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Disbarred Judge Guns Down Prosecutors In Brutal Revenge Plot · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine a man, right, someone who is actually willing to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: stockpile jars of homemade napalm.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and purchase a literal sniper crossbow.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And then ruthlessly execute the top law enforcement officials
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: in his county. And all of this because he got
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: caught stealing $ 600 worth of office supplies.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds like the plot of a, you know,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: a surreal, pulpy thriller.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: It really does. But this is exactly what happened when
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the absolute worst case scenario walked right through the front
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  Speaker 1: door of the Texas justice system.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So welcome back to another custom tailored deep dive. We
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: are so thrilled to have you with us today. Our
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: mission for this deep dive is to take a really dense,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: just chilling true crime case from Coffman County, Texas, and, well,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: distill it down for you.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Because the sheer scale of what occurred here really requires
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: that level of analysis.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. We are going to extract the most crucial facts.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: dig into the hidden technical details, and really explore the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: deep psychological insights buried within this story. We want to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: ensure you get a completely thorough understanding of these events
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: without feeling, you know, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Right, because we aren't just looking at a single crime here.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: We are looking at a full-on asymmetrical war waged against
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: an entire community's legal infrastructure.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. We are looking at an unprecedented
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: assault on the American criminal justice system where the hunters,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the people whose entire careers were dedicated to putting away
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: dangerous criminals.
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  Speaker 2: Suddenly realized they had become the hunted.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: And to understand how this nightmare unfolded, we have to
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: start by looking at where it happened. Like if you
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: were to walk into Coffman County, Texas, you'd immediately pick
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: up on a very specific atmosphere.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: For sure. Coffman County is geographically right next to Dallas.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: So it is busy. But it still retains this very tight-knit,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: almost insular courthouse culture. I mean, this is an ecosystem
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: where everybody in the legal community is deeply intertwined.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the judges, the defense attorneys, the prosecutors.
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  Speaker 2: They don't just see each other in passing. They try
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: cases together. They eat at the same local diners for lunch.
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  Speaker 2: They park in the same lots. It is a highly
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: compressed environment.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the core paradox that we are
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: going to be tracking throughout this entire deep dive. Yeah.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: How does a petty, almost laughably small theft escalate into
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: a reign of terror?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: It's a massive leap.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: It is. We are talking about a trajectory that starts
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: with swiping some computer monitors and ends with dark web extortion,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: tactical assault rifles, and literally medieval torture plots.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: And to navigate a progression that extreme, we really need
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: a clear structure today. We will move chronologically through this. First,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: we have to examine the initial just paralyzing shock of
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: the very first assassination.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: The one that started it all.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. From there, we will explore the suffocating veil of
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: paranoia that completely smothered this town. And finally, we'll break
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: down the unraveling of a profoundly unlikely suspect. We'll analyze
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the psychological and technical blunders that eventually brought him down.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I want you to just take a second and imagine
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: your own life. Imagine waking up, getting your coffee, and
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: driving to work. Knowing that simply sitting at your desk
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and doing your job has placed a lethal target on
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: your back.
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  Speaker 2: It's terrifying.
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  Speaker 1: Not just on you, but on your family sleeping in
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: their beds. That is the exact reality these people were
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: thrust into.
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  Speaker 2: The psychological toll of that kind of sustained terror is
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: something most people simply cannot fathom. I mean, it literally
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: rewires your entire nervous system.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to where that rewiring begins. The first strike.
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  Speaker 1: It's a Thursday morning. A totally mundane, regular Thursday. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Assistant District Attorney Mark Hathi is doing exactly what he
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: does every single day. He's a prolific, highly successful trial lawyer.
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  Speaker 1: He has spent 25 years building a massive reputation in Dallas,
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  Speaker 1: and now he is lending his expertise to Coffman County.
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  Speaker 2: He was a heavy hitter.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Definitely. So he parks his car, and he begins the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: short walk from the annex building over to the courthouse.
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  Speaker 2: And notice the routine nature of this movement. He is
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: in his own territory, making a transitional walk, He has
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: probably made hundreds, if not thousands of times.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he is in the heart of the justice system's
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: physical footprint.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: And right there, in that familiar parking lot, the routine
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  Speaker 1: is violently shattered. He is ambushed. It is broad daylight.
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  Speaker 2: It's just brazen.
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  Speaker 1: The witnesses, nearby people just going about their mourning, can
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: hear him screaming for his life. He is yelling, please no,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: please don't, please no. Oh, that's chilling. And then, five
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: shots ring out. Mark Hasse is shot five times. and
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: left to die right there on the pavement.
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  Speaker 2: The sheer audacity of a daylight assassination in a courthouse
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  Speaker 2: parking lot immediately elevates this beyond a standard homicide.
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  Speaker 1: The perspective we have from the witnesses paints a scene
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  Speaker 1: that is incredibly chaotic and terrifying. You have an attorney
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: named Jenny Parks. She was just parking her car across
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  Speaker 1: the street, gathering her things to walk over for criminal court.
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  Speaker 2: Just a normal morning for her.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and she looks up and actually sees her friend
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  Speaker 1: and colleague, Mark Hassee, lying there riddled with bullets.
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  Speaker 2: Unimaginable.
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  Speaker 1: There is also a mechanic working at an auto paint
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  Speaker 1: shop right across the street who watches the shooter flee
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  Speaker 1: from behind a door. And the description they give of
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: this killer, I've read a lot of cases, and this
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  Speaker 1: is where it gets surreal.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the outfit.
