Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Iowa Woman Brutally Murdered Amid Mysterious Witchcraft Rumors

Transcript

Iowa Woman Brutally Murdered Amid Mysterious Witchcraft Rumors · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine you've been trapped, like physically trapped in your house
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: for weeks.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Right. Just total overwhelming cabin fever. Exactly.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You are recovering from this major surgery, dealing with that
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: really profound suffocating isolation that comes when your entire world
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: just shrinks down to the size of your bedroom. Yeah.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Your whole existence is just doctors, meds, and those four walls.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Right. And finally, your doctors clear you. You can actually
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: leave the house. You decide to do the most normal,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: comforting thing you can possibly think of. You trudge through
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the freezing January snow to your best friend's house for
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: a morning coffee date.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Which sounds like heaven after being locked up.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: It really does. But when you walk through the unlocked
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: front door, your friend isn't there. Instead, you step into
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: an eerily silent house. Standing right in the middle of
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the living room is her 28-year-old son.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And he is completely naked. He is just staring blankly.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And the air in the house just feels, it just
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: feels wrong.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: It's the exact kind of scenario that forces the human
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: brain into an immediate state of crisis management.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your brain just screams that something is off.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But what we are looking at today goes far,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: far beyond a single terrifying morning. Today, we are exploring
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: the case of Jennifer Daisy. She was a 46-year-old mother
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: from Dubuque, Iowa, who had recently survived brain surgery, only
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: to be found brutally murdered in her own home in
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: January of 2024.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Which is just, it's an unthinkable tragedy on its own.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: It is. And the only suspect is that 28-year-old son,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: who would later claim to police that his mother was
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: part of a coven of witches.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the details of this one are heavy. We are
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: pulling our information from the really detailed documentary transcripts from
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the Law and Crime Network on this case. But for
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: everyone listening, I want to be clear about our mission today.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: We aren't just here to recount a timeline of a crime.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: We really have to figure out how a family gets
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to this breaking point, because when you look closely at
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the source material, this case is a massive, catastrophic collision
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: of untreated severe mental illness, incredibly complex caregiving dynamics and
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: a legal system that has a frankly bizarre way of
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: measuring what makes someone, you know, quote unquote competent.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: It really is. It's a systemic failure on multiple levels.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: It is. So to understand how all these failures intersect. OK,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: let's unpack this by starting with the physical reality of
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: that morning, January 18th, 2024.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: The environmental conditions of that morning are incredibly critical to
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: the investigation. We're talking about Dubuque, Iowa in mid-January. It
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: is unforgiving.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, I can only imagine.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Well below freezing.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Freezing cold.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Well below freezing. But more importantly, there is a thick, fresh,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: completely undisturbed layer of snow blanketing the entire neighborhood. I mean,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: in forensics, heavy snow essentially creates a sealed environment. If
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: someone approaches a house, they leave a trail. If someone leaves,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: they leave a trail. It turns a standard suburban home
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: into a literal closed-door mystery.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Because it traps the narrative of what happened inside the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: physical boundaries of the property.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You can't fake untouched snow.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's follow Christy Fulman into that sealed environment.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: She is Jennifer's best friend. And as I mentioned earlier,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Christy had just had a hysterectomy the month prior.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: So she's the one who's been in post-op isolation.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. She's been stuck at home recovering, and the
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: night before, she and Jennifer had texted to set up
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: this morning coffee date. And this wasn't just like a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: casual catch-up. These two women really bonded over severe health struggles.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Because Jennifer was also recovering, right?
