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Transcript

The Facetime Murder · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want to drop you into a very specific, just
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: completely ordinary moment in time. So it's a Wednesday evening,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: May twenty seven, twenty twenty. You are standing in your kitchen,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the evening light is filtering through the windows, and you're
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: just standing there doing.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: The dishes, right, just a totally normal night exactly.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: It's the absolute definition of domestic tranquility. And that is
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: exactly where Alicia Cordova was. But then the stillness of
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: her house just shatters. Her five year old daughter comes
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: sprinting down the hallway and she's clutching an iPod touch
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and her face just has that primal panic that no
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: child should ever wear. She tells her mom.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Something's wrong with that, because just moments before this, that
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: five year old and her brother were on this completely
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: ordinary FaceTime call with their forty year old father, Nick Cordova.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: He was still at work at his HVAC company, and
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: right in the middle of this innocent digital connection, the
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: reality on the other end of the screen just fractures.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Alicia takes the device from her daughter, and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: what she sees and hears in those next few seconds is,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is pure nightmare field. Oh, the camera
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: is violently rustling around. She hears this terrifying sudden bang,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: then screaming and moaning, and she can't see her husband's
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: face anymore, just this chaotic, spinning blur of an office ceiling,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the floor, and in the middle of all of it
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: she sees the brief, chilling flash of a black glove. Wow,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: she is completely helpless, just watching an attack unfold through
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: a three inch screen. And today our mission on this
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: deep dive is to figure out exactly what happened in that.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Room, because it is a massive web to untangle.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: It really is. We're pulling together hundreds of pages of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: frankly heavily redacted police files, court documents, and these unreleased
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: surveillance tape descriptions to investigate the unsolved execution style murder
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of Nick Cordova. We're going to drag you into a
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: story of missing money, constantly shifting stories, and a police
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: investigation that's just full of blinding blind spots.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: And you really have to understand the stakes here, because
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: when you actually sit down and look at the investigative materials,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: it becomes abundantly clear that this wasn't a random robbery
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: gone wrong. This is a locked room puzzle. It's a
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: clothes box mystery where the most devastating clues weren't even
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: hidden in the shadows. They were sitting in plain sight,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: just waiting for someone to actually analyze them.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Right, So, to figure out how this investigation derailed so spectacularly,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: we have to start at the physical crime scene. Yeah,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: because the chaos. I mean it started before the police
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: even stepped inside the building.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: It really begins with that agonizing gap right between hearing
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the violence on the phone and actually arriving at the scene.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, put yourself in Alicia's car for that twenty minute drive.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: She is just hauling down the Arizona Freeway. Her kids
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: are in the back seat. She is calling everyone trying
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to sound the alarm, and when she finally pulls up
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to Gilbert Air she parks far.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Away, which is such a motherly instinct.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Exactly. She deliberately hides her car behind some thick bushes
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and tells her kids to stay put and just play
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: on her phone because, in her mind, maybe it just
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: got beaten up and she wants to protect them from
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: seeing their strong dad bleeding. You know.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she doesn't know the extent of it yet.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Right, so she sprints right through the yellow crime scene
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: tape that's already up, screaming for her husband, and for
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: twenty agonizing minutes, officers hold her back until one finally
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: pulls her aside and delivers the five words that just
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: rewrite her entire universe, which is, your husband is dead.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: And in the middle of that, incomprehensible shock, as she
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: literally falls to the asphalt, her instincts somehow kick in.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: She asks this defining question. She says, where is Dave?
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Is Dave still alive?
