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Mom of Three Has No Idea She's About To Be Murdered · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Usually when we talk about a crime scene, there's this
0:03
Speaker 1: underlying expectation of, I guess, ambient chaos.
0:07
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, like a busy street or something.
0:09
Speaker 1: Exactly. We picture a dark alley in a bustling city
0:13
Speaker 1: or a noisy apartment building where, you know, nobody really
0:17
Speaker 1: saw anything, but everybody heard something. We tend to think
0:20
Speaker 1: of crimes as these events that happen in the margins
0:23
Speaker 1: of civilization, kind of obscured by just the sheer volume
0:27
Speaker 1: of human activity.
0:28
Speaker 2: Which makes total sense. I mean, because... urban density, it
0:31
Speaker 2: provides this built-in camouflage for a perpetrator. Right. You can
0:35
Speaker 2: just blend right into a crowd, hop on a subway,
0:37
Speaker 2: and totally disappear into the grid.
0:39
Speaker 1: But then you step into the world of extreme environmental isolation,
0:44
Speaker 1: specifically the desolate, freezing wilderness of the Rocky Mountains in winter.
0:50
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, that changes everything.
0:51
Speaker 1: It really does. Suddenly, all those rules of criminal behavior
0:55
Speaker 1: and investigation, they just completely change. We are looking at
0:59
Speaker 1: a landscape that doesn't just hide a crime. It actively
1:03
Speaker 1: traps the people involved.
1:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, the environment itself becomes a trap. Right.
1:08
Speaker 1: And then in this really eerie, silent way, it just
1:12
Speaker 1: perfectly preserves every single mistake they make. So you are
1:16
Speaker 1: listening to our latest Deep Dive.
1:18
Speaker 2: And today we are dissecting a really gripping 2021 case
1:22
Speaker 2: out of Colorado.
1:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one is heavily documented by the YouTube channel
1:26
Speaker 1: Crime Explorer, and it's a case that basically starts with
1:29
Speaker 1: a vehicle stranded in the snow and ends with a
1:32
Speaker 1: terrifying descent into drug-induced paranoia.
1:35
Speaker 2: It is a wild sequence of events.
1:38
Speaker 1: Truly wild. So for you listening, our goal today is
1:42
Speaker 1: to really explore how an isolated environment acts as both
1:45
Speaker 1: a literal trap for victims and a massive forensic canvas
1:49
Speaker 1: that just captures the desperate mistakes of a killer.
1:52
Speaker 2: And the psychological core of this event is what makes
1:56
Speaker 2: it so demanding to analyze. I mean, we are forced
1:59
Speaker 2: to look at what happens when extreme environmental pressure.
2:02
Speaker 1: Like the cold and the isolation.
2:04
Speaker 2: Exactly. The freezing cold, the sheer terror of being stranded
2:08
Speaker 2: miles from help. What happens when that collides with severe
2:12
Speaker 2: internal chemical paranoia?
2:14
Speaker 1: OK, well, let's unpack the contradictions of this crime scene
2:17
Speaker 1: right out of the gate, because, I mean, they are jarring.
2:19
Speaker 2: Very much so.
2:20
Speaker 1: You have a young mother on this totally wholesome mission
2:23
Speaker 1: to reunite with her children. You have a remote mountain
2:27
Speaker 1: cabin that is completely ransacked. You have thousands of dollars
2:31
Speaker 1: in cash that's just ignored by a killer. And then
2:34
Speaker 1: you have a suspect wandering around a freezing mountain road
2:37
Speaker 1: in baggy pants telling wildly contradictory stories to strangers.
2:41
Speaker 2: It completely defies the standard behavioral profile. You know, whether
2:45
Speaker 2: you're looking at a robbery gone wrong or a premeditated hit.
2:48
Speaker 1: Right. It just doesn't fit.
2:49
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. The scene is chaotic, yet the physical
2:53
Speaker 2: clues left behind are incredibly specific. So I want you
2:56
Speaker 2: to imagine being the caretaker of a remote cabin.
2:59
Speaker 1: Okay.
2:59
Speaker 2: You are miles from the nearest town. You drive up
3:03
Speaker 2: expecting total peace and quiet, you know, maybe to do
3:06
Speaker 2: some routine maintenance.
3:07
Speaker 1: Just a normal Sunday.
3:09
Speaker 2: Right, just a normal day. You turn the key, you
3:12
Speaker 2: push the door open, and instead you step into a nightmare.
3:17
Speaker 1: To really understand that nightmare, though, I think we have
3:19
Speaker 1: to establish the physical geography first.
3:21
Speaker 2: No, absolutely. The geography is central to this whole thing.
3:24
Speaker 1: So we are talking about Alpine Plateau Road. This is
3:27
Speaker 1: near the Uncompah Gray National Forest in Gunnison County, Colorado.
3:31
Speaker 2: Really rugged terrain out there.
3:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. Based on the source material, this isn't just a
3:35
Speaker 1: snowy road. It's unpaved. It's incredibly steep. And it just
3:39
Speaker 1: cuts right through that rugged mountain terrain.
3:41
Speaker 2: And elevation plays a massive role here, too.
3:44
Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
3:44
Speaker 2: In the summer, a driver who knows what they're doing,
3:47
Speaker 2: you know, they might navigate it in a standard sedan
3:49
Speaker 2: without too much trouble. But in March, in the Colorado Rockies.
3:53
Speaker 1: The weather can just turn on a dime.
3:55
Speaker 2: Literally on a dime. You absolutely need high clearance, aggressive tires,
4:00
Speaker 2: and four-wheel drive. Without that, you're asking for trouble.
4:03
Speaker 1: I kept thinking about this mountain road in winter as
4:06
Speaker 1: almost like an hourglass.
4:07
Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it. Right?
4:08
Speaker 1: Like, if you're driving a standard four-door sedan, which... Is
4:12
Speaker 1: exactly what the responding deputies found, by the way. And
4:15
Speaker 1: you get stuck in a snowdrift up there.
4:18
Speaker 2: The sand instantly starts falling.
4:19
Speaker 1: Exactly. Time is running out. The temperature is dropping really fast.
4:23
Speaker 1: The sun is going down. Cell service is likely totally non-existent.
4:27
Speaker 1: And you are effectively trapped.
4:30
Speaker 2: And the local deputies know that terrain intimately. I mean,
4:32
Speaker 2: they deal with this all the time.
4:34
Speaker 1: So the sequence of events starts when dispatch receives a
4:36
Speaker 1: call from a passerby, right? Yes.
4:39
Speaker 2: Someone reporting an abandoned sedan stuck in the snow.
4:41
Speaker 1: Now, normally, I feel like a stuck car just means
4:44
Speaker 1: someone hitched a ride to get a tow truck or something.
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Speaker 2: Usually, yeah, that would be the assumption. But when deputies
4:49
Speaker 2: arrive to tag the vehicle, they find something concerning. The
4:52
Speaker 2: engine's still worn.
4:53
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
4:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, the engine is warm, but the car is completely empty.
4:57
Speaker 1: And the person who called it in wasn't even the owner, right?
4:59
Speaker 1: It was just someone driving by?
5:01
Speaker 2: Exactly, just a random passerby.