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Yes. Christy was actually the one who drove Jennifer to
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: her pre-op appointments for her brain surgery just a few
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: months earlier. So this morning is supposed to be a
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: lifeline for both of them, a return to some kind
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of normalcy.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Two survivors just trying to have a normal morning. Right.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: So Christy drops her 8-year-old daughter off at school, grabs
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the coffees, and pulls up to Jennifer's house. Because of
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: all that snow we talked about, the driveway isn't really accessible,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: so she parks in a neighbor's driveway and walks over. Okay.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: She immediately notices two vehicles in the driveway. There's a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: car belonging to Jennifer's 28-year-old son, Tyler, and a truck
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: belonging to her 26-year-old son, Nick. But Jennifer's car is
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: nowhere to be seen.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Which, honestly, in the normal rhythm of a weekday morning,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: registers as completely benign.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you wouldn't think anything of it.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Right. The brain processes that missing car and automatically concludes,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: you know, oh, she ran out to the store or
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: she went to get the coffees herself. There is absolutely
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: no reason for Christy's nervous system to sound an alarm yet.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So she walks up to the front porch. The door
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: is unlocked, which, again, may be a little weird, but
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: not a red flag yet. She opens the interior door,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: steps inside, and there is Tyler.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Just standing there.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Standing by two pillars in the living room, completely naked.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And I want to pause here because I think anyone
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: listening to this has yelled at a horror movie screen
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: at some point, like, don't go in there, turn around
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: and run.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. We all think we know how we'd react.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Right. But real life doesn't work like that, does it?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: When you are holding two lattes in your best friend's
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: living room, your brain doesn't instantly jump to the word homicide.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Not at all. And that's actually deeply rooted in psychology.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: The brain is fundamentally a pattern matching machine. It desperately
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: wants to maintain a sense of safety and predictability.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: It wants things to be normal.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So when it is presented with a jarring, highly
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: inappropriate visual, like an adult son standing naked in the
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: middle of a room, it experiences massive cognitive dissonance. Right.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: It's like a glitch in the matrix.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And to resolve that psychological discomfort, the brain scrambles
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: for the most socially acceptable, non-threatening explanation it can find.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: So Christy's brain tells her, he just got out of
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: the shower and you rudely barged in.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: It's wild because she actually feels embarrassed. She backs out
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: onto the porch and texts Jennifer to say, you know, hey,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: come meet me by the front door. She genuinely thinks
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: she's the one who made the mistake.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It's a textbook defense mechanism. Yeah.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And then she hears a door close inside and just
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: assumes Tyler has retreated to his bedroom to put some
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: clothes on. So operating under the assumption that Jennifer just
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: took her car and will be right back, Christy goes
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: back inside to wait on the couch.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Her conscious mind is actively working to suppress the weirdness
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: of the situation just to maintain social decorum.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: But she doesn't sit down. As she walks over to
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the couch, she looks down and sees something poking out
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: from under a blanket. It looks like hair or fur.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Oh no.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She pulls the blanket back and it's Echo, Jennifer's dog.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: And the dog is completely unresponsive.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: That's a massive escalation.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: It is, but again, look at what her brain does.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: It tries to pivot. She thinks, okay, maybe the dog
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: had a medical emergency and that's why Jennifer rushed out
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: in her car?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Still trying to rationalize it.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Still trying. But then she looks over to the corner
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: of the room and she sees Jennifer's purse.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: And that is the moment the cognitive dissonance shatters completely.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: It has to, right? Because women know this. You don't
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: leave your purse if you are rushing out to an emergency, period.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: You grab your purse.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And Christy notices something else, too. The heavy blackout curtains
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: in the living room are drawn closed. Jennifer always opens
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: them when.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: She wakes up. So the baseline is entirely off.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Completely off. So now we have an unresponsive dog, a
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: left-behind purse, closed curtains, a missing car, and the incredibly
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: bizarre encounter with Tyler.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: The ecosystem of the house is essentially screaming that the
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: baseline reality has been violently altered. The brain can no
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: longer match the pattern to a normal morning. The alarm
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: bells finally override the desire to be polite.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: So Christy walks over to Jennifer's bedroom door. She knocks.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: She's calling out, Jenny, come on, you never sleep in
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: like this. She opens the door. And the room is
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: incredibly dark because of those curtains.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: So she can't see clearly at first.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Right. At first, she just sees a shape on the bed.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But as her eyes adjust, she steps closer and she
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: realizes there is blood everywhere. Just a massive, incomprehensible amount
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: of blood.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate nightmare scenario. It is.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And yet, and this is what breaks my heart, even
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: standing in a room soaked in blood, look at what
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: her mind does. Because of Jennifer's severe medical history, you know,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: the brain tumors, the seizures, Christy drops to the floor
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: thinking Jennifer has had a catastrophic medical emergency.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: She doesn't jump to murder.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: No, she thinks maybe blood came from her ears from
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a massive seizure.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: It really highlights how desperately we cling to the narratives
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: we know. Christy knew Jennifer as a medical patient fighting
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: for her life. So when faced with blood, her brain
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: categorizes it as a medical failure, not a violent attack.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: That makes so much sense.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: However, her autonomic nervous system, the primal part of the
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: brain that senses predators, knows exactly what is happening.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: You can absolutely see that primal instinct take over instantly.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Because Christy calls her boyfriend first, then she calls 911,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and while she is on the phone, she drops to