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Right, Dave Sweetman?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Dave Sweetman, Nick's business partner. And when you look
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: at how the first responders encountered Dave, the word bizaar
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: doesn't even begin to cover it.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: No, it doesn't. Like. Let's put you in the shoes
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of the very first responding officer. You arrive at the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: office building, you walk up to the glass front door,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and before you even touch the handle, you see someone
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: inside standing there, deliberately peeking out through the office blinds,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: right act.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Just staring out.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So you draw your weapon. You order the man
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to open the door and step outside. But the door
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: only cracks open a few inches, and through that narrow gap,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Dave sweetman's hand emerges. He is holding a bloody nine
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: millimeter sig sour by the barrel, just handing it over right.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: He hands it to you, and he's stammering out, I'm
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: his partner, that's my gun. I'm sorry. Oh my god.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: So the officer secures the weapon, puts it on the
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: ground and tries to push the front door open, but
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: it won't budge. Something really heavy is blocking it from
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: the inside.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And it's Nick Cordova.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: It is Nick Cordova's body. He is lying in a
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: pool of blood, completely unresponsive, with a gunshot wound to
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: the back of his head.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, wait, hold on. If I'm a patrol officer and
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I know there's a victim physically blocking the only door,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I can't just shut my way in, can
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I That seems incredibly messy for a crime scene.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, it is the absolute nightmare scenario for preserving forensics.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, when a victim is barring the entry like that,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: standard protocol dictates fine eating a secondary point of ingress,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: like a back door or a side window. You do
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: everything possible not to disturb the body or the surrounding
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: blood spatter or the trace evidence on the floor.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Right, You don't want to trample everything.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly, but in a high adrenaline moment, panic often overrides protocol.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: The officer decides to push. He forces the door open,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: physically shoving against Nick's body, dragging it across the floor
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: until it moves just enough for him to squeeze through.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Instantly, the pristine nature of that crime scene is totally compromised.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And runs he finally squeezes inside. I mean it is
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: total devastation. Yeah. So to the left is the main
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: office where Nick and Dave had their desks. Nick's desk
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: is a complete disaster zone. It has been physically shoved
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: out of plate like you can literally see deep dragged
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: indentse in the carpet.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: It was a brutal fight.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The floor is covered in a computer monitor, There's
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: scattered cash, a bag of contraband. They even find a
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: human tooth.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: On the floor, which is horrifying.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And bizarrely sitting amidst all this carnage is there's a
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: potato with a hole gouged out of one side.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the potato.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Right. The internet thinks it was a makeshift silencer, though
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the police file never actually confirms it. Point is, it's
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: a war zone. There are bullet holes on the wall,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: in the desk, in the window.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Total violent chaos, a desperate struggle for life. But then
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: you look twelve feet away, near the far wall of
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: that exact same room, to Dave Sweetman's desk.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, stop right there, twelve feet away. You're telling me
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: two men wrestle a guide to the ground, shoot him,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: trash the entire side of the room. But the desk
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: a few feet away didn't have a single paper out
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: of place.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Not a single thing.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: How is that even physically possible in a small, enclosed office.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, okay, let's unpack this. If a tornado rips
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: through your house, it doesn't leave one single dining table
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: perfectly set for dinner.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: It defies the basic physics of a violent struggle. When
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: bodies are thrashing around, when adrenaline a surging and bullets
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: are flying, destruction isn't neatly contained to a strict ten
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: foot radius. That untouched desk is It's a glaring anomaly.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: It looks like a still life painting. The only exception
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: is the bottom right drawer, which is pulled open and
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: contains an empty handgun. Case right, it speaks to a
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: very specific, isolated target, which immediately brings Dave's version of
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: events into question.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Because Dave's narrative begins to show these massive stress fractures
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: almost immediately. So let's look at the story he gives
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the police while he's sitting in cuffs at the scene.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: He claims he was just sitting at his pristine desk
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: when two Hispanic men wearing green shirts and COVID style
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: surgical masks walk in holding a box of free on
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: trying to sell.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: It to Nick right like door to door salesman.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Dave says a commotion breaks out. The men
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: point a gun at him and demand his money. He says,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I gave them my wallet. I gave him the cash