5:03
Speaker 1: So the deputies see this warm, empty car. My instinct
5:07
Speaker 1: would still be to assume, hey, the driver just went
5:09
Speaker 1: for help. Why is that an immediate red flag for them?
5:12
Speaker 2: Because of the hostile nature of that specific environment. Leaving
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Speaker 2: a warm shelter to walk on foot in the middle
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Speaker 2: of a rocky mountain winter is completely contrary to basic
5:22
Speaker 2: survival instincts.
5:23
Speaker 1: You stay with the car.
5:24
Speaker 2: Always stay with the car. Furthermore, this specific area is
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Speaker 2: highly active territory for black bears and mountain lions.
5:30
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. I didn't even think about the wildlife.
5:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a huge factor. A local resident would know
5:35
Speaker 2: that trekking out of there on foot is an absolute
5:37
Speaker 2: last resort.
5:39
Speaker 1: So they wouldn't just go for a stroll to find
5:40
Speaker 1: a gas station.
5:41
Speaker 2: No, not at all. So this context immediately shifts the
5:45
Speaker 2: deputies' mindset from what should be a routine traffic assist
5:49
Speaker 2: to a potential life-threatening emergency.
5:51
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. So the deputies are
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Speaker 1: there and they find two sets of footprints leading away
5:56
Speaker 1: from this warm car.
5:57
Speaker 2: Right, two separate sets.
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Speaker 1: But before they can even really start tracking them through
6:01
Speaker 1: the snow, dispatch radios in with another call. And this
6:04
Speaker 1: brings us back to that nightmare scenario for the caretaker.
6:07
Speaker 2: The caretaker is a local man named Leonard. Right.
6:10
Speaker 1: So Leonard parked his own vehicle about four miles away.
6:13
Speaker 1: He parked at a lower elevation parking lot, presumably because
6:16
Speaker 1: the roads were too treacherous, even for his car.
6:18
Speaker 2: It happens a lot up there.
6:20
Speaker 1: And then he takes his ranger, like an off-road utility vehicle,
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Speaker 1: up to this remote cabin that he manages.
6:25
Speaker 2: So he arrives and he finds the door locked, which
6:27
Speaker 2: is totally normal. But then he finally gets inside.
6:31
Speaker 1: And he immediately calls 911. Yeah.
6:33
Speaker 2: He reports that the living room is just completely ransacked,
6:35
Speaker 2: stuff everywhere.
6:37
Speaker 1: And then he sees a body.
6:39
Speaker 2: Facedown by the couch.
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Speaker 1: It's a woman. So the deputies who are already on
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Speaker 1: the mountain at that abandoned sedan, they just leave the
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Speaker 1: car and rush straight to the cabin.
6:48
Speaker 2: They drop everything and head up there. And the sensory
6:50
Speaker 2: detail that hits them the very moment they arrive is
6:53
Speaker 2: crucial to understanding the killer's state of mind.
6:56
Speaker 1: Okay, what is it?
6:57
Speaker 2: There is a distinct, really strong smell of burning.
7:01
Speaker 1: Okay, they smell fire. They know there's a body inside.
7:05
Speaker 1: But here is a tactical decision by law enforcement that
7:08
Speaker 1: honestly just stopped me in my tracks.
7:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, the entry.
7:11
Speaker 1: Yes. The deputies make entry, but they don't announce themselves.
7:16
Speaker 1: They don't yell police or sheriff's department.
7:19
Speaker 2: They stay completely silent.
7:20
Speaker 1: Which goes against everything I've seen. My entire understanding of
7:23
Speaker 1: law enforcement is mostly from movies, you know. And in
7:26
Speaker 1: the movies, you kick the door and you scream your identity.
7:28
Speaker 1: Why would they stay silent?
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Speaker 2: It's literally a matter of life and death, specifically regarding
7:33
Speaker 2: something called the fatal funnel.
7:35
Speaker 1: The fatal funnel. Right.
7:37
Speaker 2: When you stand in a doorway, you are a backlit
7:40
Speaker 2: target with zero cover. You are framed perfectly for anyone
7:43
Speaker 2: inside looking out.
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Speaker 1: Wow. Okay. So you're just totally exposed.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. If the deputies shout police, they instantly give away
7:51
Speaker 2: their position and they lose the element of surprise.
7:54
Speaker 1: Because they don't know who is in there.
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Speaker 2: They smell smoke. They see a ransacked room. They know
8:00
Speaker 2: there's a victim. But Leonard, the caretaker, he didn't clear
8:03
Speaker 2: the house. He just saw the body and ran out. Right.
8:06
Speaker 1: He just noped out of there.
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Speaker 2: So they have absolutely no idea if a highly volatile
8:10
Speaker 2: armed killer is hiding upstairs in the loft or maybe
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Speaker 2: tucked away in a back bedroom.
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Speaker 1: So shouting could literally turn a contained crime scene into
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Speaker 1: an ambush.
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Speaker 2: Precisely. If you corner a frantic killer in an isolated
8:23
Speaker 2: cabin and suddenly announce your presence, it could provoke a
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Speaker 2: deadly shootout or even a hostage situation if there's someone
8:30
Speaker 2: else in there.
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Speaker 1: So they go silent.
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Speaker 2: They perform a silent tactical clear, moving room by room,
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Speaker 2: checking corners, securing the space without making a single sound
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Speaker 2: until they are absolutely certain the cabin is empty of
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Speaker 2: any threats.
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Speaker 1: Man, the tension of that silent sweep must be palpable.
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Speaker 1: You are just waiting for a door to burst open
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Speaker 1: or a shot to ring out.
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Speaker 2: It's incredibly high stress.
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Speaker 1: But they clear the space. The cabin is empty of
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Speaker 1: the killer.
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Speaker 2: Yes.
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Speaker 1: But what they find in the center of that living room, however...
9:01
Speaker 1: Is this macabre tableau that just demands incredibly careful forensic unraveling.
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Speaker 2: And that unraveling really has to begin with the victim
9:11
Speaker 2: and the immediate area right around her. Because the violence
9:14
Speaker 2: itself tells a very specific story.
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Speaker 1: So the deputies find the woman face down by the couch.
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Speaker 1: The injuries are really severe. She has a badly broken arm.
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Speaker 2: Which indicates massive blunt force trauma.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And she has blunt force trauma to her face
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Speaker 1: and her head as well. And on top of that,
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Speaker 1: she has deep puncture wounds across the back of her neck.
9:34
Speaker 2: It's a remarkably brutal attack.
9:36
Speaker 1: And the weapon was actually left right there behind her.
9:38
Speaker 2: They found it right near the body, right? The investigators
9:41
Speaker 2: located an ice pickaxe near the body, and it's just
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Speaker 2: coated in dried blood. This is a vital piece of
9:47
Speaker 2: the psychological puzzle here. How so? Well, an ice pickaxe
9:50
Speaker 2: isn't a weapon you typically carry around in your pocket.
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Speaker 2: It's a tool of opportunity.
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Speaker 1: Like something you'd just find laying around?
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Speaker 2: Exactly. Something you'd find in a winter vehicle or maybe
9:59
Speaker 2: stored in a mountain cabin. And it was turned into
10:01
Speaker 2: an instrument of profound, frenzied violence in that moment.
