The Society of Professional Journalists invited investigative journalist George Jared to speak on Tuesday. During the two hour session, Jared spoke extensively about his various experiences covering murder cases and other instances of investigative journalism.

Jared graduated from Lyon College and began his journalism career in 2004. He is the host of the weekly true crime podcast “Diamond State: Murder Board” and co-hosts the podcast “Break the Case.”

Jared has written numerous books covering murder cases he has worked on, including “Witches in West Memphis,” which discusses the West Memphis Three case, and “The Creek Side Bones,” which talked about Rebekah Gould’s murder. Other works include “Whispers in the Willows”, “A Novel Wait” and most recently “Silent Silhouette.” 

After the presentation, Jared had his books for sale and offered to sign them.

After a brief introduction, Jared spoke about his time covering the West Memphis Three case. During his discussion, Jared pointed out how evidence initially gathered, as well as witness statements, turned out to be inaccurate or changed later. 

“This guy was confessing about all the things that you’ve got everything wrong about. He got the time, day, place, how they were tied, what they were tied with; he got every single thing wrong,” Jared said.

Jared spent most of his time talking about the first murder case he covered, that of 22-year-old Rebekah Gould. 

Gould disappeared from her home in September 2004. Upon investigating the home of her boyfriend, blood was strewn throughout the house and most of her personal belongings were left behind. The one exception to this was a missing suitcase and a lone piano leg.

Jared said he thought the worst moment of covering that case would be finding Gould’s body, but he said telling her father they found her was much harder.

“He looks at me and he grabs a hold of me. At this time he was a pretty big guy, played college football. He said ‘did they find my daughter?’ I said ‘yes, they did.’ He put his head on my stomach and he started crying.”

Jared went on to speak about how his collaboration with experts in other fields, as well as using social media and podcasts, helped get people talking about the case again after nearly 18 years. 

Jared then described his interviews with various suspects in the case, including his interviews with the killer’s family members and William Miller, who confessed to killing Gould and is serving 40 years in prison.

The session concluded with a question and answer segment. During this portion, Jared also provided advice for prospective investigative journalists.

“I tell prospective journalists ‘you’re gonna have to confront people, if you do it the right way. You’re going to have to, and it’s a vital part of our society,’” Jared said.

Jared encouraged up-and-coming journalists to grow tough skin, be knowledgeable about what they’re covering and to follow leads.

Student media who attended the event said they enjoyed the session.

“I came to this event because I wrote an article about George Jared. I interviewed him and I just thought I thought I should come,” said Avery Jones, a sophomore English major from Searcy who works for Delta Digital News Service. “One key takeaway is that being an investigative journalist, it’s really important to make sure to pay attention to the details.”

The event also brought in professors from outside the School of Media and Journalism.

“I teach Police in Society and since a lot of his work is with police officers and their flaws and mistakes, I wanted to see what students think we can learn from stories like this,” said Angelo Brown, Ph.D., associate professor of criminology. “Where we know police do sometimes make mistakes and then they try to cover it up and things like that. I think there’s a lot of policy changes that could be pushed from this.”

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