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Serial Killer: Robert Charles Browne - 'None Ever Got Away' · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So what makes a monster invisible?
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: That is, well, that's the big question, isn't it?
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Right. I mean, we all have this ingrained expectation that
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: evil is just, you know, going to announce itself.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like a movie villain.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We want the villain to walk into the room
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: casting this long, dark shadow, maybe even with like a
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: neon sign over their head.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: But that's almost never how it actually works.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. And that's why I want to
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: drop you, the listener... right into a very specific, remarkably
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: ordinary moment in time.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, set the scene for us.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: So the setting is a courtroom in Colorado Springs. The
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: date is July 28th, 2006. And if you picture the scene,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: it's probably incredibly mundane, right?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Just a standard Tuesday afternoon kind of vibe.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You have the judge looking over the docket,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: bailiffs just kind of standing by the doors, attorneys are
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: shuffling their paperwork.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: You can probably hear the air conditioning humming.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yes. The AC humming in the background of this super
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: sterile bureaucratic environment. And standing there is a man named
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Robert Charles Brown. Right. And he is entering a guilty
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: plea for a 19-year-old murder.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: And the victim in this case was Rocio Sperry. She was, man,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: she was only about 15 years old at the time
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: of her death.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Which is just awful.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: It's a profound tragedy. But, you know, in the grand
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: machinery of the justice system.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It's. Just another Tuesday.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. A guilty plea for a decades-old cold case is
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: essentially administrative. It's a closed file.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Right. It's the final period at the end of a
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: very sad story. But that single plea in that Colorado courtroom, well,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that wasn't the shock.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: No, not by a long shot.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: The true shock, the thing that completely fractures your understanding
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of reality, is the casual, almost throwaway claim that accompanied it.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Just slipped right in there.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Brown wasn't just admitting to killing Rocio Sperry. He
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: was claiming 48 additional victims.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: 48 human beings.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, let that number sink in. 48.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: And with a timeline stretching all the way back to 1970.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: It's just, it's wild.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: So today we're looking at this incredibly dense investigation that
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: was heavily documented by CBS News back in 2006.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, an amazing piece of reporting.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Definitely. Definitely. And our mission for this deep dive into
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the source material is to really understand one of the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: most chilling, prolific, and honestly bizarre serial killer confessions in
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: United States history.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Because we aren't just going to read off a grim
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: ledger of horrific facts here.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: No, we don't just do bullet points.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The numbers are just the surface. We really need
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: to get into the mechanics of how someone hides a
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: body count that high.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: The absolute banality of his methods, too.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yes. And the psychological warfare he waged against the investigators
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: who finally brought this all into the light.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Because to even begin to comprehend a claim of 48
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: additional victims, you can't just start at the confession.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: You really can't.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: You have to rewind to the formative years of a
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: man who was basically a chameleon hiding in plain sight.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the background information gives us a picture of
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Robert Charles Brown in his early years that completely defies
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: that criminal mastermind stereotype.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: He wasn't Hannibal Lecter.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. It's a portrait of struggle blending
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: in and a very mundane rural reality.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: So the geography here starts in Cushatta, Louisiana, deep in
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the 1960s.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Brown was the youngest of nine children on a family
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: dairy farm.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Nine kids.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the sheriff of Red River Parish at the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: time of this investigation, Johnny Norman, he actually knew Brown
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: back then.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Which is such a weird coincidence.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Right? Before he was in law enforcement, Norman was Brown's
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: gym teacher.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And he noted that the Brown family experienced severe hard times.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Well, sure. You have a kid growing up as the
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: youngest of nine in a rural agricultural setting during a
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: tough economic period.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: It's a recipe for neglect, right?
