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Man Sentenced in Kidnapping Case After Used Condom Led Police to Him · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to picture a scenario right now,
• 0:02
  and it's one that is probably going to feel hyper
• 0:08
  relatable to almost everyone listening.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Picture yourself just sitting in your car. It's early, it's
• 0:14
  a quiet holiday morning, and the heater is blowing. You've
• 0:17
  got the radio on low or maybe, you know, maybe
• 0:19
  an audiobook playing in the background.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Just a totally normal morning routine.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You are parked outside a coffee shop, a Starbucks,
• 0:27
  to be exact, and you're just waiting for a mobile
• 0:29
  order to be ready. It's that perfectly mundane moment of
• 0:33
  modern autopilot that we all have.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Right, You're not even really thinking about it, You're not.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: You're in a busy, commercial shopping center, the sun is
• 0:40
  coming up, and you feel completely utterly safe.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you just feel invisible in the best way.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Right. It's this illusion of safety that we all rely
• 0:48
  on every single day, just a function in society. But
• 0:53
  what happens when that illusion is completely shattered.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: And not in the way you'd expect either.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: No, not in a dark, deserted alleyway in the middle
• 1:00
  of the night, but in broad daylight while you are
• 1:03
  literally just sitting in your own car waiting for your
• 1:06
  morning coffee.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It is a terrifying premise because, honestly, it bypasses all
• 1:10
  of our evolutionary threat detection systems.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Well, when the environment signals safety, like a bustling shopping
• 1:18
  center morning daylight, the routine of picking up coffee, our
• 1:21
  guard just naturally drops.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: We're conditioned that way.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. We are conditioned by society and our own
• 1:28
  experiences to associate those specific settings with security. So when
• 1:33
  violence infiltrates those spaces, it doesn't just harm the individual.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Into something bigger.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it fractures the psychological safety of the entire community.
• 1:42
  It makes people question their baseline reality.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And that fractured reality is really the jumping off point
• 1:47
  for our deep dive. Today. We're unpacking a truly terrifying
• 1:51
  twenty twenty two abduction that took place in Collinsville, Illinois.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: A case that really changes how you look at everyday life.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: It does. It starts with that shaft illusion of safety
• 2:01
  in a Starbucks parking lot, but it evolves into this
• 2:05
  masterclass in modern criminal.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Investigation, which is why we have to talk about it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Because this horrific crime was ultimately solved by an unprecedented,
• 2:14
  almost unbelievable triad of evidence.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: The smart watch, the discarded condom, and the family tree.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, a smart watch, a discarded condom, and a sprawling
• 2:24
  family tree. It's wild.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: That triad of evidence is the core of why this
• 2:29
  case matters so much for you to understand.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not just a true crime story.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: No, this isn't simply a narrative about catching a dangerous predator.
• 2:36
  The stakes here are much broader. They indicate a massive
• 2:40
  shift in criminal justice. How so, well, what we are
• 2:42
  looking at is a demonstration of how county level law
• 2:46
  enforcement local cops are now wielding technology and scientific techniques
• 2:50
  that were once reserved only for the world's most elusive,
• 2:55
  high profile serial.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Killers, like good Golden State killer stuff.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We are seeing the demoocritization of elite forensic science,
• 3:02
  and it's playing out in a local jurisdiction to solve
• 3:05
  a recent local crime.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: It's incredible. Let's trace this from the beginning, though, because
• 3:11
  to really grasp the gravity of this investigation, we have
• 3:14
  to start with that idea of everyday vulnerability.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: We have to go back to the morning it happened, right, We.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Have to go back to November eleventh, twenty twenty two.
• 3:22
  I want you to put yourself into the morning this
• 3:24
  crime actually occurred.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: It's a Friday, and it happens to be Veterans Day.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, Veterans Day, yeah, which means a lot of folks
• 3:31
  have the day off, Schools might be closed, and the
• 3:35
  overall pace of the morning is just a little slower
• 3:38
  than a typical weekday rush hour. It is quiet, very quiet.
• 3:43
  We are in Collinsville, Illinois, which is in Madison County,
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  right across the Mississippi River from Saint Louis.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: The geography and the timing really set the stage here
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  for opportunistic predation.
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  Speaker 1: Walk us through that.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: So it's around seven am. The victim in this case
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  is a twenty one year old woman. She is alone
• 3:59
  in her vehicle at the Collinsville Crossing shopping center.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Just waiting for her Starbucks mobile order. Right.
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  Speaker 2: And this is a commercial hub. It features large retail stores,
• 4:07
  multiple restaurants, wide open parking lots. It's the opposite of
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  creepy exactly. It is the antithesis of an isolated, off
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  the grid location where you might normally expect a violent
• 4:19
  crime to occur.
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  Speaker 1: She is just sitting there, completely unaware that she is
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  being watched, and suddenly a man approaches her vehicle, forces
• 4:27
  his way inside, and immediately brandishes a large serrated knife,
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  broad daylight, broad daylight. He is wearing a mask, he's
• 4:34
  wearing gloves, and he orders this twenty one year old
• 4:37
  woman to drive. It's terrifying, just like that, in a
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  matter of seconds, a mundane coffee run turns into a
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  fight for survival. And you know, when I was reading
• 4:46
  through our sources on this deep dive, the analogy that
• 4:49
  immediately came to my mind was a shark hunting in
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  the shallows.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I like that analogy, right, because.
