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Ohio College Student Murdered in Disturbing Abduction Plot · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to take a second and just think
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: about your day to day. Specifically, I want you to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: imagine how much of your life is currently being tracked
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: at this exact moment. Right.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Which is probably a lot more than you realize.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. Like you've got your phone in your pocket, right? Yeah.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Or maybe it's sitting on the desk next to you
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: right now. Yep. And even if the screen is dark,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your GPS is constantly pinging nearby cell phone towers. It's,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: you know, calculating your location down to the meter.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It is.
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  Speaker 2: Every single text message you send, every digital transaction, even
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: those late-night Google searches, it all leaves a permanent record.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Every time you buy a coffee with a debit
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: card or drive past one of those ring doorbells on
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: a residential street, you're leaving behind this vast, invisible digital web.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: And that's really the defining feature of modern existence. I mean,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: we've essentially turned ourselves into walking beacons of data.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, whether we want to or not.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Right. We're constantly emitting timestamps and geospatial coordinates. And for
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: most of us, that surveillance is entirely benign. It's just
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the ambient background noise of living in the 21st century.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Totally. We don't really think about it because it's just
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: the price of convenience. Like, we want our maps to
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: tell us the fastest route home, so we trade our
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: privacy for it.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: But when you start looking at criminal investigations, this invisible
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: web completely changes the game.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does. The paradigm of investigative work has fundamentally shifted.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Right. Because what happens when someone commits a horrific, violent
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: act and genuinely believes they've outsmarted everyone? Because that very
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: same invisible web, the one we used to order takeout,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: has become the ultimate undoing of the modern criminal.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: We've moved away from the era where detectives had to
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: rely almost entirely on fallible eyewitness testimony or the rare
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: stroke of luck of finding a pristine fingerprint.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Right. The classic movie detective stuff.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We are now in an era where the timeline
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: of a crime is told through relentless, unforgiving data points.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: The perpetrators in our sources completely underestimated the persistence of
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: this digital memory.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And we have an incredibly dense, fascinating, and frankly harrowing
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: stack of source material to get through today.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: We do. We're looking at raw interrogation transcripts, actual courtroom testimonies,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: minute-by-minute forensic timelines, and 911 calls.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: So the mission for this deep dive is to look
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: closely at the how and the why across three different cases.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: We're exploring how microscopic forensic breadcrumbs and digital footprints brought
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: people to justice, even when they thought they committed the
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: perfect crime.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: It is a study in fatal miscalculation. The modern criminal
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: often operates under this outdated assumption of anonymity.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Right. They watch old movies and assume the police are
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a step behind. Let's get right into the reality of that,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: starting in Columbus, Ohio.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: This first case is a profound tragedy.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's a story about an incredible display
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: of modern forensic tracking. But it's also a story about
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: a massive, infuriating systemic failure. It's the case of Reagan-Tokes.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: To understand the true gravity of this failure, we have
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: to look closely at who the victim was. Reagan Toks
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: was 21 years old. She was a student at The
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Ohio State University.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Majoring in psychology, right?
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yes. And she was just weeks away from graduation.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Literally weeks away. She had her entire adult life mapped out.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: She wanted to work at the Cleveland Clinic. She was
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: incredibly normal, just living that classic, vibrant college experience.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: And our source material drops us right into a freezing
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: cold February night in Columbus. Reagan had just finished her
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: shift waiting tables at a popular downtown restaurant called Bodega.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: And the surveillance footage from that night is, well, it's
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: chilling precisely because of how mundane it is.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Right. It has the kind of footage you see a
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: thousand times in a thousand different cities. You see her
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: leaving the restaurant, bundle up against the cold. She is alone,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: just walking to her parked car.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: With no one obviously following her.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. There's no one lurking in the shadows watching her.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: It is the definition of a random, tragic intersection of paths.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: The detectives in the source material talk about this specific
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: kind of terror. The terror of the everyday. You're just
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: walking to your car, you're tired from a long shift,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and then in a fraction of a second, your entire
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: reality shatters.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: As Reagan gets to her car and unlocks it, she
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: is suddenly accosted by a man named Brian Lee Goolsbee.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And he doesn't just grab her on the street. No.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: He forces her into her own car. He gets into
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the passenger seat, pulls a gun, and forces her to
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: put the car in drive.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And this begins a harrowing timeline that the Columbus Police
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Department reconstructed with terrifying precision... entirely because of the digital footprint.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Which is just wild. So Goolsbee forces Reagan to drive
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: through the dark streets to a Chase bank.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yes. He makes her pull into the drive-through ATM lane
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: and demands that she withdraw cash.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: We actually have the bank records in the source file.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: She puts her card in, but the withdrawal fails. She
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: can't get any cash out for him.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Correct. So Goolsbee, escalating the situation, forces her to drive
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to a completely different bank, a Huntington Bank ATM.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Right, trying to get it to work there.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: The surveillance footage pulled from the second bank is dark,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: but you can clearly make out her figure in the
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: driver's seat and the distinct shadow of the passenger holding
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: a firearm on her.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. That's terrifying.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: And again, the machine declines the withdrawal. It is unsuccessful.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I just, I want you to try and put yourself
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: in her shoes for a second. The sheer panic she
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: must have been experiencing. You have a stranger with a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: gun pointed at you, he is demanding money, and the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: machine simply won't give it to you.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: You are trapped between a lethal threat and a technical error.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And then the timeline in the case file gets
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: so much darker, he realizes the ATMs aren't working, so
