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New Man Hunted by Jealous Ex-Boyfriend · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you're listening right now, I want you to imagine
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: this really terrifying scenario.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: You are walking up to your new boyfriend's apartment. It's
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a Tuesday morning. It's May. And you're only there because
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: his totally predictable daily routine of texting you good morning
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and good night has, you know, just abruptly stopped.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Right. Which is always a red flag in a new relationship.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So you expect to find, I don't know, maybe
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: his phone died or maybe you got a terrible flu.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: But instead, you walk up and find the screen door
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: is just standing wide open.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's mail and personal items just scattered all
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: across the ground outside. You step into the entryway, and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the very first thing you see is blood.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Jeez.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: It is on the walls. It is pooling on the floor.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And bizarrely, an entire large area rug is completely missing
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: from the center of the living room.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Just gone.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Just totally gone. But the most chilling clue of all
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: isn't the blood or the rug. It is what police
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: find later when they search the kitchen. They find his
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: cell phone and his wallet, and they are deliberately hidden
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: in the very back of the freezer, tucked behind a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: bag of frozen food.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: That is such a specific, bizarre detail.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: It really is. So welcome to The Deep Dive. Our
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: mission today is to unpack this incredibly chilling, highly complex
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: true crime case. We are pulling from excerpts of a
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Law and Crime Network transcript, And it details the investigation
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: into a fiercely jealous ex-boyfriend, a missing father, and a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: legal battle that really pushes the absolute boundaries of how
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: our justice system defines proof.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because we are dissecting a case here that forces
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: us to confront this massive investigative paradox. I mean, the
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: entire foundation of a homicide investigation is typically built around
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: one concrete piece of evidence, right?
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: A body.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The victim's body. The body dictates the initial narrative.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It gives you the cause of death, the time of death,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: and you know, the physical starting point for all the
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: forensic evidence. But when you step into the legal landscape
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: of a bodiless homicide, that whole foundational structure just vanishes.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: You are tasked with proving the ultimate crime that a
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: human life ended without the physical proof of that life
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: actually ending.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this a bit because the legal hurdle
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: here is just astronomical. Historically, there was this absolute legal
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: principle known as no body, no crime.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Right. Right. The corpus delicti.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Yes. The body of the crime. It stems from old
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: English law. And it was basically designed to prevent the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: horrific scenario of executing someone for a murder only for
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the supposed victim to just walk into town a week later.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: You have to prove a crime actually happened before you
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: convict someone.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: And in modern times, forensic science allows prosecutors to build
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: that body of the crime circumstantially. But as we will
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: see in this deep dive. It requires a completely overwhelming,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: airtight web of evidence to convince 12 jurors beyond a
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: reasonable doubt.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Which makes the Wisconsin legal system's handling of this specific
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: case so remarkable. I mean, bodiless homicides are incredibly rare
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: because of that high burden of proof.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: They are. Yet the physical absence of the victim here
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: ultimately served to highlight the overwhelming psychological presence of the killer.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good way to put it.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: The perpetrator tried to create a void, right?
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: But the meticulous, almost frantic nature of that attempt left
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: this blueprint of obsession and violence that investigators were able
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: to reverse engineer.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Well, we have to start where this nightmare begins for
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the people actually caught in the middle of it. So
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: it's May 2020. We are introduced to Sadie Batem. She
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: has recently started dating a man named Rosalio Gutierrez.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And from everything in the source material, this is a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: very sweet, very communicative relationship. They are in the early stages,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: but they are building a routine. Rosalio texts her good
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: morning when he wakes up and good night before he sleeps.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Every single day.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Every single day.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: You know, establishing that baseline of behavior is the very
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: first thing investigators look for in a missing persons case.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Human beings are totally creatures of habit. So in a
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: deeply ingrained routine, especially one that's tied to interpersonal communication,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: suddenly just fractures without any explanation, that is the most
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: reliable indicator that an anomalous and, you know, potentially dangerous
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: event has occurred.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: And that baseline shatters abruptly on a Monday night. Sadie
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't get that goodnight text. And then the silence extends
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: through Tuesday morning. No good morning text.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Which is terrifying.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: It is. Now, if you are in a new relationship,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: you might second guess yourself, right? You might try to
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: play it cool. But Sadie's instincts completely override any of
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that hesitation. She decides to just drive over to Rosalio's
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Wood Creek apartment for a wellness check.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Good for her.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But when she gets there, the physical environment immediately
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: contradicts all of her benign assumptions. Like we said, the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: screen door is standing wide open.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: And the transition she experiences in that moment is deeply
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: profound from a psychological standpoint.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, so.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Well, you arrive with mild, almost mundane concern. You're thinking
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: perhaps he lost his charger. Maybe he overslept. But the
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: human brain is an incredible pattern recognition machine. Oh, right.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: So the moment Sadie sees the open door and the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: scattered items on the ground, her brain registers a threat.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Before she even fully processes what she is looking at.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: That cognitive dissonance between what she expects to see and
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the reality of the scene, it triggers a massive spike
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: in adrenaline.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And she gets this overwhelming, uneasy feeling. She is calling
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: out his name, knocking on doors, knocking on windows, and
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: she is just met with total heavy silence. Then she
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: looked inside from the entryway.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And everything changes?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Instantly. The transition from worry to visceral horror is instantaneous.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: She sees blood all across the living room floor. When
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: law enforcement eventually arrives to secure the scene, their assessment
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: confirms her absolute worst fears.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the transcript describes the apartment as grim. It looked
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: like a slaughterhouse.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Blood everywhere.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: There's blood everywhere, and there are spatter patterns coating almost
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: every single wall in the living room.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: And those spatter patterns tell a story, don't they?
