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The Anesthesiologist and Allie Hummel's Death · Crime Night

0:00
Speaker 1: Picture this. It's early morning, Tuesday, June twenty third, twenty
0:06
Speaker 1: twenty six. Okay, the sun is just barely starting to
0:09
Speaker 1: crest over the horizon. You casting that pale, grayish pre
0:12
Speaker 1: dawn light across the road. A woman named Tricia is
0:16
Speaker 1: alone in her car. Right the clock on her dashboard
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Speaker 1: reads exactly six seventeen am. Suddenly her phone rings is her.
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Speaker 2: Dad, and this is the call that changes everything.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly before he even gets a full word out,
0:30
Speaker 1: the entire atmosphere inside that car changes his demeanors. Just
0:33
Speaker 1: it's completely wrong. He sounds subdued, he sounds tearful, which
0:36
Speaker 1: is entirely out of character for him.
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Speaker 2: It's terrifying when it's your dad, you.
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Speaker 1: Know, oh absolutely, and then he delivers the kind of
0:42
Speaker 1: gut punch that splits your life into a permanent before
0:45
Speaker 1: and after he says, sis, I have some bad news.
0:48
Speaker 1: Ali's passed away. Man.
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Speaker 2: It is literally the call we all dread. And to
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Speaker 2: understand the sheer shock of that moment, you have to
0:55
Speaker 2: know who Ali was.
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Speaker 1: Right, tell us about her. So.
0:57
Speaker 2: Ali Hummel was Tricia's little sister. By two, she was
1:00
Speaker 2: only thirty six years old. A dedicated nurse with this
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Speaker 2: incredibly vibrant, larger than life personality. She loved glam, she
1:07
Speaker 2: loved pink.
1:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, her niece effectually called her anti bling Bling.
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Speaker 2: Exactly anti bling bling. She was just full of life.
1:14
Speaker 2: She was the absolute last person in the world you
1:16
Speaker 2: would expect to be caught at thirty six.
1:18
Speaker 1: She really was. And the reason we are pulling you,
1:21
Speaker 1: our listener, into this car, into this specific, devastating moment,
1:25
Speaker 1: is because today's deep dive is about unraveling a chilling,
1:30
Speaker 1: actively unfolding death investigation happening right now in New London, Missouri.
1:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a complicated one, it really is.
1:39
Speaker 1: We are tracing a timeline of escalating domestic terror that
1:43
Speaker 1: was meticulously hidden behind the facade of a picture perfect
1:47
Speaker 1: medical marriage. We're going to deconstruct the psychological trap of abuse,
1:51
Speaker 1: unpack the forensic mysteries of her final hours, and follow
1:54
Speaker 1: this family's desperate, ongoing quest for justice.
1:56
Speaker 2: And we're bringing you into this investigation alongside us. We
1:59
Speaker 2: will reconstruct this timeline step by step because the details
2:03
Speaker 2: of this case and the systemic failure surrounding it, they
2:06
Speaker 2: challenge everything we think we know about where danger truly lies.
2:10
Speaker 1: Right, So let's rewind the clock four years to twenty
2:14
Speaker 1: twenty two. This is the origin. Ali is at a
2:17
Speaker 1: highly vulnerable point in her life.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, shes go through a lot.
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Speaker 1: She was. She is finalizing a painful divorce from her
2:23
Speaker 1: first husband, a split that was caused by infidelity. And
2:28
Speaker 1: like anyone coming out of a profound betrayal, she just
2:31
Speaker 1: desperately wanted to feel valued. She wanted to feel loved
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Speaker 1: and treated like a princess.
2:36
Speaker 2: And enter Andrew hummel Ander Andrew right. So, Andrew is
2:39
Speaker 2: highly charismatic. He is successful. Crucially, she is a practicing anesthesiologist.
2:44
Speaker 1: Which is a huge detail.
2:46
Speaker 2: It's massive. It's a title that carries a tremendous amount
2:48
Speaker 2: of social prestige and financial stability. He zeros in on
2:52
Speaker 2: Ali and for their very first date, he doesn't take
2:54
Speaker 2: her to grab a casual cup of coffee. He flies
2:56
Speaker 2: her to a George Strait concert at Airhead Stadium in
2:59
Speaker 2: Kansas City.
