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Student Murders Her Ex-Teacher After Graduation · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: I want you to take a second and just imagine
0:02
Speaker 1: your own personal safety net.
0:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good visual to start with. Right.
0:06
Speaker 1: Like think about the physical and digital tethers that sort
0:09
Speaker 1: of anchor you to the world. You've got the friends
0:12
Speaker 1: who notice if you go quiet in the group chat,
0:15
Speaker 1: the neighbor who casually registers when your car hasn't moved
0:19
Speaker 1: from the driveway for a few days.
0:21
Speaker 2: And obviously the digital side of things, too.
0:23
Speaker 1: Exactly. The constant silent pinging of your digital footprint, your
0:27
Speaker 1: location data, smart devices, cellular handshakes. I mean, we all
0:31
Speaker 1: live suspended in this invisible web of connections.
0:35
Speaker 2: We do. And most of the time, we just assume
0:37
Speaker 2: it's completely impenetrable.
0:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. But today's deep dive is really about what happens
0:41
Speaker 1: when you strip that net down to its most vulnerable
0:44
Speaker 1: threads and how the snapping of just one of those
0:48
Speaker 1: threads allowed a localized tragedy to spiral into absolute chaos.
0:54
Speaker 2: It's a phenomenal framework for looking at this case, honestly,
0:56
Speaker 2: because we fundamentally take the concept of a safety net
0:59
Speaker 2: for granted.
1:00
Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
1:01
Speaker 2: We assume that proximity equals safety. Like we assume that
1:05
Speaker 2: living next door to someone or having family just down
1:07
Speaker 2: the road creates this buffer against the darkest elements of society.
1:11
Speaker 1: Right. But that's not what happens here.
1:13
Speaker 2: No, not at all. In the case we're analyzing today,
1:16
Speaker 2: we're going to see how proximity was actually the weapon
1:20
Speaker 2: and how the traditional neighborhood safety net entirely, completely failed.
1:25
Speaker 2: A vulnerable man.
1:26
Speaker 1: So we are looking at the life and the just
1:29
Speaker 1: incredibly tragic death of William Dubow Jr., or Bill as
1:35
Speaker 1: people called him.
1:35
Speaker 2: Right, Bill.
1:36
Speaker 1: Bill was a 72-year-old retired teacher who spent decades working
1:40
Speaker 1: in the Fort Smith School District down in Arkansas.
1:42
Speaker 2: And by every single account in the source material we have,
1:46
Speaker 2: this was a man who gave his entire life to
1:48
Speaker 2: his community.
1:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, beloved by his students, respected by his peers. But
1:52
Speaker 1: his retirement wasn't, you know, a peaceful transition to golf
1:55
Speaker 1: courses and front porch sitting. Bill had suffered a series
1:59
Speaker 1: of pretty devastating violent strokes.
2:01
Speaker 2: Which, I mean, that forces a complete recalibration of how
2:04
Speaker 2: a person interacts with the world. I can't even imagine. Right,
2:06
Speaker 2: because when you survive multiple severe strokes, your mobility is compromised,
2:12
Speaker 2: your cognitive endurance is tested, and your physical vulnerability just skyrockets.
2:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. And families of stroke survivors face this agonizing balancing act.
2:23
Speaker 1: On one hand, you want to preserve the person's dignity, right?
2:26
Speaker 1: Their independence.
2:27
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, the medical reality dictates that
2:30
Speaker 2: they just cannot be left entirely alone.
2:33
Speaker 1: So Bill's family navigated this by getting him his own
2:35
Speaker 1: apartment to maintain his autonomy. But they kept him on
2:38
Speaker 1: a very tight tether.
2:39
Speaker 2: Right. They lived nearby. They checked in constantly. They established
2:43
Speaker 2: this rigid baseline of communication.
2:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, given his health, even like 12 hours of radio
2:48
Speaker 1: silence was treated as a severe emergency.
2:51
Speaker 2: Exactly. And that extreme vigilance is exactly why the initial
2:54
Speaker 2: alarm bells rang so quickly in this case.
2:56
Speaker 1: So our mission today is to completely deconstruct this investigation.
3:00
Speaker 1: We're not just going to walk through a timeline. We're
3:02
Speaker 1: going to really tear apart the mechanics of how a
3:04
Speaker 1: seemingly routine wellness check morphed into a high-stakes homicide investigation.
3:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to explore the deeply chaotic reactive psychology
3:12
Speaker 2: of crimes of opportunity.
3:14
Speaker 1: And we're going to dissect how everyday civilian technology completely
3:19
Speaker 1: circumvented the traditional police playbook. Like, that part is wild
3:23
Speaker 1: to me.
3:24
Speaker 2: It really is. We're also going to examine the anatomy
3:26
Speaker 2: of deception here. I mean, we have a mountain of sources,
3:30
Speaker 2: body cam audio, interrogation transcripts, forensic reports, court filings.
3:34
Speaker 1: So much material.
3:35
Speaker 2: So much. And when you lay them all out side
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Speaker 2: by side, you get this master class in how individuals
3:40
Speaker 2: connected to a crime attempt to construct a narrative in
3:43
Speaker 2: real time.
3:44
Speaker 1: And more importantly, the psychological weight that ultimately causes those
3:48
Speaker 1: narratives to just implode.
3:50
Speaker 2: Exactly.
3:51
Speaker 1: I promise you, by the end of this deep dive,
3:52
Speaker 1: you are going to rethink the reliability of your own intuition.
3:56
Speaker 1: And you're going to be horrified by just how microscopic
4:00
Speaker 1: a community's hidden underworld can actually be.
4:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the term underworld usually conjures up images of
4:06
Speaker 2: organized syndicates operating in the shadows of a major metropolis.
4:09
Speaker 1: Right, like mobsters or something.
4:11
Speaker 2: Exactly. But what we see here... is an underworld that
4:15
Speaker 2: exists in broad daylight, separated from a quiet, respectable life
4:20
Speaker 2: by nothing more than a few inches of drywall and
4:22
Speaker 2: a batch of grass.
4:24
Speaker 1: It's terrifying because we all think we'd spot a murderer
4:26
Speaker 1: if they lived right next door to us.
4:28
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. We all want to believe that.
4:30
Speaker 1: But to understand why a killer was able to hide
4:32
Speaker 1: in plain sight, we have to look at the anatomy
4:34
Speaker 1: of a routine police response. So July 11th, 2019, Fort Smith, Arkansas.
4:40
Speaker 2: Dead of summer.
4:41
Speaker 1: Dead of summer, incredibly hot. A call comes in to dispatch.
4:45
Speaker 1: A neighbor hasn't seen Bill for a couple of days.
4:47
Speaker 1: So Officer Hendricks of the Fort Smith Police Department is
4:50
Speaker 1: dispatched to Bill's apartment complex for a standard welfare check.
4:54
Speaker 2: Which is, statistically speaking, the most mundane call a patrol
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Speaker 2: officer handles in any given shift.
5:01
Speaker 1: Really? Just a total routine thing?
5:03
Speaker 2: Completely routine. The baseline expectation when you pull up to
5:07
Speaker 2: a welfare check is almost never foul play. It's an
5:10
Speaker 2: elderly person who took a fall and can't reach the phone.
5:13
Speaker 2: Or someone who forgot to say they went out of town.
5:15
Speaker 1: Like a miscommunication. Right.
5:17
Speaker 2: A simple miscommunication among family members. So the psychological posture
5:22
Speaker 2: of the responding officer is geared toward medical assistance or mediation,
5:27
Speaker 2: not crime scene preservation.
5:29
Speaker 1: Okay. But the environment Officer Hendricks walks into is immediately
5:33
Speaker 1: compromised by the presence of a very eager, very helpful neighbor.
5:38
Speaker 2: Yes. Helpful in massive air quotes. Right.
5:40
Speaker 1: As soon as she arrives, she is intercepted by a
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Speaker 1: man named Denton Stringer. Denton lives in the apartment right
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Speaker 1: next door to Bill.
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Speaker 2: He's the one who flagged down the initial concern.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the one who reported it. And he is
5:51
Speaker 1: standing right there, just ready to guide the officer through
5:54
Speaker 1: the timeline. He immediately points out that Bill's red Ford
5:58
Speaker 1: Focus passenger car has been missing from the driveway for
6:01
Speaker 1: like two or three days.
6:03
Speaker 2: Which, providing a timeline of a missing vehicle seems inherently
6:06
Speaker 2: useful on the surface. It does. But we have to
6:08
Speaker 2: look at the surplus of information Denton begins to offer.
6:12
Speaker 1: Right, because he doesn't stop at the car. Denton starts
6:14
Speaker 1: offering these hyper-specific, totally unprompted details.
6:18
Speaker 2: Huge red flags.
6:19
Speaker 1: He tells Officer Hendricks that on Tuesday, which was two
6:22
Speaker 1: days prior, at exactly 11 p.m., he was laying in
6:26
Speaker 1: his bed and heard a big boom coming from Bill's apartment.
6:30
Speaker 2: And he specifically describes the sound as if someone or
6:34
Speaker 2: something heavy fell hard to the floor.
6:37
Speaker 1: Which... Let's put that into context for a second. You
6:40
Speaker 1: live next door to a 72-year-old man who is a
6:43
Speaker 1: known survivor of multiple severe strokes. You know he's frail.
6:47
Speaker 1: And at 11 p.m., you hear a massive concussive boom
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Speaker 1: that sounds exactly like a human body hitting the floor.
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Speaker 1: The universally standard human reaction to that is to knock
6:58
Speaker 1: on the door immediately or at least make a phone call. Exactly.
7:01
Speaker 2: Exactly. Denton heard what he believed to be a medical
7:04
Speaker 2: emergency and he just followed away in his brain for
7:07
Speaker 2: 48 hours.