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  Speaker 1: The gunman is wearing a tactical hood. The witness specifically
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: described it as an executioner's hood, the kind you might
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: see in a hyper-violent video game. It was completely covering
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: his head with a black mesh screen over the face.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the psychological warfare at play with
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: that mask.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Right, because normally you'd want to blend in.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. If you are just trying to eliminate a target
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: and get away with it, you wear something nondescript, a
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: baseball cap and sunglasses. You just blend in. Yeah. Wearing
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: a tactical executioner's hood is not about blending in. It
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: is about projecting a highly specific militarized terror.
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  Speaker 1: It is.
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  Speaker 2: It strips away the humanity of the attacker and replaces
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  Speaker 2: it with this archetype of death.
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  Speaker 1: There is also a devastating irony in this moment. Mark
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Cassie knew his job was inherently dangerous. You don't spend
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a quarter of a century putting away violent offenders without
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: making enemies.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: No, you definitely don't.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Because of that awareness, he actually carried a concealed handgun.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: He was armed that morning. But his gun was holstered
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: underneath his buttoned-up suit jacket.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: He couldn't get to it.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The ambush was so sudden... And so violently overwhelming,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: he never even had the time to reach for his weapon.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Which is a crucial lesson in the mechanics of self-defense.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Having a weapon is largely irrelevant if you don't possess
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: the situational awareness and the reaction time to deploy it.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
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  Speaker 2: In a transitional space like a parking lot, the attacker
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: always holds the overwhelming advantage of the element of surprise.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Action is always faster than reaction.
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  Speaker 1: I have to jump in here and pose a theory.
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  Speaker 1: This daylight ambush, the tactical executioner mask, the screaming in
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  Speaker 1: a mundane parking lot. It sounds like a scene directed
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  Speaker 1: for a movie, not real life in a small Texas county.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: It really does.
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  Speaker 1: Like, if a killer wants to get away with murder,
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  Speaker 1: they do it at 2 a.m. in a dark alley
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  Speaker 1: with no witnesses. Is the daylight aspect of this hit
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  Speaker 1: a sign of the killer being incredibly sloppy and reckless,
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  Speaker 1: almost daring to be caught? Or is it a calculated,
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  Speaker 1: intentional message of absolute impunity?
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  Speaker 2: It is entirely the latter. A daylight hit on the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: doorstep of the courthouse is a broadcast. It is an
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  Speaker 2: act of asymmetrical warfare. The message being sent to every
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  Speaker 2: single person working in that building is, you are not
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  Speaker 2: safe anywhere. Not in the light of day, not surrounded
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  Speaker 2: by witnesses, and certainly not in the shadow of your
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: own courthouse. It is entirely designed to maximize terror and
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  Speaker 2: completely paralyze the normal operations of the justice system.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: And that paralysis sets in instantly. Mark Hassee dies from
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: those five gunshot wounds. The immediate aftermath in Kauffman County
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: is sheer panic, coupled with a furious, almost desperate law
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  Speaker 1: enforcement response. The district attorney, Mike McClelland, who was Mark's
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  Speaker 1: boss and a very close personal friend, goes on television.
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  Speaker 1: He looks directly into the news cameras and issues a
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  Speaker 1: visceral threat to the killer. He says they're going to
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  Speaker 1: pull them out of whatever hole they are hiding in.
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  Speaker 2: From a leadership perspective, you can completely understand McClelland's reaction.
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  Speaker 2: He is operating out of a protective, primal instinct to
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  Speaker 2: defend his people in a moment of profound crisis.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was furious.
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  Speaker 2: But strategically, going on television and taunting an unknown, highly
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  Speaker 2: capable threat is incredibly dangerous. It shifts the dynamic from
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  Speaker 2: an investigation into a personal feud.
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  Speaker 1: And the investigation itself is facing a monumental hurdle. When
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  Speaker 1: a prosecutor with Hassee's resume is murdered... The Sussex pool
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: isn't just a handful of people. It's an absolute nightmare.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, it's massive.
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  Speaker 1: They have to look at everyone he has ever put away.
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  Speaker 1: We are talking about 25 years worth of suspects, murderers,
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  Speaker 1: cartel associates, violent gang members. People who have served their
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: time are now out on the streets and might be
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: looking to settle a score.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: That is standard operating procedure. You start by pulling the
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: victim's caseload. You look for specific threats made in the courtroom,
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  Speaker 2: disgruntled defendants, anyone who has recently been paroled who held
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: a grudge.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: And it takes time. Exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. The logistics of running down those leads take massive
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: amounts of manpower.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: While they are desperately digging into this massive haystack of
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: former criminals, the entire investigation gets completely derailed by what
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: turns out to be a massive false positive.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Ah, right. The Colorado distraction.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Right around this exact same time, breaking news hits
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: about another high-profile member of law enforcement being gunned down.
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  Speaker 1: A prison warden up in Colorado is murdered at his
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  Speaker 1: own home.
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  Speaker 2: The timing is just unbelievable.
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  Speaker 1: It is. The suspect is identified as a recent parolee
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and known white supremacist named Evan Ebel. After killing the warden,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Ebel flees south, directly into Texas. He ends up in
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: a confrontation with a Texas deputy named James Boyd, and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Ebel severely wounds him, shooting the deputy three times. This
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: kicks off a massive, fiery high-speed chase that only ends
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: when Ebel crashes his Cadillac into a semi-truck and dies
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: in a massive shootout with police.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Put yourself in the shoes of the investigators on the
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: ground in Coffman County. I mean, the timing of this
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: is almost impossible to ignore.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, how could you ignore it?