3:00
Speaker 1: I mean wow, He goes massive right out of the gate.
3:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, no half measures.
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Speaker 1: He paints this picture of a lavish dream come true
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Speaker 1: romance filled with big trips and great adventures. He swoops
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Speaker 1: in like a savior and things move at an absolute
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Speaker 1: breakneck speed. Yeah. By the spring of twenty twenty three,
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Speaker 1: they are suddenly married, just like that, Just like that.
3:19
Speaker 1: There's no engagement announcement, no big build up, just a quiet,
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Speaker 1: unannounced marriage. But almost immediately after the paperwork is signed,
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Speaker 1: the fairy tale begins to fracture.
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Speaker 2: The shift is incredibly jarring. Following this whirlwind romance, Ali
3:35
Speaker 2: suddenly starts pulling away from her family.
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Speaker 1: Which is a huge red flag.
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Speaker 2: Huge. She misses gatherings always armed with some vague excuse.
3:43
Speaker 2: But there was one event they did attend together, her
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Speaker 2: sister Anne's gender reveal party. Okay, And at this joyous
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Speaker 2: family celebration, Andrew inexplicably flies into a violent rage at.
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Speaker 1: The dad to be wait at a gender reveal.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, a completely disproportionate alarm display of anger out of nowhere.
4:01
Speaker 1: That is so wild. You know, when people hear stories
4:03
Speaker 1: like this, they often use the phrase she fell for him,
4:06
Speaker 1: as if it were a clumsy accident. And I've always
4:09
Speaker 1: hated that phrasing.
4:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it blames the victim a bit.
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Speaker 1: It totally does. It's more like a venus flytrap. You
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Speaker 1: don't fall into a venus flytrap. You were lured in.
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Speaker 1: It secretes this beautiful sweet nectar, the stadium concerts, the
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Speaker 1: lavish trips, the promises of unwavering protection.
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Speaker 2: That's a really good analogy.
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Speaker 1: Thanks. You step inside because it looks like a safe,
4:27
Speaker 1: beautiful place to rest. And it is only when you
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Speaker 1: are completely inside, when the marriage certificate is signed and
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Speaker 1: your lives are entangled, that the trap snaps shut. So
4:38
Speaker 1: let me ask you, at what point does the isolation
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Speaker 1: become a calculated weapon rather than just you know, newly
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Speaker 1: weed bliss.
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Speaker 2: Well, that is the core mechanism of control. Right in
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Speaker 2: the early days, abusers often frame this isolation as romance.
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Speaker 2: They say things like we don't need anyone else. It's
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Speaker 2: just you and me against the.
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Speaker 1: World, right, which sounds flattering at first.
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Speaker 2: It flatters the victim completely, but functionally. By cutting the
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Speaker 2: victim off from their support network, the abuser removes all
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Speaker 2: reality checks. If Ali is isolated, there is no one
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Speaker 2: around to say, hey, his reaction at the gender reveal
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Speaker 2: was not normal behavior.
5:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody to ground her in reality.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, and the psychological isolation quickly manifests physically. By the
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Speaker 2: summer of twenty twenty three. During those sweltering, muggy misery
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Speaker 2: summer days. Her family notices Ali is constantly wearing long
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Speaker 2: sleeved clothing.
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Speaker 1: Oh man, she is just baking in the heat, using
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Speaker 1: layers of fabric to hide the brutal reality of her
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Speaker 1: new life. Yeah, that physical isolation laid the groundwork for
5:39
Speaker 1: what happened next. As we move into late twenty twenty
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Speaker 1: three and twenty twenty four, the facade really starts to crumble,
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Speaker 1: but only in secret. Ali starts secretly documenting her own nightmare,
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Speaker 1: creating this terrifying digital trail.
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Speaker 2: She began sending what her family calls just in case photos.
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Speaker 1: Just in case something happen exactly.
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Speaker 2: And these are deeply disturbing images She sent to her family,
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Speaker 2: photos of her with black eyes, her face completely swollen,
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Speaker 2: patches of her hair, physically ripped out, marks on her
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Speaker 2: cheeks and nose.
