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3 Family Members Murdered And Burned In Targeted Attack · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this. You look at a pristine, undisturbed
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: crime scene, right? And there's this almost like a brutal
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: honesty to it.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Right. The physics of it.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The blood spatter tells you the angle of the strike.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: The footprint gives you the stride, the weight of the intruder.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: It's just raw data at that point.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But when a perpetrator deliberately introduces this massive, catastrophic
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: element like a full-blown structural fire... They aren't just destroying evidence.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: No, they're weaponizing the environment. Right.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: They are actively lying to the investigators. You aren't just
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: looking for clues anymore. You're trying to read a manuscript where,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: you know, half the pages are just burned to ash
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and the other half are written in a totally different language.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: And the intention completely shifts there from the commission of
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: the crime to to this act of aggressive deception.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Because fire changes everything, doesn't it?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, fundamentally. It alters the chemical and physical reality of
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: the space. I mean, it literally collapses the timeline of
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: the evidence.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: But the case we are diving into today, the ashes
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of this house in Pinyon Pines, California, it's a scenario
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: where the attempt to erase the narrative was just so overwhelming.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: So theatrical, really.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, theatrical is a good word for it. The erasure
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: itself became the biggest piece of evidence. And it took
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: seven years for anyone to decode that destruction.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Seven years of navigating extreme investigative tunnel vision.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: And some wild local political sabotage, too.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yes. And the underlying psychology of a just incredibly targeted attack.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So for you listening at home, our mission today is
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to untangle this massive triple homicide. To really understand the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: logistical audacity of this crime. We have to start with
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the geography.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: The setting is crucial here. Pinion Pines is not some,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: you know, sleepy suburban cul-de-sac.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: No, you can't just peek through your blinds and see
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: your neighbor's kitchen.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It's like a locked room mystery, but on a mountain.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's this rugged, high-altitude desert community. It's sitting about
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: 17 miles up the sheer, winding mountain road above the
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Coachella Valley.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: And that elevation, that geography is basically the first accomplice
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: in this case, really.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I would absolutely call it an accomplice. When you drive
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: up Highway 74 into that area, you're leaving the standard
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: infrastructural grid completely behind.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It's just rocks and heavy brush.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Heavily brushed, rocky, and fundamentally isolating. The Freedly family, who
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: lived in the home at the center of all this,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: they actually used to joke about it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: About how isolated they were.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they'd say they could stand on their front porch
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and just scream at the absolute top of their lungs
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: and the acoustics of the mountain would just swallow the sound. Wow.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: There were simply no neighbors close enough to hear anything.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: And even crazier, especially for a modern case, is the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: cell service situation. Or the lack thereof.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: The local topography created this massive cell phone dead zone.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: The standard reception up there was literally zero bars.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Which completely changes the operational calculus for a predator.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: It really does. Because think about it. If I'm planning
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a home invasion in a normal neighborhood... My window of
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: operation is, what, maybe a few minutes?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: If that, a car drives by or a dog barks.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: A neighbor calls 911 and the patrol car is there
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: in three blocks.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: But up in Pinon Pines, the predator knows the rules
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: are different. Even if a victim somehow gets to a phone,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: the call just won't connect.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: And even if they have a landline and get through
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: to dispatch, the physical drive time for a sheriff's deputy
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to navigate 17 miles of switchbacks, I mean, that gives
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the perpetrator a massive guaranteed head start.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: It guarantees them an extraction window. The isolation gives them
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: the psychological comfort of time.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Time to actually do it and time to stage the aftermath.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Right. Because by the time first responders even see the
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: smoke cresting over the tree line and then make that
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: arduous drive up the mountain, the killers are already gone.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: They're just descending right back into the anonymity of the valley.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: It's chilling.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: And that weaponized isolation really sets the stage for what
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: investigators find when they finally cross that property line.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Because they aren't met with a standard crime scene at all.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: No, they are met with a total inferno. Inside the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: smoldering remains of this house, they find two victims. Vicki Freedly,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: who was 53, and her boyfriend, John Hayward.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: And Vicki, by all accounts, was this very free-spirited, deeply
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: kind woman.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: A bit of a hippie.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a very kind-hearted hippie type. And John was really