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: the floor and physically braces the bedroom door shut with
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: her feet.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: That detail is incredibly telling. Consciously, she is telling herself,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: my friend is bleeding from a seizure. Subconsciously, Her body
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: is saying, the naked man in the living room is
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: a threat, and I need a barricade right now.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, her body knew before her brain did.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Her body is reacting to the reality of a murder
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: scene before her conscious mind can even process the word.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: It's just devastating. But before we get into what the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: police find when they break that barrier, we really have
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: to stop and talk about the woman in that room.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Who was Jennifer Daisy? Because You know, if we only
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: talk about the crime scene, we reduce her entire life
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: to the worst thing that ever happened to her.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: I agree completely. It is vital to rehumanize. the center
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: of these tragedies. The violent act is just the terrible
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: end of the timeline. But we need to understand the
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: vibrant life that was interrupted.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: So Jennifer was born in Hawaii in 1977, though she
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: spent most of her life in Dubuque. And she came
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: from this Massive family. Five siblings, all of whom had
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: their own kids.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. So big family gatherings. Exactly.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: You can imagine the sheer volume and chaos of those
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: holidays and get-togethers. She was a mother to three kids
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of her own. Kylie, who is 18, Nick, who's 26,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: and Tyler, who's 28. Her children were everything to her.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: It sounds like she was really the anchor of that family.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: She really was. And she was a fighter. Now, the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: sources do point out she had a past legal issue.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: She served some probation for unauthorized credit card use at
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: a previous job, but she completely turned her life around
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: after that.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Which is not easy to do.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Not at all. She worked her way all the way
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: up to a management position at a disaster services company.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: That kind of professional rehabilitation requires immense resilience. It really
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: demonstrates a woman who is actively working to build stability
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: for herself and her kids.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Definitely. And she had this incredible zest for life. She
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: was learning to garden. She had this bucket list goal
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: to see all 50 states. And by January of 2024,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: she only had about 10 states left to go.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: That is someone who is actively looking forward to the future.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Yes. But the cruel irony here is the medical battle
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: she was fighting just to secure that future. A few
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: years prior to this, she was in a car accident.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And during the medical scans for the accident, doctors found
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: tumors in her brain.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God. What a way to find out.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I know. So in September of 2023, which is just
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: four months before this terrible morning, she underwent major brain surgery.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: A craniotomy is arguably one of the most physically and
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: psychologically exhausting procedures a human being can undergo.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine the toll that takes.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: The recovery is not just about incisions healing. It's about
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: navigating changes in cognition, extreme fatigue, and just the sheer
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: terror of your own mortality. It requires a quiet, incredibly
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: supportive environment to heal from that.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the most tragic element of this dynamic.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I want you to think about this profound tragedy here.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Jennifer survives the surgery. She is pushing through the recovery
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: with the help of her sister and Christy. They are
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: her caregivers. She is surviving. But about six months before
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the murder, her 28-year-old son, Tyler, moves back in with her.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: And according to Christy, the dynamic was incredibly volatile.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: In what way?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Christy said Tyler would be joking around one minute, and
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the next he would just turn on her completely. He
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: would hurl verbal abuse, call her names. And Christy noted
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: that Jennifer would just smile, pretend it didn't hurt her feelings,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and try to move on.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, what you
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: are describing is a classic de-escalation tactic used in abusive
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: or highly unstable environments. It's often called fawning or appeasement.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Fawning, like a trauma response.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When a person is medically fragile... especially recovering from
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: brain surgery, they simply do not have the physiological energy
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: to engage in a screaming match. The nervous system is
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: already completely overloaded with the act of healing. So she
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: just takes it. So she absorbs the abuse. She smiles
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: to diffuse the tension because it's safer than fighting back.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: It is a survival mechanism to keep the peace in
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: a home that has basically become a powder keg.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: But appeasement doesn't fix a powder keg. It just delays
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the spark. And that spark evidently went off the night
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: before Christy arrived. So let's look at the police response.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: The police get to the house at 8.51 a.m. in
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: response to Christy's 911 call. They hear crying from inside.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Is that Tyler crying?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: No, it's Christy. Because the door is still unlocked, the
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: police enter. They find Jennifer deceased, and the details are
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: just horrific. She suffered 13 sharp force wounds to her head, neck,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and left hand.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Thirteen.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Thirteen. The weapon was determined to be a knife or hatchet,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and the dog, Echo, had been killed by a single
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: blow to the head.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: The pathology of those wounds tells a very specific, very
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: grim story. Thirteen strikes, concentrated heavily on the head and neck,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: is strongly indicative of overkill.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Overkill meaning it's personal.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Highly personal. It implies a deeply frenzied state of rage.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: This wasn't a calculated, methodical act. This was an explosion
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: of violence. Furthermore, the wounds on her left hand are defensive.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Meaning she tried to fight back.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: That means she was awake, she saw the attack coming,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: and she actively attempted to shield herself from the weapon.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Which makes Tyler's demeanor when the police find him even
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: more inexplicable. Because the officers locate him in the house,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and they immediately realize something is terribly wrong, but not
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: in the way you'd expect.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: How do you mean?
