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Betrayal in the Fields: The Laura Wallen Story · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine, just for a second, looking your future father-in-law dead
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: in the eye. You're sitting there at a mall food court,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and he is absolutely grilling you about your intentions with
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: his pregnant daughter.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Which is totally understandable.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, completely. So to prove your absolute devotion, you reach
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: into your pocket, you pull out a diamond engagement ring,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and you promise this man you are going to marry her. Right.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: And you manage to convince him. But then literally just
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a few hours later, you drive to a completely different house,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: sit down with a completely different woman, pull out that
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: exact same diamond ring and propose to her.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it is the kind of behavior that almost
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: defies human comprehension, honestly.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you even the sheer audacity?
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Right. The audacity required to not just live a double life,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: but to actively intersect those lives. using the exact same
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: prop on the exact same day.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: It's wild.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: It requires a psychological makeup that most of us just, well,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: we can't even begin to fathom it.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And that is exactly our mission on this deep
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: dive today. We're going to tear apart the mechanics of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: that exact deception.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: We really are.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: We're looking at a man who successfully ran a parallel
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: existence for years, completely isolating the women in his life through, honestly,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: just calculated psychological manipulation.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, highly calculated.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: We're going to explore the harrowing timeline of this tragic
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Labor Day weekend and dig into the actual forensic science
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and the behavioral analysis that finally unraveled his lies.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: And of course, the intense legal hurdles a grieving family
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: had to navigate just to forge some kind of protective legacy.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Right. And to do this, we're pulling our insights today
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: from a really highly detailed true crime documentary transcript. It's
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: from the YouTube channel Beyond Evil.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Which is a great source. Yeah.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: It really is. It breaks down the disappearance and murder
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of Laura Wallen. But, you know, we aren't just going
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: to look at the timeline here.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Well, we want to understand the how and the why
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: of it all. Like, how does someone physically and mentally
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: sustain a lie of this magnitude?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And as we get into this, I really want you,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the listener, to think about your own circles.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, that's a good point. Right.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Like, think about the people you share your location with
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: on your phone, the people who have a spare key
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: to your house. We all operate on this... This baseline
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: assumption of trust.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: We have to or society wouldn't function.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But this deep dive is essentially a masterclass in
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: how bad actors exploit that exact baseline.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: It really challenges you to look at how extreme compartmentalization
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: actually works in practice. Yeah. And how a facade that looks,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: you know, totally perfect from the outside is usually held
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: together by this incredibly dark, really brittle architecture on the inside.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Which is why we need to start by looking at
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the people involved.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Because the contrast here is what makes the architecture of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: this whole deception so completely baffling.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, the contrast is stark.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: It is. You have Laura Wallen. She's 31 years old,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a social studies teacher at Wild Lake High School over
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: in Columbia, Maryland. And she wasn't just like a competent teacher.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: She was exceptional.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Right. In 2016, she was literally named Teacher of the Year.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: And to get that award... I mean, you can't just
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: be good at grading papers. You have to be deeply
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: emotionally available.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: You're managing the psychological development of hundreds of teenagers.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You're communicating with parents, collaborating with faculty. It requires
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a person who is fundamentally rooted in reality and empathy.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: You know, you have to be authentic.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Precisely. She was someone who lived her life entirely in
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the open.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: But her romantic life was anchored to a man who
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: operated entirely in the shadows.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Tyler Cassidy. Right.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Right. For about 10 years, she had been in this on-again,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: off-again relationship with him. Now, long-term, fluctuating relationships, they're normal.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Sure, people change, they drift, they come back.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But while Laura was building this highly visible, community-oriented life,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Tyler Tessier was building something entirely different.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: And this is where it gets crazy. In 2012, while
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: he was actively dating Laura, he moves in with another woman.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Her name was Christina Wagner.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And in one of those bizarre twists of fate, she
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: was also a teacher.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't make that up.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Now, here is where my brain just starts to short circuit.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: He lives with Christina. Yeah. But he is still dating Laura.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And he maintains this for five years, five whole years.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, let's just look at the logistics of that
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: for a second. How does he pay for things without
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a shared bank account showing weird charges?
