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The Cemetery Pact: The Murder of Anastasia Witfugan · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to come with me for a second.
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: To October twenty three, nineteen ninety seven. It's about four
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: point zero am in Kansas City, Missouri.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Oh man, that early in the morning.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: It's just yeah, it's pitch black. We're inside Lincoln Cemetery
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and it's that kind of dark that feels really heavy,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: like almost suffocating, you.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: Know, right, just dead quiet exactly.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: So there's this lone police cruiser and it's just slowly
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: rolling through the property. The tires are like crunching over
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: this frost covered grass. The deputy is just doing a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: routine patrol, basically looking for abandoned or maybe stolen cars.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: It's a normal night on the job, right.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Totally normal. His headlights are cutting through the fog, sweeping
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: across all these gravestones, and suddenly they lock onto a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: shape on the.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Ground and that's where everything just shatters. Yeah, right, because
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: it's a body. It's an eighteen year old woman with
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: dark hair, just lying flat on her back.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: And the violence of the scene is just so jarring
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: against the quiet of that cemetery. I mean, she suffered
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: a devastating point blank gunshot wound directly to the center
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: of her face.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: It's horrific. So the deputy steps out into the freezing
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: air and he's looking around, but there's no weapon anywhere
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: in sight. And when he checks her pockets for an
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: ID or you know, anything, he finds absolutely nothing to
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: identify her, nothing at all. Literally, just a single key
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and a cuckoo clock keychain, just sitting there in the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: frozen silence, ticking.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Wow, that ticking clock is really where our deep dive
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: begins today. Welcome in, by the way.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome. Our mission today with this massive stack of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: investigation files and trial transcripts that we've got, is to
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: basically reconstruct the timeline of this baffling.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Murder, and we're going to expose some massive blind spots
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: in what was frankly a heavily botched police investigation.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Oh heavily botched. And we'll also explore the mind bending
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: alternative theories that honestly still surround this case today.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it is a wild drive. So dental records
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: eventually identify by that young woman as Anastasia Whitfugin, And
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: as an investigator, I can tell you this specific crime
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: scene like this, it tells a story before you even
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: know the victim's name.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Right, because of how she was killed.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly an execution style, point blank wound to the face,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: with no purse stolen, no signs of a random robbery
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: or any sexual assault. That signals intimacy.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: It's incredibly personal.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: It is brutal, and it is personal. Someone looked her
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: right in the eyes before pulling the trigger, and that
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: inherent intimacy. It forces investigators to look immediately at the
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: people closest to her, which is.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly what fractures this timeline in like a dozen contradictory directions.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: So to makes sense of that fracture, we have to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: rewind to the final hours of Anastasia's life. This is
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: October twenty two, the afternoon before she's found.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, set the scene for.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Us, right, So at four point thirty pm, Anastasia's stepmom
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: drops her off right next door to where she was
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: eventually discovered at Mount Washington Cemetery, which.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I mean dropping a teenager off at a grade yar.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: It sounds like a mass red flag to most people.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: It totally does. But Anastasia was deeply immersed in like
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties goth subculture, So the cemetery wasn't a
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: place of fear for her at all. It was an esthetic,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: quiet space for her to just you know, absorb the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: atmosphere and write poetry.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: She was there for the vibes, basically exactly.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And she was specifically there that day to meet her
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: boyfriend Justin Bruton.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And this is where the timeline really starts to take shape,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: because the property manager at Mount Washington actually provides the
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: anchor for us.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah he saw her, right, he did.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: He spots Anastasia alone around five zero zero pm. Yeah,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: she isn't causing trouble, so he just let her be.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: But when he makes his rounds closer to closing time,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: the situation is totally changed.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: She's not alone anymore.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: No, she's now with two guys and another girl, so
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: four of them total. The manager flashes his headlights to
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: you know, signal that the cemetery is closing. The group
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: takes the hint and they leave the property.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: So fast forward to later that evening, Anastasia's dad, Bob,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: realizes she hasn't come home, and at ten zero pm,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Bob receives a phone call from Justin, the boyfriend. The boyfriend,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and Justin sounds frantic he tells Bob that he and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Anastasia were together earlier, but they got into this massive
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: explosive fight inside.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: His car, a fight about what do we know?
