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The Murder of Ana Kriégel · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this, because when we think about true
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: profound danger, we usually picture it happening in the dead
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of night.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Right. We picture the classic horror movie set up.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We picture a dark, deserted street or maybe a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: shadowy stranger lurking in an alleyway or a poorly lit
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: parking lot.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we really have this built in mental architecture for
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: where bad things are supposed to happen.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We do. And it's almost comforting in a weird way.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Because if danger only lives in the shadows, then the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: daylight is safe. I mean, a manicured suburban lawn on
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a sunny afternoon in May is supposed to be safe.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It absolutely is. But today, we're going to look at
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: a case that completely dismantles that architecture.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really does. Today's deep dive is going to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: take us to the Republic of Ireland, back to the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: year 2018, to explore the disappearance and the absolutely tragic
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: murder of a 14-year-old girl named Anastasia Kriegel. or as
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: her family called her, Anna.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: And we are going to be relying on some very
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: detailed transcripts from a true crime documentary to unpack all
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: of this. Right.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Our mission today is to go through the timeline, look
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: at the forensic breakthroughs, and honestly, the deeply disturbing psychological
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: anomalies that finally unraveled this entire case.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: And that contrast you just mentioned between the expected setting
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: of a crime and the terrifying reality of this one
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: is precisely what makes this investigation so pivotal.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It's jarring.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: It really is. We are going to analyze not just
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: the timeline of that afternoon, but the underlying mechanisms of
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: the investigation itself.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Like the how and the why.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We need to look closely at how digital footprints
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: are actually extracted, you know, how forensic pathology speaks for
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: the victim, and the psychological nuances of interrogation tactics that
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: veteran detectives use to break a case wide open.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: It is a profoundly tragic story. But the investigative and
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: behavioral lessons embedded within it are just, well, they're crucial.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Absolutely crucial.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: So I want you listening right now to reflect for
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: a second on parental intuition. Have you ever had a
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: moment where something just felt slightly off, but everything in
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: society tells you, oh, it's fine. It's just normal, awkward
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: teenage behavior.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, the classic, you're overreacting feeling.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Right. You brush it off. You tell yourself you're overreacting.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: We are going to frame this entire deep dive around
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: that exact tension. How easily true danger can hide in
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: plain sight, masked by the sheer banality of everyday life.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Because the everyday life part is what makes it so
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: hard to spot.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But to understand how Anna's life was stolen from her,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: we really first have to understand who she was. And
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: looking at the source material, her story actually begins thousands
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: of miles away from Ireland.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite a journey. Anna was actually born on
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: February 18th, 2004, in Novokuznetsk, which is this industrial city
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: in Russia. Wow. Okay. And her earliest days were not
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: spent in the comfort of a family home. She actually
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: spent the first two years of her life in an orphanage.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: That's rough. I mean, two years in an orphanage right
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: from birth.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: It's... In developmental psychology, those first 24 months are a
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: highly critical period for forming attachment and your baseline security.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Eventually, though, a couple from Ireland, Geraldine and Patrick Kriegel,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: completed the incredibly complex international adoption paperwork and Anna officially
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: became their daughter.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: So she moved entirely across the world to the Republic
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: of Ireland.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: She did. Geraldine was a senior manager in the legal
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: department of the State Public Transport Company. And Patrik taught
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: French at the Dublin Institute of Technology. She was their
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: very first child.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And what stands out immediately in the transcripts is just
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: how fiercely devoted Geraldine and Patrick were to her. I mean,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: even though Patrick was French-born and Geraldine was Irish, and
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: they had absolutely zero cultural links to Russia, they made
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: this beautiful, concerted effort to ensure Anna wouldn't lose touch
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: with her roots.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: They really did. They learned about Russian culture themselves. They
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: kept her birth name, Anastasia?
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And every single year, they would celebrate two major milestones, right?
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Like her actual birthday in February and what they called
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: her adoption day on the 10th of August.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: It's so sweet. It really paints this picture of a
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: profoundly loved, incredibly nurtured child.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It does.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: The environment they created for her was incredibly supportive. And
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Anna herself, she was described as spirited, feisty, and just
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: full of life.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: The kind of kid where you always knew when she
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: was in the room. Exactly.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: She was athletic. She loved swimming. She loved dancing. She
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: would spend hours just in front of the mirror practicing
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: dance routines and singing.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: The totally normal teenager.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Fundamentally, yes, a happy, vibrant young girl, but one who
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: was carrying a really heavy, invisible backpack of physical and
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: emotional challenges.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Right, because she was dealing with some incredibly heavy physical
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: burdens from a very young age. The sources detail several
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: severe health battles. Like, she had a tumor removed. in
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: an operation that lasted almost six hours.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Six hours for a child.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: That is a massive trauma for a little body to endure.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: It's terrifying.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: And as a result of that surgery, she was left
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: almost completely deaf in her right ear. She also struggled
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: with her sight. And as she entered her teenage years,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: she developed a really painful condition related to her bones
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: growing faster than her muscles.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: So she's constantly in pain.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have this spirited girl who is constantly fighting
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: her own physical limitations. How does that kind of early
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: physical trauma shape a child's psychological development as they head
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: into middle school and high school?