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: How does he manage holidays? How does a person not
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: slip up and text the wrong name or, I don't know,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: leave the location services on their phone running.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: It requires an exhausting level of cognitive load. I mean,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: for an average person, the mental bandwidth just to keep
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: those schedules straight would lead to a total breakdown within
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: a month.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I would be exhausted in a week.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But for a highly compartmentalized manipulator, the logistics are just, well,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: they're just a puzzle they actually enjoy solving. Wow. They
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: use burner phones. They insist on separate finances, claiming a
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: desire for independence. And they manufacture jobs or obligations that
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: require constant unexplained travel or absence.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Right. He always had some excuse.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: But the physical logistics are actually the easy part. The
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: real defense mechanism here is psychological. It's a tactic we
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: call preemptive character assassination. Okay.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to get to that. Because he didn't
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: just hide these women from each other. That would be
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: like the standard cowardly cheating route.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Right. The usual way.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: He actively introduced the idea of the other woman to
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: each of them, but completely distorted the reality. He told
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Laura that Christina was an unstable, obsessed stalker. He literally
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: framed her as dangerous.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: And he turned right around and told Christina the exact
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: same thing about Laura.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: It's insane.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: He actually told Christina that Laura was a diagnosed schizophrenic
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: who refused to take her medication.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Which is like, it's like building a submarine and purposefully
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: sealing the bulkheads.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: If a leak springs in one compartment, you seal it
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: off so the whole ship doesn't sink. By convincing both
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: women that the other was clinically insane or, you know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: violently obsessed, he sealed the doors. Yep.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: The truth could never flow from one compartment to the other.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Because if you believe a woman is a dangerous stalker,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: you aren't going to invite her out for coffee to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: compare notes on your boyfriend. You are going to block
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: her on every single platform.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: It's social engineering at its absolute most insidious. he created
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: a psychological firewall.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: He positioned himself as the victim to both women, which
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: not only kept them apart, but it actually elicited their
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: sympathy and their protective instincts toward him.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: So they were trying to protect him from each other.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He became the only authorized source of truth in
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: their lives regarding this supposed threat.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: But the thing about submarines, you know, is they have
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: crush depths. You can only dive so deep before the
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: external pressure just completely compromises the hull.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: And the pressure was building.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, big time. And the pressure on this bizarre dual
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: reality he built finally hits critical mass in July of 2017.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Laura discovers she's four months pregnant.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Which is huge news.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: She's thrilled. She tells her family and, of course, Laura's father,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Mark Wallen. He steps in. He wants to know what
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the plan is. So he arranges that meeting at the
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: mall that we talked about at the top of the show.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Mark Wallen did exactly what a protective parent does. You know,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: he wanted to look the man in the eye and
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: gauge his intent.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: And this interaction is so revealing from a behavioral standpoint.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Because when an ordinary person is caught in a lie,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: their physiological response completely gives them away.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Like sweating.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Right. Right. Their heart rate spikes. They break eye contacts.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: They stumble over their words.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: But Tyler Tessier doesn't do any of that.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Nothing. Nothing.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Mark brings up the rumors he's heard about this other woman,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and Tyler doesn't even blink. He swears he hasn't seen
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: her in years, and then he just produces the engagement ring.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: The sheer lack of a stress response there is terrifying.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: He just glides right through it.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: It's chilling.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: It points to a concept called narcissistic adaptation.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: What does that mean exactly?
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Well, he doesn't experience the moral friction of lying. To him,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: words are just tools to manipulate the current environment to
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: his advantage.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: So he just says whatever works in the moment.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He needed Mark Wallen off his back in that
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: specific moment, so he deployed the ring.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: But the fact that he went to Christina's house that
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: very same night and used the same ring to propose
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: to her, I mean, that shows that he has completely
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: lost the ability to accurately assess risk.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: He thought he was untouchable. He actually agreed to a
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: wedding date with Christina that was set for just one
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: month after Laura was due to give birth.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I keep trying to put myself in his shoes, trying
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: to figure out the endgame here. Did he really think
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: he could juggle a newborn baby with Laura on a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Tuesday and go cake tasting with Christina on a Wednesday?
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: It is a grandiose delusion.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: It has to be.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: It absolutely is. Pathological manipulators often suffer from this profound arrogance.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: They've gotten away with the lie for so long that
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: they believe they have fundamentally outsmarted reality.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: The rules don't apply to them.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Right. They think they can manage the unmanageable because, well,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: up until now, they always have.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: But reality always wins eventually. As August rolls around, the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: bulkheads start to buckle.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the pressure's too much.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Lori is preparing for the baby. She's getting her classroom
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: ready for the fall. But she clearly has some lingering suspicions.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Because despite everything Tyler told her about Christina being an
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: obsessed stalker, Laura somehow finds out that Tyler's actually engaged
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: to her.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: The truth leaks in.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: So on August 28th, Laura makes a move that just
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: destroys the firewall. She texts Christina directly.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: That text message is the pressure event that breaches the hull.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: By breaking the rule of isolation, Laura introduces objective reality
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: into the system.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: And Christina, understandably, is furious.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, she is enraged. She confronts Tyler with this text.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Now, Tyler is cornered. The two compartments are flooded. But
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: instead of surrendering, he just doubles down. He tells Christina, see,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I told you she was a stalker. This text proves
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: that she is actively harassing you.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Such a breeze and spin.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And he actually convinces Christina that that they need to
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: go to the police department to handle it.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: This is a really crucial pivot. When the interpersonal manipulation fails,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: the manipulator will often try to co-opt external institutional authority
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: to validate their lie.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: So if the police say it, it must be true.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If he can get the police to declare Laura
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: a stalker, it reinforces his narrative to Christina.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: So they actually go to the police station. They sit
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: down with an officer. And Tyler starts trying to file
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: stalking charges and get a protective order against Laura.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Which is incredibly bold.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: But the officer stops him and explains the mechanics of
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: a protective order. He says, OK, we can process this.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: But you realize that for a protective order to be granted,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: all parties have to appear before a judge. You are
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: going to have to testify under oath. And the absolute
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: second the officer says under oath, Tyler just pulls the plug.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: He drops the complaint entirely and gets Christine out of
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the building.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: We really have to analyze why that specific phrase terrified him.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, why under oath?
