When Ames resident Willy Nast knocked on Al and Mary Ann Signorelli’s door in Aurora, Illinois, he was a nervous 24‑year‑old creative writing student with a handheld recorder and no clear plan. He knew one thing — he couldn’t stop thinking about their son, Jeff.
Jeff Signorelli, 18, was killed in 2002 in what police described as a random act of violence. Shots were fired blindly through the back wall of a garage where he and his friends gathered on a summer night. The case remains unsolved.
Nast felt the impact of the loss more than he realized. He and Signorelli were the same age, graduated from high school the same year, and though they attended different schools, shared several mutual friends.
Nearly two decades after that initial conversation, Nast has transformed his long‑running relationship with the Signorellis into “City of Lights,” a six‑episode true‑crime podcast, which dropped Feb. 4 at willynast.com. The project shifts the focus from the suspects and evidence to the people left behind after Signorelli’s death.
Ames podcaster spent hours interviewing victim’s parents
Nast, who grew up in Aurora and moved to Ames with his family in 2020, starterd the project in 2008 as his senior honors thesis at Northwestern University. He spent hours interviewing the Signorellis, often in sprawling, three‑hour conversations.
Sometimes months or even years would go by between visits, but over the years, Nast kept returning to talk with the couple about their grief, their city and their efforts to make Aurora safer in the aftermath of their son’s death.
He hadn’t planned for his recordings to someday form the backbone of a podcast.
“I wasn’t a journalist. I wasn’t published. I had no business knocking on their door asking them to tell me about their dead son,” he said. “But they were so open and generous. That first conversation, I walked away thinking, ‘I have something worth working on here.’”
Those efforts included Al Signorelli’s run for city council just months after the shooting and the couple’s push to bring an anti‑violence program called Ceasefire to the community.
“It’s not a whodunnit or a how‑dunnit or a why,” Nast said told the Ames Tribune about his podcast. “It’s a ‘what now.’ It’s about real life after the crime.”
Turning old recordings into the ‘City of Lights’ true-crime series
Much of Nast’s podcast draws from his original interviews in college, recorded on what he describes as “a little handheld rectangle.” He wasn’t focused on audio quality. He was surprised to find they were usable and powerful when he revisited the recordings years later,
“I thought I’d have to ask them to go through all that terrible stuff again,” he said. “But when I listened, I realized I could work with it. There was about 20 hours of tape.”
The final episode takes listeners into Nast’s most recent interview with the Signorellis, recorded in 2023, exploring how grief evolves and how the question of “what now?” lingers when a case remains unsolved.
Nast hopes the podcast stands apart in a crowded true‑crime landscape.
“I’m not a detective. I’m not going to solve the case,” he said. “My strength is the human side — drawing out conversations about what violence does to families and what it means to love a city that doesn’t always love you back.”
All six episodes of “City of Lights” were released in February and are available at willynast.com/cityoflights.
Ronna Faaborg covers business and the arts for the Ames Tribune. Reach her at rfaaborg@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Ames podcaster’s true-crime series revisits unsolved Illinois murder
Reporting by Ronna Faaborg, Ames Tribune / Ames Tribune
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