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Shocking New Details Rock Mother, Son Murder Mystery · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: How does a 15-year-old meticulously research serology and DNA collection
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and ballistics to plan the perfect crime, only to be
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: entirely undone by a single microscopic strand of cat hair
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and a neighbor's doorbell camera?
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: It's wild. Welcome to this deep dive, by the way.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome. And we are bypassing all the usual small
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: talk today for you listening today. Because the case sitting
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: right in front of us just requires absolute focus.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: It really does. It's heavy.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: If you're looking at a scenario that forces you to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: question the very nature of safety within the four walls
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of your own home, you know, imagine realizing that a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: nightmare wasn't brought in from the outside, but it was born, nurtured,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and executed right in the bedroom next door.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: It's a profound paradox to explore, honestly. You have this
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: individual who Clearly attempted to engineer a frictionless, untraceable crime.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Right, utilizing all these forensic countermeasures.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But he fundamentally misunderstood the absolute inescapability of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: modern digital and biological footprint. It's just, it's impossible to
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: hide today.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: And the documentation we're examining today is incredibly dense. I mean,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: we're drawing from a highly detailed transcript. of a Law
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and Crime Network broadcast.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Which is fantastic source material.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. And this isn't just some high-level news summary, right?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: It includes granular details pulled directly from a police probable
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: cause affidavit.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, multiple search warrants, too.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Plus some incredibly insightful analysis from Utah criminal defense attorney
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Sky Lazaro.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: So our mission today is to take all this raw data,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: reconstruct this staggering timeline, and break down a forensic puzzle
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: that spans from microscopic fibers to, you know, digital tracking.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And ultimately, we are going to use this tragic
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: case as a lens to understand the really sharp high-stakes
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: divide between the juvenile and adult justice systems.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Which remains, frankly, one of the most legally and philosophically
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: complex boundaries in our entire justice system.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: For sure. The difference between those two courts is basically
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the difference between an emphasis on human rehabilitation and permanent
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: punitive isolation.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the reality. But to even approach that legal battlefield,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: we have to establish the foundational reality of the crime itself.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Right. So let's lay out those core facts for you.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: The incident took place in the community of Saratoga Springs, Utah.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: And the victims are a 44-year-old mother named Jessica Lyman
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: and her 8-year-old son, Eli Painter.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Both were found shot in the head. And the suspect
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: currently charged at the center of this investigation is Jessica's
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: own teenage son.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Which is just horrific to even process.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. He was 15 years old at
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the time of the crime and he's now 16.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And because of his age, his identity is currently being
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: withheld from the public, which is standard procedure. Right.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: But the gravity of the charges he's facing, that is
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: fully public.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he is facing two counts of aggravated murder, which
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: is a first degree felony and And one count of
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: obstruction of justice.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Which is a second-degree felony, right?
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And in Utah, aggravated murder is the absolute apex
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: of the criminal code. I mean, it implies not just
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: a killing, but a killing with specific, horrific, aggravating factors
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: attached to it.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: And in this scenario, those factors are the presence of
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: multiple victims, right? And the exceedingly young age of the
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: 8-year-old child.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So let's step directly into the chilling reality of
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: March 28, 2025.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It was a Tuesday morning, approximately 10, 11 a.m.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: A 911 call comes in. And the caller is Jessica's daughter.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Eli's sister.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Right. She had actually spent the previous night away from
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the house, staying at her father's home in Cedar Hills.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: So she comes back to her mother's house that morning,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: walks in, and is just confronted with a scene that
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: completely shatters her reality.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine. She discovers her mother and her
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: younger brother in the master bedroom, unconscious, with just massive trauma.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: And the specific details of that scene, exactly as they
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: were outlined in the police affidavit, are critical here.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: They really are. For investigators, the physical positioning and the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: biological state of the victims tell a distinct story long
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: before any suspect is even interviewed.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: The affidavit describes it with this grim precision. Viewed from
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: the foot of the bed, Jessica was lying on the
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: right side.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: And Eli was on the left.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Right. Both had blood pooling on the bed beneath their heads,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: having both been shot with small caliber rounds.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And here is where the medical science becomes a crucial
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: investigative tool. Yeah. The state of their bodies when first