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: he makes her drive to a dark alley.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Yes. The car stops in an unlit alleyway, and the
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: digital timeline shows that they are stationary there for approximately
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: 12 minutes.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And that's where the assault happens.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: According to the investigative reconstruction and forensic evidence, yes, this
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: 12-minute window is where the sexual assault occurs. After that,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: he forces her back into the driver's seat.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: And in a display of just relentless persistence, they return
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: to the very first Chase Bank ATM.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: And this time the machine allows it. She successfully withdraws money. $ 60. $ 60.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: That is what this entire horrific ordeal has yielded so far.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: It's just sickening.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Following that $ 60 withdrawal, the timeline tracks them pulling into
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: a Speedway gas station.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: And the video there is pretty terrible, right?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Heavily pixelated because it was raining and snowing. Furthermore, they
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: parked at the pump furthest away from the cameras. But
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: despite the poor video quality, the digital footprint is being
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: laid down. The transaction timestamp, camera angles, it's all cataloged.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: There's a heartbreaking moment in the source material where detectives
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: speculate about this gas station stop. They talk about how
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: theoretically she might have had a split second chance to
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: open the door and run.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: But when you analyze the psychology of a hostage situation,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: making that call is incredibly difficult.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Right. The guy has a gun. He's right next to her.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: He's almost certainly telling her, just do what I say
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and I'll let you go. And your brain is desperate
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: to believe that. You cling to the biological hope that
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: compliance equals survival.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: That is a highly documented and very common psychological defense mechanism.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: It's an adaptive survival strategy. Your brain convinces you that
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: if you just follow the rules he sets, the violence
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: will end.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Which is completely rational in an irrational situation. So after
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the gas station, the data tracks the car driving south
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: into the Scioto Grove Metro Park area. It is pitch black, isolated,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and freezing cold.
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  Speaker 2: And this is where the timeline ends. He tells her
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: to park, to get out of the car, to take
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: off her clothes, and to start walking away into the snow.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: And you have to think, maybe in those final seconds,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: she believed the bargain had worked. He's taking the car,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: he's leaving her, but she's going to survive.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: But then he gets out of the car, follows her
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: footsteps into the snow, and shoots her twice in the head.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: It's an execution.
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  Speaker 1: Point blank. Cold-blooded. And then the next morning, the sun
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: comes up, and a passerby walking near the park calls
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: 911 after spotting something in the snow.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: They told the dispatcher they initially hoped it was just
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: a discarded mannequin, but it was Reagan.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: And within an hour of identifying her, the Columbus police
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: realize another precinct is taking a missing person report from
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: her roommates. The connection is made instantly.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: A massive manhunt is immediately underway.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Right. And I want to pause here to zero in
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: on how they caught Brian Lee Goolsbee, because we have
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: to talk about his GPS ankle monitor. When you first
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: read that he was wearing a state-issued GPS tracker, you think, well,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: tracking him should have been instantaneous, right?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Logically, you would assume that.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: But looking closely at the source material, this monitor didn't
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: function like a tracker. It functioned more like a check
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: engine light on a car dashboard that no one is
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: bothering to look at.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: That is a remarkably apt way to conceptualize the technology
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: they were using at the time. A check engine light
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: records that something is fundamentally wrong. It logs the error data,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't physically apply the brakes. Right.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So wait, I'm stuck on this. If he is a
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: known violent sex offender and the state mandated he wear
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: a GPS tracker, how on earth is he roaming the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: streets completely unmonitored in real time?
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: It is the glaring systemic failure that haunts this entire case.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: To understand how it failed, we have to look at
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: the bureaucratic realities. Goolsbee had an extensive violent criminal record.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Going all the way back to when he was a juvenile.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. About six years prior to Reagan's murder, he was
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: involved in a crime that was remarkably similar. He abducted
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: a woman, forced her to an ATM, forced her to
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: withdraw money, and then raped her.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: The only difference was that he let that previous victim live.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And for that prior crime, he was charged. But he
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: only served a fraction of what you'd expect because of
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: a plea deal. Yes.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: The prosecutor on that previous case went on the record
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: to explain the rationale. The victim in that first case
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: was profoundly traumatized. The prospect of sitting on a witness
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: stand and being cross-examined was simply too much for her
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: to bear.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Which happens frequently in sexual assault cases. I mean, you
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: can't blame her. Exactly.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So to secure a guaranteed conviction and get him
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: off the streets without forcing her to testify, the state
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: offered a plea bargain. Gullsby served six years and was
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: released in November.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Just a few short months before he crossed paths with Reagan.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: So the state lets him out. They knew exactly what
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: his M.O. is. And they slap a GPS monitor on
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: his ankle as a condition of his release.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: They did. But here's the fatal flaw in the technological infrastructure.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: The monitoring system lacked active, real-time tracking guardrails. It operated
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: on a passive data logging system.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Like the black box flight recorder on an airplane.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Precisely. There was no human being sitting in a control
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: room watching a little red dot move across a map.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: He was actively violating his curfew, leaving his halfway house.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: But the system wasn't designed to send an immediate alert.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: The data was just quietly accumulating on a server. It
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: is utterly infuriating. It's just security theater. So the police
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: don't catch him from an alarm at a parole office.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: They catch him through rapid forensic investigation. Yes.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Let's break down the actual forensic mechanisms, starting with the
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: very first big break, the license plate reader.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, they're usually mounted on
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: street poles, right?
