Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / 10-Year-Old's Remains Found After She Vanished From Small Community

Transcript

10-Year-Old's Remains Found After She Vanished From Small Community · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine for a second that you decide to go to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a medical clinic.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: You know, you're looking to get a cosmetic procedure done.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Nothing crazy.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Right. Maybe some Botox or something like that.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So you go in. You sit in this very
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: sterile examination room. And the man who walks in to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: see you is wearing this crisp white lab coat.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Very standard, yeah.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Very standard. The walls are completely lined with framed medical degrees.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: It all looks totally legitimate. So he does the procedure. Okay.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: But something goes wrong. Like, horribly wrong.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, no.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your face ends up severely bruised. I mean, it
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: is visibly sunken.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Wow, that is terrifying.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: It's awful. So, naturally, you go back to this medical professional.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: You ask him for help to fix it.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Obviously, yeah.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And his official prescribed advice, the medical solution he gives you,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is for you to go home, grab your household vacuum cleaner,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and suction the hose directly to the skin of your face.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Wait, are you serious? A literal vacuum cleaner?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: A literal hoover. He tells you the pulling of the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: vacuum will, quote, create circulation.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, that sounds like a dark comedy sketch.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: The sheer absurdity of a medical professional prescribing a household
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: appliance for reconstructive recovery. I mean, that should trigger every
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: single alarm bell in the human brain.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Totally. I mean, you would run out of that office.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I would absolutely run out of that office.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Instantly.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: But the terrifying reality we are unpacking for you today
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: is that the victim in this scenario, he didn't run.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: And the reason he didn't run is because the man
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: giving the advice was wearing that white coat.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Right. It's the context.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And that detail, that single piece of costuming, really
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: brings us to the core of what we are examining
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: in today's Deep Dive.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a really intense stack of source material
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: on the desk today.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: We really do. We're looking at excerpts from a true
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: crime broadcast called Crime Watch Daily.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: And our mission today is to explore the absolute extremes
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: of deception.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Right. The spectrum of it.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. We're looking at three distinct, really harrowing stories. There
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: are two tragic disappearances and then this bizarre medical fraud
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: you just mentioned.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: And on the surface, they seem completely different.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: They do. But what links them is the architecture of
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: a lie. You know, deception isn't just a spoken falsehood. Right.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: It's not just saying something untrue.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It is an immersive environment that is built by
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: a bad actor. Sometimes that environment is built using the
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: legal system. Sometimes it uses the inherent trust of a
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: small town. And sometimes it uses our own biological programming
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: against us.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So we are really looking at how bad actors manipulate reality,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: how they hide in plain sight and how they weaponize
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: our own blind spots.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: That's exactly it.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this. We are starting with the most
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: overt form of manipulation in our sources today, the known threat.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I want to take you to the town of Belton, Missouri,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to look at a tragedy that spans a full decade.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: It's a really heartbreaking timeline.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: It is. It involves two young women whose lives were
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: separated by a lot of time, but inextricably linked by
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: one man.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are looking at the disappearances of Kara Kopetsky
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: and Jessica Rennions.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Kara was just 17 years old when she vanished.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: So young. And.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: She had been missing for 10 excruciating years. Jessica was
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: 21 when she disappeared. And at the time of this
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: broadcast source, she'd been missing for seven months.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: And the name that connects them, the name that just
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: haunts both of these families, is Kyler Yust. Right.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And when you read the source material detailing Cario's timeline,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the red flags aren't just waving, right? They are violently
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: on fire.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: They really are. I mean, you look at the day
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: she disappeared. She was 17. It was a totally normal
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: school day.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: But security cameras caught her leaving the school building early.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Right. And she actually had a job interview scheduled that afternoon.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Which is a big deal for a 17-year-old.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. But she skipped it. She skipped this important interview
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: just to go hang out with Kyler, who was her on-again,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: off-again boyfriend.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: But we really have to look at the psychological context
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: of that meeting. Because just days before Kara vanished... she
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: had actually filed a formal protection order against him.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that context is everything.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I cannot stress this enough to you listening. This was
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: not just some normal teenage drama. The source notes indicate
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: he had allegedly abducted her from her workplace.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Right, from her actual job.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And he threatened to slit her throat.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: It's horrific.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I just have to pause here because, frankly, I am
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: struggling to understand the psychology of this.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: It's very complex.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: If a man abducts you and threatens to murder you
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: with a knife... why do you skip a job interview
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: to go meet him just a few days later? I mean,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: that defies basic self-preservation.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: It really does. To someone on the outside looking in,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: it seems entirely illogical. You know, you just think, just
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: run away.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: But you have to look at the mechanisms of a
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: deeply abusive relationship because abusers, they don't start with a
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: knife to the throat.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: No, they don't.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: They start with isolation. They start with Intermittent reinforcement and