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: responders arrive acts like a biological clock.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating. Yeah. It doesn't just give prosecutors a timeline.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: It gives them a narrative of intent.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Precisely. Because when emergency medical services arrive, they find that
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: 8-year-old Eli is completely cold to the touch.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Rigor mortis has already fully set in. Yeah.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: He has no pulse and is pronounced dead right there
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: at the scene.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: And I want to look closely at the science of
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: rigor mortis for a second because it is so fascinating
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: how it locks in a timeline for investigators.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. So when a person dies, their body
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: stops producing ATP, right?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Adenosine triphosphate, exactly.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and ATP is basically the cellular energy that allows
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: our muscle fibers to relax.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Right, so without it, Calcium floods the muscle cells and
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: the proteins within the muscles.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: The actin and myosin.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They bind together permanently. The muscles literally lock up.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: And this process usually starts a couple of hours after
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: death and peaks around 12 hours.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: So finding an 8-year-old in a state of advanced rigor
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: mortis tells the medical examiner definitively that Eli didn't just
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: die minutes before 911 was called.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Right. He had been deceased for hours.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Which is a crucial biological timestamp because right next to
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: him Jessica is found in a vastly different physiological state.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: She's still alive.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Barely. She is exhibiting what medical professionals call agonal breathing,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: and her eyes are rolled back.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: And agonal breathing isn't normal breathing, though, is it? No.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: From what I understand, it's a primitive brainstem reflex. It
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: happens when the brain is severely starved of oxygen.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: So it's like a gasping, erratic rhythm.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It indicates that the brain is failing, but the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: cardiovascular system hasn't entirely stopped yet, so an officer initiates
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: CPR right away.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: EMS takes over with life-saving measures, and she is rushed
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Where she survives for three agonizing days before passing away
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: on March 31st.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: So when you look at the stark contrast between Eli's
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: state of rigor mortis and Jessica's agonal grieving.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: It creates a complex timeline for the shooting, doesn't it?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: It does, but it firmly establishes the confined, localized nature
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: of the attack.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Right, you have two victims in one bed, shot in
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the head. Mm-hmm. The fact that they're positioned this way,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: in this specific confined area.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: It allows prosecutors to immediately build an argument that this
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: wasn't a chaotic, sprawling struggle throughout the house.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: It was intentional. It was targeted. Basically a localized execution.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: But, as clear as that part of the scene might seem,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: the affidavit mentions a highly disturbing anomaly that drastically complicates
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: the initial read of the room.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this part is so weird. The affidavit notes that
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: when Jessica was found, her shorts or pants were pulled
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: down around her knees.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: And later, as authorities continued their examination, they discovered her
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: underwear was also pulled down to her knees.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: When you read that in the source material, it just
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: completely stops you in your tracks. It feels entirely incongruous
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: with a standard targeted shooting.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: It really forces investigators to instantly expand their initial net
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: and keep multiple conflicting theories open at once.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Because when homicide detectives walk into a scene and find
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a victim partially undressed in that highly specific manner.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: The immediate thought process has to include the possibility of
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: a sexually motivated crime.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Right. Like, was this an unknown intruder whose primary goal
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: was sexual assault? And it just escalated into a double
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: homicide when the victims woke up.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You cannot ignore that visual evidence. It demands that
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: you look for an outsider.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: However, as the source notes, other evidence eventually surfaces that
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: pulls the focus away from an unknown intruder and aims
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it directly at someone already inside the home.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the emergence of the suspect. So
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: officers are methodically clearing the house.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: They have to ensure there's no active threat remaining in
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the other rooms, obviously.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Right. During this tactical clearing process, they see a 15-year-old
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: boy exit a bedroom door and step into the hallway.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: This is Jessica's son.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Yes. They sit him down, and he starts asking what happened.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: He claims he was in his room taking a nap.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: He claims he didn't hear a single thing.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Imagine the cognitive dissonance for those responding officers. I mean,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: you have a gruesome double shooting.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: A house that inevitably smells of metallic blood and the
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: sulfur of gunpowder.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: And a teenager who walks out of a nearby bedroom
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: claiming he slept through the entire catastrophic event.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: But let's evaluate that objectively for a second. Because as
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: an investigator in those chaotic first few minutes, how do
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: you differentiate between genuine shock and a rehearsed lie?
