Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Wanted Son Kills His Mother, Hides Body in Bathtub for 7 Days

Transcript

Wanted Son Kills His Mother, Hides Body in Bathtub for 7 Days · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to imagine, just for a moment, that
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: you are pulling up to the driveway of a loved
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: one's home.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a house you know, like, incredibly well.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly. You've walked through that front door a hundred times.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: And you're just there for a simple wellness check.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just to make sure everything is okay, because nobody
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: has heard from the person who lives there in days.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Which is always a tense feeling.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: It really is. So you step out of your car.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: The neighborhood is quiet. You walk up to the door.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: You finally get inside. And you stumble into a scene
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: that looks, I mean, at first glance, like a tragic,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: everyday accident.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Like someone just slipped and fell? Yeah.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: But as you stand there, taking in the physical details
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of the room, something in the air, and I mean
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: that quite literally, the actual atmosphere of the house feels
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: entirely fundamentally wrong.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: The physical environment is telling you a different story.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The date is November 21st, 2022. The location is
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Las Cruces, New Mexico. And what starts as a routine
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: knock on a front door is about to unravel into, well,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: an incredibly dense labyrinth of deception.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: You know, that initial moment of a wellness check. It's
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: one of the most psychologically complex situations you can walk into.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: You're crossing a threshold, not knowing if you're stepping into
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: a medical emergency, a quiet tragedy, or, you know, a
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: highly sanitized crime scene. Right.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: You're essentially being asked to interpret a visual narrative.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A narrative that someone else might have very carefully
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: and very deliberately arranged for you to consume.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: And breaking down that false narrative is our mission for
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: this deep dive. We are taking our source material today
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: from a comprehensive breakdown by the YouTube channel Beyond Evil.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: It's a fantastic source.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: It really is. We're going to look at a truly
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: chilling true crime case centering on the murder of 69-year-old
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Cynthia Berenson.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: But we aren't just going to walk through a timeline
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: of events.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: No, because that doesn't really serve you. We want to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: emphasize to you, the listener, that we are going to
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: explore the underlying mechanics of how this crime was solved.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And more importantly, the deeply disturbing psychology behind it.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We're going to look at the severe limitations of
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: forensic science, the intense psychological chess match of a police interrogation.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: And the really dark reality of what happens when the
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: people we protect become the people we need protection from.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this. So to understand the complexity here,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: we have to look at the baseline environment when the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Las Cruces police first arrive.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Right, because there's no chaotic 911 call reporting a violent struggle.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: No, there's no weapon lying in the street.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: The investigation basically begins with a void.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: A complete void. Cynthia Berenson, a 69-year-old woman, has just
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: been completely unreachable for days.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: And her family's anxious because her phone is going straight
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: to voicemail.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Which they said was highly uncharacteristic for her. So patrol
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: officers are dispatched to her residence for a standard wellness check.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: But when they pull up to the property, they're met
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: by a woman named Emily.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: And Emily is such a critical catalyst in the story.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: She isn't just, you know, a neighbor who happened to
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: be walking by. Right.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: She's a very close friend of Cynthia's.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they had bonded years ago over being fellow dog owners.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: They have this 15-year foundation of trust.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: A trust so deep that Emily actually possesses a spare
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: key to Cynthia's house.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Which is huge. But what makes Emily so vital to
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the initial police response is that she doesn't just hand
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: over the key and step back.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Not at all. She comes to the officers already heavily
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: armed with suspicion. Yes.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: She tells them right away that she works as a counselor,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and she explicitly says that because of her professional background,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: she is always profiling.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Her antennae are all the way up.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, completely.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: And you know, the value of a highly observant civilian
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: informant in the first 48 hours of a missing persons case,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: it just cannot be overstated.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Because law enforcement usually arrives with zero context, right?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They don't know the family dynamics. But Emily bridges
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: that gap instantly.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: She basically hands the police a preliminary psychological profile of
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: their primary suspect before they even touch the doorknob. Right.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: She immediately directs her focus away from random foul play
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: and points it directly at Cynthia's own son, Dylan.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Right. Because Cynthia has two sons. There's Corey, who lives
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: independently and is actively communicating with the family and the cops.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And then there's Dylan. who lived under Cynthia's roof.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: And Emily points out a behavioral pattern that is a
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: massive indicator of deception. She says Dylan uses throwaway phones.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: That detail is so telling.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I really want to pause on that specific phrase, throwaway phones,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: because it feels like something out of a spy movie, right?
