Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Cheating Wife and Lover Convicted in Pastor's Brutal Murder
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this. Imagine leaving like a really secure,
- 0:04Speaker 1: highly structured life as a police officer in the freezing,
- 0:08Speaker 1: tight knit communities of northern Minnesota. Oh, yeah.
- 0:11Speaker 2: Total culture shock.
- 0:12Speaker 1: Right. You pack up your entire existence, move your family
- 0:16Speaker 1: of seven across the world to a remote village in
- 0:20Speaker 1: the Angolan bush. And you just dedicate your days to
- 0:22Speaker 1: helping one of the most marginalized groups of people on
- 0:25Speaker 1: the planet.
- 0:26Speaker 2: And you're doing all this without running water. No power grid. Exactly.
- 0:30Speaker 1: Completely cut off from basically every modern convenience you've known
- 0:33Speaker 1: your whole life. And then one afternoon, you're lured out
- 0:38Speaker 1: into the wilderness under the pretense of a broken down
- 0:40Speaker 1: car and you are brutally assassinated.
- 0:44Speaker 2: It's just staggering.
- 0:46Speaker 1: And it's not by local insurgents, you know, not by
- 0:49Speaker 1: opportunistic highway robbers, but by your own household security guard.
- 0:55Speaker 1: a hit that was orchestrated and paid for by your
- 0:58Speaker 1: wife of nearly 20 years, who is literally hiding in
- 1:01Speaker 1: the bushes just a few feet away while it happens.
- 1:04Speaker 2: The contrast between the life they built and the way
- 1:08Speaker 2: that life ended is, it's almost impossible to process at
- 1:12Speaker 2: first glance.
- 1:13Speaker 1: It really is.
- 1:14Speaker 2: We are looking at a scenario where a profound life-altering
- 1:18Speaker 2: mission to serve others was entirely subverted by a domestic
- 1:22Speaker 2: conspiracy so brutal And honestly, so fundamentally flawed in its
- 1:27Speaker 2: execution that it challenges everything we understand about premeditated crime.
- 1:32Speaker 1: Welcome to the Deep Dive. I am speaking directly to you,
- 1:35Speaker 1: the listener, who wants to understand the absolute granular mechanics
- 1:39Speaker 1: behind these staggering events. Today we have an incredibly dense
- 1:42Speaker 1: set of source materials, primarily drawing from this fascinating interview
- 1:46Speaker 1: on the Law and Crime Network featuring Jack Rice.
- 1:49Speaker 2: Yeah, Jack Rice is brilliant.
- 1:50Speaker 1: He really is. He's a criminal defense attorney, a former
- 1:53Speaker 1: CIA officer, and just someone who understands the global justice
- 1:56Speaker 1: system on a microscopic level. Our mission today is to
- 2:00Speaker 1: deconstruct how a seemingly idyllic, purpose-driven life in an isolated
- 2:04Speaker 1: African village devolved into a coordinated assassination. Right.
- 2:08Speaker 2: And we're going to look specifically at how this case
- 2:10Speaker 2: dismantles some incredibly pervasive and, frankly, dangerous assumptions that people
- 2:15Speaker 2: make about international borders and, you know, the reach of
- 2:18Speaker 2: law enforcement.
- 2:19Speaker 1: The idea that you can just get away with things
- 2:21Speaker 1: if you're far from home.
- 2:22Speaker 2: Exactly. There is this psychological trap that individuals fall into
- 2:26Speaker 2: when they leave their home country. It's like an illusion
- 2:30Speaker 2: of invincibility that we really need to tear apart today.
- 2:33Speaker 1: So to even begin to understand the psychological state of
- 2:36Speaker 1: the people involved, I feel like we have to establish
- 2:38Speaker 1: the immense, almost incomprehensible change in their environment.
- 2:42Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. The geography is crucial here.
- 2:45Speaker 1: Right. So we are looking at a victim named Bo Schroyer.
- 2:48Speaker 1: He was 44 years old. And before moving to Africa,
- 2:51Speaker 1: Bo was a police officer in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. I
- 2:55Speaker 1: want to linger on that for a second because, you know,
- 2:57Speaker 1: Detroit Lakes is a town of about 10,000 people.
- 2:59Speaker 2: It's very small.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Very intimate.
- 3:00Speaker 2: Very intimate.
- 3:01Speaker 1: Yeah. It's heavily focused on community, local churches, the outdoors.
- 3:05Speaker 1: If you are a police officer in a town of 10,000 people,
- 3:08Speaker 1: you aren't just some anonymous badge in a sprawling metropolis.
- 3:12Speaker 2: You're a public figure, basically.
- 3:14Speaker 1: Totally. You are highly visible. You operate within this intense
- 3:18Speaker 1: web of social accountability. Every traffic stop, every community event,
- 3:22Speaker 1: you are interacting with people who know your family.
- 3:25Speaker 2: And that level of visibility creates a highly specific psychological baseline.
- 3:29Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
- 3:31Speaker 2: Well, you're conditioned to understand that your actions are constantly monitored, right?
- 3:35Speaker 2: And not just by your department, but by the community itself.
- 3:39Speaker 2: There is a rigid structure. You've got dash cams, standard
- 3:43Speaker 2: operating procedures, neighbors who will absolutely notice if your car
- 3:47Speaker 2: is parked in a strange driveway at 2 in the morning. Right.
- 3:49Speaker 1: Everybody knows everybody's business.
- 3:51Speaker 2: Exactly. Your behavior is constantly regulated by these external social mirrors.
- 3:58Speaker 1: And Beau had been married to his wife, Jacqueline, who
- 4:00Speaker 1: goes by Jackie, since May of 2005. They got married
- 4:04Speaker 1: in Andover, Minnesota, so we're talking nearly two decades of marriage,
- 4:07Speaker 1: five children, deeply embedded in the Lakes Area Vineyard Church.
- 4:11Speaker 2: A very established life.
- 4:13Speaker 1: Yeah. According to Bo's obituary, this was a man whose
- 4:15Speaker 1: entire identity revolved around his faith, his family, and a
- 4:19Speaker 1: genuine desire to serve. He was known for his unique wit,
- 4:22Speaker 1: but beneath that was this incredibly sturdy, predictable foundation.
