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The Disappearance of Matthew Johnson · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know, welcome to another custom-tailored deep dive. And today,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: we're getting into something that really just messes with your expectations.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, usually when we talk about a physical location,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: like a wealthy suburb or a gated community, there is
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: this expectation of consistency, you know?
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Right, totally. You expect safety.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You drive through a place where every single lawn
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: is just aggressively manicured. The houses are sprawling. The driveways
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: are filled with these luxury SUVs. And your brain just
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: automatically points and says, you know, safety, predictability.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: You look at those pristine picture windows and just assume
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the life happening behind them is spotless.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Right. But then you step into the world of domestic
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: psychology and criminal cover-ups, and suddenly that glass just shatters.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Because we are diving into a landscape today that is,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, the absolute definition of a meticulously curated facade.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: And what it's masking is just absolute chaos.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolute chaos. Our mission today is to unpack this
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: really gripping transcript from a recent Nancy Gray's Crime Stories broadcast.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: We are dissecting the psychological complexities, the forensic realities, and honestly,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the staggering legal missteps in the disappearance of Matthew Johnson.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: And the subsequent arrest of his wife, Jennifer Gledhill. It's
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: a case that really tests everything we think we know
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: about the assumptions we make when someone just vanishes.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really does.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: And to understand the shockwaves here, you have to understand
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: the environment. So Matthew Johnson lived in Cottonwood.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Heights, Utah. Right.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Which is this very ritzy area just about 16 miles
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: outside of Salt Lake City.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: OK. Yeah. Million dollar homes, designer clothes, high end cars.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's the kind of place where the biggest
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: neighborhood scandal is usually like someone's landscaper blowing leaves into
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the wrong yard. Right. Right. It is the absolute last
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: place you would ever expect a brutal crime to unfold.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Which, okay, let's unpack this because that makes the initial
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: days of his disappearance so incredibly telling about our own
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: societal blind spots.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So here's the setup for you. Matthew is an active
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: military man. He's a national guardsman in a special ops
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: unit and a father of three. And one day, he
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: just doesn't show up for work.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Just gone. Yeah.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: His phone is going straight to voicemail. His wife, Jennifer,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: reports him missing, telling the police he left for the
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: base that morning and just, you know, never came back.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: And the immediate narrative that starts forming among some of
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the experts in law enforcement and the source material, I mean,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: it drove me absolutely crazy.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: The runaway dad trope.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Yes. Defense Attorney Raymond Giudice and Sergeant Gary Young from
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the Cottonwood Heights Police Department both initially leaned hard into
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: this runaway dad theory.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Giudice even references this 1970s book, Run, Rabbit, Run.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Right. painting this whole picture of a guy who is
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: just crushed by the pressure of modern life. Too many
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: car notes, a huge mortgage, chopping wood on the weekend,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: taking kids to soccer.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: And under all that weight, they assume a guy just snaps,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: says he's going out for a loaf of bread and
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: never comes back.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And I have to ask, why is society's default
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: assumptions that a stressed dad just walked away. I mean,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: dropping a family, abandoning three young children, leaving behind a
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: massive mortgage and all those assets to just start a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: quote-unquote new life.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: It's a massive leap.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It is. It's a phenomenally heavy assumption to make with
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: zero evidence. It feels like we are, I don't know,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: applying a cliche from an old movie instead of looking
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: at the reality of the victim.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Well, what's fascinating here is how law enforcement initially perceived
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: the case. It's an easy narrative to fall back on
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: because it fits a demographic profile that they see often
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: enough to creel to bias.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: You mean the wealthy suburban father under financial pressure? Exactly.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Sergeant Young originally thought Matthew was just, you know, taking
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: a break.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Taking a break.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, escaping his situation due to stress. They kind of
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: assumed he was going off the radar for a few
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: days and would just wander back home once he had
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: cleared his head. Wow. It's a form of investigative triage.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: But as Nancy Grace challenged in the transcript, this is
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: where the danger lies during those crucial first 48 hours.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Because if you assume he walked away, you aren't treating
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: it like a crime.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You aren't locking down a crime scene. You aren't
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: pulling search warrants with the same urgency. And when you
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: actually look at the individual data points of Matthew Johnson's life,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: the statistics completely fall apart.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Right, because he didn't fit that profile at all.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Not at all. Men do leave, sure. But when pressed,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Sergeant Young had to admit that Matthew had absolutely no
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: history of taking unannounced breaks. He had zero history of
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: abandoning his kids.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Who are what, 11, 7, and 5?