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, they are incredibly communicative. They aren't just random stains.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: They are the physical manifestation of physics applied to fluid dynamics.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Wow, okay.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, depending on the size, the shape, and the distribution
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: of the blood droplets on those walls, forensic investigators can
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: immediately determine the velocity of the impact. They can see
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the directionality of the blows, and even the positioning of
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the victim during the attack.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: So they can basically recreate the fight.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And the sheer volume of spatter on multiple walls
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: here indicated a brutal, violent... And likely prolonged physical struggle
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: that moved all across the space of that living room.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: But right in the middle of all this chaotic violence,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: there is this glaring absence. There is a large pool
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: of blood exactly where an area rug used to be.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: But the rug itself is gone.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Sadie notices this immediately through her panic. She tells police, quote,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: there was a carpet here and it's not there anymore.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Which is a crucial contextual clue that completely shifts the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: trajectory of the investigation.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Why is that the turning point?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Well, think about it. If you have spatter on the
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: walls and pooling on the floor, but a large, highly
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: absorbent item like a rug has been removed from the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: exact epicenter of the violence, it communicates two very distinct facts.
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  Speaker 2: First, the victim sustained catastrophic blood loss, much of which
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: was absorbed by that rug. And second, the crime scene
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: has been deliberately altered. Someone expended significant physical effort to
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: roll up and remove a heavy, blood-soaked carpet.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Right, which escalates the whole thing.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Instantly. It goes from an assault to a homicide involving
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: a calculated attempt at concealment.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So the perpetrator is trying to sanitize the macro environment, essentially.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: But as police are meticulously combing through the apartment, they
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: open the refrigerator, they look in the freezer, and they
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: find something that shatters any illusion of this being a
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: normal missing persons case.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: The phone.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Tucked way in the back, meticulously hidden behind bags of
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: frozen food, are Rosaliosi's wallet, complete with his credit cards.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: And his cell phone.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Placed on its side, carefully concealed. It is a detail
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: that law enforcement locked onto immediately because it effectively rules
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: out a voluntary disappearance.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the investigators specifically noted that this eliminated a Gone
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Girl-esque scenario.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Right. Exactly. Because if a person is voluntarily fleeing their
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: life to start anew, the two things they universally take
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: with them are their identification and their financial resources. I mean,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: you do not freeze your credit cards before going on
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: the run.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Right. I want to look at the mechanics of this, too,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: because hiding a cell phone behind a bag of frozen
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: peas feels like a desperate, improvised move. But it's actually
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: sort of clever. Why the freezer?
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Well, it's about the technology.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if we think about it, a freezer is essentially
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a makeshift Faraday cage. It's a thick metal box lined
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: with insulation. If you put a transmitting device inside, those
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: metal walls can block the radio frequencies, which prevents the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: phone from pinging local cell towers.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: And there's the temperature aspect too.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Right. Extreme cold wreaks havoc on lithium-ion batteries. It increases
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the internal resistance of the battery, causing the voltage to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: plummet and draining the power incredibly fast. So by putting
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: it in the freezer, the perpetrator is actively trying to
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: kill the battery and block the GPS signal simultaneously.