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That specific environment is a crucible. A dairy farm
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: requires relentless daily labor.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Seven days a week.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Yes. And in a family of that size, facing economic hardship,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: emotional neglect isn't necessarily malicious on the parent's part.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: It's just a reality. Right.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: It's almost a logistical inevitability. A child can easily become
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: invisible in that environment.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Sort of functioning more as an extra set of hands
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: than an individual who needs attention.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Which perfectly aligns with how Norman described him, you know,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: as a loner.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: But then another former high school teacher offered a slightly
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: different angle on him.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They said that while he was a loner and
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of friends, he did have friends.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, interesting. So he wasn't a total outcast. Right.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: And when I read those details in the source material,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I instantly thought of him as like the guy in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the background.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Of a photograph. Okay. What do you mean?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Well, you look at a picture of a family gathering
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: or maybe a school event, and there's that one person
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: in the back slightly out of focus.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Like they're there, but not really there.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He's physically present. He's participating in the baseline societal norms,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: but he isn't truly connecting. He is camouflaged by his
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: mere proximity to normal life.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. And the danger
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: of that superficial socialization is that it allows a person
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: to mimic normal human behavior without internalizing any of the
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: empathy that usually accompanies it.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: He's just going through the motions. Right.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: He learned how to exist within a social framework, while
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: keeping himself emotionally untouchable.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: But the camouflage wasn't perfect, was it?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: No, it wasn't. Both of those teachers independently highlighted a
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: major crack in the facade.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: His temper.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: His temper, yes.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Johnny Norman gave a very telling example of this. He
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: remembered that Brown had a quick mind, but a truly
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: volatile temper.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, like a hair trigger.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. In a pickup basketball game, if somebody fouled Brown
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: or just, like, bumped into him, he wouldn't just get mad.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Norman said he would fly off the handle.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: And, I mean, in a physical game like basketball, a
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: foul is structural friction. It's expected.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Right. You get bumped, you rub your arm, you take
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the ball out of bounds. You don't lose your mind.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But for a mind harboring profound underlying instability, an
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: accidental elbow isn't a byproduct of the game.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: It's a personal attack.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: It is perceived as a deliberate, deeply personal attack. It
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: triggers a rage response that is completely disproportionate to the
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: event itself.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Which tells us so much, right?
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: It tells us that even in his youth, his ability
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: to tolerate frustration or perceived disrespect was essentially non-existent.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: And that inability to handle structure, to handle being challenged,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: it really seems to define his early adulthood.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: The records show he was a high school dropout.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Which fits.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: And then he later joined the army, which is arguably
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the most rigid, rule-bound institution a person can possibly enter.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: And how did that go for him?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: He gets kicked out for drug use.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: He constantly fails to conform to these large institutional systems.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Because you can't fly off the handle at a drill sergeant. Exactly.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: But here is where the story stops making sense to me,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: and I suspect anyone listening is thinking the exact same
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: thing right now.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: What's that? Okay.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: He drops out of school. He gets booted from the military.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: He has this explosive, terrifying temper over a basketball foul.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Yet the records show Robert Charles Brown was married six times.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Six. Yes. Separate marriages. Yes.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: And according to authorities, all six of his ex-wives survived him.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Miraculously.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, how is it functionally possible for someone with
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: that much volatile rage to navigate the incredible intimacy and
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: complexity of marriage six times without his true predatory nature
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: destroying the person sleeping.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Next to him. It sounds totally impossible.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Until you look at the mechanics of compartmentalization in sociopathic predators.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down for us.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Well, when we look at his failures, like the high
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: school dropout, the military discharge, Those are failures to navigate vast,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: impersonal institutions.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: The military doesn't care about your charm, your excuses, or
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: your ability to manipulate a single conversation. They demand blanket
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: compliance to a uniform standard.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And Brown was clearly incapable of that.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Right. But a marriage is entirely different. A marriage is
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: a one-on-one dynamic.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: So in a one-on-one dynamic, he only has to manage
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a single variable.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He only has to manipulate one person's perception at
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: a time.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: And serial predators are often extraordinarily skilled at that, aren't they?