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Well, those physical limitations, combined with the underlying vulnerability of
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: her early orphanage history, they contributed to a personality that
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: was incredibly sensitive and deeply innocent.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: As she neared the end of primary school, severe emotional
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: problems began to surface. Her parents were alerted at one
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: point that Anna had actually told a teacher she was
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: feeling suicidal.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. That young?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Yes. Her resource teacher was so concerned that she explicitly
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: told Geraldine and Patrick that she was terrified for Anna
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: to make the transition to secondary school.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Why? What was the specific fear there?
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: The teacher's specific fear was that Anna was simply too innocent.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: She worried that other students would instinctively sense that vulnerability
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: and take advantage of it.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: And that innocence was masked, unfortunately, by her physical development.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Because by the time Anna was 13 years old, she
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: was already 5'8.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Right, so she stood out.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: She looked much older than her actual age. It's like
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: trying to navigate a minefield without a map. She has
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the physical stature of a young adult, which draws a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: certain kind of attention and expectation, but she possesses the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: emotional toolkit and the innocence of a much younger child.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And kids can be cruel. The bullies homed in on her.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: They really did. They targeted her height, and horrifically, they
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: targeted her adoption. telling her she didn't have real parents.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: That is just heartbreaking.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Her parents were so proactive, though. They took screenshots of
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the bullying. They went to the school early to warn
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the senior staff. But the bullying just didn't stop. It
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: actually spilled over into real-world violence.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the real-world consequences of her mismatched physical maturity and
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: emotional innocence became terrifyingly apparent in October of that year.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: What happened?
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Anna came home Absolutely hysterical and shaken. She had been
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: walking back from supervising a disco for young children, and
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: she was approached by four boys.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, God.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: One of them continuously demanded sex from her and then
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: touched her. This was a profoundly traumatic encounter for her.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine. Did they go to the police?
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: They did. Her parents immediately filed a complaint with the
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Garda Siocana, that's the Irish police, and the boy involved
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: was given a police caution. But the psychological damage to
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Ana was already done.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Her sense of safety in her own community was totally shattered.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Entirely.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: And the way that trauma manifested is just so sad.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: After that incident, she literally painted a black eye onto
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: her own face. And the school's response was to suspend
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: her for it.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: They suspended her.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Wait, I have to pause here because that is staggering.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: They punished a cry for help. Her mother, Geraldine, was convinced,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and I think rightly so, that painting that black eye
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: was Anna's desperate way of expressing the internal pain and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the turmoil she was feeling inside.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: She was trying to make the invisible wounds visible to
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: everyone else.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But instead of receiving counseling in that moment, she
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: was suspended. She was engaged in fights at school, leading
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: to another suspension. All she wanted, the sources note, was
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: to have friends her own age.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: But she was incredibly isolated.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: So isolated. And then there's this detail that really made
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: me stop and reread the notes. As her inner pain mounted,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Anna began setting up fake social media accounts to send
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: bullying messages to herself.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Right, the digital self-harm.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Wait, I have to push back on this because it
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: sounds so completely counterintuitive. Why would someone who was already
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: being relentlessly bullied by her peers actively choose to create
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: accounts just to bully themselves?
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that this behavior, while deeply alarming
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: to any parent, is actually a recognized and growing psychological phenomenon.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: It's known as digital self-harm.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Really? That's a studied thing?
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes. Studies in adolescent psychology show that a surprising
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: percentage of teens who are cyber-bullied actually participate in bullying
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: themselves online.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: When a child feels a complete loss of control over
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: their environment, when they are being victimized by others and
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: feel entirely powerless, creating a fake account to attack themselves
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: can paradoxically feel like a way to regain a twisted
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: locus of control.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: So it's about, like, not waiting for the next shoe
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: to drop. You just drop the shoe yourself.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The logic, twisted by trauma, is essentially, if I
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: am the one saying these horrific things to myself, then
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: at least I'm controlling the narrative. Wow. At least I'm
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: controlling the timing of the abuse. It's a digital manifestation
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: of deeply internalized self-loathing brought on by all that external bullying.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: That makes a terrifying amount of sense.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: It's a desperate cry for help, an attempt to solicit
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: sympathy from bystanders, or even a way to test if
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: anyone in her peer group will actually step in to
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: defend her.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I'm sure her mother was beside herself.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: When Geraldine discovered this, she was horrified, and she immediately
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: demanded access to all of Anna's apps to monitor her
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: digital footprint.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: It just highlights how completely overwhelming her digital life had become.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Because alongside these fake accounts, she was also trying to
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: find a positive community online. Like, she loved YouTube. It
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: was her favorite platform.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: She was making videos, right?
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She created videos about clothes, makeup, and dancing. And
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: she had managed to build a small community of about
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: 100 subscribers. But While most of the comments were positive,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the negative ones were abhorrent.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: What were they saying?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: People were telling a 14-year-old girl to go die or
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: saying they would have her executed. The juxtaposition of her
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: creating these innocent makeup and dance videos while receiving literal
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: death threats, while also dealing with physical pain and real-world bullying,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a staggering amount of weight for a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: child to carry.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: It's too much for anyone, let alone a 14-year-old.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: So you have a girl who is retreating into this
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: incredibly dark, hostile digital world just to find some semblance
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: of control. How does that internal quiet crisis suddenly explode
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: into a physical disappearance? Take us to the day she vanished.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: So the transition from normalcy to tragedy begins on Monday,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: May 14th, 2018. The day prior had been a perfectly peaceful,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: mundane family Sunday.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Pizza, movies, that kind of thing. Exactly.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Pizza, movies, making YouTube videos with her cousin. Monday morning
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: starts like any other. Geraldine is usually the first one awake.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Anna reminds her mom that she needs a note to
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: get out of school early that day at 2.30 p.m.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: What for?