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: It does sound a bit cinematic.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: But the reality of it is so much more insidious.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the mechanics of what using a throwaway
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: phone actually implies today.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Right, because if you or I are going about our
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: normal lives, we have a smartphone tied to a multi-year contract.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's registered to our name, our credit card, our
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: home address.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: It's constantly pinging cell towers, creating a permanent, verifiable digital
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: footprint of everywhere we go.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So to use throwaway phones, buying cheap prepaid devices with cash,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: constantly swapping out SIM cards.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Intentionally changing your phone number every few weeks.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is an aggressive, proactive measure to stay off
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the grid. In a society where everyone is digitally tethered,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: intentionally severing that tether is basically a modern-day smoke signal.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: It's a glaring indicator that you are trying to evade surveillance.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Because it requires sustained effort. It's not an accident.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: No, it's exhausting to live like that.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: It really is. Maintaining anonymity in a hyper-connected world shows
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: a deliberate desire for compartmentalization.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Which is a hallmark of someone who operates on the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: absolute margins of society.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Usually someone involved in illicit activities where they know they
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: might be tracked.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: And Emily's intuition doesn't stop at his communication habits either.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: She delivers a crucial piece of financial intelligence right there
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: in the driveway.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: She tells the officers that she recently spoke with a
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: friend in Texas who had access to Cynthia's banking information.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And the bank records show that Cynthia's accounts have been
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: aggressively drained over the last few days.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: And the method of that draining is what really stands out.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Yes. The money wasn't being wired to an offshore account or,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: you know, transferred to an LLC. The funds were being
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: physically pulled out in cash at Walmart ATMs.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: The mechanics of that are incredibly revealing.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Right. Because an ATM withdrawal at a big box retail store.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: It's a high-risk, low-sophistication method of liquidating assets.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly. ATMs have daily withdrawal limits, usually just a few
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: This means the person draining the account isn't doing it
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: in one keystroke from a laptop in a basement.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: No, they are physically standing in front of a camera-equipped machine...
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: In a highly populated area.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Day after day, pulling out maximum cash allotments until the
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: machine just declines the transaction.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: It's completely desperate behavior.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: It completely shatters the optimistic theory that maybe Cynthia just
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: went on a spontaneous vacation and forgot her charger.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that theory is dead on arrival. So when you
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: synthesize a missing elderly woman, a son who intentionally uses
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: untraceable communication, and an aggressive physical liquidation of her bank
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: accounts via retail ATMs.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: The entire operational posture of the police officers shifts on
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: a dime.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: They aren't looking for a stranded motorist anymore. They are
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: looking for a crime scene.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: The cognitive baseline for the officers has fundamentally changed at
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: this point.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So they conduct a perimeter check of the property.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: They look through the trash bins, hoping for discarded mail, receipts, anything.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Any physical indicator of a sudden departure. But they find
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: absolutely nothing.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: The property presents this facade of total normalcy.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Which is almost creepier. So, left with no other options,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: they use Emily's spare key to enter the residence.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: And this is the moment where the environment itself starts
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: speaking to the detectives.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the sources detail this entry, and the sensory information
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: is just overwhelming.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: The officers announce themselves, you know, standard procedure. Police department,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: anybody inside, come out with your hands up.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: But they get zero response. And as they move deeper
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: into the house, they don't just see something wrong, they
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: smell it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: The olfactory landscape of a crime scene is often the
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: most immediate, visceral evidence in detective encounters.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Right, because as humans, our olfactory receptors are evolutionarily hardwired
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to detect decay.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a deeply ingrained survival mechanism to recognize the
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: specific chemical compounds released during biological decomposition.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: You smell it and your brain screams, danger.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: But in Cynthia's house, that profound biological odor is actively
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: competing with something entirely artificial.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Something aggressively sharp.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: The officers are hit with a literal wall of bleach.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Right. The scent of industrial cleaning products is overpowering the.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Natural smell of the house. And let's talk about that.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Why bleach?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Well, the chemical properties of bleach, specifically sodium hypochlorite, make
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: it a very common tool for perpetrators trying to sanitize
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: an environment.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Because it acts as an oxidizing agent, right?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Yes. It is highly effective at breaking down the protein
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: structures in blood and biological fluids.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Which, theoretically, can degrade DNA evidence.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Theoretically. However, its effectiveness as a chemical eraser is completely
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: undermined by its distinct, lingering odor.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Right. To a trained investigator, walking into a home where
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: an occupant is missing and smelling concentrated bleach.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: It's a massive, immediate indicator of catastrophic violence.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Because you do not aggressively bleach the floors of a
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: residential home unless you're attempting to mask a profound biological event.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: No, nobody cleans like that on a random Tuesday.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate paradox of the cover-up. The very act
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of trying to hide the crime becomes the loudest alarm
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: bell that a crime actually occurred.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So the officers are moving through this house, navigating
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: this overwhelming chemical smell, and they reach the bathroom.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And the door is locked.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Which is bizarre.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: That detail alone is so strange. They have to physically
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: unlock this door, and when they do, they find Cynthia Berenson.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: She is deceased in the shower.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: And based on the visible state of decomposition, the officers
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: can immediately tell she's been there for several days.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: But the person who left her there made a fundamental,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: glaring error in how they arranged the scene.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: A huge error. She is fully clothed.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the complex psychology of a staged
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: crime scene.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Staging is a conscious, deliberate effort by an offender to
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: alter the physical evidence at a scene to redirect the investigation.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Right. So the perpetrator in this case clearly wanted whoever
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: eventually entered that bathroom to conclude that an elderly woman
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: had suffered a tragic slip and fall accident in the shower.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: But the execution of that narrative completely collapses under the
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: weight of basic logic.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I was absolutely baffled by this when I read it.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: If you are going to go through the immense physical
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: and psychological effort of moving a body into a shower
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: to fake an accident... How do you.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Leave the victim fully dressed in their everyday clothes?