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Well, according to Justin, Anastasia just demanded to be let out.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: She slammed the door, and she walked off alone into
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: a pretty dangerous neighborhood. And Justin claims to Bob that
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: he hasn't seen her since.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: So Bob obviously goes out looking for his daughter, finds nothing.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And then the next morning, Anna Stage's body is discovered
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: in that adjacent cemetery, right.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And naturally the investigative crosshairs locks straight onto Justin.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: I mean they have to.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Of course, the police need to verify his story, trace
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: the exact route of that car ride, and figure out
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: precisely where she walked away. But when detectors arrived at
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Justin's apartment complex to bring him in for questioning, he.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Has completely vanished gone. His two door blue green Honda
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: is gone, His apartment is totally empty. He is just
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: off the grid, which is wild, it is, And I
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: really want to pause on the psychology of that moment
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: for the investigators, because there is a deeply ingrained heuristic
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and criminal investigation, and frankly, just in human psychology, that
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: flight equals guilt.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, It's almost evolutionary. When a predator appears, craze scatters, right.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So to a detective, when a person of interest suddenly disappears.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: The literal moment a body is found, your brain instantly
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: categorizes them as guilty. I mean, why else would the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: deeply concerned boyfriend who just called the victim's father a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: few hours prior suddenly make a run for it while
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: this massive search is underway.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: It's true the human brain craves narrative cohesion, and flight
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: provides a very neat cohesive narrative for guilt.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: It ties it up with a bow.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Right. But from a purely procedural standpoint, a missing primary
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: suspect creates a total vacuum. The police can't interview justin
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: so they're forced to desperately see seek out the other
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: individuals the property manager saw at the cemetery.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Just hoping to fill in the blanks of that car
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: ride exactly. And those other people do eventually materialize. Its
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: eighteen year old Byron Case and his fifteen year old girlfriend,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Kelly Moffett.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Right, the two from the cemetery.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And they come forward, and surprisingly they entirely corroborate
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Justin's story, like down to the details. Yeah. They tell
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: police that Anastasia called them from a dairy Queen payphone
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: earlier that evening because Justin had like ghosted her or something.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: So Byron and Kelly picked Anastasia up. They drove to
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the cemetery, met up with Justin, and all four of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: them got into Justin's Honda.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: And that's when the argument erupted.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Exactly just like Justin told Bob. They say Anastasian got
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: out of the car to stop light and walked off
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: into the dark, and Justin then dropped Kelly and Byron
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: off later that night.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: But there is one crucial addendum to Byron's statement here,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: because he tells detectives that Justin called him the following
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: morning at nine zero am.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Right the morning Anastasia is found.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, and Justin tells Byron and he quote couldn't sleep
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: that nine zero zero am phone call is the absolute
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: last time anyone hears from Justin before he disappears, So.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: The timeline basically stays frozen for two agonizing days. The
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: police have nothing then on October twenty fifth, thirty miles
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: away over the state line in Kansas, a totally different
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: police agency stumbles upon Justin's blue.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Green Honda thirty miles away.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's abandon near this old industrial warehouse, and right
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: outside the driver's side door they find Justin dead on
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: the ground. Wow, there is a shotgun lying next to
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: his body, and the authorities swiftly rule his death a suicide,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: which on.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: The surface looks like a textbook tragic murder suicide right, exactly.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: What they thought. The boyfriend killed her, couldn't livel the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: overwhelming guilt into his own life.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: But the physical evidence shatters that.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Theory immediately completely shavers it.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the medical examiner determines Justin had been dead
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: for approximately eighteen hours when he was found on the
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: twenty fifth. Okay, that places his time of death on
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the evening of October twenty fourth, and the Stagia, however,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: was found dead in the early morning hours of October twenty.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Third, So that creates this massive gaping two day anomaly.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, Justin was alive driving his Honda around, completely
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: unaccounted for, for nearly forty eight hours after Anastasia was
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: found murdered.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Right like, what was he doing? Where was he hiding?