7:07
Speaker 1: Okay, wait. Let me push back a little here because
7:09
Speaker 1: I've lived in apartments. Apartment living is inherently noisy. People
7:13
Speaker 1: drop weights. They knock over furniture.
7:15
Speaker 2: Sure they do.
7:15
Speaker 1: So is it possible he just rationalized it as normal
7:17
Speaker 1: neighbor noise and didn't want to be a bother in
7:19
Speaker 1: the middle of the night?
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Speaker 2: Well, if he had simply heard a noise and forgotten
7:23
Speaker 2: about it, he likely wouldn't have pinpointed the exact day
7:27
Speaker 2: and time so readily two days later.
7:29
Speaker 1: Ah, that makes sense.
7:30
Speaker 2: The fact that he retained the specific timestamp Tuesday at
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Speaker 2: 11 p.m. indicates that the event registered as significant to
7:37
Speaker 2: him at the moment it happened.
7:38
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah.
7:39
Speaker 2: Furthermore, he begins deploying what we in criminology refer to
7:43
Speaker 2: as staging behavior or narrative insertion.
7:47
Speaker 1: Narrative insertion. Right.
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Speaker 2: When someone is peripherally or directly connected to a developing
7:52
Speaker 2: crime scene, they often insert themselves into the initial law
7:55
Speaker 2: enforcement response. They hover.
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Speaker 1: Like they want to be part of the investigation.
7:59
Speaker 2: Exactly. They don't just answer questions. They actively volunteer information
8:03
Speaker 2: designed to establish themselves as a cooperative witness. It's subtly
8:07
Speaker 2: steering the officer's attention toward a specific timeline that benefits them.
8:12
Speaker 1: Wow. OK, that perfectly explains the next bizarre thing he says.
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Speaker 1: Officer Hendricks asks Denton for his phone number or asks
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Speaker 1: why he didn't call the police on Tuesday night if
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Speaker 1: he was so concerned.
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Speaker 2: And what does he say?
8:23
Speaker 1: Denton casually throws out that he doesn't have a phone
8:26
Speaker 1: right now because his daughter stole it when she moved out.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. That is narrative insertion right there.
8:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: He is preemptively building an alibi for his own inaction.
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Speaker 1: Just offering it up without being accused of anything.
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Speaker 2: By volunteering the story about his daughter stealing his phone,
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Speaker 2: he accomplishes two things. First, he justifies why he couldn't
8:45
Speaker 2: call 911 when the boom happened. Right. And second, he
8:49
Speaker 2: introduces a chaotic element into his own family dynamic, painting
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Speaker 2: himself as a victim of theft. rather than a complicit observer.
8:57
Speaker 1: That is wild.
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Speaker 2: It is a highly sophisticated, if somewhat clumsy, attempt to
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Speaker 2: control the blast radius of the officer's initial inquiries.
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Speaker 1: It's fascinating how quickly he tries to build that shield.
9:09
Speaker 1: So Officer Hendricks takes down his name, Denton Stringer, but
9:13
Speaker 1: she is in a holding pattern. She needs the landlord
9:15
Speaker 1: to arrive with a key so she can get inside
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Speaker 1: Bill's apartment.
9:18
Speaker 2: Because she can't just kick the door down without probable
9:21
Speaker 2: cause on a wellness check.
9:22
Speaker 1: Right. So to pass the time and gather more context,
9:26
Speaker 1: she walks across the street to a local resale shop.
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Speaker 1: It turns out Bill was a fixture in this specific micro-neighborhood. Like,
9:33
Speaker 1: he used to sit and keep an eye on the
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Speaker 1: shop for the owners.
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Speaker 2: Which really speaks to Bill's character, you know? Even with
9:38
Speaker 2: his limited mobility, he was actively engaging with his environment,
9:42
Speaker 2: maintaining a protective presence for the people around him. Oh, yeah.
9:46
Speaker 1: And the resale shop owners knew his routines intimately... So
9:51
Speaker 1: Officer Hendricks asks the shop owner when they last saw Bill.
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Speaker 1: They confirm it's been about two days.
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Speaker 2: Which aligns with Denton's story about the car. It does.
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Speaker 1: But then the shop owner offers a completely unprompted piece
10:03
Speaker 1: of community intelligence.
10:04
Speaker 2: This is a key moment. Huge.
10:06
Speaker 1: The owner says, look, we've had some problems with the
10:08
Speaker 1: people next door, Bill. Not us directly, but they caused trouble.
10:12
Speaker 1: And then they say explicitly, if anybody did anything to Bill,
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Speaker 1: it would be them. Meaning Denton Stringer's household.
10:18
Speaker 2: And this is where law enforcement relies on the ambient
10:20
Speaker 2: telemetry of a neighborhood.
10:21
Speaker 1: Ambient telemetry.
10:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, because a patrol officer dropping into a scene for
10:25
Speaker 2: 10 minutes doesn't know the localized friction points.
10:28
Speaker 1: They just see a quiet street.
10:30
Speaker 2: Exactly. But the person running the cash register across the
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Speaker 2: street watches that block for eight hours a day, every
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Speaker 2: single day. They absorb the rhythm of the street.
10:41
Speaker 1: They know who belongs and who's trouble.
10:43
Speaker 2: Right. They know that Bill is a static, peaceful presence.
10:47
Speaker 2: And they know that the household next door is radiating instability.
10:51
Speaker 1: Wow.
10:52
Speaker 2: When a neutral third party preemptively points a finger at
10:55
Speaker 2: the exact same neighbor who just tried to aggressively establish
10:59
Speaker 2: an alibi with the response officer, the investigative lens fundamentally shifts.
11:04
Speaker 1: I bet. So armed with that warning, Officer Hendricks walks
11:07
Speaker 1: back across the street. Denton is still just loitering around
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Speaker 1: the property. He actually provides the landlord's contact info.
11:13
Speaker 2: Still playing the helpful neighbor. Yep.
11:15
Speaker 1: But while she's waiting for the key, Officer Hendricks starts
11:18
Speaker 1: conducting a perimeter check of Bill's ground floor windows. And
11:22
Speaker 1: this is where the transition from a routine wellness check
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Speaker 1: to a homicide investigation really begins.
11:27
Speaker 2: Driven entirely by biology and instinct. Yes.
11:31
Speaker 1: She approaches what she assumes is the bedroom window. She
11:35
Speaker 1: notes that the exterior trash can is empty, so that
11:38
Speaker 1: rules out the smell of rotting garbage.
11:40
Speaker 2: Right, eliminating environmental variables.
11:42
Speaker 1: But she smells something... emanating from the window frame. On
11:46
Speaker 1: her body cam later, she describes it as an odd, faint,
11:50
Speaker 1: old must.
11:51
Speaker 2: Just a musty smell.
11:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's not overpowering. It comes in subtle whiffs. Then
11:56
Speaker 1: she notices a single fly on the inside of the
11:59
Speaker 1: glass pane, buzzing frantically, trying to escape the apartment.
12:03
Speaker 2: And the AC.
12:04
Speaker 1: Right. Finally, she notes that the window unit air conditioner
12:06
Speaker 1: is just running at maximum capacity.
12:08
Speaker 2: We have to break down the specific combination of those
12:11
Speaker 2: sensory inputs. Because it represents a massive environmental red flag.
12:15
Speaker 1: Okay, lay it out for me.
12:16
Speaker 2: First, the air conditioning. A heavily air-conditioned room drastically alters
12:21
Speaker 2: the decomposition process.
12:22
Speaker 1: Because it's cold.
12:23
Speaker 2: Because it's cold, exactly. The cold air slows down the
12:26
Speaker 2: biological breakdown of tissue, and the constant forceful circulation of
12:30
Speaker 2: air disperses and dilutes odors, basically masking the typical overwhelming
12:35
Speaker 2: scent of death.
12:36
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
12:36
Speaker 2: But the presence of that specific, faint, musty odor... escaping
12:41
Speaker 2: the seals of the window, combined with the trapped fly.
12:44
Speaker 2: I mean, entomologically speaking, flies are the first biological responders
12:49
Speaker 2: to a deceased body.
12:50
Speaker 1: First responders.
12:51
Speaker 2: Wow. They really are. They can detect the chemical markers
12:54
Speaker 2: of death, specifically compounds like putrescine and cadaverine, from miles away,
12:59
Speaker 2: often within minutes.
13:00
Speaker 1: That is so morbid, but so fascinating.
13:03
Speaker 2: So seeing a fly desperately trying to get out of
13:05
Speaker 2: a sealed, artificially cooled environment tells an investigator that that
13:09
Speaker 2: the biological event has already occurred inside.
13:12
Speaker 1: The way she processes that scene is just incredible, because
13:15
Speaker 1: on the body cam audio later, Officer Hendricks remarks, I'm
13:18
Speaker 1: so glad I went with my gut on that one.
13:20
Speaker 2: Your gut was entirely correct.
13:21
Speaker 1: I've always thought of intuition as a sort of check
13:23
Speaker 1: engine light for human survival, you know? Like, you don't
13:26
Speaker 1: know exactly what's broken under the hood, but the dashboard
13:29
Speaker 1: is glowing red.
13:30
Speaker 2: That's a perfect analogy.
13:31
Speaker 1: But why does a trained officer's brain register a solitary
13:34
Speaker 1: fly and a faint smell as a critical threat, before
13:37
Speaker 1: the logical procedural part of the brain can even articulate
13:40
Speaker 1: a theory.
13:41
Speaker 2: So the mechanism you're describing is known in neuroscience as
13:45
Speaker 2: the somatic marker hypothesis, pioneered by a researcher named Antonio Damasio. Okay.