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And beyond that, why would you lock the door
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: from the inside?
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: It's like trying to counterfeit a $ 100 bill but spelling
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: America wrong.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. The broad strokes
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: are there, but the fundamental details instantly give away the fraud.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Because nobody slips in the shower while fully clothed, and
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: nobody accidentally locks themselves in a bathroom after they've suffered
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a fatal head injury. Right.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: You really have to view it through the lens of
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: disorganized panic rather than calculated logic.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Because inexperienced offenders often experience extreme cognitive overload in the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: aftermath of a murder, right?
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Their primary psychological drive is distance. They want to
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: separate themselves from the reality of what they've done.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: So they leave her clothed because manipulating dead weight, especially
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: undressing a deceased individual, is physically exhausting.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: And it's profoundly intimate in a way that forces the
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: killer to confront the finality of their actions.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: They just want to avoid it entirely.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And they lock the door, not because it makes
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: logical sense for the accident narrative, but because they are
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: subconsciously trying to seal the trauma away.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: They want to put a physical barrier between the horrific
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: reality inside that bathroom and the rest of the house.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: They create a tableau that soothes their own panic in
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: the moment. completely failing to realize how contradictory it looks
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: to an objective observer.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: And the patrol officers recognize the contradiction instantly. They step back,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: seal the perimeter, and upgrade the situation to a full
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: homicide investigation.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Because they know, based on the locked door, the clothes,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: and the overwhelming scent of bleach, that they are dealing
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: with a murder.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: But then the official medical machinery gets involved, and the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: investigation hits a wall that I honestly didn't see coming.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: This is one of the most frustrating friction points in
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: modern forensic investigation.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's this clash between the ecology of
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: a crime scene and the strict, isolated parameters of forensic pathology. Right.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: So the detectives secure the scene and Cynthia's body is
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: transported to the medical examiner for a formal autopsy.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: And the initial findings from the medical examiner lean heavily
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: toward natural causes.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Which is just wild.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting because the disconnect is staggering.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: You have a woman decomposing in a locked shower, fully clothed,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: in a house reeking of chemical oxidizers.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And the state's official medical professional looks at the body
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: and suggests her heart simply gave out naturally.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Like, how is that mechanically possible?