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: That's a great point. Like genuine shock where the brain
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: just completely dissociates floods with cortisol, and denies the trauma
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of the situation.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Right. A kid waking up to a house full of
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: screaming EMTs and armed police might genuinely be bewildered, completely
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: blanking out.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: That is the exact challenge detectives face in the initial moments.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Trauma can manifest in wildly unpredictable ways.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: It can look like a flat affect, bizarre calmness, or
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: total confusion. Investigators are trained to look for baselines and deviations.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: But in the first five minutes, separating shock from deception
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: is nearly impossible. This is exactly why investigators rely on specific,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: open-ended questions.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: They're waiting to see what information the subject volunteers without
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: being prompted.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: And in this case, the 15-year-old made a massive, unforced error.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: The unprompted comment. Let's break this down because it's a
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: huge pivot point.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: The officers ask him a standard procedural safety question while
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: clearing a scene, right? Are there any weapons in the house?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: And his response. according to the affidavit, is that he
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: wasn't aware of any guns inside the home.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: If we connect this to the broader picture of the investigation,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that single sentence changes the entire trajectory of the morning.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Look at the exact phrasing of the officer's question.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Weapons.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: They didn't ask about firearms specifically.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they asked a broad question about weapons, which could
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: mean knives, baseball bats, anything.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: More importantly, at this precise moment in the timeline, absolutely
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: no one had told this 15-year-old that his family had
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: been shot.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: He volunteers the specific word guns to a general question
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: about weapons before being informed a gun was actually used
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: in the crime.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: That is the moment the invisible spotlight swings directly onto him.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: As the long crime broadcast pointed out, A defense attorney
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: might try to argue that it's a quick psychological association.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Sure. You hear the word weapon. You are a teenager
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: who plays video games. You naturally think gun.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: But combined with his proximity to the violence, it's a
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: glaring red flag.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: It is a textbook example of a suspect possessing guilty knowledge,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: knowing granular details of a crime that only the perpetrator
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: or the investigator should know.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And his behavior continues to escalate the suspicions. once they
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: move him away from the active crime scene and take
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: him to the police station for a formal interview.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, his absolute fixation on his phone.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: They get him to the station, and he repeatedly, obsessively
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: asks for his cell phone.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: It gets to the point where his father, Mike, who
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: has arrived at the station to be with him, actually
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: snaps at him in frustration and says, stop worrying about
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: your phone.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Why is a 15-year-old boy, whose mother and brother have
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: just been found in pools of blood, hyper-fixated on getting
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: his piece of glass and plastic back?
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Well, to a modern teenager, the phone is essentially an
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: extension of their central nervous system. It's their entire social reality.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: But look at it through the lens of a homicide detective.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: A suspect's desperation to access or control their device is
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: a massive indicator that the phone contains an incriminating digital timeline.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If he claims he was sound asleep, but his
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: phone's background data shows active app usage or a rising
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: step count from the accelerometer.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Or messages being sent during the exact window of the murders.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: His entire alibi disintegrates in a second. The phone is
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the ultimate impartial witness.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: So the behavioral red flags are flying high. But a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: weird comment and wanting your phone back doesn't secure a
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: murder conviction.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. Which means we need to look at
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: how the police built the physical and forensic puzzle.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Right. How do they move from immediate suspicion based on
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: a teenager's weird behavior to gathering concrete, indisputable physical evidence?
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: That transition begins with the initial rigorous search of the home.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Investigators are no longer just looking at a tragic medical emergency.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: They're processing a highly contaminated crime scene with a primary
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: suspect in mind.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: And inside the master bedroom, crime scene technicians find two.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: 22 caliber shell casings.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Which aligns perfectly with the small caliber wounds on the victims.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: They also find what is believed to be seminal fluid
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: on the bed. But as they expand the search into
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: the broader house, they start turning up items that paint
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: a deeply disturbing picture.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: A really chaotic picture of the environment this family was
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: living in. The affidavit notes the discovery of sex toys
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and fishnet stockings found in both Jessica's room and the
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: 15-year-old suspect's room.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: They also found women's panties in his room.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Furthermore, they note what could be evidence of sexual contact
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: on Jessica, though the broadcast is careful not to get
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: too graphic beyond stating that.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: This circles back to the bizarre, undressed state in which
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Jessica's body was initially found.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: The presence of these items, cross-contaminating both bedrooms, combined with
