Murder in Small Town X Host Reflects on Angel Juarbe and the Game Itself

The events of September 11th have had a profound effect on the way in which we live our lives. No longer content to be merely entertained, the tastes of post-attack Americans have been in constant flux since that day nearly three months ago. One of the seeming casualties of such a shift in preferences has been reality TV, which now looks to be on a downslide from the enormous peaks which it reached last year. Before all of this occurred, however, there was an enterprising and original new attempt from the makers of The Real World, which depicted a murderer on the loose in a small Northeastern town and the (real) investigators that were hired to track him down. It was called Murder in Small Town X. One of these investigators was a firefighter from New York named Angel Juarbe, a humble man who did his best to survive the game and make as many friends as possible. On the evening of September 4th (one week before the originally planned finale date of September 11th), Angel was crowned the champion of MiSTX, as he tracked down the killer and won the prize of $250,000. Just one week later, America's landscape would be forever changed and the New York firefighter would be at ground zero – the World Trade Center. In the months that followed confusion would reign, and as days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, it became increasingly evident that the "missing" Angel Juarbe was much more than that. On Wednesday, November 28th, Angel's body was found, and on December 1st he was laid to his much deserved rest.

In early October, when all of this still seemed like a nightmare that one couldn't wake from, I had the opportunity to do an interview with Gary Fredo, the host of Murder in Small Town X. I can't say why I've been holding on to it for so long, except to contend that I was hoping it might be unnecessary. Murder in Small Town X was my first story. I didn't want it to be Angel's last. Now that he has been found, however, I think it is only appropriate to honor this fallen hero.

First of all, what is your position? How do you know Angel?

Well... I know him from the show, Murder in Small Town X. I was the lead investigator up in Portland Maine, and the show went for about 5 weeks. Angel and I had a mutual bond. I was from the police and he was a fireman so I guess... yeah, we had a lot of talks.

You say you were lucky enough to call Angel your friend, as a host how attached were you allowed to get?

Well, we weren't allowed to hang out during the process of the show. At the strike party at the end, however, Angel barbecued the best steak that I've ever had. He was a good man. I really am lucky to be able to call him a friend.

So were the players allowed to contact the outside world?

Only briefly. About once a week the players were permitted half-hour phone calls to family members that were strictly monitored by the producers.

And when was this all happening?

March... I think, and part of April. It took five weeks, like I said. That was all in Eastport. (The basis for the fictional Sunrise). We were in Portland before that.

So, do you feel that the editing of the show accurately portrayed Angel and the others?

Yes, Angel had a very caring quality about him that was quite evident both in person and, from what I could tell, on the show. I believe that there were two things that were very necessary to win this game, and that Angel had both of these. One, the investigators had to be able to reason. This was a mystery after all, so they had to be able to think through problems. Angel as well as all of the other players could do this, no problem. Two, though, was interpersonal skills. The investigators had to be able to work together as well as just plain stand each other. This was where many of the players had quite a problem. Angel, however, was the exception. It may not have come through on the show too well, but in the beginning Angel really didn't like Kristen. This changed, however, when Kristen started to make active attempts to follow his advice and tried to become a part of the team. In short, Angel tried to keep the cohesion of the team. One of Jeff's main problems was that he was too inflexible, he was not a part of that team cohesion.

Speaking of Jeff, at the end of the series the fight that he and Angel got into seemed very heated, was it?

Well, you're a good reporter. Yes, the exchange got quite heated, to the point where I was forced to intervene. The agreement that I had with Fox specifically said that I couldn't mention it until the show had run its course, and they of course didn't have it in the show itself, but this was very important to me. I am not a big fan of Reality TV. As a police officer I don't want anyone to be put in danger, so one of the stipulations that I made upon my hiring was that if anything like this fight occurred I would be allowed to prevent it from continuing.

On the show it seemed that Angel and Alan were real friends. Did they truly get along as well as it seemed?

Yes, without a doubt. They got along just as well as we saw. Actually everyone in the group got along really well, even Kristen to some extent. The only exception to this was Jeff who was always on the outside of the group.

When was it evident that Kristen had become friends with Angel?

Basically when things were very bad for her, she and Angel were sent out on a track together and he told her what the group was feeling towards her. When she heard this, she immediately asked Angel what she could do to change. Angel didn't like her right off the bat, but her willingness to adapt to the group really changed his opinion of her. Much of the group worked relatively well with her after that.

As an investigator, was it evident that Angel had the best handle on the game?

Angel was definitely very intelligent, but then again so were Alan and Katie. I think most of them had a good handle on that part of the game. Where most of them failed, though, was in those interpersonal skills I mentioned. Only Angel really seemed to get along with almost everyone.

So how soon before it was announced did you know that he had won?

I was only told a short time before the events played themselves out at Lambert's home.