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: So she can attend her weekly counseling session with Kildare
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Youth Services. Geraldine writes the note, gives Anna a kiss goodbye,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: and heads off to catch the train into Dublin for
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: a meeting.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: And the timeline here is crucial. Everything seems totally routine.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Ana goes to school, goes to her counseling session, comes home,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: and heads straight to her room.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Normal teenager stuff.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Exactly. At 4.02 p.m., she rings her mother. Geraldine is
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: in her meeting, so she can't answer. But she immediately
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: texts back saying she'll call shortly.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Which was standard for them, right?
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Totally standard. Sources note they were in constant contact. So
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: at 4.02 p.m., everything is fine. But then... Less than
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: an hour later, the catalyst arrives at the front door.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: What happens at 4.55.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: P.m.? At 4.55 p.m., the doorbell rings. Patrick goes to
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: answer it, and standing there is a teenage boy. Now,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: because this boy is a minor, the legal framework of
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the case dictates he be referred to as Boy B.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Right, Boy B.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: He is a boy that Anna vaguely knew from school,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: but certainly not a close friend. Patrick tells Anna that
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: someone is at the door for her, and Anna is
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: visibly confused.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Because they don't really hang out?
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Right. She explicitly states to her father that they aren't friends.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: But despite that confusion, she goes downstairs to speak to
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: him in the hallway.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I want to zero in on this moment in the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: hallway because it is just haunting. Patrick sees the two
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: of them, Anna and boy B, standing there whispering to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: each other.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Just whispering.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: He watches this happen and his brain processes it as
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: entirely normal. He later remarked, I think a lot of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: teens do it. And as a parent, I completely get that.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: It's exactly like background noise.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: If you live near an airport, you eventually stop hearing
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the planes. If you are a parent of a teenager,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: you are conditioned to ignore a certain amount of awkward,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: secretive behavior. You just assume it's harmless teenage drama. You
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: don't assume it's the prelude to a nightmare.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: And that is the psychology of normalcy right there. Our
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: brains are hardwired to fit new observations into existing, non-threatening schemas.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: You want things to be normal.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Patrick had no reason to suspect anything sinister was
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: occurring in his own brightly lit hallway on a Monday afternoon.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: He contextualized their secretive whispering as just typical adolescent behavior.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: So what happens after they whisper?
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Following this brief, whispered conversation, Anna runs back upstairs to
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: her bedroom to grab a hoodie. It's a very distinctive
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: black and white hoodie that Geraldine had bought for her.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Patrick reminds her about her upcoming exams and tells her
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: she needs to study.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: And Anna just gives him a big smile, says she
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: won't be long, and leaves the house with boy B.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: He forgets to ask exactly where she's going, which is
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: a detail that would haunt any parent.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Man, I can't even imagine the guilt. But He does
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: stand at the door and watch them walk away from
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the house, heading in the direction of St. Catherine's Park.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And his observation of their departure is critical.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: What did he see?
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: He notices that they did not appear to be talking.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Boy B was walking ahead of Anna. He was carrying
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a small backpack. And there was complete silence between them.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: That's odd.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: That's silence. Two teenagers walking together, but not walking beside
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: each other. Not talking. Just silence. So they walk off
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: toward the park. The clock ticks forward to 5.10 p.m.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Geraldine is finally free on the train, so she calls
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Anna back, returning that missed call from an hour earlier.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And does Anna answer? No.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Anna doesn't answer. Geraldine doesn't leave voicemail because she figures
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: she'll be home soon anyway. When Geraldine walks through the door,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: how quickly does the situation escalate?
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: It is almost instantaneous. When Geraldine arrives home, Patrick casually
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: mentions that Anna had gone out with boy B, who
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: had called for her at the house. This is the
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: precise moment the anomaly in the routine is detected.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Because Geraldine knows better.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Geraldine's maternal intuition was razor sharp. Her exact words were,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: nobody calls for Anna.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: That phrase just stops you in your tracks. Nobody calls
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: for Anna. It goes back to the absolute isolation we
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: talked about earlier. Geraldine knew the social reality of her
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: daughter's life better than anyone.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: She knew Anna didn't have casual friends dropping by to
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: hang out.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: For a boy to suddenly show up at the door,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: a boy Anna wasn't even friends with, it wasn't a
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: pleasant surprise to Geraldine. It was a blaring alarm bell.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Think about that primal panic you feel if you lose
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: sight of your kid in a grocery store for just
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: five seconds.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Your heart drops into your stomach.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: No, stretch that feeling over 30 minutes. By 5.30 p.m.,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Geraldine sends Anna a frantic two-word text message, home now,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: followed immediately by, answer me now or I'm calling the police.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: She didn't wait around.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: She didn't wait. She immediately walked to the park herself
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: to see if she could find them. When her search
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: on foot turned up nothing, she went back home, got
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: in the car, and drove around the area for hours. Finally,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: they reach out to a retired detective friend who tells
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: them to go straight to the guardie.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So when the parents finally turn to the police with
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: this terrifying intuition. What is the initial protocol? I mean,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: how do the Guardia react to a 14-year-old missing for
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: just a few hours?
