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Mother of Triplets Murdered By Husband Before Divorce Is Finalized · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine stepping out of a lawyer's office on a warm
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: June afternoon, and it's the day before your thirty ninth birthday.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and more important is the day before your divorce
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: is finalized. So you're a devoted mother to five year
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: old triplets, you have this really solid management career, and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: after years of just emotional and physical abuse, you are
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: finally stepping into a brand new chapter of your life.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Right, a clean slate, exactly.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So all you have to do is make one
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: quick stop at your estranged husband's house just to pick
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: up your son. You pull into driveway, and then you
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: simply vanish.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It is. It's just a profoundly terrifying reality. And I
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: think what makes it so unnerving is that it praise
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: on that incredibly vulnerable moment of transition. Yeah, because the
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: moment someone is finally breaking free is statistically just the
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: most dangerous time in an abusive dynamic.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It really is. And that's the exact premise of the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: true crime case of Jackie and Klay Waller. But what
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: we are looking at today isn't just the mechanics of
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a disappearance. It's the bizarre I mean, frankly infuriating aftermath
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: because the estranged husband in this case didn't play the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: part of the grieving spouse. He didn't pretend to be panicked,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you know, he immediately started playing this highly calculated, astonishingly
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: arrogant game of cat and mouse with the police. So
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: our mission today is to unpack how a killer's sheer,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: unfiltered hubris became his absolute undoing and how the relentless,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: unshakable instinct of a sister just blew a massive multi
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: agency investigation wide open.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: It truly is a masterclass in psychological contrasts. On one side,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: you have pure narcissistic hubris, you know, a man who
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: believed he could literally bend reality to his will. Yeah,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: And then on the other you have the fierce protective
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: intuition of a sister who just completely refused to play
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: by polite societal rules.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I love how you put that. And we're pulling from
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a detailed transcript from True Crime News that covers everything
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: from the disappearance to the wildly complex forensics. And there's
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: an unprecedented legal twist that I guarantee no one saw coming.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, But to really understand the gravity of this,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: we have to look at the psychological makeup of the suspect.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Right out of the gate, we do.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: And what's fascinating here is how this case perfectly illustrates
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: a really specific, deeply dangerous intersection. You have domestic abuse,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: you have extreme narcissism, and you have a perpetrator who
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: falsely believed his background gave him a master key to
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: outsmarting the.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Justices because he was a cop.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Right well, yeah, Clay Waller had a brief stint in
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: law enforcement as a deputy, and because of that, he
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: genuinely believed he was untouchable. He thought he knew the
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: playbook better than the people currently running the place.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to focus on the dynamic between Jackie
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and Clay, because the contrast is just it's stark. Jackie
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Waller was thirty nine. She was a manager at a
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: major insurance firm. She was the primary breadwinner and, by
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: all accounts, just a profoundly devoted mother. Her family described
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: her as someone who embraced motherhood from the word go.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: You'd think having three infants screaming in the backseat of
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: a car would break someone, but she would just laugh.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: She thrived in the chaos of love.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Hmm. You know, and then you look at Clay. He
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: hopped from job to job. He served as a cape
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Gerardo County sheriff's deputy, but he only held that job
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: for about a year.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: This is the year.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Right, and Jackie's father noted from the very beginning
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: that he had a bad feeling about Clay. He actually
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: described him as having a deceptive demeanor.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Wow, parents always know.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: They really do. He had a known history of affairs,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: but more insidiously, he weaponized Jackie's own empathy against her.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: She actually admitted to her family that she felt sorry
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: for him because he had a speech impediment. Oh man, Yeah,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: She called herself an enabler. She recognized her own codependency,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: but was sort of trapped by her compassion.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: A phrase in the source material really hit me. Jackie's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: sister said Jackie was taking care of her husband like
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: he was another child. Exactly if you think about the
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: math of her life. I mean, Jackie is working forty
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: hours a week at a demanding management job. She's getting
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: up nine or ten times a night for the babies.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Her home life was as two grueling, full time jobs.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Right and Clay He completely refused to change a single diaper.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: He just absorbed her energy.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: It's a classic parasitic dynamic. He was draining her resources financial, emotional,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: physical occurrence, while contributing absolutely nothing to the ecosystem of
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: their family.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Nothing, But here is the critical psychological shift. As Jackie
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: started pulling away, as she started spending more time with
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: your sister's family and preparing for the divorce, the dynamic
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: shifted from parasitic to overtly predatory.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: That's chilling.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: In domestic abuse, the loss of control is the primary
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: trigger for escalation. When a narcissist realizes they can no
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: longer feed off their host, their goal shifts from exploitation
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: to destruction.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: So as Clay's grip tightened, Jackie realized she needed an
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: invisible lifeline. She knew she was in danger, so she
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: started building a shadow record of his abuse where he
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: couldn't see it, which was on her work computer. She
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: left behind this digital diary of threats that is just
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: bone chilling to read.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: It really is, because it shows the clear, cold blooded
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: premeditation of his psychological warfare. This wasn't a man losing
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: his temper, This was a man systematically terrorizing his wife.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Let's look at the timeline she documented. On December third,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: she told him she was going to file for divorce.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: He didn't yell, He congs replied that he had a
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: feeling one of them wouldn't be around to watch the
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: kids grow up.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And it escalates from vague implications to
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: direct ultimatums, like on March eighteenth, he tells her point
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: blank that a divorce would be a death sentence. But
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the entry on March twenty third is what just makes
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: your stomach draw. What did he say there?