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Speaker 1: God, that is so hard to hear.
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Speaker 2: It is and professionally, she was running from the truth
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Speaker 2: as well. She constantly changed nursing jobs, moving from hospital
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Speaker 2: to hospital.
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Speaker 1: Right just to escape the inevitable questions from her coworkers
6:22
Speaker 1: in the break room. She knew as a nurse that
6:25
Speaker 1: other medical professionals would recognize the patterns of those bruises.
6:28
Speaker 2: They absolutely would.
6:30
Speaker 1: But the most visceral evidence of this escalation isn't just
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Speaker 1: the photos. It's the Nestcam footage.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, Andrew had installed smart cameras inside their home,
6:38
Speaker 2: which is a pretty common feature in modern houses, but
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Speaker 2: Ali had access to the cloud storage. In late twenty
6:45
Speaker 2: twenty four and early twenty twenty five, she started quietly
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Speaker 2: saving and sending clips of these assaults to her family.
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Speaker 1: I want to try and paint the scene of this
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Speaker 1: footage for you, because the contrast is sickening. You have
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Speaker 1: this very normal domestic setting. A Christmas tree is glowing
6:59
Speaker 1: soft in the background of their living room. It looks
7:01
Speaker 1: so cozy, right, but their family dog is running around
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Speaker 1: an absolute confusion and panic. And in the center of
7:07
Speaker 1: this cozy holiday scene, Ali is pinned down on a
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Speaker 1: bean bag chair by her husband, who is significantly larger
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Speaker 1: than her. You can hear her pleading on the audio, screaming,
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Speaker 1: don't hurt me, help, help, and Andrew is just standing
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Speaker 1: over her, taunting her.
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Speaker 2: The banality of the violence is what strikes investigators the most.
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Speaker 2: He is completely comfortable committing these acts in his own
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Speaker 2: living room. Under the gaze of his.
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Speaker 1: Own camera, which is terrifying.
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Speaker 2: It is, but violence rarely stays contained, and the tipping
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Speaker 2: point happens in July of twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 1: Okay, what happened?
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Speaker 2: They are at a hotel in Saint Louis, actually getting
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Speaker 2: ready to fly out for a lavish trip to Jamaica
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Speaker 2: for Ali's birthday.
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Speaker 1: The venus fly trap is still offering up that sweet
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Speaker 1: nectar a.
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Speaker 2: Perfect way to put it, but the reality inside the
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Speaker 2: trap is deadly. The police are called to the hotel
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Speaker 2: because neighbors in the adjacent rooms here a woman repeatedly screamed,
8:00
Speaker 2: get off me, over and over.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow, So people actually intervene.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and when law enforcement arrives, the scene is grim.
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Speaker 2: They find Ali down in the hotel lobby bathroom. She
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Speaker 2: has a swollen lip and tells them Andrew assaulted her
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Speaker 2: and strangled her multiple times to the point where she
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Speaker 2: physically couldn't breathe.
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Speaker 1: That's attempted murder, essentially.
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Speaker 2: It's incredibly dangerous. And upstairs in their room, the police
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Speaker 2: find blood on the hotel bed.
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Speaker 1: So this wasn't a gray area for the officers, not
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Speaker 1: at all. Andrew is arrested right there in the hotel room.
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Speaker 1: He is charged with two counts of second degree domestic
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Speaker 1: assault in Missouri. That is a Class D felony, which
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Speaker 1: is very serious, very serious. But because he had her
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Speaker 1: keys on him when he was arrested, Ali has to
8:43
Speaker 1: call her sister, Tricia, to come pick her up. And
8:46
Speaker 1: this leads to a conversation in Tricia's car that completely
8:50
Speaker 1: stopped me in my tracks when I first read about it. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Tricia looks at her sister and delivers this incredibly blunt warning.
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Speaker 1: She says, if you don't leave him, I'm going to
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Speaker 1: bring you home in a body bag. So what are
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Speaker 1: your burial preferences?
