145: Collier testified against a murderer at age 12

What Was That Like - True Stories. Real People.

Scott Johnson & Glassbox Media

True Crime, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.7 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2023

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You know when people are asked about what their biggest fear is, a lot of the answers are what you’d expect – fear of heights, fear of spiders, and so forth. Humans are afraid of a lot of things. But when people are asked what their single BIGGEST fear is – the big one that usually comes out as number one is fear of public speaking. For a lot of people it even ranks higher than their fear of death. When Jerry Seinfeld heard about that, he correctly observed that that means if that person is at a funeral, they’d rather be the dead person in the casket than the one giving the eulogy. But there are some situations where we have to speak in public – and one of those is in a courtroom. For me, that would be the worst place to be nervous about speaking. When I’m in an uncomfortable situation, I’ll usually try to use humor to sort of ease the tension. But when you’re on the witness stand answering questions, with a judge and a whole room full of people watching you, that’s not really the time for a stand-up routine. My guest today is Collier, and he knows all about that situation. He was only 12 years old when he had to testify at a murder trial, to talk about what happened at his house one night. And the person he was testifying against was his own father. Collier’s YouTube: https://YouTube.com/collierlandry Collier’s links: https://CollierLandry.com/links Collier’s website: https://CollierLandry.com TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@collierlandry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/collierlandry Twitter: https://twitter.com/collierlandry Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/collierlandry Collier’s TEDx Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/collier_landry_what_happens_when_the_answers_we_seek_are_not_what_we_find?language=en Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/145 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) What Was That Like is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/whatwas for 10% off your first month. For a limited time, save $10 on your first StoryWorth purchase when you go to StoryWorth.com/what Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code WHAT and receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off At the tender age of 19, Ron Adkins was sentenced to 500 years in prison. Listen to his unbelievable story at https://CompelledPodcast.com/ron Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know when people are asked about what their biggest fear is?
0:11.5	A lot of the answers are what you'd expect, fear of heights, fear of spiders and so forth.
0:19.0	Humans are afraid of a lot of things, but when people are asked what their single biggest
0:25.0	fear is, the big one that usually comes out as number one is fear of public speaking.
0:32.5	For a lot of people it even ranks higher than their fear of death.
0:38.0	When Jerry Seinfeld heard about that, he correctly observed that that means if that person
0:43.2	is at a funeral, they'd rather be the dead person in the casket than the one giving
0:48.3	the eulogy.
0:50.8	But there are some situations where we have to speak in public, and one of those is in
0:56.2	a courtroom.
0:58.8	For me, that would be the worst place to be nervous about speaking.
1:04.1	When I'm in an uncomfortable situation, I'll usually try to use humor to sort of ease
1:09.7	the tension, but when you're on the witness stand answering questions with a judge and
1:15.6	a whole room full of people watching you, that's not really the time for a stand-up routine.
1:23.9	My guest today is Collinier, and he knows all about that situation.
1:30.3	He was only 12 years old when he had to testify at a murder trial to talk about what happened
1:37.1	at his house one night, and the person he was testifying against was his own father.
1:46.6	Real People In Unreal Situations
1:53.6	There is a girl hanging by her broken legs from the telephone wire.
1:59.6	And I called 911, and I said, I found a baby.
2:03.6	I turned around, I see a gun pointed at me close enough I could touch it.
2:07.6	She would hold her heads underwater all the time.
	...

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