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Cops Find Missing Pregnant Girl Dead · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to just picture this. It is
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: December 23rd, 2023, and we are in San Antonio, Texas.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: And you have this 18-year-old girl, Savannah Soto. She is
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: full-term pregnant.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Right. About to give birth. Exactly.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Her family is basically pacing the floor of a hospital
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: waiting room because, well, she is scheduled to be induced
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: right at that moment.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Which is usually this huge, highly orchestrated medical procedure, you know.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's supposed to be the start of this amazing
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: new chapter, A Baby Boy. They had actually already picked
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: out the name Fabian. Oh, wow. But the thing is,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Savannah isn't there. And her 22-year-old boyfriend, Matthew Guerra, he
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: isn't there either.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: And at this point, the family has to be absolutely frantic.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, completely. They're calling the nurse's station. They are, like,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: desperately scrolling through their phones. The panic is just mounting
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: by the second because this couple has essentially vanished into
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: thin air.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: And you really have to understand the specific type of
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: terror that sets in during a moment like this. Right.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Because of strict medical privacy laws, I mean, high pet
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: regulations and all that, if you aren't on a very
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: specific pre-approved patient list, hospital staff literally cannot legally confirm
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: or deny if someone is even in the building.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, man, that is so frustrating.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: It is. So the family is flying completely blind. They're
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: just calling every single medical facility in Bixar County and
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: hitting brick wall after brick wall.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to why we are here today. Welcome
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: to our latest deep dive.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Glad to be here.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Today, we are drawing exclusively from this incredibly comprehensive Law
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and Crime Network investigative report. And we aren't just looking
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: at a tragic disappearance.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: No, it's much more complex than that.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Right. We are dissecting the intricate mechanics of a modern
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: homicide investigation. We are looking at what actually happens when
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a crime scene is basically actively and aggressively lying to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the detectives.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when human testimony tells this perfectly coherent story, but
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: the fundamental laws of physics and all those invisible digital
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: footprints we leave behind just totally rip that story apart.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: What's really fascinating here is how this case weaponizes our
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: own basic assumptions against us.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. If you are a detective walking into the
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: initial stages of this case... Well, you were presented with
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: a missing pregnant woman and a boyfriend with a highly
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: documented violent history of abuse.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Which immediately sets off alarm bells.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Right. Your brain immediately starts building this statistically probable narrative.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Because we've all seen that movie before, you know?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But then, as you apply rigorous spatial analysis and
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: digital forensics to the scene, that entire narrative requires a
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: complete recalibration.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So to everyone listening, consider this your invitation. You are
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: joining us as we peel back the layers of this puzzle,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: step by painstaking step.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: We want to understand exactly how detectives break a staged narrative.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: And to really understand that, I mean, we have to
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: start at the physical origin point. That would be Savannah
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and Matthew's apartment.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Right, because after the family finally exhausts every hospital in
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: the area, they obviously call the police to conduct a
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: welfare check.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this for a second. Because a welfare
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: check is a very specific protocol, isn't it?
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a search warrant. It's an emergency response
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: to figure out if someone is in immediate life-threatening danger.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So when the officers arrive at the apartment complex, the
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: very first thing they encounter is this incredible piece of
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Because of the door, right?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Yes. The front door to the apartment has been violently
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: kicked in. The whole frame is splintered.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Which looks terrible initially.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: But then they step over that threshold and the interior
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: is pristine. It is completely spotless.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Right. There is absolutely no sign of a struggle inside.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: No overturned furniture, no broken glass.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: The television is sitting perfectly center on its stand. They
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: even walk down the hall and peek into the nursery.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: It's immaculate.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Totally immaculate. Just waiting for baby Fabian. So the environment
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: inside completely contradicts the violence of the entryway.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Now, we do get a rapid explanation for the door,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: which kind of helps settle the immediate confusion for the cops.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Because Matthew's dad was there, right?
