Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Boyfriend Accused of Murdering Tennessee Woman After Blood Stains Found

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Boyfriend Accused of Murdering Tennessee Woman After Blood Stains Found · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Deep Dive. You know, we're looking at
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a case today where on November 23rd, an iPhone just
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: silently transmitted a string of GPS coordinates to a mother
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: in Tennessee.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just out of nowhere.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Right? It was like this digital message in a bottle,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and it instantly transformed a missing persons case into a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: hunt for a, well, a death room.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: It's an absolute whiplash of an investigation.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: So today we are unpacking a really dense, rapid-fire true
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: crime report from the Law and Crime Network. It's about
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the disappearance of 22-year-old Jasmine Pace. Her family called her Jazzy.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: And, you know, our goal here is to really understand
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: that speed you mentioned. How does a case jump from
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: a simple missing person inquiry to a first-degree murder charge in, what,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: a matter of days?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Bypassing weeks of normal detective work.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: And doing all of that entirely without finding the victim's
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: physical body.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, that is.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: is the true anomaly here.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Right, which is just wild to think about. It is.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: We're going to look past the sensational news headlines to
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: break down the actual forensic and legal mechanisms that let
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: the state make such a definitive strike.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we're looking at a situation where digital infrastructure
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and biological evidence just collided, right?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They collided to tell a story so undeniable that
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: the physical presence of the victim wasn't even legally required
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: to allege murder.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Take me to the beginning of
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: this source material. I know Jasmine disappears in late November,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: but what is the actual catalyst that sets everything into motion? Because,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, adults go off the grid all the time.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, they do. All the time. And law enforcement relies
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: heavily on contacts to figure out the urgency. So according
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: to the report's timeline, Jasmine was last seen by her
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: family on Tuesday, November 22nd.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: And she had actually mentioned plans to leave the Chattanooga
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: area for a few days. So if that's all the
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: info police had, There'd be zero urgency.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: A 22-year-old is legally allowed to take a trip.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You can turn off your phone and ignore the world.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: But the immediate glaring red flag, the behavioral anomaly that
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: breaks this wide open, is Thanksgiving.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Ah, right.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: She missed Thanksgiving dinner.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Which completely changes the entire psychological landscape.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Of the disappearance.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Completely. In investigative profiling, you look for anchors. And Thanksgiving
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: is this massive societal and familial anchor. The table is set,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Right. The expectation is absolute.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Missing a random lunch date, you can chalk that
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: up to flakiness. But missing Thanksgiving dinner without a single word,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: especially when her family expected her there, that crosses a
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: critical threshold.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: It elevates the situation right away.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Almost instantaneously. It goes from a voluntary missing adult to
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: a high-risk disappearance.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: And the physical evidence starts contradicting her stated plans almost immediately, too, right?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Because if she planned to leave Chattanooga, you'd expect her
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: car to be gone.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But on November 23rd, literally the very next day,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: her vehicle is found abandoned right within the city limits
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: of Chattanooga.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: So you have a missed major holiday combined with an
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: abandoned car.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Right. Those two data points alone justify an immediate escalation
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: by the police.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, but what truly shatters the timeline, because... Usually there's
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that standard, you know, wait 48 hours buffer that delays
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: these investigations.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that buffer gets completely removed by what happens on
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: the digital front. Also on November 23rd, Jasmine's mother receives
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: a text message.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: But it isn't a text saying, like, I'm running late. No.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: It is a dropped pin location. A raw GPS coordinate
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: sent directly to her phone.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Wait, let's pause right here. Because we throw around the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: term dropped pin every day, like when we're trying to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: find a friend at a concert or whatever.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, sure.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: But in the context of a potential crime, I really
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: want to understand the underlying architecture of that signal. How
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: does a phone actually generate and transmit that specific location
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: when someone might be, you know, in the middle of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: a massive crisis?
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  Speaker 2: It is a marvel of modern engineering, honestly. And it
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: fundamentally alters how detectives operate.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: So how does it work?