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Because Tyler had spent five years comfortably lying to the
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: women he supposedly loved, right? And he had no problem
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: lying to Laura's father. So why does a judge scare him?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Because the judge doesn't care about his feelings.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because the legal system represents a hard structural boundary
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: that relies on physical evidence, not emotional manipulation. Right.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: You can't gaslight a subpoena.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Perfectly said. You can't. Perjury carries a completely different set
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: of consequences than infidelity. He immediately calculates the risk. In
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: a courtroom, a judge isn't just going to take his
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: word for it.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: They're going to want receipts.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Yes. They are going to pull text messages. They are
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: going to look at lease agreements. They are going to
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: put Laura on the stand. He realizes that the moment
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: he raises his right hand in that courtroom, his entire
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: double life becomes a matter of public, legally documented record.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: So the institutional route is dead. He can't silence Laura
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: legally and she isn't going away. She is carrying his
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: child and actively communicating with his other fiance.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: He has completely lost structural control.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: And when a highly compartmentalized manipulator loses control, they don't apologize.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: They escalate. This forces him to manufacture a scenario where
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: he has total physical control, which leads directly to the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: adventure he plans for Labor Day weekend.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: He begins deliberately isolating his targets. The weekend arrives, and
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Tyler and Christina were supposed to travel to Pennsylvania together.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: But suddenly, Tyler claims he has a severe knee injury.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: He tells Christina he can't possibly make the trip, so
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: she goes to Pennsylvania alone.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Laura's family had their own vacation planned for the holiday.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: But Tyler convinces Laura to skip it. He tells her
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: he has a surprise, an adventure, just for the two
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: of them.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: So look at what he's done.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he has successfully removed Christina from the state, And
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: he has successfully separated Laura from her family and her
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: support system.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: This level of premeditation is terrifying. It isn't a crime
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: of passion. It is a meticulously engineered isolation strategy.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So Saturday, September 2nd rolls around. He takes Laura out
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to dinner and they spend hours just driving around. He
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: spins this incredibly compelling narrative for her. He tells her
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: they're looking for a plot of land, a wide open
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: space to build a brand new house for their family.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Playing right into her hopes?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Exactly. For a woman who is four months pregnant and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: waiting for the engagement ring she knows he has, this
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: is the ultimate dream scenario. They drive for so long
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: that Laura completely loses her bearings.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Disorientation is a key tactic here. By taking her out
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: of her familiar geography, he increases her dependence on him.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to Sunday. They end up parked near
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: this massive sweeping field in Damascus, Maryland. Now, Damascus is
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: very rural. It is about 20 miles from Laura's home
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: in Olney, completely off her usual grid.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Very isolated.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Tyler stops the car, gets out, and walks away to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: make a phone call. While he is out of the car,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Laura does what any of us would do. She pulls
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: out her phone to update her sister, Jen.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: That sibling bond is critical here. Jen was Laura's tether
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: to reality.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Right. Jen asks where they are, so Laura snaps a
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: picture of the field and texts it to her. But
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: then Tyler returns to the car. He sees Laura texting.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: And in what probably looked like a spontaneous, affectionate gesture
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: to her, he takes the phone from Laura, snaps a
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: picture of her smiling with a field in the background,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and sends it to Jen himself.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And that photograph?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: That photograph would be the very last picture of Laura
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Wallen ever taken.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Think about the absolute chilling nature of that moment.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: It makes my stomach drop.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: He is looking at her through the lens of that camera,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: documenting the final moments of a woman he has already
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: decided to kill. He is managing the optics right up
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: to the very end.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: The next day is Monday, Labor Day. Jen is texting
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Laura's phone, trying to get details about the adventure. But
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the tone of their responses coming back is completely off.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Something's wrong.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Jen asks questions. She tells Laura to just call her.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: But the person on the other end of the phone
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: refuses to call. They will only text. Now, Jen knows
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: her sister. If Laura had big news or if she
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: was upset, she would be on the phone immediately.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: This is where Tyler Tessier makes a catastrophic error in
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: judgment regarding digital forensics and human behavior.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I find this part so fascinating because it applies to
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: all of us. Think about your own digital footprint. Think
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: about how you text your best friend versus your boss.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's completely different.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: You have a very specific syntax. You use certain emojis.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: You ignore punctuation. You abbreviate specific words. We all have
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: what linguists call an idiolect, an individual dialect. Yes. If
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: someone stole my phone right now and tried to text
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: my brother, he would know within three messages that it
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: wasn't me.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Because true intimacy cannot be spoofed. Tessier spent five years
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: building relationships based on surface level control. Right. He fundamentally
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: misunderstood the depth of a genuine lifelong sibling bond. We
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: are highly attuned to the micro patterns of our loved
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: one's communication. He thought he could seamlessly step into Laura's
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: digital shoes just by holding her physical device.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: And he fails miserably. In one of the texts to Jen,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: he brings up Laura's ex-boyfriend, a guy named Antoine. But
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: he spells it A-T-W-A-N. Jen stares at the screen. Laura
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: dated this guy for years. She obviously knew how to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: spell his name, plus she hadn't seen him in two years.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Why would she randomly bring him up, misspell his name,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and refuse to get on a phone call?