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Highly skilled. Johnny Norman said he had a quick mind,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: that intelligence wasn't applied to academic pursuits or military strategy.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: It was weaponized.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yes. Weaponized to read people. He could identify what a
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: specific partner needed, mirror those desires, and construct a highly
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: tailored persona just long enough to secure the relationship.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: But maintaining that mask has got to be exhausting.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It requires a staggering amount of psychological energy, which
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: likely explains why he had to do it six times.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense. The mask eventually slips or the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: energy required to maintain it just becomes too much.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So he discards the relationship and builds a new one.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying to think about the sheer volume of deception
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: happening across those marriages.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: You are sharing meals with this man. You are managing
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: household finances together. You are looking at him across the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: living room, completely unaware that he is harboring a violent
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: compulsion that is, according to his own claims, racking up
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: a massive body count across the country.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And, you know, the women he married served a fundamentally
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: different psychological purpose than the people he targeted for violence.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: They were the anchor to his camouflage. If you were
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: a married man working a steady, unremarkable job, you completely
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: subvert the stereotypical profile of a transient cross-country killer. Right.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: You look like a normal guy. You are tethered to
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: a community. You are paying rent.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. The surviving wives aren't just fortunate. They are
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: a testament to how strictly he walled off his domestic
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: existence from his hunting grounds. Wow.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Living that double life for decades, I mean, that requires
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: an iron grip on your own secrets.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: You have to be willing to take those secrets to
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: the grave to maintain the illusion. Right.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: So what breaks that grip? Because this sprawling investigation into
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: 48 victims didn't kick off with a sloppy mistake at
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: a crime scene. No. Or a miraculous DNA hit. Nope.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: It started because he simply decided to mail an envelope.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is the craziest part of all of this.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: So in the year 2000, Brown was already incarcerated in Colorado,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: serving a life sentence.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Right. He had pleaded guilty back in 1995.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, for the kidnapping and murder of 13-year-old Heather Dawn Church.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: So he is sitting in a prison cell. And the
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: world believes he's a one-time killer who was caught and punished.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: And then, completely unsolicited, he sends a letter to the prosecutors.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Out of the blue.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: The contents of this letter are what turned a closed
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: file into a nationwide panic.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Because he didn't just write a standard confession.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: No, he didn't say, hey, I did this. He sent
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a map meticulously traced from an atlas.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: A literal treasure map of horrors.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: And he included a poem.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: A very disturbing poem.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Let me read the exact wording he used. He wrote, Man,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: that sends chills down my spine.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: It's horrible.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Let's look at that final sentence, because framing human slaughter
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: as a sports metaphor, calling it the score, is beyond disturbing.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: It treats the brutal taking of human life as a game.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Right. And I struggle to reconcile this with the loner
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: persona from his youth.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: How do you mean?
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Someone who just wants to be left alone doesn't write
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: this letter. This isn't the act of a man burdened
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: by a heavy conscience finally seeking absolution.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: No, definitely not.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: This reads like a narcissist who's furious that no one
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: is admiring his trophy case.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: You are tapping into the exact psychological paradox that investigators
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: grappled with.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Really? Yes.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Investigator Charlie Hess, who worked extensively on this case, openly
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: questioned the motive. He asked, does he have a conscience?
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Is that what motivated him? I really have no idea,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: and I'm not sure he knows.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Because it's so contradictory.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When a prolific predator is active, their power derives
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: entirely from their invisibility.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Right. They are the monster in the dark.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Deciding who lives and dies. And their anonymity makes them
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: feel like a god.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: But once they are caught... and placed in a cage
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: for a single crime.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: The dynamic shifts entirely.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: The secret power suddenly feels like a missed opportunity for fame. Oh, wow.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Because if nobody knows you did it, you don't get
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the credit.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The ego of an aging incarcerated killer cannot tolerate
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: being underestimated.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: He looks around his cell and realizes history is going
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: to record him as a standard one-off murderer.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: And his ego can't handle that.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: By framing it as a score, he is aggressively asserting
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: dominance over the authorities holding the keys to his cell.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: He's essentially saying, you think you won because I'm in here.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: You only caught me once.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Yes. I outsmarted you 48 times before you even realized
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: there was a game being played.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: That is just wild.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: It's an assertion of supremacy from a man who has
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: zero actual power left.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: It's all about control.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: But I want to dig into the first half of
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that poem, too, because the vocabulary he chooses is incredibly revealing.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: The sacred virgins line. Yeah.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Seven sacred virgins entombed side by side, those less worthy
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: are scattered wide. He is actively categorizing human beings.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like a lethal manifestation of a Madonna
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: whore complex.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Exactly what I was thinking. He is assigning this pseudo-religious
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: elevated status to a specific subset, the ones he calls sacred.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: And completely dehumanizing the rest of his victims as less worthy.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Which reveals a highly structured internalized moral hierarchy.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: He isn't just killing indiscriminately in his own mind. He
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: is judging, sorting, and valuing human life based on his
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: own twisted criteria.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: And the spatial verbs he uses, they're so critical for
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: understanding his psychology.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Like entombed.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Yes. The sacred are entombed side by side. The word
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: entombed implies ceremony, care, a specific and deliberate resting place.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Almost like a place he could potentially revisit, at least
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: in his memory, because they are grouped together.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Right. whereas the less worthy are scattered wide.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Which strips them of all humanity and dignity.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: They are treated as disposable refuse.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Tossed out the window, across the landscape, without a second thought.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: And that line, scattered wide, that is where this stops
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: being just a disturbing piece of paper and becomes a massive,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: massive logistical nightmare.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, an absolute nightmare for law enforcement.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Because that letter wasn't just a taunt, it was a sprawling...