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: He threatened that if he couldn't get to her, he
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: would take their five year old kids on a weekend
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: fishing trip, drown them, and then personally come tell her
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: so he could see the look on her face.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I have to pause there. He's not just
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: threatening violence against her, He's threatening a level of emotional
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: torture that is almost incomprehensible. It is to murder your
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: own children just to inflict psychological agony on your spouse.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: It reveals the absolute void of his empathy. He is
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: telling her that her suffering is his ultimate masterpiece. It's
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: not about keeping the family together. It's about punishing her
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: for daring to revoke his control. He views the children
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: not as human beings, but literally as leverage.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: So going into the spring, the tension is unbearable, but
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: things actually seem to line up for Jackie to make
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: a safe physical exit. Clay loses another job, they lose
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: their house. Jackie takes the triplets and moves in with
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: her older sister, Cheryl and her brother in law, Bob Right.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And I should note Cheryl and Jackie had a six
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: year age gap and weren't incredibly close growing up, but
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: they bonded deeply when Jackie got pregnant.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that happens a lot.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So meanwhile, Clay moves over an hour away to Jackson, Missouri,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and he's crashing at a friend's.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: House, and on the surface, you know, the physical distance
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: mimics a de escalation. They both even started dating other people.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Jackie actually told her sister she thought thought they had
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: turned a corner and that Clay was finally accepting the
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: reality of the divorce.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: But June first arrives. It's the day before Jackie's thirty
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: ninth birthday. They meet at a divorce attorney's office. Afterwards,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Jackie calls Cheryl. She says she just left the attorney's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: office and is pulling up to Clay's house to pick
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: up their son, Maddox, who had stayed with Clay over
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the weekend. Right, and she never comes out of that house. Okay,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: let's unpack this, because I know anyone listening who hasn't
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: been in an abusive relationship is screaming, why did she
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: go alone? Of course she wrote down that he threatened
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to kill her. Was this a lapse in judgment or
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: is this just the horrific reality of the system.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: It is entirely a systemic trap. When you share custody
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: with an abuser, you are legally tethered to them. You
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: can't simply block their number and vanish into the night, right,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: because you have court orders exactly the cord ordered custody exchanges.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: You have logistical handoffs for soccer practice and weekends. Jackie
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: was operating under the assumption that they were in a
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: formal legal process. I mean they had literally just left
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: the attorney's office. Abusers frequently use the children as bait
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: because it is the one guaranteed mechanism to force a
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: mother to walk through their front door. She wasn't being careless,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: she was trying to be a mother to her son
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: in a legal framework that required her to interact with
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: a monster.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: That is deeply sobering. But this is where Clay's grand
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: delusion of being a criminal mastermind hits a massive brick wall,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: because when Jackie didn't come home after a few hours,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: her sister Cheryl did not wait, she didn't hesitate. Her
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: immediate visceral reaction completely derailed the timeline Clay was relying on.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Cheryl's instinct is the absolute pivot point of this entire investigation,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: because typically law enforcement requires a waiting period, often twenty
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: four to forty eight hours before they will pour resources
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: into a missing adult case.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Because adults can just leave right right.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Adults are allowed to walk away from their lives. But
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: that waiting period gives a perpetrator a mass head start
