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Girlfriend Realizes She Just Murdered Her Boyfriend · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine you are a police officer. It's a standard Tuesday afternoon, right?
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Just a normal shift.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And you are standing in this perfectly quiet, totally
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: unremarkable apartment hallway in San Antonio, Texas.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Nothing out of the ordinary.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You've been called here for a routine welfare check.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: You walk up to the door and you're expecting to knock,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: maybe hear a TV left on, or maybe you get
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: no answer. You leave a note and you move on
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to your next call.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Standard protocol.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: But as you raise your hand to the wood, your
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: eyes lock onto something that just, it completely halts your momentum.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Right there, positioned directly above the peephole, is a single,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: clean bullet hole.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Yeah, it's a visual that instantly fractures the
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: reality of that space, you know?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: It really does. I mean, a peephole is supposed to
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: be for safety.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's engineered specifically for that. It's this one-way optic.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Literally the solitary transparent barrier between the controlled sanctuary of
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: your home and just the sheer unpredictability of the outside world. Right.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: So to see a bullet hole clustered directly above that
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: specific piece of hardware, well, it tells you immediately that
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: this barrier was weaponized.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Like it was used as a target.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It means someone was likely standing on one side
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: of that door, looking out, or someone was on the
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: other side, using the people's location as this targeted aiming point.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: It's just a chilling image.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: And we are unpacking a single, really comprehensive source today,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: which is a highly detailed investigative file and trial transcript
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: from Law and Crime Investigates.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It's a massive file. It is. Our mission for this
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: deep dive is to deconstruct how this seemingly impossible locked-door mystery... unraveled.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And we aren't just looking at, you know, standard blood
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: spatter or dusting for prints.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: No, it goes way beyond that. Right.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: We are going to explore how this case was ultimately
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: dismantled through digital footprints, the cognitive science behind a totally
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: deceptive 911 call, and really the unforgiving laws of physics.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: We're examining the murder of a man named Martel de Rouen.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: And Martel was 34 years old. He was navigating the
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: deeply competitive world of hip-hop as a producer and a performer.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: He went by the stage name Cardone.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I remember seeing his name pop up in the source file. Yeah.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: And what really stands out in his background is this
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: specific familial tie. He was Beyonce's cousin.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? Yes. Beyonce?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Yes. But in an industry where leveraging high-profile connections is
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: basically a standard business model, Martel actively suppressed that information.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating. Most people would shout that from the rooftops, right?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: But he was determined to build his discography and his
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: reputation entirely on his own sonic merit. It tells you
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: a significant amount about his psychological makeup. I mean, it
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: points to a man with a highly developed sense of
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: personal integrity. He had this intense desire for autonomous success.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Which honestly casts this really heavy shadow over the crime
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: scene we're about to step into. Because I was reading
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: through the initial discovery file, and I was trying to
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: map this onto like the classic locked room mystery trope
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: you see in fiction.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Right, like an Agatha Christie novel.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. But it doesn't fit. In a classic setup,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the core question is how the killer bypassed the locks
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: to get in and out. But here, the barrier that
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: was installed to keep Martel safe, that solid front door,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: was literally the conduit for the murder weapon.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: It's a complete inversion of the trope. Yeah.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: The door didn't fail to keep the killer out. The
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: killer just used the door as a blind.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: That is a crucial distinction. Because this investigation is fundamentally
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: a masterclass in how a perpetrator's attempts to manipulate reality
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: ultimately form the exact mold of their guilt.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Well, when a suspect tries to aggressively steer an investigation,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: you know, planting false digital flags, using stolen identities, intentionally
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: misdirecting first responders... Right.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: They think they're outsmarting the cops. Exactly.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: They are operating under the assumption that they are smarter
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: than the forensic systems in place. But in the modern era,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: every lie requires a mechanical or digital action. And those
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: actions leave permanent exhaust. The lie itself becomes the physical evidence.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: That's a great way to put it. Let's get into
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the mechanics of how the police even ended up in
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: that hallway. Because the geography of the initial panic is
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: just wild.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: It's a sprawling web.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: It is. The alarm isn't raised by a neighbor hearing
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a gunshot. It starts with this massive, multinational wave of anxiety.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: You have Martel's stepmother, who is sitting in Louisiana, calling
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the San Antonio Police Department.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: And the reason she is calling is because of Martel's
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: older brother, who is actively serving in the Air Force
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and stationed thousands of miles away in London.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: The logistics of that are just dizzying.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Totally. The brother was the last person to speak to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Martel on a Saturday. By Tuesday... It is total radio silence.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: No calls, no texts, no social media. I'm trying to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: wrap my head around this. How does a family coordinate
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a real-time crisis response from three different time zones?
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly difficult.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: And how does a local dispatcher process an emergency reported
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: by someone who isn't even in the same state?
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Well, it creates a massive logistical and psychological friction point.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: From a dispatch protocol perspective, think about it. A 911
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: operator in San Antonio gets a call from Louisiana about
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: a resident in Texas. They have to immediately assess the
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: threat level without any on-the-ground sensory input. In a standard protocol,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: if a neighbor calls and says, I hear screaming and
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: glass breaking, that is a priority one act of disturbance.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Units roll with lights and sirens.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Because there's a confirmed active threat.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But an out-of-state caller reporting, I haven't heard from
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: my son in three days, that is coded as a
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: standard welfare check. It often just goes into a queue.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Which has to be agonizing for the family.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: It is. The dispatcher has to rely entirely on the
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: caller's articulation of baseline deviation. The stepmother had to convince
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: the dispatcher that Martel's digital silence was not just, you know,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: a dead phone battery, but a critical deviation from his
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: established behavior.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So the family is essentially trapped in this holding pattern,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: relying on an invisible chain of command. They're thousands of
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: miles away, staring at their phones, waiting for a patrol
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: officer to act as their physical proxy.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: It's a feeling of total helplessness.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And the patrol officers do eventually arrive at the apartment
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: complex on the northwest side of the city. They follow
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: standard operating procedure. They hit the leasing office, explain the
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: welfare check, and they secure a master key to the unit.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Right. Very standard.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: They take the stairs, walk down the hall. And that
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: brings us back to the moment they are standing at
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: the door. They see the bullet hole over the peephole.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: But before they can even process that visual, they hear
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: something that completely derails the routine nature of the call.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: This is the terrifying part.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: They hear footsteps moving inside the apartment. Walk me through
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the operational shift that happens in an officer's brain in
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: that exact split second.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: The transition is instantaneous and massive. When an officer sees
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: a bullet hole, they are processing a historical event, right?