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, or police cruisers. They rapidly photograph every passing license plate,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: run the numbers through an algorithm, and cross-reference them against
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: databases of stolen vehicles in milliseconds.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And Reagan's stolen car drove past one of these, triggering
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: a hit.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: When patrol officers located the abandoned vehicle... They immediately noticed
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: scorch marks on the front passenger seat. Someone had attempted
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: to set the interior on fire to destroy trace evidence.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: The fire hadn't caught. And inside the car, amidst the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: scorch marks, investigators found a couple of discarded cigarette butts.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge red flag. Reagan's family and roommates
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: told detectives, Reagan doesn't smoke. She absolutely, under no circumstances,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: lets anyone smoke in her car.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: So, by simple deduction, those cigarette butts belonged to the killer.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: The detectives secure the cigarette butts and rush them to
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the BCI lab. And
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: this is where you see the forensic science apparatus working
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: at its absolute peak efficiency.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Normally, DNA analysis can take weeks or even months due
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: to backlogs, right?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Usually, yes. But detectives flag this as an urgent, high-profile homicide.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: The BCI essentially halted their routine operations. They stopped processing
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: property crimes to focus entirely on extracting DNA from the
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: epithelial cells left on the filter of those cigarette butts.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I want to dig into how that actually works, because
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: it's not like the movies where you just put a
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: cigarette in a machine and it spits out a picture
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of the killer. Right.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: It's much more complex. Forensic biologists use a process called
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. Essentially, they extract the minute
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: trace amounts of DNA left from the saliva and skin cells.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Because the sample is so small.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They use PCR to rapidly copy and amplify the
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: DNA segments, creating millions of copies until the sample is
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: large enough to be sequenced. They then run that profile
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: through CODIS, the National Database of DNA Profiles from Convicted Offenders.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: And while the lab scientists are literally amplifying microscopic DNA strands,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the ground detectives are working a parallel track. They find
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: a gas can in the trunk of Reagan's car.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: A gas can that doesn't belong to her.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Right. They find a barcode on it, trace it to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: a specific Speedway gas station, And go pull the surveillance video.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And boom. There is Brian Lee Goolsbee, standing at the counter,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: buying that exact red gas can about 30 minutes after
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the estimated time of the murder.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: The behavioral evidence aligns perfectly with the physical evidence. He
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: was purchasing the accelerant, planning to return to the car
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: later to burn it.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And then, within a matter of hours, the BCI lab
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: calls the detectives. The PCR amplification worked. The profile was
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: uploaded to CODIS. and they got a direct match to
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a registered sex offender, Brian Lee Goolsbee.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: It is incredible how fast this invisible web tightened around him.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: He thought he was a ghost, but he was leaving
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: breadcrumbs everywhere.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: So SWAT teams move in and arrest him. And the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: crazy part, he is literally still wearing the passive GPS
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: ankle monitor when they take him into custody.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: The detectives plug the monitor in, download the data logs,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: and they can track his precise movements from that entire
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: night down to the minute.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: The telemetry shows him getting on a city bus. getting
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: off near the bodega restaurant right when Reagan got off work,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: walking to the ATMs, pausing in the alleyway, driving to
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the Metro Park.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And finally, ending up at a residence, which turned out
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: to be his girlfriend's house. When police execute a search
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: warrant there, they find Reagan's designer Kate Spade purse hidden inside.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: The GPS data perfectly, mathematically corroborated every single theory the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: detectives had. So with this mountain of insurmountable evidence... They
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: bring Goolsby into the interrogation room.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: And this is where the source material provides a fascinating
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: look into the psychology of a cornered predator. The transcripts
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: are wild to read.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: The detectives hold all the cards. But Goolsby genuinely thinks
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: he can talk his way out of a steel trap.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Initially, he tries flat denial. Then, when confronted with the
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: reality that he was in her car, he pivots to
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: claiming the encounter was consensual.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Which is an absurd but remarkably common defense tactic, right?
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Very common when physical evidence places a predator with the victim.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: But the detectives don't let up. They make it explicitly
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: clear that they have his GPS coordinates at the park.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: And this is when Goldsberry's psychological defenses fracture and he
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: invents an accomplice. He suddenly remembers that a guy named
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: TJ was there.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Yes. He tells the detectives that this phantom named TJ
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: is the real mastermind and that TJ forced him to
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: do everything. He claims TJ is a guy he vaguely
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: knew from middle school and provides an incredibly specific physical description.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: A black male, five foot one to six feet tall,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: weighing 210 to 220 pounds.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: He weaves this intricate story, claiming TJ held a gun
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to his head, forced him to object Reagan, forced the assault,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and that TJ pulled the trigger in the park while
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Goolsby watched in horror. What is actually happening in a
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: criminal's brain when they do this?