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: to destroy evidence, clean a crime scene, and formulate an alibi.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: But Cheryl didn't care about protocol. By six thirty or
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: seven pm, she is blowing up Jackie's phone with no response.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: She calls Clay. Clay answers, and when she asks where
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Jackie is, he says, if I see her, I'll let
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: you know. I'll tell her to call you, and then
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: he just hangs up so cold. So Cheryl leaves the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: other two triplets with her parents, pops in her car,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: drives an hour to the Jackson Police Department, walks through
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: the doors and declares, I know Clay Waller has killed
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: my sister.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And this is where the investigated gear shift in a
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: way Clay, despite his background in law enforcement, never anticipated
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: the police actually listened.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Right Why because of the context. Jackie had just left
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: a divorce attorney's office, She had a stable job, three
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: kids she adored, and an estranged husband with a known
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: history of volatility. Yeah, the circumstances threw up immediate red
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: flags that bypass that standard waiting period.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: They didn't just send a patrol car to knock on
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: his door. They assembled the major case squad. This isn't
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: a lead team of detectives and crime scene experts pulled
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: from seven different surrounding departments. They brought in the heavy
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: hitters on night one because.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: The statistics surrounding domestic violence and pending divorce and sudden
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: disappearances are glaringly lethal. The police knew that the first
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: twenty four to forty eight hours dictate the entire trajectory
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: of a homicide investigation. If they had waited until Monday morning,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Clay might have scrubbed everything.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: So the search kicks off instantly, and almost immediately they
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: find Jackie's car abandoned on the interstate with a flat tire.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: If you're a passing motorist, it looks like a tragedy
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: waiting to happen. A woman broke down and someone snatched
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: her from the side of the highway. But the major
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: case squad brings in a Missouri State Highway Patrol expert
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: to look.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: At the vehicle, and this is where forensic mechanics tear
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: a hole in Clay's staging. The expert examines the rim
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: of the flat tire.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Right, because if you're driving sixty five miles an hour
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: on an interstate and your tire blows out, what happens
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: to the car?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Physics takes over. You have to decelerate and navigate to
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: the shoulder. During that time, the immense weight of the
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: vehicle is pressing the deflated rubber down into the asphalt,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: which inevitably causes severe damage scuffing or warping to the
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: metal rim.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: It's unavoidable, right, it grinds into the pavement.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly, but the rim on Jackie's car was completely pristine.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: The expert proved the tire was intentionally punctured while the
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: car was sitting perfectly stationary on the shoulder.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: He drove her car there, parked it, and popped the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: tire to fabricate a roadside abduction. But here's where it
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: gets really interesting. Staging a car is one thing. What
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the police find on Clay's own truck is bizarre. They
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: find blood smeared on the inside of the driver's side door.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: They swab it, send it to the lab, and it
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: comes back as fish blood, specifically big head carp Hmm.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I've been waiting to ask you about this. Why in
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the world would a former sheriff's deputy smear carp blood
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: on his own truck? Is he trying to the waters?
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly that, but it is rooted in profound arrogance. Clay
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: actually recorded himself on his cell phone smearing the fish
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: blood on the truck, stating to the camera that he
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: was testing law enforcement to see if they were shady.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: So wait, what was his actual endgame there? Did he
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: think the police wouldn't know the difference?