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, 11, 7, and 5. By all accounts, a very
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: dedicated father.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And you really have to factor in his profession, too.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: The guy's a special ops soldier who had been deployed
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: overseas multiple times.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Which is, um, it presents a really interesting duality.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Well, on one hand, a special ops soldier possesses the
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: exact specialized training, the survival skills, to disappear off the
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: grid successfully. If he genuinely wanted to vanish, he could
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: pull it off without leaving a digital footprint.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: True, he has the skills.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: He has the means. But on the other hand, the
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: psychology of a special ops soldier relies heavily on a
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: deep-seated sense of duty. Right.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Mission completion.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Walking away from a duty, especially the duty of
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: fatherhood without a trace, It directly contradicts that psychological profile.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: He had the means, but absolutely no demonstrated motive.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I see. So think about that. You know, how quickly
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: assumptions based on demographics can just completely cloud an investigation.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: So the police initially put out a press release, treating
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: it as a standard missing person.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Basically hoping a buddy would call and say he's sleeping
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: on their couch. Right.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: But while that theory was slowly fading as the days
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: ticked by... It was eventually just shattered completely by a
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: piece of physical evidence. The truck. Yes, the maroon Dodge
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: 1500 pickup truck. They find it 10 days after he
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: is reported missing. And here's where it gets really interesting.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Because if a guy is starting a new life, where
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: is that truck? It's at long-term parking at the airport
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: or it's three states over. But this truck wasn't cross-country.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: It was parked on a dead-end street, a cul-de-sac.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Not even a mile away.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe a block and a half to two blocks
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  Speaker 1: from his own million-dollar home. Barely a walk.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge red flag.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Massive. And the state of the truck, before they even
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: processed it for forensics, is what caught my attention. The
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: truck is locked. It has gas in the tank. But
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: it is completely devoid of any of Matthew's personal belongings.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Sterilized.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, think about your own car. If someone
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: looked inside right now, they'd find, I don't know, dog treats,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: old cups of tea, receipts.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Right, signs of life.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly, signs of a lived life. The absolute, complete absence
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: of these items immediately roused police suspicion. They knew they
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: weren't dealing with a guy taking a break.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Because a sterilized environment in a daily commuter vehicle is
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: a massive anomaly. And this highlights the forensic significance of vehicles,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: which the source material covers with Toby Wilson, a former
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: bloodstain pattern analyst.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he had some fascinating insights.
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  Speaker 2: He really did. Vehicles are critical transitional spaces, and a
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: pickup truck bed grimly speaking, is a prime area of
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: interest because it's an easy way to transport a body. Right.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: The source transcript brings up historical cross-case comparisons to illustrate
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  Speaker 2: exactly why cars are just dead giveaways.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Like the Casey Anthony case, right?
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  Speaker 2: Yes. That's a prime example of a vehicle overriding a
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: constructed narrative. In that case, the grandmother retrieves Casey's car
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: from an impound lot and is immediately hit with the
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: unmistakable scent of human decomposition.
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  Speaker 1: The smell in the trunk.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: And that led to the discovery of a single, pristine
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: hair belonging to two-year-old Kaylee.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: But wait, I always wondered about that. How does a
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: single hair prove anything if it doesn't have the root attached?
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Because you need the root for standard DNA testing, right?