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: just intense psychological manipulation.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: So it's a gradual breakdown.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Very gradual. By the time the violence escalates to that
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: lethal level, the victim's perception of reality is severely warped.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: The abuser oscillates, you know, bouncing back and forth between
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: terrifying threats and this intense apologetic affection.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Right. The I'm so sorry I'll never do it again phase.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And this creates what we call a trauma bond.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: It is a very powerful biological tether.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So when Kara left school to see him.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: She wasn't walking toward a man she thought was going
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: to kill her. She was likely walking toward the version
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: of him that had convinced her he was truly sorry.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Or maybe the version of him she felt she could
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: appease and manage.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Wow. That makes the reality of what happened so much darker.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Because she goes to meet him and she is never
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: seen again.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Never seen again.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And then the investigation reveals a detail that just stops
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: you cold. Kyler allegedly confessed.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he couldn't keep quiet about it.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: He told a friend of his, a woman named Caitlin Ferris,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: that Kara had tried to end the relationship. He admitted
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: to this friend that he, quote unquote, freaked out. Things
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: got physical. And the next thing he knew, she wasn't breathing.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, let's just stack this up. You have a
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: documented history of violence.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: You have a workplace abduction. You have a legal threat
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: with a knife. You have a legal protection order. And
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: you have a literal spoken confession to a friend that
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: the victim was no longer breathing.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Which brings me to the absolute maddening paralysis of the
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: justice system in this case.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: It is so frustrating.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Because for 10 years, nothing happens. The police do not
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: arrest him for her murder. Lieutenant Brad Swanson of the
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Belton Police Department states in the material that they couldn't
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: charge him because all they had was, in his words,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Because they didn't have her physical body.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: It is the legal doctrine of corpus delicti. It literally
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: means the body of the crime.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, bring that down for us.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: It's the principle that a crime must be proved to
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: have actually occurred before a person can be convicted of
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: committing it.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: I understand the theory behind that, you know, protecting the innocent.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: But I really want to challenge how it is applied
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: here because it feels like a catastrophic failure of the system.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: It's a massive failure.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Let's look at this through an analogy. Think of a
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: murder prosecution like building an architectural archway out of stone. OK,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I like this. The prosecution gathers all these heavy, dense
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: blocks of circumstantial evidence. So the history of abuse, that
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: is a block.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: The skip school day is a block. The confession to
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the friend. I mean, that is a massive block.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Huge one.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: So they stack them all up and the shape of
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the guilt is perfectly obvious. Anyone can see it's an archway.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: But because they are missing the keystone, the physical body
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: at the very top of the arch, the police assume
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the entire structure will just immediately collapse in a courtroom
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: under the gravity of a defense attorney's argument.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: That is a very precise way to look at it.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: And it's tragic because the police aren't paralyzed by a
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: lack of belief in his guilt. They know he did it.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: They are paralyzed by the mechanics of double jeopardy.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Walk me through that mechanism, because I'm sitting here thinking,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: why not just bring the blocks to the courtroom and
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: let the jury see the archway, even without the keystone? Yeah. Like,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: why not take the swing and try?
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Because in the American legal system, the state gets one
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: singular attempt to try you for a crime. Just one.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: If the prosecutor brings Kyler Yus to trial, relying entirely
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: on his statement to a friend and his history of abuse,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: a skilled defense attorney is going to attack that missing
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: keystone violently.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Because they don't have the body.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Right. The defense doesn't have to prove Kyler is innocent.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: They only have to inject a shadow of reasonable doubt.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Just a shadow.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They will look at the jury and say, where
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: is Kara? She was a teenager. Teenagers run away all
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: the time. Maybe she left the state. Maybe a stranger
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: took her. You cannot definitively prove the manner of her death.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Because you cannot even prove she is physically dead.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: And if the jury buys that reasonable doubt, and they
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: acquit him.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: If he is acquitted, the door slams shut forever.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Forever.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Forever. Even if the police find Kara's body the very
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: next morning, perfectly preserved, with direct forensic evidence tying Kyler
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: to the murder, he cannot be tried again.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Because double jeopardy attaches.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The police and the prosecution know this. So they
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: play this horrific, agonizing waiting game.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: They choose to wait for the ironclad proof of the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: body rather than risk him walking free permanently on a technicality.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: But by choosing to wait, they made a different, equally
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: terrifying choice. I mean, they allowed a known violent predator
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to remain completely free in their community for a full decade.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: And while the legal system is playing this cautious game
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: of chess, the perpetrator is out there learning a very specific,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: dangerous lesson.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: He learns that he is untouchable.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Untouchable. When you look at Kyler's criminal history that's outlined
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: in the source, it is a textbook study in violent
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: escalation and perceived impunity.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: It really is. The text notes that in 2011, and
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: this is directly in the middle of that 10-year gap
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: between Kara and Jessica Kyler, choked a pregnant girlfriend.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: She had to file a restraining order accusing him of