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  Speaker 2: You just had your top prosecutor assassinated. Days later, a
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: prison warden is murdered and the killer flees into your
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: state and shoots a deputy.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It has this immense narrative gravity. It feels like this massive, connected,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: underworld conspiracy against the justice system. the Aryan Brotherhood or
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: some organized syndicate declaring open season on law enforcement.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: I can easily see how investigators will put all their
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: eggs in that basket. But how dangerous is that kind
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of distraction when the real killer is still out there?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: It is the textbook definition of confirmation bias, and it
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: is the single biggest threat to a complex investigation. Human
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: beings are, you know, we're biologically wired to recognize patterns.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: When you have three high profile attacks on law enforcement
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: in a condensed time frame, your brain instantly connects those
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: dots because it creates a cohesive, understandable narrative.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: It makes sense of the chaos.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Yes. But the danger is that once you lock onto
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: a narrative that feels intuitively right, you subconsciously start ignoring
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: or discounting evidence that contradicts it. You stop looking at
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: the anomalies.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And the anomaly here eventually broke the whole theory wide open.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: After pouring resources into the Evan Evil Connection, They finally
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: prove he had an ironclad alibi for the Texas murder.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: He wasn't even there.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: No, he wasn't even in the state of Texas when
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Mark Hasse was killed. So this massive, blazing hot trail
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: suddenly goes ice cold and weeks pass.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Which means for weeks, the actual killer is out there
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: watching the police chase a ghost. And the town is
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: just suffocating under the weight of that unknown threat.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: The atmosphere is described as absolute paranoia. People who work
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: at the courthouse are completely changing their daily habits. They're
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: varying their routes to work. They're looking under their cars.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: They're jumping at shadows.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Everybody is on edge.
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  Speaker 1: And the reaction of the district attorney, Mike McClelland, is
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: incredibly telling. He was described by everyone as this Papa
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Bear type of figure, a tall, imposing guy, a massive
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: gun enthusiast. He viewed himself as the protector of the office,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: almost invincible.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: He felt a profound, almost paternal responsibility for his staff.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: He takes this protector role to an extreme, adopting a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: complete fortress mentality. He actually goes gun shopping for his
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: entire staff. Wow. Yeah. He is handing out firearms to
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: lawyers and clerks to make sure everyone is armed. His son, J.R. McClellan,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: provides this heartbreaking detail about his father's mindset during this time.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: J.R. notes that his father, despite being hyper aware that
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: a highly trained assassin was targeting his office, never locked
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: his doors at home. But he kept guns everywhere. I mean,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: on every available surface.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: He had two guns by his favorite chair, two on
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the bar. two in the entertainment center, and one on
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: each side of the bed he shared with his wife, Cynthia.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: If we break down the psychology of that, it is
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: a fascinating defense mechanism. McClelland is trying to regain a
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: sense of control in a situation that is fundamentally uncontrollable.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Right, by surrounding himself with weapons. Exactly.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: He is relying on the tools he understands, firearms, to
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: create a perimeter of safety. But the fact that he
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: left the doors unlocked speaks volumes.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: What does that tell you?
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: It reveals a deeply ingrained, almost mythological belief in his
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: own invulnerability, especially on his home turf. He believed that
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: if anyone dared to cross his threshold, his sheer firepower
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: and readiness would prevail.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: But the fortress fails. Roughly two months after Markassi is murdered,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: on the Saturday before Easter, the unthinkable happens. In the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: pre-dawn hours, when the world is completely quiet, Mike and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Cynthia McClelland are ambushed inside their own home.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: The sanctuary was breached.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: The scene that investigators walked into was gruesome and utterly heartbreaking.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: It was described as a virtual bloodbath. Both Mike and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Cynthia were shot multiple times with a high-powered assault-style weapon.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Just horrific. Mike's body was found near the front door.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Cynthia was found in the living room. And there was
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: a horrifying specific detail that investigators noted Cynthia was shot
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: an extra time simply because she was moaning.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: That specific detail, the decision to fire another round into
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: a dying woman simply to silence a moan... Demonstrates a profound,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: cold-blooded cruelty.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: So callous.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: It moves the act from a calculated assassination into the
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: realm of deeply personal, rage-filled execution. There is a contempt
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: for the victim's humanity there that goes beyond just eliminating
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a target.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I want to push back on this idea of physical
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: security for a moment. We just established that Mike McClelland
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: was this hypervigilant papa bear. who literally had an arsenal
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: within arm's reach in every single room of his house.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: He was armed to the teeth and expecting trouble. Yet
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: he was slaughtered in his own hallway. If a man
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: with a gun on every flat surface can be taken
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: down like this, what does that actually tell us about
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the illusion of safety?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: It tells us that physical barriers and reactionary weapons are
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: often entirely useless against an unseen, highly premeditated threat. The
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: brutal reality of tactical combat is that whoever dictates the
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: time and and the place of the engagement usually wins.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: If someone has studied your habits, knows the layout of
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: your home, and chooses to attack at 3 a.m. when
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: your cognitive functions are suppressed by sleep, your reactionary defenses
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: will almost always fail.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Because you just can't wake up fast enough.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The human element, the simple biological vulnerability of sleeping
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: in your own bed, cannot be completely shielded by firearms alone.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: It shatters the myth that we can permanently barricade ourselves
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: against a determined enemy.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: It completely shattered the community. After the Easter massacre of
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the McCloans, the remaining prosecutors were immediately given round-the-clock armed protection.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: We're talking about police officers stationed at their homes 24-7.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Which is an unprecedented measure in modern American jurisprudence. Truly.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: It highlights how utterly compromised the entire county felt. The
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: system had functionally broken down.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: But then. Just 24 hours after the Easter massacre, when
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the panic is at its absolute peak, there is a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: massive break in the case. And an anonymous tip comes
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: into the Kauffman Sheriff's Crime Stoppers hotline. And investigators realize
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: almost immediately that this isn't a crank call or some
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: armchair detective. The caller proves, without a shadow of a doubt,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: that they are the killer.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I'm curious about the mechanics of that. In a high-profile case,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: the tip lines are flooded with false confessions. How exactly
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: did this caller establish total credibility so quickly?