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: He was setting a trap in his narcissistic mind. He
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: is the puppet master. He assumed the police would see
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the red smear, run a preliminary test like a luminol
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: or phenol failin test, which can sometimes react to the
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: hemoglobin in animal blood, oh, and immediately declare to the
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: press that they found Jackie's blood. His plan was to
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: then triumphantly produce his cell phone video and say, Aha,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: it's fish blood. They're corrupt and trying to frame me. Yeah,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: it was a convoluted mechanism to discredit the entire investigation
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: before it even started.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: But the crime lab doesn't just stop at a presumptive.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Test, of course, not confirmatory forensic tests like DNA analysis
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: or precipitin tests. They look for human specific proteins. In fact,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: under a microscope, fish red blood cells have nuclei, whereas
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: human red blood cells do not.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it takes a lab about five minutes to realize
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: they are looking at animal blood. He thought he was
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: playing a high stakes game of chess. But to seasoned
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: homicide detectives planting animal blood to test, the police screams
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: one thing, which is consciousness of guilt. Yeah, innocent people
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: who are missing their wives do not set forensic booby
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: traps for the police.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: The absurdity of it is staggering. Less than twenty four
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: hours into the investigation, before police even attempt to search
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the house he's staying at, Clay throws his hands up
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: and says, hang on, I want to call my attorney
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: and actively refuses to let them search the car or
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the residents.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: He lawyers up instantly, which forces the police to pause
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: and secure search warrants. But because of the staged car
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: on the interstate and his wildly suspicious behavior with the
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: fish blood, a judge signs those warrants almost immediately.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: When they finally breach the house he's staying at in
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Jackson Jewelry, the scene inside is horror. They walk in
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and the hallway carpet is just gone, completely missing, and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: they find blood spatter cast across the walls.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: The spatter patterns indicated a highly violent, blunt force confrontation
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: had taken place right there in the hallway, But the
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: police knew that to anchor the scene, they needed to
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: find the missing carpet, and.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: They find it in a way that sounds like it's
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: out of a thriller. FBI agent Brian Ritter is executing
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the search of the basement. He notices a narrow crawl
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: space with a dust and dirt look like they've been
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: recently disturbed. Picture of Missouri basement in June. It's hot,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: it's stifling, it's cramped. Ritter actually crawls on his stomach
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: into this dark, dusty space beneath the floorboards. When he
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: backs out, he tells the team they aren't going to
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: believe what's back there. Shoved deep into the recesses of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the crawl space is the missing hallway carpet runner and
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the padding beneath it, all chopped into pieces.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: And crucially, several sections of that padding were heavily saturated
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: with blood. They rush it for DNA testing and it
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: quickly confirms what they already knew, which is it was
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: jack So.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: They have physical proof of a violent, bloody attack. But
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: here's the part that makes my skin crawl. Four days
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: after Jackie disappears, four days after he left that hallway
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: looking like a slaughterhouse and shoved the bloody carpet under
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the floorboards, Clay decides to leave a voicemail on Jackie's
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: cell phone.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, this part is so disturbing.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: He puts on this overly dramatic, breathless voice. This is hey, honey,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it's Sunday afternoon. Please, if you get this message, call me.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I miss you so terribly.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: It is pure performance art. He is attempting to manufacture
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: an audio alibi. He is banking on the fact that
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: if this ever goes to trial, a jury will hear
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: the recording of a desperate, weeping husband just begging for
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: his wife to come home. Yeah, but when you juxtapose
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: that voicemail with the reality of the chopped up, blood
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: soaked carpet in the crawl space, you see a terrifying
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: level of psychological compartmentalization. He possesses the emotional detachment required
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: to butcher his wife and then literally put on a
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: one man play for her voicemail.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: But despite the blood on the walls and the carpet,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: there is a glaring problem for the prosecution. There is
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: no body. They have a mountain of circumstantial evidence, but
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: without Jackie it's difficult to prove murder conclusively. And as
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the week's drag on, you'd think Clay would keep his
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: head down. Instead, his behavior escalates from deceptive to openly
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: flagrantly mocking the authorities.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: This is where his need for attention overtakes any instinct
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: for self preservation. Early in the investigation, law enforcement secured
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: a warrant to place a covert GPS tracker on his truck,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: but because Clay had been a deputy, he knew the
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: standard operating procedures. He checked the undercarriage of his vehicle
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: and he found it.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: If it were me, I'd take the tracker off and
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: throw it in a river, or never drive the truck again.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: What does Clay do uses it as a toy. Yeah,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: he starts driving out to vacant, remote lots in the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: middle of nowhere and just sits there for hours. He
