Latest / Crime Night / A Mother's Fight for Spencer Irwin

Transcript

A Mother's Fight for Spencer Irwin · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture this. It is August first, twenty twenty.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Four, right in the peak of a brutal California summer.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly just you know, triple digit heat, and you're standing
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: near this secluded loading dog tucked behind a waste management
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: company in Frisno.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Not exactly a scenic spot.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. It's this industrial dead zone filled
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: with massive dumpsters, chain link fences, and there, face down
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: in the thick, dry dirt, surrounded by discarded trash, is
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a thirty year old man named Spencer Irwin. Wow, and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: he is completely naked.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: It's just a stark, really unsettling image, it is. But
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: you know what transforms this from just a tragedy into
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: a profound systemic failure is the sequence of events that unfolds,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: or I should say fails to unfold the moment the
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: authorities arrive on that scene.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Right, And that is exactly what we are getting into
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: today in this deep dive. We're going through a stack
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: of investigative notes, forensic reports, and raw true crime transcripts
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: surrounding Spencer's death.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It's a heavy one, it really is.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Our mission here is to piece together a perplexing mystery
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: that local authorities frankly initially refuse to even touch. We
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: are looking at the anatomy of an assumption. We're going
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to explore the cascading effects of a flawed investigation and
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: what happens when a grieving mother is forced to step
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: into the void and become a real life criminal investigator
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: just to find justice.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: For her son, which is something no mother should ever
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: have to do. But it really is a masterclass in
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: how cognitive bias can derail and inquiry before the crime
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: scene tape even goes up.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Oh absolutely.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: When we analyze all this source material, the chain of
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: events following the discovery of Spencer's body, it reveals a
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: lot about the massive blind spots and local death investigations.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because the initial response from the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: police really dictates the trajectory of this entire case.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: It sets the tone for everything.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Right, So, when the police and the crime scene unit
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: arrive at that waste company, witnesses report that they don't
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: even drive all the way back to where Spencer's body's lying.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: You're kidding, Nope.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: They bark in the distance, They take one look at
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: his location and you know, his lack of clothing, and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: they just immediately label Scincer a transient. They assume he
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: was unhoused, they assume he stripped down due to a
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: drug overdose, and they essentially just call it a day.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So they just constructed a narrative right there on the
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: spot totally. I mean, they didn't process the immediate dirt
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: around him, they didn't canvas for his clothes.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Something, didn't collect any physical evidence that is.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, they looked at the environment, applied a stereotypic
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: template of an overdose, and just let that bias dictate
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: their protocol.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: And that snap judgment. It leads to this irreversible loss
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: of evidence. Because the coroner's office releases Spencer's body to
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: his mother, Kelly, right, and because he was found out
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: in that triple digit summer heat, his body was in
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: an advanced state of decomposition, which.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Is horrific for a family to deal with.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: It is the funeral home actually advised Kelly not to
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: view him, you know, to bear her that final mental image. So,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: trusting the authorities, the family decides to have Spencer cremated.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Makes sense inn of the circumstances.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: But here is the kicker. The coroner's office released him
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: without ever performing an.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Autoxy Oh wow, which means the most critical piece of
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: physical evidence in any death investigation, the biological record of
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the body itself is permanently.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Destroyed, exactly. And I have to pause on that because
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the mechanics of this are just baffling to me. How
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: is it officially possible for law enforcement to declare a
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: cause of death, like specifically an overdose before the toxicology
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: results even come back from the lab.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: I know it defies all logical scientific practice, but it
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: is a known vulnerability in how death investigations are structured
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: in many parts of the United States. Well, it comes
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: down to the difference between a medical examiner and a coroner.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: The sources we're looking at note that the Fresno sheriff
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: corner at the time, a guy named John Zanoni, has
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: absolutely no medical training.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Wait, none at all. Non, how does someone get that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: job without a medical background.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: He holds a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice and
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: a miner in agriculture business, an agriculture miner. Yeah, he's
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: a career law enforcement officer. And that happens because in
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: many jurisdictions, coroners are elected political officials. They aren't medical
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: doctors or forensic pathologists. That is wild, It really is.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: The coroner system actually dates back to English common law,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: where the crowner was just a local official who collected
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: taxes on dead bodies for the king. You're joking, no, seriously,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: and over centuries it just evolved into a bureaucratic role.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: So when police say, you know, we suspect an overdose,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: an elected coroner without a medical background might just sign
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: off on that hunch rather than challenging the detectives and