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: terrifying treasure map.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: The map he traced showed the outlines of nine different states.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Nine states.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Colorado, Washington, California, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: All across the South and West.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: And inside each state, he had written a number. Telling
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: those numbers up gave authorities the exact total of 48.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: The geographical spread is what makes this case so overwhelming
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: to process.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: It's huge.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Let's break down those numbers. He claimed 17 murders in
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: his home state of Louisiana.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: 17 in one state.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Nine in Colorado. Seven in Texas. Five in Arkansas. Three
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: in Mississippi. Two each in California, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: And one in Washington state.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: It's a dark road trip across America.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Plus, there's the unverified claim of his very first kill,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: which he said happened outside the U.S. entirely.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, right. South Korea.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: He claimed the violence began in 1970 during a bar
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: fight with a soldier in South Korea.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: And if we operate on the assumption that the South
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Korea claim is true, it paints a fascinating trajectory.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: It suggests the violence originated in a moment of absolute chaos.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Like a drunken brawl.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a heat-of-the-moment conflict where the intention might not have
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: initially been murder, but the outcome was fatal.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: That is a well-documented threshold in forensic psychology. Really? Yes.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: The initial act of extreme violence might be somewhat situational.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: But the psychological barrier against taking a life is shattered.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: It breaks the seal.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Once that taboo is broken, the individual realizes they
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: survived the act and the psychological constraints fall away.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: They transition from impulsive situational violence to premeditated hunting.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: And they begin to refine their process.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And the scale of that refinement is staggering. The CBS
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: News report points out that if these 48 additional victims
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: are verified, Brown would be one of the most prolific
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: serial killers in U.S.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: History. Which is astounding.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: They drew a direct comparison in the source material to
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Gary Ridgway.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: The Green River Killer.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Right. Who was the nation's deadliest convicted serial killer at
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: the time of this 2006 report. Ridgway admitted to 48 murders,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: though he occasionally claimed up to 71.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: But when you look at how they operated, there is
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: a massive distinction between them.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Massive. Ridgway was geographically locked. He had a specific hunting
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: ground around Seattle and the Green River.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Robert Charles Brown's map covers half of the continental United States.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: The logistics of investigating that are almost impossible to fully grasp,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: especially in the modern era.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Think about El Paso County Sheriff Terry Makeda's quote regarding
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: the investigation.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: He said, it's possible he's exaggerating, but I don't think
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: you can conduct business assuming he's exaggerating.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Right. You are ethically and professionally bound to investigate every
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: single number in every state.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And we have to really sit with what that means practically.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Because we are so accustomed to the modern true crime landscape.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: We expect a digital trail.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Today, if someone commits a crime, they leave a
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: digital exhaust pipe.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Cell phone towers ping their location.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Ring cameras catch their car driving by.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: License plate readers track them on the highway.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Even familial DNA uploaded to an ancestry site can zero
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: in on their family tree.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: But the 70s, 80s, and early 90s? That was the
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: dark ages for law enforcement communication.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: It was an era of extreme jurisdictional isolation.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, if a homicide occurred in a small parish
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: in Louisiana, those deputies were working with typewriters and physical
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: filing cabinets.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: They weren't routinely sharing information with a sheriff's office in
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Texas or a police department in Colorado.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: There were no centralized, digitized databases instantly flagging similar M.O.s
