Transcript of The After Show: Swipe Right on the Devil

I'm Deborah Roberts, and as always, it's good to have you with us. And today, let me tell you, we have got a fascinating and, dare I say, jaw-dropping episode for you. It's a bit of a turn from our usual offering, but I have no doubt that you are going to be so intrigued by this program because we certainly are. We're We're taking a closer look at a new Hulu docuseries that's grabbing a lot of attention, Swipe Right on the Devil. And you can imagine what this is all about. It's a frightening play on the online dating world, but really a story of manipulation, of murder, and alleged witchcraft. Pretty bizarre stuff. The story centers around the disappearance and murder of Sydney Loof, a 24-year-old woman from Lincoln, Nebraska. Sydney disappeared after going on a date with a woman that she met on a dating app. It began as a missing person investigation and ultimately would expose a disturbing underworld that involved young women being recruited by a couple who claimed to be witches, and the only way they could unlock their supernatural powers was through murder. Yeah, as I said, it's pretty bizarre stuff. It sounds like something straight out of a Hollywood script, right?

Well, it certainly caught the attention of Academy Award-winning director and producer Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, who worked on the project, and also another talented director. Today we're gonna get a look at this story because it's a 3-part docuseries, and some of the creative minds behind it are gonna talk to us about it. And we're gonna begin with director Brian Beagle, who is here with us now. Hey, Brian.

Hey, Deborah.

Hey, welcome. Thank you. Wow. This is, this is some strange stuff. You've directed all kinds of genres from history to sports, but this is a whole It is.

It's a story that it's almost hard to put into words. Like, without experiencing it firsthand and dealing with the characters for over a year and getting to know them, it's almost impossible for me to wrap my head around how bizarre this story is.

And when you say characters, I mean, we're talking real-life people. I mean, this is true crime. And I'm just curious how you learned about this story because we obviously hear a lot of strange stories here on 20/20, and sadly involving murder and, uh, you know, women often who are entrapped. But this is something that is just really strange when you talk about witchcraft and almost like sacrificing, really, with these women. How did you even hear about this story?

Yeah, so technically this was in the public domain. It was an undertold story. It had big splashy headlines back in 2017. And when I came across it, I just instinctively knew that there was more there. And I wanted to dive deep into unfolding this mystery. 'Cause I don't even consider this necessarily true crime. It's more of a true crime mystery. Right? It's not a, it's not a whodunit. It's a whydunit.

Yeah. And that's the thing that gets us too. 'Cause it's mind-blowing stuff when you talk about like a manipulation, of course, a dating app, of course, Many people can relate to that. Witchcraft, a so-called coven, and young women who are vulnerable. A lot of elements here that I guess would appeal to people who appreciate true crime, but also, as you said, a wide-on it too. What did you make of it once you began to dig into it? You said you knew there was so much more there. And, you know, there's a couple— there's a woman who's, as we said, swiping right, having no idea that she's about to swipe into something deadly.

Yeah. So that would be Sidney Loof. And the story really centers on, for the first time, I believe the world will get to know who Sidney Loof really was and what happened to her. Right. There's been coverage in mid— in the Midwest about this story, but no one really knows who she was at heart. how much she loved and cared for her family and her friends. And for her life to be taken away at such a young age is tragic. And the viewers will get to know her through her own diary entries, through exchanges with Bailey Boswell, who trapped her in, through her Snapchats, through first-person interviews from her friends, and, and most importantly, from her family.

Well, tell us a little bit about who she was, because she lived in Nebraska. Fairly small town, but she wound up moving because she was— she's a lesbian, and she wanted to try to meet other people. A fairly lonely woman. You reveal that in the show, and that she's looking to find love. And so she goes on this site and finds somebody. She even posted something, ready for my date. So she was somebody who was sort of excited to step out into life, wasn't she? Young woman.

Yeah, she was. She came from a really small town, Neely, in Nebraska. And, you know, she wanted to expand her horizons. She wanted to explore her sexuality. And so she moved to Lincoln, where it's a little more realistic to meet somebody of the same gender. And she was also quite vulnerable and a bit lonely. And so she went on Tinder looking for that connectivity and that love and, you know, belonging, like most of us want and need in life. Mm-hmm. Um, and so that, that's her essence. Like, she was a beautiful soul looking for a connection, and unfortunately what happened to her is the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone going on any dating app, right?