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: In forensic psychology, this is a form of extreme cognitive
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: dissonance resolving into projection. It is a defense mechanism designed
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: to preserve the ego even in the face of undeniable guilt.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Like the reality of what he did is so monstrous
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: his brain just tries to distance itself?
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Goolsbee is replanting the exact sequence of his crimes
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: in perfect detail, but he is subconsciously substituting T.J. as
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: the primary actor. He even quotes Reagan's final desperate words,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: claiming she looked at T.J. and pleaded, All I want
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: to do is lie.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: But he attributes the execution to his fictional friend. The
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: level of detail is staggering.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: The behavioral analysts noted that the details matched the forensic
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: evidence perfectly, just with the wrong protagonist holding the gun.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And the detectives in the room just roll with it.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: They don't call him a liar. They pretend to radio
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: other units to go search for this TJ guy. But
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: they know with absolute certainty that TJ is a complete fiction.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Even later during the trial, Goldsby's own defense attorney stands
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: up and says, We have done nothing to present to
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: you a theory of TJ because Brian is TJ.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Even his own lawyer acknowledged it was just Brian talking
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: about himself in the third person.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: The detectives played along because they needed one final, crucial
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: piece of evidence. The murder weapon. During the interrogation, Goolsbee
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: was permitted to take cigarette breaks and he started negotiating.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to one of the most surreal
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: details in the entire case file. The breakthrough moment. The
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: exact location of the murder weapon... was successfully traded for
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: two double cheeseburgers.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: It perfectly encapsulates the sheer banality of evil. A vibrant
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: human life was violently taken, and the perpetrator gives up
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: the ultimate piece of condemning evidence in exchange for a
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: few dollars worth of fast food.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Once they handed him his hamburgers, he casually told them
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: he threw the gun into a specific storm sewer drain.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: The forensics unit dropped a heavy-duty magnet down into the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: water and pulled up a. 22 caliber revolver.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Ballistics experts fired test rounds from it, compared the striations
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: on the bullets under a microscope to the bullets recovered
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: from Reagan and confirmed it was a 100 percent match.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: So with the murder weapon, the DNA, the GPS and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the video, the prosecution goes to trial and they immediately
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: pursue the death penalty. But this is where the legal
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: proceedings get incredibly complicated. What actually happens when this goes
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: to the jury?
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Because the physical evidence was utterly overwhelming, the trial bypassed
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: the question of guilt and shifted its focus to the
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: penalty phase. The legal question was whether the state should
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: execute him or if he should spend his life in prison.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: And this is where the defense introduces a massive psychological
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: profile detailing Goolsbee's horrific childhood. When you read the transcripts,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: it is objectively horrific trauma.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: It is a textbook study in systemic generational failure, a
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: documented history of severe physical violence in the home, sexual
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: abuse starting at 12, abandonment, a mother dependent on crack cocaine...
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: and relentless gang violence.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: They painted a picture of a broken child whose brain
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: development was altered by trauma and who has failed by
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: every safety net society provides.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: And the defense uses this to argue that his monstrous
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: actions as an adult were a direct result of that
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: agonizing pain. A psychologist testified that proper intervention early on
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: would have likely prevented these crimes.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: This argument represents the core tension in capital murder trials, right?
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Establishing mitigating factors versus aggravating factors.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The defense established mitigating factors, reasons why his life
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: should be spared. The prosecution focuses on aggravating factors, arguing
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: that thousands of people suffer horrific childhoods and never grow
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: up to execute innocent college students.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: So the jury has to weigh the trauma against the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: brutal reality of the crime. And they couldn't agree. The
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: jury deadlocks.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: They deliberated for hours but could not reach a unanimous decision.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Eight voted for execution, two for life in prison, and
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: two were undecided. Because a death sentence requires a unanimous verdict,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: the judge had to sentence him to life in prison
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: without parole.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Reagan's mother delivered a victim impact statement pointing out the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: agonizing irony. She said, you get spared because of your
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: background and yet she forfeited her life. It's an incredibly
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: bitter pill. But we have to talk about Reagan's legacy
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: because her parents channeled this paralyzing grief into legislative action.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: They lobbied the Ohio State Legislature relentlessly. Their advocacy directly
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: resulted in the Reagan-Tokes Act.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Which completely overhauls the parole and monitoring system. It mandates
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: indeterminate sentencing so the parole board can add time for infractions.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: But most importantly, it legally mandates that GPS ankle monitor
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: programs must be monitored actively, in real time. If an
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: offender violates their curfew now, an immediate alert is triggered
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: and officers are dispatched to their exact coordinates.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: They fought to ensure that the check engine light is
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: finally hooked up to a blaring alarm. The state of
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Ohio is objectively safer today because of Reagan-Tokes. And the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: university actually conferred her psychology degree posthumously.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: It is a vital reminder that behind all the intricate
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: forensic analysis and digital tracking, there is a profound human loss.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: That concept of data points representing a life brings up