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Well, it happens because of the rigid scientific boundaries within
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: which a medical examiner operates.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: A forensic pathologist's primary responsibility is to Read the biological
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: text of the body on the stainless steel table.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: They are looking for mechanical failure or obvious external trauma.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Now, Cynthia Berenson had a documented history of severe
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: cardiac issues. Her physical health was in decline.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: So when the medical examiner opens the chest cavity and
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: examines the heart, they see diseased tissue.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: They see arterial blockage or myocardial damage.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And if they do not simultaneously find massive, irrefutable trauma,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: like A crushed windpipe or a bullet trajectory or deep lacerations.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Their scientific mandate compels them to attribute the death to
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the most obvious biological failure.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: The pathologist is essentially blindfolded to the context. They cannot
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: factor the locked door or the bleach into the cellular
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: state of her heart muscle.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Right. But the detectives are looking at the exact opposite.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: They aren't looking at cellular tissue.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: They are looking at the macro environment. Now you're looking
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: at the fact that an entire living room rug has
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: been physically removed from the house.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And let's talk about the missing rug for a second.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: You don't steal a rug for its resale value.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: No, you remove a rug because biological fluids have seeped
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: into the fibers and it is impossible to clean.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: The detectives also note that kitchen pots and pans are missing.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: The refrigerator has been entirely empty to food.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Cynthia's car is gone and her four beloved dogs have vanished.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: A failing heart doesn't roll up a blood-soaked rug and
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: carry it out to a car.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: It certainly doesn't empty a bank account at a Walmart ATM.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. That is the point of contention. The detectives are
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: dealing with human behavior, while the pathologist is dealing with biology.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: And this creates an immense legal hurdle. The legal system
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: relies heavily on the medical examiner to establish the manner
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: of death.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: If the official autopsy report says natural causes... The burden
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: of proof required for detectives to secure search warrants, subpoena
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: financial records, or make an arrest becomes exponentially heavier.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Right. They can't walk into a courtroom and charge a
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: suspect with homicide if the state's own doctor testifies that
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: her heart failed on its own.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: So the police are in this agonizing position. They have
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: to build a circumstantial case so dense, so undeniable, that
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: it can legally override the biological findings of the autopsy.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: They have to prove that the environment surrounding her death
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: was a product of violence.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: And to do that, they have to reverse engineer the
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: lives of the people who had access to that house.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: They have to look deeply into the shadows of the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Berenson family.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: And that psychological deep dive immediately highlights the stark contrast
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: between Cynthia's two sons.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Because Corey, the son who lives independently, is entirely cooperative. Right.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: He is horrified by the situation. He is providing information.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And his behavior aligns with a grieving family member.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: But Dylan, the son who lived in the house, is
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: completely unaccounted for. He is a ghost.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: So the detectives start canvassing the neighborhood, trying to construct
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: a behavioral timeline of the house.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And the testimonies they extract from the neighbors are deeply unsettling.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: This wasn't a quiet home with a sudden tragedy.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: No, this was a pressure cooker.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: One older neighbor from across the street provides a specific
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: horrific detail. He tells police that roughly four years prior,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: he witnessed the aftermath of a severe domestic assault.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: And the details of that are brutal.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Dylan had beaten Cynthia so violently that she emerged
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: from the house covered in blood.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: The specifics of that assault are critical for understanding the
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: perpetrator's capacity for violence.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: The neighbor recounts that Dylan physically overpowered his mother, took
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: her head, And repeatedly smashed her face into the tile floor.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: We are not talking about a heated argument or a
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: minor physical altercation here.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: No. We are talking about devastating, intimate, close-quarters violence inflicted
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: by a son upon his mother.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Now, the legal system did intervene at that time. The
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: detectives discovered that Cynthia was granted an active restraining order
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: against Dylan as a direct result of that beating.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: And this wasn't a temporary 30-day cooling-off order. It was
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: a long-term protective mandate valid all the way until the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: year 2032.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: From a strictly legal standpoint, Dillon was prohibited from stepping
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: foot on that property for a decade.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: But the existence of that restraining order introduces one of
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the most complex and tragic dynamics in law enforcement.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: The psychology of elder abuse and familial trauma.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Because from an outside perspective, it is baffling. Why would
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a mother who has secured legal protection after a brutal
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: assault allow her abuser back into her home?