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: across state lines.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: So if a guy who looks perfectly ordinary commits a
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: horrific crime in Arkansas, gets in his car and drives
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: eight hours to New Mexico... He doesn't just cross a
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: state line. He steps into a different dimension where he's
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: essentially a ghost.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: The local cops in Arkansas only see one isolated tragedy
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: in their county.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: They can't see the pattern because the pattern is spread
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: across thousands of miles of interstate highway.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Brown fully exploited that fragmentation. He scattered his crimes wide
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: because the geography itself was his greatest defense mechanism.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: The vastness of the American West and South protected him.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: But, you know, a map only gives us the locations.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: It tells us where he claims to have hunted. It
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: doesn't tell us how he executed these crimes.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And the how is where the horror truly sets in.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Let's examine his modus operandi.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: It's deeply unsettling.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It is, because... When you read through the methods detailed
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: in the 44-page affidavit, it is a collision of the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: incredibly mundane and the unspeakably brutal.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: It completely shatters any illusion that monsters only exist in
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: dark alleys.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: He met his victims in the most everyday settings imaginable.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: A motel bar, a standard apartment complex, and terrifyingly, the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: convenience store where he worked.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: The convenience store clerk is a phenomenal vantage point for
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: a predator.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And let's talk about that.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Think about the psychology of a convenience store late at night.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: It's fascinating. I want you, the listener, to picture this.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Think about the last time you ran out to buy
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: milk or gas at 11 p.m.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: You're tired. You're not paying attention. Right.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: You walk in. The fluorescent lights are buzzing. You grab
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: what you need and you walk up to the counter.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: You don't look at the clerk. You don't consider their
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: inner life.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: They are a transactional fixture in your routine.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: You are completely vulnerable. And to them, you are perfectly visible.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate observation deck. You see people who are intoxicated,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: people who are lost, people who are alone.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: You can just watch.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: You can observe patterns, vulnerabilities, and habits without ever raising
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: suspicion because your presence there is entirely justified by your uniform.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: You belong there. But the methods he used to actually
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: commit the murders, this is where I find myself deeply
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: unsettled by the contradictions.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: The juxtaposition is jarring.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: The affidavit details some incredibly specific, horrific attacks. In one instance,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: he allegedly seduced a drunken woman, used ether to knock
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: her out, and then used an ice pick on her. Wow.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And then in another case, authorities state he subdued a
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: woman using ant killer before stabbing her repeatedly with a screwdriver.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: The choice of weaponry here is the key to understanding
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: his specific pathology.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Using ant killer and an ice pick feels totally contradictory
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: How do you mean?
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: It's like he bypassed the gun store entirely and just
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: shopped under a kitchen sink. A gun is point and shoot.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: It's almost attached.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: It creates distance.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Right. But ant killer? That is a cold, calculated poison
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: you have to buy days in advance, plan out, and administer.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: It takes time.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And then he pairs it with a screwdriver, which is
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: a frenzied, messy, up-close weapon. It's like two completely different
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: killers occupying the same body.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: You've perfectly identified the intersection of his premeditation and his rage.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Tell me more about that.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Let's break down the chemistry of the premeditation first. Using
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: ether or ant killer requires extensive logistical forethought.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: You have to know what you're doing.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: You have to acquire the chemical without drawing attention. You
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: have to understand how to administer it.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: And in the case of the ether?