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: knew the police were back at the precinct watching his
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: dot on a digital map, and he wanted to force
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: them to mobilize search crews on wild goose chases. He
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: literally had canine units and search teams from all over
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the Midwest combing through empty fields just for his own amusement.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: He was completely consumed by the thrill of the chase.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: It's a common trait in psychopathic narcissism. They view law
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: enforcement not as a threat but as an audience. Clay
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: would actively drive his truck past these massive search parties,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: lay on the horn, laugh out the window, flip them off,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: and yell that they are a bunch of fools.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I cannot fathom the restraint those detectives had to show.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: But this absolute brazenness, I mean, his pathological inability to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: just shut his mouth, is exactly what hands the authorities
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the ammunition they.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Need, because while he's out playing games in his truck,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: the legal system is moving forward without him. The family
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: court intervenes and formally awards full custody of Jackie's triplets
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: to your sister.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Cheryl, and Clay completely loses his mind. He cannot tolerate
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the fact that Cheryl beat him in court. He goes
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: online onto a public platform and posts a direct, unhinged
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: threat directed as Cheryl. He writes, you are dead. I
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: promise if those kids get hurt, I will get you five, ten,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: twenty five years from now.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: You have it coming, and that digital outburst was his
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: fatal error. By posting a death thread on the Internet,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: he didn't just break a local law. He crossed state
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: and federal jurisdictional lines. He utilized interstate commerce, which is
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: the Internet, to communicate a threat to kill, which immediately
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: triggers federal jurisdiction.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: The moment the FBI agent assigned to the case sees
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: that post, he knows they had their hook. Four months
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: after Jackie vanished, the FBI swoops in and arrest Clay.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: They don't charge him with murder, yet they charge him
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: federally for threatening Cheryl. He eventually pleads guilty to that
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and gets a five year sentence.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: It's a brilliant tactical move by the authorities. They use
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: the federal charge as a holding pattern. While he is
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: locked up in federal prison, state investigators start digging deep
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: into his past to ensure he cannot get out and
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: harm Cheryl or the kids, right, they need to keep
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: him there exactly. They discover he had previously stolen over
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars from an employer, and he had been
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: severely harassing a former friend. They are essentially throwing the
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: kitchen sink at him to keep him caged while they
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: meticulously build the murder case and Clay.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Ever, the narcissist tries to deflect the murder investigation. He
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: tells police, look, I didn't do it. A former associate
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: of mine named Gary actually killed Jackie, and I can
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: prove it. But the police look into Gary and dismantle
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the alibi almost instantly.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Creating a boogeyman is a reflex for a cornered suspect.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: But at this point, Clay's credibility is so thoroughly bankrupt
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: that his lives are barely slowing the detectives down.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about building this case, because Clay is sitting
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: in federal prison, but state prosecutors in Missouri are trying
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to build a capital murder case without a body. I
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: like to think of a circumstantial nobody case like trying
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: to prove a black hole exists in space.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting way to look at it.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that you can't see the black hole itself
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: because no light escapes it, just like you don't have
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a body. You have to prove the black hole exists
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: by measuring the intense gravitational pull it exerts on everything
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: around it. You have to map the anomalies.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: That is an excellent analogy. No body homicide cases are
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: notoriously difficult because the defense always has a built in narrative,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: which is the victim just got overwhelmed and walked away
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: to start a new life. Right, the prosecution has to
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: conclusively prove that the victim is dead and that the
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: defendant caused that death, using only the gravity of the
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: surrounding evidence, and.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: They map out that gravity piece by piece for two years.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: They pull atm footage showing Jackie going about our normal
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: day just hours before she vanished. They find surveillance video
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: from a local car wash later that same night showing
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Clay vigorously obsessively washing a small boat he owned, clearly
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: scrubbing it for blood evidence. They have the staged flat tire,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the fish blood, and the bloody carpet in the crawl space. Finally,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: prosecutors feel confident enough to charge him with first degree murder.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: But, as any prosecutor will tell you, going to trial
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: is always a roll of the dice. Juries are unpredictable,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: there is no such thing as a guaranteed conviction, and
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: this is where the priorities of the victim's family come
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: into sharp focus.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Jakie's parents, Stan and Ruby sit down with the prosecutors
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and make it unequivocally clear their absolute priority is not vengeance,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: It is bringing Jackie home. They want her remain so
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: they can lay their daughter to rest.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: So prosecutors approach Clay's defense team with a deeply uncomfortable
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: plea deal. If Clay pleads guilty to second degree murder