13:50
Speaker 2: Our brains are essentially supercomputers, right? They're constantly processing thousands
13:55
Speaker 2: of micro-observations every second. Things our conscious mind completely filters
14:00
Speaker 2: out to prevent sensory overload.
14:01
Speaker 1: Right, otherwise we'd go crazy.
14:03
Speaker 2: Exactly. Over years of training and field experience... An officer's
14:07
Speaker 2: subconscious begins to correlate specific environmental anomalies with specific outcomes.
14:13
Speaker 1: So she's seen this before, basically.
14:14
Speaker 2: Subconsciously, yes. Damasio's research showed that before your conscious brain
14:19
Speaker 2: can rationally deduce a threat, your ventromedial prefrontal cortex recognizes
14:24
Speaker 2: the threatening pattern and sends a physiological signal to your body.
14:28
Speaker 1: Wait, really? A physical signal? Yes.
14:31
Speaker 2: Your heart rate elevates slightly. Your skin conductance changes. You
14:34
Speaker 2: get a literal gut feeling.
14:36
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
14:37
Speaker 2: After Hendricks didn't stand at the window and consciously calculate
14:40
Speaker 2: an algebraic equation of cold air plus one fly equals
14:43
Speaker 2: a decaying human body, her subconscious recognized the specific environmental
14:48
Speaker 2: signature of death, triggered a somatic marker, that uncomfortable feeling
14:52
Speaker 2: in her stomach, and forced her conscious brain to pay
14:55
Speaker 2: attention and act on it.
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Speaker 1: That is deeply unsettling, the idea that our bodies are
15:00
Speaker 1: actively reading the chemical signatures of a crime scene before
15:03
Speaker 1: we even realize we're standing in one.
15:05
Speaker 2: It's survival biology at its finest.
15:08
Speaker 1: So acting entirely on that somatic marker, Officer Hendricks finally
15:12
Speaker 1: gets the key from the landlord. And the moment she
15:15
Speaker 1: breaches that front door, all the ambiguity of a sunny
15:18
Speaker 1: summer afternoon just evaporates.
15:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is where it turns grim.
15:23
Speaker 1: They find 72-year-old Bill Dubow dead on his bathroom floor.
15:27
Speaker 1: And the scene inside is a portrait of absolute, unmitigated chaos.
15:31
Speaker 2: It wasn't peaceful.
15:32
Speaker 1: Not at all. There is blood spatter near his favorite
15:35
Speaker 1: recliner in the living room. There's a transfer blood stain
15:38
Speaker 1: on a closet door in the hallway. There's more blood
15:40
Speaker 1: on the doorframe leading into the bathroom where his body
15:43
Speaker 1: was left.
15:43
Speaker 2: It tells a very specific story.
15:45
Speaker 1: And furthermore, the apartment has been bizarrely ransacked. Random kitchen
15:50
Speaker 1: drawers are pulled completely open. A filing cabinet in the
15:53
Speaker 1: corner is left jar.
15:55
Speaker 2: Which is strange for a targeted attack.
15:58
Speaker 1: Right. And scattered all across the kitchen floor and draped
16:01
Speaker 1: over the couch behind the recliner is this strange bright
16:05
Speaker 1: red fuzz. It looks like the material from a red
16:08
Speaker 1: blanket Bill used and it has practically exploded across the room.
16:13
Speaker 2: We really need to isolate the physical evidence here because
16:15
Speaker 2: the environment is speaking volumes about the psychology of the attacker.
16:19
Speaker 1: Well, wait, let me play devil's advocate for a second.
16:21
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
16:21
Speaker 1: We've all seen cases where a targeted premeditated killer will
16:26
Speaker 1: deliberately trash a room to make a targeted assassination look
16:29
Speaker 1: like a burglary gone wrong. It's a staging tactic, right?
16:32
Speaker 2: It happens, yes.
16:33
Speaker 1: So with the drawers pulled out and the fuzz everywhere,
16:36
Speaker 1: why are we assuming this was genuine panic and not
16:39
Speaker 1: a calculated distraction?
16:40
Speaker 2: It's a crucial distinction to make. And it comes down
16:44
Speaker 2: to analyzing the forensic geometry of the blood spatter and
16:47
Speaker 2: the specific nature of the disarray.
16:49
Speaker 1: Okay, untack that for me.
16:51
Speaker 2: When an offender stages a scene to look like a burglary,
16:54
Speaker 2: they typically target high-value storage areas, jewelry boxes, electronics cabinets,
17:00
Speaker 2: bedside tables. They create a superficial mess.
17:03
Speaker 1: Like they're checking off boxes for what a burglary should
17:05
Speaker 1: look like.
17:05
Speaker 2: Exactly. But the disarray here, random kitchen drawers, a scattered
17:11
Speaker 2: file cabinet that suggests a frantic, disorganized search for something
17:15
Speaker 2: highly specific and immediately liquid, like cash or prescription narcotics.
17:21
Speaker 1: Right. Not jewelry.
17:22
Speaker 2: But more importantly, the blood spatter completely contradicts a staged hit.
17:26
Speaker 1: How so? Like, what does the blood tell us?
17:29
Speaker 2: Blood spatter analysis reconstructs the choreography of violence. If this
17:33
Speaker 2: were a professional or premeditated hit designed to look like
17:36
Speaker 2: a robbery, the violence is usually sudden, localized, and overwhelmingly
17:40
Speaker 2: lethal in the first moment.
17:42
Speaker 1: You mean it would just happen in one spot?
17:43
Speaker 2: Right. You would find a centralized pool of blood in
17:46
Speaker 2: the recliner. But here, investigators found a trail. Blood by
17:50
Speaker 2: the chair. Transfer stains on the closet door cast off
17:53
Speaker 2: on the bathroom frame. This tells us the victim was awake.
17:57
Speaker 2: The initial attack happened at the recliner, triggering a struggle.
18:01
Speaker 2: The red fuzz scattered across the room is trace evidence
18:04
Speaker 2: of a violent physical wrestling match involving the blanket.
18:08
Speaker 1: So he fought back.
18:10
Speaker 2: He tried to. The blood on the closet door is
18:12
Speaker 2: likely a transfer stain, meaning Bill, bleeding, leaned against it
18:17
Speaker 2: or was pushed against it as he tried to escape
18:19
Speaker 2: down the hall.
18:19
Speaker 1: He's so.
18:21
Speaker 2: And the spatter on the bathroom frame indicates the attack
18:23
Speaker 2: continued as he was pursued. This wasn't a clean staged assassination.
18:28
Speaker 2: This was a messy, prolonged, terrifyingly physical confrontation driven by
18:33
Speaker 2: extreme emotional volatility.
18:35
Speaker 1: That just paints an incredibly bleak and horrifying final few
18:39
Speaker 1: minutes for Bill.
18:39
Speaker 2: It really does.
18:40
Speaker 1: So amidst processing this active, bloody scene, the police start
18:44
Speaker 1: taking a localized inventory. We know the Redford Focus is gone.
18:47
Speaker 1: They confirm Bill's wallet and his cell phone are missing.
18:49
Speaker 2: Standard items for a robbery.
18:51
Speaker 1: Right. But interestingly, they notice empty spaces where electronics used
18:56
Speaker 1: to be. The killer took the time to disconnect and
18:59
Speaker 1: steal both of Bill's flat screen televisions, one from the
19:03
Speaker 1: living room, one from the bedroom.
19:05
Speaker 2: Which perfectly aligns with the frantic search of the kitchen
19:07
Speaker 2: drawers we talked about.
19:08
Speaker 1: Right.
19:09
Speaker 2: The theft of bulky electronics like televisions is the absolute
19:14
Speaker 2: hallmark of a disorganized crime of opportunity driven by a desperate,
19:19
Speaker 2: immediate need for cash.
19:21
Speaker 1: Because they're hard to move.
19:22
Speaker 2: TVs are heavy, they're awkward to carry, and they require
19:25
Speaker 2: a vehicle to transport. Taking them confirms the killer had
19:28
Speaker 2: access to Bill's keys and was confident they had the
19:31
Speaker 2: time to load the car without being caught.
19:33
Speaker 1: So the police are standing in a ransacked apartment with
19:36
Speaker 1: a murdered teacher, a missing car, missing TVs, and zero
19:40
Speaker 1: suspects in custody.
19:41
Speaker 2: Not a great starting point.
19:42
Speaker 1: Not at all. And before they can aggressively hunt the killer...
19:45
Speaker 1: Procedure dictates they have to notify the next of kin,
19:48
Speaker 1: so they drive to the home of Bill's wife, Susan.
19:51
Speaker 2: Now they were separated, right?
19:52
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:53
Speaker 2: Yes.
19:54
Speaker 1: Susan is a retired nurse. She and Bill were technically separated,
19:57
Speaker 1: living in different homes, but the sources make it explicitly
20:00
Speaker 1: clear they were a tight unit.
20:02
Speaker 2: That's not uncommon.
20:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. She still attended his old high school sporting events
20:06
Speaker 1: with him. They were deeply involved in each other's lives.
20:09
Speaker 2: It's very common for couples navigating severe chronic health issues
20:13
Speaker 2: to alter their living arrangements for logistical or medical reasons
20:18
Speaker 2: without severing the emotional bond. The separation was likely a
20:22
Speaker 2: pragmatic choice, not an emotional one. Right.
20:25
Speaker 1: So the officers arrive at her door. They deliver the
20:27
Speaker 1: news as gently as possible. They don't immediately declare it
20:30
Speaker 1: a brutal murder. They just inform her that he has
20:33
Speaker 1: passed away, that there is blood at the scene and
20:35
Speaker 1: that it is an active investigation.
20:37
Speaker 2: Try to soften the blow.
20:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. Susan is predictably absolutely devastated. She is overcome with grief.