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  Speaker 2: Which provides a really vivid window into the psychological state
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: of the killer in the immediate aftermath of the violence.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: It reveals this combination of high adrenaline panic, but also
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: a fundamental tactical understanding of digital tracking.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: They knew what they were doing.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Yes. The perpetrator realizes the phone is a liability. They
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: need to silence it, but taking it with them risks
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: tracking their own escape route. So they utilize the environment
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: to neutralize the threat.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: However, the intimacy of the act is staggering when you
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: think about it.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: To execute this, the killer had to literally... stand in
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: the victim's kitchen, open his freezer, move his food around,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: and deliberately place his personal effects inside. It is a
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: frantic attempt at containment, but it ultimately screams foul play.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Totally. So the police know right away they're dealing with
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: a violent abduction and a likely homicide.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: To figure out who would do this, they have to
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: reverse engineer the victim's life. They have to understand who
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Rosalio was. And the picture that emerges of Rosalio Gutierrez Jr.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: from the source material is heartbreaking, precisely because of how
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: normal and beautiful his life was.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Investigators conduct what is called victimology, right? It is a
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: deep dive into the victim's background, their lifestyle, relationships, finances.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: They are searching for any risk factors that might invite violence.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Like enemies.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Does a person have a criminal record? Are they
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: engaged in high-risk behaviors, illicit substance trade, or do they
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: have significant financial debts? And the complexity of Rosalio's case
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: initially is that his victimology came back remarkably clean.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: He was just a beloved family man. His mother, Celia Patterson,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: described him as her only child, her general. He was
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a dedicated Chicago Cubs fan. an avid outdoorsman who loved
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: hiking and he loved to dance.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Sounds like a great guy.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: He really was. Above all, he was deeply involved in
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the lives of his 11-year-old and 8-year-old children. He was
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: coaching baseball, leading Cub Scouts, attending gymnastics and dance recitals.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: He was present.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Very present. And professionally, he was hitting his stride, flipping houses,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: managing contractors, building a really solid future.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: So he presented zero traditional risk factors. This was not
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: a drug deal gone wrong. It wasn't gang retaliation. And
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: it clearly wasn't a random home invasion. Rosalio was targeted
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: for reasons that existed entirely outside of his own behavior.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: He was a man who unwittingly walked into a psychological crossfire.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: And that crossfire brings us directly to Sadie's past. When
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: investigators ask Sadie if she knows anyone who might harbor
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: ill will toward her or Rosalio, she doesn't hesitate for
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: a second. She points them straight to her ex-boyfriend, Zachariah Anderson.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Now, Zachary Anderson and Sadie shared a long, complex history.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: They met back in 2007, and they actually share three
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: children together.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: But the relationship, as Sadie describes it, was not founded
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: on mutual respect. It was defined by deep, persistent emotional abuse, volatility,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and this overwhelming need for control.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: She tells police about his violent outbursts. She describes him
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: as having a fundamentally angry personality, stating simply on the record, quote,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: he wasn't nice, he just wasn't kind.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: That says so much. And what is most telling is
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: how she categorizes his jealousy. She makes a specific point
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to say it wasn't born out of love or a
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: desire to protect their family. She calls it, quote, the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: sickening feeling of that ugly, evil version of jealousy.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: That distinction is paramount in understanding the motive here. Society
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: often romanticizes jealousy as a byproduct of passion.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, definitely. Like he's just still in love with me.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But what Sadie experienced was possessive and narcissistic rage.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Zachariah did not view Sadie as an autonomous individual with
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: the agency to end their relationship and seek happiness elsewhere.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: He viewed her as an extension of himself, a piece
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: of property over which he held ultimate dominion.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And the transcript provides Zachariah's own words to back that up,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and they perfectly validate Sadie's assessment. When he discovers Sadie
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: is dating Rosalio, he doesn't refer to Rosalio as Sadie's
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: new boyfriend.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: What does he say?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: He refers to him as the guy that stole the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: mother of my child. He literally frames it as a
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: property theft. And Sadie's response to this is just a
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: masterclass in asserting autonomy. She says, he didn't steal anything.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I wasn't yours to steal.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Good for her. The psychological friction there is explosive. You
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: have Sadie firmly establishing her independence, clashing directly with Zachariah's
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: delusion of ownership. And this psychological battle is occurring against
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: the backdrop of a massive impending crisis in Zachariah's own life.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Right. Here's where the timeline gets really interesting. Zachariah is
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: an active, large-scale drug dealer. At the exact time Sadie
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: starts dating Rosalio, Zachariah is pending sentencing for transporting marijuana
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: out of South Dakota. He knows unequivocally that he's about
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: to be sent to state prison.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And this is the catalyst. We are looking at a
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: classic manifestation of narcissistic collapse.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Narcissistic collapse.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. Zachariah is facing the absolute, unmitigated loss of his
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: physical freedom. He is about to enter an environment where
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: he will be stripped of all control. And simultaneously, he
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: is watching his ex-partner build a stable, happy life with
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: a man who is actively involved in his community. A
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: man who could effortlessly step into a father figure role
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: for Zachariah's children while he is locked in a cell.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So he is a ticking clock. His control
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: is evaporating on every single front. Rather than preparing his
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: family for his absence or, you know, trying to leave
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: on good terms, His psychology twists this impending loss into
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: an absolute refusal to let someone else take his place.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate manifestation of if I can't have this life,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: no one will.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: It is an ego defense mechanism driven to its absolute
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: most lethal extreme. The narcissistic injury of being replaced is
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: just too devastating for him to process. So he externalizes
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: the blame. Right. He redirects all of his anxiety about prison,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: all of his rage over Sidi's independence and and focuses
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: it entirely on the perceived threat. The tragedy here is
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: that this escalation didn't happen in a vacuum. It was
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: preceded by a chilling, methodical campaign of terror that pulled
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: innocent people into its orbit.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the stalking. Because it wasn't just a
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: casual drive-by of her house, Zachariah executed a technological and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: physical invasion of Sadie and Rosalio's lives.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: What kind of technology?
