Beware of Disaster Scams

Winter Storm Uri struck Texas in February, causing apocalyptic-level problems for Texans across the state. Seniors have been hit especially hard, left in some instances for multiple days and weeks without access to water or power. The snow and ensuing energy crisis were dangerous enough, but now fraudsters are using the disaster to run their scams on seniors in Texas.

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Beware of COVID-19 Vaccine Scams

As we move toward the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel, one major breakthrough has been the creation and distribution of various vaccines. But like any other positive development attracting the public’s attention, scammers and fraudsters are taking this medical breakthrough and attempting to use it for their financial gain.

To receive a vaccine, county health services require residents to sign up via an online form or over the phone. The county health service then sends a confirmatory email or text, or calls the resident to confirm the sign-up. Though these calls, texts, and emails are legitimate, scammers have been conducting “phishing” schemes where they pretend to be in charge of the vaccine distribution and try to steal personal information or sell junk treatments.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently announced that it has seen an influx of COVID-19 vaccine schemes in connection with the vaccine rollout. Below are a few signs that a vaccine communication is more likely to harm you than help you….

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Senior Romance Scams: Beware

In these isolated times, it is becoming increasingly common to use the internet, social media, and dating apps to make connections.

While scams often surface on the internet, seniors especially should be aware of possible “romance scams.” A 2020 report by the Federal Trade Commission called these the costliest scam impacting older adults, with aggregate losses of $84 million.

So how can you determine whether a budding new romance is love at first sight or an attempt by a cunning Casanova to gain access to your pocketbook?

No two romance scams are exactly the same, but they frequently share certain similar characteristics. Here are a few warning signs you can watch for to keep your heart (and your wallet) safe…..

Read the full article on FYI50+ Magazine

Beware of Financial Scams with a COVID-19 Twist

FYI50+ - A Senior Lifestyle Magazine

View the article on FYI50+ here.

Vulture: This Week in True Crime Podcasts

This Week in True-Crime Podcasts: Murdered Grateful Dead Fans. Plus, the urban legend of the “Bunny Man.”

The true-crime podcast universe is ever expanding. We’re here to make it a bit smaller and a bit more manageable. There are a lot of great shows, and each has a lot of great episodes, so we want to highlight the noteworthy and the exceptional. Each week, our crack team of podcast enthusiasts and specialists will pick their favorites.

Are you seeking something spooky but you’re a bit of a scaredy-cat? Then, you’ll want to hop down the rabbit hole with Dallas-based comedians Christie Wallace and Heather McKinney as they unravel the urban legend of The Bunny Man. In 1970s, Fairfax, Virginia, victims reported a menacing man wearing a rabbit mask and wielding a hatchet. According to these reports, this curious critter was quite territorial, threatening violence and smashing windshields to scare off trespassers. From there, the legend of the Bunny Man has grown, spawning wild theories, a macabre tourist trap, and a string of slasher movies. With giggles and jibes, the ladies of Sinisterhood separate fact from fiction to uncover the true horror of this mysterious masked man. —Kristy Puchko

Read the full article here.

Vulture: This Week in Comedy Podcasts

Sinisterhood - The Bunny Man

Sinisterhood sees Dallas, Texas-based comedians Christie Wallace and Heather McKinney chat about a different true crime, cult, or creepy topic each episode. “Why are bunnies so freaky?” ask the hosts this week before considering the source of the spooky rabbit, from the animal’s feet to the film Donnie Darko. It’s a humorous and slightly scary introduction to the legend of the Bunny Man, “a deranged, ax-wielding figure dressed in a white bunny suit that disembowels those that dare trespass near the eerie Colchester bridge” in Fairfax County, Virginia. Filled with research and interspersed with reminiscing between two longtime friends, Sinisterhood strikes the perfect balance as an amusing history-horror hybrid as the hosts joke about the terrifying tales they share. Following the legend from start to finish, Wallace and McKinney begin with the origin before attempting to uncover the truth of the Bunny Man. After tracing numerous news stories that rely heavily on bunny puns (“bunny chops”), the hosts weigh in on whether this story is fact or fiction. Either way, they make the frightening funny. 

by Becca James

Read the full article on Vulture here.