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: trying to choke her to death. And during this period,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: he also killed her three cats.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: The detail about the cats is just pure psychological terrorism.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: We hear about animal abuse in true crime all the time.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: But in the context of an abusive relationship, it has
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: a very specific function, doesn't it?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Killing a partner's pets is an assertion of
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: omnipotent control.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It's a message.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: It is a proxy for murder. The abuser is demonstrating
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: their capacity for lethal violence on something the victim deeply loves.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Without crossing the legal threshold that usually triggers massive police intervention.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Because the police aren't going to launch a massive homicide
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: investigation over a pet.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Right. It sends a very clear, terrifying message to the partner.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I can destroy what you care about. I hold the
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: power of life and death. And there's absolutely nothing you
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: can do to stop me.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: It's devastating.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And his arrogance, it just only goes from there. In 2013,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: he goes to court on drug trafficking charges.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Unrelated to the violence, yeah. Right.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: He ends up sentenced to nearly four years in prison
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: for the drugs. But. His demeanor in the courtroom that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: really chills me to the bone.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: It's sickening.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: The judge gives him the floor, essentially asking if he
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: has anything to say before the sentencing comes down. And
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Kyler Yest looks out and says, eat a steak for me.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Eat a steak for me. I mean, that is the
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: sociopathic manifestation of a man who feels he has beaten
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: the system on the highest possible stakes. He knows he
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: is the prime suspect in a suspected murder and the
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: system couldn't touch him for it. So a drug trafficking charge,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: it's a total joke to him.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: There is zero remorse, zero deference to the authority of
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the court.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: None. He has internalized the legal requirement of corpus delicti,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: that missing body we talked about, as his own personal
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: impenetrable shield.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Right. He believes he has mastered the architecture of deception.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly what makes the disappearance of Jessica Rinyans
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: feel so brutally, agonizingly preventable.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Because 10 years pass since Karan. A television segment airs
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: detailing Kara's unsolved case.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Bringing it all back up.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: And literally hours after that broadcast airs, Jessica Rinyans attends
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: a house party in the area.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And she leaves that party with Kyler Yest.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: The very next day, her car, a black Chevy Equinox,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: is found burning.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Just smoldering.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: It was set on fire and left there. and he
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: parked it in the driveway of his own grandfather's house.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: That detail right there is critical. You know, he didn't
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: sink the car in a lake somewhere. He didn't hide
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: it in a remote forest. He parked it at a
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: family property and just set it on fire. It is
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: an act of supreme brazen arrogance.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: He is practically daring the authorities to act.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: He is operating under the assumption that they are just
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: as powerless as they were 10 years prior.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Now, they do arrest him this time, but the charge
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: is really telling. His bond is set at $ 50, 000 cash.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: But not for murder.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: No, not for kidnapping, not for murder. The bond is for, quote,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: knowingly burning the vehicle. The keystone is still missing. They
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: still don't have a body.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Until the deception finally unravels.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Because the truth always leaves a trail.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Always. And in this case, the trail was uncovered by
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: a man who was just out hunting for mushrooms in
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: a wooded area.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Just a random citizen.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He caught a reflection out of the corner of
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: his eye. He walked over to investigate it, and he
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: found a human skull.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And when law enforcement secured the grid, they actually found
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: a second set of remains nearby.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: The source notes Jessica was positively identified relatively quickly by
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the authorities. But the second set of bones was older.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Right, much older.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: They had been exposed to the elements for a decade.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: The authorities highly suspected they belonged to Kara. The keystone
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: to the archway was finally found.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Which forces us to look at the devastating human element
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: left in the wake of this long deception.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Mothers.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. Rhonda Beckford, who is Kara's mother, and Jamie Runyon's,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Jessica's mother. The source material highlights the bond between these
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: two women, and it is just profound.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It really is. Jamie said she had never even heard
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the name Kyler Yust until her daughter went missing.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Which is wild to think about.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she googled his name, and the very first result
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: was Kara's face.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: It's an absolute gut punch.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Rhonda reached out to Jamie immediately. As Rhonda stated, after
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: 10 years of this nightmare, they were, quote, experts when
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: it comes to Kyler.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: They call themselves family now. They were forged in this
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: unimaginable trauma.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And there is a specific moment at the memorial site
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: that deeply challenges how we, as a society, process these
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: kinds of tragedies.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: It's a really important moment to highlight.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: The news anchor asks the mothers if finding the remains
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: finally brings them closure.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: And they completely reject the word.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: It really stopped me in my tracks when I read that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Rhonda says, it's not really closure. I will never have that.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: We like the word resolution because Kara and Jessica are
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: still gone. So we won't have closure until we're all
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: reunited again on the other side.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: We really need to unpack why society is so obsessed
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: with the word closure and why these mothers rightfully detest it.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Please do. Because people use it all the time.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: They do. Closure is a narrative convenience. You know, it
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: implies a door swinging shut.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Like the end of a movie?
