Harvey Updyke will be the focus of an upcoming podcast episode -- and not a podcast in the sense that your 22-year-old cousin bought some equipment off of Amazon, but a podcast podcast. Mo Rocca, a “CBS Sunday Morning” correspondent, hosts Mobituaries -- a serialized podcast series, an “irreverent but deeply researched appreciation of the people (and things) of the past who have long intrigued him—from an unsung Founding Father to the first Chinese-American superstar, from Neanderthals to the station wagon” produced by CBS News and Simon & Schuster -- spent months researching Updyke’s poisoning of Auburn’s famed Toomer’s Corner trees as payback for the Tigers’ 28-27 comeback win over Alabama in 2010.
“It really bothered me hearing about this, and I have to tell you, I even wrestled right away with my feelings about this because they weren’t people and they weren’t animals; they were trees, but something about the idea of a fan doing this I found disturbing,” Rocca told the Tuscaloosa News.
Updyke famously confessed to the crime live on the air during Paul Finebaum‘s radio show and was later sentenced to three years in prison for the crime, though he served less than three months. He instantly became a cult figure in American culture, an example of the fanatic devotion among a certain set of college football die hards taken to the nth degree. The former Alabama state trooper still revels in his infamy. “Based on what I’ve seen on Twitter on him, I think he’s the same person,” Finebaum told the News. “He’s a little better-known and more famous, but I don’t feel he’s grown at all.”
Updyke was also ordered to pay $800,000 in restitution to Auburn, and while it’s unsurprising that he is severely delinquent in his payments, with court records showing he last made a payment in August of 2018.
While the interview is (obviously) still unheard, a clip reviewed by the Tuscaloosa News revealed Updyke stalked Toomer’s oaks like a serial killer studies his victims:
The podcast will be released Friday morning.