20:44
Speaker 1: But in the midst of that shock, the police ask
20:46
Speaker 1: about the missing Ford Focus.
20:47
Speaker 2: And this is where the case cracks wide open.
20:50
Speaker 1: Yes. Susan, through her tears, says something that fundamentally alters
20:54
Speaker 1: the trajectory of modern police work. She says, oh, I
20:57
Speaker 1: have a tracking app for his car on my phone.
21:00
Speaker 2: It is impossible to overstate how revolutionary that single sentence
21:04
Speaker 2: is to a homicide detective standing in a victim's living room.
21:09
Speaker 1: It blew my mind reading the reports. We think of
21:11
Speaker 1: safety nets as physical things, a neighbor checking the mail,
21:15
Speaker 1: a landlord having a key. But Bill's ultimate safety net
21:18
Speaker 1: was a silent digital tether actively running in the background
21:22
Speaker 1: of his estranged wife's smartphone.
21:23
Speaker 2: Incredible.
21:24
Speaker 1: She opens the app and within seconds she bypasses the
21:27
Speaker 1: entire Fourth Amendment warrant process that police usually have to
21:30
Speaker 1: navigate to get geolocation data.
21:32
Speaker 2: Because she owns the account. Exactly.
21:34
Speaker 1: Exactly. She looks at the screen and says the car
21:36
Speaker 1: is parked at a house near a place called JB
21:38
Speaker 1: by Ryder right off Kelly Highway. And it's not moving.
21:42
Speaker 2: Let's really examine the mechanics of how this completely bypasses
21:46
Speaker 2: the traditional investigative waiting period.
21:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. How would this normally go?
21:49
Speaker 2: Historically, if a vehicle was stolen during a homicide, the
21:54
Speaker 2: police would input the vehicle identification number, the VIN, into
21:57
Speaker 2: the NCIC, the National Crime Information Center. OK. They would
22:01
Speaker 2: broadcast a description to all local and state patrol units.
22:05
Speaker 2: And then the investigation would hit a wall.
22:07
Speaker 1: You just wait.
22:08
Speaker 2: You're relying entirely on the statistical anomaly of a patrol
22:12
Speaker 2: officer visually identifying a generic red Ford Focus in moving
22:15
Speaker 2: traffic or stumbling across it abandoned in an alley days later.
22:19
Speaker 2: It is a passive, agonizing game of chance.
22:22
Speaker 1: But this app changes all that.
22:23
Speaker 2: Completely. What Susan did by providing civilian GPS telemetry was
22:28
Speaker 2: weaponize everyday consumer technology. Geolocation apps utilize cellular triangulation and
22:33
Speaker 2: satellite handshakes to provide real-time pinpoint accuracy.
22:37
Speaker 1: And the cops didn't need a warrant.
22:38
Speaker 2: No, because Susan owned the app and the account. She
22:41
Speaker 2: could legally volunteer that data to the police without a
22:44
Speaker 2: judge signing a subpoena. Wow. In less than 60 seconds,
22:48
Speaker 2: she handed the detectives the exact coordinates of the primary suspect,
22:51
Speaker 2: transforming the investigation from a cold scene analysis into a
22:54
Speaker 2: tactical high-speed manhunt.
22:56
Speaker 1: So the pivot in the narrative is instantaneous. We shift
23:00
Speaker 1: immediately from what happened in this bathroom to to who
23:04
Speaker 1: is sitting in this stolen car.
23:06
Speaker 2: Things move very fast now.
23:08
Speaker 1: The police mobilize a massive response. They swarm the address
23:11
Speaker 1: Susan provided on Kelly Highway. They secure a hard perimeter
23:14
Speaker 1: around the house. They get on the bullhorns and order
23:16
Speaker 1: everyone inside to come out with their hands empty.
23:18
Speaker 2: High-risk takedown.
23:19
Speaker 1: It's a highly volatile, tense standoff. Eventually, several people filter
23:24
Speaker 1: out of the residence, and among them is a 21-year-old
23:26
Speaker 1: woman named Taylor Elkins.
23:29
Speaker 2: And this is the moment where the psychological pressure test
23:31
Speaker 2: of interrogation really begins.
23:33
Speaker 1: The police immediately identify the red Ford Focus parked on
23:37
Speaker 1: the property. They point to it and ask the group,
23:39
Speaker 1: whose car is that? And Taylor Elkins, without a flinch,
23:43
Speaker 1: without missing a beat, says, that's my car.
23:45
Speaker 2: Just claims it right there.
23:47
Speaker 1: The officers know for a fact it is the murdered
23:49
Speaker 1: 72-year-old's car. So they immediately pull her from the group,
23:53
Speaker 1: Mirandize her, and begin questioning her. And the web of
23:57
Speaker 1: lies she attempts to spin under pressure is just spectacular
24:01
Speaker 1: in its absurdity.
24:02
Speaker 2: If you listen to the audio of this initial field interview,
24:05
Speaker 2: what stands out is not panic, but a profound sense
24:09
Speaker 2: of defiance.
24:10
Speaker 1: Really? Not fear?
24:12
Speaker 2: No. She doesn't have the physiological markers of someone terrified
24:15
Speaker 2: by a murder charge. She sounds almost irritated that she's
24:19
Speaker 2: being inconvenienced by the police.
24:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the police ask her exactly how she came
24:23
Speaker 1: to own the vehicle. Taylor launches into her first alibi.
24:27
Speaker 1: She claims that she was down by a local boardwalk
24:30
Speaker 1: and a guy named Sean just walked up and gave
24:32
Speaker 1: her the car.
24:33
Speaker 2: Just gave it to her. Yeah.
24:34
Speaker 1: She specifically refers to Sean as a crackhead and claims
24:38
Speaker 1: he gave her a functioning vehicle simply because, quote, he
24:41
Speaker 1: likes me like that.
24:42
Speaker 2: Right.
24:42
Speaker 1: The detectives immediately start applying pressure to the stress points
24:46
Speaker 1: of this lie. They ask for Sean's last name. She
24:48
Speaker 1: doesn't know it. They ask for Sean's phone number. She
24:51
Speaker 1: claims she doesn't have it.
24:52
Speaker 2: Convenient.
24:52
Speaker 1: Very convenient. They ask where he lives or where they
24:55
Speaker 1: can find him. She has absolutely no idea. She even
24:58
Speaker 1: claims she doesn't have a phone on her to pull
25:00
Speaker 1: up his Facebook profile.
25:02
Speaker 2: We are witnessing the real-time deployment of a classic defensive
25:06
Speaker 2: mechanism known as the Phantom Third Party.
25:08
Speaker 1: Phantom Third Party.
25:09
Speaker 2: Yes. When an offender is caught red-handed with the physical
25:13
Speaker 2: proceeds of a crime, especially a vehicle tied directly to
25:16
Speaker 2: a fresh murder scene, and they haven't had the time
25:19
Speaker 2: to meticulously construct a watertight alibi, the cognitive load of
25:22
Speaker 2: lying becomes overwhelming.
25:24
Speaker 1: It's too much to keep track of.
25:25
Speaker 2: Exactly. So the easiest way to relieve that cognitive burden
25:29
Speaker 2: is to invent a phantom. Sean is the perfect phantom.
25:33
Speaker 1: Because he's untraceable.
25:34
Speaker 2: Right. By labeling him a crackhead, Taylor is intentionally attributing
25:38
Speaker 2: a transient, chaotic, and unreliable lifestyle to him. It provides
25:43
Speaker 2: a built-in, culturally understood excuse for why she doesn't have
25:47
Speaker 2: his last name, his address, or his phone number.
25:49
Speaker 1: Oh, that makes so much sense.
25:50
Speaker 2: The phantom absorbs all the investigative heat, creating a layer
25:54
Speaker 2: of plausible deniability between Taylor and the physical violence at
25:58
Speaker 2: the apartment.
25:58
Speaker 1: It's a disposable alibi. I'm just the lucky recipient of
26:02
Speaker 1: a drug addict's generosity. But the detectives are seasoned. They
26:06
Speaker 1: don't buy a word of it. One of the officers
26:08
Speaker 1: actually calls her out on the spot, noting that she
26:11
Speaker 1: didn't have a phone on her during a recent arrest either,
26:14
Speaker 1: establishing a pattern of deception regarding her communication devices.
26:17
Speaker 2: They're locking her into her lies.
26:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. And when it becomes abundantly clear that the police
26:22
Speaker 1: are not going to spend five seconds looking for a
26:24
Speaker 1: phantom named Sean, Taylor pivots. She completely abandons the boardwalk
26:28
Speaker 1: story and swings to something much darker.
26:31
Speaker 2: This is where it gets twisted.
26:33
Speaker 1: She claims that the 72-year-old victim, Bill Dubot, gave her
26:36
Speaker 1: the car in exchange for sexual favors.
26:39
Speaker 2: Which is quite the leap.
26:40
Speaker 1: Hold on. Let me jump in here. That is an
26:43
Speaker 1: insane pivot. She goes from a random guy gave it
26:46
Speaker 1: to me to... The murdered man paid me for sex
26:49
Speaker 1: with a car. Isn't that just incredibly stupid?
26:52
Speaker 2: It seems like it, yes.
26:53
Speaker 1: By placing herself in a transactional relationship with the victim,
26:57
Speaker 1: she's placing herself squarely at the center of his life,
27:00
Speaker 1: if not the crime scene itself.
27:02
Speaker 2: It seems counterintuitive to us sitting here analyzing it calmly.
27:06
Speaker 2: But in the panicked mind of a suspect, it is
27:09
Speaker 2: a calculated escalation. How so? When the phantom third party
27:12
Speaker 2: defense crumbles, the suspect realizes they can no longer deny
27:16
Speaker 2: a connection to the victim or the property. So the
27:20
Speaker 2: next psychological barrier they erect is victim blaming, or in
27:24
Speaker 2: this case, establishing a consensual illicit exchange.