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: It's hard for people to grasp. But the psychological reality
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: of domestic violence within a family unit defies standard logic.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: The lead detective actually touches on this during her interviews
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: with the family. She notes, with obvious frustration and sadness,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: that the issue is she will let him back in
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: because of the emotion.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: It's this vicious cycle.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: You have to imagine the profound cognitive dissonance Cynthia was experiencing.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: This is the man who smashed her face into the floor.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: But he is also the child she raised.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: The manipulation in these dynamics is intense. Dylan likely preyed
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: on her maternal guilt, her fear of him being homeless.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Or perhaps he made grand promises of rehabilitation. Yeah.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: It is a phenomenon known as traumatic bonding.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that. What does that actually look like?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: The abuser isolates the victim, inflicts trauma, and then occasionally
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: offers affection or displays extreme vulnerability.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: So over time, the victim feels a deep, misplaced responsibility
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: for the abuser's well-being.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The restraining order was a piece of paper, but
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: the emotional tether between mother and son was much stronger.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Consequently, neighbors confirmed to the police that despite the legal prohibition,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Dylan had quietly moved back into the house.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: And had been living there for at least a year,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: maybe two, prior to her death.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And his behavior leading up to the discovery of her
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: body was deeply erratic.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: One neighbor gave a statement that he had seen Dylan
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: just recently. recently. Dylan was taking out the trash.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Which, looking back, might have been him disposing of evidence
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: or cleaning supplies.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Very likely. And then he got into a Jeep and
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: sped away.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: The neighbor's exact phrasing was that Dylan was driving like
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: a bat out of hell and that his demeanor was
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: incredibly shady.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: The neighbor literally said, Dylan looked like a guy who
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: was about to murder somebody.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: While retrospective witness statements often carry a degree of hindsight bias,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the consistent narrative from the neighborhood paints a portrait of
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: a volatile, high-stress environment.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Right. The neighbors heard the yelling. They knew the tension
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: was escalating.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: For the detectives, this creates a very clear suspect profile.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: They have an individual with a documented history of severe
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: violence against the specific victim.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: They have a financial motive evidenced by the drained ATM accounts.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And eyewitness accounts of him fleeing the scene in a
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: state of high agitation.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: But profile and proof are two entirely different legal concepts.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: That is the excruciating part of the investigation. The police
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: are essentially holding a massive, fragmented puzzle where all the
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: pieces point to Dylan, but they lack the binding agent.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: They have an autopsy that refuses to call it a homicide.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: They have no physical DNA tying him to a weapon
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: because there is no weapon.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: And the suspect himself is entirely off the grid. So
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: they just have to wait.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: And the waiting game is incredibly taxing on both the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: family and the investigators.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. When a suspect with transient tendencies and a
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: history of utilizing burner phones decides to vanish, they can
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: be exceptionally difficult to locate.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Months drag on without a single digital ping or verified sighting.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: But eventually, the geographical mystery breaks. And it breaks in
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: a way that perfectly illustrates the chaotic mind of the suspect.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Cynthia's missing car is finally located.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: And it isn't found abandoned in a local parking lot. No.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: It is discovered months later, hundreds of miles away, sitting
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: near the international border in San Diego, California.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And the detail that genuinely stunned me was what they
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: found inside the car.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Cynthia's four dogs were in the vehicle. They were alive.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: They were physically healthy. and their identities were verified by
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: scanning their microchips.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: The logistics of this escape attempt are profoundly revealing.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: You have an individual who has allegedly just committed a
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: brutal murder, engaged in an extensive forensic cleanup using bleach,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: drained the victim's bank accounts, and decided to flee jurisdiction.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Right. A calculating, organized offender would seek maximum speed and
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: minimum visibility.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: They would dump the vehicle quickly and travel light. But
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Dylan packed up four dogs. for a cross-country drive to
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the Mexican border.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: How does that make any sense? You are trying to
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: evade a massive police dragnet, and you bring four easily
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: identifiable microchipped animals that require food, water, and constant attention.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: It is the antithesis of a stealthy escape.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Truly. It highlights the severe disorganized psychology of the suspect.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Family members later disclosed to investigators that Dylan suffered from
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: a complex matrix of mental health issues.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: They specifically cited diagnoses of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, compounded
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: by severe long-term methamphetamine addiction.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: So the decision to take the dogs was likely driven
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: by a chaotic, irrational attachment.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Or a delusion that he was going to start a new,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: idyllic life across the border with his mother's pets.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: It is an act of supreme impulsivity that completely sabotages
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: his own operational security.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Border Patrol cameras actually caught the license plates of the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: vehicle heading toward the crossing, but they never captured footage
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: of Dillon himself crossing the border.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: The prevailing theory among law enforcement was that he parked
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: the car, left the dogs, and simply walked across the
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: pedestrian checkpoints into Tijuana.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: And once a suspect crosses that border and embeds themselves
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: in a foreign country, especially someone who is accustomed to