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: in my pocket. Then he claims he was hit on
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the head, knocked completely unconscious, and didn't even hear the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: fetal gunshot.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: It's a classic robbery gone wrong narrative, but within an
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: hour the foundation of that story completely collabor oh complete.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: So an officer is escorting Dave to a patrol car
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: for a formal interview, and standard procedure is to pat
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the witness down before putting them in the cruiser. As
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: the officer pats down Dave's front left pants pocket, he
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: feels a thick bulge.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And it's over one thousand dollars in cold, hard cash.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Over one thousand dollars.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine the awkward silence in that moment. I mean,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: if you're listening to this, you're probably screaming at your
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: phone right now, like, why didn't they arrest Dave on
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the spot? You literally just told the police I gave
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: them the money in my pocket. Ye, And now the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: cop is holding a massive wad of hundreds.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: And Dave immediately back pedals. He hastily alters the story
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: right on the spot. He claims, Oh, no, they didn't
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: take all my money. I only gave them the money
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: from my front right pocket.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Oh how polite of the armed murderers. Yeah, mid execution,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: they are kind enough to only empty one of your
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: pockets and just leave you with over a grand in
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the other.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: It's absurd, It.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Is so absurd. But thankfully the building is rigged with
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: surveillance cameras so we can actually see.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: What happened exactly. The footage shows two men entering, but
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: they aren't legitimate salesman. The box of free on they
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: are carrying is completely empty. It actually has a panel
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: cut out of the side, modified specifically to conceal a
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: large firearm. Wow, and after the shooting, the cameras catch
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: these two men fleeing in a highly distinct vehicle. It's
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: an older Pre two thousand and three red and silver
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: four f one point fifty with badly faded paint on
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: the roof.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: And crucially, the cameras in the lobby catch audio. They
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: catch the gunshot, and moments after the killers flee, they
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: catch Dave's voice off camera yelling help me.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: So.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Based on this tape, the police officially cleared Dave Sweetman
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: as the literal trigger man.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Right, But the specific language investigators use in their official
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: file is really critical. Here they state they no longer
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: suspect Dave as the direct shooter. However, they follow that
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: up by writing his involvement remains unclear. In a criminal investigation,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: you are always looking for the invisible hand. What's fast
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: here is just because you don't have gunshot residue on
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: your knuckles, that doesn't mean your hands are clean. It
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: simply means the violence was outsourced.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Right, And if this wasn't a random robbery, for pocket cash,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: which we know it wasn't because they left Nick's wallet
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: full of cash right on his body. Then what is
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the motive why execute Nick Cordova. To figure that out,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: you really have to follow the money straight into the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: toxic heart of Nick and Dave's partnership.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's rewind to twenty seventeen. Let's look at the
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: genesis of this tragedy. Nick was this beloved family man
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: who naturally stepped up as a father figure to his
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: younger siblings. He wanted to be his own boss, so
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: an old friend named Frank offered to sell Nick a
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: fifty percent steak in Gilbert Air.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: But Frank gave Nick a very explicit warning. Frank told
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Nick that his business partner, Dave Sweetman was quote a
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: shadypos and if you pull Dave's records you find a
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: rap sheet featuring assault, disorderly conduct, trespassing, and fraud.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Right, Frank was the operational guy and Dave was the
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: money guy. Frank wanted out specifically because Dave, but Nick
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: believed he could handle it, so he buys him and
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: for two years things actually seem stable, but then the
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: financial bleed begins.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so fast forward to March twenty twenty. This is
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: just two months before the murder. Dave quietly drains thirty
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars out of the company account, and when Nick
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: confronts him, Dave just brushes it off. He's like, oh,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I have a debt to pay, but I promise I'll
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: put it back.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: But he never does.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: No, he never does. Instead, in April he drains another
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: fifteen thousand.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: That is forty five thousand dollars, vanishing into thin air
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: in a matter of weeks. The tension in that office
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: must have been just suffocating.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Nick comes home completely unschooled. He tells Alisha he thinks
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Dave is doing something illegal with his other companies, but
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: it escalates way past financial stress. By May. Nick tells
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Alisia he feels like he's being washed, and then he
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: drops a total bombshell. He tells her he's terrified Dave's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: going to hire it man to take him out.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: And you have to ask, why would Dave do that?
