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TikTok Prank Leads Cops to River Filled with Dismembered Bodies · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you broke your arm right now, an X-ray would
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: give you a pretty clean binary answer. You know, you
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: look at the film, you see the jagged white line, and, well,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the path forward is obvious. Right.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: It's right there in front of you.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. But when you step into the world of
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: criminal investigations, that X-ray machine, it's fundamentally broken. You're dealing
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: with just complete human chaos. And in the stack of
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Seattle police case files— forensic pathology reports and court transcripts
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: that we're diving into today, that chaos gets broadcast to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: 30 million people before the police even know a crime
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: has been committed.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It's really unprecedented.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: It is. So our mission for this deep dive is
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to look to the tragic 2020 Alki Beach murders and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: really dissect how a completely random viral social media trend
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: inadvertently unlocked a horrifying double homicide. It completely shattered the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: golden rules of how a murder investigation is supposed to work. Yeah.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: What we're looking at here is a masterclass in the
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: collision between the physical reality of a crime scene and
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: our modern digital habits. Because homicide investigations are traditionally they're
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: built on strict protocol, you know, information control and quiet
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: methodical procedures.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Which is the exact opposite of the Internet.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When you inject the chaotic, just instantaneous nature of
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: viral Internet culture into that environment. The entire investigative playbook
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: basically has to be rewritten on the fly.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: So to set this scene, we have to go back
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: to June 19th, 2020. We are in the thick of
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Oh, man.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that era.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Right. That crushing monotonous boredom we all remember. So you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: have these three teenagers in West Seattle dealing with that.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: And to break the routine, they download an app called Randonautica.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Which just conceptually is a fascinating piece of software.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: It really is. The premise of this app is that
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: it uses a quantum random number generator to spit out
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: completely meaningless random geographic coordinates for you to go explore.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Right. It's just pure entropy.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's pitched as a way to find adventure in
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: your own backyard, driven entirely by chance. So the app
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: gives these teens a set of coordinates, and it leads
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: them to Elky Beach, specifically down under the rocks under
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a dock at Duwamish Point.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Which we should clarify is not some, you know, isolated,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: desolate wilderness.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Right. No, not at all.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Alki Beach is a highly populated, iconic waterfront spot in Seattle.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It makes the discovery they're about to make even more
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: jarring in its brazenness, really.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So they get down to the water. They're filming
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a TikTok for their followers, and they find this black
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: suitcase just washed up on the rocks.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Just sitting there.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Just sitting there. And they're teenagers, so they're laughing, joking
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: that maybe there's a bunch of cash inside or something.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: They pry it open with a stick, and immediately... This overwhelming,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: sickening odor hits them. Oh, gosh. Yeah. And inside, they
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: can see a black trash bag. And watching the actual
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: footage of this moment is, well, it's entirely surreal.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: It's very difficult to watch, knowing what we know now.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's like walking into a haunted house attraction,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: you know, laughing with your friends and slowly realizing the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: props are entirely real. Yeah. They think they're finding treasure or,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: at worst, some waterlogged garbage. Yeah. They have absolutely no
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: idea they are standing on an active, horrifying crime scene.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And the immediate ripple effect of that innocent action is
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: what completely derails standard police procedure here.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Because in a pre-digital era, teenagers finding something suspicious like that,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: they would call 911. Patrol officers would come secure the
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: scene and a quiet investigation would begin behind police tape.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: But that's not what happens. No.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: That TikTok video is uploaded immediately. It goes viral overnight.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: It eventually amasses 30 million views.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: 30 million people watching a crime scene unfold before the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: police even have a handle on what they are looking at.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is just wild. It is.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: In a homicide investigation, information control is the most valuable
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: currency detectives have. You want the perpetrator to think they've