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: You do for standard nuclear DNA, yes. But this is
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: where mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, comes in.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Nuclear DNA is in the nucleus of a cell, which
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: is attached to the root. If a hair naturally sheds
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: without the root, you lose that nuclear DNA. But your
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: cells have hundreds of mitochondria outside the nucleus, and they
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: have their own DNA.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. I didn't realize that.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the crucial mechanism here is that mitochondrial DNA
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: is passed down exclusively through the maternal line.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So from mother to child?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, your mtDNA is identical to your mother's, your grandmother's.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: So they linked that hair via mitochondrial DNA to grandmother
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Cindy Anthony's maternal line.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so they couldn't necessarily say definitively it was Kaylee's,
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  Speaker 1: but they could narrow it to that maternal line.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And because the grandmother dyed her hair and Casey
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: treated hers, they deduced that this pristine, untreated hair could
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: only belong to the toddler.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: The car essentially acted as a witness. It did.
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  Speaker 2: The vehicle held the biological truth.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Which brings up the Tara Grinstead case they mentioned, which
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I only know the broad strokes of. She was that
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: beloved high school teacher in Georgia who vanished, right? That's right.
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  Speaker 1: How did her car betray the cover-up?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: It was about behavioral inconsistency. Tara was known for being
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: almost obsessive-compulsive about her environment. Her home was immaculate. And
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: that neatness extended to her white car. But when she disappeared,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: her car was found covered in mud.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Which instantly clashes with her behavioral baseline.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Precisely. But the mechanical mechanism inside the car is what
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: cemented foul play. The driver's seat was pushed back so
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: far that Tara, given her height, physically could not have
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: reached the pedals.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Because they look at human geometry.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. If a shorter woman's car has the seat
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: configured for a tall man, you immediately know a stranger
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: moved that vehicle.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: So let's apply that human geometry back to Matthew Johnson's Dodge.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: When they towed his truck... the seat was actually found
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in its normal position. Right. Which means whoever drove it
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: last was either similar in height or just didn't bother
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: to adjust it for a very short trip. Which brings
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: us back to the proximity.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: The block and a half.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The proximity means someone could have easily parked it
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and just walked back home.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: It reveals a localized, panicked cover-up.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Because if you want someone to think a person drove away,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: you have to move the car. But driving it far
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: away poses a logistical problem. How do you get back home?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: You'd need an accomplice or an Uber, which leaves a
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: digital receipt.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: So the killer parks are close. But as you noted,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: that highlights a massive blind spot. In a million-dollar neighborhood today,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: ring cameras are everywhere.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Everywhere. You aren't just walking down a street invisibly. Making
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a getaway on foot means you're essentially starring in 12
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: different surveillance films. It's highly risky.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: It's a complete failure to anticipate the modern environment. And
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: having established that Matthew didn't just drive away, this hidden
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: truck forces the investigation to look at the hidden domestic
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: reality inside the house. Right.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Because if the truck didn't go far, neither did the danger.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: So let's shift to the domestic situation leading up to
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: his disappearance. It was a war zone.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Very contentious.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Jennifer had initiated a divorce in July, and it was
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: set to be finalized by the end of October. And
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: during this period, she claims Matthew was violent, and she
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: actually files for a temporary protective order, a TRO, against him.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Right, which in family court is a standard civil procedure
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: designed for immediate safety. The initial order is often granted
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: ex parte, meaning without the other party present.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Just based on one person's word.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Basically, yes, out of caution. But then an emergency hearing
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: is set a few days later, where evidence must actually
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: be presented.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: And this hearing is where the dramatic backfire happens. Jennifer
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: comes into court armed with text messages and video footage
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: she had been secretly recording to prove to the judge
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: that Matthew is an abuser.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Which introduces a fundamental rule of litigation that the legal
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: experts in the transcript highlight. Introducing untested evidence is incredibly dangerous.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, it really is. Like the infamous O.J. Simpson glove
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: demonstration they mentioned. Exactly. If you force a live physical
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: demonstration and it doesn't fit the narrative, it just destroys
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: your case.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: If your evidence visually contradicts your core argument, your case implodes.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: And that is exactly what happened here.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Because she plays this video, supposedly proving she is in