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: He isn't frantic. He isn't screaming or covered in blood,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: pacing the floors. He is entirely blank. His affect is
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: completely flat.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Right. And to an officer walking into a bloodbath, this
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: is a massive anomaly.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Wait, hold on. I want to push back on this
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: or at least get some clarity from you on the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: psychology here. If someone just committed a frenzied overkill murder
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: involving 13 hatchet wounds, shouldn't their adrenaline be completely through
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the roof?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: You would certainly assume so.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, shouldn't he be manic, sweating, pacing completely out of
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: his mind? Why is he just standing there like a
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: blank slate?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: That is exactly what pop culture tells us a psychotic
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: break looks like, right? That manic, screaming villain tearing at
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: their hair. But clinically, severe psychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia, present
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: with two distinct categories of symptoms, positive and negative. Okay,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: what's the difference? Positive symptoms are things added to the
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: person's reality. things that shouldn't be there, like hallucinations, delusions,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: or highly disorganized frantic speech. The frantic energy you were
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: talking about falls in there.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Right, the typical movie portrayal.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But negative symptoms are things taken away from the
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: person's normal state. This includes what we call a blunted
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: or flat affect. The person literally loses the ability to
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: express emotion. Their face becomes a mask, and their voice
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: becomes completely monotone.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: So after a massive expulsion of violent energy driven by
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: a positive symptom like a severe delusion, the brain can
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: essentially crash into a profound negative state. The emotional bandwidth
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: is just completely gone. It's depleted.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: So the police look at this blank mask of a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: man and they assume he has to be on drugs.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: They actually take him to the hospital to be medically
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: cleared before they even try to interrogate him at the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: station because they're fearing he might overdose from whatever he ingested.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Which is standard protocol. You cannot reliably interrogate a suspect
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: who is severely intoxicated or overdosing. Any confession they give
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: could easily be thrown out of court later. They need
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: a medical baseline.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Well, at the hospital, Tyler is obstinate. He's refusing urine samples.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: He's arguing with the nurses. But the investigators note that
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: he is entirely lucid. He isn't slurring his words at all.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: He isn't nodding off.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: He's fully present. Yes.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: When they finally manage to run a talk screen on him,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: he tests positive for THC and negative for everything else.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: No meth, no PCP, no crack, just THC. And they
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: also note he has some abrasions on his right hand. Now,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: we know THC can stay in the system of a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: regular user for a really long time. Does marijuana explain
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: a violent psychotic break?
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: This is a highly nuanced and increasingly urgent area of
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: psychiatric research right now. For the vast majority of the
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: general population, THC produces a mild euphoric or sedative effect.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: It binds to the CB1 receptors in the endocannabinoid system,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: and you just feel relaxed. Right. It's just weed. Exactly.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: But for individuals who have a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: or who already have an active diagnosis like Tyler did,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: high-potency THC acts entirely differently. It is essentially pouring high-octane
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: gasoline on a neurological fire. How so?
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Like, what is it actually doing in the brain to
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: cause that kind of reaction?
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Well, in the schizophrenic brain, there is already a profound
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: dysregulation of dopamine, specifically in a region called the striatum.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: The striatum. Yes.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: The striatum is responsible for assigning salience or meaning to
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: things in our environment. It basically tells us what to
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: ignore as background noise and what to pay urgent attention to. Okay.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: When a person with severe schizophrenia consumes high levels of THC,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: It can trigger massive, highly inappropriate dumps of dopamine in
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: the striatum.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, so the filter just breaks.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Completely. Suddenly, the brain assigns life or death meaning to
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: entirely neutral things. A normal glance from a mother isn't
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: just a glance anymore. The hyperactive striatum tells the brain,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: she is a witch, and she is casting a deadly
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: spell on you right now. The THC acts as a
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: catalyst for the delusion and makes it feel as real
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: and as urgent as if the person were being chased
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: by a bear.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Wow. That perfectly explains what happens next in the interrogation.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Because while they are at the hospital, Tyler starts repeatedly
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: telling the investigators how, quote, disciplined and aware he is.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: The grandiosity kicks in.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He is almost bragging about his mental clarity to
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the cops. Then they ask him about his relationship with Jennifer.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: And Tyler says, and this is a direct quote from
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the transcripts, he says their relationship is fine except for
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: when she's acting sneaky like a witch. Wow. He then
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: proceeds to tell the police that Jennifer was part of
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: a literal coven of witches. He says his most recent
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: conversation with her was in her bedroom right before the
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: police arrived, and she was actively practicing witchcraft and putting
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: evil on him.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: The introduction of this specific delusion, a coven of witches,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: is the absolute linchpin of his reality at that moment.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: A psychiatric delusion is a fixed, false belief that is
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: completely impervious to logic or contradictory evidence.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: You can't talk them out of it.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: No, you can't. Tyler wasn't using a metaphor. He wasn't
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: saying she was acting mean like a witch, like we
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: might say in an argument. He literally believed his mother
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: was a metaphysical entity performing dark magic to destroy him.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: The investigators ask him, what do you think your mom
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: thought of you? And Tyler responds, I think she hated
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: me so much that she hated herself.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: That's incredibly sad. It really is.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: But when they ask him the actual mechanics of the crime, like, Tyler,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: how did she get those massive knife wounds? He completely
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: dodges the physical reality. He refuses to explain the hatchet
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: or the knife. He just keeps repeating the word over
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and over. Witchcraft.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Because in his mind, the physical act of swinging a
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: weapon is secondary, or perhaps entirely justified by the metaphysical threat.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Witchcraft is his answer to the why. And that completely
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: overwrites the how.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: He doesn't even see the weapon as the cause of death.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Right. He is substituting the cause of death. In his
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: distorted reality, he didn't kill his mother with a knife.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: He stopped a witch from casting a spell.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: But here's where it gets really interesting. And I need
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: you to help me make sense of this contradiction. Because eventually,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the investigators sit him down and say, Tyler, you are
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: being arrested for the murder of your mother. And Tyler,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: who has just spent the last hour ranting about covens
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and evil spells, looks the investigator dead in the eye
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and says, it's hard to argue witchcraft in court, isn't it?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: And right there, with that single sentence, we arrive at
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: the absolute epicenter of the legal competency debate.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: It's mind-boggling.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: How does a brain simultaneously hold the belief that they
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: are living in a medieval fantasy where they have to
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: slay a witch, but also possess the sharp tactical legal
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: awareness to analyze courtroom defense strategies?