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: and leads them directly to the body, they will cap
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: his sentence at twenty years. It is a bitter pill
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: to swallow. Twenty years for the brutal, premeditated murder of
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: a mother of three feels entirely inadequate to the detectives
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: who work the case.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine how frustrating that was.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Oh immensely, But Clay accepts the deal with a massive
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: trial looming. Even his arrogance recognizes that he is cooked.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: The circumstantial evidence is too overwhelming.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: But the agreement to lead them to the body ends
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: up exposing the horrifying gap between the narrative Clay wants
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to spin and the cold hard reality of forensic science.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: The recovery of Jackie's body is truly a masterclass in
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: forensic observation.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Clay leads the investigative team out to a place called
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Devil's Island. It's this wild, remote sandbar on the Illinois
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: side of the Mississippi River. The police had actually searched
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the general area before, based on a tip about his boat.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: But the island is massive and dense with vegetation.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: And even when Clay is standing out there with them
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: in handcuffs, he can't pinpoint the exact location. The overgrowth
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: has changed over two years. He tells them she's here.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Somewhere, But then he mentions one incredibly specific, gruesome detail.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: He casually manches to the detectives that when he buried her,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: he poured a bag of fertilizer over her body, and.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: That seemingly minor detail is the key that unlocks the
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: geography of the grave. Why would he use fertilizer? Oftentimes,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: killers believe that highly concentrated chemicals like urea or ammonium
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: nitrate will either mask the scent of decomposition from cadaver
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: dogs or accelerate the breakdown of the body due to
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: the nitrogen loving bacteria.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: But what does dumping a massive concentration of pure fertilizer
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: due to the immediate environment.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: It completely disrupts the nitrogen cycle instead of helping plants grow.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: An extreme overdose of fertilizer pulls moisture out of the
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: surrounding soil and root systems through reverse osmosis. It causes
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: severe toxic shock. It literally burns the plant life to
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: death from the roots up.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: So hearing this, the investigative team stops looking down at
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the dirt and they start looking up at the canopy.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Amidst all this lush, dense green river vegetation, they spot
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a cluster of three trees, and one of those trees
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: is completely utterly dead, bare branches, no leaves.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: It is a profound visual. The earth itself reacted to
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: the toxicity of the grave and literally marked the spot.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: The police get on their hands and knees and start
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: digging by hand right beneath that dead tree. First they
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: uncover the fabric of her blue jeens, then they find
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: her knee, and finally they recover Jacky's skeletal remains. It's
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a devastating moment for the family, but they fulfilled their promise.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: They brought her home.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: But retrieving the body was only half of the plea agreement.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: The other non negotiable requirement was that Clay had to
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: sit down in a room with the prosecutor and the
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: FBI agent and give a full videotaped confession detailing the mechanics.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Of the murder, and this videotaped confession is where Clay's
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: narcissism reaches a fever pitch. If we connect this to
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the broader psychology of how abusers operate, it is a
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: textbook example of minimization, gaslighting, and victim blaming, even after
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: they've already been caught red hand.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: It's because an abuser cannot psychologically tolerate being the villain
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: in their own narrative. They must construct a reality, however,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: detached from the truth, where their violence was somehow triggered
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: or forced upon them by the victim's actions. It is
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: a defense mechanism for their own ego.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Clay's version of events is frankly insulting to anyone with
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a pulse. First, he claims that Jackie, the woman who
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: has a diary detailing her terror of him, the woman
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: who hired a lawyer to escape him, came over to
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: his house that afternoon and asked for one last bang
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: before the divorce was final.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: It's a gross, absurd fantasy. He wants it on the
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: official legal record that his victim, the woman he murdered,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: still sexually desired him at the end.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: He then claims that after this supposed encounter. They ended
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: up in the kitchen. He said they were both reaching
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: into the refrigerator and they accidentally bumped heads. He claims
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: he bumped her nose so hard with his own head
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: that it started bleeding.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Notice how the initiation of the violence is framed as
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: a clumsy, entirely innocent accident. He removes intent completely right.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Then, he says Jackie got furious, took off running, tripped
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: in the hallway, conveniently explaining why all her blood was
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: found in the hallway, and started threatening his custody rights.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: He claims, she yelled, I wonder how much time you'll
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: get with the kids if everybody knew you just beat
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: me up.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: So look at the narrative shift. Now she is the aggressor.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: She is the one making threats. She is the one
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: jeopardizing his access to the children, which in his mind
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: justifies his subsequent loss of control.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Exactly so, he admits he backhanded her across the neck,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: which drops her to the ground. Then he claims he