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: gotten away with it for as long as possible.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Or give them a false sense of security.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So by broadcasting the discovery of that suitcase to
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: a global audience, which potentially includes the killer... You are
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: effectively firing a starting gun. You give a brutal criminal
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: a massive head start to run, hide, or destroy evidence.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Right. And I want to look closely at the gap
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: between that viral digital space and the gritty physical reality
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: happening on the beach because it explains so much of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the initial delay in this case. Because the teens actually
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: did the right thing. They dialed 911 right there from
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the beach. But when you listen to the call, they
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: describe finding a suitcase with a black trash bag inside
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: and a Quoting here, pretty bad smell. Right.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And you have to put yourself in the position of
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: a 911 dispatcher in a major metropolitan area. Right.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: They get everything.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: They are triaging dozens of calls an hour. A bad
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: smell on a rocky beach. I mean, that could be
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: a dead seal. It could be rotting kelp or just
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: illegally dumped restaurant waste.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: There are absolutely no articulable facts in that initial report
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: that point to a violent crime. So standard triage protocol
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: dictates the response and dispatch marks the call as non-urgent.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And that non-urgent tag introduces this terrifying variable, which is
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the passage of time. Because Elke Beach is in a
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: tidal zone, the Puget Sound has incredibly aggressive tidal shifts.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Very aggressive, yes.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So time isn't just a ticking clock here. It is
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a literal physical force altering the crime scene by the minute.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: It's actively washing the evidence away.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It takes about two hours for officers to finally
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: arrive at Duwamish Point. By then, the teenagers have long
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: since gone home. And that suitcase they called about, it
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: is completely empty. Wow. Yeah. The rising tide has scoured
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: it clean and pulled whatever was inside out into the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: open water.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So the responding officers arrive and they are looking at
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: an empty piece of luggage on the rocks.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: They have a delayed response to a low priority call.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: The reporting parties are absent and the primary object is
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: totally devoid of evidence. The logical immediate assumption for a
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: street cop is that they've been sent out on a
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: prank call or, you know, a wild goose chase.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And they were literally packing up to leave. But as
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: they are standing there, one of the officers spots a
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: dark mass bobbing in the water a few yards off
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the shoreline. Oh, man. Yeah. They pull it in, assuming
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: it's marine debris or something, the black ducal bag. They
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: open it up and inside is a woman's severed chest.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And just like that, the paradigm shifts in a fraction
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: of a second.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: The situation upgrades from a municipal nuisance call to a
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: priority one homicide scene.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: And the escalation is just relentless from that moment on.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Because the tide has been pulling things out for two hours,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the officers spot a second bag in the surf. They
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: haul it onto the rocks and a human foot tumbles out. Yes.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: And keep in mind, this is a public beach. People
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: are walking their dogs, trying to have a nice afternoon.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: The police have to start frantically evacuating the shoreline to
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: secure a perimeter.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Trying to push the public back.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And while they're doing this, a mail corso slips
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: out of a third bag right in front of bystanders.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and slides back into the water.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: That is just, I mean, the recovery of that torso
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: fundamentally changes the mathematical scope of the investigation.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Well, the police aren't just looking for one victim anymore.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: They are now dealing with the murder and dismemberment of
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: at least two people. They have to mobilize harbor patrol,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: dive teams, marine rescue units. It morphs from a single
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: crime scene into this massive multi-agency maritime recovery operation.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this idea of losing time that you
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. The police realize they have a massive, complex
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: crime scene on their hands. But I have to push
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: back a little on how damaging that viral TikTok video
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: actually was.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: OK, go ahead.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: We see police departments constantly putting out press releases, asking
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: for the public's help, releasing security footage or suspect sketches.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Doesn't that massive wave of public attention sometimes generate the
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: tips needed to crack a case?