- 4:27Speaker 2: And then they just uproot all of it.
- 4:29Speaker 1: Right. In 2021, they make a decision that upends that
- 4:32Speaker 1: entirely predictable foundation. The family of seven moves to Angola
- 4:37Speaker 1: through SIMUSA, which is a North Carolina-based evangelical Christian organization.
- 4:41Speaker 2: I mean, the physical relocation is extreme, but the sociological
- 4:46Speaker 2: relocation is really what we need to examine here.
- 4:49Speaker 1: It wasn't just a move to a different city.
- 4:51Speaker 2: No, not at all. They didn't move to Luanda, the
- 4:54Speaker 2: capital city of Angola, where you have you know, international embassies,
- 4:58Speaker 2: high-rise buildings, and expatriate communities. They moved to a remote
- 5:02Speaker 2: bush village to work with the Neneka people.
- 5:05Speaker 1: Which is incredibly isolated.
- 5:07Speaker 2: Bo actually posted on his Facebook page just a single
- 5:11Speaker 2: day before his murder, specifically describing the Neneka as among
- 5:15Speaker 2: the most marginalized people groups in Angola.
- 5:18Speaker 1: I just, I really cannot overstate the severity of this
- 5:21Speaker 1: environmental shift. The sources detail that they were living with
- 5:25Speaker 1: no electricity. No sewer infrastructure, no municipal water systems.
- 5:30Speaker 2: It's basically a survival situation.
- 5:33Speaker 1: Yeah. We are talking about going from a Minnesota winter,
- 5:36Speaker 1: where you can rely on a snowplow and central heating,
- 5:40Speaker 1: to an environment where acquiring clean water dictates your entire
- 5:44Speaker 1: daily schedule.
- 5:45Speaker 2: Which takes a massive physical and mental toll.
- 5:49Speaker 1: Right. So looking at it from a psychological perspective, does
- 5:52Speaker 1: this kind of absolute isolation act as a pressure cooker?
- 5:55Speaker 1: If you take a family out of their comfortable Minnesota
- 5:58Speaker 1: life and drop them into a literal off-grid scenario in
- 6:02Speaker 1: the bush, does the environment create the fracture or does
- 6:05Speaker 1: it just expose the cracks that were already there?
- 6:08Speaker 2: I think that is the pivotal question of human behavior
- 6:11Speaker 2: in extreme environments. You know, when you remove someone from
- 6:14Speaker 2: their culture of origin, you systematically strip away those social
- 6:18Speaker 2: mirrors we just talked about.
- 6:19Speaker 1: The accountability goes away.
- 6:21Speaker 2: Exactly. Back at Detroit Legs. If a marriage begins to deteriorate,
- 6:24Speaker 2: the couple has an entire infrastructure to catch them or
- 6:28Speaker 2: distract them.
- 6:29Speaker 1: Yeah, you have coffee with a friend, you go to
- 6:31Speaker 1: a marriage counselor.
- 6:32Speaker 2: Or you spend a weekend apart. Or you just, I
- 6:34Speaker 2: don't know, lose yourself in a Netflix show or a
- 6:37Speaker 2: community event. You have a pressure release valve. But in
- 6:41Speaker 2: an off-grid village in the Angolan bush, there are no
- 6:45Speaker 2: release valves.
- 6:46Speaker 1: You're just stuck with each other.
- 6:48Speaker 2: You are entirely, exclusively dependent on your spouse for emotional regulation,
- 6:54Speaker 2: for conversation, and for literal daily physical survival.
- 6:57Speaker 1: You are sharing oxygen in a very small, very stressful bubble.
- 7:02Speaker 2: And inside a bubble like that, cognitive dissonance really takes root.
- 7:06Speaker 2: I mean, the isolation doesn't magically turn a stable, rational
- 7:09Speaker 2: person into a homicidal mastermind. Right.
- 7:12Speaker 1: Living without plumbing does not cause a person to commit murder.
- 7:15Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. But extreme isolation alters an individual's perception of consequences.
- 7:21Speaker 2: When you are that far removed from the society that
- 7:24Speaker 2: formed your moral and legal boundaries, you can start to
- 7:27Speaker 2: develop this bizarre sense of detachment.
- 7:30Speaker 1: Like the rules don't apply anymore.
- 7:32Speaker 2: Yeah. The laws of Minnesota feel like they belong to
- 7:35Speaker 2: a different planet. A person can begin to feel like
- 7:38Speaker 2: they are operating in a void, this liminal space where
- 7:41Speaker 2: the normal rules of cause and effect have just been suspended.
- 7:45Speaker 1: That concept of a void seems so crucial here because
- 7:48Speaker 1: Jackie's actions imply she genuinely believed she was operating in
- 7:51Speaker 1: a space where nobody was watching.
- 7:53Speaker 2: She really did.
- 7:54Speaker 1: Let's look at the timeline. On October 25th, 2024, Beau
- 7:58Speaker 1: is lured out to a remote area. The pretense is
- 8:00Speaker 1: that someone needs help with a broken down car engine.
- 8:03Speaker 2: Which fits his personality perfectly.
- 8:05Speaker 1: Yeah, given what we know about his background as a
- 8:07Speaker 1: cop and a missionary, he is the guy who shows
- 8:09Speaker 1: up to help. So he goes out to the bush
- 8:12Speaker 1: and he is brutally stabbed to death. His body is
- 8:14Speaker 1: eventually found next to this blood-stained car, and his belongings
- 8:18Speaker 1: are still at the scene.
- 8:19Speaker 2: Now, the presence of his belongings immediately changes the entire
- 8:23Speaker 2: trajectory of the investigation for the Angolan authorities.
- 8:26Speaker 1: Because it rules out robbery.
- 8:27Speaker 2: Right. If you were examining a body in a remote
- 8:30Speaker 2: area and the valuables are gone, the working theory is
- 8:33Speaker 2: an opportunistic robbery or a carjacking gone wrong. But leaving
- 8:37Speaker 2: the victim's personal items intact signals something entirely different.