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Matthew's father, Gabriel, he just flat out admits to
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: the officers that he kicked the door in earlier that afternoon.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: He was just terrified when he couldn't reach his son.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, any parent would be. But the pristine nature of
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: the apartment is still a huge problem.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Because of what the family tells the police next.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Right. It stands in direct contrast to this critical piece
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: of timeline information Savannah's family provides right there on the scene.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And this detail just changes the entire temperature of the room.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Savannah's family tells the officers that earlier that Saturday, around
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: like 1 p.m., a family member was so worried that
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: they actually climbed through a window to check the apartment.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: This was before the dad kicked the door in.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, before the door was broken. And what they saw
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: paints a very specific, kind of alarming portrait of Matthew
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Guerra's lifestyle.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: What exactly did they see?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Well, they report seeing a quote-unquote big gun with holes
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: sitting right on the sofa.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, so based on that description, they are likely talking
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: about a tactical rifle with a ventilated barrel shroud.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Like the heat shield you see on an AR-15 style weapon.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Not something you just casually leave on the couch.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Right. And they also saw a smaller handgun tucked in
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the closet. And, crucially, a really thick stack of cash
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: sitting right out in the open on a nightstand.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Wow. But by the time Matthew's dad kicked in the door,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: and by the time the police finally arrived for the
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: evening welfare check, all those items were gone.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Completely vanished.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Which is wild. Because that means an unknown party entered
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: that pristine apartment sometime between 1 p.m. and the evening
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: welfare check.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: They completely bypassed the police, bypassed the panicked family, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: surgically removed the illegal firearms and the money.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: And they did all of that without disturbing a single
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: piece of furniture.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: So naturally, the family starts pointing fingers squarely at Matthew. And,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: you know, when you look at the documented data, it's
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: hard to blame them.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: They characterized him pretty harshly, didn't they?
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they called Matthew a narcissist, a manipulator who actively
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: isolated Savannah. But we aren't just talking about family friction here.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: We are talking about hard legal precedent.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Right. Because on September 27th, just a few months prior,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Matthew was arrested for violently assaulting Savannah.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: There is even ring camera footage from across the hall
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that captured him physically attacking her on Christmas Eve the
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: year prior.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Which is just horrific to think about.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: It really is. And because of that September arrest, the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: court had actually placed an active no contact condition on
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: his bond.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: So from a legal standpoint, they weren't even supposed to
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: be within a certain radius of each other.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Right. So law enforcement is staring at the scenario that
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: fits a very common, very tragic profile.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: A pregnant woman is missing. The boyfriend has a violent
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: documented history of domestic abuse. And the boyfriend is also missing.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: So I want to synthesize exactly what a local cop
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is looking at right now. Because if I'm in their shoes,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: my alarm bells are just absolutely deafening.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Well, they have to be.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: We have a kicked in door. We have missing stacks
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: of cash and tactical firearms that strongly point to illicit activity. Right.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: We have a boyfriend who is legally barred from being
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: near this young woman because he has a history of
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: beating her.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a terrible picture.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So if we apply Occam's razor... You know, the principle
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: that the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions is usually
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the correct one. This looks like a textbook domestic homicide
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: where the perpetrator has fled.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: So my immediate question is, why didn't the police immediately
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: tape off the apartment, declare it a full-blown crime scene,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: bring in the forensics team to tear up the floorboards,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and launch a massive statewide manhunt for Matthew?
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: It is honestly terrifying. the most logical question to ask.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: It is the source of immense agonizing frustration for families
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: in the early hours of any disappearance.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Because they just want action.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But this highlights a massive operational hurdle in law enforcement.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: It's the intersection of constitutional protections and investigative pays.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: OK, let's break that down.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: So the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects citizens
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: against unreasonable searches and seizures.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: To process that apartment as a crime scene, police need
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: a warrant. And to secure a warrant from a judge,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: They must articulate probable cause that a specific crime occurred
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: in that specific location.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: But wait, the family literally just told them about missing
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: guns and a history of violence. Isn't that enough probable cause?
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: It's circumstantial at this phase, unfortunately. Think about the physical
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: canvas they're looking at.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: The clean apartment.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Right. Matthew's dad already admitted to causing the property damage
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: at the door, so that's explained away. The interior of
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: the apartment is completely spotless.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Right. There's no blood pooling, no cast off spatter on
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the walls.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly. No signs of a struggle and no eyewitnesses to
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: an actual abduction.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: That's incredibly frustrating.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: It is. But under the law, adults are legally allowed
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: to go missing. They're allowed to just leave town voluntarily.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Even if it's highly suspicious.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Without hard physical evidence of foul play, police do
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: not meet the threshold for exigent circumstances.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Exigent circumstances. That's the immediate life or death legal exception, right?