27:27
Speaker 1: To explain why she has his stuff?
27:29
Speaker 2: Yes. By claiming she traded sexual favors for the car,
27:33
Speaker 2: she is attempting to reframe the narrative. She is acknowledging
27:36
Speaker 2: that she knew Bill, and she is acknowledging that the
27:38
Speaker 2: car was his, but she is desperately trying to establish
27:42
Speaker 2: a legitimate, non-violent reason for possessing it.
27:45
Speaker 1: Okay, I see.
27:46
Speaker 2: She is betting that that the police will view a transactional,
27:48
Speaker 2: potentially embarrassing sexual relationship as a lesser crime than a
27:52
Speaker 2: violent homicide. It is a frantic attempt to explain away
27:56
Speaker 2: the physical evidence without confessing to the underlying brutality.
27:59
Speaker 1: But her frantic pivoting is entirely moot, honestly, because the
28:03
Speaker 1: biggest revelation of this entire case happens right there on
28:05
Speaker 1: the lawn, and it has nothing to do with her interrogation.
28:08
Speaker 2: No, it has to do with the patrol experience. Right.
28:10
Speaker 1: While she is spinning these tails, another officer on the
28:13
Speaker 1: perimeter is studying her face. And he recognizes her. He
28:17
Speaker 1: remembers processing her recently.
28:19
Speaker 2: This highlights the vulnerability of offenders who are highly active
28:23
Speaker 2: within a localized judicial system. You lose the advantage of anonymity.
28:27
Speaker 1: You become a familiar face.
28:28
Speaker 2: Your face, your habits, your associates, they become ambient knowledge
28:32
Speaker 2: to the patrol officers on the street.
28:34
Speaker 1: This officer pulls up his mental files. He recalls that
28:37
Speaker 1: Taylor Elkins currently has roughly 10 pending felony charges over
28:41
Speaker 1: in neighboring Crawford County.
28:43
Speaker 2: And felonies.
28:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. He remembers a recent, highly volatile situation where the
28:47
Speaker 1: Department of Human Services had to step in and take
28:50
Speaker 1: custody of her children. But the most critical piece of
28:53
Speaker 1: data he recalls is her current bond information.
28:55
Speaker 2: The address. Yes.
28:57
Speaker 1: He remembers the address she listed when she bonded out
29:00
Speaker 1: of jail. He gets on his radio and asks dispatcher,
29:03
Speaker 1: a colleague, to confirm a hunch. He says, isn't she
29:06
Speaker 1: bonded out to 1800 South Greenwood? The radio cracks back
29:10
Speaker 1: and they confirm it. 1800 South Greenwood.
29:13
Speaker 2: The geographical significance of that specific address is the linchpin
29:16
Speaker 2: that connects the entire narrative.
29:18
Speaker 1: It is the exact same address as Denton Stringer.
29:21
Speaker 2: The neighbor.
29:22
Speaker 1: The helpful neighbor who greeted Officer Hendricks. The man who
29:26
Speaker 1: heard the big boom on Tuesday at 11 p.m. The
29:30
Speaker 1: man who claimed his daughter stole his phone so he
29:32
Speaker 1: couldn't call 911.
29:34
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
29:35
Speaker 1: Taylor Elkins, the 21-year-old woman sitting on the curb with
29:38
Speaker 1: a murdered teacher's car. is Denton Stringer's granddaughter. She lives
29:42
Speaker 1: in the apartment right next door to Bill Dubot.
29:45
Speaker 2: We've talked about safety nets, but this is the moment
29:47
Speaker 2: the net becomes a trap.
29:48
Speaker 1: It's zero degrees of separation. The killer didn't drive in
29:52
Speaker 1: from another county. She walked out of her front door,
29:55
Speaker 1: took three steps across a shared lawn, and entered his life.
29:59
Speaker 2: And if we overlay this revelation onto the events of
30:01
Speaker 2: Section 1, every piece of seemingly random behavior suddenly locks
30:06
Speaker 2: into sharp, terrifying focus.
30:08
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. Let's revisit the resale shop owner.
30:11
Speaker 2: What did they say?
30:12
Speaker 1: The owner said, if anybody did anything, it would be
30:15
Speaker 1: the people next door. That wasn't a lucky guess. That
30:19
Speaker 1: was the accurate reading of the chaotic, volatile energy radiating
30:23
Speaker 1: from Taylor and her grandfather's apartment.
30:25
Speaker 2: They saw the instability.
30:26
Speaker 1: And let's deeply analyze Denton Stringer's behavior. He didn't wait
30:30
Speaker 1: 48 hours to report the booming sound because he was
30:34
Speaker 1: apathetic or thought it was a dropped weight.
30:36
Speaker 2: Not at all.
30:37
Speaker 1: He waited two days because he knew exactly what caused
30:40
Speaker 1: that sound. And he was intentionally providing his granddaughter with
30:44
Speaker 1: a 48-hour head start to liquidate the assets and disappear.
30:47
Speaker 2: He was buying her time.
30:49
Speaker 1: When he intercepted Officer Hendricks, when he provided the exact
30:52
Speaker 1: timeline of the car disappearing... And when he spun the
30:56
Speaker 1: lie about his stolen phone, he was actively running interference.
31:00
Speaker 1: He was operating as a defensive shield for a murderer.
31:03
Speaker 2: It makes my blood run cold to imagine him standing
31:06
Speaker 2: in the sweltering heat, casually chatting with a police officer,
31:10
Speaker 2: playing the role of a concerned neighbor, while fully knowing
31:13
Speaker 2: his granddaughter had beaten the man on the other side
31:15
Speaker 2: of the wall to death.
31:17
Speaker 1: It's sickening. Now, at this exact moment on the lawn,
31:20
Speaker 1: the police have Taylor dead to rights on possessing the
31:23
Speaker 1: stolen vehicle. They know her alibis are garbage. They know
31:27
Speaker 1: she lived next door. But from a strict legal standpoint,
31:30
Speaker 1: they don't have the forensic bridge to charge her with
31:32
Speaker 1: the murder just yet.
31:34
Speaker 2: Which is a deeply frustrating reality for investigators. The burden
31:38
Speaker 2: of proof for homicide is immense.
31:40
Speaker 1: They can't just arrest her for murder because she's a
31:43
Speaker 1: liar with his car.
31:44
Speaker 2: At this stage, the medical examiner hasn't even concluded the
31:47
Speaker 2: autopsy to officially rule it a homicide. The crime scene
31:50
Speaker 2: technicians are still pulling fingerprints and analyzing blood's batter. You
31:54
Speaker 2: can know in your bones that someone is a killer,
31:57
Speaker 2: but you cannot secure a murder warrant based solely on
31:59
Speaker 2: geographic proximity and a stolen car.
32:02
Speaker 1: So the prosecutors play the hand they have. They charge
32:05
Speaker 1: Taylor Elkins with theft by receiving and hindering apprehension. They
32:09
Speaker 1: ask the judge for a massive bond, and they get it.
32:13
Speaker 2: $ 100, 000 cash only.
32:14
Speaker 1: For a 21-year-old with a dozen pending felonies, no steady income,
32:18
Speaker 1: and a history of DHS intervention... $ 100, 000 cash is an
32:22
Speaker 1: insurmountable wall. It guarantees she isn't going anywhere.
32:26
Speaker 2: She's locked in.
32:27
Speaker 1: She is transported to the Sebastian County Detention Center, and
32:30
Speaker 1: the waiting game begins. Weeks drag on. Finally, on August 2nd,
32:35
Speaker 1: the medical examiner releases the preliminary findings. Bill Dubois' death
32:39
Speaker 1: is officially ruled a homicide.
32:41
Speaker 2: And the details are gruesome. Very.
32:43
Speaker 1: The ME notes 27 separate, distinct impact injuries from a weapon.
32:48
Speaker 1: Armed with this, in October... the prosecutor finally formally charges
32:52
Speaker 1: Taylor with first-degree murder.
32:54
Speaker 2: The stakes escalate exponentially at this point. In the state
32:58
Speaker 2: of Arkansas, a first-degree murder conviction carries the potential for
33:01
Speaker 2: life in prison without the possibility of parole or, depending
33:05
Speaker 2: on the aggravating factors, the death penalty.
33:08
Speaker 1: But the prosecutors still have a massive hole in their case.
33:11
Speaker 1: They have the who, they have the where, they have
33:12
Speaker 1: the physical evidence tying her to the car. But they
33:15
Speaker 1: do not have the why.
33:16
Speaker 2: The motive.
33:17
Speaker 1: Why did a 21-year-old woman brutally bludgeon a 72-year-old stroke
33:22
Speaker 1: survivor in his bathroom? Taylor isn't talking. Forensics can tell
33:26
Speaker 1: you how a weapon swung, but it can't tell you
33:28
Speaker 1: the motive behind the swing. To get that answer, the
33:31
Speaker 1: investigation has to descend into the most flawed, manipulative, and
33:36
Speaker 1: highly transactional ecosystem in the American justice system.
33:40
Speaker 2: We have to talk about the deeply precarious world of
33:42
Speaker 2: the jailhouse informant.
33:44
Speaker 1: Enter an inmate named Terry. Terry is currently locked up
33:48
Speaker 1: in the same detention center on a probation violation. She
33:51
Speaker 1: is staring down the barrel of being transferred to a
33:53
Speaker 1: state sanction program.
33:55
Speaker 2: A facility she openly and derisively refers to in her
33:58
Speaker 2: letters as snitch camp. Yeah.