Well, she had one date with this person that she meets online, somebody named Audrey, and then she's supposed to have another date, and then she disappears. Her family doesn't hear from her. And suddenly everybody knows something is up. And then there's this investigation. And her friend, Brooklyn, is really quick thinking. I mean, she knows about the date. What leads her to try to flesh this out?

Yeah, so, I like to say that it was a task force of friends and family and investigators who all sort of pieced this together.

Which happens a lot, by the way, in these true crime stories that we report on at 20/20.

Yeah, but Brooklyn was really instrumental in— she literally opened up a fake Tinder account and she kept swiping and swiping until she saw Audrey's, uh, face or a posting of hers. And then so she connected with her on Tinder and she got her actual phone number. And as soon as—

That's pretty clever.

Yeah, she was like doing her own investigation behind the scenes. Um, and then she told the Louf family, like, she has the phone number of who Sydney was last with, and she handed it over to the Lincoln Police Department and off they went.

That's really pretty amazing. And, and as I said, on a lot of our— in a lot of our 20/20 reporting, family members, friends sometimes just sort of take charge, and she really did. She was crucial in breaking this case, wasn't she?

She was. I mean, even the detectives would say, uh, she was the first big break that they got. You know, they had been scratching their heads like, where would this girl go? The crime scene didn't look like she was kidnapped. Like, she just vanished after a date. And if not for the hard work of her friends, specifically Brooklyn, they were just coming up against Dead leads.

Well, what we learn in the reporting that you do is so much more about how this woman fell into this trap. So stay put because we want to talk about this Audrey. When she swiped and found Audrey, who was this person? Well, when we come back, executive producer Christopher St. John is going to join us to talk more about that discovery and what the two of you learned while the cameras weren't rolling. So stay with us. Don't go anywhere.

Welcome back to 20/20: The Aftershow. I'm sitting here with Brian Beagle, who directed the Hulu docuseries Swipe Right on the Devil. And also joining us now is executive producer Christopher St. John, who worked on this project as well. Chris, I'm going to grab my headphones here since you are joining me remotely. And, uh, check in with you. How are you?

I'm well. How are you, Deborah?

Good, good. So let's start off first of all by talking about the fact that you worked at 20/20 many years ago. Somehow we never worked together, but I guess we crossed paths, uh, through the hallway, maybe many years ago.

I, I think we did. I was, uh, just a lowly production associate at that time. So I was the beginning of my production career. But yeah, 20/20 launched me into documentary.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And back then, we were doing all kinds of stories, rarely did true crime. And of course, we do a lot of that now. Let's talk about what brought you to this project. Because you've covered, as I said to Brian, you both have worked on all kinds of other projects. But this one is, I have to say, particularly chilling and bizarre and evil in nature. Yeah. What sort of attracted you to it? Brian said he knew there was more to this than, you know, we saw at the surface. What about yourself?

Yeah, well, I work with Ron Howard and Brian at Imagine Documentaries, and we make all sorts of docs and true crime as well. But we actually don't do a lot of true crime because the story needs to hit a high bar. Like, and when Brian came in with the access he had behind the scenes and the story, the twists and turns and just the kind of like unbelievable background of this particular story, we immediately jumped on it. And I think that for us, aside from, you know, the headline of witchcraft cult, there was a lot of characters involved that were just— it's like a really rich character-driven story, which is something we're always looking for.

And the mystery of it all too. So let's talk about this Audrey. It turns out it wasn't Audrey wasn't a real per— that wasn't her real name. Her name was Bailey Boswell. She was a 31-year-old woman who was living with her boyfriend, whose name was Aubrey Trail. He was a 51-year-old. Yeah, a little confusing. Tell us a little bit about these 2 and what you discovered about them.

Yeah, so Aubrey Trail was a 51-year-old man with a long history, criminal history, and his girlfriend Bailey had less of one, but also had a record. And the two of them had been using Tinder to find sexual partners for the two of them, not individually. And that had— as we pulled on, as the, frankly, the investigation and then us subsequently making the show pulled on these threads, we discovered that they'd been luring women into what amounted to a bit of a sex cult. And they used Bailey as bait for lonely young women in Nebraska. And they would arrive at the door and be introduced to Aubrey, who they were not expecting, and kind of were seduced is maybe the wrong word, but coerced into these relationships, where that got, frankly, more and more twisted as time went by.