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: a really terrifying hypothetical. We just analyzed the case where
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: a killer was literally tracked by his own ankle monitor.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: But what happens when you encounter a killer whose entire
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: existence is designed to leave no trace whatsoever?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: What happens when an investigator is faced with a complete
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: lack of data? And worse, no physical body to find.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: You are describing one of the most difficult hurdles in
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: criminal prosecution. The legal concept is known as corpus delicti,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: or the body of the crime.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Right. You need a body to show cause of death.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: And that profound legal challenge brings us to our second
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: case file, the disappearance of Jolene Cummings.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Jolene was 34 years old. She was a devoted mother
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: to three young children and worked as a hairstylist at
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Tangle's Hair Salon in Yulee, Florida.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: She was getting ready to celebrate a massive weekend, Mother's Day,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and her birthday on the exact same weekend. And then
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: she simply vanished.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: She never showed up to pick up her children from
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: her ex-husband's house. For a mother as devoted as Jolene,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: that was an immediate red flag. Her own mother contacted
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the police and reported her missing the very next day.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Now, standard procedure dictates looking at the men closest to her.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: The source files show detectives first interviewing her ex-husband, Jason Cummings.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: They were going through a tense custody battle, which provides
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: a motive. But he comes in voluntarily, hands over his phone,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: and his digital footprint completely corroborates his alibi.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: So they shift to her current boyfriend, a man referred
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to as Jason G. There had been a recent domestic
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: incident reported. When police locate him, he has visible scratches
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: on his chest and arms and an outstanding arrest warrant.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: He looks incredibly suspicious on paper. He claims the scratches
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: are from roughhousing with his dog, claims he was on
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: a drug bender and can't remember where he's been, and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: conveniently tells police he lost his phone.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: But as the detectives dig in, they realize there is
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: zero evidence connecting this guy to a violent crime. He's evasive,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: but he doesn't fit the profile.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: The investigation hits a wall and pivots sharply to her
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: coworkers at the salon. They uncover that Jolene was scheduled
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: to close up the shop late on the Saturday she disappeared.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: alongside another stylist, Jennifer Seibert.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, here is where we enter the mind of a
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: true chameleon. Because this Jennifer Seibert was already acting bizarrely.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: When local police pulled into the salon parking lot just
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to ask routine questions, Jennifer was pulling in for her shift.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: She saw the cruisers, threw her car into reverse, sped off,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: called the owner, and quit on the spot.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Which instantly elevates her to the prime suspect. Flight equals guilt.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Detectives pull her employment application, drive to her address, and
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: discover it's an empty lot. The address is completely fabricated.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: And Jolene's co-workers tell police that Jolene had been highly
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: suspicious of Jennifer for weeks. She called her a fake
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and was planning to Google her to figure out who
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: she really was.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Jolene's instincts were profoundly accurate. The woman operating as Jennifer
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Seibert was actually Kimberly Kessler. And Kessler is one of
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: the most elusive criminal subjects in modern history.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: She is the ultimate ghost in the machines. We find
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: out she has been living under at least 14 different aliases,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: bouncing around 33 different cities, fleeing the FBI for 25 years.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Her methodology was archaic but effective. She would scour physical
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: newspapers for obituaries or walk through cemeteries looking for headstones
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: of young women. The real Jennifer Seibert was a young
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: woman who had died in a car crash years earlier.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Kessler would assume these stolen identities, change her hair, alter
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: her weight, She operated entirely in the analog shadows, but
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: she made one critical error. She couldn't hide from the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: passive surveillance cameras surrounding the strip mall.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: The police find Jolene's Ford Expedition abandoned in a Home
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Depot parking lot miles away. But when they pull the
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: surveillance tape from the convenience store next to the salon,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: they find the timeline.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: The video is damning. It captures Kessler dressed entirely in black.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: pulling Jolene's SUV into the parking lot at 117 in
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the morning, and then the cleanup activity.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: She is seen struggling to carry heavy industrial garbage bags
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: out the back door and tossing them into a commercial dumpster.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Most chillingly, she drags a heavy blee plastic storage bin
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: into the dense woods behind the building, dumps the contents,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: and leaves the empty bin.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Which sets off a massive search. The police realize those
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: dumpsters were emptied by sanitation trucks. They track the GPS
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: routes of those trucks all the way to a massive
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: regional landfill in Georgia.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: They are out there in July, in the sweltering heat,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: using heavy machinery and cadaver dogs to sift through mountains
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: of rotting garbage.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: They find some bones, but an anthropologist confirms they are
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: just animal bones from restaurants. They find absolutely nothing. Julian's
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: body is gone. So how do you successfully prosecute a
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: first-degree murder charge without a body?
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: You lean incredibly heavily on circumstantial evidence, and ironically, you
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: exploit a reverse CSI effect. Criminals know about DNA and bleach.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Kessler actively attempted to meticulously clean the crime scene.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: But the forensics team brought in luminol. How exactly does
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: luminol defeat a killer's attempt to clean up with bleach
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: or ammonia?