10:05
Speaker 1: But then there's the burning smell they noticed right when
10:06
Speaker 1: they walked in.
10:07
Speaker 2: Right. The smoke.
10:08
Speaker 1: They trace it to the coffee table, which is literally
10:10
Speaker 1: still smoldering. And sitting right there on the counter next
10:13
Speaker 1: to it is a bottle of lighter fluid. The killer
10:15
Speaker 1: actually tried to burn the cabin down.
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Speaker 2: Tried and failed. And let's pause and talk about the
10:20
Speaker 2: cognitive load on the perpetrator at this exact moment.
10:24
Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the psychology of that.
10:26
Speaker 2: We really need to break down executive function. So the
10:29
Speaker 2: frontal lobe of your brain is responsible for planning, reasoning,
10:33
Speaker 2: executing logical steps.
10:35
Speaker 1: Like properly starting a fire to destroy evidence.
10:38
Speaker 2: Right, that requires steps and patience.
10:40
Speaker 1: But the amygdala, that is your fear center.
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Speaker 2: So basically the amygdala hijacked the brain.
10:46
Speaker 1: That is exactly what happened.
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Speaker 2: Contrast the panic of this aborted arson attempt with the
10:52
Speaker 2: very intimate fatal violence of the physical attack.
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Speaker 1: Swinging a pickaxe versus starting a fire.
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Speaker 2: Yes, swinging an ice pick is a primal gross motor action.
11:01
Speaker 2: It requires rage and adrenaline, but it does not require
11:05
Speaker 2: complex thought.
11:06
Speaker 1: Just brute force.
11:07
Speaker 2: But starting a fire, ensuring it catches, managing the fuel,
11:11
Speaker 2: that requires executive function. The killer's executive function completely collapsed post-murder.
11:17
Speaker 1: They just lost it.
11:18
Speaker 2: They panicked. They sprayed lighter fluid everywhere. They sparked it.
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Speaker 2: And then they fled before the fire could even really
11:24
Speaker 2: take hold. It is highly disorganized behavior.
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Speaker 1: And that frantic, disorganized panic leads directly to, I mean,
11:31
Speaker 1: what has to be the most careless trail of breadcrumbs imaginable.
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Speaker 2: It's astounding what they left behind.
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Speaker 1: So Leonard, the caretaker, starts pointing out items to the
11:40
Speaker 1: deputies that absolutely do not belong in his cabin. First,
11:44
Speaker 1: there are keys just sitting right on the kitchen floor.
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Speaker 2: Just dropped right there.
11:49
Speaker 1: And another set of keys tossed upstairs on a couch
11:51
Speaker 1: in the loft area.
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Speaker 2: And the absolute kicker is that those keys belong to
11:55
Speaker 2: the sedan. The four-door car stuck in the snow way
11:58
Speaker 2: down the mountain. The killer literally dropped the keys to
12:01
Speaker 2: the victim's car inside the murder scene.
12:04
Speaker 1: Which provides this undeniable physical link between the two scenes.
12:09
Speaker 1: But there are other items in the cabin that are
12:10
Speaker 1: honestly just as telling for what wasn't touched. Right. Leonard
12:14
Speaker 1: points out that his personal rifles, which were stored right
12:17
Speaker 1: there in the cabin, are completely undisturbed.
12:20
Speaker 2: Now, if I'm thinking like a criminal breaking into a
12:22
Speaker 2: remote cabin, guns are incredibly valuable.
12:25
Speaker 1: Oh, totally. You can sell them on the black market,
12:27
Speaker 1: or at the very least, you can use them for
12:29
Speaker 1: protection as you flee into the wilderness.
12:32
Speaker 2: Leaving them behind tells me this wasn't a burglary.
12:35
Speaker 1: But then the investigators find the absolute smoking gun of
12:38
Speaker 1: careless mistakes. Sitting in plain sight is a Walmart receipt.
12:42
Speaker 2: A literal receipt?
12:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's from the town of Rifle, Colorado, and the
12:47
Speaker 1: timestamp on it is exactly two days earlier.
12:50
Speaker 2: The sheer absurdity of leaving a digital timestamp at a
12:54
Speaker 2: physical crime scene cannot be overstated.
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Speaker 1: It's like a bank robber meticulously wiping down the vault
12:59
Speaker 1: for fingerprints, but then leaving their personal cell phone sitting
13:02
Speaker 1: on the teller's counter.
13:03
Speaker 2: That's a perfect analogy.
13:05
Speaker 1: The panic of trying to cover their tracks with the
13:07
Speaker 1: fire actually caused them to leave behind a literal map
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Speaker 1: to their identity.
13:12
Speaker 2: That Walmart receipt is essentially a forensic time machine. It
13:16
Speaker 2: provides a specific location, an exact time, and an electronic
13:20
Speaker 2: transaction record.
13:21
Speaker 1: But before investigators even pull the camera footage from that store,
13:25
Speaker 1: they use the keys found on the cabin floor to
13:27
Speaker 1: run the vehicle identification number.
13:29
Speaker 2: The VIN on the abandoned sedan.
13:31
Speaker 1: Right, because those keys unlock that specific car. So the
13:35
Speaker 1: deputies run the VIN through the database, and the victim
13:37
Speaker 1: finally has a name.
13:39
Speaker 2: Her name is Anna Riscon. She was 22 years old.
13:42
Speaker 1: And when investigators dig into who Anna was, the tragedy
13:46
Speaker 1: of this case just magnifies exponentially. The car was registered
13:49
Speaker 1: to her, and she had actually been reported missing by
13:52
Speaker 1: her family just two days prior.
13:55
Speaker 2: Her background provides the really essential context for why she
13:59
Speaker 2: was on that specific road on that specific day.
14:01
Speaker 1: She was a mother of three, right?
14:03
Speaker 2: Yes, a young mother of three. She had her first
14:05
Speaker 2: child at 17, and she split her time between the
14:08
Speaker 2: Grand Junction and Rifle areas in Colorado and her mother's
14:11
Speaker 2: home down in Mexico.
14:13
Speaker 1: She was a stay-at-home mom, currently between jobs, but she
14:16
Speaker 1: was on this massive mission. She had just used her
14:19
Speaker 1: tax return money to buy brand new tires for that sedan.
14:22
Speaker 2: She was getting ready for a trip.
14:23
Speaker 1: A huge trip. She was preparing for a nearly 800-mile
14:27
Speaker 1: drive to Mexico to pick up her three children from
14:29
Speaker 1: her mother's house and bring them back to the United States.
14:32
Speaker 2: And she actually called her mother on Friday, March 5th,
14:34
Speaker 2: and told her, I'm on my way. Oh, man. That
14:38
Speaker 2: was the final time her mother ever heard her voice.
14:41
Speaker 2: The next morning, Ana tried to call a cousin, but
14:43
Speaker 2: the call didn't connect. After that, it was total silence.
14:46
Speaker 1: So her family must have been panicking.
14:49
Speaker 2: Absolutely. They immediately began calling hospitals, calling jails, and begging
14:54
Speaker 2: the Rifle Police Department to conduct a welfare check.
14:56
Speaker 1: Now, for you listening, you might hear that and wonder, well,
14:59
Speaker 1: if she was so fiercely devoted to getting to her kids,
15:02
Speaker 1: how on earth did she end up stuck on a
15:04
Speaker 1: mountain road in Gunnison County? Right.