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It suggests that the emotional wound has been completely sutured,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: the book has reached its final chapter, and everyone can
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: just move on.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: But life doesn't work like that.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. And that concept isn't actually for the
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: grieving families. It is for the observers.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: It is for the community and the media. We want
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: families to find closure so that our own anxiety about
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the chaotic, violent nature of the world is soothed.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: We want them to say they are okay so that
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: we can feel okay.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We want the neat, tidy ending. But Rhonda and
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Jamie are demanding a distinction here. Resolution is analytical. It
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: means the unknown variables of the equation have been solved. Right.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: The mystery of where their daughters are is resolved. The
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: legal mechanism to hold Kyler accountable is resolved. But the grief,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: the empty chair at the dinner table.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: That is permanent.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: That is permanent. They are demanding the resolution of justice,
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: what they call getting the dirt bag put away for
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: the rest of his life. while explicitly denying us the
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: comfort of their closure.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: It is an incredibly powerful boundary to set.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And it perfectly encapsulates the first form of deception we
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: are exploring today. You know, Kyler Yust was a known threat.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: He stood in the daylight.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: He did. He used the rigidity of the legal system,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: the required burden of proof, to camouflage his violence. He
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: literally hid behind the law.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: But what happens when a predator doesn't need a legal
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: technicality to hide?
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Well, that is the exact question. You are asking what
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: happens when the deception relies on the blind spots of
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a tight-knit community.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: And that means we are shifting our focus to an
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: invisible predator, a bad actor who managed to operate completely
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: unnoticed in a town of just 1,500 people.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: It's terrifying to think about.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: We are heading to McCleary, Washington, to examine the devastating
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: disappearance of 10-year-old Lindsey Baum.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Let's look at the environment of McCleary first. It's a small,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: quiet town situated west of Olympia.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: A very classic small town.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Right. And Lindsay's mother, Melissa, she purposefully relocated her family
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: there from Tennessee. The source material notes she was going
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: through a divorce and she was trying to leave that
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: trauma behind. She sought out the quintessential American small town experience.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: She wanted peace.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: She wanted quiet. She wanted an environment where her children
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: could walk down the street without fear.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And Lindsay, she was a child with just an immense
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: amount of life force.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: She really was.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: The text describes her vividly. She was spunky. She was bright.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: She was the kind of kid who would slam a
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: door twice just for the dramatic effect of it.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: I love that detail.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Me too. Her mother joked that she came out of
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the womb talking. She was 10 years old, just weeks
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: away from her 11th birthday.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: And the timeline of the night she vanished is agonizingly tight.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: It leaves almost zero room for error.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Walk us through that timeline.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, so it was a Friday night, June 26th. Lindsay
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: and her older brother Josh had walked to a friend's house,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Michaela's house.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: And this is just a few blocks away from their
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: own home, right?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very close. So while they're hanging out, a family
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: friend tells Josh he needs to head home because he
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: and Lindsay had gotten into an argument over a bicycle.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Standard sibling stuff.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So Josh leaves. He walks the few blocks back.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: The timeline shows he was through his front door just
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: five minutes later.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, so then shortly after that, right around 9.30 p.m.,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Lindsay leaves Michaela's house.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: She is making the exact same walk her brother just
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: safely made.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: We are talking about a distance of maybe seven to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: eight blocks. At a normal walking pace for a 10-year-old,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: it is a 10-minute journey.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Tops.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Tops. And somewhere in that precise 10-minute window, on a
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: route spanning just a few residential blocks, she completely vanishes.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: She left her cell phone at home. She had no money.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: There was absolutely no indication of a runaway scenario.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: She was just gone.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Just gone.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: When I was reviewing this case, I kept getting stuck
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: on the sociology of the small town. People always say,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: how does someone vanish in a town where everyone knows everyone?
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: It's the most common question in these cases.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: But I want to propose a different way of looking
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: at it. People often treat a small town like a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: biological immune system.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting. Walk me through the mechanics of that analogy.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Think about it. The residents assume that the familiar faces...
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the neighbors, the shop owners, the teachers, are the white
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: blood cells.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Right, the defenders.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: The assumption is that this social familiarity acts as a
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: defense mechanism. So if a foreign pathogen enters the system,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: like a stranger, a drifter, an unknown vehicle, the white
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: blood cells will instantly recognize it as a threat and
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: sound the alarm.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Because an outsider sticks out like a sore thumb in
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: a town of 1,500 people. Exactly.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: So the town feels fundamentally safe.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: But what if the threat isn't a foreign pathogen?