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Luminol is a chemical powder mixed with hydrogen peroxide. When
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: sprayed in darkness, it undergoes chemiluminescence when it contacts iron
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: found in human hemoglobin. Even if a surface has been scrubbed,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: microscopic iron molecules get trapped in the porous surfaces.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: And when the luminol hits that iron, it emits a
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: bright blue glow.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: When the technicians sprayed the salon, despite Kessler's extensive cleaning,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the entire room lit up like a Christmas tree.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: The irony is that by scrubbing the floor, she smeared
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the blood particles across a wider area, creating a glowing
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: footprint of a violent struggle. They also found a bloody mop.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: But the absolute most damning piece of physical evidence was
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: found in that blue plastic bin.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Inside that abandoned blue bin, mixed in with traces of
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Jolene's blood, investigators found a single, broken piece of Jolene's fingernail.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: That is deeply chilling. A single fingernail becomes the proxy
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: for a human life. It proved Jolene fought back violently
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: and that her body was placed inside that bin. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: that physical evidence is bolstered by her digital premeditations.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Kimberly Kessler used fake names and cash, but in 2018,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: she still used a smartphone. When detectives searched her web
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: browser history, they found the blueprint for the murder.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: She was actively Googling phrases like female serial killers in
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Florida and repeatedly the exact phrase, nobody, no crime.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: She was researching legal precedents and the prosecutorial thresholds required
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: to get away with murder in Florida.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: The cognitive dissonance is wild. She thinks she's this untraceable genius,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: but types her murder plot into Google. And then there
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: are the Walmart receipts.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Video evidence and timestamped receipts proved Kessler purchased a specific
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: combination of items, ammonia, heavy-duty rubber gloves, industrial trash bags,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: and an electric carving knife.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: An electric carving knife. That completely shifts the narrative from
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: a spontaneous fight to a calculated butcher.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: The implication was so horrific that the prosecution had to
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: consult a forensic anthropologist. They asked if a standard electric
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: carving knife could dismember a human body. The horrific conclusion
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: presented at trial was, yes, it could be done very efficiently.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: So the state has the digital search trail, the circumstantial
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: physical evidence, the receipts, and they charge her with first
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: degree murder. And this leads to a trial that completely
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: derails into chaos because her legal strategy is to act
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: completely uncontrollably insane.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: It was a highly calculated performance. While in jail, she
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: initiated a severe starvation diet, dropping her body weight to
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: 70 pounds.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: She claimed the guards were poisoning her food. She would
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: throw her own feces at them through the bars. She
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: would scream incoherently for hours.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Her defense attorneys argued she was mentally incompetent to stand trial.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: In the American legal system, competency is a specific threshold
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: defined by the Dusky v. United States standard.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Does the defendant possess a rational understanding of the charges?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And can they consult with their lawyer?
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And shockingly, initially, the performance worked. A judge ruled
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: her legally incompetent and ordered her to a state court.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: psychiatric hospital.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: But the prosecution fought back. How did they prove she
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: was faking it?
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: They brought in forensic psychiatrists and subpoenaed the daily observation
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: logs from the jail guards. The experts testified to a
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: concept called malingering the intentional production of false symptoms and
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: motivated by external incentives.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Like avoiding a criminal trial.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Right. Her behavior lacked the hallmarks of true psychosis. The
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: guards testified she only acted out when observed by medical staff.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: When she thought she was alone, she was entirely lucid.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: The judge reviewed this, reversed the ruling, and declared her
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: legally competent.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: But declaring her competent doesn't stop the behavior. During the trial,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: she's having constant aggressive outbursts, screaming this one bizarre phrase...
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Jordan Beard is Jolene's cousin.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Jordan Beard was one of her court-appointed public defenders and
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: demonstrably not Jolene's cousin. It was pure theater designed to
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: force a mistrial. Her disruptions became so severe the judge
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: had to completely remove her from the courtroom.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: So she watched her own capital murder trial via a
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: closed-circuit video feed from a holding cell. The defense tried
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: to argue that without a body there was no proof
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: of premeditation. But the jury saw through it.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: They saw the Google searches. They saw the Walmart receipts.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: It took the jury less than three hours to find
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Kimberly Kessler guilty of first-degree premeditated murder.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: She was sentenced to life in prison without parole. They
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: couldn't pursue the death penalty because without a body, they
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: couldn't medically prove the murder was heinous, atrocious, and cruel
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: as required in Florida.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: And as soon as the judge handed down the sentence,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: the staff at the county jail literally threw a small
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: party with cake and ice cream because her reign of
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: terror in their facility was over.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: But the true heartbreak rests with Jolene Cummings' family. Her
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: mother gave an agonizing victim impact statement, begging Kessler to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: just tell them where Jolene's remains were located.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: It illustrates the enduring psychological agony of a nobody case.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: The family is denied the right of laying their loved
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: one to rest. Kessler has never spoken a word about
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: what she did with Jolene's body.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Jolene's mother said about a memorial bench in a park,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I'm tired of going to a bench. My daughter's not there.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: It's devastating. Kessler was an outsider who brought violence into
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Jolene's world. But our final case proves that sometimes the