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: It does, but there is a massive strategic difference between
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: public attention solicited by law enforcement and public attention generated
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: by an organic viral event. When police ask for the
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: public's help, they do it on their timeline. They release
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: very specific, carefully controlled pieces of information, maybe just a
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: description of a vehicle or a unique piece of clothing.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: To see who calls in.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Right, to shake the tree and see what falls out,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: while still holding back the critical facts known only to
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: the killer. But when a video goes viral instantly, the
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: police lose that monopoly on information.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Because they don't even know what they have yet.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Precisely. In a standard, quiet discovery, detectives have what we
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: call a golden window. The perpetrator is likely sitting at home, relaxed,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: operating under the assumption that their terrible secret is still
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: hidden beneath the dock.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: During that window, detectives can identify the victims, pull phone records,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: quietly interview associates, and build a suspect list without alerting
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: the target.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: But because of the TikTok.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Because of the TikTok, the killer knew the bodies were
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: found before the police had even pulled the fingerprints. The
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: perpetrator had a multi-day head start to potentially bleach a
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: secondary crime scene, wipe hard drives, flee the jurisdiction, or
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: even coordinate a cohesive alibi with accomplices. The investigators are
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: basically starting a marathon 20 miles behind the starting line.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Wow, yeah. That makes identifying the victims a monumental, frantic task.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Because the digital blackout, which we'll get to, gives the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: detectives an exact time later, June 9th at 7.10 p.m.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: But before they get that data, they need names.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: They have to know who they are looking for.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And when remains have been submerged in aggressive saltwater
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: for days... standard identification just goes out the window.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: It really does. The medical examiner's office has to execute
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: a highly technical procedure to bypass that environmental damage.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: I was reading about this. It's intense. It is.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Saltwater macerates human tissue. It causes the skin to prune,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: break down, and slough off, making standard finger printing nearly impossible.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: So forensic pathologists actually have to rehydrate the tissue of
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: the recovered hands. They sometimes inject fluid directly under the
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: epidermis to plump the skin back up just enough to
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: roll a usable print.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: That is just incredible forensic work. And that work gives
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: them two names in the system, 35-year-old Jessica Lewis and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: 27-year-old Austin Wenner. The autopsy show a just brutal end.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Both were beaten and shot multiple times before being dismembered.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And when investigators check the databases, they find that family
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: members have reported the couple missing on Juneteenth.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Which was two days after they completely vanished from their
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: daily routines.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Right. And grounding this investigation in the reality of who
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Jessica and Austin were is essential, I think, because their
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: life circumstances directly intersect with the motives of their killer.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Austin and Jessica had been dating for eight years. Austin
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: was known as a highly social, hands-on guy who loved
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: restoring cars. Jessica was remembered by her family as deeply
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: kind and gentle. But tragically, they both suffered from severe
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: addiction issues.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: And addiction is the critical context here. It operates as
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: a vulnerability multiplier. It frequently forces individuals out of stable
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: environments and into precarious living situations, exposing them to predatory
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: personalities who specifically target marginalized people simply because they believe
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: society won't look too hard if those people suddenly disappear.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a grim reality. So with the victims identified,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the detectives pivot to digital tracking to build a concrete timeline.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: They pull the phone records for Austin and Jessica, and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: they find that both devices stopped transmitting or receiving any
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: data simultaneously on June 9th at around 7.10 p.m.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: A simultaneous digital blackout for two people who are constantly
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: together is a massive investigative red flag.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I would imagine so.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Phones are constantly handshaking with nearby towers, even when not
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: in active use. When two devices go dark at the
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: exact same minute, it pinpoints the likely time of death,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: or at the very least, the moment of a violent
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: abduction where the devices were abruptly destroyed.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: And the metadata gives them even more than just the time.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: The last ping from both phones came from a single-cell
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: tower sector near their residence in Burien, which is about
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: 10 miles south of downtown Seattle.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So the detectives now know the when and the where.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: But when they pull the dispatch logs for that specific
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: neighborhood on June 9th, they uncover... what I think is
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: one of the most agonizing, frustrating details of this entire
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: case file.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: It really is. They find a tragic intersection between law
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: enforcement protocol and the legal protections of privacy.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Let me lay this out. Because on that exact evening,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: June 9th, just before 7.00 p.m., a neighbor made a
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: frantic 911 call.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: This caller reported hearing a burst of gunshots coming from
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the exact address where Austin and Jessica were renting a room.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just gunfire. The neighbor explicitly reported hearing
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: a man screaming, begging for his life.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Just horrific.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So officers were dispatched. They drove to the house.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: They walked up and knocked on the front door. Nobody answered.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: So the officers turned around, got back in their cruisers
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and left. The case went cold immediately right there on
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the front porch while the victims were likely bleeding out inside.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: It is arguably the most difficult pill to swallow for
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: anyone reviewing this case. The police are standing feet away
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: from a double homicide. And they walk away.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: And I have to challenge this, honestly, because it defies
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: common sense. A neighbor reports gunshots and a man begging
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: for his life. The police arrive. Why couldn't they just
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: kick the door in?