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: the stabilizing good father figure in the home.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: But when the autopsies come back, they reveal that the
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: fire didn't actually kill them.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: No, the fire was purely secondary. Vicki suffered a fatal.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: 40 caliber gunshot wound to the head.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And John was killed by a shotgun blast to the chest.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Which is a massive behavioral indicator for us. The presence
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: of two entirely different calibers and types of firearms.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: A handgun and a shotgun.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Right. Now, while one shooter could technically carry both, The
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: logistics of a dynamic entry into a multi-occupant dwelling, it
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: strongly points to a coordinated ambush.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: By at least two armed individuals.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. This wasn't some burglary that went sideways because someone
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: woke up to get a glass of water.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: No, they breached that house with overwhelming lethal force. They
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: meant to eliminate multiple adults at the same time.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: But the fire, that massive structural fire they set to
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: cover up those executions, it completely fails to explain the
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: most horrifying element of the scene.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Because there's a third victim. Vicki's youngest daughter, Becky Freedly.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: She was 18.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: The family described her as a live wire.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, funny, bubbly, basically the glue of the family.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: But Becky isn't found inside the house with her mother
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: and John.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: She's outside, completely separate from the primary structure fire. The
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: killers literally took the time to place her body inside
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: this old wheelbarrow at the very end of their long driveway.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And then they set her on fire right there.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: The thermal destruction was so absolute, the medical examiner couldn't
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: even definitively pinpoint her cause of death.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It's horrific. And from a purely tactical risk management perspective
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: for a criminal, it makes zero sense. Right.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. If they just wanted to
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: cover their tracks with a fire, why go through the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: immense trouble of moving Becky outside into a wheelbarrow? Moving
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a body is hard physical labor.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: It requires exertion. It takes precious time.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: And it forces the killers out into the open air.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: What if a passing car's headlights catch them? Why abandon
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the perfectly good cover of a burning house just to
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: drag one specific victim to the edge of the property?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: That precise question is the anomaly that fractures the entire
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: logic of the crime scene.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: It makes no sense.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Not tactically, no. The wheelbarrow serves absolutely no utility. It's
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: a massive operational liability. So we have to look at
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: it through the lens of forensic psychology.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down for us.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: In behavioral analysis, this specific type of post-mortem manipulation is
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: called posing.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Posing.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. Placing Becky at the absolute end of the driveway
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: ensures that she is the unavoidable primary focal point.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: For anyone arriving. The deputies, the fire department.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Or her family. It's a macabre exhibition.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: They are forced to confront her before they even process
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: that the house behind her is burning.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: It's a deliberate communication. The perpetrators are using the geography
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: of that driveway to make a declarative statement.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Which is what?
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: That the adults in the house were merely collateral damage.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Becky was the objective.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Wow. And private investigator Luis Poliganos, who we will talk
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a lot about later, because he basically reverse engineers this
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: whole case. He zeroes in on this. Posing is the key.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: He does. Because the method of destruction used on Becky
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: the Fire wasn't random.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: It was weaponized trauma.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Very specifically targeted.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: This detail is just heartbreaking. Becky had a lifelong, well-known,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: intense fear of being burned.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: A profound phobia. Right.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Because when she was just three or four years old,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: there was a terrible accident. Her sister accidentally spilled a
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: pan of burning cooking oil on her.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Which left severe burn scars down her chest for her
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: entire life.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: And the trauma from that just dictated her relationship with fire.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: She's terrified of it.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: So to orchestrate a murder where you use a wheelbarrow
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: to deliberately display a victim and then intentionally subject her
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: to the one specific element she has feared since childhood.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: It transcends just wanting someone dead.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Completely. That is a level of intimate sadism. It requires
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: a deep personal knowledge of the victim's internal psychology.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: It's like a real-world horror movie trope, you know, where
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the monster doesn't just want to kill you. They want
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: to use your deepest, most specific fear against you.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the specificity of that violence immediately eliminates the
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: possibility of a stranger.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: A random burglar doesn't know about an 18-year-old's childhood medical history.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Or her deeply held phobias. No. No. The choice to