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  Speaker 2: Well, to understand a dropped pin, you have to understand
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: global navigation satellite systems, or GNSS.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: At any given moment, there are dozens of satellites orbiting
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: the Earth, and they are constantly broadcasting their precise time
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: and position. Your smartphone just contains this tiny receiver chip
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  Speaker 2: that listens for those broadcasts.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: So wait, the Felon isn't sending a signal up to space.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: It's just listening.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It is a one-way reception. The phone picks up
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: signals from at least four different satellites.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And by calculating the microscopic time delay between... When the
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: signal was sent from space and when it hit the phone.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: It can find out where it is.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: The device's internal processor calculates its exact distance from each satellite.
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  Speaker 2: It's called trilateration.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Trilateration.
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  Speaker 2: Got it. Through this really complex geometry, the phone pinpoints
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  Speaker 2: its latitude, longitude, and even altitude on the surface of
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  Speaker 2: the Earth, often within a radius of just a few meters.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: And then it just packages that math into a text message.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: This is where it gets critical for investigations. Modern smartphones
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: have evolved way past simply sharing locations for convenience. Right.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: They have those emergency features now.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Deeply integrated emergency SOS features. Often, if you just press
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: the power button five times rapidly or hold specific volume combinations.
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  Speaker 1: It triggers it automatically.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: It automatically bypasses the lock screen, generates that highly accurate
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: GNSS coordinate, and fires it off to pre-designated emergency contacts
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: via the cellular network. Wow.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: So if you are an investigator looking at this dropped
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: pin sent to her mother, you have to be asking
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  Speaker 1: some heavy questions.
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  Speaker 2: You really do.
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  Speaker 1: Like, was this an intentional call for help? Did Jasmine
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: purposefully trigger an SOS protocol because she knew she was
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: in danger? Or was it just an accidental transmission during
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: some sort of physical struggle?
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: And you have to assume both simultaneously. What's fascinating here
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: is the beauty and the horror of the dropped pin.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: It's absolute neutrality. What do you mean? It tells you
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: exactly where the device was at that millisecond, but it
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: tells you absolutely nothing about the context.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Right. It's just a dot on a map.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. However, the result for the police is the same.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Investigators no longer have to spend days pulling CCTV footage
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: or canvassing neighborhoods.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Or interviewing friends to build a geographic profile, right?
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: The technology just collapses time and space. It hands them
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: the finish line on day one.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: And the Law and Crime Report notes exactly where that
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: finish line was. The coordinates led directly to a specific
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: apartment complex.
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  Speaker 2: Specifically, the apartment of a man named Jason Chen.
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  Speaker 1: Right, a man Jasmine had been dating for a few months.
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  Speaker 1: But here is the part of the report that really
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: strikes me. The parents didn't just, you know, forward this
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  Speaker 1: text to a detective and wait by the phone.
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  Speaker 2: No, they didn't.
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  Speaker 1: They got in their car. They drove straight to the
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  Speaker 1: coordinates themselves.
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  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate... visceral parental response.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: But think about the terrifying reality of that moment.
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  Speaker 3: You get a location.
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  Speaker 1: The satellite math says your daughter is right there.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Yep.
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  Speaker 1: You drive to the apartment. You knock on the door
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  Speaker 1: and she isn't there. Jason Chen isn't there. The digital
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  Speaker 1: map ends and the physical reality is just.
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  Speaker 2: It's empty. It's a terrifying dead end.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So if the GPS says she's there, but human eyes
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: say she isn't, how does law enforcement bridge that gap?
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Well, by obtaining a search warrant. to tear apart the
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: physical environment. Law enforcement takes the abandoned car, the missed holiday,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: and that digital breadcrumb, and they present it to a judge. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: They secure the legal right to cross the threshold of
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Jason Chen's apartment. And the report details that a forensic
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: team enters the premises.
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  Speaker 1: And what they find. I mean, it instantly transitions this
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  Speaker 1: from a missing person case to a homicide investigation, right?
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: They find bloodstains. A volume of blood so significant that
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the forensic team officially designates the bedroom as a death room. Wow.