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly frustrating. But to understand why they walked away,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: you have to look at the strict legal threshold of
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: exigent circumstances. The law protects a person's home as a
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: sanctuary against unreasonable government intrusion. For police to breach a
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: door without a warrant, They need articulable, present facts that
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: someone is in immediate life-threatening danger at that exact moment.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Meaning they have to hear it or see it themselves
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: when they get there.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If an officer looks through a window and sees
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: a pool of blood, or they are standing on the
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: porch and actively hear someone screaming from inside, that meets
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: the threshold for a warrantless entry.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: But a neighbor calling it in isn't enough.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: A neighbor reporting a sound they heard 10 or 15
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: minutes ago is different. If the officers arrive and the
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: house is dead quiet... there is no response to their
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: knock and there are no visual indicators of violence on
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: the exterior, their legal justification to brooch basically evaporates.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: If they kick that door down based only on a
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: past tense noise complaint and find a crime scene, a
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: defense attorney will vigorously argue it was an illegal search,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: potentially getting all the evidence thrown out and allowing a
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: murderer to walk free. Wow. It is a devastating gap
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: between ensuring victim safety and and adhering strictly to constitutional law.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: That is just, it's so tough to hear. Because that
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: gap allowed the primary suspect of this deep dive to
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: operate with total impunity for over a week.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it gave him all the time in the world.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: The address where those shots were fired belonged to a
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: 62-year-old man named Michael Dudley.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Austin and Jessica were renting a room in his house
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: for $ 1, 500 a month. And Dudley outwardly presented himself as
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: this accommodating, helpful guy. He actually ran an Airbnb out
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: of the house. He offered tenants rides. He helped with
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: their pets. He actually met Austin through Austin's aunt, Renee,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: who's also living on the property.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: He had a whole narrative built up.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: He did. Dudley told people he took Austin in purely
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: as a good Samaritan. He claimed Austin was having car trouble,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: was in the middle of a massive meth binge, hadn't
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: slept in seven days, and was a danger on the road.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Dudley's story was that he brought Austin home just to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: give him a safe place to sleep it off.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: And that public persona, the benevolent landlord, was a carefully
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: constructed fiction.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, completely.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Because the internal reality of living under Michael Dudley's roof
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: was far more sinister. He hadn't built a sanctuary for
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: vulnerable people. He had constructed a psychological panopticon.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: The panopticon analogy is it's chilling when you look at
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the conditions of this house. Because if you imagine a
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: prison where the guard tower is in the dead center,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: totally blacked out.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Right, the classic design.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: The inmates never know exactly when the guard is looking
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: at them, so they have to assume they're always being watched. Always.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: That constant internalized paranoia is exactly what Dudley imposed on
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: his tenants. He had strict draconian rules on visitors. You
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: needed his explicit permission for anyone to come over, and
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: visitation times were monitored. Most importantly, Dudley had installed surveillance
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: cameras covering almost every single corner of the property.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: And look, landlords will often cite property security to justify
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: exterior cameras, sure.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Right, that's normal.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: But Dudley's setup was fundamentally different. When investigators finally dug
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: into his background, a clear profile of a coercive, controlling
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: abuser emerged. Dudley had a severe criminal history spanning decades
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: involving weapons offenses, narcotics, and vehicle theft.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: And the interviews with his former tenants and ex-girlfriends completely
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: shatter his Good Samaritan facade.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: They are terrifying to read.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: They really are. They described a man prone to terrifying,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: calculating violence. Yeah. One former tenant told police that Dudley
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: killed her dog simply because it attacked one of his chickens.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: But he didn't just kill the dog. He severed its
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: head and held it up to her face as a warning.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Good Lord.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And another ex-girlfriend reported that he held her at
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: gunpoint and secretly installed a GPS tracking device on her vehicle.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Those actions, the severed dog's head, the GPS tracker... Those
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: are extreme forms of psychological warfare and coercive control. The
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: cameras and the visitor rules weren't about property management. They
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: were about establishing total dominance over his environment. Dudley intentionally
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: surrounded himself with tenants struggling with severe addiction because they
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: were marginalized and highly vulnerable to his authority.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Right. People who couldn't easily go to the police.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: So the detectives finally get Dudley into an interrogation room
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: on August 19th, 2020. This is months after the murders.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: They bring him to the station, sit him down. And
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: what unfolds is this incredible, bizarre psychological chess match.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Dudley decides to try and talk his way out of
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: the corner by weaving an incredibly dense cinematic narrative.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: He employs a really high risk interrogation strategy instead of