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: demanding a costly autopsy.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Wow, I mean, put yourself in Kelly's shoes for a second.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: You are devastated. Yeah, The people wearing the badges, the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: supposed experts, are telling you with absolute certainty what happened.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: You believe them, right, try us them. Most people have
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: no idea that the corner isn't a doctor, let alone
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: that like private autopsy services like one eight hundred utap
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: ey even exists for moments when families doubt and official ruling.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And that misplaced trust really delayed the truth here. Because
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Kelly knew her son. She knew Spencer was not a
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: hard drug user. He was very open with her about
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: his struggles with alcohol. He was actually in a period
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: of recurrence and was actively trying to get into a
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: rehabilitation facility.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he drank it home to self medicate. He wasn't
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: out doing street narcotics exactly.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: So she just waits for those talk screens to come back,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: just to see the science behind the police's certainty.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And when those results finally arrive weeks after Spencer has
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: already been cremated, the overdose narrative completely.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Crumpled, completely falls apart.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: There are absolutely no illegal drugs in his system, no meth,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: no lethal doses of anything. It's a very low alcohol
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: level of point zero three and some minor non lethal
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: prescription medication, primarily gabapentin.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Which that is a crucial pharmacological detail, Yeah, because gabapentin
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: is an anti convulsiant and nerve pain medication, but it
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: is very frequently prescribed off label to help manage the
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Oh interesting, It calms the central
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: nervous system, so its presence in his blood strongly supports
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Kelly's timeline that Spencer was actively trying to detok safely
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: and get clean.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: That makes the official response even more frustrating because now
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the coroner's office is trapped. They can't prove an overdose,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: but they also don't have a body anymore to look
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: for other causes, so you know they do they just pivot.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Just change the story.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Yep. They change the official ruling to natural causes and
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: list the cause of death as probable sudden cardiac death,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: citing his history of alcohol use, and the police officially
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: close the case.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: It's just a textbook example of confirmation bias. Once the
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: toxicology disproved their first theory, instead of, you know, reopening
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the investigation and looking at the scene with fresh eyes,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: they simply found a new biological excuse to justify closing
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: the file.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: It's like, okay, it's like trying to draw a bulls
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: eye around an arrow after it's already landed. Yes, you're
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: just trying to make the facts fit your initial assumption.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: You ignore the fact that the edges don't fit at all,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and instead of looking for the right answer, you just
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: smash it into place you can say you're done.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect way to conceptualize it. I mean,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: sudden cardiac death might explain a sudden collapse, sure, but
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: it completely ignores the situational forensic exactly if his heart
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: just stopped. Why was he found completely naked hitting behind
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: dumpsters miles from his apartment? Natural causes, don't undress you
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: and transport you to an industrial loading dock, which brings
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: us to.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: The turning point. Since the authorities won't look into how
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: he got there, Kelly does.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: He has to.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: She steps in and builds a timeline. She learns that
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Spencer had visited the hospital days prior to detox safely,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: you know, waiting for a bed and rehab, and she
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: actually pulls security footage from his apartment.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Building, doing the police's job for them, literally.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So on Sunday, July twenty eighth, at eight zero am,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Spencer is captured on camera leaving his apartment. He's wearing jeans,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: a white shirt, a black hat, and he's carrying a
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: black backpack. He's walking toward a Horizon store about four
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: miles away because his phone had been glitching and he
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: needed it for his online college classes.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is just the power of a mother's
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: intuition versus bureaucratic inertia. Because the employees at that Verizon
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: store confirm he never arrived, never made it. And this
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: is where the contrast, in investigative urgency becomes so stark.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: We know the first forty eight hours of an investigation
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: are critical, right, evidence disappears, evidence degrades, physical clues wash away,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: security systems record over themselves. And here we have a
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: mother stepping into the shoes of a detective, retracing steps
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: weeks after the trail has gone freezing cold, performing the
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: basic canvas that the authority is completely neglected.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: And amazingly, she actually finds a thread. She drives out
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: to the waste company where Spencer was found. She surveys
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the industrial lot, spots security cameras on the neighboring buildings,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and just starts knocking on doors.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: That takes so much courage.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: And most of these businesses have systems that overwrite every
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours. But one business manager checks their hard
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: drive and finds they still have the footage.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: So Kelly sits down and scrubs through hours of motion
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: activated video and she finds this chilling sequence.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Finding any footage that late in the game is an
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: incredible stroke of luck or really just sheer determination. What
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: did the cameras actually capture?