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: stood over her and punched her in the nose exactly once,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and because she was allegedly threatening to take the kids,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: he pressed his forearm into her neck until she stopped moving,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: he spins this tale. It was a crime of passion,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: a stressful accident that escalated in a matter of seconds.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Which is a highly convenient story for someone pleading down
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: to second degree murder, because second degree implies a sudden
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: loss of control rather than cold, calculated premeditation.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I push back on this narrative so fiercely, and thankfully
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the medical examiner pushed back too, because once they recovered
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Jackie's body from under that dead tree, the autoxy completely
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: obliterated Clay's story of a single punch.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Forensics do not care about a killer's ego. The autopsy
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: revealed multiple severe crushing fractures to Jackie's face and skull.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: The damage was entirely consistent with repeated extreme blunt force trauma.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: A single punch from a standing position does not shatter
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: a skull in multiple places.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: When the investigators can fronted him in the interrogation room
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: with this exact fact, when they laid out the autopsy
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: photos and asked how a single punch caused multiple massive fractures,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Clay just shrugged hmm. He looked at them and said,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you, because I punched
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: her one time. He sat there and lied to their faces,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: clinging to his.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Script because to admit the true protracted brutality of the attack,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: to admit that he beat her repeatedly, would shatter the
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: fragile image he's trying to project of a pushed man
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: who just snapped for a brief second.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: But there is one detail from his confession that the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: authorities absolutely believe because surveillance video backs it up, and
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it is easily the most sickening part of this entire nightmare.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, this part is hard to hear.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: After Clay brutally beat and strangled the mother of his
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: children to death, he stuffed her body headfirst into a
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: large plastic trash can. He loaded that trash can into
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the bed of his truck, and then he drove to
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: a Toys Rus parking.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Lot to meet his new girlfriend and his five year
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: old son, Maddox.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: He sat in a parking lot having a casual, cheerful
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: meet up with his young child while the child's murdered
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: mother was quite literally sitting in a trash can in
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the bed of the truck just a few feet away.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates a level of cognitive dissonance and callousness that
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: borders on the incomprehensible to be able to look your
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: son in the eye while his mother's body is radiating
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: heat in the back of your vehicle. It is pure psychopathy.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: So after this lying, blame shifting, horrifying confession, it looks
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: like Clay Waller has one. He killed his wife, he
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: lied through his teeth about how he did it, and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: because the family was desperate to get the body back,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: he secured a sentence of merely twenty years.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: And we have to remember, in the state of Missouri,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: with time served during the investigation and standard good behavior credits,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: twenty years rarely means twenty years. He could have been
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: out walk in the streets much sooner.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: But Clay's mouth, his absolute pathological inability to show a
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: single ounce of humility, is about to change the trajectory
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of his entire life. We get to the legal.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Twist, and it is one of the most brilliant, satisfying
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: legal maneuver in recent true crime history.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Right before his official sentencing, Clay's recorded on a routine
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: jailhouse phone call talking to a relative. The relative is
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: pleading with him. They're asking him to just be apologetic,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: to show some shred of remorse for Jackie's family. When
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: he goes to court and Clay gets defensive, he says,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: and I quote, I'm going to stand up in court
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: tomorrow and tell everybody, why should I care what they're
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: going through? If they don't care what I'm going through.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: He is literally demanding pity from the family of the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: woman he murdered. He says, I'm sorry, I'm going to jail.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: That's it. He believes he's completely untouchable because his plea
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: deal is signed in ink. He brags on the call,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: when I walk out them doors, they can't do nothing
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: more to me.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: He was disastrously wrong because the state prosecutors were listening
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: to that call, and the federal prosecutors were listening to
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: that call, and they remembered a critical offhanded mission claim
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: made during his videotape confession, a detail he threw out
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: there because he didn't understand the legal implications.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Right During the confession of the prosecutor asked him a
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: logistical question. He says, what day did you dig the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: hole that you buried her in? And Clay, maybe trying
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: to show off how efficient and capable he was, puffs
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: out his chest and says, I did it the day before.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: That single sentence unraveled his entire life. Let's look closely
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: at the geography of this crime. Clay lived and he
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: murdered Jackie and Jackson, Missouri. But Devil's Island, the remote
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: sandbar where he predug the grave is located across the
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Mississippi River. It is in Illinois.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: So what does this actually mean legally? Why couldn't the
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: state of Missouri just tear up his twenty year plea
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: deal if he lied?
