Back in October 2025, I drove about four hours to the Polanski unit.

It's the prison where men on death row were held in Texas.

It's in a town called Livingston.

The drive is beautiful, but sometimes harrowing.

On multiple occasions, I've been caught in sudden thunderstorms that force everyone on the road to slow to 10 miles an hour

or risk veering off the two-lane highway into the Piney Woods. I was going to meet Charles Flores

for the first time. I had already done a good deal of research and reporting on his case, but I was

essentially a random person off the streets. He didn't know much about me, but I knew a lot about him.

I knew what he was accused of, and I'd read about his criminal history and time on the run.

The man who sat across from me was not at all who I expected. But then again, people rarely are.

Well, I'm just missing, which you give me a hard time.

At this point, Charles had agreed to talk with me once, but he didn't know what I wanted to do with the podcast.

Still, he was forthcoming.

Even when I asked him about some of the more embarrassing aspects of the case, like his eventual arrest at the hands of the FBI after he tried to scale offense.

You want to know all the dirt.

Prisons in Texas only give reporters an hour to visit, and you can only visit the same person once every three months.

So time is precious.

Even so, Charles was relaxed. As we chatted, he asked me what I was reading. It happened to be

the third book in a fantasy series that he'd already read. He told me to let him know when I was ready

to pick up the fourth one so he could read it at the same time. He wanted to talk about it,

have a sort of mini book club. He'd roast me a few months later

when I visited again and I still hadn't finished the third. I understand that people are

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