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: What is the mechanism that turns a bad business partner
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: into a lucrative murder. It is a specific type of
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: insurance known as a key man policy.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down for me. How does a guy
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: with a known fraud record even get approved to benefit
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: from something like that.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Well, a key man policy is essentially a financial safety
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: net for a company. Think of it like a prenuptial
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: agreement for a business, but with a deadly loophole. If
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: one partner dies unexpectedly, the policy pays out to the
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: surviving partner so the business doesn't completely collapse. Okay, now,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: when Frank was Dave's partner, Dave tried repeatedly to force
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Frank to sign one, but Frank vehemently refused. He literally
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: told Dave, I want to be worth more alive than dead.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But Nick, who is trusting and eager to make
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: the business work, had signed it. The combined payout of
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: those policies upon Nick's death was a staggering eight million dollars.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Eight million dollars. Here's where it gets really interesting. Let's
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: look at Tuesday, May twenty six, literally the day before
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the murder. Nick had just gotten back from a camping
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: tree and decided to take an extra day off. Back
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: at the office, the manager tells police that Dave spent
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: that entire Tuesday nervously pacing the office, walking in and out,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: constantly asking her Where's Nick? When is Nick coming in?
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: It is highly aberrant behavior for a random Tuesday afternoon.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a stage director nervously pacing behind the curtain,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: waiting for his lead actor to hit his mark so
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the deadly play can begin. But the lead actor didn't
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: show up on Tuesday, so the curtain had to rise
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday exactly.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And when you lay out these pieces a missing forty
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: five thousand dollars, an eight million dollar insurance motive, and
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: explicit fear of a hit man and a partner lying
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: about a wat of cash at the crime scene, you
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: would expect a massive targeted investigation. Right, You expect swift arrests.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: But instead you hit a brick wall, a wall made
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: entirely of redacted documents and baffling police blind spots, which
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: brings us to the FOIA tape five years later.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Right, this takes us to March twenty twenty five, because
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: for years the police completely denied Alicia access to the
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: internal surveillance footage.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Which is wild to me. Why do police departments stonewall
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: families like this? Shouldn't a widow have the right to
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: see the evidence in her own husband's murder.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: In theory, Yes, absolutely, But mechanically, police departments often use
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: the ongoing investigation exemption under the Freedom of Information Act
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: to just lock down all records. They argue that releasing
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: anything could tip off suspects, so families literally have to
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: lawyer up and physically soothe the department to compel a
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: judge to release the files. Wow, and that's exactly what
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Alicia did and she won.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: So picture this picture Alicia, the greeting widow, sitting in
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a cold room down at the precinct, staring at a monitor,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: about to watch the last moments of her husband's life,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the moment she has play. She sees Dave getting ready
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to leave for the day. He walks up to the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: glass front door, and instead of walking out, he stops.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: He deliberately separates the blinds and peaks.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Outside, staring out into the lot.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And at that exact precise second, the red and
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: so Ford F one to fifty pulls up. Dave then
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: turns and walks back to his desk. Alicia yells in
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the priescinct, pause the tape. Why would he be peeking
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: through the blinds right then unless he was expecting someone?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Ray and Dave had told police, He just quote forgot
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: a bill on his desk.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, come on.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: The timing just defies coincidence entirely, and as the paper
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: rolls on, the reality the execution becomes horribly clear. The
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: two killers enter wearing gloves and construction hard hats, which
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: is precisely why there was zero suspect DNA found at
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: the scene.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: The police had told Alicia the cameras didn't capture the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: actual struggle, and that was true, but they didn't tell
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: her about the audio.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the audio is the worst part.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Alicia sits in that room and listens to her husband
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: fighting for his life. She hears the FaceTime call with
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: her own children happening in the background. She hears Nick
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: desperately yelling for help, and what does she hear from
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Dave Sweetman? Complete silence, complete silence until Nick breaks free,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: runs into the lobby toward the door, and the masked
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: man steps up behind him and fires a single shot
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: into the back of his head. Alicia had to watch
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: her husband be slaughtered, knowing the police possess this tape
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: from day.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: One, And the really frustrating part is the investigative failures
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: don't stop inside that building just two minutes down the road.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: The missteps multiply exponentially.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: You're talking about the gas patient footage.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, just two minutes after the murder, that incredibly distinct
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: red and silver truck pulls into a convenience store. A
