Each Month Crime Post Daily Spotlights Content Creators That Are Making A Difference in the Real Crime Community with Ethics and Truth over Sensationalism.

This months spotlight features Mel Founder of the Cold Truth Podcast. I came across Mel's work while watching videos on the Delphi Double Homicide.  Mel caught up with Crime Post Daily and talked to us about her podcast and her experiences within the real crime community. 

What inspired you to become a content creator?
The unsolved murder of Shannon Nicole Paulk is what inspired me to become a real crime podcaster. I run a Facebook Page, Justice For Shannon Paulk, to help Wes Meyer as well as the family of Shannon. In doing so, I kept trying to get other people to cover her case. I was doing write-ups and gathering all this information for other creators/news stations and kept getting let down when they didn’t pick up the case. One day, I got mad and decided to cover Shannon’s case myself! The 2001 unsolved murder of Shannon, in prattville, Alabama, can be found on my
podcast and YouTube channel. Please follow her page, join her group and share her case!

Have you had any interactions within the community that crossed the line?
Yes, yes I have.
I decided to contact a killer in jail, who is awaiting trial for brutally murdering his ten year old son, Nakota Kelly. I spoke with a police officer who told me that they believe Nakota was dismembered by his father and placed in three different states. His body has yet to be found. I spoke with Nakota’s sweet mother, Hayley Kelly, who told me about a casket shaped like a baseball she was hoping to bury her son in one day. She said this, “I know I won’t get my son back whole, what I do get back will fit in it (because it’s for babies).” This broke my heart. This made me mad! I cannot imagine this reality that she lives with everyday. All she wants is a
baseball shaped casket and a grave she can visit and the monster that killed him knows this…We think he is refusing to tell where Nakota is, out of spite for her. Those words are seared into my memory and they haunt me. So I decided to do whatever I could to help her. I went out searching for Nakota a few times before realizing the task was nearly impossible with
just myself and my cousin. I was unable to find an organization to help so, with help from Hayley and some friends, we made a ‘profile’ for me to use to video call the monster. It worked, I spent last summer talking to this bastard. It began to take a mental toll on me that I did not expect…sitting across from evil tends to have that effect. I was in over my head but I gave it my all. He did end up telling me he would tell law enforcement if I could get them to come and talk to him. I called and called. I still do not know if they ever went. This took even more from me. Plus the guilt of knowing what I was going through was so minuscule compared to Hayley. I felt
like a jerk and a failure. I got too involved. Do I regret it? No. I learned and I made a lifelong friend in Hayley. I did leave the podcast world for a while. When I decided I was ready, I came back to Real Crime on YouTube and stopped uploading to the podcast platform, Cold Truth. It is still there for now as well as my channel.
How has it been interacting with the community and commenters to your videos?
Oh boy…! I will explain it like this. It’s a double edged sword, only one side is dulled. I have met so many wonderful people that THEY over shadow the negativity. I have had to learn to let things go in order to give my ‘forks’ to what I deem worthy of my ‘forks’. For instance, because I do not give a ‘fork’ about adversity, I give my ‘forks’ to getting the truth out about one creator, in particular, who has zero business being in the true/real crime genre. He’s vile and I will continue to stand up against him and any other POS that Re-victimizes victims' family members and loved ones.
“To much is given, much is expected”, these families are trusting us with their loved ones, when they are the most vulnerable. I will not stand by and be silent when I see someone using them, lying to them or stealing from them. If I take criticism for doing that, so be it.
How much work goes into your videos/livestrreams?
Too many. I have OCD and I cannot do certain things in moderation. I have gotten many comments about how long my videos are or how I should cut out some of the facts. I get it, but I simply cannot do that, sometimes I wish I could. I will occasionally decide to research a case live but I end up losing sleep over it so it’s not worth it. If people do not like it, they can read one of the articles or watch another person’s video that I put in the descriptions of each Live I do.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you left over your head?
All the time! I choose to do it anyway.
How long have you been creating content?
I started with the podcast in 2019, I believe.
Do you have anyone you look up to?
I look up to quite a few people in my life.
In this world of Real Crime, I look up to Lainie from Suffer The Little Children, CJ from Beyond the Rainbow, Hoosier Cold Cases, Gray from Gray Hughes Investigates, Eric from True Consequences, Chaotic Beauty, Incognito Society and Lindsay Ann and Dewayne from Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. I look up to more, in this genre but those are my favorite humans who are also content creators.
What do you hope people get out of your work?
I hope people get a deeper understanding of what it’s like to be the family and loved ones who are left behind in the aftermath of murder. No one asks to be the loved one of a murder/missing victim and no one wants to be in their shoes. I hope people learn something, I hope I make someone smile, and I hope I can use my channel to give back to organizations that are in place to benefit victims and their families. My goal is to one day sponsor a cold case, to be able to use forensic genetic genealogy to identify or solve what would otherwise, continue to sit in storage boxes. Gray Hughes Investigates has done this with his channel and the day Bibb County John Doe got his birth name back was a great day in the real crime world. We need more days like that one!
Have you had any interaction with law enforcement dealing with your content?
Yes, many times. I find that most are just as passionate about wanting resolution as we as a community are. I wish more people understood that they are a spoke in the wheel to justice, so to say. For example, a set of detectives can solve a case and present it to the prosecutor who may decide not to prosecute, like what is happening to the case of Ray Hanish. Ray’s killer, Garett Kenneth Kirts, confessed to killing Ray to detectives in Newton County Indiana. Those detectives cannot force Robert Guy, White County Indiana Prosecutor, to move forward with prosecution. Robert Guy cannot force a grand jury to indict or a judge to sign off and so on. I feel like law enforcement officers get blamed for things that they do not have the power to control too often.
As a woman, do you feel like you get treated any differently in the youtube community?
Yes. Do I care? No. Life is not fair, we can either use things as an excuse to not…or we can use things as a motivation to work harder to prove people wrong. I choose the latter.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with Crime Post Daily. Would you like to add anything else or a closing statement?
Thank you, Matt, for asking me to answer these questions. I am honored that you support what I am trying to do.