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Speaker 3: A chilling thing to have to say to your sister, right,
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Speaker 3: and Ali just laughed it off. Yeah, And to anyone
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Speaker 3: standing outside the cycle of abuse, that reaction sounds completely incomprehensible.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this, because I have to admit it
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Speaker 1: makes zero logical sense to me. How does a victim
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Speaker 1: reach that level of detachment. Your sister is essentially asking
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Speaker 1: you how you want to be buried after your husband
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Speaker 1: just strangled you, and your response is laughter.
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Speaker 2: It's so hard to grasp from the outside but we
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Speaker 2: have to look at the psychology of cognitive dissonance.
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Speaker 1: Okay, explain that.
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Speaker 2: When you are trapped in an abusive dynamic, fully acknowledging
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Speaker 2: the true lethal danger you are in can mentally break you.
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Speaker 2: The human brain protects itself. Victims minimize, they rationalize.
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Speaker 1: So it's a survival mechanism precisely.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, And the psychological defense is fed by the abuser's
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Speaker 2: predictable cycle. After a severe incident like the hotel strangulation,
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Speaker 2: the cycle dictates that Andrew would shower her with apologies, tears,
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Speaker 2: and false promises.
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Speaker 1: Of reform, and she wanted to believe it.
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Speaker 2: Ali desperately wanted the fairytale to be real. On top
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Speaker 2: of that, she felt this intense pressure to protect his
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Speaker 2: career as a doctor, knowing that if he goes down,
10:11
Speaker 2: the entire life and financial security they built goes down
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Speaker 2: with him.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So laughing at her sister's warning wasn't humor. It
10:19
Speaker 2: was a desperate deflection to avoid facing a reality that
10:22
Speaker 2: was simply too terrifying to process.
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Speaker 1: Man, and the tragedy is that the justice system ended
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Speaker 1: up reinforcing her denial. We move into March of twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty six, and the legal system just completely falters.
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Speaker 2: It really does.
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Speaker 1: Andrew takes a plea deal, those severe felony strangulation charges
10:38
Speaker 1: are reduced to misdemeanors and he just gets probation.
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Speaker 2: Probation for strangulation.
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Speaker 1: Yes, and before this plea deal, Ali had actually started
10:46
Speaker 1: filling out divorce papers. She was right on the edge
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Speaker 1: of leaving. But when he gets off of the slap
10:51
Speaker 1: on the wrist, she chooses the marriage. She completely cuts
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Speaker 1: off her family, telling them their intervention is causing legal
10:58
Speaker 1: issues for Andrew.
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Speaker 2: This is there's a massive systemic failure. We need to deconstruct.
11:03
Speaker 2: I mean, how does a Class D felony for strangulation
11:06
Speaker 2: become a misdemeanor with probation.
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Speaker 1: It's infuriating. How does it happen?
11:10
Speaker 2: Well? In our legal system, prosecutors are managing massively overworked dockets.
11:15
Speaker 2: They often weigh the risk of going to trial against
11:17
Speaker 2: the reward of a guaranteed, albeit lesser conviction. When you
11:21
Speaker 2: have a wealthy defendant, like an antithesiologist, who can afford
11:24
Speaker 2: high powered defense attorneys, those attorneys will drag the process out.
11:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, file endless motions, bury them in paperwork.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. They exhaust the prosecution's resources. Furthermore, if the victim
11:36
Speaker 2: in this case, Ali, who is deep in cognitive dissonance,
11:38
Speaker 2: is reluctant to testify against her husband, prosecutors lose their
11:42
Speaker 2: primary witness.
11:43
Speaker 1: Right without her, they have a much weaker case.
11:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a plea deal becomes the path of least
11:48
Speaker 2: resistance for the courts. But it sends a deadly message
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Speaker 2: to the abuser. It says, your wealth and status can
11:55
Speaker 2: buy you out of accountability, And.
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Speaker 1: It sends an equally deadly message to the victims. Will
12:00
Speaker 1: not protect you. See, you better appease your abuser. The
12:03
Speaker 1: isolation is now complete. The venus fly trap is sealed
12:07
Speaker 1: tight it is, and that brings us to June of
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, mere weeks before her death. Even though
12:14
Speaker 1: her family is cut off, Ali is still talking to
12:16
Speaker 1: a couple of close friends, and one friend receives photos
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Speaker 1: of Ali with her hands and legs completely scratched up.