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: So the camera points at one of the entrance gates
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: to this U shaped lot around the waste building. The
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: timestamp reads just after ten zero pm on Monday July
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: twenty ninth.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, and remember Spencer disappeared on the morning of the
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: twenty eighth exactly.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: A car pulls through the open gate, and right as
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: it drives into the lot, the driver turns off the.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Headlights, which is a deliberate evasive maneuver. You don't kill
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: your lights in a pitch black industrial lot unless you
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: are trying to remain unseen.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: The car disappears into the dark lot for about fifteen minutes,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: then it pulls back out and leaves the exact way
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: it came. And shortly after that the camera catches a
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: blurry figure standing alone in the dark by the front
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: of the building before walking off in the opposite direction.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: So we basically have a vehicle entering a secluded area
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: under the cover of darkness, staying just long enough to
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: potentially unload something for someone, and then leaving.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Yep. Now you can't read the license plate on the footage,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: but the car itself is highly distinctive. It's a boxy
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: white Kia Soul Okay, and that footage isn't the only
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle Kelly uncovers at that location. Days
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: after Spencer's death. She walks the exact spot at the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: loading dock, and lying right there, half buried in the dirt,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: is a pair of patterned underwear. You're kidding, Spencer had
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: dozens of bears of this exact, unique brand.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Because the crime scene unit failed to establish a proper
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: perimeter or process the immediate area, a highly personal, crucial
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: piece of physical evidence was just left in the dirt.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Left in the dirt, Kelly takes a photo of it.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: When she goes back later, the underwear has vanished. Of course,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: she notifies the police, but they don't act on it.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: But Kelly just keeps pushing her canvassing uncovers a witness
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: who was present the morning Spencer's body was found, and
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: this witness noticed a distinct purple mark on the back
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: of Spencer's neck.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: A mark that directly challenges the coroner's assertion of no
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: external trauma exactly.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: So Kelly leverages this witness statement to force the police
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: department to hand over the unredacted crime scene photos. Good
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: for her, because the one thing the police actually did
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: right on day one was take high resolution photographs before
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: moving the body. So Kelly takes these photos to a
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: board certified forensic pathologist, doctor Priabanergy for an independent review.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And the forensic analysis of those photos is where the
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: science really dismantles the initial police assumptions. I mean, doctor
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Banerjee immediately focuses on the patterns in the dirt around
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Spencer's upper body. Right, she identifies what she called snow
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: angel marks.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Now, the police had casually theorized earlier that he might
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: have been flailing around during a seizure or a drug overdose, kicking.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Up the dirt, But pathology tells a very different story.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: When a body experiences a seizure or an overdose convulsion,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the movements are erratic, they're asymmetric, they're violent. The dirt
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: would be kicked up chaotically. But doctor Banerjee noted that
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the marks around Spencer were far too symmetrical. Symmetrical sweeping
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: in the dirt typically indicates that a body was being
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: deliberately dragged or positioned by the arms. Oh wow, Yeah,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: it suggests manipulation of the scene, not a medical event.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: That makes so much more sense. Yeah, and doctor Banerjee
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: also tackled the police's backup theory for why Spencer was
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: naked because when Kelly had pressed them on the lack
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: of clothing, assuming it wasn't an overdose, they suggested paradoxical undressing.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Which, okay, is a real documented physiological phenomenon, but the
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: mechanics of it may impossible in this scenario. How So,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: while paradoxical undressing occurs in cases of severe hypothermia, when
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: a person is freezing to death, the body constricts blood
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: vessels in the extremities to keep the core warm right
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: survival mode exactly, but right before death, as the muscles
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: controlling those vessels finally exhaust and fail, they suddenly dilate.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: A massive rush of warm blood floods back into the skin,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: making the freezing person feel like they are suddenly burning up,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: so in their delirium they strip off their clothes.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Right But Spencer was found in August and Fresno, California.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly, the temperature was well over one hundred degrees the