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: use fire on Becky, totally independent of the house fire,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: was a punitive measure. It was designed by someone deeply
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: embedded in her social circle.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Someone who knew how to maximize the psychological horror of it. Right.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: But despite that glaring neon sign pointing toward a highly
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: personal motive, the initial law enforcement response just swerves into
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: a completely different lane.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: They go right past the social circle and start looking
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: at Ron Friedley.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Vicky's ex-husband and Becky's biological father.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Right. Now, Ron had actually built that Pinion Pines house
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: with his own two hands.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: And he had just retired as a sheriff's deputy a
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: year prior.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Which instantly spins up the investigative machine. They latch on
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: to what we call the grudge theory.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: The grudge theory. Because he was a former cop, they
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: figure someone he arrested got out of prison, held a grudge,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: went to the house thinking Ron still lived there.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: And just killed whoever was inside.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's fascinating how quickly professionals will abandon the actual
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: physical evidence... the deeply intimate posing of the daughter, just
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: to grab onto a narrative that feels culturally familiar to them.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: While police love a logical narrative, the vengeful ex-con hunting
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: the retired cop is a storyline that makes intuitive sense
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: to a department.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: It externalizes the threat. Okay. it a cop issue.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But it also burns the most critical resource you
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: have in any homicide investigation, which is the first 48 hours.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: And for you listening, we've talked about this before, but
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: it's so easy for an investigation to waste those precious
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: early hours going down a plausible but entirely wrong rabbit hole.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: The initial hours are the golden window. Cell data is fresh.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Surveillance tapes at gas stations haven't taped over themselves yet.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: And the perpetrators are usually panicking, right? They make mistakes.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: In theory, yes. But while detectives are busy pulling decade-old
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: arrest records and giving a polygraph to Ron, which he passed,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: by the way, the actual killers are getting a massive
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: head start.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: The delay just insulates them. I know the police also
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: looked into a possible drug connection with John, which went nowhere.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Right. They ruled that out, too. These aren't malicious detours.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: They're standard operating procedure. But rigidly checking those external boxes
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: allows the real internal threat to solidify their alibis.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Because once the ex-husband and the drug theories are finally
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: tossed out, the focus shifts back to where it should
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: have been on day one. The victim social circle.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Specifically, a highly toxic high school romance.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Enter Robert Pape. This is Becky's ex-boyfriend from high school.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And look, at first, Becky was really smitten with him.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: But Robert quickly became incredibly possessive.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: The psychological profile from her family shows a classic escalation.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: He was jealous, controlling.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: The whole, if I can't have you, no one else
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: can mentality.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: He was treating her like property. And this volatility was
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: heavily amplified by his best friend, Christian Smith.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: They were kind of a package deal, right?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: They were. People in Becky's orbit noted that Robert and
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Christian acted as an echo chamber for each other. They
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: validated and escalated each other's aggressive tendencies.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And that aggression boils over in a very public way,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: literally the day before the murders.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: A critical catalyst event.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Right. So Becky is waitressing at a Denny's down in
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: the valley. Robert and Christian walk in. And they don't
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: just sit and eat. They initiate this highly heated, really loud,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: one-way verbal exchange.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: A profound display of intimidation while she's just trying to work.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And here's where it gets really interesting. Because we only
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: know the details of this Denny's confrontation because of a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: phone call Becky made on her way home that night.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: She called her cousin, Daniela Zermano. Right.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: She's driving up the mountain. She calls Daniela and she
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: tells her about this screaming match.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: But then she drops this massive bombshell. She tells her
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: cousin that to get the boys to back off, she
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: agreed to go on a night hike with them the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: following evening.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: The exact night she is murdered.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: And as she's saying this to her cousin, her car
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: hits that pinyon pine's dead zone. The call drops.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: The last time she ever speaks to anyone.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Okay. I have to push back on the police timeline here.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Because Daniela told her mother about this hike immediately after
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the news of the murders broke.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, the very next morning.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And her mother called investigators right away to report the
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Denny's fight and the hike. So they had this tip
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: on day one. Why was Daniela ignored by the police
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: for seven years?