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: A crime has occurred.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Past tense. Exactly.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: But the moment auditory evidence introduces a live human element
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: inside that space, the timeline collapses from the past into
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: the immediate present.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: The threat is suddenly active again.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. The operational calculus shifts from investigation to tactical crisis.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: They are suddenly dealing with a Schrodinger's box scenario. Is
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: the victim alive? Maybe pacing in a state of severe
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: shock or traumatic brain injury?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Or.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Or is the shooter still in there trapped by the deadbolt,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: hypervigilant and currently tracking the officer's movements through the drywall?
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: That is terrifying because drywall isn't cover, right? It's just concealment.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: If there is a shooter in there, those officers are
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: completely exposed in that narrow hallway.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Drywall will not stop a standard 9mm or. 45
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: caliber projectile. The officers are standing in a fatal funnel.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: So what do they do?
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Well, their protocol mandates they immediately clear the immediate threshold.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: take hard cover if it's available, unholster their weapons, and
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: call for backup.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Makes sense.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: They attempt to use the leasing office master key, but
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: the mechanical feedback tells them the interior deadbolt, the thumb-turn
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: lock that can only be engaged from the inside, is thrown.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: They are locked out of an active, potentially lethal environment.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: This means they can't just kick the door in, right?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: No. Commercial deadbolts are tough.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: They have to call for heavy maintenance to come up
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: with specialized equipment to physically destroy the lock. I want you,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the listener, to really sit with the suspense of this
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: specific delay.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: It's unbearable to even think about.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: You are an officer. Your weapon is drawn. You are
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: sweating in a quiet hallway. And you're listening to the
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: agonizingly slow, high-pitched whine of a titanium drill bit slowly
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: chewing through the brass and steel of a deadbolt.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: And it takes minutes.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Minutes where anyone inside could be preparing to fire through
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: the door again.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: It is a massive adrenaline bottleneck. The human nervous system
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: is screaming at the officers to either fight or flee.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: But their tactical training forces them to hold a static
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: position while this mechanical process slowly unfolds.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Because they can't abandon the scene.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Right. And the drilling of a commercial deadbolt requires shearing
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: the internal pins and the cylinder mechanism itself. It is loud.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: It alerts anyone inside exactly what is happening. And it
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: builds immense psychological pressure on both sides of the door.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So the drill finally bites through. The lock cylinder drops out.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: The officers push the door open, weapons up, scanning for
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the source of those footsteps.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: The tension is at its absolute peak.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: But what they find instantly confirms the family's worst fears.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Martel Daron is deceased. He is lying on the floor,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: and the initial visual assessment by the officers confirms a
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: fatal gunshot wound.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It's a tragic confirmation.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And based on the entry wound and the trajectory path
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: through the door, it is undeniably clear that the lethal
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: projectile traveled from the exterior hallway straight through the solid
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: wood core of the door and struck Martel on the inside.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Which immediately establishes the spatial physics of the murder.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Tell me more about that.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: A projectile fired through an opaque barrier is either a blind,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: panic-driven shot, or it is a highly calculated shot fired
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: by someone who possesses intimate knowledge of exactly where their
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: target is standing on the other side.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Right, because you can't see them.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It indicates that the physical confrontation had reached a
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: stage of separation. The victim and the perpetrator were divided
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: by a locked door. The immediate physical threat to the
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: person in the hallway was neutralized.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Because the door was locked. Right.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: So the decision to raise a firearm and discharge it
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: through that barrier is a conscious escalation from a contained
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: situation back into lethal violence.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: But the narrative gets incredibly muddy when the detectives start
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: processing the interior of the apartment. Because the space isn't just,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: you know, untidy. It's destroyed. It is in a state
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: of catastrophic disarray. The bed frame in the bedroom is
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: physically shattered. There is an empty gun box sitting open
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: on the closet shelf, and perhaps most strangely, resting right
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: on top of the mattress, amidst the debris, crime scene
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: technicians photograph a single broken acrylic fingernail.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Which is such a specific piece of evidence.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I am looking at this list of evidence, and I'm
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: struggling to reconcile a broken bed frame with a shot
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: fired through a closed front door. How do forensic teams
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: begin to sequence a scene that seems to contain two
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: completely different types of violence?
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: They sequence it by analyzing the kinetic energy required to
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: create the debris. When crime scene investigators look at a
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: shattered wooden bed frame, they aren't just seeing a broken
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: piece of furniture.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: What do they see?
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: They are seeing the application of extreme sudden force. A
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: bed frame doesn't break from a standard argument. It breaks
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: from grappling, falling, or high-impact bodily collisions.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Like wrestling? Yes.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: It indicates a highly volatile close-quarters physical struggle. The broken
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: acrylic fingernail is even more telling, actually.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Really? How so? I mean, it's just a cosmetic item, right?
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: It could have popped off at any time.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: It is cosmetic, but its structural failure tells a story.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Acrylic nails are bonded to the natural nail bed with
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: cyanoacrylate adhesives.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Basically superglue.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes. To break an acrylic nail off requires a
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: significant amount of targeted shearing force. It doesn't just fall off.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: It is ripped off. Usually that happens when hands are
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: aggressively grabbing clothing, skin, or defensive limbs during a violent entanglement.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So someone was holding on for dear life. Exactly.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: So the interior scene screams of intimate physical violence. But
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: the exterior bullet hole dictates a completely different phase of conflict. Distance, separation,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: and ballistic trauma. The forensic challenge is linking Act 1
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: in the bedroom to Act 2 in the hallway.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: And while the crime scene units are meticulously bagging that
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: fingernail and mapping the trajectory of the bullet, a massive
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: variable walks right up to the yellow police tape outside
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the complex.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: This is where it gets really complicated.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: A woman approaches the perimeter officers and introduces herself as
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Joya DeRogian. She calmly identifies herself as Martel's wife.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: In homicide investigations, statistics dictate that the primary circle of
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: suspicion immediately tightens around the spouse.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Always the spouse first, right?