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: most dangerous threat is the person you share a bed with.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: This brings us to the disturbing case of Makeva Jenkins.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Makeva was 33 years old, living in Lantana, Florida, a
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: devoted mother to three young children and happily pregnant with
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: her fourth.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: She was an extraordinary American success story. Back in 2013,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: her family had gone through extreme financial hardship. They were
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: completely homeless for a time. But Makeva ground her way
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: out of poverty, started a consulting firm, and built it
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: into a multi-six-figure company.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: She was understandably proud. The digital footprint starts with a
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: tragic social media post. Just two hours before she was murdered,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Makeva posted on Facebook about her journey from homelessness to
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: making six figures.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: When you read that, your brain jumps to a conclusion.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: You think a criminal saw this wealthy woman posting online
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and targeted her home for a robbery. because the crime
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: looks exactly like a targeted home invasion.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Let's walk through the timeline. It's roughly 2.00 a.m. on
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: a Wednesday. McCabe's brother, Quay, is in the garage getting
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: a late-night haircut from McCabe's husband, Uri Jenkins.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Uri frequently cut hair in their garage. Suddenly, a man
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: wearing a black ski mask bursts through the side door,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: brandishing a. 38 special revolver.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: The masked man rips the barber cape off Quay's neck,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: forces both men to lie face down on the concrete,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: points the gun, and yells, You think this is a game.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: And then the sequence gets incredibly bizarre. Instead of demanding
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: wallets or valuables, the masked man turns his back, walks
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: straight out of the garage, goes up the stairs into
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the main house, and walks directly into the master bedroom
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: where Makeva is sleeping.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: He described hearing a single muffled gunshot. The gunman then
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: sprinted rapidly back down the stairs, bypassed the garage entirely,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: and fled out the front door. He didn't take a
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: single item from the house.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Quay and Yuri run upstairs and find Makeva has been
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: shot once in the head, at point-blank range. She dies
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: in her husband's arms. The initial theory of a home
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: invasion completely unravels, because the timeline makes zero sense.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: A masked gunman enters for a robbery, holds two men
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: at gunpoint, then leaves them completely unrestrained, walks upstairs, executes
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: a woman, and runs out.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Right. Yuri had his cell phone in his pocket the
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: entire time. Why didn't he instantly dial 911 the second
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the guy turned his back?
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: That behavioral anomaly is what the lead detective zeroed in on.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: When pressed during his interrogation, Yuri's response was evasive. He
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: shrugged and said, I don't know if I had my
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: phone on me or not.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: It is highly suspicious behavior for a protective husband. And
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: suspicion deepens when Kuei is interviewed. Kuei told detectives that
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: while on the floor, he whispered to Yuri, we got
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: to do something. And Yuri told him to stay down
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and stay quiet.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: The behavioral clues painted a picture of profound detachment. At
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: McCave's funeral, plainclothes investigators noted that Yuri displayed almost zero
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: genuine emotion and appeared entirely performative.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: But the detail that exposes his mindset happens the very
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: next day. Yuri goes to a local strip club called Flashdance,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: spends money, and boasts about being there on social media.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: A man who is profoundly narcissistically detached from the tragedy. Furthermore,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: detectives uncovered that the marriage was fundamentally fractured. Yuri had
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: a history of infidelity and had fathered a child with
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: another woman.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Makeva had threatened divorce on multiple recent occasions, and she
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: was the sole primary breadwinner while he was entirely dependent
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: on her income. A divorce means the money train stops.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: But the audio recording that seals his fate is a
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: phone call he made just days after she was killed.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Yuri dialed the customer service line for their life insurance company,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: trying to collect on Makeva's $ 500, 000 policy.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: But the agent informs Yuri that Makeva hadn't finalized the
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: paperwork making him the primary beneficiary yet. The policy wasn't
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: paying out to him.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: The transcript shows his reaction. He just says in this
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: deflated voice, oh wow, and hangs up.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: The sheer arrogance of greed. He orchestrated this nightmare thinking
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: he was about to walk away with half a million dollars.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: But proving he hired the hitman requires unraveling the conspiracy.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: And that begins thanks to Makeva's brother, Quay. Memory is
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: a powerful tool. Quay told detectives he couldn't stop thinking
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: about the masked gunman's voice yelling, You think this.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Is a game? Quay realized the voice sounded exactly like
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: a man who had visited their house earlier that same day,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: accompanied by one of Yuri's good friends, Dimitri Dale.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Detectives poll records on Dimitri Dale and discover he owns
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: a white Dodge Charger, matching the description of a suspicious
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: vehicle seen fleeing the neighborhood. They bring Dale in and
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: employ a textbook prisoner's dilemma tactic.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Isolating co-conspirators. You let one suspect know the walls are
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: closing in, and whoever cooperates first gets the best plea deal.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: It's a psychological race to the bottom. Dale had fiercely
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: covered for Yuri, but faced with life in prison, the
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: pressure breaks him. He completely flips and lays out the
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: entire conspiracy.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: He reveals Yuri wanted the insurance payout to fund his
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: new life. And Yuri's justification for falling out of love
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: is vile. Dale testifies that Yuri complained that his penis
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: couldn't get fully erect during intimacy, so he medically knew
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: he didn't love her anymore.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: It highlights a level of profound narcissism and superficiality. Dale
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: admits he acted as the middleman, connecting Yuri with a
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: 19-year-old acquaintance named Jovan Joseph, who agreed to be the