- 8:41Speaker 1: That it was personal.
- 8:42Speaker 2: It signals that the violence wasn't a means to financial gain.
- 8:45Speaker 2: The violence was the primary objective. It was a targeted elimination.
- 8:49Speaker 1: And Jackie's narrative to the authorities is, I mean, it's
- 8:52Speaker 1: almost cinematic in its absurdity.
- 8:55Speaker 2: It's frankly insulting to the intelligence of the police.
- 8:58Speaker 1: Totally. She claims she was present at the scene, out
- 9:01Speaker 1: in the bush with Beau in the car, but she
- 9:03Speaker 1: suddenly felt the urge to go to the bathroom. So
- 9:07Speaker 1: she wanders off, hides behind some brush to relieve herself,
- 9:10Speaker 1: and during this incredibly busy brief window of time, a
- 9:13Speaker 1: group of unknown assailants descends upon her husband, stabs him
- 9:16Speaker 1: to death, and vanishes.
- 9:18Speaker 2: Just poof, gone.
- 9:20Speaker 1: Right. She then emerges, discovers the scene, and puts on
- 9:23Speaker 1: this display of absolute hysterical grief.
- 9:27Speaker 2: It's a performance designed to exploit the very assumptions she
- 9:31Speaker 2: thought the authorities would make.
- 9:33Speaker 1: Like the helpless white woman in Africa trope.
- 9:36Speaker 2: Exactly. She assumed the police would see a grieving American
- 9:40Speaker 2: missionary widow and a dead American husband in a dangerous
- 9:43Speaker 2: area and simply closed the book. But the Angolan Criminal
- 9:47Speaker 2: Investigation Service, the CIS, they did not close the book.
- 9:52Speaker 1: Thank goodness they didn't.
- 9:53Speaker 2: They started pulling at the threads, and the entire sweater
- 9:56Speaker 2: unraveled with astonishing speed.
- 9:58Speaker 1: I am really struggling to understand. the cognitive leap required
- 10:01Speaker 1: to execute a plan this chaotic. The source material outlines
- 10:05Speaker 1: the exact breadcrumbs she left behind, and they don't even
- 10:08Speaker 1: seem like breadcrumbs. They seem like deliberate confessions.
- 10:11Speaker 2: They really do.
- 10:12Speaker 1: So the hitmen are identified as Isolino Cayu, Jelson Ramos,
- 10:17Speaker 1: and Bernardino Elias. She paid them the equivalent of roughly $ 50, 000.
- 10:21Speaker 2: Which is an astronomical sum there.
- 10:23Speaker 1: Right. In a village economy where there is no running water, $ 50, 000
- 10:26Speaker 1: is like a geological event. It's an amount of money
- 10:30Speaker 1: that leaves a massive, undeniable footprint. How does someone rationalize
- 10:34Speaker 1: handing over that kind of cash and thinking it won't
- 10:36Speaker 1: be noticed?
- 10:38Speaker 2: To understand that, we have to look at the neurological
- 10:40Speaker 2: reality of what Jack Rice categorizes as the amateur criminal mind.
- 10:44Speaker 1: Okay, tell me more about that.
- 10:46Speaker 2: Well, When a person is operating under extreme emotional duress,
- 10:50Speaker 2: whether it's desperation, panic, or in this case, the obsessive
- 10:54Speaker 2: desire to maintain a romantic affair, their brain undergoes a
- 10:58Speaker 2: massive shift in resource allocation.
- 11:00Speaker 1: So they literally aren't thinking straight.
- 11:02Speaker 2: Exactly. The prefrontal cortex, which is the area responsible for
- 11:06Speaker 2: long-term planning, risk assessment, and logical deduction, is essentially overridden
- 11:12Speaker 2: by the amygdala.
- 11:13Speaker 1: The fight or flight center. Right.
- 11:15Speaker 2: They develop severe tunnel vision. Their entire cognitive bandwidth is
- 11:19Speaker 2: consumed by a single overwhelming objective, which is that the
- 11:23Speaker 2: target must be removed.
- 11:25Speaker 1: So they literally don't have the mental capacity left over
- 11:28Speaker 1: to think about the aftermath. They are only thinking about
- 11:31Speaker 1: the event itself.
- 11:32Speaker 2: Precisely. It's the exact opposite of how a professional operates.
- 11:36Speaker 2: A professional assassin spends 10% of their time on the
- 11:39Speaker 2: act and 90% on the entry and the exit.
- 11:42Speaker 1: Covering their tracks.
- 11:44Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. The emotionally compromised amateur spends 100% of their
- 11:48Speaker 2: energy on the act itself. Jackie wanted the obstacle removed,
- 11:53Speaker 2: and she threw an astronomical sum of money at the
- 11:56Speaker 2: problem without once considering how a sudden influx of $ 50, 000
- 11:59Speaker 2: would destabilize the local economy or, you know, alert local informants.
- 12:05Speaker 1: That makes sense, but the choices she made with her
- 12:08Speaker 1: personnel are just as staggering to me. Like, KU and
- 12:11Speaker 1: Ramos had established criminal records. The sources indicate histories of
- 12:15Speaker 1: kidnapping and armed robbery.
- 12:17Speaker 2: Right. They were known to local law enforcement.
- 12:19Speaker 1: But Bernardino Elias wasn't just the local thug for hire.
- 12:22Speaker 1: He was the family's personal security guard. He worked at
- 12:25Speaker 1: their house. He was woven into their daily lives.
- 12:28Speaker 2: Yeah. He was a familiar face.
- 12:31Speaker 1: Hiring someone who stands on your front porch to execute
- 12:33Speaker 1: your husband seems like the absolute fastest way to ensure
- 12:37Speaker 1: the investigation leads straight back to your living room.
- 12:40Speaker 2: It is a catastrophic failure of criminal logistics. She enlisted
- 12:44Speaker 2: a man she had a direct, verifiable daily connection with.
- 12:48Speaker 2: But she went even further than that.
- 12:50Speaker 1: Oh, right. The scouting trip.