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: The red flags are everywhere.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Jen's intuition screams that the person texting her is not
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: her sister.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: He thought he was controlling the narrative, but he was
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: actually broadcasting his own guilt. He was leaving a trail
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: of behavioral breadcrumbs that pointed directly to an imposter.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And Jen's alarm bells go off. Right is the most
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: critical day of Laura's professional calendar arise. Tuesday, September 5th.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: It is the first day of the new school year.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: A huge day for a teacher.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: The teacher of the year has spent weeks decorating her classroom,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: refining her lesson plans. But when the morning bell rings
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: at Wild Lake High School, Laura's classroom is empty.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: For a professional of her caliber, an unexplained absence on
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: the first day of school is the equivalent of a
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: distress flare.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's unheard of.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: It is entirely antithetical to her established character. It forces
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: immediate action.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: The school immediately contacts the family. The family, already panicked
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: over those bizarre text messages, calls the Montgomery County Police
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: for a welfare check.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Which is standard procedure.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Right. Now, let's talk about the mechanics of a welfare check.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: When the police arrive at Laura's condo in Olney, they
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: aren't treating it as a crime scene yet. But the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: scene they find is deeply unsettling.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: What did they find?
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Well, the house isn't ransacked. There are no signs of
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a struggle. Her dog is inside, just waiting. But what
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: really stands out is that there are candles still burning
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: on the counter. Oh, wow. But Laura and her 2011
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: black Ford Escape are gone.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: The burning candles are a massive contextual clue.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Because you wouldn't just leave them.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You do not light candles and then decide to
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: pack a bag and run away to start a new life.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: You light candles when you intend to be in a
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: room for the foreseeable future. A burning candle implies an unexpected,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: abrupt interruption to a routine.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: So the family's frantic. They demand answers from Tyler. And
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: this is where Tyler's facade begins to crack under the
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: weight of actual law enforcement scrutiny.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: He's out of his depth.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Between September 5th and September 11th, detectives pull Tyler in
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: for multiple interviews. And it is fascinating to watch because
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: he essentially just throws spaghetti at the wall.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Trying to see what sticks.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He gives them three completely different contradictory alibis over
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the course of a week.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Which is exactly what behavioral analysts look for during interrogations.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Really? Yeah.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: An innocent person, even if they are the last person
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: to see the victim and look highly suspicious, will generally
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: tell one consistent story. They stick to it because the
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: truth is all they have. Right.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: They just say what happened.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: But a guilty person, however, experiences immense cognitive overload. They
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: are trying to reverse engineer an alibi in real time.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: constantly adapting their narrative based on what they think the
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: police have already discovered.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Wait, hold on. Let's look at story number one because
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: it is ridiculous. He actually sits down with detectives and
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: claims that he and Laura were on their date and
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: suddenly they were ambushed by a group of unknown men.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: A classic deflection.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: He says these men kidnapped them, murdered Laura, but let
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: him go because he begged for his life.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Did he really think Seasoned homicide detectives would buy a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: faceless movie villain plot with zero physical evidence? Why would
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a supposedly smart manipulator try something so unbelievably sloppy?
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Because panic overrides logic.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: He is used to dealing with isolated individuals who trust him, right?
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Not skeptical institutions that demand proof. Story number one is
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: a desperate attempt to introduce a foreign, untraceable element, the
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: nameless boogeyman, to deflect all responsibility.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Just point the finger at some phantom.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: But you're right. The police immediately poke holes in it.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: There is no evidence of an ambush, no distress calls,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: no witnesses. It falls apart instantly.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: So... When the police push back and tell him that
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: makes no sense, he immediately pivots to story number two.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: He says, OK, you're right. Actually, we got into a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: huge argument.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: A totally different approach. Right.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: He claims he dropped Laura off at her condo on
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Sunday night. He says she was hysterical, crying, and she
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: demanded her house key back. He claims he handed over
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the key, left, and they agreed to meet at the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Nordstrom Cafe at the Columbia Mall the next morning to
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: talk it out. But according to him, she never showed up.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: The second story is much more grounded. He is using mundane,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: realistic details of fight, returning a key, a specific half
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: fight to make it sound plausible.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Sounds like a normal breakup.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Strategically, he's doing two things here. He is explaining
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: why his DNA or fingerprints might be in her car
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: or condo. And he is establishing a timeline where she
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: disappeared on her own after he no longer had access
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: to her home.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: But the police are not just sitting in the interview
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: room listening to him talk. They're out in the world.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: gathering physical data. On September 7th, an employee at an
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: apartment complex called Gramercy Place, which is less than a
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: mile from the high school where Laura calls the police.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And what did they find?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: She found a driver's license tossed in a dumpster. It's Laura's.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: The police searched the area and find a discarded cell
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: phone nearby and parked right there in the apartment lot
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: is Laura's black Ford Escape.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: It's backed into a parking spot and the front license
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: plate has been physically removed.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: We need to explain why that matters. Backing a car
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: into a spot and stripping the front plate is a
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: classic counter-surveillance measure.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: To hide from who?