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Then it's an autoimmune response. Wow. If the predator is
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: already a resident, if they live inside the town, they
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: are wearing the town's own proteins. The immune system ignores
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: them completely.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: That is chilling.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: In fact, the inherent trust of the small town actually
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: works against the victim. It provides the perfect camouflage.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Because the residents aren't looking for danger from the guy
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: who owns the local shop or the guy who volunteers
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: in the community.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Right. The familiarity lulls the entire town into a fatal
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: blind spot.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: That is a phenomenal way to understand the paralysis of
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: this specific investigation, because the search effort was monumental.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: It was massive.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: The sheriff's department, the state police, the SBI, search and
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: rescue dogs, divers, they just flooded this town of 1,500 people.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: 240 searchers hit the ground. They went door to door,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: contacting every single residence along her walking route.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And out of that massive dragnet in a tiny town,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: they developed a staggering 40 persons of interest.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Forty people.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Forty people who required a closer look. That's a huge
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: percentage of a small town.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: But before we get to those suspects, we have to
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: look at the precursors to the disappearance.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: The warning signs.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Yes. The source material outlines several chilling incidents leading up
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: to the disappearance that highlight the tension between small town
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: innocence and the reality of a predator testing the waters.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Let's start with the movie. This part gave me goosebumps.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Less than two weeks before she disappears, Lindsay and her mom, Melissa,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: sit down and watch the movie Taken.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: And this is a film explicitly about human trafficking and abduction.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And Lindsay, being 10, she looks at her mom and asks,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: does stuff like that really happen?
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: It forces Melissa into the impossible balancing act of parenting.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Playboy.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: You know, you want to preserve the illusion of this safe,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: small town, but you have a biological imperative to prepare
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: your child for danger.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: So what does she say?
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Melissa uses it as a teaching moment. She tells Lindsay, yes,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: that's why I insist on knowing where you're at at
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: all times, because there are horrible people in this world.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: But those horrible people were already breaching the perimeter. The
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: week prior to her vanishing, the source notes two distinct
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: stalking incidents.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Two of them.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Lindsay and a friend were in a park bathroom. A
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: man came in on them before fleeing on a bicycle.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Then there was another incident where the girls felt they
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: were being actively followed by a man driving a white car.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: And what's crazy is the police actually found surveillance footage
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: from a local gas station showing a white car matching
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: that exact description operating near the time she vanished.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: But the most haunting detail of all is what happens
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the very night before she disappears. Lindsay goes to her
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: mother and says, Mom, I just have this really bad
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: feeling that something bad's going to happen.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: And Melissa asks her what she means.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: And Lindsay just replies, I don't know, I just have
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: a feeling.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I really want to focus on that bad feeling. We
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: so often dismiss a child's intuition as just an overactive
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: imagination or maybe just anxiety.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Sure, kids get scared.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: But from a psychological and evolutionary standpoint, human beings are
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: incredibly adept at subconsciously processing micro signals of danger.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: In our environment. even if we can't explain it.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The conscious brain might not have the vocabulary to
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: articulate the threat, but the amygdala is sounding the alarm.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Perhaps Lindsay saw that white car lingering a block away.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Or maybe she noticed a neighbor watching her daily routine
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: a little too closely. Right.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Her brain recognized the pattern of a predator, and it
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: manifested as a generalized sense of dread.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Her internal alarm system was working perfectly.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: But the environment swallowed her anyway. And this brings us
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to the act of deception during the investigation.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: This is where it gets really complicated.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Because the police are working through these 40 persons of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: interest and they discover two prominent men in the community
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: who point blank lied to the FBI about their whereabouts.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: And this is where the psychology of a major investigation
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: becomes incredibly murky.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the facts. The first man is unnamed
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: in the source material. He was staying in a house
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: near Maple Street.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: And for context for you listening, Maple Street is exactly
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: where Lindsay was last seen walking.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Right. So this man's initial statement to the police was absolute.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: He said he never left his house that night. He
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: didn't see anything. He didn't know Lindsay.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: He completely removed himself from the equation.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: But the investigation, utilizing witnesses and other evidence, proved that
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: was a complete fabrication. He lied about his actions and
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: he lied about his exact location at 9.30 p.m., the
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: very minute Lindsay vanished.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: The second man's lie is even more jarring, frankly, because
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: of his status in the town.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Tim Hartman?
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Yes. He is the owner of a local jewelry store,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: which happens to be located on the street where Lindsay
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: was last seen. He is also a volunteer EMT.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: And on the very night she went missing, Hartman was
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the one who contacted Lindsay's mother and actually drove her
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: around in his car to search for her.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: He placed himself right in the epicenter of the family's trauma,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: playing the role of the helpful, concerned neighbor.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: But when the police formally interview him to establish his alibi,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: he categorically denies being in McCleary during the evening hours
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: when she disappeared.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: He tells investigators he was out of the area doing
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: some training and then handled an ambulance call out later.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: But surveillance footage is impartial.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: It never lies.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Video retrieved from a store in McCleary shows Tim Hartman
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: making a purchase on the day she disappeared. And he
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: is seen on camera leaving the store, heading in the
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: direction of Maple Street.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: He was physically in town at the exact time she vanished?
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: And when confronted with the video, he claimed it was
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: an unintentional memory lapse. He said he simply thought he
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: got back later than the video showed.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: OK, I have to push back on the nature of
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: these lies.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Please do.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Because I struggle to accept the memory lapse defense. If
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: you are innocent and a child vanishes down the street
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: from you and the FBI comes knocking on your door,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: why on earth would you lie about where you were?