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: mortal danger. But the video actually shows Matthew calmly cleaning
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: up glass from a broken photo.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: He's not yelling.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: He's calm.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: He's completely calm.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: So the judge, Court Commissioner Russell Minus, he watches this
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: and completely dismisses the permanent order. He notes that both
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: parties were equally confrontational, describes the relationship as highly dysfunctional,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: And he actually calls Jennifer's request a mere, quote unquote,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: litigation tactic.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Which is a crucial psychological pivot. Dr. Chloe Carmichael, the
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: clinical psychologist in The Source, identifies this behavior as textbook
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: impression management.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Impression management. So going out of her way to frame
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: him as the aggressor and herself as the victim.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Yes. She is attempting to meticulously control the perceptions the
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: court has of her situation to gain leverage in a divorce.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: This raises an important question, though. I mean, if you
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: are truly a victim in fear for your life, why
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: are the videos you present showing a calm spouse? And
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: why do you exhibit no actual fear in the footage?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Because it's fabricated. Her biological response, her body language, didn't
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: match her claims. And this failed legal maneuver sets a
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: permanent foundation of deceit. It created a legal record showing
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: she was willing to manipulate reality.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to, honestly, the most mind-boggling transition in
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: this whole story. We move from psychological manipulation in the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: courtroom to physical manipulation in the bedroom.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: The mattress.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: The mattress. Three days after her husband's disappearance, while a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: normal spouse would be frantically scouring the county or checking
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: credit card transactions, Jennifer orders a brand new mattress for
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the master bedroom.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: It is an action so far outside standard crisis behavior.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, imagine the crisis of a missing spouse. And
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: your priority is replacing a lumpy mattress. I was in
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: utter disbelief reading that.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Dr. Kinder, our forensic psychologist, explains it. Carmichael noted that
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: couples in a divorce usually focus on liquidation, not making
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: major expensive joint household purchases. It acts as a beacon
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: for investigators.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: It screams guilt. And when the Cottonwood Heights PD eventually
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: execute a search warrant, they discover exactly why that mattress
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: was replaced.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: What did they find?
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: They find blood. Blood on the wooden slats beneath the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: mattress and deeply soaked into the carpet pad below the bed.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: The room smells of bleach and the walls have been
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: meticulously scrubbed.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: This is where we need to break down the forensic
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: science provided by Toby Wilson. Because people consume so much
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: fictional media where bleach just magically erases a murder. Right.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: The CSI effect.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Wilson explains exactly why cleaning a crime scene is
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: a battle against physics. Let's talk about the mattress. It
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: is essentially a giant sponge.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Right, because of the foam.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Most modern mattresses are polyurethane foam. They are highly porous.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: When blood hits a mattress, it doesn't pool on the surface.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Capillary action draws the fluid deep into the internal fibers.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: It is virtually impossible to clean.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: So you could scrub the surface, but the biological material
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: is just sitting right below it.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And in this case, Wilson pointed out a critical mechanism
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: of fluid volume. For blood to bleed all the way
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: through a thick mattress and stain the wooden slats... The
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: original mattress had to be heavily saturated.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: The volume of blood had to be catastrophic.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. Gravity pulled the liquid completely through. And wood is porous, too.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Blood seeps into the grain, making it nearly impossible to
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: wipe away.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And the carpet pad. Wilson talked about the sponge effect
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: of carpet pads. Criminals clean what they visually see on
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the surface.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Because they suffer from a visual cognitive bias. They see
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: a red stain on the carpet fibers. They scrub it
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: until the red is gone. And their brain tells them
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: the evidence is destroyed.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: But they entirely miss the pooling beneath the carpet. I mean,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: next time you spill something on your carpet, think about
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: how it seeps into the pad beneath. Now imagine trying
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: to hide a massive crime scene from trained analysts who
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: physically peel that carpet back.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: That pad acts as a reservoir. Wilson noted that even
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: weeks later, analysts can peel back a carpet and find
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: the polyurethane pad still physically wet with blood.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: The perpetrator expends all their energy on the top, ignoring
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: the massive pool of DNA hidden below.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: And what about the walls? The microscopic spatter?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Amateurs almost always miss the geometry of blood spatter. They
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: miss the high-velocity mist that casts onto ceilings or under baseboards.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: And the bleach smell. Does bleach actually destroy blood?