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: The initial reaction at the Leak Slip Guardist Station is
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: exactly what you would expect from standard police procedure. They
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: assess the immediate risk, and initially, they don't see one.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Which is standard.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We have to view this objectively from a law
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: enforcement perspective. A 14-year-old girl not answering her phone for
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: a few hours on a sunny afternoon is does not
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: immediately meet the threshold for a critical missing persons case.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Right, because teenagers lose track of time, their phone batteries die,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: they rebel and run off to a friend's house. Police
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: departments deal with those harmless scenarios every single day.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The protocol is to log the information, check the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: immediate known contacts, and wait to see if the teen surfaces.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: But to the parents, who know the baseline behavior of
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: their specific child, that lack of urgency has to be excruciating.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely agonizing. But the Gardie do take the first
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: necessary step. They look up Boy B's address and go
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: to his house to ask what happened. What does Boy
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: B tell them during that very first encounter?
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: During that first brief interview at his home, Boy B
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: tells the Gardie that, yes, he called for Anna. The
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: two of them walked over to the park, but he
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: claims he left her there alone at 5.40 p.m.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, so he admits he was with her.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. This establishes his baseline narrative. He places himself with Anna,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: admits they went to the park, but... cleanly separates himself
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: from her at a highly specific time. That gives him
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: a supposed alibi for anything that happens after 5.40 p.m.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: The next day, Tuesday, the search continues. Ana's parents are
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: combing the local area, knocking on doors. By late afternoon,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the Gardee issue a formal press release seeking the public's help.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: So it's escalator.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: The machinery of a major investigation is waking up. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: as part of that, investigators need to verify those last
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: known movements. Sergeant John Dunn goes back. to Boy B's
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: house to ask further questions. And this is when the
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: narrative begins to shift dramatically, doesn't it?
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, it really does. The pressure of the official investigation
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: begins to fracture the initial lie. During the second interview,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Boy B changes his story.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: What does he say now?
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: He now explains that he didn't call for Anna on
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: his own behalf. He claims he called for her as
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: a favor to another boy, his friend.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, another new element.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Right. And because this boy is also a minor, we
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: will refer to him as Boy A. Boy B claims
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: that Anna had a crush on Boy A, but that
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Boy A wasn't interested. Boy B says he walked with
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Anna to the park, left her there with Boy A,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: and then went home to do his homework.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: That is a massive pivot. He just inserted a completely
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: new suspect into the timeline. Now, the sources note a
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: crucial piece of context here. Anna had actually asked Boy
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: A out previously, and she had been rejected.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: So Boy B is using a kernel of truth to
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: build this new story.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: So you have a teenager shifting his story, introducing new characters.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: How do investigators pin down a suspect whose story is
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: constantly moving?
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: You take them out of the interview room and put
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: them back into the physical environment. Sergeant Dunn decides to
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: conduct a physical walkthrough.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Like walking the actual route?
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is a classic and highly effective investigative technique.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: When a suspect creates a fabricated story sitting in a chair,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: it's abstract. But when you take them back to the environment,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: you force them to align their fabricated timeline with the
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: unforgiving physical geography of the real world.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Sergeant Dunn takes Boy B to St. Catharines Park. He
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: asks Boy B to physically show him the exact route,
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: where they entered, where they walked, and exactly where he
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: supposedly left Anna with Boy A.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: And as Boy B is pointing these locations out, Sergeant
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Dunn is doing something really specific, right? He's marking every
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: single spot using the GPS on his police radio. He
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: is literally mapping the alibi. Why is that GPS mapping
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: so crucial?
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: It locks the suspect into a spatial reality that cannot
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: be retroactively altered. If Boy B says, I stood exactly
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: here at 530, the GPS coordinates are locked.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Got it. So he can't back out of it later. Exactly.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Later, if CCTV captures him a mile away at 530,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: the alibi is instantly destroyed. You build a cage of
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: their own making.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: After mapping this route, Sergeant Dunn takes Boy B home.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: And then, as Sergeant Dunn is walking back, something incredibly
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: serendipitous happens. He is stopped by a man and his
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: teenage son.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Just randomly on the street?
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Just randomly. The man mentions he heard about the missing girl, Anna,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and suggests that the Gardee should check the back of
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: the local sewage treatment plant, noting teenagers hang out there.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Okay. Normal community tip?
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Right. But later that same day, Sergeant Dunn realizes that
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: the man who stopped him was actually the father of
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: boy A. And the teenage boy standing right next to
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: him was boy A himself.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: So now the police have literally stumbled into both pieces
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of the puzzle. The statements of these two boys are
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: now the absolute center of the investigation. The police still
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: have no physical evidence or reason to believe Ana has
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: been killed. They are still treating it as a missing person.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: But boy A and boy B are the last two
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: people on earth to see her.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: So on Tuesday afternoon, the guardie decided to do another walkthrough.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: But this time, Both boys are brought back to the
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: park simultaneously. Walk us through the psychology of what happens next,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: because this is fascinating.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: This second walkthrough is a master class in applying cognitive pressure.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Boy A and Boy B are leading the way. Behind
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: them are Sergeant Dunn, Sergeant Hussey, and Boy A's father.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So they're all walking together. Yes.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: And as they are walking, Sergeant Dunn, who had just
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: mapped Boy B's route with GPS earlier that day, notices
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: something glaring. Boy B is now leading them on a
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: completely different route than the one he showed the police
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: just hours prior.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. He messed up his own map.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: He did. And then the boys come to a stop
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: on a path near the BMX track. In that moment,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: both Sergeant Dunn and Sergeant Hussey observe something that cannot
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: be captured in a written statement. They see Boy A
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: and Boy B exchange a look. They would later describe
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: it in their official reports as a highly significant glance.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. Just a glance. But
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: why is the simple look between two teenagers so significant
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to seasoned detectives?