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly? And more importantly, the whole murder suicide theory completely
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: collapses when police pop the trunk of Justin's car.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: This is the craziest part.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: It is because inside they find a receipt for the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: exact shotgun lying next to his body, and the time
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: stamp on that receipt is ten point two five am
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: on October twenty third.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Let that sink in, hours after Anastasia's body was already
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: lying on a medical examiner's table.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: He literally couldn't have used that shotgun to kill her.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: The physics of time simply do not allow it, not
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: at all. So if he didn't use that gun, where's
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the murder weapon? The idea that he shot her with
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: one gun somehow successfully disposed of it, it hit out
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: for a day, and then went to a sporting goods
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: store to buy a second gun solely to take his
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: own life. It just strains all logical credibility.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: It really does. Yeah, And while detectives are wrestling with
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: this logistical nightmare, a digital forensic search of Justin's computer
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: yields a letter written by Anastasian just days before her murder.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: The letter yeah, and the tone is highly volatile. It
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: hints at this toxic dynamic that goes far beyond a
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: simple teenage romance. She writes to Justin and I quote
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: you and Byron deserve each other. Someone who shares your brain. Right,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: This document introduces a complex love triangle, or well, at
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: the very least, a really deep resentful jealousy permeating this
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: specific friend group.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: So you have a murdered victim, a dead primary suspect,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: a missing murder weapon, and now this cryptic letter pointing
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: a finger at the friends left behind. It's a mess,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: total mess, and the investigation just hits a brick wall.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: For three years, the case goes.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Completely cool, three years of nothing.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Nothing, until suddenly a seventeen year old girl walks into
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a police station and blows the whole thing wide open. Kelly, yep, Kelly,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the fifteen year old girl from the backseat of the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: car is now seventeen, and she has spent the intervening
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: years really struggling with severe addiction and homelessness. She walks
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: straight out of a rehab facility, sits down with detectives,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: and says she is ready to tell the real story.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: But she has a condition, a huge condition.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: She demands transactional immunity before she says a single word.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: And you know, the distinction between different types of legal
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: immunity is so vital to understand.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Here, break that down force because it's confusing.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Sure, Usually witnesses in these situations are offered what's called
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: use immunity. That means the specific words they say can't
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: be used against them in court, but they can still
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: be prosecuted if police find outside independent evidence of their crimes.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: But transactional immunity is entirely different. It is a total
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: bulletproof shield. It means Kelly cannot be secuted for any
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: of the crimes related to the event she is about to.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Describe, wait, regardless of what she actually.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Did, regardless of her actual involvement. The police, desperate for
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: a break in a three year old cold case, just
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: hand this vulnerable, addicted teenager a total blank check.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Which is wild and so shielded by that blank check,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Kelly flips the narrative completely. She tells detectives that the
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: whole argument in the car totally fabricated.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: A complete lie.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Right. She claims that Anastasia's murder was actually a premeditated
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: plan orchestrated by Justin and Byron. According to Kelly, when
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: they were in the cemetery, Byron, not Justin, but Byron,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: got out of the car, popped the trunk, pulled out
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: a shotgun, walked right up to Anastasia and shot her
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: point blank in the face.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: It's a terrifying image, it really is.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: She claims. They then drove away and threw the gun
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: near some train tracks and the motive like, why would
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Byron even do this? Kelly claims he simply did it
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: because Justin asked him to.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: It is a staggering accusation, but the problem is it
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: exists in a total evidence vacuum. I mean, the police
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: follow her directions to the train tracks, they scour the
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: area for the shotgun, and they find.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Absolutely nothing, no gun at all.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: No gun. So they have this compelling, horrifying story from
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: an immunized witness, but zero physical evidence connecting Byron to
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: the cemetery or the murder itself.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: So what did the police do. They decide to manufacture
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: their own.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Evidence, which is always a dangerous game.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Oh. Absolutely, they set up a wiretap on Kelly's phone,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and they instruct her to call Byron. And the audio
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: of this call is notoriously atrocious. It is muffled, filled
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: with static, and just incredibly difficult to decipher.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: You can barely hear what's going on, right, But.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: On this tape, Kelly suddenly ambushes Byron, aggressively asking him