12:23
Speaker 1: Allie tells her friend that Andrew pushed her down the stairs,
12:26
Speaker 1: which is terrifying escalation. And there's another ominous detail lurking
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Speaker 1: in the background. Tricia had previously noted seeing small vials
12:34
Speaker 1: in the couple's refrigerator piles of ketamine and ambient Yeah.
12:37
Speaker 1: Ali had confided that Andrew would sometimes give her these
12:40
Speaker 1: drugs at home.
12:40
Speaker 2: Which sets the stage for the morning of June twenty third,
12:43
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, the morning of the phone call.
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Speaker 1: We started with, right, what was his story?
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Speaker 2: According to Andrew, he woke up in the middle of
12:49
Speaker 2: the night to find Ali unconscious. His story to her
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Speaker 2: father and to the police was that she had eaten
12:55
Speaker 2: a sandwich by the bed, vomited, and because she was
12:58
Speaker 2: too sedate to have a gag reflex, she aspirated. He
13:02
Speaker 2: claimed he woke up about an hour too late to
13:04
Speaker 2: save her.
13:05
Speaker 1: Okay, here's where it gets really interesting. Wait, so you're
13:08
Speaker 1: telling me an airway expert, a board certified antithesiologist whose
13:13
Speaker 1: entire career is built on monitoring breathing and administering setative
13:18
Speaker 1: sleeps through his wife choking and asperating right next to
13:22
Speaker 1: him in bed.
13:23
Speaker 2: It defies basic logic, doesn't it?
13:25
Speaker 1: It totally does.
13:26
Speaker 2: It strains credulity to its absolute breaking point. Let's break
13:29
Speaker 2: down the medical mechanics here. Aspiration isn't just coughing on
13:32
Speaker 2: a crumb in a medical context, asperating means stomach contents,
13:35
Speaker 2: acid and fluids bypass the body's defensive reflexes and enter
13:40
Speaker 2: the lungs.
13:40
Speaker 1: Which sounds horrific, it is.
13:42
Speaker 2: It causes an immediate mechanical blockage of the airways and
13:45
Speaker 2: inflicts severe chemical burns on the delicate lung tissue. It
13:48
Speaker 2: is violent, and the body's natural response is to violently
13:51
Speaker 2: fight for air right unless.
13:52
Speaker 1: The body's natural defenses are completely paralyzed.
13:55
Speaker 2: Precisely, which brings us to the pharmacology of those vials
13:58
Speaker 2: in the fridge. Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic. It disconnects
14:02
Speaker 2: the brain from sensory input. Ambion is a sedative hypnotic
14:06
Speaker 2: that depresses the central nervous.
14:08
Speaker 1: System so they're powerful on their own very and.
14:11
Speaker 2: When you combine them you are just making someone sleepy.
14:14
Speaker 2: You are creating a profound synergistic effect that severely depresses
14:19
Speaker 2: respiratory drive and completely paralyzes the gag reflex. It is
14:23
Speaker 2: a cocktail that creates the exact physiological conditions for silent
14:27
Speaker 2: lethal aspiration.
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Speaker 1: Man And to add to the suspicion, Andrew gave authorities
14:33
Speaker 1: this bizarre, unverified story about the night before.
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Speaker 2: Oh Yeah, This part is strange.
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Speaker 1: He claims that the evening prior, Ali was highly intoxicated,
14:41
Speaker 1: drove his truck with him in the passenger seat, rear
14:44
Speaker 1: ended a semi truck, was taken into police custody and
14:47
Speaker 1: then released.
14:48
Speaker 2: Which is a very elaborate story.
14:50
Speaker 1: Very it looks incredibly like he was laying groundwork to
14:52
Speaker 1: suggest her own intoxication from this alleged crash played a
14:55
Speaker 1: role in her being so sedate the next morning.
14:58
Speaker 2: But law enforcement isn't taking his narrative at face value.
15:01
Speaker 2: They immediately ordered an autopsy and a full toxicology report.