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: He was trying to hide the vehicle from automatic license
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: plate readers, or ALPRs. These are cameras mounted on police
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: cruisers and street poles that constantly scan and index every
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: license plate they pass, checking them against databases of stolen
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: or wanted vehicles.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, so if a cop drives by, the camera doesn't
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: automatically ding.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. By removing the front plate and hiding the rear
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: plate against a wall or bushes... He was trying to
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: ensure the car wouldn't trigger a hit if a patrol
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: car drove through the lot.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: They also pull surveillance footage from a local Safeway grocery
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: store that clearly shows Tyler and Laura together on the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: night of September 2nd, establishing a hard timeline.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: So they have him on tape.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: But the nail in the coffin for story number two
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: comes from Laura's neighbor. The police are doing neighborhood canvases,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and a neighbor explicitly remembers seeing Tyler walking Laura's dog...
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: on the afternoon of Monday, September 4th.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: That is the day after he supposedly surrendered his key
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and left her crying at the condo.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: So the physical evidence and the eyewitness testimony completely shatter
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: his timeline. The police now know he had access to
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: her home and her dog long after he claimed they
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: had separated.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Which forces Tyler into a corner, and he invents story
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: number three.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Of course he does.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Faced with the evidence of the car at the apartment complex,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Tyler completely shifts gears again. He admits, okay, Yes, I
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: took her car to Gramercy Place. I dumped the phone
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: and the license plate in the dumpster.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: What's his excuse this time?
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: His reasoning is wild. He claims Laura confessed to him
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: that the baby wasn't his, that it belonged to someone else,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and she was in an absolute panic. He tells the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: police that he dumped the car and the phone to
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: buy her time so she could run away and figure
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: things out without her family tracking her.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: It is a staggering display of narcissistic adaptation.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: It's disgusting, honestly.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: He is trying to absorb the highly incriminating evidence, the
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: hidden car, the destroyed phone into a brand new narrative
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: where he is actually the hero. He is trying to
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: reframe the destruction of evidence as an act of chivalry
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: to protect her reputation.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: It's just mind-boggling. But the police aren't buying a single syllable.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Through cell phone tower pings, they know Tyler has been
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: spending a highly suspicious amount of time out near that
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: rural Damascus property.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: They know he's the guy.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: They know he is the guy. But they need something concrete.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: They need a location where they need him to slip
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: up and lead them to it. So the Montgomery County
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Police devise a highly unorthodox, incredibly tense psychological trap.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: This is where applied behavioral science really takes center stage
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: in modern law enforcement.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: On September 11th, a full week after Laura vanished, the
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: police organize a major press conference. The room is packed
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: with local and national media. Laura, his parents, Mark, and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Gwen Wallen are sitting at the table.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: A very emotional setting.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: And sitting right next to them, completely voluntarily, is Tyler Tessia.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: The public watching at home had no idea, but this
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: entire event was orchestrated by detectives specifically to put Tyler
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: under a microscope.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: The strategy borrows heavily from the principles of the Reed
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: technique and kinesic interviewing.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: They wanted to create a crucible of public pressure. They
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: put him in front of the cameras, surrounded him with
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: the grieving family, and gave him the microphone. Because investigators
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: know a fundamental truth about narcissists. They genuinely believe they
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: can talk their way out of anything.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: So give them enough rope to hang themselves.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The police wanted to analyze every single word choice,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: every hesitation, every micro-expression.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I have to pause here because we really need to
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: acknowledge the unimaginable strength of Mark and Gwen Wallen.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: These parents have to sit at a table under the
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: blinding lights of the media, literally shoulder to shoulder with
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: the man they firmly believe murdered their pregnant daughter. During
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: a press conference, Mark Wallen is actually holding Tyler Tessier's hand.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: It's heartbreaking.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I cannot even fathom the superhuman willpower required to do that,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: to suppress every biological instinct that is screaming at you
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: to attack this man and instead to gently hold his
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: hand to keep him comfortable. just so the police can
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: do their jobs.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: It is an act of profound selfless courage. They swallowed
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: their own agonizing grief to serve the greater investigative strategy.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: By holding his hand, Mark Wallen provided Tessier with a
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: false sense of security.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: He made Tyler feel safe. Yes.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: It reinforced Tessier's delusion that his preemptive character assassination had worked,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: that he had successfully manipulated the parents into viewing him
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: as an ally rather than a suspect.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: And Tyler puts on a grotesque theatrical performance. He stares
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: directly into the news cameras, addressing Laura as if she
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: is out there watching TV.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: What does he say?
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: He says, Laura, if you're listening, it doesn't matter what happened.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: There's nothing we can't fix together. He claims he hasn't slept.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: He hasn't eaten. He specifically brings up their prenatal care,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the sonograms, trying to paint this picture of a devoted,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: desperate father to be.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: And while he's talking, behavioral analysts are dissecting the performance
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: in real time. They are looking at the lack of
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: autonomic responses. There are no genuine tears, no flushing of
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: the skin.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: And it was all fake?