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: It's a systemic failure of information management driven by that
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: tunnel vision we talked about.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: But it's so specific. How do you lose a tip
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: about an angry ex-boyfriend meeting the victim the night she dies?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: You have to understand the mechanics of bureaucratic overload. In
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: the immediate aftermath of a triple homicide, a department is
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: generating thousands of pages of raw data. Dispatch logs, canvassing notes,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: forensic reports.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Just a mountain of paper.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Right. And when Daniela's mother calls that tip in, the
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: lead detectives are completely consumed by the grudge theory regarding
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Ron Friedley.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So they just what? They didn't even look at it.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: They probably routed it to a secondary investigator. They did
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: do a superficial check on Robert Pape, and he and
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Christian claimed they were at a church event that night.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And they just took their word for it.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Because they weren't prioritized, nobody immediately subpoenaed the cell data
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: to verify the church alibi. The initial tip just got
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: lost in the shuffle of bureaucracy.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: That is maddening. Because the police dropped the ball on
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Daniela's tip, the case goes completely cold. For years.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: It settled into a state of total inertia. Once a
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: case goes cold like that, it requires an immense external
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: force to restart the machinery.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to Luis Bolaganos. He's a private investigator
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: who knew the Freedly family, and he used to work
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: with Ron back in the day.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: He takes the case pro bono.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he watches this thing just sit in a filing cabinet.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And he decides he's going to crack it. And he
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: starts by going straight for the thread the police ignored.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: He realizes immediately that Robert and Christian's alibis are incredibly weak.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: He looks at the claim that they canceled the hike
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and went to church. And Lewis manages to get a
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: look at their cell phone records. And what he finds
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: completely breaks their alibi.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Because their phones didn't just stay in the valley.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: At a church. No, their cell phones both completely shut
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: off during the exact crucial time window of the murders.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And the pings, right before they went dark. They showed
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: both boys traveling up Highway 74.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: The direct route toward Pinion Pines. Right.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: So their digital footprint puts them heading straight for the
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: crime scene.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: But Lewis also finds a piece of physical evidence that
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: the original detective severely undervalued.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: A business card.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Found 70 yards north of the crime scene. And
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: it had Christian Smith's DNA on it.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: So you have cell pings heading up the mountain. Phones
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: shutting off at the time of the murder. And DNA
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: 70 yards from the house. But the DA still wouldn't
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: arrest them.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Because in court, 70 yards away isn't inside the house.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: A defense attorney could argue the wind blew the card there,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: or Christian dropped it weeks prior. Lewis knew the DA
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: wouldn't move without more direct pressure.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: So Lewis decides to create that pressure. And the tactics
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: he uses, I mean, this is straight out of Hollywood.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: He essentially wages psychological warfare against the suspects.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: He puts up these massive, highly graphic billboards right along
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the route the boys drive every day. It showed Becky
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: vibrant and smiling, right next to the scorched, apocalyptic crime scene.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: It generated about 3,000 tips from the public. But the
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: real goal was to shatter the suspects' sense of security.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: To make them sweat.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. To induce cognitive overload, hoping they would panic and
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: talk to each other, creating a new evidence trail.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: But he doesn't stop there. Have He teams up with
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Hollywood producers to make this hyper-realistic television reenactment of the crime,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: just broadcasting it to the whole valley to get the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: public talking.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: And then comes his masterstroke, the ambush.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Oh man, this part is wild. Lewis approaches Robert Pape
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: under the guise of making a tribute video for Becky's family.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: It's a brilliant pretext. It lulls Robert into a false
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: sense of compliance.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: He gets a camera crew right onto Robert's front porch.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And once the camera's rolling, Lewis starts asking about the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Denny's confrontations.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Which Robert categorically denies on tape.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: He traps him in a lie. Because Lewis already has
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Daniela's recorded statement about the fight. Now he has the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: prime suspect on high-definition video lying about his last interaction
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: with the victim.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: The brilliance of these unconventional tactics is that Lewis isn't
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: just looking for old clues. He's forcing the suspects to
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: generate new, incriminating behavior in real time.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: And the immense public pressure from all this finally forces
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the district attorney's hand. Warrants are issued.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Seven years after the murders?
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Seven years. D.A. Paul Zellerbach arrests Robert and Christian. The
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: family is ecstatic. You'd think, OK, case closed.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: But this is where the case derails in a way
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: nobody could have predicted.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: It is so bizarre. Six months after the arrest, right
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: before the preliminary hearing, the D.A. abruptly drops all charges.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: The boys walk free.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: And the reason why is a masterclass in political absurdity.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's untangle this. The defense attorneys for Robert and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Christian had subpoenaed D.A. Zellerbach himself to testify at the hearing.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Which is highly unusual.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: To avoid taking the stand, Zellerbach just drops the charges
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: on a Friday.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Because Zellerbach had recently been caught on video carrying down
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: his political opponent's campaign signs.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Literally pulling them out of the dirt along the road.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And the guy who filmed him doing it? His name
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: was Javier Garcia Sr.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: who was an employee of the DA's own office.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Like a bad soap opera. But here is the critical twist.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Javier Garcia Sr. has son, Javier Garcia Jr., who is