- 12:52Speaker 2: Yes. The CIS uncovered that in the days leading up
- 12:56Speaker 2: to the murder, Jackie and Elias actually went out together
- 12:59Speaker 2: to scout the remote location. They visited the exact spot
- 13:03Speaker 2: in the bush to ensure it was suitable for an ambush.
- 13:07Speaker 1: The arrogance of that is breathtaking.
- 13:10Speaker 2: Driving out to a remote location with your security guard
- 13:13Speaker 2: to plan your husband's murder, assuming that because you were
- 13:17Speaker 2: in the bush, the trees don't have eyes.
- 13:20Speaker 1: It's hubris, pure and simple. But I have to bring
- 13:24Speaker 1: up the most unbelievable detail in this entire tragedy. The
- 13:28Speaker 1: murder weapon. Investigators process the scene and they find the
- 13:32Speaker 1: knife used to kill Bo.
- 13:34Speaker 2: This part is just wild.
- 13:36Speaker 1: It isn't a locally sourced generic machete or like a
- 13:39Speaker 1: kitchen knife. It is an American-made knife. And not only
- 13:43Speaker 1: is it an American import, but the investigation revealed it
- 13:46Speaker 1: was a knife that Jackie had personally purchased and given
- 13:49Speaker 1: to Elias as a gift.
- 13:51Speaker 2: I mean, you can't make this up.
- 13:53Speaker 1: I cannot wrap my head around this. You orchestrate a murder,
- 13:57Speaker 1: you scout the location, and then you allow the killer
- 14:00Speaker 1: to use a highly specific, traceable weapon that you personally
- 14:04Speaker 1: handed to him.
- 14:05Speaker 2: It... It sounds like fiction. I know, but it is
- 14:07Speaker 2: a textbook example of that cognitive collapse we were just discussing.
- 14:12Speaker 1: So she just wasn't thinking about it as evidence.
- 14:14Speaker 2: Exactly. When Jackie gifted that knife, she likely wasn't thinking
- 14:18Speaker 2: of it as a future murder weapon. She was thinking
- 14:21Speaker 2: of it as a gift. And when the time came
- 14:23Speaker 2: to execute the plan, the hitmen grabbed whatever was efficient.
- 14:28Speaker 1: Because they don't care about forensic traceability.
- 14:30Speaker 2: Right. An armed robber doesn't care about forensics. An armed
- 14:33Speaker 2: robber cares about whether the blade is sharp. This is
- 14:36Speaker 2: what happens when a naive mastermind delegates a complex task
- 14:41Speaker 2: to blunt instruments.
- 14:42Speaker 1: It's a recipe for disaster.
- 14:44Speaker 2: You combine an emotionally flooded architect with tactically unsophisticated contractors,
- 14:50Speaker 2: and the resulting crime scene is basically a chaotic collage
- 14:54Speaker 2: of direct evidence.
- 14:55Speaker 1: So we have this incredibly sloppy execution, but the question
- 14:58Speaker 1: that constantly hangs over a case like this is the motivation.
- 15:02Speaker 1: Why escalate to murder? Why not just file for divorce?
- 15:05Speaker 2: And that's the multimillion-dollar question.
- 15:08Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting, because the motive the
- 15:10Speaker 1: Angolan authorities uncovered provides the exact missing piece of the puzzle.
- 15:15Speaker 1: It explains the rush, it explains the personnel choices, and
- 15:18Speaker 1: it explains the total lack of rational foresight.
- 15:21Speaker 2: The motive is perhaps the most ancient driver of human conflict,
- 15:24Speaker 2: but it was subjected to the extreme pressure of their
- 15:27Speaker 2: specific geographic and social isolation.
- 15:30Speaker 1: Manuel Halaiwa, who is the superintendent of criminal investigation with
- 15:33Speaker 1: the CIS in Angola, publicly stated that there were strong
- 15:37Speaker 1: suspicions of a romantic affair.
- 15:39Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the catalyst.
- 15:41Speaker 1: Jackie Schroyer was secretly involved with Bernardino Elias, the very
- 15:46Speaker 1: same security guard she hired, the man she scouted the
- 15:49Speaker 1: location with, the man she gave the American knife to.
- 15:52Speaker 2: The man who was literally supposed to be protecting her family.
- 15:56Speaker 1: The affair alone is a massive betrayal. But an affair
- 16:00Speaker 1: in a remote bush village doesn't automatically trigger a murder-for-hire plot.
- 16:04Speaker 1: There has to be an accelerating factor, right? A ticking clock.
- 16:08Speaker 2: And there was a ticking clock. Beau had made a
- 16:11Speaker 2: definitive decision.
- 16:12Speaker 1: Yeah, his missionary work with the Neneka people was concluding,
- 16:16Speaker 1: and he had determined it was time for the family
- 16:18Speaker 1: to pack up and move back to the United States.
- 16:21Speaker 1: He was actively preparing to pull the family out of Angola.
- 16:24Speaker 2: But Jackie did not want to leave her lover. Right.
- 16:27Speaker 2: Put yourself inside the psychological vice group she was experiencing.
- 16:31Speaker 2: On one side, she has this illicit relationship that she
- 16:34Speaker 2: has managed to conceal within the isolation of the bush.
- 16:37Speaker 1: It's her secret world.
- 16:38Speaker 2: On the other side, she's facing an immovable deadline. Her
- 16:42Speaker 2: husband is moving her back to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. If
- 16:45Speaker 2: she returns to that highly structured, highly observant community, maintaining
- 16:50Speaker 2: an international affair with an Angolan security guard becomes completely impossible.
- 16:54Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. And if the affair is discovered in Minnesota.
- 16:58Speaker 2: The social fallout within her tight-knit religious circle would be absolute.
- 17:02Speaker 2: She would face a devastating divorce, the potential alienation of
- 17:06Speaker 2: her five children, and total excommunication from the social identity
- 17:10Speaker 2: she had built over 20 years.
- 17:12Speaker 1: I see the pressure. I really do. But I still
- 17:14Speaker 1: have to debate the logic here. Millions of people face
- 17:17Speaker 1: devastating divorces and social ruin. They hire lawyers. They divide assets.