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Doesn't the lie inherently point to guilt?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: It definitely points to deception. But deception in a high
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: stakes environment doesn't always equal murder.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: We have to separate the psychological possibilities here. The first
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: possibility is exactly what you are implying. The lie of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: a guilty predator. Right. If one of these men abducted Lindsay,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: their lies are cold, calculated self-preservation. They are attempting to
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: artificially distance themselves from the geography and the timeline of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the crime.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Creating a false reality where they couldn't possibly have done it.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Precisely. But there is a second psychological mechanism at play
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: in these massive dragnets.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: It is the raw, irrational panic of an innocent person
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: caught in the fishbowl.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Ah, the fishbowl effect.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Imagine living in a town of 1,500 people. Suddenly, the
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: eye of Sauron, the FBI, the state police, the local sheriff,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the national media turns a burning gaze directly onto your
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: quiet street.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: The pressure would be immense.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: It is suffocating. Now- Imagine you were completely innocent of
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: the kidnapping, but you were doing something else that night
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: that you desperately want to hide.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Like what?
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe you were having an affair. Maybe you were purchasing
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: illegal drugs. Or maybe you simply happened to be walking
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: down Maple Street at exactly 9.30 p.m. You didn't see anything,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: but you possessed the cognitive awareness to realize that admitting
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you were there makes you the prime suspect in a
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: horrific crime.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: So the lizard brain just takes over.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The survival instinct kicks in, but it misfires. The
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: person thinks, If I just say I was at home
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: watching TV, they will leave me alone.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: They lie to avoid the scrutiny.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: But it is a catastrophic miscalculation. Because the lie derails
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the investigation, wastes hundreds of hours of police resources, and
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: virtually guarantees that you will remain a person of interest forever.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: But the police can't just ignore the lie. They have
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: to treat it as evidence of guilt until proven otherwise.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: And that ambiguity is what destroys the community. The inability
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: to distinguish between a lie that masks a murder and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: a lie that masks a profound embarrassment takes a devastating
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: psychological and physiological toll on everyone involved.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: The physical toll is actually documented in the source material,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: and it is shocking.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Under Sheriff Rick Scott, who is leading the search efforts.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: stated that during the early days of the investigation, he
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: lost 40 pounds from the sheer stress of it.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: 40 pounds?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: He said it consumed him day and night. Think about
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the biochemistry required to lose 40 pounds purely from stress.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: His body is in a state of chronic, sustained physiological arousal.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: The cortisol levels are just through the roof. His system
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: is essentially consuming its own reserves because the cognitive load,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: the responsibility of finding this child while simultaneously suspecting the
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: people he interacts with every day... is overwhelming his physical capacity.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And the toll on Melissa, Lindsay's mother, is just heartbreaking.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: She carries a guilt that is entirely unearned, but completely inescapable.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: The worst kind of guilt.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: She has a quote in the source where she wishes
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: she could rewind time to the night Lindsay walked out
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the door. She says, I heard this little voice in
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: my head saying, make her come back. And I didn't
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: do it. And that's haunted me every day for eight years.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: It is the brutal reality of survivor's guilt mixed with
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: maternal responsibility. Yeah. She is torturing herself over a decision
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: that millions of parents make safely every single day, allowing
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: a child to walk a few steps. blocks in a
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: quiet town.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: The outcome was a statistical anomaly of pure targeted evil.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: But she bears the weight of it.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: And Sheriff Scott articulates exactly why this case remains a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: localized nightmare. They don't have a single piece of hard
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: evidence pointing them down a specific investigative path.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Right. They don't know if the predator was a complete
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: stranger passing through, a family member, or a neighbor they
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: buy coffee from.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: He says, without that focus, you can't really clear anyone
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: with 100% certainty.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: When the threat is invisible and the predator could be anyone,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: the predator effectively becomes everyone.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: The trust that binds a small community together, the very
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: thing Melissa moved there to find, is weaponized by the deceiver.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: The deception destroys the illusion of the safe small town.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: It is a devastating breach of trust. And it provides
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: a perfect, albeit unsettling, bridge to the final source in
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: our deep dive today.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Let's shift gears.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Because we have examined how deception destroys lives in cases
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: of overt violent abuse. Right. Like with Kyler Yust.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: And we've examined how deception relies on the camouflage of
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: community trust, like in McCleary. But deception is not always
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: hiding in the shadows of a small town.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: No, it isn't. Sometimes.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Sometimes. It takes center stage. Sometimes it is brightly lit, theatrical,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: and utterly absurd.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: We are moving from the rural Pacific Northwest to the sterile,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: air-conditioned environment of a strip mall in Tempe, Arizona.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: We are looking at a bad actor who wore deception
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: literally like a costume.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Let's delve into the bizarre case of the so-called Dr. Craig.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: I want to set the scene for the listener again,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: building on what we talked about in the beginning. Imagine
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: you walk into a cosmetic clinic in a Tempe strip mall.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: You're feeling a little insecure about aging. Maybe you're looking
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: for Botox or human growth hormone treatments.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Things people get all the time.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The person who greets you is wearing a crisp
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: white lab coat. His name tag identifies him as Dr. Craig.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: You look at the walls of his office, and they
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: are adorned with framed medical degrees.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: He examines you. He prepares syringes. He offers authoritative medical advice.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: To a layperson walking through those doors, the environment signals