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: He purchased GPS trackers and covertly attached them to their vehicles.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: He followed them through the streets in the middle of
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the night. Sadie actually caught him once. She confronted him,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: telling him she saw his car pulling away from her
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: house in the dark.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And how did he react?
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: His response was classic gaslighting. He called her a liar,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: vehemently denied stalking her, and claimed he was no idiot.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Typical. You know, the escalation from digital tracking to physical
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: proximity is a very recognized pattern in stalking behavior. Yeah.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates an increasing need to physically verify the information
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the technology is providing. It is a tightening of the
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: psychological noose. But the most egregious aspect of this campaign
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: was how he weaponized the children they shared.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, this part is so hard to read. Zachariah and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Sadie have a 14-year-old daughter. Zachariah systematically manipulates this young
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: teenager into acting as a spy against her own mother.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: It's just sickening.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: He demands that she monitor Sadie's activities, report on who
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: she is talking to, and provide updates on whether this
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: new man is in the house.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: To place a child in that position is a profound
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: form of emotional abuse. He is forcing a 14-year-old to
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: navigate an impossible landscape of conflicting loyalties.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: He is demanding she betray the trust of her mother
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: just to soothe the paranoia of her father. It fundamentally
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: corrupts the sanctity of her home environment, turning it into
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: a surveillance state where she is the unwilling operative.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And this culminates in an incident that is straight out
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: of a horror movie. In the dead of night, Zachariah
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: drives his 14-year-old daughter to Sadie's house. He parks, gets out,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and physically hoists himself onto Sadie's porch.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: With his daughter there.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: With his daughter. He is holding a handheld recording device,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and he peers through the window, filming Sadie and Rosolio
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: sitting innocently on the couch inside.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: The mechanical precision of his instructions to his daughter during
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: this event really highlights the cold, calculated nature of his obsessions.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: He explicitly commands her to cover her mouth and nose.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, because of the scheme, right?
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He explains that the steam from her breath would
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: fog the cold glass of the window and alert the
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: victims inside.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: He is actively mentoring his teenage daughter in the mechanics
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of covert surveillance. He then asks her, do you want
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: to see? And this poor girl, standing in the dark,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: intimidated by her father's intense erratic behavior, just says yes.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: What else is he going to say? Right.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: She looks through the glass and watches her mother and
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Rosalia just listening to music snuggled up on the couch.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: The psychological toll this extracts from a child is devastating.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: During the trial, her testimony is absolutely gut-wrenching. She states, quote,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: I was his spy. It burns. I can't unsee things.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Makes me sick. Can't undo it.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Even at 14, she deeply understands the perversion of boundaries
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: that occurred. She realizes she was utilized not as a daughter,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: but as an instrument of his control.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: His obsession infected everything. He even planted a secondary cell
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: phone in an air conditioning unit outside Sadie's home to
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: capture audio recordings of their conversations.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Just relentless.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And the sheer pettiness of his hatred is staggering. He
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: allegedly captured footage of Rosalia wiping his nose on the couch,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: and from that moment on, Zachariah referred to this grown man,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: this father of two, exclusively as Booger.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: You know, reducing a perceived rival to a crude juvenile
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: nickname is a classic dehumanization tactic.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Really? Really. How so?
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: By stripping Rosalio of his name and his identity as
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: a father and a professional, Zachariah is attempting to diminish
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Rosalio's humanity in his own mind. It lowers the psychological
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: barrier to violence. It is much easier to justify destroying
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: a caricature than it is to murder a human being.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense. Legally, this obsessive campaign provided the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: authorities with exactly what they needed. Because this wasn't a
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: crime of passion where someone just snapped.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: No, this showed weeks of premeditation.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And crucially, in the state of Wisconsin, this behavior
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: constitutes felony stalking. When Sadie and her daughter detailed the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: GPS trackers, the window peeping, and the planted devices to
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the police, it effectively launched a parallel investigation.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Which provided law enforcement with a vital legal loophole. They
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: had a missing persons case with a bloody crime scene, sure.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: But finding a suspect in a homicide can take weeks
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: or months. The felony stalking charges gave them immediate, undeniable,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: probable cause.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Right. So on May 19th, just days after Rosalio vanished,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: police arrested Zachariah Anderson for stalking and booked him into
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the Kenosha County Jail.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: This achieved two immediate goals. First, it neutralized the physical
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: threat to Sadie. And second, it kept Zachariah in custody,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: preventing him from fleeing while they launched a massive, desperate
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: search for Rosalio.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And with Zachariah off the streets... The search operation scaled
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: up to an unprecedented level. The transcript details an operation
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: involving over 80 law enforcement officers.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: That's a massive deployment. It is.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: They weren't just driving around looking in ditches. They were
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: conducting massive grid searches, walking shoulder to shoulder across vast
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: tracts of land. They deployed three specialized cadaver dogs, and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: they brought in an underwater robot-style vessel equipped with a
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: camera and sonar to search nearby bodies of water.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: An investigator on the record stated they had never seen
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: a more extensive police effort to locate a missing individual.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: The logistics of a search this size are incredibly complex.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I can imagine.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. A grid search involves strict protocols to ensure not
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: a single square foot of terrain is missed. And cadaver dogs,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: known technically as human remains detection dogs, they are trained
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: to detect the specific volatile organic compounds like putrescine and