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Yes. That's the exception that allows them to bypass the
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Fourth Amendment and pare an apartment down to the studs.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: But without it, their hands are just tied by the Constitution.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Wow. So they're basically forced into a holding pattern until
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the physical evidence guides them.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Which is, as you can imagine, pure agony for Savannah's family.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, I can't even fathom. They basically have to leave
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the police station on Christmas Day with absolutely nothing but dread.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But they don't have to wait long because the very
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: next day, the physical evidence finally surfaces and that holding
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: pattern abruptly ends.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. On December 26th, a citizen tip comes into dispatch. Okay.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Someone spots Matthew's car, which is this really distinct gray Kia.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: parked outside an apartment complex on Danny K Drive. Just
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: a few miles away.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: So the family rushes to the complex. The police rush there. And,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is the kind of visceral discovery that
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: just haunts first responders.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's awful.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: They actually have to use a sheet to shield the
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: scene from the public. Because inside that gray Kia are
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: the bodies of Savannah Soto and Matthew Guerra.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Savannah is found in the front passenger seat. And Matthew
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: is positioned in the back seat.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Both of them with gunshot wounds.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. Both have suffered devastating gunshot wounds to the head.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And they could tell they had been there a while, right? Yeah.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Based on the physical state of the bodies, specifically, the
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: medical examiners look at the advanced stages of rigor mortis,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: which is the stiffening of the joints and liver mortis,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: which is the pooling of the blood.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Right. Because gravity pulls the blood to the lowest point
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: after the heart stops.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And based on that, it is immediately evident they've
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: been dead for a significant amount of time. Likely days.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: So the initial responding officers look at this awful tableau
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: and human nature kind of just takes over.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: They revert to that original, statistically probable theory.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Murder-suicide.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Right. They know all about Matthew's abusive history. They see
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: a deceased girlfriend and a deceased boyfriend locked inside a
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: closed car.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: It just perfectly fixed the narrative the family had warned
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: them about from day one.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: But this is where the expertise of a seasoned homicide
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: investigator alters the trajectory of the entire case.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Enter Detective Jeremy Goodwin. Yes.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Detective Goodwin arrives on the scene. And a good detective,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: you know, they don't look at narratives. They look at physics.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And the physical evidence at Danny K. Drive immediately derails
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the murder-suicide theory. Let's get into the forensic deep dive here.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, so Detective Goodwin starts mapping the blood evidence. Inside
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: the cabin, there is apparent blood on the steering wheel. Right.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: There is blood on the center console between the front seats.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: And as he looks up, he spots a bullet defect,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: an actual physical hole. punched into the interior roof near
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: the driver's side visor.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, so clearly a firearm was discharged inside the front
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: cabin of this vehicle.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Right. Now, if Matthew had shot Savannah and then turned
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: the gun on himself while sitting inside that car, the
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: blood evidence should be entirely contained within the environmental seal
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: of the cabin.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Because the physics of blood spatter and pooling are incredibly predictable, right?
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Gravity pulls fluid down. It absorbs into the upholstery.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: It pools on the floor mats. It drips down the
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: interior door panels.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: But Detective Goodwin doesn't just stop at the interior. He
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: actually walks around to the outside of the vehicle.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: This is the critical moment.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: He kneels down next to the back left tire. And
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: he finds apparent blood on the exterior sidewall of the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: rubber tire.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Which makes no sense for a murder-suicide inside a car.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Right. And not just on the tire. He finds apparent
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: blood deposited inside the metal rim of the wheel.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: That right there is the structural anomaly that breaks the
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: case wide open. I mean, think about it. How does
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: blood from a murder-suicide, an event occurring entirely inside a
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: closed vehicle, defy gravity and spatial logic to end up
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: on the exterior rim of a tire?
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: It's physically impossible.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: It is absolutely impossible.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: To really understand what Detective Goodwin is seeing, think of
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: it like this. It's like a staged theatrical play, but
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the director accidentally left the script sitting right there on
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the stage for the audience to read.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: The blood on the tire means someone who was actively
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: bleeding was placed against the exterior of that car before
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: it was parked at this final location.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Precisely. That specific deposit of blood proves that Matthew did
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: not shoot Savannah and then himself inside a stationary car
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: on Danny K Drive.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: He was bleeding outside the vehicle.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: He was moved. He was dragged. Which means he is
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: a victim here, not the perpetrator.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So this is a double homicide. And the killer has
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: actively tried to stage the canvas to look like a murder-suicide. Yeah.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: So Matthew instantly shifts from the prime suspect to a
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: victim who was just dumped in his own backseat.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And we learn later that he was actually stripped of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: his jewelry, which we'll definitely get into shortly because that
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: is a wild deal.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Central to the whole motive.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: But think about the situation the cops are in now.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: The physical canvas at the apartment was completely clean. And
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the physical canvas in the Kia is actively lying to them.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: So they are stuck.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Right. To find the truth, Detective Goodwin basically has to
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: abandon the physical world entirely... And look at the invisible
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: data that killers didn't know they were leaving behind.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: The digital breadcrumbs.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Let's look at the Kia's onboard computer.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: The intersection of physical and digital evidence in modern policing
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: is just staggering. The gray Kia, like almost all modern vehicles,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: operates essentially as a rolling telematics hub.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: It's basically a giant smartphone with wheels.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Pretty much. It has a built-in GPS that constantly pings
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: cellular towers and satellite constellations. to record its location data.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: So detectives pulled the vehicle's history.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And the data shows the car left Savannah and Matthews'
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: apartment at 10.22 p.m. on December 21st.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: That's the Thursday before the initial welfare check. Right.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: And the GPS shows exactly where that car navigated. It
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: didn't drive straight to the apartment complex on Danny K Drive.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: It took a detour.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Yes. It stopped at a specific residential address on Charlie
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Chan Drive at exactly 11.50 p.m. And it idled there
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: for exactly four minutes.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Four minutes. I mean, that is a terrifyingly narrow window
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: for a double homicide.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: It really is. So detectives take that specific address on
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Charlie Chan Drive and they cross-reference it with Matthew's cell phone,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: which they actually recovered at the scene.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: And the phone's digital footprint gives them intent. Matthew's internet
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: history shows he actually manually typed in and searched for
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: that exact address on Charlie Chan Drive earlier that same day.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: So he was actively planning this route.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: But why was he going there in the middle of
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the night?