Business Bites Podcast - Dominating a Podcast Niche

October 12, 2020

 If you have ever thought about podcasting or even just content creation, this episode is for you! This week, Rachel talks to Christie and Heather from Sinisterhood about what they have learned since beginning their show in 2018. 

Good Morning Texas: How to Protect Seniors from COVID Scams

How to protect seniors from COVID scams

Don't let scammers hurt you

Check out the interview on ABC’s Good Morning Texas.

SMU Law: Alumna Heather McKinney receives the Equal Justice Works Fellowship

Read the full article at SMU here.

Congratulations to Heather McKinney, class of 2015, for receiving the Equal Justice Works Fellowship. She will work at Legal Aid of North West Texas for the next two years to address the gap in civil legal services for victims of elder abuse and exploitation, with a special emphasis on serving rural communities.

The Elder Justice Program has placed 22 Fellows across the country at legal services organizations for a two-year term, where they work with victims of elder abuse and exploitation to enforce their rights and address wide-ranging civil legal issues, such as financial exploitation, housing, protection orders, guardianship, and public benefits, and make referrals to other supportive services.

Heather McKinney Fellowship Information

Sponsored by: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime
Service Location: Fort Worth, Texas
Issue Area: Elder Abuse
Fellowship Class Year: 2020
Program: Elder Justice Program

The Fellowship

The primary issues of focus her fellowship will be physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, financial exploitation, multiple forms of abuse, cognitive impairment, and physical disability. Heather’s project will create an organized, community-based response aimed at protecting the elder population from scams, exploitation, and other legal issues facing that community.
Heather’s advocacy interest in protecting the elder population springs from her personal, familial experience assisting older family members as well as from her prior career experience. Heather began her professional career advising clients as an Investment Advisor, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Lindus Advisors, Inc. where she saw firsthand the devastating impact of financial exploitation when the firm assisted senior clients in recovering after victimization. Heather also worked as a solo practicing attorney, providing legal hospice services to seniors and terminally ill clients.
She then worked as a private equity associate at Weil, Gotshal and Manges, where she had the opportunity to work with the firm’s impressive roster of pro bono clients. That rewarding experience led her to now make it her career’s mission to provide high-quality legal services to low-income individuals in the vulnerable senior population.

The Project

Heather’s project is designed to provide high-quality legal representation to victims of elder abuse and exploitation; enforce victims’ rights; address wide-ranging civil legal issues such as financial exploitation, housing, protection orders, guardianship, and public benefits; and make referrals to other supportive services.

She will also be conducting community education and outreach to foster an organized, community-based response to instances of senior abuse and exploitation. If you or your organization could benefit from a presentation on any aspect of recovery from senior abuse or exploitation, please reach out to Heather at mckinneyh@lanwt.org.

Read more about Heather McKinney.

Read more about the Class of 2020 Equal Justice Works Elder Justice Program.

Dallas Observer: Best Podcast 2020

Best Of :: Arts & Entertainment

BEST OF DALLAS® /// ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT /// 2020

BEST PODCAST - Sinisterhood

Everyone and their mom has a podcast these days, so it's hard to keep up even with just the local ones. But true crime comedy podcast Sinisterhood by Dallas comedians Heather McKinney and Christie Wallace hits all the high notes. Yes, it's possible to laugh at the same time as being scared shitless, a discovery made thanks to these ladies' ingenuity. Sinisterhood is so good it's made it on iTune's Top 10 U.S. comedy podcast list. Plus, lawyer McKinney helps break down the legalese behind complex cases, which helps a ton. Listen, if you dare.

Check out the full list on Dallas Observer.

Women's Health: 22 Best True Crime Podcasts Of 2020 That Will Keep You On The Edge Of Your Seat

Just try not to get too wrapped up in the drama.