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: They couldn't tear it up because of the Fifth Amendment,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: the double jeopardy clause. The state of Missouri had entered
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: into a binding legal contract for second degree murder. They
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: cannot try him again for first degree murder for the
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: same crime, even if he lied about the single punch. Okay,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: But the federal government operates under the dual sovereignty doctrine.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: They are a separate entity and there is a very powerful,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: rarely utilized federal statute called the Interstate Domestic Violence Act.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Explain how that works, because it's the lynchpin of this
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: whole case.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: The Interstate Domestic Violence Act states that if an individual
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: travels across state lines with the premedicated intent to commit
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: a crime of domestic violence that results in death. It
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: is a federal offense, completely separate from the state murder charge.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: And because Clay admitted on tape, trying to sound smart,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: that he crossed the border into Illinois to dig a
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: graze the day before the murder, he proved beyond a
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: shadow of a doubt that the murder was premeditated and
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: that he crossed state lines as an integral part of
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: the plot.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly his desperate need to prove he was a criminal
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: mastermind who planned ahead. Ironically handed the federal prosecutors the
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: exact statutory loophole they needed to bypass the state's twenty
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: year limit. He handed them a federal case on a
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: silver platter.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: So the federal government swoops in and charges him under
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the Act, and the federal judge does not hold back.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: He slaps Clay with a thirty five year federal prison sentence.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: But here's the absolute kicker. The judge rules that a
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: thirty five year sentence does not run concurrently. It is consecutive.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: That means his thirty five year federal sentence won't even
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: begin until he finishes every single day of his twenty
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: year state sentence.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Which means, practically speaking, he is going to die in
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: a concrete cell. The justice system used his own arrogant
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: confession to lock him away forever.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Before they haul him off to start doing his half
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: century of time, there is a sentencing hearing where the
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: family gives victim impact statements, and the emotional core of
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: this entire nightmare comes from Jackie Sun Maddox, who is
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: twelve years old by this point.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: It takes unimaginable bravery and resilience for a child to
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: stand up in a sterile court room and directly address
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: the man who murdered his mother.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Maddox stands up, looks directly at Clay and says, you
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: betrayed your kids, you big fat jerk. I wish you
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: were never my dad. He tells Clay that he ruined
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: their bond forever, that he took their mom away and
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: can never ever undo it. After everything Clay did to
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: control this family, how did he react to his own
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: son saying this to him?
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: He showed absolutely zero reaction. He sat at the defense
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: table completely stonefaced. The words of his traumatized son didn't
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: penetrate his ego in the slightest.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Which just confirms everything we've said about his total lack
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: of empathy. In fact, in a final act of absolute depravity,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Clay wrote a manuscript from inside prison, and he titled
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: this book if you take my kids, I'll kill you.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: It's his final pathetic attempt to inflict pain, even locked
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: in a cage where he will likely draw his last breath.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: He's trying to exert control and terrorize Cheryl and the
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: children from behind bars.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: But he failed. And I want to make sure we
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: end this on the reality of the survivors, because the
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: resilience of this family is incredible. Cheryl and her husband Bob,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: formally adopted the triplets. The kids are teenagers now and
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: by all accounts, they are thriving. People who meet them
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: say you would never know the immense, heavy trauma they've.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Been through because they are being raised in an environment
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: of total security, stability, and unconditional love, which is the
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: ultimate antidote to clay chaos.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Cheryl and Bob make sure Jackie's memory is kept alive
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: and present in the house. The kids talk about their
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: mom being nice, funny, and caring, and there's a deeply
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: poignant detail about how the family ultimately honored Jackie. Her
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: funeral after they finally got her body back, was held
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: on the exact day of her parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: It's a tragic overlay, but it shows a family choosing unity, legacy,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: and love in the face of profound darkness.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: They successfully reclaimed their family's narrative from Clay Waller. He
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: tried to destroy their foundation, and instead they built something stronger.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: To look back at the incredible trajectory of this case,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: It started with a mother's terrifying secret digital diary, he
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: was blorn wide open by his sister's unwavering intuition to
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: march into a police station and demand action, and it
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: concluded with an arrogant killer who literally talked his way
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: out of a sweetheart deal and straight into a life
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: behind bars in federal prison.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: It leaves us with a profound thought to consider regarding
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: the paradox of the modern abuser in their absolute pathological
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: need to control the narrative, whether they were planting fish
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: blood on a truck, staging a flat tire on an interstate,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: taunting police officers from a vacant lot, or bragging in
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: a videotaped confession, they leave a massive psychological and physical
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: trail of evidence that ultimately guarantees their own destruction. The
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: very mechanisms Clay Waller used to assert his superiority were
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: the exact tools the justice system used to dismantle his
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: freedom permanently.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: The completely self inflicted downfall. The man who thought he
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: was playing a master game of chess ended up checkmating himself.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Take care of yourselves out there,