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: By providing holdback evidence. They gave unreleased, highly specific details
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: about the murders that only the killer and the medical
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: examiner would know. Ah, I see. They detailed the exact
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: weapons used, the specific caliber of the bullets, and the precise,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: gruesome manner in which the killings took place. Information that
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: had been held tightly by the homicide detectives specifically to
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: weed out false confessors.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: That is a classic maneuver for a very specific archetype
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: of offender. They crave the recognition of their acts. They
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: want the authorities to know exactly how smart and capable
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: they are.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: And they crave absolute control. Because the tipster doesn't just confess.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: They move to an email exchange with the officers through
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the Crime Stoppers website. And they lay down an ultimatum.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: What was the ultimatum?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: The killer writes that they have until Friday at 4 p.m.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: for a specific Kaufman judge to resign. Or there will
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: be more murders.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, we are
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: witnessing a terrifying psychological evolution here.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: This individual has moved from being a targeted assassin, settling
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: specific personal scores to operating as a full blown domestic terrorist.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: They are using extreme violence and the credible threat of
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: ongoing violence to extort the judiciary.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: They are attempting to force a political or institutional outcome.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: That is a massive paradigm-shifting escalation in intent.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: And they are incredibly sophisticated about how they deliver this threat,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: at least in the digital realm. The investigators immediately try
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: to trace the IP address of these extortion emails, hoping
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: to pinpoint a physical location.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Sure, that's standard.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: But they can't. The killer used the TUR network, navigating
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: through the dark web, to remain completely anonymous while literally
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: taunting the police in real time.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: The use of the TOR network is a massive indicator
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: of premeditation and technical proficiency.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I always hear about the dark web and TOR in movies,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and I picture some hacker matrix with green code falling
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: down a screen. How does this guy actually use it
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to hide his tracks so effectively from the FBI?
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: It is a brilliant, if nefarious, piece of technology. TOR
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: stands for the Onion Router. Normally, when you send an email,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: your computer talks directly to a server, leaving a clear
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: digital footprint of your IP address, your internet home address.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Right, they can just look up where you send it from. Exactly.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: But when you use Tor, your data is wrapped in
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: layers of encryption, like an onion. The data is then
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: bounced through a random sequence of volunteer relays all over
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: the globe.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Your email might bounce to a server in Switzerland, then
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: to one in Brazil, then to Tokyo, before finally arriving
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: at the Crimestoppers website. What? Yeah, and at each stop,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: a single layer of encryption is peeled away, revealing only
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the next destination, not the original sender. By the time
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: the email arrives, it is virtually impossible for standard law
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: enforcement to trace it back through that convoluted global maze
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: to the source.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: That crazy.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: It shows that this killer planned not just the physical attacks,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: but the digital psychological warfare that would follow.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: But despite those digital smokescreens, the investigators decide to go
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: back to basics. They stop looking for hackers and start
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: looking at the victims. Mark Cassie, Mike McClellan. What is
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the actual tangible connection between these two men?
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: And did they find one?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: They find the one single common denominator. In all their
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: years of practice, Hasse and McClellan had only tried one
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: case together. Just one. And the defendant in that case
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: was a man named Eric Williams.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: And this is where the profile of the suspect completely
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: upends all expectations of what a mass murderer looks like.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: It truly does. So who is Eric Williams? He is
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: a married 46-year-old man. He is a former National Guardsman.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: He is a prominent member of the local chamber of commerce.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: He had been a respected attorney representing Child Protective Services.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: And most shockingly of all, he was the local justice
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: of the peace. He was a sitting judge in Coffman County.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: He wasn't on the fringes of society. He was a
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: pillar of the community.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: He was. He was described by people who knew him
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: as having this friendly baby face. He was considered a
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: rising star in the legal community. He had power, prestige,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: a bright future.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: So the fundamental question becomes, What on earth diverted this
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: rising respected star onto a path of mass murder? What
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: is the motive?
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: The motive is the part that is almost impossible for
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: a rational brain to wrap its head around. It wasn't
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: a cartel drug bust. It wasn't a multi-million dollar corruption
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: scandal where he was facing decades in federal prison.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Then what was it?
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: The surveillance cameras at the courthouse caught Eric Williams stealing
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: three Dell computer monitors from the IT department.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Wait, computer monitors? Yes.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Three standard Dell computer monitors worth a combined total of
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: about $ 600. And he didn't orchestrate some grand heist. He
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: did it on a Sunday afternoon when the building was closed.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: He keyed in, picked them up, and literally just walked
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: out of the building carrying them.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: The arrogance of that act alone is staggering. A sitting
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: judge walking out of his own courthouse with stolen electronics,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: seemingly completely unconcerned about the surveillance system he undoubtedly knew existed.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I know a bit about the law, but why did
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: he even want them? The excuse he gave during the
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: investigation was that he was taking them to set up
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a video magistration system. What does that even mean? And
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: does it justify taking county property?