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, yes. The fact that she self-identifies and places herself
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: at the scene of the investigation is a critical behavioral
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: data point for the detectives. They isolate her immediately to
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: begin establishing a baseline narrative.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Well, Joya is incredibly cooperative, but she introduces a complex dynamic.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: She tells detectives that while she is legally his wife,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: They have been separated for roughly two years.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: A long separation.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but she explicitly frames it as an amicable separation.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: She is not presenting as a bitter or scorned ex-partner.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: To back this up, she tells him that she actually
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: saw Martel just a few days prior, on Thursday. He
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: came over to her apartment and spent the evening doing
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: her hair.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Which is such a personal detail.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: It is. She even pulls out her cell phone and
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: shows the detectives a text thread between them, that ends
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: cordially on Friday afternoon at 1.35 p.m.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: The detail about him doing her hair is deeply humanizing.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: It provides a highly specific texture to their relationship.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: It shows they still cared about each other.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Right. It demonstrates an ongoing level of physical and emotional
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: intimacy and trust that heavily contradicts the profile of a
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: relationship ending in lethal violence. But detectives know that amicable
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: separations can turn volatile quickly, so they need to understand
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the underlying catalyst.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: For the split. And this is where Joya provides a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: deeply tragic context about Martel's internal life. She explains that
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Martel was an Air Force veteran, and his transition back
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to civilian life was heavily burdened by severe depression, anxiety,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and unmanaged post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: This introduces the often invisible neurological toll of military service
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: into the narrative. PTSD is not merely a psychological condition.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: It's physical too, right?
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. It involves fundamental changes to the amygdala and the
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: nervous system's threat detection mechanisms. Joya explains to the detectives
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: that she used to actively participate in his care, accompanying
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: him to his VA hospital appointments.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: She was really trying to help him.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: She was. But she details how his symptoms remained unmanaged.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: When hyperarousal and hypervigilance go untreated, they often manifest as
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: severe mood swings, intense irritability, and aggressive outbursts.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: It completely shifts the lens through which we view Martel.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: He isn't just a hip-hop artist or a name on
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: a police report. He is a man who survived a
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: military deployment only to be fighting a daily, exhausting war
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: inside his own nervous system.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly sad.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: And Joya is remarkably candid. She tells the detectives that
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: she didn't leave because she stopped caring for him. She
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: had to establish a physical boundary for her own emotional
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and psychological survival. Because he was refusing or unable to
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: manage his trauma.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Her candor is her strongest asset in that initial interview.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: It makes her very believable. Yes.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: By providing a nuanced, unflattering, but deeply empathetic portrait of
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: his struggles, she elevates her own credibility. A guilty spouse
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: attempting to deflect suspicion will often either paint the victim
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: as a complete monster to justify self-defense or portray the
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: marriage as absolutely flawless to feign shock.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Right. They swing to the extremes.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Joya doesn't either. She offers complex, painful reality.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: But just as the detectives are likely starting to categorize
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Joya as a highly credible, cooperative witness who is helping
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: them build a victimology profile, a massive, structural contradiction hits
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the investigation.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: This completely derails everything.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Another detective pulls the dispatch logs from the previous weekend.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: They discover that there is a recorded 911 call from
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Friday night, January 22nd. The caller on the tape is frantic.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: She is telling the operator that she is locked out
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: of her apartment, that there is a hole in her door,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and that she believes her husband is unresponsive inside.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: And the name on the call?
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: The name this caller gave to the 911 operator was
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Joya Darua.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Put yourself in the shoes of the lead detective in
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: that moment.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: My head would be spinning.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: You are sitting across a table from a woman who
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: is calmly explaining her alibi, showing you text messages, providing
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: deep psychological context. Simultaneously, you are handed a transcript of
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: a panicked emergency call from 72 hours prior made by
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: a woman claiming to be the exact person sitting in
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: front of you.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Reporting the exact crime scene you are standing in. Yes.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: The cognitive dissonance for the investigator is extreme. They have
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: to instantly pivot their entire interrogation strategy.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Is the cooperative woman in front of them a sociopathic
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: mastermind who has layered a fake alibi over a real
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: 911 call? Or... Is she the unknowing victim of an
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: incredibly malicious identity theft designed to frame her for murder?
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: They have to figure that out, and fast.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I want to pause here because I am genuinely baffled
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: by this tactic. The detectives immediately push back on Joya.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: They confront her with the fact that they have her
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: name on a 911 tape reporting the murder.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: How does she react?
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Joya doesn't flinch. She vehemently denies making the call. She
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: insists she was nowhere near the apartment complex all weekend.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: She provides an incredibly rigid verifiable alibi. She states the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: last time she was physically at Martel's apartment was almost
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: a month ago, on December 26th, dropping off an air
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: mattress after a professional photo shoot.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: That is very specific.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Very. She tells them to pull her phone records, check
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: her location data, call the photographers. But my question is
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: about the killer's psychology. Why use the wife's name?
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: It seems counterintuitive. Right.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: If you just shot someone and you are panicking enough
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: to call 911, why not just hang up or use
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: a fake name like Jane Smith? Using the specific name
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of the estranged wife feels so calculated. Is it a
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: master plan or just the blind panic of a brain
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: grabbing the nearest available data point?
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: It is rarely a master plan. It is almost always
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: a byproduct of the extreme cognitive load experienced during a
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: violent event.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Cognitive load, right.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Yes. When a human being commits a lethal act, their
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for logical planning and complex decision-making,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: is heavily suppressed by a flood of cortisol and adrenaline.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: The amygdala takes over, demanding immediate survival actions.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Fight or flight on overdrive. Exactly.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Calling 911 indicates a massive temporary spike of panic, perhaps
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: a fleeting moment of remorse or a desperate attempt to
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: control the timeline of how the body's discovered.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: So the impulse to call is panic. But the name.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Why Joya?
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: The deployment of the wife's name is a primitive, instinctual
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: defense mechanism. The killer knows the police will eventually ask
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: who is calling. If they give their real name, the
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: spotlight is instantly on them. If they give a generic
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: fake name, it might be easily unraveled.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: So giving the wife's name is a diversion? Yes.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: It does two things. First, it utilizes a name that
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: naturally belongs in the orbit of the victim, making it
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: plausible to the 911 operator. Second, and most importantly, it
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: creates a massive vector of misdirection.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: The police will go after the wife first. Exactly.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: The killer knows that when the police trace that name,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: they will focus their initial investigative resources on locating and
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: interrogating the wife. It is a tactical deployment of misinformation
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: designed specifically to buy the killer a head start. It
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: is deceit born out of a desperate need for operational distance.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Which means the killer has to be someone intimately familiar
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: with Martel's life. They knew he was married, and they
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: knew his wife's name. But while the detectives are trying
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: to untangle this web of identity with Joya, The patrol
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: units outside are doing the tedious, unglamorous, door-to-door police work.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Canvassing is where cases are made.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: They are canvassing the neighboring apartments. And they find the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: piece of evidence that changes the entire trajectory of the case.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: A neighbor's door is equipped with a ring doorbell camera.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: The integration of consumer-grade, cloud-connected surveillance into residential spaces has
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: fundamentally rewritten the rules of homicide investigations.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: It's everywhere now.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: It really is. Historically, an apartment hallway was an investigative
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: dead zone. If an assault happened there, detectives relied entirely
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: on acoustic witnesses. Neighbors who might tentatively state, I think
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I heard a loud pop, maybe around 9 or 10 p.m.,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: but my TV was on.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Which is terrible evidence.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Very weak. Human memory regarding time and sound is notoriously unreliable.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: But a digital doorbell camera is an unblinking, unbiased witness.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: It doesn't sleep. It doesn't get confused. And crucially, it
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: synchronizes its data with cellular network time protocols, providing an absolute,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: unarguable digital timestamp.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: And the footage recovered from this specific camera is devastatingly comprehensive.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: It essentially captures the entire narrative arc of the aftermath
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: in a matter of seconds.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: What exactly does it show?