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  Speaker 1: We are taught from a very young age to fear the.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Deep water, to avoid the dark alleys.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the dark alleys a deer parking garages at two
• 5:01
  in the morning. But this attacker didn't strike there. He's
• 5:04
  struck in the shallows. He struck in a busy commercial
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  parking lot at breakfast time.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: The shark in the shallows concept really perfectly captures the
• 5:11
  behavioral profile of an opportunistic sexual predator because.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: They aren't following the rules we're taught exactly.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Often our societal narratives around like stranger danger are somewhat rigid.
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  We teach people, especially women, to fear the isolated and
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  the dark, which makes sense, But opportunistic predators follow vulnerability,
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  not geography.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Wow, vulnerability not geography, right, And vulnerability can occur in
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  broad daylight if a person is isolated within that environment,
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  such as being stationary and alone in a parked car
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  with the doors unlocked or a window rolled down. I'm
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  just looking for the opening.
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  Speaker 2: They are scanning for a target of opportunity where the
• 5:53
  perceived reward outweighs the risk of discovery.
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  Speaker 1: And we actually know exactly how he weighed that risk
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  because later on in the investigation, the attacker confesses to
• 6:03
  his target.
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  Speaker 2: Selection and his reasoning is chilling.
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  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: He admits he went to that Starbucks because and this
• 6:09
  is a direct quote from the sources, that's where all
• 6:12
  the women go.
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  Speaker 2: Just a horrific way to view people.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he admitted that the victim, this specific twenty
• 6:17
  one year old woman, could have been anyone, just as
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  long as she was alone.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: The chilling detachment in those statements is so significant for
• 6:25
  behavioral analysts. That's where all the women go. It could
• 6:28
  have been anyone.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Like he's going to the grocery store.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, this highlights a predatory mindset that views human beings
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  entirely as commodities. They are individuals to him. They are
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  interchangeable targets based solely on accessibility and location. He knew
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  the pattern, He recognized a behavioral pattern women sitting alone
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  in their cars waiting for a digital order to process,
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  and he exploited it.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't hide in a bush.
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  Speaker 2: No, he didn't lurk in the shadows waiting for someone
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  to walk by. He went to a high traffic area
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  knowing his target demographic would be there, stationary and temporarily
• 7:02
  distracted by their phones or their routine.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: It really forces us to completely reevaluate our baseline assumptions
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  about safety in public spaces. Absolutely, so we have this
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  terrifyingly random abduction. She was targeted simply for being a
• 7:16
  woman alone in her car at a place where women go.
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  But while the initial abduction was random, the attacker's motivations
• 7:23
  and his actions during the drive that followed revealed a
• 7:26
  mindset that was deeply.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Calculated, incredibly specific.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the transition from the public parking lot to the
• 7:32
  force drive is where the attacker's internal narrative begins to
• 7:36
  manifest outwardly.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: That's where the control shifts, right.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: He moves from the initial act of physical control getting
• 7:41
  into the car with the weapon, to an intense exertion
• 7:44
  of psychological control over the victim.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Well, it's strike exactly what happened once he was in
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  the vehicle.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So he is in her car, masked and gloved,
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  holding that large serrated knife. He forces her to drive
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  roughly eight miles away from that busy Collinsville Crossing shopping center.
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  Speaker 2: Eight miles is a long drive. When someone has a
• 8:05
  knife to you, it is an eternity.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: He directs her away from the commercial hub and into
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  a residential area in a nearby town called Troy, Illinois.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: A much quieter area.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Specifically, he navigates her to a secluded driveway or
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  residential setting. And it's there in that driveway in Troy,
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  at knife point, that he forces her to undress and
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  sexually assaults her.
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  Speaker 2: The geographical shift from Collinsville to Troy is a highly
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  calculated escalation.
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  Speaker 1: He's getting her away from witnesses exactly.
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  Speaker 2: He moves the victim from a public, semi controlled environment
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  where he is highly vulnerable to discovery to a secondary location,
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  this secluded residential driveway, where he has maximum environmental control.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So the drive itself was part of the cross Oh.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, This eight mile drive is not just a transit period.
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  It is a period of sustained psychological terror for the
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  victim where she is entirely at the mercy of an
• 9:00
  arms stranger directing her movements.
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  Speaker 1: And during this eight mile drive and during the assault itself,
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  the attacker starts talking to her.
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  Speaker 2: He says some very specific things he does.
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  Speaker 1: He tells her that he had been watching her and critically,
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  and this is a detail that echoes all the way
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  through to his eventual sentencing. He tells her that he
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  quote deserve.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: To have her, deserve to have her.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And the reason he gave for deserving her because
• 9:25
  it was veteran's day and he was a military veteran.
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  Speaker 2: That specific statement provides such a crucial window into the
• 9:31
  psychology of the crime.
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  Speaker 1: It's so twisted.
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  Speaker 2: It is if we break down the behavioral science of
• 9:36
  sexual assault, it is rarely just about.
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  Speaker 1: Physical dominance writes about power.
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  Speaker 2: It is about power control, and in cases like this,
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  a twisted, deeply ingrained sense of entitlement. He is using
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  his status as a military veteran, a status society generally
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  associates with honor, sacrifice, and service, and he is weaponizing.
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  Speaker 1: It to justify her of violence.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, he has built this internal rationale where he is
• 10:05
  the center of the universe and his desires entirely supersede
• 10:10
  the victim's basic human rights.
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  Speaker 1: Wait, I'm stuck on something here. I want to push
• 10:13
  back on the logic of his actions for a second. Sure,
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  what is it if you are committing a major crime,
• 10:18
  a violent kidnapping and sexual assault, in broad daylight, wearing
• 10:22
  a mask and gloves to actively hide your identity, why
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  would you talk so much? It's a great question, right, like,
• 10:27
  why would you give the victims such specific details about
• 10:31
  your motivations? Telling her you've been watching her, telling her
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  you're a veteran, telling her you deserve this because it's
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  veteran's day. Isn't that just handing the police a massive
• 10:39
  behavioral profile and a huge head start.