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: cadaverine that are released during the very early stages of
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: human decomposition.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Wow. And when you bring in underwater ROVs, remotely operated vehicles,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: you are dealing with the murky, highly turbid waters of Wisconsin.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Right. Visibility is terrible.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: So these drones use side-scan sonar to bounce acoustic waves
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: off the bottom of a lake or quarry, looking for
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: anomalies that don't match natural topography. If the sonar hits
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: a target, they use the optical camera to investigate. They
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: were throwing every single piece of modern technology at this landscape.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Their primary focus was naturally directed toward properties controlled by Zachariah.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: They descended on his family's expansive tree farm in Sheboygan County,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: and they meticulously scoured a separate four-acre property he owned
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: in Mequon, Wisconsin.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: And it is at the Mequon property that the state's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: theory of a premeditated cover-up and an impending escape really
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: begins to solidify into physical evidence.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Because of what they found there.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Exactly. When investigators arrive at the Mequon property... They find
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: a fire pit in the front yard, and the fire
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: is still actively smoldering.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Now, in the context of a missing person and a
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: bloody crime scene, an active fire is a screaming red flag.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: It is the most primal method of destroying evidence.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Just burning it all away.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Right. A fire can consume clothing, murder weapons, bloody rags,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: or the victim's personal effects, reducing biological evidence to ash
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: that is nearly impossible to analyze forensically. It demonstrates active,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: ongoing concealment.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: But the fire isn't the only thing they uncover. Hidden
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: away on the property, investigators find a Wells Fargo bank bag.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: When they open it, they find approximately $ 47, 000 in cash.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And every single bill.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Is a 20. $ 47, 000 in $ 20 bills is not a
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: traditional savings mechanism.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: No, it is not.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: The sheer physical bulk of that many small bills strongly
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: corroborates the knowledge that Zachariah was operating as a large-scale
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: drug dealer. However... Placed within the timeline of a suspected homicide,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: that money takes on a highly specific logistical purpose.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: The investigators immediately theorized that this is his bug-out fund.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: This is the untraceable cash he planned to use to disappear.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: If the police hadn't moved so quickly on the stalking charges,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: if they hadn't arrested him on May 19th, he likely
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: would have grabbed that Wells Fargo bag and vanished across
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: state lines, probably utilizing the illicit networks he had already
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: established through his drug trade.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: It is a massive indicator of consciousness of guilt. Innocent
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: individuals facing a missing persons inquiry involving their ex-partner's new
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: boyfriend do not typically pack $ 50, 000 in small denominations and
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: begin burning material in their front yard.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: No, they definitely don't. The circumstantial evidence is building a
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: massive wall around him. Let's look at the digital forensics
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: because we all carry a tracking device in our pockets
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: every single day. Zachariah's cell phone activity tells a story
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: not of where he was... but of where he wasn't.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: The digital footprint here is defined by its absence.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Forensic analysis of his cellular data revealed that Zachariah's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: phone was intentionally powered down for two to three hours
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: directly preceding Rosalio's disappearance. And it remained off the network
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: for approximately two and a half hours afterward.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: It is a complete digital blackout, perfectly aligned with the
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: exact window of the crime.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And when detectives interrogate him about his whereabouts during those
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: specific hours, His narrative is just a masterclass in evasion. First,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: he claims he simply cannot remember. Then the story shifts,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: and he suggests he might have been at home sleeping. Later,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: he pivots again, suggesting he might have been with his
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: current girlfriend.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Just throwing things at the wall.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: He offers no concrete alibi, only a rotating series of deflections.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: The absence of digital location data during the motor window
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: is damning, but his digital purchasing history in the days
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: leading up to the blackout is highly communicative.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Because of what he bought?
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Yes. Financial records and receipts prove that Zachariah had recently
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: purchased specific items, rubber gloves, heavy duty garbage bags and
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: bleach wipes.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: It is the starter kit for forensic sanitization. He wasn't
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: just planning the violent act. He was engineering the cleanup
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: before the crime even occurred.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Which brings investigators to the logistical reality of the missing rug.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Zachariah removed a large blood soaked carpet from the Wood
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Creek apartment. To transport that rug, and presumably the body
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: wrapped within it, requires a vehicle.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: And that logical deduction leads forensic teams directly to Zachariah's van.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: And the state of this van is unbelievable. It's a
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: portrait of desperate, frantic destruction.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: What did they find?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: When forensics open the doors, the smell of bleach is
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: just evident. They find actual bleach stains soaked into the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: interior carpet. The rear seats of the van have been
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: completely removed. and most damning of all, mirroring the exact
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: scenario in Rosalio's living room, a physical chunk of the
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: van's interior carpet has been deliberately cut out and removed.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Wow. He is cannibalizing his own vehicle to destroy evidence.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: He recognizes that the blood transfer from the rug to
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: the van's carpet is a liability, so he simply cuts
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: out the affected area. It is a macro-level approach to
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: crime scene cleanup. He is using bleach by the gallon,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: removing massive pieces of furniture... And cutting away square feet
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: of fabric.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate paradox of forensic science, really. Zachariah spent hours,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: used massive amounts of bleach, and mutilated his own vehicle
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to erase a human being from existence. Yeah. But despite
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: all that macro-level destruction, he was undone by the micro.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: The micro? Yes. During their meticulous inspection of the van,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: forensic technicians discover a single speck of blood.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Just one?