15:05
Speaker 1: Right, and if they found ambient enketamine in the fridge,
15:08
Speaker 1: the toxicology report isn't just going to be a simple
15:11
Speaker 1: positive or negative for drugs. They must be looking for
15:15
Speaker 1: a highly specific timeline of when those substances entered her bloodstream.
15:20
Speaker 2: Right Exactly, they are looking for a chemical fingerprint. Toxicology
15:25
Speaker 2: will show the exact concentrations of every substance in her body.
15:29
Speaker 2: Medical examiners will look at the half lives of these
15:31
Speaker 2: drugs to determine exactly when they were administered.
15:34
Speaker 1: So they could piece together the timeline.
15:36
Speaker 2: Yes, they are asking crucial questions like were there levels
15:40
Speaker 2: of sedatives that go beyond recreational or prescribed use? Was
15:43
Speaker 2: this a lethal dose?
15:45
Speaker 1: And I imagine they want to know who administered it?
15:47
Speaker 2: Most importantly, yes, given the specific combination of controlled hospital drugs,
15:52
Speaker 2: was this cocktail self administered or was it administered by
15:55
Speaker 2: a medical professional who had the precise knowledge of how
15:58
Speaker 2: to suppress a human gag reflex.
16:00
Speaker 1: While the police wait for that complex science to come back,
16:03
Speaker 1: Ali's sister Anne refused to just sit and wait in
16:07
Speaker 1: the dark.
16:07
Speaker 2: She was incredibly brave.
16:09
Speaker 1: She turns into a grieving investigator. Shortly after Ali's death,
16:13
Speaker 1: Anne gets Andrew on the phone and she hits record.
16:16
Speaker 1: She confronts him directly.
16:18
Speaker 2: It is a harrowing piece of audio and doesn't hold
16:20
Speaker 2: anything back. She says to him, you beat the hell
16:23
Speaker 2: out of my sister, Andrew, you beat her black and blue.
16:26
Speaker 2: Why couldn't you have just loved her enough not to
16:28
Speaker 2: beat her?
16:29
Speaker 1: And his response is so eerie, it is evasive, It's bizarre.
16:35
Speaker 1: He doesn't aggressively deny it or show any outrage at
16:38
Speaker 1: the accusation. He just says, I did love her. I
16:41
Speaker 1: talked to every bird that flies by the window. I
16:43
Speaker 1: don't want this to be a nasty.
16:44
Speaker 2: Thing, such a strange thing to say.
16:46
Speaker 1: Right, And then he says, if I could undo it,
16:48
Speaker 1: I would undo it. He's speaking in these weird, detached
16:51
Speaker 1: platitudes while his sister's demanding to know why her sibling
16:55
Speaker 1: is dead.
16:56
Speaker 2: It is the carefully managed language of someone trying to
16:59
Speaker 2: control public relations, not someone devastated by an unexpected tragedy.
17:04
Speaker 2: And that brings us to another massive systemic failure, the
17:07
Speaker 2: professional shield his medical degree.
17:09
Speaker 1: Provided, Yeah, we have to talk about this.
17:11
Speaker 2: As of July twenty twenty six, despite a conviction for
17:14
Speaker 2: domestic assault, despite the hotel strangulation, Andrew Hummel remains a
17:18
Speaker 2: board certified anesthesiologist.
17:21
Speaker 1: It is just mind boggling that someone could say those
17:23
Speaker 1: things on tape and have a cretinal record for strangulation,
17:27
Speaker 1: yet society and the medical board completely bought his act.
17:31
Speaker 1: I mean, how does a hospital human resources department even
17:34
Speaker 1: look at a candidate with a domestic violence conviction.
17:37
Speaker 2: It reveals a terrifying blind spot in medical licensing. Medical
17:41
Speaker 2: boards are notoriously slow to act. They often wait for
17:44
Speaker 2: criminal proceedings to fully conclude or for appeals to run
17:47
Speaker 2: their course. Before revoking a license.
17:50
Speaker 1: So they just leave them practicing in the meantime.
17:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and hospitals doing background checks sometimes misdemeanors or they
17:56
Speaker 2: prioritize a candidate's high demand specialty over their personal conduct.