34:01
Speaker 1: She has been rotting in a local cell for 48
34:03
Speaker 1: days on what inmates call dead time, meaning the days
34:07
Speaker 1: she's sitting there aren't actually counting toward her final sentence.
34:10
Speaker 2: So she's just wasting away.
34:11
Speaker 1: All of her family is located 14 hours away in
34:13
Speaker 1: West Virginia. She has absolutely zero money on her commissary books.
34:17
Speaker 1: She is isolated, she is broke, and she is desperate.
34:20
Speaker 2: Terry is the archetype of the vulnerable, leveraged inmate. In
34:23
Speaker 2: the prison ecosystem, information is the only currency that matters.
34:27
Speaker 2: And Terry realizes she has stumbled onto a gold mine.
34:30
Speaker 1: Terry starts firing off letters and emails to the detectives
34:33
Speaker 1: working the Dubow case. She claims that she was temporarily
34:37
Speaker 1: housed in a protective custody pod with Taylor Elkins.
34:41
Speaker 2: Okay.
34:42
Speaker 1: According to Terry, Taylor developed a little crush on her.
34:45
Speaker 1: And because of this infatuation, Taylor started bragging. She started
34:49
Speaker 1: spilling the intimate, gruesome details of the murder.
34:51
Speaker 2: And Terry wants to use this.
34:53
Speaker 1: Now, Terry wants to monetize this information. She gets a
34:56
Speaker 1: sit-down with the lead detectives, and it is a pure,
34:59
Speaker 1: unadulterated negotiation. Terry lays her cards on the table. She says, look,
35:04
Speaker 1: I just want to finish my 90-day sanction right here
35:06
Speaker 1: in this local jail.
35:08
Speaker 2: She doesn't want to move.
35:08
Speaker 1: She says, I don't want to be put on a
35:10
Speaker 1: bus to West Memphis. I don't want to go to
35:11
Speaker 1: a halfway house across the state. I just want to
35:14
Speaker 1: stay put. Give me that and I'll give you Taylor.
35:16
Speaker 2: Now, I have to ask you about the reliability here.
35:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I'm a detective, why on earth would I
35:20
Speaker 1: believe a word that comes out of the mouth of
35:22
Speaker 1: someone desperate to avoid snitch camp? Couldn't Terry have just
35:26
Speaker 1: watched the local evening news, kicked up the basic facts
35:29
Speaker 1: of the murder- And fabricated this crush to buy herself
35:32
Speaker 1: a better bunk?
35:33
Speaker 2: Your skepticism is exactly the posture a seasoned detective must take.
35:38
Speaker 2: The use of jailhouse informants is incredibly fraught. Prosecutors are
35:43
Speaker 2: terrified of them for good reason.
35:44
Speaker 1: Because they lie.
35:46
Speaker 2: Because they have every incentive to lie. There is a
35:49
Speaker 2: massive body of legal precedent, most notably governed by the
35:52
Speaker 2: Brady and Giglio rulings. that requires prosecutors to disclose any deals, leniency,
35:58
Speaker 2: or history of dishonesty regarding their witnesses to the defense.
36:01
Speaker 1: Oh, so the defense gets to know all of it.
36:03
Speaker 2: Yes. Defense attorneys salivate at the chance to cross-examine an
36:07
Speaker 2: informant because it is incredibly easy to paint them as
36:10
Speaker 2: a perjurer who is simply selling a lie to shave
36:13
Speaker 2: time off their sentence. It is a high-stakes futures market
36:16
Speaker 2: where the commodity is human freedom. Wow. To prevent the
36:20
Speaker 2: defense from destroying Terry on the stand... The detectives have
36:23
Speaker 2: to establish what we call holdback validation.
36:25
Speaker 1: Holdback validation? What is that?
36:27
Speaker 2: They need Terry to provide a granular detail about the
36:30
Speaker 2: crime scene that was never released to the press, never
36:32
Speaker 2: leaked to the public, and that only the true killer
36:34
Speaker 2: would know.
36:35
Speaker 1: And Terry delivers the ultimate validation. The detective pushes her,
36:40
Speaker 1: asking for proof that she isn't just regurgitating rumors. Terry
36:43
Speaker 1: doesn't hesitate. She says, it wasn't a lamp or a
36:46
Speaker 1: heavy book she hit him with. She told me it
36:49
Speaker 1: was a hammer. And she told me she hit him
36:51
Speaker 1: exactly 36 times.
36:53
Speaker 2: That statement is the holy grail for the investigators.
36:55
Speaker 1: The hammer.
36:56
Speaker 2: Yes. The general public only knew that Bill Dubow died
36:58
Speaker 2: of blunt force trauma. The specific identification of a hammer
37:03
Speaker 2: as the murder weapon instantly elevates Terry's credibility. But the
37:07
Speaker 2: numerical count is what solidifies it.
37:09
Speaker 1: Because the medical examiner officially recorded 27 distinct impact wounds.
37:13
Speaker 2: Right.
37:14
Speaker 1: Wait, if the ME said 27... And Terry says Taylor
37:17
Speaker 1: bragged about 36. Isn't that a discrepancy that hurts her credibility?
37:21
Speaker 2: Actually, it strengthens it when viewed through the lens of
37:23
Speaker 2: forensic biomechanics and the psychology of an adrenaline-fueled attack.
37:27
Speaker 1: Really?
37:27
Speaker 2: How? First, distinguishing exact strike counts in a frenzied bludgeoning
37:32
Speaker 2: is incredibly complex. A hammer striking the same area of
37:35
Speaker 2: the skull or torso multiple times will create overlapping fractures
37:38
Speaker 2: and compounded tissue damage.
37:40
Speaker 1: So they sort of blend together on the autopsy table. Exactly.
37:43
Speaker 2: Exactly. A medical examiner might identify 27 distinct, countable impact points,
37:49
Speaker 2: but that doesn't mean the weapon wasn't swung 36 times,
37:52
Speaker 2: with several strikes hitting identical, already compromised areas.
37:56
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense.
37:57
Speaker 2: Secondly, Taylor was acting in a state of hyper-arousal and rage.
38:02
Speaker 2: Her brain perception of the event is distorted by adrenaline.
38:07
Speaker 2: Counting 36 strikes in her own mind is a terrifyingly
38:10
Speaker 2: plausible reflection of of the chaotic reality of the assault. Wow.
38:15
Speaker 2: The proximity of the numbers combined with the unreleased weapon
38:18
Speaker 2: type absolutely confirms to the detectives that Taylor Elkins gave
38:22
Speaker 2: Terry a firsthand account of the murder.
38:24
Speaker 1: So once Terry proves she holds the winning ticket, the
38:27
Speaker 1: lead detective actually stops the tape, leaves the interrogation room,
38:31
Speaker 1: and calls the prosecutor's office to discuss her demands.
38:34
Speaker 2: Let's see what they offer her.
38:35
Speaker 1: He comes back in, sits down, and delivers what has
38:38
Speaker 1: to be a devastating blow to Terry's hopes. He says, listen,
38:40
Speaker 1: I talked to the prosecutors. They can't touch your probation violation.
38:43
Speaker 1: That falls under a different judge's jurisdiction. He says, I
38:47
Speaker 1: can tell your parole officer that you are cooperative, but
38:50
Speaker 1: I cannot guarantee you any sort of deal, and I
38:52
Speaker 1: cannot promise you get to stay in this facility.
38:55
Speaker 2: This is a masterful, necessary, strategic maneuver by the state.
38:59
Speaker 1: Why not just give her what she wants? They need
39:01
Speaker 1: the info.
39:02
Speaker 2: Because the detectives know that if they put on tape, yes,
39:05
Speaker 2: we will drop your charges in exchange for this story.
39:08
Speaker 2: Taylor's defense attorney will play that tape for a jury.
39:12
Speaker 2: and argue that Terry's testimony was bought and paid for.
39:15
Speaker 1: Oh, it ruins her credibility in court.
39:18
Speaker 2: Exactly. By explicitly repeatedly denying a guaranteed deal on the record,
39:23
Speaker 2: the police are inoculating Terry against cross-examination. They are forcing
39:27
Speaker 2: the narrative that Terry is providing this information out of
39:30
Speaker 2: a sense of moral obligation or personal disgust rather than
39:34
Speaker 2: financial or legal bribery. It protects the integrity of the evidence.
39:38
Speaker 1: And incredibly, despite having her leverage stripped away, Terry decides
39:41
Speaker 1: to tell them everything anyway. Because according to Terry, the
39:44
Speaker 1: thing that pushed her over the edge wasn't just the
39:46
Speaker 1: details of the crime, it was Taylor's complete lack of
39:49
Speaker 1: humanity regarding it.
39:50
Speaker 2: The smiling.
39:51
Speaker 1: Yes. Terry tells the detectives that while Taylor was recounting
39:54
Speaker 1: the murder, she was grinning. She was smiling about beating
39:57
Speaker 1: an old man to death. Terry, a hardened inmate herself,
40:01
Speaker 1: was so repulsed she had to tell Taylor, stop smiling.
40:04
Speaker 1: That was somebody's grandfather. You can't just smile about that.
40:08
Speaker 2: The fact that an inmate facing a state-sanctioned program had
40:12
Speaker 2: to act as the moral compass for a 21-year-old, highlights
40:16
Speaker 2: the profound sociopathy at play here.
40:18
Speaker 1: It really does.
40:19
Speaker 2: There is an unwritten, deeply entrenched code of ethics even
40:24
Speaker 2: within the prison system. Violence against other criminals is understood.
40:29
Speaker 2: Violence against a helpless 72-year-old stroke survivor for pocket change
40:33
Speaker 2: violates the baseline morality of the cell block.
