A Father’s Search for Truth, Justice, and a Son Who Never Came Home

Host: Jacob Newsome
Guest: Willie Smith
Production: Power of the Narrative (in partnership with Texas Center for the Missing)
Recorded & Mixed by: Jacob Newsome and Riverside.fm
Full Video Episode: Coming soon

On January 12, 2018, 19-year-old Jared Chavis got into a black Ford Fusion in Houston, Texas—and was never seen again. Seven years later, his father, Willie Smith, is still searching for answers.

In this raw and unfiltered conversation, Jacob sits down with Mr. Smith to revisit the night Jared vanished, the botched investigation, the heartbreak of unanswered questions, and the love of a father who refuses to give up.

Together they discuss:

• The events surrounding Jared’s disappearance

• The silence and negligence of law enforcement

• The emotional toll on Jared’s son and sister

• What it means to seek justice in a system designed to forget

• A direct call to those who were there that night

This episode is more than a podcast. It’s a plea. A demand. A sacred record.
And we won’t stop until justice speaks.

Crime Stoppers Tip Line:
$10,000 REWARD for information leading to Jared’s location and the arrest of those responsible.
Contact Houston Crime Stoppers or call 713-222-TIPS

https://crime-stoppers.org/solve-crime/unsolved-crime/5611318

• Website: Power of the Narrative

• Instagram: @PoweroftheNarrative | @jnewsome232

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  Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and anywhere your spirit searches for truth.

Host: Jacob Newsome
Guest: Wayne Cella
Production: Power of the Narrative
Recorded & Mixed by: Jacob Newsome and Riverside.fm
Full Youtube Video Episode: Coming soon

What if the trauma we survive becomes the raw material for the art we create?

In this brave and soul-deep conversation, Jacob sits down with filmmaker and actor Wayne Cella to explore what it means to live and create after childhood sexual abuse, queer erasure, and years of silencing. With searing honesty and poetic clarity, Wayne reflects on healing as a nonlinear process, filmmaking as exorcism, and friendship as both mirror and medicine.

Together, they unpack:

• Surviving priest-perpetrated abuse in childhood

• Making art from grief, rage, and queer becoming

• Trauma responses vs. true desire in intimacy

• Why stories save us and why silence kills

• How chosen family heals what bloodlines could not

Wayne’s films Insignificant, Talisman, and Mercury aren’t just projects. They’re ritual containers for reclaiming voice, queerness, and power.
This is a conversation about the ache of memory, the genius of inner children, and the courage it takes to stay alive when the world tells you you shouldn’t be.

If you’ve ever felt like your softness was unsafe or like your rage had nowhere to go this one’s for you.

Connect with Us:
Website: Power of the Narrative – Empowering change through storytelling and healing education
Instagram: @PoweroftheNarrative | @jnewsome232
TikTok: @jacob.newsome3
Support the work: Buy Jacob a Coffee
Share your story: Submit via this form
All Links: Linktree

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your soul-fed.

In this devastating and urgent episode of Power of the Narrative, Jacob Newsome sits with Alejandro Carrillo and advocates to share the story of Mayolo Carrillo—a father, grandfather, and beloved brother who vanished near Eagle Pass after trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border to say goodbye to his dying mother.

Mayolo's family opens up about their heartbreak, the systemic failures they’ve faced, and the haunting silence from investigators. They are doing what law enforcement refuses to: searching every day, following every clue, and demanding the dignity Maolo deserves.

This is not just one family's grief, it's a mirror reflecting how immigrant lives are treated as disposable.

• “He risked his life to say goodbye.”

• “We’re doing the police’s job.”

• “To them, he’s just another person. To us, he’s everything.”