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  Speaker 2: It seems totally counterintuitive, I know, but it points to
• 10:44
  a very common contradiction in these types of offenses. Well, logically, yes,
• 10:48
  the less you say, the smaller the narrative footprint you leave.
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  But you have to remember that this offender is driven
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  by a need for absolute dominance, So the talking is
• 10:58
  part of the dominance. Exactly, by talking, by telling her
• 11:01
  he has been watching her, he is actively magnifying her terror.
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  He is asserting total psychological control. He wants her to
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  feel completely helpless, surveiled, and targeted.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: So the talking is just another weapon. It's not just
• 11:15
  the serrated knife keeping her in line. It's the words
• 11:18
  breaking down her psychological defenses.
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  Speaker 2: That's a perfect way to put it. Furthermore, his statement
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  about being a veteran and deserving her isn't just an
• 11:25
  offhand comment to scare her.
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  Speaker 1: It means more than that.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's his own internal justification spoken aloud. He needs
• 11:31
  to rationalize the act to himself as much as he
• 11:34
  wants to terrify her.
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  Speaker 1: It's so dark it is.
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  Speaker 2: However, this raises an important vulnerability for the attacker. By
• 11:41
  indulging his need for psychological dominance, he handed the victim
• 11:44
  and by extension, the investigators, a highly specific set of identifiers.
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  Speaker 1: Right because later on prosecutors can use his own words
• 11:52
  to paint a picture of a crime that was chillingly
• 11:55
  specific and calculated.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't an accident.
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  Speaker 1: No, it shows he was thinking about the date, he
• 12:01
  was thinking about his status, He was formulating a justification
• 12:04
  for the violence.
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  Speaker 2: It demonstrates premeditation and a structured thought process.
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  Speaker 1: Which destroys his defense later.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly this severely underpets any future defense attempts to minimize
• 12:16
  his culpability. They can't claim the act was an impulsive
• 12:19
  mistake or perhaps a crime driven by substance abuse, where
• 12:23
  he wasn't in his right mind because.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: He told her exactly why he was doing it right.
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  Speaker 2: His own words locked him into a narrative of calculated,
• 12:30
  weaponized entitlement.
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  Speaker 1: So the attacker eventually forces her to drive back toward Collinsville.
• 12:35
  He leaves her in a Wendy's parking lot.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: He makes her cover her head right.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, He covers her head with the coat, orders her
• 12:41
  to count to one hundred, and then he flees the scene.
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  The victim is left there terrified.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: But she survives, which is incredible.
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  Speaker 1: It is And I want to shift our focus right
• 12:51
  now from the harrowing physical experience she just endured to
• 12:55
  her immediate actions in the aftermath.
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  Speaker 2: Because what she does next is vital.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Really is, because what she does next and the item
• 13:04
  she happens to have on her become the first crucial
• 13:07
  witnesses in this case.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Her actions in the immediate aftermath are a testament to
• 13:12
  incredible resilience. Truly, despite the profound, unimaginable trauma of the
• 13:17
  preceding hours, she immediately contacted the Collinsville Police. She provided
• 13:22
  a description of the attacker, a detailed sequence of events,
• 13:26
  and the approximate locations of the abduction, the assault, and the.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Release, which gave them a starting point.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Right this initial human intelligence is the necessary foundation of
• 13:35
  the investigation.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: It is the foundation. But human memory, especially after a
• 13:40
  deeply traumatic event where your brain is literally flooded with
• 13:43
  adrenaline cortisol, can be really fragmented. Oh, absolutely, Like when
• 13:48
  you have a knife heil to you. Your brain isn't
• 13:49
  necessarily focused on memorizing street signs or the exact turns
• 13:52
  taken into residential neighborhood.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: You're just trying to survive, exactly.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But she had something on her that doesn't experience trauma.
• 14:00
  She had her cell phone, and she had an Apple.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Watch, the game Changer.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and throughout this entire ordeal, the abduction at Starbucks,
• 14:09
  the eight mile drive to Troy the assault in the driveway,
• 14:12
  the drive back to the Wendy's, her tech was continuously
• 14:16
  generating location data.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: This is where we see a profound shift in modern
• 14:21
  criminal investigations. Let's look at the mechanics of this for
• 14:24
  a second.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Please.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: In the past, investigators would have to rely almost entirely
• 14:27
  on the victim's memory to retrace that eight.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Mile route, which sounds impossible.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: It is so difficult. They would have to put a
• 14:33
  traumatized victim in a squad car and drive around, asking
• 14:37
  does this road look familiar? Was the driveway paved or gravel?
• 14:41
  Did you see a mailbox?
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: That sounds agonizing for the victim.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: It is an agonizing process, and it is fraught with
• 14:46
  the natural unreliability of a human brain under extreme stress.
• 14:51
  The amigdala is overriding the hippocampus, making spatial memory incredibly blurry.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: The analogy I keep coming back to when reading about
• 14:58
  this is the idea of leaving a trail of invisible
• 15:01
  digital breadcrumbs.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Like Hansel and griddle.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly like that, except these breadcrumbs are completely invisible to
• 15:07
  the attacker. He has no idea they are dropping right.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: He thinks he's a ghost.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he is masked, he has gloved. He thinks he's
• 15:14
  leaving no trace. He can't see these bread crumbs, and
• 15:17
  he certainly can't sweep them away.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: The digital breadcrumb's concept is so vital to understand here.