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Just one. The scale of this evidence cannot be overstated.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: The lead investigator testified that this speck of blood was
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: less than a millimeter across. To visualize that, a standard
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: credit card is roughly one millimeter thick. This blood droplet
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: was smaller than the edge of a credit card. It
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: is practically microscopic.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: How do you even test something that small?
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Well, it requires incredibly precise forensic methodology. The technician carefully
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: swabs that submillimeter speck to collect the biological material. In
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the lab, they use a process called PCR, or polymerase
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: chain reaction.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, right, the amplification process?
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Exactly. PCR essentially acts as a molecular photocopier. It takes
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the tiny degraded fragments of DNA from that microscopic speck
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: and amplifies them, copying them millions of times over until
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: there's a large enough sample to run through a sequencer
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and generate a full genetic profile.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: And when that profile comes back from the lab, it
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: is undeniable. It is a robust, perfect match to Rosalio Gutierrez.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Zachariah tried to erase the macro, but the micro caught him.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: How does a man's blood end up in your van...
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: If you claim you have never met him, you cannot
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: explain that away as a coincidence.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: That single speck of blood is the cornerstone of the
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: prosecution's case. It is the undeniable physical bridge connecting Zachariah's
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: vehicle to the violence that occurred in Rosalio's apartment.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: But, and this is the massive looming shadow over the
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: entire investigation, despite the blood, despite the bleach, despite the $ 47, 000,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and despite the unprecedented search efforts involving 80 officers, dogs,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and underwater robots, they still do not have a body.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Rosalia Gutierrez is just gone.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: This creates an astronomical hurdle for the state. Bringing a
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: bodiless homicide to trial is one of the most perilous
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: gambles a prosecutor can take. They're asking a jury to
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: convict a man of the ultimate crime based entirely on
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence and a single microscopic drop of blood.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: The state has to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, not
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: only that Zachariah is a murderer, but that a murder
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: actually took place at all.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: The tension heading into this courtroom is explosive. The prosecution
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: lays out their strategy, and their goal is to weave
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: all these disparate threads into an inescapable net. They lean
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: heavily on the motive and the mindset.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: What kind of evidence do they use for that?
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: They present Zachariah's laptop to the jury, reviewing a digital
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: catalog of obsession. The hard drive is filled with screenshots
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: of Rosalio's Facebook profile, pictures of Rosalio out with friends,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: and most chillingly, photos Zachariah had saved of Rosalio with
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: his two young children.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: The state is establishing a narrative of consuming fixation. They
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: are demonstrating that Zachariah wasn't just angry, he was meticulous.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: studying his target. The prosecutor argues that Zachariah attempted to
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: execute the perfect crime, a crime devoid of a victim's body,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: but his grand design was betrayed by that single sub-millimeter
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: speck of blood.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But the defense attorneys are not just rolling over. The
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: legal maneuvering here is fascinating because the defense does not
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: have to prove that Zachariah is innocent.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Right. The burden of proof rests entirely on the state.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The defense merely has to introduce reasonable doubt into
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: the minds of the jurors. And they lean aggressively into
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: the what-ifs and the physical absence of evidence.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: The defense attorney's opening arguments are surgically precise. They attack
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: the very foundation of the state's case, stating bluntly, quote,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: At the end of the day, law enforcement nor the
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: state have no idea what happened to Mr. Gutierrez's body.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: They don't know when exactly anything happened. There are no witnesses.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: They are forcing the jury to confront the vast, empty
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: spaces in the prosecution's narrative. No body, no established cause
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of death, no identified murder weapon.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And then the defense introduces a piece of physical evidence
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: that is genuinely compelling. It's Defense Exhibit 340.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: These are highly detailed photographs taken of Zachariah Andersey's hands
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: and arms just two days after he was arrested for stalking,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: which is only days after Rosalio disappeared and the bloody
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: struggle supposedly took place.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: The defense displays these photos to the jury and points
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: out an undeniable fact. Zachariah's hands are completely clean. There
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: are no cuts, no bruises, no split knuckles, absolutely zero
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: defensive wounds. Wow.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: The legal argument there is rooted in physical logic, right?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If a brutal, chaotic, blood-spattering struggle took place in
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: that living room, how did the perpetrator walk away without
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: a single scratch on his body? It suggests a physical
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: impossibility that the defense hopes will seed doubt in the
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: jury's mind.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And they compound this with a biomechanical argument. Rosalio was
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: a healthy, fairly large, fit man. The defense presents medical
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: records documenting that Zachariah Anderson was suffered from severe chronic
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: back problems.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a clever angle.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they pose a logistical question to the jury. How
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: is it physically possible for a man with a debilitating
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: back injury to subdue a large man, wrap his dead
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: weight in a heavy blood-soaked area rug, carry that massive
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: bundle out of an apartment building and load it into
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: a van, all without leaving a massive blood trail in
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the public hallway or catastrophically injuring his own spines?