Yeah, really twisted. Because when you talk about them claiming to be witches, and as kind of a cult, as you said, how was this supposed to work? So they meet these women, it wasn't going to be, you know, they all just sort of move in happily ever after.

It seems so. And what really, what we discovered is that it was It wasn't that these women would show up and they were immediately recruited into some sort of witchcraft cult. They would show up and they would be told what they wanted to hear, that they were attractive and beautiful and likable. And they would— they actually started a relationship. And it was a bit of a slow burn where Aubrey's involvement was introduced slowly. And then ultimately, at some point when things had gotten a little more serious, Aubrey started to introduce these somewhat strange beliefs about the occult and black magic and the fact that he could read minds or see people where they weren't, when they weren't in the room. And that was all tied into other rules of the household, like these young women weren't allowed to wear clothes in the house. They had to call Aubrey— Dolly. daddy. There were all sorts of rules that ultimately degraded the women but kept them feeling trapped. And yeah, it got to the point where the screw was turned, and Aubrey and Bailey ultimately started suggesting sacrificing people in order to bring these women into A world that they said existed, but as you watch the show, may or may not have.

Yeah, really pretty bizarre stuff. And Brian, we started off talking about Sidney and getting a chance to know her, but she wasn't the only woman that, you know, is revealed in this series. There are other women too that you both sit down, and I want to get your take on them. Just getting them to sit down and talk, number one. Brian, let me ask you first, and then Chris, you You chime in if you would about how hard it must have been to try to get them to recall something so difficult.

Yeah, so it was Katie, Anna, and Ashley. And when we approached them, they were apprehensive. They had lived through a very traumatic experience. They were introduced to Aubrey's beliefs in witchcraft. They were promised that they would have superpowers. And so they were, um, they were struggling with whether they should speak on camera or not. And so it was through building relationships and trust with them that allowed them to open up to us and reveal what is just shockingly, amazingly crazy what went on inside Aubrey's house in Wilburn. Nebraska. And the girls believed as much as they wanted to, and some of them thought about implementing Aubrey's dark magic into their lives.

Did they talk about trying to leave ever?

Yeah, so they weren't technically held against their will. Um, Aubrey has this saying about free will, like he wants a witch to have free will. And in that free will, it helps them gain their powers by making certain— let's just call it human sacrifices.

But it wasn't exactly free will because they felt trapped.

They were afraid, for sure. I think that there was a real fear and also a real connection to Bailey. Like, these were young women who were all looking for love, and they thought they had found it in Bailey. And they had to accept this secondary presence who was scary. And I think that, as Brian said, a lot of them, I find them incredibly brave because they both spoke at a trial, which I think we're going to get to, but they also spoke to us because they found it important to let people know this story. And they're still struggling with some of the decisions they made. They don't fully understand why they did what they did. And I think that that's something that we, as the As the producers of this show struggled with as well. It was like, what is the power that Aubrey had? I mean, I don't think he's a witch, but I do think that he has some kind of a superpower. Some persuasive powers. He knows how to let people hear what they want to hear. He has some persuasive superpower. Yeah.

One thing that was kind of striking is that Anna spoke about herself in the third person. Was that kind of her way of distancing herself from what had happened?

Yes. Anna, as much as anyone, was really traumatized by her experience. She was only 18 years old when she met Aubrey and Bailey. And through self-help and through a lot of therapy, she can't even refer to herself as Anna. So she took on a new name, Jaya. Which she now calls herself because she doesn't want to go back in her mind to those days when she was sort of under the spell, if you will, of Aubrey and Bailey.

How do you think they were able to survive this ordeal? I mean, because we're going to get back to Sidney here, who obviously did not. How were they able to survive?

I, I think it's like Chris said, these were incredibly brave women. I mean, underneath their vulnerabilities and their longing for love and companionship and just a sense of belonging, they were also truly brave. And their actions dictate that, as you'll see in the show when they take the stand and they testify.

I would also just say that they— I think they got very lucky. I think that there was a lot of luck involved, the timing. I think that for some of them, the spell did actually break and they got away, as as far as they could. But I think that they were really fortunate because they were in a potentially extremely dangerous situation.

Well, clearly, because Sidney was eventually found. Her remains were found, and pretty gruesome stuff. I mean, in multiple trash bags. I mean, she had been dismembered. She had had a tattoo at one point that read, everything will be wonderful someday. Kind of a sad irony there because That was the way investigators were able to identify her, right, Chris?