• 15:23
  Consumer technology is increasingly playing the central role in reconstructing events.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: It's acting as a witness.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly this Apple watch and cell phone data acted as
• 15:33
  an objective mathematical witness. The devices are constantly pinging cell
• 15:39
  towers and GPS satellites. They are logging latitude and longitude
• 15:44
  coordinates with timestamp precision.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: The tech doesn't panic, The tech.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Doesn't get confused, it doesn't forget, and it isn't blinded
• 15:50
  by fear. By accessing this continuous stream of location pings,
• 15:55
  investigators didn't have to guess the route or subject the
• 15:58
  victim to a traumatic physical recreation of the drive.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: They could just pull up a map.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: You can perfectly reconstruct the exact path of the vehicle.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: They mapped the entire nightmare in high definition from the
• 16:08
  Starbucks parking lot along whatever specific state roads or highways
• 16:12
  they took straight to that precise residential driveway in Troy, Illinois,
• 16:16
  and then right back to the Wendy's.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: And that level of precision is invaluable when human witnesses
• 16:22
  are absent, which they were in that secluded, early morning
• 16:25
  residential driveway, and when traditional surveillance cameras might not cover
• 16:29
  every inch of a suburban neighborhood. The victim's own everyday
• 16:33
  consumer tech fills the evidentiary void.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: It pinpoints it.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: It gave law enforcement the exact geographical coordinates of the
• 16:41
  primary crime scene.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the digital map told the police where the
• 16:45
  crime happened. But you know a GPSPN can't be put
• 16:49
  in handcuffs.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: No, it cannot.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: They still needed physical proof of who did it. They
• 16:53
  needed a biological link, which meant physically searching that specific
• 16:57
  driveway in Troy.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: The transition from digital evidence to physical evidence is where
• 17:01
  traditional forensic work intersects with the modern technological map.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: They had the X on the treasure map.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, Once the Apple Watch data isolated that specific driveway,
• 17:11
  officers knew exactly where to deploy their crime scene technicians
• 17:14
  and concentrate their search grid.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: And when they search that driveway in Troy, they recover
• 17:19
  a crucial piece of physical evidence. They find a discarded
• 17:23
  used condom left at.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: The scene a huge find.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Huge. They take it to the state crime lab and
• 17:28
  the analysis successfully extracts a male DNA profile from it,
• 17:32
  along with the victim's DNA.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Which confirms it was from the assault.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Right, but hold on, I have a major logical problem
• 17:39
  with this.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's here.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: If this attacker was meticulous enough to wear gloves to
• 17:45
  avoid leaving fingerprints and a mask to avoid being identified
• 17:48
  on camera, using a condom feels like another highly calculated
• 17:52
  step to avoid leaving biological evidence behind. Like isn't that
• 17:56
  the whole point of using a barrier method for a
• 17:58
  criminal trying to cover their tracks. How does the very
• 18:00
  thing he used to hide his tracks become the smoking gun?
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: It highlights a really significant and fascinating irony in forensic science.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Walk me through the irony well.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: From an offender's perspective, using a barrier method might seem
• 18:13
  like a fool proof way to limit the transfer of
• 18:15
  traditional biological fluids like semen to the victim or the
• 18:20
  surrounding environment.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Because he doesn't want to leave DNA exactly.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: It shows a high degree of forensic awareness on the
• 18:25
  part of the attacker. He was actively trying to act
• 18:28
  as a ghost in the system.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Right, He's thinking, I'm masked, I'm gloved, I'm using a condom,
• 18:34
  i am untraceable.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: But the forensic reality and the underlying mechanism of DNA
• 18:39
  transfer is quite different from the attacker's assumption. Also, condoms
• 18:43
  retain DNA on both the interior and exterior surfaces. The
• 18:46
  interior surface will capture epithelial cells, essentially microscopic skin cells
• 18:52
  shed from the friction of the act, along with fluids
• 18:54
  from the wearer.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, I didn't think about skin.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Cell Yeah, And the exterior surface will capture biologic material
• 19:00
  from the victim. With proper collection and sensitive modern testing techniques,
• 19:04
  forensic scientists can extract highly usable, complete DNA profiles from
• 19:09
  these items.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: So his plan backfired completely.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: It did. The very tool he used to try and
• 19:15
  conceal his identity became a perfect sealed preservation vessel for
• 19:21
  his genetic blueprint.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Wow, so the lab extracts this male DNA profile. They
• 19:27
  have the genetic blueprint of the attacker. You would think
• 19:29
  this is the moment the music swells, the detectives high
• 19:31
  five and they crack the case wide open. You'd think, so, yes, right,
• 19:35
  they take this profile, they run through CODIS, which is
• 19:38
  the combined DNA index system used by law enforcement nationwide.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: And nothing, absolutely nothing.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Zero matches. The profile does not hit on anyone in
• 19:48
  the local, state, or national databases.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: To understand the immense frustration of a CODIS dead end,
• 19:54
  we need to understand how CODIS actually works.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Please explained, because it feels like everyone should be in