15:06
Speaker 2: It's nowhere near her route.
15:07
Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. To understand that, we really have to look
15:10
Speaker 1: at the whole picture of Anna's life in the months
15:12
Speaker 1: leading up to the strife. Because despite this deeply wholesome mission,
15:17
Speaker 1: she had recently hit some incredibly dark times.
15:20
Speaker 2: This is where investigations require a high degree of nuance.
15:24
Speaker 2: As investigators or analysts, we have to hold conflicting truths simultaneously.
15:30
Speaker 1: So what was happening in her life?
15:32
Speaker 2: After a really difficult breakup with the father of her
15:34
Speaker 2: youngest child, Anna became highly isolated.
15:38
Speaker 1: And by November of 2020, which is just a few
15:41
Speaker 1: months before the murder, she had fallen into heavy drug use.
15:45
Speaker 2: She was battling severe depression and immense financial pressure.
15:49
Speaker 1: At one point, she was even looking into becoming a
15:51
Speaker 1: long-haul trucker just to make ends meet. She traveled to
15:54
Speaker 1: Idaho to meet with transport brokers, but backed out.
15:58
Speaker 2: She backed out because she realized the job would keep
16:00
Speaker 2: her away from her children for too long.
16:02
Speaker 1: Which, again, shows her devotion to her kids.
16:05
Speaker 2: Yes, we must synthesize these two realities. She was a
16:08
Speaker 2: devoted mother doing everything she could to reunite with her children.
16:12
Speaker 2: And she was a vulnerable young woman battling a heavy
16:15
Speaker 2: recent addiction.
16:16
Speaker 1: You cannot understand the mechanics of this case without accepting
16:19
Speaker 1: both of those facts.
16:20
Speaker 2: No, you really can't.
16:21
Speaker 1: This duality is the exact reason she deviated from her
16:24
Speaker 1: route to Mexico and ended up on a frozen mountain
16:27
Speaker 1: road with a killer.
16:28
Speaker 2: It's absolutely heartbreaking.
16:30
Speaker 1: It really is. She's got the new tires. She's packed
16:32
Speaker 1: for the trip. Investigators search her abandoned car and it's
16:35
Speaker 1: just filled with clothes, blankets, four different charging devices. I mean,
16:40
Speaker 1: everything you need for a multi-day interstate drive.
16:43
Speaker 2: But here's where the evidence completely upends the initial theory
16:46
Speaker 2: of the crime.
16:47
Speaker 1: Right. We are looking at a classic motive paradox here.
16:51
Speaker 2: The money.
16:52
Speaker 1: The money. So investigators are searching this car. They find
16:55
Speaker 1: loose change and dollar bills sitting right out in the
16:57
Speaker 1: open console.
16:58
Speaker 2: Just right there to grab.
17:00
Speaker 1: But then they check her personal bag. Inside, they find
17:03
Speaker 1: over $ 1, 500 in cash. And as they process the rest
17:07
Speaker 1: of the vehicle, they eventually find nearly $ 3, 000 in total cash.
17:11
Speaker 2: Let's pause and weigh that against the crime scene we
17:13
Speaker 2: just talked about. Okay. The cabin was completely ransacked. The
17:17
Speaker 2: victim was brutally murdered with an ice pick. The killer
17:20
Speaker 2: attempted arson to cover their tracks. Right.
17:24
Speaker 1: If the cabin was torn apart and she was killed
17:26
Speaker 1: so violently, why on earth would the killer leave three
17:29
Speaker 1: grand in cash and multiple expensive electronic devices just sitting
17:32
Speaker 1: in her car?
17:33
Speaker 2: It makes no sense for a robbery.
17:35
Speaker 1: Or ignore the valuable rifles in the cabin, for that matter.
17:39
Speaker 1: Leaving three grand in cash completely shatters the robbery theory.
17:42
Speaker 1: If you're a thief, you do not leave cash and guns.
17:45
Speaker 2: It forces a total pivot in the psychological profile of
17:47
Speaker 2: the suspect. It entirely eliminates robbery as the primary motive.
17:52
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just a random attack. No.
17:55
Speaker 2: If this were a crime of opportunity, say a stranger
17:58
Speaker 2: just stumbling upon a stranded car, that cash would be gone.
18:02
Speaker 2: The guns would be gone.
18:03
Speaker 1: They'd take the valuables and run.
18:05
Speaker 2: The fact that high-value, easily portable items were left behind
18:09
Speaker 2: points directly toward a highly personal, emotional, or paranoia-driven interpersonal conflict.
18:16
Speaker 1: The killer didn't want her property. They wanted her dead. Exactly.
18:19
Speaker 2: Exactly.
18:20
Speaker 1: So if it wasn't a random robber who left that
18:23
Speaker 1: second set of footprints leading away from the stuck car?
18:26
Speaker 2: Well, the answer to that question wasn't hiding in the
18:28
Speaker 2: shadows at all.
18:29
Speaker 1: The answer was literally wandering down the mountain in broad daylight,
18:32
Speaker 1: leaving a trail of absolutely bizarre interactions with strangers.
18:36
Speaker 2: We need to rewind the timeline a bit to the
18:38
Speaker 2: day before Anna's body was discovered, Saturday, March 6th.
18:42
Speaker 1: So the car is stuck. Anna is presumably already dead
18:45
Speaker 1: in the cabin, and the suspect is on the move.
18:47
Speaker 2: And this guy is making quite the impression on anyone
18:50
Speaker 2: who sees him. The source material outlines these eyewitness encounters
18:54
Speaker 2: and they are wild.
18:56
Speaker 1: Let's go through them. Witness number one is a woman
18:58
Speaker 1: driving down Alpine Plateau Road. She sees a Hispanic man
19:01
Speaker 1: in his 20s walking down the snowy unpaved road.
19:05
Speaker 2: His physical presentation is really striking. The witness notes he
19:08
Speaker 2: has brown teeth, a prominent gap between his front teeth.
19:12
Speaker 1: And he's wearing baggy blue pants and a blue plaid
19:15
Speaker 1: fleece lined coat.
19:16
Speaker 2: And Crucially, he has no gloves.
19:19
Speaker 1: Let's think about the physiology of that for a second.
19:21
Speaker 1: It's freezing winter weather at high elevation, and he's just
19:24
Speaker 1: carrying a water bottle. No gloves.
19:26
Speaker 2: He's totally unprepared for the elements.
19:29
Speaker 1: So the woman stops and asks what he's doing. He
19:31
Speaker 1: claims he's lost. She asks, do you have a car?
19:34
Speaker 1: He says no. She notices he's acting extremely erratic, so
19:38
Speaker 1: she just flat out asks him, are you drunk?
19:41
Speaker 2: His response is this incredible deflection. He says, yeah, I
19:45
Speaker 2: might have been drunk.
19:46
Speaker 1: Might have been.
19:46
Speaker 2: It's an admission of impairment, sure. But it's really meant
19:49
Speaker 2: to explain away his bizarre behavior without inviting any further scrutiny.
19:54
Speaker 1: Like, oh, I'm just drunk. Leave me alone.