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: very much in love with Becky Friedle.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: And Javier Jr. 's phone had pinged near the mountain
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: that exact night.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Right, because he drove up there to try and join
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the hike, got rejected by Becky over the phone, and
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: drove home. He was cleared as a suspect, but the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: DA needed him to testify about the hike.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: But Javier Sr., knowing how defense attorneys operate, demanded blanket
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: immunity for his son before he would let him testify.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Zellerbeck refused the immunity. So Javier Sr. filmed the DA
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: stealing signs out of revenge.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: That was Zellerbeck's claim, yes. It was a completely messy
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: web of local politics.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I need to pause here and just say to you listening,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: we are not taking political sides in this local DA
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: race at all.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: We are merely reporting the documented chaos of that actively
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: obstructed a triple murder trial. Three people are dead and
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: justice is stalled because of stolen campaign signs and internal
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: office drama.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating reality. The suspects are free again.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: The family is back to square one, completely crushed.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: It's just brutal. But thankfully, that isn't the end of
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the story. Because Zellerbach loses the election. An entirely new
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: administration takes over under DA Mike Hestron.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: And Hestron's team spends a year and a half reevaluating
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: all the evidence.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: And during all that stalled time, the relentless march of
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: technological progress basically hands them the keys to the case.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Time is often the enemy of a cold case, but
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: here it was their greatest ally.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Because DNA tech jumped exponentially.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: It did. That business card with Christian Smith's DNA. Originally,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: it was a 323,000 to one match.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Which defense attorneys can poke holes in.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Right. But with new probabilistic genotyping, that match became 100
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: million to one.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: 100 million to one. That is basically undeniable.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: It locks Christian to that location scientifically.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And then there are the digital breadcrumbs. Investigators start digging
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: into old online archives, and they find messages where Robert
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Pape was using the screen name Buttercup1000.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: This is a staggering piece of digital forensics.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: He's messaging a friend, and they're joking around. And Robert
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: literally types out a joke about professionally burning down a
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: house and going through a six-pack of matches.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: It establishes this undeniable behavioral signature. He fantasized about arson
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: as a tool.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: And criminals just get too comfortable, don't they?
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: They absolutely do. Especially when they think they've gotten away
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: with it once already.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Because the police also pulled the jailhouse calls from the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: brief six months in the south.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Robert was locked up the first time.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And every inmate knows those calls are recorded.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: There's an automated voice that tells you. But Robert is
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: on tape talking to his then-wife, Sarah, telling her to
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: hide an unregistered. 40 caliber firearm.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: The exact same caliber used to execute Vicki Freedly.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: It's astounding arrogance. And if that wasn't enough, an informant
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: comes forward claiming Christian Smith confessed to them. The informant
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: stated that Christian admitted things got out of hand on
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: the mountain and they had to burn the place down
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: to cover it up.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: So you have the 100 million to 1 DNA, the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Buttercup 1000 arson chat, the jailhouse gun tape, and an informant.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: The circumstantial matrix is finally ironclad. Robert and Christian are rearrested.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Facing the death penalty and life in prison, respectively. And
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: they both plead not guilty. But I have to ask
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you about Christian Smith for a second. Because this juxtaposition
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: is wild.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Because in the years between the murders and his final arrest,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Christian didn't just lay low. He joined the military. He
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: became a decorated war hero with two purple hearts. How
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: does a person compartmentalize that?
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: It forces us to confront this terrifying capacity for psychological dissociation.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: To allegedly participate in the sadistic execution of an 18-year-old
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: girl and then seamlessly transition into a rigid, honor-bound military structure.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: To bleed for your country while hiding this absolute slaughter.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: He built an impenetrable firewall in his own mind between
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: those two identities. It shows that a uniform of extreme
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: honor can sometimes be the perfect camouflage. Wow.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for us? We've gone
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: from a quiet desert mountain to a horrific targeted burn
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: through literal political absurdity to a tech-driven arrest.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: And we must remember the human toll. As Becky's sister said,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: there is no managing this loss. She was the heart
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: of the family and she was robbed of her life.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. The damage is permanent. But before we wrap up,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I know you had a final lingering thought on how
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: this case ultimately cracked.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Yes. It revolves around a concept I call the digital ghost.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: The digital ghost. I like that.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Think about it. Every cell phone ping on Highway 74,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: every dropped call in a dead zone, every old chatroom
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: log under the name Buttercup 1000. We leave a digital
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: ghost of our actions.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And it outlives all our physical alibis.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Precisely. In the modern era, you can run from a
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: crime scene, you can burn a house down to its foundation,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: but you can never truly burn your data.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: It's always sitting there on a server somewhere, waiting.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: It really makes you wonder how much of our own
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: digital ghosts are tracking our everyday movements without us even
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: realizing it.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: That is a terrifying and fascinating thought to leave on.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening and joining us on
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: this deep dive. Keep asking questions. Keep seeking multiple perspectives,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and we will see you next time.