18:00
Speaker 2: Andrew was let go from Hannibal Regional Hospital after that
18:03
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five strangling incident, but because he kept his license,
18:06
Speaker 2: he was actively looking for work elsewhere.
18:08
Speaker 1: Well, here is where public pressure actually moved the needle
18:12
Speaker 1: where the system failed. On July third, twenty twenty six,
18:15
Speaker 1: Fitzgibbon Hospital had to put out a public statement on
18:18
Speaker 1: their Facebook page. The community outcry had become so deafening
18:22
Speaker 1: about this unfolding investigation that the hospital publicly announced they
18:26
Speaker 1: were rejecting him as a candidate. Wow.
18:29
Speaker 2: It shows that while the legal system might have faltered
18:32
Speaker 2: with that plea deal, the community is refusing to look away.
18:35
Speaker 1: Exactly.
18:36
Speaker 2: The Roylls County Sheriff's Office is actively investigating this as
18:39
Speaker 2: an open case. They are waiting on those crucial toxicology results,
18:43
Speaker 2: and they are investigating whether Andrew violated his probation with
18:47
Speaker 2: those June allegations of pushing Alley down the stairs.
18:49
Speaker 1: And we want to help with that. So, if you
18:51
Speaker 1: are listening to this and you know anything, the tip
18:52
Speaker 1: line for the Royls County Sheriff's Office is five to seven,
18:55
Speaker 1: three nine eight five five six eleven. I want to
18:57
Speaker 1: repeat that five seven three nine eight five five six
19:00
Speaker 1: to one because.
19:01
Speaker 2: When you look at the totality of this case, it
19:04
Speaker 2: is the tragic synthesis of a vibrant woman who's completely
19:08
Speaker 2: natural desire for romance was weaponized against her. She was
19:11
Speaker 2: lured in by a man who uses medical prestige, his wealth,
19:15
Speaker 2: and his societal standing as an impenetrable shield to commit
19:18
Speaker 2: acts of escalating terror in plain sight.
19:21
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for us? I think
19:23
Speaker 1: it forces a really uncomfortable realization. We are conditioned to
19:27
Speaker 1: think that danger looks a certain way, but this type
19:30
Speaker 1: of abuser operates more like a pathogen that evades the
19:33
Speaker 1: immune system by mimicking healthy cells.
19:35
Speaker 2: That's a powerful way to look at it.
19:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, he used his medical degree, his wealth, and his
19:38
Speaker 1: status as a disguise to bypass all of society's usual
19:42
Speaker 1: alarm bells. It fundamentally challenges us to reevaluate what domestic
19:47
Speaker 1: bliss looks like from the outside. A big house and
19:49
Speaker 1: a fancy degree can just be the walls of a
19:52
Speaker 1: very expensive cell.
19:53
Speaker 2: That brings up a final chilling concept to ponder as
19:56
Speaker 2: this investigation unfolds.
19:57
Speaker 1: Okay, what is it think about the.
19:59
Speaker 2: Role of modern time technology in the life cycle of
20:01
Speaker 2: abuse today? In the past, abuse behind closed doors was
20:05
Speaker 2: almost entirely a matter of he said, she said, it
20:08
Speaker 2: lived in the shadows.
20:09
Speaker 1: Right, It was just their word against his exactly.
20:12
Speaker 2: But today perpetrators install smart cameras to monitor and control
20:16
Speaker 2: their domains. In doing so, they are unwittingly creating an
20:20
Speaker 2: undeniable digital record of their own crimes. It leaves us
20:24
Speaker 2: with a profound question. Does the digital panopticon of the
20:28
Speaker 2: modern smart home offer a new insidious leech for abusers
20:32
Speaker 2: to control their victims? Or when a tragedy like this strikes,
20:36
Speaker 2: does it ultimately serve as a victim's unbreakable voice from
20:39
Speaker 2: beyond the grave?
20:40
Speaker 1: Wow, the footage Alley saved might just be exactly that,
20:43
Speaker 1: a voice that an expert in airways couldn't permanently silence.
20:47
Speaker 1: We'll be keeping a close eye on New London, Missouri
20:50
Speaker 1: until next time. Stay curious and take care of each other.