That's right. Yeah, it was the lyric, a song lyric of something, a song that she loved. And it was a way for her to remind herself during times when she was feeling a little bit down that, like, this too shall pass, things will get better. And of course, in this case, tragically, it didn't.

It did not. Well, we are gonna take another break, and we need to talk about the rest of these 2 because ultimately Boswell and Trail were arrested. And we're gonna— after we come back, we're gonna talk about not only that, but the shocking moments that would happen inside the courtroom. So you two stay put and don't you go anywhere. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to 20/20: The After Show. I am here with director Brian Beagle and executive producer Christopher St. John, who are giving us a look, a behind-the-scenes look and an in-depth look at the Hulu docuseries Swipe Right on the Devil. Christopher Aubrey wound up giving a confession on video. So these 2 were arrested in the death of Sidney Loof, um, and, you know, Aubrey was playing pretty coy for a while, and the FBI sort of played a little bit of a game. They wouldn't speak with him, but then he started talking, and, and his confession kind of happened in a bizarre way. Tell us about that.

Yeah, Aubrey as we mentioned earlier, will tell anybody anything he thinks they want to hear. Mm-hmm. And he is constantly trying to manipulate and pull strings, and he's constantly trying to figure out the best way forward for himself. Ultimately, he confessed to the crime because investigators had been interrogating him, and he had been running them around, constantly, basically, and trying to manipulate them into a better deal. And they were given the advice, stop talking to him, just step away. And they did. They shut the door, and they walked away, and they didn't come back for weeks. And it made him angry. And it made him, if not desperate, a little bit— He looked for a new way to regain power, and he started calling local news outlets And he called a reporter out of the blue, from prison, and—

Stunning stuff.

And confessed to the murder of Sidney Loaf. He described an entire kind of scenario that didn't— doesn't seem to have actually happened, but he did say that he had killed her.

It's pretty striking stuff, Brian. And we've seen that in a lot of the other episodes that we've covered on 20/20, where the suspected person, and in this case, the police truly believed that they had the right person under arrest, likes the attention, and they wind up sort of, you know, giving themselves up because they want the attention. I mean, in this case, it seems like the same kind of psychological profile.

It is, but it also isn't. Like, Aubrey is a very manipulative person, and he had ulterior motives for confessing, and you'll learn that when watching the show. And I also can say I talked to him on the phone for over a year in getting to know him and getting inside his mind, which took his story on a very wide path and allowed us the access that we had to get inside his head.

And what did you think trying to get inside it? I mean, what did you learn about him?

I learned that he's a very twisted person. He's scary. He's manipulative. And he has a belief system that most people would not really understand.

So there's some pretty creepy stuff, including in the courtroom, you know, dramatic stuff that I think will shock viewers.

Yeah, there is an event that happens in the courtroom that we don't want to say too much about here, but ultimately, I think, is an unbelievable twist that's that's truly shocking, and was shocking for people present in the room that day. And it was all about, again, Aubrey trying to take control in a situation where he had none. And it kind of sends the investigation and the trial off in a whole other direction.

Pretty shocking stuff. I think viewers will really be stunned by. Chris Bryant said something about getting to know him a little bit more, and his obviously kind of a twisted mind. But what you also reveal is a little bit about his background, and who he is. I mean, maybe not necessarily portraying him sympathetically, but giving a sense of who he is. Why was that important to you?

You know, I think that we— that I personally, and that we at Imagine Documentaries think it's important to show characters in there as their full selves, as fully 3-dimensional as possible. And we did that both with the victims, the young women who were pulled into the craziness of Aubrey and Bailey's household, but we tried to do that with the culprits as well. I don't think it makes them necessarily more sympathetic. It certainly doesn't excuse the awful, awful things that they did, but it gives you a fuller picture of this world that they were occupying, and maybe provide some small—

Maybe understanding, or just somehow figuring him out?

Maybe just an attempt to understand what is going on in this man's head. Which I'm not sure, even now, 2 years later, I have any idea of what's going on in this guy's head.

How about you, Brian?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked, because I think Chris hit on something important, which is the understanding of it all. This is the first time that viewers, or the world basically, will understand what happened to Sidney Loof. There have been so many questions and so much speculation, but the work that we did with Imagine and the help of Hulu and the collaboration, we've uncovered quite a unique story, one that is almost like too... Shocking. Unbelievable to believe.