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the state of her clothing and potential sexual contact.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: It creates a highly complex psychological profile for the investigators
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: to untangle. Yeah.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: It suggests severe boundary issues within the home, a deeply
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: inappropriate dynamic, or, crucially, an elaborate attempt by the killer
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: to stage the scene to look like a sexually motivated
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: home invasion.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: And when they execute the search warrant on the teenager's
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: room specifically, the unsettling discoveries just continue to mount.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Inside a dresser drawer... They find an empty Pilsner can,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: two BB pistols, plate carriers, which are those heavy tactical
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: vests designed to hold ballistic armor plates and magazine pouches.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: It's like a typical messy teenage bedroom violently spliced with
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: a tactical staging area.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: But the most chilling finds in his room were the
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: handwritten notes.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: The notes fundamentally alter the legal trajectory of this entire case.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: One note explicitly rephrased several highly specific forms of forensic evidence.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Specifically, it mentions serology, DNA, and firearm testing.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Let's dive into exactly what that means. Serology is the
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: scientific study of blood serum and other bodily fluids.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Right. It involves understanding how blood behaves, how it splatters,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: how it degrades.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: So you have a 15-year-old writing detailed notes about blood testing,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: DNA collection, and ballistics.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And then there's a second note, which local news outlet
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: KUTV2 reported on, where the teen indicated suicidal ideation and
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: literally wrote the words, this is a murder story.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: This raises a massive legal question regarding premeditation versus a
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: crime of passion.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if a defense attorney wants to argue that a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: teenager snapped in a moment of intense emotional distress, a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: sudden uncontrollable argument that went horribly wrong, these notes are
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: an incredibly difficult hurdle to overcome.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: A note detailing forensic countermeasures, like thinking about how DNA
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: is collected by police. how firearms leave unique tracing marks
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: on shell casings that shows intense planning.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: It shows a forward-thinking awareness of a police investigation that
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: hasn't even happened yet. It moves the needle heavily toward
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a calculated, premeditated act.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: It's the CSI effect playing out in real life, but
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: sketched out on notebook paper, he was studying how to
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: beat the system.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately for him, despite his apparent deep-dive research into forensics,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: he failed completely to prevent a devastating amount of physical
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: evidence from tying him to the violence.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: The forensic links listed in the affidavit are just staggering.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Let's look at them.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the suspect's DNA was found under one of
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the victim's fingernails. His DNA was allegedly found on the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: shorts that Jessica Lyman was wearing.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: The seminal fluid found on the bed was matched to
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: his DNA. Gunshot residue, or GSR, was found on multiple
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: items of his clothing.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And when police physically examined him, They found fresh scratches
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: on his right shoulder.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: When you look at that comprehensive list of evidence, you
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: are looking at a mountain that is incredibly difficult for
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: a defense team to scale.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Now, a defense attorney will try to compartmentalize and attack
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: this evidence piece by piece, right?
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: As the source material mentions, the defense's likely counter-argument for
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: the DNA is proximity. They will argue, he lived in
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: the house. Of course his DNA is on his mother's
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: clothes or in her room. That's a natural consequence of cohabitation.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I can see that argument working for touch DNA on
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the shorts, maybe.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Touch DNA being just skin cells left behind from casual contact.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Right. But DNA under the fingernails.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: That implies a violent physical struggle, doesn't it?
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: It absolutely implies a struggle, especially when paired directly with
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: the fresh scratches on his right shoulder.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Scratches on the upper body, particularly the shoulders and face,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: are classic defensive wounds inflicted by a victim desperately fighting
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: for their life.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: But the absolute most difficult piece of physical evidence to
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: explain away is the gunshot residue on his clothing.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Let's explore how GSR actually works, because it's not just
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: like dust you can brush against.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Right. When a firing pin strikes the primer of a bullet,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: it creates a microscopic explosion.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: That explosion expels a vaporous cloud of heavy metals, specifically lead, barium,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and antimony, out of the barrel and the ejection port
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of the gun.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: And that cloud of vapor cools instantly in the air...
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: and settles as microscopic particles on the shooter's hands, their face,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: and their clothing.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: If this 15-year-old was genuinely asleep in his room down
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the hall during the shooting, how did multiple items of
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: his clothing get covered in a microscopic cloud of heavy
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: metals that only exists within a few feet of a
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: discharged firearm?
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: That is a forensic reality that is almost impossible to
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: explain away with a proximity defense. The GSR places those
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: clothes at the exact center of the violent event.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: So the evidence inside the bedroom paints a horrifying picture
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of the suspect. But if he was just asleep in
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: his room, how do we explain the tactile gear, the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: notes about forensic countermeasures, and the missing weapon?
