Howdy!! I’m Andrea Slaydon, Investigative producer here at KPRC2. For part of my job, I usually write the weekly Investigates newsletters you get each week. I wanted to officially introduce myself to you and say Hi!
Here I am with my morning coffee. I always add vanilla protein drink with cinnamon and it’s SO GOOD!!!
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Do you know what a producer does?
In a way, a producer is like a “mom” on the team. Producers set up and organize everything related to story selection, interviews, shoots, writing, and editing. We plan for all scenarios and always have a backup plan when a problem arises. The producer thinks of anything anyone might need, including scripts, camera directions, pens, water, and a first aid kit.
Sometimes, I’ll do things like this picture below, where I “field directed” the camera shots for our live production “The Bench.”
Here is something interesting about ‘The Bench.’ I used a mom hack and brought frozen water bottles to the set, and it was a huge hit with the 100+ degree heat.
Okay, enough about me. I want to talk about some of the amazing things our team is doing right now!
‘The Evidence Room’ features the story of ‘Baby Grace’
The season four finale of ‘The Evidence Room’ featured the ‘Baby Grace’ case. You may remember when a young girl was found dead in Galveston Bay. The community rallied around this girl to show her love because, for so long, we did not know who she was. I do love this about the Houston area - people show up in times like this.
During the interviews for this episode, I was reminded of one specifically gut-wrenching part. Detectives talked about how the little girl had on light-up shoes, and they were still blinking when she was found. I can just imagine how much she loved those light-up shoes. All kids do.
But then a grandma saw sketches of the girl and realized it might be her granddaughter, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time. It was, and her name is Riley Ann Sawyers.
Her mother and mother’s husband were detained and later arrested. In this episode of ‘The Evidence Room,’ you’ll see what went on during the investigation.
By the end of it, the Detectives on the case served one more time as pallbearers at Riley’s funeral.
The island where they found her is now called “Riley’s Island.” Those who worked the case put a cross where they found her. See the full episode and catch up on other episodes of ‘The Evidence Room’ here.
‘DRAINED’ is back!
Wait till you see what we have been working on in our ‘DRAINED’ Investigation.
In case you don’t know, Investigator Amy Davis and I have been investigating water bill issues and the City of Houston water department for 18+ months now. BUT, What’s being done?
That’s what we set out to find last week during a city council meeting.
Amy and 27 others signed up to speak to council members about water billing issues, lack of transparency, and the need to improve the overall system for Houstonians.
It’s fair to say ‘DRAINED’ customers took over the meeting because council members spent more than two hours going over the issues and brought in water department employees to help. Check out the highlights of those ‘DRAINED’ stories.
Under the mounting pressure, Houston’s leadership pledged to be transparent and deliver on promised changes before several of their terms end in December.
What do city leaders plan to do to help people with water bill issues?
We circled back with the Houston city leaders, who said they want more done to help people with water bill issues. What do they have planned? How will they help people in the community? It’s part of what we are working on for next week.
Also, in our ‘DRAINED’ series next week, expect to see our story on Exposing shady water department contracts.
There’s big money to make fixing Houston’s countless water main breaks, if you have a contract. We wanted to know what it takes to score one of those multi-million dollar contracts. Amy is exposing the shady connections and questionable contracts.
Mark your calendars. You’ll see this, plus more stories with information and resources, in the latest from our ‘DRAINED’ Investigation - next Thursday, November 16th!
More KPRC 2 Investigates team highlights
Spencer Solves It: A full day of money-saving solutions (click2houston.com)
‘Just overwhelming’: Entire Galveston County mobile home community evicted (click2houston.com)
4 things to know before signing up for solar panels