Right, right. It almost feels like it had to be scripted. One other thing that was pretty strange is hearing Aubrey talk about the murder and said something that he doesn't regret the murder, but the person he and Bailey chose to murder. What do you think he meant by that?

My understanding is that his regret for murdering Sidney Loof particularly was because that got him caught. Her family cared so much about her. Her friends, as we discussed, did their own little investigation that they reported her missing within, I believe, 24 hours. And that speaks to the testament of how Sydney was loved and that, that's Aubrey's regret, that he chose the wrong person. He chose someone who had a family that really cared about her.

Chris, I'm curious, you know, when we cover these stories, it's always hard Especially when there's such disturbing, chilling, disgusting things that happen. And in this case, it certainly did happen. Give us a sense of how you went about trying to present this so that it was something that the audience could pay attention to, but without being so horrified.

It's an excellent question because it's— the story is horrifying. The specifics are horrifying. Some of the footage we had access to who was horrifying. And ultimately, it's a constant one decision after another of how to— what to include, what not to include. And we tell the full story. We're not hiding anything. But we don't need to get into some of the most grisly details. You understand at a certain point, right? So I think that for us, the more important question than what the details are is the why of it all. Why would something like this have happened? Why was Sidney so vulnerable? Why did she get— why was she the one who was killed? And I think that this is a testament to Bryan's reporting going into this. He really got Aubrey to tell us on camera, on a Zoom from death row where he sits today, why he did it. And he hasn't said that anywhere else. He didn't say it in the trial. He didn't say it to investigators. But he said it to us, and it's in the show. And it's a chilling reason.

We'll learn more about what that's all about when we see it. But do you come away from this, do both of you come away from this with more questions? Or do you feel like you kind of finally understand this case?

I think that I understand it as best as I can. I think that we, we did a really good job breaking down what, what happened and to a certain degree why it happened. I think that there is a dark part of both Aubrey and Bailey that we'll never quite reach.

And you, Brian, do you feel that you came away with more questions or do you feel that they're answered?

I feel like from an investigative standpoint, we've answered all the questions that really were still out there. My remaining question would be, how do the Loufs truly feel 8, 10 years later about the tragedy that happened to Sydney? Um, I can only understand what they say to me, but I'm not in their minds and in their hearts. So my only question would be like, how do they How do they sit with this?

You know, we try to really have a focus in our 20/20 episodes about the victims. I mean, not just about the crime and the perpetrator, but really honoring the victims. And it seems that you both really made an effort in this case to not just talk about these grisly things that happened, but you're talking about a family, you know, you talk about a woman, you're talking about other women who were affected by this, and it's It seems like that was a big focus of what you were working on for this project.

Yeah, it was. And I'll just add that in a strange way, with a dark setting of a story, there were more heroes than there were villains, right? Sydney's family, her friends, the detectives, they all came together and they helped shine Sydney's light on what would otherwise be a very dark setting. And I think that comes through in the show, and ultimately it's a takeaway and a testament of who she was.

How important was that to you, Chris, to shine that light?

It was, it was absolutely fundamental. I think that, like, the reason we were initially drawn to the story is the headlines of witchcraft and sex cult, for sure, but ultimately I think that this is such a universal story about the vulnerability that arrives when you long for belonging, which is something that we all feel. The Luff family, I think, felt slightly betrayed by the initial coverage of this story. They felt like their daughter who had been murdered was painted as a witchcraft cult member, And in truth, she was anything but. She was a young woman going out on a date. And as one of our investigators says, like, before she hung up the phone, she was dead. Like, that was it. Mm-hmm. And so I think it was very, very important for us to tell that story, to describe the circumstances that allowed a situation like this to arise, and, yeah, to honor the victims. I think that That more important than talking to someone on death row is remembering the people that they touched.

Well, clearly you do that in this piece. It's a fascinating, fascinating 3-part series. Thank you both, Brian and Chris, for being with us today. And you can catch Swipe Right on the Devil, out now on Disney+ and Hulu. Again, thank you both for coming in, and thank you listeners for choosing to spend your time with us today. And of course, you can always find 20/20 on Friday nights on ABC. And you can stream episodes just like this one anytime on Disney+ and Hulu. Thanks so much, and have a good day, everybody. Thank you.