19:56
Speaker 2: Right. But the witness is so unnerved by his demeanor
19:59
Speaker 2: that she actually drives off while he is still mid-sentence.
20:02
Speaker 1: She just hits the gas. Yeah.
20:03
Speaker 2: And crucially, she calls the police to report him.
20:06
Speaker 1: Which is a good thing she did. So the suspect
20:08
Speaker 1: keeps walking. And that leads to witnesses two and three,
20:12
Speaker 1: Billy and Roger.
20:13
Speaker 2: Right, the lodge workers.
20:15
Speaker 1: These two guys work at a local lodge on the mountain.
20:17
Speaker 1: They are driving up to work, and they actually pass
20:20
Speaker 1: the stuck Acura sedan first. And then a few miles later,
20:24
Speaker 1: they encounter our suspect in the baggy blue pants.
20:26
Speaker 2: Now, mountain etiquette dictates that if you see someone walking
20:29
Speaker 2: in the snow, you pull over to offer help.
20:31
Speaker 1: Because exposure kills quickly up there.
20:33
Speaker 2: Exactly. It would just leave someone stranded. So they stop
20:36
Speaker 2: and ask him, hey, is that your car stuck down there?
20:38
Speaker 1: And his response is this really rapid fire denial. He says, no, no, no.
20:41
Speaker 1: But then, mid-conversation, he completely pivots.
20:45
Speaker 2: Just changes the story entirely.
20:47
Speaker 1: He says, yeah, that is my car. I came up
20:49
Speaker 1: here and got jumped by some people and they took
20:51
Speaker 1: my keys.
20:52
Speaker 2: Notice the cognitive dissonance there. He needs to explain why
20:55
Speaker 2: he's walking away from a vehicle without any keys. So
20:58
Speaker 2: his brain just invents a phantom group of attackers.
21:01
Speaker 1: He just makes up a mugging.
21:03
Speaker 2: He is building a narrative of victimization on the fly.
21:07
Speaker 2: to justify his bizarre circumstances to these strangers.
21:11
Speaker 1: But his fabricated story falls apart instantly when Billy and
21:15
Speaker 1: Roger offer him a lifeline. They say, look, we're heading
21:17
Speaker 1: up to the lodge. We can give you a ride there.
21:19
Speaker 1: You can use the phone to call for help.
21:21
Speaker 2: And the suspect is visibly terrified by this offer.
21:24
Speaker 1: He literally says, there's a lodge?
21:27
Speaker 2: He is shocked that civilization is nearby.
21:29
Speaker 1: Which is the opposite reaction of someone who actually needs help. Right.
21:33
Speaker 2: And instead of getting in the warm truck to go
21:35
Speaker 2: to the phone... He turns around and starts walking in
21:37
Speaker 2: the exact opposite direction.
21:39
Speaker 1: It's so bizarre. It's like watching a glitching video game NPC.
21:43
Speaker 1: You walk up to him. He gives you contradictory dialogue.
21:46
Speaker 1: He walks in circles. And when you offer him actual
21:48
Speaker 1: help to solve his problem, his programming just breaks and
21:51
Speaker 1: he runs away.
21:52
Speaker 2: The environment is forcing him into these interactions that he
21:54
Speaker 2: simply lacks the cognitive bandwidth to handle. He's likely from
21:58
Speaker 2: a town or a city completely out of his element
22:00
Speaker 2: in the wilderness.
22:01
Speaker 1: Right. He doesn't know the protocol out here.
22:03
Speaker 2: And his inability to maintain a single cohesive cover story
22:06
Speaker 2: really highlights the frantic, disorganized state of his mind post-murder.
22:10
Speaker 1: So that's witness two and three. But the definitive sighting
22:13
Speaker 1: comes a bit later from a fourth witness, Melinda.
22:17
Speaker 2: Melinda is key. She is Billy's mother and she is
22:20
Speaker 2: riding with Roger.
22:22
Speaker 1: Melinda is crucial because she actually saw the preamble to
22:25
Speaker 1: this whole mess. Before the suspect started his wandering glitch walk,
22:29
Speaker 1: Melinda had seen him with the victim.
22:31
Speaker 2: She had driven past the stuck car earlier in the
22:33
Speaker 2: day and saw the suspect standing right by the driver's door.
22:36
Speaker 1: And standing right there with him was Anna.
22:38
Speaker 2: Melinda's description of Anna is perfectly accurate, too. She describes
22:41
Speaker 2: her as very skinny, straight black hair, wearing black rimmed glasses.
22:46
Speaker 1: So this definitively places the suspect at the vehicle with
22:48
Speaker 1: the victim shortly before the murder.
22:50
Speaker 2: It anchors him to her.
22:52
Speaker 1: Later on, Melinda and Roger are driving back down the
22:54
Speaker 1: mountain and they see the suspect again. This time, they
22:57
Speaker 1: actually give him a ride. He climbs into the back
23:00
Speaker 1: bed of their pickup truck.
23:01
Speaker 2: They are heading toward the highway at this point.
23:04
Speaker 1: Melinda gets a very close look at him through the
23:06
Speaker 1: rear window of the cab. She notes a specific tattoo
23:09
Speaker 1: on the right side of his neck. And she gets
23:13
Speaker 1: this overwhelming visceral gut feeling about him.
23:16
Speaker 2: She tells investigators later he was crazy.
23:20
Speaker 1: She just senses this erratic, dangerous energy from him.
23:24
Speaker 2: While in the truck, he asks them to take him
23:26
Speaker 2: to Grand Junction. But he seems entirely confused about which
23:29
Speaker 2: direction that even is. His geographic disorientation is just profound.
23:34
Speaker 1: They drop him off near the highway, and Melinda watches him.
23:37
Speaker 1: She notes that instead of heading toward town, he acts
23:40
Speaker 1: like he's going to turn around and walk right back
23:42
Speaker 1: up the alpine plateau.
23:44
Speaker 2: Back into the freezing wilderness.
23:46
Speaker 1: Now, gut feelings are great for survival, but they obviously
23:48
Speaker 1: don't hold up in court. The police knew that to
23:50
Speaker 1: prove a murder, they couldn't rely on Melinda's intuition. They
23:53
Speaker 1: needed the mountain to give up a physical piece of
23:56
Speaker 1: this suspect.
23:57
Speaker 2: Eyewitness testimony, especially from passing vehicles, is notoriously fallible. Investigators
24:02
Speaker 2: need hard, irrefutable physical proof to tie this erratic man
24:07
Speaker 2: to the horrific violence inside that cabin.
24:09
Speaker 1: Which brings us back to the forensic evidence and how
24:12
Speaker 1: the net really begins to close around him. Step one
24:15
Speaker 1: is identification. Right.
24:17
Speaker 2: They need a name.
24:18
Speaker 1: Detectives sit down with Melinda. They show her a photograph
24:21
Speaker 1: of Anna and she identifies her instantly with zero hesitation.
24:25
Speaker 1: That was the girl standing by the car.
24:27
Speaker 2: She is certain.
24:28
Speaker 1: Then they show Melinda a six-person photo lineup to try
24:31
Speaker 1: and ID the suspect. She looks at it, but she
24:34
Speaker 1: actually can't make a positive ID.