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: physiological trigger for paradoxical undressing, that extreme core temperature drop
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: simply doesn't exist in a California summer. It is scientifically
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: baseless in this context.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And then there's the neck. Doctor Banerjee zooms in on
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the photos and finds a distinct straight line running right
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: under Spencer's jawline extending straight. Now, to maintain strict scientific objectivity,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: she notes it could potentially be a skinfold resulting from
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the awkward position of his body in the dirt, but
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: she states clearly that it exhibits all the visual characteristics
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of a ligature mark as sign of strangulation.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And this just highlights the ultimate tragedy of the missing autopsy. Yeah,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: because the only definitive way to differentiate a post mortem
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: skinfold from a paramortem ligature strangulation is by dissecting the
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: underlying tissue of the neck to look for internal hemorrhage,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: and they can do that now. No, by skipping the autopsy,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: the system didn't just obscure the cause of death, it
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: potentially provided cover for a homicide.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting, because Kelly didn't stop
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: at forensic reviews and blurry car footage. She started looking
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: at the people in Spencer's life.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Right the social circle.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, to figure out how he ended up in that lot,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: she had to look at who he was interacting with,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and that brings us to two distinct persons of interest.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: She uncovered first, a man named Angel Gonzalez.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: This is the individual Spencer met while in the detox program.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Right right. They met on July tenth. Angel was unhoused
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and Spencer offered to let Angels stay at his apartment
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: while they both waited for beds to open up in
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: a long term rehab facility.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Generous guy.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Very. They were actually scheduled to check into the facility
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: together on July twenty ninth, but on July thirty, first
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: days after Spencer disappeared, but before his body was found,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Kel gets worried. She asks Spencer's landlord to do a
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: welfare check.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: And the apartment complex was part of a student housing
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: program which gave the landlord the authority to conduct those checks.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Exactly so, the landlord plunges in the door. Code walks
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: into the seemingly empty apartment, and is just about to
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: leave when she hears a noise in the bathroom.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Oh creepy.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: She opens the door and Angel is hiding in there.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: He lies to the landlord, claiming to be Spencer's cousin
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: and says Spencer is already away at rehab, which is
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: a blatant lie, considering they were supposed to go together
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and Spencer had vanished.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: That is an incredibly suspicious encounter. I mean, he's occupying
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: a missing person's apartment and lying about his identity to
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: maintain access.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: It escalates from there. After Spencer's body is discovered, his
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: girlfriend Kate messages Angel on Facebook to see if he
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: knows anything. Angel replies briefly, says he's too emotional to talk,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: promises to call the next day, and then completely ghosts her.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Just disappears.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Yep. But a few days later, Kate gets a suggested
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: friend notification on Snapchat. The username starts with the word Smiley,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: followed by six specific digits.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Now, in the digital age, a suggested friend notification isn't random.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: It usually means someone in your phone's contacts, or someone
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: whose phone is interacted with yours has created a new
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: account or linked their number exactly.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: And those six digits, Kelly had found Angel's discarded driver's
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: license left behind in Spencer's apartment. His middle name includes Smiley,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and those six digits were an exact match for his
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: date of birth. Oh wow, it's a massive digital footprint.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: It heavily implies that whoever was operating that Snapchat account,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: likely Angel was either in position of Spencer's missing phone
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: or had sync data with it.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: It's a brilliant piece of modern sleuthing by his mom.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: But Angel wasn't the only lead Kelly developed. No.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: She also looked closely at a neighbor named Tyler, who
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: goes by the nickname Happy. Two weeks before Spencer died,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Spencer confided in his mom that Tyler had broken into
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: his apartment and stolen his laptop in PlayStation.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Did he call the cops?