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: The timestamp reads Friday night, just before 9 p.m. The
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: camera's microphone picks up the distinct, sharp acoustic signature of
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: gunfire originating from the direction of Martel's door. Just seconds later,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the motion sensor triggers, and a woman walks into the frame,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: moving down the hallway. Wow. And she is visibly holding
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: a handgun. She paces erratically, walks back toward the direction
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of Martel's apartment, and then the camera captures her again.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: This time, she is holding a cell phone to her ear,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: actively engaged in a conversation.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: That footage is the skeleton key for the detectives.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: It pieces it all together.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Yes. They can now take the audio recording of the
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: 911 call, the one where the caller claims to be Joya,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: and overlay it directly onto the synchronized timestamp of the
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: ring camera footage showing this unknown woman holding a phone
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: in the hallway.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And I bet they match up perfectly.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: They align perfectly. The digital evidence definitively clears the real
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Joya Durone, who looks absolutely nothing like the woman in
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the video, and it exposes the phantom caller. The camera
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: forces the killer out of the shadows of the audio
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: recording and into high-definition reality.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: So the detectives bring the footage into the interview room
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and show it to Joya. She looks at the screen
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and immediately provides a name. She identifies the woman with
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: a gun as 21-year-old Sasha Scare.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: So she knows her.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Joy explains that Sasha is Martel's on-again, off-again girlfriend.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And she provides a very specific context for how they met.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: She says the relationship began as a teacher-student dynamic within
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the music industry. Martel, the established producer, was attempting to
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: mentor Sasha, helping her develop her own music career.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: The introduction of a teacher-student dynamic fundamentally alters the psychological
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: framework of the investigation.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: It's messy.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Very messy. It implies a steep power differential. You have
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: a 34-year-old man who is established, who holds knowledge, industry connections,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: and resources. And you have a 21-year-old aspiring artist who
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: is seeking entry into a notoriously difficult industry. When a
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: mentorship boundary dissolves into an intimate, romantic relationship, it frequently
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: creates a highly combustible mixture of ambition, dependency, jealousy, and
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: blurred professional lines. If the professional relationship sours, the romantic
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: one detonates, and vice versa.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: It paints a picture of a relationship that was likely
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: fraught with complex power struggles. But as I was reading
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the transcript of that 911 call made by Sasha, there
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: is a detail that completely stopped me in my tracks.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: What was it?
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: It is one thing to realize she used Joya's name.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: But when detectives meticulously review the dispatch audio, they realize
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: something far more insidious. When the 911 operator asked for
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the location of the emergency... Sasha Scare gave them the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: wrong apartment number.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, that specific detail is the fulcrum upon which the
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: entire assessment of her culpability pivots.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: It's so cold. It is.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: When you first hear a suspect calling 911 immediately after
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: a shooting, the natural empathetic assumption is that the reality
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: of their action has hit them. They are panicking. They
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: are remorseful. They want medical intervention for the person they
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: just harmed. It suggests a lack of premeditated malice.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: But the wrong apartment number.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: But the moment you discover she intentionally provided a false location,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: that illusion of remorse shatters completely.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I keep thinking about this like a cruel, high-stakes magic trick.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: She is utilizing the auditory performance of trauma. She is
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: crying on the phone. She is audibly panicked. She is
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: begging the operator for police and an ambulance. She is
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: creating this elaborate illusion of seeking immediate help.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: It's a performance.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Right. But mechanically. By changing a single digit in the
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: apartment number, she is actively ensuring that the help she
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: is requesting will be dispatched to the wrong door. She
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: is guaranteeing that Martel will lie on that floor, bleeding
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: out behind a deadbolted lock, undiscovered for an entire weekend.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates a chilling level of situational awareness and calculation
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: operating underneath the facade of panic. She recognized that a
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: 911 call would generate a digital record. She wanted that
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: record to exist. perhaps believing she could later point to
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: it as evidence that she tried to save him.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: But she didn't actually want him saved.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She simultaneously recognized that if EMS arrived immediately, Martel
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: might survive to name her as the shooter, or the
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: police might lock down the perimeter before she could effectively escape.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Giving the wrong apartment number wasn't a mistake. It was
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: a tactical compromise. She bought her alibi, and she bought
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: her head start, paying for both with Martel's chances of survival.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: And while the digital footprint of the Ring camera and
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the deceptive 911 call are rapidly building a wall around Sasha,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the final, undeniable piece of the digital puzzle comes directly
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: from the victim. Detectives execute a search warrant on Martel's
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: cellular data. They pull the logs, and they find a
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: single text message sent from Martel's phone to Sasha's phone.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: What did it say?
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: The timestamp on the text is just minutes before the
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: acoustic signature of the gunfire is recorded by the Ring camera.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: The text is incredibly brief. It just says, bring my
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: gun back.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: That digital artifact is the Rosetta Stone that translates the
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: chaotic physical evidence inside the apartment into a linear, cohesive narrative.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: It connects the dots.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yes. Before that text, the broken bed and the bullet
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: hole were disconnected events. With that text, the sequence locks
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: into place.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Walk me through that sequence. How does that text bridge
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the gap between the bedroom and the hallway?
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: The narrative solidifies like this. A severe kinetic altercation takes
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: place in the bedroom. This is where the sheer physical
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: force shatters the wooden bed frame and where the violent
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: grappling shears the acrylic fingernail off Sasha's hand, leaving it
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: on the mattress.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: The initial fight.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Right. At some point during or immediately after this struggle,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Sasha accesses the closet. She opens the gun case, removes
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Martel's firearm, and retreats from the bedroom, moving out of
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: the apartment and into the hallway.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: And then Martel shuts the door and throws the deadbolt.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: The physical threat is outside. Correct.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: The separation is achieved. The immediate mutual combat phase of
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: the event is over. Martel is secured inside. He picks
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: up his phone and sends the text, bring my gun back.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: You just want it over with.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: He is demanding the return of his property, likely assuming
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: the physical barrier of the door provides safety. Sasha is
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: in the hallway, holding the weapon, reading that text. She
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: returns to the door. But instead of relinquishing the firearm,
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: she elevates it, aims it at the optical center of
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: the door, the peephole, and discharges it.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: That sequence completely destroys any potential claim of a heat
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: of the moment wrestling over the gun accident, doesn't it?