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: That question forces investigators to look outside the four walls
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: of the house.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Right, connecting the forensic evidence inside to the suspect's movements outside. Basically,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: reconstructing the timeline of that night while the rest of
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood slept.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Investigators didn't just stay inside the crime scene. They canvassed
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: the surrounding neighborhood... pulling surveillance footage from nearby homes to
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: see if anything or anyone moved in the dark.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: And between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., multiple cameras capture
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: something highly relevant.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: They capture a suspicious individual, and the behavior of this
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: individual is very telling.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: The affidavit notes the person is actively trying to dodge
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: motion-activated ring doorbell cameras.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: He's wearing a black and white mask, a dark hoodie, shorts,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: long black socks, and slip-on shoes or slider.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: He is also wearing a backpack. The cameras catch this
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: person walking into the breezeway immediately north of the residence
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: where the murders occurred.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: The attempt to evade the cameras is a crucial detail.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: It shows an acute awareness of the digital surveillance net
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: that exists in modern suburban neighborhoods.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Most people don't think about the overlapping fields of view
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: of their neighbors' doorbells.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: But the disguise itself, you know, the mask, the hoodie,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: the backpack, suggests someone who is either arriving to commit
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a crime or living a crime scene to dispose of
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: highly incriminating evidence.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: And that leads us to a massive discovery. a few
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: weeks later.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: On April 13th, a couple walking their dog in a
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: riverfront park area near the Jordan River.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Which the affidavit notes is only a few minutes walk
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: from the home.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they find an abandoned backpack hidden in the reeds.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: They call the police. Officer Sorensen arrives and looks inside.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Let's examine the contents of this backpack because it reads
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: exactly like a murderer's go bag.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: The contents are devastating to the suspect's alibi. Inside the
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: dark backpack, the officer finds a dark hoodie.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: They find rubber gardening gloves, and both Officer Sorensen and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Detective Morgan observe a red, rust-colored dried substance on the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: gloves that they believe is dried blood.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: They also find a small flashlight, a headlamp, a black
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: beanie-style hat, and a black neck gator-style face mask. with
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: a partial white skull jaw printed on it.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: The skull jaw mask matches the exact description of the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: mask seen on the ring camera footage of the suspicious
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: individual dodging cameras at 2 a.m.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: And the headlamp and flashlight suggest someone intentionally operating in
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: the dark, needing their hands free.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: But finding a bag full of suspicious items in a
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: public park is one thing. Definitively linking it to the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: suspect in a court of law is another.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: How did they tie this backpack, found weeks later in
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: the reeds of the Jordan River? back to the 15-year-old's bedroom.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Through an incredible application of Locard's exchange principle, which essentially
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: states that every contact leaves a trace.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: When detectives closely inspected the backpack and its contents in
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: the lab, they noticed a large amount of animal hair.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: This animal hair was collected and forensically compared to the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: pet hair found throughout the residence where the homicides occurred.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: It was a perfect match. The dog and cat hair
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: from the home had transferred onto the backpack and the
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: items inside.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Furthermore, the black beanie inside the bag contained human hair
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: on the inside, which can be extracted and tested for DNA.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Wow, that is incredible. We always think of trace evidence
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: as DNA or fingerprints, but everyday pet hair acts like
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: a biological GPS tracker.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: It is an invisible tether that anchors the suspect to
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the crime scene, completely circumventing his attempts to wipe away
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: fingerprints or wear gloves.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: The family dog and cat basically testified against him. And
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: the evidence tying him to that night's outdoor excursion? doesn't
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: stop with the pet hair.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: It leads to what I can only call the Cinderella
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: slipper of circumstantial evidence.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: This is a perfect example of how a seemingly mundane
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: everyday item can solidify an entire timeline.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: On April 23rd, detectives serve an additional search warrant at
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the residence. During this secondary search, they seize a single
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: right-footed black Nike slide slipper. Right.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Investigators come through the suspect's phone and find multiple pictures
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: of him wearing these exact black Nike slides.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: They also match the slip-on shoes worn by the masked
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: figure seen on the ring cameras.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: But here's the kicker. The left shoe is conspicuously missing
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: from the entire house.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Detectives believe the teen or a family member might have
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: realized the shoe matched the surveillance footage and removed the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: matching left shoe to try and break the link.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: But leaving the right shoe behind was a critical error.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: It creates an incredibly compelling circumstantial chain for a jury.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: The suspect owns these highly specific shoes. The person on
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the camera is wearing these shoes. The matching shoe is missing,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: strongly suggesting concealment.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: When you layer the ring camera footage, the backpack contents,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: the biological GPS tracker of the pet hair... and the
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: singular Nike slide.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: A very clear, indisputable picture emerges of the 15-year-old leaving