- 17:21Speaker 1: They endure the humiliation.
- 17:23Speaker 2: They do it every day.
- 17:24Speaker 1: Why does her brain jump past all of those difficult
- 17:27Speaker 1: but normal societal processes and land directly on....
- 17:31Speaker 2: Because of the void we discussed earlier. She wasn't standing
- 17:35Speaker 2: in a lawyer's office in Minneapolis. She was standing in
- 17:38Speaker 2: the Angolan bush, holding $ 50, 000, looking at a security guard
- 17:42Speaker 2: who had connections to local criminals.
- 17:44Speaker 1: The environment warped her reality.
- 17:47Speaker 2: Exactly. The extreme isolation distorted her risk assessment. She genuinely
- 17:52Speaker 2: believed she could solve a complex emotional and social problem
- 17:55Speaker 2: with a single, brutal physical act, and that the environment
- 17:59Speaker 2: would simply swallow the evidence.
- 18:01Speaker 1: She thought the wilderness would erase the crime.
- 18:04Speaker 2: That was her fundamental miscalculation.
- 18:06Speaker 1: But the authorities didn't need months or years to figure
- 18:09Speaker 1: this out. The wilderness didn't erase anything. Beau was killed
- 18:12Speaker 1: on October 25th. By early November, just a matter of
- 18:15Speaker 1: days later, the entire plot had been exposed and Jackie
- 18:18Speaker 1: was arrested.
- 18:19Speaker 2: The speed of that collapse is just incredible.
- 18:22Speaker 1: How does law enforcement take a group of four people,
- 18:25Speaker 1: the wife, the guard, and the two hired men, and...
- 18:28Speaker 1: crack them so quickly?
- 18:30Speaker 2: They utilized the most powerful tool in the prosecutorial arsenal,
- 18:33Speaker 2: which is conspiracy law. Jack Rice, in his analysis of
- 18:37Speaker 2: the case, provided a master class on how this works
- 18:40Speaker 2: using an incredibly evocative analogy.
- 18:43Speaker 1: Oh, right. He called it cement shoes. Yes.
- 18:46Speaker 2: Cement shoes.
- 18:47Speaker 1: Let's really dig into the mechanics of these cement shoes.
- 18:51Speaker 1: How does a conspiracy charge actually function in a courtroom,
- 18:55Speaker 1: whether it's in the United States or down in Angola?
- 18:58Speaker 2: So at its core, a conspiracy charge does not require
- 19:02Speaker 2: the state to prove that you personally committed the final
- 19:05Speaker 2: act of violence.
- 19:06Speaker 1: You don't have to hold the knife.
- 19:07Speaker 2: Exactly. It only requires them to prove two things. First,
- 19:11Speaker 2: that an agreement was made between two or more people
- 19:14Speaker 2: to commit an illegal act. Second, that at least one
- 19:17Speaker 2: person in that group took an overt act to further
- 19:20Speaker 2: the agreement.
- 19:21Speaker 1: Wait, so an overt act doesn't have to be the
- 19:23Speaker 1: stabbing itself?
- 19:25Speaker 2: Exactly the opposite. An overt act can be entirely mundane
- 19:29Speaker 2: on its own.
- 19:30Speaker 1: Like what?
- 19:30Speaker 2: Driving a car to a location is an overt act.
- 19:33Speaker 2: Withdrawing cash from a bank is an overt act. Handing
- 19:37Speaker 2: someone an American-made knife is an overt act.
- 19:40Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
- 19:41Speaker 2: Yeah. Once the prosecution establishes that the agreement existed and
- 19:45Speaker 2: that an overt act occurred, the legal trap snaps shut.
- 19:49Speaker 2: From that moment on, every single member of the conspiracy
- 19:52Speaker 2: is legally responsible for the actions of every other member.
- 19:56Speaker 1: I want to make sure I understand the gravity of this.
- 19:59Speaker 1: You're saying that if I agree to a plot... And
- 20:02Speaker 1: my only job is to like make a phone call
- 20:04Speaker 1: to tell the hitman the target has left the house.
- 20:07Speaker 1: I am legally on the hook for the actual murder,
- 20:09Speaker 1: even if I am 10 miles away sitting in a cafe.
- 20:12Speaker 2: You are legally on the hook for the murder, the
- 20:15Speaker 2: weapons charges, the flight from justice, everything.
- 20:18Speaker 1: That is intense.
- 20:20Speaker 2: The prosecution takes all these individual, seemingly disparate elements and
- 20:24Speaker 2: braids them together into a single, inescapable quilt of guilt.
- 20:29Speaker 2: This is why defense attorneys fight so aggressively to sever
- 20:32Speaker 2: their clients from a conspiracy case.
- 20:33Speaker 1: They want to break the chain.
- 20:35Speaker 2: Exactly. A defense attorney representing one of the hitmen wants
- 20:39Speaker 2: a separate trial. They want to argue, hey, my client
- 20:42Speaker 2: was just hired muscle. He didn't orchestrate this. He didn't
- 20:45Speaker 2: have the motive. They want to isolate their client's actions.
- 20:49Speaker 1: But the prosecutor's entire strategy is to keep them chained together.
- 20:53Speaker 2: That is the cement shoes. If the Angolan CIS ties
- 20:56Speaker 2: Jackie to Elias through the affair and the financial transfer,
- 20:59Speaker 2: and they tie Elias to Caillou and Ramos through the
- 21:02Speaker 2: scouting mission and the American knife, then the undeniable forensic
- 21:06Speaker 2: evidence against the men in the bush becomes undeniable evidence
- 21:09Speaker 2: against the woman hiding behind the bushes.
- 21:11Speaker 1: Because they're all wearing the same cement shoes.
- 21:14Speaker 2: Right. When the prosecutors throw one of them into the river,
- 21:17Speaker 2: the chain pulls the rest of them down. No one
- 21:20Speaker 2: has a clean path to surface. If one goes down,
- 21:24Speaker 2: they all go down.
- 21:25Speaker 1: And the Angolan legal system executed this strategy with absolute precision.