So is it true that not even the actors knew if they were the murderer?

Yes. I didn't even find out until the very end.

But you did exert control over the briefings?

I did not control the briefings to the extent that it looked on the show itself. As a matter of fact, there is a story which I can now tell about just how much the show was constantly changing. Now, we have a large production staff, and they were dressing the sets which the investigators were supposed to be investigating. Unfortunately these set dressers are used to dressing TV shows and Hollywood movies where the sets are just decorations. They weren't ready for real people to come tearing through there looking for things with a fine-toothed comb. When the investigators were first sent to Thibodeaux's cabin they discovered a pair of dog tags hanging from the ceiling. Now we knew that they were nothing, but the investigators think they've discovered a major clue, when in essence it's a prop mistake. Now in the next briefing, I don't go in there and tell them it's a prop mistake, but I do try to strongly push them away from what I know is a dead end. I tell them that they can pursue it if they really want to, but while they're at it, why don't they look at these things as well? The real problem with the show's structure was that 40 minutes became 3 minutes, and what was really a very open briefing structure where the investigators had real input winds up looking like I'm calling all of the shots. In reality we only see the highlights from a fairly long process.

So the investigators did get side-tracked unexpectedly?

Sure. They were making their own tracks up half the time. Many of the clues were dead ends, but they had some degree of autonomy. We wound up shooting over 14,000 hours of footage, only eight of which ever made it on the screen.

So was there ever really a plan to eliminate an investigator through separation, I mean you did warn them every chance you could get?

There was a plan to eliminate an investigator but it fell through. When George (one of the producers) started realizing just how much they were going to wind up living this, it became evident that if we kept up the threat of an elimination by those means that the players would become even more stressed then they were. It would slow down the game entirely. People would be afraid to look for clues because it might cost them the game. In the end they decided that they needed to keep the game moving.

Which brings us to the real question, was the game fair?

OK... I'll admit, at first I wanted a smoking gun. I wanted one person to be the obvious choice over the other (at the end of the game). In police work, however, there is not always that smoking gun. What the producers of Small Town did was to create an investigation that was like the real thing. A lot of it had to do with gut instinct. Originally they were going to allow both players to choose the same killer, and if they were both wrong they weren't going to award the prize money at all, but then they realized that if that occurred then it would look like it was planned out that way and they just didn't want to pay the money. So they changed it. In the end, it now looks like the game was won by default, but that's the price they had to pay.

So the fairness isn't lost even if the actor didn't know he was the killer?

The objective for the actors was to create a character that could either be the killer or could not be. This makes the investigation hard. It brings up the role that the investigators had to give to their gut instincts. Ultimately, we just didn't want the game to be too easy.

Fair enough. Were the players allowed to go out after their tracks?

Oh yeah... they were allowed to go out a lot. They could go out and have a good time at the bar, and they did... a lot. The only rule was that they had to be back by 11 at night so that the town could be dressed and production could take place. After 11 they had to stay in the house.

So what was the biggest surprise that occurred during the course of the filming?

I would have to say that the thing that surprised me most was the fact that Angel and Jeff became such fierce enemies. They were at least reasonably close when the game first started out.

Which brings us back to the unfortunate cause of this entire interview. What were you doing on September 11th?

Well I got a call just after it happened from my boss in Los Angeles. The city had been mobilized. I normally work for Administrative Investigation but on that day, I got in my uniform and I headed out onto the street.

Did it ever occur to you that Angel could be in trouble?

No... I'm sorry to say that it didn't occur to me until later. When an emergency comes up, I don't think about the personal stuff, instead I think of how horrific the event was. On the 12th I left a message for Angel to see if he was okay.

So how did you find out that Angel was missing?

Well first I got a call from the LAPD people that had been sent to New York for support. They had asked at the fire union for me. At about that same time I got a call from the producers of the show. Both sources told me that Angel was one of those missing in the rubble.

Have you been in touch with any of the other players since the 11th?

Yes, I've heard from Alan, Kristen, Lindsay and the producers. I'm sure that there's not a soul who knew Angel that hasn't been thinking about him at this time of tragedy.

Eastport (Sunrise) has been holding vigils for Angel. How was Angel received in that small town?

Many of the townspeople were hired as extras, and they probably felt a very close tie to him. On the other hand, the loss of any TV personality, particularly one that had just been filming in your town, is bound to be traumatic.

Finally, is there anything you want to say in closing to all of those people who have seen MiSTX and Angel and who have been praying for his safe return?

I was truly lucky to call him my friend. I admired him for what he did and I still do. My heart goes out to his family and I feel their pain. If there is any consolation, I know that in the end he was doing what he loved to do.

Thank you so much for your time.

Richard Hoeg is an Economics major at Hillsdale College. He covered Murder in Small Town X for RealityNewsOnline.

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