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: why he killed Anastagia, and Byron allegedly mumbles back something
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: to the effect of, we shouldn't talk about it. We
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: should fuck off.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Of course we should, and that's all it takes.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Yep, the police arrests Byron for first degree murder, and
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: prosecutors classify that mumbled statfilled sentence as a tacit admission.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: So a tacit admission is a highly controversial legal concept.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: The premise is that if a reasonable person is accused
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: of something heinous, they will immediately and forcefully deny it.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Which makes logical sense on the surface, right.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: But if the suspect remains silent or gives an evasive,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: noncommittal answer, the prosecution is allowed to present that ambiguity
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: to a jury as an implied confession. They literally argue
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: that silence or evasion is a behavioral equivalent of saying yes,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I did it.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I just I struggle so much to accept the reality
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: of that application. I mean, if someone called you out
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: of the blue years after a tragedy and suddenly accuse
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: you of pulling the trigger in a brutal murder, A
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: mumbled let's not talk about it isn't a confession, It's
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: really not. A normal human reaction would be shock, confusion,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: maybe just hanging up the phone in disgust. The idea
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: that a muffled phrase on a terrible phone connection can
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: be legally weaponized as a murder confession is terrifying.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: It really is. And this wiretap sit perfectly illustrates the
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: mechanics of confirmation bias in an investigation. Oh, because confirmation
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: bias isn't just a preference for an idea, right, it
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: physically alters how the human brain processes information.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Ow so well.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Once the detectives locked onto Kelly's narrative that Byron was
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: the shooter, their brains began filtering out contradictory data and
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: amplifying anything that fit the theory. They heard a static
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: filled mumble, and their biased brains translated it into a
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: clear confession.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Right, they heard what they wanted to hear. And it's
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: what they didn't do that really proves your point about
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: tunnel vision exactly. They never pulled the phone logs from
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the Dairy Queen payphone to see if Anastasia actually called them.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: They never pulled Justin's cell phone records or the records
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: from Byron's house to verify Kelly's new timeline.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: But the most egregious failure by far is the forensic
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: vacuum surrounding Justin's car.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, this makes me so angry.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: When they recovered that blue green Honda after his suicide,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: there is no record that the police ever process the
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: interior for blood spatter, gunshot residue, or trace evidence.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Nothing. They didn't test it at all.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Nope. And if Byron stepped out of that car, fired
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: a point blank shotgun blast into a human being and
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: jumped right back into the passenger seat, that vehicle would
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: be covered in microscopic and likely macroscopic forensic.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Evidence blood to show everything everything.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: But because the police eventually decided Byron did it based
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: on Kelly's word, they didn't feel the need to look
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: for evidence that might complicate their neat new theory.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So they didn't look and surprise, surprise, they didn't find
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: anything to contradict Kelly, armed with just a muffled tape
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and an immunized, highly compromised witness. A jury convicted Byron case.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: He was added two life sentences.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: It's wild. But years later, defense attorney Brian Russell, working
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: with the Innocence Project, began systematically dismantling this case. And
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: when you remove the tunnel vision that blinded those original detectives,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: the alternative theories don't just emerge, they are glaring.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, they are neon signs. The first alternative is staring
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: us right in the face Justin. In fact, when Kelly
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: first confessed in rehab, she originally told her counselor that
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Justin pulled the trigger.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Wait, really she changed it.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, she only changed her story to implicate Byron after
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: she realized she needed leverage with the police to get
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: that immunity deal.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: But the darkest, most chilling alternative suspect is someone else. Entirely,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: we have to look at the behavioral red flags that
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the police completely utterly ignored.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: And we are talking about Bob Anastasia's father.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Now, in true crime investigations, there is a recognized phenomenon
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: where the guilty party will inject themselves into the investigation.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Do you seem helpful?
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Actually? Exactly, They do this to monitor the police's progress,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: to offer themselves as helpful bystanders, and most importantly, to
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: control the narrative from the inside.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: So let me walk you through Bob's actions, because the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: psychology here is just staggering. The morning Anastasia is found,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: before the police have even released a public statement that
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: a body was discovered, Bob approaches deputy station near the
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: perimeter of the crime scene. Okay, he demands they take
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: him to where she was killed, asking them specifically, am
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I close?