40:36
Speaker 1: Terry finally lays out the exact senseless motive. She tells
40:39
Speaker 1: detectives that on the night of the murder, Taylor was
40:41
Speaker 1: high on narcotics. She walked next door to Bill's apartment
40:44
Speaker 1: with one specific goal robbery.
40:46
Speaker 2: And Terry is very explicit about this point.
40:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, she didn't go over there looking to steal his
40:50
Speaker 1: prescription pills. She went over there strictly for cash. Taylor
40:53
Speaker 1: enters the apartment. Bill is in his underwear getting ready
40:55
Speaker 1: to go to sleep. She demands money.
40:58
Speaker 2: And Bill tells her he doesn't have any cash on him. Right.
41:01
Speaker 1: And he refuses her.
41:02
Speaker 2: In her heavily chemically impaired and highly entitled state, that
41:07
Speaker 2: refusal was the catalyst. She perceived the denial not as
41:11
Speaker 2: a fact. but as an insult.
41:13
Speaker 1: Terry explains that Taylor flew into a blinding rage. She
41:17
Speaker 1: grabbed a hammer that was simply laying on a side
41:20
Speaker 1: table near the hallway leading to the bathroom, and she
41:22
Speaker 1: just unleashed hell.
41:24
Speaker 2: Just horrifying.
41:25
Speaker 1: She beat him relentlessly, chasing him from the recliner to
41:28
Speaker 1: the bathroom, simply because he didn't have the paper currency
41:31
Speaker 1: she felt entitled to take. It is the definition of
41:33
Speaker 1: a senseless crime.
41:35
Speaker 2: It truly is.
41:36
Speaker 1: But then, Terry drops a final piece of information that
41:39
Speaker 1: elevates the story from a tragic murder... to a horrifying
41:42
Speaker 1: display of familial complicity.
41:44
Speaker 2: We are returning to the concept of the hidden underworld
41:47
Speaker 2: operating in plain sight.
41:48
Speaker 1: According to Terry, Taylor claimed that she did not act
41:51
Speaker 1: entirely alone in the aftermath of the violence. Terry alleges
41:54
Speaker 1: that moments after the attack, Taylor's grandfather, Denton Stringer, walked
41:59
Speaker 1: into Bill's apartment.
42:00
Speaker 2: This is the darkest part.
42:01
Speaker 1: Terry says Denton walked in, looked down at his neighbor
42:04
Speaker 1: of several years bleeding out on the bathroom floor, looked
42:07
Speaker 1: at his granddaughter holding a bloody hammer, turned on his heel...
42:11
Speaker 1: walked back out into the hallway and told Taylor, well,
42:13
Speaker 1: take the TVs and go get them pawned.
42:15
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
42:16
Speaker 1: He allegedly instructed her to take the Ford Focus so
42:19
Speaker 1: she had a way to transport the stolen electronics to
42:22
Speaker 1: a pawn shop for cash.
42:24
Speaker 2: We really need to pause and deeply examine the psychological
42:27
Speaker 2: abyss required for that reaction.
42:29
Speaker 1: Please do, because I can't wrap my head around it.
42:31
Speaker 2: Put yourself in that exact scenario. You hear a struggle.
42:34
Speaker 2: You walk into your neighbor's home. You see a man
42:36
Speaker 2: you know well, a frail man, lying in a pool
42:39
Speaker 2: of his own blood.
42:39
Speaker 1: You'd call 911.
42:41
Speaker 2: The universal, hardwired human instinct in that moment is preservation
42:45
Speaker 2: of life. You scream, you apply pressure to the wounds,
42:48
Speaker 2: you dial 911. Denton Stringer's alleged reaction bypasses every evolutionary
42:54
Speaker 2: empathy trigger and immediately defaults to asset liquidation.
42:58
Speaker 1: Asset liquidation, wow.
42:59
Speaker 2: His brain processes a brutalized human being and instantly calculates
43:04
Speaker 2: the pawn value of a flat-screen television. He doesn't see
43:07
Speaker 2: a tragedy he sees in a state sale.
43:10
Speaker 1: That is sickening.
43:11
Speaker 2: He actively directs the post-murder robbery, advising his granddaughter on
43:15
Speaker 2: how to maximize the profit of her lethal rage.
43:18
Speaker 1: It completely shatters the illusion of the helpful neighbor. It
43:22
Speaker 1: means that when Officer Hendricks arrived two days later, Denton
43:25
Speaker 1: wasn't just a bystander covering for a troubled kid. He
43:28
Speaker 1: was the alleged architect of the getaway.
43:30
Speaker 2: He was managing the fallout.
43:31
Speaker 1: He suggested taking the cars and the TVs. He stood
43:35
Speaker 1: on that lawn, looked a police officer in the eye,
43:37
Speaker 1: and fed her a fabricated timeline about a big boom
43:40
Speaker 1: to ensure his granddaughter had enough time to fence the
43:42
Speaker 1: stolen goods.
43:43
Speaker 2: It reveals a terrifying ecosystem of apathy and complicity. The
43:48
Speaker 2: murder was committed by one person, but the environment that
43:50
Speaker 2: fostered it covered it up and attempted to profit from
43:53
Speaker 2: it involved the very safety net that was supposed to
43:56
Speaker 2: protect the neighborhood.
43:56
Speaker 1: Armed with Terry is heavily corroborated, deeply disturbing intelligence. The
44:00
Speaker 1: police and the prosecutors lock and load for a massive
44:03
Speaker 1: high-profile trial.
44:05
Speaker 2: But the trial never happens.
44:06
Speaker 1: No. We are now moving into the final resolution of
44:09
Speaker 1: the case. On January 16, 2020, Taylor Elkin stands in
44:13
Speaker 1: front of a judge and pleads guilty to first-degree murder.
44:17
Speaker 2: She takes the plea.
44:18
Speaker 1: The prosecution reads the motive into the official record. It
44:21
Speaker 1: was a robbery for cash that escalated into a fatal
44:24
Speaker 1: hammer attack. By accepting the plea deal, Taylor avoids the
44:27
Speaker 1: ultimate gamble of a jury trial— She avoids the death
44:30
Speaker 1: penalty and she avoids life in prison without parole.
44:34
Speaker 2: What's the sentence?
44:35
Speaker 1: She is sentenced to 40 years in the Arkansas Department
44:38
Speaker 1: of Correction. And it is noted in the court records
44:40
Speaker 1: that during the sentencing hearing, when given the opportunity to speak,
44:43
Speaker 1: Taylor never offers a single syllable of apology or remorse
44:47
Speaker 1: to Susan or the rest of Bill DuBose's grieving family.
44:50
Speaker 2: What we see here is the stark, often unsatisfying pragmatism
44:54
Speaker 2: of the American justice system at work. I have to.
44:57
Speaker 1: Challenge this outcome on behalf of our listeners because it
44:59
Speaker 1: feels viscerally wrong. You have a beloved 72-year-old teacher, a
45:03
Speaker 1: man who fought through debilitating strokes just to maintain his independence,
45:08
Speaker 1: beaten to death with a hammer in his own bathroom
45:10
Speaker 1: for absolutely nothing. Right.
45:11
Speaker 2: The killer admits to it. And the system's response is
45:14
Speaker 2: a plea deal where she gets 40 years, meaning she
45:18
Speaker 2: will be eligible for parole in 2047 when she is
45:21
Speaker 2: only 49 years old. Is that what we consider a
45:24
Speaker 2: victory for justice? It feels incredibly hollow.
45:27
Speaker 1: Emotionally, it is devastatingly hollow. I agree. But we have
45:30
Speaker 1: to look at the mathematical risk calculus that a prosecutor
45:33
Speaker 1: performs when deciding to offer a plea.
45:36
Speaker 2: Explain that math to me.
45:37
Speaker 1: A trial is never a mathematical certainty. Juries are unpredictable entities.
45:42
Speaker 1: Defense attorneys are highly skilled at suppressing evidence or introducing
45:46
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt.
45:47
Speaker 2: But they had Terry's testimony.
45:48
Speaker 1: Right. But if this case goes to trial, the state
45:51
Speaker 1: was primary mode of witness is Terry. a convicted felon
45:55
Speaker 1: who essentially tried to extort the police for a better
45:57
Speaker 1: jail cell. A competent defense attorney would spend days dissecting
46:01
Speaker 1: Carrie on the stand, painting her as a liar who
46:04
Speaker 1: invented the hammer story to save her own skin.
46:06
Speaker 2: Oh, I see. If a jury buys that, Taylor Elkins
46:09
Speaker 2: could potentially walk free on the murder charge. By securing
46:13
Speaker 2: a 40-year plea, the prosecution guarantees a severe felony conviction
46:18
Speaker 2: and removes a highly violent offender from society for decades.
46:22
Speaker 1: So they take the sure thing.
46:24
Speaker 2: Exactly. But perhaps most importantly, a plea deal spares Susan
46:29
Speaker 2: Dubow and Bill's entire family the horrific trauma of a
46:32
Speaker 2: public trial.
46:33
Speaker 1: That's a good point.
46:34
Speaker 2: They do not have to sit in a gallery for
46:36
Speaker 2: three weeks looking at blown-up autopsy photographs of overlapping skull fractures,
46:41
Speaker 2: listening to the audio of Taylor's shifting, insulting lies. and
46:44
Speaker 2: hearing a defense attorney try to minimize the brutality of
46:47
Speaker 2: Bill's final moments.
46:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be agonizing for them.
46:49
Speaker 2: The plea is a brutal tradeoff. You sacrifice the maximum
46:52
Speaker 2: theoretical punishment in exchange for absolute certainty and the preservation
46:56
Speaker 2: of the family's sanity.
46:57
Speaker 1: When you lay out the risk of Terry collapsing on
47:00
Speaker 1: the stand, the plea deal makes logical sense, even if
47:03
Speaker 1: it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
47:04
Speaker 2: It's the reality of the system.