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Seducing a vulnerable, intoxicated person requires patience, charm, and manipulation.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Introducing a chemical agent into that scenario is an elaborate,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: highly calculated trap.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: It shows a chillingly methodical patient mind. You don't accidentally
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: poison someone with ant killer in a fit of passion.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: You make a conscious decision in the hardware store aisle
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: to buy that product for that purpose.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: But then the secondary weapons, the ice pick and the screwdriver,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: they represent a total shift in state.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: From the cold planner to the hot blitted killer.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: While a chemical incapacitates, the ice pick and screwdriver are
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: tools of absolute intimate violence.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: They require immense physical exertion.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: You are in close quarters. You are feeling the physical resistance.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: This connects flawlessly back to the gym teacher's assessment of
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: the teenaged brown.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: A quick mind and a bad temper.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Yes. The quick mind plans the chemical trap, and the
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: bad temper executes the final, visceral act of violence.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: It is the careful, cold-blooded planning of a predator resulting
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: in the explosive, kinetic rage.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Of a killer. And he toggled between these states seamlessly.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Which brings me right back to the sheer duality of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: his existence. While he is doing this, while he is
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: purchasing Ant Killer with the explicit intent of destroying a
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: human life, he is married.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: It's hard to fathom.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: The man who buys poison to subdue a victim might
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: go to the exact same store the next day to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: buy bread and eggs for his wife.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Acting like an ordinary husband.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: He is taking out the trash, cutting the grass, working
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: a register, all while operating a parallel life of unimaginable depravity.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: It forces us to confront how seamlessly a sociopath can
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: integrate extreme violence into the mundane logistics of suburban life.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Because the tools he used weren't exotic weapons smuggled in
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: from afar.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: No, they were the detritus of an ordinary garage workbench.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: He weaponized the mundane, which violates our fundamental sense of
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: safety in the ordinary world.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: It really makes you look at a screwdriver differently.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: But getting him to admit to these specific details, getting
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: him to explain the ant killer and the ether, that
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: required an agonizing, years-long effort from investigators.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a quick process.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: No. He didn't just mail the poem and then hand
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: over a neatly typed spreadsheet of confessions. The investigation itself
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: was a psychological marathon.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: And the linchpin of this entire effort was retired Colorado
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Springs police investigator Lou Smet.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Lou Smit is a very recognizable name.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, Smit is widely known for his controversial theory that
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: an intruder killed six-year-old Sean Benet Ramsey.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: But before that circus, he was instrumental in building the
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: original 1991 case against Brown for the murder of Heather
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Dawn Church.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: So Smit had this incredible intuition that wouldn't let him go.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Even after Brown was convicted and locked away for the
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: church murder, Smit couldn't shake the feeling that they were
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: looking at the tip of an iceberg.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: He knew there was more.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: The CBS report highlights a moment in 2002 where Smith
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: was addressing a group of cold case volunteers. He told
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: them flatly, I know a guy who might be a
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: serial killer.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: The weight of a veteran detective's intuition cannot be overstated.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: It's like a superpower.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: It really is. When a seasoned investigator like Smith sits
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: across from a suspect, they aren't just listening to the answers.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: What else are they looking for?
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: They are absorbing the suspect's baseline demeanor, their micro-expressions, how
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: they manage the flow of conversation. Brown was caught for
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: one crime, but Smith recognized the behavioral markers of a
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: habitual predator.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: He knew the psychological math didn't add up to just
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: a single victim.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: So, acting on Smith's gut feeling, these cold case volunteers
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: initiated contact with Brown in prison.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: And the report describes the dynamic as off-again, on-again discussions.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: They would talk, Brown would clam up and refuse to
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: see them, then eventually he would open up again.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: It was a very delicate dance.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Through this grueling process, they eventually corroborated six additional slayings
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: across Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: And CBS News correspondent Jennifer Miller noted that Brown provided
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: details of the crimes that no one else could have
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: possibly known. Right.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: And in homicide investigations, that is known as holdback evidence,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: isn't it?