• 19:59
  there right right.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: It is not a magical database of every citizen. Imagine
• 20:02
  the position of the Collinsville and Madison County detectives at
• 20:05
  this moment.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: They have so much evidence they do.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: They have a pristine, objective digital map from the smartwatch,
• 20:12
  They have the exact location. They even have area surveillance
• 20:15
  footage from nearby businesses that captures a vehicle consistent with
• 20:19
  the one associated with the eventual.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Suspect, but no face.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: No face. A blurry car on a camera isn't enough
• 20:26
  to make a positive ID, and it certainly isn't enough
• 20:28
  for an arrest warrant.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: So you have the biological blueprint, but you don't have
• 20:32
  a name to attach to it exactly.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: COTIS operates by comparing the DNA profile from the crime,
• 20:37
  specifically looking at twenty core low SI or specific locations
• 20:42
  on the DNA strand against profiles already.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: In the system and who is in the system.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: The system only works if the offender has a qualifying
• 20:49
  prior conviction or in some states, a felony arrest that
• 20:53
  legally required them to submit a DNA sample.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Ah, So, if he's never been caught for a major
• 20:58
  crime before.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Right, if the perpetrator has managed to avoid that specific
• 21:02
  type of systemic entanglement, or if their past crimes didn't
• 21:06
  mandate a DNA swab, cotis is completely blind to them.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: That is so frustrating.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: So the investigators hit a brick wall. Without a database match,
• 21:15
  traditional investigative methods stall out. You have the who in
• 21:19
  a biological sense, but absolutely no identity in a legal sense.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Maddening two decades ago, even just ten years ago. This
• 21:27
  is exactly where this case turns cold.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: The file goes in a box.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the evidence goes into an evidence locker. The file
• 21:33
  goes into a cabinet, and they just have the weight
• 21:35
  and hope. This guy gets arrested for something else, gets swabbed,
• 21:38
  and his DNA finally enters the system.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: But they didn't wait.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: No, Madison County authorities decided they weren't going to wait
• 21:45
  for him to strike again. They decided to try something
• 21:48
  that had never been used in their local courts before.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: The pivot the investigators made here represents a watershed moment
• 21:55
  for their jurisdiction. When CODIS failed, they turned to forensic
• 21:59
  genetic genealogy.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, we really need to break down the mechanics of this,
• 22:03
  because this is the technique that famously caught the Golden
• 22:06
  State killer back in twenty eighteen.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: It's a revolutionary tool, but seeing it use here in
• 22:11
  a local Illinois prosecution for a crime that just happened
• 22:15
  is wild.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: How does this process actually work when you don't have
• 22:19
  a direct suspect?
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Let's break down the underlying science. When traditional law enforcement
• 22:23
  databases like CODIS fail because they require a direct one
• 22:27
  percent match, forensic genetic genealogy looks to a different pool
• 22:33
  of data, which is why consumer genealogy databases these are
• 22:37
  platforms where everyday people upload their DNA files to learn
• 22:40
  about their ancestry or find lost relatives.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: But just to be clear on the privacy aspect here,
• 22:46
  law enforcement can't just hack into anyone's private ancestry account,
• 22:49
  right They are just searching everyone's private.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Profiles correct, and that is a crucial distinction to make.
• 22:54
  Major commercial sites are world gardens. Law enforcement cannot search
• 22:58
  them without a highly specific warrant, which they can't get
• 23:00
  without a suspect.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: So how do they do it?
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Instead? Investigators use specific databases that explicitly permit law enforcement
• 23:08
  uploads under strict policies. Usually this is limited to violent
• 23:12
  crimes like homicide and sexual assault. Users on those specific
• 23:16
  platforms have to opt in to allow their profiles to
• 23:18
  be compared against crime scene DNA.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, So investigators take that male DNA profile extracted from
• 23:25
  the condom and they upload it to these permissible consumer databases.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, But unlike CODIS, which looks for that direct match,
• 23:33
  this system looks for shared centi morgans shared. What centi morgans?
• 23:36
  They are units of genetic measurement that indicate how much
• 23:39
  DMA too people share. The system looks for distant relatives,
• 23:43
  third cousins, fourth cousins, people who share small segments of
• 23:46
  DNA with the unknown crime scene profile.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I want to use an analogy here because this process
• 23:50
  bends my mind a little bit.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Go for it.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Solving a case through CODIS is like walking straight to
• 23:55
  the end of a maze because you have the map,
• 23:57
  but forensic genetic genealogy, it's like solving a maze backward.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: You don't start at the suspect. You don't even know
• 24:04
  who the suspect is. You start at the exit of
• 24:06
  the maze with some random third cousin who lives three
• 24:09
  states away, and then you have to meticulously trace the
• 24:13
  family branches backward deeper into the maze until you reach
• 24:17
  the center.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: That is a highly accurate way to visualize it. You
• 24:21
  are building the maze as you work backward, and that
• 24:24
  building process is where the immense, painstaking manual labor.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Comes in because the computer doesn't do it for you.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: No, the DNA database doesn't give you the killer's name.