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: invoking his right to remain silent, which most lawyers would advise.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: He attempts to overwhelm the detectives with a volume of
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: fabricated granular details.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Hoping they just get lost.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Hoping they will just get lost in the noise.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: He's like an octopus inking the water to escape. He
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: just sprays this chaotic cloud of information. Dudley immediately starts
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: framing Austin's death as the inevitable consequence of Austin's own
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: reckless lifestyle.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Right. Blame the victim.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: He paints Austin to the detectives as a prolific thief
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: who is constantly stealing to fund his meth habit. claiming
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Austin was bringing one or two stolen cars to the
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: property every single week.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: This is a calculated psychological tactic.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Dudley is attempting to exploit societal biases. He is feeding
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: law enforcement a narrative they are already culturally primed to believe.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: That the drug world is dangerous.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That the illegal drug trade is inherently violent and
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: that addicts often meet perilous ends at the hands.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Of other criminals.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: He wants them to think, well, this was bound to happen.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: And Dudley's story gets wildly elaborate. He tells detectives that
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Austin had crosshairs on his back from everyone in the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Seattle underworld.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Everyone.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: He claims Austin was targeted by the cartel, by the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Kent hoodlums, and even the Kent police. He spins this
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: cinematic story about Austin stealing a truckload of tools and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: getting chased by someone wielding a fully automatic AK-47.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: It sounds like a movie script.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: It does. And then, mid-story, he shifts the blame again,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: saying it wasn't the Mexicans who were after Austin. It
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: was actually Samoans who robbed the Mexicans who owed money
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to some cartel.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: It is exhausting just reading the transcript of his interview.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: He is throwing every imaginable crime movie trope at the wall.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: And the volume of detail. It's meant to exhaust the
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: detective's investigative resources. He's sending them chasing phantom cartels instead
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: of looking at the man sitting right across the table.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: But he gets surprisingly arrogant about things that should be
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: massive red flags.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he slips up.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: The detective asks if anyone ever left a bullet for
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Austin as a threat. And Dudley just casually admits, yeah,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I found a rifle round in the mailbox with his
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: name on it.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Just super casual.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: And when the detective pippets and asks if Dudley himself
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: owns any weapons, Dudley leans in. He admits that despite
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: his previous felony drug convictions, he had his gun rights
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: legally restored back in 2013. Okay. He tells them he
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: keeps a gun in the center console of his car.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: But he doesn't just say a handgun. He specifies it's
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: a modified Navy SEAL 6B26 and claims he bought it
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: from a Korean Navy SHIELD guy.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Right. And that specific bizarre lie about the Korean Navy
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: shield guy perfectly dissects his fatal flaw. Well, Deadly fundamentally
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: overestimates his own intelligence while severely underestimating the detective.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: He thinks he's smarter than everyone in the room. Exactly.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: He assumes that if he adopts the persona of a gritty,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: connected underworld figure, the police will be intimidated or impressed,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: you know, write off the murders as untraceable gang violence
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: and close the book. It is blame the victim tactic
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: taken to a theatrical extreme.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: But while Dudley is in that interrogation room acting like
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: he's starring in a cartel thriller, a totally silent scientific
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: reality is unfolding back at his house.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: This is where the case really turns.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: The physical evidence is systematically dismantling his lies. The detectives
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: sent forensics teams into the blue room. That's the specific
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: bedroom where Austin and Jessica lived inside Dudley's house.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: And this is where forensic pathology and chemistry just strip
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: away the verbal smokescreen. You cannot talk your way out
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: of physical science.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: You really can't. The forensics teams cone every square inch
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of that room. They find bullet holes physically struck into
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the bed frame.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Which matches the neighbor's 911 call.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Then they deploy luminol across the floor and walls.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Luminol is a chemical compound that reacts with the iron
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: present in hemoglobin.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: When it hits blood, even blood that has been intensely
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: scrubbed with bleach and water, It produces a chemiluminescent reaction
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: that glows bright blue under a black light. The luminol
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: in the blue room just lights up. They find massive
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: traces and physical swipe marks of blood in the exact
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: area where the couple slept.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And the presence of those blood swipes indicates a heavy
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: cleanup effort.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Right. It wasn't just a spill.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Someone didn't just bleed there. Someone tried to meticulously erase
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: the fact that they bled there.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: So while that's happening, the detective in the interrogation room
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: gets a report from the field. And drops a bomb
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: on Dudley. He tells him that cadaver dogs are currently
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: sweeping his property.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that moment?