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the house after the murders to dispose of bloody gloves,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: a disguise, and likely the murder weapon itself.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Which hasn't been explicitly identified as recovered in the source,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: though the Jordan River was searched.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And as if the physical trail wasn't enough, he left
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a digital one too.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: The affidavit details that the teen used an old Samsung
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: tablet to communicate with friends through the Discord app.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: According to search warrants for his Discord activity, he actively
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: discussed the homicides with his online friends.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: We don't have the exact transcripts of those chats in
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: our source material, but discussing a double homicide you were
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: suspected of committing on a gaming chat app is a
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: monumental digital blunder.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: It speaks to the psychological disconnect we so often see
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: in cases involving juveniles, doesn't it?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely. There is a deep-seated desire to boast, to
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: seek validation from peers... or simply to process traumatic events
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: in the digital spaces where they feel most comfortable.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: They fail to realize that Discord logs every keystroke and
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: that Jada is easily subpoenaed and preserved by law enforcement.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Additionally, his broader digital footprint revealed he had extensive access
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: to firearms. Photos on his phone showed him holding a
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: black Glock 9mm handgun in his bedroom at his father's house.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: This directly contradicts his initial claim to responding officers that
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: he wasn't aware of any guns in the home.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: He not only knew about guns, he was actively photographing
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: himself posing with them.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: So we've established the physical and digital timeline of the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: crime and the disposal of evidence.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: But to understand the true nature of this tragedy, we
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: have to look at the motive, the captured audio, and
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: the broken relationship at the center of it all.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: We are shifting from the mechanics of the murder to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the psychological why.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: This is where the case moves from a complex forensic
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: puzzle to a profound human tragedy.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: To understand the why, investigators looked at the digital communications
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: between mother and son over the past year, and they
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: found a home environment that was intensely toxic.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: But before we look at the historical text messages, let's
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: look at the most chilling piece of chronological evidence from
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: the night of the murders itself.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: This audio recording captured on March 27th, the night before
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the bodies were discovered.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Home surveillance footage from a nearby home captured an altercation.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: The audio picks up a woman's voice, which authorities believe
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: is definitively Jessica Lyman, screaming the 16-year-old's name.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: She then yells, what are you doing?
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: And less than two minutes later, three distinct gunshots ring
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: out on the recording.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: What are you doing?
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Followed by silence and then gunfire. How does a defense
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: team even begin to approach real-time audio of a murder
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: taking place?
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: From a defense perspective, real-time audio is nearly impossible to
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: overcome compared to circumstantial or physical evidence.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: You could argue in court about how touch DNA got
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: on a shirt or why a teenager might have GSR
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: on his clothes if he was standing near someone who
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: fired a weapon.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: But audio of the victim screaming the defendant's name in
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: a panic, followed by the exact number of gunshots that
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: correlate to the shell casings found on the bedroom floor,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: that is devastating.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It utterly destroys his statement that he was asleep and
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: heard nothing. It puts him awake in the presence of
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: his mother in a state of intense conflict at the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: exact moment the murders occurred.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: The defense's only real angle there, as the broadcast suggested,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: is to question the identification of the voice on the tape.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Right. How do you know that's really her voice? How
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: do you know she was talking to him?
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: But it's an incredibly weak argument when paired with the GSR,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: the DNA, and the ring camera footage.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Let's rewind the clock a bit and look at the
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: foundation of that conflict. On April 2nd, police got a
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: forensic download of Jessica's phone. and they retrieved text messages
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: from the summer before, in July 2024.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: The text messages paint a picture of a deeply fractured,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: highly volatile relationship between Jessica and her son.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: The language used is not just typical teenage rebellion or
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: parental frustration. It is profoundly destructive and abusive.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I know you're going to read some of these, and
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: they are tough to hear.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to read some of these exact texts
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: retrieved from her phone. And warning to you listening, they
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: are vulgar and extremely harsh. This is a mother texting
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: her 15-year-old son. She wrote, I don't like you go away.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Do you need to learn how to shut your mouth?
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: You're so freaking mentally ill.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: It just keeps going.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Do you know how insignificant you really are to my life?
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Very insignificant. And perhaps the most brutal one. I wish
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I died and your stomach wouldn't have to put up
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: with you.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: To read a mother telling her child that she wishes
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: she had died while pregnant with him rather than have
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: to deal with him is staggering.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: It reveals an environment completely devoid of emotional safety.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: It is a home filled with resentment, verbal abuse, and
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: psychological damage.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But let me formulate a theory here and get your
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: take on it. How does a jury or a judge
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: process this kind of toxic background?
