The new generation of Unsolved Mysteries, which launched on Netflix on July 1, looks and feels different from the original iteration of the true-crime series—which spanned 15 seasons and reportedly led to about 260 cases finding resolutions. Creators John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer decided to forgo a host this time around—RIP Robert Stack—and as well as those iconic cheesy reenactments. Thanks to higher production values and a smaller batch of binge-worthy episodes, the new Unsolved Mysteries has already skyrocketed to number one on Netflix, and hooked a new generation of audience members—who are tweeting their own theories, emailing tips (Meurer counted 2,000 earlier this week), and highlighting the series’ most insane moments on social media.

Earlier this week, we rang up Meurer to ask her our own lingering questions about the show’s first season.

Why didn’t Rey Rivera’s longtime business partner Frank Porter Stansberry participate in the documentary?

The first episode of the series centers on the mysterious 2006 death of Rivera, who was found inside Baltimore’s Belvedere Hotel. Though the death was ruled a probable suicide, and the most likely cause of death seemed to be a fall from the hotel’s roof, several odd details left questions—namely his glasses and cell phone, which were found relatively unscratched with Rivera’s body.

At the time of his death, Rivera was employed by his longtime friend Frank Porter Stansberry. Shortly after Rivera died, Unsolved Mysteries says, Stansberry’s company put a gag order on its employees, preventing them from answering questions about Rivera. (David Churbuck, a publicist at Sitrick and Company, a crisis management firm hired by the company that owns the now-titled Stansberry Research, denied this to the Baltimore Sun this month. “There was no gag order or direction given to employees to not speak to the press, law enforcement or any other party,” Churbuck said. “Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue.”) And, Stansberry declined to participate in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, leaving audience members to speculate about his possible involvement in his friend’s disappearance. (Vanity Fair reached out to Stansberry for comment.)

Meuer said that, while filming the episode, she tracked down Stansberry and personally attempted to persuade him to participate.

“I spoke with Porter Stansberry myself, and asked him if he would interview for the show,” Meuer told Vanity Fair. “We had a long conversation, and he declined to be interviewed. And then I followed up a week later with an email, and he still declined to be interviewed. So I was on point with that reach out to him.… We were really sorry that he didn’t interview. He was one of Rey’s closest friends from the time they were 15 years old. That’s a deep relationship.”

Given how traumatic Rivera’s death was, however, Meuer said it was understandably difficult to persuade his loved ones to revisit and essentially relive their pain for the episode.

Rivera’s widow Allison, for example, “had to really think long and hard about whether she would do this story. Because this was many years ago that Rey died, and she tried to move on with her life, as hard as that was. It’s been such a painful thing in her life, I think she finally decided that if she didn’t do this…this is the best chance she had of finding out what happened to Rey. And that’s why she decided to do this.”

Meurer said she has “probably either spoken to Allison or at least texted or emailed her every day” since the series premiered, and that tips have begun rolling in.

“I think she’s happy that she did [participate]. She knows that if it’s going to get solved, it’s going to get solved through the airing of this episode. I know that the investigative reporters who were interviewed [in the episode] are trying to dig up new leads. It’s really created a lot of momentum for the case.”

What did producers make of Rob Endres’ eyebrow-raising comments about assembling his wife’s bones and sleeping with her remains?

Of all the people featured in the first season of Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries reboot, Rob Endres might be the most bizarre. In the second episode, “13 Minutes,” Endres appears to discuss the sudden 2004 disappearance of his ex-wife Patrice. Endres—who confesses to having had a rocky relationship with Patrice’s son, Pistol Black—describes his marriage to Patrice as being happy.

But his comments about her recovered remains are strange, to say the least. He explains that he carried his wife’s skull around for hours and slept with her ashes like “a teddy bear,” remarks that had led social media users to liken him to Carole Baskin, the wacky Tiger King character who was accused of being involved in the disappearance of her late husband Don Lewis. (Baskin was cleared of involvement; Endres has long denied involvement in his ex-wife’s disappearance and death, and was cleared by police.) Endres’s comments come off as so creepy—especially after Black claims that Endres was possessive of his mother and didn’t want to grant her a divorce—that incredulous audience members have flocked to social media and Reddit to vent.