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  Speaker 2: And sitting right alongside this unimaginable scene are newly purchased
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  Speaker 2: cleaning supplies.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, I have to stop you because if you're listening
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to this, you're probably thinking about every Hollywood thriller you've
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: ever watched.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, the bleach myth.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: We are so conditioned to believe in the perfect crime
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  Speaker 1: where a suspect buys industrial bleach, scrubs the floor, and
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the police walk in and find nothing.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: It happens in every movie.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly. So if he bought cleaning supplies and actively attempted
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: to sanitize the room, how can investigators walk into an
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  Speaker 1: empty apartment and definitively, mathematically declare it a death room?
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  Speaker 1: Doesn't the bleach destroy the DNA and the evidence?
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  Speaker 2: That is a pervasive myth, and it fundamentally misunderstands the
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: resilience of human biology and the chemistry of modern forensics, really.
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  Speaker 1: So how do they beat the bleach?
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Let's break down exactly how a forensic team defeats a
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: bottle of bleach. When investigators walk into a room that
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: appears visually clean to the naked eye, they deploy a
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: chemical called luminol.
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  Speaker 1: I've heard the name, but how does it actually work
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: in practice?
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  Speaker 2: Luminol is a synthetic chemical that exhibits chemiluminescence. It basically
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: glows blue when it reacts with an oxidizing agent.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Now, human blood is incredibly complex. But for a forensic scientist,
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  Speaker 2: the most important component is hemoglobin.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: The protein in our red blood cells, right? The stuff
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: that carries oxygen?
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: And hemoglobin contains an iron atom at its center.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Oh. So they are hunting for iron, not just like
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: random cells.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. When investigators spray a mist of luminol across a
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: dark room, the iron in any residual hemoglobin acts as
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: a powerful catalyst.
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  Speaker 1: It triggers the glow.
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  Speaker 2: It accelerates the oxidation of the luminol, causing a massive
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: release of energy in the form of a bright blue light.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: And here is the critical part regarding your question about bleach.
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  Speaker 2: You cannot easily wash away the iron.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Even with heavy scrubbing?
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: You can wipe away the red color, you can scrub
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: the surface, but those heavy metallic atoms get embedded into
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: the microscopic pores of the hardwood.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, man.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Into the fibers of the carpet padding, into the grout.
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  Speaker 2: They don't just disappear.
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  Speaker 1: But wait. Doesn't bleach itself cause luminol to glow? I
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: feel like I've read that defense attorneys use that in
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: court all the time to create doubt.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: They absolutely do. Bleach is a strong oxidizer, so yes,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: it will cause a false positive with luminol.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So how do they know it's blood and not just Clorox?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: A trained forensic scientist can easily tell the difference. A
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: bleach reaction produces a very rapid, intense flash of light
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: that fades almost instantly.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, and blood?
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: A blood reaction with luminol produces a sustained glow. slow-burning
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: blue glow that can last for minutes.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's fascinating.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, if they suspect bleach, they apply secondary tests, like phenolphthalein.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Which does what?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: It reacts specifically to the peroxidase-like activity of hemoglobin and
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: ignores the bleach entirely.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So the science just sees right through the cleanup attempt.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: It does. But finding blood is only step one. To
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: declare it a death room without a body, the investigators
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: have to prove that a fatal event actually occurred.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Right, because someone could just cut their hand really badly.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. This comes down to volume and biology. The average
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: adult human body contains roughly 5 liters, or about a
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: gallon and a half, of blood. Okay. When a person bleeds,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: they enter different stages of what's called hypovolemic shock.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Meaning shock from low fluid volume.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Correct. You have class 1, 2, 3, and 4 hemorrhage.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: If an adult loses about 15% of their blood volume,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: they feel anxious... But their body compensates.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: They survive.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But once you hit a class four hemorrhage, which
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: is losing more than 40% of your total blood volume,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: roughly two liters, your heart can no longer maintain blood pressure. Oh, wow.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Your organs fail. Without immediate massive intravenous transfusion in an
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: emergency room, you will die. It is biologically impossible to survive.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: So the forensic team isn't just looking at the glow.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: They are literally calculating the physical volume of the hemoglobin
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: present in that room.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: They are essentially doing biological accounting. They look at the
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: saturation in the mattress, the pooling under the floorboards, the
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: spatter on the walls.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: And they can measure it.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: They extract that material, run it through centrifugal analysis, and
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: mathematically determine that, say, two or three liters of Jasmine
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Pace's blood was left in that room.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: That is deeply chilling.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Once the math crosses that 40% threshold, the law recognizes
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: the room itself as proof of death. The victim could
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: not have walked out of there alive.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: It's not a guess.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: It's physiological certainty.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And it leads me to another question about the physical scene.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: You mentioned blood spatter earlier. If a suspect is actively
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: trying to clean up, wouldn't they just wipe down the walls?