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Completely. They are analyzing his pronoun. He centers himself in
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: the narrative saying, I haven't slept, I haven't eaten, rather
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: than focusing on her physical safety. It is a textbook
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: display of manufactured, performative grief.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Right. It's all about him.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: The cognitive strain of remembering his lies prevents him from
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: exhibiting genuine emotional distress.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: After Tyler finishes speaking, the police execute the final... brilliant
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: phase of their trap. A detective steps up to the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: podium and tells the reporters, look, I want to be clear.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Right now, this is strictly a missing persons case. We
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: have absolutely no indications of foul play. We are just
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: trying to find Laura.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: A very calculated statement.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It was a deliberate, calculated lie to the print.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And legally, police are allowed to use deception during
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: an investigation. They needed Tessier to leave that room believing
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: he had won.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Ah, I see.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: If he thought the police were closing in on a
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: murder charge, he might panic and flee the state, or worse,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: destroy the remaining evidence. By publicly stating on television that
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: there was no foul play, they gave him permission to exhale.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: They let him think he was the smartest guy in
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: the room.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But the reality was, the trap was already sprung. While
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Tyler thought he was a free man, The police were
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: glued to his every movement. Before the press conference, they
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: had secretly obtained a warrant and placed GPS trackers on
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: his vehicle.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Which is standard when you have a prime suspect.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Now, how does that actually work? Does it just show
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: a dot on a map or does it give them
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: more granular data?
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, modern GPS tracking in law enforcement is highly sophisticated.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: It doesn't just show a dot. It logs velocity, direction
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: of travel, and crucial dwell times, meaning locations. How long
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: a vehicle idles in a specific location.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: So they know exactly how long he parks somewhere. Yes.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: It creates a comprehensive digital map of a suspect's routine.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: And while he was putting on a show for the cameras,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: those trackers were telling a very different story.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: The GPS data showed that Tyler had driven back to
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: that isolated sweeping field in Damascus at least 10 separate
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: times since Laura vanished. 10 times.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: That is the behavior of a man consumed by paranoia.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's checking his work.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: He isn't going back to reminisce. He is returning to
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: the scene to ensure the earth hasn't shifted, to check
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: if wildlife has disturbed the area, to ensure his terrible
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: secret is still hidden. It is a compulsion driven by
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: fear of discovery.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: The paranoia gets so bad that he actually contacts a
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: friend who lives near Baltimore. He asks the friend for
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: a ride, explicitly telling him he needs help to clean
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: up a mess.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Which is just an insane thing to ask someone.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: The friend, thankfully, gets a bad feeling and refuses. The
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: walls are rapidly closing in. So armed with the GPS
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: data showing his obsession with this specific field and the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: sheer volume of circumstantial evidence catching him in lie after lie,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Detectives easily secure a search warrant for the Damascus property.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Now, securing a warrant is one thing. Actually finding a
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: disturbed piece of earth on a sprawling, multi-acre rural property
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: without a starting point that is like looking for a
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: needle in a haystack.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: On September 13th, investigators arrive at the property. The owner
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of the land, who was completely innocent and had been
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: away on vacation, is fully cooperative. But to find the
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: exact spot, the police bring in specialized canine units, cadaver dogs.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about how these dogs actually work because they
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: didn't just stumble upon it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Cadaver dogs are trained to detect specific volatile organic compounds
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: or VOCs that are released during human decomposition. When a
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: body is buried, those gases don't just stay underground. They
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: slowly push their way up through the soil, creating what
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: is known as a scent plume.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: So the dogs can smell it in the air above ground.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Depending on wind and soil density, that plume can travel.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: The dogs are trained to hit the edge of that
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: scent plume and zigzag back and forth until they find
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: the highest concentration of the gases.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: The dogs follow faint tire tracks all the way to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the back corner of a field over a mile off
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the main road. They zero in on a specific 10
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: by 10 foot area. There's a shallow grave.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: It's horrific.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: And sticking out of the dirt, they see a piece
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: of purple material. It is the shawl Laura was wearing
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: on the day she disappeared.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: It's a devastating final discovery. It confirms the absolute worst
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: fears of the family and the entire community.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: But the forensic analysis of that grave reveals the cold,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: deeply mechanical nature of the crime.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: The details of what happened in that field are harrowing.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Prosecutors later reveal that Tyler Tessier had used a skid
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: loader heavy industrial machinery to dig that grave.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: The skid loader?