- 21:30Speaker 1: The speed of the arrests led directly to a swift
- 21:33Speaker 1: trial in the Lubongo District Court.
- 21:35Speaker 2: It was remarkably fast.
- 21:37Speaker 1: And the sentencing here is a critical point of discussion
- 21:39Speaker 1: because it forces a confrontation with a very uncomfortable, very
- 21:44Speaker 1: pervasive bias that exists in the West.
- 21:47Speaker 2: It really is an essential sociological takeaway from this tragedy.
- 21:51Speaker 1: The sentences came down and they were severe. Jackie Schroyer
- 21:55Speaker 1: was found guilty and sentenced to 24 years in an
- 21:57Speaker 1: Angolan prison, along with a fine of nearly $ 11, 000. That's
- 22:02Speaker 1: a massive sentence. And the accomplices, Elias, Cayo, and Ramos,
- 22:06Speaker 1: received sentences ranging from 21 to 22 years for aggravated
- 22:10Speaker 1: homicide and money laundering. Now, the sources do note that
- 22:14Speaker 1: Jackie's defense team is planning an appeal, claiming there were
- 22:17Speaker 1: inconsistencies in the trial process and issues with how evidence
- 22:20Speaker 1: was handled.
- 22:21Speaker 2: Sure. That is a standard post-conviction legal maneuver.
- 22:24Speaker 1: Right. But the undeniable reality is that a group of
- 22:28Speaker 1: conspirators attempted an assassination, and within months, they were investigated, tried, convicted,
- 22:35Speaker 1: and sentenced to decades in prison.
- 22:37Speaker 2: This rapid, definitive application of justice absolutely shatters the mythology
- 22:42Speaker 2: that many Westerners carry when they travel to developing nations.
- 22:46Speaker 1: I really want to push on this idea. We've talked
- 22:49Speaker 1: about her delusion regarding the wilderness, but was there a
- 22:52Speaker 1: specific reason arrogant calculation about the host country itself?
- 22:56Speaker 2: I believe so, yes.
- 22:58Speaker 1: Did she look at the unpaved roads, the lack of
- 23:00Speaker 1: municipal plumbing, the extreme poverty of the Nianika people, and
- 23:05Speaker 1: equate a lack of physical infrastructure with a lack of
- 23:08Speaker 1: intellectual or investigative rigor? Did she essentially think, these local
- 23:13Speaker 1: cops won't know how to process a crime scene?
- 23:15Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, that ethnocentric
- 23:18Speaker 2: fallacy is almost certainly what emboldened her. Jack Rice addressed
- 23:23Speaker 2: this specific bias with incredible clarity, drawing from his own
- 23:26Speaker 2: extensive boots-on-the-ground experience.
- 23:29Speaker 1: Right, because he's worked all over the world.
- 23:31Speaker 2: Exactly. He has traveled the globe teaching trial advocacy skills.
- 23:35Speaker 2: He's worked in the Republic of Georgia, in Turkey, in Kenya,
- 23:39Speaker 2: in South Sudan, and in northern Uganda.
- 23:41Speaker 1: He's seen it firsthand.
- 23:43Speaker 2: And his observation is that when he sits in a
- 23:46Speaker 2: courtroom in a place like Uganda, the prosecutor sitting next
- 23:49Speaker 2: to him or the defense attorney across the aisle possesses
- 23:52Speaker 2: a level of legal sophistication and strategic brilliance that is
- 23:56Speaker 2: entirely on par with the best legal minds operating in
- 23:59Speaker 2: the United States.
- 24:00Speaker 1: But we have this deeply ingrained third world myth, this
- 24:04Speaker 1: cinematic trope that American institutions are inherently superior and that
- 24:08Speaker 1: foreign justice systems, especially in rural Africa, are either entirely corruptible,
- 24:14Speaker 1: easily confused, or technologically incapable of solving a complex crime.
- 24:18Speaker 2: It is a toxic assumption.
- 24:20Speaker 1: It is a toxic assumption.
- 24:21Speaker 2: And for criminals, it is a fatal one.
- 24:24Speaker 1: Clearly.
- 24:25Speaker 2: Rice explicitly warned against the arrogance of crossing a border
- 24:28Speaker 2: and assuming the local authorities are lesser than. I mean,
- 24:32Speaker 2: are there corrupt or incompetent officials in developing nations? Of course.
- 24:36Speaker 2: Just as there are corrupt and incompetent officials in police
- 24:38Speaker 2: departments across the United States.
- 24:40Speaker 1: Exactly. Human nature is universal.
- 24:43Speaker 2: But the baseline assumption that you can commit a capital
- 24:45Speaker 2: offense in a foreign country and outsmart the local investigators
- 24:49Speaker 2: simply because you hold an American passport is absurd.
- 24:52Speaker 1: The Angolan Criminal Investigation Service didn't need a billion-dollar forensic
- 24:56Speaker 1: lab to solve this.
- 24:57Speaker 2: No, they didn't. No. They just needed sharp detectives.
- 25:00Speaker 1: They looked at a staged car breakdown. They looked at
- 25:02Speaker 1: an out-of-place American knife. They tracked a massive and highly
- 25:06Speaker 1: unusual cash payout. And they interrogated a woman whose alibi
- 25:10Speaker 1: about needing to use the bathroom during a synchronized ambush
- 25:13Speaker 1: defied all basic logic.
- 25:15Speaker 2: They applied pressure to the weakest link in that conspiracy,
- 25:17Speaker 2: and the entire plot shattered.
- 25:19Speaker 1: And the court's final ruling actually reflects a highly sophisticated
- 25:23Speaker 1: understanding of culpability. I am looking at the distribution of
- 25:26Speaker 1: the prison sentences, and there is a really fascinating disparity here.
- 25:30Speaker 2: Yeah, the sentencing links are very revealing.
- 25:34Speaker 1: Jackie received 24 years. The men who actually held the knife,
- 25:38Speaker 1: who physically carried out the brutal violence, received 21 to
- 25:40Speaker 1: 22 years. She got more time than the literal killers.