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Legally, the introduction of the solid wood door and
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: the deadbolt resets the timeline of self-defense. Even if she
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: were to claim he was the initial aggressor in the bedroom,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: the moment she exited and the door was locked, her
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: avenue of retreat was secure.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: She could have just walked away.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The threat was neutralized by the barrier. The decision
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: to fire a bullet through that barrier is a distinct
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: secondary event. It requires conscious intent.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: So with the physical evidence, the digital video, and the
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: cellular data all aligning, the San Antonio Police Department officially
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: issues an arrest warrant for Sasha Scare for the murder
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: of Martel de Ruin. Though when patrol units go to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: apprehend her, She is gone.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Flood the scene completely.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: She is completely vanished. The local police quickly realize she
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: has crossed jurisdictions, and they are forced to call in
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the United States Marshal Service Lone Star Fugitive Task Force.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: And this leads us into a deeply frustrating aspect of
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the source material. The police discover that Sasha is not
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: a novice when it comes to the criminal justice system.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: She has a history.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, and this is where systemic vulnerability intersects violently with
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: this specific case.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Let's unpack that.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Detectives digging into her background check uncover an incident from
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: 2019 in Austin, Texas. Sasha was heavily involved in an
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: illicit narcotics transaction that escalated into a shootout. During that
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: chaotic event, her boyfriend at the time was shot and killed.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And her immediate response to that trauma and criminality was
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: to flee. She went on the run.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Wait, I am struggling to understand the legal mechanics here.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: The file says she was eventually apprehended for that 2019
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Austin case and charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: A very serious charge.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: That is a massive first-degree felony. Yet on the night
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: she is standing in Martel's hallway pulling the trigger, she
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: is freely walking the streets. How is that possible?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: It is a function of the bail system and the
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: immense backlog of the trial courts. Following her arrest in Austin,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: a judge set her bail at $ 75, 000. She, or someone
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: on her behalf, secured a bail bondsman, posted the required percentage,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: and she was released pretrial.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Just walking around? Yes.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: She was legally presumed innocent of the Austin charges while
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: awaiting her court date. But psychologically, living out on bond
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: for a major felony fundamentally alters a person's risk assessment
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: and threat response architecture.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Talk to me about that psychology. How does the looming
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: threat of a massive prison sentence affect everyday behavior? I mean,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I would assume you would be on your absolute best
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: behavior to avoid jeopardizing your bond.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: For a well-adjusted individual, yes. But for someone already entrenched
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: in high-risk behaviors, it often creates an undercurrent of perpetual,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: desperate fatalism.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Fatalism. Like they have nothing left to lose. Exactly.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Your future is already mortgaged to the state. You are
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: waking up every day knowing that a trial is coming
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: that could lock you away for decades. When a person
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: is carrying that level of ambient stress, their baseline for
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: fight or flight is drastically lowered. Every argument, every perceived
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: dislight is filtered through a hypervigilant nervous system.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: So the stakes are warped. Yes.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: The perceived cost of committing a secondary crime becomes warped.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: If you already feel doomed, the threshold for extreme violence
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: drops significantly. Furthermore, her flight response wasn't theoretical. It was practiced.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: When the situation with Martel escalated, she didn't freeze. She
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: defaulted to her established operational protocol, run and hide.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: And she knows how to hide. The U.S. Marshals are
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: hunting her. I want to spend a second on how
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: the Marshals operate because they aren't just, you know, knocking
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: on doors and handing out flyers. When the Fugitive Task
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Force activates, it is a massive intelligence operation, right? They
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: are looking at digital exhaust. Exactly. The U.S.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Marshals specialize in hunting people who actively do not want
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: to be found. They aren't looking for the person initially.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: They are looking for the infrastructure that supports the person. Right.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: The money, the phones.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: They immediately subpoena financial records, locking down bank accounts and
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: credit cards to see where money is moving. They utilize
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: automated license plate readers across interstate highways to track associated vehicles.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: They analyze cell tower dumps to find burner phones operating
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: in proximity to known associates.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: It's highly sophisticated. It is.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: They apply immense pressure to the fugitive's social network, interviewing
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: family and friends, making it legally toxic to provide aid
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: or shelter. They methodically dismantle the fugitives' ability to survive
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: in the modern world.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: And this creates this incredibly stark, painful juxtaposition in the timeline.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: You have this high-tech, aggressive manhunt spanning the state of Texas,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: with marshals kicking in doors and tracing IP addresses. And simultaneously,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: you have the heavy, crushing, quiet, emotional weight of Martel's
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: funeral taking place.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: The contrast is profound. On one track, you have a
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: young woman utilizing street-level survival tactics to evade accountability, moving
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: through the shadows of the state. On the parallel track,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: you have a community gathering in the light to mourn
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: a deeply complex loss.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: The details from the funeral eulogies are heartbreaking. Friends, fellow musicians,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: and his military colleagues get up to speak. And they
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: don't talk about his famous cousin. They focus entirely on
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: his humility.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: They focus on the man he was.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: They talk about his military service, the sacrifices he made,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: and his sheer, stubborn determination to carve out his own
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: space in a ruthless music industry. And the overriding tragedy
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: that everyone is grappling with is the bitter irony of
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: his death.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: It's hard to reconcile.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: He survived the inherent dangers of a military deployment. He
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: survived the psychological gauntlet of his own PTSD, only to
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: be killed behind the locked door of his own apartment.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: By a young woman he was actively trying to mentor
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: and elevate.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: It represents the ultimate inversion of trust. The person he
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: brought into his sanctuary, the person he offered professional guidance to,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: became the architect of his demise. And perhaps it was
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: the sheer weight of that reality, or more likely the suffocating,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: relentless pressure of the U.S. Marshals cutting off her resources,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: that finally broke Sasha's resolve.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: She gave up.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. After almost two weeks of evading capture, the run ends.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: She doesn't get tackled in a dramatic raid. She simply surrenders.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: She walks in and turns herself over to the authorities.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: She is immediately placed into an interrogation room with the
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: San Antonio Police Department, sitting across from Detective Size from
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the Homicide Unit. I read the transcript of this interaction,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: and it is a fascinating study and investigative technique. Detective
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Size comes in, and he doesn't start yelling. He doesn't
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: slam his hands on the table or accuse her.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: He plays it cool.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Very cool. He takes a very soft, conversational approach. He
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: sits down, offers her water, and says, I want to
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: give you an opportunity to give your side of the
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: story of what happened. Why take that approach with a
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: fugitive who just spent two weeks running from you?