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: To answer that, investigators issue preservation requests and subpoenas to
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Meta for Matthew's Instagram data.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Because everyone uses DMs for everything now. Right.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: And the direct messages reveal the entire preamble. Matthew's account
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: shows he was actively negotiating a narcotics transaction.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, so a drug deal?
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yes. He was messaging back and forth with an account
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: using the handle x66.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Roman numerals for 26.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They were negotiating a specific price in cash. And
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: it was that account, XC6, that sent Matthew the residential
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: address on Charlie Chan Drive.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the timeline snaps into focus. Matthew and Savannah
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: drive to Charlie Chan Drive for a cash drug deal.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Something catastrophic happens during those four minutes. And then the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: car ends up dumped at Danny K Drive.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: But the big question is, how did it get from
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: the house to the final parking lot?
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Right. For that, detectives pull the passive surveillance video from
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the apartment complex on Danny K Drive.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: The CCTV footage. Yeah.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: And I want to walk through this footage mechanically because
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: it is just chilling.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: It's super eerie to watch.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: It's 11.59 p.m. A dark Chevy pickup truck pulls into
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the parking lot. But there is a glaring visual anomaly
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: right away. The hard cover over the truck bed is
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: jammed open at an angle. It's not lying flat against
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the tailgate.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Which tells an investigator that there is something large, irregular,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: and dense resting inside the bed of that truck, physically
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: propping the cover up against gravity.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Right behind the Chevy truck, Matthew's gray Kia pulls into
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the lot, but it's creeping in the dark with its
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: headlights completely turned off.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Trying to be selfie.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The driver of the truck parks, gets out, and
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: walks over to the Kia. The driver of the Kia
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: gets out to meet him.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Now, the infrared camera is pretty grainy, and the headlights
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: kind of wash out the contrast, so we can't see
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: their faces clearly.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: But Detective Goodwin immediately notes that the driver of the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Kia is absolutely not Matthew.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: No, the body type is all wrong.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Right. Mafia was tall, lanky, with a very specific build.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: This driver is significantly shorter with a totally different center
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: of gravity.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: And what does the driver of the truck do in
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: this moment? This is key. He takes a white towel
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: and he meticulously, deliberately wipes down the outside door handle
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: of the Kia where he just made contact. Wow. It
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: is a textbook attempt to destroy latent fingerprint and DNA evidence.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: The two men then get back into their respective vehicles,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and they drive around to the back of the apartment building,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: completely out of the camera's frame.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: But they aren't gone long. No.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly three and a half minutes later, the Chevy truck
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: reappears from behind the building and drives out of the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: parking lot, exiting onto the main road.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: But if you look closely at the bed cover on
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: the truck.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: It is now sitting completely flat.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Whatever heavy, irregular object was propping that cover open
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: has been removed and deposited behind the building.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And the implication is horrifically clear to the detectives. Matthew's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: body was transported in the back of that Chevy truck. Right.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: This is where I just have to pause and ask
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: about the mechanics of the investigation. Because we have an
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: incredibly tight timeline. We have a suspect caught on tape
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: literally wiping down a car with a towel.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Which shows clear criminal intent.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Right. But he's driving a vehicle with an obscured license
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: plate in the dead of night. How do detectives bridge
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the gap between a blurry, watched-out video... And an actual
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: legal name on an arrest warrant.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: This is where Detective Goodwin really shines. He leverages overlapping
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: data sets. He has the blurry video of the truck
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: and the man at Danny K Drive.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: But he also has the highly precise GPS telemetry data
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: pinging an exact house on Charlie Chan Drive.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: The four-minute stop.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Yes. So he goes to Google Earth, pulls up a
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: historical street view of that specific Charlie Chan address, and
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: sitting right there, parked in the driveway in broad daylight
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: on Google Maps... is a dark Chevy pickup truck with
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: a hard bed cover that perfectly matches the vehicle in
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: the CCTV footage.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: That is amazing. It's the digital panopticon working in their favor.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Once he connects the truck to the house, he
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: queries the State Department of Motor Vehicles database for the
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: residents registered to that specific address.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: He's looking for the owner. Right.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: He finds a man named Ravone Preciado. Goodwin pulls Ramon's
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: driver's license profile, which obviously includes his height, weight, and
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: a high-resolution photograph.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: And let me guess.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Yep. The physical dimensions are an exact geometric match for
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: the older man seen getting out of the truck and
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: wiping down the Kia with a towel.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: But the video showed two men. Someone had to be
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: driving the Kia.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Right. So Goodwin continues mining the public records for that household.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: He finds that Ramon lives there with his wife, Myrta,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: and their 19-year-old son, Christopher Preciado.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: 19.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Yes. Christopher is within a year of the exact same