Featuring: Alex Carrillo

Host: Jacob Newsome

⁠Linktree – All the links⁠⁠⁠

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Website: ⁠⁠⁠Power of the Narrative⁠⁠⁠ – Empowering change through storytelling and healing education Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@PoweroftheNarrative⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠@jnewsome232⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@jacob.newsome3⁠⁠⁠

Your story matters. Tell it here: ⁠⁠⁠Submit via this form⁠⁠⁠

Listen On: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your soul-fed.

https://crimesolverscentral.com/blog/post?name=a-sons-final-journey-the-disappearance-of-mayolo-23084

https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/missing-person-namus-mp143114

On April 23, 2021, Iris Santos, a radiant, fierce, 22-year-old trans woman, was murdered outside a Chick-fil-A in Houston. Her mother, Maria Carreon , never received a call from police. She found out through neighbors.

In this deeply intimate and heartbreaking conversation, Maria tells the story the media never fully captured: the pain of losing her youngest child, the coldness of the system, and the spiritual love that Iris carried everywhere she went.

“She hugged me over and over before she left,” Maria says. “Like she knew it would be the last time.”

This episode is a sacred testimony of grief, justice, and a mother’s refusal to let her daughter’s name fade.

Featuring: Maria Carreon

Email: mariacarreon8@gmail.com

Tiktok: Marita482
Host: Jacob Newsome
Justice for Iris Santos

Learn more or share tips: [713-222-TIPS]

https://crime-stoppers.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Iris-Santos-Revised-Media-Flyer-HPD-539367-21-Murder-@-8600-Westheimer-Rd.-Inv.-M.-Barrow.pdfhttps://crime-stoppers.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Iris-Santos-Revised-Media-Flyer-HPD-539367-21-Murder-@-8600-Westheimer-Rd.-Inv.-M.-Barrow.pdf

Content Warning: This episode includes discussions of anti-trans violence, murder, grief, police neglect, and trauma. Listener discretion is advisedHow to support:

⁠Linktree – All the links⁠⁠

⁠⁠Buy Jacob a coffee⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠Power of the Narrative⁠⁠ – Empowering change through storytelling and healing education Instagram: ⁠⁠@PoweroftheNarrative⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠@jnewsome232⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠@jacob.newsome3⁠⁠

Your story matters. Tell it here: ⁠⁠Submit via this form⁠⁠

Listen On: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your soul-fed.

https://www.hrc.org/news/hrc-mourns-iris-santos-latinx-trans-woman-killed-in-houston

What happens when we stop trying to “beat the odds” and start rewriting the whole system?

In this special guest feature on KPFT's Growing Up in America, Jacob Newsome—founder of Power of the Narrative and Sinclair Scholars—sits down with hosts Bob Sanborn and Carolyn Roberts to unpack how trauma shows up in public education, why most school systems fail to address it, and how narrative healing can change the game.

Topics include:

• Why “trauma-informed” education is rare—and necessary

• How poverty and identity shape student outcomes

• What it really means to “rewrite your story”

• Equity, resilience, and systemic transformation

This isn’t just a segment. It’s a call to build a new kind of education—one rooted in honesty, care, and healing.

Recorded at KPFT 90.1 FM Houston Interview originally aired June 11, 2025

⁠Linktree – All the links⁠ ⁠Buy Jacob a coffee⁠ Website: ⁠Power of the Narrative⁠ – Empowering change through storytelling and healing education Instagram: ⁠@PoweroftheNarrative⁠ | ⁠@jnewsome232⁠ TikTok: ⁠@jacob.newsome3⁠

Your story matters. Tell it here: ⁠Submit via this form⁠

🎧 Listen On: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your soul-fed.

What happens when a school district holds over half a billion dollars…
…but says there’s no room for trauma-informed care?

In this episode, I share my full public comment delivered live at the June 3, 2025, Humble ISD Board Meeting.

With $540 million in revenue and $160 million in reserves, the district claimed they had no funds to support equity-driven, student-centered programming. So I took the mic, and spoke truth to silence.

This isn’t just about one speech.
It’s about a pattern:

Proposals ignored
Vendors ghosted

Students left behind

It’s about the lives at stake when comfort is prioritized over courage.