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: It's mostly a myth. Bleach is a strong oxidizer. It
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: breaks down the hemoglobin, which alters the color and degrades
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: the DNA. But it doesn't make it vanish.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Because of the iron, right? Exactly. Exactly.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Forensic teams use luminol, which reacts with the iron in hemoglobin.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Even if bleach rendered the blood invisible to the naked eye,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: the iron remains. When sprayed with luminol, it glows bright blue. Plus,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: heavy use of bleach is itself a forensic indicator.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: It's the smell of a cover-up.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: So we have this incredible irony here. Jennifer scrubbed the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: walls with bleach. She threw away a saturated mattress. But
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: she couldn't keep her own mouth clean.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: The fatal gossip.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: The fatal gossip. This is where the story just goes
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: off the rails. She calls a friend who is now
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: a confidential informant the evening before reporting Matthew missing.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: The timeline is just insane.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Right. She gives a completely different version of events, and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: eventually she just confesses. She admits she shot Matthew in
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the head while he slept and buried his body in
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: a shallow grave.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: She even told the friend she was trying to, quote,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: determine next steps.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? I question the sheer
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: audacity of this. Why do killers confess to uninvolved friends
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and expect them to just keep a murder secret? It's like, hey,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I committed a felony. Anyway, what's for dinner?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: It defies rational logic entirely, which means we have to
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: lean on Dr. Carmichael's psychological breakdown again. She introduces two
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: interconnected concepts here, grandiosity and hot cognition.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Grandiosity, like extreme egoism?
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's an extreme manifestation of narcissism. In a criminal context,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: the killer believes they possess an intellect so superior that
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: they can manipulate reality. Jennifer genuinely believes she could murder
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: a spouse, clean the scene, lie to the police, and
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: then confide in a friend and face zero consequences.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: She thought she just controlled that friend's loyalty completely. Precisely.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And this grandiosity is supercharged by the biological mechanism of
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: hot cognition.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, what is hot cognition? What is actually happening in
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the brain?
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Hot cognition refers to a supercharged mental state during or
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: immediately after a high-stakes act. When you commit a terrifying
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: act like a murder, your body floods with cortisol and adrenaline.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Fight or flight.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Right. This activates the amygdala, the primitive part of your brain.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: But the severe trade-off is that when the amygdala is hyperactive,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: it suppresses the prefrontal cortex.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: And the prefrontal cortex is the logical part, right?
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's responsible for rational thinking, impulse control, and understanding consequences.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: So the part of her brain that would say, hey,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: maybe don't confess to a murder on the phone is
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: completely shut down. Wow.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So rational thinking just breaks down. They are operating on
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: raw ego.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: And the psychological pressure of the murder demands a release valve.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: The killer needs to talk about it to validate their
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: own perceived brilliance. They are just seeking emotional regulation.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: It's the dumb killer syndrome.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: And to contextualize this, the deep dive explores other infamous
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: cases cited in the source, what they call Black Widow comparisons.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Because they all feature this exact same catastrophic blind spot. Yes.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Corey Richens, the Moscow mule mom. She
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: made a toxic drink for her husband to celebrate a
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: business win, left the room, and returned hours later to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: find him cold to the touch.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: She allegedly served him a lethal dose of fentanyl, believing
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: an autopsy wouldn't detect it or that her digital footprint
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: of buying the drugs would just vanish.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: And the Emily Yu case, the Drano wife, this one
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: is wild. She was a doctor, right?