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: It's a jarring juxtaposition. He knows what court is. He
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: knows what a jury will and won't believe. How are
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: those two thoughts existing in the exact same head at
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the exact same time?
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: It speaks to the terrifying ability of a diseased mind
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: to compartmentalize. Psychosis is rarely a total 100% erasure of reality.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: It's much more often a fractured reality.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Like a cracked mirror.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Tyler's general knowledge base, what a police officer is,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: what a courtroom is, what a... standard defense strategy looks like,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: that software remains intact. His cognitive hardware is functioning on
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: a basic level. He knows he killed a physical body,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: and he knows society punishes that act.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But the motive is broken.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Yes. His justification, the core program running in the background
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: telling him why he had to do it, is completely
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: corrupted by the schizophrenia. He recognizes the legal jeopardy he
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: is in, but he is frustrated that the legal system
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: will not recognize the validity of the witch delusion.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, as he's analyzing his legal odds in the hospital room,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the crime scene techs are sealing his fate back at
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the house. The physical evidence is just insurmountable.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: They found everything, right? Everything.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: They find a knife holster sitting out in the open
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: on the dining room table. In Tyler's bedroom, they find
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: a backpack with two knives in it. And then sitting
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: right on a shelf in the exact bathroom where Tyler
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: told police he had been showering, they find a tactical tomahawk.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Just sitting there.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: A hatchet just sitting on the shelf. They test it,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and Tyler's fingerprints are all over the handle.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Notice what is conspicuously missing from that list of evidence.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: There is no bleach. There are no garbage bags. There
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: is no attempt to dig a hole in the frozen
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: ground outside or wipe down the handles of the weapons. Nothing.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: He left the murder weapons resting on countertops and shelves
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: in his own living space.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Exactly. There was absolutely zero attempt to conceal the crime.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: And then you bring in the digital evidence. The ring
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: camera data from the front door locks the timeline down airtight.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: It shows his brother Nick coming over at 8 p.m.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the night before to swap cars. It shows Jennifer letting
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the dog out into the snow at 10 p.m.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: And after that?