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: living on the streets, the investigation hits a massive wall.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Extradition from Mexico is a complex, bureaucratic nightmare, assuming you
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: can even locate the individual in the first place.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: The detectives in Las Cruces know that their jurisdiction ends
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: at the borderline. Unless the suspect makes a critical error,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the case could remain cold indefinitely.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: But criminals of this specific psychological profile almost always make
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: a critical error.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Because the discipline required to maintain a covert life in
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: a new country is immense.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: It's too much form.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: After eight agonizing months, the Las Cruces police get a
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: stroke of phenomenal luck.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Dylan is arrested.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: And he isn't captured by Interpol or in a dramatic
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: border raid.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: No, he is arrested right back in Las Cruces.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Which is just wild. The gravitational pull of familiar environments
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: is incredibly strong for disorganized offenders. particularly those struggling with addiction.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: They cannot sustain the isolation required to remain a fugitive.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: They crave the networks they know.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: The people who will sell them drugs, the places where
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: they know.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: How to hustle. Right. So he drifted back across the
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: border and returned to the very city where he was
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: wanted for his mother's murder.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: But crucially, he wasn't initially arrested for the murder. No.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: He was picked up on outstanding warrants for dealing methamphetamine,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: public intoxication, and missing mandatory court appearances.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for the investigation? It
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: means the detectives suddenly have their ghost locked in a
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: concrete room.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: But the stakes of this interrogation are terrifyingly high.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: They know they likely only have one unscripted conversation with him.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: If they walk in and immediately accuse him of murder,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: he will invoke his right to counsel, the lawyers will
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: step in, and the detectives are right back to fighting
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: an autopsy report that says natural causes.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: They have to extract a confession, and they have to
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: do it through pure psychological maneuvering.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And what unfolds in that room is a textbook application
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: of advanced interrogation strategy.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: The physical environment of the interrogation room is designed to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: be isolating, but the detectives' initial approach is completely disarming. Right.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: When they first enter the room, they do not project
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: the authority of homicide detectives cornering a killer.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: They project the weary patience of officers dealing with a
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: routine drug offender.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: They want to establish a baseline of compliance and get
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: him talking before his defenses go up.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: And Dylan's opening performance is incredibly chilling when you know
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: what he has done.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: He is completely casual.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: He is chipper. He greets them with a flippant, what's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: up guys, how are ya?
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: He is operating under the assumption that they only know
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: about his meth charges and his missed court dates.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: So the detectives start asking him general questions about his
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: life and casually bring up his mother.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: They are essentially giving him enough rope to hang himself.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: By asking open-ended questions without revealing what they know, they
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: allow him to construct a verifiable lie.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: And he builds this entire elaborate fiction.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: He tells them he hasn't seen his mother since September
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: or October, weeks before her body was found.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: He spends a narrative about his struggles with addiction, claiming
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: that she had given him chances to live there, but
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: it hadn't worked out, so he was respectfully staying away.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: He's trying to build a wall of plausible deniability. establishing
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: that he wasn't even in the same physical orbit as
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the house during November.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: But the detectives have the ATM footage.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: They have the neighbor's testimony.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: They have the timeline of the missing car.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: So they let him commit fully to the lie that
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: he wasn't there. And once he is locked into that narrative,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: they systematically dismantle it.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: They drop the first major psychological weight onto him.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: They bluntly inform him that Cynthia is deceased.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: And his reaction is pure theater.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: He feigns this aggressive... Absolute shock. He says, what do
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: you mean? Your mom's deceased. You're bullshitting. How the hell
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: am I just hearing about this now?
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: He is desperately trying to play the role of the estranged,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: heartbroken son receiving devastating news.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And this is the pivot point in the interrogation. The
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: detectives do not accept his performance.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: They employ a technique where they introduce undeniable facts that
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: destroy his timeline.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: They lean in and say, we know you've been on
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the run for eight months. We know you are telling
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: us untruths.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: They challenge his core alibi, his claim that he wasn't
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: at the house, without directly saying the word murder.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: They create an intense pressure cooker where Dylan realizes his
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: initial lie has completely collapsed.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: He realizes the cops know he was at the house
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: in November.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: So his brain has to scramble to explain why he
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: was there, why he fled, and why he lied about it.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And he offers them a brand new story.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: He admits that he did go to the house in November.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: But he claims that when he walked in, he found
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: her already dead.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: He has these incredibly grotesque details to make his story
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: sound authentic.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: He tells the detectives she was already puffy and decomposing
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: in the shower.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: And then he offers a justification for his bizarre behavior afterward.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Which is a classic behavioral phenomenon known as an incremental confession.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: I want to dig into that because it's fascinating. What
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: is the internal logic of an incremental confession?