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, a 45-year-old dermatologist.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Her husband, Jack Chen, was a radiologist.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Jack starts noticing a chemical taste in his lemonade and
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: tea and suffers from severe stomach ulcers.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: So he sets up a hidden kitchen camera.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Right. Tucked away under the sink.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And it captures Emily reaching under the sink to pour
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Drano directly into his lemonade.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Drano.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: She's a medical professional. She knows what that does.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: But her grandiosity made her believe she could slowly poison
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: her husband, and it never crossed her suppressed prefrontal cortex
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: that her radiologist husband might use a nanny cam.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: And then there's Dahlia DiPolito. She hired a hitman for $ 7, 000
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to kill her husband, Michael, while she went to the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: gym to establish an alibi.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Unaware that the hitman was an undercover cop.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The entire notification of his death was a sting operation.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: She's sobbing for the cameras, not realizing he is alive
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and watching her on a monitor.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, all these
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: cases feature highly educated or wealthy individuals who whose extreme
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: grandiosity blinded them to the obvious reality.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: That they would be caught on camera by forensics or
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: by an informant.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: The ego tells them they are playing chess, but they
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: ignore that the board is wired with sensors.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: That is such a good way to put it, which
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: brings the narrative to the present reality of the investigation.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: The grandiosity has collided with the law.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Yes. Nine days into the search, Jennifer Gledhill is arrested
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: outside her home.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: She's charged with suspicion of murder and tampering with evidence.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: And she has denied bail, entirely based on her own
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: loose lips with her friend.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: And for us, this brings the timeline up to the
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: current day. The judge denied bail out of fear she
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: will further tamper with evidence or flee. Her comments about
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: determining next steps and burying a body were the exact
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: mechanisms used to keep her behind bars.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And the collateral damage is awful. The couple's three children
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: are placed with a relative.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: The human cost is immense. And the investigation is still
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: ongoing because police have not found Matthew's body yet.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Right. They need the body to solidify their forensics, which
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: means a massive digital hunt. They are executing over 25
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: warrants for cell phones and computer histories.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: They are tracking electronic footprints, cell site analysis to see
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: which towers pinged, GPS telematics. They are hoping to narrow
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: down the needle in a haystack location of the shallow grave.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Because she mentioned a shallow grave to her friend, but
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: without GPS coordinates, they have to rely on the digital
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: shadow she left behind.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: It is meticulous, exhausting work.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And the source broadcast briefly closed by honoring Deputy Sheriff
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Oscar Yovani Bolanos Anaya Jr.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Right. A 23-year-old officer killed in the line of duty.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: It pays respect to the harsh realities of law enforcement
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: work mentioned in the text.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: It really grounds you. We can sit here and talk
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: about fluid dynamics and neuroscience, but Real people put their
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: lives on the line for this. Absolutely. So just to
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: wrap up this incredible journey, we went from the presumed
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: runaway dad to a gruesome, meticulously, yet, you know, incompetently
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: planned murder disguised behind the gates of a wealthy suburb.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: It's a stark contrast. And it leaves you with a
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: final lingering thought to mull over.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Well, in our modern world of ring cameras, cell phone towers,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: and mitochondrial DNA, the physical elements of a crime are
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: harder than ever to hide. But perhaps the greatest trap
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: for the modern criminal isn't the technology.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: It's their own ego. Exactly.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: If grandiosity drives the crime, is the psychological need to
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: talk about it and control the narrative ultimately the one
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: piece of evidence that can never be bleached away?
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: You can scrub the walls, but you can't scrub the
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: compulsion to brag. Wow. Thank you for joining us on
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: this deep dive. Keep questioning the narratives you were presented with,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and we'll catch you next time.