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: After that, nothing. No one approaches the house. There are
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: no external footprints in the fresh snow. The back door
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: of the house is deadbolted from the inside. It is
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: a completely closed ecosystem. Tyler did it. There is literally
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: no other physical possibility.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: And from an investigative standpoint, it is a perfect closed case.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: They have the means, motive, and opportunity wrapped with a bow.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: But from a legal standpoint, they are about to hit
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: a massive wall.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: The competency wall.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Yes. Because the central question is no longer who did it,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: but whether the state can legally prosecute the person who
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: did it.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Right. Which brings us to the competency ping pong match.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: But to understand the sheer legal mess of this trial,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: we have to look at what the system knew about
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Tyler before that morning. Yeah. Because this level of violence
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: didn't just fall out of a clear blue sky.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: No, it never does. Violent acts stemming from severe mental
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: illness very rarely occur in a vacuum. There's almost always
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: a long, extensively documented trail of systemic interventions that failed
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: along the way.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And Tyler had a long history.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: He was on disability specifically for schizophrenia. He had multiple
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: prior psychiatric commitments, some he sought voluntarily, some where he
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: was held involuntarily.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: So the state was very aware of his condition.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Very aware.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: And there was a history of violence inside the family.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Back in December of 2015, Tyler was arrested for physically
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: assaulting his older brother, Nick. So the baseline here is
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: a chronic, severe psychiatric condition paired with a known history
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: of familial aggression.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: And this is where we really have to pause and
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: discuss the immense crushing burden placed on families in these situations.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: We actually get a very clear window into this burden
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: from Kylie, the 18-year-old sister. In the aftermath of her
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: mother's murder, Kylie does something very modern. She takes to
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: TikTok to talk about her brother's case.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Which is a brave thing to do, to speak out
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: publicly like that. It is.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And she reveals that this witchcraft obsession didn't start out violently.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: She says it actually started as a joke. Just weird
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: little comments he would make around the house. But as
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: his mental state deteriorated and he slipped further into mania,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the joke hardened into a concrete delusion.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: They watched it happen in real time.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Kylie says they could literally see the shift. You
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: could hear it in his tone of voice. You could
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: see it in his eyes. She said, quote, all of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a sudden he would just start talking a little different
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and then you knew, OK, he's not doing the best.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: That progression from an overvalued idea or a quirk into
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: a rigidly held delusion is a hallmark of unmedicated or
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: improperly managed schizophrenia. And notice what Kylie is describing here.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: She and her mother were essentially forced to act as
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: amateur psychiatrists. They were constantly monitoring Tyler's tone, his gaze,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: his mannerisms, just to gauge the threat level in their
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: own living room on a daily basis. Which is terrifying.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't have to live like that. Kylie actually points
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the finger directly at the health care system. She states
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: that the medical system prescribed Tyler these cocktails of drugs,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: but then never followed up.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: They just discharged him.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they just haunted him the pills and left the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: family to deal with it entirely on their own. And
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I think anyone listening to this can relate to how
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: frustrating the medical system is. I mean, just trying to
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: get a referral or a callback from a doctor for
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: a basic issue can take weeks.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It's an administrative nightmare.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Now, imagine you are managing a 28-year-old man with severe schizophrenia.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: who requires heavy, mind-altering, antipsychotic medication, and you are completely,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: 100% on your own. Why does this happen? Why is
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: a family left to manage this kind of severe illness alone?
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Because we are living in the generational fallout of deinstitutionalization.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Deinstitutionalization. Yes.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Beginning in the 1960s and 70s, there was a massive
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: political and medical push to close state psychiatric hospitals. The
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: intention was noble. I mean, many of those facilities were horrific, abusive,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: overcrowded asylums.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Like one-flew-over-the-cuckoo's-nest type places.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The grand plan was to replace them with robust,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: well-funded community mental health centers.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: But I'm guessing that didn't happen.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: No, it didn't. The asylums closed, but the community centers
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: were never fully funded or built. So the burden of
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: care shifted entirely off the state and onto the shoulders
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: of untrained, unsupported families.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: And it's not like giving someone an aspirin, right? These
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: antipsychotics have brutal side effects.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Incredibly brutal. Weight gain, tremors, extreme lethargy, emotional numbing. And
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: here is the most critical part of severe schizophrenia. There
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: is a symptom called anosognosia.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Anosognosia.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Anosognosia. What is that? Anosognosia is a neurological deficit where
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the person is completely unable to recognize that they are ill.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Wait, so they literally don't know they are sick?
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's not denial, like someone refusing to admit they
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: have a drinking problem. It is a physical inability of
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: the brain's frontal lobe to update its self-image. Oh, wow.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: So Tyler's brain tells him, I am perfectly healthy. My
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: brain is fine. The only problem in my life is
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: the witches. Therefore, why on earth would he take heavy
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: medication that makes him feel terrible?
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: If he's not sick, the medicine is just poison.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Precisely. So he stops taking the pills and the family
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: has absolutely no legal authority to force a grown man
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: to take them unless he becomes an imminent threat to
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: himself or others. And by the time he becomes an
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: imminent threat, as we saw in this tragic case, it
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: is entirely too late.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So this massive systemic failure drops Tyler right into the
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: lap of the criminal justice system. And the system has
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: absolutely no idea what to do with him. A month
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: after the murder, in February, Tyler undergoes a state psychiatric evaluation.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: OK, so the first evaluation.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Right. And he is found not competent to stand trial
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: due to untreated mental health conditions.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Which perfectly aligns with the man who was talking about
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: witch covens in the interrogation.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Right. It makes sense. But then we roll into May.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: A second evaluation is conducted, and suddenly he is found competent.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: And then in July, a third evaluation confirms it. He
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: is found competent to stand trial for murder.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: It's legal whiplash.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: It really is. How does a man who thinks his
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: mother is casting evil spells suddenly become legally competent in
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: a matter of weeks? Did the schizophrenia just magically go away?
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: It absolutely did not go away. This raises an important question.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: And this is where we have to deeply examine the
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: friction between medical wellness and legal competency because they are
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: not the same thing. They aren't? Not at all. The
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: standard used in the United States is rooted in a
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: 1960 Supreme Court case called Dusky v. United States. The
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Dusky standard is remarkably, almost terrifyingly narrow. It does not ask,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: is this person sane? It does not ask, is this
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: person mentally well?