24:36
Speaker 2: Which honestly is common and perfectly understandable. Seeing someone in
24:40
Speaker 2: the back of a truck bed while you're driving isn't
24:42
Speaker 2: the same as staring at a stagnant 2D mugshot. Right.
24:46
Speaker 1: It's totally different context. But they show the exact same
24:49
Speaker 1: lineup to Roger, the driver.
24:51
Speaker 2: And Roger hits. He points to one of the photos
24:54
Speaker 2: and says he's 80% confident that's the guy who rode
24:57
Speaker 2: in his truck bed.
24:58
Speaker 1: That 80% confidence is enough to finally put a name
25:01
Speaker 1: to this erratic suspect on the mountain. He is 23-year-old
25:05
Speaker 1: Jorge Solis.
25:06
Speaker 2: Jorge Solis.
25:08
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Jorge Solis for a second because his
25:10
Speaker 1: background doesn't exactly scream ice pick murderer. He's known locally
25:14
Speaker 1: to law enforcement as a petty thief.
25:17
Speaker 2: He has a history of heavy drug use.
25:18
Speaker 3: But crucially, he has absolutely no known history of violent crime.
25:23
Speaker 3: And as we discussed earlier, petty thieves don't usually escalate
25:27
Speaker 3: to brutally murdering someone and leaving $ 3, 000 behind.
25:31
Speaker 2: The profile just doesn't match the crime scene. He's a
25:33
Speaker 2: property offender, an addict. But now he is the prime
25:37
Speaker 2: suspect in a brutal homicide.
25:39
Speaker 1: So the detectives have a name. But they still need
25:42
Speaker 1: that physical anchor to tie him to the crime. They
25:45
Speaker 1: turn their attention back to Anna's abandoned sedan.
25:48
Speaker 2: They process this car piece by piece.
25:51
Speaker 1: Remember, it's packed for a long trip. There are clothes, blankets,
25:55
Speaker 1: bags everywhere. They are digging through the messy backseat, and
25:59
Speaker 1: buried underneath a pile of blankets, they find a cap,
26:03
Speaker 1: a hat.
26:04
Speaker 2: Now, at first glance, finding a hat in a car
26:05
Speaker 2: full of clothes means absolutely nothing. Investigators actually assumed it
26:10
Speaker 2: was Anna's.
26:11
Speaker 1: It's just a hat in a messy car. But then
26:14
Speaker 1: they pull the thread on that Walmart receipt they found
26:16
Speaker 1: sitting in plain sight in the smoldering cabin.
26:19
Speaker 2: They contact the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the CBI.
26:23
Speaker 1: What exactly is the CBI doing in a case like this?
26:26
Speaker 2: The CBI acts as the state's central repository for complex
26:30
Speaker 2: forensic analysis and digital evidence gathering. Local sheriff's departments often
26:35
Speaker 2: just don't have the manpower or the tech to rapidly
26:38
Speaker 2: process digital footprints like that.
26:40
Speaker 1: So the CBI agents take the exact timestamp and transaction
26:44
Speaker 1: number on that thermal paper receipt and they use it
26:46
Speaker 1: to pull the CCTV surveillance footage from the rifle Walmart
26:50
Speaker 1: on March 5th.
26:51
Speaker 2: Which is two days before the murder.
26:53
Speaker 1: They pull the video and it is an absolute goldmine.
26:56
Speaker 1: The footage shows Anna walking through the store. She is
26:59
Speaker 1: wearing the exact same clothes she would later be found
27:02
Speaker 1: dead in.
27:02
Speaker 2: But she isn't alone.
27:04
Speaker 1: Walking right beside her, captured in high definition, is Jorge Solis.
27:09
Speaker 2: And look at what he's wearing in the video.
27:10
Speaker 1: It's incredible. He is wearing the exact same baggy blue
27:14
Speaker 1: pants and the blue plaid fleece line jacket that all
27:17
Speaker 1: the mountain witnesses described.
27:19
Speaker 2: Every detail matches.
27:20
Speaker 1: And on his head... He is wearing the very cap
27:22
Speaker 1: that investigators just dug out of the backseat of Anna's car.
27:25
Speaker 2: The chain of evidence is just locking into place perfectly.
27:28
Speaker 1: It's so tight.
27:29
Speaker 2: The receipt found next to the victim's body leads to
27:32
Speaker 2: video footage. The video footage links the victim directly to
27:35
Speaker 2: the suspect. The video also links the suspect's specific clothing
27:39
Speaker 2: to the witnesses on the mountain.
27:41
Speaker 1: And the suspect's hat links him back to the victim's
27:43
Speaker 1: abandoned car. It's an airtight circle. I am in awe
27:47
Speaker 1: of the investigative work here. It is so methodical. They
27:51
Speaker 1: connected a partially burned piece of paper in a remote
27:54
Speaker 1: cabin to a hat buried under blankets in a frozen
27:56
Speaker 1: car to a CCTV camera miles away in a completely
28:00
Speaker 1: different town.
28:01
Speaker 2: It really highlights how nearly impossible it is to commit
28:03
Speaker 2: a crime and walk away clean in the modern era,
28:06
Speaker 2: especially when a suspect is acting erratically and leaving what
28:09
Speaker 2: is essentially a massive debris field of physical and digital evidence.
28:13
Speaker 1: And the forensics division was honestly just getting started.
28:17
Speaker 2: They were.
28:18
Speaker 1: Right, because they go back to the cabin, they dust everything,
28:22
Speaker 1: And they pull a pristine fingerprint off a bottle left
28:25
Speaker 1: inside the crime scene. Yes. How does a fingerprint even
28:28
Speaker 1: survive in a freezing, smoke-damaged cabin?
28:31
Speaker 2: Fingerprinting in cold environments is actually quite reliable. Latent prints
28:35
Speaker 2: are primarily made of sweat and sebum, basically body oils. Okay.
28:40
Speaker 2: In a hot environment, those oils can degrade or evaporate
28:42
Speaker 2: relatively quickly. But extreme cold essentially freezes those lipids in place,
28:47
Speaker 2: preserving the print beautifully. Wow.
28:49
Speaker 1: So the cold helped them.
28:50
Speaker 2: Yes. When investigators use powder or cyanoacrylate fuming, which is
28:56
Speaker 2: superglue fuming, that preserved oil reacts perfectly. The PRID they
29:00
Speaker 2: pulled was a flawless match for Jorge Solis.
29:04
Speaker 1: And they don't stop there. They go to Roger's pickup truck,
29:07
Speaker 1: the one Jorge rode in the back of, and they
29:10
Speaker 1: swap the truck bed. They recover Jorge's DNA and fingerprints there, too.
29:14
Speaker 2: Another solid match.
29:15
Speaker 1: And now wait, how does DNA survive in the open
29:17
Speaker 1: bed of a pickup truck?
29:18
Speaker 2: Typically, UV light from the sun is the absolute biggest
29:21
Speaker 2: destroyer of DNA in an outdoor environment. It just breaks
29:24
Speaker 2: it down.
29:25
Speaker 1: But this is winter. Right.
29:26
Speaker 2: The UV index is much lower. The temperatures are freezing.
29:30
Speaker 2: And the biological material, whether it's skin cells or saliva,
29:33
Speaker 2: is preserved much longer than it would be on, say,
29:35
Speaker 2: a 90-degree summer day.