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: age as Matthew and Savannah, and his physical build matches
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: the shorter driver of the Kia. They now have their targets.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Which means it is time to knock on the door.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: On January 3rd, police descend on the Preciado home on
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Charlie Chan Drive. Ramon and Christopher step out into the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: front yard to speak with the officers.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Now, investigators are highly observant of the environment. They immediately
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: notice multiple security cameras mounted on the exterior of the house,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Angled right toward the driveway.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, perfect.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they asked the Preciados about them hoping to secure
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: the holy grail, you know, high-definition footage of what happened
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: on the night of December 21st.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: What do they say?
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Both Ramon and Christopher vehemently insist that the cameras do
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: not record data. They claim they are just cheap models
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: that only stream a live video feed to a monitor inside.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Well, that is a very convenient technological limitation.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Very convenient.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: But the police aren't going to stand there and argue
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: on the lawn. They separate the father and son and
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: bring them down to the station for formal interrogation.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: This is where things get really fascinating psychologically.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to focus intensely on Christopher, the 19-year-old son,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: because he's not some hardened street-level enforcer, you know?
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: He is an educated college student majoring in pharmacy. He's
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: actively studying to be a medical professional. And when he
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: is left alone in the interrogation room, the overhead cameras
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: capture this wild piece of behavior.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: It is a perfect demonstration of what criminologists call the
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: CSI effect.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Tell us about that.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: So Christopher wants to pull his metal chair closer to
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: the interrogation table. But instead of just grabbing the back
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: of the chair with his hands like a normal person,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: he contorts his wrists. uses the palms of his hands
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: and the backs of his knuckles to awkwardly shuffle the
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: chair forward.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: He looks ridiculous doing it, too.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: He really does. He is visibly, consciously avoiding using his
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: fingertips on the metal surface.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: It is such a bizarre, deeply revealing detail. Think about
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the logic here. He is already sitting inside a police
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: interrogation room. He is in custody.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: They literally have him.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Right. They know his name, his address. his major in college,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: they can legally compel him to provide a fingerprint at
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: any given second.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Yet his brain is so hyper-fixated on this cinematic Hollywood
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: idea of leaving no trace that he's contorting his hands
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to avoid leaving latent prints on a chair he is
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: legally sitting in.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: It reveals a mind operating on a profoundly superficial understanding
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: of forensic science.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Pop culture forensics. Right.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Modern criminals possess this pop culture knowledge. Wipe the door
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: handle with a towel. Don't touch the chair with your fingertips.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And you've somehow outsmarted the system.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: But they miss the big picture.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Entirely. They remain completely blissfully ignorant of the spatial, digital,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: and telemetric tracking systems. The GPS pings, the passive CCTV
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: frame rates, the meta-server logs that actually build the cage
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: around them.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: While Christopher is playing knuckle games with his chair, his father, Ramon,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: completely breaks in the other room.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the dad folds fast.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Ramon admits to the detectives that he was driving the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: truck that night. And he literally points the finger at
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: his own son, telling police that Christopher was the one
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: driving Matthew and Savannah's Kia. Wow.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Talk about a family betrayal. So Christopher's wall of silence
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: just collapses. He is backed into a corner.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: He can't deny being at the scene without explicitly calling
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: his father a liar to homicide detectives.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Which never works out well. So he pivots to a
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: defense strategy. He admits he made contact with Matthew that
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: night for a drug deal, which was arranged via his
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Instagram account.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: It's a gets account.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And as a side note, Christopher actually claimed he
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: had deleted that Instagram account, further highlighting his total misunderstanding
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: of how cloud data retention works.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Hitting delete on your phone doesn't delete it from Mark
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Zuckerberg's servers.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Not even close.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: And here is the highly detailed narrative Christopher spins for
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: the detectives. He claims Matthew pulled up to his house
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: on Charlie Chan Drive and was immediately aggressive.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Right, trying to set the stage.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Christopher says Matthew is yelling, acting paranoid, implying he was
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: under the influence, and orders Christopher to get into the
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: backseat of the Kia to conduct the transaction.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Christopher notes that Savannah is in the front passenger seat
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: trying to verbally de-escalate the situation, but Matthew tells her
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to shut up.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: So Christopher is meticulously painting a picture of himself. as
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: an unwilling hostage to a highly volatile, dangerous environment.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Right. He says Matthews suddenly snaps, turns around in the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: driver's seat, pulls a handgun, and points it directly in
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Christopher's face in the backseat.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: A classic self-defense setup.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Christopher claims his next actions were pure, adrenaline-fueled self-defense.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: He says he swatted the gun away from his face,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and as he pushed the weapon, it discharged, accidentally shooting
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Savannah in the front seat.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: And he adds a very specific detail here, right?