BY LINDSAY GELLER AND MADELINE HOWARD

SEP 2, 2020

Sinisterhood

Produced by Dallas comedians Christie Wallace and Heather McKinney, this podcast is a deeply-researched discussion of America’s spookiest stories. Christie does research, maps out timelines, and offers historical context for fans, while Heather (who has a day job as a lawyer) breaks down the legal jargon and geeks out about the Fourth Amendment, the part of the Constitution that covers search warrants and suspect rights in criminal investigations.

Read the article on Women’s Health here.

Marie Claire: True Crime Podcasts We've Been Hooked On This Year

True Crime Podcasts We've Been Hooked On This Year

Seriously, you need to keep up with these.

By Bianca Rodriguez and Kayleigh Roberts

Aug 27, 2020

'Sinisterhood'

Best friends and improv queens from Dallas, Christie Wallace, and Heather McKinney, chat all things sinister in this funny and well-researched podcast. McKinney is a corporate lawyer, so her small blurbs of background legal information are totally helpful when it comes to understanding a case. Not all episodes cover murder mysteries despite the title; some of their best ones highlight the theory of the Mandela Effect to the Kennedy Family Curse.

Read the full list here.

Good Morning Texas: Poppin' Podcasts

February 25, 2020 | Watch the full interview on ABC/WFAA here.

Women in Law: On the Record - Ep. 32 - Heather McKinney

Episode No. 32, Heather McKinney, Associate at Weil & Host of Sinisterhood Podcast

Heather is an associate at Weil in their M&A and private equity group. She also is the co-host of the Sinisterhood Podcast--a weekly podcast focused on a different true crime, cult, or creepy topic every week. With her background in comedy writing and improv, Heather weaves in comedic moments of relief throughout Sinisterhood. She is absolutely one of the funniest people I know! She is also sharp, talented, and a terrific storyteller. She shared how she is able to balance a big law job while pursuing her passions.

Check out the full episode here.

Meet Heather McKinney of Sinisterhood in East Dallas

Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather McKinney.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Heather. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I have been writing and performing comedy for over 12 years, both in Dallas and Chicago. I grew up in Mesquite and went to undergrad in Chicago where I fell in love with comedy and began performing professionally. In 2011, I moved back to Dallas to attend law school and have now been practicing law for the past four years. When I found Dallas Comedy House in 2016, it reignited my love for comedy and performing. That is where I started back with improv but have now branched out to storytelling and stand up.

Christie Wallace and I met at Dallas Comedy House and discovered we had a mutual love for true crime. In addition to discussing the more macabre things in life, we also just made each other laugh. Turning on mics and pressing record seemed like the natural next step. Plus, she brings in a unique perspective with her degree in psychology and her experience as a new mom. That along with my background as a lawyer made us feel like we had something unique to add to the comedy podcast landscape. That’s how Sinisterhood was born. We discuss crimes, cults, and supernatural occurrences, but always derive humor from our own lives while respecting the stories we tell.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We had some early issues with show formatting and audio quality. The more research we did helped us discover what worked and what didn’t. Now, we record in a dedicated studio room and have Christie’s husband, Tommy, edit our shows. After doing this many episodes, we have found our groove and our unique voices.

Please tell us about Sinisterhood – what should we know?
Sinisterhood is not your average true crime podcast. We bring extensive research, legal expertise, vulnerability and a lot of humor to the otherwise dark subject matter. Some of our best episodes are where we dig into the justice system and how certain information is portrayed in the media versus the courtroom. We take any chance we get to explain legal concepts or rules of evidence because sometimes a trial comes down to the exclusion of some piece of evidence or a technicality. That type of nuance doesn’t always get picked up in the headlines, so we like to give all sides of a story. We hit the iTunes Top 10 Comedy Podcast list in November 2018, just six months after starting and hit 1,000,000 downloads when the show was less than 10 months old. We have also garnered some local and national press, from Good Morning Texas to Vulture and the AV Club. I am incredibly proud of those milestones, but I am most proud of how we interact with our listeners through social media and the Patreon platform.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
The chemistry between my co-host, Christie, and I is the key to our success. I am so grateful to do this show with someone like Christie. She has an eye for great storytelling and always makes sure anything that goes into the show is completely source-checked. My personality can tend toward off-the-rails and off-topic, so it is awesome having her to keep me on track. Her personality and the humor she brings to the show always makes me laugh, so I know the listeners love it, too. We laugh the most at each other and genuinely love spending time together. I think that joy comes through when you listen.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://sinisterhood.com

• Email: sinisterhoodpodcast@gmail.com

• Instagram: @sinisterhoodpod

• Facebook: http://facebook.com/sinisterhood

• Twitter: @sinisterhoodpod

• Other: http://heathervstheworld.com
  

Read the full article on Voyage Dallas.