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: It's a very clever bureaucratic excuse. A justice of the
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: peace handles a lot of lower level legal matters like evictions,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: small claims and arraignments for people who have just been arrested.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: A video magistration system would allow him to arraign inmates
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: via a video link from the jail. rather than having
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: the deputies physically transport the inmates to his courtroom. It
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: saves time and money.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it sounds legitimate on paper.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: By claiming he was taking the monitors to build this system,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: he was trying to frame his theft as a rogue
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: administrative action for the greater good of the county, rather
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: than a common burglary. But the fatal flaw is that
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: you don't procure IT equipment for official county business by
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: sneaking in on a Sunday and walking out the back door.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: And the jury saw right through that bureaucratic excuse. When
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: he was caught, Mark Hasse was the lead prosecutor on
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the case, and Mike McClelland sat as second chair. Now,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: because of his standing, they actually offered Eric a plea deal. Oh, really? Yeah.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: They told him they would reduce the felony theft charges
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to a misdemeanor if he just took responsibility. But Eric
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Williams arrogantly refused. He genuinely thought he was smart enough
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: to talk his way out of it on the stand.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: He went to trial, he lost, and he was convicted
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: of felony theft.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: And the consequences of a felony conviction for a sitting
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: judge and licensed attorney are absolute and immediate.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Total devastation. The moment that gavel fell, he instantly lost
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: his position as justice of the peace. He was stripped
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of his law license. He lost his state pension. Over
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: $ 600 worth of computer equipment. He lost his entire career,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: his status, his entire identity. Wow. Here's where it gets
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: really interesting. Because if you try to map this behavior
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: onto normal, rational human psychology, It fails completely. Imagine you
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: or me throwing away our entire careers over swiping some
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: office supplies.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine it.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Most people would feel profound, crushing shame. They would retreat, apologize,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: and try to rebuild their lives in quiet. But Eric
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Williams doesn't take an ounce of accountability. Instead, he turns
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: into a cold-blooded killer to seek revenge over $ 600. It
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is a completely, wildly disproportionate response. Why does his brain
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: go to murder instead of shame?
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: To understand this, we have to delve into the mechanics
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: of what psychologists call a narcissistic injury. For an extreme
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: narcissist like Eric Williams, the $ 600 worth of monitors wasn't
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: the issue at all.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: What was it then?
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: The injury was the public humiliation. Narcissists construct a grandiose,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: fabricated reality where they are always the smartest, most important
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: person in the room. His gavel, his title, his law license,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: these were the structural pillars holding up that fabricated reality. Right.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: When Haccia McClellan prosecuted him and won, they didn't just
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: take his job. They destroyed his entire ego structure. They
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: exposed him as a common thief in front of his peers.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: So to him, it feels like an existential threat.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Precisely. In his deeply distorted worldview, he wasn't a criminal
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: being punished. He was a righteous victim of a grand
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: coordinated injustice. Because he lacks the emotional capacity for self-reflection
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: or shame... The internal pain of that humiliation is instantly
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: converted into external rage.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: He felt entirely entitled to exact revenge. In his mind,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: balancing the scales of justice meant taking their lives because
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: they took his livelihood. Everyone else, including Cynthia McClellan, was
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: just collateral damage to his bruised ego.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: The entitlement is breathtaking. But proving he actually committed the
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: murders is a completely different story. Initially, there is absolutely
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: no physical evidence tying Eric Williams to the crime scenes.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And we also have conflicting vehicle descriptions, which creates a
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: massive headache for the prosecution. Right.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Let's break down the cars. Neighbors in the McClellan neighborhood
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: reported seeing a white Crown Victoria, which looks like an
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: unmarked police car, entering and leaving around the time of
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the Easter weekend murders.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, so that's the first car.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Yes. But investigators run the plates, and there is no
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: record of Eric Williams ever owning or registering a Crown Victoria. Furthermore...
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: The getaway car from the Hasse murder in the courthouse
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: parking lot was described by multiple witnesses as a brown
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: or silver sedan.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: So on paper, the vehicles don't match the suspect's registered property,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: and they don't even match each other across the two
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: crime scenes. It looks like the work of different people.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And on top of that, Eric Williams is initially
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: playing it smart. He is refusing to talk to investigators.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: His lawyers are keeping him totally insulated. But then the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: facade cracks. And it cracks because of his own monumental arrogance.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Ah, the classic fool for a client syndrome.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Just 12 days after the McClellan murders, Eric Williams
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: fires his defense attorneys. He decides he wants to represent himself,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and he proactively reaches out to the authorities to clear
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: his name. Two Texas Rangers go to his house to
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: interview him, and they're secretly recording the audio of this conversation.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: He invites law enforcement into his domain, fully believing he
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: is intellectually superior and can manipulate the narrative.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: He plays the innocent victim perfectly. Can you understand why
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: your name pops up in this investigation? The rangers ask him.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: He calmly says, absolutely, I understand the optics, but firmly
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: denies any involvement.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Right, he's cool and collected.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Then the rangers pivot, and they ask about his guns.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: As a convicted felon, it is highly illegal for him
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: to possess any firearms. Eric tells them he used to
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: own about 16 guns, but knowing the law, he sold
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: 15 of them and is just trying to find a
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: buyer for the last one.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And then... He makes his fatal, unforced error. He invites
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the Texas Rangers inside his house to look around, without
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: them even needing to show a warrant.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: He voluntarily hands them the keys to his own undoing.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: It's a staggering miscalculation born of hubris.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: They walk in, and what do they find? Not an empty,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: compliant house. They find gun parts scattered everywhere. And amidst