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: How do investigators reconstruct what happened if the scene has
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: been disturbed?
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Because blood doesn't just fall. It obeys the immutable laws
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: of Newtonian physics and fluid dynamics.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: This is the entire discipline of bloodstain pattern analysis. When
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: violence occurs, blood is subjected to kinetic energy.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Give me an example of how that plays out in
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a room, like visually.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Imagine a wound has been opened. If a weapon is
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: swung back, blood adhering to that weapon is flung outward
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: by centrifugal force.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: This creates what we call a cast-off pattern on the
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: ceiling or the walls. Blood has high surface tension. It
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: tends to travel through the air as perfect spheres.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm picturing it.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: When those spheres strike a surface, the angle at which
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: they hit dictates the shape of the stain.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Like dropping a water balloon straight down versus throwing it
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: sideways against a wall.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to think of it. A drop
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: falling at a perfect 90-degree angle leaves a circular stain.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: But if it strikes at a 30-degree angle, it leaves
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: an elongated ellipse.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Almost like an exclamation point.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the tail of that ellipse points directly in
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: the direction the blood was traveling.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's incredible.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Forensic experts use trigonometric functions, specifically measuring the width and
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: length of the stain to find the sign of the
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: impact angle, to digitally or physically string the room backward.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: So they literally draw straight lines back from the bloodstains
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to find the exact point in three-dimensional space where the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: impact happened.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: It's called the area of origins. They can prove whether
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: the victim was standing up, kneeling, or lying on the
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: floor when the blow was struck. Wow.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Even if someone tried to wipe it?
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Crucially, yes. Especially with high-velocity impact spatter. That's a fine
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: aerosolized mist of blood, usually less than a millimeter in diameter.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: So it gets everywhere.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: It is incredibly difficult to clean because it settles into
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: every microscopic crevice of a room. Behind baseboards, onto the ceiling,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: into the fabric of curtains.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: You can't just mop that up. No.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: A perpetrator acting in a panic with a mop and
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: a bucket is completely unequipped to erase a fluid dynamics
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: map of their crime.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Which brings us back to those cleaning supplies you mentioned.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Because beyond the physical failure of cleaning the room, the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: very act of buying them introduces a massive psychological element
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: to the case.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: It's the difference between dropping a glass and sweeping it
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: up versus dropping a glass, going to the store to
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: buy a special vacuum, and then trying to convince everyone
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: a glass never existed in the first place.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy for premeditation.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: The source material highlights the cleaning supplies because they demonstrate
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: a highly organized, conscious thought process following the event.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Because if it was a mistake?