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: On the night before the murder, before he even picked
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Laura up for their adventure. He had called the property
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: owner under false pretenses to ask for permission to access
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: a safe on the property. That safe contained several. 22
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: caliber rifles.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: The premeditation is undeniable. In criminal law, premeditation requires demonstrating
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: that the suspect thought about the act beforehand, even for
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: a brief period.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: And this was very planned.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Extremely. Tessier secured the isolated location, he secured the industrial
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: tool to dig the grave, and he secured the murder
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: weapon all before the crime ever took place.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: But the most horrifying aspect is the specific method he used.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Laura was shot once in the back of the head. Now,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: on this specific farm property, there is a meat processing
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and slaughterhouse facility called K.S. Cut.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, I see where this is going.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: They process wild game and livestock. Tyler Tessier spent a
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: lot of time there. He was very familiar with their
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: daily operations. Prosecutors stated that the way Laura was murdered,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: a single shot to the back of the head with a.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: 22 caliber rifle, was the exact, precise method used to
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: execute livestock at that slaughterhouse. He treated the woman carrying
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: his child, the woman he had dated for 10 years,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: like an animal on an assembly line.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: It is deeply disturbing to analyze from a behavioral perspective.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: When a person decides to commit an act of extreme
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: calculated violence, they often revert to what they know.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: What they are comfortable with.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. Their routine environment informs their methodology. Tessier had watched
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: hundreds of animals dispatched in this exact manner. In his
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: highly compartmentalized sociopathic mind, he simply applied an industrial mechanical
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: process to a human being.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: It's so cold.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: It completely strips away all humanity from the act. It
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: bypasses the need for empathy entirely.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of how a factory worker eventually stops
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: seeing the individual parts on an assembly line and just
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: focuses on the completion of the task. He commodified her life.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: He did.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: And as if that wasn't dark enough, After he is
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: arrested on September 13th, he sits in an interview room.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: The police confront him with the grave, the GPS data,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the reality that it is entirely over.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: He has nowhere left to run.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: His defense lawyers later try to suppress this admission, but
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: he voluntarily tells the police something unthinkable. He admits that
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: after he shot her and buried her with the skid loader,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: he was overwhelmed with this paranoid fear that he had
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: buried her alive. Oh, no. So he actually dug back
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: into the grave and shot her a second time in
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: the head.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: It is a confession that defies standard human comprehension. It
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: highlights a complete chilling absence of empathy.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Because he wasn't doing it out of mercy. Right.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: His concern was not for her potential suffering. His concern
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: was purely logistical. He was terrified that if she survived,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: she would expose him. He dug her back up purely
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: to ensure the job was done so he wouldn't be caught.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: With that confession and a mountain of forensic evidence, Tyler
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Tessier is charged with the murder of Laura Wallen.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: The community must have been just reeling.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: The state's attorney, John McCarthy, prepares to take the case
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: to trial, carefully considering charges for the death of the
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: unborn baby, Reed, as well. The entire community of Columbia, Maryland,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: is just devastated. This case drew immediate heavy comparisons to
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: other infamous tragedies, like Scott Peterson and Chris Watzman's who
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: annihilated their pregnant partners to escape the lives they had created.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: These family annihilator cases always strike a deep, terrifying chord
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: in the public consciousness because they represent the ultimate betrayal
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: of trust.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your home is supposed to be safe.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: The home, the family, the partner. These are supposed to
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: be our safest harbors. When the architect of your future
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: becomes your executioner, it shatters our fundamental sense of societal security.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: It makes everyone question how well they really know the
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: person sleeping next to them.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: For a year, the Wallen family, the students at Wild
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Lake High School, and the entire community wait for justice.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: They endure the agonizing pain. They attend the preliminary hearings.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: They brace themselves for the massive emotional toll of a
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: public trial.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: A trial is incredibly draining on a family.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Fast forward to September 6, 2018. It is the morning
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: that opening statements are finally scheduled to begin. The jury
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: has been carefully selected. The prosecution is ready. The family
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: is sitting in the courthouse. waiting for the proceedings to start.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: This is the moment the justice system is designed for,
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: the moment where the state forces accountability onto someone who
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: has avoided it their entire life.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: But at 4 a.m. that morning, inside his maximum security cell,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Tyler Tessier wakes up, he takes a shower, he puts
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: on his clothes, he eats his breakfast at 4.45 a.m.,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: seemingly preparing for a day in court. But sometime between
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: a routine cell check and 4.55 a.m. in a mere
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: 10-minute window, Tyler Tessier takes a bed sheet, ties it
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: to his top bunk, and hangs himself. Wow. He is
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: found dead in his cell before the sun even comes up.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: It is the final, ultimate act of a coward.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Truly.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: After a lifetime of controlling the narrative, of manipulating everyone
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: around him with words and lies, he realized he was
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: entering an arena where he had absolutely zero control.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: He couldn't lie to the jury.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: He could not manipulate the forensic evidence, and he could
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: not manipulate a jury that was about to see the
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: reality of what he did. So he took the only
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: exit available to ensure he would never have to sit
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: in a courtroom and face the people whose lives he destroyed.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: The prosecutors were understandably furious, publicly calling him a psychopath
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and a coward. The judge had the grim task of
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: bringing the jury in and dismissing them, explaining the shocking development.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: The family must have been gutted all over again.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: The Wallen family was completely robbed of their day in court.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: But Laura's brother-in-law, John Cottey Jen's husband, gave a statement
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: to the press. That I think perfectly encapsulates exactly who
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Tyler Tessier was.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: He said that when he heard the news of the suicide,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: he turned to his wife and said, this is his
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: modus operandi. For 10 years, Tyler Tessier had never shown
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: up for anything important. Birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, he was always
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: inexplicably absent. So John said it makes perfect, twisted sense
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: that he would stand their family up for the last time.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: It is a brilliant, incisive observation by the family. It
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: strips Tessier of any dark mystique or criminal genius and
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: reduces him to exactly what he was, a chronically absent, unreliable,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: pathetic figure who was fundamentally incapable of facing reality.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: So how does a community process a trauma this profound,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: especially when the legal system is short-circuited like that? How
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: do you move forward when you are denied a verdict?