• 24:34
  It just gives you a list of distant cousins. Once
• 24:37
  the database identifies these relatives, specialized genealogists take over.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Then what do they do well.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: They aren't looking at test tubes anymore. They are looking
• 24:46
  at public records. They are combing through census data from
• 24:49
  the nineteen forties, marriage certificates, obituaries, and social media posts.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: They're literally scrolling through public records trying to figure out
• 24:55
  who is related to who building these massive family trees.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: They are manually construct during a sprawling family tree, connecting
• 25:02
  these distant cousins and tracing the lineages forward.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: In time that sounds like it takes forever it can.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: They find common ancestors, maybe a great great grandparent, and
• 25:11
  then they trace every single descendant back down.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: To the present day looking for the suspect.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Right. They are looking to find individuals within that family
• 25:19
  tree who fit the demographic profile of the unknown suspect,
• 25:24
  in this case, a male roughly a certain age, living
• 25:27
  in or around Illinois at the time of the crime.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: This represents the democratization of advanced forensic science. This isn't
• 25:34
  a massive federal task force hunting a serial killer across
• 25:38
  multiple decades with unlimited funding.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: No, this is happening at the county level.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: This is a county level agency using cutting edge science
• 25:45
  to solve a local, recent violent crime.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: It bridges the gap between a meaningless DNA anomaly and
• 25:51
  a name suspect. In this investigation, the genealogists built that tree,
• 25:55
  navigated that backward maze, and the search pointed directly to
• 25:59
  the Dubois Wow. More specifically, through the process of elimination
• 26:03
  based on age, location, and family lines, it pointed to
• 26:06
  Timothy J. Dubois Junior, and.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: As we know from earlier, Dubois is a military veteran,
• 26:10
  which immediately aligns with the terrifying statements the attacker made
• 26:14
  to the victim in the car about deserving her on
• 26:17
  Veterans Day. The behavioral profile suddenly matches the genetic profile perfectly.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: The puzzle piece is locked together perfectly. But once genealogy
• 26:26
  points to Dubois, investigators must transition back to traditional police work.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Because the family tree isn't enough for court exactly.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Genealogy provides a lead, a highly educated hypothesis, it does
• 26:38
  not provide a conviction. To secure the match legally, they
• 26:42
  need to obtain a confirmatory DNA sample directly from Dubois.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: How do they get that?
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: This is usually done either through a search warrant for
• 26:49
  a cheek swab or by covertly collecting a discarded item
• 26:53
  in public, like a coffee cup or a cigarette butt.
• 26:56
  They test that direct sample against the DNA from the
• 26:58
  condom and the match is scientifically confirmed.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: They have him. They have the name, they have the
• 27:02
  DNA match, they have the location data, they have the
• 27:04
  timeline but you know, identifying a suspect and slapping handcuffs
• 27:08
  on them is only half the battle.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: The trial is the real test.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Eventually you have to prove it in court. You
• 27:15
  have to stand in front of a jury and defend
• 27:17
  this novel scientific evidence against a defense team whose sole
• 27:21
  job is to tear it apart and introduce reasonable doubt.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: The transition from investigation to prosecution is always a perilous phase.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Why is it so dangerous.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Because you're relying on techniques like genetic genealogy that might
• 27:34
  be entirely new to a local jury. The state has
• 27:38
  to construct a narrative that is both scientifically unassailable and
• 27:41
  humanly compelling.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: You can't just bore them with science, right.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: You have to ensure the jury understands mechanics without getting
• 27:47
  lost in the jargon.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the timeline here. The crime happens in
• 27:51
  November twenty twenty two. On March sixth, twenty twenty three,
• 27:55
  authorities arrest Timothy J. Dubois Junior.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Pretty fast turnaround, all things considered.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: It is he is held without bond and the Madison
• 28:03
  County State's Attorney Tom Hayne files very severe charges. He
• 28:07
  issues a public statement highlighting just how alarming this crime was,
• 28:10
  a broad daylight abduction at seven am and a busy
• 28:13
  commercial area by a complete stranger.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: The state's attorney's rhetoric reflects the community's shock and it
• 28:19
  validates the fear of this crime instilled.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: He's setting a tone.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: He is by emphasizing the broad daylight public nature of
• 28:26
  the abduction. The prosecution is setting the stage early on.
• 28:30
  They are signaling to the public and the courts that
• 28:33
  this is a high stakes case involving a predator who
• 28:37
  poses an extreme opportunistic threat to public safety.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Hembus the no bond exactly.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: They are ensuring he is not granted bail, keeping the
• 28:46
  community safe while the trial is prepared.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And shortly after they arrest him, the police managed to
• 28:51
  obtain a recorded confession at the Collinsville Police Department. This
• 28:54
  is huge, and in this confession, Dubois actually makes comments
• 28:59
  that perfectly match the victim's account. He tells the police
• 29:02
  that he chose Starbucks because that's where all the women go,
• 29:06
  and he acknowledges that the victim could have been anyone.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: That confession is a devastating piece of evidence.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: It just confirms everything.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: It corroborates the victim's testimony on the most granular psychological level.
• 29:18
  It isn't just an admission of physical guilt, It is
• 29:21
  an admission of the specific, calculated intent that the victim described.