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Right. And cadaver dogs are highly specialized canine units. They're
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: not tracking a human scent like a search and rescue dog.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: No, it's a completely different discipline.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: They are trained specifically to detect the volatile organic compounds
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: released during human decomposition. Specifically chemicals like putrescine and cadaverine.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: They don't hit on a dropped hamburger or a dead
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: squirrel in the yard. They alert exclusively to human remains.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: And the detective informs Dudley that these highly trained dogs
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: are hitting aggressively on human decomposition and blood down in
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: his basement.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: The detective asked Dudley to explain why the dogs are
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: alerting in his basement. And Dudley's defense mechanism completely breaks
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: down into absolute absurdity. He looks at the detective and says, quote,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: dead rats.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Dead rats.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Dead rats. He suggests the specialized police dogs are just
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: smelling dead rats in his basement. Or maybe some waste
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: out in his chicken coop.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: It is the panic response of a narcissist realizing his
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: control over the narrative is slipping.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: He's grasping at straws.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He can't explain away the chemical science of the
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: canine alert, so he resorts to a completely irrational defense.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: The detective then sets a brilliant conversational trap. He asks Dudley,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: very casually, if the police had ever come out to
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: his property to investigate a shots fired call. Dudley emphatically
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: denies it. He says, never, never, never.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: He commits to the lie.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Fully. That's when the detective slides the King County Police
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Department dispatch record across the table. The exact record of
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the June 9th 911 call from his neighbor.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: The paperwork is right there.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Dudley tries to backpedal, claiming the police never actually knocked
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: on his door. But the trap has sprung. He is
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: caught in a verifiable, documented lie about the exact night
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the couple vanished.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: And then the detectives deliver what has to be the
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: most emotionally devastating blow of the interrogation. They utilized the
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: victim's own words against the killer.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: This part is so sad. The detective reveals that before
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: his death, Austin was deeply afraid of his living situation.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: He had actually warned his own mother. He told her verbatim,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: if anything bad ever happened to us, look at Mike.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Mike did shit.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Having a victim testify against you from beyond the grave,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: especially when that testimony is corroborated by luminol and cadaver dogs,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: completely destroys the benevolent landlord fiction.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: And you have to look at the massive logical hole
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: in Dudley's story.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: He spent the entire interview claiming he and Austin were
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: great friends.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Best buds. Right.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: If they were such good friends and the couple just
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: vanished one night, leaving all their clothes and belongings behind
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: in his house, why didn't Dudley ever report them missing?
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Instead of calling the police, he threw all their personal
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: belongings into the trash.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And when the detectives confront him with that exact logical failure,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: his response is staggering.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's wild.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: He claimed he had heard about the brutal murders of
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: his friends on the local news. They asked him, why
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: didn't you call us? Dudley replied, I was waiting for
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: you guys to call me.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I was waiting for you guys to call me. It's
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: just sociopathic.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: It perfectly demonstrates the sheer arrogance of a killer who
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: believes he has beaten the system.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: He believed his disposal method, you know, using the aggressive
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: tides of the Puget Sound. was foolproof. He calculated that
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: by playing it cool, not initiating contact with law enforcement,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: he would remain invisible. But ignoring the sudden bloody disappearance
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: of your own tenants when you claim to be their
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: close friend is a neon sign pointing directly to your guilt.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: So you have the circumstantial arrogance, you have the blood
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: in the blue room, you have the cadaver dogs in
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the basement. But what finally locks this case down, the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: inescapable nail in the coffin, is the digital evidence.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: The digital footprint.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: While Dudley was meticulously scrubbing the physical blood out of
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: his floorboards, he completely forgot that the computer in his
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: pocket was recording his every movement.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Right. The cell phone handshake we discussed earlier works both ways.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: The investigators pull Michael Dudley's cellular records to map his movements.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And they find that Dudley's phone pinged off a specific
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: cell tower sector near Alki Beach on the night of
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: June 17th.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: The exact spot.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: That is the night before the teenagers discovered the suitcase
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: on the rocks. And the most damning part, when investigators
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: looked at the historical data for his device, that specific
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: ping on June 17th was the only time Michael Dudley's
