EVENTS

We’re excited to have Yvette Gentile and Rasha Pecoraro join us for a speaker event through WIFSFBA on April 20th! 

Sisters Yvette Gentile and Rasha Pecoraro are primarily recognized as the co-hosts of the wildly popular podcast “Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia,” a 2020 iHeartRadio ‘True Crime Podcast of the Year’ nominee. The dark story of their mother Fauna Hodel’s life garnered the attention of superstar Chris Pine (Star Trek, Wonder Woman, Dungeons & Dragons), actress India Eisley (Underworld: Awakening, The Secret Life of the American Teenager) and award-winning director Patty Jenkins (Monster, Wonder Woman) and became a six-episode TNT limited television series I Am the Night, which premiered in January 2019. Yvette and Rasha were on set just 6 weeks after losing their beautiful mother to breast cancer at the end of 2017. The sisters were a part of the filming process throughout 2017 and 2018, and were asked to host Root of Evil, which was the companion podcast to I Am the Night. The podcast was created, directed, and written by Emmy Award winning documentarian Zak Levitt of Cadence13. 

Gentile and Pecoraro are currently hosting a new weekly podcast from Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Radio called “Facing Evil.” In their latest venture, the siblings bring their unique perspective of growing up in a family with a dark history to true crime with a focus on the victims and individuals at the heart of the stories and moving onward and upward. 

 “If we can make a difference and teach others how we can be better human beings by doing good in the world, we will have achieved everything our mother stood for,” says the pair. “Our goal for this show is to find a light in the darkness and to bring awareness to those stories that are as deserving of the attention that our family has received. By shining light on these other stories of evil, we strive to foster hope and healing.” 

Outside of podcasting, Gentile is also an actor, model, and sandal designer with her husband Gino. She is an avid yogi and marathon runner who trains and practices classes specific to individuals confronting distress and long-term grief and pain. She splits her time between her hometown of Hawaii, San Francisco and Italy.

Pecoraro was a fierce competitor on “The Biggest Loser” in 2006. Since then, she’s advocated for beauty at any size as a plus size model and married her wife Vanna in 2010. She is a proud LGBTQ+ advocate and activist, mother, as well as an actor and voiceover artist. She resides near Portland but remains a forever native of Honolulu.