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the clutter, they find something highly specific and deeply disturbing.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: A heat seeker.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm not a hunter. What exactly is a heat seeker,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and why does finding one make the ranger's blood run cold?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: A heat seeker, or a thermal imaging scope, is a
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: piece of tactical hardware that detects infrared radiation, basically body heat.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: It translates that heat into a visible image on a screen.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: In a civilian context, it's normally used by hunters to
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: track feral hogs or game in the pitch black of night.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: But in this context, considering the timing of the crimes.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the McClellans were ambushed in the pre-dawn darkness of their
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: own home.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Investigators immediately surmise he used this thermal technology to
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: hunt human beings in the dark, locating Mike and Cynthia
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: through the layout of their home before he even breached
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: the room. Discovering this device gives the Rangers the immediate
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: probable cause they need.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: The very next day, they return, and this time they
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: bring a search warrant and a team from the FBI.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: They tear Eric Williams' house apart. And in a mundane
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: filing cabinet, they find the absolute Smoking gun. It's a
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: handwritten sticky note.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: A sticky note.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Yes. And on this piece of paper is the unique,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: highly complex login password for the Crimestoppers tip line account
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: that had been taunting the police.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: This is a breathtaking contradiction in his psychological profile.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Think about the operational security he employed just days prior.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: He used the TOR network. He understood onion routing. He
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: navigated the dark web to expertly mask his IP address.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: And he hid his digital footprint while actively extorting the police.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a digital ghost.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: That requires a very specific, elevated type of digital sophistication.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Yet in the physical world, he exhibits profound analog stupidity.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: He writes the ultra-secret extortion password on a brightly colored
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: sticky note And files it away in his own house.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: It's so careless.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: It shows a massive fracture in his criminal profile. He
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: is brilliant and cautious in the digital sphere, but carelessly,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: fatally arrogant in his physical environment.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Analog stupidity versus digital sophistication. That perfectly captures how a
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: supposedly genius judge gets caught. And the hits just keep
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: coming for Eric Williams. Because of the intense media coverage
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: showing the FBI searching a former judge's home, an old
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: friend of Eric sees the news and panics. He calls
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: the police to clear his own name. He tells the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: authorities that he recently rented a secret storage unit in
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: his own name, but he handed the keys over to Eric,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: and it was exclusively for Eric's use.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: The hidden staging ground. Every calculated operation needs a logistics hub.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: The investigators refer to this storage unit as Eric Williams'
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: little house of horrors. When the authorities cut the lock
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: and open that roll-up door, the mountain of circumstantial evidence
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: solidifies into undeniable proof. Inside, sitting right there, they find
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the white crown, Victoria.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Ah, there it is.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: And remember that filing cabinet where they found the password.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: The title of this car, purchased under an alias just
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: weeks prior, had been found in that same cabinet.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: So that cleanly connects him directly to the vehicle seen
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: by neighbors at the McClelland crime scene.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Yes. And what about the brown or silver sedan from
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the Hasse murder? In the storage unit, they find receipts
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: showing Eric had recently purchased a silver Mercury Sable. He
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: obviously thought it was not descriptive enough to use for
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: the courthouse hit. But the receipts show that the car
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: had actually broken down in a random parking lot shortly
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: after the Hasse murder, and Eric had to have it
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: towed and destroyed.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: He was literally hoarding the logistical evidence of his own crimes.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: And it's not just cars. The inventory of weapons they
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: pull out of this unit is staggering. They recover over
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: 70 weapons, handguns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and assault rifles.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: That's an arsenal.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Specifically, the inventory notes a Rock River Arms lower receiver
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: with an AR-57 caliber upper attached to it. Now, I
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: know what a standard AR-15 is, but an AR-57 sounds
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: highly specialized. Why is that specific weapon configuration so terrifying?
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: It shows an immense, chilling level of premeditation regarding his targets.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: A standard AR-15 fires a 5.56 caliber round. but an
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: AR-57 upper receiver is specifically designed to fire 5.7 by 2.8
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: millimeter ammunition.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, what does that mean?
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: This is the exact same high-velocity ammunition used by military
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: forces in the P90 submachine gun. The defining characteristic of
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: the 5.7 round is its armor-piercing capability. Eric Williams knew
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: that Mark Hasse and Mike McClound were increasingly paranoid. He
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: likely assumed they might be wearing Kevlar body armor. By
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: custom-building an AR-57, He was ensuring that even if his
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: targets were wearing bulletproof vests, his rounds would punch straight
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: through them.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: That is just awful.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: It is the weapon of a calculated assassin, not a
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: random angry guy with a hunting rifle.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: That is horrifying, and the terror doesn't stop with the firearms.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: In this unit, they find a tactical crossbow with arrows.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: They find jars of homemade napalm, and they find a
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: fully constructed Molotov cocktail.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: The inclusion of a crossbow, chemical napalm, and incendiary devices...
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: This speaks to a very dark, incredibly violent fantasy life
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: that he was slowly manifesting into reality.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: It's like a comic book villain.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Yes. This isn't just about efficiently shooting someone to settle
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: a score. This is about the desire to inflict absolute destruction, chaos,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: and prolonged suffering. It's a sadistic.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: And as it turns out, he wasn't building this house
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: of horrors or executing these murders all by himself.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Right. The accomplice.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: We have to introduce Kim Williams, Eric's wife. She is
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the shadow figure in this entire nightmare. During the trial...
