Talking Dateline: The Grudge
Dateline NBC
In this episode of Talking Dateline, Andrea Canning and Blayne Alexander discuss the harrowing story of federal judge Esther Salas, whose family was attacked in 2020 by a gunman posing as a
Key takeaways
- The attacker targeted Judge Salas not because she ruled against him, but due to deep-seated misogyny and anger over her identity and position of power.
- Salas's strength and composure during the interview contrast with her private struggles, highlighting the complex nature of grief and resilience.
Main topics
- The 2020 attack on Judge Esther Salas and her family
- Motives rooted in misogyny and men's rights extremism
Notable quotes
"I have done so much work... reading about grief. You almost get this sense when you're talking to her, like she's okay." – Andrea Canning
Conclusion
The episode serves as a powerful reminder of the hidden dangers faced by public
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) Hi, I'm Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the NBC News podcast, The Drink. This month, I'm sitting down with actor, writer, producer, Brendan Hunt. Most of you know him as Coach Beard from Ted Lasso, but there is so much more to his story. We sit down, we talk about all of it, from his bumpy upbringing to his years in improv comedy and how a Hollywood rejection opened the door to co-creating Ted Lasso. It's an open, funny conversation about perseverance, creativity. and the winding road that brought him right here. We hope you'll join us for the drink. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (0:43) Hi, everyone. I'm Blaine Alexander, and today we are talking Dateline. I am joined by my dear friend, Andrea Canning, to discuss her episode, The Grudge. Hi, Andrea. Hey, Blaine. If you haven't seen it, you can watch the episode on Peacock or listen to it in the Dateline podcast feed, and then, of course, come right back here. Later on, we'll have a clip from Andrea's conversation with Judge Salas four years after the original Dateline episode aired, and that's when they catch up about grief Speaker 6 (1:07) and parenting. But first, Speaker 5 (1:09) let's talk Dateline. Let's do it. Andrea, I have to say, I mean, as soon as I started watching this, I just came into it blind, didn't know anything but the title. But as soon as I saw the judge, I said, gosh, she looks so familiar. And then immediately said, I remember this case. This happened in 2020, right during kind of like the heart of COVID. Yes. And it was such a Speaker 6 (1:27) huge story at the time. Such a horrific Speaker 5 (1:29) situation where. Speaker 6 (1:32) Judge Salas describes a wonderful weekend with her son Daniel, her husband Mark. Daniel had friends staying. They had gone home. And Judge Salas and Daniel were in the basement, and they hear the doorbell ring. And Daniel says, you know, I'll go get it. He bounds up the stairs. His dad had already answered the door. And it's a man dressed as a delivery driver, only he's not a delivery driver. And this is at a time, as you said, during COVID. when people were getting a lot. We get so many now, deliveries. Remember, we didn't get nearly as many before COVID. Oh, yeah. Everything was delivery. Right. Everything was delivery. And so I don't think they thought twice about answering the door for a delivery man, as many of us may not even today think twice about it. But it was during a time of a lot of packages. They opened the door, and it was a man who shot Mark and shot Daniel. Speaker 6 (2:31) And Esther could hear it, you know, the gunshots, and she ran upstairs. And it was just so incredibly heartbreaking. Her son, of course, Daniel, did not make it, her only child. And it turned out that it was a man who had been in her courtroom, who she is a federal judge. He was angry with her, even though she had ruled in his favor. It was about the draft. He has all these issues with... men's rights, and he felt that women should be in the draft as well. And she had said that the case could move forward, but it wasn't moving fast enough for Speaker 5 (3:09) this Speaker 6 (3:09) man. Speaker 5 (3:10) When you think of a motive like that, and somebody who just, somebody that you kind of come across in your daily life. Don't think much about the interaction. Don't think. I mean, she has many hundreds of people come in and out of her courtroom every day, I'm sure. I remember when she said in the episode with you, yeah, I remember the case, but it wasn't one that like stuck out. They were thinking about more high profile cases where there could have been more anger. It just really kind of makes you think about, gosh, these