- 25:45Speaker 2: That sentencing structure is incredibly telling. And it is actually
- 25:50Speaker 2: quite rare when you look at international justice broadly.
- 25:53Speaker 1: Why is that?
- 25:54Speaker 2: Very often, the physical perpetrators, the hired muscles, the lower-level operatives,
- 26:00Speaker 2: end up bearing the brunt of the state's wrath. They're
- 26:03Speaker 2: the easiest to catch. They leave the most physical evidence.
- 26:06Speaker 2: And they usually lack the resources to mount a formidable defense.
- 26:10Speaker 1: Right. They can't afford the expensive lawyers.
- 26:12Speaker 2: Exactly. The wealthy or insulated mastermind who orchestrated the crime
- 26:17Speaker 2: from a distance frequently manages to negotiate a lesser charge,
- 26:21Speaker 2: or sometimes evades justice entirely by hiding behind layers of deniability.
- 26:26Speaker 1: But the Lubongo District Court didn't allow that to happen.
- 26:29Speaker 1: They didn't let the mastermind hide behind the physical actions
- 26:32Speaker 1: of her contractors. No.
- 26:34Speaker 2: They saw right through it. From a purely philosophical justice standpoint,
- 26:39Speaker 2: Jack Rice noted how incredibly fitting this outcome is. Jackie
- 26:43Speaker 2: Schroyer was the architect. She imported the motive into the environment.
- 26:48Speaker 1: She weaponized the money.
- 26:49Speaker 2: She manipulated her position of trust to facilitate the hit.
- 26:53Speaker 2: The court looked at the totality of the conspiracy and
- 26:57Speaker 2: accurately determined that while the hitmen were the weapon, Jackie
- 27:01Speaker 2: was the one swinging it.
- 27:03Speaker 1: That's a powerful way to put it.
- 27:06Speaker 2: It is profoundly appropriate that the person who conceived of
- 27:09Speaker 2: the tragedy pays the heaviest toll.
- 27:13Speaker 1: It is appropriate, but it doesn't undo the damage. As
- 27:16Speaker 1: we move away from the legal architecture, the conspiracy theories,
- 27:20Speaker 1: and the investigative mechanics, we have to look at the
- 27:23Speaker 1: crater that's left in the real world.
- 27:25Speaker 2: The human element.
- 27:26Speaker 1: Because beyond the 24-year sentence, there is a human toll
- 27:29Speaker 1: here that is staggering in its cruelty.
- 27:32Speaker 2: The collateral damage of this kind of domestic conspiracy is
- 27:35Speaker 2: always devastating. But the specifics of this case elevate the
- 27:40Speaker 2: tragedy to a different level entirely.
- 27:43Speaker 1: Let's talk about Beau Schroyer's legacy. He was laid to
- 27:46Speaker 1: rest back in the United States on November 30th, 2024.
- 27:50Speaker 1: His obituary paints a picture of a man who was
- 27:53Speaker 1: utterly dedicated to his calling.
- 27:55Speaker 2: He really believed in what he was doing.
- 27:57Speaker 1: It mentions that a previous mission trip to Africa... which
- 28:00Speaker 1: he took with his oldest daughter Bella, was the catalyst
- 28:03Speaker 1: that expanded his heart for helping marginalized children. He found
- 28:07Speaker 1: a profound purpose in trying to provide not just physical necessities,
- 28:10Speaker 1: but love, inspiration, and kindness to kids who had nothing.
- 28:14Speaker 2: And he upended his life to pursue that calling.
- 28:18Speaker 1: And he was murdered in the dirt while actively trying
- 28:20Speaker 1: to live it out.
- 28:21Speaker 2: And the deepest layer of that tragedy falls squarely on
- 28:24Speaker 2: the shoulders of his five children. You have five young
- 28:26Speaker 2: people who were dragged across the globe, placed in an
- 28:30Speaker 2: incredibly difficult, austere environment, and then subjected to the ultimate trauma.
- 28:35Speaker 1: It's just horrific to think about.
- 28:37Speaker 2: They didn't just lose their father to an act of
- 28:39Speaker 2: horrific violence. On the exact same day, they effectively lost
- 28:42Speaker 2: their mother. They have to grow up processing the reality
- 28:46Speaker 2: that the woman who raised them is the architect of
- 28:48Speaker 2: their father's slaughter.
- 28:50Speaker 1: I cannot even begin to fathom the psychological support required
- 28:53Speaker 1: to navigate a betrayal of that magnitude. The sources do
- 28:56Speaker 1: provide some details on the aftermath for the family, though.
- 28:59Speaker 2: Yeah, what's happening with the kids now?
- 29:01Speaker 1: The five children were immediately extracted from Angola and returned
- 29:04Speaker 1: to the United States. They are currently living with and
- 29:07Speaker 1: being cared for by close family members, and there is
- 29:10Speaker 1: a massive mobilization of support happening behind the scenes.
- 29:13Speaker 2: That's a relief to hear.
- 29:15Speaker 1: Counselors from SIMUSA, the mission organization they traveled with, are
- 29:19Speaker 1: actively working with the kids. Furthermore, the community has established
- 29:22Speaker 1: a dedicated long-term financial fund to ensure that these children
- 29:26Speaker 1: have their physical and educational needs met as they try
- 29:29Speaker 1: to rebuild their lives from scratch.
- 29:31Speaker 2: That kind of institutional and community safety net is absolutely critical.
- 29:36Speaker 2: Healing from a complex trauma where the perpetrator is your
- 29:38Speaker 2: own parent requires decades of specialized support. It requires a
- 29:43Speaker 2: community that refuses to look away.
- 29:46Speaker 1: And the community back in Minnesota is grappling with this
- 29:49Speaker 1: in real time. Troy Easton, the lead pastor at the
- 29:52Speaker 1: Lakes Area Vineyard Church, the congregation the Schroyers belonged to
- 29:55Speaker 1: for years, released a public statement.
- 29:57Speaker 2: It was a very powerful statement, too.