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: chovy man in a dark shirt and boots gits out.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: He walks into the brightly let store to pay for gas,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: and the overhead camera captures a crystal clear, high definition
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: shot of his face. Wow, he's not wearing the mask anymore.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: It is undeniably him. You look at this photo and
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: think anyone who has ever met this man would recognize
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: him instantly.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: It is the golden ticket of a homicide investigation, a
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: clean facial shot of a primary suspect escaping the scene.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Yet inexplicably, the Gilbert Police Department sits on this image.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: They do not release it to the public for over
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: two weeks, unbelief. By the time it hits the local news,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the trail is ice cold, and when Alisha asks the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: police why, she gets handed over two hundred pages of
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: police files essentially painted black with redaction. Inc She has
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: never been given a copy of Nick's autopsy report. They
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: have never released the ballistics we don't even know what
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: caliber bullet killed Nick, or if they ever actually tested
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Day's nine milimeter to prove it had never been fired
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: like he claimed.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, this is
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: where systemic failure takes root. Alicia gets an investigator who
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: promises arrests, shows her a PowerPoint of the evidence, and
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: then two weeks later that detective is quietly demoted to patrol.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: The rotating door of detectives practically guarantees that institutional knowledge.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Is lost, right, it just vanishes.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: And we have to view this within the broader context
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: of the department itself. The Gilbert Police Department is currently
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: under active review by the Arizona Attorney General's Office over
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: allegations that the town may have illegally destroyed or withheld
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: police records. While they deny the allegations, the shroud of
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: secrecy covering this case is suffocating.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this directly, why hasn't there been
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: a forensic accountant tracing that missing forty five thousand dollars well,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I mean Dave Draine's thirty grand, then fifteen grand in
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: cash Mere weeks before a professional gloved hit squad shows up.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: You don't pay a hit man with an IOU, you
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: pay them an untraceable cash. Why wasn't that money trail
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: followed to the ends of the earth.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Because tracing financial crimes requires specialized resources and dedication that
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: frankly patrol level of homicide units often lack. Law enforcement
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: today suffers from what we call the CSI effect. They
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: tunnel visions strictly on physical DNA, but these killers ensured
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: no DNA was left behind by wearing gloves and hard hats.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: When a department limits their view strictly to biology, they
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: remain completely blind to the financial mechanisms They missed the
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: invisible hand that funded the trigger.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes so much sense, and the aftermath of
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: this case is just a masterclass and adding insult to
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: fatal injury. Nine months after Nick died, Gilbert Air ran
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: out of money and filed for bankruptcy. Despite an eight
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: million dollar life insurance policy floating around, the business shuttered.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And what did Dave Sweetmen do. He took the client list,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: started a brand new company called Arizona Family Air and
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: he runs it from the comfort of his own home
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: to this very day.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Alicia was forced into a grueling multi year legal
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: battle just to secure the financial future Nick died trying
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: to build for his children. It wasn't until twenty twenty
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: four that she finally had to settle the insurance payout
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: with Dave out of court.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: But Alicia Kordova is still fighting. She is on TikTok,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: she is doing press, She is badgering the police department.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: She refuses to let Nick's name fade into the redacted
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: black ink of a cold case file.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: So what does this all mean for the investigation going forward?
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: In the world of true crime, cases like this are
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: rarely solved by a single smoking gun dropping into investigator's lap.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: They are solved by relentless pressure looking the story alive.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: You forced the system to eventually reckon with its own blind.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Spots, right absolutely, And as you mull over everything we've
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: talked about today, you know, the untouched desk, the missing money,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the perfectly timed peek through the blinds, I want to
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: leave you with one final, deeply unsettling thought. Yeah. While
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: investigative reporters were recently digging into Dave Sweetman's background, the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: unearthed a dark secret, a secret completely omitted from that
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: two hundred page police file.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Which is just wild to think about it really is.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Nearly seven years before Nick Cordova was executed on that
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: office floor, another person very close to Dave Sweetman died
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: under mysterious circumstances, his own wife, Laura Sweetman.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: A completely separate tragedy hidden right in the shatters of
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: an already murky past.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: We started this deep dive talking about how a FaceTime
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: call shattered a quiet Wednesday, and years later we are
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: still staring at that cracked screen. The images distorted, the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: audio was horrifying, and the truth is hidden just out
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: of frame. But if you keep watching, if you keep
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: demanding the hit play well, eventually the man in the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: shadows has to step into the light.