• 29:26
  It proves he wasn't randomly wandering. He was hunting in
• 29:29
  a specific location for a specific demographic.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Fast forward to the trial in twenty twenty six. The victim,
• 29:36
  with immense bravery, takes.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: The stand that had to be incredibly hard.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine. She testifies about the fear, the
• 29:44
  knife point assault, the force drive, and those highly specific
• 29:47
  threats he made about his military service. But the defense
• 29:51
  team isn't just going to roll over.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: No, they have a job to do.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: They formulate a strategy. They point out that there is
• 29:57
  no direct video of the actual abduction happening in the
• 30:00
  Starbucks parking lot, and more importantly, they go after the DNA.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: They attack the physical evidence.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: They attack the integrity of the evidence by arguing that
• 30:08
  the condom was left outside in a residential driveway, exposed
• 30:11
  to the Illinois weather for approximately a week before it
• 30:14
  was collected by crime scene technicians.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: And honestly, it's a smart strategy.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Now I want to pause here, because the defense makes
• 30:20
  a very compelling point. A used condom sitting outside in
• 30:24
  the elements, the rain, the coal, the UV sunlight for
• 30:28
  all week, isn't DNA incredibly fragile? It is, So how
• 30:33
  did the prosecution get the jury to trust that this
• 30:36
  genetic sample wasn't totally compromised or degraded by the environment.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: It is a classic textbook defense strategy. Isolate a single
• 30:44
  piece of physical evidence and introduce scientific doubt regarding its pristine.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Nature because it wasn't pristine.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: No environmental exposure absolutely can and does degrade DNA. UV
• 30:55
  light from the sun can break the molecular bonds of
• 30:57
  the DNA strand moisture introduces back to ti furia and mold,
• 31:00
  which can rapidly consume and destroy biological material.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: So the defense was right to ask.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: The defense was entirely correct to question the integrity of
• 31:09
  a sample left outside for a week, and it's a
• 31:11
  significant hurdle the prosecution had to clear.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: So how do you clear that hurdle? How do you
• 31:15
  prove the DNA is still readable after a week in
• 31:17
  the rain?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: You explain the mechanism of modern forensic testing to the jury, Specifically,
• 31:23
  a process called polymerase chain reaction or PCR.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: PCR. Okay, what is that.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Well, decades ago, a degraded sample might have been useless
• 31:31
  because you needed a large amount of intact DNA to
• 31:34
  get a profile. But PCR acts like a molecular photocopier.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: A photocopier.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even if the sun and the rain have broken
• 31:42
  the DNA strands into smaller fragments, as long as the
• 31:45
  core locire present, PCR can amplify those microscopic degraded fragments
• 31:50
  millions of times over until they form a readable, definitive profile.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, So they just copy the surviving bits until
• 31:57
  it's loud.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Enough to read exactly. The prosecution will lied on their
• 32:00
  forensic scientists to explain that while the sample was subjected
• 32:03
  to the elements, the technology used to extract and amplify
• 32:06
  the DNA is robust enough to overcome that degradation.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't just a science lecture. They didn't just
• 32:12
  ask the jury to trust the PCR machine in a vacuum.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: No, and that is the brilliance of the prosecution's strategy.
• 32:18
  They contextualized the DNA within the larger web of evidence.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: How did they do that.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: The defense is saying, maybe the DNA is wrong or
• 32:26
  contaminated because it sat in the rain. The prosecution replies, Okay,
• 32:31
  let's assume for a second the DNA is somehow wrong.
• 32:34
  If that's true, how do you explain the victim's Apple
• 32:37
  watch dropping a digital satellite verified pin on the exact
• 32:42
  residential driveway where that specific condom was.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Found, Right, it's too much of a coincidence.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: And if the DNA is wrong, how do you explain
• 32:49
  the area surveillance footage showing a vehicle matching the defendants
• 32:53
  near that location at that exact time. And if the
• 32:56
  DNA is wrong, how do you explain the defendant on
• 32:58
  tape confessing to the exact psychological motivations the victim described.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I see, It's like triangulating a cell phone signal, exactly
• 33:06
  like that. If you just have one cell tower pinging,
• 33:08
  you only know a general area and there's room for error.
• 33:10
  But if you have three different towers pinging the exact
• 33:12
  same spot, the margin vera vanishes. You have the digital data,
• 33:16
  the physical DNA, and the verbal confession all triangulating on
• 33:19
  one man.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: That is the perfect way to visualize it. It is
• 33:22
  the overwhelming weight of independent corroboration. You cannot look at
• 33:26
  the DNA and isolation.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: It's part of a puzzle.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: The scientific reliability of the amplified DNA perfectly intersected with
• 33:34
  the unbreakable digital location data from the smartwatch, which perfectly
• 33:38
  intersected with the victim's compelling, detailed human testimony, which perfectly
• 33:44
  intercepted with his own recorded confession.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: It's an airtight box.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: It creates an evidentiary web that is practically impossible for
• 33:51
  a defense team to untangle and introduce reasonable doubt into.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: And the jury clearly saw that web, and they saw
• 33:58
  how tightly it was woven. Because when you look at
• 34:00
  the verdict, they deliberated for only an hour to an
• 34:03
  hour and a half.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: That is incredibly fast.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Right in a major felony trial with severe charges, complex
• 34:09
  DNA degradation arguments, and novel scientific evidence like genetic genealogy,
• 34:14
  ninety minutes is practically the blink of an eye.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: It means they had no doubts.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: They came back guilty on all counts aggravated criminal sexual assault, kidnapping,
• 34:22
  sexual abuse.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: A deliberation that rapid suggests there was virtually no friction
• 34:26
  or disagreement.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: In the jury room, they were all on the same
• 34:29
  page immediately.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: The prosecution's narrative wasn't just persuisive, it was mathematically, scientifically
• 34:35
  and logically conclusive. In the eyes of those jurors, they
• 34:38
  saw the convergence of traditional police work finding the condom,
• 34:42
  with the cutting edge tech of the Apple watch and
• 34:44
  the genealogy, and they.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Found absolutely no room for reasonable doubt none, which sets
• 34:49
  the stage for the final act of this deep dive.
• 34:52
  Such a rapid, decisive verdict leads right into one of
• 34:55
  the region's most significant sentencing hearings.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: This is where the hammer falls.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Let's move to July nine six. Timothy du Boys Junior
• 35:02
  is now forty two years old. He is standing before
• 35:05
  a circuit Judge Tim Berkeley, and the judge hands down
• 35:09
  a staggering sentence one hundred and twenty.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Years in prison, a massive sentence.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Under Illinois state law regarding these specific charges, he must
• 35:16
  serve a minimum of sixty eight years before even a
• 35:18
  possibility of release. That is effectively and mathematically a life sentence.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: It is a definitive, permanent removal of this individual from society.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: We never getting out.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: The sentence is broken down across the multiple severe counts,
• 35:32
  the aggravated assault, the kidnapping, but the cumulative effect is
• 35:37
  absolute incapacitation. It reflects the court's understanding of the extreme
• 35:42
  danger he poses.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: What strikes me is the court room reaction, or really
• 35:47
  the lack of it from him.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: He didn't say anything, did he.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: When given the opportunity to speak at the sentencing hearing,
• 35:53
  Dubois offers no remarks. The sources say he just stared
• 35:57
  into the courtroom camera as the judge imposed the sentence.