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: The defense attorney characterizes the prosecution's entire theory as an
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: assembly of guesswork. They are demanding the jury weigh the
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: very real physical limitations of moving dead weight against the
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: circumstantial theories of jealousy and a macroscopic drop of blood.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I have to play devil's advocate here. Because the biomechanics
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: of deadlifting a grown man rolled in a heavy rug
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: are daunting, especially with a bad back. Does adrenaline completely
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: override that kind of chronic pain? Or does the lack
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: of defensive wounds on Zachariah suggest something far more sinister
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: than a prolonged brawl?
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Well, adrenaline is a potent neurochemical capable of masking severe
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: pain and enabling feats of strength in short bursts, though
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: the aftermath for someone with a chronic back condition would
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: likely be debilitating. However, the lack of defensive wounds on
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Zachariah's hands raises a chilling alternative to a two-sided brawl.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: It strongly suggests the possibility of an ambush.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: An ambush.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Think about it. If the attacker utilizes the element of
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: surprise striking suddenly from behind or utilizing a weapon that
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: inflicts immediate catastrophic trauma, the victim may be incapacitated before
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: they even have the opportunity to raise their hands and
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: fight back.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, God.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: The massive blood spatter indicates extreme violence, but it does
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: not mandate a prolonged reciprocal physical struggle. An ambush would
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: explain the blood volume on the walls and the pristine
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: condition of Zachariah's hands.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: That is a horrifying reality to consider. So the jury
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: is absorbing this intense debate. The state paints a picture
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: of a calculated, obsessive predator, and the defense paints a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: picture of an unlucky man with a bad back being
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: framed by a void of evidence. But the tension wasn't
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: confined to the arguments. It was physically manifested in the
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: courtroom's security.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: The security protocols implemented by the judge and the sheriff's
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: department speak volumes about the state's internal risk assessment of
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Zachariah Anderson.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: While he's sitting at the defense table, dressed in a suit,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: appearing calm, Zachariah is actually fitted with a 40,000-volt stun belt.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: strapped securely to his leg beneath his trousers.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: A stun bill.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And a sheriff's deputy is sitting directly behind him,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: holding the activation trigger for the duration of the trial.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: The authorities were genuinely terrified that this man, who they
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: believed had seamlessly made a body disappear, was going to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: violently act out or attack someone in the middle of
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: the proceedings. It creates an atmosphere of a coiled spring.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: The psychological weight of that device is immense, both for
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: the defendant wearing it, and for the subtle, unspoken energy
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: it injects into the room. But that tension fractures into
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: absolute tragedy when the state calls their star witness to
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: the stand.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: The 14-year-old daughter. The case moves from forensic analysis into
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: pure human heartbreak. This young girl has to walk into
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: a crowded courtroom, sit in the witness box, look directly
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: at her father sitting at the defense table, and testify
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: against him in a first-degree homicide trial.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: That's unimaginable.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: She has to publicly recount how he used her as
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: a spy, how he forced her to watch her mother
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: through the window. At one point, overwhelmed, she simply says
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: on the stand, quote.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: She is navigating a psychological minefield. She is caught in
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: an emotional tug of war that is playing out in
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: real time right in front of the jury. And the
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: behavior of her parents during this testimony is deeply disturbing
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: and revealing. It is.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: The prosecution actually notes for the record that while the
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: daughter is testifying, Zachariah is actively signaling to her from
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the defense table.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: You're kidding. No.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: He is making gestures, trying to tell her to stop talking,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: to close her mouth. Even with his life on the line,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: even with a stun belt strapped to his leg, his
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: compulsion to exert control over her overrides his basic sense
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: of self-preservation in front of the jury.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: And this dynamic is compounded by the mother's actions, isn't it?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Right across the room, sitting in the gallery, is Sadie.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: And Sadie later admits that when her daughter got a
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: little defensive or sassy on the stand under cross-examination, she
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: gave her a classic stern mom shush gesture from the audience.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: So you have this traumatized teenager trying to recount the
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: darkest moments of her life under oath, while both of
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: her parents are silently actively trying to direct her behavior
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: from opposite sides of the courtroom.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating microcosm of the impossible environment this
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: child has been forced to endure. She is desperately trying
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: to manage the emotional demands of both parents while bearing
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: the immense weight of a murder trial.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Through all of this, Zachariah himself never takes the stand
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to explain his side. He informs the judge that his
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: three attorneys have strongly advised against him testifying, and he
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: chooses to exercise his constitutional right to remain silent. He
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: does not look the jury in the eye to offer
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: an alternative narrative.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: While it is his absolute right to not testify, in
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: a purely circumstantial case where establishing motive, timeline, and intent