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Yes. Christopher specifically notes to the detectives that he saw
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Savannah bleeding down her left side.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, keep that left side detail in mind. It's crucial.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: He then claims Matthew panicked after the accidental discharge, turned
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the gun back toward Christopher again, and Christopher swatted it
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a second time.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Swatting a loaded gun twice in a row. Right.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: He says this caused the gun to go off again,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: this time shooting Matthew in the head. Christopher's entire narrative
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: basically boils down to I was the victim of an
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: armed robbery. I pushed the gun away twice to save
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: my own life. The deaths were a tragic, chaotic, freak accident.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, I hear the story.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: But let me just play devil's advocate for a second.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: We are talking about the interior of a car, pitch black, midnight.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Adrenaline is flooding the nervous system. Cortisol is spiking. A
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: firearm is suddenly introduced.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: People absolutely panic.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Right. Fine motor skills degrade instantly. Is there any mechanical
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: universe where a freak accident... violently swatting a loaded gun
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: in a confined space could actually result in two fatal,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: perfectly placed headshots. Is it possible Christopher is telling a clumsy,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: panicked truth?
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: It is a hypothesis that detectives must rigorously scientifically test.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: You can't just dismiss it. But when Detective Goodwin applies
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: the established physical evidence from the crime scene and the
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: autopsy reports to Christopher's narrative, the accidental swatting theory completely disintegrates.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: It falls apart.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Completely. Goodwin uses the biomechanics of trauma and spatial analysis
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: to dismantle the story. Let's break it down into three
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: insurmountable physical hurdles.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Let's hear them. Lay it out.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: First, we look at the autopsy of Matthew Guerra. The
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: medical examiner documented that Matthew suffered a contact gunshot wound
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: to the right side of his head.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: A contact wound?
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Yes. A contact wound is forensically distinct. It means the
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: muzzle of the firearm was pressed firmly directly against the
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: skin when the trigger was pulled, leaving specific stippling, soot,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: and tearing patterns from the expanding gases.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't fired from a distance, like it was
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: just waving around in the air.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Now apply that to Christopher's story. If Matthew was
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: sitting in the front driver's seat, turned backward to face
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Christopher in the back seat, holding the gun with his
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: right hand, Christopher swatting the gun would have pushed the
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: weapon away from Matthew's head.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Right, that's just basic physics.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: For Matthew to suffer a firm contact wound to the
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: right side of his own head under those specific positional constraints...
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Christopher would have had to grab Matthew's arm, bend it
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: completely backward against the joint's natural articulation, break the wrist,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: press the muzzle of the gun flush against Matthew's own temple,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: and force Matthew's finger to pull the trigger.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: The physical angles simply do not exist in three-dimensional space.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: It is anatomically and biomechanically impossible.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, what about Savannah?
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: That brings us to the second hurdle, which is the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: directionality of blood flow. Remember, Christopher specifically voluntarily claims Savannah
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: was bleeding heavily down her left side after the first
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: accidental shot.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: But the crime scene photographs, the lividity patterns we talked about,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and the autopsy definitively proved Savannah was bleeding heavily down
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: her right side.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: So he just got it wrong.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Completely wrong. In the chaotic aftermath of trauma, memory can
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: be fuzzy, sure. But in an enclosed space... Gravity and
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: fluid dynamics tell the undeniable truth of bodily positioning. Christopher
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: wasn't recalling a traumatic memory. He was reciting a rehearsed
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: lie and got the details backwards.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: And the third hurdle takes us right back to the tire,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't it?