⁠Linktree – All the links⁠ ⁠Buy Jacob a coffee⁠ Website: ⁠Power of the Narrative⁠ – Empowering change through storytelling and healing education Instagram: ⁠@PoweroftheNarrative⁠ | ⁠@jnewsome232⁠ TikTok: ⁠@jacob.newsome3⁠

Your story matters. Tell it here: ⁠Submit via this form⁠

🎧 Listen On: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your soul-fed.

Host: Jacob Newsome

Production: Power of the Narrative

Recorded & Mixed by: Jacob Newsome and Riverside.fmWhat does it sound like when love leaves you hanging?

In this special episode of Power of the Narrative, I share a raw, unfiltered phone call between me and my now ex-partner. This conversation, recorded during the final moments of our relationship, captures, in real time, the dissonance, avoidance, and fear that often hide beneath the surface of “bad timing” and emotional pullback.

This is not just a breakup. This is a case study in covert emotional avoidance, designed to teach, not to shame. I’m releasing this audio for educational purposes, as a guide to help others recognize the subtle, exhausting patterns that often leave one partner seeking clarity and the other dodging it.

In this episode, you’ll witness:

– Ambiguity disguised as maturity
– Emotional centering and guilt inversion
– Boundaries mistaken as punishment
– The quiet grief of being someone’s “almost”

Key Moments to Listen For:

• [00:30 and on] – I ask for clarity on our relationship structure. My ex sidesteps the question, redirecting to LA and “timing.”

• [04:11] – My ex centers his discomfort with my silence, framing my need for space as emotional neglect.

• [06:55] – I assert my boundary: “You’re centering your feelings and asking me to hold them.” Watch how emotional labor is silently outsourced.

• [08:02] – Communication style becomes a scapegoat to avoid deeper accountability.

• [10:11] – The silent breakup is confirmed: “So you don’t want to move in… okay. That’s clear now.”

• [13:30+] – I reclaim the narrative. I name the pattern. I walk away, not in rage, but in revelation.

This is not shared out of malice. All names and identifying details have been removed or altered. This is about reclaiming power through emotional truth, and helping others name the invisible patterns that keep them stuck.

Trigger Warning: Emotional manipulation, abandonment, commitment phobia, and covert narcissistic dynamics.

For anyone who’s ever been trapped in a relationship that promised potential but feared definition, this episode is for you.

Follow Power of the Narrative for more episodes on relational liberation, trauma recovery, and rewriting the stories we’ve been forced to survive.

Linktree – All the links⁠ ⁠Buy Jacob a coffee⁠ Website: ⁠Power of the Narrative⁠ – Empowering change through storytelling and healing education Instagram: ⁠@PoweroftheNarrative⁠ | ⁠@jnewsome232⁠ TikTok: ⁠@jacob.newsome3⁠

Your story matters. Tell it here: ⁠Submit via this form⁠

Listen On: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your soul-fed.

Host: Jacob Newsome
Guest: Emma Moshola (TikTok: @daisyrose1994)
Production: Power of the Narrative
Recorded & Mixed by: Jacob Newsome and Riverside.fm

Full video: https://youtu.be/yhAZ_2HZ19s

What happens when you’re still learning how to love after being broken open?
In this raw, unscripted conversation, Jacob sits down with trauma educator and truth-teller Emma Moshola to explore the messy, sacred work of healing.

Together they unpack:

• Inner child wounds

• Sexual trauma and body shame

• ADHD and emotional regulation

• The difference between connection and codependence

• What it takes to show up with love after harm has been done

This episode is an invitation to anyone who’s had to unlearn survival and relearn softness. It’s about facing yourself with honesty, and choosing to love, and be loved, more bravely.

Linktree – All the links
Buy Jacob a coffee
Website: Power of the Narrative – Empowering change through storytelling and healing education
Instagram: @PoweroftheNarrative | @jnewsome232
TikTok: @jacob.newsome3

Your story matters. Tell it here:
Submit via this form

🎧 Listen On: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your soul-fed.