• 36:00
  But what really gets me, the grim irony of this
• 36:02
  whole thing is what the defense tried to argue to
• 36:05
  get a lighter sentence.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, this part is infuriating.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: They referenced his military service. They tried to use his
• 36:11
  veteran status as a mitigating factor to argue for leniency.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: The irony is profound and frankly deeply disturbing given the
• 36:19
  facts of the.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Case, because that exact military service was the excuse he
• 36:23
  used to terrorize the victim in the car.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: He used it against her.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: He literally told her he deserved to assault her on
• 36:30
  Veterans Day because he was a veteran. He weaponized that
• 36:34
  status against her, and then his lawyers try to use
• 36:38
  that same status to ask the judge for mercy.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: You are identifying the exact reason why the prosecution emphasized
• 36:45
  the calculation of the crime.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Throughout the trial, they knew this was coming.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: The prosecution successfully flipped that defense argument on its head
• 36:52
  during sentencing. They argued that his military background didn't mitigate
• 36:56
  his actions, it illuminated the calculated, weaponized terror he inflicted.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: He knew what he was doing.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: He didn't just happen to be a veteran who committed
• 37:04
  a crime while struggling with civilian life. He actively consciously
• 37:08
  incorporated his veterans status into the psychological torture of his victim.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: He used it as a tool of dominance.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: The court clearly agreed with the prosecution's assessment of the
• 37:17
  severity and the calculated nature of the threat he posed,
• 37:21
  ensuring the sentence reflected the terror he inflicted.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Collinsville Police Chief Bret borm made a comment after the sentencing.
• 37:28
  He noted that while a result like this one hundred
• 37:31
  and twenty year sentence offers a sense of closure to
• 37:34
  the community and the department, it obviously can't erase the
• 37:37
  trauma the victim endured. No kih, and that really grounds
• 37:41
  this whole discussion. We've talked so much about the tech,
• 37:43
  the genealogy, the PCR amplification, the digital triangulation, but we
• 37:48
  have to reflect on the human element here, specifically the victim.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, the technological and scientific advancements are remarkable, and they
• 37:56
  validate the expanding toolkit available for investigating so sear xual assaults.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: So they don't work alone.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: No, none of that technology activates without the victim's initial actions.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Right. The Apple watch recorded the location, but she had
• 38:09
  the presence of mind to wear it and keep it
• 38:11
  on exactly. The DNA provided the biological blueprint, but she
• 38:14
  made the immediate, terrifying report to the police that initiated
• 38:18
  the search of that driveway in the first place.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Her survival instincts during the attack, her immediate action in
• 38:24
  contacting the police despite the overwhelming trauma, and her immense
• 38:28
  courage in sitting in a courtroom years.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Later to testify, point at her attacker and endure a
• 38:33
  cross examination.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, that was the catalyst for the entire justice process.
• 38:39
  The science was the vehicle that got them to the conviction,
• 38:42
  but her bravery was the engine that powered the entire investigation.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: An incredible story resilience.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: This one hundred and twenty year sentence is a testament
• 38:50
  to the power of that combination.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: To briefly recap the incredible convergence of elements here, Yeah,
• 38:55
  you have a twenty one year old woman whose immediate
• 38:58
  reporting sets off the investigation.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: You have every day consumer digital tracking that provides an
• 39:03
  unbreakable objective map of the crime.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: You have traditional police work recovering physical evidence from a
• 39:08
  residential driveway.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: And when the old school codis databases hit a dead end,
• 39:13
  you have the cutting edge science of forensic genetic genealogy
• 39:16
  stepping in to breage.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: The gap, tracing distant cousins through public records to pinpoint
• 39:21
  a suspect. All of those elements collided to put Timothy
• 39:24
  du Boyd Junior behind bars for the rest of his life.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: And that convergence underscores a vital truth about the modern
• 39:31
  world that you listening right now should take away from this.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: With the main takeaway, we started.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: By talking about the illusion of safety, and it is
• 39:39
  true that everyday spaces like a Starbucks parking lot at
• 39:42
  seven a am still hold vulnerabilities. Opportunistic predators still exist
• 39:47
  in the shallows of our daily routines scanning for targets.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: The sharks in the shallows exactly.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: But this case proves that the capacity for science, consumer technology,
• 39:56
  and determined law enforcement to identify and isolate those who
• 39:59
  ex exploit the innocent has never been stronger.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: The net is getting tighter.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: The shadows where criminals can hide the gaps in the
• 40:06
  system they rely on, are shrinking rapidly.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: The shadows are definitely shrinking, and the science is only
• 40:12
  getting more precise, which brings me to a final lingering question.
• 40:17
  Something I want you to mull over long after this
• 40:20
  deep dive ends.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's hear it.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: We've seen how in everyday smart watch help take down
• 40:24
  a violent predator by leaving an invisible trail of data.
• 40:28
  But as our gadgets, our watches, our phones, our cars,
• 40:31
  everything around us silently and continuously record our every physical move,
• 40:35
  our heart rates, our locations, are we unknowingly building an
• 40:39
  inescapable invisible web for criminals.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating thought.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: And if forensic technology continues to close all these physical
• 40:47
  and digital lootholes, how will predators adapt next