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: To understand that, we have to unpack the psychology of co-conspirators.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: When two people are maintaining a shared lie, they are
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: carrying a massive cognitive load. Think of the brain as
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: a computer processor. Lying requires significantly more processing power than
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: telling the truth.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Because you're constantly inventing, not just remembering. Right.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: They have to remember not only their own fabricated timeline,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: but how their timeline specifically intersects with their partner's fabricated timeline.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: They have to anticipate what the police might know, what
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: evidence might exist, and what their partner might say if
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: interrogated separately.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Right. They have to constantly monitor each other to make
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: sure neither one is slipping up and contradicting the master script.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And when you place them in the physical environment
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: where a crime occurred, surrounded by authority figures, police officers,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: and a parent... The stress on the teenage brain is immense.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: The cognitive load overflows.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: They just max out.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Their processing capacity maxes out. They can't speak out loud
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: to coordinate their stories in front of the police, so
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: they involuntarily rely on nonverbal communication.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Like that glance.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, that glance near the BMX track was a physical tell.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: To experienced investigators, a shared look of panic or confirmation
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: or confusion between two suspects speaks volumes louder than any
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: carefully rehearsed statement. It signals complicity. It is the moment
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: the invisible thread between them becomes visible to the police.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: So following that walkthrough and that specific glance, the Gardy
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: decide that formal official written statements need to be taken immediately.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Boy A and Boy B are taken to the Lucan
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Garda station, accompanied by their parents. Boy B sticks to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: his revised story. He emphatically states, I have no clue
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: what happened to her and claims the first time he
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: knew anything was wrong was when the Gardy knocked on
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: his door.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: But Boy A provides a remarkably detailed formal statement.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: What exactly does Boy A tell the detectives?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Boy A's narrative is carefully constructed. He confirms that Boy
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: B is one of his best friends. He says Boy
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: B called by his house after school and they arranged
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: to meet in the park later. Boy A claims that
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: when Boy B arrived at the park, Anna was with him.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, so he admits she was there.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Yes. He tells the police he knew Anna from school,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: but not very well. And then he introduces a specific
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: emotional interaction. He claims Ana approached him and said, I
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: have something to ask you. I was wondering if you
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: wanted to go out with me.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: And Boye adds this detail, saying, I was surprised. It
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: came out of nowhere. I kind of knew she liked
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: me because she kind of asked me out before. He
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: tells the guardie he wanted to let her down gently.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: So he told her, I'm sorry, but I'm not interested.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: And how did she supposedly react?
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: According to Boye's statement, Ana didn't answer. She didn't say
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: a word. She just walked off, looking, in his words,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: annoyed and sad at the same time. He claims that
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: by this point, boy B had already left the area.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: If you analyze this narrative, it is designed to achieve
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: two very specific things. First, it provides a plausible emotional
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: reason for Ana to wander off alone. She was rejected
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: and sad, which aligns with her known vulnerabilities.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: And second?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Second, it isolates boy A. cleanly separating him from the
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: timeline of her disappearance. But Boy A had a massive,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: undeniable physical problem he needed to explain away. When he
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: was sitting in that interview room giving this statement, he
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: had highly visible injuries.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the injuries.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: He was walking with a noticeable limp, his arm and
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: his leg were injured, and his face was freshly cut.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: This is where I am just floored. I want to
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: ask you, how often do perpetrators invent a secondary violent
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: crime against themselves... to explain away forensic evidence. Like, do
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: they actually think this works?
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: You'd be surprised.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Because Boy A's explanation for his injuries is wild. He
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: claimed that after Anna walked away, he walked on alone
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and was suddenly attacked by two grown men. He claimed
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: these adult men grabbed him, pulled him to the ground,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and began kicking him.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: It's quite the story.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: The climax of his story was that he managed to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: fight them off by getting to his feet and kicking
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: one of the grown men in the head which caused
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: both adults to flee in terror. I mean, it reads
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: like a script from a bad action movie. You have
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: a teenage boy claiming he single-handedly fought off two adult
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: men who ambushed him.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: It sounds absurd to an adult, but they do it
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: more often than you'd think.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: And it is almost always a failure of juvenile hubris.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: In behavioral analysis, this is the absolute definition of, quote, staging.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Staging. Like setting a scene. Exactly.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Staging occurs when an offender purposefully alters the crime
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: scene or invents a false narrative to redirect the investigation
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: away from the most logical suspect.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Because he knew he couldn't hide the cuts on his face. Right.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Boy A knew he had defensive wounds. He knew the
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: police would ask why his face was cut and why
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: he was limping. So he created a phantom attack to
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: explain the physical evidence on his own body. It reveals
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: a profound immaturity. It's the arrogant belief that an adolescent
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: could outsmart veteran homicide detectives with a comic book hero alibi.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: And the Garda were, unsurprisingly, incredibly skeptical. But they have
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: to follow protocol. They are assigned to investigate his claim
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: of being attacked. So they take Boy A to the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Garda headquarters in Phoenix Park, Dublin. And they actually work
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: with him to create a photo fit, like a composite sketch,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: of one of the men he claimed brutally attacked him.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: But the illusion falls apart instantly upon basic verification.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Totally. The police speak to every witness who was in St.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Catharines Park that day. Not a single person saw anyone
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: matching that photo fit. They review the CCTV footage from
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the surrounding area. Nobody resembling the attackers is on any
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of the cameras.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: The false alibi begins collapsing under its own weight. And
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: as Wednesday, May 16th rolls around, the search for Anna
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: is gaining massive momentum. the tone of the investigation has
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: shifted drastically.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: It's not a runaway case anymore.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: No. The Gardai are no longer treating this as a
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: simple runaway case. Based on the inconsistencies in the boys'
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: stories and the length of time Anna has been missing,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: there are now grave concerns that she has come to
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: significant harm. Inspector Mark O'Neill of the Lucan Garda station
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: is assigned as the lead investigator. Every single officer coming
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: on duty in the stations across Kildare and North Dublin
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: is briefed on the case.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: The resources being poured into this are huge. How does
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: a massive search like this actually operate on the ground?