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: phone had ever communicated with that specific tower at that location.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: A single anomalous ping placing the primary suspect's device at
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: the exact scene of the body dump, precisely during the
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: incredibly narrow window when it had to have happened, is
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: an insurmountable piece of evidence.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: You can't argue with that.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: You cannot cross-examine a soul tower.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: No, you can't. So the police finally put together the
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: complete horrifying timeline of the crime. Based on the victim's
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: digital blackout, the neighbor's 911 call and the forensics, they
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: conclude that Dudley shot Austin and Jessica in their bedroom
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: on the evening of June 9th. He then moved their
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: bodies down to his basement where he dismembered them. He
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: stored their remains in that basement living right above them.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: for 10 agonizing days.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Just unthinkable.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Finally, under the cover of darkness on June 17th, he
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: packed them into bags in a suitcase, drove 10 miles
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: to West Seattle, and dumped them into the Puget Sound.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: And you know, the specific trigger for the murders remains
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: legally murky.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they never entirely nailed that down.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Police speculated it could have been a dispute over unpaid rent,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: which aligns with Dudley's obsessive need for control over his
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: property and tenants.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: But Austin's family, however, suspects a much darker motive. Given
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Dudley's extensive criminal background, the constant influx of stolen vehicles,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and the surveillance cameras, they believe Austin simply learned too
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: much about Dudley's illicit operations.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Right. He became a liability.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Whatever the grieving it was, Dudley decided the only solution
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: was to silence them permanently.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Regardless of the catalyst, the response was a senseless, brutal
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: escalation that really highlights the extreme danger posed by coercive personalities.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: The justice system took its time grinding through the appeals
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: and the delays. but it finally caught up to him.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: In December of 2022, a King County jury found Michael
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Dudley guilty of two counts of second-degree murder. Dudley, who
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: was 65 at the time of the trial, was sentenced
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to 46 years in prison. He attempted to appeal the conviction,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: arguing about late disclosure of evidence, but just recently, in
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: August of 2025, the Washington Court of Appeals firmly affirmed
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: his conviction. He will not be eligible for parole until
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: he is 104 years old.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: He will die in a concrete cell, which, you know,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: it provides a necessary measure of legal closure, but it
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: does nothing to erase the profound tragedy of the lives
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: he extinguished.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: It absolutely doesn't. And before we close the file on
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: this deep dive, it is so crucial to remember the
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: victims as they actually were.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, 100%. During the trial, The family made a.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Deeply emotional plea to the public. They said they didn't
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: want Jessica and Austin to just be remembered as sensationalized
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: plastic bags on a viral TikTok video.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: That's not who they were.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: No. They were actual living, good-hearted people. They loved each
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: other for eight years. They struggled with the disease of addiction.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: They lived complex, real lives, and they deserved a future.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: They deserved so much better than what Michael Dudley did
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: to them.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: It's a vital anchor for this kind of analysis. Behind
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: every piece of viral true crime content, behind every analytical
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: breakdown of a cell tower ping, there are grieving families
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: and shattered lives that can never be made whole.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: So we started this dive with teenagers laughing on a beach,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: looking for an adventure through a random app. And we
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: ended up dismantling a dangerous abuser's web of lies through
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the cold, hard truths of forensic science and digital mapping.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: When you synthesize the starting point of this case with
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: its resolution, you know, that intense collision of the digital
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: and physical worlds, it leaves you with a lingering, almost
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: philosophical question about the nature of secrecy.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Lay that thought prompt out for us.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Consider the strange, chilling irony of the Randonautica app.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: It is an algorithm designed to generate completely random, meaningless
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: geographic coordinates based on quantum entropy. Yet, in this specific instance,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: that absolute digital randomness pointed three teenagers directly to a hidden,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: meticulously calculated human atrocity.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: It's eerie. It is.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: In a modern world where we leave massive, indelible digital footprints,
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: cell phone pings mapping our guilt, sudden digital blackouts predicting
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: our demise, is it possible that the random, unpredictable chaos
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: of the internet is actually what strips away the dark
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: corners where secrets used to hide? Wow. As technology and
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: algorithms map and monitor every single inch of our physical world,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Is the concept of a perfect crime completely extinct?
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: The murky waters of this investigation eventually cleared up, but
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: what we can see now at the bottom is terrifying.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: That question is going to stay with me for a
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: long time.