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Well, when a guilty suspect realizes the physical evidence against
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: them is too overwhelming to maintain total innocence, they will
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: often concede a portion of the truth to protect themselves
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: from the most severe consequence. Right.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Dylan realizes he cannot deny being at the house.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: So he admits to lesser secondary crimes to create a
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: plausible alternative explanation for his behavior.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: He admits to tampering with a crime scene. He admits
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: to wiping down counters to hide his fingerprints.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: He admits to fleeing the jurisdiction.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: He offers up all of these illegal acts as a shield,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: hoping the detectives will conclude, okay, he is a cowardly
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: drug addict who panicked and ran from a tragedy, but
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: he isn't a murderer.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: It is a massive gamble.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: He is hoping they buy the narrative. of panic.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: But the detectives hold all the cards. They know his
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: story about finding her dead is mathematically impossible.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: They know the bathroom door was locked from the inside.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: They know someone aggressively scrubbed the house with bleach.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: They know the bank accounts were physically drained before the
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: body was found.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: An innocent person who stumbles upon their dead mother does
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: not lock her in a shower, bleach the floors, steal
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: her money, and drive her dogs to Mexico.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: The detectives have him completely boxed in, and they apply
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: the final crushing pressure.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: The lead detective looks at him and says, now is
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the time to repent or confess. It can only get
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: better for you, but I need the truth.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: And the psychological weight finally breaks him. The incremental lies collapse,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: and Dylan offers a full confession to the murder.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: However, the manipulation does not stop just because he admits
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: to the act.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: No, even in his confession, he attempts to exert control
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: over the narrative of why he did it.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: He tries to frame this brutal, intimate violence as an
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: act of profound mercy.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: The story he spins here is staggering in its audacity.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: He claims that the motive was entirely altruistic. According to Dylan,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: his mother had recently been involved in a severe financial crisis.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: He alleges she got scammed out of $ 100, 000 from his
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: stepfather's pension.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Because of this, Dylan claims Cynthia was facing imminent prison
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: time and was living in constant, agonizing physical pain.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: So in his telling, he made the heartbreaking decision to
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: end her suffering.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: He says he killed her so she wouldn't have to
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: face jail and wouldn't have to hurt anymore.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: It is a profound example of narrative reframing.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: He is desperately trying to cast himself not as a
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: violent abuser who murdered for financial gain, but as a
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: tragic Shakespearean figure.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: A son who took on an unbearable moral burden out
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: of love.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: He tells the detectives, I loved her. I didn't do
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: it to get the house. I couldn't handle seeing her
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: in pain anymore.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: He's attempting to elicit empathy from the very people locking
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: him up, trying to soften the edges of a horrific reality.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: But we have to push back incredibly hard on this
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: mercy narrative because the physical mechanics of the murder absolutely
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: destroy his defense.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: You cannot claim you're ending someone's life out of deep,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: selfless compassion while simultaneously detailing the horrific calculating method you
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: used to extinguish that life.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: He admits that he walked into her bedroom, gave her
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: a long hug, and then proceeded to strangle and smother her.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: But he didn't just use his bare hands or a
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: soft pillow.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: No, he specifically utilized a heavy-duty black plastic trash bag.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: The introduction of the plastic trash bag is the detail
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: where the illusion of a spontaneous mercy killing completely disintegrates.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Revealing cold-blooded premeditation and forensic awareness.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And he admits to the reasoning himself.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: He tells the detectives he put the trash bag over
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: her head specifically so he wouldn't leave physical handprints or
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: bruises on her neck.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: That is not the thought process of a son overcome
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: with grief, acting on an emotional impulse to save his
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: mother from pain.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: That is the thought process of a predator actively considering
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: forensic evidence collection while in the physical act of suffocating
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: another human being.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, the reality of the physical struggle completely belies any
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: notion of a mutually understood release from suffering.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: If this were a peaceful mercy killing, there would be
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: a somber acceptance.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: But Dylan admits that when he attacked her, Cynthia fought
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: back violently.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: She was terrified. She was physically struggling for her life,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: screaming out, help me, Jesus.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: It was an active, desperate fight for survival.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And the turning point in his own confession is the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: most chilling detail of the entire deep dive.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Dylan admits that during the struggle, as she was fighting
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: back and screaming, he had a moment of clarity.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: He realized that if he stopped the attack and let
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: her live, she would immediately call the police and he
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: would be arrested and charged with attempted murder.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: So in his own unvarnished words, his internal thought process was,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: fuck it, just do it.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: That specific phrase, fuck it, just do it, is the
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: ultimate unmasking of his psychology.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: That is not the language of empathy or mercy. That
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: is the language of pure, unadulterated self-preservation.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: He made the conscious decision to complete the act of
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: murder entirely to avoid the legal consequences of his initial assault.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: The empathy he tried so desperately to project at the