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly hard.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: The contrast between Tyler Tessier's cowardly, quiet exit and the roaring,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: enduring strength of the Wallen family in the Columbia community
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: is truly breathtaking.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: It is a profound study in how human beings metabolize grief.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: When a tragedy like this occurs, the initial shockwave is
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: pure devastation. But what happens next defines the legacy of
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: the victim.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: The students at Wild Lake High School immediately mobilized. They
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: wore black to honor her memory. The school district brought
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: in massive crisis teams to help the teenagers process the
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: loss of a mentor.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: That community support is so vital.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And in an incredibly moving tribute, Laura was named Teacher
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: of the Year for a second consecutive year posthumously. Her parents,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Mark and Gwen, stood on that stage and accepted the
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: award on her behalf. Wow. They took all of that
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: unbearable pain and channeled it into something structural, establishing a
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: robust scholarship fund in Laura's name to help college-bound students.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: They ensured that Laura's passion for education and her deep
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: dedication to her students would continue to have a tangible,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: positive financial impact long after her death. She was a
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: builder in her community, and her family made sure to
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: keep building in her name.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: But the Wallen family didn't stop at scholarships. They took
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: their fight to the highest levels of the state legislature.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: They fought relentlessly for a new piece of legislation that
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: became known as Laura's Law.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: This is a huge part of her legacy.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: The goal of this law was to make it significantly
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: easier for the state to prosecute an individual for two
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: distinct murders when a pregnant woman is killed. Now, we
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: need to dive into the legal mechanics of this because
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: drafting this kind of legislation is incredibly complex.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: It is. Fetal homicide laws are notoriously difficult to draft
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: because they intersect with intense political debates regarding reproductive rights.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: To get a law like this passed, the wording must
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: be exquisitely precise.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: It's a fine line to walk.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: The legislative hurdle is determining men's guilty mind or intent
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: of the perpetrator and establishing personhood, without infringing on a
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: woman's bodily autonomy.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And it is crucially important to note here, as
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: an impartial look at the facts, this bill was crafted
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: with extreme precision to remain entirely separate from broader political debates.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Yes. The wording of the legislation explicitly states that it
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: has absolutely no bearing on medical procedures, abortive care, or
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: a woman's right to choose.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Right. It's totally separate.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: The legal framework was narrowly and specifically designed to focus
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: solely on the violent intent of a third-party actor. It
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: ensures that an intimate partner or anyone who chooses violence
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: and murder against a pregnant woman is punished for the
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: full scope of their crime, legally recognizing the dual loss
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: inflicted by the perpetrator without altering any medical legalities.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: It took two agonizing years of advocacy, two years of
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: testifying in front of committees and of sharing their heartbreak
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: with lawmakers over and over again, but the Wallens succeeded.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: That takes so much resilience.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Laura's Law was officially signed into legislation. They took the
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: darkest moment of their lives and forged a permanent legal
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: shield to protect other women in the future.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: They ensured her name is literally written into the laws
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: of the state, actively protecting the vulnerable. It is a
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: structural legacy that outlasts the violence that took her.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: We have covered a massive amount of ground today. We've
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: traced the agonizing path from a deceitful, incredibly complex five-year
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: double life, through the heartbreaking loss of a beloved teacher
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: over a Labor Day weekend, into the forensic realities of
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: a modern investigation, and finally, to a community's unyielding fight
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: for legal reform.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: We really have.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: The psychological bulkheads collapsed, the facade shattered, but the truth
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: in Laura's impact remains standing.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: And as we wrap up this deep dive, there is
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: a final thought I want to leave you, the listener,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: to mull over. We live in a highly digitized world
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: where it is easier than ever to curate a flawless
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: outward image.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: We filter our photos, we carefully script our texts, and
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: we present an idealized version of our lives to the public.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: But the mechanics of this case force us to ask
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: a difficult question. When someone goes to unimaginable exhaustive lengths
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: to aggressively curate a perfect facade, what exactly are they
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: trying so desperately to hide in the shadows behind it?
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: It's a chilling question. It challenges us to look closely
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: at the architecture of our own relationships. How well do
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: we truly know the internal lives of the people who
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: seem to have it all together? Right. And more importantly,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: how can we foster the kind of genuine, transparent connections
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: that might help us spot the cracks in those facades
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: so we can better protect the lores in our own
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: communities before the pressure breaks them? Thank you for joining
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: us on this intense deep dive today. Keep asking questions,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: stay curious, and always look out for each other.