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: If this were a tragic accident or a case of self-defense,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: the typical human response is to call 911.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: You panic, you freeze, you call for help.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: But leaving a horrifically bloody scene, traveling to a retail store,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: selecting specific chemical agents designed for sanitization, completing a transaction,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: returning to the scene.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: It's so calculated.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: And then systematically attempting to eradicate the biological presence of
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: another human being, that obliterates any future legal defense of
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: an accident.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: It just destroys it.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: It proves an acute consciousness of guilt and a deliberate
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: intentional cover-up of a deliberate intentional act.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: But the perpetrator clearly realizes the futility of the cleanup,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: because when the police execute that warrant, the apartment is empty.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Jason Chen is gone.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And this triggers a massive, immediate manhunt.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: The digital tracking phase is over. The forensic phase has
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: established a murderer occurred, and now they need the primary suspect.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And according to the report, investigators track him down two
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: hours northwest of Chattanooga at a family residence in Williamson County.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Now, let's analyze that flight because it feels very telling.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. When you hear fleeing suspect,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you might picture someone draining their bank accounts, buying a
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: burner phone and crossing a border.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Like a fugitive.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. But driving two hours away to a family home,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: it reminds me of a child running home to their
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: parents when they are in deep trouble.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: It feels like a panicked retreat to a safe harbor
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: rather than a sophisticated escape plan.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: It speaks volumes about his state of mind. If we
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: connect this to the bigger picture, fleeing to a family
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: residence is deeply instinctual. It lacks the logistical sophistication required
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: to evade modern law enforcement.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: But while his destination was relatively simple, The geography of
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: his flight creates a massive headache for the investigation.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Because he left a crime scene in Chattanooga and ended
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: up two hours away in Williamson County. That leaves a
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: massive geographic void in the timeline.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Precisely. That two-hour radius is an enormous expanse of terrain.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Just miles and miles of nowhere.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Highways, back roads, dense woods, bodies of water. And that
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: void becomes the central focus of the entire investigation the
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: moment law enforcement slaps the cuffs on him.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Because the report states that upon his arrest, he is
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: transferred back to Hamilton County, he obtains an attorney, and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: he completely shuts down.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: He invokes his constitutional right to silence.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Now, if you are listening to this, you are probably
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: screaming at your device. Like, you have the guy. You
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: have his apartment soaked in blood. Just put him in
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: an interrogation room and don't let him leave until he
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: tells you where Jasmine is.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: It's so frustrating from the outside.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: But let's look at the legal hurdle here. When a
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: suspect lawyers up and throws away the key to their
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: own mouth, what is actually happening behind the scenes? Does
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: his silence cripple the police, or does it actually force
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: them into a stronger position?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate paradox of the American justice system.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: On a human, emotional level, it is pure agony for
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: the family and for the detectives.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Because he knows where she is.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: The suspect holds the only map to the victim, and
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: he is legally protected in his refusal to share it.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: The Fifth Amendment is absolute. You cannot force a person
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: to testify against themselves, and you cannot physically coerce a confession.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: But from a prosecutorial standpoint, what does it do to
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the case?
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: From a prosecutorial standpoint, a silent suspect forces the state
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: to build an ironclad bulletproof case. Confessions, historically, are fragile.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Even when they confess on tape?
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Suspects recant them. Defense attorneys argue they were
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: coerced under duress or that the suspect was mentally exhausted
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: or misunderstood his rights.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: If a jury believes a confession was forced, the entire
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: case can crumble.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: But you can't cross-examine DNA.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When a suspect is silent, they force the state
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: to rely purely, 100%, on objective, undeniable physical science.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Like the luminol.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: The luminol reaction. The fluid dynamics of the blood splatter.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: The receipts for the cleaning supplies. The GPS satellite data.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: The science doesn't change its story.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Right. The silence forces investigators to be meticulous because they
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: know they have no safety net. They have to build
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: a narrative so overwhelming that the suspect's words, or lack thereof,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: are rendered irrelevant.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: But they still need to find Jasmine. And if Chen
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: isn't talking, they have to reconstruct that two-hour drive.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Which is why the Law and Crime Report notes that
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: police are begging the public for help.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they mentioned receiving hundreds of tips.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: They are crowdsourcing the timeline. With a silent suspect, the
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: public becomes the surrogate witness.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: They need someone who saw his specific vehicle at a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: gas station or parked near a wooded area between Chattanooga
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and Williamson County.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Did he have mud on his shoes? Did he buy
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: a shovel? They are trying to shrink that two-hour void
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: down to a specific exit ramp.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: So let's look at the chessboard as it stands at
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: this moment in the timeline. The police have a silent
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: suspect in custody. They have a horrific, scientifically verified death room.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: But they do not have the victim.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: They are backed into a massive legal corner.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Because every day Jason Chen sits in a cell without
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: formal charges is a legal liability. They can't wait for
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: him to confess. And they can't wait to find Jasmine's body.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Which forces the state of Tennessee to make one of
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: the most difficult, high-stakes leaps in criminal jurisprudence.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: The Upgrade.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: The Chattanooga police officially transitioned the case from a missing
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: person inquiry to a homicide investigation. And they charged Jason
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Chen with murder in the first degree.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Strictly based on the forensic evidence found in the apartment.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: And despite Jasmine Pace still not being found.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? I want to really
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: emphasize how staggering this is. To me, prosecuting a no-body
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: murder trial is like trying to assemble a thousand-piece jigsaw
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: puzzle where the centerpiece, the victim, the literal proof of
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the crime, is permanently missing.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: The state is standing in front of a jury, pointing
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: to the border pieces, the sky, the landscape, and arguing
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: that the puzzle pieces interlock so perfectly that the missing
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: center must be exactly what they claim it is.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: You are describing the concept of proving negative space. And
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: to understand how audacious this first-degree murder charge is, we
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: have to delve into the legal doctrine of corpus delecti.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's define that.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I know it's Latin, but what does it actually mean
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: in a courtroom?