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: trigger man for $ 20, 000.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: But here's where the illusion of the criminal mastermind shatters.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: These guys were almost comically stupid. Yuri supposedly gave Jovan
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: a $ 10, 000 cash down payment. But days later, Jovan is
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: texting Dale, begging for a $ 20 advance for gas money.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: It completely undermines their sophisticated operation. It exposes how impulsive
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and poorly planned the conspiracy truly was.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: And the incompetence extends to their weapon choice. Dale admitted
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: it was his idea to supply a revolver because it
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: leaves no shells. He genuinely thought there'd be no ballistic
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: evidence to trace.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: A childish understanding of forensic science gleaned from Hollywood movies.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: While a revolver doesn't eject casings, the bullet itself contains
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: entirely unique microscopic striations from the barrel.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And to make matters worse, Dale revealed he had secretly
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: recorded several phone conversations with Yuri because Dale was getting paranoid.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: The secret tapes are damning. Yuri is caught telling Dale
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: to calm down, arrogantly stating the police have zero evidence,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: and promising to use the insurance money to bail him
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: out if needed. He repeatedly demands Dale stick to the story.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Armed with Dale's confession, Joven's subsequent cooperation, and those audio tapes,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: a SWAT team arrests Yuri Jenkins for first-degree murder, which
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: leads us to the explosive trial.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: To secure the conviction of Yuri, the prosecution had to
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: engage in what the defense characterized as a deal with
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: the devil.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: The plea deals. Joven Joseph, the 19-year-old who pulled the trigger,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: took a plea deal for just 15 years in prison.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And Dimitri Dale, who facilitated the entire thing, received 15
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: years of probation, zero prison time.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: It is a bitter reality of the adversarial justice system.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: The prosecuting attorneys realized they likely could not convict Yuri,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: the true mastermind, without the sworn testimony of his co-conspirators.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: There was no direct physical evidence tying Yuri to the murder.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: They desperately needed Dale and Joseph to point the figure
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: at him. In exchange, they handed out incredibly lenient sentences.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: The defense attorney naturally attacked this, painting Dale and Joseph
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: as confessed liars pointing the finger at an innocent husband
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: to save themselves.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: But the true emotional core of the trial rested on
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: McAva's brother, Quay. He was subpoenaed to testify. and had
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: to look across the courtroom at Yuri. The tension was
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: just too much.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: While on the witness stand, Quay completely snaps. He lunges
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: violently off the stand, charges across the courtroom, and attempts
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: to physically attack Yuri at the defense table.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Armed bailiffs had to tackle him to the floor. It
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: nearly caused a mistrial.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: It was a raw display of the agonizing trauma these
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: calculated crimes inflict on a family. Quay later apologized to
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: the judge, explaining he couldn't stomach looking at the smug
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: face of the man who took his sister.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Despite the defense's attempts to discredit the co-conspirators, the jury
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: saw through it. They weighed Yuri's lack of a 911 call,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: the strip club visit, the insurance call, and heard his
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: own voice on the tapes.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: It took the jury less than three hours to return
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: a verdict finding Yuri Jenkins guilty of first-degree murder. He
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: was sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: in state prison without the possibility of parole.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: We have just examined three vastly different methodologies of violence.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: A random abduction, an off-the-grid chameleon, and a husband orchestrating
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: a hit.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: But despite their disparate approaches, they all arrive at the
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: exact same inevitable destination.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Which perfectly synthesizes our overarching theme for this deep dive.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: The illusion that a perpetrator can commit a violent crime
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: and simply fade away is entirely shattered by the reality
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: of digital evidence, forensic science, and human hubris.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Whether it is a state-issued GPS ankle monitor quietly recording
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: your every step, a Google search for a nobody, no crime,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: or a secretly recorded phone call between co-conspirators, the truth
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: always leaves a footprint.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: You simply cannot move through this modern world without disturbing
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: the invisible web. And it's so important to remind ourselves
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that these are not characters in a movie. These are
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: real grieving families. The Toks, the Cummings, the Jenkins families.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: They were thrust into unimaginable nightmares, but they turned their
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: profound grief into incredible resilience and action.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Like the Toks family, changing the actual laws of their
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: state to protect thousands of other people. Yeah. They are
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: the true heroes, not the criminals.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. The resilience of the human spirit is the most
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: remarkable takeaway. And as we wrap up, I want to
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: leave you with a final lingering thought to mull over.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: We established that we live in a digital panopticon. We
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: are always being watched and tracked. Yet people still commit
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: these heavily premeditated crimes, genuinely thinking they are the brilliant
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: exception to the rule.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: So the question is, does the sheer volume of modern
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: surveillance technology force criminals to become smarter, to evolve into
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: more sophisticated predators to evade capture? Or does it simply
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: reveal that violent crime is inherently impulsive and deeply flawed,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: and fundamentally incapable of being perfectly executed by a human being.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: The invisible web isn't just a trap. It's a mirror
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: reflecting the chaos of the criminal mind. It is always there,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: silently waiting to catch them when they inevitably stumble.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: It's a heavy, fascinating thought and an essential one to
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: carry with you.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: We want to thank you for joining us on this
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: extensive deep dive into the shadows of the digital age.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: As always, keep questioning the systems and the world around you.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Keep looking for the truth hidden in the data, and
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: we will catch you on the next one.