Good Morning Texas: Rising Stars

Meet this week's Rising Stars on WFFA-ABC: "Sinisterhood" podcast hosts Christie Wallace and Heather McKinney

Meet this week's Rising Stars on WFFA-ABC: "Sinisterhood" podcast hosts Christie Wallace and Heather McKinney

Check out the interview on ABC’s Good Morning Texas.

Vulture: This Week in True-Crime Podcasts

The Rock Star and the Nanny, Sinisterhood, and More

The true-crime podcast universe is ever-expanding. We’re here to make it a bit smaller and a bit more manageable. There are a lot of great shows, and each has a lot of great episodes, so we want to highlight the noteworthy and the exceptional. Each week, our crack team of podcast enthusiasts and specialists will pick their favorites. 

Sinisterhood, “The New Jersey Watcher”

So a couple buys an enormous house in a wealthy suburb in New Jersey and before they even move in, they get a letter from someone referring to themselves as the Watcher, referencing specific details about their lives, including their children, who they call “the young blood.” Because they’re not sure what to make of it at first, they ask the previous owners if this situation seems familiar to them, and sure enough, they also got a letter from this character the day before they moved out. And then there’s another letter, and another, and another.

The Watcher case is deranged in a very particular way, so you need the right guides to walk you through it, and Sinisterhood’s hosts, Heather McKinney and Christie Wallace, are those guides. They will give you the details you need, but also ask important questions like, “What if you read the letters in a not-scary voice? They sound great!,” and understand that the baby doll–style shirts of the ’90s were no one’s friend. You will be entranced by how weird this story is, confounded by the many theories people have about it (including the one where the letter writer is the ghost of John List) and perhaps, at the end of the episode, inexplicably craving Costco meatballs. —Chanel Dubofsky

Read the full article here.

Make Way for the Dallas Comedy Festival

Dallas Comedy House is going forward with a focus on podcasts. Not only will local podcast Sinisterhood be cutting two episodes of their hit show (it was recently featured in the AVClub), but the co-headliners are Daniel Van Kirk and Rory Scovel doing their show Pen Pals (description on their website: "Every week, your pen pals Rory Scovel and Daniel Van Kirk respond to the letters you send, from free will to freeway etiquette, from mental health to manatees. It’s your podcast, we just talk about it.") The new Dallas Comedy House space will have a podcast studio, to boot.

Read the full article here.

AV Club: 15 podcasts to listen to this week

Sinisterhood: The Momo Challenge

True love is someone who will look at some nasty shit for you. And because Dallas comedians Heather McKinney and Christie Wallis care so much, they’ll look at Momo. Mother Bird (by Japanese artist Keisuke Aisawa) and its journey to becoming the sinister, Kim Kardashian–bothering suicide game “the Momo challenge” is the creepy subject of this episode. Momo is a woman with long black hair, protuberant eyes, and, according to McKinney and Wallis, looks like Shelley Duvall from The Shining or the thing from Beetlejuice if it had a baby with the girl from The Ring. Momo has allegedly been telling teenagers to kill themselves via Peppa Pig videos, Fortnight, WhatsApp, and Snapchat, but somehow no one seems to have any receipts. If you love blacking out in a Reddit hole or have spent time on Rotten.com, this close read of Momo’s nasty alleged behaviors, and her similarity to past internet hoaxes, is disturbingly amusing and off-kilter. [Morgan McNaught]

Read the full article on The AV Club.

Fox - Dallas Comedy Festival Preview

Dallas Comedy Festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary.  Here's what you can expect during the event that spans 5 days.