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: beginning of the confession is revealed to be a fragile
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: mask covering absolute narcissism and self-interest.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: It is genuinely nauseating to hear someone rationalize taking a
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: life to save themselves a court date.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: And once the detectives secure this full, uncensored confession, the
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: final puzzle pieces of his bizarre post-murder behavior fall into place.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: We finally learn the mechanics of his failed escape to
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Mexico and why he ultimately returned to Las Cruces.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: He reveals that his escape plan was highly dependent on
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: a fragile network of enablers.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: He explains that his girlfriend, Bianca, was supposed to act
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: as his primary accomplice.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: The logistical plan was for her to assist him in
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: navigating the border crossing, help him sell Cynthia's car for
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: untraceable cash, and then they would both start a new
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: clandestine life deep inside Mexico.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: But the plan implodes immediately.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Bianca gets arrested at the border for unrelated issues, completely
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: foiling the grand escape.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: And he mentions another friend, a guy named Ronnie, who
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: knew Dylan had been staying at Cynthia's house. Dylan viewed
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Ronnie as his only real tether to the reality of
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: what he left behind.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Once Bianca was incarcerated and his rudimentary support system collapsed,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Dylan didn't possess the survival skills or the language proficiency,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: or the financial resources to remain a fugitive in a
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: foreign country.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: The isolation forced him back to the familiar chaos of
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: his hometown, leading directly to his apprehension on the drug warrants.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: And even in the immediate aftermath of confessing to all
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: of this, the murder, the staging, the theft, the flight,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Dylan's narcissism dictates his final interaction with the detectives.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: He doesn't express remorse for his mother.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Instead, he attempts to negotiate the terms of his incarceration.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: He makes a formal request to the detectives that he
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: be placed in a federal penitentiary rather than a state
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: prison facility.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: The audacity of that request is just staggering.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: You have a man who is just calmly detailed how
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: he suffocated his mother with a trash bag to avoid
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: an attempted murder charge, and his immediate follow-up concern is
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the quality of his prison accommodations.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: He tells the detectives that he loves to read and
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: wants to go to a federal facility because they offer
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: better educational programs and he wants to earn degrees.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: He literally says he is willing to do the time,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: but he just doesn't want to do state time.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: It perfectly encapsulates the psychological profile we have been unpacking
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: for the last hour.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Every single action, from the brutal assault years prior to
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the financial exploitation, the murder, the botched crime scene staging,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: the incremental lies in the interrogation room, and finally this
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: bizarre request.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: It's entirely centered on his own comfort, his own narrative,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: and his own survival.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: At the complete expense of every other human being around him,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: including the woman who gave him life.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Thankfully, the justice system is not in the business of
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: accommodating the reading preferences of convicted murderers.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Once the confession was secured, the detectives immediately contacted Corey,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: the cooperative brother who had endured months of agonizing uncertainty.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: The legal machinery moved forward, and in April 2023, a
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: jury found 29-year-old Dylan Alexander Waller guilty of first-degree murder
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: and tampering with evidence.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: In early 2025, the judge handed down his sentence. Life
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: behind bars in the New Mexico state prison.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: State prison, which is exactly where he begged not to go.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: The legal resolution provides a sense of closure, but it
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: is a profoundly heavy resolution.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: The court case is over. The perpetrator is isolated from society.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: But the emotional crater left behind in that family and
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: that specific community is a permanent fixture.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly why we cannot end this deep dive.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: by focusing on the man who caused the destruction. We
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: have to recenter the narrative on the person who was
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: actually lost in this tragedy.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Cynthia Berenson was so much more than the forensic details
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: of a crime scene or a body found in a
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: locked bathroom.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Her family's words and her obituary capture the reality of
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: who she was. They wrote, She was a woman who
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: built deep friendships. She was a woman who shared spare
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: keys with fellow dog lovers.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: She was a mother who tragically kept trying to offer
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: grace and shelter to a son who only knew how
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: to exploit it.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: The profound tension between her enduring generosity and his relentless
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: exploitation is the dark, tragic core of this entire investigation.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: It truly is.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: And as we wrap up the steep dive, it leaves
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: you with a lingering, terrifying question to mull over. When
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: we look at this case, we have to look at
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the masks that people are capable of wearing.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Dylan Waller lived under his mother's roof. He smiled at
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: the neighbors while he took out the trash.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: He sat calmly in an interrogation room and attempted to
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: reframe a brutal, calculated murder as an act of selfless,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: loving mercy.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: It forces you to ask yourself, how well can we
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: ever truly know the capacities of the people closest to us?
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: And what happens when the very empathy and forgiveness we
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: so freely offer them becomes the exact weapon they use
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: to destroy us?
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: When you arrive at a loved one's house for a
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: simple wellness check, you are never just opening a door.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: You are opening a life. And sometimes what is waiting
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: inside is a reality we are completely unprepared to face.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: This deep dive was custom tailored for you.