professions that you don't necessarily think would be dangerous can be, can really put you in somebody's crosshairs like this. Speaker 6 (3:43) Yeah. I mean, she's a federal judge. We know that not everyone who leaves a courtroom is happy, Speaker 2 (3:47) right? Speaker 6 (3:49) You know, there's a lot of anger in courtrooms, a lot of things that go on. I think this man clearly had a lot of anger about a lot of things. Speaker 5 (4:00) Yeah. There was a piece that really stuck out to me where somebody told her that he hated you as soon as you were born because she was a woman and she's Hispanic, right? When I heard that, I immediately thought, okay, yes, she ruled in his favor, but here is this woman, this minority woman that he has to go to who's in a position of power. Somebody like him would have a great deal of resentment over that, just based on what we know about him. Speaker 6 (4:22) I mean, you would think so, yeah. Like, we're not in his head, but everything we've heard and read and seen, you know, that makes total sense. Sure, yeah. And meanwhile, it's, you know, what he resents is everything that I love about her. You know, it's like I see the other side of that, that here's a woman who came from absolutely nothing. And she told this incredible story about her life and all of her siblings and they had a fire and she had a single mom. no money and got herself through law school and worked her way up to federal judge. You know, I was Speaker 5 (4:57) just struck by the fact that she was so composed. I mean, of course, she's a judge. She's a very intelligent, highly educated woman. But she was so composed and just had this strength that radiated from her when she spoke about what happened. One of the things that was striking to me is that typically when we do our stories, it's more rare than not that we have. an opportunity to speak to somebody who was essentially right there when something happened, right? That heard the gunshots, didn't find out about it afterwards, but heard the doorbell, heard the gunshots, heard everything, had that moment of confusion, saw her loved ones horribly lying there injured. And it's just unbelievable that she was there and really kind of described that scene. Speaker 6 (5:39) You talk about how composed she is, right? Which she is, right? She can talk about it. She can talk about how she's dealing with everything, the worst, you know, moment of her entire life. But she said, she's like, Andrea, make no mistake. You know, when I'm alone or when I'm not in front of a camera or in my courtroom, I am, you know, struggling. You know, she said, I have done, she has done so much work. Like to try to handle this on a day-to-day basis, reading and doing a deep dive, like a psychological deep dive, Speaker 2 (6:18) therapy, Speaker 6 (6:19) reading about grief. You almost get this sense when you're talking to her, like she's okay. Speaker 5 (6:26) Yeah. Speaker 6 (6:26) Right? You know, like everything's okay. And you can't be okay, right, when you're only child. has been taken from you because of your job. Of course. One of the things that's really amazing is that she talks about forgiving Roy Denhollander, Speaker 2 (6:40) the Speaker 6 (6:41) man who killed her son, shot her husband, and then killed himself, and who had a hit list of others. And I think that forgiveness is... really important in healing for her. I mean, I Speaker 5 (6:59) think about that. You and I are both mothers. I cannot truly imagine anything worse in this life than losing your child. I just can't. I can't imagine it. And so I could imagine that for her to move forward, that's something she has to do in order to literally be able to live her life. One other piece in talking about her strength, something that struck me, and I'm sure we'll touch a lot of people listening to this, she had had such a hard time. having Daniel in the first place. She did. She said she lost three babies before. She lost another baby afterward. I mean, in every sense, this was her miracle baby. He was. And Speaker 6 (7:33) that Speaker 5 (7:33) strikes a chord with so many people who go through that, Speaker 6 (7:36) right? He really was her miracle child. And he was such a good... child. From everything I've heard, he was in college and his faith was really important to him and his family was really important to him. His friends were really important to him. One Speaker 5 (7:54) thing I want to touch on before we go into the investigation and the manhunt, there was a moment in there when she was talking to you and she said something occurred to her that This could be because of her, because of her job. And it kind of speaks to