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: There's this incredible cinematic moment. Kim Williams is brought out
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: of the holdover to testify against her own husband.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: For those who might not know, a holdover is the
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: secure holding cell located just behind the courtroom where inmates
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: are kept before they take the stand.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Right. And as she walks out of that secure cell
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: and takes the stand, it was reported that you could
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: have heard a pin drop in that courtroom. She had
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: cut a plea deal. She accepted a 40-year prison sentence
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: in exchange for laying out every single secret of her
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: husband's operation.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Her testimony is the keystone of the prosecution. It provides
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: the missing logistical links, how he got to the scenes,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: how he got away, and it provides the emotional context
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: of how this nightmare was actually accomplished day to day.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: It is completely damning. She sits on the stand and
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: calmly testifies that she drove the getaway cars for both murders.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: For the Hasse murder, she details exactly what Eric was
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: wearing when he stepped out of the car to assassinate him.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: She saw it all.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: She describes a Halloween mask. a black nylon jacket, dark
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: khaki pants, a heavy bulletproof vest underneath his clothes, and
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: a pair of glasses that he wore under the executioner's
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: hood so he could aim clearly.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: She intimately observed him dressing for war.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: She also reveals the deeply disturbing code name he had
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: for the assassination plot. On the morning of the Hasse murder,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: she says Eric was pacing the house, almost giddy with excitement.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: He kept referring to the plan as Tombstone. A direct
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: reference to the famous Western movie where the lawmen gun
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: people down in the street.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: He is narrativizing his own crimes. He isn't a murderer
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: in his own mind. He sees himself as a cinematic antihero,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: a frontier vigilante dispensing his own twisted version of justice.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: The narcissism is so profound that it turns mass murder
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: into a movie where he is the star.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And the most chilling detail she provides, the one that
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: reportedly sent visible shivers down the spines of the jurors,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: was what they did after the Easter Massacre.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: This part is just hard to hear.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: She testifies that after they breached the home and slaughtered
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Mike and Cynthia McClellan in the pre-dawn hours, they quietly
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: drove back to their own house. And then Eric went
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: to the backyard and grilled barbecue steaks to celebrate a
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: successful mission.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: A celebratory steak dinner mere hours after a double homicide.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: The absolute cellular absence of human empathy required to eat
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: a meal after doing that is staggering.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: I have to pose a moral question to you, focusing
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: specifically on Kim Williams. On the stand, she claims that
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: she only agreed to drive the getaway cars because she
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: was heavily drugged up on prescription medications and because she
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: so deeply believed in Eric that his anger literally became
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: her anger.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: But she still sat behind the wheel. She physically navigated
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the streets while her husband was dressed like an executioner.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: She helped plan the routes. And she sat at that
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: patio table and ate the celebratory steak. Is she a
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: tragic victim of a sociopath's manipulation? Or is she a
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: fully culpable monster who essentially handed the arsonist the matches?
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question about the complex nature of complicity.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: In clinical psychology, there is a phenomenon known as folie
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: a deux, which translates to a madness of two or
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: a shared psychotic disorder.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: What does that mean in this context?
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Often, an incredibly dominant manipulative personality like Eric can create
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: a psychological gravity well. They can literally infect a weaker,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: compliant partner with their delusions, their paranoia, and their rage
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: until the weaker partner loses their own grip on reality.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Kim may very well have been manipulated, chemically altered by drugs,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: and entirely subsumed by Eric's narcissistic worldview.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: So you think she gets a pass?
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. Being manipulated does not negate culpability when
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: it comes to the physical, premeditated acts of driving a
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: getaway car to multiple murder scenes. She provided the crucial
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: logistical scaffolding. A guy in an executioner's hood can't easily
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: drive himself away from a courthouse without drawing attention.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Right, he needed her.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: He needed a driver. Perhaps more importantly, she provided the
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: emotional validation that allowed a lone wolf's violent fantasy to
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: become a horrific reality. She didn't say, Eric, stop, this
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: is crazy. She said, where to next?
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Without the enabler, the narcissist often lacks the practical means
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: and the unchecked echo chamber to execute their grand plans.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: She is entirely culpable for her actions.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: She was the vital functioning gear in his killing machine.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: And we find out from her testimony that the machine
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: was not planning on stopping with the McClyons. Eric Williams
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: wasn't done. He had a hit list. The unfinished business.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Who else was he actively targeting?
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: The first name on his hit list is Early Norville Wiley.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: She was the brave prosecutor who stepped up and took
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: over the district attorney's office after Mike McClellan was murdered.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: OK. And why was she on the list?
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: You have to go back years prior. Before she was
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: the DA, she was a sitting judge. And in that capacity,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: she had caught Eric Williams overbilling the county when he
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: was working as a court-appointed attorney representing Children for Child
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Protective Services.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Can you explain the mechanics of that overbilling? What exactly
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: did she catch him doing?
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Essentially, court-appointed attorneys submit hourly logs to the county for payment.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Judge Wiley noticed discrepancies in Eric's logs. He was billing
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: for hours he couldn't possibly have worked. Essentially, padding his
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: paycheck with taxpayer money meant for the defense of vulnerable children.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: That's despicable.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: She called him into her chambers and officially reprimanded him.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: She didn't disbar him. She just told him to stop stealing.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: But in Eric's mind, that perceived slight being told he
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: was wrong by a peer....
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Again, we see the absolute inability to accept correction or criticism.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Any challenge to his integrity, no matter how justified or mild,
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: is met with a burning desire for truth. annihilation.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: And the other name on the hit list is even
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: more disturbing because of the personal connection. Judge Glenn Ashworth.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Wait, wasn't Judge Ashworth a longtime friend of Eric's?
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: He was. They had known each other for years. But
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Eric's paranoia had completely taken over. Eric suspected that Judge
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Ashworth was the person who anonymously leaked the initial information
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: about him stealing those computer monitors to the DA's office.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Just a suspicion. Yes. And because of that unproven suspicion,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the plan Eric concocted for his former friend is something
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: out of a medieval horror movie.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: What was the plan?