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Corpus delecti literally translates to the body of the crime. Now,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: popular culture often misinterprets this to mean the physical corpse
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: of the victim.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Right, like literally a body.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Right, like literally a body.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: But legally, it means the fundamental fact that a crime
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: has occurred. To charge someone with murder, the state must
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: first prove two components. First, that a death occurred. And second,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: that the death was the result of a criminal act,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: not an accident or natural causes.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: And historically, without a physical corpse, proving that was nearly impossible, right?
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: For centuries, it was an unwritten rule in common law.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: No body, no crime. Wow. The courts were terrified of
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: executing a person for murder. only for the alleged victim
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: to walk into town a week later having simply run
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: away to start a new life.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Which makes sense.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Defense attorneys had a built-in reasonable doubt. They would just
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: point to the empty chair and say, ladies and gentlemen
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: of the jury, how do you know she isn't sitting
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: on a beach in Florida under an assumed name?
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Because without a body, how do you prove cause of death?
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: How do you prove she didn't just fall and hit
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: her head?
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But in the late 20th and early 21st century,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: the legal precedent began to dramatically shift. entirely due to
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: the scientific advancements we've discussed today.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Forensics changed the game.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: The courts began to recognize that allowing a murderer to
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: walk free simply because they were exceptionally good at disposing
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: of a body was a perversion of justice. So the
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: standards shifted.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So how does the state meet that corpus delecti standard
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: today in Jason Chen's case?
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: By using the apartment itself as the body of the crime.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: That is so wild to think about.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: The state relies on the biological accounting we talked about earlier.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: They will put a forensic pathologist on the stand to
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: testify about hypovolemic shock.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: They use the math.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: They will testify that the sheer volume of hemoglobin saturated
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: into the floorboards of Jason Chen's bedroom makes human survival
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: medically impossible. The science becomes the surrogate for the victim's body.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Right. The DNA confirms it's her blood and the volume
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: confirms she is dead.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: But the state didn't just charge him with manslaughter. They
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: charged him with murder in the first degree. That specific
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: charge requires proving intent and premeditation.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: How do you prove what was in a man's head
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: when you don't even have the victim to show how
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: she died?
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: This is where every piece of the puzzle we've analyzed
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: locks together. The state will argue that premeditation doesn't require
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: a master plan drawn up months in advance.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Premeditation can be formed in a matter of seconds. And
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: the primary engine for proving that premeditation will be the
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: cleaning supplies.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Going back to the glass and the vacuum.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The defense might try to argue it was a
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: tragic accident, a sudden argument that escalated. But the state
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: will counter with a timeline of his actions.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: The sequence of events.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: He left the apartment. He drove to a store. He
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: walked down the aisles. He selected bleach or ammonia. He
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: waited in line to pay. He drove back. He applied
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: the chemicals.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: There's so much time to think in between all those steps.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: That entire sequence of events requires a cold, calculated operational
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: state of mind. It requires time for reflection. Wow. The
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: conscious effort to destroy evidence is, in the eyes of
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: the law, circumstantial proof of a premeditated intent to commit
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: and conceal a murder.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: It is an overwhelming legal strategy. And it's built entirely
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: on science and digital data. But we cannot ignore the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: horrific emotional toll this exacts on the family.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: No, we absolutely can't.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Because while the legal system marches forward, while the press
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: conferences are held and the charges are filed, the family
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: is still trapped in a nightmare. The source report ends
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: with a quote from the police that is just heart-wrenching.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: They said, It creates a deeply unsettling dichotomy.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: The state possesses absolute, Mathematical confidence that she is dead.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Confident enough to strip a man of his freedom and
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: charge him with the highest degree of murder.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Yet, simultaneously, they are utterly desperate to find her. The