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Because on one hand, it paints a picture of profound
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: dysfunction that might evoke a sliver of sympathy for a
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: kid growing up in that horrific environment.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: But on the other hand, doesn't it simply hand the
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: prosecution a giant neon sign pointing to a clear, simmering
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: motive for murder? It shows exactly why he would want
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: her dead.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: That is the razor's edge of this type of psychological evidence.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: The prosecution will absolutely use these texts to establish motive.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: They will argue that the teenager had a deep-seated hatred
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: for his mother, fueled by months or years of these exchanges,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and that the murder was the calculated culmination of this resentment.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: They will say, look at the vitriol. Of course he
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: wanted her dead. He planned it. However, the defense will
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: use these exact same texts to build a comprehensive mental
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: health mitigation strategy.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: A mitigation strategy? Explain how they use her terrible words
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to defend his terrible actions.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: The defense won't argue that the texts justify murder. I mean,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: nothing justifies murder. Instead, they will argue that these texts
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: prove the 15-year-old was subjected to severe chronic emotional and
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: psychological trauma.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: When we look at the psychology of a teenage brain,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: specifically the prefrontal cortex, we know it is highly underdeveloped.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: The prefrontal cortex governs impulse control, emotional regulation, and the
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: evaluation of long-term consequences.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: If a mother is calling her son mentally ill and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: telling him he is insignificant, what does that chronic stress mean?
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: do to a developing, vulnerable brain?
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: The defense will bring in psychological experts to argue that
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: this highly volatile environment contributed to a break in reality
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: or stunted his emotional regulation to the point where he
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: simply couldn't process conflict normally.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: They will use the text to say, This child was
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: fundamentally broken by his environment long before a gun was
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: ever drawn.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Which perfectly transitions us into the ultimate legal battlefield of
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: this case, the stark contrast between juvenile versus adult justice.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: We take this mountain of evidence, you know, the biological
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: clock of rigor mortis, the forensic countermeasures, the ring cameras,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the devastating audio and the toxic texts, and we ask
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the ultimate legal question.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: How does the state of Utah handle a 16-year-old accused
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: of such a monstrous act?
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: This is where the insights from Utah criminal defense attorney
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Sky Lazaro featured in our source material are absolutely vital.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Because the system a defendant is tried in completely dictates
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: the rules of the game and the potential outcome for
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: the rest of their natural life.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: We have two entirely distinct systems at play here, the
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: juvenile court and the district court.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Let's examine the juvenile court first, which is where he
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: was initially officially charged due to his age.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Attorney Sky Lazaro explains that juvenile court is fundamentally driven
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: by a philosophy of rehabilitation.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: The entire system is built on the belief that a
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: young brain can be fixed. It is heavily focused on
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: juvenile probation, providing psychiatric services, education, and treatment to kids
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: and families to get them back on track.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: The structural mechanics of juvenile court reflect this rehabilitative goal.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: There are no juries in juvenile court. It is strictly
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: a bench trial before a judge.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: The proceedings are completely closed to the public, meaning no cameras,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: no live streaming, all records sealed to protect the identity
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: of the minor.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Interestingly, the court doesn't even make findings of guilt in
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the traditional adult sense. They make factual findings of what happened.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: But here is the massive catch, the reason why serious
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: violent crimes often get bumped up.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: The juvenile court loses jurisdiction over an individual when they
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: turn 21. or in some specific cases of secure care
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: when they turn 25.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: That means if this teenager is convicted of a double
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: aggravated murder in juvenile court, the absolute longest the state
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: can hold him in a secure psychiatric or juvenile facility
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: is until his 25th birthday.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: After that, regardless of his mental state or the severity
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: of his crime, he must be released back into society.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Which is exactly why prosecutors look at a case involving
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: the premeditated murder of a mother and an eight-year-old child
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: and push aggressively for the adult district court.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: The adult system is not primarily rehabilitative. It is explicitly punitive.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: The stakes are astronomically higher.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: If tried as an adult, he faces the possibility of
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: 25 years to life in a maximum security adult prison.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Given it is aggravated murder, the death penalty is technically
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: on the table, though Attorney Lazaro notes it is highly
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: unlikely to be pursued due to his age at the
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: time of the crime.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: And the adult court process is entirely different. It's public.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: The trials can be live-streamed, just like the Law and
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Crime Network does every day.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: He would have the constitutional right to a jury trial.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: But to get from the closed doors of juvenile court
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: to the public arena of adult court, they have to
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: go through a rigorous process called a certification, or bind-over hearing.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: The state has explicitly stated its intention to file criminal
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: information to bind the defendant over to the adult district court.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: So what specific factors does a judge weigh when deciding
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: whether to certify a teenager as an adult?