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: What does that look like?
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: It becomes a highly coordinated multi-agency operation. They bring in
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: specialist search teams trained to look for disturbed earth or
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: hidden items. They deploy a sub-aqua unit to conduct dangerous
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: underwater searches of the River Liffey and other local bodies
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: of water using sonar and divers.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Wow, so they're looking everywhere.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Everywhere.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Everywhere.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: The Guard at Crime and Security Branch is tasked with
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: deep diving into mobile phone data to try and track
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: the last pings of on a cell phone. And the
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Civil Defense provides 60 volunteers to physically sweep the area
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: in shoulder-to-shoulder grid formations. You leave no stone unturned.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: This massive escalation leads us to Thursday, May 17th. The
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: focus of the search grid narrows in on a specific
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: location near the park. Sitting on just over 100 acres
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: of farmland on the edge of St. Catharines Park, is
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: a derelict 19th century farmhouse known as Glenwood House.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: It's an eerie place.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: It really is. It was built around the year 1800
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and had been inhabited until the 1990s. But by the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: summer of 2018, it was entirely abandoned and effectively in ruins.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: It's described as a place that had been gutted by
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: a fire, the roof was collapsed in several places, and
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: it was known locally as a spot where teenagers would
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: sneak off to smoke and drink.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: So it's secluded. Very.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: That morning, Sergeant Declan Birchall and his specially trained four-person
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: search team are deployed to sweep the area. They push
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: through hedgerows and ditches until they finally arrive at the
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: ruins of the farmhouse.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: The conditions inside the house were grim. It was dark,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: the windows were boarded up with thick planks of wood,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: and only slivers of light were peeking through the gaps.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Sounds like a nightmare.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: As the team moved inside, one of the officers, Officer White,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: noted a distinct metallic scent in the air. he immediately
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: recognized it as the smell of dried blood. As his
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw something in the
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: corner of the room that he initially thought looked like
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: a discarded mannequin.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I want to pause here for a moment to just
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: ground us. The details of what they found are harrowing.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I want to maintain absolute respect for Anna and her
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: family as we walk through this, avoiding any sensationalism. But
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: it is vital to state the forensic facts of the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: scene because it They completely dismantle any remaining lies told
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: by the suspects, and they reveal the true horror of
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: what she endured.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: I agree. It's necessary.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Officer White calls out into the darkness. Silence. He steps closer,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: confirms what he is looking at, and shouts, Find, which
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: is the protocol to indicate a discovery of major significance.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Burchill runs in, and they enter what they designate
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Room 1.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: And what they discovered was the body of Anna Kriegel.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: She was completely naked, wearing only a pair of black socks.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Her face was entirely covered by her own hair, which
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: the investigators noted looked as if she had been thrashing
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: her head around violently.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Just awful.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Scattered all across the floor of this abandoned, ruined room
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: were the shattered pieces of her iPhone and items of
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: her clothing.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Near her body, they found two horrifying pieces of physical evidence.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: There was a large wooden stick, and there was a
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: heavy cement block. The cement block had bloodstains on it,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: and chillingly, it had knotted hair stuck to it.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Blood was found splattered on the walls and soaked into
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: the carpet.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: They immediately sealed off the crime scene and awaited the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: arrival of Inspector John Gordon. A local doctor was brought
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: in to formally pronounce her dead. And within an hour,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Geraldine and Patrick were given the news that their daughter's
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: body had been found, and they would need to go
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: to the morgue to formally identify her. That is a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: grief I cannot even begin to comprehend. How does a
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: missing person investigation pivot the moment a body is found
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: in those conditions?
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: The missing person investigation is instantly reclassified as a major
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: murder inquiry. And the crime scene becomes the most critical
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: source of information. The state pathologist, Professor Marie Cassidy, was
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: called in to oversee the transport of Anna's body. to
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: the state laboratory in North Dublin for a full autopsy.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: What exactly is a pathologist looking for?
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: The role of the pathologist is to let the victim's
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: body tell the story of what happened. And the pathology
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: report in this case is incredibly difficult to process. The
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: sheer volume of injuries was staggering.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: How many were we talking about?