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: investigation is simultaneously over and agonizingly unresolved.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: A no-body conviction is a monumental victory for a prosecutor.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: But it is a hollow, devastating reality for a mother
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: who just wants her daughter back.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: When you really take a step back and look at
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the sheer velocity of this case, it takes your breath away.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: You have November 22nd. Jasmine is seen by her family.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Everything is normal.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Normal Tuesday.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Then November 23rd. Thanksgiving dinner is missed. The car is
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: found abandoned. The iPhone trilaterates its position from space and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: fires off a dropped pin.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Within hours, the parents are knocking on an empty apartment door.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Then comes the search warrant. The luminol illuminating a hidden,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: violent reality. The calculation of biological blood volume. The discovery
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: of the premeditated cleanup.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: The manhunt two hours away into Williamson County.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: The invocation of the Fifth Amendment. And finally, the first-degree
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: murder charge. All of this unfolding in a rapid-fire succession
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: that just shatters the traditional timeline of criminal justice.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: It perfectly illustrates the inescapable net of the modern era.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: In decades past, a case like this would have languished
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: in a missing persons file for months, maybe years. before
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: investigators gathered enough circumstantial evidence to even secure a search
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: warrant for a boyfriend's apartment.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Right, and by then, the forensic evidence would be severely degraded.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But today, the digital footprint acts as the catalyst.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: That single dropped pin cut through days of traditional detective work.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: And it highlights the inescapable reality of modern forensics. I mean,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: you can buy all the chemical agents in the world,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: you can scrub the floors until your hands bleed, but
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: you cannot hide from fluid dynamics and cellular biology.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: You really can't.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: But the heaviest burden of all is the legal reality
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: we just explored, the immense weight of pursuing a first-degree
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: murder charge without the victim's physical presence. It requires a
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: level of absolute suffocating certainty in the science that leaves
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: no room for error.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Because in a no-body trial, the defense only needs to
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: plant a single seed of doubt in the mind of
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: one juror. The state has to answer that doubt with
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: an avalanche of data.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And as we wrap up this deep dive, I want
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: to bring this directly back to you, the listener, because
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: amidst all the heavy talk of GNSS satellite coordinates and
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: hypovolemic shock and corpus delecti legal doctrines, we have to
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: remember the human heart beating at the center of this case.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: This entire timeline started with a family setting a table
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: for Thanksgiving. A family who simply expected a 22-year-old young
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: woman named Jazzy to walk through the front door, maybe
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: complain about the holiday traffic, and sit down for dinner.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: It highlights how terrifyingly fast normalcy can fracture.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: One missed meal.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: One abandoned car. One silent digital ping from a phone.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And a family's entire universe is irreversibly altered.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: It is profound tragedy that underscores the extreme fragility of
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: our daily routines.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And as we leave you today, I want you
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to mull over a lingering thought based on everything we've
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: unpacked in this case.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: We live in an era where our devices are constantly listening, pinging,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: and broadcasting our exact coordinates to satellites in low Earth orbit.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: It effectively turns the phones in our pockets into relentless,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: invisible witnesses.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: In the case of Jasmine Pace, that digital technology was
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: precise enough to bypass the need for a physical body
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: and secure a first-degree murder charge. Yet, despite all of
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: this hyper-connectivity, Despite our brilliant forensic ability to reconstruct a
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: violent event mathematically from invisible bloodstains.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Nature and geography can still hide the most important piece
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: of the puzzle.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: This raises a haunting question. How is it that modern
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: technology can tell us exactly where a crime happened, exactly
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: how it happened, and exactly who was there, but can
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: still leave a family agonizingly in the dark about where
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: their loved one currently rests?
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: It is the ultimate paradox of the information age. We
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: possess all the data in the world, and sometimes it's
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: still not enough to bring someone home. Thank you for
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: joining us on this deep dive into the shadows of
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: modern forensics. Stay curious, stay informed, and we'll see you
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: next time.