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: It is a textbook application of the information-gathering approach to interrogation,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: often utilizing elements of the Reed technique's early stages. The
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: detective's primary goal in the first five minutes is not
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: to extract a confession.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Then what is it?
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: It is to establish a baseline of communication and wave Miranda.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: By framing the interrogation as an opportunity to tell her truth,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: the detective is attempting to appeal to the suspect's ego
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: and their inherent desire to justify their actions.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Give them enough rope to hang themselves.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Precisely. He wants her to believe that she can outsmart
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: the investigation by offering a sanitized narrative. If she starts talking,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: even to lie, she is providing lockable statements that can
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: later be disproven by evidence.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: But Sasha doesn't take the bait. She sits there, listens
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: to his soft pitch, and immediately says, not without my
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: lawyer present. And just like that, the entire interview is
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: legally terminated.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Which is her absolute constitutional Fifth and Sixth Amendment right.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: And honestly, from a defense perspective, it is the smartest
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: thing a suspect can do.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Say nothing.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But from an investigative standpoint, it is a massive roadblock.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: It means the detectives are not going to get the
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: easy path. There will be no tearful confession, no neat
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: bow to tie around the case file. They are going
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: to have to construct the entire narrative of the murder,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: relying exclusively on the physical and digital evidence to speak
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: on behalf of Martel.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: And the evidence does speak.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Because while she is sitting in silence in that interrogation room,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the crime lab delivers a critical report regarding the debris
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: found in the bedroom. They process that broken acrylic fingernail
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: that was found resting on the mattress.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: The one from the struggle. Yes.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: The forensic testing confirms, unequivocally, that the biological material extracted
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: from the underside of that nail contains Sasha Scare's DNA.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Let's delve into how that biological transfer occurs because it
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: is vital. When an acrylic nail is violently sheared off
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: during a struggle, it doesn't just break the glue. It
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: often rips away microscopic layers of the natural nail bed
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: and the surrounding cuticle tissue.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, that sounds painful. It is.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, during a grappling match, the friction of the nail
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: against the opponent's skin or clothing traps sweat, skin cells,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: and sometimes blood underneath the acrylic surface. The DNA confirms
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: her physical presence in the apartment, but more importantly, the
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: location of the DNA.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: On a violently broken artificial nail on a shattered bed.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It cements her active participation in the close quarters
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: physical struggle that preceded the shooting.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: It closes the loop perfectly.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: The digital evidence of the ring camera proves she was
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: in the hallway with the firearm. The biological evidence of
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: the DNA proves she was in the bedroom during the
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: initial violent conflict. The cellular evidence of the text message
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: connects the two events.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: It's an ironclad web. It is a web of evidence
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: that seems completely inescapable. And yet this brings us to
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the trial phase. We jump forward two full years. Sasha's
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: been sitting in county jail. The state has offered plea deals.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: presumably to avoid the cost and trauma of a trial.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: But Sasha rejects all of them.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: She rolls the dice.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: She decides to take the case to a jury. And
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: in a move that absolutely stunned me, she decides she
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: is going to take the witness stand and testify in
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: her own defense.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate, highest stakes gamble in the criminal
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: justice system. Defense attorneys generally beg their clients not to
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: testify in murder trials.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Why is it so risky?
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Because the moment a defendant takes the oath and sits
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: in that chair, the jury's focus shifts entirely. They stop
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: viewing the forensic evidence in a clinical vacuum and begin
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: judging the human being sitting in front of them. They
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: are scrutinizing her tone, her body language, her micro expressions,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: and her overall believability.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: They're looking for any crack in the story.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. To succeed, she has to thread an impossible needle.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: She must offer an alternative narrative that seamlessly accounts for
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: every single piece of established physical and digital fact, but
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: somehow magically removes her criminal intent.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: So she takes the oath, and she begins her direct examination,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: guided by her defense attorney. She starts by confirming the
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: background details. She admits they met in 2017 via Instagram
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: when she was just 17. and he was a 31-year-old
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: producer casting a music video. She confirms the relationship evolved
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: from a professional mentorship into an intimate relationship. And then
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: she begins her narrative of Friday, January 22nd.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: And how does she frame it?
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: What struck me is how incredibly mundane she makes the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: evening sound at the beginning.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: That is a highly calculated tactical choice. She is attempting
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: to build relatability and establish a baseline of domestic normalcy
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: with the jury.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Right. She testifies that she was at her mother's house.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Martel came and picked her up, and they drove back
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: to his apartment in San Antonio. She says they were
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: doing standard industry work, planning for some upcoming music shows.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: She details making dinner for him, says they settled in
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: to watch a movie, and claims she was just lying
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: in bed, scrolling on her phone, winding down for the night.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Creating a peaceful scene.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: And then, according to Sasha's testimony, the peace is abruptly shattered.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: She claims Martel suddenly came into the bedroom, aggressively turned
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: on the overhead lights, and belligerently demanded that she leave
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: the apartment.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Notice the psychological framing here. She is laying the foundation
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: for a self-defense claim by explicitly identifying him as the
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: chaotic element. She is portraying herself as passive and relaxed
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: and him as the sudden, unpredictable aggressor who broke the
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: domestic peace.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: She testifies that this sudden demand led to a heated
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: verbal argument. The catalyst, she claims, was his jealousy. He
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: allegedly believed she was texting or speaking with another man
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: on her phone. And then she tells the jury the
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: verbal argument rapidly escalated into a severe physical attack.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: She escalates the narrative.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: She says he lunged at her, began hitting her, and
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: placed his hands around her neck, actively choking her. She
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: says the wooden bed frame broke as a direct result
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: of his weight bearing down on her during this assault.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: And she describes panicking because her airway was restricted.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: It is a masterclass in narrative weaving. She knows the
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: jury has seen the crime scene photos of the shattered
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: bed frame. She cannot deny that a violent struggle happened.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: So she incorporates the undeniable physical evidence, the broken bed,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: into her story, but she flips the polarity.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: She makes herself the victim of the broken bed.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The broken bed is no longer evidence of mutual
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: combat or her aggression. She frames it as the physical
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: byproduct of his overpowering violence against her. It is a
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: very sophisticated attempt to establish the necessity of self-defense.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: She continues the narrative, saying she managed to break his
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: grip and scramble free. She claims she went straight to
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: the closet and grabbed his firearm, explicitly stating she only
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: retrieved it to act as a deterrent, to tell him,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: don't touch me.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: She's justifying the gun now.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: She says she began backing out of the bedroom, and