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Kim testifies that Eric was going to wait until after
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: the Super Bowl when people's guards were down. He was
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: going to use that tactical crossbow they found in the
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: storage unit to shoot Judge Ashworth silently.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Then.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Once the judge was incapacitated but alive, Eric was going
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: to bore out his stomach with a power drill and
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: fill the cavity with the homemade napalm he had cooked up.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: It is pure, unadulterated sadism. It has moved so far
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: beyond a twisted sense of revenge for a lost career.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: It is the manifestation of a deeply pathological desire to
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: inflict slow, agonizing pain. He wanted to torture a former
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: friend based on a paranoid hunch.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: It makes you look back at his behavior during the
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: initial investigations. With total physical revulsion. Remember, while the town
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: was completely terrified while people were buying guns and hiding
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: in their homes, Eric Williams was actively talking to the press.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, I remember.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: He stood right in front of the news cameras with
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: that friendly baby face and offered his deepest condolences to
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: the McClellan family. He looked into the lens and said
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: he wished law enforcement the best in bringing justice for
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: this egregious act.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: The sheer gall of that public performance is a textbook,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: chilling clinical marker of psychopathy.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: I want you to break that down for us because
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of people use the term psychopath casually. What
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: are the actual clinical markers we are seeing in that
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: press conference?
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Clinically, we're seeing an absolute biological lack of remorse or empathy.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: We are seeing superficial charm. weaponized as a tool of deception.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: A psychopath has a unique neurological makeup. They have the
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: intellectual ability to understand human emotions. They know what grief, sadness,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: and empathy look like, and they can mimic those emotions
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: perfectly for the cameras. But internally, they feel nothing but
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: cold contempt.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: It's just an act.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Eric is standing there offering heartfelt condolences, playing the
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: role of the shocked colleague, while he fully knows his
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: storage unit is packed with napalm and a drill meant
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: for another colleague's stomach. The cognitive dissonance is terrifying to
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: normal people, but for him, it's just a necessary, easy
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: performance to maintain his mask of sanity and manipulate the public.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Fortunately for everyone in Kauffman County, the jury saw right
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: through that mask of sanity. The conclusion of the trial
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: was rapid and incredibly decisive. It didn't take them long
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: at all. The jury unanimously finds Eric Williams guilty of
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: capital murder.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: And the penalty for capital murder in Texas is severe.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: He is sentenced to death by lethal injection. And in
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: the years following, every single one of his legal appeals,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the attempts to claim unfair trial or procedural errors, are
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: decisively denied by the higher courts. He is currently sitting
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: on death row.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: A definitive end to a reign of terror that almost
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: broke a town.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: And as this story wraps up, there are two incredible, poetic,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: full-circle moments that happened in the immediate aftermath of the verdict. First, J.R. McClelland.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the son who lost his father and his stepmother to
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: this monster, steps out of the courthouse and speaks to
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the press.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: He remarks that he will be the one going home
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: and eating a steak that night to celebrate the verdict.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: It is a direct, powerful reclamation of that horrific detail
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: about Eric's celebratory meal.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: He took that symbol of cruelty and turned it into
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: a symbol of closure.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful moment of taking power back from the abuser.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: And then there's Kim Williams, the accomplice wife. Exactly one
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: day after she's officially indicted and her fate is sealed,
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: she files for divorce from Eric. She told investigators that
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: during the time in jail, the fog of manipulation finally lifted.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: It's about time. Yeah. She realized that once Eric was
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: done taking out everyone on his hit list, his final
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: plan was almost certainly to murder her and then likely
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: kill himself to tie up the final loose end.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: The ultimate betrayal in a relationship built entirely on destruction.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: She realized she wasn't a partner. She was just another
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: expendable piece of logistics on his board, destined for the
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: trash once her utility ran out.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: When you look at all of these events together, the thefts,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the dark web threats, the daylight assassinations, the napalm, what
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: is the ultimate takeaway here?
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: I think the core lesson is the terrifying hidden fragility
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: of our civic institutions. The justice system, the courts, law enforcement,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: they all operate on a massive unspoken assumption.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Which is?
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: They assume that even the most hardened criminals generally play
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: by a certain set of societal rules. They expect threats
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: to come from the outside, from the underworld. But when
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: an insider, someone who possesses a law degree, someone who
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: intimately understands the system's blind spots, its schedules, and its
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: physical vulnerabilities.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: When they turn on the system.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When they decide to wage asymmetrical warfare, those institutional
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: defenses completely crumble. It shows us that systems, no matter
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: how grand or well-armed, are ultimately only as strong as
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: the psychological stability of the human beings operating within them.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? For you listening right now,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: it is a stark, uncomfortable reminder of how quickly the
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: thin veneer of civilization can be stripped away. We saw
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: a respected pillar of the community, a man entrusted with
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: a gavel and the power to judge others, devolve into
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: a cold, calculated killing machine simply because his fragile ego
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: was bruised over $ 600 worth of computer monitors. Yeah. It
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: forces us to question the masks that people wear every
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: single day.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: It is deeply unsettling to realize how little it takes
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: to unmask a monster.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Which brings us right back to where we started. We
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: rely so heavily on the justice system to be our fortress.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: We expect it to protect us from the monsters in
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the shadows, the violent offenders, the cartel members, the drug
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: dealers that brave prosecutors like Mark Hasse dedicate their lives
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: to putting away. But I want to leave you with
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: this final lingering thought to mull over today as you
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: go about your routine. What happens to our fundamental sense
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: of safety when the ultimate monster isn't a shadowy unknown
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: figure waiting in a dark alley? Yeah. What happens when
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: the monster is the judge sitting at the bench right
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: next to you, hiding a bottomless well of sadistic rage
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: behind a friendly baby face and a gavel? How well
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: do we truly know the people we entrust with our
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: highest systems of order?
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: That is the question that lingers long after the gavel falls.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. We'll
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: be back next time to unpack another incredible story.