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: total legitimacy.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: But the environment is a complete fabrication.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: 100%.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Dr. Craig is a man named Craig Scherf. He does
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: not hold a medical license in the state of Arizona.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: He does not hold a medical license anywhere.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Right. He is, in fact, a convicted felon. And at
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: the time this broadcast aired, he had just been invited
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: on a staggering 29 criminal counts.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: The charges really outline the scope of the illusion. the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: unlawful practice of medicine, fraudulent schemes, and identity theft.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Because those medical degrees hanging proudly on his wall, they
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: belong to real doctors.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: He stole their identities to physically manufacture a backdrop of
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: authority for himself.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: The audacity is just astounding.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: But where this deception crosses the line from just a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: financial con to a terrifying biological threat is in the
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: medical advice he gave.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about the victim.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: The source interviews one of his victims, a man named
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Mario de la Casas. Mario went to Scherf's clinic for
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: cosmetic injections.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And the results were physically disastrous.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Mario's face was left severely bruised and visibly sunken. He
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: goes back to Dr. Craig for help. And this is
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: the detail that absolutely broke my brain. It is the
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: detail we started the show with.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: The vacuum.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Scherf looks at this man's damaged face and instructs him
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: to go home, get a household vacuum cleaner, and use
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the hose to suck on the skin of his face.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: He claims the pulling of the vacuum will create circulation.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: He prescribed a Hoover for reconstructive recovery.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: It's just, I can't.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And Mario, in the interview, is clearly bewildered. He says,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: to put a vacuum cleaner on my face. He knows
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: it sounds insane.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: So why do it?
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: That's what I want to ask you. I have to
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: push back here on the mechanics of gullibility. I understand
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: wanting a quick fix for aging. I understand being insecure.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: But at what point does basic common sense override the environment?
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: That's a fair question.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Because if a guy in a t-shirt at a bus
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: stop told you to vacuum your face to cure a bruise,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you would laugh in his face. Why does Mario even
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: consider it from this guy?
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Because you are assuming Mario's brain is operating under normal
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: cognitive conditions in that room. It isn't.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: When a human being steps into a medical clinic, their
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: brain utilizes what we call cognitive heuristics.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Heuristics. Okay.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: These are mental shortcuts. Evolutionarily, we do not have the
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: time or the cognitive bandwidth to thoroughly verify the credentials
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: and the underlying logic of every single professional we interact with.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: So we basically outsource our critical thinking to the environment.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We look for symbols of authority to grant us
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: permission to stop questioning. The white coat is a cognitive
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: skeleton key.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, I like that phrase. A skeleton key.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: It bypasses our security systems. The stethoscope, the diploma on
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: the wall, the sterile smell of the clinic. the confident
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: tone of voice, these are all signals we have been
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: conditioned since childhood to obey and trust.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: So when Craig Scherf puts on that white coat, he
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: is weaponizing our biological shortcuts.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yes. Once Mario's brain registers the archetype of doctor, it
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: actively suppresses his critical skepticism.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: You know, it reminds me of the famous Stanley Milgram experiments.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, perfect parallel.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: The ones where they told subjects to administer electric shocks
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: to a person in another room. The subjects were incredibly uncomfortable,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: but because a guy in a gray lab coat calmly
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: told them to continue, the vast majority of them kept
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: pressing the button.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: It is the exact same psychological vulnerability. Sociopathic confidence overrides
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: a victim's natural instincts. Craig Scherf isn't just selling fake Botox.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: He is selling certainty to vulnerable people.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And people want certainty.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: They crave it. When a patient is insecure, when they
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: have invested money, the sunk cost fallacy kicks in. They
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: want to believe the confident man who says he has
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: the magical cure.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Their desperate desire for the result blinds them to the
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: utter absurdity of the process.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Even if that process involves a household appliance.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a character Leonardo DiCaprio would play in
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: a movie, honestly. A charismatic con man faking his way
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: into high society professions.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: But the stakes in Tempe were terrifyingly physical.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: That is why the legal response was so aggressive. The
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: prosecution vehemently argued to deny his bail, stating that nothing
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: good would come of putting him back on the streets
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: because he simply cannot seem to work legitimately.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: The attorney general's office realized they were not just dealing
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: with a fraudster stealing money. They were dealing with a
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: severe public health hazard masquerading as a medical professional.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: The reporter in the segment highlights the true horror of
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: the situation. The authorities were deeply concerned that Scherf was
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: reusing dirty syringes on multiple patients.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Which is horrific.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Furthermore, because he had no medical background, they had absolutely
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: no idea what kind of chemicals, counterfeit drugs, or unknown
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: substances he was actually injecting into people's faces and bodies.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: He was putting people at risk of HIV, hepatitis, severe
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: tissue necrosis.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: There is a massive distinction here. When a con artist
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: steals your money, they damage your livelihood and your trust. Right.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: When a con artist bypasses your critical thinking to inject unknown,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: unsterilized chemicals into your bloodstream, they are gambling with your life.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: And what makes Craig Scherf particularly dangerous is the sheer
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: pathological breadth of his deception. He is a serial chameleon.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: His list of aliases is just wild.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: When the judge was considering his bail reduction, they noted
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: he was an extreme flight risk, and they read off
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the list of things Scherf has claimed to be over
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: the years. Are you ready for this list?