29:37
Speaker 1: So they have placed him in the victim's life. via
29:40
Speaker 1: the CCTV, in the victim's car via the hat, in
29:44
Speaker 1: the pickup truck escaping the mountain via DNA, and crucially,
29:48
Speaker 1: inside the locked cabin where the murder occurred via his fingerprint.
29:52
Speaker 2: They have the who, the what, and the how.
29:55
Speaker 1: Ten days after Anna's body was found on March 17th,
29:59
Speaker 1: Police spot Jorge Solis just walking the streets in town.
30:03
Speaker 1: They arrest him.
30:04
Speaker 2: And when they search his backpack, he is literally carrying
30:08
Speaker 2: items stolen from the caretaker's cabin. He is caught totally red-handed.
30:12
Speaker 1: Now they have all the evidence they need for a conviction.
30:14
Speaker 1: But what they don't have is the why. Why did
30:17
Speaker 1: a petty thief brutally murder a young mother?
30:21
Speaker 2: And that leads us right into the interrogation room, which
30:23
Speaker 2: is where the psychological profile of this crime truly comes
30:26
Speaker 2: into focus.
30:27
Speaker 1: It is a Total cat and mouse game. Jorge is
30:30
Speaker 1: brought into the interview room and his entry is incredibly combative.
30:34
Speaker 2: He's on the defensive immediately.
30:36
Speaker 1: He sits down handcuffed and immediately starts posturing with the detective.
30:40
Speaker 1: He says, you're not going to scare me, man. Keep
30:43
Speaker 1: staring at me, bro.
30:45
Speaker 2: He is instantly trying to establish dominance or at least
30:48
Speaker 2: project this shield of defiance.
30:49
Speaker 1: Like I'm not intimidated by you.
30:51
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's the defensive posturing of someone who knows they
30:54
Speaker 2: are in deep, deep trouble, but thinks they can maybe
30:57
Speaker 2: bluff their way out of it.
30:58
Speaker 1: But the detectives, they don't take the bait. They adopt
31:00
Speaker 1: a very calm, almost administrative tone. Just making sure you're okay, Jorge.
31:06
Speaker 2: They understand the psychology of interrogations perfectly. You do not
31:10
Speaker 2: meet aggression with aggression. You establish a baseline.
31:13
Speaker 1: You want them to feel relaxed.
31:14
Speaker 2: You want the suspect comfortable enough to just keep talking
31:17
Speaker 2: because eventually they will contradict themselves.
31:20
Speaker 1: So they start asking about Anna and Jorge immediately plays dumb.
31:23
Speaker 1: He says, what happened? I don't know what happened. He
31:26
Speaker 1: claims she's just his, quote, homegirl, that he only met
31:28
Speaker 1: her two or three months ago and that he only
31:30
Speaker 1: heard about her death on the news.
31:32
Speaker 2: Now, that timeline he offers is actually highly significant. He
31:35
Speaker 2: says they met two or three months ago. That exactly
31:37
Speaker 2: aligns with November 2020, which is precisely when Anna's family
31:41
Speaker 2: said she began struggling with heavy drug use.
31:44
Speaker 1: So their relationship was entirely founded on and bonded by narcotics.
31:48
Speaker 2: Yes.
31:49
Speaker 1: The detectives ask him about the day before the murder.
31:52
Speaker 1: And Jorge uses this maddening tactic. He just gives the
31:55
Speaker 1: shortest possible answers to build a wall.
31:58
Speaker 2: He's being evasive.
31:59
Speaker 1: He shuts down completely any time the detectives mention the
32:02
Speaker 1: town of Grand Junction, which is where Anna's family lived.
32:05
Speaker 2: He's compartmentalizing. He thinks if he doesn't acknowledge the geography,
32:08
Speaker 2: he can't be tied to the timeline of the crime.
32:11
Speaker 1: But the detectives are well prepared. They don't need him
32:13
Speaker 1: to confess to the murder right away. They just need
32:15
Speaker 1: him to admit he was with her on that mountain.
32:18
Speaker 2: And this is exactly where they spring the trap. They
32:21
Speaker 2: pivot to a Seemingly minor detail.
32:24
Speaker 1: They bring up a makeup kit. They found it inside
32:26
Speaker 1: Anna's packed car. They tell Jorge that they know Anna
32:29
Speaker 1: drove to a friend's house in the town of Montrose
32:32
Speaker 1: to pick up the specific makeup kit the very day
32:35
Speaker 1: before she died.
32:36
Speaker 2: Why focus on a makeup kit, of all things?
32:40
Speaker 1: Because it's the anchor to their undeniable proof. Jorge is
32:44
Speaker 1: sitting there, probably thinking, why do I care about a
32:46
Speaker 1: makeup kit? But then the detectives drop the hammer.
32:50
Speaker 2: They reveal the footage.
32:52
Speaker 1: They reveal that the friend in Montrose has surveillance cameras
32:54
Speaker 1: on their house. And the detectives have the video of
32:58
Speaker 1: Anna pulling up to get the makeup kit. And Jorge
33:01
Speaker 1: is sitting right there in the passenger seat of her car.
33:04
Speaker 2: The wall just cracks at that moment. He can no
33:06
Speaker 2: longer deny being with her the day of the murder.
33:09
Speaker 1: Faced with the video evidence, Jorge finally admits they were together.
33:12
Speaker 1: But he adds context that paints a really grim picture
33:15
Speaker 1: of their mental state. He admits that they were both
33:17
Speaker 1: extremely high on drugs that day.
33:19
Speaker 2: And to corroborate that, we look at toxicology. Toxicology reports
33:24
Speaker 2: postmortem analyzed blood, urine and tissue to determine what substances
33:29
Speaker 2: were in the body at the time of death.
33:31
Speaker 1: And Anna's report confirmed this, right?
33:33
Speaker 2: Yes. Anna's report later confirmed that she was heavily intoxicated
33:37
Speaker 2: by multiple substances on the day she died. So Jorge
33:40
Speaker 2: isn't lying about that detail. They were profoundly under the influence.
33:44
Speaker 1: Jorge admits they were driving up the mountain. They got
33:47
Speaker 1: the car stuck in the snow and it was freezing.
33:49
Speaker 1: He claims she was driving, she got it stuck, and
33:52
Speaker 1: they couldn't get it out.
33:53
Speaker 2: So he finally admits that they walked to the empty cabin,
33:56
Speaker 2: broke in, and hid there to escape the brutal cold.
33:59
Speaker 1: He's given them the timeline, the location, and his presence
34:02
Speaker 1: at the scene. But he absolutely refuses to admit to
34:06
Speaker 1: the murder itself.
34:07
Speaker 2: Now, this is where you might assume someone else was there.
34:09
Speaker 2: I mean, drug deals go bad all the time. Couldn't
34:13
Speaker 2: a third party have shown up?
34:14
Speaker 1: But the physical evidence shuts that down entirely. There were
34:17
Speaker 1: only two sets of footprints leading away from the car,
34:20
Speaker 1: and only one set of footprints wandering the mountain afterward.
34:24
Speaker 2: Jorge's DNA and fingerprints are the only ones at the scene.