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: when he continued to advance, she started grabbing dishes and
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: heavy objects from the kitchen counter and hurling them at
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: him to create physical distance. She describes vaulting over the
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: kitchen counter, unlocking the front door, and fleeing into the hallway,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: still holding the weapon.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's analyze her progress so far. Up to this
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: exact moment in her testimony, she has successfully provided an
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: explanation for almost every piece of interior evidence.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: It's true. She hit all the points. Yes.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Her story accounts for the broken bed, the sheared fingernail,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: the empty gun box, the broken dishes in the kitchen,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: and the ring camera footage showing her in the hallway
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: with the gun. If the story ended there, she might
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: have a viable self-defense claim regarding the altercation.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: But the story doesn't end there. It doesn't.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: She still has to explain the most damning piece of
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: evidence in the entire case. The bullet hole that traveled
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: from the outside straight through the solid core of the
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: closed door and into Martel's body. This is the crux
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: of the trial.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: And her explanation for this? I have to admit, when
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I read it, I had to read it twice. It
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: borders on the absurd. She testifies that she was safely
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: in the hallway, but she realized she had left her
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: personal belongings inside. So she claims she went back to
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: the closed door, And she began aggressively banging on the
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: wood and yelling, demanding her things.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: While holding the gun.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: She tells the jury she was holding the firearm in
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: her hand while she was pounding on the door. And
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: then she claims while she was banging, the gun simply
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: went off.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: She is attempting a massive legal pivot. Inside the apartment,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: she claims self-defense, which requires intent. I meant to hold
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: the gun to stop him. But outside the apartment, she
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: abandons self-defense and attempts to claim an accidental discharge.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: A complete accident. Yes.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: She is telling the jury she lacked the mens rea,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: the guilty mind or intent to pull the trigger. She's
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: arguing that the mechanical operation of the firearm failed or
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: her finger slipped due to the kinetic action of banging
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: on the door. It is an incredibly fragile legal defense
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: because it requires the jury to believe in a highly specific,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: coincidental mechanical failure at the exact moment she was standing
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: in front of the man she was just fighting with.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: She goes even further. She claims that because the door
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: was closed, she had absolutely no idea Martel was standing
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: directly behind it. She testifies she didn't hear him fall,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: had no idea she had struck him, let alone killed him.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Total ignorance of the result.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: And her explanation for why the police found the gun
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: in a dumpster miles away? She says she threw it
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: away simply because she was scared and didn't want to
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: be caught walking down the street carrying a firearm. She's
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: portraying herself as a terrified, oblivious victim of a freak
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: mechanical accident.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: And this sets the stage for the prosecution's cross-examination. This
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: is where cases are won or lost. Analyzing the transcript
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: of this cross-examination, the prosecuting attorney delivers an absolute masterstroke
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: of trial strategy.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Tell me how he does it.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: A lesser prosecutor might have stood at the podium and
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: simply yelled at her, calling her a liar, badgering her
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: about her motives, or focusing on the jealousy aspect. But
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: this prosecutor doesn't engage in an emotional shouting match. He
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: attacks her narrative using something she cannot argue with.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: The cold, unyielding laws of physics and biomechanics.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: It really is the climax of the entire narrative. You know,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I want a good analogy for this, because it's... It
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: feels like a geometric proof in a courtroom. Right. It's
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: like a like a suspect claiming a pool ball hit
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: the cushion and then, you know, and then bounce dock
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: at this, you know, a perfect 90 degree angle without
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: any spin applied. You know, it's just it it is
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: mathematically impossible.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: That's a perfect way to describe it.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: So the prosecutor, you know, he approaches the witness stand and,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: you know, he he doesn't just ask her questions. He
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: actually he demands a kinetic demonstration. And he asked her
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: to to physically show the jury exactly how she was
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: gripping the gun and how she was banging on the door.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: And so he basically, he just forces her to, you know,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: hold her empty hands up in the air, you know,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: right there on the stand under oath.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: It is a brilliant high-risk maneuver known as a demonstrative cross-examination.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: He is forcing her to lock her physical body into
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: the confines of her verbal testimony. She raises her hands,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: imitating a two-handed grip on the pistol and and she
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: begins mimicking a pounding motion in the air, pretending to
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: strike an invisible vertical surface.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: And the moment she does the motion, the prosecutor springs
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the trap, because he points out a basic anatomical fact
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: to the human wrist and the ergonomics of a firearm.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: If you are holding a standard handgun, normally by the
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: pistol grip, and you use the side of the slide
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: or the butt of the magazine to physically bang on
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: a flat vertical surface like a door, the natural angle
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: of your wrist changes forces the barrel of the gun
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: to point upward toward the ceiling. Exactly.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: I encourage anyone listening to try this safely with a
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: TV remote control. Hold the remote like a pistol grip.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Now imagine a door in front of you and bang
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: the side of your fist against it. Observe where the
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: front of the remote is pointing.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: It points up.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. The geometry of the human wrist combined with the
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: grip angle of a firearm means that during a striking motion,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: the barrel naturally elevates at a sharp angle. For a
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: bullet to travel laterally, straight through the wood of the door,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: and strike a man standing squarely behind it in the
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: chest or torso, the barrel cannot be pointing at the ceiling.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: It's physically impossible. It is.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: The barrel has to be leveled, pointing straight ahead, parallel
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: to the floor, or angled slightly downward.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: So the prosecutor corners her with this geometry. He stands
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: there and says, you would agree with me that in
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: order for the bullet to go through the door, the
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: barrel would need to have been facing into the door, straightward.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Sasha Tries to squirm out of the trap. She stammers.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: She says, not necessarily. But the physics are undeniable.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: You can't argue with geometry.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: If the gun had truly discharged accidentally while she was
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: aggressively banging on the door with the side of the weapon,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: as she just demonstrated to the jury, the bullet would
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: have traveled up into the doorframe or the ceiling. It
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: would not have gone through the people.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: The prosecutor uses the undeniable trajectory of the bullet to
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: completely crush her accidental discharge narrative. He forces her to
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: realize in real time in front of 12 jurors that
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: her own physical demonstration has just proven her testimony to
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: be a physical impossibility. The cognitive weight of the lie
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: collapses under the pressure of basic geometry.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: And she finally breaks. Right there on the stand. When
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: the prosecutor relentlessly presses her to demonstrate the exact, specific
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: bodily movement that occurred the millisecond the gun discharged, she
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: drops the charade of the banging motion. She lowers her hands,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: looks at the jury, and admits, I just lifted it