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Let's hear it.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: He has claimed to be a Navy SEAL, a federal agent,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: a stockbroker, a reconstructive facial surgeon, and an Army doctor.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: He is essentially playing dress-up with the most highly respected, authoritative,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: and intimidating professions in our society.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: And that specific list reveals the core pathology of this
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: type of deceiver. He is not driven solely by financial gain.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: No, he is driven by a pathological need for admiration, difference.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And power. Because those roles command instant respect.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Unquestioning respect. If you tell someone you are a federal
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: agent or a Navy SEAL, you immediately establish a dominance hierarchy.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: It intimidates people into compliance.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: They just back down.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Craig Scherf desires the elevated social status, the respect,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: and the power of those positions. But he possesses zero
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: willingness to do the grueling, legitimate work required to actually
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: earn them.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: It is the ultimate shortcut.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Why go to medical school for 10 years, endure residency,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: and take board exams when you can just print a
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: fake diploma, buy a white coat on the internet, and
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: project unearned confidence?
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: And the terrifying part is that it works. As long
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: as the packaging looks right, people will literally line up
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: and pay you to inject them with mystery liquids.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: It exposes how incredibly fragile our entire system of societal
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: trust truly is.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: We operate on the assumption that the packaging matches the product.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: When a bad actor realizes they can manipulate the packaging,
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: the entire system breaks down.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to the synthesis of this entire
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: deep dive today.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: We've covered a lot of ground.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: We set out to explore the architecture of deception. And
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: the sources today have revealed a terrifying multifaceted spectrum of
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: how bad actors manipulate reality.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: We examined Kyler Youst, who manipulated the structural rigidity of
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: the legal system. He used the doctrine of corpus delicti,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: the missing bodies of Kara and Jessica. as a shield
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: to continue his violence in broad daylight, fully aware that
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: the state was paralyzed by the fear of double jeopardy.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Then we looked at the invisible threat in McCleary. The
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: persons of interest in the disappearance of Lindsey Baum manipulated
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: community trust.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: They weaponized the immune system. system of a small town.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Using the chaos of a massive investigation to hide their
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: own lies, leaving a grieving mother tortured by survivor's guilt
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and a community forever fractured by ambiguity.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: And finally, we examined Craig Scherf, who manipulated professional authority.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: He hacked our cognitive heuristics, utilizing the symbols of medicine,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the white coat and the stolen degrees, to bypass our
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: critical thinking and inflict severe biological harm on his victims.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: In every single one of these cases, the deceiver found
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: a blind spot in the very systems we rely on
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: to keep us safe. The law, our neighbors, and our professionals.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: They recognize the rules we play by, and they use
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: those rules against us.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Which is why understanding the mechanism of deception is so crucial.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: It is the only way to recognize the illusion before
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: you are trapped inside it.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Which leaves us with a final provocative thought for you,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: the listener, as we wrap up today's deep dive.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Something to think about.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: We all rely heavily on our intuition to spot danger.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: We like to believe we would know if we were
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: sitting across from a murderer.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: We think we would spot the predator lurking in our neighborhood.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: We are certain we would know if the doctor holding
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: a syringe to our face was a complete fraud.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: But as these sources explicitly demonstrate, our intuition is incredibly
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: vulnerable to context.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Our internal alarms easily hijacked if the deceiver understands how
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: to dress the set.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: If the packaging looks legitimate, whether it's the professional badge
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: of a doctor, the friendly wave of a neighbor who
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: volunteers as an EMT... or the terrifying untouchable confidence of
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: an abuser who knows the law can't touch him without
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: a body, we often stop asking questions.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: So the question I want you to mull over today
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: as you go back out into your own life is this.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: What signals might you be ignoring right now simply because
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the packaging looks legitimate?
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Because as we've learned today, the most dangerous lies aren't
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: always spoken.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they are worn like a white coat or hidden
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: in the quiet familiarity of a small town. just waiting
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: for us to believe them. Keep your eyes open and
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: keep questing in the architecture around you. We'll catch you
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: on the next deep dive.