to each other looking at the wines, right? We shopped at the same grocery stores. Everything was exactly the same. Coffee in the same little coffee shop."

23:26 "And then I said to you, huh, where did your ex get that engagement ring he bought you? Now this is a cool [story]. This is weird. He knew nothing about jewelry and he had a friend who was an Italian woman from that area. Her husband worked in politics. And he asked her because she always had big bling jewelry. Do you know a guy? Yeah, so what do I know, I don't know anything about diamonds."

23:51 "And she was like, oh my god, I know everything. You know, her dog was named after Chanel or Louis Vuitton or whatever. So he went to this woman's guy. And this guy, I mean, that is the mystery. Did he get, did your ex actually buy your engagement ring from my dad who lived literally a block away and was still selling jewelry."

RESOURCES

https://murphyslawfilm.net/trailer/

https://www.instagram.com/rewritingdad/

https://www.facebook.com/rewritingdad

https://www.rewritingdad.ca/

This episode of the Rewriting Dad Podcast called "Ghosted" with Meg Murphy Leslie Bradford-Scott starts off where it ended: the mystery of the diamond engagement ring.

But with more questions than answers, Leslie decides to track the old farm from her childhood. This farm was Claudio's one regret as he was dying and Leslie was determined to see it again.

She was not prepared for what she encountered: rumors of her father's mafia connections and multiple stories of Claudio's ghost appearing before people, including her mother who did not want anything to do with Claudio's memoir at the beginning.

HIGHLIGHTS

04:15 Claudio's success and entrepreneurship

07:22 Memories at the hobby farm

13:04 Visiting the farm: Claudio's ghost

17:59 Uncovering mafia connections

23:00 Leslie's mom's encounter from beyond

QUOTES

06:42 "And as I went through his story, he is absolutely an entrepreneur and a self-made man. He does not like working for people from the time he was very young. He fancies himself an honest man and doesn't like working for people that he might see as crooked in any way. And yet, he was up to some shady business dealings and sort of justified them through many different means, which is so interesting."

14:29 "I have a question for you. So is there any... does this house have any historical reputation from its previous owners? I heard from someone that came by in a golf cart one day that said there was a... it was a doctor's house. Everyone knows it as a doctor's. But prior to that, it was a mafia house."

15:35 "Who is the gentleman that's tall and lanky that walks around here with dark hair? A ghost, you mean? Yeah. That would be my dad. Oh my goodness. He's your dad? Really? He's quite content here. Yeah, he is tall and lanky and he had dark hair and yeah, that's right."

17:17 "We sit in the car and she turns to me and she says, 'holy shit, did you call those people and tell them to say that?' And I was like, why would you say that? First of all, what are you saying about me? You don't trust me? Second of all, where do you think I got these people's phone numbers? I didn't even have the address."

25:13 "So you told me yesterday that you have been seeing some unusual things. Yeah, yeah, peripheral vision. Yeah, I haven't seen it while I'm here. But at home? Yeah, twice. Tell us about what you have seen. Twice. The first time it really shocked me. It was on my left peripheral vision. A mass, a dark mass floating from one doorway to another. And I kind of glanced and see was I dreaming or seeing or what?"

25:48 "I'd want to make sure there was nobody there. I thought maybe somebody was in the house. But anyway, that was one instance. And then just about... Saturday was the, yeah, it was about a week ago or more that the right peripheral coming up the stairs to the TV room of a mass from the bathroom to my bedroom. Floated by. Well, it wasn't floating, sort of I could say it almost came to the floor but not touching the floor. There he is. Who? There he is! On the wood!"

RESOURCES

https://www.instagram.com/rewritingdad/

https://www.facebook.com/rewritingdad

https://www.rewritingdad.ca/