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: It is a delicate and highly consequential balancing act. The
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: judge will look at the severity and the calculated nature
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: of the crime, obviously.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: But they also look deeply at the individual. A primary
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: factor is age, like how close the suspect is to
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: turning 18.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: The closer to 18, the more likely the certification. They
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: will heavily scrutinize his mental health records. They will look
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: at his developmental and educational status.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Again, it comes down to brain development. Is this a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: teenager who functions at the level of a young adult,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: fully capable of understanding the permanence of his actions? Or
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: is this someone with profound cognitive, developmental, or emotional delays
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: caused by his environment?
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: So the battle lines are drawn right there at the
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: certification hearing.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: The state says, look at the calculated nature of the crime,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the notes on forensics, the masks, the deliberate disposal of evidence.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: This is adult predatory behavior.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: And the defense strategy, as Lazaro points out, has to
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: be mitigation. Given the mountain of physical and digital evidence
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: in the probable cause affidavit, simply arguing he didn't do
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: it is a losing battle in front of any judge
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: or jury.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The defense attorney's first job is rigorous procedural analysis.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: They will comb through every single search warrant.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Was the ring camera footage obtained legally? Was the backpack
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: in the river seized according to proper constitutional protocol?
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Was the chain of custody for the DNA and the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: GSR maintained perfectly by the lab technicians?
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: If they can find a procedural error, they can file
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: a motion to suppress that specific piece of evidence, trying
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: to chip away at the state's case.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: But let's say the cops did everything by the book.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: The evidence comes in. Attorney Lazaro says the defense must
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: pivot to a mitigation defense.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: They have to hire independent psychiatric experts to do a
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: deep dive into this teenager's mental health history.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: The defense will argue that while the crime was undeniably horrific,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the behavior surrounding it points to profound psychological abnormalities rather
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: than cold-blooded adult calculation.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: They will point out the bizarre, irrational reality of a
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: kid shooting his family and then just hanging around the
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: house while the bodies lay there in a state of
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: rigor mortis.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: They will point to the strange, almost performative nature of
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: his handwritten notes about forensics and a murder story.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: They will use the toxic text from his mother to
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: show a completely fractured psyche.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: The goal isn't to walk him out the front door
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: a free man. The goal is to prevent a judge
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: from sending a broken 15-year-old into adult maximum security prison
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: for the rest of his natural life.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Arguing instead that he requires the intensive rehabilitation only the
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: juvenile system can attempt to provide.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: We have spent the last hour navigating an incredibly dark, complex,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: and scientifically dense case.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: We've seen a family dynamic completely shattered by verbal abuse
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: and ultimately gunfire.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: We've traced a staggering trail of physical evidence from the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: biological mechanics of rigor mortis to the chemical transfer of
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: gunshot residue.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: And we find ourselves at the crossroads of a legal
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: system that is forced to decide an impossible question.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Is this 16-year-old a deeply damaged child in desperate need
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: of psychiatric rehabilitation? Or is he an adult killer deserving
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: of permanent isolation behind bars?
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: The paramount takeaway for anyone listening to how this investigation
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: unfolded is the absolute inescapability of modern forensics.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: It's no longer just about wiping down fingerprints or washing
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: away blood. Modern investigations look at a holistic, interconnected environment.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: From a ring camera catching the specific stride of a
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: masked figure in the dark, to the biological GPS tracker
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: of microscopic pet hair linking a dumped backpack to a
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: crime scene, to the background data logging on a cell phone.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: The physical and digital worlds are so deeply intertwined that
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: committing a crime in the dark is practically impossible today.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: And that leaves us with a final thought to mull over.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: In this case, we have a suspect who literally wrote
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: notes planning forensic countermeasures. He thought about DNA. He thought
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: about ballistics. He wore a mask and gloves.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: He tried to architect a clean, untraceable crime.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Yet he was entirely undone by the mundane digital infrastructure
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: of modern life.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: He was undone by a neighbor's doorbell camera, his own
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: chat logs on a gaming app, and his own uncontrollable
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: teenage fixation on his cell phone while sitting in the
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: interrogation room.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: So to you listening, as our daily lives become increasingly
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: tethered to technology, is it even possible for the perfect
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: crime to exist anymore?
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Or, by surrounding ourselves with smart devices, cameras, and digital
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: footprints for our own daily convenience, are we simply building
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: digital prisons that will capture our every move long before
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: any physical crime is ever committed?
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: A fascinating and deeply unsettling question to consider. Until next time,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: keep diving deep.