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: is everything, the jury is left only with the portrait
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: of obsession painted by the state, countered only by the
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: hypothetical questions posed by his lawyers.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, the jury rejects the hypotheticals. They look past the
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: bad back and the clean hands, and they focus on
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: the stalking, the digital blackout, the missing rugs, the bleach,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the $ 47, 000, and that single submillimeter speck of blood.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: They return a verdict of guilty on all counts.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Yes. Guilty of stalking Sadie. Guilty of stalking Rosalio. And
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: guilty of first-degree intentional homicide. The state wins their gamble.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: They successfully prove a bodiless murder.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: They convince 12 individuals, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Rosalio
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Gutierrez was dead and that Zachariah Anderson orchestrated and executed
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: that death despite his immense efforts to conceal it.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: But the psychological revelation of who Zachariah truly is peaks
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: during his sentencing hearing. The judge asks if he has
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: any final words before his fate is sealed. Zacharias stands up,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: maintains his innocence, and denies killing anyone or disposing of
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: a corpse. But then he adds a sentence that is
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: absolutely staggering.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: He says, quote, and if I killed somebody, whatever that
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: situation was, I can tell you in my own heart
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't be intentional.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: From a linguistic and psychological perspective, that statement is a
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: massive subconscious tell. It is a conditional confession meticulously disguised
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: as a denial.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: If I killed somebody.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. By introducing the conditional if and following it with
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: a mitigation, it wouldn't be intentional, he is actively attempting
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: to rewrite the narrative of the crime to protect his
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: own ego.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Right, because he can't be the bad guy in his
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: own head.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: He cannot admit to being a cold-blooded murderer, so his
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: psychology crafts a safety valve. He is suggesting that even
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: in the hypothetical scenario where he is the killer, it
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: was merely a tragic accident, not a calculated execution. It
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: reveals a mind that is entirely detached from accountability, still
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: desperately trying to manipulate the perception of reality.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: It is a non-apology that exposes the depth of his narcissism.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: The judge sees entirely through the facade. He labels Zachariah's
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: actions as frightening, horrible, and calculated, and sentences him to
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: spend the remainder of his life in the Wisconsin state
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: prison system. The legal mechanism grinds to a halt. The
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: gavel falls. But for the families left in the wake
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: of this destruction... A bodiless homicide means the trauma never
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: truly ends.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: The ambiguity is a permanent scar. The legal system achieved
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: a conviction, but it cannot mandate closure.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: The victim impact statements at the sentencing are just devastating
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: to read. The 14-year-old daughter stands up, looks at the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: father who used her, and asks him the most heartbreaking question.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: She asks, did you ever love me, or was I
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: just a pawn, a toy, or your little golden retriever?
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: That is just awful.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: She realizes, with agonizing clarity, that she was merely an
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: instrument for his control.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: The collateral damage of his rage obliterated his own family structure,
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: leaving his children to process a betrayal that defies comprehension.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: And the agony extends to Rosalio's family. His mother, Celia Patterson,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: articulated the specific cruelty of this crime. To lose a
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: child is unimaginable, but to lose a child and be
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: denied the ability to lay their body to rest is
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: a unique agonizing torture.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: How is she coping?
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: She told the court that she still drives to his
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Woodcreek apartment building. She parks her car outside, drinks her coffee, cries, laughs,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and just talks to him. Because without a grave, without
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a physical place to mourn, the location of his violent
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: end is the last place she feels connected to him.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Her friends and family filled the courtroom wearing Cubs blue
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: to honor his memory, a silent tribute because the court
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: rules prevented them from displaying his photograph during the trial.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: This case stands as a harrowing, meticulous study in the
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: devastating ripple effects of jealousy, obsession, and the violent refusal
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: to relinquish control. It demonstrates how one individual's narcissistic collapse
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: can obliterate the lives of everyone in their orbit, leaving
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: behind a legacy of profound grief and agonizing unanswered questions.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: And as we close this deep dive, it leaves you
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: with a final, deeply unsettling thought to mull over. We
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: live in an era defined by our digital immortality. We're
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: tracked by GPS. Our communications are logged. Our purchases are
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: recorded in data centers forever. Right. Zachariah Anderson left a massive,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: undeniable digital trail of his obsession. The trackers, the texts,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: the hidden audio devices, the cellular blackout. Yet despite the
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: vastness of our modern technology, despite side-scan sonar on underwater robots,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: despite cadaver dogs trained to smell the faintest trace of biology,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and despite an 80-officer grid search, a human being was
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: able to successfully, entirely make a physical body vanish from
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the face of the earth.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: He really does make you think.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: It leaves you wondering. In a world where we supposedly
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: cannot hide anything anymore, how much of the physical world
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: remains completely out of our sight? Thank you for joining
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: us for this deep dive. Keep questioning the world around you.