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Professor Cassidy identified 50 distinct injury sites on Anna's body,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: It took her 40 continuous minutes just to list them
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: all for the official record.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Wait, pause for a second. 50 distinct injury sites. That
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: shifts this entirely away from a terrible accident or a
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: simple teenage scuffle that got out of hand. That sounds
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: like sheer, unadulterated rage. How do investigators even begin to
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: process a scene like that?
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: When a pathologist documents 50 distinct injury sites, Investigators immediately
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: recognize they are dealing with a behavioral concept known as overkill.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Overkill?
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. The most severe injuries were to her head, her face,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: and her neck, but lacerations and massive bruises covered her
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: entire body. The official cause of death was blunt force trauma.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: From the weapons they found? Exactly.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Based on the forensic evidence at the scene, the Gardees
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: suspected that the large stick... had been used to beat
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Anna to the ground almost immediately after she was brought
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: into that dark room. They then theorized she had been
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: struck at least four times with that heavy cement block.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And there were other deeply disturbing elements to the crime scene.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: They found blue building tape wrapped around Anna's neck. But crucially,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Anna had three of her fingers slipped inside the tape.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: That detail tells such a heartbreaking story of survival. It
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: indicates she was actively fighting to pull it off her
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: own throat.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: She fought back hard.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Professor Cassidy noted there was evidence of compression to her neck,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: but she didn't believe the tape itself was the primary
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: cause of death. There was also forensic evidence of penetration
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: or attempted penetration, though the pathologist could not definitively determine
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: what object had been used.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: She also couldn't determine if Anna had been conscious during
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: the entirety of the attack due to the severe head trauma,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: but the physical evidence strongly suggests a desperate, prolonged struggle.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't quick.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: No. The investigators believed that after being beaten, Anna was
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: dragged across the room toward the window where that small
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: amount of light was filtering in, and it was likely
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: there that the sexual assault occurred. The fact that her
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: false nails were found violently scattered all around the room
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: proved to the investigators that Anna had fought her attacker
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: with absolutely everything she had.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: When you look at the totality of that scene, the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: weapons used, the location, the sheer brutality... What does that
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: tell a behavioral analyst about the killers?
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, it tells
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: them an immense amount about the psychology of the offender.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Overkill is excessive violence that goes far beyond what is
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: necessary to simply cause death. Right. It is rarely seen
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: in random crimes of opportunity where a stranger just wants
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: to eliminate a witness or facilitate a robbery. Overkill indicates
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: a deeply personal motive or an intensely enraged motive emotionally
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: volatile psychological state.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't just a random mugging gone wrong?
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: No. The brutality wasn't just a means to an end.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Inflicting the trauma, exerting absolute power and destruction over the
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: victim was the goal itself. The Gardee also noted immediately that,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: given the isolated location and the extreme violence, it was
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: highly likely she knew her killer.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Following the discovery, Inspector Gordon issues a public appeal. begging
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: anyone who was in St. Catharines Park from 5 p.m.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: onwards on that Monday or anyone driving on the nearby
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: roads with dash cam footage to come forward. The community
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: was absolutely shattered. People began leaving flowers near the park,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: just completely unable to comprehend how a crime of this magnitude,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: this level of brutality, could happen in their quiet suburbs.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: But here is the terrifying hurdle the police faced initially.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Despite the massive amount of blood and violence at the scene,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: none of the forensic evidence pointed immediately to a suspect.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Nothing obvious right away. Right.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: All of the fingerprints and all of the blood initially
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: tested belonged only to Anna. So how do they link
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the suspects to the room when the initial blood only
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: belongs to the victim?
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: That is where the incredible precision of modern forensic science
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: comes in. At the Forensic Science Ireland Laboratory, scientists are
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: not just looking for massive pools of blood. They are
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: looking for microscopic biological transfers.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Stuff you can't see with the naked eye. Exactly.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: They made two massive breakthroughs. First, they analyzed the clothing
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: found at the scene. Using alternate light sources and chemical reagents,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: they discovered microscopic semen stains on Anna's top.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's one.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: And a few days later, they delivered the second utterly
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: devastating piece of forensic evidence. They tested the clothing confiscated
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: from the suspects. Anna's blood was found on a pair
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: of boots. And those boots belonged to Boy A.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Boy A's boots. The same boots the police had taken
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: away from him as part of their investigation into his
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: fake alibi. His claim that He had been assaulted by
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: two grown men. He handed over the very evidence that
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: would condemn him.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: He literally gave it to them.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: But couldn't a defense attorney argue that he just stumbled
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: upon the scene later or got blood on him by accident?
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: How does blood spatter analysis prove he was the attacker?