- 30:00Speaker 1: He articulated a really complex, nuanced grief. He spoke about
- 30:04Speaker 1: the profound heartbreak that has blanketed their church. But he
- 30:07Speaker 1: also made a very specific point to express gratitude for
- 30:10Speaker 1: the Angolan authorities.
- 30:11Speaker 2: Which you don't always see in these situations.
- 30:14Speaker 1: No, you really don't. He stated that they monitored the
- 30:17Speaker 1: trial closely and they felt it was conducted fairly and
- 30:19Speaker 1: carried out with high integrity. He found genuine closure in
- 30:23Speaker 1: the thoroughness of the foreign justice system.
- 30:26Speaker 2: That is a remarkable statement of grounded leadership. In moments
- 30:30Speaker 2: of intense, sensational grief, it is very easy for a
- 30:34Speaker 2: community to succumb to anger, xenophobia, or wild speculation.
- 30:39Speaker 1: Blaming the country where it happened.
- 30:41Speaker 2: Exactly. For a community leader to step up and publicly
- 30:44Speaker 2: validate the integrity of the Angolan court process shows a
- 30:48Speaker 2: deep commitment to the truth, however painful that truth is.
- 30:52Speaker 1: Pastor Easton also added that the congregation is praying that
- 30:55Speaker 1: Jackie Schroyer will eventually find her way to the merciful,
- 30:58Speaker 1: forgiving arms of God.
- 31:00Speaker 2: Wow. Right.
- 31:01Speaker 1: And whether you share that theology or not, you have
- 31:04Speaker 1: to acknowledge the incredible fortitude it takes to offer a
- 31:07Speaker 1: prayer of grace for the person who brutally dismantled a
- 31:10Speaker 1: family within your care. It is the ultimate contrast to
- 31:14Speaker 1: the selfishness of the crime itself.
- 31:16Speaker 2: It perfectly frames the dichotomy of this entire deep dive.
- 31:20Speaker 2: On one side, you have an act of profound calculating malice,
- 31:24Speaker 2: driven by self-preservation.
- 31:26Speaker 1: And greed, arguably.
- 31:27Speaker 2: True. But on the other side, You have an international
- 31:30Speaker 2: justice system, a mission organization, and a local community rallying
- 31:35Speaker 2: to provide accountability, truth, and ongoing care for the victims.
- 31:39Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for you? We have
- 31:42Speaker 1: traveled a massive distance today, conceptually and geographically. We started
- 31:46Speaker 1: in a small, structured town in Minnesota where behavior is
- 31:49Speaker 1: regulated by community presence.
- 31:52Speaker 2: Where everyone is watching.
- 31:54Speaker 1: We followed a family into the deep isolation of the
- 31:56Speaker 1: Angolan bush. An environment so stripped of modern infrastructure that
- 32:00Speaker 1: a person could delude themselves into believing they were invisible
- 32:03Speaker 1: to the laws of consequence.
- 32:05Speaker 2: That void we talked about.
- 32:07Speaker 1: We deconstructed an assassination plot that was so blindingly arrogant,
- 32:11Speaker 1: so fundamentally flawed in its reliance on the local security
- 32:14Speaker 1: guard and a traceable American weapon that it borders on
- 32:17Speaker 1: the absurd.
- 32:18Speaker 2: And we explored the incredibly robust legal mechanisms, the cement
- 32:23Speaker 2: shoes of international conspiracy law, that local, highly competent Angolan
- 32:27Speaker 2: investigators utilized to trap the conspirators in a web of
- 32:31Speaker 2: their own making.
- 32:32Speaker 1: We learned that the assumption of impunity in a developing
- 32:35Speaker 1: nation is a fatal miscalculation.
- 32:37Speaker 2: It truly is.
- 32:39Speaker 1: But as we close this out, I keep returning to
- 32:41Speaker 1: our initial discussion about the wilderness. We talked about how
- 32:45Speaker 1: a criminal views extreme isolation as an eraser, a vast,
- 32:48Speaker 1: empty space that will swallow the evidence, swallow the noise,
- 32:51Speaker 1: and swallow the guilt.
- 32:53Speaker 2: That was Jackie's bet.
- 32:55Speaker 1: But the reality we uncovered is the exact opposite. The
- 32:58Speaker 1: wilderness is not an eraser. It is the most powerful
- 33:02Speaker 1: magnifying glass imaginable.
- 33:04Speaker 2: That's a great way to frame it.
- 33:06Speaker 1: When you strip away the noise of the city, the
- 33:08Speaker 1: distractions of society, and the complexity of modern infrastructure, every
- 33:13Speaker 1: single thing you do out of place becomes undeniably obvious.
- 33:17Speaker 2: There's nowhere to hide.
- 33:19Speaker 1: The environment amplified the affair. It put a massive spotlight
- 33:24Speaker 1: on a $ 50, 000 transaction, and it made an American knife
- 33:27Speaker 1: scream for attention. The wilderness didn't hide the truth. It
- 33:32Speaker 1: isolated the truth so perfectly that the investigators couldn't possibly
- 33:36Speaker 1: miss it.
- 33:36Speaker 2: It is a profound realization.
- 33:39Speaker 1: The physical isolation of the bush ultimately reflected the psychological
- 33:42Speaker 1: isolation of the mastermind, exposing every single flaw in her design.
- 33:47Speaker 2: Which leaves me with a final lingering thought for you
- 33:50Speaker 2: to carry with you today. We spend a lot of
- 33:52Speaker 2: time analyzing how extreme isolation removes our societal mirrors. It
- 33:57Speaker 2: takes away the neighbors, the routines, and the social pressures
- 34:00Speaker 2: that keep our behavior in check.
- 34:02Speaker 1: The things that keep us grounded.
- 34:03Speaker 2: But here is the question you have to ask yourself.
- 34:06Speaker 2: When a human being is completely severed from their home
- 34:09Speaker 2: culture and placed into an absolute void, does the immense
- 34:13Speaker 2: pressure of that isolation inevitably break their moral compass?
- 34:18Speaker 1: Or.
- 34:18Speaker 2: Does extreme isolation simply strip away the costume of civilization,
- 34:23Speaker 2: revealing the exact compass they had all along?