34:27
Speaker 2: There are no phantom attackers. Exactly.
34:30
Speaker 1: The detectives know he did it. They are watching him closely,
34:34
Speaker 1: and they notice something fascinating about how Jorge reacts to
34:37
Speaker 1: the information they possess.
34:39
Speaker 2: He is stunned by how much they know. The Walmart video,
34:42
Speaker 2: the Montrez video, the makeup kit.
34:44
Speaker 1: He asks the detectives, how do you know all this?
34:48
Speaker 1: And then his logic takes this terrifying, twisted turn. When
34:53
Speaker 1: they mention the friend in Montrose that Anna got the
34:55
Speaker 1: makeup from, Jorge suddenly looks at the detectives and asks
34:59
Speaker 1: if Anna was a cop.
35:01
Speaker 2: Why on earth would he think a 22-year-old mother of
35:03
Speaker 2: three was an undercover police officer?
35:06
Speaker 1: We really have to dive into the biological mechanism of
35:10
Speaker 1: drug-induced psychosis to understand this.
35:12
Speaker 2: Okay, let's break that down.
35:13
Speaker 1: When someone heavily abuses stimulants like methamphetamine, for example, their
35:18
Speaker 1: brain is just flooded with dopamine.
35:21
Speaker 2: And that's not a good thing in those quantities.
35:23
Speaker 1: No. Over time, this extreme dopamine surplus hyper-stimulates the brain's
35:29
Speaker 1: pattern recognition centers. The brain starts connecting dots that simply
35:33
Speaker 1: aren't there.
35:34
Speaker 2: It's finding meaning in random events.
35:36
Speaker 1: Exactly. Add in sleep deprivation, which totally destroys cognitive reasoning.
35:42
Speaker 1: And the brain begins to manufacture these intense persecutory delusions.
35:47
Speaker 1: So his brain is literally creating enemies. You have two people,
35:50
Speaker 1: both highly intoxicated. They get trapped in the snow in
35:53
Speaker 1: freezing temperatures.
35:54
Speaker 2: And hypothermia also severely impairs judgment.
35:57
Speaker 1: They break into a strange, dark, unfamiliar cabin. The isolation
36:01
Speaker 1: just acts as an echo chamber for his delusions.
36:04
Speaker 2: He confessed his ultimate fear to the detectives. He said
36:07
Speaker 2: he believed the remote cabin they broke into was secretly bugged.
36:11
Speaker 1: He thought someone was listening.
36:12
Speaker 2: He became absolutely convinced that Anna wasn't just a friend,
36:15
Speaker 2: but a police informant or an undercover cop who had
36:18
Speaker 2: intentionally driven him up that mountain to trap him.
36:20
Speaker 1: He tells the detectives, people sacrifice, right? That could have
36:24
Speaker 1: been me. He thought she was setting him up to
36:26
Speaker 1: be killed or captured.
36:27
Speaker 2: In his drug-addled, paranoid mind, Anna wasn't a stranded mother
36:32
Speaker 2: seeking shelter. She was a lethal threat. He truly believed
36:35
Speaker 2: he was in imminent danger of being sacrificed.
36:37
Speaker 1: So the horrific violence in the cabin, the brutal attack
36:40
Speaker 1: with the ice pickaxe, was in his distorted reality an
36:44
Speaker 1: act of preemptive self-defense against a phantom conspiracy.
36:47
Speaker 2: That is a terrifying glimpse into a broken mind. He
36:50
Speaker 2: manufactured a deadly threat out of thin air, fueled entirely
36:54
Speaker 2: by the drugs and the eerie isolation of that cabin.
36:56
Speaker 1: And honestly, it explains everything. It explains why he didn't
36:59
Speaker 1: take the $ 3, 000 cash.
37:01
Speaker 2: You don't rob an undercover cop who is setting you
37:04
Speaker 2: up for an ambush.
37:06
Speaker 1: You neutralize the threat, you try to burn the evidence,
37:08
Speaker 1: and you run for your life.
37:10
Speaker 2: It explains the aborted fire.
37:12
Speaker 1: It explains why he left the valuable rifles.
37:14
Speaker 2: It explains his frantic, terrified interactions with witnesses on the road.
37:18
Speaker 1: He was a man fleeing a monster that only existed
37:21
Speaker 1: in his own head.
37:22
Speaker 2: This tragic delusion is the why.
37:24
Speaker 1: And it leads directly to the final legal resolution of
37:27
Speaker 1: this nightmare. Jorge Solis was initially charged with second-degree murder
37:31
Speaker 1: and booked into the Mesa County Detention Center on five
37:34
Speaker 1: total charges.
37:35
Speaker 2: With a bond set at nearly $ 300, 000.
37:38
Speaker 1: But the trial actually never happens. The forensic and circumstantial evidence,
37:42
Speaker 1: the DNA, the fingerprints, the CCTV, the eyewitness timelines, is
37:47
Speaker 1: simply too overwhelming to fight in court.
37:50
Speaker 2: Almost exactly two years later, on March 3rd, 2023, Jorge
37:55
Speaker 2: Solis accepts a plea agreement.
37:57
Speaker 1: He is sentenced to 42 years in prison. And that
38:00
Speaker 1: is where the legal story ends.
38:02
Speaker 2: But the heartbreak of this case just lingers.
38:05
Speaker 1: It really does. You have Anna Rescon, a 22-year-old mother
38:08
Speaker 1: who's really just trying to drive to Mexico to bring
38:11
Speaker 1: her children home.
38:12
Speaker 2: She made a single, fateful decision to take a detour
38:15
Speaker 2: with a friend to use drugs.
38:17
Speaker 1: And it placed her in a snowy trap with a
38:19
Speaker 1: man rapidly losing his grip on reality.
38:22
Speaker 2: If we step back and look at the broader implications,
38:24
Speaker 2: I think the most lingering takeaway is the role of
38:27
Speaker 2: the environment itself.
38:29
Speaker 1: The wilderness.
38:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. When a horrific act happens in a crowded city,
38:33
Speaker 2: the evidence often just washes away in the rain or
38:35
Speaker 2: gets trampled by a thousand feet. But in total chaos,
38:39
Speaker 2: Freezing isolation. The landscape becomes the ultimate, unyielding witness.
38:44
Speaker 1: The snow held the exact shape of their footprints. The
38:47
Speaker 1: freezing cold immobilized her car, preserving it like a time
38:49
Speaker 1: capsule with the cash and the cap inside.
38:52
Speaker 2: And the deep, remote silence of that mountain didn't just
38:55
Speaker 2: hide them. It amplified Jorge's internal paranoia until it reached
38:59
Speaker 2: a fatal crescendo that destroyed them both.
39:02
Speaker 1: The environment didn't just host the crime. It catalyzed it
39:06
Speaker 1: and then preserved the evidence of it perfectly.
39:09
Speaker 2: So true.
39:10
Speaker 1: For you listening, the next time you find yourself looking
39:13
Speaker 1: out over a beautiful, desolate, snowy landscape, maybe a mountain
39:17
Speaker 1: pass or a quiet, frozen forest, ask yourself, what other secrets,
39:22
Speaker 1: what other perfectly preserved tragedies are out there just waiting
39:27
Speaker 1: for the ice to thaw?