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, it does. Christopher explicitly claimed that after Matthew was shot,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Christopher never exited the vehicle. He stated he just reached
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: over the center console from the back seat, grabbed Matthew's body,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: and pulled him into the back.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Which is defeated by the basic physics of friction.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: If you pull a bleeding dead weight, a fully grown man,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: over a plastic center console, there will be massive continuous
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: drag marks, tissue transfer, and blood smearing across that entire surface.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: And there were zero drag marks on the console. None.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Furthermore, pulling a body entirely inside a car does absolutely
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: nothing to explain the blood pooling on the exterior rim
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: of the back tire.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: It's the smoking gun. The physical script left on the
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: stage proves the play he's acting out is a complete fabrication.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Christer had to be outside the car. Matthew had to
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: be bleeding outside the car.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: The biomechanics and the blood evidence tell a story of
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: an orchestrated, premeditated execution, not a chaotic struggle over a weapon.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: And the definitive proof of that orchestration comes when the
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: detectives expose the final lie.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Ah, yes. Remember how Ramon and Christopher swore up and
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: down that their home security cameras only streamed live video
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and didn't record?
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: The cheap cameras.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the police didn't just take their word for it.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: They obtained a warrant for the actual hardware. And when
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the digital forensics unit cracks into the local storage drives...
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: They find that the cameras absolutely recorded everything.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: It's shocking.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: The detectives pull the video files from 11.50 p.m. on
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: December 21st. That is the exact time Matthew's Kia GPS
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: pinged the driveway on Charlie Chan Drive.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And what do those cameras show?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: The infrared video shows Christopher walking out of his front
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: door to meet the Kia. Exactly two minutes pass. Just
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: two minutes.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: That is so fast.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Then, at 11.52 p.m., Christopher comes running back into the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: camera frame, sprinting toward his house, looking absolutely frantic. 30
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: seconds later, he runs back out toward the car.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: But he isn't acting alone, is he?
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: No, he is not. Christopher's entire narrative hinged on the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: idea that he handled the horrific aftermath by himself, just
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: pulling Matthew into the backseat in a panic and only
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: calling his dad for a ride home much later.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: The video exposes a completely different, highly coordinated reality. The
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: cameras capture his parents, his father, Ramon, and his mother, Myrta,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: rushing out of the house immediately after him. They scramble
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: to get into Ramon's Chevy truck. Myrta is even seen
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: anxiously scanning the street, looking around for Matthew's car before
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: she climbs into the truck.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: So if you're listening to this and assuming the parents
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: were just unwittingly caught off guard, maybe just helping their
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: son clean up a terrible mistake in the heat of
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: the moment.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: This is the moment the floor completely drops out from
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: under that theory.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: They mobilized in under two minutes.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: So in the span of 120 seconds, a cash drug
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: deal turns into a double murder and a cleanup crew
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: is activated.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Which begs the question, why?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We know the self-defense story is a biomechanical lie.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: So what was the actual underlying motive for executing an
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: 18-year-old pregnant woman and her boyfriend?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: This is where the investigation gets incredibly dark.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have to look back at the details from
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: the very beginning of the timeline. Let's talk about the jewelry.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Earlier on the night of the murders, at 8.44 p.m.,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Matthew was captured on his own apartment complex's CCTV cameras.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Before they left for the drug deal. Right.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: And in that high-resolution footage, he is clearly wearing a distinct,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: heavy necklace and multiple rings on his right hand.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: But when Detective Goodwin processed his body in the back
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: of the Kia on Danny Kay Drive, Matthew had been
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: completely stripped.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Everything was gone.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: The necklace was gone. The rings were gone. Furthermore, his
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: wallet was missing from his pockets. Savannah's purse was nowhere
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: to be found in the vehicle.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: And that realization leads to the ultimate, staggering betrayal of
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: this entire case. The most disturbing piece of data in
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: this investigation doesn't come from a camera or a cell phone.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Where does it come from?
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: It comes from the GPS tracking unit installed in Ramon
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Preciado's Chevy truck.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: The telematics again?