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: See? Inserting oneself into an active, secured crime scene like
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: that is a massive red flag. It shows a deep
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: desire to observe the police's starting point.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And Bob's behavior escalates from there. He later claims that
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: he bypassed police tape, went back to the crime scene
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: on his own, found what he called skull fragments in
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the grass, and just like put them in a bag
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: in his desk.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: He took evidence from the scene.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, he casually offered them to detectives later. Then he
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: hands the police a list of thirty one specific license plates.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: He claims he sat in the dark cemetery and manually
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: recorded these plates on the night she died while he
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: was supposedly out searching for his missing daughter, and he
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: tells the cops that everyone on that list is a suspect.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Okay. Generating a highly specific list of thirty one alternate
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: suspects is a classic misdirection tactic. It floods the investigative
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: zone with useless data, forcing detectives to spend hundreds of
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: man hours chasing ghosts while the person handing them the
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: list stands safely on the sidelines exactly.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: But the most disturbing detailed Bob offers is his own alibi.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: He tells police that while he was out searching for
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Anastasia around eleven thirty pm, he heard a massive.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Echoing boom like a gunshot.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Right and his immediate out loud reaction to hearing what
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: sounded like a gunshot in the dark, he claims he said,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: there goes the neighborhood and simply went home to bed.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: I mean when you view these actions collectively, knowing where
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: the body is before the public contaminating the crime scene
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: by collecting evidence, providing a massive list of distractions and
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: admitting to hearing the fail shot while offering a bizarrely
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: callous response to it. You have a textbook pattern of
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: a highly suspicious individual trying to manipulate the authorities.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So you have to ask why wasn't Bob heavily scrutinized. Well,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the sources reveal a bombshell that completely reframes this entire.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: Deep dive, and it is disturbing.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Bob is currently serving a seven year prison sentence in
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Missouri for the statutory a sodomy of a fifteen year
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: old girl.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let that sink in.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And during the original nineteen ninety seven investigation, Anastasia's biological mother, Betsy,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: specifically warned detectives about Bob. She told him he had
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: exhibited highly inappropriate predatory behavior with a neighborhood child years.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Prior she won them.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: From the start she did.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Betsy explicitly suggested to the police that Bob's behavior was
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the exact reason Anastasia fled his house and moved in
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: with her boyfriend Justin in the first place.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: See that information fundamentally shatters the original context of Anastasia's life.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: We are no longer just looking at a volatile goth
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: teenager in a toxic clove triangle. We are looking at
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: a young woman who is desperately trying to escape a
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: deeply unsafe, predatory home environment.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And there is one final piece of physical evidence that
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: anchors that horrifying reality. When police finally executed a search
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of Anastagia's childhood bedroom at Bob's house, they found some
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: chilling resting right on her bed.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: What was it?
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: A stun gun?
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Oh wow? The implications of that weapon are just profound.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Right, I mean, if she didn't take that stun gun
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: with her to an isolated, pitch black cemetery, a place
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: where any young woman would logically want protection, why did
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: she own it? Who was she keeping a weapon close
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: by to protect herself from while she was trying to
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: sleep inside her own home.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating realization, and it really underscores the
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: catastrophic cost of botch justice in this case.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: It really does by failing.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: To process Justin's car for forensic evidence, by failing to
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: pull the most basic phone records to verify timelines, and
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: by completely ignoring the massive psychological red flag surrounding a
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: father who was heavily contaminating a crime scene. The police
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: created this massive informational void.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: They just left huge holes in the story.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Huge holes. They ensued that the absolute truth of what
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: happened that night remains permanently buried beneath a mountain of
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: reasonable doubt.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And this connects directly to you listening to this right now,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Whether you are reviewing data for a project, analyzing sources,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: or just trying to understand a complex dynamic in your
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: own life, you have to recognize the danger of the.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Void, you really do.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: The absence of information can completely distort a final conclusion.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: An unchecked car, unpulled phone records, ignored behavioral patterns. What
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: you don't look into is just as impactful and often
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: far more dangerous than the evidence you actually collect. Your
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: blind spots will always.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Define your outcome, and in this case, those blind spots
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: allowed the most vital perspective, the victim's own truth, to
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: be permanently erased.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the sources make it abundantly clear that Anastasia
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: was a deeply passionate, prolific writer. She went to that
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: cemetery specifically for the Gothic ambiance, to process her intense
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: emotions and to write poetry.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: She documented everything.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: She documented her life meticulously in journals, Yet incredibly, when
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: police searched her bedroom at Bob's house, no physical diary
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: was ever found. Nothing, nothing was logged into evidence. Did
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: she write down the truth about the toxic triangle with
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Justin and Byron? Did she document the predatory nightmare happening
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: behind closed doors with her father? We will never know.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: It's heartbreaking.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: It leaves you wondering did the real killer take the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: one piece of evidence that could have spoken for her.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: We started this deep dive in a freezing dark cemetery
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: with a cuckoo clock keychain ticking away the seconds of
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: a life stop short. But in the end, it seems
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the killer ensured that the victim's voice, her very own words,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: was the very first thing to vanish into the dark