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: up and just shot.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: I lifted it up and just shot. That single sentence
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: is the end of the trial. It is game over
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: for the defense.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Because it proves intent. Yes.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Because lifting it up is a conscious, mechanical action required
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: to bring the sights into alignment with a target. and
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: just shot is the deliberate application of rearward pressure on
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: the trigger. That is the textbook admission of a deliberate, aimed,
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: intentional firing of a deadly weapon through a barrier. The
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: prosecutor didn't have to prove her malicious intent by arguing
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: about their messy relationship. He proved her lethal intent by
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: tracing the undeniable physical path of the projectile. It is
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: phenomenal surgical legal work.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: And once he shatters the core lie regarding the physical
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: act of the shooting... He methodically dismantles the entire surrounding
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: architecture of her deception. He pivots to the digital evidence.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: He brings up the 911 dispatch audio. He forces her
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: to sit there and admit, line by line, that she
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: consciously lied to the emergency operator about her identity. He
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: makes her own every lie. He makes her admit that
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: she stole Joya's name to frame her. He makes her
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: admit that she deliberately provided the wrong apartment number to
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: delay the police. He makes her admit that she intentionally
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: threw the murder weapon into a commercial dumpster to destroy evidence.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: And that she utilized her experience as a fugitive to
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: evade the U.S. Marshals for two weeks while out on
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: felony bond.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: By the time the defense attorney redirects and she finally
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: steps down from that witness stand, her credibility isn't just damaged.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: It is completely incinerated. She has confessed to lying to
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: the police, manipulating emergency services, hiding physical evidence, fleeing justice,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: and ultimately murdering. intentionally aiming and firing the fatal shot.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: She proved the state's case for them.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: The jury deliberation is swift. They don't need much time
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: to weigh the evidence. On August 31st, 2023, the court
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: reconvenes and the verdict is read aloud. Sasha Scare is
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: found guilty of murder.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: It was inevitable after that testimony.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: The atmosphere in a courtroom during a guilty verdict is
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: always incredibly heavy, but Before the judge officially hands down
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: the numerical sentence, the court allows for victim impact statements.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Martel Daron's sister is given the floor to speak directly
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: to the court and directly to Sasha on behalf of
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: the grieving family.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Victim impact statements are a unique phase of the judicial process.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: Throughout the trial, the victim is often reduced to autopsy photos,
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: ballistic trajectories, and sterile legal terminology. The impact statement is
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: the moment where the raw, unfiltered, devastating human reality of
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: the crime is forcefully injected back into the room.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: And his sister holds absolutely nothing back. She doesn't just
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: express sadness. She delivers a piercing psychological critique of the defendant.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: She addresses Sasha directly across the courtroom. She calls her
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: out for the immense pain and sheer agony she forced
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: upon the family during those two weeks of searching.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: Because of the cover-up.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. She calls out the calculated lying, the constant manipulation,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: and the breathtaking selfishness of the cover-up. She looks at
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Sasha and says, you've gathered everyone together out of your
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: own selfishness just to get viewed as the person you
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: truly and exactly are.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: It is a devastatingly accurate assessment.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: For two entire years, Sasha utilized every tool at her disposal,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: from fake names to fake tears on the witness stand,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: to manipulate everyone into seeing her as a tragic victim
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: of circumstance, an accidental participant in a domestic tragedy. Martel's
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: sister uses that moment to strip away the final shreds
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: of that illusion, forcing the defendant to look in the
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: mirror at the reality of her own monstrous choices.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: And then the sister delivers this chilling, unforgettable final line
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: before sitting down. She locks eyes with Sasha and says,
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: fix your sheets, if you have any, because you've made
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: your bed and now it's time to lay in it.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: It is incredibly powerful.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: And it is clear that the presiding judge absorbed the
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: full weight of both the crime and the deception that followed.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: Because when the sentence is handed down, it is massive.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Sasha Scare is sentenced to 55 years in the Texas
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: state penitentiary.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: 55 years. For a 21-year-old, that is functionally a life sentence.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: And if we contextualize that sentence within the framework of
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: our deep dive, that number reflects far more than just
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: the kinetic act of pulling a trigger during an argument.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: 55 years is the institutional price exacted for the absolute,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: calculated callousness of the aftermath.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: The punishment fits the whole picture.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: Judges and juries weigh post-offense behavior heavily. The sentence is
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: the penalty for shooting a man, yes, but the severity
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: of the sentence is the penalty for leaving him to
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: bleed out alone, for stealing his grieving wife's identity, for
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: weaponizing the 911 system to divert paramedics to the wrong door,
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: for tossing the gun in the trash, and for forcing
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: the U.S. Marshals to hunt her while a family tore
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: themselves apart looking for their son. The base charge was murder,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: but the 55 years is heavily weighted by the profound,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: undeniable cruelty of the cover-up.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: It is a deeply tragic, entirely preventable story from every angle.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: To briefly summarize the journey we've taken today, we have
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: examined the horrific final chapter of a fiercely independent, talented artist,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: a military veteran who survived the extreme rigors of service,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: who fought exhausting, daily battles with his own internal trauma
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: and PTSD, who actively tried to mentor a younger artist
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: in a cutthroat industry, only to be killed in the
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: one place he was supposed to be safe, but the
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: very person he was trying to elevate.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: It is a locked-door mystery that required a modern array
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: of tools to solve. It wasn't unraveled by a detective
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: with a magnifying glass looking at scuff marks. It was
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: solved by the unblinking eye of a ring camera. the
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: synchronized timestamps of cellular network pings, the microscopic transfer of
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: epithelial cells onto an acrylic fingernail, and the inescapable geometric
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: physics of a firing stance.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: It leaves you with this deeply unsettling concept to ponder
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: long after you finish listening. We all do this every
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: single day. We walk into our homes, we shut the
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: heavy door, and we throw the deadbolt. We inherently view
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: our closed door as this ultimate impenetrable barrier of safety.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: It is the definitive boundary line that separates us, the soft,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: vulnerable inside, from the harsh, dangerous, unpredictable reality of the
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: outside world.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: We view it as a psychological comfort blanket, constructed of
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: solid wood and brass mechanisms.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: But in the modern age, with the proliferation of high-capacity,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: high-powered weaponry that can tear through drywall and solid-core wood
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: as if it were wet paper, and with high-definition digital
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: eyes recording on every single porch and hallway... A locked
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: door is no longer a physical shield. It is just
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: a blindfold.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: A blindfold, exactly.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: It effectively stops you from seeing the danger approaching, but
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: it does absolutely nothing to stop the danger from reaching you. So,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the next time you walk up to your front door
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: at night, the next time you lean in and press
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: your eye against that tiny glass peephole, take a moment
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: to consider who might be standing in the shadows on
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: the other side, looking back at you. and what they
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: might be gripping in their hands.