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, holdback evidence. These are the granular details of a
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: crime scene. Like what? This specific type of not used,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: the exact location of a wound, or in this case,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: The specific household chemicals used.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Stuff the police deliberately keep out of the press. Right.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: When a suspect volunteers those specific details, it proves they
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: aren't just a compulsive liar seeking attention.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Because they couldn't have read it in the newspaper.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It places them in the room at the time
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: of the murder.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: But the mechanics of getting that holdback evidence out of
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: him sound excruciating.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: It takes a very special kind of investigator.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Imagine being one of those cold case volunteers. You have
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to drive out to a penitentiary. You have to sit
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: in a sterile cinder block room across a small metal
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: table from a man you know uses ant killer and
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: screwdrivers on innocent people.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Just you and him in a room.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: And you have to sit there, maintain eye contact, nod
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: your head, and keep him talking. How do you walk
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: that psychological tightrope?
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly difficult.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: How do you sit in the presence of that ego
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: without breaking down and screaming at him?
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: It requires a supreme suppression of your own ego and
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: emotional reflexes.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I don't think I could do it.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: When you interview a narcissistic killer in that kind of sporadic, off-again,
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: on-again scenario, the entire game is about managing his perception
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: of control.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: You have to feed his ego without ever crossing the
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: line into validating his crimes.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: You essentially have to make him feel like he is
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: the smartest guy in the room.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Which has to be so grating.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely. If he decides to clam up and refuses
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: to speak, you cannot push him. Why not? Pushing him
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: challenges his authority, and the narcissist will shut down entirely
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: to win that power struggle. You have to step back,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: absorb the rejection, and wait for his own desperate need
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: for an audience to compel him to reach out again.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: You become the mirror he needs to admire himself. But
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: beneath that submissive posture, the investigator is constantly steering the ship.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: You endure hours of his boasting, carefully filtering through the bravado.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Waiting for him to get so comfortable, so eager to
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: impress you, that he slips up and hands you a
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: piece of verifiable truth.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: You are panning for the gold of holdback evidence in
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: a river of absolute ego.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: That's a beautiful way to phrase a very ugly process.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: It's a battle of attrition. You are just waiting for
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: him to want to brag enough to give you a location,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: a name, or a weapon.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: And through that agonizing endurance, that began to put real
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: names to the numbers he had scattered across his map.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: We've traced a truly amazing, horrifying trajectory today.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: We really have.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: We started with a troubled, hot-tempered kid on a 1960s
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Louisiana dairy farm.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: We watched him evolve into a chameleon, hiding behind the
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: domestic normalcy of six marriages.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: And the invisibility of a convenience store counter.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: We saw how his arrogance ultimately betrayed him.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Leading him to taunt authorities with a poem and a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: map of 48 claimed victims across the American landscape.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: His story exposes the terrifying blind spots that existed in
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: law enforcement prior to the digital age.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: And it highlights the devastating adaptability of a predator who
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: understands how to weaponize mundane everyday life as his primary camouflage.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: It's a sobering realization.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: It is. And as we close this analysis of the
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: source material, I want to leave you with the single
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: most disturbing quote from the entire CBS News report.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: It's the one that really sticks with you.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: During those grueling off-again, on-again interviews, the investigators asked Brown
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: a very simple, very human question. They asked if any
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: of his victims ever got away.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: And his response strips away any remaining illusion of humanity.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: He looked at them and said.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: None ever got away. Never gave the opportunity. If you're
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: going to do it, Just do it.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: If you're going to do it, just do it. He
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: equated the destruction of a human life to completing a
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: household chore.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate chilling expression of how completely he devalued
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: the people he deemed less worthy.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: And it leaves us with a lingering question, a thought
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I want you to carry with you as you go
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: about the normal routines of your day.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Because if Robert Charles Brown hadn't needed to brag, If
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: his ego hadn't demanded that he share the score in
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: that letter back in 2000?
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: His secrets would have stayed buried.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: He would have been recorded in history as a man
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: in prison for a single crime. No one would have
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: ever known.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: It forces you to wonder, as you walk down the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: aisle of a convenience store late at night, or as
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: you pass a seemingly ordinary stranger taking out the trash
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: at your.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Apartment complex, how many other people are out there?
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Quietly keeping score in a game no one else even
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: knows they're playing.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: We always expect the monsters to be visible. But the
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: most dangerous ones are the ones who look exactly like
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: the background of a photograph.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: What makes a monster invisible?
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, we do. Thank you for joining us on this
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: deep dive.