“Like many people on here, after watching the 6 new episode of Unsolved Mysteries, I was particularly disturbed by episode 2, titled ‘13 Minutes’… I started to compile a list of his suspicious comments and actions, and then had to go back and add a bunch more on it after doing a deep dive on Reddit,” wrote one user in a lengthy post.

Meurer has pointed out, however, that Endres was thoroughly investigated by authorities, who couldn’t find any connection between him and Patrice’s abduction and murder.

Meurer told Vanity Fair that she was on site when Endres was interviewed.

“I think that Rob was very, very honest in his interview, and Rob was Rob. Rob is a character,” said Meurer. “We really appreciated the fact that he was as honest with his feelings, in terms of Patrice and in terms of Pistol. The interview, of course, was much, much longer than what’s seen in the episode and there were some difficult editorial decisions to make, but we really wanted to be honest with Rob. We had spoken to him when we scouted the story and he had told us the same things as he said on camera, so we knew, really, what his story was.”

Asked if she has ever heard anything similar to Endres’ statements—especially about the fact that he asked the funeral home to assemble his late wife’s bones—in her 30-plus years working on unsolved cases, Meurer said she had.

“Earlier this year I was speaking to someone—it wasn’t related to an Unsolved Mysteries case—but this woman’s daughter had died and her bones had been found in a forest. And she did the exact same thing that Rob did. She said, ‘When I get the bones back from the police, I just want to assemble them and be with her.’ It reminded me of Rob. And I thought, ‘Well, maybe this isn’t so unusual.’ Maybe there are a lot people in the world who feel this way because they never got to say goodbye to their loved one. And the bones are all that’s left—the bones are something tangible.”

Does Meurer form opinions about what happened in the Unsolved Mysteries cases she chronicles?

“When it comes to people that we interview, I am an innocent until proven guilty person,” said Meurer. “People pour their hearts out to us and are very honest with us about their feelings. We always want to respect people’s feelings.”

“If we ever had a case where we’re really sure what happened, that’s not an unsolved mystery in our mind,” continued Meurer. “We produce cases that continue to baffle us, like Rey Rivera. I do not know what happened to Rey. I’m still totally baffled. And Patrice as well…. Usually, when these stories premiere, I still have an open mind. Having done the series for so many years, you just never know where that solve is going to come from. If you go down one road, you’re dismissing other possibilities, so we try and stay open to all possibilities.”

How will the series update viewers on developments to the cases?

Meurer said Unsolved Mysteries will “definitely” update audiences on any major breaks in the cases covered. “We used to have updates in the original episodes if a story got solved. Sometimes they got solved the night we aired. We would get an update, [and] John [Cosgrove] would send a crew out as quickly as we could. Or else we would get local news footage and produce an update—just to let the audience know what happened in that case.”

Meurer said she feels like she owes Unsolved Mysteries audience members these updates “because they’re rooting for these people to have their mystery solved.” Considering the social media age we live in, Meurer said, “I think we would probably push any solid information out through social media so that we could get it to the world as quickly as possible.” In terms of producing a Netflix update, she and the series creatives are still figuring out what that might look like. “I guess it would be an extra or something that would stream along with the episode. That hasn’t been drilled down on how exactly that would happen, but we would get the word out.”

Given the leads she has already received, which case does Meurer think could be solved first?

“We’ve probably gotten around 2,000 emails that would be considered either tips or comments,” said Meurer, noting that that number does not include leads that were sent directly to the FBI. “Probably the most specific leads we’ve had come in have been about the Alonzo Brooks case [that was featured in episode four], because there were people in the town who heard things. That’s hearsay, so there’s not much we can do with that, but some new names have come in. With Xavier [Dupont de Ligonnès, featured in episode three], somebody sent us a photo of someone who looked so much like him. They’d snapped a photo of him, not knowing, in Chicago. And in the photo, it seems like Xavier had a little bit of face work done. It looked very much like him, but we don’t have a name for that person. This was just a stranger that this person saw.”

Meurer said the tips continue to roll in. “Every day, we kind of do a tip debrief at the end of the day. And we get so excited about what’s coming in, and feel hopeful that these cases can be solved—that’s the dream.”

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