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Noe. Spencer wanted to handle it himself and hadn't reported it,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: but Kelly starts monitoring Facebook marketplace. She searches Tyler's full name,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and she finds an active listing posted by Tyler for
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: a twenty twelve Lenovo think pad. Let me guess it
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: is the exact make and model of the laptop stolen
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: from Spencer. Spencer's father, who was an IT professional, even
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: verified the specs from the photos.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: So Kelly has compiled security footage of an evasive Kia Soul,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: digital footprints linking a squatter to the victim's phone, and
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: a mark market place listing for the victim's stolen property
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: and she hand delivers this dossier to the Fresno Police.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Department and their response is just agonizing. They literally tell
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: her they can't look into the laptop without a receipt
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and they brush.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Off the rest a receipt. Yeah, this is where we
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: see the psychological mechanism of anchoring bias in full effect.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Anchoring bias anchoring occurs when investigators lock onto their initial theory,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: in this case, the assumption of natural causes or an
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: overdose by an unhoused person. Once anchored, any contradictory evidence
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: isn't viewed as a breakthrough. It is viewed as an
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: administrative nuisance, just a nuisance. Right, Admitting that a mother's
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Facebook and Snapchat sluicing holds value requires the department to
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: admit their initial dismissive assessment was fundamentally wrong. It is
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: an ego defense mechanism. It protects the institution from the
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: embarrassment and the paperwork of reopening a closed natural death
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: case as a complex homicide.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense. And to take that a step further,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: we have to look at why they anchored so quickly
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: on day one. It all comes down to the cognitive
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: shortcut of stigma.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Because Spencer was found naked in the dirt behind dumpsters,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the police categorized him as a transient. By placing him
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: in that mental box, they unconsciously assigned a lower priority
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to his life. They didn't see a college student taking
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: online classes. They didn't see a son trying to get clean.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: It's the human brain taking a terrible prejudice shortcut to
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: save cognitive load. And the tragic irony of it all
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: is that Spencer dedicated his life to breaking down those
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: exact prejudices.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: He really did.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: He was part of the hopee program at his college.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: He spent his time actively advocating for and assisting the
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: unhoused population in Fresno.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Kelly actually received a Facebook message in the middle of
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the night a few days after Spencer's death for a
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: man named Louis. Louie wrote that he used to be
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: unhoused and was going to a profoundly dark time.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: He met Stencer at a local park and Spencer didn't
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: just talk down to him. He brought him food, brought
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: him clean clothes, and treated him like a peer. That's amazing,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Louis wrote to Kelly. One of the reasons I made
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: it through was because of people like him who treated
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: me so well and pushed me to make things better.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Spencer literally saved a life just by showing someone basic
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: human dignity.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: The contrast is just striking. The police looked at Spencer's
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: location and saw a label. Louis looked at Spencer and
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: saw a lifeline.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, it's a
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: sobering reminder of how easily systems designed to protect the
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: public can fail the moment an individual doesn't fit into
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: a neat respectable aesthetic.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: But Kelly refused to let her son be minimized by
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a label. Her relentless pressure, the forensic reports she commissioned,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and the suspect timeline she build finally forced the Fresno
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: PD's hand.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: It's about time.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Six weeks late, they yielded and opened a formal investigation.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: They assigned a new investigator, Sergeant Antonio Rivera, and according
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: to the case files, he is actually doing the legwork now, okay, cook,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: He's pulling cellular data records, hearing search warrants, and he's
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: actively hunting for that white Kia soul.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: It's a hard fought step forward, but you know, it's
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: entirely manufactured by a mother's refusal to accept bureaucratic inertia completely.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Kelly didn't just mourn her son. She stepped into the
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: investigative void and became his final, most effective advocate. She
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: ensured his story wouldn't end as a dismissed footnote on
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: a flawed coroner's report.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: She forced a massive system to course correct, and while
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: they are still fighting for the full truth what happened
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that hot night in July, Kelly has ensured that Spencer
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Irwin will not.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Simply fade away, and examining this case leaves us with
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: a lingering thought about modern justice. I want you to
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: think about the digital footprint we all leave behind. In
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Spencer's case, the physical evidence was literally washed away in
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the dirt. It was ignored by the authorities, and it
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: was permanently erased by the crenation process. Right, the system
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: completely failed the physical body. But what remains a suggested
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Snapchat handle pinging in the ether, a cell phone's location
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: data bouncing off a local tower, a stolen laptop lingering
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: in the cash of a Facebook marketplace server. In a
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: world where physical bodies can be so easily dismissed and
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: erased by a failing bureaucracy. Our digital ghosts might just
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: be the only things left with the power to testify
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: for us.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Our digital dose. That is definitely something to maul over.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: We'll leave you with that thought.