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: That is where the hubris of these boys collapses. Because
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: the forensic evidence wasn't just about the presence of blood.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: It was the pattern of the blood.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: The pattern? Yes.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Blood spatter analysis is a physics-based science. A forensic scientist
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: can determine the difference between a drop of blood falling
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: passively due to gravity, a transfer stain from brushing up
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: against a bloody object, and high-velocity impact spatter.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Which is what happens when someone is hit.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Precisely. When someone is struck with a heavy object like
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: a cement block, the force atomizes the blood into a
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: fine mist that travels through the air. The expert examining
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Boye's boots found impact spatter. They concluded that the specific
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: high-velocity pattern of Ana's blood on the footwear proved undeniably
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: that the wearer of those boots had either been in
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: extremely close physical proximity when Ana was violently struck, or
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: the wearer had wielded the weapon himself.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: It's like invisible ink. You have these teenage suspects who
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: think they are operating in total darkness. They invent these
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: elaborate stories about adult men attacking them. They lie to
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the faces of veteran detectives, and they think they've gotten
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: away with it.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: They thought they were smarter than everyone else.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: They are completely unaware that every step they take, they
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: are leaving a glowing, microscopic map for the investigators to follow.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: The biological evidence completely destroyed Boye's alibi. But the investigators
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: didn't stop there. They started looking at the digital evidence.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: How do police extract data from a teenager's phone? especially
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: if it's locked or deleted.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Investigators use highly advanced digital extraction tools. They don't just
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: look at the screen, they image the entire hard drive.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Of the phone. So nothing is really gone.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. These tools can bypass passwords, recover deleted text messages,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: resurrect wiped internet search histories, and pull hidden metadata that
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: shows exactly when and where a photo was taken. They
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: had confiscated Boy A's mobile phone, again, ostensibly as part
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: of the investigation into his assault.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: But when digital forensics experts extracted the raw data from
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: that device, they found the psychological blueprint for the murder.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: They found a screenshot of a list of YouTube videos
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: with titles like 15 Most Gruesome Torture Methods in History
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: and Horror Films That Will Blow Everything Away.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: They also found references to a horror video game called
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Until Dawn, specifically a search or note related to a
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: prompt in the game that said, get Jessica's clothes off.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly dark.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: And they found that he had saved a widely shared,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: incredibly dark internet short story about a teenage boy who
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: murders his own family called Jeff the Killer.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: On their own, in a vacuum, a defense attorney might
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: try to explain these searches away as just a morbid
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: teenage fascination with the macabre.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, lots of kids like spooky stuff. Exactly.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Millions of teenagers consume true crime, horror movies, and violent
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: video games safely without ever committing an act of violence.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: But context in a murder investigation is everything. What elevated
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: this from passive media consumption to active premeditated intent was
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: another specific geolocated search found in his digital history.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: What was it?
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: Prior to the murder, Boy A had actively searched the
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: internet for abandoned places in Lucan.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Abandoned places in Lucan. Glenwood House. He was scouting the location.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: He was.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: The consumption of violent media had blurred into real-world action.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: In a developing, deeply disturbed adolescent mind, the horror media
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: didn't act as simple entertainment. It acted as an actionable
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: blueprint for a preconceived, meticulously planned crime. The searches proved
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: it wasn't a spontaneous act of violence in the park
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: that got out of hand. It was an ambush.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Armed with the biological proof of the semen and the
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: blood on the boots, the blatant discrepancies in the boys' walkthroughs,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: the shared glance of panic, and the digital map of
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: premeditation on the phone, the Gardie made their move. On
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: the evening of May 23rd, just over a week after
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Anna disappeared, the authorities contacted the parents of boy A,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: and the parents of boy B.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: And what did they say?
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: They informed them that arrest warrants had been issued, and
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: they were required to bring their sons into the police
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: station the following morning.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: In a chilling display of tactical police procedure, the officers
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: purposefully withheld a crucial piece of logistical information from the parents.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: They did not tell them that the moment the boys
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: were taken into custody at the station, heavily coordinated police
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: teams were going to execute thorough, aggressive search warrants on
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: both of their family homes Wow. The parents were about
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: to face a reality they couldn't possibly fathom.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? We started this deep
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: dive talking about the architecture of danger. We think about strangers.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: We think about the dark. But the tragic irony at
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: the very heart of Anna Kriegel's story is almost too
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: much to bear. Here was a girl who was desperately lonely.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: She was bullied in the real world for being tall,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: for being adopted.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: She retreated to the digital world to find connection.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, creating YouTube videos in her bedroom, only to be
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: met with horrific cruelty. Strangers telling her to die, driving
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: her to the point of creating fake accounts to hurt herself,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: just to feel a semblance of control. She was starved
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: for a real-world connection.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: And when a boy from her school finally rang her
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: doorbell on a sunny afternoon, a boy she wasn't even
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: friends with, she pushed aside her confusion, put on her
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: favorite hoodie, gave her father a big smile. and walked
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: out the door.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: She walked willingly into an ambush orchestrated by boys from
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: her own community, boys from respectable backgrounds with no history
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: of violent behavior.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: It's just devastating.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Which leaves us with a deeply uncomfortable, provocative thought to
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: mull over as we end this deep dive. As parents,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: as a society, we spend so much of our energy
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: worrying about the strangers our youth might encounter and the
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: dark alleys of the physical world. We teach them stranger danger.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: We tell them to walk in well-lit areas.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: But Anna's story forces us to look closer to home.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: It really does. The most dangerous forces might not be
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: lurking in an alleyway. They might just be the dark algorithms,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: the macabre digital echo chambers, and the silent, violent resentments
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: brewing right now in the brightly lit bedrooms of the
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: kids next door. The boys whose parents thought they were
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: just doing their chores. How well do we truly know
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the digital lives of the people around us? Think about
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: that the next time you look out your window at
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: a quiet, sunny suburban street. Thank you for joining us
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: on this deep dive. Keep asking questions and keep seeking
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the truth.