Mike Lawler was born with a passion for history and spent much of his childhood digging holes in his yard in La Crescenta, looking for clues to the area's history. As a teenager, he was a student of Gary Keyes and was fascinated with Keyes's focus on some darker aspects of history. As an adult, he became a community leader in bringing local history to life with the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley and was thrilled to again team up with Keyes to air Crescenta valley's "dirty laundry."