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Yes. The police secure a warrant for the truck's telematic history.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: and they map out its movements over the holidays. They
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: find that on December 24th.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Christmas Eve.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Yes. Christmas Eve, the day after the police conducted that
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: initial puzzling welfare check at the neat, orderly apartment, Ramon's
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: truck drove directly from Charlie Chan Drive to Matthew and
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Savannah's apartment complex.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Let's really connect this to the overarching timeline for you
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: guys listening. At the very beginning of this deep dive,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: we discussed how Savannah's family saw a tactical rifle, a handgun,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and a thick stack of cash sitting in the open
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: in the apartment at 1.0 p.m. on December 23rd. Right.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: The stuff that vanished.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: By the evening welfare check, those items were gone, and
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the door was kicked in. It wasn't Matthew's dad who
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: took those items. It wasn't some random neighborhood burglar taking
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: advantage of an empty unit.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: It was the killers.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: The digital telemetry places the Preciado's truck right at the
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: scene of the apartment. Detectives realized the horrific, calculated truth.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Christopher didn't shoot Matthew in a panicked act of self-defense.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: No. Christopher lured Matthew to his driveway under the guise
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: of buying drugs. He ambushed him. He executed Matthew with
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: a contact wound to the head, executed an 18-year-old pregnant woman,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: and then.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: It gets worse.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Knowing Matthew was dead, he and his family took Matthew's
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: house keys... drove to the victim's apartment days later and
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: systematically ransacked it for the cash and the guns, walking
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: right out the front door.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: It was never a drug deal gone wrong. It was
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: a calculated predatory robbery that escalated to the execution of
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: an entire family, followed by a cold-blooded looting of their home.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: The audacity is just staggering. They knew exactly what they
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: were doing. The physical evidence proved the murder and the
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: digital evidence proved the motive.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the legal conclusion of this absolute nightmare.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Christopher Preciado was arrested and eventually went to trial. And
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: in the courtroom, the defense tried everything to deflect the narrative.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: It really did. His attorney even attempted this desperate strategy
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: of pointing the finger of blame at Christopher's own parents,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: suggesting he was just a pawn.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Blaming the dad who blamed him.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But the mountain of evidence was insurmountable. During the trial,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: the prosecution presented the keystone piece of physical evidence. The
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: murder weapon itself.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Because they found it, right? Yes.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: The firearm believed to have been used to execute Matthew
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: and Savannah was not found at the bottom of a river.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: It was found hidden inside a bedroom closet in Ramon
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: and Myrta's house.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: The jury was walked through the blood lividity analysis, the
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: overlapping GPS data, the cell phone extraction records, and the
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: biomechanical impossibility of Christopher's lies.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: And under Texas law, the murder of a pregnant woman
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: carries severe specific legal weight. Christopher Preciado was convicted of
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: three distinct counts of capital murder.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Because the law rightfully recognized the unborn baby, Fabian, as
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: a distinct individual murder victim.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Christopher was sentenced to life in prison.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: And the legal machinery for the rest of the family
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: is still slowly grinding forward. As of May 2026, Ramon
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Preciado's trial for the charge of abuse of a corpse
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: had been canceled and not yet reset on the judicial docket.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: And the mother.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: The charges against the mother, Murda Romanos, were eventually dismissed
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: by the court.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: At Christopher's sentencing hearing, Matthew's brother delivered a victim impact
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: statement that just stripped the paint off the walls of
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the courtroom.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: It was incredibly powerful.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: He looked directly at Christopher, sitting right there at the
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: defense table, and called his narrative out for exactly what
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: it was. A pathetic excuse of self-defense.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: He told him that he took away his best friend,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and he took away a baby boy who never even
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: had the chance to take a single breath or live
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: one day on this earth. It was a raw, devastating
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: culmination of a deeply senseless crime.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: When you analyze a case of this magnitude, it forces
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: you to step back and examine the broader implications of
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: how human behavior intersects with modern technology.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: It really does. It demands that we ask a very
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: important question about the world we are currently living in.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: And we want to leave you, the listener, with a
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: final thought to mull over as you go about your day.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: We live in an era defined by a digital panopticon.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: We're always on the grid.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Literally every modern vehicle manufactured today operates as a rolling
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: telemetry hub, pinging your velocity, breaking habits, and GPS coordinates
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: to servers.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Every doorbell on every suburban street houses a high-definition infrared camera.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Every single direct message you send on social media, even
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: if you hit delete on your app, leaves a permanent,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: subpoenable metadata footprint on a server farm somewhere in the desert.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: And yet, despite living in an environment completely saturated with passive,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: continuous surveillance, criminals like Christopher and Ramon Preciado still operate
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: under the delusion that they can erase their sins with
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: a literal white towel.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: They genuinely believe that wiping a plastic door handle or
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: awkwardly avoiding touching a metal chair with their fingertips... will
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: somehow outsmart the multi-billion dollar satellite constellations orbiting the Earth
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: that are actively tracking their every movement.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: It is a stunning display of hubris. You know, we
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: started this deep dive talking about how the physical evidence
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: at a crime scene can be manipulated.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: How the killers tried to rewrite the equation by moving
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: the bodies, stealing the guns, and wiping down the car.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: They thought they had staged the perfect airtight play.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: But they forgot about the invisible data.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The invisible data we generate every single day, our
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: location pings, our search histories, our digital communications, and the literal,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: unbending biomechanical laws of the universe that is the most permanent,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: indestructible record of our lives.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: You can wipe away a fingerprint.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: But you can never wipe away the truth left behind
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: in the data. Thank you for joining us on this
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: deep dive. Stay curious, stay informed, and we'll catch you
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: next time.