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: OK, so what exactly does it ask? Because if it
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't ask if they are sane, what is the point?
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: It asks only two very basic questions.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: One.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Does the defendant have a rational and factual understanding of
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: the proceedings against them? Meaning, do they know that the
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: person in the black robe is a judge and the
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: person at the other table is a prosecutor trying to
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: put them in prison?
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Okay. And the second question?
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Two. Can the defendant consult with their lawyer with a
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: reasonable degree of rational understanding to assist in their own defense?
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: That is the whole bar for putting someone on trial
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: for their life.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: That is the whole bar. Let me give you an
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: analogy to make it clearer. Think of the human brain
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: like a computer.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: The court does not care if the computer software is
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: deeply infected with viruses, the delusions, the hallucinations, the paranoia.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: The court only cares if the basic hardware turns on.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Does the monitor light up? Does the keyboard type? Wow.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: If Tyler can sit in a chair and articulate, I
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: am on trial for murder, and if I lose, I
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: go to prison. His hardware is functioning. Therefore, he is
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: legally competent, even if the software running in the background
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: is screaming that the jury is made of literal demons.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: That is a staggering loophole.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: The law prioritizes the defendant's basic presence in the room
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: over their actual psychological sanity.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And just to prove how entirely broken his software still is,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: let's look at Tyler's behavior right after he is found
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: competent by the state. The trial is set for July.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And Tyler flat out refuses to attend his own trial.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: He just won't leave his cell.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: He refuses. Instead, he writes a letter to the court
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: dated July 12th. And I have to read this to
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: you because it shows exactly how detached from reality he remains,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: even as the state calls him competent.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Let's hear it.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: He writes that he will not be subject to, quote,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: slavery through usury of the law, be it constitution nor amendment.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I will not participate. I seek honor to become of worth.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I seek God, my mother would be ashamed otherwise, as
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: if of my ancestors to seek God in death to
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: become that of life.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: The language there is incredibly revealing. It is a textbook
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: example of disorganized, grandiose thought.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: It sounds like sovereign citizen rhetoric mixed with extreme religious fanaticism.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. He is borrowing the vocabulary of legal systems
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: and religion, words like usury, constitution, ancestors. and scrambling them
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: into a bizarre word salad to justify his actions.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make any logical sense.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. He is framing his refusal to attend
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: a murder trial not as a legal strategy, but as
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: a righteous, divine mission. He is literally invoking his murdered
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: mother's shame to excuse his absence from her murder trial.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: It's so twisted.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: It is a profound demonstration that while the state evaluator
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: checked the box for competent, His cognitive processing is still severely,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: devastatingly derailed.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: So his defense attorneys are backed into a corner that
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: is practically microscopic. Their client refuses to come to court.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: He's writing these bizarre manifestos. The physical evidence, the ring cameras,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the deadbolts, the bloody hatchet with his fingerprints, is locked
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: down tight.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: They have absolutely nothing to work with.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Right. So how do you defend the indefensible when you
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: have zero ammunition?
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: You point the finger at whoever is left standing.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: When the facts are against you and the law is
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: against you, standard defense strategy dictates that you pound the
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: table and throw as much smoke into the air as
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: possible to create a shadow of reasonable doubt.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: And the smoke they create in this trial is breathtakingly cruel.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: They try the standard stuff first. They question the validity
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: of the DNA testing, which goes nowhere. Then they point
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: out some random footprints in the snow outside the house,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: suggesting maybe a mysterious intruder committed the crime.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Ah, a phantom intruder defense. Completely ignoring that the back
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: door was deadbolted from the inside, the ring cameras showed
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: absolutely no one approaching, and police noted the tracks were
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: likely from a stray animal.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the jury didn't buy that for a second. But
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: when that doesn't stick, they cross a serious line. The
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: defense decides to heavily scrutinize Tyler's 18-year-old sister, Kylie.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: That's incredibly low.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: They attempt to subtly point the finger of suspicion at
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: a grieving teenager who just lost her mother. They actually
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: pull up police body cam footage taken shortly after Kylie
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: was informed her mother was murdered. And in the footage,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Kylie is seen laughing and appears to be in seemingly
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: good spirits. Okay. Then the defense brings up a recent
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: domestic incident where Jennifer had called the police on Kylie,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: claiming the teenager had slapped her foot during an argument.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Slapped her foot?
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And they try to string this together to imply
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Kylie might be involved.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: It is brutal, highly manipulative strategy. They're weaponizing the chaotic
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: reality of a family's trauma and grief, trying to convince
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: a jury that an inappropriate emotional response equals homicidal guilt.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Which is so common in the true crime world. We
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: see this all the time on social media. People just
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: completely dissecting how a victim's family member behaves on camera.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Why are we so obsessed with policing how people act
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: after a tragedy?