47:06
Speaker 1: And Taylor's story does not end when the judge's gavel falls.
47:10
Speaker 1: She is transferred to the McPherson unit, which is a
47:12
Speaker 1: medium security women's prison in Newport, Arkansas. Sometimes we harbor
47:16
Speaker 1: this naive hope that a long prison sentence will force
47:19
Speaker 1: introspection or rehabilitation.
47:21
Speaker 2: But not for Taylor.
47:22
Speaker 1: But with Taylor, the chaos simply changes zip codes. Online
47:26
Speaker 1: disciplinary records from the Arkansas Department of Correction show that
47:29
Speaker 1: her behavior behind bars has been a continuous nightmare. She
47:33
Speaker 1: has racked up a massive list of severe disciplinary infractions.
47:37
Speaker 1: in 2020, 2021, 2024, and continuing into 2025.
47:41
Speaker 2: Because a state penitentiary is not a restorative environment. It
47:45
Speaker 2: is an amplifier for underlying behavioral pathologies.
47:48
Speaker 1: Her rap sheet inside the prison reads like a riot.
47:51
Speaker 1: She has been cited for battery against other inmates, engaging
47:54
Speaker 1: in illicit sexual activity, repeatedly refusing direct verbal orders from guards.
47:59
Speaker 2: That's absolute defiance.
48:00
Speaker 1: Failing to obey institutional rules. making explicit threats to inflict
48:04
Speaker 1: injury on staff members, profound insolence, and multiple instances of
48:08
Speaker 1: severe self-mutilation. She is a walking whirlwind of absolute instability.
48:13
Speaker 2: Which brings us full circle to our analysis of the
48:15
Speaker 2: crime scene itself. Remember our debate earlier about whether the
48:18
Speaker 2: ransacked apartment was a staged burglary or genuine panic?
48:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, the drawers and the red fuzz.
48:24
Speaker 2: Remember the strange red fuzz scattered violently across the living room?
48:29
Speaker 2: The sudden, catastrophic explosion of lethal rage over a refusal
48:33
Speaker 2: to hand over a few dollars.
48:35
Speaker 1: It all connects.
48:36
Speaker 2: The Taylor Elkins documented in those prison disciplinary reports, the
48:41
Speaker 2: one who is violent, hopelessly impulsive, defiantly anti-authoritarian, and entirely
48:46
Speaker 2: unable to regulate her emotional responses, is the exact same
48:49
Speaker 2: Taylor Elkins who stood in Bill Dubois' living room holding
48:52
Speaker 2: a hammer. Wow, yeah. Her absolute lack of impulse control
48:56
Speaker 2: in the free world has translated flawlessly to her life
48:58
Speaker 2: inside the cell block. The concrete walls and razor wire
49:01
Speaker 2: of the McPherson unit haven't fundamentally altered her core pathology.
49:05
Speaker 2: They've merely provided a containment vessel for it.
49:07
Speaker 1: It is an incredibly bleak, uncompromising picture of human nature.
49:12
Speaker 1: If she behaves, she is eligible for parole in 2047.
49:16
Speaker 1: If she is forced to serve the maximum 40 years,
49:19
Speaker 1: she will walk out of those gates in 2060.
49:20
Speaker 2: It serves as a stark, sobering reminder of the long-tail
49:25
Speaker 2: generational consequences that radiate from a few minutes of unrestrained,
49:30
Speaker 2: entitled violence.
49:32
Speaker 1: Let's pull the lens back and summarize the incredible, the
49:35
Speaker 1: tragic journey we've unpacked today. We started with what should
49:38
Speaker 1: have been a standard five-minute wellness check initiated by a
49:42
Speaker 1: seemingly concerned neighbor.
49:44
Speaker 2: And it spiraled instantly.
49:46
Speaker 1: That routine call was shattered by the somatic instincts of
49:49
Speaker 1: an officer who realized a faint smell and a trapped
49:51
Speaker 1: fly meant she was standing at the edge of a slaughter.
49:55
Speaker 1: We watched a grieving wife deploy a simple smartphone app
49:58
Speaker 1: to bypass hours of bureaucratic police legwork, weaponizing modern technology
50:03
Speaker 1: to lead investigators directly to the killer's doorstep.
50:06
Speaker 2: Just incredible use of technology.
50:07
Speaker 1: We watched that killer, Taylor Elkins, crack under the cognitive
50:10
Speaker 1: load of interrogation, spinning an increasingly absurd web of lies
50:13
Speaker 1: about boardwalk crackheads and transactional sex. And finally, we saw
50:18
Speaker 1: a desperate jailhouse informant navigate the treacherous futures market of
50:21
Speaker 1: prison intelligence to crack the case wide open, revealing a
50:25
Speaker 1: terrifyingly senseless motive and a deeply, almost unimaginably complicit family dynamic.
50:30
Speaker 2: The Grandfather.
50:31
Speaker 1: It all culminated in a pragmatic 40-year plea deal for
50:35
Speaker 1: the brutal murder of a man who spent his life
50:38
Speaker 1: teaching others.
50:39
Speaker 2: The overarching takeaway from diving into these sources is the sheer,
50:43
Speaker 2: terrifying density of events that can unfold within a microscopic
50:47
Speaker 2: geographical footprint. The distance between a quiet retirement and a
50:51
Speaker 2: brutal murder was measured in feet, not miles.
50:54
Speaker 1: Exactly. For everyone listening, if there is a practical takeaway
50:58
Speaker 1: from this deep dive, it is a reminder to actively
51:00
Speaker 1: participate in the safety nets of the vulnerable people in
51:04
Speaker 1: your own neighborhoods.
51:05
Speaker 2: Boo's family actually did everything right.
51:07
Speaker 1: They did. They stayed close. They maintained a rigid communication schedule.
51:11
Speaker 1: They checked in. And they utilized digital tools to monitor
51:14
Speaker 1: his well-being. And while it tragically could not prevent the
51:17
Speaker 1: violent intrusion into his home, that digital Tether Susan's GPS
51:21
Speaker 1: tracking app ensured that his killer did not get away
51:24
Speaker 1: with it.
51:24
Speaker 2: It ensured accountability.
51:26
Speaker 1: It ensured she was in handcuffs before the sun went
51:28
Speaker 1: down on the first day of the investigation.
51:31
Speaker 2: The rapid, almost instantaneous deployment of that everyday civilian technology
51:36
Speaker 2: was the absolute fulcrum on which this entire homicide investigation turned.
51:41
Speaker 1: But I want to leave you with a final, highly
51:43
Speaker 1: provocative thought to mull over as you go about your day.
51:47
Speaker 1: Something that the legal system completely failed to resolve. and
51:50
Speaker 1: that lingers like that faint, musty smell over this entire tragedy,
51:54
Speaker 1: it is the incredibly gray, deeply disturbing arena of criminal complicity.
52:00
Speaker 2: You're referring to the grandfather?
52:01
Speaker 1: Yes, Dennis Stringer. I want you to think about the
52:03
Speaker 1: timeline of his actions.
52:04
Speaker 2: He's damning.
52:05
Speaker 1: Despite Taylor living under his roof, despite him admitting to
52:08
Speaker 1: hearing the big boom of a body hitting the floor
52:11
Speaker 1: and intentionally waiting two days to say a word, despite
52:14
Speaker 1: him injecting himself into the police perimeter to spin a
52:17
Speaker 1: lie about a stolen phone, and most damningly, despite a
52:20
Speaker 1: highly validated informant claiming he walked into a bloody murder scene,
52:24
Speaker 1: looked at the victim, and coldly instructed his granddaughter to
52:27
Speaker 1: pawn the televisions.
52:28
Speaker 2: And nothing happened to him.
52:30
Speaker 1: Denton Stringer was never charged with a single crime in
52:32
Speaker 1: connection to Bill DeBeau's death.
52:34
Speaker 2: From a strict evidentiary standpoint, proving his involvement in a
52:38
Speaker 2: court of law based solely on the second hand, here's
52:40
Speaker 2: a testimony of a jailhouse informant is nearly impossible. Prosecutors
52:45
Speaker 2: knew they couldn't make a charge stick. But morally, practically,
52:50
Speaker 2: it highlights a terrifying blind spot in how we view crime.
52:53
Speaker 1: It really does. We have built an entire criminal justice
52:56
Speaker 1: system explicitly designed to hunt down and punish the person
52:59
Speaker 1: swinging the hammer. But that system completely short circuits and
53:03
Speaker 1: fails when it is faced with the quiet, calculating enabler
53:06
Speaker 1: who sweeps up the glass afterward.
53:08
Speaker 2: The silent ecosystem.
53:09
Speaker 1: It makes you wonder, you know, how many crimes occur
53:12
Speaker 1: not just because of one highly volatile actor holding a weapon,
53:16
Speaker 1: but because they are supported by a silent, hidden ecosystem
53:19
Speaker 1: of enablers. People who simply look the other way, offer
53:22
Speaker 1: a convenient alibi to the police, or coldly ask for
53:25
Speaker 1: a cut of the stolen electronics.
53:27
Speaker 2: It's a chilling thought.
53:28
Speaker 1: As long as our laws only recognize the physical violence
53:31
Speaker 1: of the act, but remain blind to the psychological violence
53:34
Speaker 1: of apathy, people like Denton Stringer will always walk free.
53:38
Speaker 1: We started this deep dive by asking you to think
53:41
Speaker 1: about your own safety net. But as you look out
53:43
Speaker 1: your window tonight, maybe the more important question you need
53:45
Speaker 1: to ask yourself is, what kind of safety net are
53:48
Speaker 1: your neighbors weaving right next door?