Talking Dateline: The Man Who Loved Christmas

Blayne Alexander (0:05)

Hi, everyone, I'm Blaine Alexander and I want to welcome you to what I guess we could call a special edition of Talking Dateline today, because we are joined by not one, but two of our fantastic Dateline producers, Alison Orr and Kim Crowitz. Thank you, ladies, for joining me.

Allison Orr (0:20)

Hi, Blaine.

Kim Krawitz (0:21)

Hi, Blaine.

Blayne Alexander (0:22)

All right, guys, we are going to be discussing our latest episode called The Man Who Loved Christmas. Now, if you haven't seen the episode yet, you can, of course, stream it now on Peacock or Listen, wherever you get your podcasts, and then come right back here and listen to our conversation. Later on, we've got an extra clip of some police body camera footage with the man who got this entire investigation started. As you will know, if you watch the episode, he is quite the character.

Then, of course, we're going to answer some of your questions from social media. All right, ladies, let's talk Dateline.

Allison Orr (0:53)

Let's talk.

Blayne Alexander (0:54)

First, before we get started, Alison and Kim, I'm going to get you, ladies, to each kind of walk us through just a quick summary of what this story was about. Of course, first, starting with the person that we're focused on throughout this entire story, whose name was Harold Allen, or as he was known to his friends and family, Peanut. Tell us about the story.

Allison Orr (1:13)

Well, the story is about Harold Allen, Peanut. That was his nickname. He's a man from southern Indiana.

He was married about three years to a woman that he had met later on in life. And he died somewhat suddenly from what was determined to be cardiac arrest. He'd been sick for just a few weeks, and his health deteriorated very rapidly. It was determined to be natural causes. And it stayed that way for a long time until something crazy happened. Right, Kim?

Kim Krawitz (1:44)

Nine months later, there is a burglary. There's a burglary at Marcia Allen's house. She is the widow, and she's away. With her parents, and she gets a security alert on her phone in the middle of the night, and it shows her someone is in her house. And in fact, there were two men in her house.

She immediately recognizes one of them. She recognizes the man to be a good friend of her daughters. And so she calls the police.

Allison Orr (2:19)

The man who broke into the house ultimately tells the police all about a murder plot that ends with the investigators implicating Harold's widow Marcia and her adult daughter in poisoning him with ethylene glycol. Yeah.

Blayne Alexander (2:32)

Let's talk about the man who's at the center of all of it, Harold Allen. I really enjoyed getting to know Harold by talking to his brothers and his sisters-in-law because it was so clear just from the first moment of our first interview, just how incredibly close this family was. And I have to say, I mean, all three of them looked, yes, they had their differences as brothers, but they looked so much alike. You could just see in those pictures the bond that they had. And then when they talked about their growing up, there was so much of it that we obviously couldn't fit in our Dateline episode. But Kim, you were there for those interviews. These were emotional interviews. You just had such beautiful memories of growing up together.

Kim Krawitz (3:12)

I mean, so, so tight. One of them said, we never had so much as a harsh word to one another. I mean, the love, you know, it struck me as this is just like, you know, you don't hear it all the time that siblings are this close, and they loved each other so much.

And Peanut was 10 years older than the youngest. He was almost like a father figure in a way to the youngest.

Allison Orr (3:41)

Yeah, and there's just no closing, there's no making up for that loss. I could see how emotional they were talking about the loss and the hole that will be inside those three brothers and that family forever.

It's tragic.

Blayne Alexander (3:55)

I think one thing that stood out to me in our interviews was when they talked about the fact that Peanut really had a difficult time with love. He was so talented in so many different ways. He loved people. He was giving. He taught himself to play musical instruments. I mean, he had all of these talents and gifts. But just when it came to that love piece, they knew. And I think that all of us can identify with that in some way that maybe there's a family member or somebody who just, ah, you just keep making the same mistake or you just keep going down this wrong road and you can't pull someone back. You can't tell someone what to do because they're an adult. But it just was heartbreaking that they both saw that and they knew that about their brother.