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Because society expects the cinematic version of grief. We want
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: the perfect, weeping, hysterical victim. It makes us feel comfortable.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: It makes sense to us. But the human nervous system
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: does not care about what looks appropriate on camera.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: It just wants to survive.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When a human being receives catastrophic, reality-shattering news, like
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: a mother being hacked to death by a brother, the
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: brain can literally short-circuit. It is a defense mechanism against
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: total psychological annihilation.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: So the laughter isn't because she's happy?
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. The body might flood with endorphins just
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: to numb the psychological pain, resulting in a giddy, laughing response.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: It's the freeze and fawn trauma response. Laughing, smiling, or
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: presenting a completely flat affect are very, very common reactions
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: to acute shock.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: And practically speaking, the accusation against her falls apart instantly.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: We know exactly where Kylie was when the murder happened.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: She was at work, waitressing.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: She had an alibi.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: A rock-solid one. She hadn't gone over to her mom's
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: house that morning because her car was broken down. Her
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: tire was split and her all-wheel drive was messed up,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: so she just stayed at her job. And that is
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: where the police found her to deliver the news. Kylie
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: actually addressed the courtroom footage later on TikTok, stating simply,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: everyone reacts to death in different ways.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Suggesting that a teenager, laughing in shock, combined with a
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: minor family squabble over a slapped foot, is indicative of
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: a homicidal conspiracy to murder her own mother, is medically
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: ignorant and, frankly, morally reprehensible. But it highlights the absolute
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: desperation of the defense team.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Thankfully, the jury sees right through the smoke and mirrors.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: They reject the phantom intruder. They reject the cruel insinuations
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: about Kylie. Tyler, who declined to even appear in the
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: courtroom to hear his fate, is found guilty of first-degree murder.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: The only logical verdict.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: He is also found guilty of animal abuse for killing Echo,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the dog. He's currently awaiting sentencing. And the fallout of
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: this verdict is a multi-generational tragedy. Kylie is left to
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: pick up the shattered pieces of her entire lineage.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: The poor girl.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: She is on TikTok right now trying to advocate for
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: the necessity of mental health care, defending her brother's severe
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: illness while simultaneously defending herself. against murder accusations levied by
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: her brother's own lawyers, and she's running a GoFundMe just
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: to try and financially survive with her older brother Nick.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: The gavel comes down, the legal case is closed, but
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: the emotional, psychological, and systemic wounds are left entirely wide open.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: The family is destroyed, and the system that failed them
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: remains exactly the same.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: As we wrap up the steep dive, let's look at
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: the incredible ground we've covered today. We started on a
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: freezing Dubuque morning with a best friend finding a horrific
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: scene that defied all logic. We unpacked the incredible history
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: of Jennifer Daisy, a mother who fiercely survived brain tumors
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: only to be killed in her sanctuary.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: We covered a lot of heavy ground.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: We really did. We broke down the neurology of THC
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: and schizophrenia, the crushing burden of deinstitutionalization, And we ended
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: with the legal system utterly struggling to handle a devastating
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: intersection of violent delusions and the rigid, broken walls of
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: courtroom competency.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: The core theme to draw from all of this is
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: the profound limitation of our investigative tools. Information, forensic data,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: and physical evidence can solve the how and the who
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: of a crime flawlessly.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the data is great for that.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: The ring camera, the deadbolts, the fingerprints on the hatchet,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: they gave us the entire physical timeline. But all of
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: that data completely fails to resolve the why. The legal
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: system is designed purely to punish the action. But it
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: is woefully unequipped to heal, prevent, or even fully comprehend
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: the diseased mind that generated the action in the first place.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? I want to leave
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: you with a specific, thought-provoking question to mull over as
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: you go about the rest of your day. Think about
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: that ring doorbell camera on Jennifer Daisy's front porch. Think
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: about how it recorded her walking into her home for
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the last time, letting her dog out into the snowy night.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: It's a haunting image.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: We live in an era where our technology captures every
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: single physical movement we make. We have cameras on our doors,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: GPS trackers in our cars, phones in our pockets that
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: seal up our physical timelines completely airtight. Yet, when it
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: comes to the human mind, when it comes to a
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: son who genuinely believes his mother is a metaphysical witch
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: casting evil spells in the next room, we are completely,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: terrifyingly in the dark.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: We really are.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: How is it that we have built a society capable
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: of mapping the exact movements of every vehicle in a
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: snowy driveway, but we remain utterly, tragically incapable of mapping
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: the deterioration of a human mind before it's too late?
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: It is a chilling disparity between our technological omniscience and
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: our psychological ignorance.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Stay curious, take care of yourselves, and we'll catch you
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: on the next one.